She Likes Trains: The Little Engineer That Couldn't (1) I’ll get him someday without Bluetooth, cell phones, lost calls, or anything else. Even if he couldn’t go to lunch this time, he will. It might take two years, but I can wait. I’ve already gotten more than I ever dreamed of; it would just be icing on the railroad cake. “Shelley!” The calling of my name in that raspy, comforting voice stops me in my tracks. I turn halfway between the cab car and the engine, just having stepped out of the quiet car on the platform in Lancaster, making my way toward our MPI locomotive. I stand here now on the shady side of the train, the gentle murmur of voices and the swirling cigarette smoke suddenly disappearing at the sound of my name. My purple bag and my red bag rest lightly on my shoulder, my hands rest in relaxed fists. I suddenly just stand still, waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting, it seems, to be so nervous I can’t think straight. Time stands still on this Wednesday November 27 at approximately 11:15 AM, this day before Thanksgiving. Did God just call my name? The hum of he MPI just in front of me fills the seconds between words. “You made it!” I don’t think I answer. Maybe I shake my head. Maybe I say yes. “I was busy up here teaching this student to be an engineer!” “I know!” My words sound awe struck. Does my face show it? I don’t know anymore. I don’t care. Comfort me with apples. All my doubts have just been swept away. During the small break between train 205 and 214, I make my way forward, wanting to sit closer to the locomotive. Now, standing here as he comes closer, I am happy. Earlier, on the train, emerging from the restroom before we start our relatively quiet journey today, the conductor approaches me. “Where are you going, hon?” “Looking for a seat with a plug.” I’ve brought my new Bluetooth key board to use with my phone. On this long trip today I figure I’ll get some work done. “is Glenn up there with a student engineer?” I think he says yes. I hear the student call the advance approach and recognize his voice from listening to radio communications. This morning, Wednesday, I haven’t heard Glenn on the radio. By the time we get to the Palmdale station, I’m almost ready to cry only because well I always expect too much. Maybe he’s taken a day off and his student is running the train? If you won't be there, could you please let me know? If he won’t be there I won’t bring my notebook with the journal entries I’ve said I would bring today. He would have let me know, I think. And, now, here I am, and he’s walking toward me and I’m happy. Maybe this is why I’m not nervous. Just star struck, standing there, so relieved that I haven’t made this trip in vain. He’s here. And, now, he walks slowly toward me, smoke trailing from his cigarette, not in a desperate hurry. “Let’s turn and go to the cab car,” he says. Five months of reconciling images and now, I know for sure. This is my friend. I’ll take him. In my voicemail the night before I’ve said that the only thing that would stop me from coming today is if the pay check doesn’t show up in my bank. When a holiday falls on a Thursday, our regular pay day, we usually get paid on Wednesday. So, that shouldn’t be a problem. But, if I don’t make it on Wednesday, then I’ll come on Friday. I’ve been planning this trip since I left track 8 on June 14, knowing I had to come back and see him and also knowing that I’ve been doing the full time employment thing wrong. I need regular time off, so, now, I’m working on not calling out so much so I can get scheduled preapproved time off. The minute I get in the door in June after my two week vacation I put in my request for time off in November. Now, it’s here and here’s my number one engineer walking toward me. This trip is notably different from the last one. For one thing, I am not so desperately nervous. I get enough sleep, a striking difference between this trip and the day in June when I got Glenn’s picture. Now, out of bed, I dress and grab my bags. I’ve pack the Bluetooth keyboard and a few items and my bell necklace, check for my keys and leave the apartment. I know something is different when I reach the bus stop, wait, realize I’ve missed it and call a cab. I’m not anxious at all. And, today, I should be anxious. I’ve told Glenn I want to show him some of my writing. It’s not the book we keep talking about; it’s journal entries I wanted to show him two years ago. The plan was in two parts: the picture and the writing. But, somehow, I couldn’t get them both together at the same time. And, maybe it’s just better this