Metrolink608: Making It Through Tuesday Walking back to the bridge tonight in the rain, I suddenly realize something. I didn’t pay much attention to the engine tonight. I paid all my attention to the engineer. “Rules class!” I text later sitting with the other group at the end of the platform. “Have a nice weekend.” Yes, you do that, Glen with the shy, pretty daughter and the reality of the railroad. You who runs the engine and threatens to torture me with the bell, you who are only trying to make it through Tuesday, you have a nice weekend. Making it through Tuesday is second nature my number one engineer. You make the whole train event for me a very fun and human experience. Losing the Race “Hello, Shelley.” Andy stands with me on the platform, suddenly appearing almost in time for Glen’s train. Monday February 1 is a pleasant winter evening (the rain comes later during the week). Right now, I wear my blue jacket, the one I should have been wearing when I had my cold and my number one engineer scolded me in his teasing way. He is such a tease. He is the best. Right now I stand here waiting, the rails shining gloriously, the trains running on time. Even 785 runs on time tonight. Shirley and Garish catch it after talking about Shirley’s boyfriend troubles and trying to have a conversation even though our station haunt, Bruce, is asking his usual questions. “Did you want to avoid talking to Bruce?” I ask. Janice and I have posited this in the café as an option. Andy doesn’t like being asked a million questions about which trains are late and who is crewing what number. “I saw you and him in there and I walked on by,” he admits. I understand completely. Bruce is a good guy but he can get annoying. Lately he asks me if Glen is on the train. He Is the one that told me about locomotive 800 last week and generally he’s a good guy but sometimes even the most interested of train fans gets impatient. I suppose all of us are quirky in some way. “Are you going to stay here with me and talk to Glen?” “I’m going to go talk to Richard,” says Andy stopping and looking behind me, walking parallel with the train that is right here now. “I don’t’ want to interrupt your love talk.” “I got him for half an hour on Sunday,” I say. “We talked about, of all things, Chatsworth.” My love talk? “They’ve stopped teasing me,” I say to Dave Norris later on that night. “Enjoy it while you can. It may come back with a vengeance.” Maybe. For now, here is my romance on the rails. But tonight there’s something different. The bell approaches, passes me, I lose my race with the bell. I come running to Glen’s window. “We have two engines tonight,” he explains. “One is putting out the AC power and the other for the motor.” :”You beat me,” I say. I think I may have to explain this again to him some time. “I lost the race. You win.” “did you work today?” he asks over the hum of two engines. “Yes,” I say, nodding. “yeah?” “Are you further up today?” “Well it’s guest mating,” he says. I don’t’ know if he’s further up or I’m further down; guess he has to think about that train brake concept, feel the train brake; better him than me. “Alright,” he says, getting his highball, leading his engines off to the Orange subdivision that will take him to Ocean side. His most grateful acquaintance, his biggest fan stands quietly on the platform, smiling, contented, confirmed by the engineer scepter. I’ve been conquered by the number one engineer. Making It Through Tuesday Glen’s locomotive squeaks badly tonight, his bell clangs stridently. There is no doubt that he is here. It has been another day, system delays, probably someone yells at me at work, or maybe not. The café conversation has been usual. We order our food, I don’t remember what it is today, but definitely it contains a Snapple Diet Peach tea and an ice-cream sandwich. The ice-cream sandwich and the tea get consumed after Glen’s train leaves out of Fullerton. I call it my “morning after” ritual. Before the ritual commences, Glen sits here, looking out his window, waiting for me. “You’re so noisy,” I tease up into that window, making eyes at him if only in my head. I’m sure I’m smiling. Wonder what he sees from there? My face? Does he know I have a mad crush on him? Sure he does. “How can he not know?” Janice asks me earlier. “Well, he is a man,” I say. Sometimes aren’t they the last to know? It’s all about the engineer, and the trains, but now I’m more comfortable with the engineer so I’m just having more fun. He doesn’t seem to mind. “That’s the idea,” says Glen in response to the noise comment. I laugh. Oh my engineer you’re so worth the wait every time. “Is it a good day up here?” I ask now. Sunday on the phone he tells me that it’s miserable working for the railroad after Chatsworth. I have a feeling he doesn’t really mean that; he loves his work even if it does get tedious at times. “So far,” he says. “Just trying to make it through Tuesday.” Hang in there.” We don’t want any engineers missing signals. Every time an engineer misses a signal, especially after Chatsworth, the media hears about it. It doesn’t