On a Roll

Fast now, trackside poplars whipping by the train's corridor windows, the lazy flatness of the Sacramento Valley bouncing like a flimsy table. Hard to believe that all this agri-dullness could lead to the Northwest. To Washington, bursting with watery life, sloped with fir trees, shivering beside snowy peaks, aquiver with shellfish and alderwood-smoked salmon. Time I had breakfast.

Tilting to the right on a curve, I hit the electric switch at the sleeper's end. The door slid open on a lounge that stretched the length of the car. Low armchairs at this end, a bar with settees and booths at the other. Passengers sitting and standing, chatting and coffeeing. Sculpted sconces threw their light upward at a ceiling that wasn't there, for this was a dome car. With glass from bottom to top, scenery, currently agricultural, jolted past at all angles. Inside it was like some period scene aboard the 20th Century Limited or the Super Chief, except for people on mobile phones, cameras dangling.

I stepped inside, holding tight to the door frame, crutch hooked in the crook of my paralyzed arm. A bartender fought his way through the tilting conservatory, parting the crowd with a pot of coffee. Occasionally a patron flagged him down and held up a cup. As the train jolted, the bartender poured, pivoting like a gyroscope to keep the coffee stream aimed. Along the windows, bud vases jiggled with fresh carnations.

I couldn't stand and sway in this doorway forever, but the lounge car, all openness and unobstructed views, had nothing to grab. Eight overstuffed armchairs held eight overstuffed passengers, each with laps for emergency falling. Maybe I could limp ahead holding the swiveling backs of the chairs. Or the backs of the passengers. We were probably somewhere near Red Bluff, California. An abandoned high school sailed by, its parking lot marquee promising a flea market on a Saturday ten months before. Now, weedy fields, a row of trees, followed by corrugated sheds, and more fields, the latter being plowed. Looking to my left, I could see one possible course: sidle against the bulkhead, then grab the wooden ledge under the windows. The latter held coffee cups and carnation vases. It could hold me. I took a lunging step toward the glass and slammed my crutch tip against the bulkhead just as the car tilted leftward. Upright, I leaned against the window, pretending to regard the view. Safe now, or reasonably so.

A woman swiveled her armchair to stare at my paralyzed hand. I stared at the gray stripe running through her hair. She smiled at me with her badger streak. I smiled back, remnants of fear-of-falling adrenaline pulling my lips back like some canine. Too bad I couldn't pass out a fact sheet explaining that the right hand and, yes, I am right-handed, is neurologically out of action. And the frozen fingers arch as though preparing to hit a piano chord, a lost chord, permanently lost in the spinal cord. As though on cue, the spastic fingers now began flapping like an untethered sail. Enough to make a grown man cringe. But as my fact sheet would explain, the brachial radialis, withered biceps, and shrug-capable shoulder muscles could bend the spasming arm out of sight. The old man in the next chair limply raised his hand in a gesture of help. Perhaps he once had a stroke or was having one now. He barely turned his head, making the faintest watery eye contact.

Take mine, the gray-streaked woman said, standing, gesturing at her chair. Women get you with their eyes, which is why I said no thanks, and turned to the window, observing out loud that we had a beautiful view of a river. Gosh, the Sacramento, lolling and muddying in its Army-Corps-of-Engineers banks. What a river, look at how wide, what a year of rain we have had.

Bam. A rail fist slugged me off balance and terrifyingly past my center of gravity, my hand straining to grip the window shelf, but too late. For I was falling slowly, tilting imperceptibly, toward dropping on my face. While I pulled and gritted and churned my torso muscles, in a failing effort. Like hanging by your fingers on the edge of a skyscraper. To do what I had just done. Stay upright. The gray-streaked woman had taken my arm. Thank you, I said, dropping leaden into her chair, breathing heavily.

"Would you like a roll?" This from the woman.

Her breasts were bursting through a T-shirt with North Dakota the Sunflower State, and I hadn't had a roll with a woman in a long time, and, no, she wasn't trying to humiliate me. She meant the Danish pastries on the stainless-steel counter, but I didn't, woman fear and lust eddying like the river outside. I muttered thanks, staring as she positioned a poppyseed Danish on a paper plate. I could see that she was not so young, but bouncy. And I wanted to commend her for being this way, but all I could do was nod stupidly and bite into the pastry. What I really needed was some coffee.

She smiled. I said she must be from Fargo, North Dakota. Nope, she said, never been there. Seen the movie, she added. I was thinking this was a good sign.

"Quite a tale," I said, meaning "Fargo." But this pun thing was happening in my mind with "tale" and "tail," sleep deprivation blurring the thought-versus-speech barrier. Or the adult-versus-smutty-schoolboy-with-Tourette's barrier. I fell silent. While she stared expectantly. And the silence dragged on. Whatever next thing I said would have a forced, leaden quality that would move the conversation the way a barge pole moves a barge.

Women don't just float down the quadriplegic river of life and land in your lap. We were just sitting here and talking, which required no dates, no singles groups, no smoky bars. Just stumbling through a train and into each other. A meeting like this might not happen for the next decade or so.

"A friend gave it to me," she added glancing at her own breasts, no, fool, the T-shirt. And I was aware of my paucity of words, versus her abundance, though despite the word count thing, she was all bright eyes, and we were making conversational progress. Yes, we were. Because when women like you, they help you choose a shirt, slice your steak, even converse. And sometimes when you can't make things happen, things happen anyway. Even coffee, which the bartender was transporting down the aisle.

"If no one's been to North Dakota," I said, "how do we know it's there?"

She looked at me like I might be psychotic, then smiled like I might be funny. She laughed. I laughed, swelling with pride, for that was a risky move, humorwise, but established a bond, like maybe we were both a little offbeat. And she said her friend was born in North Dakota, and I said check the birth certificate, then laughed again, then moved things right along by exchanging our destinations, me Seattle, she Portland.

I watched as she quietly intercepted the descent of the cup and saucer, which the bartender had aimed at me, but she now held while he poured. Cream? Sugar? Now the cup was brimming with coffee, and I was brimming with gratitude. Because there's a way of helping that says "this is no big deal" and "you're not helpless," the whole thing more of a bridge than a burden. The bartender was talking.

"I've got a seat for you, sir."

"This armchair is fine," I said.

"He means in the diner," she said. "You want breakfast, right?"

And what was this sweet roll supposed to be? The two of them obviously knew about trains and breakfast. A suave quadriplegic would toss this off with a bemused shrug, then head for the dining car with the woman. I still had a nanosecond to get the words "do you want to have breakfast with me" squeezed out of my brain and into my mouth. I was almost looking at her, and the words were there and maybe would come out if I made a punching gesture in the air. Which would be ridiculous, with the bartender looking on. Time was going by.

"Well," she finally said, "I'll see you."

Now, humiliation pooling about me, I wanted to get away fast. I tried to rise from the low chair. The bartender hoisted me to my feet, the woman looking on. I crutched toward breakfast. The bartender held my forearm, guiding me like a child to the principal's office. This was not one of life's power moments. But that's the thing about the Starlight. With things lurching, you can fall at any moment, so you have to think about this moment, not the one that just happened. On the P.A., the tinny conductor announced Redding in eight minutes.