Train I Ride

by Paul Mosier

  It’s at this moment that I know for sure that I’m going to be a poet. As soon as my hands heal I’m going to write poems, and the first one will begin with the last words I wrote in my journal. Mom is doing so well.

  “I hope Tenderchunks at least got a kiss out of it,” Carlos says. He searches my expression.

  I don’t answer, and I try not to smile. Carlos smiles for me. Then Dorothea sits at my side, putting a paper form in front of me.

  “All right, honey. I’m getting writer’s cramp filling out these dang incident reports. Let’s make this the last one, okay?”

  After the forms I ask Dorothea if I can go downstairs to see Neal.

  “First we need to talk about what happens when you get to Chicago.” She unfolds a sheet of paper.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  She doesn’t answer. Instead she reads from the paper with a lilt in her voice, like she’s describing the amenities at someplace fun, like I really was going to Disneyland all along.

  “‘Accompany subject and her luggage as she disembarks train at Union Station in Chicago. On the platform you will be met by Officer Barney or other representative who will present credentials and sign for her, after which point subject will no longer be in your custody.’”

  I turn to look out the window. Fields are giving way to suburbs. Chicago is drawing near.

  “‘Officer Barney will then transport subject to Cook County Social Services. Prior to being introduced to relative who will henceforth serve as custodian, subject will be oriented and screened for parasitic infestation.’”

  Carlos clears his throat.

  “I don’t have lice,” I say.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be reading it aloud.” Dorothea folds the paper and puts it away. “I’m sure everything will be just fine when we get to Chicago.” She pats me on top of my hand, then gets up from the table and walks down the aisle.

  I’m left with Carlos. I turn from the window to his face.

  “He can only count to seven on his fingers.”

  “Who?” Carlos asks.

  “My great-uncle. Apparently he’s missing one finger from one hand and two from the other.”

  One side of his mouth turns up in a smile.

  “That’s all I know about him. That, and his monthly check will get bigger when I’m living with him.”

  Carlos watches me. He’s like Dr. Lola, and Neal, just waiting for what I’ll say next.

  “It’s like our branch of the family tree is diseased. It’s dead and dying and at the very end is one little leaf that’s still green. Or one small, unripe fruit that doesn’t yet know the branch is dead. But that little leaf is about to be carried away by the wind.” I bite a fingernail. “Or that little fruit is about to fall to the ground. And now it knows it.”

  Carlos shifts in his seat. He folds his hands on the table before him, and leans toward me. “What will the little leaf do when it’s cast to the wind?”

  I shrug. “It’ll try to fly.”

  “And what will the little fruit do if it falls to earth?”

  It’s almost unbearably nice for him to wonder, to ask. “It’ll hit the ground running.”

  “Those are very good answers.” His eyes look melty, the way that mine feel. “I think you need a merit badge on that scout shirt.”

  I look down at the area above the pocket. Loose threads mark where the badges had been. “Tenderchunks ripped his badges off.”

  “Probably because of who awarded them.” Carlos opens his journal and begins working at it with his pencil. “But I hope you’ll want to keep this one.”

  I lean forward to observe him drawing a small square. Then he hides what he’s drawing with his other hand.

  “No peeking.” He folds the paper and tears it until it’s like a little badge. He backs it with the duct tape he repaired my shoes with, and hands it to me. “I hereby bestow upon you the highest honor I am aware of.”

  I look at it in my palm. It has a drawing of an old-fashioned pen and the word poet. “Me?”

  He nods. “No question about it.”

  “I haven’t even written one yet.”

  He looks at me patiently. “Maybe not on paper.”

  I stick it to my shirt, above the pocket where Tenderchunks’s badges had been. “But I will,” I say.

  “I know you will.” He stands. He slides Howl across the table to me. “Try not to bleed on this.” Then he shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you should bleed on it. Make it even more valuable.” He smiles, then takes the duct tape and his journal and leaves the table.

  I watch him go, then I look down at my new badge. I feel like a poet already.

  Outside the window Illinois rushes past too quickly, so I head downstairs to the snack bar. I approach the counter.

  “Time for one more snack?” Neal asks.

  “I would love a snack, but to be completely honest, I’ve been broke since the Japanese convenience store at Union Station in Los Angeles. And every time I try to make some money, Dorothea makes me give it back. So I’m broke, and I’m really hungry, and yes, I’d love a snack. You’ve been very generous, but you probably didn’t know how desperate and dependent on you and Carlos I have been. So I am here to come clean about that.” I clear my throat, which was tightening up as I spoke. “I’m starving.”

  Neal looks shocked. “I had no idea. I mean, I kind of had an idea, but I had no idea that you’d be—”

  “It’s my fault,” I say. “I should have said something. I should have just told you I didn’t have anything to eat.”

  He shakes his head. “Please, take whatever you’d like. Eat until you’re full. And I’m so sorry. I should have known. I shouldn’t have made you come around waiting for me to figure it out.”

