Cold: A Brett Mccarley Locomotive Engineer Story
Shelley Alongi

 

Brett McCarley sat at one of the tables in the train’s lounge car. His hand lay on the plastic table top, inches away from his Styrofoam cup of coffee. Today, Thursday, he headed for Burbank to sleep after the morning run. He looked out the window, passing the industrial parts of Los Angeles, the rubber tires piled up along the side of the road, some old cardboard boxes, somewhere a car body poked out of a bush. The road needed cleaning, the junk yard needed tending. It was 9:25 in the morning by his railroad watch, the gold face shone in the weak light of the morning that filtered through the sky outside, through the grimy train window. He took his right hand and rubbed at a dirt smudge on the window, now he could see better. He coughed now, his eyes crinkled in pain, the cough was like razor blades cutting at a raw throat. He put his hand holding a napkin over his mouth, wiped it, sniffled, shuddered a little in pain, waiting for the cheap motel with the bed that now called him, at least it would be clean and he could curl up and fight this cold. He saved his voice for calling the signals. A jingling key ring caught his attention, he looked up and saw Matt, the conductor, his blue and white uniform sparkling in the neat car. If the windows were a bit smudged, Matt and Andrew, the guy behind the counter, kept the car neat and clean.

“Hey, Brett.”

Brett smiled. He pointed at a wet rag in matt’s hand.

“You want to clean that window?”

Brett cleared his throat. Matt looked worriedly at him, then nodded.

“You look tired, man. Are you sick?”

“Yeah. I’ll be okay.” Brett reached for the cloth. “I’ll clean it.”

“Sure, okay,” said the young conductor handing the engineer the rag.

“Hey we have some cold medicine in the first aid kit. I can bring you some if you like.”

“I’ve got some,” Brett said, his voice friendly. “I’m used to this. Been running these trains how long? Thirty-eight years? Thanks, that’s nice.”

He handed Mat the rag and then curled into another painful cough. When he looked up, his coffee cup was full. Andrew, light as a cat on his feet, had appeared at his table with another cup, replacing the old one. Brett nodded in appreciation.

“Can’t drink to much of this,” he said to Andrew who had stopped to look at his regular customer. “Have to sleep.”

Andrew walked back toward Brett’s table. He eyed it with the practiced look of a man who knew his customer’s needs. Today, the table did not contain the cardboard box with the jalapeno cheese burger that Brett liked.

“May I join you?” Brett nodded.

“Sure if you don’t mind me. I’m trying to hide. Don’t’ want to get anyone sick.”

Brett moved his long legs to accommodate those of Andrew the lounge car attendant. Andrew sat back against the seat as the train rocked, the clicking of the wheels signaling a more worn section of track.

“Ah, no problem, man. I’m used to it. Besides if you really wanted to do that you’d be home in bed don’t’ you think? Call out like any younger whipper snapper engineer. But not Brett McCarly! No, he’s in till the bitter end.”

Brett chuckled, quietly noticing the respect in the younger attendant’s eyes. They were colleagues. They were train buffs. There was something special about the relationship between them even if they only saw each other when Brett headed off to sleep and sat looking out the lounge car window. He nodded in answer to Andrew’s pronouncement, taking a swallow of Andrew’s coffee. He couldn’t taste it but it did soothe a raw, sore throat. He rubbed his forehead, the nagging headache eating away at his energy. He looked at his watch again; ten more minutes till he reached his stop and then took a cab for the eight minute ride to the motel. The next twenty to thirty minutes would seem like forever.

“Hey does that girl know you’re sick?” asked Andrew a little conspiratorily.

“Which one?”

Brett put his head in his hands, trying to ease his headache, but only making Andrew a little more concerned. Brett looked at the young attendant through his fingers, caught a bit of a smile.

“You got more than one girl?”

“I’m married,” Brett said kindly.

“I know you’re married. You know what I’m talking about. Your train meet. She’s sweet on you. You know that, of course?”

“Laurie?”

Brett smiled, easing down another sip of the coffee. He sighed, resting his head on one hand.

“She knows, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, Laurie knows,” brett said. “We’re not…”

“I know,” Andrew said. “I know. You’re not like some of the other engineers on this run. You’re married with a couple of kids and a good job. You’re married to your job like most of these guys. What’s your wife’s name again?”

“Carol.”

“How is Carol?”

Pokay.”

Brett’s next words were interrupted by the conductor’s announcement of the stop just before his and then another cough. He really needed to get to bed.

