Editor’s note: Guest blogger Meat was a witness to the suicide of a 36-year-old man who jumped in front of the 8:08 a.m. Metra train on May 4, 2006. Like many brushed by a tragedy, his memories of the event are clear, confused and troubled.
I have the fortune of being able to walk to the Main Street station every morning for my commute downtown. Access to Metra was one of my “must haves” when we were house shopping a few years earlier (so was a wet bar staffed by strippers moonlighting from Scores, but the wife never agrees with me).
I vary my walk to the train every morning, sometimes serpentine along a street I rarely see, or most likely, taking a direct route because I’m running late.
Regardless of the direction, I almost always arrive at the crossing at Forest Avenue and the tracks, timing my arrival by the clock on the Downers Community Bank building, knowing that if I don’t cross by 7:57 the gates will swing down and I’m stuck on the north side, waiting for the 8:16 and the slow walk of shame that says “late again moron.”
Thursday, May 4, was exactly such a morning.
Having missed the 8 (again), I crossed at Forest and cursed whatever bug my daughter picked up that caused her to barf her Cheerios that morning. Coffee at the station is only a buck and a half and I could take solace in a gorgeous, sunny morning for my walk of shame, and maybe one of those chocolate donuts in the bakery case.
Coffee of the day was hazelnut (!) but the donuts never look as good as they sound. I exited the station by the side door facing the tracks, the gates were down and the 8:06 express was approaching fast from the west.
Walking east toward where the first car would load, I had my head down fumbling with my iPod and coffee cup when the engineer blasted his horn in one, long, non-stop wail. From my back, a hot wall hit like a sandstorm rolling through the station, acrid train smoke and burning rubber swept through the platform along with the deafening roar of the horn.
I remember instinctively ducking down on one knee and bracing myself for a crash as bits of rubber and unseen flotsam blast across the platform like shotgun pellets, bouncing violently across my ankles and carrying off one of my sandals.
I remember closing my eyes and screaming a stream of obscenities in the direction of the passing freight, but the roar completely drowned out my voice. Looking up, I was relieved to see the train pass without derailing. Rookie engineer maybe, overreacting to a commuter making an ill-advised dash across the tracks.
I grabbed my sandal and continued east along the platform when I noticed something curious, the train had stopped about a half mile past the station, and although my ears were ringing, I could sense it was deadly quiet.
There was a woman in front of me staring at a point on the tracks just to my left and whispering into her cell phone. I glanced over and saw a bright, red carpet tossed on the tracks, just a few feet away. It wasn’t until I walked another 50 yards or so did my mind process the image correctly. The carpet had a face. A man’s face. I doubled back slowly. The carpet had a torso and one outstretched arm, and was not a carpet at all.
It was a man, or at least the upper third of a man. Having been fortunate enough to have never fought in a war, my mind had no frame of reference for what lay crumpled next to me. Commuters around me were frozen in place, gawking. There was a brief moment, before the confusion and chaos that followed, as I was staring at what remained of this man, that I was overwhelmed by how undignified this felt, how absolutely wrong.
I was embarrassed for him. I wanted to grab a coat and cover him up and scold passing commuters for gawking, which, of course, was exactly what I was doing. Breaking off, I forced myself to look away, and I never looked directly at him again.
In the first of many ironies on that day, there was a ‘commuter safety’ patrol at the station, two DG police officers issuing warnings and tickets to commuters making late sprints around the gates. They were the first to run to the scene.
Images for me become choppy from this point on, but some have left an impression:
A woman kneeling in prayer near the beauty shop entrance, a man walking right by the body, newspaper tucked under one arm and iPod cord dangling, oblivious. People running away, people crowding close. A young student vomiting next to the fountain, apparently not wanting to sully the water. Construction workers running over from one of the condominium sites. Police swarming in from the station, running across the parking lot and over the platform. Silence. Tears. Shouting. Surreal. A woman asking her friend: “do you think he’s all right?” Another woman asking no one in particular “is that a deer?”
Credit must be given to the DGPD. With a stoicism that I admire but could never emulate, they quickly covered the scene as best they could and arranged transportation to move bewildered commuters anywhere but there.
