Railroad Man

by Alle Wells

  “Flo, you have to eat something,” Sophia begged.

  Flo pressed her right hand to her temple. “I can’t. There are too many people here. I’m going to bed.”

  Sophia was on Flo’s heels, not letting her out of sight. There were a lot of people in my mother’s house. They spilt over into the yard and talked in whispers. I closed my ears to their conversations and muffled the sound of them. I couldn’t bear to hear others retell my daughter’s death. Mother never allowed strong drink in her house, but I could have used a nip that day. I stepped out the back door and looked across the barren land where my secret place used to be. Every man needed a secret place, and mine was sold with the timber.

  She leaned against the back of the house, her voice barely above a murmur. “Mickey.”

  “I saw you there, at the cemetery,” I said without turning.

  “I had to come. I had to see if you were all right.”

  I searched the naked land, one foot propped on the porch banister. “No. I’m not.”

  “I lost my husband last year. Did you hear that Seth was killed in the war? I know how grief feels.”

  I turned to look at her. Her green eyes drew me in. I felt myself sinking deeper into the sea of green until I found that familiar place in her heart. That’s the effect Marianne had on me. I felt safe to open my heart to her.

  “Uh-no, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.” My eyes roved over the empty land. “Dottie was five. She liked to swim in the tub. She liked to watch the fringe sway on the pole lamp next to the tub. We left her alone for just a minute…or maybe, two.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mickey. I can’t imagine anything so awful. Time will ease the pain.”

  She sat in a rocking chair. I turned and leaned on the banister where I could look at her. I realized how much I’d missed her. Flo was beautiful and flashy. Marianne was plain and pure. Flo had never been my friend, never cared how I felt. Marianne thought of me. She wanted to see if I was all right.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how we’ll get through this. I don’t think Flo has accepted it yet. I don’t what she will do when that time comes.”

  Marianne said, “She’s a lovely woman.”

  I came back with, “She’s weak. She’s not you.”

  Marianne looked at the long tapered fingers folded in her lap. I looked at her hands, too, getting lost in old familiar feelings of what couldn’t be. I fought those feelings and scrambled back to the present.

  “What are you doing these days?”

  Marianne shrugged. “I live alone. Dabble in pottery and the watercolors, you know.

  “The other boys are either still overseas or have gone away to work in the automobile factories up north. I look in on Mama and Papa. They’re getting old.”

  “No children?” I asked.

  “No.” Her thick strawberry curls, bobbed just below her jaw line, shook just like I remembered.

  The easy, natural silence between us tortured me. I felt good that she was there. I felt bad that she made me feel good. She stood, smoothed the lines of a blue and white pinstripe wrap dress over her tall frame.

  “Nice dress,” I said.

  “Thank you. I made it from a Simplicity pattern. Well, I’d better go. I know there’s nothing I can do or say to make things better. I just had to see you, Mickey.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

  I watched her tall, sleek body drift away. She was the most perfect woman I had ever known. I would have given anything that day just to walk away with her.

  Chapter VIII

  Edinburgh Drive

  1945 – 1947

  We returned to our house on Edinburgh two weeks after the burial. Flo had barely spoken above a whisper since the bloodcurdling scream she let out in the hallway that day. She moved like a sleepwalker through the funeral and the days that followed. I expected Flo to break down when we came home. Instead, she walked from room to room like she was taking inventory.

  “Flo, do you want to see the bathroom? That’s what the man said they call them now instead of washrooms.”

  Flo stuck her head in the door hesitantly. She slid the glass door on the tub back and forth. “It’s all right, I reckon. I like pink. A built-in shower, too.”

  The new bathroom left no remnant of the old claw foot tub or Miss Lamp. In other rooms, Dottie’s presence filled the house, especially the bedroom with rosebud wallpaper and the living room. Flo settled in on the living room sofa and flipped through pages of Good Housekeeping and American Home.

