THE CABBIE'S LIFE: "JESUS AND THE RAILROAD"
BY DELL FRANKLIN
It was still dark out when I got the call for a Southern Pacific run, which meant transporting brakemen, conductors and engineers all over the Central Coast of California, from Salinas down to Los Angeles—big bank but no tips. I showed up at the Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo at 5:30 and two SP employees with lunch pails and overnight bags quickly got into the back seat. The third member was late, so we sat in the encroaching cold dawn fifteen minutes until a tall, raw-boned man with mustache and sideburns in his 30s showed up to take the shotgun seat while I stashed his bag in the trunk. Unlike the two quiet men in back, he failed to say hello or good morning.
I set off for their destination—Santa Barbara via Guadaloupe, a small produce center full of Mexican migrants near Santa Maria, 35 miles away. The sky didn’t lighten until we flew through Arroyo Grande. I kept the radio off and so far nobody spoke. Finally the man beside me began talking to the men in back, twisting his neck to face them. He bitched about the long erratic hours of the job, the pay, the demands. Half asleep, the men in back went along in monosyllables.
Then they began talking of the old days, when the railroad was bigger, there were more employees and business. One guy mentioned he didn’t have enough money to build a rec room for his kids, who were active in sports. He bragged of their accomplishments. The other guy in back complained of how spoiled his kids were and hated their loud music and had given up trying to discipline them and left it up to his wife to deal with their wayward behavior.
“My boy gets out a line,” the guy beside me said. “He pays dearly. I’m boss. Dottie knows that, so does junior. He’s captain of the football team. Gonna play high school next year.”
They continued talking about their kids. Then the guy beside me, Roy, asked me, “Got any kids?”
“Nope.”
“Married?”
“Nope. Only a cat.”
“I hate cats.” He sized me up. “What good are they? You can’t train ‘em. They aren’t like dogs. A dog can herd sheep and cattle, go huntin’, and learn to do tricks, if you train ‘em right. What can a cat do?”
“My cat does what he wants,” I told him. “He shits where he wants, kills rats and mice. Swats me on the ankle when I don’t feed him on time. He’s an insubordinate wise ass. I love that cat.”
“My dog Mac’s a pit mix and he’d eat that cat of yours in a second.”
I laughed. “Popeye smacked a Doberman/Rotweiler mix on the snout the other morning, drew blood, sent him whimpering away with his tail between his legs. Popeye rules my neighborhood. He’s fifteen pounds, heavyweight champion of our neighborhood, like Mohammad Ali.”
Roy’s neck corded up. “I hate that fucking nigger. Fucking Muslim. He’s nothin’ but a draft dodger—too chickenshit to go to Veet Nam.”
“You serve in Nam?”
“I was too young. But I would’a gone.”
“I don’t blame Ali for not going. He’s my hero.”
He clammed up. He was brooding, clenched. When I pulled into the tiny depot in Guadaloupe, Roy got out immediately and sat in the back while a new guy sat shotgun. I placed his satchel in the trunk and we took off across flat celery and broccoli fields on a 2 lane blacktop that would eventually find highway 101 and Santa Barbara. I stood to bank well over $100 and was feeling good and relaxed.
The new SP man in front was older, with a wire-brush mustache and a big, cracked jovial face. Right off he was friendly and wanted to talk, rare among SP men. He was still glowing over his vacation to Las Vegas with family, where he got a big discount, swam in a pool, saw shows, and his wife hit a slot. The three in back then began comparing deals they got on their vacations, which led to money in general, and how other transportation industries were flourishing, while theirs’ was dying. They discussed unions, and I broke in, relating the chickenshit union I was ordered to join, which was essentially a slush fund for the corporate heads to play golf and buy prostitutes in Vegas.
Vic, the guy beside me, said, “Makes yah sick, huh? Could be you rompin’ with them beautiful high-class call girls.”
I glanced at the audience in back and related to Vic my great time at the Tommy Hearns’Sugar/Ray Leonard championship fight at Caesar’s Palace, where I bet Leonard and won $500 and bedded down a beauty for $150. Vic slapped my knee in appreciation and exercised a booming laugh. “Damn,” he said. “I miss my bachelor days, but I gave it a good run before I got hitched. No regrets. I got plenty.”
