by Brad Cook
Unfulfilled, he went back for jerky. Half of the bag was gone from lunch, and he was only twenty minutes or so into a ride that could end up lasting all day. He took small bites, chewing thoroughly and pausing to let each settle. His mother had always told him, “Eat slow, eat less.” But he had an inkling it was more of a money-saving technique than out of concern for his wellbeing.
He savored the meat as much as the scenery whisking by. It was peaceful. The way his mother had sneered when she spoke of it, he always viewed riding the rails as an undesirable act of desperation. But he was beginning to see the appeal. Perhaps it was something people chose to do, too.
The scenery was grand, even in the dark; silky silhouettes of the flora, growing sparser as they chugged along, textured the rolling hills and dunes. However he couldn’t help but wonder what his fellow tramps—still felt funny to refer to himself as such—did to occupy themselves on long trips. It was too dark to sketch, and maybe too shaky.
He wondered where she lived. Leroy had spent his life on the west coast. Maybe she lived on the east, or the mid-west. He wasn’t much for cold weather, but up north might be fun. He had experienced snow, but only as fine flakes that melted before they reached the ground. He’d never even made a snowball. Every kid should get to do that.
Maybe she still lived in California. He hadn’t considered this. All he’d ever heard was that she moved away and he wouldn’t be seeing her again, so it was possible. It would be convenient, and would significantly lessen the length of his trip, but he wanted to put distance between him and his old life, both emotionally and physically.
At any rate, he still had to get to Folsom before he’d have any idea where he might be headed. He shuddered at the notion, and did his best to avoid thinking about it. Dwelling on something like that could kill any momentum or motivation he had built up, and what would he do then? Live on the streets wherever he ended up?
That was not an option.
Leroy’s lower back and abs ached. Sitting up straight was difficult in the shaky car. He sat amongst a rainbow of multicolored paper rolls that reminded him of construction paper projects in elementary school. He laid out atop the rolls. It wasn’t great, but it was better than his old futon at home, despite the gaps and holes. If he clasped his hands behind his head, he could prop it up and see outside. It was a strain on the neck, but more interesting than watching the ceiling.
A faint light sifted between the passing trees, producing a hypnotic strobing effect. Leroy let himself get lost in it, watching the twilit world pass.
Gradually, the trees grew scattered, and the light more intense. Leroy gazed out the makeshift window. In one abrupt moment, the trees gave way to a majestic view. The sky was painted watercolor hues of blue and pink as the sun peeked over the skyline, spilling elongated shadows of scrub across the sandy undulations. Cacti of all shapes and sizes protruded from the ground underneath buzzards circling overhead.
Leroy gaped at the scene. The environments of his childhood were urban, metropolitan. To him, nature was simply what took up undeveloped land. This, however, was new, and kind of overwhelming. He’d never beheld such an unadulterated view of natural beauty. He felt a soaring in his chest, as if his soul were a caged bird, finally liberated after fifteen long years. A sense of belonging overtook him. He pined to be down there amongst the bushland, to sit in the sand and relax, to feel the sun and the wind on his skin.
He was convinced: freight hopping was no last resort.
Enthralled, he took it all in.
A moment later, Leroy sensed a modest increase in the train’s pace as it started down a decline. Of course it would speed up right when he began to appreciate the scenery. The view was fantastic, but he was willing to sacrifice it if it meant shortening the ride.
Leroy felt the pull of gravity as the gradient sharpened and the locomotive gathered speed. A tinny, jangling sound caught his ear. He glanced around, trying to locate the source. His gaze stopped on the open door. Leroy crawled on his stomach to check it out.
At the base of the door, a little metal latch vibrated. Leroy surmised it held the door open. It was already halfway unfastened, and the shakiness of the train threatened to slip it out of place completely.
Leroy reached out with his left arm to hold the weighty door in place so he could bolt the latch. He pushed as hard as he could, but the latch didn’t budge. The door was pressing against it, preventing it from sliding. He thrust against the sliding door, but it was as stuck as the latch.
