Metrolink708: Engineer Drama (2) “He’s kind of rattled about you.” “Yeah? Rattled?” “He asked me does she know I’m married?” Great! After all my personal drama she tells me this. But now I have two questions, or one statement and one question. How can I know he’s married if he never tells me? Why would anyone else tell me? So technically I don’t know he’s married. The second thing is that whenever I walk up to the cab to say hello to the engineer always assume they’re married. “I think he was concerned that the whole thing is plutonic,” she says. Glen is a grown up man, I say, if he has issues we can discuss them. If he wants to, the issue is up for discussion. Well it’s up for discussion in this way. Yes I’m emotionally attached and yes I enjoy talking to you but I’m not going to take you away from your wife. I’m not interested in that. If I’m overexcited and stimulated by the knowledge he have I’m not into breaking my relies rules or my moral code of ethics. I’ve never thought he was ever interested in me that way. Imagine telling someone this, someone who sat on the bench at the east end of the platform last night in tears because of something silly like wanting him to talk to me and him saying “I’m not going to call out if we’re only there for a minute.” “I’m after his brain,” I say. “He has so much experience.” “I don’t’ know if it was egotistical,” she says. “He’ll probably feel better if he knows you’re after his brain.” Like I said, he’s a grown up man, we’re both adults, if he wants to talk about it he can bring it up. Somehow she disappears and soon it’s time to go over to meet his train. Yes, I’m still going. I’m in knots I don’t’ know what he’ll say or not say. It is Friday. “he probably wishes I would just go away,” I tell Howard and Clarita dramatically before Mo’s revelation. “Go away,” he says sobbing hysterically on the floor of that locomotive. “Just go away!” Now I stand there, the bell approaches it’s my darling bell, my Alfa cat engineer. “What’s up!” All is normal. “ready for the weekend.” “Absolutely,” says my sweet confused engineer. “Me, too. Do you have class tomorrow?” “No, we’re all done with classes.” “Rules? Block training?” “No. Amtrak.” “Oh Amtrak. Are you going back to Amtrak?” He asks me to repeat the question. I do. “Are you staying with Amtrak or Metrolink?” “Metrolink,” he says. There’s the answer to Bruce’s question. “Somewhere on Metrolink.” “Does this schedule work out better for you?” I want to know. He hasn’t told me his new hours. “No,” he says. Oh here’s my engineer about to complain again, such a sweet complainer. I hear the signal. “have a good weekend,” he says. His conversation is friendly, no hint of distress about our relationship. What would I expect him to do? Fall apart in the cab? No, I don’t think he would do that. Probably, then, he won’t do anything. I walk away relieved but soon I’m thinking of all this again. I feel like I’m losing something. Before that happens I go back across the bridge and they are going to leave. I think it’s time for number 4 to come to the station but I keep forgetting I’m on a 6:00 feeding schedule now not a 7:00 schedule. Howard and Clarita disappear. I go down to the east end of the platform and there is the rail group. A freight pulls up, gets a red light, I decide to go investigate. I walk up to where it sits on track 2. “Be careful of the track,” says someone from the group coming up to me. There’s a line up for another train on track one. Maybe I won’t hear it. “I stand here every day a lot more than you do,” I say. Scott the railfan goes away. I walk up to the platform not seeing anyone I recognize. I go up to the place in the morning where I meet the trains. I can’t wait to bring a book here. Lately I take my cell phone and connect to the news line service for the blind. I enjoy reading and listening up here. It’s quiet. Maybe one or two people wait for a train or just sit up here. Metrolink 707 the last train from Riverside to Los Angeles pulls up. I’m sitting a little far from the edge of the platform so the engineer probably sees me but can’t really talk to me. The conductor says highball Fullerton and dispenses the usual warning. I hear the engineer repeat the signal indication. Ok it’s probably an older guy. I’ve been saying I’m going to come up here and see who is on the 707. I’ll find out soon enough. It’s funny now that I’ve talked to Glen I know where to find the engineers. Now I can find them to my heart’s content. But will they be as magical as Glen? I don’t’ know. I sit up here for a wile then go back to the middle planter. Doug stops me. We talk. We decide to go to the Spaghetti Factory. We sit there and don’t talk much. It’s nice just sitting here. I’m not sure I want to spend the money on food but I do anyway. It’s a weird night. I’m confused about Glen’s comfort level with me. I don’t want him to be uncomfortable. I’m mad because I have a room mate. I’m upset because of money. It’s just a weird night. It will all work out I’m just annoyed. There are no freights, the spaghetti is good, the bread knife they provide for cutting the bread is not right. It’s the wrong tool for the job, I say to Doug. We talk about me wanting to take a trip to Seattle. He thinks I should travel with my dad somewhere. I tell him we go to San Diego on his truck. Around us the hubbub of silverware, voices murmuring pleasantly, and no freights. I eat my meal in silence sometimes close to tears. He doesn’t ask me about them. “I think I scared the engineer,” I say. “So the pig mauler is scared?” he wants to know. I laugh. After the meal we head out and sit quietly till we walk to my bus and I go home. I’m okay but still fragile. I feel very fragile, not quite sure why. The only thing I can think of is that this has been such an emotional experience for me I don’t want him getting