Chapter 2
Josh only got three hours of sleep last night, and it seemed that the harder and harder he tried to forget about what he saw, the more and more he thought about it.
Josh yawned during the entire drive to his office, and all he could think about was Kathy.
After a couple of hours of staring at his computer in his cubicle, Josh got up and went to the Men’s Room.
He exited the bathroom, moped, and yawned while he walked down the hall, where employees mingled and chatted.
Kathy walked into this hall from another hall, and she spotted Josh. “How was the presentation last night?” she asked while she walked up to him.
Josh looked hurt at Kathy, who waited for an answer.
Josh stared at Kathy for a few seconds, and she felt that it was peculiar. “So, was Paul Hargett the sexy romance book from last night?” he asked and looked pissed
Kathy looked caught by his question and hesitated for a few seconds to respond.
The other employees in the hall stopped chatting when they heard Josh’s question, and they inched closer to eavesdrop on the answer.
Then while she thought about his question, she got mad when it dawned on her. “Were you spying on me last night?” she asked in a raised tone.
“My presentation got canceled, and I rushed over to your house. I was going to make last night special,” Josh replied while he removed the small engagement ring box from his pants pocket. He opened up the box and showed Kathy the engagement ring.
The other employees inched a little closer when they heard Josh was going to propose to Kathy last night.
Kathy looked sorry when she saw the engagement ring. “Josh, I ah, I feel terrible. I should have said this sooner, but it’s over between us. I need something more, and Paul offers me exactly what I need in my life right now. I’m so sorry,” she replied, then quickly rushed off to avoid a fight in the hall.
Josh stood there in the hall, stunned that he was just dumped by Kathy.
His fellow employees moved down the hall and felt sorry for Josh.
For the remainder of the day, Josh stayed a recluse in his cubicle, while the news of Kathy dumping him spread like wildfire throughout the office.
Ricky entered Josh’s cubicle and saw him slumped in his chair while he stared at his software program on the computer.
“Hey buddy, I haven’t seen you around the building all day,” Ricky said.
“I know, I’m just having trouble with this program of mine and worried about Thursday’s presentation,” Josh lied while he continued to stare at his computer monitor.
“Want to take a walk?” Ricky offered.
“Naw. I need to concentrate on this program.”
Ricky looked concerned while Josh stared at his monitor and knew he wanted to be alone, so he left the cubicle.
Later that night, Josh skipped supper since he didn’t have an appetite.
Since it was a Friday night, he stayed up late and watched movies while he sat depressed on the couch. The engagement ring box was on the coffee table next to an empty Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream box.
Inside the ice cream box were all the pictures of Josh and Kathy ripped into tiny pieces.
The movie he watched just ended, and Josh picked up his remote and surfed the channels.
He stopped on a channel of interest that had Rodney Winston, in front of a bunch of workers that were answering telephones. Above their heads hung a “We’ll Find Ya” sign for the name of the TV show.
On a screen behind Rodney was a picture of Tony Moore, a 45-year old man with a crew cut and rough pot marked complexion.
“Tonight’s stories feature Tony Moore wanted for assault and battery and rape of men and women. Tony disappeared a day before his trial,” Rodney told the TV audience.
Josh flipped the channel, as the show appeared too dull for his tastes tonight.
On TV was a western movie that showed a love scene between a cowboy hero and a young woman.
Josh kicked back on the couch and watched the movie.
Josh fell asleep on the couch at 2:30 a.m. while watching the western movie.
It was Saturday morning, and Josh woke up around 10:00 a.m., still depressed.
He got off the couch and moped into the bathroom.
A little while later, he moped into the kitchen and ate his standard Chocolate Lucky Charms cereal and made a pot of coffee.
While he drank his coffee and scanned the newspaper, his cell phone rang. “Hey baby,” he quickly answered, thinking it was Kathy, and yesterday was all a bad dream.
“Since when did you call your male buddy at work, baby?” Ricky answered from his cell phone.
“I’m sorry about that. My mind was somewhere else,” Josh replied on the cell phone.
“I heard about Kathy,” Ricky said.
Josh looked depressed while yesterday’s episode ran through his mind again. “I need a new life, Ricky.”
“Let’s go do something to get your mind off her,” Ricky replied.
Josh thought about his offer for a few seconds. “I really don’t feel like doing anything today,” Josh responded.
“Aw come on, Josh, don’t give up. There’s a wonderful world out there with plenty of women better than her. Let’s go meet some.”
“I’ll think about it and talk to you later,” Josh said then disconnected the call.
