E

Greg Dobbs froze as he read the headline a second time.

“Last Train to Reno".

Buried deep in the story-line was reference to the sixty-year history of the weekend run from the station in Old Sac up to Reno and back again.  Flowing through his mind was the scenic wonder of the trip, the renovation twenty years ago that added twelve sky-top cars with views up the Sierra slopes to the summits and on to the stars.  Buried deeper in Greg's soul was the memory of Sandra.

Greg's first weekend on the Reno Sierra run was the first of the sky-top excursions so long ago.  He bought his ticket early Saturday morning at the Auburn station and waited for over an hour to embark on the trip that was to be his excursion of a lifetime.  As he watched the golden rail cars approach, he sensed this was to be a weekend he would remember.  As he stepped off the platform and gained the elegant interior, he recalled the words to the song he was humming from West Side Story.

Something good.  Greg had been homeless on the streets only three months before.  His fortune had begun to change when an ex-street friend offered a job dispensing snow cones and popcorn at a fountain in an Auburn Village shopping center.

Greg worked hard and in three months had saved enough to rent a studio apartment, buy a second-hand suit of clothes and this ticket to Reno.

The coach car in which Greg was ticketed was not one of the sky-tops, but it met all of Greg’s expectations in every other way.  The sun painted the foothills in the same hue as the sky-top cars.  His senses of excitement found details he had never seen or smelled or tasted before.

East from Auburn the grade pulled heavier, and Greg recalled his roller coaster days with the carnival he had joined at age 15.  He settled back, peripherally enjoying the speeding vermillion canopy of the ripening apple orchards below.  “Heard of cows”, he smiled faintly at the bovine cluster on the foothill.  The life of simple comforts comforted him as he reminisced of his recent trials on the streets of Sacramento, enhancing his peace and joy that even menial employment could provide.  Greg nearly napped … so aware of the beauty of what surrounded him and so nearly missing it in his doze.

Greg’s spirit elevated, as did the Sierra.  Momentarily, he was rising through snow patches, past tree line and on to the white castle summits as afternoon shadows simulated early dusk.  Soft filtered paint from the easel of God spilled onto the peaks.  The ones with snow glowed, and those of granite sparkled of fireflies on black.

Soon the sounds of straining gave way to the freedom of effortless descent.  To his left Greg could stare down past rocks and red mud to the silver ribbon below.  A moment later it appeared to his right as either he or the river meandered to the east.

Then it was Lake Van Norden and Lake Donner singing different tones of blue to his sleepy soul.  Donner, with its history of struggle against the elements and the survival of the cold and hungry, displayed a deepening blue, reminiscent of that winter of hopelessness.  His gaze focused into melancholy as he recalled that page from his history requirement in the foothills of Colfax Junior High.

Now, past the Nevada state line and through Verdi, Greg approached Reno.  His weekend was about to begin.

“Something good”.

The Reno station was older, but updated, with lines of slot machines billed to be looser than the others in the city.  He slipped in a quarter, but as he saw the coin disappear forever, he scorned further investment.  His earnings were too sacred and too sparse to be tossed away this foolishly.  He was here to discover what “could be”.

On the boardwalk exiting the station, Greg first saw Sandra.

A fairy princess just about his age.  Sweet, pretty, owning all attributes of his straining imagination.  Words from another song struck Greg—“A Mona Lisa strangeness in her smile.”

“Something good!”

Then reality--but Greg, you don’t have a glass slipper.  This lady demands a prince to your pauper.

“Sir, did I hear there is a circus in town?”

“Sir?  My name is Greg.”

“Oh, my!”, he immediately scolded himself, “That’s lame.”

“I don’t know.  I just got off the train from Auburn.”, he said, “but I’ll help you find out.”

“Oh, thank you.  I’d like that.”

They walked silently down the wood walk to a “Welcome to Reno” signpost.  There were billings for at least 100 Reno events, and, yes, near the bottom was a reference to Barnum and Bailey.

Pointing, Greg said, “There it is.  There is a circus in town.”

Thinking in a flash that he did not want to lose her just now, Greg schemed over how great it was that of the multitude of events posted, the circus was one of probably two that he could afford.  He marveled that she had not asked if Neil Diamond was in town.

“Would you like me to take you there?”

“You mean, like a date?”

Their next word each was “Yes”.

Together they asked each other’s names, and together they answered:

“Greg.” and “Sandra.”

Then they laughed.

At the circus they also laughed.  At clowns, at the colorful animals, at the hightop performers and at the brilliant lines they kept feeding each other.

They laughed while dining (if you “dine” at a small burger cafe).  Also, they laughed during a walk in a small dust storm across town watching other people seeming to enjoy losing their life savings.

They got more serious as he walked her back to her hotel.  A medium kiss and an agreement to meet early on Sunday at the same burger cafe for breakfast.

“Good night.  I had a great time with you tonight.”

Greg was up at 6 AM, Sandra at 6:05.  At 7 AM they “dined” on a shared skillet of bacon, eggs and a one pound brick of hash browns.  Greg found that Sandra had also come from meager means.  She was never jobless like Greg.  The contrary--she worked early to late trying to make up for what her single mother did not do for her.

Then they heard the train whistle.  Thirty minutes to departure.

