Storymania - Metrolink708: Train Orders For The Court by Shelley J Alongi

Metrolink708: Train Orders For The Court
Shelley J Alongi

“Bye,” I call out cheerily as I walk to the bricks and place my cane on the safety line parallel to the railroad tracks. I turn and quickly make my way to the bus.

“See you,” chimes in perhaps my future attorney, who may possibly defend me from the wolves trying to take entirely too much of my pay check. I have my plan. I’m bringing my pay checks and my bills to show as evidence to those who would say that my expenses are too excessive. What will he say? I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough since my papers are in his hands. This just goes to show me that I should never say never. I will never work as a reservations sales agent. That is my current title. I will not get a room mate. Now I’m fighting to keep the one I’ve got. I will not ever hire an attorney. I might do that. Oh yeah and I will never be interested in trains. Fifteen years ago I didn’t want to be the railroad club secretary because I just didn’t have time for trains. Now they are my life, they squeeze themselves into the little holes between projects. And I never thought I’d e talking to railroad engineers. Those are just the guys that hold us up and make us late for everything whether you’re in a car waiting for the train to slowly back up and take forever, or if you’re trying to get somewhere and you have to sit and wait for a freight. Yeah miss star struck love sick adolescent rail fan, never say never!

A Break for All My Engineers

The trips to the fullerton station this week and for the next two are and will be sporadic but they will always be interesting. Disney likes me. I’m getting between 35 an 40 hours a week now when some have been cut because it’s summer, I get full shifts. They may be quiet shifts. I’ll take them. I may have time to do more research online about trains, that is if we can go to the web sites. I am in the middle of several big projects at home. My pay check has been garnished for the last four months. That is another long story. I’m hoping the attorney who hangs with us at the train station can help and if he can’t maybe he can recommend someone who can help. I’ve called him and mailed him all my paper work. I’ll tell you what he says if he tells me. We don’t talk about it at the train station. The trains station for me is a place for distressing lately. The garnishment issue, losing the social security disability check, the struggle to pay the rent every month, maybe having to get another room mate, I really don’t’ want to, this one is fine, and maybe putting another person on the lease who can sleep here two nights a week and go home the rest of the week will help. We shall see how all that turns out. IN the meantime I have some papers to get together like pay stubs, maybe receipts since I am the one who asked for the hearing. I got my day in court. I wasn’t going to take this to an attorney, I can’t afford one. funny thing is I know one from my Toastmasters involvement, but it’s the one from the train station I ask to help. I hope he will. Over the next two weeks I have regular shifts, the week of August 22 through 28 I have earlier shifts so I’ll be able to get down early and do my engineer hunting. I think that bobby told me that the routes change next week. We will see. It may be up to Glen to help me with my speech. Between getting papers together, preparing the next issue of the NFB magazine ready for distribution, getting an audio transcript to work on, working forty hours, and amusing cats, I will see if I still have engineers to hunt. If I don’t, there will be new ones. I hope the weather stays mild.

Train Orders for the court

Last week it was Thursday, or was it Wednesday, I approach the eastern end of the platform. Robert the attorney is talking about some car kit, engaging the attention of Larry the car show guy, that’s what I call him. Dave says good evening to me.” Albert is going home to practice his Spanish. He’s in his eighties. He is from Argentina. He doesn’t need to practice his Spanish. It is only a joke. He watches Spanish TV at home to practice Spanish, he says. He’s always wanting me to sit down somewhere on a bench. I always climb up onto my perch so I can see the trains. You can see the trains from the benches but somehow sitting up there next to a pillar and beside a bench, the wrought iron bars stretching behind me, I feel snug and secure and settle in for a long train watching session. Maybe it’s just easier to wave from this position. I can stand down by the tracks, turn the engineers heads with my dazzling smile and my broken tooth. I haven’t had a manicure for a while, but last week I went and got one out of pure necessity. I have been so stressed about money that I don’t have money to get a manicure. But last week I had money. I said you know I’m going to go do this and so now I’m ready to wave, again.

“I got a manicure,” I tell Dave “Now I can’t bite my nails.”

“You can bite them,” he says. Yeah, okay but I want my engineers to see my pretty hands, and when I go to court I might as well look like I care about my hands. But mostly it’s for the engineers. Now if I can just stop biting my lips. I’ve done that since I was a child. I’ll work on that next.

No matter. When I arrive at the east end of the platform and Robert is holding forth about something in usual animated fashion, the weather is mild. The conversation shifts to the new school year. Tom is back. Already, he says, five days into the school year, there is an angry parent who is demanding a meeting with a teacher and the principal. The school year isn’t a week old and there’s already trouble. John another teacher talks about someone committing sodomy with a student or something in his day. Robert has gone to walk Ninja the dog who barks at trains to her usual spot for relief. He comes back. Ninja, the black lab, walks beside him, curls up on her spot on the platform.

