Observations of the Liminal - Part 3
Morro Bay, '23 & '24
“Everyone, this is the conductor. I have some unfortunate news. This train isn’t going to move beyond Guadalupe.”.
A few minutes ago, we were told the engine had stopped, that they were working on getting it back online. Then the hammer fell. Oil leak. Complete engine failure. Once again, I and many others were faced with the prospect of needing to find alternative means to our trips provided by Amtrak. Now I should say I’ve had experience with such things in the past, even outside of Amtrak. I’ve made the tough call of figuring out overnight lodging in an unintended stop on a journey (my infamous story of being stranded at Denver International on the way to Great Sand Dunes National Park is more fun in person). But this took the cake in repetition. I was sidelined before by the Coast Starlight, and suddenly I was sidelined even by the Pacific Surfliner. No southern-headed train seemed a safe bet.
In a shockingly humane move, the conductor said she’d walk down the whole train with her staff to try and troubleshoot people’s forward progress. For almost an hour, we all sat wondering what to do - go off into town? Wait for help? My own plans were simple and uncomplicated, merely another nighttime pickup from my folks. Who knows the sheer amount of time-dependent plans among the other passengers. One such woman who seemed particularly stressed out asked the folks in my car if anyone had a spare phone. A “spare” phone is an odd way of saying any phone at all, but I lent her mine so she could make a call. She didn’t know the intended recipient’s number off-hand. She walked in with yoga pants below a leopard-print jacket and held by the crook of her elbow a transparent plastic luggage bag with papers and an envelope scrawled over in frenzied writing. Multiple phone numbers were the only terms discernible. “How could you leave me like this?” she asked the man on the line. “Why don’t I have my own phone? You know I’m mentally unstable. Why did you let me get stranded out here?”. The man tried calming her down when, after expressing high distress, having been facing away from me toward the empty seats behind us, she turned back to me without an ounce of discomfort in her voice and face and calmly said “Thank you.” as she hung up on him mid-sentence. He called me back twice, but she didn’t want to call anymore. I had a feeling she sent out the message she needed to send.
30 minutes later, the conductor and accompanying agent showed up. The prospect of a recovery bus had been announced, and my question pretty much involved what the smartest bet was to hedge on. The agent said they were still in the process of finding out if 3rd-party buses could even be brought in. With a sympathetic but curt shrug, he walked behind me to the next car. The small but stalwart conductor paid special attention to the distressed woman who borrowed my phone. She’d go on to bring water and snacks to the woman. The woman and I would play that familiar game of telephone between strangers, when information was broadcast that we needed the assurance of one more person having interpreted a similar message in order to feel secure. She asked for the time. I said it. She volunteered bus status info. when she got some.
As time wore on, I started to feel for the staff. They look as exasperated as we are. They walk the aisles with sunken shoulders held up by either a sense of authority, or some kind of pride in the ability to address dissatisfaction. They're grateful when we don't give them grief. This is the same plight of all folks who have a robust system in place around them and nothing they can do about repeated issues. They work on behalf of others and can't even fulfill what the presiding entity promises. Government workers, city employees, social service providers; the list doesn't end.
When the staff were certain this train wouldn't be going any further, the food cart vendor prepared what amounted to last rights. Refrigeration doors were kept sealed, heat-needing items were abandoned, and snacks were brought to the forefront. He set up waters, which I was hoping were complimentary. Honestly, I'd hoped all of it would become complimentary. When I asked how much a candy bar and bag of chips would be, he said "4.25". Ones are a precious commodity in the street food scene back home, so I wasn't about to deposit those at the First Bank of "We're sorry, everyone.". Instead, I handed him a 5. He offered to try and make the fritzing register work - though I should say it's very telling that the onboard electronics for charging your phone don't function ("emergency power" was the recently indicated status) while the sales computer that can charge you for food does -, but I said he could keep the 75 cents. I figured Amtrak needs it more than I do.
They're really good at apologizing, Amtrak, not necessarily fixing anything or creating a notion that they will improve their services for future endeavors to not fuck everything up. They and other companies employ a brilliant system of entrapment. Instead of straight-up giving you your money back, they intend to give you a voucher. A voucher is effectively another way to get you on another train - where you might give them more money by buying more features and snacks and amenities - that will in all likelihood fail you and give you another voucher. They keep your money.
I mulled this and other things over a blue moon treat, a Snicker’s bar (and may I say - dividing the big bar into two smaller bars for “sharing”, as the wrapper claims, really is a cheap way of making smaller bars for the same packaging volume and price; shame on you, Mars Inc.), and that bag of chips when it was confirmed by the conductor and Amtrak’s text messaging system that there was indeed a bus coming for us.
One of the employees mentioned they were surprised that Amtrak "shelled out" to get us a recovery bus. "Normally they're too cheap to create solutions.”. That's not verbatim, but in essence the sentiment.
When the bus arrived, I was confused by the “Amtrak” logo on the door. Trouble procuring a 3rd party? I call your bluff.
*
It's a very distinct commuter bus. It has the aesthetic of feigned new-agedness with swooping plastic storage chambers, glowing panels for air and light, and that distinct dark midnight blue carpeting/upholstery speckled with dots that suggests constellations and theme parks. I become vaguely tired at the hint of moments in similar vehicles, like sleepy tram rides at the end of a day at Disneyland. Funny how visions from the old world are so tied to the past, even when they attempt to be a vision of the future. The damned bus even says the date is “4-22-2018” on its pixelated alarm clock-like monitor above and behind the driver. What in the world would cause that. Kind of incredible that even beyond the pattern of the fabric, the backs of the seat heads have so much flotsam and jetsam that you'd figure they were used as lint rollers. What's funny is that the bus pretends at being better than the average long-distance bus. The seats are even squishier (anyone above the height of 6' would suffer shins slowly worn down by jittering contact with metal) in distance than usual, they have huge metal braces to change their distance while occupying precious foot space, and they have no noticeable power outlets. Also - shoulder-angle seatbelts.