As we were walking toward the bus that was to take us to another station, I noticed for the first time that the flotsam that showered the station on impact was not bits of rubber or stone. With as much dignity as they could muster, a dozen or so DGPD stood scattered around the platform warning commuters to “be careful” as they stepped. I thought about my ankles, and a queasiness washed over me that lasted several days.
The rest of the day is a bright sunny, surreal blur. It was still a beautiful morning. We sat silently on the bus, which transported us to the Fairview Avenue station. There didn’t seem to be a plan from Metra as to what happens next. It had been over an hour since the accident and the train still sat on the tracks just east of Main Street.
Several commuters hung from the open vestibules and looked back toward the body. Having not witnessed the accident first hand, they seemed animated and annoyed, shouting about being late, talking loudly into cell phones and shaking their heads.
Truth be told I would have done the same if I were on that train, but unfortunately I get on at Main Street and my daughter had a tummy ache that morning and I was running late and the promise of coffee and a donut was my way of making the most of a bad situation.
Somewhere around 11 and with no word from Metra, I started to walk back toward Main Street and home. Somewhere between Fairview and downtown, in a lovely neighborhood just south of the tracks and near a small park (a place I’ve never been able to locate again), I found a dog, or I should say he found me.
He came bounding out between two parked cars, dragging a broken leash behind him, wagging his tail and hopping with excitement. I spent the next hour walking him door to door, trying to find out where he came from and racking my brain in an attempt to decipher the deep cosmic or spiritual significance of finding a lost dog on the same morning I’d witnessed a horrific death firsthand.
I never did figure that one out, but I did find a nice woman who knew the dog’s owner and graciously allowed me to leave him with her until the neighbor returned home.
When I finally walked past the Main Street station a few hours later, the scene was organized chaos. There was a cover (not unlike a carpet, but not red) on the tracks covering the body. The woman whom I saw kneeling in prayer recognized me and pointed me out to an investigating officer, who wanted a word with me about the accident.
Did I see where he came from? Did I recognize him? Did he have anything with him? I began recalling how I found the dog near a little park and I think his leash broke because it was worn near the collar, but I’m pretty sure he’s not a stray — and the strange look in the officer’s eyes made me realize I wasn’t making any sense at all.
Then it hit me — all of it, all at once. I began sobbing and my face flushed from embarrassment at my loss of control, which just made it worse. I apologized to the officer, I just wanted to go home, please? I just want to go home, can I just go home?
The officer could not have been kinder. He put a firm arm around me and promised me that, whatever reasons the young man had for stepping in front of that train, there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, nothing.
Oddly, I felt a sense of relief. Until that point I assumed the train hit a bone-headed commuter who had carelessly run around the gates, trying to make a train (like you see every morning), but it never dawned on me that I witnessed a suicide.
I’m not sure why that’s any better, but somehow knowing that somewhere, there wasn’t going to be a knock on someone’s door and an officer with hat in hand explaining that “your husband had an accident,” made me feel better. I spoke to a priest for a few minutes and walked up the hill — home.
I spent the afternoon painting the ceiling in the dining room because I could, and listening to the Crosstown classic on WGN. I threw my sandals into the garage where they sat in a damp corner for 3 years until I finally retreived them and tossed them out.
That evening I sat at the bar at Emmett’s nursing a 1a.m. ale and watching the highlights from the Crosstown. Around me were other commuters from that morning who had been propping up the bar for the remainder of the day. I eavesdropped on conversations about the incident but avoided engaging in any of them, mostly because I had nothing to add.
This is what I saw, this is what happened. I didn’t know the guy, but I witnessed his last moment on earth and the undignified way he chose to end it, and I don’t know why. I had no business being there, being a witness. No one asked me. I had no choice, I was powerless. My daughter was sick in the morning and I was sick the rest of the week.
I don’t have any profound insights to offer as to how this has affected me. I wish I did, because I feel I should. I don’t. Maybe I will some day, but for now it comes and goes like a ghost when I least expect it.
The crossing at Forest is just another crossing, but the bakery case in the station makes me uneasy. I read a newspaper account about the accident that mentioned the man’s name and that his last known address was at the Tivoli Hotel, as if I needed another reason to despise that place.
In the days that followed, a small scrap-wood cross appeared next to a bush near the Forest Avenue crossing. The first time I saw it I felt a deep stab of anxiety, followed by a flush of anger. Who put this here? Were you a friend of his? Why didn’t you talk to him, or did you? Who was he? Why? I catch myself because I don’t know if I feel this way because a young man chose death by Metra or because I was forced to witness it, and that makes me feel shame, and who wants to feel shame over something they had no control over?
