Spoils to the Brave


          The biggest reason Arlo liked to ride the train wasn't for the gas money he saved. It wasn't because he could cop an hour long nap before the train got him to work. It wasn't even because it gave him time to read when lately it seemed he didn't have any time at all to do anything, except write interminable arts previews
and conduct interviews with relative nobodys.

It was because he liked to eavesdrop on people. He heard fascinating conversations, though most were mundane, routine, small time chit-chat, but sometimes, often, he heard snatches of conversation that sounded to him as if they had been written by some brilliant writer, dialog to a play taking place right in front of him, for free.

          Arlo found a seat on the commuter train and pulled a book out of his pack. He started to read, and people all around him began to speak. A male voice in the seat behind him talked to a woman. He couldn't see their faces. The male voice spoke in a hushed whisper.

          "They're trying to blame me just because I was the last one to see him," the voice said.

          "Did you see it on the news?" he asked.

          "No, but don't worry about it, you didn't do anything," the female voice said.

          An older gentleman in the seat across from him looked out the window at the Wool Warehouse, a store he obviously remembered in a different way than the decrepit, graffiti covered wreck it was now. The stately old former warehouse had been built like a grand old hacienda, complete with all of the graceful architectural amenities of one. It had elegance and style, and was being converted by an investors group into a community theater. It had been built at the same time, and right next door to the Alvarado Hotel, an icon in southwestern railroad architecture and style. The Santa Fe Railway put the wrecker's ball to it in the 1970s before the city could appreciate its beauty. The hotel had once been graced by the beautiful and morally correct Harvey Girls, waitresses that served weary train travelers with shiny young innocence and friendly but correct professionalism.

          "What are they doing to the Werewolf?" the old man asked a younger woman companion.

          "The Wool Warehouse, Grandpa," corrected the woman.
          "Que? Que dices? I can't hear you," the man said.

          An older woman on the other side of him took a cell phone and put it in his front shirt pocket.

          "Here, keep it here in your pocket so you can hear it if anybody calls," the woman said sternly.

          "They're going to turn it into a theater," the younger woman said.
          "Oh que bueno, I love to go to the movies," the old man said.

          The younger woman looked like she was about to correct him again, but decided it was too much trouble. Arlo smiled at this exchange.

         “May I sit here?” a well dressed young man with cropped short black hair asked          Arlo, who had his nose buried in a book. Arlo noticed a strange hesitance, as if the man recognized Arlo from somewhere, though Arlo was certain he had never met the man.

          “Sure, go ahead,” Arlo said. He moved his backpack and put it on the floor between his feet.

          After a momentarily silence, the two men began making small talk. Arlo learned they were neighbors, and that Ramon, who appeared to be about 20 years younger than the 54-year-old Arlo, lived in Tome, a little riverside village just north of Adelino, a similar hamlet where Arlo had lived on the same land his great grandfather had homesteaded in the 1700s as part of an old Spanish land grant.

          The train rocked back and forth as it gained speed, rumbling toward Albuquerque like a carnival ride. A huge luminous silver moon hung on the horizon like a silver coin. Gray scenes outside sped past like the frames of a video disc movie set at fast forward.

          Since everyone in each little town knew everyone else in the town, they began exploring mutual connections. Arlo discovered a delightful connection in that Ramon said he had an older sister, about Arlo's age, named Clarita.

          Arlo immediately remembered a girl named Clarita, whom he had invited to his 16th birthday party, where, Arlo told Ramon, she had been the belle of the ball under a shimmering disco ball.

          “She's still beautiful,” Ramon said.

          “I wanted to dance with her, and I think I saw that she wanted to dance with me, but I was shy,” Arlo said. “I was afraid.”

          Being afraid was a condition Arlo had carried into adulthood. At 16, Arlo never envisioned still living in Tome. His plan had been to escape the farming community and see the world. Instead, he had been trapped, by poverty, meekness, and fear.

          Watching the scenes zip past his window, Arlo remembered how he had talked as a college undergraduate that he wanted to be a poet, or a playwright, perhaps even a novelist. And though Arlo had published a handful of poems in small literary or college presses, and had self published a book of poetry and of short stories, he couldn't help but indulge the feeling that the life he'd imagined had somehow abandoned him.

          He even allowed himself to imagine that he must have a double in a parallel universe, who was happily living the life he had imagined as a youth.

          He thought about the days that turned into years wondering what might have happened had he gotten enough courage to ask Clarita to dance. Maybe he'd have a Harley Davidson now, on which he had imagined he would see the country. Instead, he had a decrepit old Honda 350, a “rice burner” that got him to his job flipping hamburgers at the Dog House in downtown Albuquerque. He had wrecked it one night, leaving him with a noticeable limp. But he had put it back together with duct tape and baling wire, and it still ran.

         The Dog House was so named because of the chile smothered hot dogs that became the roadside diner's speciality, but it could easily have also referred to the hound dogs that lingered in the parking lot for Arlo to drop some leftovers on his way to the dumpster at the end of the day.

          Arlo thought back to the day of his birthday party, in his mother's beauty shop, which had festooned with balloons and ribbons. They had played 45s on an old record player, and no booze allowed. All the pretty girls of the village had come, and all of the boys. It was a wonderful party, yet Arlo had never gotten over the possibility that he could have danced with Clarita, and perhaps would have even won a kiss, if he had been less a dweeb and more of a man.

          The train lurched to a stop at the Rio Bravo station; about 15 more miles to the Los Lunas station, where Arlo would deboard.

          “So how is Clarita these days, besides being still a beauty?” Arlo asked Ramon.

          “She's married, about 20 years, to a nice guy, and they have two children, a son and a daughter, both in their teens. He's an architect, and she's a school teacher,” Ramon said.

          “Wonderful, that's great,” Arlo said.

          The train stopped and the car doors opened. A blonde, wearing shabby clothes and chewing her gum furiously, declared to no-one in particular, “Survived another day.”

          Then as the train began to pick up speed toward its final stop in Los Lunas, the woman settled back in her seat, her gum chewing slowed to a crawl, and she looked out the window, though her glazed eyes showed she was looking inside rather than out.

          Fifteen minutes later, the train slowed and stopped at the Los Lunas station. Ramon gathered his belongings and stood up to leave.

          “Send Clarita my regards,” Arlo said. Then as an afterthought, he added, “Tell her I'm going to have another party in the beauty shop, and she's invited.”
          Ramon smiled. “I will tell her.”

          Arlo followed Ramon, and suddenly had the inspiration to follow him, in the change he might see Clarita. Ramon was walking briskly ahead and didn't notice the tailing Arlo.

          In the parking lot, Arlo's hunch paid off, when he saw Clarita open the passenger's side door. She got out of the car to greet her brother, and she kissed him on the cheek.

          What Arlo saw next nearly knocked the air out of his lungs. Arlo realized now why Ramon had looked so startled when he had first seen Arlo as he boarded the train.

          Clarita went to the driver's side window, and asked the man inside to roll down his window. Then she kissed him. She used her finger to touch his lips lovingly. The man, it seemed to Arlo, could have been his identical twin. He was astounded to learn he had a double in the world, and his double had married the woman of his dreams.



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