by Bob Brewer
To: God c/o Scribe
cc Book of Records, last entry
Supreme Being: Thank you for granting me the unencumbered use of your working staff and for approving my storm request. The timing and intensity fit perfectly. I must say it’s exciting to be in the field once again. Perhaps we could do it more often. Host
To: Host. I understand your fervor but first things first. God, cc etc. etc.
Abe was just stepping over the rails when he saw that he had company. The short figure of a man wearing a red baseball cap was walking towards him while dusting off his black and white checkered pants. The little man, a foot and a half shorter than the six-foot Abe, was clownish in appearance with a reddish complexion and a bulbous nose. He was mumbling to himself as he swatted at the clots of mud that stuck to his pants. Abe waved a hello as he drew near. “Missed your train?”
“Oh, it’s me legs don’t ya see,” the little fellow answered in an unmistakable Irish brogue. “They’re just not long enough to do what I want ‘em to.”
Abe gave him a broad smile. “I can see where that might be a problem. Mine are too long sometimes. Hard to find pants that fit.” He reached out a hand. “Abraham Douglas. People call me Abe.”
“Pleased to make yer acquaintance, Mr. Douglas,” the minuscule fellow said while looking up at Abe and taking his offered hand. “Thomas McDougal. Most people call me Shorty.”
Abe knew that in their circle of society, anyone of McDougal’s stature would without question be called Shorty. That sort of irreverence was simply a part their lives and not usually meant to deride an individual. Like Slim or Red or Tubs, the name-tagging was merely a statement of fact based on one’s outward appearance. But Abe did not believe in assigning such names. In his younger days he had taken a lot of flak because he couldn’t pick up on things as quickly as the other kids his age. And having a name like Abraham Lincoln certainly hadn’t helped. On his sixteenth birthday he walked out of Mrs. Burke’s seventh grade class and never went back. So calling the man Shorty wasn’t a viable option with him.
Letting his thoughts idle, he gave the little man a pleasant smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. McDougal.” He shifted his rucksack back into his right hand and started to walk away. “Hope you have better luck with the next train,” he said over his shoulder. “I might be seeing you later.”
“Where ya off to?” the little man asked.
“Up there.” Abe pointed to the settlement. “Thought I’d try to get something to eat.”
The Irishman raised one of his brushy eyebrows and squirreled up his oversized nose. “Oh, I’m not too certain ya’d want to be goin’ up there just now,” he warned as he finished brushing off his pant-legs.
Abe stopped, turned, and gave him a quizzical look. “Why not?”
“Well, ya see, I just came from there meself, and the old girl who runs the place is in a bit of a hissy.”
Abe nodded that he understood. “She shooed you off, huh?”
“No, not right off, she didn’t,” Shorty said thoughtfully. “Actually, she was quite nice ‘til after we’d had a drink.”
“A drink?”
“Oh, it’s not what yer thinkin’,” the Irishman said quickly. “She wasn’t the one I was drinkin’ with. It was Laferty, the handyman sort of.”
“Ah,” Abe mumbled. It was apparent that the little guy was one to stretch a story. Abe lowered his rucksack to the ground and prepared himself to listen. Although he didn’t talk much until his blood-alcohol level was beyond measurement, Abe prided himself in being a good listener. McDougal fidgeted a tennis-shoed foot around in a small circle then hitched up his checkerboard pants before continuing. “It’s like this, ya see. After eatin’, I offered Laferty a drink out of me travelin’ bottle. I had no idea at the time that the kids were spyin’ on us. Well, one of them tattled and the next thing I knew, Laferty was bein’ told to leave and never come back. Oh, she was fit to be tied, she was.”
Abe chuckled. “So, she chased you off, too?”
“There’s no doubt in me mind that she would’ve if she’d seen me. But at the time I was in the loo, don’t ya see? When all the shoutin’ was over, I snuck out and headed here straight away to catch the train.”
Abe took his hat off and ran a hand through his unruly hair. “Sounds like lunch’ll have to wait.” The disappointment was clear.
“Not if ya don’t mind peanut-butter and jelly,” the little man offered while pushing a hand into his pants-pocket. He brought out a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, flashed a toothy grin at Abe and handed the sandwich to him. “I always try to take one fer the road,” he said as an explanation of how he came to have the sandwich. “I’d be offerin’ ya a wee drop to go with it, but Laferty took what was remainin’ in me bottle with him.”
Abe thanked him for the kindness and picked up his sack of belongings. Together they walked to the edge of the shoulder. They spread their jackets on the grass and sat down. Abe riffled through his rucksack and pulled out his unopened bottle of California wine. He twisted off the cap and handed the bottle to the Irishman.
