The 11:07 lovingly deposited its gaggle of Friday morning passengers onto the platform. They were tourists, every one of them, in town for a well-earned long weekend of mindless June fun.
Then came Dex.
He was twenty-two and entirely relaxed — more focused on breathing in the ocean air than on the task of unloading his things: a surfboard, various duffel bags, and a few mismatched drums.
“You Dex?”
Dex turned to see a nondescript guy with a bunch of suitcases.
Dex smiled, and the guy tossed him a set of keys.
“All yours,” the guy declared. Then he lifted his stuff onto the train and hopped in, as if he couldn’t wait to move on with his life.
Dex took some time to admire Stone Station. It was smaller than he had been expecting, but much more grand in real life than on the internet. He read a nearby plaque: “1899. Beaux-Arts. Polished limestone.” Cool.
The lobby was a beaut, flooded with natural light from large clerestory windows. The painted ceiling simulated a single cloud in an otherwise clear sky, and the floors were scratched up just enough, from shoes and luggage and beach gear, to tell you that this place had borne witness to thousands of memorable times.
Dex made his way to a vending machine that was stocked mostly with razors, pain relievers, and other necessities a traveler might have forgotten. But it was the bottom row that caught his attention: the snacks. Dex immediately chose the salt and vinegar potato chips. He popped the first chip in his mouth and nodded, like an approving wine critic.
Dex dragged his belongings up a set of stairs and unlocked a door marked “Private.” It was a furnished studio apartment — modest, but a whole lot roomier than his dorm room had been. He advanced to the window and gazed out at this beach community, which was lined with souvenir shops and ultra-casual restaurants. On the water’s edge was the colossal limestone formation, marked by geological cracks in the shape of mysterious letters, that gave the town of Stone its name.
Dex returned to the lobby and got himself acquainted with the workings of the ticket office that he alone would run for the next year. The centerpiece was a boring binder labeled “Protocols and Instructions,” but Dex preferred to use his intuition. For the rest of the day, he sold train tickets by improvising on the computer, and responded to customer questions with information he grabbed off the internet.
Stone Station closed at 6:30, which gave Dex just enough time to squeeze in some daylight surfing. When darkness came to the beach, fellow twentysomethings showed up to huddle around campfires. They all shared food and drink and stories about their lives so far.
Dex himself was a natural storyteller, most comfortable presenting souped-up versions of the truth. He had graduated from college the previous weekend, but why not say he had graduated that very day? Why not explain that he’d dropped his laptop, not on the ground, but on a mini-golf course, or in a bucket of pickles? The look in people’s eyes — a glimmer of wonder that maybe life could be more interesting than it really was — made Dex happy.
Dex quickly settled into his new situation. Working the ticket office was a breeze, and his beach buddies showed him a great spot for surfing on the other side of the limestone rock. He even invited a few of them back to the station lobby for a middle-of-the-night jam session.
A week later, Dex was practicing some new yo-yo moves in the ticket office when he got a call from Stone Bank. “We haven’t received any deposits for quite a few days.”
“It’s fine,” said Dex. “I’ll deal with it.”
Dex unlocked a drawer and pulled out fistfuls of bills.
A fast count: $5,061.
Dex consulted the boring binder, put the money in a bank deposit bag, and locked up the ticket office. “BE BACK SOON.”
Then Dex headed to the bank, where somewhere along the way — maybe when he stopped into a store to grab a candy apple, or maybe when he ran into his beach buddies and got absorbed in telling a story, or maybe some other time — he lost the bag.
Dex retraced his steps, retraced them again, and asked around. Nothing.
What could he do?
Dex called up his boss, explained what happened, apologized repeatedly, promised that it would never, ever, ever happen again, and was fired on the spot.
But Dex didn’t want to leave. He had nothing else to do the whole year, or any sense of what to do afterward.
So that night, alone in the lobby of Stone Station, he hatched a plan.
Then came Dex.
He was twenty-two and entirely relaxed — more focused on breathing in the ocean air than on the task of unloading his things: a surfboard, various duffel bags, and a few mismatched drums.
“You Dex?”
Dex turned to see a nondescript guy with a bunch of suitcases.
Dex smiled, and the guy tossed him a set of keys.
“All yours,” the guy declared. Then he lifted his stuff onto the train and hopped in, as if he couldn’t wait to move on with his life.
Dex took some time to admire Stone Station. It was smaller than he had been expecting, but much more grand in real life than on the internet. He read a nearby plaque: “1899. Beaux-Arts. Polished limestone.” Cool.
The lobby was a beaut, flooded with natural light from large clerestory windows. The painted ceiling simulated a single cloud in an otherwise clear sky, and the floors were scratched up just enough, from shoes and luggage and beach gear, to tell you that this place had borne witness to thousands of memorable times.
Dex made his way to a vending machine that was stocked mostly with razors, pain relievers, and other necessities a traveler might have forgotten. But it was the bottom row that caught his attention: the snacks. Dex immediately chose the salt and vinegar potato chips. He popped the first chip in his mouth and nodded, like an approving wine critic.
Dex dragged his belongings up a set of stairs and unlocked a door marked “Private.” It was a furnished studio apartment — modest, but a whole lot roomier than his dorm room had been. He advanced to the window and gazed out at this beach community, which was lined with souvenir shops and ultra-casual restaurants. On the water’s edge was the colossal limestone formation, marked by geological cracks in the shape of mysterious letters, that gave the town of Stone its name.
Dex returned to the lobby and got himself acquainted with the workings of the ticket office that he alone would run for the next year. The centerpiece was a boring binder labeled “Protocols and Instructions,” but Dex preferred to use his intuition. For the rest of the day, he sold train tickets by improvising on the computer, and responded to customer questions with information he grabbed off the internet.
Stone Station closed at 6:30, which gave Dex just enough time to squeeze in some daylight surfing. When darkness came to the beach, fellow twentysomethings showed up to huddle around campfires. They all shared food and drink and stories about their lives so far.
Dex himself was a natural storyteller, most comfortable presenting souped-up versions of the truth. He had graduated from college the previous weekend, but why not say he had graduated that very day? Why not explain that he’d dropped his laptop, not on the ground, but on a mini-golf course, or in a bucket of pickles? The look in people’s eyes — a glimmer of wonder that maybe life could be more interesting than it really was — made Dex happy.
Dex quickly settled into his new situation. Working the ticket office was a breeze, and his beach buddies showed him a great spot for surfing on the other side of the limestone rock. He even invited a few of them back to the station lobby for a middle-of-the-night jam session.
A week later, Dex was practicing some new yo-yo moves in the ticket office when he got a call from Stone Bank. “We haven’t received any deposits for quite a few days.”
“It’s fine,” said Dex. “I’ll deal with it.”
Dex unlocked a drawer and pulled out fistfuls of bills.
A fast count: $5,061.
Dex consulted the boring binder, put the money in a bank deposit bag, and locked up the ticket office. “BE BACK SOON.”
Then Dex headed to the bank, where somewhere along the way — maybe when he stopped into a store to grab a candy apple, or maybe when he ran into his beach buddies and got absorbed in telling a story, or maybe some other time — he lost the bag.
Dex retraced his steps, retraced them again, and asked around. Nothing.
What could he do?
Dex called up his boss, explained what happened, apologized repeatedly, promised that it would never, ever, ever happen again, and was fired on the spot.
But Dex didn’t want to leave. He had nothing else to do the whole year, or any sense of what to do afterward.
So that night, alone in the lobby of Stone Station, he hatched a plan.
To read Part Two, please click here.