[stylist] Flirting with Monday chapter 4

[Shelley J. Alongi]

Flirting with Monday

Chapter 4

 

We sat on my couch for a long time listening to the clock tick on the living room wall. Finally, Judy gently got up and ran her fingers through my dark, curly hair. I stood up, too, this was her signal that she had to go. I walked her to the door and held her. She lifted her head to mine, I put my mouth over her's, the kiss more a gesture of relief, reconciliation than desire. After so long the truth was finally out. Judy had not run away in dismay. She wrapped me in her comforting embrace and I stood there finally not wanting to push her away, and not afraid that she would leave me. 

 

"Thank you," she said gently into my hair. "Thank you for telling me. Dr. Meadows is helping you." 

 

"I'm trying, Judy," I said. "I'm trying. You didn't push until you knew I would tell you. You're a smart girl, Judy. A very smart girl." 

 

"I'll come tomorrow to see you after the shower," she said. "We'll barbecue. Then I have a scout troop trip on Sunday."

I nodded and smiled. Seeing Judy on Saturday sounded nice. 

 

"Good luck with the baby shower." 

 

"Thanks." 

 

We went down the stairs, out through the little cobblestone pathway out to the wrought iron gate. I looked up at the moon shining sweetly through some trees that lined the sidewalk of the house across the street. Judy looked up and caught my eyes. Somehow I knew it would all be okay. 

I made my way back up the steps and turned back to see her get in her little Honda and drive away down Cleveland Avenue. Her's was the only car on the street at this time of night. Suddenly I yawned. I went into the house and listened to the silence. Angel and Magnet were somewhere, but tonight, finally, the house was peaceful, comforting, a true retreat from the past. I sat down in the kitchen and looked at my scarred hands. For the first time in a week I didn't feel like crying. I just sat there, breathing in peace like soothing balm. Then I started to remember. 

 

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The house where I grew up in Astoria, Oregon is memorable for more than one reason. It had a gravel driveway till I was about fifteen years old. The house was on a higher foundation so we didn't get flooded too often but sometimes the rain could poor and it would just flood the whole front yard, leaving puddles in that gravel and even washing it away sometimes. My dad would always go to the small hardware store and pick up fresh gravel to lay there. It was also memorable because of the fun we had there. My two brothers, my two sisters, mom and dad, and sometimes neighbor friends. We celebrated birthdays there, we had fun, it was in that house where I first loved and lost, felt pain, cut myself helping my dad work on an engine. He was a great tinkerer. He'd come home and say "Glen, I bought an old clunker of a car today and you're going to help me rebuild it. Your brother Andrew," he'd say, "has no patience for these things But you, Glen, you have all the patience in the world. So help me work on this and you'll see what all that patience can lead to. You'll have something you can touch and feel and look at and say you did something constructive. Andrew he'll write legislation someday you're going to do something entirely different." I don't' know if he ever quite figured out that I already knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: a train engineer. That was it. No management position, just touching and feeling and interacting with the only thing that mattered: trains. He could make the laws to affect them I would just be the nuts and bolts guy. That was my mission in life. I suppose Dad was helping me achieve that even if I never knew it.  He'd give me that belly laugh of his, he was always pretty happy, and then he'd set out his tools and we'd start working. I don't know how many times I cut myself putting in those rings and how many times I cursed under my breath looking for the right connector. But we usually got the work done. I suppose it taught me responsibility. Building engines  wasn't what I wanted to do with my entire life but it came in handy. It sure led to a lot of cuts and bruises. All that meticulous attention to detail proved useful when I started coupling cars for the railroads.  

 

When I was younger when we lived in the small house in Oregon, my mother swore I wanted to feed all the neighborhood stray dogs. Big ones, little ones, it didn't matter: I would feed all of them. I don't' know how many times I went to her and asked if we could keep this one, or that one, please? Mary Streicher always gave me her kind yet firm smile.

 

"No, Glen," she'd tell me for the hundredth time. "No. If we feed one more dog we're going to have a pet store. We have two now. We're not taking on any more! Not till you grow up and get a job and can feed them yourself." She knew I would do that, she knew I would take care of them. I hadn't been like most school children who neglect their pets after the first week or so. My mother knew I loved all the stray dogs I tried to bring home and so it may have made it just a bit harder for her to turn me down: but somehow she always did and I suppose when I grew up and got a job with the railroads and adopted three dogs, her lessons stuck. I tried not to adopt all of them. But I hid myself in my room many nights and cried because she said no, and I'm sure, even to this day, that she knew it, though she was smart enough never to remind me of it. 

 

we had some horses out at a stable nearby. I liked my little brown mayor, her name was Scarlet. Scarlet and I had long conversations when I went out to brush her and walk her and feed her. She knew all my secrets. She knew I wanted to grow up to drive for the railroads. We'd go out on long walks together and I'd tell her everything. She was with me a long time, I lost her the year that the trouble with Elizabeth started. When Elizabeth took Allison May I had just put in my application for the freight companies so I suppose it was a blessing in disguise when I was hired and spent all that time in training and then started my work. I could push Elizabeth to the back of my mind, that was easy enough, but Allison May was a different story. As you can see, I let it get in the way of my relationship with Judy. Judy was confident enough in herself to let me carry my baggage till the day she made me face it. I'll always be grateful to her for that. But before I met Judy and lived here I grew up in that small town in Oregon, a place near a railroad line but not close to a station. There is a big train station up there in Eugene, I can't tell you how many times I've been there as an engineer, but I didn't live near there. We had tracks out there of course and at night I would lay awake listening to the freights clatter by, ominous and promising, lonely and comforting, mysterious and alluring. My exposure to trains took place on a regular basis but actually going to a station never happened till I moved up there to be near work. Operating track switches was a hard, tedious physically demanding job, but it was worth every minute. Concentrating on those switches could push the worries away, but if the truth is told, there weren't many of them, just that nagging little thought that wondered about Allison May. Fixated? Perhaps I was. Responsible? Probably not. Regretful? Definitely. Where Elizabeth took her I never found out, though I imagined it was not far from Astoria. It was a question that I could never answer. Tonight in the sweet aftermath of Judy's acceptance the answer to the question didn't matter.


Shelley J. Alongi 
Home Office: (714)869-3207
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To read essays on my journey through the Chatsworth train accident, Metrolink 111 or other interests click on http://www.storymania.com/cgibin/sm2/smshowauthorbox.cgi?page=&author=AlongiSJ&alpha=A

updated September 13, 2009