Josh put his cell down and drank the rest of his coffee and looked depressed.
He looked back at the newspaper, and his eyes widened with interest when he saw an advertisement for the “Blaine Fisher’s Old Western World Train House” display in the West Palm Beach area.
Josh spent a few seconds thinking about the advertisement while he continued to glance at the newspaper. He opened up his cell phone and made a call.
“Ricky, how about we take a drive over to the West Palm Beach area?” Josh asked.
“West Palm Beach? What’s down there?” Ricky replied from the cell phone.
“There’s a huge old western train set on display that sounds interesting. The newspaper claims it’s the largest in the world,” Josh responded.
“You’re finally coming back to life, that’s good,” Ricky replied, then there was a brief silence. “I would love to go,” he added.
“Great, I’ll pick you up in an hour,” Josh replied, then closed his cell phone.
Josh got up and went into the bathroom and showered.
Later that day, Josh picked up Ricky as his home, and during the drive down the Florida Turnpike to West Palm Beach, there weren’t any discussions about Kathy. They mainly talked about their interests in model trains.
After they parked, Josh and Ricky entered the large foyer of the 8,000 square foot mansion located way out in the west area of West Palm Beach in twenty acres of seclusion.
Josh and Ricky looked were a little jealous of how the rich lived, as compared to their no thrills home.
“It must be nice,” Ricky told Josh while they looked the foyer over and saw the fancy winding staircase that led to the upstairs rooms.
At the right of the foyer was a counter where Anita Fisher, the thirty-year-old overweight, blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, worked. Above her hung a vast oil painting of Blaine Fisher, her sixty-five-year-old father. Blaine had an eerie serious stare and was dressed in western attire with a cigar sticking out of his mouth.
Anita smiled the second she saw Josh and Ricky walk over to the counter. Then the second her eyes gazed into Josh’s eyes, she becomes smitten with him. She immediately stuck out her hand at Josh, and he shook it.
“I’m Anita and welcome to the Fisher Train set display,” she said with a warm smile.
“Hi, Anita, I’m Josh, and this is my friend Ricky,” he replied.
Ricky extended out his hand, and Anita ignored him while her eyes concentrated on Josh. He pulled his hand back and felt rejected.
“It cost ten dollars to visit the huge train set that my father spent five years completing,” she said while her eyes stayed concentrated on Josh.
Ricky paid Anita twenty dollars and eyed the painting of Blaine. He got curious when he remembered something in the news a few years ago. “Wasn’t Blaine Fisher in trouble for the rape of a young woman?” Ricky asked her
Anita looked bothered by Ricky’s question. “That woman framed daddy, and the courts found him not guilty. You should never trust what the news media prints anyway,” she replied to Ricky with a snarl.
“What’s your father doing these days?” Josh curiously asked to calm her down so she wouldn’t jump on Ricky.
“Daddy’s gallivanting around the world looking for interesting artifacts for this place,” Anita replied while she couldn’t take her eyes off Josh.
“Sounds like he lives an exciting life,” Josh said.
“He does, and he’s also a great inventor. We haven’t put his inventions on display yet, but if you would like, I can give you a private tour of them in the basement. And then I can show you daddy’s pristine 1939 Buick in the garage,” Anita offered with a warm smile. “I have the keys right here,” she said while she opened up a drawer on the counter and removed the keys.
“Thanks for the kind offer, but I’ll pass this time since we have to make it all the way back to Orlando after seeing the train set,” Josh replied.
Anita looked hurt with being rejected. “Please come back again as this is a standing offer,” she said and hid her rejected feelings.
“I will,” he replied.
“Oh, head to the rear doors over at the end of the foyer. You’ll walk through a courtyard. At the end of the courtyard is a building where the train set is housed inside the Train House. Please take your time and enjoy daddy’s train set,” she added with a warm smile.
“Thank you,” Josh replied while Ricky looked away, disinterested with Anita.
Josh and Ricky walked away from the counter and headed to the rear of the foyer.
Anita ran her tongue around her lips while she checked Josh while he walked to the rear doors. “Mmmm, now that’s some grade-A beef,” she quietly said while she drooled over watching the backside of Josh.
Josh and Ricky walked through the courtyard, which was landscaped with beautiful flowers, hedges, trees, and stone walkways. Some of the guests also milled around the beautiful courtyard. Some sat on the d benches taking in the beautiful sunny day.
Josh and Ricky walked down a stone path that led to a twenty-eight-foot by forty-foot building without windows and a metal door on three of the four walls. “Blaine Fisher’s Old Western World Train House” sign was hung over the main entrance into the building located on the side of the building.
