8-19-19

JB
Ricky’s all right, but to be honest, he’s nothing after you meet George.

ELLA
George gives you a better idea of what the world could be.  

KEITH
With Ricky, it’s a lot of yelling.
Which it’s like, most of us are yelling at each other all the time—do we have to do it here too? Can’t the train be a reprieve from what happens off the train?

RICKY
Like what?

KEITH
Like yelling
Like yelling and being still.

ELLA
I think being on the train is exactly like being off the train except everyone’s in motion and the beer is like six dollars more expensive.

JB
That’s just economics. 

ELLA
I think that’s what the train should be.

KEITH
Once the Quiet Car had a squeaky part and it was just incessant like EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEE
And George walked through all, “REMINDER there is no cell phone use in the quiet car – only squeaking sounds – only sounds allowed in here are squeaking ones.”

JB
That’s because George is a visionary.

ELLA
They let him wear his hat on backwards sometimes, just because.

RICKY
On the Northeast Regional?

ELLA
On any route.
He didn’t even ask, they just went up to him one day and were all, “George if you want to wear your hat backwards, we won’t say anything.”

KEITH
They bend the rules sometimes for visionaries.

ELLA
You don’t like Ricky?

JB
Ricky’s fine, he’s just a lot of yelling.
And the complaints.

RICKY
Improvements.

JB
The way he says them they sound like complaints.

KEITH
Ricky’s kind of a paradise.

ELLA
They’d never let him break uniform.

KEITH
Wait, no—a parasite.

ELLA
Someone ordered Chinese food to the Old Saybrook Station and George got on the PA like, “Whoever ordered Chinese food to Old Saybrook, we have it in the Café Car.”

JB
Ricky would never do that.

RICKY
I might do that.

ELLA
Ricky would turn the delivery guy away at the Café Car sliding door, he’d say no thanks.

KEITH
No tip.

RICKY
I might tip.

ELLA
Ricky’s too by-the-book.

RICKY
I like the book.

KEITH
That’s his problem.

ELLA
Kim said that George once slept with a passenger.

RICKY
I don’t like this game. Whatever this game is.

JB
Ahh, the Apple Butter Challenge.

ELLA
It has a name?

RICKY
Where you pretend I’m not here.

JB
A.B.C.!

RICKY
You called it a game but games are fun and this is not fun.

KEITH
In the bathroom?

ELLA
No, the bathrooms are filthy.

KEITH
Our bathrooms aren’t filthy.

ELLA
Really?

RICKY
I don’t even go in the bathrooms.

ELLA
Ricky doesn’t even go in the bathrooms.

ELLA
Kim said that he got off at Old Saybrook and went home with the passenger.
His husband was there. And their kids. The whole family was OK with it because George is so cool.

KEITH
George is so cool.

ELLA
Kim said that they had to stop the Northeast Regional route at Old Saybrook but no one complained much.
They were happy for George.

JB
We’re all happy for George.