“Don’t mind if I do.” The little man’s eyes twinkled with delight. “Just a bit to settle me nerves.” He took a quick draw from the bottle and looked his new acquaintance over. Abe’s hands were thick and rawboned and so dirty that he ate the sandwich off the back of one of them. His face was thin featured, high-cheeked and skinned with the leathery look of years in the sun. He hadn’t bothered to shave in a week or two. It was a friendly face, though, with honesty written in the eyes. McDougal put a lot of stock in the way a man’s eyes looked to him. He took another swig of the wine and handed the bottle back to Abe. “So what is it that brings ya here?” he asked.
Abe swallowed the last of the sandwich and had a small drink himself before replying. “That’s hard to answer, Mr. McDougal. I really don’t know.” He was being perfectly honest. He hadn’t planned to come east, it just sort of slipped into his schedule somehow. He couldn’t explain it. Actually, even with the intense heat, he had hoped to work in the orchard for a while longer to build up his bankroll. But for some strange reason that wasn’t to be. “I guess I’m just a born wanderer,” he continued his thoughts aloud. “Been pretty much all over the states in the last twenty years. How about you? You from around here?”
“Not by a long shot,” the little man said with a shake of his head. “No. I was raised in an orphanage like the one up there.” He pointed towards what Abe had thought was a settlement. “Only it was in Ireland,” Shorty went on. “I stowed meself away on a freighter when I was fifteen and woke up a month later in a hospital in New York City. I fergot to bring any food with me, ya see. That’s when I started me policy of takin’ somethin’ fer the road.”
Abe laughed. He wasn’t sure if the man was telling him a story or being truthful, but either way he felt a growing liking for the little fellow. “So, you’ve been traveling ever since?” he asked.
“Off and on all me life. Ya see, I’ve never been one to settle down. Like yerself, it’s in me bones I suppose. And I could never hold down a proper job because of me status of not bein’ a citizen and all.”
“Oh.” Abe nodded. “Well, I won’t tell on you. Where you off to from here?”
The Irishman leaned back on his elbows. A puzzled look flashed across his face. “To tell ya the truth, Mr. Douglas, I ain’t so sure why I’m here in the first place. I’d intended to spend me summer up on the Columbia in Washington. It’s cool up there, ya see. How I managed to get this far off track, I’ll never know.”
The two chatted for a couple of hours learning about each other’s travels and travails, and between them they finished off the small supply of wine from Abe’s bottle. It was growing late into the afternoon when the muted blast of a diesel engine announced the coming of another northbound train.
“Well, Mr. McDougal, it looks like we’ll be traveling together for a while.�
�� Abe pointed to where they had met. “You left your packings over there.” They put their jackets on, and Shorty shuffled over to pick up his kit and bedroll. Together they crossed the tracks and crawled under the brush to wait for the engine to pass and slow for the warning flags. Down the tracks, the workmen were still busy.
“The rain washed out part of the track beddin’ last night,” McDougal explained over the heavy screeching sounds of the braking train. “Laferty spotted it on his way into town and called it in. A good thing he did, too. I was on the first train through this mornin’, dear Saints protect us. There’s no tellin’ what might’ve happened if it’d gone barrelin’ past.”
As the train slowed to a manageable speed, Abe and his new traveling companion scurried out of the brush and tossed their gear aboard a flatcar loaded with huge concrete pipes. In a deft move, Abe reached up and grabbed a ladder riser. He threw his left leg up as if mounting a horse and planted his foot firmly on the lower rung. A second later he was onboard looking back to see if the little man had followed him.
McDougal had a different way of boarding that, in all his years of riding the rails, Abe had never witnessed. Because of his dwarf-sized legs he couldn’t swing them up like the taller Abe had done. He had to make up for the inability by running as fast as he could then jumping up as high as he could and hoping that the ladder was still there. Abe could see why he had missed the last train. It was a tricky move; not much room for error in judgment. This time however, the Irishman was in luck. Abe reached out and caught the little fellow’s jacket sleeve as he made his jump, then pulled him onboard.
“May the Lord bless ya,” McDougal panted as he flopped down on the oak flooring of the car. Abe shrugged off the remark and began picking up their belongings and stuffing them inside one of the big pipes. He motioned for McDougal to follow then pushed the sundry gear ahead of himself as he crawled through the tube to a point where a gap was left between the sections of pipe.
The red flags and repairmen were a half-mile behind them when Shorty pulled himself into a sitting position next to Abe. “I thought I’d never hear meself sayin’ it, Mr. Douglas. But I’m thinkin’ I’m getting’ too old fer this anymore.”
Abe gave him a good hard look. “Why, I don’t think you’re a day over forty, are you?”
“Close enough,” McDougal puffed. “I’ll be thirty-eight me next birthday.”
“You don’t have me beat by much,” Abe said. “I’m thirty-five.”
“Are ya, now,” Shorty said noncommittally as he returned Abe’s stare. The hard life had given Abe the appearance of being much older. “You’d have made a fine doctor, Mr. Douglas. You’ve got a lot of warmth and honesty in yer eyes, ya see.”
