"The Man Who Would Be King was a paragon of self-made power. As one contemporary remarked: 'He has, by his own achievement and unassisted intellect raised himself from the situation of a private individual to that of a despotic monarch over a turbulent and powerful nation.  By sheer force of mind, personal energy and courage…' he has established his throne."   -    The Man Who Would Be King,  Ben Macintyre on the short story by Rudyard Kipling,  Page 152

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His son was one of my oldest and closest friends.  I’d adopted his family at the age of seven, and I probably spent more time over at his house than I did at my own… much to my mother’s chagrin.  We all called him the Padre.  

He drove a bus for a living, but he was a brilliant man.  There is a great deal that I don’t know regarding his personal history and background.  I know that he wrote a book at some point.  The book held strong political views that had somehow caused a problem for him.   It left him sullen, and bitter, and driving a bus.

But most of all, he was the Padre.  His son was one of the most charismatic personalities in the Valley (just immediately south of Co-Op City in the Bronx.)  His daughters were all extraordinary beauties and he was well known to us all.   They lived immediately across from the park where we held the Valley Basketball tournaments and congregated for the daily business of being youngsters.  

Mostly, the Padre liked laughing at our foolishness, lecturing on the failures of the American government and all of it’s politicians, playing chess and reading. (He got angry if you beat him at chess.) He was the parent who had time for the local guys. We sought his advice when we were scared to go home, although he invariably sent us home. (He was my confidante when I came home one time with a stopover in Camden.)  He was the kind of guy that liked nothing better than to get into one of those deep philosophical discussions with anyone willing, and you just knew that his arguments were based upon historical reference. I was one of his favorites because I would indulge him.  He and I would have the discussions that I didn’t get at home… while his own family would give me dirty looks for encouraging him.  We had a good time.    

But in his private time… he played with his HO model trains.

I was among the privileged few who actual saw the train room.  It was a separate room in the basement that was completely dedicated to his hobby.  A constructed platform encircled the entire interior of the room with the center left open for the trainsman.  You had to duck under the platform to enter the room, but only then could you see his minature world. 

The Padre spent a lifetime collecting train cars, engines, tracks, buildings, train trestles, trees, landscaping, mountains, city streets, street lights, and people on the HO scale.   I will never forget the first time I was invited into the sacred room.  I’d only heard about it in passing, and the family had somehow assumed that since I was around all the time… I had already seen it.  Since I had no idea of what I was missing… I never bothered to inquire further.   On the day that I finally crawled beneath the thick mass of wires on the underside of that platform and stood inside the Padre’s creation… I was flabbergasted. 

It was an interior room with no windows to distract the eye… so everywhere you looked was the intimate detail of a world on a "Lilliputian" scale.   When he wasn’t actually working on it, if he turned the overhead light off it was even more amazing.  Everything lit up!  The buildings, the street lights and the trains themselves all had tiny lights that made it all look like a very metropolitan nightscape.  

He had apparently begun it ages ago, so throughout he had maintained a “look and feel” of the 1950’s era, which made it somehow even more cool.   Like stepping through a time warp.   I can only assume that he had integrated several kits because the trains went through mountain tunnels and over bridges and into train yards.   It was truly amazing.  

Inside… the Padre became a different man.  Gone was the sullen, bitter cynic with the caustic sence of humor.   Instead, he because relaxed and even more conversational than usual.  He was always accessible, but in here he actually listened as well.  The world outside had somehow conspired against him to place him behind the wheel of a bus.  His intellect and literary talent had been deemed something to be subjugated and he had been put down.   In here with his trains... he was King.  It did my heart good to finally meet the King.  

My friend had frequently teased his father in my presence that after the countless hours of indulging his passion, that he had yet to see these trains actually run.  I now saw that the teasing had been nothing but empty ridicule. These trains ran smoothly and responded easily as he switched tracks, and activated his lights and rail crossings, and put his miniature construct through it’s paces. 

Watching him do it was wonderful.

I saw him again during my most recent trip to New York.  He sold his home in the Bronx many years ago, and the train layout is now reassembled in a standalone garage at his current home in Virginia.  I don’t know how much he continues to work on them, since he is currently suffering from early stages of Alzheimers.  He’s lost a lot of weight, but his sense of humor is as sharp as ever.  He was real happy to see me, and was quick to point out that, “I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, but I’m still here.”   He was grinning happily when he said it.  

I didn't have the heart to ask the King about his trains.