"A tramp is like Charlie Chaplin," said the 'bo. "A tramp will work a bit here and there then move on, 'cause he's restless. And then there's bums, who just refuse to work. I'm a bum," he laughed, through many missing teeth. "I refuse to work."
The two men regaled us with how they spent their lives. At the beginning of each month they would cash their assistance checks from Washington, and ride the rails south to California then east to Texas and do the same thing there. They laughed about getting one over on the system and shared other valuable tips.
"If you strain paint through a white sock and put peppermint candy in it, it'll taste just like peppermint schnapps," said one. They also explained that Sterno was good for getting a buzz in pretty much the same way. "Only you got to use the red can," they told me. "The green can is army issue and they put shit in it that makes you sick." All in all, they didn't seem to be bringing down the empire with their extravagant lives.
Jack and I headed off to a grocery store to buy a few supplies before we hopped the train. Other men in the yard had told us to get condensed soup because it stored well and could be eaten without cooking simply out of the can. Yum.
When we straggled into that bright, clean store we were really out of place. We looked like the Geico cavemen on a bad day. Mothers stared at us and herded their children away from us, and I couldn't blame them. We were disheveled and wind beaten from our trip over the mountains. My shoulder-length hair was matted and tangled beyond repair. We were smudged and powdered with coal dust, and Jack kept staring back at people like the goddamn loon he was. I was glad to get the hell out of there, and it felt strange to be seen as "one of those people." I'd had long hair for a few years by then and was used to not fitting in, but this was a whole new order of things. I was no longer just on the fringe. I had fallen off the edge of the earth.
When we straggled into that bright, clean store we were really out of place. We looked like the Geico cavemen on a bad day. Mothers stared at us and herded their children away from us, and I couldn't blame them. We were disheveled and wind beaten from our trip over the mountains. My shoulder-length hair was matted and tangled beyond repair. We were smudged and powdered with coal dust, and Jack kept staring back at people like the goddamn loon he was. I was glad to get the hell out of there, and it felt strange to be seen as "one of those people." I'd had long hair for a few years by then and was used to not fitting in, but this was a whole new order of things. I was no longer just on the fringe. I had fallen off the edge of the earth.
When we got back to the yard we crawled into an open box car and a couple other guys jumped in too. Gulp. Actually, they were OK, I guess, at least until we went to sleep. Both in their early 2os, one was a rotund and jovial Chippewa Indian from Minnesota who told us up front he'd jumped bail. I didn't bother to ask why. His partner was a slender, mousy-looking white boy with a cocky look, blond hair, and a pathetic, wispy moustache that wasn't worth the trouble. Then one of the two old 'bos stuck his head in and waved goodbye saying, "See 'ya boys around, and don't forget to be real careful around blacks and Mexicans but help an old 'bo every chance 'ya get, OK?" And here I'd thought they hadn't cared.
These kinds of people are routinely cast as villains in people's minds. They strike a pretty frightening visage, and you see them with signs asking for money everywhere you go. They live on the streets and in parks and by rivers--and even in shelters if you're not hassling them about god and their sins. But really, when you get to know them, for the most part they're sensitive, vulnerable men who just can't make it in this world. They've never fit in and they never will. They have feelings and they're fuck ups and that's the way it is. But was I really one of them now?
When the train pulled out that night, we knew it was headed east and that Tucson would be our first stop. The box car rocked back and forth, shaking violently at times, and the wind whistled in through the door that we were afraid to close for fear of being locked in. The noise was deafening. I don't think I have ever felt more abandoned at any time in my life. How had I gotten here? I'd been normal once. I had once meant something to people. But I'd stopped being real, and now was a thing people pointed at. I had once had a mom, just like those kids at the Safeway. I curled up in my sleeping bag, and wept huge, hard tears for my mother. I was only twenty years old.
Silhouetted in the moonlight against the open door, and amidst the rattle and banging of the swaying train, I saw the slender kid with the wispy mustache and he seemed to be sniffing my boots. It was almost comical in its horror. I'd wondered how things could get worse, and they had. I also knew, however, that as strange as these people seemed, they certainly were not evil. So, I wasn't really afraid. I just felt so very, very alone. Every reference point to something normal or familiar was gone. But at least I wasn't in a coal car. Life was looking up! And even if these people were losers and crazy they had been kind to me, and had accepted me as if they felt I belonged. And when that thought sunk in, I cried a little harder, and was grateful to the wind and the clattering of the train that muffled my cries from discovery.
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