(Part
9)
.
Under the bridge
where on the outbound trip a week earlier I spoke to the drunks, Wiz lifts a
lumpy cardboard square like a trapdoor and unexpectedly dances. ‘Bottled water! Free, with the hot desert ahead!’ We pull out twenty new 12-ounce bottles, the buried booty from an engineer’s cab either
discarded or acquired by a tramp, and stash the treasure better than the prior
holder in deep weeds for our tomorrow’s catchout.
Unlike the outbound
trip with Pronto, Apple and Wiz, this return to the West Coast has no pressing
commitments. This is the proper and hobo way, free and easy, taking a turn as
it comes. Nonetheless, at twilight, I
offer to take Clown into the yard to learn a hobo trick or two. She jumps up
from her personal square and we leave Wiz guarding the gear under the bridge.
At the first string
of cars I explain, ‘The freight train is like a string of elephants that can
help or hurt you depending on how you treat it.’ I show her the different cars
to ride and their ladders- boxcar, gondola, graincar
and lumber car ends in a jam… where to sit and how to get off.
I quiz her with
myriad scenario contingencies: ‘What would we do if this flatcar is stranded
here?’ She quips, ‘Too many variables.’
I persist, ‘What do you do if separated from the group? She pipes, ‘First, try the radio. Debark at
the next division point, and wait. Contact the man with the cell phone. Call
our emergency number- Wiz’s wife. Perhaps at worst, carry on alone.’
We walk up to a yard
worker whose eyes bob at the dancing dreadlocks and ask him when the Cali Man (
Probability is he
essence of train hopping, a sure appeal to a math prodigy turned stock
broker. I claim, ‘The likelihood of
catching out in the east building yard is twice that of the west main yard till
noon, then the probability reverses.’
‘Don’t fog me,’ she scoffs. ‘I know stats.’ ’And I know trains, I sigh. I tell her things
will iron out between us since probability is the key to any reasonable door in
life.
In the next hour, we
dodge make-believe ‘silent rollers’ in the yard, scale every variety of actual
car, and hook a ladder on a pretend moving graincar. Physical drill is superior to lecture or
mental rehearsal for athletics, and she is a quick study. After an hour, Clown saunters back to her pack
under the bridge knowing how to think and react in the top dozen reoccurring
hobo scenarios.
We three leave the
bridge and stroll the streets north of the tracks
after sunset. At the height of train
riding during the Great Depression, you could buy a bed for a nickel and a meal
for the same in this or any of the string of division towns. Ironically, now government or church free
shelters and Sallies replace the old skid road flophouses but with less
gratitude from the patrons. We reach the
mission to discover it’s too late for the sermon, meal and bed, but a teenage
girl on roller skates sides Clown under a sreetlamp to gander at the
kaleidoscopic braids. ‘Why don’t you
stay at the women’s shelter tonight,’ the girl exhorts. ‘Maybe I will,’ replies our partner. There is
no walk-in men’s shelter.
The teen asks for
nothing in return for an encyclopedic lowdown of the area. ‘We call it Grand Dumption.
We got everything: Sally, Goody, Shelter, the bread line.’ She provides the street skinny for ten
minutes until I hold up a palm to inquire, ‘Why are you helping us?’ ‘Because I’m bored, and you’re good
people.’ I tell her that performance
deserves reward and fork over a
As we proceed I
footnote, ‘The tip couldn’t have occurred if we were to be in town long because
she’d ‘adopt’ us daily, or mark us by telling others. Did you see her move out?
A hobo once said, ‘I got me a philosophy: Yesterday is a cancelled check,
tomorrow is a promissory note, but today is cash in hand’.’
‘I don’t care where
we stay as long as it costs at least $50 and I pay,’ chirps Wiz as we pad
along. We check into a luxury hotel and
the sugar daddy gets first shower. As
water runs in the bathroom I tell Clown she has earned the second shower and
toss her a towel. She shuts off the
lights and I hear clothes drop to the floor.
