Conversations With Glen: Engineer Of My Dreams It is a rare moment, this Saturday July 31, this conversation with Glen, and now it closes. Glen goes back to his wife and daughter and his grueling task of running trains from Lancaster to Los Angeles. I go back to my life; trying to figure out where to go from here, how to pay the bills, and writing my book. I go back to my railfans, my switch keys, my cats, and quiet, calm, gentle cool summer nights. I go back to my life and await the next time. He says he�ll help me. He hasn�t run away. He�s still here when I can get him. He is the best. I thank him for his time. �I will call you back,� he says. Somehow I know he won�t. It doesn�t matter. He has answered my question of the day. He really is the best. He is the right one. He�s the engineer of my dreams. �What�s up?� The words trail through the phone, that sweet greeting from sweet magical Glen, a phone call I�ve been anticipating and finally gotten, maybe perhaps because of persistence. It is sweet, magical petulant Glen calling from somewhere, maybe the bank where he says he has to go earlier and maybe somewhere else. �How much time do you have for us to talk to me?� I want to know. I don�t� want to gush forth like an overactive fountain if he only has five minutes. He has called me, after weeks of texting on my part, a message here and there. �I please need your help for a speech I am giving about train engineers on August 28. More when I get you. Cary will help, too.� I�ve told him I will call in July, then two weeks ago I say I�ll call in two weeks. This latest text message is an accounting for me, I think. Maybe I won�t call him in July. Maybe it will be more like August. I haven�t had time to go online and research my speech ideas. I only know that on August 28 I am giving a speech for my Toastmasters and it will be about train engineers. If I text Glen It�s because when I say I�m going to call or I let someone know what I�m doing it makes me accountable and I have to follow up on my promise to the texted individual. In this instance the texted individual is my first locomotive engineer and as usual, if I am patient, he is awesome. So now, that famous greeting usually shouted down from a high perch in a locomotive cab now drifts to me over my maroon cell phone, Glen�s gruff, kind, finally I�m yours if only for five minutes, voice. It comforts, caresses, calls. So what do I ask the engineer of my dreams? First, about five minutes earlier, I ask him where he is. All morning I�ve been typing something or working on something, I don�t� know what it is, there are so many things to choose from now it�s hard to remember what I�m doing. I have my new Pampered Chef stuff to do, toastmasters minutes, writing, is it email? I have no idea. I only know I�ve told Glen I would call him today and so I must if only to keep a promise. What am I so afraid of? Curt says introverts are the ones who are nervous talking to individuals but great with crowds; that�s kind of me though not completely. MY Pampered chef director says I�m good at reaching out and finding out who people are. I have to have something to present to them. I definitely have something to present to Glen, the engineer who has been running trains forty years come September 30, 2010. It was thirty-nine years last September when he leaned out of his window making contact with the star struck adolescent railfan. Yeah, that would be me. Now, today, I pick up my phone, my heart isn�t so jumpy, I�ve had two weeks to psych myself into this phone call. It�s funny, the other engineers don�t make me like this; I can talk to Bobby or Carey. Carey says he�ll help me with my toastmasters speech. Bobby says he would have sold me his switch keys when I show him my collection of brass railroad keys. He tells me he�s kidding, of course. He knows my name and uses it. Glen, my favorite engineer, just says what�s up, and then answers my question like a good little engineer, a sweet engineer. I hold my phone, it rings but I really don�t hear it. Funny, I�m not nervous. I wont� be nervous I tell myself. The phone rings again. I won�t be nervous. Suddenly the phone isn�t going to voicemail. I hear something stat icky, echo. �yeah.� Its glen! He doesn�t sound annoyed or anything, he just sounds like glen, almost as if he�s expecting my call. �Glen?� I have peanut butter in my mouth, his name chokes its way out, it is three months of tears an texting and curiosity and missing him and sweet anguish all in one word. �Yeah.� Nothing has changed. It�s his typical response. I wonder if he hears my drama. I don�t care. He�s hear. �Where are you?