Vic and I became chummy, exchanging embellished tales of the past. The guys in back grew quieter, grimmer, Roy downright morose.
*********
Vic and I were fast friends by the time we pulled into the depot in Santa Barbara. The train my crew was to meet had not yet arrived from San Diego. I had to wait to drive two men on this train to Lompoc. We had an hour to wait and decided to catch breakfast at a coffee shop down the street. The five of us found a big table and all ordered quickly, though Roy was implicit to the middle-aged waitress about wanting his eggs scrambled so they weren’t runny and his bacon not burnt or greasy.
When our plates came, Roy was immediately peeved that his orders had not been followed and had his bacon returned while we all dug in. When his bacon finally arrived he bitched about how he never ate out because nobody could get it right, which is why he’d trained his wife to cook things exactly to his specifications.
When the check came, Roy insisted on separate tabs, but Vic and I grabbed the check and we all estimated our share and donated bills, Vic and I chipping in a few extra bucks to sweeten the old gal’s tip. Roy and the other two looked constipated, not wishing to leave much, and when we got up to leave and were halfway out the door I turned to see Roy snatch a couple dollars off the pile of money left on the table, and I quickly went back, Vic right behind me, and asked Roy what the fuck he thought he was doing, and he said the food sucked and the service sucked and I yelled at him that he didn’t leave a dime as people quickly looked up from their plates at the surrounding tables. I snatched two dollars from his grip and tossed them back on the table and Roy started to make a move on me with his fists doubled and I had my fists cocked when Vic with his massive forearms stepped between us and then the other two SP guys were between us and they led Roy out of the coffee shop while Vic calmly told me to cool off, that Roy’s an asshole, not to let him get my goat.
**********
That was the last I saw of Roy, but I was still grinding my teeth and pumped with wrathful adrenaline when the two new SP passengers piled into my cab, a young lanky guy in back, an older man with wireless glasses and earnest eyes at shotgun. As we headed along the 101 freeway headed south, the shotgun man was turned toward me, studying me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yeh. I’m okay. Thanks.”
“You seem…troubled…you seem…disturbed.”
I noticed a bible in his lap. I exhaled a gush of air. “Disturbed?” I nodded. “You know a fellow employee, tall rangy guy named Roy?”
“Oh yes. I know Roy. A fine Christian gentleman.”
“I want to beat the living dog shit out of him.” He seemed unusually sedate. “I normally don’t have such violent intentions.”
He nodded, continued studying me. “You are a drinker and a carouser, are you not?”
I was startled at his acute observation. “I’ve done it all—alcohol, drugs, orgies, gambling, every vice known to man.”
Still facing me, his eyes held a distant, satisfied look. “What is your name?”
“Dell.”
“I’m Lloyd Addison. Dell, I was once like you. I cheated on my wife, carried on an affair with my best friend’s wife. I tried to sleep with everybody’s wife. I was selfish, a user, a taker, an evil man. I abused my family. I was terrible to everybody—a liar, a cheat. Then I found Jesus Christ. Five years ago. I am a happy man, at peace with myself for the first time. I have refrained from all evil vices and evil thoughts. I no longer live for myself and my own gratification. I live for my family and fellow man through Jesus Christ my savior. I am dedicated to this cause in what time I have left on this earth.”
“I doubt you or Jesus can help me,” I confided. “I see no way out and might as well go down in flames.”
“You are still one of Jesus’ children.”
“Not true. I’m the son of Murray and Rose Franklin.”
He handed me a card with his name on it as minister at a church in Atascadero, where there are 30 churches to every bar and all the kids in school are basket cases into weed and booze and tattoos and rings in their noses. “Dell, you come to my church this Sunday. I guarantee you will meet the right people and find the righteous path. You will be surrounded by good, wholesome, caring people who will support you and are happy. You are so unhappy. I spotted it right off. It breaks my heart to see somebody so full of anger and guilt, so tormented by taking the wrong path. We can put you on the right path, the good path.”
