The Blue Train To Heaven

by Charles Harvey

The Blue Train To Heaven

  by

  Charles W. Harvey

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  The Blue Train To Heaven

  Copyright © 2011 by Charles W. Harvey

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  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  The Blue Train to Heaven

  About the Author

  The Geegaws (Bonus Story)

  Discover Other Titles

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  The Blue Train to Heaven

  Ha! I have seen more things than not in this Ghana, in this place Accra. I’ve seen rats chase lions. I’ve seen the sun at midnight and empty coffins fall out of the sky. I was here the year the Volta turned orange, but I’d never seen a train coffin until Ashong decided to die. Ha! Yes. Ashong is such a rich and powerful man, himself decided when he was ready to go. God had little to do with it.

  Now when I die, a Volkswagen is enough for me. Been in the world seventy-three years, all I own fits into a suitcase—a big suitcase, hear me, but a suitcase. I’ll be wearing my only suit that I bought in France—that bad time in France chasing that ex-wife of mine. I got a hat the wind and rain shaped to look like a bundle a woman carries on her head, two pickaxes from my days in the mines, a paper sack of my mot’dear’s glass beads and a signed photograph of the Queen that my last employer gived me instead of all my salary. My Brother Ashong owns—owned a farm and two wives.

  “Elijah, you are a mole on the planet’s ass. I am the fists,” Ashong said to me when we were young roosters.

  Ha! The fists are clenched and stilled, but the ass is wobbling on. The witchdoctor in that house there with the ox bones across the door said I got twenty more. Ha! A year for each British Pound I gived him. The same witch doctor who treated Ashong after the croc made a meal of one of his legs. His treament put Ashong on his deathbed.

  A year before Ashong died, he engaged two loony coffin builders in a contest to see who could build him the most elaborate box to carry his bones to heaven. I took a big book atlas to his sickbed. I pointed to a speck in the map of the United States Texas. I told Ashong, “Heaven Texas is where you are going ol’ boy.” I had no expectation to be in his will. I am a mole. Ha!

  Come, boy, let’s get out of this rain. You had to come out and talk to us during rainy season. Ha! This wind makes the rain sharp as razor blades… Who sent you? Newsweek? I don’t like slick page magazine. Does not clean the ass good… Ha! Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s good to read…Where was I?

  Yes you want the story of the coffin builders. Well put your shiny watch back up your sleeve. Remember what the witchdoctor told me. So Ashong gave notice that he was putting up a contest for the best coffin makers to build the finest coffin for his departure. Ha! Wise men saw right through that. The loser would have spent thousands of Cedi and Pounds for a wasted effort. The winner? Ha! Try to collect from a dead man—which is what Dede Nunu came around here yesterday for. You took his picture? His head is too big for any camera. Ha!

  “Paa Elijah, your brother Ashong is buried in the finest coffin in Ghana.”

  “He is Dede Nunu. He is indeed,” I said watching his big head wobble on little neck.

  “It cost many Cedi to make. Many fine craftsmen had to be paid.”

  “Ha!” I said. “Crafty men full of palm wine.”

  “I pay my men with Cedis!”

  “Their pockets must be heavy with Cedi. They wobble often when they walk.”

  “I see I must come to the point with you,” He said. He jabbed at me with a chopped off finger.

  I said to him, “Dede, I am a mole on this huge ass we walk on. Ha! Go to the wives.”

  “What kind of man sends a man to talk to women?”

  “You want Kola nut, my brother? It will steady your head.” That ended our conversation.

  Ah yes, the train was something else. Here is an umbrella for you. I will get the roof fixed soon enough—when the rain let’s up. Ha! Yes it sounds like knives attacking the roof. It is that way with the rain in Ghana. If the rain doesn’t cut you—your Brother will. When we were boys Ashong and me was walking along the Volta one day and came up on a hand lying by the bank. The hand was shriveled and at first we thought it was a bird’s claw until we saw a sparkle come from it. A ring sprouted from the fingers. The year before, the crocs went crazy and tried to eat half of Accra. Chief Zuberi declared war on chief Obizor because he thought Obizor had stolen his wife Lindi. When we saw the ring, Ashong and me knew right away we had the hand of Lindi. The stones were arranged like a snake with the head and tail of rubies. It was Zuberi’s insignia. I gave Ashong the hand so he could cut away the finger and remove the ring. He put the ring and my knife in his pocket. He gave me the hand. We laughed as I looked all around me and said, “I do not take this hand in marriage.” I threw the hand back into the Volta. As we walked along, Ashong said how fortunate he was to find such a prize. I cocked my head, but said nothing. He talked about how to work the stones out of the ring and go all over Accra selling them one by one and taking the gold ring to Abanze to sell. He crowed again about how lucky he was.

  “Luck follows me like flies follow the baboon’s ass.”

  “We are both baboon asses,” I reminded him and jostled him playfully. He whipped my knife from his pocket and stuck me in my arm. My mouth flew open like a hippo’s. We looked at each other for a long time. The blood ran down my arm. Ashong threw down my knife and walked away. Ha! Ah, yes, if the rain doesn’t cut you, your brother will.

  Ha! Yes my friend, you want to know what I thought of the train carrying Ashong to heaven.

  Oh I don’t know, he may be in heaven in the sky. I heard he said his prayers before he died. As his only brother, it was my duty to inspect whatever he was to be buried in whether pine box or big train. So Dede Nunu comes to me—him and his crafty men dress like train conductors and pull what looks like big chunks of blue sky to my house here. The whole village clucked and fluttered like guinea hens with their necks outstretched trying to get a good look. Ha! Then I heard a howl of laughter. Here comes the train with the caboose in front. In front! I said, “Dede, I know Ashong loved the caboose on a train and a woman, but what is this? And you’ve painted everything the color of the sky.”

  “You know, Paa Elijah, Brother Ashong did love a train caboosa. He told me that he wanted to enter heaven riding in his favorite part of the train, but he wanted to enter heaven ahead in the train. So the only thing for me to do is put the caboosa in front. The engine can push the caboosa as well as it can pull it. And you know he loved Meryl Streep’s blue eyes staring at him from Out of Africa.”

  Well it wasn’t my money so I looked in the “caboosa.” Goldfish swimmed in the shiny blue walls. A shiny silver ball rotated, and there was Ashong laid out on a velvet couch in a ruffled shirt, platform heels, and his favorite bell bottoms. (Ha! I will tell you later that story when he went to New York to Studio 54.) So the engine which was second, was filled with coal—“To give Ashong fuel for the journey,” Dede said. And the last car done up to look like Ashong’s bedroom, was plastered with his civic awards from the Ghana this and that society. A bowl of kola nuts sat on his dresser next to his stool. The pictures of his two wives were cocked at an angle, shiny forehead to shiny forehead. They looked like they were butting heads. I opened the d
resser drawers and they contained some socks, underwear, pliers, and a can opener. Ha! Maybe there is a food store in Heaven Texas.

  I was about to shut the drawer when I picked up what I thought was a box of matches. I rattled it and something clunked inside. I said, “Elijah, matches don’t go clunk clunk. They go like a tiny baby’s rattle.” I opened the box and there was Lindi’s ring. The snake jewels were still a snake. Ha!

  I stood there a long time looking at the ring. My right hand went to the scar on my left arm and rubbed. I started to take the ring, yes. But there is the saying one can’t shake hands with God wearing a dead person’s ring, so I left the ring where I found it. It is Ashong who is going to meet God. I have twenty more to do.

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