Lost Opportunities on An Orange Line Train to

Ballston
Anjuelle D. Floyd

Edward P. Jones’, An Orange Line Train to Ballston, is about lost opportunities, how they

come to pass and what occurs when one abandons possibilities, or more importantly how

we can react in having allowed them to pass by.

Each day Marvella Watkins, her daughter Avis, and Marvella’s two sons, Marcus and

Marvin, ride the Orange Line Train that travels to Ballston. Their destination is

McPherson Square, a stop located near the school Marvin and Marcus attend—where

Marvella’s mother, who keeps Avis during the day, lives—and where Marvella works.

The orange line train like that of the blue line that veers off to destination other that

Ballston, passes the Stadium-Armory Subway Platform where Marvella and her children

board the train each morning. One day and minutes before boarding an Orange Line Train

to Ballston the younger Marcus encounters the man with dreadlocks.

All five board the train. The younger Marcus, curious and taken by the man’s dreadlocks,

and with Avis joining in, continues his conversation with the man whose name we never

get to know.

The man with dreads never offers his name. Though not as obvious, Marvella, like her

eldest child and elder son, Marvin, remains distant, never asking the man’s name and not

offering hers. Marvella and her children arrive each morning at the Stadium-Armory stop

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(all excerpts taken from Edward P. Jones’, Lost in the City of 5

ISBN -00679258-X)
 Lost Opportunities on An Orange Line Train to
Ballston
Anjuelle D. Floyd

with expectations of seeing the man with dreads or as Marcus describes them, “…hair

like snakes.”

Most mornings he is present. Once on board, Marcus, more so than Avis continues their

daily chats with Marcus asking the man various questions and the man with dreadlocks

offering answers as best he can. He does not seemed bothered, rather impressed with

Marcus’ curiosities about life, as he listens.

Marvella, tentatively looking on, desires to know more about the man—wishes he would

inquire of her astrology sign. Yet she never asks the man’s name. Nor does she give him

the slip of paper on which she has written her address.

Marvella never gives herself the opportunity to tell the man with dreads that she has

experienced a set of failed relationships, one with the elder Marvin’s father, who visits

Marvin on an irregular basis, and another man who treated Marvella badly.

Knowing this as a reader makes all the more interesting our observance of Marvella, her

torture when in the presence of the man with dreads—her ambivalence around whether to

give him the piece of paper with her address, or her inability to speak to him beyond

correcting and chiding Avis and Marcus on how they address him.

Marvella’s soft reprimands to Marcus and Avis are almost an allegory of her internal

voice telling her not to speak to the dreadlocked gentleman. Marvella, like the man’s hair,

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(all excerpts taken from Edward P. Jones’, Lost in the City of 5

ISBN -00679258-X)
 Lost Opportunities on An Orange Line Train to
Ballston
Anjuelle D. Floyd

is knotted and confused as to how and when to strike up a conversation with him. Only

through the interactions of her children—specifically Avis and Marcus and then for the

most part Marcus— does she address the man with dreads. Marvella is not free and open

like the younger, Marcus.

Caught between the diametric actions of the vivacious and questioning Marcus and the

immense solitude of the elder and eldest, Marvin, Marvella, like Marvin, is wary and

fearful the goodness of the man with dreads as demonstrated through his interactions with

Marcus—and more severely her own sincerity. That the first syllable of her son’s names

matches hers, Mar, is no mistake. One marvels with sadness at how Marvella’s life

experiences have marred her ability to trust others, and most poignantly, herself and the

wishes of her heart.

One Saturday and in desperation, after seeing the man with dreads wearing a suit and tie,

Marvella, under the guise of driving around to explore their neighbor, goes out with the

children. She is looking for the man with dreads.

Weeks go by after she does not find him, Marvella and her children seeing him only four

or five times. Each day Marvella takes the train of whatever line—orange or blue—

arrives first.

11/09/2007 3
(all excerpts taken from Edward P. Jones’, Lost in the City of 5

ISBN -00679258-X)
 Lost Opportunities on An Orange Line Train to
Ballston
Anjuelle D. Floyd

One day while waiting for the train at Armory-Stadium, Marvella is besotted by the

Marcus’ questions thrown at her like a hammer. He wants to know how the subway lights

know to come on, and go off when the trains approach and then leave. Marvella answers

as best she can. Marcus’ barrage of interrogations subsides. Reaching McPherson Square

and on their way up the escalator, he asks, why they had to wait [for the orange line]

when the blue went to the same place they were headed. Angry and frustrated Marvella

grasps Marcus’ arm and lambastes him with declarations of, “I’m the boss around here,”

and emphasizing, “I’m in charge.” Her actions demonstrate she is not.

Marvella embarrasses herself, a realization made most apparent when Marcus, agreeing

begins to chant, “You the Mama...you in charge.” Marvella tells him to, “Shut up!”

Like many individuals hurting and grieving life’s unfairness, Marvella discarded an

opportunity—one conjured by the sincerities of her heart. She yearned to know the man

with dreads. She wanted to see herself in a different light—move on from the abusive

relationships in which she’s previously participated.

The man with dreads is nice. The constancy of seeing him on the Orange Line Train to

Ballston speaks to the solidity of his character and personality.

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(all excerpts taken from Edward P. Jones’, Lost in the City of 5

ISBN -00679258-X)
 Lost Opportunities on An Orange Line Train to
Ballston
Anjuelle D. Floyd

Marvella’s anger toward Marcus is a form of self-directed rage in not being able to love

herself enough to take a chance. The opportunity lost in the man with the dreads is at its

worse a form of self-abandonment. Hence Marcus’ question infuriates Marvella, why they

wait for the orange line train even though the earlier train on the blue line could take the

to McPherson Square.

During past weeks Marvella has acted as if she had no desire to take the orange line train,

dispassionate toward the man with dreads, while underneath soared a desire to acquaint

herself with the man and frightened even herself.

“How many lost opportunities exist in one’s life?” Jones’s story seems to ask, the answer

to which lies in the numerous hurts that have risen from the number of instances we have

not surrendered our fears to the call of our heart’s desire.

11/09/2007 5
(all excerpts taken from Edward P. Jones’, Lost in the City of 5

ISBN -00679258-X)