I glanced in my rearview mirror to see the lanky dude yawning as Lloyd told me of a rehab program run by his church. Then he opened his bible and began reading from and quoting certain passages he felt would allow me to come to my senses. We were well out of Santa Barbara and cruising along the isolated area with a view of the ocean when I felt he had gone too far and asked, “Hey, Lloyd, you think Jesus ate pussy?”
The dude in back came unglued, writhing around as he roared with laughter. “O yes!” he said.
The benevolent serenity instantly disappeared from Lloyd’s face and his eyes took on an enflamed and menacing cast behind his glasses. I feared he might hit me. He pounded the dashboard. “YOU!” he growled. “You will face eternal damnation! You will burn in hell!”
I nodded. “I know that, Lloyd. It’s not gonna be fun, but I’ve had a lot of fun here.”
He clutched his bible and seemed to be hyperventilating. He closed his eyes to gather himself. The guy in back was still chortling. Lloyd finally turned away from me, staring straight ahead as we passed through a tunnel and found the road to Lompoc, 26 miles away. As the discomfort lingered in the air, I finally spoke:
“Forgive me, Lloyd. I’ve been an asshole. I do respect how you’ve come to your present state, and if it works for you, and you are doing good, I’m all for you no longer being a menace to fellow man.” He nodded, still clutching his bible. “I know there’s good in everybody, even me. I’m good to my cat, even if I don’t know how to treat women and they always leave me for being self-centered and uncommitted. At this point I need a good dog to go with my cat—if he’ll allow it. He’s pretty cantankerous.”
He was calmed down. He glanced at me, nodded. Relieved, I drove on. The guy in back began yawning again. About a mile out of Lompoc, Lloyd closed his bible and turned to me. “Jesus does love you,” he said. “He forgives your sins.”
“Thank you, Lloyd, I know you’re right.”
We pulled into the motel where they were to stay. It was easy to see that both men had been working without sleep for around 24 hours. The railroad was no picnic. I got their bags and placed them at their feet. Lloyd stood before me. “I’m counting on you to come to church this Sunday morning, Dell,” he said, very earnest.
“If I’m not too hungover, Lloyd.”
Surprisingly, he hugged me, and I hugged him back, like good friends. All was well
It was still dark out when I got the call for a Southern Pacific run, which meant transporting brakemen, conductors and engineers all over the Central Coast of California, from Salinas down to Los Angeles—big bank but no tips. I showed up at the Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo at 5:30 and two SP employees with lunch pails and overnight bags quickly got into the back seat. The third member was late, so we sat in the encroaching cold dawn fifteen minutes until a tall, raw-boned man with mustache and sideburns in his 30s showed up to take the shotgun seat while I stashed his bag in the trunk. Unlike the two quiet men in back, he failed to say hello or good morning.
I set off for their destination—Santa Barbara via Guadaloupe, a small produce center full of Mexican migrants near Santa Maria, 35 miles away. The sky didn’t lighten until we flew through Arroyo Grande. I kept the radio off and so far nobody spoke. Finally the man beside me began talking to the men in back, twisting his neck to face them. He bitched about the long erratic hours of the job, the pay, the demands. Half asleep, the men in back went along in monosyllables.
Then they began talking of the old days, when the railroad was bigger, there were more employees and business. One guy mentioned he didn’t have enough money to build a rec room for his kids, who were active in sports. He bragged of their accomplishments. The other guy in back complained of how spoiled his kids were and hated their loud music and had given up trying to discipline them and left it up to his wife to deal with their wayward behavior.
“My boy gets out a line,” the guy beside me said. “He pays dearly. I’m boss. Dottie knows that, so does junior. He’s captain of the football team. Gonna play high school next year.”
They continued talking about their kids. Then the guy beside me, Roy, asked me, “Got any kids?”
“Nope.”
“Married?”
“Nope. Only a cat.”
“I hate cats.” He sized me up. “What good are they? You can’t train ‘em. They aren’t like dogs. A dog can herd sheep and cattle, go huntin’, and learn to do tricks, if you train ‘em right. What can a cat do?”
“My cat does what he wants,” I told him. “He shits where he wants, kills rats and mice. Swats me on the ankle when I don’t feed him on time. He’s an insubordinate wise ass. I love that cat.”