matter, Dave Norris says, what his personal life was like, referring to Rob Sanchez, it shouldn’t’ affect his performance. It wouldn’t have affected any one’s opinion if the media hadn’t spread Rob Sanchez’s personal life all over for the world to see. But for here and now, Glen sits here just trying to make it through Tuesday. I think he’ll be fine. After 39 years of making it why stop now? It would have to be someone else who decided that; not him. Making it through Tuesday I think is second nature. Tortured by the Bell Wednesday, it as been a rough system day, as usual I am working overtime though I’m not scheduled and so I get out at 5:00 and make my way to the station. It’s always a nice feeling when I get here, the buses pulling in and out of the docks, the cars speeding past, keeping a close eye out for approaching traffic, feeling for my landmarks with the cane, an island, a ramp or a cobble stone pathway to the café. There’s always a little snag here or there because there are some wooden benches that are in a u shape and if I get caught in that maze I always have to navigate my way out of it. A little pathway between two planters sometimes presents a challenge. Someone always wants to help me out of my mazes but it’s a lot easier to do it myself since I know the little tricks now. I always turn down assistance in my Stand offish way. I think I need to take friendly lessons from Glen though I suspect he could get a bit nippy. I’ve seen him respond to some of the people who ask him if this is the train to Ocean Side. It’s almost like he can’t believe what they’re asking him. I understand Mr. Railroad Engineer. Maybe he’s just amused. Well, I’m not. Now in the café, making my way through the half open door, passing over the carpet in front of the ice-cream freezer, I make my way to the counter. Denis waits for me to decide what I’ll have for dinner. I decide on ham and cheese today. The usual popular songs play on the radio, the one about belonging to me I can never remember the name of it; a teenage flick about some girl in love with some guy who is with some other girl who doesn’t understand him at all. It’s the same old story in teenage terms, where it all starts, I guess. Lately they’ve been playing songs from the eighties about heartache and pain, I don’t know if I can face it again, or love lifting you up where you belong; currently, the titles escape me. Sometimes Phil Collins sings “Against All Odds.” It’s the rhythm of the café, the groups drifting in and out, the people asking where to catch the train to San Diego or LA. And Dennis telling them to get the information from the Amtrak station next door. I’m always struck by this man and not in a Glen kind of way. He just, it seems sometimes, does the bear minimum to survive here. Jose says he’s a great organizer of the bands but I think his customer service skills are lacking. Nevertheless he does his job and no one has gotten sick an that is very important. Now I sit at the table between the door and the Snapple refrigerator with Shirley and Garish. Bob and Janice are a little late today. “How’s your honey?” they ask. “Which one?” I’ve seen Carrie lately, or at least today. He, like glen, ran the coast Starlight train at one time. “Did you used to run Amtrak trains?” I ask Carrie. “Used to,” he says. “Guess I will again,” he says in reference to Amtrak’s assuming of the hiring of crews for Metrolink. Carrie calls me “young lady” glen calls me Shelley when he remembers to do that. Everyone laughs now, amused by the fact that I might have more than one engineer fling. Such flings! “Oh you mean my real honey?” I know exactly who they mean. “I’m sure he’s doing just fine.” “Shelley doesn’t know what to ask him tonight,” Janice says; she always has to inform everyone of the story. “She doesn’t want to ask him about trains,” she says. “She wants to tease him.” “What do you want to ask?” “What’s for dinner.” “Don’t ask that,” Shirley says. “He’s married isn’t’ he? Maybe his wife does the cooking.” “I don’t’ think she does that but I don’t’ know.” “Ask him if you can come over.” “No I don’t want to do that.” No one can think of a suitable thing to ask him so I’ll go back to my plan C when I can’t think of plan A or B. The question today will be How long did you run Amtrak’s Coast Starlight? So serious. So trains. Soon I get up and place my yellow bag on a chair and make my way to my usual train meet. Standing on the platform by track three, no one asks me where I’m going. The air lies lightly on my skin, my cane traces the safety line. Commuters roll their backpacks past me, a woman who has seen me standing here for a few days in a row stops to say hello without asking if I need help. She is a regular commuter on the 608. She goes to Tustin. So far I’ve met two people who regularly take the 608. One night a man comes over and asks if I know where “this is going.” Seeing my cane he immediately apologizes and backs off. Well, I don’t know where “this is going” because there’s no train, the tracks stretch out emptily. Tonight there is no such question. Perhaps a freight