  Perched on the end of the wingback chair next to the couch, I placed my hand on her knee. “Say, how about I call Rosalee? Maybe she can come in and help you this week.”

  Flo kept her eyes on the magazine and nodded. “That’s fine.”

  The next morning, Flo had not come to bed. She sat in the same spot on the sofa in yesterday’s clothes looking through the same magazines.

  I peeked in. “Flo, are you sure you’re all right?”

  She looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and said, “I’m just fine.”

  I packed my workbag and worried about Flo. She didn’t seem fine to me. Her strange behavior concerned me, and I hated to leave her alone. Flo was a weak person with very little foundation to fall back on. I thought back to the days before Dottie came along, how unpredictable she could be. She didn’t respond when I kissed her the top of her forehead and walked out the door. I stood on the front porch and waited for Rosalee to arrive on the streetcar.

  The stout dark-skinned woman held onto the rail and toppled down the streetcar steps. She glanced up at me with a dull expression that didn’t make me feel better about leaving Flo in her care. I walked across the yard to meet her.

  “Morning, Rosalee, I appreciate you coming in this week. You know that Flo’s been through a lot with our daughter’s death and all. Well, she’ll need a little extra support for a while.”

  Rosalee crossed her arms and looked past me toward the house. “Nuh-huh.”

  I felt awkward around the woman and searched for a way to get through to her. “Well, help her out any way you can, and I’ll add a little extra to your pay on Friday.”

  She nodded. I watched her as she went in the front door. Rosalee had the personality of a billy goat. I hoped that the extra money I promised would encourage her to help Flo while I was gone.

  I looked forward to getting back to work. I wanted to get there early to thank my railroad family for all they’d done for me and sign up for union meetings. I gave Flo a call on Wednesday night. She sounded fine and still didn’t mention Dottie’s name. Her reaction to Dottie’s death confused me. I mourned out loud and got it out of my system. Flo hadn’t reached that point yet. I was beginning to wonder if and when she would.

  When I returned home on Friday, I was welcomed by the first of many little surprises that Flo would throw at me over the years. A new coat of lavender paint covered the living room walls. Emerald green carpet and brand-new compact furniture of the same color filled the room. Large vases of artificial white lilies and cat figurines decorated each end of the mantle. New draperies with big cabbage roses lined the cornices and windows.

  Flo floated into the newly decorated room, bright-eyed. She had a new hairstyle and wore a new, perfectly tailored pink suit the color of the cabbage roses. “Well, what do you think? The decorator said it’s the latest style.”

  I set my workbag down gently on the green carpet. The room looked like something out of one of those magazines Flo was reading. “It’s a nice touch, all right. What did you do with our old furniture?”

  “I traded it in, got fifteen percent off everything.” Flo’s bright pink lips curved upward as she tugged at my index finger. “That’s not all. Come see.”

  Flo led me to Dottie’s room. A low, compact bed, nightstand and chest with an attached mirror took the place of Dottie’s white bed with the fluffy pink bedcover. There was nothing left of the childhood innocence I loved about the room except the rosebud wallpaper.
The door in the corner of the room stood open and empty. Flo had wiped Dottie’s memory out of our lives in four days.

  “What did you do with Dottie’s things?”

  Flo pointed to Rosalee standing behind her, cross-armed. “Rosalee’s friend took them away. Wasn’t that nice? Now we have a guest room.”

  “Who’s coming?” I asked.

  Flo clapped her hands together and let out a weak laugh. “Well, you never know. But, at least, we have a place for them to stay when they do come.”

  Flo stood in front of the mirror and ran her hand across the furniture’s slick, light tan surface. “Look. It’s called a dresser, lots of room inside and on top. You see, the wood is frosted oak, permanized. That means that it’s put together to last a lifetime.”

