We arrived at the amtrak station by the oakland colluseum with over an hour to spare. Bex was impressed with Kyle Crocodile's galant offer to escort her. Until she realized his true aim.

He put down the bags and began rifling through his pockets. He casually walked over to the tracks, looked around, and non chalantly lay the first item down. A glance at Bex and both began looking for metal items on the tracks. Unsure of whether we would derail the train, we were conservative. Just a few pennies and bottle caps and nails. With the thought that this was probably illegal, an extensive affected casualness was undertaken, though this may have been silly and unneccessary considering the drug deals that appeared to be going down in frequent succession further down the track.

Kyle Crocodile was straightening the last piece when a train came in to the station. It honked. Earthshatteringly loud. Our organs turned to putty but Kyle was off the track before the honk had finished. The adrenaline rush made bex and Kyle perky and jittery for the next several minutes. The noise as the double-decker passenger train ran over the items was surprisingly thunderous. Trains are serious. As it boomed we looked around ourselves, anywhere but at the track, effectively drawing attention to ourselves and looking guilty as sin, even next to the dealers to our left. Bex, in fear, forgot to take pictures of the actual train.

As it pulled out we scampered with uncontrolled excitement to the track to collect. Neato nails that looked like swords. There was a beat of silence between us as we stood over our loot. Then we frantically ran back to the track and collected all the metal items we could find. Which was a lot: we are both gifted at finding things on the ground (thank the heavens we found SFØ!). Nails and bottle caps mostly, but the real prize was the wires, which we coiled around themselves into pretty shapes. We crossed nails over each other like swords in a coat of arms and covered both tracks with items for about 25 feet.

Bex had to get on the next thunderous train and Kyle Crocodile collected joyous pocketfuls of jingling flatness. The wires had fused into pretty circly shapes and the nails still fit together where they'd been crossed. (Bex took pictures from the train for your enjoyment and would like to add that it was the most glorious transportation experience of her life).

We wanna do it again. With more wire sculptures next time.