by Paul Mosier
“I gotta get back before they send a search party. I said I was using the latrine.”
“Latrine?”
“You know. Bathroom.”
I shake my head. “You guys are dorks.”
He smiles again, then turns to leave.
“Thanks,” I call out, but he’s already gone.
I count the quarters, and it’s five dollars like he said. I think that maybe I should give it to Neal and Amtrak for the food I ate since I didn’t have money but now I do. But then I think how I’ll be hungry again soon enough and I can use the money for more food.
The lights of La Junta appear in the dark windows. The train slows down, and a small station comes into view. It’s not old and fancy like some of the stations. It reminds me of the dry cleaner in Palm Springs where Gramma went to clean the dress she wore at funerals.
Dorothea appears. “Come along, honey. Stay by my side, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say, all southern-like.
A conductor puts a plastic yellow step down at every door, and people step off and onto the platform, stretching, lighting cigarettes, ambling around. A few people are getting off for good and take their luggage with them. A few are getting on.
“See those Indian women?” Dorothea says. “Poor things. They sit there with the jewelry they make hoping to sell it to the people who get off the train to stretch their legs. But the train’s so late, there ain’t hardly anyone getting off, and the poor things been waitin’ all day.”
I look at the women and girls, sitting on the pavement with blankets spread before them, covered with jewelry. “Native Americans,” I say quietly.
Dorothea looks at me and shakes her head. “You’re right, you’re right. I gotta stop callin’ ’em Indians.”
“Can I look?”
“Sure, honey. We got a few minutes.”
I look over my shoulder at the train as if I expect to see it pulling away, then walk to the women and their jewelry. Dorothea walks beside me, checking her phone. I slowly move from left to right past the half dozen women, and then back to a little girl. She’s maybe six, and has little bracelets made of tiny beads on thread in pretty designs.
“Did you make those?” I ask.
The girl looks to her mother, who says something to her in another language, then nods at me.
“How much?”
She holds up three fingers. I bend down to look more closely, and choose one. It has beads the color of the red dirt we’ve been seeing since we got to Arizona and New Mexico, and beads that are white like the fluffy clouds of the southwestern sky, and turquoise beads that are the color of nothing but turquoise.
“Can you help me tie it on?”
She looks to her mother, who takes it and ties it to my wrist. It looks nice. I smile at the girl, and she smiles at me. But she looks tired. I fish the five dollars in quarters from my other pocket and give all of it to her. She counts it and tries to give me back two dollars, but I tell her to keep it. She says something to me in her language and looks to her mother, who smiles.
“She says she likes your hair.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then look to the girl. “Thank you.”
I don’t think I ever needed to earn money by the time I was her age. I hope she sleeps well.
It has rained in La Junta earlier in the day, and the air smells good. Walking with Dorothea on the platform, I get goose bumps from how wonderful it smells. It reminds me of the smell when it rained in Palm Springs, which is different from the smell of rain in New Orleans. The rain smell makes everything seem new and full of possibilities. I fill my lungs with it as we walk from the back of the train to the front, then back again.
“We’ll have a longer stop in Kansas City, whenever we get there,” she says.
We head back toward our yellow step to board. I feel dreamy. I’m feeling good that I gave the little girl an extra two dollars.
We come upon Neal.
“Look,” I say, holding up my arm to show the bracelet. Then I remember it cost money I supposedly didn’t have, so I hide it behind my back.
Neal sees me and smiles, and hides a lit cigarette behind his back.
I feel my brow furrow as I think about how people are always hiding things, and doing things they shouldn’t do, things that hurt them and things that kill them and things they do anyway. I wonder whether the people who care about Neal worry about him dying from smoking. I wonder if anyone is worrying about me.
Back on the train, in my seat, I look at my new bracelet and think of the little girl who made it. It’s tough for her to have to be out late, but at least she’s with her mother. I’m constantly thinking about how easy or how hard the lives of others are, especially when I’m trying not to feel sorry for myself.
