It was a big
white Toyota pickup truck, a beefy looking and tall Tundra. It missed the
entrance to the main parking lot and swung around the auxiliary one to get back
to the drop-off area.
A man and a
woman, both blonde, both lost somewhere in that crevice between youth and middle
age, alit. She was in a hurry, tense; frumpy and sexy in a black dress. He was
slow, with the gait of a former high school football player who had gone on to
a career in gutter repair. She bought a ticket at the Metrolink machine while
he pulled her bags from the truck bed: four pieces of cheap luggage, enough for
a long trip, or all of someone’s personal belongings.
“There are
no trains on Sunday,” I told them.
“What?” she
asked, as if she had understood what I said but hadn’t been able to process its
implication. At the same time, he looked at me with the gaze of a dim-witted
dog wondering if it was going to get a scratch behind the ears.
“Where can I
get a train?”
“Downtown
Los Angeles,” I said. "Where do you want to go?"
“I don’t
care. I just don’t want to be here anymore,” she said.
Neither of
them was crying. Neither of them was sad. He stared lazily. She looked around
as if maybe something on the platform would give her different information than
I had.
“You can get
a train anywhere from downtown,” I assured her while pointing to
where Los Angeles was via the tracks.
Frantic and
yet calm, she looked back at the vacant man and the big truck, then turned to
me and asked, “What about a bus? Does the bus stop here on Sundays? Doesn’t matter where it goes.”
“There’s no
bus,” I explained.
One by one
the bags went back into the truck, softly – without malice. The man got behind
the steering wheel as if it was any other day. The woman climbed into the
passenger seat as if she had not expected to ever sit there again.
The truck
took off in the direction that I had pointed. They were quickly too far for me
to tell them that wasn't how to get to Los Angeles. I had no way to explain that
road they were speeding down was just a very long dead end.
But then
again, I’m not certain it would have mattered.
