Light. Slack-action. Jerky.. gone. Water.. still ice. Brain.. still ice.
It's late am and miles yet to land ho, still truckin along 40 miles a square gallon speed, 40-some snug tug a lug parts per million. Things have warmed up.. a balmy 40ish, and I decide it's a good time for some reading, as long as hands are operable. It's now or never. So, curled up in my bag in the three-hole canada can I've got Cormac McCarthy by the balls, finishing off the last four or five pages of a serious novel.. Bun in the oven, heaving bosom, heavy with child fixing to break water, when friendo jumps down out of thin air and I jump all the way out of my skin.
"What the fuck"
"Did you think I was a train ghost?"
"Whaddya want asshole"
"Just came back to tell you I'm gettin off up here, crew change comin up. That and I needed to warm up. That was a ball breaker ride huh. What you got there? You're reading a fuckin book?"
pj accents 'warm up' with a raised flask and offers me a nip.
"Good man. Cold enough for me. Where are we mapquest?"
"Muskogee Oklahoma, book hunt!"
That we were. And I've been to Muskogee too.. and if there's ever a next time on that here's hoping it'll be only arollin through it again.
McAlister though, is some miles south of there. And it's like night and day. Straight unsolicited generosity. Riding through exactly 2 years later, coming north, I was laying on the floor dozing off in one of the slaves and had an unexpected visit from an engineer. The train had stopped for the crew change, presumably where they all do, but my dumb ass was thinking it was signals because we still looked so far out on google and I had no idea they did thousand mile checks there then. Guy didn't notice me at first, maybe cause I had the lights dimmed, and he got the heebs when he saw me and said he was afraid I might've been a corpse, sprawled out in the corner the way I was. I apologized and he asked me where I was heading, I said McAlister and added that I had figured it'd be another few miles before the crew change. Younger looking guy with a red beard. Said to stay down and don't worry, he'd stop the train again in five minutes, with the back end at a secluded spot in town, just for me.. and to hop off when I felt the train slow. That he'd wait a few minutes to allow me to do so. I.. really didn't know what to say to that. But I knew that I was in fact going to be getting off in McAlister. I was still sort of in deliberating stages before he appeared, would've slept clear up to kansas actually.
A young woman returning to her car at a shopping center saw me walking towards mcdonalds and called me over to give me a five. And I'm certain the same thing happened to us at the same mcdonalds when I had pj. The CVS has their trash bin stacked with shit on both occasions too. Granola Bars, cookies, sports drinks.. An older dude in the parking lot there noticed my pink fingers I guess and walked all the way over to leave me with his winter driving gloves. Pigskin, lined with fur or something soft and white. I couldn't bring myself to refuse so I walked a few miles with those big things on, the size of boxing gloves, before stashing them in my bag thinkin I might pull them out again in the dark and sleet. Straight generosity, though, and I was floored by this on both occasions.
First night we lay over in one of those garages they set out all pretty and readymade for someone to come and wheel away for a few thousand, and then penny makes bank at the shops over on the east side and we go to a hotel down the road the next. Peaches and gravy.
Of course when I took the sign a cop pulled up and told me to kick rocks. Penny tells me if they hadn't given us the thumb we might've made enough to call in a couple of hookers. I tell him nothing that cheap's bangable and he says I wouldn't believe the places a 100 ever got him. I tell him he's thinking of pole dancers... and that a guy may just as well go find a shopping mall and watch all the ass running around in those places with skirts hiked up to the dimples without dropping a dime on any of it. To which he says something about the age demographic of weed dealers in small towns I won't repeat.
Of course when I took the sign a cop pulled up and told me to kick rocks. Penny tells me if they hadn't given us the thumb we might've made enough to call in a couple of hookers. I tell him nothing that cheap's bangable and he says I wouldn't believe the places a 100 ever got him. I tell him he's thinking of pole dancers... and that a guy may just as well go find a shopping mall and watch all the ass running around in those places with skirts hiked up to the dimples without dropping a dime on any of it. To which he says something about the age demographic of weed dealers in small towns I won't repeat.
