Chapter Three, Part I
Hamster on the Rails
I interviewed with Hamster the same day I spotted that ad on the bulletin board at Susanne’s. We got past the business part in ten minutes, and then I got his life story. Not as bad as it sounds; Hamster’s storytelling carries a pace than any Hollywood filmmaker would envy.
He grew up on the Texas panhandle and developed a profound fascination with trains. But a black man in a small town had to take any opportunity he got, so he took a job busing tables at his uncle’s saloon. Within a year, he was behind the bar, serving drinks.
“But that is where I got my break,” he said. “Bartending is a gateway job – you can do it almost anywhere, and it’s always in demand. A couple years later, when my cousin Gerald moved to Dallas, I went with him, with one goal in mind: to tend bar on a big cross-country train.”
He worked the southern line for ten years, running to one coast and then the other. The West Coast won out. He transferred to Los Angeles so he could work the Coast Starlight, an Amtrak line from LA to Vancouver, British Columbia.
“The money was excellent,” he said. “But that was the least of it. Being the bartender got me into late-night conversations with white businessmen – conversations that your average black man was not privy to. Place a man in a trainbound isolation, provide a steady flow of liquor, and you’d be surprised how much financial information comes out. Privileged information. So I started sending my tip money to Wall Street.”
Approaching fifty, Hamster had quietly become richer than most of his customers, and began to study alternatives to his ever-mobile occupation. This time, the battle was between north and south – and the north was winning.
“Texas panhandle to Los Angeles,” he said. “I had suffered enough heat for three lifetimes. In winter, I would step off the train in Vancouver, and that cold air would cut right through me. It was thrilling. I wanted more.”
Once he earned his pension, Hamster packed up his things and headed for Seattle. On his way there, however, he was sidetracked by an old curiosity.
“Almost ten miles north of Olympia,” he said, “the track enters into a dramatic squeeze. On the right, you’ve got these forested cliffs – a glacial cut from the Ice Age. On the left, there’s the Puget Sound, so close you could hook a salmon out the window. And just when you feel like you’re on the edge of a vast wilderness, here comes the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It’s a classic two-tower suspension, a cable draped over them like a loopy M. The tracks go directly underneath, crossing at a perpendicular. It’s a dramatic perspective, and I always wondered what was on the other side. It looked so dark and green and lovely.”
On his post-retirement drive, Hamster headed west off I-5 and finally crossed the bridge, spotting a long freight on the tracks below. He turned off as soon as he reached the other side and immediately got lost, following whatever bits of water he could sight through the evergreens. This took him, eventually, to a wide, beautiful harbor, and a sign that said Restaurant For Sale.
At this point in the story, Hamster let out a broad grin. “It was all so perfect. I halfway expected that sign to start talking to me.”
At the far end of a year-long renovation that depleted most of his savings and taught him more about building codes than he ever cared to know, Hamster paid a visit to the local model train society and hired two of their best craftsmen. These were Mack and Heath – both of them retirees from the Army Corps of Engineers – and they spent the next three months building the tracks that loop the interior, delivering drinks via HO-gauge locomotives. The trains exit the bar through a scale model of Mt. Rainier, suspiciously similar to those produced by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Hamster on the Rails
I interviewed with Hamster the same day I spotted that ad on the bulletin board at Susanne’s. We got past the business part in ten minutes, and then I got his life story. Not as bad as it sounds; Hamster’s storytelling carries a pace than any Hollywood filmmaker would envy.
He grew up on the Texas panhandle and developed a profound fascination with trains. But a black man in a small town had to take any opportunity he got, so he took a job busing tables at his uncle’s saloon. Within a year, he was behind the bar, serving drinks.
“But that is where I got my break,” he said. “Bartending is a gateway job – you can do it almost anywhere, and it’s always in demand. A couple years later, when my cousin Gerald moved to Dallas, I went with him, with one goal in mind: to tend bar on a big cross-country train.”
He worked the southern line for ten years, running to one coast and then the other. The West Coast won out. He transferred to Los Angeles so he could work the Coast Starlight, an Amtrak line from LA to Vancouver, British Columbia.
“The money was excellent,” he said. “But that was the least of it. Being the bartender got me into late-night conversations with white businessmen – conversations that your average black man was not privy to. Place a man in a trainbound isolation, provide a steady flow of liquor, and you’d be surprised how much financial information comes out. Privileged information. So I started sending my tip money to Wall Street.”
Approaching fifty, Hamster had quietly become richer than most of his customers, and began to study alternatives to his ever-mobile occupation. This time, the battle was between north and south – and the north was winning.
“Texas panhandle to Los Angeles,” he said. “I had suffered enough heat for three lifetimes. In winter, I would step off the train in Vancouver, and that cold air would cut right through me. It was thrilling. I wanted more.”
Once he earned his pension, Hamster packed up his things and headed for Seattle. On his way there, however, he was sidetracked by an old curiosity.
“Almost ten miles north of Olympia,” he said, “the track enters into a dramatic squeeze. On the right, you’ve got these forested cliffs – a glacial cut from the Ice Age. On the left, there’s the Puget Sound, so close you could hook a salmon out the window. And just when you feel like you’re on the edge of a vast wilderness, here comes the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It’s a classic two-tower suspension, a cable draped over them like a loopy M. The tracks go directly underneath, crossing at a perpendicular. It’s a dramatic perspective, and I always wondered what was on the other side. It looked so dark and green and lovely.”
On his post-retirement drive, Hamster headed west off I-5 and finally crossed the bridge, spotting a long freight on the tracks below. He turned off as soon as he reached the other side and immediately got lost, following whatever bits of water he could sight through the evergreens. This took him, eventually, to a wide, beautiful harbor, and a sign that said Restaurant For Sale.
At this point in the story, Hamster let out a broad grin. “It was all so perfect. I halfway expected that sign to start talking to me.”
At the far end of a year-long renovation that depleted most of his savings and taught him more about building codes than he ever cared to know, Hamster paid a visit to the local model train society and hired two of their best craftsmen. These were Mack and Heath – both of them retirees from the Army Corps of Engineers – and they spent the next three months building the tracks that loop the interior, delivering drinks via HO-gauge locomotives. The trains exit the bar through a scale model of Mt. Rainier, suspiciously similar to those produced by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Hamster is one of the few owners I’ve seen who insists on tending bar himself. This might be because he’s the only one who can operate the complex track system without causing three-martini pileups. More likely, it’s because his presence is good for business. He exudes a lean, elegant bearing that has fueled more than a few Nat King Cole fantasies among his older female patrons.
Walking me to the door after that first interview, Hamster asked me for a suggestion.
“About what?” I asked.
“About anything. I became a successful man by knowing how to cultivate advice. So any time I meet someone who appears to have a head on their shoulders, I ask them for a thought. So, young lady – what do you have?”
“Well, I don’t…” I began, and immediately interrupted myself. “No. Actually, I do. Do your trains have names?”
“Not really. ‘Santa Fe,’ ‘Union Pacific.’”
“Well, since you are now going to be a karaoke bar, name them after songs. Like ‘Engine Number Nine.’”
Hamster snapped his fingers. “Roger Miller.”
“Bingo.”
He unleashed that smile again. Definitely Nat King Cole. “And that,” he said, “is why I ask for advice.”
Oh, and the name? Hamster? I have no freakin’ idea.
Next: The Gemstone Girl
Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1
Hear the audio podcast at: http://www.gcast.com/user/michaeljvaughn/podcast/main?nr=1&&s=198404806 Image by MJV.
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