carrying cargo for Swift or JB Hunt, comes on track two or three. There is one freight train with a very distinctive bell; it does not sound prerecorded or pneumatic. It is a kind bell; the engineer running this bell only operates that switch for a matter of seconds and then he’s gone down the northbound tracks perhaps to the Harbor or to the Port of Los Angeles. Now Metrolink 608 clangs into hearing distance its merry little light winking against the sky, its bell slowly becoming more audible. The engine does its little dance, I sidestep the locomotive, parallel to its steel frame, powerful joints, perhaps 4400 Horsepower. It sadly is an MPI. The bell clangs noisily, its overtone series dulled by its prerecorded timbre. I prefer my engineer’s smoky voice perhaps due to cigarette usage to the discomfort of that bell. I approach the now still box, its air release signaling that the train obediently waits its turn. I reach out, stroke its grill plating, look up, greet its operator, my tease on the rails, my connection to the live knowledge that understands just how to push all the right buttons and get responses. He tells me on Sunday that computers run the locomotives, he just tells the engine what to do and if the computer fails he is powerless to do anything except reboot the computer. Oh my engineer, don’t’ worry, in my eyes you still hold the power; forget the invasive, terrible, dependent-making computers. In my starry eyes you’re the man. “You’re torturing me with that bell,” I whimper up into that window. “Love it!” says my tease, flirting with my bell sensitive sensibilities. “I’ll ring this bell forever!” “So,” I say, “You ran the Coast Starlight. How long did you run the Starlight?” he looks down, he might be confused. He wouldn’t be the only one. Here we’ve just talked about bells and now I’m asking about Amtrak? Well he can’t tease me about that bell for two minutes. I want to know something. “You did?” he says. I think he thinks I was on the Starlight. We had talked about this train on Sunday but I didn’t learn then when he ran it. “No,” I say, waving to him. “No. You. When did you run it?” “I ran it from Oakland to Santa Barbara.” This leaves me a little confused because he told me that he rebooted the computer at Oxnard but maybe he got the station wrong or I don’t remember where Oxnard is. I’ll look for it again. “That was my first train trip,” I tell him. “How far?” “To Eugene. My grandmother would pick us up from the station.” “That’s a nice ride,” he says. He likes that phrase. “Through the Cascades.” Yes it is a nice ride Mr. Engineer. Rob Sanchez ran that train, too, and so did Carrie. So now I’ve talked to two engineers who ran my childhood train even before I was interested in trains and know the name of one who did; the name of one who was, in glen’s words, “out of control.” “Alright,” says my number one engineer, getting his highball. He coaxes that engine into compliance. “See you later,” he says. He knows you’re coming back, Janice says to me afterwards. He knows. Yes he knows and he knows I won’t let him torture me with that bell. Selfish Girl “Are you coming with me over to the other side?” Andy, Janice and Shelley stand over on the north side of the tracks, talking about one of the fans who is as obsessed with trains as Bruce is. He knows all the names of all the crews, who will be bidding what route, and possibly who will be in what position next. At least it seems like he knows all of them. His name is Peter. If he doesn’t know then we all find out eventually, but tonight he knows everything about everyone’s train. When he and Bruce sit together talking in the café, an event which does not happen often, it is a spectacle. I think they talk over each other, maybe their conversations relate but then again maybe not. Tonight I mercifully escape the café conversation and go to find them. The conversation shifts to the present situation. “Was Carrie doing okay getting in an out of here?” I ask. Andy’s job description includes checking to make sure the crews are on schedule. “He’s just fine,” Andy says. Weeks ago he teases Carrie asking “is she bothering you?” Carrie is a little more responsive when he pushes that throttle forward, he’ll say “take care” whereas Glen is not so responsive that way. It’s okay; it’s two different men, two different relationships, two different adventures. I haven’t seen Carrie’s train meet lately, I’ll have to ask him where she is. I make it over there when I can, my work schedule doesn’t always allow it. Sometimes when I get to the café I’m so tired from my day I need to just sit and debrief. “She’ll be awake by the time it’s time to see Glen,” Janice says once when I just sit there chilling out, relaxing, taking it all in. She’s right, of course, but then that’s why this whole thing started. By the time Glen’s train gets here I’m ready for it. He’s the lucky one. I think I’m the lucky one. It’s harder talking to Carrie than to Glen. Carrie seems not to be able to hear me sometimes. I’m not sure why that is. Glen hears me most of the time, I’m the one who loses his