Without the pristine Victor-Smith legacy, the Wilkinsons were subject to much harsher punishment than I. Well, Eliot Academy pretended they believed in equality, but let's get serious. With a family scholarship and eco-friendly dorms on the way, my position as a student was pretty frickin' secure. I would've had to really fuck up for the trustees to agree to my expulsion. That being said, yeah, I broke the rules, but I wasn't dumb about it. And despite my deep-seated hatred for the pretentiousness that Eliot represented, I didn't want to leave the place. As a senior I could finally roam the campus without the not-so-subtle "fairy" coughs echoing from the meatheads behind me. I was beginning to appreciate the eclectic mix of Colonial houses with slanted floorboards, white-columned Georgian brick buildings and the I.M. Pei-designed art center (which spells "fuck" from the aerial perspective and is one of Eliot's best-kept secrets). The school was built into a hillside in the eighteen hundreds, and the 400-acre campus sported majestic elm trees, their roots as entrenched in excellence as the school itself. When I distanced the institution from the preppies that attended it, I could appreciate the vigorous academics and values it was founded on. But it was impossible to ignore the students as they littered the school with their careless façades. Smoking Kamels at Tom's was my retreat when I needed to trade popped collars for blue ones; I had finally found my place at Eliot. I guess Wiley (and Wole by association) didn't realize how disposable we students were to the Eliot Disciplinary Committee.
The twins were kicked out the night before Christmas break our senior year. Of course it was all Wiley's fault. I had taken the train a day early at the request of my mother. A cousin was making her formal debut in society, and my mother was adamant that I clock in some face time with the Victor-Smiths. My phone rang about twenty minutes from Penn Station. I couldn't tell whether Lydia's sniffling was from blow or actual tears, but it became clear it was the latter when she hiccupped the story to me between sobs. Shrooms. Typical. Wiley had been begging us to try them that entire month, but I told him I'd rather get high than tweak out all night in our dorm room. Wole never voiced his opinion on the matter, if he had one at all. He was the quieter of the two, often succumbing to his brother's cunning peer pressure. It wasn't a shock that Wiley had waited until I had already boarded the train to pounce on Wole - I loved Wiles, but he never knew when he was crossing the line.
Though the specific details were lost amongst the hiccups, the tale was the simplest of expulsions. Lydia, Katherine and I dissected it for hours, though. Dean Warden had walked in their room, suspicious as to the twins' absence from the Holiday Feast; Wiley apparently retorted with some smart quip about having already eaten, at which point Dean Warden recruited the aid of another teacher in moving the boys to the Infirmary. Faced with an impending drug test, my best friends withdrew from Eliot the next morning. Done deal.

Returning to campus that January was miserable. When the train arrived in Wally World, I went straight to Tom's, informing him of the Wilkinsons' escapades. I told him how stupid they were, risking their place here for one night of fun. I told him that we only had one term left - could they not have waited until after graduation? After four years of this shit, they just flushed it away without a care. Did their diploma mean anything to them? I ranted, for the first time releasing all my anger to Tom, who stood there, hunched and listening. At long last I finished, drained of all wrath, waiting for Tom's advice.
"All trains stop at Tom's," he said, the words rolling out of his mouth like a slinky uncoiling down the stairs.
"What?"
"You've never noticed it? On the menu? ‘All Trains Stop at Tom's'. It's right up there above the year 1910." There was the slight suggestion of disappointment lingering in his voice.
"Oh," I said, wishing I could retreat to my train. "Yeah, I guess I forgot about that." I didn't know what else to say - Tom was the only adult I didn't want to burn with a cigarette, but there were times when I wondered if he was crazy. His ambiguous statements were always loaded, and I had a private theory that the mafia somehow sucked away his capacity to emote. Regardless, I felt kind of bad that in the four years I'd frequented the diner, I hadn't even noticed the maxim by which he ran it.

The remainder of my senior year was pretty shitty, to be honest. I kept a low profile, and my trips to Tom's became few and far between, until finally it was too awkward to go anymore. The girls still went on Sundays, but they said it wasn't the same - that it was quieter and there was a sign on the menu that read: "Due to the war in Iraq, cigarettes are now $6.00." I knew his entire existence depended on us, but I couldn't bring myself to stop at Tom's a final time before graduation. I passed through a fraction of his life, just as that 11:00 train does each night, the difference being I am framed and forever immortalized upon the wall. That 11:00 train just chugs through each night, its regularity comforting, but its presence ephemeral.
It's been a year since I left Eliot, and though I try to keep in touch with everyone, we've become ensnared in our own lives, and it's clear that our kinship was based on a mutual fondness of Tom's rather than any underlying emotional connection. I think about that place from time to time and wonder whatever happened to it. It's funny, you know, when I remember my experience at prep school, it was the 8:00 Art History classes that capture the essence of my teenage years. I'd open my binder after an early morning at Tom's, and a kid across the room would detect the scent seeping into the air, raise his head, and we'd share a look of understanding. We all came to love that smell.
Anyways, our tribe has scattered across the world. Lydia is at Trinity College down the road from Eliot. I suspect she'll graduate and move to Fairfield County and vacation in Jupiter Island. Dave is taking a few more gap years before getting his shit together, and last I heard he was backpacking through Nepal. I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed there - you never know with Dave. Wiley decided college wasn't his cup of tea and has spent the past year playing polo, a skill we were all unaware he possessed. And while my parents expected me to head up to Harvard, I decided to break from yet another family tradition, choosing instead to enroll at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Don't worry, my parents haven't forgiven me; their motto is "Ivy or Bust."
Wole, though, actually called me in an uncharacteristic fit of anger from Yale. Fuming, he skipped all the usual greetings, howling into his cell: "Nick - there's a bloody Starbucks in Wally World! Just guess where it is."