  I love this man. I love all humankind at this moment. I take an orange, and a veggie burger, and an apple.

  “Also, every time I called you Nate or Nick or whatever I was only pretending to not know what your name was. I was afraid that if you knew I remembered your name you’d somehow figure out that I’ve had this silly fantasy where you’re my dad. But since that’s never going to happen, I guess I’m okay with you knowing.”

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “And when I won the money and I had to give it back, Tenderchunks gave it to me again. So I could have given it to you then but instead I used it to buy this bracelet from a little girl at the station in La Junta.” I hold up my arm to display it.

  “That’s very cute.”

  “I want you to have it. Because I should have given you the money.”

  “It wasn’t my money. It’s Amtrak’s.”

  “But I can’t give it to Amtrak. Amtrak doesn’t want this bracelet.”

  Neal smiles, but he looks like he’ll cry. “But I do. Thank you, R-Y-D-R.”

  I untie it and he holds out his arm in offering. His wrist is perfect but the bracelet is a little snug.

  “These colors,” he says. “This’ll remind me of the landscape we traveled through while you changed my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Neal sits on the stool. “The way you were disappointed in me for smoking, and worried. It made me think about how hard it must be for my boyfriend.”

  “Chuck.”

  “Right. Chuck. And you just met me, but he and I have been together for years.”

  I nod. I’m thinking of my mom.

  “With what you’ve been through, how you must have worried about your mom, wishing she could stop . . .” He read my mind. He wipes his eyes against his sleeve. “I have a home, with someone I love and who loves me waiting there. You taught me how lucky I am.”

  I feel pressure behind my eyes. “I didn’t mean to teach you anything.”

  “One day you’ll have that too. A home, where someone who loves you is waiting.” He puts his hand on mine. “I hope it’s soon.”

  I had it for three days, here on the train. I smile weakly.

  Then Neal takes o
ff his conductor’s cap and puts it on my head.

  “In case it rains,” he says.

  18

  EATING FOOD IS a good way to distract yourself from unhappy feelings. When I finish the food I got from Neal, the view through the windows in the observation lounge gets sadder. This is especially true after Naperville, the last stop before the end of the line.

  It’s all ending, always ending. It’s ending again.

  So I leave the observation lounge. I smile at Carlos like I’m going to see him again in just a minute and there’ll be another chance to say a real good-bye later. But there probably won’t be.

  I always cry at endings. Except I don’t cry. So I cut out before the endings if I can. Carlos will get off from the sleeper cars and get lost in the crowd, and I’ll be taken away by another guy wearing beige, another Smokey Bear hat.

  I sit moping in my seat as the suburbs of Chicago roll by my window. A freight train passes in the opposite direction, half a mile of tanker cars and flat cars and boxcars boxcars boxcars.

  Dorothea appears, standing in the aisle, holding her hand out to me. She looks tired. It’s been a long trip, and I haven’t made it easy on her.

  “Come on, Honey.”

  I look away. But I scoot over to the aisle and stand up. I follow her as she says something into her walkie-talkie. I feel like I’m in trouble. Like all of my misdeeds on the train are finally catching up to me.

  We go through the vestibule into the lounge car, and stop at the top of the stairs.

  “Neeeeal!” she shouts down the stairs, then we keep on walking through another vestibule into the dining car with its fancy white tablecloths, the table where I sat with Tenderchunks. Then into and through the sleeper cars, one and then another. Neal appears behind me. I turn and he smiles.

  We go down the stairs and stand by one of the bathrooms at the exit. Looking out the window, I can see we’re slowing down. I can feel it.

  “Am I getting thrown off the train?” I ask.

  Dorothea doubles over laughing.

  Neal puts his hand on my shoulder. “If anyone asks, this never happened,” he says.

  Dorothea slaps him on the back. “Oh, this’d be the icing on the cake.”

  Neal reaches into his vest pocket. “We have something for you. Inspired by Carlos.”

  “We gotta be quick.” Dorothea takes something from her back pocket. “Neal thought I should say ‘resourceful’ but that’s a lot of letters for a small badge.”

  It’s a button as big as a silver dollar that’s been covered with masking tape, on which she has drawn a lightbulb and the word crafty.

  She pins it to my inherited scout shirt. “The lightbulb is supposed to mean that you’re full of clever ideas.”

  “I’m glad it doesn’t say ‘trouble.’” I don’t want to cry. I never cry.

  Dorothea puts her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, I’m not saying you were any trouble, but if you were, you’re worth it.”

  “Thank you for letting me spread my mother’s ashes. For everything.”

  She gives me a full hug this time, and I hug her back.

  “I had a hard time choosing just one merit,” Neal says. “So I chose the one that I think will serve you best.” His hands tremble as he pins it to me. “It’s gotten you this far.”

  I look down at the button. It has the word strong written inside a drawing of a heart.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I really don’t. I picture the girl in the mirror with the green hair, and I wonder if she really is these things they’re saying. I hope she is.