The night vision goggles are in Wiz’s pack, and I pull them. Suddenly the room lights up to my eyes only.
There stands a body as perfect and thrilling as Steinbeck’s prose. Once you see
that, I ponder, you’re a slave until you get hit hard on the head.
‘Hey, who turned out
the light?’ calls Wiz. I flip off the goggles
and on the light, and confess. She gives a Mona Lisa titter and steps bundled
in a towel into the bathroom. A
vibrating noise elicits under the door crack and in a minute Clown peeks out
with an electric toothbrush in her mouth. ‘Ebery gal who trabels with hobos shooth hab one!’
When she announces a bit
later that she prefers for novelty a woman’s shelter over a posh hotel, we
encourage the option. I accompany her
through a rough-and-tumble neighborhood to the Grand Junction Women’s Shelter
where a sign on the front door advises, ‘Closed’, and knock. The matron in curlers answers, stares at the
cascade of colored pigtails, and admits her, while physically blocking me.
Clown cheeps, ‘See you bright and early at the mission for breakfast, Doc,’ and
the door locks behind them.
I jog back through
the impoverished neighborhood for warmth and safety, and return to the hotel
where already Wiz snores with frogs up his nostrils. I sink wearily an inch into the other twin
bed only to hear a clicking from my pants over a chair. I forgot to turn off the radio. I key the mike expectantly. ‘Yes?’ She
answers softly, 'I am your hobo goddess singing you to sleep. Lullaby and good
night….’
‘Clown is a loner and
that’s fine,’ mutters Wiz now wide awake.
‘But if she comes out of that shelter in the morning scratching gray
soldiers (body lice) there’s little pity.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I counsel. ‘We’ll sneak a piece of urinal soap into her
pants to get rid of them like any other tramp.’
I awaken the next
morning to see Wiz operating over his backpack.
He looks up and beams, ‘The pack is effectively loaded now.’ He opens the top to proudly display a
layering method for access as well as protection of the sundry electronics:
There’s a tier of clean socks, underwear and T-shirt for each of the
anticipated three days to the coast- with the gadgets sandwiched between
them. He shall pull a fresh clothes
layer nightly after showering and stuff the dirty clothes under the bed for the
maid to find in the morning, and neatly fold a fresh motel towel in the pack in
stead of the old layer. ‘Thus,’ he explains, ‘Karma in the universe is
maintained.’
We check-out and
depart the hotel and walk briskly across town to the chow line for our
breakfast appointment with Clown. Early
risers en route to jobs study our packs and gaits and Wiz surveys them back
with, ‘It’s delicious how people look at us so funny when we’re outside the
railroad influence, but measure up to us at the missions and Sallies.’ I respond, ‘Cultures should be fascinated by
their sub-cultures as spice to the meal. These citizens can’t guess we’re their
peers half the time.’
We meet Clown
a-sparkle in the center of the breakfast line where I query, ‘Last night was
your first in a shelter. How was it?’ She replies, ‘The shelter was buggy with
interesting women to talk to. Lights went out at 11pm, but three young ladies
kept me up half the night talking about life on the road. I slept a few scant
hours, and woke up with one of them staring at my feet.’
The mission door
swings open and about fifty souls, a linear slice at this hour of similar
haunts across the nation, file in and sit down on hard benches. An old alcoholic chews corn flakes like a
Clydesdale, kids with runny yolks on their chins fly between the tables, a
crack-head gulps coffee to stay awake for food, many muscled laborers return
for seconds before the long day’s work, and a few scattered hobos munch
philosophically while observing the others as if apart of a movie.
The main course is
SOS (sh__-on-a-shingle) that hobos call ‘graveyard’,
a meaty hash on toast. I close my nose
over it for savor but Clown interrupts, ‘You eat like a pig,’ and provides a napkin. I
take it, chuckle and return for seconds.
Soon we shove from the table and Wiz offers, ‘That was best breakfast
I've had in near memory. No onion which is important.’