Next day we head back for the yard. Nothing left to do when sign-flying's illegal but find a library and hope plenty of people will see you walking in the snow, all the way back to the prairies to build a fire and cook yer dog. They load me up with 2 bags full of everything left in their hotcase at the liquorstore behind Union Pacific and I sleep in the grainery just down the track from where the southbounds stop. Leaving bright and early the next day to avoid further notice.
Texas
A coal train takes us south over the border to Denison. The plan is to hold up at the yard in Ft. Worth for a day, which is still yet another 8 hours down the rails and as far as we know we'll be departing any minute. So we’re in there waiting for the thing to pull, sharing anecdotes and picking our butts, when the door opens without warning and one of the ugliest faces I’ve ever seen in my life ducks through. He pauses a moment before a look of hostility spreads across this baby eating skud missile, asslicking axeface .. and all he says is 'ahhhhh shiiiiit'. I throw up my hands in surrender. A foggy something or other about open carry firearms in the south springing to mind at the sound of the texan's accent. We both sorry him and, unwilling to wait for whatever else he was going to say, fly out the back in a matter of seconds and off through the bushes for cover like a couple of girls with their titties hanging. Running through the brush I can hear friendo having emotional convulsions. Cursing at himself and swearing he didn't know they refueled here, something about his warrant and being broke and when we clear the thicket I see tears in those big pink and blue jewels of his and feel a little blue myself for being such a dick to him earlier in the morning and not knowing how to console the bastard.
"What do we do, bedlilly?" says pj, staring off into the distance.
"I say, uh, bedlilly tell the man to chill the fuck out and let's try and make a little money in town. It can't be that far a walk."
Denison is alright. It's got all the accessories and it's only a mile and a half up the road over the big bridge. Signs aren't welcome here either, but some lady catches us up walking through the wally lot and gives us each a ten. Heart of gold. Then pj gives me his saying he's got his paycheck finally, and I don't think anything of the gesture until it's too late: Would've been best if I'd refused the bill. Only then the score'd have been settled between us.
After completing the routine dental-clinic-Mcdonalds-Walmart-booze market circuit we make our way back to the yard and find a southward coal train sitting on the main, possibly it was the same one.
At this point.. mulling it over carefully, ruminating, I am chewing over the idea of riding another dpu with my dawg and finding the prospect unpleasant. Tensions were pretty high earlier that day on the ride from Oh Kay and in the interest of safety and perseverance of his health and mine I decide against it. I decide to pull the plug while the pulling out is still good as I watch him head off for the caboose and drain my one 24oz. So long then ol limburger, you devil.
The ride down to dfw through the night and all that blinding coal dust is warm enough to think but not enough to sleep uncovered, and when we side out for a time a ways north of it the wait is agonizingly long. I see a flashlight half a mile back near the rear, browsing buckets, and a distant muffled call registers a few times and it takes me some minutes before I realize who it is.
My mind is raw, my limbs asleep. But the morning is still a young one and dark, so I jump off with my things and sack out behind a garage in someone's backyard nearby and take a desperately needed snooze. At least we're here and if the train leaves without me odds are there'll be a bus stop around nearby, or at the very least another train siding within a day.
I hear the air hiss from somewhere deep in slumber, 2 fugitive weeks out of the west and 2 hours gone, my head like clockwork jerks out of it's coma and I jump up and roll up and boot up and pack on back to the coal with enormous effort. Just in time to drag myself up the ladder and dive into the bucket as it gently inches forward forward, forward.
I squint once back over the side to where I had been laying for anything I might've left. Sleeping bag, check. Backpack, canteen.. check. Sleeping bag, check. Boots.. on. Good. The pink sun is a blurred marble of a thing creeping up out of the daze and I hold up my two black greasy paws before it and wonder which line might be the life line.