words, though I’ve lost less of them lately. Never mind that. Tonight Andy checks to see if Carrie is on schedule and he passes the test. “You’re not going over to talk to Glen with me?” I ask. “No. I’ve been over there enough,” he says. No one wants to go over and talk to Glen with me. Janice knows I’m running a little late tonight and says she can’t go over to see him because I’m here now. “I was going to go over there but here you are,” she says. Hey, I don’t have exclusive rights to Glen. It seems none of them want to interrupt my “love talk.” Suit yourself! I’ll take the engineer all to myself! And so I do. Sneaking away I make my way over the bridge. “What are you looking for?” someone asks me. “The bar,” says a familiar voice. It is Simon the sleeper car attendant on number 4. “The bar?” I say, waving. “No. I’m looking for love.” “Well, then you better go get Larry,” he says. Larry Is the one who asks me if I’m a gold digger; the one who is the most sensual in his teasing of my relationship with Glen. “Well,” I now say, “by the time the engineer gets done torturing me with his bell I’m going to need the bar.” “Violate rule G?” asks Dave Norris later. “Sure and I’m taking the engineer with me.” Rule G states that train crews will not be intoxicated or under the influence of alcohol while in operation of their trains. Now that would get Glen into big trouble! For now I head over to the other side, waiting. Trains are late. By the time I reach the other side, Metrolink 707 north to Los Angeles is late and 785 is a little late, but shows up. Number 4 will most likely be on time. Carrie’s train, metrolink 606, is on time so I doubt if 608 will be late. Here comes 608, kind, sweet, finally hailing me with that gentle bell. I approach, confident in my invitation to that cab. “It’s about time.” “I know,” says its quiet engineer. “Not you,” I assure, “the engine.” “I know,” he says again. “We’re having issues tonight.” There are issues, possibly signal ones. But I don’t want him to tell me about them. Instead I want to tell him about my morning. All day I’ve wanted to tell him about some small little thing. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” I ask. “Yeah,” he draws out. It may be the signal issues, it may be the hours, it may be something else. Glen is ready for Friday. “It was hard to get up this morning,” I say, finally laying the heaviest burden on my engineer’s shoulders. I think he does have a daughter; a shy, pretty daughter, my source tells me. “The cats got me up.” “Yeah?” he says, maybe responding like he would to that shy, pretty daughter. Maybe just responding like he normally would. No train questions today though I do have one stored in the back of my head. We don’t have time for questions. “What is your question?” Andy asks me later. “It’s silly,” I say, “But I want to know which hand operates the throttle.” Andy chuckles. “See, you’re laughing!” “It’s a good question,” he says. Now, Glen doesn’t know my question; he will eventually. There’s no time to ask it. Richard gives him the highball and we say goodbye. Glen rings his gentle bell, I stand, waving, walking up a few steps for one more pass at that window. The cars slide past, the engineer disappears from sight and sound, stops that bell, pulls that five car train along the steel rails. I turn and make my way back to the bridge. “Why is he ready for tomorrow?” someone asks me over the bridge. “I don’t’ know,” I say. Mostly likely he’s ready because it’s Friday, is my thought. “Maybe he has a hot date.” “You have his phone number,” Andy says. Why don’t you give him a rangy dingy and find out?” “I don’t’ want him to feel like I’m overwhelming him,” I say. Yes, I think these people on the station platform are in their second adolescence now. They like a good station fling. Is that what I’m having? I’ll take it; a responsible one. Remember, it’s all Janice’s fault. I just know tonight I’m selfish because I wanted to tell him it was hard to get up today. But hey, I did it and we’re both here. I could call out tomorrow, I think. But Glen wouldn’t do that; he’s had perfect attendance for fifteen years, he says. I want to be like Glen when I grow up. Rules Class Friday is perhaps the best day this week, not because it’s Friday, but because the bands are cancelled. The rain storm that comes in causing mud slides and mandatory home evacuations through La Crescenta, where Rob Sanchez lived, and La Canada Flintridge, shows up around 11:00 AM. Perhaps Glen is sleeping curled up like a cat by now. I’m on my way to lunch at Subway, getting ready for the second part of my day. The rain is steady, wet, ever present, gentle, refreshing, invigorating. By the time I get off work at 4:45 I know it is going to be a good station day. I make my way into the café now, the rain steady, the music the same, the place empty. The rain will drive even the station faithful away. Dan might come, it seems the last time it rained on a Friday he came and looked for people but didn’t find anyone. I was on the bridge. Everyone else was at home. Tonight I order a grilled cheese