Back in Palm Springs, after Gramma died, Les and Ray took me in and I slept on their couch. But then a nosy neighbor named Eunice who didn’t think it was right for me to be living with them reported me to Child Services, and they took me away from them and put me in a youth shelter. Most of the kids there had parents who were in jail or on drugs, and they stayed there waiting for their parents to get off drugs or out of jail, or for some better option to miraculously appear.
I had been in places like it before, back in New Orleans. Mom would get arrested, and I’d hang around a neighbor’s apartment until they’d get sick of me and call the agency. Then I’d be in a shelter until Gramma coughed up the money to ship me out to Palm Springs. This happened a few times, going back and forth, each time Gramma making me feel bad about how much of her money she had to spend to send for me. And even though she hated paying the money to send me back, she’d be sick of having me around so she’d put me on the next bus as soon as my mom got out of jail, instead of waiting for my mom to come up with the money.
Then finally my mom died and there was no more back-and-forth. Dr. Lola hoped that when I was in Palm Springs to stay I’d be accepted by my classmates better, but it never worked out that way. I never really fit in.
The shelter I got sent to when they took me away from Les and Ray was called Tumbleweed Terrace. It was about a dozen portable buildings in a field of dust, but the food was okay, and they had books and board games. Les and Ray got to visit me, and they came every day for lunch the two weeks I was there. They’d bring me food that was even better than what they served at the shelter, and usually a piece of candy.
Almost every day someone new would show up to replace one or two who got taken somewhere else, usually back home. But there was one girl who had been there for three years. Her name was Espy, and she was exactly the same age as me. We were born on the very same day in the very same year.
Espy had long dark hair and a pretty smile. She liked to read like I did, and we spent a lot of time talking about books.
The more I got to know her, the more I liked her. Her mom was a drug addict but she could never get clean. Espy said her mom wanted her back but she couldn’t quit long enough even for a supervised visit. Espy never stopped hoping, and she never unpacked her suitcase. Every time she did laundry, instead of hanging her clothes in the closet or putting them in a drawer, she’d fold them and put everything back in her suitcase, like any minute her mom would show up. But it had been three years.
After I was at the shelter for two weeks, word came that this distant great-uncle in Chicago would take me in. He was Gramma’s older brother, and I’d scarcely heard a word about him. Picturing myself living with an older, man version of Gramma wasn’t the kind of thing to make my heart soar.
Everyone at the shelter acted like it was a happy thing, a happy ending, but I preferred the idea of staying with Espy and having lunch with Les and Ray every day. Instead, they’d show up the next day with a lunch packed all pretty with a sweet note inside, and I’d be gone without a good-bye. And Espy would stay behind with her packed suitcase.
Back at my seat the coach is dark and the train rocks me to sleep.
I dream of my father, or the dream version of him anyway. I nev
er knew him, but in my dream he is handsome, with a cleft chin. He dresses smartly, and smiles when I come into view. In reality I never come into view, because he was gone before I was born. He never knew I would exist. But in my dream he spots me in a crowd, because of my hair. He approaches me and tells me he’s sorry, and I slap him. I slap him because saying he’s sorry is too little, too late, and because he’ll never be near enough for me to slap when I’m awake.
I wake up and it’s dark in the coach, and dark out the window beyond the curtain. We’re rolling slowly through a small town in southeastern Colorado. Bright floodlights illuminate tall grain elevators painted white, and a coyote the color of sand who watches us pass. He’s more alone than any creature I’ve ever seen. After the bright lights the darkness of the empty space that comes after is even darker, like the quiet that’s quieter after an argument.
Dorothea is asleep beside me in the aisle seat. Her head is tilted back, mouth open.
I’m cold, so I zip up my hoodie as high as I can, and put my hands in the pockets. Then I lean in to Dorothea just a little, and close my eyes.