way. So, this morning, not willing to be later than I know I will be, I return to the apartments and call a cab, arriving at the station with plenty of time to get money and my tickets. On this cool morning as I negotiate traffic and passengers, I am already surprised that I’m not so nervous. I am so relaxed that after getting cash from the ATM I go to the Santa Fe Express café and order breakfast, sit and enjoy it on the patio with some of the familiar faces. I don’t remember the names. I don’t even remember if the small dog Skipper was there, the overwhelming feeling is one of familiarity and anticipation, but not so keyed up as my last trip. The three eggs and bacon and toast and surprisingly good vanilla nut coffee are comforting and welcome. I am ready for whatever this day might hold. Finally, after so many months of being keyed up and planning, this day is here. I’m going to see my friend and enjoy my trip through the Soledad canyon perhaps without falling asleep this time. But, it seems, there is a slight snag. The Metrolink machine is unusable to me. Fortunately, a commuter, obviously very familiar with how this system works, helps me and I pay my $17 fair. The click of the coins falling into the slot as the machine dispenses my change after its series of clicks and beeps is reassuring to me. As usual, this trip will be priceless. Now, I make my way to the north side of paradise. Taking my spot near the ramp I wait. Number 3 shows up. The Amtrak stops several yards east of me by the railroad compass. It whines gently, its turbo charged EMD comforting in the cool morning. Automobile traffic hums in the background. Drug sniffing dogs do their work on this side of the platform. It’s a commuter’s paradise, punctuated in a strange kind of way, by the peaceful ambiance surrounding this out of the way spot so close to everything and still affording a sense of isolation, at least for me. Soon, the bell and lights herald the approach of 607. The cab car comes to rest here, the click of the door, the public address system announcing 607, watch your step, and then, he’s here. Eddie, my teasing conductor from 642 and the private railroad. Oh dear, now there’s no time to be nervous. And, Carey, it turns out, is on vacation. It seems every time I ride 607 into Los Angeles that Carey is far away. “Trying to avoid you,” someone says. No. If anyone has the right or any reason to avoid me it would be the engineer whose train I take next. He hasn’t run away. Carey has no reason to avoid me, and he’s the one who always misses me. Someday the stars will align and I will make his morning train with him on it. It is Thanksgiving, and so it is not unusual for Carey to be somewhere other than on his train. It’s my number one engineer who works Thanksgiving. But, we’re not there yet. We’re here on 607 and now I step on the train, somehow looking for a step. Eddie to my great relief does not put down the ramp for me. I really don’t’ like that ramp anyway so it’s no problem. “I’m going to tell Glenn you were falling on my train!” Ok, now we’ve started in earnest. Eddie can’t go five minutes without teasing me. It’s kind of a funny thing today, his teasing may or may not have gotten me into trouble. Somehow I suspect not. I can do that without any help from Eddie. But, it does make things a little spicier today. For now, I take my spot. “There’s no rest room on this train for you. Here’s a cup,” he says. Oh, brother. And, the big one. “Tell Glenn to take you to lunch.” “HE’s scared.” “He’s not scared. He would be happy. But,” and here he inserts some reality, “he has to take a train to a different yard. He can’t go.” “I came to hop his train.” “Oh, I thought you were only going to L.A. to meet him.” “No. I’m going to hop his train to Lancaster.’ “Oh. He does that morning run to Lancaster.” “Yes.” I don’t see the guy, Mike, who went with me to meet train 205 on my last trip. I guess he doesn’t have to go to Lancaster today, or isn’t sitting in the cab car. Arriving in the inside terminal, standing on the platform, Eddie says he doesn’t know where the Lancaster train is, go downstairs and the representative will tell you. The first thing I notice today is that the crowd mills, people go in all directions, murmuring voices echo in the terminal as I stop what may be a crewmember and ask what direction the station is in. Seems I never can remember. Heading down the series of ramps that lead to the terminals I encounter a tall black gentleman with a sweatshirt, clad against the cold. Did I need help? Sure, I’m looking for the Lancaster train. “Well, there’s a