The following is an excerpt from my diary written August 26, 2008 on the Amtrak from Portland to Los Angeles. I recognize that it is peppered with judgementalism, but wish to give honest thoughts on short-term cohabitation inside a moving vessel.
"Couldn't be sitting by two more texas-chainsaw-massacrey people. I'm nearly afraid to write the details for fear they could look, but they dropped a greasy half-eaten sausage on my shoulder and then the man totally degraded the woman asking her again and again if she was sure he had everything and then making her remember and list the things she had in her hands when she entered the train. The old woman next to me says she'd take a bat to him if it were her husband. I agreed, but only furtively in case the couple should overhear and decide to turn on us.
...
Next morning. I grinded my teeth all night. The scary man swore out his wife while she tried to find something he wanted. (Evidentally, they had quite a bit stored with them as I couldn't recline my seat.) She pleaded with him, Melvin I think, to be patient. I think he might have hit her, but I didn't see. I only heard the sound of quick flesh on flesh. Once they settled down again, she read aloud to him from a book about the apocalypse and an interpretation of the book of Revelations. I can only imagine what they're like in the privacy of their own home.
Upon hearing I was hunting for a pillow, the man, wearing a leather wide-brimmed hat, kindly offered me tea, a discolored pillow that belonged to his currently-in-the-bathroom wife, and some quick witless jokes regarding my wine consumption and my choice to live in LA. He said he lived there in the 70s. When were the Manson murders?"
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