As young teens on warm spring and summer nights we often congregated in parking lots. Our town was long and skinny and we’d usually meet somewhere in the middle. For a while, this mid-point was the parking lot by the railroad station. The tracks were elevated. There was a station at ground level that reeked of cigarettes and urine. Stations of all kinds seemed to reek of cigarettes urine. They sometimes still do, even though smoking has been banned from public places.
This particular summer, though, there was an added attraction—better described as a situation. Every evening at the same time—8pm or so—a man with long reddish hair and matching beard would climb the stairs to the elevated platform, take off all his clothes, and pace back and forth. The light was dim when he did this, somewhere around sunset. And we would see him, this lonely, naked figure walking. Pacing. I remember sometimes the police would come, convince him to get his clothes back on and drive him home.