sign right in front of me that says train 205 to Lancaster is on track 4B.” He’ll take me there, so we start on our way to the place. Today is one of the busiest travel days of the year and somehow I don’t think about that as I head off to my own adventure. Maybe it adds to the sense of distraction and hurry that I get from Glenn today. It doesn’t matter, really, despite the day he is the best. Kind of a funny Glenn and Shelley day which I’ll tell you about later. The fun starts here, though, the man with the sweat shirt on the way to track 4B panhandles me. Do I have the remaining $31.00 to help him get to San Diego? I do have cash today but none of it is for him. “I don’t give money to people,” I explain, as we make our way to the track. No worries, he assures me. I’m sure he thinks he’ll find it somewhere, just not from me. I think it might be the first time I’ve ever been pan handled at Los Angeles Union Station. I’m sure it won’t be the last. Arriving at the platform I’m stopped by a new force of security. Apparently fare evasion is becoming quite an issue because they ask me for a ticket. They don’t ask the guy helping me. How do they know he won’t get on the train? We arrive successfully and he leaves me to my adventure. Today is a busy day at L.A. Union station. I am definitely on my own. I’m intrigued and a little surprised, but mostly glad. No one is interrupting engineer conversation with an engineer by offering me food and drink. Instead, I stand for a moment, orienting myself to the familiar presence of train 205, observing as the conductor says we’re boarding in about fifteen minutes. At first, I’m not sure if it’s Jessie, the regular conductor. Where’s Glenn, the engineer? I keep sneaking toward the engine just in case he’s standing somewhere or up there. Along the platform, people talk, two black women discuss Thanksgiving dinner arrangements. People leave me alone to pace my way toward the engine, hoping for at least a glimpse of my railroad crush. I could do what I used to do in Fullerton. I could go up to his cad. The air is cool and crisp, laced with the acrid, cheap scent of tobacco, filled with the murmur of voices, replete with color, bags, sweat shirts, prints and stripes comingling with an overcast gray sky. The blue and white graffiti Metrolink cars, the hum of the Motive Power Industries engine its number unknown. I don’t want to know the number. I want to see the number one engineer. If there is a student engineer, most likely he is up there with him. About halfway to the engine I decide it’s probably best at this point if I board the train. It looks like people are getting on, so I stand hesitantly in front of one of the cars. “Do you want to get on?” Standing near the middle of the train, a man from Sekoro Texas addresses me politely. I climb up the two stairs, my cane finds his cart. He pulls his cart through the car. I end up in a restroom line behind him. He takes forever in the small train bathroom. Finally, he emerges. “Are you having a party in there?” He finds that amusing. Bustling between the children and the older people talking, I now speak to him. “I work for Disney,” I say. “I get calls from Texas. But, not Secoro.” “You won’t. Farming community. Small city.” Suddenly, Jesse is here, asking where I want to go. I’m on a mission to find a plug. There’s no plugs in this car, he says. But, maybe in the next one. We enter the quiet car #232. It is silent because I’m used to cars on the Lancaster train being a little rowdy. This morning as the engine and auxiliary unit powers in front of us, I listen and avoid people and bags. Can I get a window seat? “No windows,” he says. The plug he finds is in a corner seat right at the front of the car. We’re close enough today so that when the engineer whoever he is blows the horn for the crossings I can hear it. Even if I don’t like the locomotive horn I still like to listen. It is part of the train experience. It has been five months since I’ve been here and since that last day I’ve been planning this trip. The goal has been to bring a Bluetooth keyboard so that I can practice typing and using my iPhone as a computer. Purposefully, I’ve carried the red chica and the purple gator, not bringing the baby with the thermos bottle and its general bulk. However, sitting here in the small Metrolink seat, there’s no more room than before. The two bags at my feet, my hands cramped on the keyboard make for a compressed feeling as well as a lot of mistakes and an overwhelmed phone. The speech program VoiceOver rattles, the speech trying to keep up with my attempt to update