by Guran, Paula
Seamus nods. “I don’t think it a worthwhile endeavor, but I understand how you feel the need of it.”
“Is it possible?”
“They say anything is possible—somewhere.”
“I thought . . . if I could get to Bordertown, then I’d be close to the Faerie Realms. And the Summer Country . . . it lies past them, doesn’t it?”
Seamus is quiet for a long moment.
“In the old days,” he finally says, “you would have been a perfect candidate for entry into Bordertown. It always welcomed those who had nothing left for them here in the fields we know. But there’s no way back to Bordertown—not that I’ve been able to find in thirteen years.”
“But if could get there . . . ”
“You would get no further. They are very strict about who can cross and who can’t. It’s not like it was when I was a boy and strayed beyond the fields we know. There was no Bordertown then—at least none that I knew. There was only a music, late at night as I came from a hoolie with my pipes in a bag hanging from my back. I followed that music into the Perilous Realms—not once, but many times. I followed it until I heard it no more and that was when I found my way to Bordertown. But I never crossed over from Bordertown. It wasn’t possible.”
“I have to try.”
“I know you do. And I wouldn’t hold you from going. But something is blocking the way. Or maybe the city just doesn’t exist anymore. It isn’t mine to say. I only know that anyone I’ve met who was here in the fields we know when things changed, has been stranded here. And I’ve talked to many of them, if not all.”
“I don’t understand. How can a city be destroyed and it not be on the news?”
“I didn’t say it was destroyed. It’s . . . sometimes I think it’s more an idea than a place—though it was certainly real for me at one time. It’s where magic works—sometimes. It’s where technology works—sometimes. But mostly it requires some curious amalgamation of the two.
“Bordertown has always been a paradox. You can get there if you really need to be there—or you can’t. You can stumble into it by chance—or you don’t. It could be right there—” He points at a mirror on the side of the hall. “Just past our reflection—or it isn’t. At one time there was even a Rough Guide to Bordertown available, but the truth is the city’s always followed its own rules and they can change with a shift in the wind. Or they don’t.”
“So what do I do?”
He gives me a long serious study.
“Here’s what I think,” he says. “The old wisdom tells us that ancient power spots and sacred sites are gateways. And maybe that is true, or once was true. But I believe that the true openings lie inside us. In our own hearts, minds, and lives.
“It’s occurred to me on more than one occasion that perhaps the reason we can no longer enter Bordertown is because we, as a people, have no longer allowed for the possibility for it. We simply don’t believe anymore—even those of us who have crossed over once and twice and more times still.
“If that is true, perhaps all you need to do is set out on a journey in search of it, believing that when the journey ends you will be there. Not perhaps. Not maybe. Leave no room for doubt. Go with the understanding that the path you take will bring you there. And if it feels like you need a ritual, then make one up. But don’t make it easy. Easy doesn’t earn you anything.”
“Just like that.”
Seamus gives me a sad smile. “It’s never ‘just like that,’ Joey. Even you know that much.”
When I was a kid, home life was a horror show. Dad left, Mom died and we kids were on our way into foster care until the aunts came and brought us back to the rez, but it was probably too late.
My older brother was heavy into drugs and living on the rez didn’t stop his intake. He OD’d when I was eleven.
My sister ran with a gang and six months later got caught in the crossfire of a drive-by.
Like them, I abandoned the idea of family pretty quickly, too, and you saw where that got me.
Tía Luba and Uncle Herbert gave me a chance, but I didn’t really understand the idea of family until I met Juliana and her parents.
But now I’m abandoning them, too.
After my conversation with Seamus, I don’t talk to anyone about it. I go back to Baltimore with the Hills and Uncle Herbert. I go back to the rambling house, to the room I shared with my wife. Just before dawn, I pack a knapsack and leave a note on the kitchen table:
I’m sorry. I have to do this. Don’t look for me to come back because I don’t know if I will.
—Joey
I’m waiting outside the bank when it opens. I close my account, stash the money in a bag under my shirt, and then I set off.
4.
Where do you go when you’ve got a destination in mind but no idea how to get to it?
I do what I did when I was a kid. I ride the rails. It was tough enough when I was a kid because things had already changed from the old days when hobos crossed the country on the old freights. It’s changed even more now, but it’s not impossible. And there’s no better way to travel unnoticed. Hitchhikers get noticed. Take a bus, a train, even if you pay with cash, someone notices.
I don’t want to be noticed.
I feel it’s important to just disappear, like it’s the first part of a ritual I have to make up. I don’t see the other pieces yet, but this first one feels right.
I eat off the land—fishing, setting snares before I go to sleep—or from fast food outlets. I clean up in public restrooms. I take a few bad spills coming off the trains. Sprain my arm once. My ankle another time, which has me hobbling for a couple of days, unable to catch another train. Dislocate my shoulder. That was a bitch to reset, pushing myself up against a pole until the damn thing finally popped back into place.