Josh and Ricky stepped inside the Train House, where the inside was kept at a dry eighty-five to ninety degree controlled environment. This was designed to give a desert feel inside the building. Since it was warm inside, numerous water stations were staged around the train set for the thirsty guests.
The lights inside the building also automatically turned on around 6:30 a.m. to simulate sunrise and started to dim at 7:30 p.m. and eventually turned off at 8:00 p.m. to simulate nighttime. During the daytime, the ceiling looked like a cloudless blue sky, and at night, small lights simulated the stars. By the position of the fake sun, it was 2:00 p.m., inside the Train House.
A large orange bulb also slowly went across the sky, starting at Paradise for the simulated sunrise and went behind the peak of the mountains for sunset.
At nighttime, small twinkling lights appeared to simulate stars, and a white bulb was in the sky to simulate a full Moon.
Josh stopped and stared at the train set, which filled up ninety percent of the room. “That train set is humongous,” Josh said in awe at the sight of the set.
“It must have cost a fortune to build this set,” Ricky replied while he stared in awe at the set.
The main entrance door opened up behind them, and they moved over a little.
Sara Cooper, a cute and adorable thirty-year-old female with wavy shoulder-length blonde hair, entered the Train House and stood next to Josh while she eyed the set. “It’s so large!”
“A lot of women tell me that,” Ricky replied with a joyful smirk while he looked at Sara.
Josh frowned at Ricky. “Stop it,” he mouthed the words to him.
Sara didn’t catch Ricky’s sexual innuendo to her comment about the train set.
Sara walked down the walkway and started checking out the train set.
The Train House had a five-foot walkway along with three of the four walls. The train set was on an eighteen-foot by twenty-five-foot platform placed four feet off the floor and was four hundred and fifty square feet of pure Disney type of imagination. A four-inch high pointed log fence ran all along the edge of the platform to help prevent the visitors from reaching and touching the displays.
At the far end of the building was a fourteen-foot by twenty-five-foot electrical room that housed the controls for operating the fantasy train set.
The train set was laid out where you first saw the excellent size western town called Paradise located at the bottom of the set and at the far end of the set were some tall rocky mountains where they peaked a foot under the ceiling.
Located on the left side of the set, a little ways from Paradise were a vegetable garden and large cornfield.
Located way off to the right of the vegetable garden and cornfield was a fenced pasture with numerous cows, pigs, chickens, and a large barn.
Located way off to the right of the cow pasture was a sawmill where stacks of lumber were visible outside the large barn.
The vegetable garden, cow, pig, and chicken pasture, and sawmill were all in a grassy field. The grassy field also had a small cemetery with two tombstones in the ground.
The grassy field continued a little ways toward the rocky mountains and where there was a forest that covered a good portion of the area. To the left side of the forest was a lake with real water provided from the plumbing of the mansion. To the right side of the forest was a large dark brown hole.
After the forest was the desert with Saguaro cactus, large boulders, scrub brushes, and other numerous plants. The desert ran to the base of the mountains.
On the left side of the base of the mountains was a cave.
On the right side of the base of the mountains was an Indian camp.
A train track loop ran from the desert near the base of the mountains.
It snaked through the woods and headed through the field to the outskirts of Paradise.
Paradise had a train station.
A dirt trail ran from the outskirts of Paradise alongside the left side of the train set.
Then it ran through the field, through the forest, through the desert and ended at the cave in the mountains.
Josh and Ricky stared in awe at the train set.
“It looks lifelike,” Ricky told Josh.
“Like a miniature world,” Josh replied.
Josh and Ricky walked closer to the train set and stared at the town of Paradise.
Paradise had a main dirt street with two other side streets.
On Paradise Lane were a Court House, Marshall’s Office, Dining Hall, Hotel, Saloon, Paradise House of Pleasure, Bank, General Store, Doctor’s Office, Clothing Store, Stable, Laundry, Newspaper shop and a Church.
On the two side streets were fourteen small Hotels with a row of outhouses.
On the outskirt of Paradise, just off the right of the dirt trail, was a large two-story fancy mansion with green grass and shade trees.
Josh and Ricky noticed numerous miniature men, women, a few cowboys that wore black shirts on horses staged around the town to give the appearance it was alive.
Josh looked mesmerized while he stared at Paradise. “What a cool place. It looks so peaceful with nobody hurting each other,” Josh said while he looked up and down the main street.
On the other wall leaned Charlie Fisher, a fifty-eight-year-old Train House employee and brother to Blaine, that watched over the guests. He also heard Josh’s comment and gave a little smile of approval.
