“It is a great day to meet someone new,” the train conductor bellowed over the intercom, his voice a counterpoint to the train wheels rhythmically thudding over rail joints as our train sped down the steel track. I was taking the Southwest Chief Amtrak train from Chicago to Kansas City. It was a double-decker overnight train set to make its full route, a 43-hour trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Yet I, like many others, planned to ride only a portion of the journey.
The Psychic
As soon as the train started rolling, I wobbled my way down the blue-carpeted aisles to the Sightseer Lounge car, which was enclosed in glass and lined with comfortable seats and dining booths. A few passengers sparsely dotted the car.
Within a few minutes of nestling into my cushioned seat facing the flat Illinois scenery, I overheard a woman in the dining area mention to another passenger that she was from St. Louis. My ears instantly perked up at hearing a fellow Missourian.
I meandered over to her. She was wearing a white beanie that completely covered her hair, a black hoodie with a white cross over her heart, and a gold zebra pin that hung lazily under the cross. Light-pink eyeshadow was painted over her pale eyelids. On the table in front of her lay a computer and three drinks: sparkling water, plain water, and ginger ale.
“I heard you’re from St. Louis,” I said, as I sat diagonally from her.
“Yeah, and you are a writer, aren’t you?” she smirked. I leaned back in shock. How in the world did she know this? I was holding a notebook, but nothing else identified me as such. The sway of the train car plus her intense declaration made me a bit nauseous.
Noticing my surprise, she continued by saying, “I can tell because I am a psychic medium. I’m the real deal.”
After I confirmed her suspicion that I was a writer, she invited me to slide into the seat across from her—a two-foot-wide table barely separated us. She didn’t seem to want to elaborate more about her psychic powers, but I divined her name was Rebecca. She was from the south side of St. Louis and was heading to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
While attempting to explain her living situation, she simply said that she was “a refugee in her own country.” She didn’t seem to have a permanent house, but instead used trains as her home.
When she takes train trips, she told me she makes an effort to stop and “rap battle adolescent boys,” as a form of philanthropy. Did I understand what that meant? No.
According to Rebecca, she is autistic and has stage IV kidney failure but has never taken medicine for it. She appeared to be a fervent Christian and insisted she was a prophet. When talking about Jesus, her voice was quick and sharp, just like her stare.
After we talked about our lives, religion, dreams, and goals, I explained further that I was there to write about the people on the train. Then suddenly, she asked for a sheet of my notebook paper and began quickly scribbling. In cursive, she wrote me a note that said, “You will see we are all the same. Root cause at discretion (LOL), some not so fun. However, rel.” I was not sure exactly what the cryptic message meant, but it felt like getting my fortune told.
As our conversation began to lull, I heard the lounge car door slide open behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw flashes of blue sweep through the train car. I spun around to see an army of Amish flood the car.
The Amish
Every empty seat filled with Amish people, young and old, wearing plain-colored clothing, bonnets, suspenders, and straw hats. Amongst themselves, they were speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, a mixture of German and English commonly spoken by the Amish.
Across from Rebecca and me, five children and one young adult woman squeezed into one booth. They began playing a card game called “Cover Your A$$sets.” The Amish choosing to play a game with this playful but perhaps a bit risqué name was unexpected and felt ironic to me. The goal of the game is to build wealth while also protecting the wealth you already have. Lucky for me, I already knew how to play the game.
“Can I play?” I asked the young group, unsure how they might respond. A young woman in black shoes, a light-blue linen dress, thin black glasses, and a white prayer cap nodded slightly and muttered, “Yes.” The entire group of Amish people stared at the interaction between us with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
The young woman’s name was Leanne, and she was 20 years old. While we played the game, she became the spokesperson for the other children, who were her cousins. When I asked the young, ginger-haired, freckled boy what his name was, he simply stared doe-eyed at Leanne until she responded, “His name is Jeremiah.”
When I wanted to challenge Elmer, the adolescent boy with a blonde bowl cut, in the game, he seemed to look at Leanne for permission before playing with me. I had similar interactions with each child. Due to their unease and fear of challenging me, I ended up winning the game.
