Metrolink708: Being There Tomorrow
Shelley J Alongi

 

“Are you going to be here tomorrow?” The engineer John on the 608 keeps asking me this.

“I’ve got a crush on you sweetie pie,” Andy the Metrolink agent intones on Tuesday April 27, as I let them know what the engineer on Metrolink 608 said to me.

“I love that song,” I reply, gathering my newest addition to my bag collection, a gray and black designer bag that says “Liz and Company” on it. It is a monstrous thing with feet, a cross between a book bag and beach bag, I think. It has plenty of spots for credit cards and a cell phone, a zipper middle compartment and two open ones with a shoulder handle that isn’t flexible but that makes the bag rest more securely on the hip.

“they lied,” Shirley says when I say that Megan at work says I could fit in this bag. Maybe I’m going to pack up an engineer and take him home with me someday, you think? Well, I know one thing, unlike glen, he would get some home cooking.

I don’t’ know how long I’ll have this bag with me but former I do and it works so far. Of course it also holds a new straw purse that I thought I had to have and so now I gather it preparing to go out with the patio faithful to watch train 4.

“Old blue eyes,” he says.

“I have the Ella Fitzgerald version,” I respond.

“I asked him if there were people walking on the tracks up there and he said yeah. Idiot, I said and he said “”I know.””

Andy laughs at this. Tonight, Tuesday, Curt can’t describe this engineer, he is speechless. John is the extra on the 608 and he says something about Anaheim.

“Why would he tell me about Anaheim?” I say. “Does he want me to meet him there?”

“Maybe,” Andy says who likes teasing me about my interest in meeting railroad engineers. “Where the surf meets the turf,” he says. Okay I don’t think so but okay. Curt says he looks like the kind of guy who would sit at a café listing to grunge music. He’s a younger guy he explain. He has tented glasses. I try to get specifics.

“Long or short hair?”

“Moustache? Glasses?”

He has tented glasses, he says. I don’t know how to describe him to you, he’s just a nice, polite engineer engaging the adolescent railfan in conversation. I think it’s cool that he keeps asking me if I’ll be here tomorrow. But I don’t think he has a crush on me. He’ll be here till Friday, then he’s off to the next adventure, as am I.

What happened to glen? You ask. Have you abandoned sweet magical petulant Glen for a younger man with tented glasses and possibly a taste in grunge music? Um, well, not really. But I can tell you watt hasn’t happened to Glen this week. Monday April 26 isn’t a good day in the metrolink train department. Standing at the wrong spot on the platform I make my way up to the bell and wave but there’s no response. I’m not sure if the engineer here is a man or a woman. Sam last week says that he thinks Glen’s replacement is a woman. If so, she’s not biting. If it’s Kathy, I’m sure she’s seen me before, I think she was on the 5:24 train to ocean Side, I’m not sure of that number. But tonight I don’t’ know who it is. Unrequited I make my way to Cary’s spot. He’s my next train meet. Tonight as I make my way there wearing a new mauve jacket that I bought along with the green sweater, I notice that a freight pulls onto track 2, waiting. This isn’t entirely unusual. Cary’s train pulls up but it’s not Cary. It hasn’t been, so far, a good day in the engineer department. The new one doesn’t want to tall to me or doesn’t know I want to talk to him. It’s fine, really, I can always try, though sometimes these days I revert to my self conscious state. I do notice that no one asks me if I want the train. I really do think I am getting known for my engineer habit. We all know why I do this, besides it’s fun and like meeting people with interesting skill sets. Just like anything, railroading, even if it is less human, bears a strong cross section of humanity. Andy says, however, that the engineers will have to pass a personality test to work for Amtrak. But tonight I make my way back across the bridge.

“What kind of personality trait do you have to have to work for Amtrak?”

“Smiley,” he says.

“Have you talked to shelley? You’re fired! You’re out!”

There goes sweet, magical petulant Glen with all his seniority. Okay, I’ve driven the engineers out of fullertn for sure now.

Back across the bridge I learn the reason for the freight’s delay.
“The 708 hit someone at State College,” Janice tells me. “The freight engineer toll us that.”

Indeed! That’s why the freight is sitting here.

“He can’t go anywhere till they clean up the mess.”

The engineer is very entertaining. He talks to a six-year-old named Aaron.

“What did the engineer give you?” I ask later. Janice has already told me that he gives him a pair of ear plugs.

“What’s the engineer’s name?”

Aaron doesn’t know. I don’t’ know either. I can’t get the freight engineer’s attention because I’m off chasing metrolink engineers.

‘He says if he sees me here tomorrow he’ll honk,” says Janice.


Hey, that’s not fair! Janice talks to the engineer and I’m off chasing them. “You big flirt,” I say. “But you don’t have the engineer’s phone number.”

“I don’t want his phone number,” she laughs as we wait for train 4 on Monday. Shirley explains that the crews when their train hits someone and it is a fatality get three days off work.

“The man parked his vehicle at the parking lot there, Andy explains on Wednesday. “He stood by the signal box and when he stepped in front of the train it threw him against the signal box and his shoe went flying into the middle of the street.” Walter, the railfan who talks constantly, tells us as we leave on Monday that the body was lying covered up and gives some description. We’re not interested. The crime scene tape is now in double yellow lines across both tracks so that no one will see or go there, says Wally. Train 4 sits till 7:41 pm says Bruce on Wednesday. Train 707 to Riverside the one with the happy, smiling engineer is late. But I’m not there when train 707 pulls in or the freight leaves or the Southwest chief finally leaves.