It was hard to utilize his strength laying on his stomach, but he could see how fast the ground below was moving, and dared not sit up in front of the open door. He took a breath, tensed up, and was about to push again, when a gap in the tracks jounced the boxcar, freeing the door from the latch. It rushed forward on the sliding track, with Leroy’s right hand in the path of destruction. He ripped his hand off the track a split second before the door rolled past, slamming shut with a stout click.
Leroy collected himself in the dark. He’d already faced more peril than he’d expected in total. He hadn’t realized life could be so dangerous.
Leroy crouched in front of the boxcar doors. Light spilled in through the contour, creating a glowing rectangle that looked like it could be the door to heaven. It was hard to see in the dark, especially with the light spilling in through the edges, continuously re-sensitizing his eyes. He scanned the door for a handle, a knob, anything, but found none. He patted down the door, again to no avail. The inside was just a smooth metal slab. The door next to it was the same.
He leaned against the back wall of the boxcar, but pushed himself off after feeling the hot metal through his shirt. Slumping forward, he drew a long breath that didn’t come as easily as before. The air was stale and warm, and it’d only been a few minutes. The engineer had said he couldn’t get him all the way to Folsom, but he could be stuck for hours still.
Stuck in the claustrophobic black box, he thought of his old room. Sometimes when he had bugged his mother excessively for unreasonable things—some form of entertainment, or to stay home so he could play outside after he finished his homework—she would lock him in his windowless bedroom and unscrew the light bulb. Day or night, that small room was pitch black, save for the light sneaking through the edges around the door. On the bright side, it had cured his fear of darkness. On the not so bright side, it’d introduced him to panic attacks. The memory quickened his pulse and breathing.
The train’s horn blared, rattling the boxcar and shattering Leroy’s recollection. He scowled, but then it occurred to him that they don’t blow the horn for no reason. He counted two long bursts, a short burst, and another long one, wondering what, if anything, it meant.
A sheen of sweat had formed on his body, dripping down his forehead and into his eyes. It was getting hotter by the minute, and there was a repulsive odor in the air he hadn’t smelled before, just enough to tease the nostrils, but too much to ignore. It stank of decay, as if some cargo the car had carried previously sat rotting in the desert sun. He could feel the air supply getting thinner as he breathed. It all made Leroy sick to his stomach. Water provided no relief.
If only he could get the engineer’s attention, he knew the man would open the door for him. This wasn’t a passenger train, though; there was no handle he could pull to ask the driver to let him off. He’d just have to wait for the train to stop, no matter how long it took, which was a worrisome notion.
Some minutes later, Leroy was taking off his shirt to keep it from getting soaked with sweat, when the train sounded one long, commanding burst of the horn. He imagined an oblivious cow on the track ahead, chewing its cud, a small white bird perched on its back.
To his surprise, the train decelerated. Maybe there was a cow on the track.
The train ground to a slow stop, a whoosh of air deploying as the brakes depressurized. Leroy fanned himself with his shirt, and the moving air felt good, but he sweated more from the effort of it in the stifling boxcar. He g
ulped down air in deep breaths at a rate that was beginning to alarm him. He knew the more upset he got, the harder he’d breathe, and the cycle would continue. But he’d learned firsthand that logic sometimes failed in the heat of the moment.
Through his increasingly ragged gasping, his ears picked up the sound of men laughing. Fists raised and ready to pound the door, Leroy halted. What if it wasn’t the crew? Maybe there was no cow. Maybe they were at a station, where something much more treacherous potentially lurked: a bull.
He lowered his fists and focused on getting air into his lungs. His chest rising and falling hard, he closed his eyes, assuring himself everything would be fine. At some point someone would have to open the door, lest the world suffer a scarcity of colored paper. Leroy’s breathing began to slow, but each inhalation grew more desperate than the last.