I manage to avoid the security guards in the freight yards. I’m not always so lucky with the other guys on the road. But I grew up fighting and it’s not something you forget. After awhile word gets around and the would-be toughs stay out of the way of the crazy Indian.
Most people I meet on the rails don’t want to fight. Most of them don’t even want to talk. That’s fine with me, too, because I’ve got nothing to say.
The loss is always there, Seamus said. The hole in the world where once she was.
That doesn’t begin to describe the emptiness I feel.
I ride the rails.
I start carving acorns out of found pieces of wood. When one is done, I toss it from whatever train I’m on.
Seven months go by.
I’m on another train, sitting cross-legged in front of the empty boxcar’s door, watching the landscape. It’s desert country again. Badlands. New Mexico, maybe. It doesn’t matter. It’s just one more place where I am and she’s not.
I finish the acorn I’ve been carving. I hold it up to my eye for a long moment, studying the smoothness of the nut, the tough texture of the cap with its little stem. I toss the carving out the open door, snap my jackknife closed and stow it back in my pocket.
“Didn’t like that one?” a voice says from behind me.
I turn and look for who spoke. I find him sitting in the shadows, an old man with a bedroll under his butt. He’s got a battered tweed cap on his head and he’s bundled up in a greatcoat. I can see how you might want something like that when the sun goes down, but right now it’s got to be in the high eighties. He has to be melting in that thing.
“I didn’t see you there,” I tell him.
The old man smiles. “I get that a lot. Maybe I should change my name to Surprise.”
“It’s as good as any other, I suppose.”
“Think I’ll stick with Rudy. What’s yours?”
You don’t meet many talkers on the old hobo trails and I’m not used to having conversations anymore. But we’ve got a ways to go before the train will slow down enough to jump off and I’ve already carved my acorn for this ride.
“I’m Joey,” I tell him.
�
��Nice to meet you, Joey. So you like to whittle?”
I shrug. “It passes the time.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Another might be that it’s a piece of a ritual.”
“What?”
“Did you know that when you work magic it shows? It puts a charge in the air. How strong the charge is depends on how close you are to finishing what you started.”
“Who are you?”
“I already told you. My name’s Rudy. I’m like you. Just a guy riding the rails. And like you—like every one of us living this life—there’s more to me than the homeless guy you see when you look my way. Come on. This can’t be anything new for you. You know none of us were born doing this. We came to it because we’ve got nothing else left. Or in your case, because it’s something you need to do to make something else happen.”
I glance out the open door but we’re still going too fast for me to survive a jump.
“I don’t know what you think you see,” I begin, but he waves a hand to cut me off.
“And I don’t know,” he says, “what’s happened to you that makes you treat everybody as an enemy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve got knowledge. I’ve got skills. Maybe I can help you.”
“Why would you?”
He smiles and throws my words back at me.
“It passes the time. And really, what have you got to lose?”
Nothing, I realize. So I tell him. Not what brought me here. Not about the hole in my life that can’t ever be filled.
“I’m trying to find a place called Bordertown,” I say.
“Bordertown? Yeah, now there’s a place. It can fill up your spirit and it can break your heart—sometimes both at the same time. Being in Bordertown is like mainlining a drug. Go there once you don’t ever want to stray because all you’ll ever want to do is get back. Problem is, sometimes it’s just not there anymore—or at least it isn’t for you.”
“But it is real?”
“Define real.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Man, how would I know what you mean? My real’s not necessarily the same as your real. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not just being cute. The thing is, we all live in the world that we see and expect. They don’t always match up—you understand what I’m saying?”
I shake my head.
“Let me put it this way,” he says. “You look out that door and you’re seeing New Mexico go by.”
“So?”
“So what if I told you I see Alaska? Or India? Or the heart of Moscow?”
“I’d think you were either yanking my chain—or you’re crazy.”
“Sure, that’s the easy way to look at it. But what if I’m really seeing a landscape you don’t?”
“That’s impossible.”
He nods. “Right. And if you keep your mind closed like that you’ll never get to Bordertown. I mean, think about it. Is Bordertown, or even the Perilous Realm, any more probable?”
“I guess not . . . ”
I look out the door, trying to see something other than mesas and badlands. Mountains in the distance.
“I can’t see it,” I say. “I just see New Mexico.”
“Did I say it wasn’t New Mexico?”
“But—”
“I was making a point.”
“Okay,” I say. “I get it. And I’ve been trying to open my mind. But I’m just not seeing any differently than I ever did.”
“I think you’ve been doing pretty good. You can see me, can’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Joey. You’re a smart guy. You’re walking around under the blessings of a dozen or so Green Men. You were married to a Green Man’s daughter. You’ve been whittling acorns and tossing them out of trains from one side of the country to the other. Did you seriously not expect to call something to you?”
All I can do is stare at him. I never told him any of that stuff.
“Let me show you something,” he says.