The old western train with a one passenger car whistled, and black smoke puffed out of its stack while it rolled down the track along the right side of the train set. The train headed to the train station on the outskirts of Paradise.
Josh and Ricky walked down the right side of the train set and watched while the train pulled into the station where miniature people waited at the station.
“Let’s check the other side first, then double back here,” Josh told Ricky, who nodded in agreement.
They walked over to the left side of the train set and saw more of Paradise while they walked to the left side of the set.
When they walked down the left walkway and saw the garden with miniature people that appeared to be working.
They looked past the garden and saw the pasture with cows, chickens, and a large pigpen.
At the edge of the pasture was the barn, and the doors were open. Inside the barn were more cows, chickens, pigs, and more miniature people that appeared to be working.
The train whistle blew, and puffs of black poured out of the smokestack when he pulled away from the Paradise train station.
Josh and Ricky watched the train head down the tracks past the mansion, through the field, and to the forest.
Josh and Ricky walked a little farther down the walkway and saw the forest with the dirt trail, and lake.
At the shore of the lake was parked a wagon with a horse and four miniature people that appeared to be collecting water from the lake using buckets. Also on one side of the lake was a small sandy beach where miniature people seemed to be lounging on the beach, and some were in the water.
They then watched while the train rolled down the tracks through the forest.
They walked a little farther down the walkway and saw a stagecoach, with four horses, staged in the direction toward Paradise on the dirt trail in the middle of the desert. Four cowboys with black shirts were on horses and were staged outside the forest on the path and appeared to be racing at the stagecoach.
Josh and Ricky walked farther down the walkway and checked out the desert.
“This set looks so real,” Josh commented, and Ricky nodded his head in agreement.
They got to the end of the walkway and check out the mountains that peaked almost to the ceiling. They noticed that the dirt trail from Paradise ended at the cave.
“That cave must be for mining gold,” Josh said.
Ricky looked and nodded in agreement with his theory.
“I really love this train set,” Josh told Ricky while he stared at the mountains that looked so real.
“How are you enjoying our display?” Charlie asked Josh and Ricky.
“I absolutely love it!” Josh replied with a gleam in his eyes while he looked over the entire set.
“It’s a special place that’s for sure,” Charlie replied.
“Let’s check out the other side,” Ricky told Josh, who nodded in agreement.
Charlie was interested in Josh while he watched them walk back down the walkway and headed to the Paradise end.
While they walked down the walkway by the main entrance, Josh checked out Paradise again. His eyes lit up and looked a little surprised. “That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” Ricky replied.
“It looks like some of those people in Paradise moved,” Josh told him.
They both stopped and looked at the town of Paradise.
“I believe you’re right,” Ricky responded.
“There must be some type of magnet under the platform that moves the people around to give the appearance the town is alive,” Josh surmised.
“That sounds logical,” Ricky answered, then he headed down the walkway to the right of the train set.
They walked down the walkway and checked out the right side of the train set.
They saw the field, then the forest, and walked by the desert.
They watched while the train rolled down the tracks while it ran alongside the edge of the mountains, then curved back through the desert and headed toward the forest for its trip back to Paradise.
In the desert, they noticed that the four cowboys on horses were alongside the stagecoach that moved closer toward the forest.
“I love how these miniature people move like this train set is alive,” Josh said with a gleam in his eyes.
“This place is really something,” Ricky replied.
They then walked to the end of the walkway and saw an Indian camp by the edge of the mountains with Indians, teepees, and a few horses.
The train whistle blew, and black smoke puffed out of its smokestack while the train rolled down the stacks in the forest.
“My great great grandfather was a train engineer,” Josh told Ricky.
“Mine was a dirt farmer,” Ricky replied.
“Don’t you wish you lived during the old west days?” Josh asked Ricky.
“In a world without television, video games, and the Internet? No way!” Ricky replied while he looked back at the train set.
“You really love this place,” Charlie said while he walked up to Josh.
“I do,” Josh replied.
“Since you love this set, your next visit is free,” Charlie said while he handed Josh a free entrance ticket.
“Thank you, and I’ll definitely take advantage of this,” Josh replied while he took the ticket.
“Good, we’re opened seven days a week,” Charlie replied, then turned around and walked back down the walkway.
Josh and Ricky exited the Train House and headed back to the mansion.
While they walked through the foyer of the mansion, Anita was busy with some customers, but she still eyed Josh with interest while he walked through the front doors with Ricky.
During the whole drive home back to Orlando and that night, all Josh could think about was that old western train set.