The men’s voices faded. Or maybe it was just his ears ringing, drowning them out, he wasn’t sure. He was sure, however, that if he didn’t get out soon, he had a good chance of suffocating, which only panicked him further, clouding his thoughts and senses.
The air he drew was scratchy, almost sticky in his throat. He’d had enough. He didn’t care if he went to jail; at least he’d be alive. Leroy slammed his fists on the metal door, pain shooting up his wrists, though in his faint state, he barely felt it. He pounded harder, harder, harder, until he couldn’t anymore. Panting, he cried out “Hey, help! I’m locked in!”
He waited a moment.
Nothing.
He battered the door, yelling between breaths. “Please! Let me out!”
Still nothing.
Leroy felt weak, his eyelids growing heavy, tunnel vision setting in. He swung his fist at the door until he couldn’t lift his arm anymore.
And then it opened.
The light was so intense that he had to flutter his eyelids until his vision adjusted. Before him stood a lithe, olive-skinned man, stubbly greying scruff on his face and head. Crawling toward the open door, Leroy met the man’s steely gaze. He imagined he looked like some kind of zombie, which was the last thing he did before everything went black.
Chapter 2
Boron, CA
The lack of light was so intense, Leroy couldn’t tell if his eyes were open.
He laid flat on his back. Unsure of where he was or how he’d gotten there, Leroy put his hands to the ground and felt a slick, featureless floor. As he sat up, an ethereal resistance stymied him. In slow motion, he found his footing, then waded into the liquiform darkness.
The pitch black void stretched on in every direction. Even worse, it seemed to stick to his skin, caked-on and stinging. He opened his mouth to call out. His vocal chords vibrated and his mouth formed the words, but there was no sound. Again he tried, yet his hollering only added to the stuffy silence.
Then, a light sparked into existence. It hung in the air, flashing red and blue, then traveled straight down like a lit fuse, forming line after line, until it finalized into the familiar outline of the boxcar doors.
Leroy reached out for it and felt a solid object in an otherwise incorporeal environment. The door, slick and featureless, pulsated under his palms. He pressed his cheek against it, listening for anything that might give him a clue as to where he was or how to leave.Silence.
Leroy moved his head to a different spot.
Nothing.
He slid to another spot, because it was all he could think to do.
WHAM.
Something struck the door where his cheek rested.
WHAM.
He tried to pull away but he couldn’t.
WHAM.
A slow, distorted siren slithered in his ear and saran-wrapped his brain.
WHAM.
A woman’s bloodcurdling scream deafened him, begging someone to “Stop, stop it, why you doin’ this he can’t take any more stop it!”
The sounds sent a series of chills through Leroy. He thrashed as best he could in the hyper-gravity, but the more he did the more stuck he felt. It was if he was magnetized to the door, forced to bear this brutal hubbub. The shrieks and siren and pounding swelled to a deafening crescendo that drove him mad as he punched and kicked at the invisible boundary, unable to detach.
WHAM.
* * *
Leroy blinked his eyes rapidly, breathing hard.
The olive-skinned man hovered over him with a giddy expression, slapping his face. “Here we go, boy! The running of the bulls!” He grasped Leroy under the arms and extracted him from the boxcar, setting him uneasily on his feet.
The man sprinted into the woods and let out a long, high-pitched yelp, leaving Leroy looking around, dumbfounded. He was gathering his wits, when he glanced to the right and saw a white SUV barreling toward him, a light flashing at the top.
So that’s what the bull looked like.
Leroy’s daze hadn’t worn off, but it seemed the strange, excitable man had the right idea. As he scrambled to the tree line, he noticed the lack of weight on his back, and realized his bag was in the boxcar. He slapped his forehead. Brilliant move. He couldn’t just leave it; everything he needed was in there.
Leroy dashed around the boxcar and clambered atop the rolls of paper inside. Just as he snatched his bag, the bull mobile screeched to a halt behind him. He swung the bag over his shoulder and raced as fast as his addled brain allowed into the dense woodlands beyond.
A foot trail, clearly not there for official use, winded between trees as far back as he could see. He hurtled along it, too afraid to check behind him.
His lungs burned as he tromped over bushes and brush. That was twice in a day he’d had to haul it through a forest. At least he could see this time.
He skidded to a stop behind the broad trunk of an old Sycamore, then ventured a backward peek that revealed only trees and a vacant trail. A calm breeze writhed through the leaves as he caught his breath. He was alone.
A hand on his shoulder made him jump. It was the man from before. Leroy side-stepped the man’s grip and looked at him askance.
He was panting, bent over with his hands on his knees. “The bastard did not even bother to give chase. Party pooper. Then again, why run around in the harsh sun when he can sit in a nice, cool car listening to Steely Dan? I get it.” The man unleashed a winning smile.
Leroy didn’t know what to make of the middle-aged foreigner. On one hand, the man did rescue him. He was the one who opened the door, and the one who alerted Leroy to the bull’s presence. On the other hand, why would he go through all that trouble for some random kid? It was dumb to speculate. Better to just say thanks and move on. If that train left without him, he could be stuck there for hours, or days, even.
“Can’t thank you enough, sir. But I gotta go.”
The man stood up straight, breathing hard. With sass in his lightly accented voice, he said “Okay, please do not call me sir. Just because I have some grey hair does not mean I inherently deserve respect. Anyone who says otherwise is old, insecure, and full of shit.” He stuck out a hand. “I am Antoine Bevilacqua, but call me Ant. It makes me feel appropriately insignificant.”
Leroy was at a loss. He’d never heard anything like that from an adult.
Left hanging, Ant pulled his hand back. “So what are you doing riding the old bob tail? She barely runs one-hundred miles both ways.”
The engineer had neglected to mention that. He must be laughing it up, Leroy thought. Maybe he’d even set up the door to close on purpose. He probably disliked anyone, let alone some inexperienced child, illegally riding the train. His train. Leroy shook it off.
“Going somewhere. Know anything about trains?”
“You have grit, kid. I will give you that. A little young for a sojourner, though…” Ant ran his palm over his short hair. “Are you not in school?”
Leroy opened his mouth to speak, but Ant answered his own question. “Summer. Right. It has been a while, but I should know that.”
“No offense, but I gotta get back on that train. Like, now.”
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“You and I both, kid. Alas, it is the end of the line for that one. It will be split up and apportioned to other outgoing engines down the yard.”
Leroy wilted. Everything was going wrong. Why? What had he done to provoke this? “How can you tell?” He couldn’t be sure the man was telling the truth until he’d at least heard his reasoning.
“I have been catching out here near ten years. I know these tracks like my mother’s voice.” He scratched his bristly chin. “Perhaps not the most accurate analogy, considering she passed long ago, and the sound of her voice escapes me these days. I know these tracks like my own voice. We will go with that.”
Ant talked a lot, but Leroy couldn’t deny he found a certain appeal in the words, too. His assured confidence was inspiring, and he emitted an aura of intelligence. Leroy hadn’t come across anyone like him before.
Well, except her. But his memories of her were old, spotty, and for all he knew, unreliable. He was a small child back then. Then it hit him: everyone likes cute little kids, but would she want a teenage Leroy Smiley?
He set the thought aside, cursing his mind for jumping straight to the worst case scenario. Another gift from mom. But he couldn’t be deterred. The journey had begun, and there was no going back.
“This is called a hump yard. The train rolls up to the hump, they push the cars over, then gravity and computerized tracks take care of the rest. Now, one of the trains being assembled might be headed your way. Which is… ?”
Leroy hesitated to respond, looking off.
“I respect your reticence.” Ant clapped his hands together. “The jungle is but a short jaunt from here. I have chili on the fire I must tend to before it gets eaten. However, if you are hungry, I suppose I could spare a few beans.”
Leroy’s hunger ran deep, and chili sounded like a meal fit for a king. But he had ‘food’ of his own, and no time to waste. “Better keep an eye on the trains.”