Written on 4/4/24, Pittsburgh.
Boarding the Coastal Starlight in Portland, off the baggage cart that the kind handler insisted I ride, I was handed a boarding slip. This is a colored strip of paper that had SJ for San Jose stamped on it, which had been given out at the desk. Bigger stations are more organized with this. At small stops the conductors and attendants carry blank slips and put destination initials on it. These are then slipped under the aluminum strip below the baggage rack, either the aisle number or window number. From 10 PM to 7 AM there are no stop announcements. The boarding slips permit the wranglers of we USG chattel to find us in our stalls and usher us down the meat chute of souls into America’s rancid maw.
I am assigned the window seat four rows forward of the lead coach car—everything behind us, as the door to the fore shows us the back of the baggage car. This is good for not being subjected to other passengers passing you in the quest for feed. Usually, the lead coach car is coupled to the back of the viewing car, which is linked to the dining car, thence to the sleepers. Sleeper cars have increased from 2 to 3 since Covid. Coach cars have decreased from 3 to 2 since Covid. The dining car has been opened back up to coach.
The lone passengers are now mostly visiting sick relatives or relocating for loss of housing or jobs. Couples tend to me granddaughter grandmother or other young person escorting an elderly relative, and sometimes gays and trannies and even some traditionally vacationing breeders. Lone male passengers are on the increase. I fit better than I used to. Lone women seem always to have the support animal dog child, or like the old Korean babe who smiles up to me and says, “Hello,” trying to befriend lone crackers for protection.
It has been over a week now. Even a few days ago I think I could have done a brief abridged monologue of some of Inigo’s interesting life. He had the aisle seat and was gracious. We exchanged addresses to send letters. I cannot reconstruct his monologues as I only spoke with him on one train trip and do not have his diction imprinted. Below is my best abridged history of this very entertaining and informative man who befriended me.
Inigo’s father, of the same name, was a Mexican screen writer, born in 1905. In middle age, in about 1951, he met Inigo’s mother and their happy union produced my latest friend, who is now 71 years of age. Inigo has a daughter who works in aerospace who he is very proud of. He smiles, his mouth creased with a light worry, when he speaks of her. He has a look for each woman he speaks of. He recalled one lost lover, in words, and paused, as if being grabbed by the temples by a great invisible hand and having his eyes squeezed shut to recall the fondest moment. Six full seconds were required to restore his composure.
Once, in his youth, Inigo and his Mexican cousins journeyed by motorcycle down into Mexico from his Texas home to sell some electronic equipment. He ran his cycle, on a bend, head on into a woman in a Volkswagon. He described himself as being a competent, but not very skilled biker, who was not experienced enough to bank around the cut in the road. He had a broken ankle and a bad cut to his knee. He was thankfully wearing thick wool under knee high leather boots which concealed his bleeding, his boot half full of blood.
The Federalies showed up. His cousins knew that if they saw blood that the wreck would become a federal case and he’d be in big trouble. He sold the wrecked bike to compensate the woman, who was uninjured, for the damage to her car. His cousins then made up a fake Mexican I.D. for him and got him into surgery. He said the hospital was packed.
Inigo was into smoking weed. He received his education in Mexico City and gained an art degree. His father had finished his career writing in Cuba, as Mexican corruption had soured him on working there. Senior had also been soured on the Catholic church. Hence, Inigo became and remains, a staunch Protestant American Constitutionalist. He served on aircraft carriers during the Vietnam War and qualified for the GI Bill that permitted his university education in Mexico. He takes the train due to terror of flying stemming from working on carriers. He says with subdued amazement, “I was a radio operator, a job that no longer exists.”
Working as an artist caused distress. Inigo described himself as a bad person who became consumed by his muse and had a brain that did not agree well with alcohol. For peace of mind, he gave up the agitating art work and booze.
Inigo landed a job working as a laborer for a photographer, making good money, largely in Mexican resorts, hauling and setting up equipment for the photographer. He described the utter banality of the beautiful and handsome models, idiots one and all. Also, was the stupidity of cocaine invading the workspace and people earning serious injuries on photo shoots while flying high on the superman drug.
Inigo settled for work on being a mechanic. He currently lives on very little rent in a cabin in Washington State, not far from where I winter. He gains this cheap rent by his ability to watch pets and fix the moving parts of human storage facilities for a terrible, soulless woman who gained these properties by defrauding her former husband.
Inigo was traveling to visit his brother who retired from the LAPD and is suffering illness. Inigo did make the mistake of befriending a large Gawd behind us and then asking him if he could crack a mild racial joke. This gave the bully pulpit to the disciple of Kanglyness.
Most importantly, and Inigo has already chaffed over this article I am sure—I see it in your rapid eye slide—he is a witness for Jesus Christ, a non denominational student of salvation who helped me a great deal with Dual Seedline clarity. On his recommendation I am seeking Strong’s Concordia, Smith’s Bible Dictionary and an online resource Shepherd’s Chapel as well as a reminder to reread Psalm 22.
Inigo aided me in my decrepitude and befriended me when I was down in the soul over abandoning my Eskimo bride to the gray vagaries of this evil world’s Apollonian tide.
Thank you, Inigo.
