The Last Train from L.A.

Leon was on the last train from L.A. as it was pulling slowly away from Union Station through an unruly tangle of grey, timeworn tracks and sad, rusting, idle train engines. He was going home.

Lucy was in Venice standing at the end of the pier watching the sun sink slowly over the edge of the world. She wasn't going home. Not yet.

Leon and Lucy were not as young as they used to be (but then who is?) and not as much in love as they once were (but, again, who is?) but they were all that each other had.

Until the last train from L.A. pulled out of the station.

Leon and Lucy had followed a well-traveled road from the Bible Belt to the Golden State looking for fame and fortune…or, at very least, contentment and security without thankless drudgery and constantly dirty hands.

Leon had left his family...and the prospect of lifelong toil in dry, back breaking cornfields and wheat fields and whatever-the-hell kind of fields that they might be pouring their blood and sweat into at any given time...behind with but a little guilt. Lucy had left her apron and her Jesus in a small corner of a small drawer in a small room in a small house outside a small town and had gone willingly with him.

Lucy was a radiant angel to Leon; Leon was a shining hero to Lucy...together, they reasoned, their love would see them through anything the infamous big city on West Coast could throw at them and they would, in turn, find safe haven from the drab destiny of colorless life in staid small towns and endless fields.

Lucy found the Los Angeles that was a wonderland...smiling, tanned people frolicking at the beach (even in December!), cool rolling hills dotted with expensive mansions and hideaways, people of every stripe and color casually intermingling,, an amazingly-vibrant place that went on forever and never seemed to sleep.

She loved it mightily.

Leon found the Los Angeles that was hell incarnate...rude, scowling people jostling each other from one end of the never-ending town to the other; grey thick air that brought tears to the strongest man's eyes; dark, musky men making his heart pound anxiously with their casual, unfathomable impertinence...and their dark, covetous eyes cast so arrogantly at his woman.

He hated it with a passion.

In the coming warm and sunny (occasionally hot and humid) days, weeks, and months, they grew further and further apart.

Lucy blossomed in the sometimes-grey sunshine, her old life fading like a fleeting, distant day dream; Leon closed up into himself, finding solace in recasting his old life in a warm, bittersweet, inviting golden glow.

And when autumn came but the snow didn't follow, Leon decided that he had had enough. He called his boss and quit his job. He called Union Station and asked when the last train would be leaving L.A.

6:15, he was told. He bought two tickets with the last of the credit on his Mastercard and began to pack their things.

Lucy came home and he told her that they were leaving. Nonplussed, she stared at him for a long minute and then told him that she wasn't going anywhere.

The damn city, he thought, the so-called City of Angels had corrupted his personal angel. No matter. They would go home...back to the lush, safe cornfields and wheat fields and whatever-the-hell kind of fields... and everything would be fine. Everything would be just like it was supposed to be.

Again, he told her that they were leaving.

Again, she said no.

He stared at her, feeling scared and alone and wondering why she couldn't see that he was right...that they didn't belong in the godforsaken city. Without warning, he struck out at her. She yelped and tumbled back onto the floor. He tore at her clothes and took her with a desperate violence that he kept calling love.

And when he was done, he told her to get dressed…he told her that they were leaving on the last train from L.A.

She rose to her feet and spat in his face. She locked herself in the bathroom and stood in the shower until the hot water ran out.

When she came out, he was gone. He had scribbled a tear-stained apology on a piece of paper. Lucy glanced at it with hot, liquid eyes and then she balled it up and tossed it into the wastepaper basket. She got dressed and wandered out into the cool late afternoon. She caught a bus and rode until the freeway gave way to the sea.

She stood out on the edge of the pier and watched the sun going down into the sea.

Many miles to the East, Leon sat on the last train from L.A. as it pulled out of Union Station. He looked back in vain at the receding platform hoping against hope that Lucy would be there. She wasn't and he cursed the city one final time as the train picked up speed and hurtled away.

The sky was washed in great swaths of muted gold and burnt orange in the sun's wake. When the blue of the night took the expansive horizon, Lucy shed few more bitter tears...and then she turned and walked slowly back up the pier. An old fisherman tipped his hat to her as he passed and a smile warmed her.

She went home and packed up the rest of Leon's stuff into a big carton that she would mail in the morning. She thought of her small town with its small people and its small horizons and shook her head. The last train from L.A. held no attraction for her...she was indeed already home.

(for LDC)