The train staff were kind enough to give us spare waters and snacks for free. Was I a sucker for buying mine ahead of time, or did I make out ok by knowing I could take a couple coffee cakes? Much like my first leg, I think I broke even.
I wanted so badly for that thematic book-ends-ass line about "breaking even" to be the end of the story, but it isn’t.
At around 8-something, with an hour so far of seamless travel, the bus driver called out. In a warning like a draft before an invasion, we were all enlisted to be veritable boxcar hobos hopping onto some passing freighter. He told us that we'd soon stop at the Oxnard Amtrak station to take the incoming southbound train. He said he'd hurry off the bus and unload our luggage as quickly as he could. Why was it that he had measured anxiety in his voice? Surely there couldn’t be a foreseeable dread reason that his own employer would cause him to uncomfortably hurry those in his care.
The bus driver stopped the bus just outside the gates. He hustled down the steps as my companions reassured each other that we all had to get out. The words "or else" were backlit behind the eyes of each person I encountered; a dark cloud on the horizon of the back of the mind. By the time I reached the undercarriage storage section, the driver had hauled out over half the lower deck of 20 to 40 pound bags and was working on the rest. His entire body was stretched clear through the cargo hold, hucking and chucking the luggage backward whether it was selfishly oversized or humorously light. He implored us to get going toward the train once we got our belongings. There wasn't time to thank him. We walked briskly around the bus in an attempt to find a partition in the fence before the waiting train. We walked down the train’s immense length. An agent informed us we were to enter the last two cars only. God forbid they figure a way for us to join any earlier cars when we were already late, when we had a dozen cars between us and salvation. You think I’m trying to filch business class, your business class, like I want to find out what these people are paying more for just to be as late as the folks in the back? Tag us again since you’re already doing so. Another train agent toward the caboose had the audacity to ask, no, command us to hurry up, 'cause the train was ready to go. I thought Amtrak ran a tight ship, but I guess it wasn't conveyed to this employee that a few dozen paying customers who were stalled by Amtrak's own product and facilities were already speedwalking fast enough to compete with Olympic speedwalkers in a desperate attempt to join any semblance of security on their path south to Los Angeles. We truly did barely load onto the train in time. I'm frankly shocked that they considered leaving some of us behind.
At this point I'm raggedy, dandruffed, flustered, and I smell like a dog (having played with the dogs at Nanny’s place earlier, everyone; nothing else). I wouldn't want to sit next to me. I waver down the rows, attempting to find open seats. Every single pair is occupied by at least one person. Stern, uncaring, even disturbed faces meet mine. For once I'm one amongst the frenzied unknown, interrupting the polite, quiet consistency of a prior ride. Yet the kindness of strangers prevails. I meet the person I try to be in these situations. A nice young fella lets me join him. I sit down, hitting the seat with the careful yet heavy thud of a vagabond, still unsure if I'll get caught on my own deserved train ride. I worry the engine will realize I'm here and cut out, sending eager employees who wear sunglasses at night like the simulation agents in The Matrix to hunt me down for my indiscretion of expecting a smooth, uninterrupted ride back home. For the next two hours we track down to the destination. I give my parents updates every 30 minutes to be sure about my arrival. Incredibly, after all of that, we were only about an hour late.
*
A man with an entire heavy-duty trashbag full of stuff on his shoulders like a bale of some poisoned hay enters the restroom. The ceiling speakers play opera, as if any of these drunk Dodger fans and wanderers want to hear classical music. Maybe the staff want us to experience classical music? Nope. If they really wanted to share the joys of Wagner or Chopin, the free-to-play baby grand piano wouldn't be closed for the day.
Outside the west end of the station, I take stock of my former fellow passengers. The distressed woman sits next to someone else she has befriended. I have no idea if she’s waiting for anyone in particular, or going further. Once again, characters everywhere. Father John Sparrow walks briskly by us. He's a tall Manson lookalike with a duffel in one arm and a bottle of clear liquid in the other. Dodger fans everywhere. I want to rally with them, celebrate the win or commiserate over the loss. My gross state holds my arm and keeps it stuck to my suitcase handle.
In situations when I’m derailed literally and figuratively from comfortable stasis, or interrupted from plans with ramifications, I never truly calm down or settle into feeling “safe” again until I’m in my destination. The thought of being home flushes me with gratitude; things falling off my back, hands unclenching, showers running, fresh clothes taken from the bed to the body.
Amtrak still has my money for the services they rendered, for barely scraping by their duty of getting us to our destination. Though through their vouchers, they make claims about wanting to reimburse people for their trouble. What is the policy for repeat offenses? How do you reimburse someone for adrenaline lost to a miasma of chemicals and fluids in the heart? Was it a blip? Did it happen at all? How do you pay someone back for the stress and time that bears down on the head and chest like a weighted blanket until they’re finally in the white Prius toward home?
I remember that Amtrak can simply get away with this. Name me another train that can take you from SoCal to NorCal and back (or claims to be able to). They need our money, but we need them even more. The shame is that while it’s obvious who pays whom, who services whom, there is a secondary payment. A tax on faith that things should work out. A toll on belief. There is a toll on every traveler, and it collects beyond monetary means. There is the toll on the woman abandoned by her family. There is the toll on the father and son who should already be in their hotel on the way to San Diego. There is a human toll on everyone who feels the effects of plans gone awry, except for Amtrak. In that regard, it feels like only one one of us foots the final bill.