You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The romance of the train.
Is it romantic?
You be the judge
I’m riding an Amtrak Train from San Diego to Ventura County.
So far the station leaves much to be desired.
It is little more than a concrete and wood refrigerator box with no protection, no flavor, no romantic reminders of a time gone by.
After boiling in the sun for over an hour, I have just boarded train 777 headed north bound.
Getting onto this train took a lot of luck and a Ouija board.
There is no signage and no assistants on the platform to educate first time passengers.
Once inside the train, I find the stairwell. It is narrow, like an airline lavatory. I lug my bags up the narrow stairwell and get to the main passenger car.
There is no stewardess telling me to take the first seat available or make sure my items fit under the seat in front of me. On the contrary; nobody is saying anything. Passengers stare at the new people boarding. It’s a sit where you want policy. Each side of the aisle has 2 seats.
To my surprise the seating area is very spacious. I throw my bag in the rack above the seat and I sit by the window. I move the curtain back so I can see the station where I just stood. There is no shelter and the sun is scorching the people waiting for the next train to wherever.
I don’t care. The air conditioning is pouring out of the ceiling vents. It is lovely compared to the sauna bath I just experienced.
The seat is softer than a plane, more spacious than a plane. On the wall beside me, there are two 120 volt outlets inviting me to plug in.
The female conductor approaches.
“Where you going?”
“Camarillo”
She looks at my paperwork
“Can I stand and get my phone charger?” I ask.
She smiles. “Sure. This isn’t a plane.”
I feel stupid. Of course it’s not a plane. It’s the wild west on wheels.
As I write this from my train seat I am watching the Pacific Ocean to my right and homes and industrial complexes to my left.
The train is swaying ever so slightly on the tracks and hitting the right keys is at times difficult.
I feel like a man with a palsy trying to compose a sentence.
From the platform, the train is loud. In fact people on the platform were joking it sounds like a Tornado. It is all horns and engines and snarling, squealing metal on metal. But inside, it quiet. The ride is smooth.
The trip to L.A. is about 3 hours. I stare out the window experiencing the back of Southern California.
I see shipping facilities and workers smoking on the back dock. I see trailer parks with clothes lines dotting back yards. I see highway via ducts tagged with the latest in gang warfare.
It’s a fascinating peek into America from their back yard.
I was going to rent a car. It would have cost me close to 100 dollars. My train ticket is $37.
I have no hassles. No Diamond Lanes. No CHP. No seat belts.
What’s weird is being able to use your phone.
Ring ring ring.
It’s my cousin. I feel weird answering like the sky marshal is going to take me down.
I haven’t seen my cousin in years. He wants to talk, but the train car is so quiet, I feel awkward, speaking loudly.
“What’s the matter you sick?” he says.
“Everyone can hear me,” I respond.
I feel weird saying that since now everyone knows I know they can hear me.
“I’ll talk to you when I arrive,” I say hanging up.
The man in front of me is not so shy.
His phone rings.
“Dude. What Up. Going to see my kid. I know. Captain Morgans. Yeah. Lady at the station gave it to me. Yeah fishing was great. I know. Tired as hell. Was sleeping. Roger is a mess. I owe him 80 dollars. OK dude. Thanks for calling.”
I snicker having listened to this conversation while the beauty of orange county loading docks fills my mind.
Can you imagine if everyone talked on a flight? No freaking way. It was nice to just get on and not be bombarded with regulations. No seat belt talk. No seat back used as a flotation device. No smoking in the lavatories nonsense.
I pull one of the Superliner customer safety instruction booklets from the seat back in front of me.
The animated emergency manual reminds me to never get off a moving train. There is a big red circle with a line through it.
That sounds like sound advice.
The pamphlet reminds me not to stand on the tracks or get out of the train on a bridge or in a tunnel.
“You’d never hear that flying Southwest,” I murmur to myself.
Now arriving in Anaheim, the voice booms from overhead. If your destination is Anaheim, then make your way to the exits. Now arriving in Anaheim. Thanks for choosing Amtrak.
I look at the literature in the seat back pocket. There is apparently a food car as illustrated in the SeaView café and Lounge dining menu. Perhaps there is a food car, but I sure don’t see it. But apparently if there is, I can get an Angus cheeseburger or a bottle of stone micro brew beer.
Amtrak. Micro Beers. Loading Dock Graffiti.
Romantic, right?
Not so fast.
In Irvine, a woman with a scarf boards the train.
She is short and white. She is wearing blue jean shorts and a white top with no bra. Her breasts appear to be bouncing in opposite directions as she walks. She is carrying a back pack. Behind her is a tall white man. I have trouble seeing his features.
The way these two are dressed, it is apparent they are both from the wrong side of the tracks. The couple sits down toward the front of the car to the right of me.
The conductor approaches them and I hear her loudly say.
“Six hours. I know. I don’t want to sit next to him. F*** this. Excuse my French.”
I am unclear what any of this is about.
The conductor leaves and the couple is quiet, melting into the trip, till Los Angeles.
That’s when she gets up and walks down the aisle angrily, snarling.
“Six hours. Sitting with him…”
Her face is angry like a pit bull fighting for a Milk Bone.
“F”in train….”
Her words trail off as she walks out of the car.
I stare at a passenger in the row beside me.
He looks as perplexed as me.
Then I see him, the man she has been sitting with.
He is a pale faced version of Frankenstein’s monster.
His face is bearded and his jaw long and angular like a flesh covered shoe horn. His hair is a mess like sea weed tossed on the sand. He is wearing a tank top, slightly yellowed from perspiration stains.
Then I see the empty spot in his head, the unbalanced dimensions of his face. He only has one eye.
I try not to stare, but I am drawn to this ghastly sight like a show girl to a sugar daddy.
As the man slowly walks forward, his one eye is searching the aisle ahead. It’s like a light house beacon searching the coast line for signs of trouble.
The other side of his face is a disaster. There is a crater where his eye should be. It’s as if someone took a melon scoop and pried his eye out of its socket.
It looks like a belly button – an inny – where the skin comes together in a strange mess of extra skin.
You wonder why someone with a melon scoop for an eye would wear no eye patch?
He walks by me and I stare at him as if I have paid good money for this circus act. I look at his indentation of flesh. It is deep and odd like a Pink Floyd video. Obviously something traumatic happened here.
Was it a knife fight with a motorcycle gang? Did a gaggle of Nuns stab him with sharpened crucifixes? Did the woman iwth the scarf stab him in the eye with a number 2 pencil.
Sadly I will never know.
He walks by and disappears into the next car.
I think about the parade of crazy on this train.
Part bar room brawl, part romantic adventure, part zombie eye of mystery.
Next Stop Burbank. Burbank is our next stop.
Life’s Crazy™