my FaceBook status. I could probably have just put everything in the grip, used it as a foot rest and probably gotten the same amount of work done. But, I’ve done it. If I ever need to type on a keyboard and use my phone as a computer I can do it. I sit there, engaging my seat mate, Rachel, in conversation. She isn’t much of a talker but we exchange pleasantries and happy Thanksgiving greetings, settling in for the ride through the Soledad canyon. I think the most memorable part of the actual train ride for me this time is the journey through the Soledad canyon. Sitting closer to the locomotive always makes this feel like childhood jaunts on the Starlight, though it’s not the Starlight. The engineer teaching the student to be an engineer ran the Starlight in 1986 for a few years, so, I imagine if I visualize those hands on the controls it could become my personal Starlight. But, it’s not. It’s a metrolink train run by an engineer who is tired of running Metrolink trains teaching someone else to run one. Today, there is no imagined scenery except maybe trees and rocks, patches of grass, bushes in varying stages of green, indolent, lovely, lazy, all following the railroad tracks with the hurtling train perhaps doing sixty miles an hour says the engineer in a previous conversation, applying the brakes on the curves, feeling it up here. I feel it in the relaxing of my senses, the reassuring steadiness of the rocking train, maybe knowing the hands that direct the hands that rock the train. I don’t remember there being so many curves on the trip. But, they lull me, give me a sense of tranquility. One feels the rocking, hears the groaning as the cars resist the speed on the curves, opening vistas for day dreaming. Who wants to work on a Bluetooth keyboard when you can take the curves and imagine the scenery in the wildlife preserve and conjure up other images. And, then, maybe, I just slept through all that last time. Today, I get to do this twice, the first time wondering if the engineer is there, and the second, knowing he is. I admit with every ounce of courage I can muster that if he ends up not being there. on this train today when I’ve come to relish it, I would be disappointed. Maybe he is my romance with the rails after all. Maybe Robert my writer friend was right so many years ago when he said Glenn was my romance with the rails. Just talk to me. Call me your number one rail nut friend. Tease me. Answer questions. Tell me stories. I’ll take it.? “Let’s turn and go to the cab car.” Now, in Lancaster, my doubts swept away I turn and head that direction. I walk slowly, giving him time to catch up to me. It seems he wants a moment to relish that cigarette while he still can. “You’re doing well,” he says, coming to meet me. “Teach the student to work the brakes, baby,” I say as he comes up beside me. “and to make the good mistake first. Make sure it’s not like the one when dispatch calls and says what train are you? What cars do you have again?” The day before I’ve heard dispatch call train 208 to ask what the consist is and who the crew is. Seems like every morning they confirm with Valley Sub dispatch the engine number, cab car number, number of cars and crew on board with duty times and on the law times. This is the morning train routine. On the day when the student does all the talking he is advised to restate all the information. This is a relatively harmless mistake. “Sometimes,” says the veteran engineer to his number one rail nut friend, “it takes a while.” “Eddie says,” I now tell him, wondering if I should do this at all, “you should take me to lunch.” In a voice mail the night before I’ve said that maybe if he has time we can go to lunch, though this might be wishful thinking. This is why I’ve mentioned lunch to Eddie on 607. Now, wondering if this will feel like pressure, standing at the entrance to the car, I now pass along the information. Glenn stands still, looking away from me. “That’s easy for someone else to say.” Ok I’ve never gotten a response like that from anyone about anything. Glenn’s responses to things are so different, sometimes. But, then, people say the same thing about me, too. Two common personalities with completely different lives standing here by the cat car on one train, the great grand daughter of a railroad engineer talking to a working railroad engineer. Now`, the working engineer seems a little surprised if not put out. I don’t think he was angry or anything. Who knows. This is Glenn we’re talking about here. I can’t always read those magical eyes. They’re just my magic when I can get them. “I don’t