CONTINUED FROM:
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part one)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part two)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Three)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Four)
After I got back from the diner, our box car was picked up in less than an hour. We travelled without incident to San Antonio, Texas where we spent the night at the Gospel Mission, an unpleasant place where we were treated judgmentally and without respect. The Gospel Mission had little to do with the Christianity I had learned as a kid at the Presbyterian Church or at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Worker house in San Francisco only days before. It wasn't like the Gospel Mission thought we were good people who had lost our way. They thought we were bad people who needed to change or be punished. There's a difference.
The truth is that they seemed to be serving people for God's sake and not for ours, so they never really saw us or connected with us and that gap between us was a painful thing to feel. They didn't really care about us and we knew it. They cared about The Word. We were merely bit players in a script, a necessary evil for them to live out a gospel that had been reduced to a joyless death march. They had no Good News for us. I feel bad saying this about them, but I have met others who filtered through that place and they had the same experience.
So, we took showers, ate a meager meal, got preached at and condescended to, then they tried to seize my last six dollars and fifty cents as payment for their heart-felt service to God, but not to me. I refused. This remaining pittance was my only cushion against total dependence and I promised to cause a ruckus if they persisted in robbing me so they relented and left me alone. The people staffing the Gospel Mission were nothing like the Christ who had shined through the waitress at the Texas diner a few hours before. She just went with her instincts and her instincts were sound. These official Christians had an agenda that blunted those instincts and that made all the difference.
The Mission itself was crammed high and wide with beds and odors and gloom, and the people staying there were diverse. There was the usual group of social dysfunctionals you'd associate with a shelter, as well as many people whom you would never expect to need its services. It was intimidating in its utter sadness, and I couldn't wait to leave. We woke up early the next morning and left without eating breakfast, something we really needed, but not under the circumstances in which it would be offered.
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part one)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part two)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Three)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Four)
After I got back from the diner, our box car was picked up in less than an hour. We travelled without incident to San Antonio, Texas where we spent the night at the Gospel Mission, an unpleasant place where we were treated judgmentally and without respect. The Gospel Mission had little to do with the Christianity I had learned as a kid at the Presbyterian Church or at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Worker house in San Francisco only days before. It wasn't like the Gospel Mission thought we were good people who had lost our way. They thought we were bad people who needed to change or be punished. There's a difference.
The truth is that they seemed to be serving people for God's sake and not for ours, so they never really saw us or connected with us and that gap between us was a painful thing to feel. They didn't really care about us and we knew it. They cared about The Word. We were merely bit players in a script, a necessary evil for them to live out a gospel that had been reduced to a joyless death march. They had no Good News for us. I feel bad saying this about them, but I have met others who filtered through that place and they had the same experience.
So, we took showers, ate a meager meal, got preached at and condescended to, then they tried to seize my last six dollars and fifty cents as payment for their heart-felt service to God, but not to me. I refused. This remaining pittance was my only cushion against total dependence and I promised to cause a ruckus if they persisted in robbing me so they relented and left me alone. The people staffing the Gospel Mission were nothing like the Christ who had shined through the waitress at the Texas diner a few hours before. She just went with her instincts and her instincts were sound. These official Christians had an agenda that blunted those instincts and that made all the difference.
The Mission itself was crammed high and wide with beds and odors and gloom, and the people staying there were diverse. There was the usual group of social dysfunctionals you'd associate with a shelter, as well as many people whom you would never expect to need its services. It was intimidating in its utter sadness, and I couldn't wait to leave. We woke up early the next morning and left without eating breakfast, something we really needed, but not under the circumstances in which it would be offered.
We hopped a train a couple hours later after some very kind assistance from a rail worker in the San Antonio yard. "It's getting cold where you're going," he said, "and you didn't hear this from me, but it's OK if you get in an engine cab. There's a water cooler and heat but don't touch anything and lay on the floor when you go through a town. Someone in a little shit town might call the cops if they see you." He was an ordinary man probably 30 years my senior and I was astonished at his kindness. Hadn't he gotten the memo that people like me were what was wrong with this country? The folks working at the Gospel Mission had. Once again, there it was in this railroad man, this simple instinctive kindness I'd come to expect from people who relied on their hearts instead of a rule book that did their thinking and feeling for them. Breaking the rules out of simple love for others is what got Jesus murdered, you know. If you've never heard this before then at least you've heard it now.