sandwich and sit there eating and texting Melanie. Melanie is the eleven year-old girl who keeps up a steady flow of text messages. This week I’ve texted her at 5:30 AM. Her alarm goes off at 5:00 she says. She has to get things done, she says, allowing herself two hours and 45 minutes to accomplish all her morning tasks, whatever they might be. Sometimes sitting here waiting for the bus in the morning I’ll text Glen. “Have a nice Friday,” I text last night. “You deserve it.” But now I’m not texting the engineer. I text the girl and eat and then make my way out to the bridge to see what happens. Some of the trains are late, most are on time. The bridge is quiet. The rain comes in sideways through the grill plating. This is a perfect place to train watch in the rain. Tonight it’s perfect because it is sheltered, no one is here, and I am refreshed. It is Friday, it is raining, and the bands are cancelled. “Rain on the bridge at fullerton. Two engineers. One love,” I text to my Facebook profile. Two engineers, two answers to the same question, probably. Since no one is here to tease me tonight, something I appreciate from time to time, I make my way over to see Carrie. His train pulls in right where Glen takes it. “How are you, young lady?” he says. I don’t talk to Carrie much so it doesn’t bother me that he calls me young lady. He must be used to talking to fans on the platform; Amtrak engineers do this with much more frequency than Metrolink engineers. They have longer to wait at station stops. When I first rode the coast Starlight I never thought of people talking to engineers on the platform. Heck, I never thought when Curly proposed to me on the benches behind track three, the place I meet Glen during the week, that I’d be talking to engineers. Guess it just goes to show you what you never know about life. Well, here I am now, talking to two Metrolink engineers, both experienced with Amtrak. They know how to talk to fans on the platform. “Do you have any plans for the weekend?” Carrie asks. He must be used to asking this question. “Just to catch up on everything that didn’t get done last weekend. Maybe find a place to watch the Super Bowl. You?” I think Glen has taught me to ask this question, or at least to reciprocate. So I had to go to school in order to increase my earning potential, and then go to the railroad engineers to teach me how to have conversations with people? Maybe they need to be working for Disney and I need to work for the railroad since I tend to be the quiet one and they know how to have the conversations. If I say I’m shy everyone will start laughing. Wonder if the engineers think I’m shy. Maybe I just save my energy for the people I want to talk to. I don’t’ think anyone thinks I’m shy. “Are you going to watch the Super Bowl?” I ask Carrie. “I’ll find some place to watch it,” he says. Now it’s time to go. Carrie pushes forward on the throttle, holds back just a minute, a woman rushes down the stairs. “Where are you going to?” he asks. It’s the same thing he asked me the one night I waited for Glen’s train. “Santa Ana,” she says. Carrie hesitates for a moment, much like Glen did when I didn’t understand what he said to me about being delayed by a freight on our second vocal try. Carrie now pushes that throttle forward and takes that train away. Maybe she just didn’t seem like she knew where she was going. Carrie hurries off to his weekend. I make my way back to the bridge, waiting for Glen’s train. No freights pass tonight. Noone teases me. I just stand there thinking. Now I’ve come to the station to do what I wanted to do months ago. I know how to do it now. I know how to get the attention of the engineers. But I’m still attached to Glen; he’s my first, he’s the best. Tonight he proves it. Time passes, the rain falls, the place is quiet. It’s while I wait for the 608 that I notice the 707 is late. What I notice tonight as I stand there without my teasing patio faithful is that I don’t need them to tease me. I don’t need them to give me a reason to come over here. I enjoy the trains; I enjoy forming the relationships with the engineers. People tell me it’s the conductor most people want to know; not me, I want to know the engineers. Obviously not everyone is as responsive as Glen; perhaps Carrie isn’t even as responsive, but they both respond. It’s like, I think later, smiling just a little, my two cats. They’re both so different an both so fun. I lean against the rail, texting, smiling, waiting. No freights pass; an engine comes through the station all by itself. The two note midrange comforting sound of its horn drifts to anyone listening here through the misting rain. Heavy, moist air, wet drizzly condensation collects on the concrete in puddles, drips from the overhangs, gathers on the railing in little droplets, cleaning the air, energizing this star struck railfan. The romance of the rails is appealing tonight, though the very engineer I admire and hold in the highest regard reminds me last week that working for the railroad isn’t always so romantic. “They’ve tested us so much,” he says last Sunday