9
I CAN’T GET back to sleep. I’m thinking about the lonely coyote, and everything that’s happened. My timeline stretches behind me, a chart of other people’s mistakes and bad choices and sadness that put me in this seat on this train on this night.
I’m so cold from the air-conditioning, my teeth are chattering. I’ve been wearing jeans and my toast-and-jam T-shirt and hoodie ever since I got on the train in Palm Springs almost two days ago, but I’m still cold.
I slip past Dorothea into the aisle. From the overhead rack I take the silly little book, The Sun Is Shining, because it’s the only book I have. The coach is mostly sleeping except for a couple of people who are working on their laptops or reading, so I make my way toward the light of the observation lounge.
Inside there are a couple of people sleeping stretched out on the floor between the side-facing seats and the windows. There are also a couple of people sitting in the booths, sleeping with their faces on the tables. A couple of people are awake at the tables, reading. One of them is Tenderchunks.
“Hey,” I say, sitting down across from him.
He looks up from a scout manual. “Hey.”
After I don’t say anything else, he goes back to reading.
I notice for the first time that one of his eyes is higher than the other. His face is a little lopsided, like when the camera moves while you’re taking a picture. “Is that some sort of lame scout bible?” I ask.
He takes off his glasses and closes the book. “No, it just tells you what you’re supposed to do in different situations.”
I fold my arms. “Sounds like a lame scout bible to me.”
“Whatever.”
I lean forward and speak quietly. “Does it teach you how to pee standing up?”
He laughs, even though I was trying to insult him. “No. It tells you how to start a fire and how to put it out, and what to do if you’re on fire, and how to not get lost, and how to find your way when you do get lost. That kind of thing.”
“You guys need all the help you can get, I suppose. And you need to allow girls into your little club. You’ve got too much testosterone.”
“I agree.”
I pause and look at him, surprised. “You do?”
“Yeah.” He looks at me like he’s stating the obvious. “It’s like all the boys are cruel and they’re pretending to be virtuous. But I feel like I’m gonna get beat up at any moment.”
“Wow. I can’t believe I’m hearing this from one of you.”
“I don’t speak for them. You’re hearing it from me.”
“Why are you in it, then?”
“My dad wanted me to join. I like camping and everything, I just don’t like the boys and the uniforms. I mean, some of the guys are all right, but they need to be around some girls to keep them from being cruel and violent.”
“Huh.” I’m still shocked to be hearing this.
“Trail mix?” He offers a small bag.
“Thanks.” I take a handful. “So, why are you called Tenderchunks?”
He lowers his voice. “Caleb and some of the bigger guys made me eat dog food a few hikes back.”
“Why?”
“They thought it was funny. It was the troop leader’s dog’s food.” He looks over his shoulder. “He wasn’t happy about it.”
“The dog or the troop leader?”
He laughs. “Both.”
I shiver. “Why were you acting like you thought it was funny last night?”
He looks up and down the aisle again. “I have to act like I think it’s funny or I look weak. I have to act like I wanted to eat dog food.”
I look into his lopsided eyes, as sad as a mistreated puppy. “I thought girls were mean.”
“We should make a pact,” he says. “A non-cruelty pact.”
“Between us?”
“Between us. And everyone we meet. Until it extends to everyone.”
I smile. I hope it isn’t a smirk, though I can feel a little doubt in the corner of my mouth. “You’re a big thinker, huh?”
He shrugs. “You should read this.” He takes a book from his backpack. It’s a small volume of poems by Allen Ginsberg. Howl. “It’s gonna change your life. But don’t let Caleb see it.”
“Why not?”
“He likes to punch me when he sees me with a book of poetry.”
“Sounds like a sweet guy.” I flip through it. “Thanks.”
“What’s your book?” he asks.
“It’s nothing. It’s for babies.”
He reaches for it and fans the pages. A small photograph falls from it.
“Who’s this?” He picks it up at the edges and examines it. “Is this your mother?”
