[Fiction] End of the Line

Read the winning entry for our week of May 18 contest, Eulogy for An Object

End of the Line
by Judith Bechard

My father, like his father, was a train engineer for the New York Central railroad, working a varied schedule that had him going to work in the middle of the night – mostly driving freight to the east (Boston) or west (Albany) end of the lines, sometimes requiring an overnight stay, but sometimes it was a switcher or a pusher (local). I only saw the inside of the engineer’s cab once, a vast panel of switches, levers, gauges and lights. I am my father’s only child, and I was not born a boy, but when I was about eight, my parents (more likely my father) gave me an HO train set. It had a New York Central engine and coal car; a steam engine that blew little puffs of smoke from the stack, and a couple of freight cars and a caboose. My father laid out a piece of plywood which he then painted green. He brushed on brown roadways and once dry, nailed track to the plywood, a mostly oval track with bridges, There were a few plastic trees that looked like the aftermath of a disaster. There was a ranch house with a garage that opened, and I would park my pearl white Matchbox Jaguar in that garage. I remember the oily smell, like WD40, that permeated the air when I had my nose close to the small wheels as I tried to get them to line up with the tracks. There was a boxy gray transformer with the lever so I could vary the train’s speed, and I would spend hours watching it make pointless roundtrips in its plywood world. At some point my father gave me a sleek diesel engine and both could run on the same track at the same time. When my cousin Johnny came to visit, he’d set them to head toward one another so they would crash. As with all things in life, imperceptible changes were happening. I was changing as my trains remained on their singular track.

A few years later, when I began my journey into puberty, I came home to find my train world was gone. My father gave it to my cousins in New York. Gone was the beautiful pearl Jaguar that had fueled my obsession with other sleek automotive beauties. But he had kept the New York Central engine and coal car which I still possess.

What do I miss? The ease with which I was introduced to a world mostly reserved for males, and the ease with which that privilege was lost as I became a young woman. I miss the two men, my father and my grandfather, who treated me as a child like an equal to boys, even as my mother stepped in to reinforce fabricated rules of male and female roles. I miss the security of that train world where I controlled the outcomes. And I still wonder where that pearl Jaguar is today, hoping someone has it on a shelf somewhere, fueling dreams.

A Note From Our Guest Judge,

Kathryn Koromilas

Congratulations on writing such an emotionally resonant and quietly contemplative story. From the opening lines, I was deeply drawn into the father-daughter relationship and the way their shared joy in the train set created a special, transgressive even, bond between them. You offer so much for the reader to see and feel. There’s colour: the earthy green and brown, the mechanical grey, and then the surprising elegance of the more mature “pearl white.” You evoke scent too: WD-40, of course! And you beautifully capture the magical, elastic quality of childhood time; the endless hours spent watching the trains go round and round.

The context of the toy car and train set’s loss is heartbreaking. The weight of social expectations and rules comes through clearly. The disappearance of the set also marks a subtle shift in the relationship with the father, and you write about it with such generosity. Your final line, with its quiet hope that the pearl white Jaguar might be “fueling” another child’s dreams, brings the piece to a satisfying and graceful close.

Beautiful work.

About Judith Bechard

Judith has been drawn to the creative process ever since she got her chubby little hand on a crayon. Her first story at age four was a picture essay about flying creatures and castles. She credits her local writing workshop with giving her the courage to write without fear.

Judith has never been published, unless you count the letter to the editor about the wounded opossum. She cannot boast of degrees from prestigious institutions. She is merely a voice in the wind, trying to be heard.

This piece was written in response to the prompt Eulogy for An Object.