“I enjoyed being with you, Greg.  This has been something good.”

“Will we meet again?  In a month?  I’ll save all I can and come back.”

“Yes, Greg.  First weekend of the month, just like this.  Don’t be late.”

Twenty minutes more of light conversation and one less medium kiss later, Greg parted for his seat on the Reno Sierra.  He watched Sandra wave as the momentum of his ride parted her from him.

Moments later Greg stepped off at the Auburn station and walked off to face the longest month of his life.

His daydreams during this eternal month were not at all like those of his earlier excursion to Reno.

“Sandra.  I just met a girl named Sandra.   And suddenly that name will never be the same to me.”

He smiled.  He was living a “West Side” life now.  Whimsically he grimaced, hoping this would not end in Tony’s (or his) death.  His earthly goal was to marry this Maria and live happily ever after.

The time came, much eventually.  On the train to Reno, exuberance filled Greg until, stepping off onto the platform in Reno, he saw no Sandra.  She must be playing a joke and would be behind the next row of lockers.  Then, no, but behind the loose slots at the end of the walkway.  No.

“I’ll bet we agreed to meet at the posting board where we found the circus billing.”

For several hours the sad, but honest, truth evaded Greg.  Then, acceptingly, he understood that Sandra was not to appear.  He only imagined her reasons.  His acknowledgement of his poverty, his appearance (disheveled and alone).  Maybe he had come on too strongly.  Perhaps not strongly enough.  Never did he believe the reasoning could have been a problem with her.  She was more perfect than that.

On the everlasting ride home, Greg determined to remain loyal to Sandra.  He would come to Reno every month, first weekend, to look for her.  She would expect this, and one day would appear.  After all, she loved Greg.  And someday she would prove it by being there, standing at the station in a radiance he had seen only that once.  After all, he loved her, too.

Now, it had been twenty years.  Loyal to his fault, Greg had boarded in Auburn, unboarded in Reno, but never aborted his love for Sandra.  Once every month.  First weekend.  Once he even took his trek on the last weekend, hoping he had misunderstood first for last.

Now after his loyal searching all these years, it would be over after this coming weekend.  It was the last train to Reno.

Apprehensively, Greg stepped up to his place in the sky-top car (which he could now afford to ride).  Unlike his trip twenty years ago, his concern was not the apple orchards of the foothills or the snow tops at the summit or the ribbon reflection of Van Norden.  It was Sandra.  Greg was to be blessed forever with his “Maria” or damned as “Tony”.  Yes, he might take a coward’s way out.

Then, as the steam rose from the station steps, there she was.  Blood thumped in his upper chest as he tried to shout to her above the skidding rail brakes.  Nothing came out.  He rose from the vinyl bench and in slow motion waded the crowded aisle toward the exit.  He jumped down from the boardwalk to the dust of the roadway.

“Sandra!”

She turned in response and smiled.  Greg stood shocked.  In twenty years she had not changed in a single way.  The eyes that he had noticed first.  The softness.  The softness of her face and her smile.  It was Sandra.

“I’m not Sandra”, she said gently.

“Sandra.”

“No.  Sandra is dead.”

“But you haven’t changed.”

“She died bringing me to life.”

“You”, he said haltingly, “are Sandra’s daughter?  Why, you must be.  You are so like her.”

“I’ve heard that.  My name is Meredith.  Merry.”

“Merry.”

“Yes.”

“Giving you birth.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll buy you a burger and coffee if you will tell me all about it.”

They went to the familiar small burger cafe and talked for two hours.  Then Greg left Merry forever, thanking her for meeting the last train to Reno.

Heading back to Auburn the next morning, Greg recalled the story of Sandra and Merry, sequence by sequence.  Across the run from Reno to Verdi and the eastern mountain cliffs, Greg agonized over the other man in Sandra’s life.  If she had only told him.

Merry’s father was a mean drunk.  Hurting Sandra in places that couldn’t be seen.  Trying to break a spirit that could not be.  Damaging a body but not a soul.  Demanding love that would have been given willingly.  If only...

Up and over the Sierra snow top Greg wept softly and unnoticeably.  Merry was born of unwilling but uncontested terror.  And in providing life, Sandra sacrificed hers.  Her death occurred nine months to the day after her single meeting with Greg.  The day Dan had spotted her in the small burger cafe with Greg.  His rage took him and Sandra to a dry, dusty cactus clearing in the desolation just east of Reno.  His hatred taunted her “unfaithfulness” with Greg and violated her pure, innocent life.

Past Apple Hill and the herds below Greg shivered his disgust for not being able to see this troubled aspect of Sandra’s life.  Or her being unable to voice it.  Certainly, he could have taken her away from this end.  If only...

Sandra had waited out her term in jail thereby not being able to meet Greg that month later.  He could only imagine if she died from the childbirth itself or from having given up.  No, not giving up.  Not her.

The skidding of the iron wheels against the iron tracks, as the train slowed its way into the Auburn station, woke Greg’s consciousness to life after Sandra.  But after stepping down to the platform, Greg could not help pondering and then accepting that Sandra had died in prison.  She needn’t have taken Dan into her own hands.  Greg would have done anything for her.  Anything.