“My dog Mac’s a pit mix and he’d eat that cat of yours in a second.”
I laughed. “Popeye smacked a Doberman/Rotweiler mix on the snout the other morning, drew blood, sent him whimpering away with his tail between his legs. Popeye rules my neighborhood. He’s fifteen pounds, heavyweight champion of our neighborhood, like Mohammad Ali.”
Roy’s neck corded up. “I hate that fucking nigger. Fucking Muslim. He’s nothin’ but a draft dodger—too chickenshit to go to Veet Nam.”
“You serve in Nam?”
“I was too young. But I would’a gone.”
“I don’t blame Ali for not going. He’s my hero.”
He clammed up. He was brooding, clenched. When I pulled into the tiny depot in Guadaloupe, Roy got out immediately and sat in the back while a new guy sat shotgun. I placed his satchel in the trunk and we took off across flat celery and broccoli fields on a 2 lane blacktop that would eventually find highway 101 and Santa Barbara. I stood to bank well over $100 and was feeling good and relaxed.
The new SP man in front was older, with a wire-brush mustache and a big, cracked jovial face. Right off he was friendly and wanted to talk, rare among SP men. He was still glowing over his vacation to Las Vegas with family, where he got a big discount, swam in a pool, saw shows, and his wife hit a slot. The three in back then began comparing deals they got on their vacations, which led to money in general, and how other transportation industries were flourishing, while theirs’ was dying. They discussed unions, and I broke in, relating the chickenshit union I was ordered to join, which was essentially a slush fund for the corporate heads to play golf and buy prostitutes in Vegas.
Vic, the guy beside me, said, “Makes yah sick, huh? Could be you rompin’ with them beautiful high-class call girls.”
I glanced at the audience in back and related to Vic my great time at the Tommy Hearns’Sugar/Ray Leonard championship fight at Caesar’s Palace, where I bet Leonard and won $500 and bedded down a beauty for $150. Vic slapped my knee in appreciation and exercised a booming laugh. “Damn,” he said. “I miss my bachelor days, but I gave it a good run before I got hitched. No regrets. I got plenty.”
Vic and I became chummy, exchanging embellished tales of the past. The guys in back grew quieter, grimmer, Roy downright morose.
*********
Vic and I were fast friends by the time we pulled into the depot in Santa Barbara. The train my crew was to meet had not yet arrived from San Diego. I had to wait to drive two men on this train to Lompoc. We had an hour to wait and decided to catch breakfast at a coffee shop down the street. The five of us found a big table and all ordered quickly, though Roy was implicit to the middle-aged waitress about wanting his eggs scrambled so they weren’t runny and his bacon not burnt or greasy.
When our plates came, Roy was immediately peeved that his orders had not been followed and had his bacon returned while we all dug in. When his bacon finally arrived he bitched about how he never ate out because nobody could get it right, which is why he’d trained his wife to cook things exactly to his specifications.
When the check came, Roy insisted on separate tabs, but Vic and I grabbed the check and we all estimated our share and donated bills, Vic and I chipping in a few extra bucks to sweeten the old gal’s tip. Roy and the other two looked constipated, not wishing to leave much, and when we got up to leave and were halfway out the door I turned to see Roy snatch a couple dollars off the pile of money left on the table, and I quickly went back, Vic right behind me, and asked Roy what the fuck he thought he was doing, and he said the food sucked and the service sucked and I yelled at him that he didn’t leave a dime as people quickly looked up from their plates at the surrounding tables. I snatched two dollars from his grip and tossed them back on the table and Roy started to make a move on me with his fists doubled and I had my fists cocked when Vic with his massive forearms stepped between us and then the other two SP guys were between us and they led Roy out of the coffee shop while Vic calmly told me to cool off, that Roy’s an asshole, not to let him get my goat.
**********
That was the last I saw of Roy, but I was still grinding my teeth and pumped with wrathful adrenaline when the two new SP passengers piled into my cab, a young lanky guy in back, an older man with wireless glasses and earnest eyes at shotgun. As we headed along the 101 freeway headed south, the shotgun man was turned toward me, studying me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yeh. I’m okay. Thanks.”