He stands up and what I thought was a bedroll is actually a pile of leaves. His eyes, I can see now that he’s moved out of the shadows, are a mix of gold and green. His face is ruddy and round, with deep laugh lines. He comes to where I’m sitting by the door and waits expectantly until I stand up beside him. He puts his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat and pulls out two fistfuls of carved acorns. Smiling at me, he lets them fall from his hands to the track bed that’s speeding by below.
“Where did you—how . . . ?”
I don’t have the words to finish my questions. All I can do is stare at his hands.
“I think I liked the earlier ones better,” he says. “You seem to have put more intent into them. Now you’re kind of doing it by rote, but it doesn’t really matter. They still fulfilled the boundaries of your ritual.”
“I . . . ”
“Don’t talk,” he says. “Listen. Look at those beautiful mountains.”
We stand in the doorway watching the landscape continue to go by.
“You know it’s not going to be any easier in Bordertown, right?” he says after a few moments. “Being there’s not going to make things better, or help you to forget—unless you drink some of that Mad River water and then you’re only going find out why they call it that.”
“If I can get that far then I can—”
He points out the door.
“Pay attention here,” he says. “Listen to the wind. Look at that mesa. Smell the clean air out there. Isn’t it so much better than the diesel fumes and the metal and wood and grease of this boxcar?”
“I guess.”
“Sure it is. Now here’s where you get off.”
I start to turn to him, but his hands are on my back and he pushes me out the boxcar door.
My years of drinking left me one positive thing. I know how you don’t get hurt as badly from a fall if you can be totally relaxed before impact. Tuck in your head and roll with the slope. You get banged up a bit, but if you pick a gentle grade, or when the train’s starting to slow down before a station, you can get through it without injuries. Usually. It’s like a Zen thing. You clear your mind, shake all the tension off before you make your jump.
I don’t get that chance here. Rudy’s push sends me flailing into the air. I know I’m going to hit hard and badly.
Except the air seems to catch me. I’m floating. Bright sunshine all around me, the train wailing by.
And then it’s dark. When I touch the ground, I land like a leaf. There isn’t even an impact. I feel gravel under me and I roll over to see a night sky above. It’s filled with constellations I don’t recognize.
The train, Rudy, New Mexico—they’re all gone.
When I sit up, I see I’m in a train yard. I don’t know where, but I can guess. In one direction I can see a fence, beyond it blocks of dark buildings. In the other direction it looks like a dump, cars and trash piled high.
I get up and start walking across the tracks to the fence. I was planning to climb over but then I see someone’s already cut a hole in it that I can squeeze through. On the other side I find out why the buildings are dark. The city’s been abandoned—or at least this part of it is. I can see lights in the far distance so I start to walk through the deserted streets.
I’m almost to the lighted area when I hear the sound of wheels clattering. I see a white kid on a skateboard, rolling back and forth on a little patch of asphalt that must’ve been a parking space back before everybody left this area and nature made its come back. As I get closer I don’t see anything unusual about him. No elf ears. No big wings sprouting out of his back. He’s maybe sixteen with a rat’s nest of hair, baggy pants, a Green Day Dookie T-shirt and a pair of Nike Air Max. He stops goofing around with his skateboard when he sees me and waits for me to approach.
“Hey,” I say. “Think you could direct me to a hostel or a flophouse?”
He laughs. “Just get here?”
“Yeah.”
He w
aves his hand to take in the empty buildings that surround us.
“Take your pick,” he says.
“I was hoping to clean up and get something to eat.”
He pushes back his hoodie and gives me an interested look.
“You got any money?” he asks.
“Not much.”
“Worldly money?” When he realizes I don’t know what he means, he adds, “You know, from the World. Where you came from. The reason I ask is it’s not worth as much here. You got any coffee or chocolate?”
I nod. There’s probably a half-pound of French Roast and a handful of chocolate and granola bars in my knapsack.
“Then you’re cool.” He steps on his board and it jumps into his hand. “Buy me a meal and I’ll show you the ropes.”
“What’s your name?”
He was starting to turn, but he looks back at me.
“That can be a loaded question here,” he says. “Usually you wait until someone offers it to you. And,” he goes on before I can say anything, “be careful handing out your own. Just give up something like a nickname.”
“And that would be because?”
“Magic’s unpredictable here, but that doesn’t mean it’s not potent in the right hands. Names are power. If someone has your full true name, they can make you do stuff that maybe you don’t want to.”
“Are you serious?”
“But if you need a tag, you can call me River.”
Full true names are power? I don’t really buy it. But to be safe, I just give him the shortened version of Joseph.
“I’m Joey,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Baby kangaroo.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Come on. Let’s get you something to eat. Me, I’ll have a sandwich and a beer.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “How old are you?”
He laughs. “You think anyone gives a shit about that? You’re in Bordertown now. We’ve got our own rules and how old you are isn’t part of any of them.”
“I guess I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“You have no idea,” the kid tells me. “No idea at all.”
He’s right. I don’t. Bordertown’s shabbier than I expected, rundown and wearing at the edges, but it’s also got that makeshift cool that you’ll always find in a certain part of any city. The place where the stores, restaurants and clubs are all just a little hipper.