� Why did I ask him that? Is it any of my business? He�s on the phone talking to me. That�s where he is. �Home,� he says. It�s the signal calling voice, almost as if he�s surprised at such a simple question from the train-ravaged engineer girl. He doesn�t know about the other freight babies or the fascination for running the train that coarsest through me. Or is it the engineer? �What are you doing?� I�m not sure why I ask that. His words are echo, choppy, not understandable. �What? Let me go into the bedroom.� The fan is on in the dining room and maybe that�s blocking progress here. I go into my room, stand by my bed. It sounds like he says something about keys. �What was that?� I say. �Brushing my teeth.� Glen is so patient. Maybe he�s got toothpastes in his mouth. There�s a visual that�s both romantic and overwhelming. Do locomotive engineers brush their teeth? Of course they do, silly girl! �Oh!� I�m not sure where to go from here. I almost need a lectern to stand behind to make myself more comfortable and then suddenly I realize that I�m not nervous. I�m just standing here talking to the engineer of my dreams. I can do this! Then it�s the usual script. Glen wants to call me back. I wonder if he will. He says he�ll call me back in a couple of minutes. But five minutes later I call him because I�m not sure if he said to call him or he�d call me. He says no he�s getting dressed, he has to go to the bank then he�ll have time to talk. Allright, well, at least I tried. I�m sitting at the computer, the phone rings. It�s Beverly. She is coming to look at the apartment; she might spend a couple of nights a week here with us. I�ve wanted to set up an appointment for her to look at the place if she is on her way back to San Bernardino. Friday night we�ve had a conversation about this and so today she says she�ll drop by. When she says that I wonder the whole morning if she means it. I�ve spent the first two waking hours stressing about the rent because I have to go talk to the landlord about what options I have available and can I pay late. I do this every month. I�ve done it for twenty years but this has been especially difficult. This morning after worrying about that I�ve gotten dressed and gotten to work on all y various activities and now here I am standing in my living room holding the lightweight maroon rectangular box that has become my connection to people I never thought I�d meet, ever. It rings again. It is Glen! I can�t believe it. He called me back. He really is the bestest engineer ever! �Glen! I�m going to write this down. Glen called me back.� His name isn�t pushed out through layers of peanut butter. This time it is a sweet caress. So is this about the train? The engineer? Or glen? Wait, it gets better. But first things first. �that�s right,� he affirms. So how much time do you have for us for you to talk to me? Do you have Time to entertain me? I have questions and I need something fun!� �I am here with my wife and my daughter should have been here fifteen minutes ago,� he says. �So you�re writing a book? this is classic Glen; cheerful, curious, interested, expressive. �Writing a book. Well,� I can�t tell him a year�s story in five or ten minutes. �Yes I�m writing a book but this is for a speech I�m giving on August 28.� �Where?� Am I having this conversation with Glen? Richard said his name, the woman who went with me to the train said his name and now here I am a year later on the phone with him. My life is strange and wonderful and dramatic, sweet, stressful and supremely awesome. Sometimes the opportunities I get amaze me. Did I ever think I would be on the phone with someone who runs that lovely hunk of steel? Steel. That�s my engineer�s name. Anyway, I�ve only got him for so long so I can�t stand here and go gaga and waste his or my time, especially since now Beverly shows up and I beg her to wait. �I�m on the phone with my locomotive engineer who never calls so give me a few minutes.� I know it won�t be long so I better enjoy it to the fullest. �What are you doing today?� asks my engineer. What kind of question is that? A simple one, I suppose. �Today is catch-up day,� I say. Glen starts reading to me from a flyer or circular about a memorial taking place at the Playhouse in Pasadena for Metrolink employees who are remembering the twenty-five people who died in Chatsworth and gathering to remember them and hopefully �not experience another Chatsworth.� It�s at 5:30 and if I can get someone to drive, he says, I can go; but then I can�t go because, he discovers as he�s reading it, it�s only for Metrolink employees. �will you be there?