This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Three)

CONTINUED FROM:
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part One)
This train ain't bound for glory, this train (Part Two)


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.


That good hard cry exhausted me, and I slept deep and dreamlessly all night. It was far into the morning when I woke. "You've been asleep for the last four hours since we got here, man," Jack sputtered. His mouth was filled with cold Cream of Mushroom soup directly from the can. "Are we in Tucson?" I asked. He nodded yes and swallowed. "We don't even have to switch trains," he said. "We'll be leaving in about an hour." That seemed like good news. I climbed down from the box car, took a leak and stretched and climbed back in. There was nothing much to see. We were surrounded by box cars and the landscape was hidden from view. "Where's the other two guys?" I asked. "Charlie and Nick? Not, sure but they said they'd be back. They left their knapsacks here." Oh, goody. We were on a first name basis now.

I felt unusually well after sleeping. Only hours before, my life felt like it was over. On waking nothing had really changed. I'd lost everything, I had no future, but nothing was really wrong anymore. It had all been in my mind. It's interesting how things can seem so bad when you dwell on them, but when they happen it's no big deal. About the worst stuff I could imagine had happened, but I was still alive. The sun was shining, and with or without me, life was forging ahead. I felt an amazing sense of release. I wasn't in charge anymore. There wasn't a me that was living, and instead I was being lived. There was more freedom in this recognition than I can ever put into words. 

Charlie and Nick returned with some red vines which they shared, and a few minutes later a frightened and hesitant young man from Mexico jumped into our box car. After some faltering attempts to speak to him it was obvious he knew no English and our Spanish was just as bad. He was a nice kid. He took an envelope out of his pocket and pointed to the return address which said "Chicago, Illinois." He smiled broadly, we smiled back, and we all sat down and that was simply that. We ignored the old hobo's warnings about Mexicans. It was obvious we were all exiles anyway, and that was all that mattered. As the train pulled away we slid the door wide open because it was actually getting warm. It was also the beginning of March in southern Arizona and we wanted to enjoy the sights.


As we thundered along, the views were spectacular. Depending on our elevation, sweeping vistas of cactus and desert arose then departed as thicker and grassier vegetation arrived. Only a couple hours out of Tucson the train slowly came to a halt in the desert. Light green border patrol vehicles rumbled up in the dust and finally stopped by our car. They picked out the Mexican kid right away, and led him from the train to a vehicle. "You're an Indian, right?" a man in a border patrol uniform asked Charlie. "Oh, yeah," he said. The agent nodded, then left to check the cars in front of us. He and a couple other agents checked every box car on that train and the time dragged on and on. They acted as if they had all the time in the world, and that's because they did. A train with empty box cars has no pressing destination when it isn't hauling freight. This was the flaw in our plan about getting back to Indiana so damn quickly by train. A train you can hop is a train that is slow. 


As the tedious search continued, we jumped down from our box car for some fresh air and Charlie shot forward past the next couple cars and gave out a startling whoop. "Oh man oh man check this out! I've done this before and it's great!" he shouted, leaping onto an empty rail car for automobiles that was just ahead. We followed his lead and began to explore the empty, open rail cars. It was great not being boxed in by the walls of a regular box car. When the train finally jerked forward we stayed on these cars. It was crazy, dangerous fun. We took running leaps from rail car to rail car as the train increased in speed. It was like riding the biggest motorcycle in the universe and the landscape completely surrounded us. There were no roads anywhere and you felt like you owned the world. The sky, the desert, and the cactus seemed to shoot right through us, and the sun beat down and the wind was in our face. Slowly the train ground to a halt. In a few minutes a very angry engineer confronted us.

"Do you have any idea how fucking stupid this is?" he shouted. We were mute. It was true. "I can't just leave you here in the middle of fucking nowhere because it's wrong." Yes it was. "So get your fucking asses back in a box car or I will leave you," he said, seething. And we did.


The train was hours from San Antonio. Once it got dark there was nothing to do and it was too loud to talk, so one-by-one we all dropped off to sleep. I didn't remove my boots. Jack figured out how to slide the door shut without locking us in forever, so we closed it to keep out the wind and the cold. I curled up in my sleeping bag but my rest was more fitful than the night before. Every time I awoke I could feel the train vibrating beneath me. After a while, the movement ceased, and when I was finally awake I realized we hadn't been moving for hours. 

Although the box car was as dark as it could be, small slits of light shone through the edges around the door. I stumbled to my feet and slid the door open to a blinding mid-day sun. It was dead silent. As my eyes adjusted I knew it had to be South Texas, with a meager landscape of sagebrush, dust and bare, dead trees. I jumped down from the car and marched around and was shocked beyond belief. We were on a side rail off the main tracks in the middle of nowhere and the rest of the train was gone. Only one box car stood on this side rail, our car, and we were completely and utterly alone. That goddamned engineer had lied. He'd abandoned us in the desert after all.


TO BE CONTINUED