  I didn’t share Flo’s enthusiasm over the plain, permanized boxes of furniture. My mind stumbled over what she had done in four days. I wondered if she’d lost her mind. I followed Rosalee to the front door. She stood on the porch and propped her thick body up against the open screen door. I reached across the threshold and placed a five dollar bill in her hand. She looked at me sternly with downturned lips and waited for her tip.

  “Consider the extra taken out in trade. You’re fired.” I slammed the door quicker than she could respond.

  I never did like her anyway. I knew the difference between good people and bad people. Color didn’t matter to me. Rosalee struck me as a bad person. I had to take my anger out on somebody; it might as well have been her.

  “What did you do that for?” Flo whined, “Don’t you like what I did? I worked real hard fixing up this place.”

  “I don’t like her, that’s why.” I looked around the room. “I guess it’s all right, but something’s missing.”

  I was still searching for what was missing and asked, “Who painted?”

  “Somebody the decorator sent over.”

  “Decorator, huh? How much did all this cost?”

  Flo walked to the secretary next to the dining room table and plucked a sales ticket from the bill slot.

  “Seven hundred, forty-five dollars and seventy-six cents,” she read.

  Flo dropped the ticket back in the bill slot and said, “Let’s go out to dinner.”

  “Out to dinner? Didn’t Rosalee cook?”

  Flo fiddled with her pink hat in front of the mirror. “Nah. We’ve been too busy.”

  I put my own hat on as we walked out the door. “Yeah, too busy spending my money.”

  I was relieved that Flo found a way to occupy her time even if it did put a dent in the bank account. I figured that she was coming around and dealing with Dottie’s death in her own way. A couple of weeks later, I found what was missing in the living room. Dottie’s portraits were stacked neatly in the basement. I took a pencil and marked the month and year each one was made on the paper backing. I thought about Flo erasing Dottie’s memory from the house. Maybe that was her way of dealing with death, the same way she dealt with her parents moving to California and her brother going to prison. When people left her, she just wiped them away like they never existed.

  The next year, Flo went to driving school and learned how to wreck a car. I rode shotgun whenever I could to protect my investment and my wife. When Flo was behind the wheel, her lead foot led the way. Backing out of the garage to the street was an impossible task for Flo.

  “Easy does it. E-a-s-y,” I said, guiding Flo up the driveway.

  “You don’t need to do that. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been to sch…”

  Flo had stopped watching the mirror, but her foot stayed engaged. The sound of the car scraping down the side of Ackerman’s picket fence made my skin crawl. I jumped out of the car in time to see Katleen Ackerman, a big busty woman who reminded me of a sumo wrestler, pound down her back doorstep.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she yelled in a gruff, manly voice.

  “Oh, Katleen, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the repair,” I stammered.

  Katleen pointed to Flo climbing out of the lopsided car. “Damn right you will. And you need to keep her away from the wheel.”

  The old Flo I hadn’t seen in years flew back at her. “Oh yeah? Why don’t you just get your lousy ass back inside?”

  “My lousy ass? I’ll come over there and string yours up, missy.”

  Katleen looked at the fence that separated her and Flo. She bounded up the side of the fence to reach the front end. Jim’s teenage boy, who took after his mother in size, stepped out on the front porch.

  “Hey Ma, take it easy!” he yelled.

  Katleen’s head jerked when she heard her son’s voice. She gave Flo another hard look and went inside with her son.

  “Whew! I’m glad he came out and called her back. I don’t know how I would’ve pulled the two of you apart.”

  Flo snarled, “What do I care? She’s just a fat old bitch.”

  I slid past Flo and climbed into the driver’s seat. “She may be a fat old bitch, but she lives ten feet away from us. You need to get along.”

  Flo flopped her hand at me and walked off.

  ***

  The city widened the street that year and paved over the streetcar rail. The wider street enabled Flo to park on the street instead of tackling the driveway and garage. When Flo started driving, all the parking tickets and stop sign citations in Atlanta couldn’t keep her off the streets. She spent her days shopping or at the beauty parlor. She took up smoking and hung around the Five and Dime lunch counter thumbing through magazines. Flo’s interest in fashion, movie stars, and her own beauty bored me.