When the game ended, I thought of another route that might break their tension and timidness. “Have you guys ever played Dutch Blitz?” I asked. In an instant, every member of the Amish community in the train car gave me a look of utter shock, and some even quietly gasped. While I was asking just the team of card players, it seemed the whole Amish group had been eavesdropping on our conversation.
Dutch Blitz is a traditional Amish/Mennonite game, which explains their surprise at my awareness of it. The game involves quickly stacking numbered cards that have colored icons, such as an old-style plow, buggy, watering pail, and watering pump.
A 75-year-old Amish man with a long gray beard in the booth behind smiled broadly, “How do you know what Dutch Blitz is?”
I began to explain to the entire group, who all seemed to lean forward to hear my reply, that my husband’s family is of Mennonite descent. At family gatherings, they get together and play. I even threw in the fact that my mother-in-law’s maiden name is Yoder. Together, we laughed and bonded at the difficulty of the fast-paced game. The men dipped their wide-brimmed hats in respect, while the women offered unbridled excitement. I went from being the awkward intruder to being fully welcomed with open arms.
The Amish patriarch who had asked me how I knew the game cheerfully told me that the group was traveling from their home in Wisconsin to Colorado for his 18-year-old niece’s wedding. Together, the group was made up of the older man and his wife, their six children and spouses, plus 26 grandchildren. This would be the first time they would meet the bride.
When I mentioned I got married young as well, at 21 years old, the patriarch’s wife, who was seated next to him, furrowed her brow and said, “Why isn’t your husband with you then?” I simply explained that my husband was at a training course for his job.
As the sun warmed the pleather seats and the train blurred past silos and flat Illinois prairie land, I heard my dinner reservation being announced over the speakers.
The Eccentric Twins
Walking into the traditional dining car, I was welcomed with an ambience of charm and class. Waitstaff beckoned me to my booth with warmth. The tables were adorned by a single velvet rose and white tablecloths. Soft mood lighting cast a golden glow. As I slid into my window seat, I made the assumption that this was going to be a soothing dinner. Boy, was I wrong.
Because I was a single rider and the dining booths seated four, I would be dining with three strangers.
Across from me settled two fraternal twins in their early 60s, Sammie and Krista [some people’s names have been changed]. The twins were both holding dingy and matted stuffed animals. Sammie, dressed in an inside-out black shirt, clung to a lion, panda, and horse, and Krista held to two bears and an elephant.
• Andrea Kaneko
Beside me sat Kelleen, another single rider, who appeared to be in her 70s. Kelleen was heading home to Wichita, Kansas, after surprising her 80-year-old sister in Chicago for her birthday.
Throughout the three-course dinner, Kelleen and I seemed to bond over the oddness of the twins. We shot each other knowing glances as the sisters, with wrinkled hands, pretended to make the stuffed animals drink water and eat the rolls. We both grimaced as we watched Krista salt every part of her meal, including the water, roll, and salad. Our eyes grew wide as Sammie called someone on her old-school flip phone and said, “Hi, I’m a clown from New York, and I’m calling to ask you to invest in a three-ring circus,” then hung up. Our lips formed a tight line when Krista outright asked Kelleen why the left side of her face drooped downward (a brain tumor had caused partial face paralysis). We both leaned back as the twins rapidly rambled about their journey.
According to the twins, they were thrown off a Greyhound bus on its way to New York. They explained this was because they were “too stinky.” Kelleen and I noticed their smell as well. They said they were heading to Sammie’s cardiologist because her “oxygen would get down to 70 percent.” Periodically throughout our dinner, Sammie would place a pulse oximeter on her finger, yet her oxygen never got below the low 90s. I never figured out where they were currently traveling to, since we were heading away from New York. I’m not sure they knew either.
Behind us sat a young couple and my Amish comrades. Occasionally, I would look over my shoulder and see the group with their hands over their chests while full-belly laughing or smiling politely as they buzzed about farming and school. The more my stomach retreated from the twins’ chaos and odor, the more I longed to be at one of the Amish’s tables.
After dessert came and went and the train had successfully screeched across the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa, before entering Missouri, I said goodbye to the twins and thanked Kelleen for making the dinner more tolerable, then retreated to the lounge car.