The observation was somewhat embarrassing to Abe. He lowered his gaze. “You’ve got to be awful smart to be a doctor, Mr. McDougal. I thought about becoming a veterinarian once though, when I was a kid. That’s close to being a doctor isn’t it?” It was more a statement than a question.
McDougal started to reply but quickly put a hand up to cover his mouth and sneezed loudly.
“Bless you,” Abe said as a reflex, and automatically checked to see if he had been splattered.
“It’s me nose,” Shorty apologized for having sneezed in such close proximity. “Some things I’m allergic to.” He pulled a handkerchief from a jacket pocket, buried his large nose in it and gave a strong, reverberating blow.
Abe scooted back a bit and stuck his head out through the gap in the pipe sections. The train was just passing a long string of poultry sheds that started near the tracks and stretched several hundred yards into the grassland. “There’s the biggest chicken ranch I ever saw out there, Mr. McDougal,” he called back over his shoulder.
The little man blew his nose again. “I might’ve known what it was,” he said through a sniffle.
Abe turned his head and shifted back inside the pipe. “You allergic to chickens?”
“Love ‘em dearly.” Shorty wheezed and shook his head. “It’s not the chickens that’d be affectin’ me, it’s the feedin’ machines. Me nose is sensitive to the dust, don’t ya see?”
Abe sniffed the air. “Yeah, I can smell it, I think.” He scooted backwards. “Here, stick your head outside. Maybe it won’t be so overpowering out there.” The Irishman gladly obliged by poking his head through the gap. He took a couple of long, deep breaths then sneezed three or four times in a row.
“Oh, me everlovin’ mother,” he gasped just before the sneezing started again. This time it didn’t appear that it was going to stop.
Abe began to worry that the little fellow was going to pass out or, worse yet, die. He dragged him back inside the pipe and began blowing in his face. Fighting off another sneeze, Shorty pushed him aside and raced on his knees to the front end of the pipe where he collapsed. “Oh, God, don’t let him die,” Abe prayed aloud, then crawled to the downed man to see if the prayer had been answered. Shorty’s nose was flat on the floor but the back of his jacket was rising up and down which meant to Abe that at least he was still breathing. “Thank you,” Abe whispered, then took a quick look around. The train was slowing again, and the chicken sheds were nearly out of sight. He reached over and shook McDougal’s shoulder. The little man moaned something Abe couldn’t catch so he shook him a second time. “You’re not dead, Mr. McDougal, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he shouted.
“I’m not?” Shorty replied like it came as a surprise to him.
“No,” Abe assured him.
McDougal raised his head slowly and turned his face upward to make certain. When he saw it was Abe looking back at him, he put the handkerchief, which he had held onto through the entire ordeal, up to his nose and gave it a final clearing of his sinuses. “I was thinkin’ I was a goner fer sure that time,” he confessed.
“You had me convinced. You think you’re okay now?” When Shorty nodded, Abe went on, “Looks like the train’s going to stop soon.”
McDougal sat up, and along with Abe, checked out the scenery on both sides of the flatcar. By the look of it they were coming into a town. Houses had sprung up where a short time before there had been only grasslands and farms and chicken ranches. A highway now ran parallel to the tracks, and a huge billboard on the side of it proclaimed they were entering Midvale, the chicken processing capital of the world, R.C. (Junior) Williams, Mayor. Under that, in print nearly as bold, were listed the names of nine local churches.
A slight sideways jerking of the flatcar told them that the train was veering off onto a spur. Abe bent down and entered the pipe to gather their belongings while Shorty tightened the laces on his black tennis shoes--a ritual with him in preparation for the de-boarding. He didn’t want them to fall off when his feet hit the gravel like they did once in Missoula during the winter.
When it became obvious that the train was about to come to a complete stop, Mr. McDougal took his flying leap off the bottom rung of the ladder. His tennis shoes barely touched the loose gravel then continued on, hauling his legs out in front of the rest of his body. The seat of his checkered pants thumped against the gravel and dribbled him to a stop three-quarters of the way down the track’s shoulder.
Abe was still laughing at the peculiar dismount when his own feet gave way to the slippery rocks. His long legs splayed awkwardly and he bounced down the shoulder in much the same way as Shorty had. The Irishman guffawed. “Let that be a lesson fer ya,” the little man teased, then rolled over and laughed some more.
Abe got to his feet and walked over to give McDougal a hand up. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have laughed at you.” He gave the little man a hand and pulled him to his feet. “But it was funny. Is that the way you always get off a train?”
McDougal shrugged his shoulders. “It’s me legs, don’t ya see…?”
“I know, I know,” Abe answered, then changed the subject. “You hungry?”
“That I am,” the Irishma
n said with a quick bobbing nod.
Abe shook his head and chuckled. “It was funny, you know,” he said as a final remark.
The Irishman’s eyes twinkled impishly, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he started over to pick up his kit of belongings. Abe followed suit and together they crossed over the low, dirt berm of the highway. The main part of town was still a half-mile away.