the wrong impression and the bottom line is I don’t want to lose my engineer. He is my connection to the trains. I don’t’ want him to think I’m after him if I ask him about trains. I have to ask him about trains. Lilian tells me maybe I should back off a little. Probably. But tonight there was no indication of distress. “I’m just going to leave it,” I tell Howard and Clarita. “If he wants to he can bring it up.” “It’s not her place to tell you,” Clarita says. If Glen has a problem with me or a question he should ask me or bring it up. that’s the consensus. But I can never leave well enough alone can I? I have to know. I have to straighten this up. if he won’t I’m going to. No, I should just leave it. Just be a star struck teenage railfan. Just leave it. But I can’t leave it. Saturday comes and I go to a Toastmasters meeting. I haven’t been to a Toastmasters club in over a year and a half. This is the group where I learned my public speaking skills. I am going to get involved in some of my old involvements. I have to have a place to share all my new information and learn other information from other people. I guess I’m really an information junky and that’s what bothers me most about the current crisis with the engineer. I’ll have to go find another source of information. I’ve found two. I’m sure Carrie would answer questions. But Glen is just magic. Okay I have a source of information but I don’t’ want anything coming between my information and its provider. Funny but usually it’s the man who is trying to pick up on me and I want information. Now the man is worried about me and will gladly impart information. If I can straighten him out we’re okay. But then there’s the whole thing about calling him. It stresses me out every time. It is nice at the Toastmasters meeting. I see people I haven’t talked to in over a year and meet some new people, too. I guess for me it’s all about meeting new people. But as soon as I get home I’m upset and in tears. I go into my room and lie down on my bed. My cats come up and we just lie there. Somehow when they leave I know I’m calling Glen. Okay I can’t leave this alone. I have to at least ask him about it. He can bite my head off. He can tell me to go away. He can let his voicemail answer the phone. Or he can talk to me. I don’t know what he’ll do. I grab my phone and take a deep breath. Okay I’m going to call him. I’m not even sure I hear the phone ring. “What’s up!” I say something. I don’t remember what it was. “Arguing with my wife,” he says. “Oh that’ snot a good thing.” My voice is normal. “It’s a normal thing,” he says. His manner is normal. I’m not even sure I remember what I said next. It went something like this. “Glen, I don’t want to bother you, but I wanted to call you because Mo came to me last night and talked to me. She said you called her and were asking about me.” “What did Mo tell you?” He seems surprised. “You want to hear what she told me?” “Yeah.” I barely hear Glen’s response. I pace the floor. The cats disappear. The phone rests in my hand. I’m not nervous. If I am I’m so concerned about sharing I don’t notice. Am I even holding the phone? Here’s the engineer on the phone and I’m about to tell all in short form. “She came up to me last night and said she got a phone call from Glen and said that you were asking if I knew you were married and were concerned that our whole relationship was plutonic. I wanted to give you a chance to address that and if now isn’t a good time maybe we can do it later.” “That’s why she married me,” he says. “I have a unique situation in that my wife lets me get away with answering railroad questions and being the nice guy that I am.” A voice drifts to me over the phone, a female medium range, not high, not middle, not piercing, only present. “Is that her talking?” “She’s making up other excuses,” answers the railroad engineer who started his engine service in 1970 and now sits, stand, lies, whatever he does, in an echo room in a house somewhere out in California’s desert country. Glen keeps talking. “She has 22 cats and they all have names. And she collects cans.” Now he doesn’t seem to mind talking o me about his wife. I think he realizes that my intensions are good. “Twenty-two cats?> I only have two cats.” “You need twenty more.” “Oh, no, honey. My cats run the house. The way you were flirting with Francis Chris’s guide dog I thought you’d have at least one.” “I have two birds.” “No dogs?” My daughter-in-laws has one it’s my favorite.” “Oh, I see.” Why does Glen sound so normal. He really is a nice guy. Maybe he is a little egotistical? I’ll take him. “I’ll have to talk to you later,” he says. I know this is a short conversation, I really didn’t want it to be a long one. “Okay,” I say. “It really bothers me and I was stressed out about calling you but it really bugged me and I at least wanted to ask you about it.” I can never know what to expect with Glen. Sometimes he’s straight forward and sometimes he’s just an enigma, my sweet engineer enigma. He says the kindest thing, the thing that eases my overwrought condition. It eases me significantly, dries my tears. “Don’t let it bother you,” he says. “Okay. I’ll see you when I see you. Have a nice weekend.” “Alright,” he says. The conversation is over. But it is worth it. I can never leave well enough alone. But I had to know. I had to ask him. He could have done so many things. He eased me. He’s not worried. I guess he knows now. Glen, my first and foremost locomotive engineer, my romance with the railroad, my really cool friend who likes everybody, if you are reading this, know that this essay is about you and the truth must be told at all costs. I’ll shout it from the housetops if I have to, you really are the best.
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Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |