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3 1 Winterlayoff,slowtimeontheboard,IdrovetoBakersfieldthenout to Ridgecrest, to a Bureau of Land Management mustang roundup, my new distraction from trouble in mind. In the cold white afternoon , I got restless and had to drive somewhere, outrun the blues I felt coming on. I drove and drove down Panamint Valley, tan and chocolate and white, long string of Southern Pacific grey hoppers at Trona,aKerr-Megeechemicalplant,whitesaltheapsonthedrylake bed,listeningtoPatsyCline,TracyNelson,fillingupwiththeblues. I knew I wouldn’t feel at home when I got home either, as soon as I caught up with myself. So I turned up the mountain road to Lake Isabella. With the sunset, I calmed down, the terra cotta hillside dusted with snow, dark green of the Joshua trees, white-capped sierra teeth behind them. I decided to give tomorrow a chance by staying the night at Isabella , chose a cheap room, a blue room with red bedstead, brought inmyElPasoblanket,Tarahumarawovenwool,withgreyandblack heavy stripes, so I could turn off the dusty heat in the room. The sizzlerrestaurantscaredme ,thesulfitesaladbar,soIateintheMexican one, a smoky room with small town nosiness, their January despair thick in the air. I ate a poisonous stew, came back to my room to be sick while the wind blew outside. Morning came, though, the blue room warmed slightly, after a safe night with no dreams. Reading Tennessee Williams’s Field of Blue Children, I felt better somehow, as if I were home on the rails. Booming throughout the Southwest, I now felt uncomfortable not moving. When I was home, I was always ready to jump in my truck and drive, particularly when I felt an emotion coming on. Well, it was growing up in LA, too. We went to the freeways to think things through. Just drive. I was used to funky railroad motels. In some places, the company built their own modules, but mostly they had a deal with a local place, like the Resetar Hotel in Watsonville, where I hired out. Rails need a separate wing so we can sleep during the day and stain the carpet with diesel from our boots. The crew callers had to be able to reach us at any time, and if there were no phones, a shagger came over from the depot and banged on the door to give us our call. I stayed in these places when I was away from home on a turn. After our crew got off a through freight, we waited in turn for another freight, going the other way, to work home. Sometimes the crewswouldpileupatthemotelandeventually,thecompanywould have to deadhead most of us back to our home terminal. Company motels in the desert were lonely places, and the only company to be found was in the bars that usually sat next to them. Most restaurants were really bars. A lot of western towns had three establishments: a gas station, a motel, and a restaurant-bar. Outside, T H E B L U E M O T E L 5 RailroadNoir.indb 31 12/17/09 2:01 PM R A I L R O A D N O I R 3 2 the treeless glare and 100-degree heat made any sane person look for shelter. Many rails who wanted to follow the work owned campers or travel trailers, and they would park them in the freight office lot and usetheshowersatthecrewshantiestocleanup.Thebumsunderthe bridge would be washing up at the water faucet, and the brakemen would be stumbling out of their campers to wash up inside. Julie Watson, a Southern Pacific conductor, remembers boom­ing. “I was the only woman in the parking lot in LA. You see, lot of the younger railroaders are boomers, people who travel around to workwherevertheworkis,andafewrailroadterminalsallowpeople to take their trailers, campers, or vans and stay right there in the parking lot so they don’t have to spend money on rent. Usually it’s temporary, though I have known people to have been there for more than a year or even people from that same area who have moved out because they split up with their wife and didn’t want to pay rent. I was in the situation where I didn’t have a good place to stay, so I stayed in the parking lot in my camper. The guys who live there are always walking around in their thongs and shorts just talking to everybody. It’s the parking lot mentality—no lawns to mow, no chores to do, no rent to pay. The guys I hung...

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