“She can’t step up so she needs the walkway,” I hear one of the car attendants say to one of the sleeper conductors. “

“We’re not going anywhere,” says the conductor as I make my way through the archway to get a ride home from bob and Janice. Tonight I have to do laundry.

“I didn’t hear about it,” says John to me. “Where are they going to put you?” I ask. “On your tracks.” But I’m wrong. The train to Ocean side turns onto a different track and doesn’t go the State College crossing.

“708 hit a man at State College. I’m glad it wasn’t you. I don’t’ like stories like that. I couldn’t get that t e to talk to me,” I text Glen. I’m so glad it wasn’t him. After all those tears an missing Glen I’m still glad he wasn’t on that train. I’ve always had sympathy for the engineers when that happens because they go through drug testing and have to stay around for the investigation and then get relieved by a new crew, but tonight I am so glad it didn’t happen to Glen. I’m sure he’s been through all that before, but not tonight; not sweet petulant magical Glen. Keep Glen safe if only for my sake. I’m very selfish.

It seems that an accident of this nature happens every six months or so around here. The last time this happened was in October when the two men were killed on the tracks just on the other side of the station. Glen was in our area for than one even if he didn’t see it; he asked me what happened. Tonight he’s nowhere around and he knows what happens.

But on Tuesday, the day after the accident, John asks me if I’ll be here tomorrow. I don’t have to work on Wednesday because we’re signing a new lease agreement and I’ve requested Wednesday off. Even if it has already been an eventful week there’s so much more I haven’t written. Sunday April 25 I came down and spent the evening watching trains, no teasing, only a little. Rose a wildly energetic woman I met at the train meeting months ago is here. She gives me a ride home. She spends half an hour on the phone with Ken Ruben who talks constantly. She called to get a status report on Dan Dalke, the man who was recently diagnosed with cancer, the brother of the man who proposed to me by trac 3 so many years ago before I became enamored with trains and their engineers. I’ve heard nothing about him except that he went to a nursing facility. Instead she is treated to a Ken style monologue on all things train.

“she collects engineers,” Dave Norris tells her.

“really?” They’re talking about me. “I don’t’ collect engineers.”

I guess I sort of do. She wants to meet one,” Dave says about Rose.

“well come out and meet one,” I say, the one who took two weeks to meet one in September. It’s not that easy, and yet it is.

Tonight, Sunday, we don’t see any Barstow bent and hell bound freights. I’m referring to an event which occurred last Wednesday, a train came through Fullerton so fast that Dave couldn’t get the numbers down. Curt’s bike fell over from the displaced air currents. I stood there in stunned admiration and dismay. I know I haven’t been around freights that long but that sure seemed fast.

“That was a holy crap experience,” says Dave.

Tonight the freights are calm. Shelley isn’t being teased about getting a key to the super 8, or the super 9 as Chris at work says. No, I’m just sitting there wearing my green sweater, being the signal. Tonight, though, Tuesday, I sit on the ground with the bible study group and eat their food after eating a burrito at the Santa Fe Express café. Tonight I’ve also made another commitment. Here I am getting involved at the train station. Different volunteers bring food for the bible study group and so I’ve decided I would like to do that. I tell Rochelle that I will cook and bring food for the day after memorial day. I have requested that day off and so it would be a perfect time to do this. I’m getting excited. I can’t judge these people; we all have something going on. I’m happy to cook. I haven’t cooked for anyone for ages; I think it’s about time I do that. I think I’m going to cook spaghetti with Italian sausage and tomato basil sauce. It goes a long way, it’s yummy and it’s my favorite. It gets a lot of compliments. I might even throw in a salad. Do I have money for all this? No, but I’ll find it.

“this is Jazzy Jeff from Vegas,” says a guy at the Bible study. Somehow he’s says he’s always been afraid to talk to me. Okay. Another guy plays a guitar and sings Beatles and James Taylor tunes. He’s going to Carolina in his mind. It’s a nice evening. I text to my Face book profile that I’m sitting by the tracks hanging out with the bible study group. I wave at the trains from the ground; it’s an interesting perspective. I’m sure the engineers don’t see me, but one blows their horn seeing all of us I’m sure. The music isn’t so bad; most of the teaching I tune out because I’m creating new scenarios for my Brett McCarley locomotive engineer stories. We pray for Rochelle who it turns out has had an interesting experience that day; having the chance to help an electrocuted man. She feels bad that she couldn’t help. I’ll have to call her later and ask about that one. I got her phone number and gave her mine. You see, if I’m involved with railroading, even if it’s not directly related, I have to do something. Wonder what else I’ll do before it’s all over.

Oh yeah: pack an engineer in my bag and take him home with me. I don’t know. It’s my second childhood. It’s not complicated. Dramatic sometimes, but not complicated. I’m planning on taking a trip to San Bernardino in a few ekes, maybe I’ll get to say hello to sweet, magical, petulant Glen. And I’ll be there tomorrow, John on the 608. I promise.

 

 

Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"