The Super-fan
The sunset cast a burnt orange blanket across the lounge car as I crossed the metal threshold. Walking in, I spied a woman with rich brown hair about my age decked out in black skinny jeans, a band T-shirt, a lip piercing, and a nose piercing. There was something about her gentle face that lured me in.
Without a second thought, I sank down in a chair next to her and rested my feet on the metal bar lining the large windows, trying to look nonchalant. Almost abruptly, I asked where she was heading. Looking up from her Nintendo Switch game, she excitedly said she was heading to a Dir En Gray concert. Elaborating further, she explained to me that Dir En Gray is a Japanese heavy metal band that she is obsessed with. After that, I became just as excited as she was.
My husband’s father is from Japan, so I am learning Japanese. I asked her if she knew how to read the Japanese characters, as I have been learning them.
“I can read hiragana and katakana,” she said. Then, in unison, we both said, “But, never kanji!”
This caused us to erupt in laughter, despite the silent train car. From there, we shared our love of onigiri (a triangular rice ball with salted fillings such as salmon or tuna that is wrapped in seaweed) and Japanese culture, which started an unlikely friendship.
The 27-year-old woman’s name was Lily [some people’s names have been changed]. This was her first trip alone. She drove from her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Chicago, then was riding the train’s full route of 2,200 miles to the concert in Los Angeles. She was so determined to attend the concert that she was riding the train for 43 hours instead of flying, for fear that airline layoffs might affect her flight. Our conversation didn’t dwell on the small talk of her trip though. It melted into her personal life within minutes.
She talked about her strained relationship with one of her friends and her family. (If I ever meet her sister, I am giving her a firm talking to). She complained about the stupidity of the people who call her at her remote customer service job at a pasta company. Many people call to ask how many calories are in the pasta, even though the information is on the back of the box. I reassured her as she explained her singleness.
She leaned close to me to show pictures of the six pets she has with her two roommates, including her tuxedo cat. She lifted her worn-out band T-shirt sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a faded, tattered movie ticket on her bicep, a matching tattoo she got with a former friend. Now, it reminds her every day of the broken friendship. Lily became even more vulnerable with me as she explained how the tattoo of a fern on her wrist covers up old self-harm scars.
As Lily revealed bits of her life to me, I gasped at her misfortunes and would have liked to scold people who had done her wrong, just as I would have empathized when gossiping with a friend. I added advice whenever I felt like I had something worthwhile to say. Despite the heavy topics we dove into, her extroverted smile never disappeared. It felt like she truly loved speaking with me, rather than simply tolerating public transportation conversation.
By the time the train neared my stop in Kansas City, I felt like Lily had opened the naked pages of her life and let me read them. I had the fleeting privilege to learn about one of the most bubbly and gleeful people I have ever met, yet someone who struggles as we all do.
Before we went our separate ways—me to the Kansas City departure car and her to the sleeper car—she said, “Thank you for just listening to me. I hope it wasn’t too much.”
I responded, “I promise, I love when people share with me. That is probably why I am a journalist.”
Arrival
Teetering back through each segment of the train surrounded by night, I spotted the travelers I’d met on my journey. They were spotlighted by the dim glow of the overhead lighting.
The psychic winked at me as I strode down the aisle of the first car. I gave her a knowing grin in return, as if to thank her for giving me the confidence to start my story. A few rows down sat the super-fan, Lily, who was preparing to settle in for the night. With headphones in, she lifted her hand in a little wave.
I passed the twins, Krista and Sammie, with their arms still overflowing with stuffed animals, and Kelleen, who appeared to already be asleep. I entered an entire train car filled with hues of blue, black, gray, and white. I made eye contact with Leanne and the Amish children whom I had played the game with.
After my eight-hour train trip, while clambering through the long centipede of cars to reach the exit car, I realized each person I met had shared a piece of themselves with me. In an age where we fill our time with distractions and phones, it felt cathartic to realize people still desire relationships with one another. I was now connected to strangers, even though I may never see them again.
This article was originally published in the July/August 2025 edition of Missouri Life.
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