to me on the phone, “that I can’t wait not to work for the railroad anymore. It’s miserable,” he says. Tonight, standing in the rain waiting for him, I think of this. If my head is in the clouds, perhaps his is not. Nothing is ever easy or fun all the time, I suppose. It all comes back to making it through Tuesday. “It’s not fun anymore,” he says to me last week. But he shows up. Love is a strange thing. Love is a hard taskmaster, I suppose. The rails are alluring and the history and politics, scandals, rules, regulations, and romance all make it a very human profession even if some of the human factor has been taken out of it. But tonight, after I make my way across the bridge again, I realize that there still is very much a human factor in the railroad. Perhaps on some level one can never take the human factor out of anything. The conversation I have with Glen is very human; not long, not profound, just human; no tech talk, no computer complaints, no information about what train is on its way. I make my way down the stairs to await his train. I wonder if it will arrive after number 4 since I hear the announcement for it as I find my position, tracing the car marker with my foot. No one stops me tonight. No one asks me any questions. The woman who goes to Tustin appears, coming off the 707 which now appears around 7:00 on the tracks. Four weeks ago the 608 waited for the 707. This week perhaps the 608 is a few minutes late in order to let people from the 707 catch it. Metrolink 608 is the last Metrolink through the station. They don’t wait for each other too many times, but occasionally they do. Now 608 pulls in, the engine quiet, the bell kind to me. “Are you standing out here in the rain?” asks its engineer. “Yeah.” I approach to hear him more clearly. He hangs out his window, looking at me. “I love it. It’s refreshing,” I say. “I want to go play in the puddles.” I’ve wondered what he’s going to say about me standing in the rain. He doesn’t say “what’s up” he just asks me if I’m standing in the rain. “Yeah?” he questions. Why is he so quiet tonight? Is he weary? Is it just that he doesn’t have to yell at me over the clatter of an engine? Maybe he just recognizes me; I’m a friend now; or at least someone he would recognize on the street and probably say hello to. He’s just a friendly guy with a shy, pretty daughter half my age. “You’ll get pneumonia,” he says, still quietly. Ok now I can’t decide if he’s teasing or serious. That’s a little dramatic for just standing in the rain. Several responses come to my head. I stand back a little, thinking. “Wood you miss me?” I want to say. No, that sounds like I’m flirting and would just confuse him. What does getting pneumonia have to do with missing me? “Would you come see me?” I want to say. No, that really sounds like flirting and that would indicate I would have to spend time in the hospital. I better not say that. “Well,” I finally say. “I guess that’s the chance you have to take, sometimes.” Well, if I enjoy standing in the rain, I think to myself later, I guess I should have to pay the consequences. Besides, my academic training tells me, I can’t get pneumonia from standing in the rain anyway. He’s just teasing. He sure is quiet. “Are you off working at Disneyland tomorrow?” I think that’s what he says. I don’t know if I’m standing too far back or if he’s just quiet. I walk right up to the train so I’m not really far from him. “Yeah,” I say, hoping that’s what he asked me. “Are you sleeping in tomorrow?” His vocal projections sound interested; he has the quality of making me think he’s interested in everything I say, at least most of the time, when his attention isn’t focused elsewhere. Right here, right now, it’s focused on me. “Yeah,” I say, an then wave. “You?” “No,” he draws out, “I have rules class.” “What?” “Rules class.” Once a year crews go through what’s called block training. They get the update on all the new rules and regulations on the rails. I wonder if he still thinks running the rails is miserable. Chris in Chatsworth tells me there are a lot of new rules and regulations. Guess I’ll have to ask Glen when I see him again just what he thinks. “Rules class!” I say as he gently caresses that engine. He doesn’t say goodbye; I don’t think he does. I don’t remember now. “Bye,” I say, I’m sure he doesn’t hear me, but I walk forward and wave, sending him on his way to rules class. Walking back to the bridge tonight in the rain, I suddenly realize something. I didn’t pay much attention to the engine tonight. I paid all my attention to the engineer. “Rules class!” I text later sitting with the other group at the end of the platform. “Have a nice weekend.” Yes, you do that, Glen with the shy, pretty daughter and the reality of the railroad. You who runs the engine and threatens to torture me with the bell, you who are only trying to make it through Tuesday, you have a nice weekend. Making it through Tuesday is second nature my number one engineer. You make the whole train event for me a very fun and human experience.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |