Rid and the Railroad

One Sunday morning in 1999, I got a call from Rid's wife. She told me that Rid was going to be in Los Angeles that day. He had been working on the American Orient Express. He did general maintenance on the interior of the cars. (Not the train engine.) She said the train was going to have a day-long stop at Union Station and I should be able to hang out with him for a little while.

Since I wasn't working that day and didn't have anything planned, it was easy for me to just up and drive to LA. (This was one of the nice things about having a working automobile.)

She told me that all I needed to do was ask someone where the American Orient Express was and they'd tell me where it was located on the tracks. I got to Union Station and asked ten different people about the train. Not one person knew anything about it.

Walking around, I noticed a 15-year-old boy wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, but I didn't think much about it. I was trying to concentrate of finding Rid. I walked outside where the tracks were and I saw the American Orient Express there. I stood on the other side of the gate from the tracks. I didn't see Rid anywhere. I went back inside to where people disembark and saw Rid coming down the hallway. He was glad to see me.

He took me on a tour of the train. Most of the rooms for regular passengers were rather small. The area where the employees bunked was even smaller. But on a train, you spend most of your time in the passenger car and not in your room. He had to do a couple of things and then we would be able to hang out. He asked some of the other employees if they wanted to go out. One person wanted to come along. He was a mostly clean-cut guy (his hair was a little long and curly) about 23 years old. He wore glasses. I'll call him Nurd.

Rid and Nurd got in my car. I asked Rid where he wanted to go. He suggested the Santa Monica Pier. I'd never been there before, so this seemed like a plan. We arrived and started walking around. I saw a 15-year-old boy wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt. I could swear it was the same person I saw earlier. I wished I had asked him if he'd been at Union Station that day, but I kept my mouth shut.

We walked around the pier for a little bit. Then we went to a cafe. We sat outside in the patio area. Rid and Nurd ordered beers. While we were sitting outside eating and drinking, a woman came outside to smoke a cigarette. She had long blonde hair and appeared to be in her mid-30s. She was attractive, but wasn't someone I would have normally taken notice of. Somehow, Rid was able to rope her into a conversation. She stayed seated where she was smoking, but she remained actively engaged in talking to Rid.

She was in from out of town for some kind of business conference. She was there at the cafe with a friend who lived in LA. She had come outside to smoke. She and Rid talked for about a half-hour before she decided to go back inside and sit with her friend. Rid, Nurd and I decided to walk around the pier some more. Before we left, Rid went back into the cafe and found the woman so that he could give her some more information on one of the topics they had discussed. It was about someone she could contact. I noticed that her friend was this guy about her age. He was clean-cut and pleasant-looking. While Rid and the woman talked, I could see the guy giving Rid REALLY dirty looks. Nurd apparently saw this, too. When we went outside, Nurd said, "Aw, man! That guy looked like he wanted to kick your butt!" Rid said, "No, there shouldn't have been a problem. She said he was just a friend." I said, "Oh, no! I don't think he sees it that way!" "SHE SAID HE WAS JUST A FRIEND!"

I suddenly realized that Rid has probably never been in the Friend Zone. Nurd and I obviously had been, but Rid hadn't. In fact, Rid was the type of guy who put women in the Friend Zone (and the Ring Zone). This meant there was no way he could relate to that guy's dilemma. But I was able to tell exactly what happened: That guy was hoping this would be the opportunity to become romantically involved with that woman. They arranged to meet at the pier and eat. After getting seated and ordering food, she decided to go outside and smoke. He probably said, "I'll come outside with you." "Oh, no! I'll only be a couple of minutes. You stay here and save the table." She then wound up talking to Rid for a half hour. When she went back in to sit down, she was all like, "Oooh, I just met this guy outside. He was kind of cool!" (Even though Rid was married and wore a ring, this was not brought up in the conversation.) I could see her friend thinking, "DAMN! I knew I should have insisted on going out there with her! Now, nothing's going to happen!" And when Rid actually came to the table, that just made things worse. He probably thought, "What? She's all excited about this fat guy?"

But we never encountered them again. After walking around, Rid and Nurd decided to go back to the cafe and drink more beer. Like, three more tall glasses each. I've been around Rid when he's been drinking. He remains the same person when he's inebriated. But Nurd transformed into a mean drunk. Rid and Nurd had told me what time they needed to get back to the train. I mentioned what time it was and how long we needed to get them back. Nurd suddenly started yelling at me and accusing me of trying to end their fun because I didn't like him. Rid was able to keep a cap on him and we eventually left.

They were both very nervous while we were driving back to the train. There were rules against being drunk on the job and they both hoped that no one would notice. We wound up arriving after 15 minutes after they were supposed to report back to work. I guess everything worked out okay.

I would see Rid again a few months later when I drove to Denver on my next vacation. He never worked on the train again.