To read Part One, please click here.
When morning broke, Dex begged his boss for a second chance. “If you keep me on, I’ll make back the money.”
“How?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Reluctantly, his boss agreed. “I want to see a hundred dollars by the end of the week.”
So Dex got to work.
Plan A: double the price of everything in the vending machine. No, triple — triple the price. This might have put a dent in his debt, had he not been the primary customer.
Plan B: signs on the bathroom doors charging $1 for entry. But an hour later the nearby jar was still empty. Plan C was to establish the lobby seats closest to the window as “business class,” but everyone thought it was a joke and just sat in the seats without paying.
That evening, Dex slumped defeated on the beach. He was in no mood to spin stories, in spite of his buddies’ prodding.
But their prodding did give him an idea. The next morning, Dex made an announcement over the P.A. system: “Stories about the train station! Just $1 for ten minutes! Cash only.”
Three people wandered over. Dex collected their money and took a deep breath.
“So. Town of Stone. Founded a long time ago. Right here, in Stone.”
This was harder than he had thought.
“Most people think Stone was named after the giant rock near the beach, the one with the cracks that look like letters. But the town was actually named after the guy who started it. Mr. Stone.” One of his listeners began taking notes, and Dex found himself blurting out: “I’m making this up, by the way.”
Dex tried again after lunch, layering on new tidbits. “Mr. Stone’s mother was a big-time onion farmer. She said her onions could cure almost anything. Who knows? She lived to a hundred and four.” The next day, Dex added Mr. Stone’s wife, her surfing instructor, and the divorce proceedings. By the end of the week, he was telling stories on the hour.
Luckily, his ticket office was the perfect perch from which to observe mundane happenings and transform them for narrative use. A beach umbrella tossed by an exuberant kid became a giant migratory bird that stopped in Stone every year. Two men bickering over sunblock became Mr. Stone and his brother, feuding over where to build the station.
Dex’s mind had never been so fertile, and his crowds grew. Before long, Dex was clearing over a hundred dollars a day. By the end of August, he had paid back all $5,061.
And just in time, because autumn was the start of the off-season. Quite suddenly, as if by common agreement, the town cleared out. His beach buddies vanished, and the streets and shops were practically deserted. The trains still ran, but on a reduced schedule and with few passengers. When winter came, only one train stopped daily, and sometimes nobody got on or off.
A ghost train at a ghost station in a ghost town.
The waves had grown too powerful for Dex to surf, and he was getting bored playing the drums. So one night, alone in the lobby of Stone Station, he decided to pass the time by writing down a few of his stories.
Where to start?
He did a 360 of the space: ticket office, vending machine, bathrooms . . .
Nothing. Writer’s block. Great.
Dex dragged himself upstairs to his studio apartment and made himself some peppermint tea. The heat felt good. It reminded him of his story about Lena, who was six years old in 1929 when she experienced a high fever and mysteriously started screaming “Sell! Sell!” Word spread quickly through Stone, and the town was spared when the stock market crashed the following week.
Dex typed out a beginning: “Lena was a kid.”
No. Terrible. No.
Dex imagined himself telling the story to his beach buddies. To people at the station.
Nothing.
He tried speaking aloud: “Fall, 1929.”
Better.
“Lena woke up on her sixth birthday with a fever that would save the town.”
The dam had burst.
Over the next month, Dex wrote down every one of his stories. By March, he had fleshed out the characters and their conflicts; by May, he had merged the smaller stories into a single overarching story, and had even begun structuring chapters.
Dex was determined to finish before his job ended in June, and wrote every possible moment, often until daybreak. On his final night, he composed his final words — his title page:
“Stone Station: A Novel.”
The following morning, one year to the day after his arrival, Dex stood on the platform with his belongings.
The 11:07 finally arrived. Amidst all the tourists, a guy disembarked with a bunch of suitcases.
“You Jay?” Dex called out.
The guy nodded, and Dex tossed him the keys to Stone Station. Then Dex gathered his things, threw them on the train, and hopped in.