  The train stops.

  I look out the window. The sky is gray. We’re alongside an old brick factory with broken windows. Dorothea opens the door and the smell of a city in summer comes in, a smell I remember from long ago, different than the smell of Palm Springs, where it’s almost always summer. Neal jumps out onto the broken gray rock of the rail bed, and reaches up to me.

  “Come on! Hurry!”

  I hold his hand and jump to his arms. He sets me down, then pulls me along, running toward the front of the train. We run past the engines and to a hatch at the front of the locomotive. The engineer’s annoyed face softens when he sees me.

  Neal pushes me up the steps and I’m inside the locomotive, standing at the controls. He’s right behind me, and the engineer shuts the hatch and hurries to his seat.

  I look out the big window as the engineer moves a couple of levers. The train starts moving again. He gestures to the seat next to him. I look to Neal and he smiles and nods. I sit.

  We roll forward, and I take it all in through the big windshield—the view coming to me instead of passing by.

  Everything gets larger. I can see where I’m going. I feel Neal’s hands on my shoulders, and I melt into the chair.

  “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Rydr,” I hear myself say.

  We pick up speed.

  “Neal tells me you’re more than a little sad. And maybe just a bit scared.”

  I nod.

  “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that. I can’t promise that it’ll make anything better, but why don’t you give a little push on that big orange button to your left?”

  I look up at Neal, and he nods. I reach for it, and give it a cautious tap. An enormous horn hiccups.

  The engineer smiles. “Don’t be shy, now.”

  I give it a firmer push, and hold it for a second. It’s me making that big noise.

  “That’s better,” the engineer says.

  Neal opens the side windows, and the noise of the train gets bigger, bouncing back from the city, and the sound of the world rushing by.

  The gray blanket that has been the sky for three days moves aside, like we’ve reached land’s end and seen the sea of blue. The skyscrapers of Chicago loom in the distance, basking in the evening sun that has just appeared.

  The new life that has been forced upon me awaits. Tears stream down my face.

  “Do it again,” Neal says. “Make it cry. Make it howl.”

  I push down on the horn, and hold it.

  I laugh.

  I push the horn in short bursts. It is the spray can that paints the bright graffiti on the brick walls beside the tracks.

  I hold it down until the most seasoned pigeons fly from me in fear.

  I lean on the horn, and the pedestrians at crosswalks three blocks away cover their ears.

  I blast the horn and the agencies shudder, the sick clinics tremble, the asylum doors are blown from their hinges.

  I smash down on the horn and I howl, I cry, I shout every cuss word I know, and possibly some I’m making up.

  I scream for my mother and at my mother, you left me, you left me, and I curse the father who wasn’t a dad, everyone who abandoned me and died on me, and I hear myself shouting Moloch! again and again, beneath the wailing of the horn, until it’s all out of me, the madness, for the moment at least, and I’m spent.

  My eyes are fresh from tears. I take a deep breath and reach up to the hands on my shoulders. Neal’s hands, which have been there all along.

  I watch Chicago coming to me.

  The tall buildings grow taller until they loom above, towering.

  It is Moloch,

  This city I am being fed to,

  The buildings of brick and steel,

  Blind windows filled with strangers.

  It comes to me as I watch it coming.

  Through the windshield

  Of the locomotive

  It comes to me

  It is upon me

  It glows

  In the radiance

  Of my eyes

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks as always to the mighty Central Phoenix Writer’s Workshop, and especially first readers Kelsey Pinckney and Michelle Edwards.

  Thanks to Jake Friedman, for not letting me quit.

  To the Muse for knowing my address, and for bringing me Rydr and her story.

  To Elvis Presley and Allen Ginsber
g, for their voices.

  To my wonderful agent, Wendy Schmalz, for being the one who said yes.

  To Rosemary Brosnan at HarperCollins, for the green light.

  To my editor, Karen Chaplin, for helping make this story as good as it could be.

  And to anyone currently sitting on a train, or anywhere else, reading a novel or poem.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHOTO CREDIT KIM BLAKE

  PAUL MOSIER began writing novels in 2011 but has written in some fashion his entire life. He lives a short walk from the place of his birth in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, but it has been a very circuitous route that brought him there. He is married and is a father to two lovely daughters. He loves listening to baseball on the radio, eating vegetarian food, drinking coffee, talking nonstop, and riding trains. In fact, he has ridden most of the route described in Train I Ride, which is his debut novel. Visit him on Facebook or on his blog, www.novelistpaulmosier.wordpress.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2017 by YELENA BRYKSENKOVA

  Cover design by KATIE KLIMOWICZ

  COPYRIGHT

  TRAIN I RIDE. Copyright © 2017 by Paul Mosier. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935895

  ISBN 978-0-06-245573-4

  EPub Edition © January 2017 ISBN 9780062455758

  * * *

  16 17 18 19 20 CG/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1