by Jeff Gulvin
‘Listen, asshole,’ he said. ‘My buddy, Southern Sidetrack, calls me Four-String on account of my busted banjo. Now I ain’t going nowhere, so if you can fight like you talk—make your best move.’
The man was looking squint-eyed at him now. His companions were gawping, trying to register the fact that Sidetrack’s name had come from his mouth. Harrison was ready, every sinew working, every muscle knotted, his whole body coiled like a spring.
‘Come on, asshole. Let’s see what you got.’ The anger was genuine, the mood that had gnawed at him earlier was breaking now and he beckoned the man with his fingers.
The man stared at him, suddenly in two minds. ‘You’re Four-String?’ he said slowly. ‘The Tunnel Rat?’
‘That’s right, bubba.’ Harrison screwed up his eyes.
The man stared at him a moment longer and then he raised a conciliatory hand.
Harrison wanted to hit him. He wanted to pound on his head and not stop. Jean was in his mind and her son’s, meaningless death. He let air hiss from between clenched teeth. Then he leaned against the door to roll a cigarette. He looked at the Black, who had now backed right off, and he could spit blood. Just another so-called hard man. He had lost count of the so-called tough guys he had rounded up on SWAT rolls. Give them something real, like an MP5 and a man who knows how to use it to think about, and they shit in their own pants. Again, he thought of Jean’s son, the pictures she had shown him—just a wide-eyed kid with a bright future in front of him. He thought of the pictures Joe Kinsella had shown him, with half his head gone and his pants round his ankles. To guys like this jerk, Tom Carey was weak and they only preyed on the weak.
Harrison looked at the man again, sitting down now against the wall. ‘You ever come at me again, I’ll tear out your heart and eat it.’
19
HARRISON RODE WITH THE three Southern Blacks across northeastern Texas. His mood had brightened a little and the man who had threatened him had spent the rest of the trip since then trying to befriend him. Just beyond New Boston, the train slowed and Harrison saw two other bandana-wearing hobos waiting by the trackside. He recognised Hooch and Carlsbad the Bad. The other three helped them into the boxcar. Carlsbad had an open bottle in one hand and he sat with his back against the doorjamb and sipped from it. Hooch squatted down next to Harrison.
‘So, you figured you’d come after all, Four-String,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a blast. The whole squad are getting together for this one. Six, himself, might even blow in. He does that sometimes, man. Just shows up when he feels like it. Rolls in on a train from the north and then rolls out again.’ He felt in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I got something for you.’ He took out a small paper package and handed it to Harrison.
It was light, and he screwed up his face, opened the package and then a smile stretched his craggy features. It was the missing string for his banjo.
‘Way to go, bubba.’ He took the banjo from its case and fitted the string across the frets. Then he sat there with the instrument across his knees and plucked with his thumbnail, while tightening the twist key to tune it. ‘Sounds about right,’ he said after a while and strummed the full five strings.
Hooch slapped him across the shoulders. ‘Four-String-Five,’ he said, and his arm lingered a little and Harrison thought, if ever there was a time to check for a wire, this was it. But Hooch didn’t and Harrison decided there and then that the next time he saw Jean, he would hook himself up.
They crossed the Arkansas line in mid-afternoon; the sun was gone and the sky had clouded over. The train ran to Ashdown and then Saratoga. Hooch told him that Blacks would be coming in from right across the South, literally hundreds of them. They would take over their usual camp grounds by the lake and stay for a day or so. Harrison gazed across country as the first spots of rain began to drift through the open door.
They left the train at the Saratoga yard and Harrison could see the spread of Millwood Lake to the north. It was only a short distance and he walked a little apart from the others, all of them wearing a black bandana, either round their heads or necks. Blacks he had not seen before gave him the eye, but Hooch walked one side and the big, lumbering, ginger-headed Carlsbad on the other.
‘Hey, Hooch,’ one man said, ‘got yourself a prospect?’
Hooch glanced at Harrison and grinned. ‘Something like that, man.’
Southern Sidetrack was already by the lake, with Limpet building a fire. The Blacks filed up in a straggly line. Harrison counted over twenty-five of them.