“You seem…troubled…you seem…disturbed.”
I noticed a bible in his lap. I exhaled a gush of air. “Disturbed?” I nodded. “You know a fellow employee, tall rangy guy named Roy?”
“Oh yes. I know Roy. A fine Christian gentleman.”
“I want to beat the living dog shit out of him.” He seemed unusually sedate. “I normally don’t have such violent intentions.”
He nodded, continued studying me. “You are a drinker and a carouser, are you not?”
I was startled at his acute observation. “I’ve done it all—alcohol, drugs, orgies, gambling, every vice known to man.”
Still facing me, his eyes held a distant, satisfied look. “What is your name?”
“Dell.”
“I’m Lloyd Addison. Dell, I was once like you. I cheated on my wife, carried on an affair with my best friend’s wife. I tried to sleep with everybody’s wife. I was selfish, a user, a taker, an evil man. I abused my family. I was terrible to everybody—a liar, a cheat. Then I found Jesus Christ. Five years ago. I am a happy man, at peace with myself for the first time. I have refrained from all evil vices and evil thoughts. I no longer live for myself and my own gratification. I live for my family and fellow man through Jesus Christ my savior. I am dedicated to this cause in what time I have left on this earth.”
“I doubt you or Jesus can help me,” I confided. “I see no way out and might as well go down in flames.”
“You are still one of Jesus’ children.”
“Not true. I’m the son of Murray and Rose Franklin.”
He handed me a card with his name on it as minister at a church in Atascadero, where there are 30 churches to every bar and all the kids in school are basket cases into weed and booze and tattoos and rings in their noses. “Dell, you come to my church this Sunday. I guarantee you will meet the right people and find the righteous path. You will be surrounded by good, wholesome, caring people who will support you and are happy. You are so unhappy. I spotted it right off. It breaks my heart to see somebody so full of anger and guilt, so tormented by taking the wrong path. We can put you on the right path, the good path.”
I glanced in my rearview mirror to see the lanky dude yawning as Lloyd told me of a rehab program run by his church. Then he opened his bible and began reading from and quoting certain passages he felt would allow me to come to my senses. We were well out of Santa Barbara and cruising along the isolated area with a view of the ocean when I felt he had gone too far and asked, “Hey, Lloyd, you think Jesus ate pussy?”
The dude in back came unglued, writhing around as he roared with laughter. “O yes!” he said.
The benevolent serenity instantly disappeared from Lloyd’s face and his eyes took on an enflamed and menacing cast behind his glasses. I feared he might hit me. He pounded the dashboard. “YOU!” he growled. “You will face eternal damnation! You will burn in hell!”
I nodded. “I know that, Lloyd. It’s not gonna be fun, but I’ve had a lot of fun here.”
He clutched his bible and seemed to be hyperventilating. He closed his eyes to gather himself. The guy in back was still chortling. Lloyd finally turned away from me, staring straight ahead as we passed through a tunnel and found the road to Lompoc, 26 miles away. As the discomfort lingered in the air, I finally spoke:
“Forgive me, Lloyd. I’ve been an asshole. I do respect how you’ve come to your present state, and if it works for you, and you are doing good, I’m all for you no longer being a menace to fellow man.” He nodded, still clutching his bible. “I know there’s good in everybody, even me. I’m good to my cat, even if I don’t know how to treat women and they always leave me for being self-centered and uncommitted. At this point I need a good dog to go with my cat—if he’ll allow it. He’s pretty cantankerous.”
He was calmed down. He glanced at me, nodded. Relieved, I drove on. The guy in back began yawning again. About a mile out of Lompoc, Lloyd closed his bible and turned to me. “Jesus does love you,” he said. “He forgives your sins.”
“Thank you, Lloyd, I know you’re right.”
We pulled into the motel where they were to stay. It was easy to see that both men had been working without sleep for around 24 hours. The railroad was no picnic. I got their bags and placed them at their feet. Lloyd stood before me. “I’m counting on you to come to church this Sunday morning, Dell,” he said, very earnest.
“If I’m not too hungover, Lloyd.”
Surprisingly, he hugged me, and I hugged him back, like good friends. All was well