I nod. I can feel my expressionlessness.
“She looks like you.”
I scoff. “She looks nothing like me.”
He looks at the picture and back to me. “She looks exactly like you.”
“Hellooooo?” I hold out a lock of my bright-green hair to support my case.
He shakes his head. “That’s just color. You look like twins born years apart.”
I take the picture form him and stuff it back between the pages of the book.
“Whatever. I’m nothing like her.”
“If you say so.”
He’s ready to drop it, but I can’t. “It’s just that I don’t want to be like her.”
He nods. “I understand.”
I look into his lopsided eyes. “Maybe I’ll tell you about her some other time.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
After Tenderchunks leaves, I sit alone at the table and read Howl. I read the poem as we roll through the dark American night, quiet but for the times when we pass freight trains with their oil cars and flat cars and boxcars boxcars boxcars. I read the poem and it sometimes doesn’t make any sense to me but I feel like I get it anyway. I have never heard the word Moloch until Mr. Ginsberg shouts it again and again and again. I’ve never heard or seen the word but I’m sure I’ve felt it. The whole thing is like something I’ve always felt but could never understand.
When I can’t keep my eyes open any more I go back to my seat. I sleep as the train shimmies, rocking me.
I dream I am a poet and I spell my name R-y-d-r. Mr. Ginsberg sometimes spells the word your as yr, and does other things with words and language that make me feel wide awake when I read it. In my dream, spelling my name Rydr is the first bit of poetry I write.
10
I AWAKEN TO light in the coach and the train rolling on. I look at my SpongeBob watch but it’s still broken.
Dorothea is somewhere else. I push aside the curtain and see corn for miles. The land is gently sloping, and there’s corn on every bit of it.
My mom used to tell me that my hair was the color of corn silk. That’s the light-blond stringy stuff that you pull away from corn on the cob before you cook it. S
he loved playing with my hair, running her fingers through it. She had the same hair but she never played with her own.
I told her that when she died I’d dye my hair green so she could spot me easily, looking down from heaven. I don’t believe in heaven but I acted like I did for her sake, when she was sick. I don’t think you can tell a person who’s dying that you don’t believe in heaven. She asked me to promise not to color it green, so I swore I wouldn’t. But then I did anyway because I was mad at her for breaking so many promises herself. Like I’ll meet you here right after school. Like I promise I won’t do drugs anymore.
I turn away from the corn and stand to fetch my hearts-and-flowers bag. I brush my green hair even though I don’t care. I take my toothbrush and go downstairs into a bathroom.
My face looks terrible in the mirror. I brush my teeth anyway.
I’m mad when I leave the bathroom, maybe more mad than when I entered it. I’m mad at my mom for her broken promises. I’m mad at my gramma for being mean and nasty. I’m mad at both of them for dying. I’m mad at Neal for smoking, because he can’t be my father if he ends up dying from cigarettes. I’m mad because I’m hungry.
I go upstairs, down the aisle to the lounge car, then below to the snack counter. Neal is there and he smiles at me.
“Good morning, Rydr.”
“Hey, Dick. Can you spot me a coffee?”
He can tell I’m not happy so he doesn’t correct me on his name.
“How about a bowl of cornflakes, too?”
I scowl. “If I see any more corn I’ll vomit.” But almost immediately I wish I’d said yes to the cornflakes.
He sets a coffee in front of me.
“Got a smoke?” I ask.
“Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?” he replies.
“I can’t wait to start,” I say. “I’m gonna have a two-pack-a-day habit.”
He puts his hands on the counter and stares at me. “Is this about you seeing me smoking last night in La Junta?”
“Were you? I didn’t notice.”
He smiles, just a little bit. Apparently I haven’t succeeded in making him mad. So I take my coffee, turn, and leave, grabbing an orange from a bowl as I do. I walk away slowly, waiting to hear him call me out on stealing the orange, but he doesn’t. I climb the stairs to the observation lounge.