“We kicked their ass!” he proudly proclaims. In other words, he has won a case! A week or two ago he said he once got his rear end handed to him by a judge. Yeah, I think I can work with this guy. We’ll see how it goes.

The conversation drifts again amid the passersby being observed rolling carts, a guy on a bike with a basket collecting cans, a child, a couple, Kathy and her husband whose name escapes me, I think it’s Lynn come by. They like to watch the slab train. The slab train gets a lot of attention. The cars are loaded with hunks and slabs of steel headed who knows where. They usually come from the Harbor they might be heading to Barstow, our lovely downtown Barstow. Barstow is a high desert town named after William Barstow a Santa Fe stationmaster. Did he know his name would get so much defamation? Now everybody knows it. It is a major stopping point for trains. Engineers and cars switch here. Mike, one of the guys who hangs with us works as a switchman in the Barstow switching yard. Chris, the guy who drove me home a few times, might go to work for a switching yard, but not Barstow. It might be at Hobart, the place trains pass everyday going to Los Angeles Union Station. Glen once announced approaching Hobart in his signal calling voice; rough, confident, the best. Engineers, says Chris, make $93.00 a day. Engineers, I repeat to the patio faithful once, make $193.00 a day. No, I correct, I mean $93.00 a day. Everyone laughs, including norm the freight engineer. “I need to find a job like that,” he says. Don’t’ we all!

We all sit on the benches or stand by the tracks watching as lineups for westbound and eastbound traffic alert the faithful to their imminent appearance on assigned track age. Larry the car show guy laughs at something only he is amused by; it’s hard to know sometimes what he finds amusing about things. I’m not amused by anything or maybe I’m just sitting here chilling out after a long day at work trying to keep everything together. I drop a full, open can of Diet Cherry pepsi behind the iron bars into the gravel that lines the cage where cars have been sitting for a while under restoration. No cars sit here tonight when I do this. Speculation abounds about where those cars are going; some New York railroad or other destinations present themselves as possibilities.

Someone has a question for the attorney. What is the punishment for sodomy in California. Seems like it’s still an offense, a first time offender can get put away for a lot of years he says. I sit and listen, quietly observe, studiously I avoid bringing up my particular situation. If he is to help me then it will be attorney and client privilege. I don’t really want to talk about any of that stuff here anyway. It must be Wednesday when we have this whole conversation because today Laurie has mailed papers for me. She used to work for an attorney years ago before becoming a church secretary. Now she holds the originals of my documents and wants me to have them just in case something happens to them while in her possession. But today she has mailed them and now I sit here wanting to tell him. I will email him when I get home. There are trains to watch and political discussions to have, angry parents to appease, dogs to relieve and to amuse.

“Does she like being petted?” I ask Dave Norris who always seems to give plenty of attention to Ninja. Curt calls her the black dog. It’s the guy with the black dog, the guy who takes all the pictures, he says. Robert does wander between groups much like I do, finding tidbits of conversation with different people in the station. He does take a lot of pictures. Now he stands down here with us talking about the consequences of sodomy.

“She’s more intent on finding food,” Dave answers my question about the black dog. I laugh. I understand that. I have cats like that. I’m not a dog person, but I understand the endless quest for food. I smile.

I relax. The cool mild summer night, the shining tracks, the sounds of sirens as they pass on the street outside mingle with the occasionally drifting cadences of high to midrange music from somewhere. It could come from anywhere, the buildings across the tracks, the car speakers in the parking lot just behind us. Soon my phone sounds its warning. I have ten minutes to catch a bus home. I would stay later. Maybe I will. I have gotten here later today and I don’t’ have to be at work till 11:15 tomorrow morning. Dave’s feet are getting cold, someone else says goodbye. I get up and hoist my red monogrammed bag to my shoulder. I have decided that I wil go home early; I do have many things to get done on the computer before calling it a night. Many, many things.

“Bye,” I call out cheerily as I make my way to my bus.

“See you,” chimes in perhaps my future attorney, who may possibly defend me from the wolves trying to take entirely too much of my pay check. I have my plan. I’m bringing my pay checks and my bills to show as evidence to those who would say that my expenses are too excessive. What will he say? I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough since my papers are in his hands. This just goes to show me that I should never say never. I will never work as a reservations sales agent. That is my current title. I will not get a room mate. Now I’m fighting to keep the one I’ve got. I will not ever hire an attorney. I might do that. Oh yeah and I will never be interested in trains. Fifteen years ago I didn’t want to be the railroad secretary because I just didn’t have time for trains. Now they are my life, they squeeze themselves into the little holes between projects. And I never thought I’d be talking to railroad engineers. It seems for the next two weeks they have a break from talking to me. Those are just the guys that hold us up and make us late for everything whether you’re in a car waiting for the train to slowly back up and take forever, or if you’re trying to get somewhere and you have to sit and wait for a freight. Yeah miss star struck love sick adolescent rail fan, never say never!