In the end the four of us took refuge in of one of the six engines pulling this very long train; but Charlie, the Chippewa Indian from Minnesota, was not too good about hitting the floor when we went through small towns. He would sit in the engineer's seat and wave at people and smile while the other three of us lay on the floor. He laughed at us and called us, "pussies."
In the end the four of us took refuge in of one of the six engines pulling this very long train; but Charlie, the Chippewa Indian from Minnesota, was not too good about hitting the floor when we went through small towns. He would sit in the engineer's seat and wave at people and smile while the other three of us lay on the floor. He laughed at us and called us, "pussies."
Many hours later past midnight we were over 600 miles north of San Antonio in Pratt, Kansas and snow was falling hard. We were sleeping, the engine cab was well-heated, and we had fresh, filtered water in Dixie Cups if we wished. Life was treating us well. Suddenly the door was pushed open, cold and snow blew in upon us, and a nine-foot tall policeman weighing 500 pounds drawled, "Well, do you boys got yourselves a ticket?" Gee thanks, Charlie. Thanks for being a dumb ass and waving at people the whole damn time. The cop had a southern accent too. Why the hell did a cop in Kansas have a goddamned southern accent anyway? It was like something out of a movie, and just when things were going pretty well by our diminished expectations. We had already been punished by the Jesus Police at the Gospel Mission and now we were going to get another dose of it at the hands of the Real Police. I was furious at Charlie and scared as hell.
The cop squeezed us into his cruiser, and hauled us to the police station through a sad neighborhood of dilapidated homes. The streets were dark and empty, and layered in nearly a foot of drifting snow. Street lights back lit the snow, making it look like it was falling even harder than it was. I was so damn miserable. How the hell could I get out of this? He plopped us down in a small, blank room with a plain, metal desk and a door with a frosted glass window. The desk was freezing to the touch. The officer questioned us like we were some kind of big catch and it took more than two hours. It was so lame. He dumped out our knapsacks, rifled through our sleeping bags, and ran a check for priors on us. It was sheer malice. The railroad didn't give a damn if we were there, or at least its employees didn't. We'd had no intention of doing anything other than pass through Pratt, Kansas in a state of sublime unconsciousness, and we were no threat to anyone or anything. You can pratter on as much as you like about law and order and duty, but in reality this was senseless. It was spite masquerading as justice and nothing more. I hated the bastard.
In an act of perverse irony he arrested Charlie the waving miscreant for failure to appear and jumping bail, as well as his partner Nick the boot sniffer who had a roach clip on him. The cop was looking for anything to bring more misery into our lives and Jack and I were next. What a way to spend your life, I thought, shaking down people who were already down on their luck just because you could.
In an act of perverse irony he arrested Charlie the waving miscreant for failure to appear and jumping bail, as well as his partner Nick the boot sniffer who had a roach clip on him. The cop was looking for anything to bring more misery into our lives and Jack and I were next. What a way to spend your life, I thought, shaking down people who were already down on their luck just because you could.
But he had to let us go. We hadn't really done anything wrong aside from exist, and believe it or not, that was not a crime. He didn't have anything to charge us with because the railroad was none of his damn business and they didn't care. God bless capitalism, finally. I was so happy I couldn't believe it, then just as quickly I was miserable once again. He said he was taking us back to the tracks where he'd picked us off the train, and if we weren't gone in 30 minutes he'd jail us for vagrancy. He was savoring the chance to get one last crack at us. We knew that after two or three hours of being shaken down, the train was certainly gone and that hitching would kill us in this weather--literally--so we'd just have to go to jail. To his jail.