I’ve had many friends tell me that there must be a deeper lesson here for me, but I find myself feeling exactly the opposite, that it doesn’t mean anything at all, it just is. That’s the randomness of life. One day your daughter has a tummy ache, then you witness a bloody suicide, find a lost dog on your walk home, talk to a priest and paint the ceiling in the dining room. The next day is Saturday and come Monday morning you’ll still be late for the 8 o’clock and you’ll still skip the chocolate donuts in the bakery case. Then its Tuesday.
I have noticed one change in myself, one big difference in my morning routine. I’m still often late for the 8 o’clock, which leaves me standing at the crossing when the gates go down.
There are other commuters around me, and sometimes I recognize those distinctive twitches, their body language and gestures and how they’re measuring the speed of the oncoming express, poised to dash around the gates in order to make a train. Now, I’ll pre-empt their dash by screaming PLEASE DON’T. It’s effective. I’ve done it a few times and received a mix of sheepish grins, scowls and one woman who flipped me off and ran across anyway.
Regardless, I would have never spoke up before May 4, 2006. Everyone deserves the chance to go home.
@sue carroll // May 6, 2010 at 9:34 am, said:
Meat, since this post is titled “Open Book” and your comment is right here, I want to tell you how vibrantly written your piece on the train suicide was. You should be proud of it.
I would’ve left that comment on this post before, but comments were closed. Again, Meat, very well done.
Thank you. I am curious to hear from others who were there that morning, I’m sure they have haunting recollections of they’re own.
“Haunting” is a good word; your story left me in stunned silence. I remember a piece in the Trib’s now-defunct Chicago Tribune Magazine a few years ago about Metra engineers and the aftermath of watching people commit suicide in front of their trains. It’s traumatic all the way around. Well done—thank you for sharing.
EP- I originally asked EJ to close comments on this post. I did not witness the events that morning, but suspected somewhere in the comments would be one or two that were inappropriate to the post. Yours was the first, and hopefully the only.
Ok. I was reading your post about that day. I was not near the train, but I do remember the helicopters all around. As I read it brought back a memory of a guy and a dog. Then I kept reading and read about the dog (a lab, right?). I was the one who kept the dog. How weird is that?
I read EP’s comment a little differently. He/she is clearly frustrated with the state of the economy and with the inability of qualified, deserving people to find jobs. As someone who has seen her profession decimated in recent years, I can sympathize. And while this post may not have been the right place for his/her sentiments, sometimes you just have to vent.
As the father of a future train engineer, a son who has long spent his free time near tracks photographing trains (and before that waiting with me for his mother to get off her commuter train), I have long worried about how he would feel if he saw a person get hit by a train. I’ve been proud of his respect around trains, even as he pursues his passion; he understands all too well the dangers around the tracks.
On the day in question, I am grateful that my son arrived at the tracks about 30 minutes after the suicide. While the most gruesome aspects of the incident were already under wraps, there was still enough evidence of what had transpired. He was certainly rattled.
While this was an intentional act, like Meat I get angry at commuters who disregard the warning signals for a few seconds saved, or, perhaps, to avoid having to take the next train. Since most people who are hit by trains are not trying to die, they obviously thought they could beat the train. Most are dead wrong.
As I do everyday for the drivers who speed, zip in-and-out of traffic, and tailgate, I pray that more people will come to realize that their actions may have serious consequences: for themselves, obviously, but also for their loved ones, and for strangers who find themselves involved, like Meat or (God forbid!) my future train engineer.
EJ, you are correct. Stepping away from the keyboard now…
Given Meat’s hopefully cathartic airing of his experiences of four years ago, it is an unbelievable coincidence that the executive director of Metra, Philip Pagano, chose to escape his personal/legal problems in like manner.
And, while the press release from Metra stated that Pagano ” considered the men and women of Metra his family” and “loved his family more than anyone”, he chose a method of dying that likely was psychologically devastating to one Metra engineer, as well as to Pagano’s own family.
Heather-
Comforting to know I didn’t imagine the entire dog rescue episode-I have often looked for the park but have never been able to find it.