  Flo was usually sitting on the emerald green sofa dressed to go out when I came home from my weekly run. She would say, “Mick, let’s go dancing at that new nightclub in Buckhead.” Or “Mick, there’s a brand-new restaurant I’ve been just dying to try.” And “Mick, don’t you just love this new suit? It’s the latest from Tops downtown.”

  A meaningful word hadn’t passed between us since our daughter’s death. Flo had lost interest in keeping me satisfied. We bickered or ignored each other. She started sleeping in the bedroom with the frosted oak furniture and rosebud wallpaper.

  In the late ’40s, the railroad industry issued a mandate to eliminate the use of steam engines. They said the old steam engines were too expensive to operate and maintain. The switch from steam to the diesel-electric locomotive threatened jobs and the security we had all become accustomed to as railroad men. The new engine did away with short lines and the men that ran them. The introduction of the diesel engine cut out the blacksmith, fireman, brakeman, and boilermaker. Whistle stops and maintenance shops began to shutdown.

  The federal government took over the operation of the railroad. Our new boss overrode the union before I had the opportunity to attend my first meeting. Angry men who feared for their jobs were forbidden to strike. All we could do was wait and see where the chips fell. I was fortunate that fate fell in the right direction for me.

  I was assigned to run the Georgia-Alabama Line. My engine could pull large amounts of freight that would be broken off later at smaller stations. Two men instead of five could handle the run. Jim Ackerman and I were assigned to the same engine. We left for training in Chattanooga in January, 1948.

  Chapter IX

  Georgia-Alabama Line

  1948

  We sat in a class of forty men listening to a General Motors representative explain the workings of an electric generator that could provide enough electrical current to generate 64,000 pounds of thrust. The inner workings of electric generator and traction motors fascinated me. The new diesel engine would make my job easier and more interesting. Less noise and no soot in my ears sounded like a good trade-off to me. I paid close attention to instructions on how to use the new throttles and manage the modern control panel. Sitting in that class, I felt prouder than ever to be a railroad man. Stepping into the new railroad age excited me and was the best thing that ever happened in my career. I felt sorry for the men who didn’t
have the same opportunity that I did.

  The railroad put us up in a group of cabins near the station. Assigned to the same cabin and the same line, it looked like Ackerman and I would become joined at the hip. We’d work our line, eat, and bunk down together. He was a good sort and had seen me through some bad times. I had nothing against sharing a room with the old guy. But our day ended at four o’clock, and I could see that the winter nights were going to be long.

  “Say, old buddy, I’ve got some relatives down around Huntsville. I haven’t seen them in awhile. I’d like to hop the passenger train down and stay with them instead of bunking in the cabin.”

  Ackerman’s right cheek bulged out as he chewed his burger. “You mean you’re going to leave me stranded with nobody to play cards with?”

  “Well, you know we’re going to be here for a while. That cabin is pretty nice. Maybe you’ll meet a sweet dish.”

  Ackerman wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Uh-uh, not me. I stay true to my Katleen.”

  “Suit yourself, old buddy,” I said, as I swung around to the pay phone on the wall next to the booth.

  I dialed O for the operator. “Riverside… Kilmer…That’s it.”

  Her voice floated through the line. My heart skipped a beat. “Marianne, it’s Mickey. I’m in Chattanooga for a few weeks, training and all. Can you meet me at the Huntsville station at five?”

  “Yeah, right. Okay, I’ll see you then.”

  I placed the handset on the telephone back in its pocket. I sat back down to finish my lunch. I knew that Ackerman was hanging on every word, but I ignored him. I didn’t care about anything in those days but learning my new job and finding a glimmer of joy in life. The only joy I’d ever known was a freckle-faced redhead with green eyes that could look into my soul.

  Ackerman shook his head. “Looks like you’re looking for trouble, Mick.”