have time,” he says. “I know,” I say halfway defending my position and halfway assuring, “you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. It’s okay. I’m just telling you what he said.” Maybe I am nervous after all. I’m almost interrupting him. It’s almost as if I’m going out of my way to assure him it’s fine, because it really is. Who knows. It’s just different for me. Maybe, this is the other side of twitterpated, as Andy the former Metrolink agent used to say. Really, I’m not expecting a yes answer. I think we’re back to that first time when I asked for coffee in L.A. and discovered he might have a hard time saying no. I could take no from him. As long as I’m his number one rail nut friend. “See you in L.A?” I now say. “It will be only for a minute,” he says kindly. He’s my Glenn and he’s sweet. He’s been busy for so long. Tired. Distracted. And, by the end of the day, maybe a little more distracted, but always kind. We now enter the cab car at the ramp, the little engineer that couldn’t trails behind the love sick star struck middle aged teenage railfan. A woman’s bags block the aisle, we wait while she moves them so we can continue on to our assigned tasks for the morning. “Straight ahead,” he tells me when all obstacles are removed. Only Glenn could say things like that and get away with it. Now, we continue on our way, I squeeze myself into the small space, this time by a window, and put my bags at my feet. “What’s up, Jude. Are you getting the 109?” This is a man he has told me in a previous conversation who tries to make the connection with this Ventura County line train. He’ll do his best today to make sure his friend makes his connection. Today Glenn is in full chorus with his raspy I’ve been yelling over freights voice. Later on after listening to several radio communications and catching hints of congestion in a phone conversation four days later, I decide it is either the start or end of a winter cold. On the return trip now, I almost go to sleep. No one grieves for a cat. Today, there is no bell making. I don’t charge the phone. I tuck it away in my bag. Soon, we’re stopped, waiting for train 207. Jesse comes and sits down beside me. “So, you’re going back with us?” “Yes. Glenn wouldn’t let me stay up there by myself. But, he don’t care.” “He better care. It’s Thanksgiving.” “I’m an adult,” I say. “I could do it.” “You can definitely take care of yourself.” “How long have you worked with Glen?” “A long time.” “Do you remember when his kids were little?” “Oh, yeah. Shawn?” “Yeah.” “I remember when he had long red hair going this way and that.” “He better train those guys to be the best,” I tell Jesse, a kind, quiet black gentleman, I believe. “They’ll be behind him.” “Or running against him. That could be dangerous.” “Not good.” “He works hard.” “Glenn doesn’t do any work.” “You mean he makes the students work for him? Maybe he’s forgotten all the signals by now?” OH, dear, I’m as bad as anyone else. “He better look at the book.” “I admire that man,” I say. “Whenever I don’t want to get up in the morning and go to work I think of him.” “Glenn gets you up in the morning? I’m not going there.” Oh, these railroad guys. Glenn doesn’t tease me about talking to Glenn. Jesse, Jess as Glenn calls him on the radio sometimes, gets up and continues on his way. Soon, we’re on the move again, at least twenty-five minutes late. We arrive in L.A. having made restroom trips, talked to the security guard I recognize from the last time, and talked to Jesse again. Earlier, when looking for the plug, I ask him if he remembers me. Yes, he does. “You remember all the bells.” “I was going to tease you about that.” Now, standing in the hallway by the doors, I address him again. “I’ll trade you your keys for this.” I point to my necklace. “I don’t want anyone to hear me coming,” he says. Laughter ripples through the hall from the security guard and others standing or sitting in the area. Soon, he disappears to make his conductor rounds. Shortly, the train arrives in L.A. People exit the train. It grows quiet suddenly. I’m not expecting it to be so quiet, but here I am, just waiting. I figure I could meet Glenn here and now give him my notebook. I’ve never showed anyone my writing before especially when it’s about them. And, surprisingly, I’m not nervous. I’m essentially handing him my child and this doesn’t seem to cause me any discomfort. A phone call to him is more nerve wracking till he answers. But, here, now, I sit and wait, holding my notebook and my two bags. “Are you alright?”
Go to part: 1 2
Copyright © 2013 Shelley J Alongi |