Amtrak Nightmare: The Legend of Uncle Baconstein!

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Filed under: Travel, Human Oddities, and Unsolvable Scents!

He boarded in Jersey with the subtlety of a marching band.

Stumbling down the aisle, bumping into people, eyes darting back and forth looking for a place to toss his bag, and plant himself.

I actually smelled him before I saw him: a blend of old bacon grease, mentholated muscle rub, like a cafeteria mixed with distant hospital corridors.

Something akin to a breakfast buffet at a VA hospital I imagine.

I drew the short straw and ended up involuntarily "taking one for the team" as he took the seat beside me and then began what can only be described as a full-sensory assault.

Let me try to set the scene for you, if it is possible to set such a scene:

I dubbed him…Uncle Baconstein. A creature nature cobbled together by clashing time, food, scents, and well, fashion in what must have been a cataclysmic event of the magnitude that a potential change to the space time continuum was at risk.

My guess is that he was somewhere between 60 and 80 years of age.

Parts appeared to be younger, the energy, the type of snacks, the general vibe.

But then, the hair, the clothes, the wrinkled, pale, "haven't seen the sun in a decade" complexation. Hmm well it made it hard to tell.

• Cargo pants (Sort of, I mean they looked like Cargo pants halfway down, with ladies Capris joined with some mad design alchemy below the knees), and he had them packed like a hiker prepping for the apocalypse.

  
  

• Every pocket held a can of Coke. I counted four. He deposited them one by one into the seat pocket in front of him like sacred offerings, pausing to look at each one, and make sure the label was facing him as his slid them into place.

  
  

• Various snacks were constantly appearing from pockets, or secret stash zippers, or maybe being conjured from the great beyond judging by the volume and frequency with which they seemed to appear.

  
  

• Headphones like the ones you would buy from a 1970 Sears catalog firmly in place. Yes, the old ones with the curly cord, (THOSE HEADPHONES). With a stack of adapters put together so they could jack into his phone.

• Head bobbing, eyes closed, hands flailing, air drumming, air guitar playing, and silent lip syncing to whatever song he was listening to.

  
  

  Imagine a Stevie Wonder, Doc from "Back to the Future" and Jack Black from "School of Rock" hybrid with arthritis and a bacon addiction.

  
  

He smelled like week old breakfast and looked like a Craigslist ad for “Retired Wizard, Seeking Adventure.” "Gandolph the strange seeks, Gwenavere the weird for breakfast and air jamming" is how the ad should read.

Picture this:

• The Doc Brown hair, just as wild, just as grey, but a little shorter in front and longer in back. Like a perm and a mullet mated, (sort of).

  
  

• Thin frame, like he’s been living off Vienna sausages and memories.

  
  

• The Tan cargo (top half) light beige (bottom half) (CARGO/PRIS), loaded with cans of Coke like he was Smokey and Bandit smuggling bubbly treasure across state lines.

  
  

• A sweater older than disco, hanging on his shoulders like a relic from the Carter administration. With the mystic zippered vest under it providing endless packs of snacks.

  
  

• Slip-on sneakers—what every foot model appearing in a Life Alert commercial would dream of wearing when they had fallen and couldn't get up.

  
  

And the soundtrack?

Yes, he had ancient headphones but had them cranked up so I could hear just enough fragments of songs to know what was driving the physical gyrations.

An hour of head-bobbing, finger-tapping, Ray Charles-meets-radioactive-gnome energy.

He tapped on the tray. He tapped on the seat. He tapped the thin air, looking side to side, sometimes artistic pauses to the imaginary crowd he was performing for. Sometimes unpredictable leg slaps: erratic.

Was he keeping time… or resuscitating a femoral artery? Hard to say.

I took it in, then tried to ignore it all. I had some things to finish so I was sitting and working on my laptop.

I was trying hard to not take too deep of breaths, as to not be overwhelmed by bacon, or menthol rub.

But Uncle Baconstein had other plans.

Every few minutes or maybe in between songs, he opened his eyes and leaned over to read my screen.

Didn’t even pretend to be slick.

Just leaned over, like, “Whatcha typing there, sport?” A quick violation of my privacy then right back to his one man show.

This wasn’t a man. This was a phenomenon.

A walking, tapping, Coke-sipping, snack munching, remix of bacon grease, endless snacks, and Bengay cologne.

The scent alone told a thousand sorted Olfactory tales.

Just before the stop he got off on, I swear I heard him softly humming and uttering a few chorus phrases of “Rubber Band Man.” By the Spinners.

Can’t confirm that was the tune. But there were just enough snippets and partially muttered lyrics that my thought is: "yes that is what it was".

He was into it. Not confidently. Not clearly. But just enough to haunt me.

He stayed on the train next to me for an hour.

Then in Philly Like a version of "Gandalf the White, appearing at sunrise on the 3rd day"!

Well Maybe a version of a Gandolf who was also working as a short-order cook in a nursing home, he vanished into the fog of the next stop at the next station.

No words. No nod. Just a swirl of bacon-scented air and the faint echo of a tray table still reverberating with his tap groove.—poof—he grabbed his bag and was gone.

He had left his stamp, (along with a seat pocket filled with empty coke cans and snack wrappers) his mark, his memory, and his smell, which lingered.

Other onboarding passengers gave my seat a wide berth, likely thinking I was the source of bold mix of BenGay and bacon!

I was getting looks like I was a hospital breakfast buffet where dignity went to die.

The legend was born: Baconstein

He exited the train car, musical echos of his presence still reverberating lightly, then slowly fading away as he disappeared into the heart of Philadelphia.

But the scent? The scent remained. I imagine it still does; it must; it seemed akin to an unkillable beast.

I am sure it has outlasted time and Tide detergent, and most likely any combination of Gain scent boost you could concoct.

He left behind not just a memory—but an aroma that defies time and Febreze.

Uncle Baconstein didn’t just ride the train…

No, the train, just like my memory of him, well: He haunts them still.

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