When we got to the rail yard the train was still there. Oh God! Jack and I couldn't believe it! It was a vision of all that was good in the world. We leaped from his cruiser and sprinted for the train, fighting through snow that was drifting nearly to our knees, and trying to surpress our jubilation for fear that he'd just find some other way to harm us in the end. We got right back in the same engine cab we'd been on before and the train jerked and started pulling out within seconds of our bodies hitting the floor. In breathless amazement we laid on that floor for the next several hours all the way to Kansas City.
The cab was so deliciously warm that I started thawing out from the cold brought on by the weather and the cold that was due to that policeman and to the official Christians from the Gospel Mission in San Antonio. I opened some Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup and ate it straight from the can. It was thick and salty and I chased it with a Dixie Cup of cool, fresh water from the water cooler. It was like Thanksgiving in a can. I was so grateful for our escape from Babylon and how it had been seemingly engineered. I was stunned into wonder. I didn't know about Jack, because we were hardly speaking to each other by then, and Jack was slipping deeper and deeper into the reveries of his mental illness all the time, but I was praising our good fortune and feeling as if we were being watched over at every critical juncture.
I took off my boots without hesitation and crawled into my sleeping bag. I didn't have a word for it at the time, but everything was Grace at that moment. The soup, the warm cab, the snow, the cop, the ministry of meanness in San Antonio, it was all Grace, and no one part of it could be taken away without diminishing any other part in return. I slept the deep sleep of one that knows he is beloved, as the train cut through the snow, the cold, and the night, shielding us from every possible danger until a new round of challenges resumed in the morning.
When we got to the rail yard the train was still there. Oh God! Jack and I couldn't believe it! It was a vision of all that was good in the world. We leaped from his cruiser and sprinted for the train, fighting through snow that was drifting nearly to our knees, and trying to surpress our jubilation for fear that he'd just find some other way to harm us in the end. We got right back in the same engine cab we'd been on before and the train jerked and started pulling out within seconds of our bodies hitting the floor. In breathless amazement we laid on that floor for the next several hours all the way to Kansas City.
The cab was so deliciously warm that I started thawing out from the cold brought on by the weather and the cold that was due to that policeman and to the official Christians from the Gospel Mission in San Antonio. I opened some Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup and ate it straight from the can. It was thick and salty and I chased it with a Dixie Cup of cool, fresh water from the water cooler. It was like Thanksgiving in a can. I was so grateful for our escape from Babylon and how it had been seemingly engineered. I was stunned into wonder. I didn't know about Jack, because we were hardly speaking to each other by then, and Jack was slipping deeper and deeper into the reveries of his mental illness all the time, but I was praising our good fortune and feeling as if we were being watched over at every critical juncture.
I took off my boots without hesitation and crawled into my sleeping bag. I didn't have a word for it at the time, but everything was Grace at that moment. The soup, the warm cab, the snow, the cop, the ministry of meanness in San Antonio, it was all Grace, and no one part of it could be taken away without diminishing any other part in return. I slept the deep sleep of one that knows he is beloved, as the train cut through the snow, the cold, and the night, shielding us from every possible danger until a new round of challenges resumed in the morning.
LAST INSTALLMENT NEXT
I don't want the next installment to be the last. I will savor it to make it last.
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ReplyDeleteThanks, Nancy. I have to wrap it up sometime. Of course there's the story of visiting my cousin Lewis the Warlock, multiple trips to DC for anti-war protests, meeting strange and interesting people all over, plus about 50 my stories about growing up. It might be quite a while before this blog stops being autobiographical and I start making stuff up. :)
ReplyDeleteI am loving every bit of this. Thanks for writing!
ReplyDeleteBert you need to have Steve give you his take on Uncle lewis.It is pretty damn funny and disturbing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Pilgrim! I feel like John Wayne saying that.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Jerry, cousin Lewis should be a good one to write about. Amazing guy. He was in a magazine too--if that's one of the things Steve mentioned as well. I'll have to contact Steve through Robert and get hooked back up with the technophobe.
ReplyDeleteafter reading this series I have to wonder how many ''bos have frooze to death on a train
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure, but going over the mountain in a coal car was stupid for us to do. In the winter, between the elevation and the temperature already being low in general, I can see it happening.
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