Metrolink111: Questions People Ask “Excuse me ma’m,” said the neatly dressed Metrolink rider, “are you looking for the train that just left?” The train that just left? Let’s see, I was standing at the yellow line on the south side of the track that day, Monday October 5, a day, it seemed, for either proposturous questions or uninformed statements. Another day in the life of the Fullerton train station was entering its final hours, the Metrolink trains had all gone home for the night. Glen’s train had just pulled away, a freight train had just exited, the place was quiet. “If I were looking for the train that just left,” I informed the man, “then I’d be on it!” Sometimes people are just more than amazing, they are simply unbelievable. They do not use logic. Does the fact that I have a white cane mean that I’ve completely lost my mind? Am I staring like the village idiot down the tracks waiting for something that’s already been there? Forget that I have a Bachelor’s degree, a forty our a week job now offering overtime, and I am an advanced communicator in Toastmasters, I must be lost or completely unaware of my surroundings. I guess it’s the truth. I am lost in my experience at that locomotive and it seems most days Someone always has to interrupt my private communion at the side of a locomotive, some might call it a religious experience, even if I’m waiting after the train has pulled away, it’s still a private communion and I’m just waiting, at least that day, for everyone to take the stairs over the bridge so I won’t have to hear someone ask me if I want to take the stairs. Let’s see, if I’m walking toward the stairs and I’m say three inches from the stairs with one hand on the rail and my cane finding the edge of the step do you imagine I might want the stairs? Why does someone who probably makes more money than I do have to ask me if I want the stairs? I won’t say it in so many words, I’ll just say what my freight hauling truck driver father always said when I was a child: people just don’t think. It’s obvious to me a few minutes earlier as Glen’s train sits at the point just shy of the bridge, the place he brings it to everyday with smoothness, that someone on that train can’t read. “This is the riverside train,” a woman informs me. It’s possible it could be the riverside train and I think about that for a minute as the bell clangs and I give my final greeting to its focused engineer, but then I think of something else. The Riverside train goes on the other track, yes in the same direction, and it could be switched to a different track, but that train has come and gone so there’s no way it can be the Riverside train. Somedays I just shake my head in disbelief over the questions people ask. As I’ve mentioned earlier the only people at the station who ask me such questions are on this side of the track. Those on the other side just ignore me or go bout their business. They don’t stop me from experiencing my moment of bliss by greeting an engineer whose name I know and who may or may not see me. They let me go on my way. Maybe the people on the south side of the tracks are not as perceptive as the people on the north side of the tracks though they’re the ones carrying the laptops and brief cases. It can’t be taking the Metrolink train that robs anyone of their superior intelligence. Whatever it is, Monday October 5 is a particularly stellar day in the nonlogic department. One of these days someone is going to ask me a smart question. I guess the engineer asked it once; he can do that. I don’t think he’s asked that question again he has enough to do without having to ask me that. He recognizes me and if he does he probably knows by now that I’m not looking for his train, I’m just saying hello to it. “Oh darn,” says Curt when I come back across the bridge, “that’s the third train I’ve missed in a row. Guess I’ll just have to come back tomorrow!” OH My So Much to Remember The day doesn’t start out at the Fullerton station with that particular flavor. It begins on a nice normal note. The weather is perfect, it is quiet that day, the ham and cheese sandwich with tomato is pretty good. Bob and Janice appear around 4:30 and Janice tells me that Rideshare is their handing out pizza. They’re saying thank you to anyone who gets off the train. The pizza isn’t too bad. I choose the peperoni. Janice says she has to work that day so she won’t stay. Shirley from train 784 comes and tells us she’s been bumped and now she’s on a sleeper train, train 2, the Sunset Limited only as far as San Antonio. San Antonio is where we sit all night waiting for a new crew and switching out the cars that go to Chicago and the cars that go somewhere else, maybe New Orlaeans. I don’t remember now I just harbor this bit of information from my last experience with the Sunset Limited. She’s not very happy about it and it’s possible that things could change since she has to call back after noon the next day to get final instructions and all the bids are on hold she says, but today is not a happy day for her. “You’re blushing,” she tells me and manages a laugh when I mention the Metrolink trains but I don’t remember what we said about them or why I should be blushing. When I ask bob what train Shirley comes in on he tells me I’ve been aroundlong enough I should know my trains by now. I barely remember my name somedays and I always get the Amtrak trains mixed up. “You only know the Metrolink trains,” he says. Hardly. I can never get the Metrolink numbers straight. I know train 608 because so far Glen engineers it. I know the Ventura County line train 111 because that was Rob’s train. I kno the Ventura County line 118 because that’s Bob and Mitch’s train. Metrolink VCL 113 is Gary’s train; Gary was Rob’s trainer. I know the Metrolink 405 train, which serves the riverside route and starts at riverside I finally learn, but that’s only because I’ve made an emotional connection with those trains. OH and I know the riverside train goes on track 1 not 3 like the lady who sees me waving at the last Ocean Side train for the day. O maybe I know my Metrolink trains, somewhat. I know I’ll be on one from Simi Valley to Chatsworth on Friday, and one from Chatsworth to L.A., then one from Los Angeles to Fullerton. Maybe Bob is right. I only know that I don’t want to miss my Amtrak train on Friday or else I’l be late for Simi Valley and I won’t catch any of those trains, I’ll be two hours behind schedule. I know enough not to do that. I also don’t want to miss Glen’s train. Sigh! Here Comes the Judge Bob tells me between Janice’s departure and Shirley’s arrival that he likes to watch Judge Judy at home. She doesn’t put up with “no crap” he says. “When you’ve got what I got,” he says, “and you’re home all day you need something to look at.” Ok. This is in response to a comment I make about having a tv and never watching it. I do have a tv but it hardly gets turned on these days. I’m either working or writing or at the train station. But bob sure likes Judge Judy. He talks about someone wanting a boob enlargement, that some guy had to pay ten thousand dollars for his fiancé to have one. Jose who sweeps the patio and takes the chairs down early so he wont’ have to do it all later thinks he’s talking about the time when he tells me that the northbound Amtrak 583 is here. “IT’s 505,” he says, “not 583.” “He’s telling me the train number,” I say. We wait and watch. Here comes the riverside train. Glen might be here, I checked the last Ocean Side northbound to L.A. it comes in at 4:50. Janice says he’s in the cab car, he’s even with the sidewalk he can see me better on this side. If it’s Glen and that’s when he gets here I can’t wave because most of the time I’m at work. If I seem like I’m overexcited about knowing the name of a Metrolink engineer, remember he doesn’t pay my bills. I can’t spend my whole day drooling over trains or engineers, or both. But it is sure fun doing that. After all my anticipation our meeting will probably be brief, accidental, and maybe a little disappointing. And then again maybe not. On Friday when I take ML 608 from Los Angeles to Fullerton I’m going to sit behind the engine so I can run over there before the train departs and say hello. You know, I’m starting to remind myself of Rob’s teenage friend who was over stimulated about running a locomotive. The difference is Glen won’t get in trouble, I’m the one who’s going to get into trouble smeday, and love doin it. The night ends at the station I take the bus home and get ready for work. Seems I have to get back to reality, or at least my form of it. So stay tuned for more adventures with Shelley and all her engineers.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |