Time Spent Well... (part 2)
...is time well spent
"The round stones beneath the earth... have spoken through the fire. Things which are alike, in nature, grow to look alike, and the speaking stones have lain a long time looking at the sun. Some believe they descend with the lightning, but I believe they are on the ground and are projected downward by the bolt."
The Southern California scene around me made about as much sense as the dialog above, from the movie Dead Man. The train tracks around me were used by three different railroads — Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Santa Fe, and I thought of them as long, narrow airports, with planes replaced by trains, and here and there tramps arriving from exotic locations. The terminals were jungles, the public address system now scanners, but sadly the hot-looking stewardesses in mini skirts were a thing of the past...
In some areas the houses had a sort of "southwest" appearance to them, but the patina was cast by the brownish sky, not any pigments in the peeling stucco that covered them. Even the word "sky" felt out of place here, as the actual sky was rarely visible. As I waited for my brother to make the drive out here to pick me up, I was entertained by a procession of lowered cars with radios blaring, deep bass reverberating, and tailpipes smoking. The assault on my senses was formidable. Every block had the obligatory nail salon, video rental store, tattoo joint, Mexican restaurant, and, of course, a liquor store. Some houses had lawns that looked like they hadn't been mowed in years, while numerous others had lawns that couldn't be mowed because of some car up on blocks in the front yard.
After growing up in this area in the 60's there wasn't much that remained familiar, but then I viewed everything from a road or sidewalk, and now it was from the tracks, and a truer image of the city emerged. You can really tell a lot about a neighborhood, not by how the houses look from the street, but by how much trash they throw over the backyard fence onto the railroad right of way. Almost like the false fronts on buildings in old Hollywood westerns, what you see is not always what you get.
I had a nice visit with my family, but after a couple of days of hearing Christmas music blaring from every point of the compass and my brother's 151 proof concoctions of "Holiday Cheer", it was time to hit the tracks again. I was spared the agony of figuring out the RTD bus schedules by being chauffeured up the Long Beach Freeway to the East LA Union Pacific Yard, whose claim to fame was that it had a Denny's restaurant adjacent to the mainline at the far east end of the departure yard. I could sit inside dining on ridiculously inexpensive food while keeping a watchful eye on the signal bridge over the tracks outside. The only downside was that just as I was getting used to the tropical climate it started to rain.
I had almost forgotten about weather entirely in the bubble-boy existence in So. Cal. where a temperature swing of 5 degrees between night and day would be cause for widespread panic. All of my "heavy" clothes were now at the bottom of my pack, protecting the enormous cache of holiday leftovers that my Mom foisted on me as a means of surviving the trip home. As it got dark, the reflections on the windows from the inside restaurant lights began to obscure my view of the signals, and now the increasing rain obliterated what was left, so I slurped up the last of the coffee refills and headed outside to wait for my train.
Scanning the surrounding area for a sheltered spot to hang out, I settled on a line of truck trailers parked along the mainline, where I could get out of the rain and still just barely catch a glimpse of the signal bridge, hoping that at least one of the reds would turn green. As it got later and later the thought arose that maybe the railroad wasn't in a very big hurry to call up crews right after Christmas, so I rolled out my sleeping bag and prepared to spend the night right there if nothing happened.
Nothing happened...
I woke up the next morning just as the stars were fading away and the nearby freeway noise was increasing and quickly rolled up my gear. There are few things in life more rewarding than having breakfast at Denny's, and I wasn't going to miss this opportunity, train or no train. Settling back down at "my" table, I stuffed myself while keeping a nervous eye out the window, but the only traffic was an intermodal train coming into the yard. Thinking this a sign that the railroad was functioning again, I paid a visit to the bathroom and then walked out to the main where, emboldened by the fear of getting stuck in LA for eternity, I worked my way down into the yard, just as a set of four units came up a side track and backed down to a long string of cars, and I knew I had my ticket out of there.