He couldn’t wait to move on with his life.
“How?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Reluctantly, his boss agreed. “I want to see a hundred dollars by the end of the week.”
So Dex got to work.
Plan A: double the price of everything in the vending machine. No, triple — triple the price. This might have put a dent in his debt, had he not been the primary customer.
Plan B: signs on the bathroom doors charging $1 for entry. But an hour later the nearby jar was still empty. Plan C was to establish the lobby seats closest to the window as “business class,” but everyone thought it was a joke and just sat in the seats without paying.
That evening, Dex slumped defeated on the beach. He was in no mood to spin stories, in spite of his buddies’ prodding.
But their prodding did give him an idea. The next morning, Dex made an announcement over the P.A. system: “Stories about the train station! Just $1 for ten minutes! Cash only.”
Three people wandered over. Dex collected their money and took a deep breath.
“So. Town of Stone. Founded a long time ago. Right here, in Stone.”
This was harder than he had thought.
“Most people think Stone was named after the giant rock near the beach, the one with the cracks that look like letters. But the town was actually named after the guy who started it. Mr. Stone.” One of his listeners began taking notes, and Dex found himself blurting out: “I’m making this up, by the way.”
Dex tried again after lunch, layering on new tidbits. “Mr. Stone’s mother was a big-time onion farmer. She said her onions could cure almost anything. Who knows? She lived to a hundred and four.” The next day, Dex added Mr. Stone’s wife, her surfing instructor, and the divorce proceedings. By the end of the week, he was telling stories on the hour.
Luckily, his ticket office was the perfect perch from which to observe mundane happenings and transform them for narrative use. A beach umbrella tossed by an exuberant kid became a giant migratory bird that stopped in Stone every year. Two men bickering over sunblock became Mr. Stone and his brother, feuding over where to build the station.
Dex’s mind had never been so fertile, and his crowds grew. Before long, Dex was clearing over a hundred dollars a day. By the end of August, he had paid back all $5,061.
And just in time, because autumn was the start of the off-season. Quite suddenly, as if by common agreement, the town cleared out. His beach buddies vanished, and the streets and shops were practically deserted. The trains still ran, but on a reduced schedule and with few passengers. When winter came, only one train stopped daily, and sometimes nobody got on or off.
A ghost train at a ghost station in a ghost town.
The waves had grown too powerful for Dex to surf, and he was getting bored playing the drums. So one night, alone in the lobby of Stone Station, he decided to pass the time by writing down a few of his stories.
Where to start?
He did a 360 of the space: ticket office, vending machine, bathrooms . . .
Nothing. Writer’s block. Great.
Dex dragged himself upstairs to his studio apartment and made himself some peppermint tea. The heat felt good. It reminded him of his story about Lena, who was six years old in 1929 when she experienced a high fever and mysteriously started screaming “Sell! Sell!” Word spread quickly through Stone, and the town was spared when the stock market crashed the following week.
Dex typed out a beginning: “Lena was a kid.”
No. Terrible. No.
Dex imagined himself telling the story to his beach buddies. To people at the station.
Nothing.
He tried speaking aloud: “Fall, 1929.”
Better.
“Lena woke up on her sixth birthday with a fever that would save the town.”
The dam had burst.
Over the next month, Dex wrote down every one of his stories. By March, he had fleshed out the characters and their conflicts; by May, he had merged the smaller stories into a single overarching story, and had even begun structuring chapters.
Dex was determined to finish before his job ended in June, and wrote every possible moment, often until daybreak. On his final night, he composed his final words — his title page:
“Stone Station: A Novel.”
The following morning, one year to the day after his arrival, Dex stood on the platform with his belongings.
The 11:07 finally arrived. Amidst all the tourists, a guy disembarked with a bunch of suitcases.
“You Jay?” Dex called out.
The guy nodded, and Dex tossed him the keys to Stone Station. Then Dex gathered his things, threw them on the train, and hopped in.
He couldn’t wait to move on with his life.