‘Regular hobo convention,’ Hooch muttered to him. ‘Like Britt, Iowa, but no straights allowed.’ He cackled to himself and dumped his pack and sleeping bag on the ground.
Harrison took himself off slightly and laid out his gear on a small hill. He sat down and rested on his elbows, caught Sidetrack’s eye and Sidetrack nodded to him.
Limpet came sauntering over. ‘You made it then, brother,’ he said.
‘Just for a while, Limpet. Arkansas’s on the way north.’
Limpet laughed at him then. ‘You ain’t going north, man. There ain’t nothing up there for ya. If there was, you’d be gone already.’
‘You figure?’
‘Yeah, dude. I figure.’
Harrison leaned and spat tobacco juice.
Limpet took a bottle from his pocket and offered it to him. ‘Look, bro. I been in the can. I know what it’s like when you get out. There ain’t nobody and there ain’t nowhere. You been away so damn long, anybody who might give a shit is long gone. The world’s gone crazy on you and the only thing you can do is keep rolling.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s why I hit the skids.’
That evening, they cooked steaks and drank cheap whiskey. Sidetrack, as usual, supped from his bottle of mescal and chewed on the worm, with bits of it poking through his teeth. More and more Blacks were arriving, and Harrison counted in excess of two hundred now.
‘Quite a party, Sidetrack,’ he said, when Sidetrack sat down next to him.
‘We do this once in a while. I figure it’s important. Get everybody together.’
‘Where you headed after?’
Sidetrack looked at him. ‘I thought you was going north?’
Harrison made a face and spat.
‘You could tag along with us if you wanted.’ Sidetrack nodded to where Hooch was bullshitting with Carlsbad and two other guys. ‘Hooch, over there, put you up for membership.’
Harrison sat up straighter. ‘Me, join your gang?’
‘Family, Four-String. A place to be. A place to go. The whole of the southern United States for your backyard, riding any damn train you please and taking bullshit from nobody.’ He reached in his pocket and took out a new black bandana. ‘I spoke to Whiskey about you. Told him how you were gonna kill anyone who laid a hand on you. Told him about that rat tattooed on your arm.’
‘Yeah? What did he say?’
‘He asked me how old you was. I figured fifty or so.’
‘That’s about right,’ Harrison muttered. ‘Last time I counted.’
‘Whiskey wants to hook up with you, man. He’s never come across another Rat on the rails before.’ Sidetrack looked at him. ‘He wanted to know when you was in the outfit and for how long.’
Harrison nodded. ‘It was 1969, Sidetrack, and I did six months underground. Rocket City, Lai Khe base in the Iron Triangle.’ He took tobacco out of his pocket. ‘Supposing I wanted that.’ He nodded to the bandana. ‘What would I have to do to get it?’
Sidetrack laughed then. ‘You’ll see.’ He stood up and his knees cracked. He nodded to the banjo. ‘Hooch tells me he got the string you needed. You better play us a tune, bro.’
At midnight, with the fires burning against a velvet sky, Sidetrack got to his feet and called everyone to be quiet. He waited until the conversation and laughter had subsided, and then he looked across the fire at Hooch. ‘You got something you wanna say, brother?’
Hooch rubbed his palms on grimy jeans and got up. He was pa
rt drunk and he slurred a little as he spoke, but he looked at Harrison and told the gathering he was putting him up for initiation. ‘You wanna join this crew, Four-String?’ he finished.
Harrison looked him in the eye. ‘I’m sat here, ain’t I?’
Hooch looked at Sidetrack. ‘I needed somebody to back me.’
Sidetrack looked at Limpet, then at Carlsbad and the others. Silence. Harrison was aware of the pulse at his temple. Then Sidetrack nodded. ‘I’ll back you. Get up, Four-String.’
Harrison spat, then got up and stood there with his hands loose at his sides.
Sidetrack looked round the gathering and selected four of the biggest, ugliest Blacks seated round the camp fire. He signalled to them and then looked back at Harrison. ‘No weapons, bro. Anything you’re carrying, you gotta lay down.’ His eyes had dulled to the chill blackness Harrison had witnessed when he first met him. ‘Lay them down, Four-String. You’ve come too far now. You don’t, we’re gonna kill ya.’
