It used to be a black hole of productivity, a perfectly liminal space between cities.
I used to take this train, this VIA train, from Montreal to Toronto (though I'm headed to Ottawa now) about four or five times a year. From school, McGill, to home, Toronto.
I was typically exhausted on this train. It used to feel like releasing the valve on a compressor, stepping onto this train, which was usually, when I was travelling, crowded with other students, on break or ready to break.
I used to have a Rocky Horror Picture Show CD, and I'd press play when the train left the station, and spend the first hour and a bit singing the songs super quietly to myself, to my reflection in the window.
My first year of University I played Frankenfurter for the Cinema du Paris RHPS cast. So this was practice, but it was also music that pulled my heartstrings a little, especially "I'm Going Home."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Xn-DWHuuM
Dr. Frank-N-Furter: Everywhere, it's been the same
Chorus Feeling
Dr. Frank-N-Furter: Like I'm outside in the rain
Chorus: Wheeling
Dr. Frank-N-Furter Free: to try and find a game
Chorus: Dealing
Dr. Frank-N-Furter: Cards for sorrow
Cards for pain
'Cause I've seen blue skies
Through the tears in my eyes
And I realize I'm going home
I was a pretty sad kid that first year. For lots of reasons. It was my first year of university and I felt completely lost. Someone had removed the grid lines and I felt lost in a sea of grey Montreal sky. I had no idea why I was in school, why my friends were my friends, why I wasn't falling in love with anyone.
I was absolutely out in the rain.
But I was also, I was pretty sure, on the verge of being something else.
A year later I would come out of the closet, stop being Frankenfurter. I'm fairly certain that had everything to do with the fact that I no longer needed to BE Frankenfurter.
And also the guy who ran the cast, "Eddie," was creepy. A pot head who was dating the girl who used to play Janet, who looked, in the photo I saw, like she was all of 17. And "Eddie" was at least 32.