We exit into morning
sunshine and retrieve the cardboard and water from the bridge, and mosey east
along the tracks past homes and little warehouses to the Last Chance Liquor
Store. The boys purchase milk and bread,
sardines and tomatoes for sandwiches, while Clown buys a month’s store of beef
jerky, pickles and vitamins.
On the way out, an
hourglass lady in a string bikini advances bit by bit along the pavement talking
to herself. ‘Marilyn Monroe, you look gorgeous
today!’ Then, turning to face where she
stood, the same lady retorts, ‘Don’t get fresh, mister!’ Clown halts before the lady and says, ‘It’s
delusional, sir.’ We wheel down the
sidewalk and Clown utters, ‘’Whoa. A bisexual
split-personality. I’ve never seen it before!’ I nudge Wiz that suddenly our companion is
more interesting.
When government
funding is tightened the first product squeezed is mental health with released
patients from hospitals in droves hitting the rails. Most are ‘cabbage heads’ who
have used so many drugs in a lifetime that physical recovery is difficult. ‘A thesis could be written on tramping
crazies,’ I suggest to the pair.
‘Execs, let’s hit the
rails!’ and I lead them from the sidewalk to the back of the liquor store right
on the main. We set up temporary
headquarters in a weed patch where I describe the setup.
Our two options are
axiomatic: To wait for a newly-built freight at the makeup yard but have no
chance to catch a through freight on the mainline, or to hike a mile to the
main yard to bet on a through freight stopping before any westbound is built.’ Clown rebukes, ‘You told me that last night,
Doc. Let’s wait here and eat.’
We sit in the patch
like weeds, Wiz in dark coveralls, me in bib overalls, and she gliding about us
like an ice-skater swallowing vitamins in jeans, pink halter-top, and a white floppy
cap with fishing lures to hold back the hair.
A burly tramp in green camouflage angles across the building yard
stepping lightly at us under a sparse pack- he is the archetypal
‘Mornin’,
Flintstone Kids,’ he greets in a gravely voice twixt missing incisors. Clown
demands, ‘What’s that mean?’ He utters,
‘It’s people who ride with plastic… ya know, credit cards.
It’s easy to see you ain’t rail vets.’
The early morning insects buzz to fill a long silence.
‘Say, lady, why don’t
you take a ride with a real train tramp to places that don’t exist in your
imagination.’ ‘Nah,’ she replies, ‘But thanks, buddy. I’m with these other
Flintstones.’ The geezer examines her
like a Belle Starr. ‘I’m the oldest hobo
in the country!’ he cries abruptly, but from his heart I hear great pride
pulse. ‘Hey you,’ he hooks a finger at
me. ‘Stand up so I can see what you’re made of.’ At that Wiz fingers a screwdriver in his
breast pocket for emergencies. I gaze back and reply, ‘I’m sitting comfortably.’ The Vet shrugs,
‘Don’t get lost on the American gridiron, Flintstones. Good day!’
War veterans have
formed a strong contingent of rail riders beginning with the Civil War when
soldiers, accustomed to camping out, foraging and traveling by trains, hoboed west after the battles end on the same right-of-way
as the executives take. The railroads
give today’s Vet, who sifts for himself as well as his predecessors, the type
of thrill he came to expect in
Furthermore, a lone
wolf’s dream is to hobo with a woman for many reasons: Yard workers are freer
with train information, the bull doesn’t cause so many headaches, hitchhiking
off the railroads is faster, shelters admit a husband or boyfriend together,
families get firsts in food lines, and there’s no end to the advantages. The catch-22 is that females profess the
opposite view. A quick way to about-face
a lady is to ask her if all this is true.
The consequent issue is, is it safe for a female to jump freights
alone? They’re safer than males on the
road because people ease their ways.
There is an improbable worry of rape with so many worse things than that
happening on the rails. So, I tell women
the first time out to travel with a companion, and then she can go alone as
many I’ve known have with flying colors.
‘He’s right, you
know,’ I post my partners in the patch. ‘We’re hobby hobos next to him.’