Harrison stood a moment longer, then he let the stopped-up breath ease out of his chest and he reached to his belt for the bowie knife. He was about to be as exposed as he ever could be, and he knew then that either way he might not survive the next few minutes. He hesitated, spat and then reached for his boot and took out the snub-nosed .38. From the waistband of his jeans, he took the black 9mm, weighed it in his hand and then dropped it on the ground.
Carlsbad stared at the array of weaponry, with his eyes popping. ‘This guy believes in packing,’ he muttered.
Sidetrack stared at the weapons and then at Harrison, who was stripping off his jacket. All he wore underneath was a singlet and the rat grinned wickedly on his upper arm. ‘Guess old habits die hard, huh?’ Sidetrack said to him.
Harrison nodded. ‘Handgun’s the only friend you got underground.’ He looked at the pile himself. ‘Needless to say, I’m gonna kill any fucker who touches them.’
The four men advanced on him then and Harrison moved sideways to give himself room. He could see the flames and the faces dulled by drink, and he was aware of the adrenaline tumbling in his veins. The biggest guy first; he had always been taught to take out the biggest one first. He knew he was going to take a beating and he just prayed his old bones were still up to it. He stepped back and the four men circled him now. He concentrated on the big one: bearded, fat-bellied, somewhere in his forties. The man lunged for him and Harrison sidestepped and stamped hard on the side of his knee. The man yelped and went down. Harrison pivoted on his left leg and ducked under another a massive roundhouse punch from the second man coming in. The momentum of the punch carried him forward and Harrison caught him under the ribcage with a right. At the same time, the third man swung a kick and hit him above the knee. Harrison staggered but did not go down. Fists up, he gave the man a combination under the jaw which jerked his head back, and then he hit him as hard as he could with a spin-kick and sent him reeling towards the fire. Two more Blacks had got up and were heading to join the fray. Harrison took in their bulk and movement, and aimed another kick at the first man. Then somebody lunged and he ducked too late and the blow caught him on the side of the eye. He regained himself again, only to take a kick under the ribs which knocked the wind right out of him. He swung with a left, caught one guy, but then he was down and they were raining kicks at him. He rolled and twisted, caught one man’s foot in both hands and twisted it as savagely as he could. Harrison got to his knees, but was knocked back again, and then fists were smashing him in the face and he rolled again, dirt in his mouth. He could feel the heat of the flames. And then the attack just stopped and he lay there for a moment, breathing hard. He thought he was about to pass out, but then somebody jerked back his head and poured water into his mouth. He coughed, spluttered and sat up. One eye was closing rapidly: he could tell by his dulling vision. He saw Sidetrack’s face and felt a hand on either side of his own, slapping the sense back into him. He aimed a punch at the slapper and staggered to his feet, spitting gobs of blood at the fire. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see half a dozen men taking a piss at the same time, and he could not figure out why.
He staggered back to his pack, sat down and checked his guns. He spat more blood and checked his teeth to make sure none of them were loose. Then he unscrewed the cap on his water bottle and poured it over his head.
‘You OK, dude?’ Limpet’s voice.
Harrison nodded. ‘Roll me a cigarette, will you.’
‘The game ain’t over yet.’
‘Tell somebody who gives a fuck. Roll me a goddamn cigarette.’
Harrison looked up as Limpet set about making him a cigarette and he saw Southern Sidetrack walking towards him, with what looked like a soaking rag in his hand. Harrison stared at it and realised what it was, and then he thought about the men pissing and groaned aloud to himself.
Sidetrack made him stand up and then he tied the urine-soaked bandana round Harrison’s neck. ‘You’re one of us now,’ he said, their faces pressed close. ‘Part of the brotherhood.’
In the morning, Harrison washed the bandana in the lake, and, stripping off all his clothes, took a bath himself. When he was dressed again, he tied the still wet, but no longer foul-smelling, bandana round his neck and rolled himself a cigarette.
Sidetrack was talking to Limpet and Hooch. He beckoned Harrison over. ‘How you feeling?’ he asked.
‘How do I look?’
‘Put it this way, you ain’t pretty.’