� �No. It wouldn�t be appropriate for me to be there.� So they�re going to give a memorial for that guy? There wont� be another Chatsworth if they put their phones down.� These words trail through the phone to the man holding the paper reading it to me. How did I get such a sensitive kind engineer? �Well,� I explain, not willing to explain, �We won�t go there.� He doesn�t know Rob�s picture hangs here on the wall above the computer as I write down these memories. �What question do you have?� it seems he asks. Beverly sits patiently on my couch. �Lay it on me!� Wow, what an invitation. Lay it on him, eh? Well, I don�t have a whole lot of time but I�ll lay it on him if he wants. �So how do you become an engineer?� I�m really not nervous. �Well things have changed. Now you hire in as an assistant conductor, take Amtrak for an example. You have to work your way up and then qualify on a run; go to school and then you�re on your own. I hired in on September 30, 1970, off the street, as a fireman.� I remember him looking at me back in September of 2009 and saying �I hired in engine service for the Santa Fe in 1970.� Dave Norris told me he probably did hire in as a fireman.� My engineer continues his explanation. �then I had thirty days to qualify. I went to Barstow to school for five weeks ad then qualified on the Cajon pass you know the hill?� �yeah.� I know that hill because everyone tells me about it. So that�s where engineers qualify is it? �When Amtrak took over,� he explains now, �we all had to take the nut test.� �The what?� �The nut test.� �That�s what I thought you said. I laugh. Glen has just stripped the Meyers Briggs test, if that�s the one he�s talking about, of all its academic splendor and left it writhing on the floor in shame. The nut test. It brings me a chuckle. �They�re looking for introverts.� I never can picture Glen using that word but okay. He used it. �The failure rate was pretty high.� �Are you an introvert?� No, Glen says, he is not. I knew that. I guess anyone who yells out his locomotive cab window �She likes trains� can�t be called an introvert. �Glen is kind of high-strung,� Mikey says one cool July night at the east end of the platform. �When he retires he will drive his wife crazy.� Maybe so. He makes me smile. He makes me feel all jumpy inside because he runs the train and takes my questions seriously. When I can get him, he is worth the wait every time. �why are they looking for introverts?� I want to know, standing in my living room listening intently. �They think they make the best engineers.� �You would thaink,� I posit in all my newfound railfanness, �that they would be looking for someone who gets up in the morning and shows up for work.� �That�s a start.� I�m not sure what glen thinks of my statement. His answer is low and quiet, that �we�ll talk again� quality permeating my phone. Maybe he�s just surprised as if I�ve just stated the obvious. If Glen only new how many people I know who just don�t want to show up for work. And then, maybe somedays sweet Glen doesn�t want to show up for work. And somehow, he always does. The conversation draws to a close, soon. I guess his daughter shows up. He�s still on the Antelope Valley line. I go into my bedroom for some reason, not sure why. �Glen, you know you are the best right?� I tell him. �I guess you�ve figured out I�m not going away. I keep telling you you�re the best.� �My wife never told me that.� It�s the combination signal calling, talking to his daughter and to the railfan who had a stressful day, and are you standing in the rain quality, all Glen�s personality wrapped up in that sentence. �Well, you tell her,� I am insistent now, reminding me of my mother somehow, �she better start telling you that. You tell her Shelley said.� It is a rare moment, this conversation with Glen, and now it comes to an end on this cool, comfortable July Saturday. Glen goes back to his wife and daughter and his grueling task of running trains from Lancaster to Los Angeles and back again. I go back to my life; trying to figure out where to go from here, how to pay the bills, and writing my book. I go back to my railfans, my switch keys, my cats, and quiet, calm, gentle cool summer nights. I go back to my life and await the next time. He says he�ll help me. He hasn�t run away. He�s still here when I can get him. He is the best. I thank him for his time. �I will call you back,� he says. Somehow I know he won�t. It doesn�t matter. He has answered my question of the day. He really is the best. He is the right one. He�s the engineer of my dreams.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |