Damned Lies!

by Dennis Liggio

  "Ooo, what does the Fart signify?" I asked.

  "Well..." she said, pausing. "It's not a card I am very familiar with. It, uh, rarely appears in a reading. I'd say maybe consider this some sort of upheaval. Maybe?" She shrugged.

  The next two cards were laid down together. "Strife and Betrayal," she said. Strife had crossed swords while Betrayal showed a man stabbed in the back. "There will be great conflict and trust will be broken. Beware!"

  Well, if I had been wondering where all the doom and gloom had been, it had finally arrived like that friend who never has a good time at your party but you feel obligated to invite for some unknown reason.

  "Okay, I'm bewaring. But is there anything more specific you know about them? Or what I should do?"

  "That is for you to judge when the time comes," she said cryptically.

  "So... no?"

  She turned over the next two cards. "The Wasteland and the Dead." The Wasteland showed a man in robes with a staff making his way across a vast desert. Surprisingly the Dead was not the Death card you see on television. This showed two people in color walking while on the ground around them other people, depicted completely in gray, reached up to the walkers, pleading. Those that walked seemed unaware of the gray people.

  "What do those mean?" I asked.

  "Far from what you know you will deal with the disturbed past. Past that has not made its peace with the present."

  "My past or someone else's?"

  "Either. Both. Neither," she said.

  "Look, if you don't know, you could just tell me you don't."

  She ignored my comment. "Next is the farther future. The end of the journey." She turned the first card. "Home," she said. The card had a cozy house on a hill, the smiles of family and family pets. She turned the second card. "Betrayal," she said softly, but I could tell her expression was troubled.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Oh, nothing... probably," she said. "It's just that... there's only one Betrayal card in the deck."

  We both looked over to the previous Betrayal card already on the table near Strife.

  "So I'm going to be extra fucked by betrayal?" I suggest.

  She shrugged, then nodded in agreement.

  "At least I get home alive," I joked, but I wasn't really feeling like joking. If I believed that fortunes could be told, it was unpleasant. If I didn't... well, I had just wasted five dollars on a few minutes away from crowds with a fortune teller who was about as confused as I was.

  "Trust the cards even in contradiction," said the old lady's portrait.

  "They're just cards, they're a tool to help. The threads sort themselves out," suggested the ballerina in the music box.

  "You have too much trust in the future," said the portrait.

  "And you do not have enough," said the ballerina.

  "Which is why he should be glad he did not arrive any closer to dusk or dawn," said the fortune teller in a chiding tone. The younger voice was silent, but the older said, "It's getting very close to my time."

  "What's going on?" I asked.

  "You have to go now," said the fortune teller, glancing at the old portrait.

  "Could I just sit for another minute or two? I'm feeling a little better."

  "No, I mean you have to go," she said, her face grave and serious, something hard in her eyes. "I can't be responsible for what will happen if you stay. There's a price for things, and the price for an overstayed welcome can be deadly."

  "What are you saying to me?" I said, with a chill. I looked to see if she was grabbing a gun or something.

  Her face was pale, almost gray. I noticed more gray in her hair than I had noticed when I walked in. The hands which held the cards had spots I had not noticed before. Her eyes were dark as she spit out her next word. With force she commanded, "GO!"

  I nearly fell out of my chair, my whole body tensed as if she were the most frightening thing in the world. I stumbled running for the beaded curtain. I pushed my way through it, hearing the fortune teller behind me beginning to shout in a very raspy voice.

  As I pushed my way through the curtain, I was struck by heat and the stench of oil. A breeze fell on me, giving me a moment of breathable air. I wasn't in the fortune teller's place and I wasn't in Penn Station anymore. I was standing on gravel in the middle of a train yard. Above me the sun had nearly set on a red sky.

  Around me were trains, both passenger and freight. There were many sets of tracks, some ending, some beginning, some just passing through. I didn't quite know where I was. I had no idea how I had got there. I wondered if I had gotten deliriously sick and somehow wandered from inside Penn Station to the outside, the fortune teller some hallucination. But even still, how did I get here? Did no one stop me? Where was an outdoor train yard near Penn Station?

  The sun set completely while I was paralyzed in my thinking. With a loud thunk, the lights turned on for the train yard. In front of me was a freight train, just beginning to move. Painted on the side was a corporate logo. Jurness Farms. Below was the picture of a corporate icon. It was a man in work clothes holding a can of corn or beans close to his mouth. The logo must have been old, because the clothes were old fashioned and instead of a backpack, he held over his should a stick with a bag attached. He was taking a step forward.

  The hairs on the back of my neck tingled. Although the context was different, the corporate logo was the same basic form and movement as the Fool card. Years later I learned this was intended, as graphic designers have been subtly referencing tarot cards for years, but at the time it was a sign. Whether I believed the fortune teller or not, something in me reacted to that image.

  I'm not sure if you've had these moments, Dear Reader. There are certain moments where all the doubt and confusion, all the smoke and mire of your mind disappear. The world, once a confusing mess of levers and buttons, rewards and punishment, like and dislike, becomes clear. For these moments, everything is untangled and it makes sense. What is laid out in front of you is clear and simple. You don't think about it, you just go. It just happens and you decide, like the whole force of the universe is pushing on you to make it happen.

  This, Dear Reader, was my moment. There was no doubt, no questioning. I simply ran for the train, as if nothing else mattered. The train had not picked up too much speed, so I grabbed it easily. I normally would have stumbled and failed in climbing just a stationary train, but somehow I easily grabbed the moving train and hopped up, climbing into the compartment as if I belonged there.

  I really wish I hadn't.

  Action! Adventure!

  "Who is this Dear Reader you keep referring to?" asked Becky.

  She had come to visit me at the hospital again. She was laying on the floor of my hospital room, the pages scattered about in front of her like a child's coloring books. She lay on her stomach, her legs bent at the knees and crossed in the air above her butt.

  "Well, like the audience of the memoir," I said. "Those who would end up reading it."

  "So no one in particular?"

  "No, not really."

  "'Kay, you just keep using it like you're talking to someone in particular," she said. "It's a little weird, y'know, but so is the rest of this thing, so I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. So an audience means you're going to publish this?"

  "I guess I will," I said. "If people will read it."

  "You don't sound very excited about it," she said.

  "Well..." I started.

  "Look, if you're not excited about your memoirs, how do you expect other people to be?"

  I opened my mouth to answer but had nothing to say. Becky has always excelled at calling me on my bullshit and leaving me without an answer.

  "Excitement is the key," she said. "You need to be excited about it. People need to feel that excitement. But more than that, the story needs to be exciting. People like exciting stories."

  "I think it's plenty exciting already."

  She shook her head like I was the silly child. "It's interestin
g... kinda. But it's not exciting. Kinda slow too. It needs more action. People always love action. Not all this talking and explaining. Fortune tellers are boring, even in movies."

  "But I always like those scenes in movies," I said.

  She rolled her eyes. "That's because you're boring. Real people like action."

  "There's enough action. It's an adventure, not the latest blockbuster thriller."

  "But adventure usually means action," she countered. "Notice when you rent a movie, the category is action slash adventure. The two go together like peas and carrots, chocolate and peanut butter, yin and yang, hodge and podge. You can't go on an adventure without punching someone, running away from danger, or hitting something with a sword."

  "What about..." I started, then I wracked my brain for a movie that violated that example.

  "Guns and fast cars also count as action," she amended.

  I sighed. "Fine. Action slash adventure is a genre. Let's go back to my own story. What action do you think it needs?" I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  "You need some fighting. A good fistfight or something."

  "Are you sure that's not just what you want?"

  "Trust me, people like a good fight. Even a pointless fight makes a movie exciting."

  "But this is a book," I said.

  "Well, that was the other thing I wanted to bring up. I really think it makes more sense to make this a movie instead..."

  June, 1994 - On a Train

  My name on the Hobo Boxing Circuit was Tennessee Tex Tornado. Obviously, this name makes no sense at all. I'm not from Tennessee, I'm not from Texas, and obviously I couldn't be from both. I understand that the Tornado part is just to be impressive. A tornado would knock down and destroy his opponent in an unstoppable whirlwind of punches. I guess I mention all these things about the name because I didn't pick it, it was given to me.

  But I'm jumping ahead of things. I had not started my boxing career yet. When we last left our intrepid hero, I was climbing into a railway car, quite illegally I might mention, to seek adventure. You don't hear about people hopping a train anymore, it has fallen out of fashion. Freight hopping is really something we associate with the far flung past. As to why, there are many theories. Some suggest that the world is a more dangerous place, meaning that those others who would freight hop are serial killers, ex-cons, and the like. Others would suggest that other methods of travel are safer, cheaper, and more comfortable. Still others would simply suggest that modern trains are just easier to lock and vagrant lock picking skills have just not kept up with the times. Despite all these reasons, I think the general public is missing out. There's no experience like grabbing a free ride on a freight train to go a few states over. There's no homier place like a boxcar full of displaced transients sharing stories over cans of poorly preserved food. If you're the right person, the Hobos will welcome you as one of their own.

  The iconic hobo was part of America's history as those migrant workers who traveled across the country for work. Often penniless vagabonds, they barely stayed fed. In this day and age, the definition of hobo has expanded. It's a general grouping of permanent vagabonds: the homeless, the mentally ill, ex convicts, runaways, and poor lost souls. Together, that mélange of individuals thrown together by circumstance and the railways have produced the age old hobo culture.

  Sure, I admit that many are permanently homeless and more than a fair amount are mentally ill. It is true that many homeless were mentally ill patients turned out of institutions during the 1980s, tragic victims of Reaganomics. I think the rampant schizophrenia and delusions just make them jolly. Some of the funniest people I ever met were homeless schizophrenics. At least one used to write for late night television before he decided to give it up and return to nature.

  Did you realize that hobos are quite environmental? Think about it. They often scavenge and reuse the things we throw out. It's part of the Hobo Code to not leave trash where they've been sleeping. And they are most often out among nature, experiencing it firsthand without intervening factors like roofs, walls, air conditioning, or running water. Few are closer to nature than the hobo when they feel the gentle pounding of rain on their heads as they step out from under a bridge to take a leak on the pavement.

  I first became aware of hobo culture in that very first train I hopped. I crawled in a clean man somewhere near New York, and little did I know that at the end of things it was going to be a new, much dirtier man who jumped out somewhere in the wilds of Georgia. When I pulled the door closed behind me I found myself welcomed by a group of five men sitting in a circle. They were all older, their hair scraggly, their beards twisted and kinky. They were wrapped warmly in patched-up clothes. I was suddenly scared. For all my bluster and talk, I was still a seventeen year old kid who didn't know what he was doing. Here were five men who could easily beat me up and take my stuff.

  I did not know then, but one of the hearts of the Hobo Code is: "Always be a gentleman." While sometimes this is taken literally with old top hats and broken monocles, it is usually the spirit of the statement which is preserved. One of the men called out to me, welcoming me to the circle.

  A stink like you wouldn't imagine drifted across the car. I realized that whenever any of them opened their mouths, the stench of decades of scavenging and minimal dental care would waft out. The first time I smelled it, I broke out into a coughing fit. Luckily, you do get used to it eventually. After a while, the fumes bring you a soothing lightheadedness that makes it all much less offensive.

  Though they knew I was not one of them, they offered me their hospitality. With reluctance, I squeezed into the circle between a bear of a man who smelled like a rotten eggs and a skinny beanpole of a gentleman who smelled like rancid spam. I’m sure there could have been a spoiled breakfast sandwich created from their intermingling fumes. Both men smiled with mouths that lacked more teeth than they possessed. The bear slapped me on the back which started me coughing again.

  Their hospitality was the warmth of the group, gentle conversation, and dinner. They were passing around a large can of beans and a bottle of whiskey. There was an air of ritual in how the two things were passed around, though how each man consumed them sometimes differed. Some simply ate the beans and took a sip of whiskey. This was for lightweights. The truly hardcore amongst them put beans in their mouth, then took a huge slug of whiskey, before finally swishing them together in their mouths like mouthwash. After this process was done, they swallowed the mixture in one gigantic gulp.

  Soon the can and the bottle reached me. This was not high quality whiskey and the beans weren't so fancy either. All eyes on me, I put a few beans into my mouth tentatively. While they didn't taste quite as bad as I feared, there was nothing good about their taste. With great reluctance I swallowed the beans and moved onto the whiskey. The whiskey did wash all trace of the foul taste of beans out of my mouth, which is about the only good thing I could say about it. It tasted terrible and burned like fire in my stomach.

  Up until now, everything I had done was the experience of a tourist or an anthropologist. I had experienced a custom or two of hobo culture, but I was not yet part of it. I could have easily parted ways with them all with nothing beyond a smelly handshake and a wave goodbye. But fate stepped in and put me on the road to hobo boxing.

  While the beans and whiskey were almost a ritual, what came after was most assuredly a ritual back from the early days of Hobodom. It was inevitable after any hobo dinner, but particularly one of whiskey and beans, that there was a farting contest. Each man knew what was coming almost instinctively. Without even a look or a nod to one another, conversation stilled and one man let rip a loud, wet fart. This expulsion of gas took at least a good ten seconds before ending. Each man steeled themselves for the noxious fumes that passed over us. The sounds of flatulence passed and then there was only the sound of the rails beneath the train. The other men nodded approvingly. Another silence followed where another man filled the air with his own brand of music
.

  And so it went around the circle. If it had completed its circuit, I would never have learned of my hidden boxing talents. But there were processes beyond my control. While I could not discern the order, the men knew the order and that order was sacred. As another man had just finished, it was the turn of a gentlehobo with a bushy red beard by the name of Felchin' Rick. All sat solemnly in silence for this man to do his business.

  I really wanted to give him his chance. I had no quarrel with the man. But there was a war going on within my belly. The United Federation of Beans was fighting with the Confederate Revolutionary Army of Whiskey. I'm not sure who was winning, but it was turning my stomach into a torn up no-man's land of shifting gases. The conflict had just come to a head. I tried to hold back, I tried to show the proper respect, but to no avail. The situation was so dire that my body reacted on its own. When Felchin' Rick went to take his turn, he had barely started his own fart when a roaring torrent of gas went screaming from my ass. Like the growl of some sort of caged tiger, the screech of some raging beast, it filled the car, completely overwhelming the sound of Rick's fart. My gaseous assault lasted a full thirty seconds before it was entirely expelled, my bowels sore and bruised from the undertaking.

  There was a long silence. I could tell from the faces of the men that they were not in agreement. Some were shocked. One ground his teeth. One laughed. But Rick’s face was a mask of anger. He did not speak immediately due to shock, but instead a few moments later once his anger had reached a boiling point.

  He poked at me with a veiny digit within a fingerless glove. “Just who do you think you are?”

  “Leave him alone, he’s jus' a kid,” said the man I would come to know as Swearing Jim.

  “No, I won’t,” said Rick with a shake of his head. “New meat here jus' broke one of our most sacred traditions. I demand satisfaction.”

  “Satisfaction?” said Jim. “He ain't one of us. He don't follow the code."