Harrison snorted. ‘I was never pretty, Sidetrack.’ He squatted down. ‘Nothing’s busted.’
‘You fight real good.’
‘I know.’
‘Why’d you carry all those guns?’
‘Habit. I got out of it in Angola. Soon as I got out, I got back in it.’ He looked Sidetrack in the eye. ‘It’s why I made fifty.’
Sidetrack grinned and slapped him on the back. ‘You’re hanging with us now,’ he said. ‘I want you close to me, man who can fight like that.’ Harrison noticed then that Sidetrack’s pack was already strung up ready to go. He looked round the rest of the campsite and saw hobos still laid out in their sleeping bags and blankets. ‘Are you splitting already?’ he said.
Sidetrack shook his head. ‘No, we are. You’re coming with us, Four-String. We got work to do.’
They headed back to the freight yard, where a coal train was hissing and cracking metal on the westbound line.
Harrison noticed that Carlsbad and Hooch each carried spare packs and he frowned. ‘You bring the kitchen sink with you?’ he asked.
Sidetrack smiled. ‘Something a bit more valuable than that.’
Harrison made a face and stuffed a plug of chew into his mouth.
They rode west again with the early morning. The coal train was long and slow and strung out for two miles. The boxcar they had jumped was halfway down the train, which Harrison had noticed was always where Sidetrack tried to pitch it. Easier to get on and off undetected, not that the guards in the yards or those who rode on the trains seemed overly bothered about the presence of hobos. One thing that had been very apparent, though, was the declining number of regular hobos Harrison had seen on these tracks, particularly through Texas.
He squatted on the floor, fingered the bandana tied at his throat and looked at his travelling companions: the twin bulk of Carlsbad and Hooch; the skinny, insipid-looking Limpet who dealt heroin to Little Nate in New Orleans; and Sidetrack with his dead eyes and overlong canine tooth. Harrison looked again at Limpet, recalling the first time he had seen him in Jackson Square, before the face to face with Nate. Nate was a heroin-dealer and gangbanger and Limpet his source of supply, yet on the occasions he had been riding with these men he had yet to see a single class A drug. He caught Sidetrack’s eye and they exchanged a glance, and another thought struck him. It was going to be that much more difficult, now he was initiated, to get away and see Jean.
‘Where we headed?’ he asked Sidetrack.
‘Wichita Falls.’
‘Wha
t’s at Wichita Falls?’
‘You’ll see.’
They rode the Burlington Northern line and late that evening rolled into Wichita Falls. They leapt off the train just before the freight yards and, when the last of the cars had passed, Sidetrack took out his cellular phone. Limpet came alongside Harrison.
‘Gotta make a drop,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll split.’
Harrison said nothing and waited till Sidetrack came off the phone. Then the five of them crossed the tracks and picked their way through the bunch-grass to a small hill with a gravel bar running off it. The twilight was falling in the east, the blue of the sky giving way to strands of grey and purple. Harrison looked at Sidetrack, who was staring down the dirt road that led away from the hill.
Limpet was watching the sky and listening. He glanced back at Harrison. ‘Gotta keep an eye out for those fucking black helicopters. Government’s watching the whole damn country.’
Harrison could feel the threads of a chill working into his veins. He sat in the dirt and rolled a cigarette, and every now and again he would look up and see Limpet still scouring the skyline. Sidetrack was watching the dirt road, and Carlsbad and Hooch had the two big packs between them.
‘Anybody wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?’ Harrison asked.
Sidetrack looked down at him. ‘Four-String,’ he said. ‘Today you joined the revolution.’
Harrison spat. ‘So what’s in the packs then, gunpowder?’
‘C-4 explosives.’
Quietly, he licked the gummed edge of the cigarette paper and pasted it down. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and popped a match on his boot. In the distance, he could hear the sound of an approaching vehicle.
Sidetrack had climbed to the top of the hillock now and was looking up the road. The gloom had deepened to a half-darkness and he snapped his fingers at Hooch ‘Gimme that flashlight.’
Hooch fumbled in his bag and tossed a long-trunked flashlight to him.
Sidetrack caught it, flicked it on and made an arc in the sky. ‘Keep watching, Limpet. Those gooks are fucking everywhere.’