“You got any tea?” he finally asked.

“Sure. Peppermint.”

“anything.”

As Andrew disappeared into his laire of boxes and supplies, Brett turned to the window and cleared his sinuses as discretely as he could. He thought he might take the medicine now, that way by the time he got to the motel he’d be more sleepy than he already was. He just had to make sure he slept and woke up feeling well enough to run his train.

Brett reached into a bag he carried and pulled out some medicine just as Andrew returned holding a cup of hot water and some peppermint tea.

“Will you work tonight?”

“Yeah. I’ll sleep. I’ll be alright.”

But Brett was more tired than usual and he could feel a fever coming on. He hoped he wouldn’t have to call out. He was stuck up there in Burbank with a train to get back to the station, no car. He didn’t’ want to call a cab home and he couldn’t sleep there all night. He had to be back at his origin point at 5:00 in the morning. He would just have to be okay. He sure didn’t feel okay.


Brett’s alarm sawed into the sleeping engineer’s cold racked world. He turned under the comforting covers, the sheets and blankets that had swathed him, easing his aches, the beeping of the alarm intruded on the rhythm of his soothed head, working its way into the brain wave that communicated to him to wake up. Slowly he turned, reaching for the alarm through layers of sleep, slowly pulling them back one by one, climbing from the comfort of embracing sleep tendrils, his eyes heavy. He sat up slowly, turned his feet onto the worn, dingy carpet of the one star motel. He placed his head in his hands, rubbing at kind brown eyes, fumbled for the glasses on the nightstand, found them with fingers used to probing for them in the dark, or in his earlier freight days, the early morning light, when his phone rang to wake him into service for the railroad, two things he couldn’t be without these days: his phone and his glasses. Always it had been his glasses, recently it had been his phone. He hadnt’ always been attached to the phone. He had been attached to a house phone, but recently, it was his cell phone. It always remained near his hand whether sleeping or waking. There were three things on the nightstand near Brett’s hand: his phone, glasses, and keys. His gold watch never left his wrist, not even in sleep. Now he fumbled with the glasses, decided not to put them on just yet. The phone lay near his fingers, he picked it up, fumbled with the green power button. He rubbed at his beard, tried to groom it with his fingers, rubbed at his moustache, suddenly, he put down the phone and reached for the tissue and sneezed. Now he sat up, fully awake and blinked. The medicine had worked. He smiled a little. There was more on the nightstand but he wouldn’t take it now. It had knocked him out. He had slept hard and gently, dreamlessly, undisturbed by the noise outside the window. Maybe the clerk at the motel had told security to keep an eye out for that room.

“You know that man works for the railroad. He’s not himself today,” he thought he heard her say as he got the key and headed for the familiar room with the mauve carpet and the blinds and the old but clean furniture. “You make sure it’s quiet over there. He looks tired and sick and he won’t call out. No, not him! He’s,” he thought maybe she winked a little, his headache had demanded immediate attention and he hadn’t really looked, “he’s a very nice man and he won’t miss work. So keep that hall way quiet, I mean it!”

Did Brett chuckle as his hand found the door knob and he slid the key into it? Probably. He only knew he had undressed quickly and headed straight to bed, heavily medicated. Now he smiled a little. He rubbed his head but it didn’t’ hurt so much. The cough was there, he could feel the razor blades cutting, but somehoe they werent’ so bad either. Now, finishing his business, he looked up and reached for his glasses. He could contemplate the phone. He could contemplate the clock. The clock said 3:45. He had an hour and 45 minutes to get to Los Angeles to run his train back home. He picked up the phone and turned it on. The chiming alerted him to a text message. There were several. The most recent one made him bite his lip. Damn! The second one made him nod his head. Ok. The earliest one made him smile despite himself. “Hope you’re ok” it said. “Get better.”

Andrew was right. Laurie was sweet on him. He chuckled. It was a railroad crush. He had enough experience to know that. Long ago it had worried him; now it made him smile, especially since the first message made him cringe. Carol was in trouble again. He was glad he had slept. Maybe sometimes having a cold and being an engineer with a messed up schedule was a craved for way of escape. Maybe Laurie was a way of escape, if a very casual one. He could shut out the world for several hours. Maybe it saved his marriage. He looked at his watch, the sheet still across his lap. He sat undressed in the weak afternoon light. Then he glanced at Laurie’s message and smiled. It didn’t hurt to smile. He took the phone into his hand and typed back. Ok. Then he got up and went to run his train.


 

 

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