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9 3 WhileIwasinMexico,writerCarolKarasiktoldmeaboutashaman named John in Santa Fe who was helping a friend of hers who had cancer. While I probably wouldn’t have listened to this tip in the States, being in Mexico made me more receptive to folk wisdom. I think it was the weight that old collective beliefs had there. And so, before I returned to work, I went to Santa Fe and looked up John. Hehadanormaljobanddidn’ttakemoneyforhelpingpeople.Since he worked for Blue Sky soft drinks, his office had their aluminum cans on his bookcases. I remember thinking they had very trippy can designs. He asked me to lie on a massage table and moved his hands about three inches above my body. I drifted off into a dream state and saw a beaded staff floating in the clouds. It was like I was flying above the earth. “Idon’tperceiveanycancer,”hesaid.“Butyouneedtodrinklots of water. What did you see in your dream?” I told him about the staff. “It’s life,” he said. “You can return to life now.” I remembered when I first hired on in Watsonville in 1979, what a shock those first few night jobs were. I was as scared now as I had been then. The scariest thing was how easy it was for me to drift into dreamtime. This was not a good attribute on the railroad. If anything, you had to be hyper-aware. You had to make constant evaluative decisions—should I protect the point on that move or is it more important to watch the high-wide load in the middle of the rail? Do I know how much room I have in that industry spot? Exactly how many fifty footers can go in there without going through the bumper? How are the tracks laid out? Are there potential wrong switches in any given movement? Issues like that. And I still had to face marking up to the region/system board. Nobody from the railroad had called me to ask if I was coming back or if I needed any special assistance. It seemed like the usual sinkor -swim situation. I knew I needed to ease back in, but how? Sixteen years of experience told me that if I admitted I needed help, they would try to fire me. The railroad set up an appointment for me with their doctor, in old-time railroad lingo called a “croaker.” Since the company sent him, you didn’t look on him as on your side. “Are you coming back with any restrictions?” he asked me. I showed him the letter from my doc Arnie, stating that I was completely recovered. Not that Arnie knew what working full-time on the railroad entailed. “OK then,” he said, after a very perfunctory physical exam, “you are good to mark up.” Luckily, I could hang out on the Watsonville extra board until the region system board bids came up for October. I caught a deadheadrightawaytoGuadalupefortwodaysandthenaworktrain .All thesejobsweredaylight,soIcouldfallintothesleepofthedeadafter I got off. I won the RS board assignment to Oakland my first month, and John Payne was there too, staying in a motel on Jack London B A C K T O W O R K 13 RailroadNoir.indb 93 12/17/09 2:03 PM R A I L R O A D N O I R 9 4 Square. We caught a few jobs together, and I was aware that he was looking out for me. He took the physically harder spot working the field, leaving me the pin puller’s job. On our time off we wandered around the square, ate in the cafés. Of all my railroad friends, John was the only one who had called me when I was sick. Having him around now calmed me down about being back. I knew some of the Oaklandpeople fromyearsof working intheBayArea.It wasn’tlike walking into a hostile room each time I took a call. Still, I could tell I was not 100 percent there. I had to focus on everything I was doing, and after a few hours I got too tired. It was like my brain didn’t have the oxygen to function. It took every opportunity to space out and rest.Luckily,theOaklandreserveboardwasnotflippingeveryeight hours. Winter was our slow time. I made it through the month, and I had vacation time the next month, so that gave me until December to recover more. Of course I went to Mexico, where everybody expected you to sleepintheafternoon.InDecember,IwasinOaklandagain,butthe weather...

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