Nothing But Blue

by Lisa Jahn-Clough

  Snake takes my hand. I let him run me up the grassy knoll. He plops himself down, and me with him. The grass isn’t exactly soft. It’s a little prickly and dry. But it smells good and feels good on my back.

  Shadow is enjoying himself, having a good roll, getting a back scratch. Pity crawls on top of him and nibbles at one of his legs. Shadow nuzzles her and they start to wrestle.

  It was breezy when we were standing, but everything is still when we are horizontal. We watch the puffy clouds roll along. The sun warms me with an occasional peek through. This is what children do, I think.

  “See that cloud?” Snake says, pointing. “It looks like an alligator. See its teeth and long snout?”

  I’m not sure I do, but I nod anyway.

  “Now it’s morphing into a fish,” he says.

  I turn my head and watch Snake watching the sky. His mouth is slightly open, his chest goes up and down with his breath. We are close enough to touch, but we don’t. He catches me watching and smiles.

  “You’re not looking,” Snake says.

  I stare hard at the clouds until I start to recognize shapes. First I see the fish he was talking about, with fat lips and a skinny tail fin. It turns into something that looks like a mushroom, then a heart. Then the same cloud starts to take the form of a house.

  As we pick out shapes in the sky, the wind picks up and a dark cloud moves in. It moves fast. Snake says something about a sudden storm, we should go. He gets up, but I stay there watching as the cloud covers the roof, making it look like smoke coming out of the house. Then the whole house disappears behind the dark cloud. What was a bright, sunny day is now dark and stormy. A thunderous clap shatters the earth and the cloud house explodes into a million little pieces of cloud particles that rain down on me.

  The burning odor of smoke comes to me. I jump up. The rain pours down, and lightning flashes up the darkened sky for an instant, followed by another tremendous roar. I run.

  I am aware of my name being called, and a hand grabs mine. I free myself from the hand. The rain is so heavy I can’t see a thing, but I run. I have to get away. I have to find safety. I have to find help. I have to find something. Explosion is all around me.

  All dead. All dead. All dead.

  Suddenly the hands catch hold of me and I jerk back. Snake covers me with both his arms and pulls me to him. I hide my face in his collar.

  “It’s okay,” he says, rubbing my back. “It’s okay.”

  The water gushes down in a solid sheet. There are more explosions. I scream.

  “It’s only thunder,” Snake says.

  “It’s more than that,” I say. I’m not sure what I mean. I never used to be afraid of thunder. But this house exploding, something tells me it’s real.

  “Let’s get back,” Snake yells. He takes my hand. I clasp it tight. We run to the motel as fast as we can, even though we’re already drenched.

  It’s dark and it’s still storming. I’ve been waiting for it to ease up so that I can leave, but if anything it’s raining harder. Snake has gone to the office and I’m alone with the dogs. I roll a pine cone around the floor in circles while Pity chases it, occasionally giving up and plopping on the floor in a frog-leg position, until I tease her again. Shadow watches and rolls his eyes at how silly the puppy is.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “This puppy is not coming with us.”

  I’m not worried, he says.

  I’m still really shaken up from this afternoon and the playing actually relaxes me.

  Snake comes bustling in all wet and winded. “It’s nasty out there,” he says. Both Pity and Shadow run up to greet him. Suddenly I want to tell Snake all about the chant and the burning ash, but he’ll think I’m crazy, and maybe I am—who knows? The only way I will ever know for sure is to get home. Raining or not, waiting around here is not getting me any closer to figuring anything out.

  “I have to go,” I say. “For real. I can’t risk the police finding me.” So much for tomorrow. Now is the moment, right? I pace around the room.

  Snake holds my shoulders. “Wait,” he says with such clarity that I stop. “It’s pouring out there.”

  The rain pelts the roof like nails being hammered into it. As if to prove Snake right, another flash of lightning lights up the sky, followed by more thunder.

  Snake looks at my sneakers. The duct tape is peeling off because they are so wet.

  “There’s another way you can go, without walking so much,” he says. “You can take a train.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t have money for a train. Besides, they don’t allow dogs.”

  “There are other ways to take a train,” Snake says.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Train hopping is free.” He gazes at his sculptures on the shelf as if thinking of something important.

  “You mean like jumping on a train? Like a stowaway? Isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “I used to do it all the time. I know people who still do. It can be dangerous, but I could go with you. Make sure nothing happens.” Snake sits up, suddenly all excited. “My friends live near the tracks. I’ll close the motel for a couple of days. We can hop a train there tomorrow, maybe stay a little while, and then you can hop a train the rest of the way on your own.”

  “Can you close the motel? What about guests?”

  “There’s nothing booked till the weekend. It costs more to keep the place open than to close it. Besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing some of my old buds.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Thunder crashes again and Pity jumps onto the bed. I sit with her and rub her belly. She’s so soft, like a little baby.

  Snake sits next to me. “You’re really good with dogs,” he says. “Like at the shelter, they all just listened to you.”

  “I never used to like dogs,” I say, gazing into Pity’s big puppy eyes. Shadow comes over and whines, so I scratch him behind the ears with one hand and keep rubbing Pity with the other. “But now I can’t imagine life without Shadow. I’d have to take him on the train, too.”

  “Of course the dogs can come.”

  We sit there a few minutes, then Snake goes over to the chair where he’s been sleeping since I got here.

  “I feel bad taking your bed,” I say.

  “I’m fine here,” he says. “Really.” He turns out the light.

  I lie awake, listening to the rain and the tiny ticking of the robot clock.

  “Do you want to sleep with me?” I ask. I don’t know where this comes from or why I ask. I don’t know if Snake wants sex or not. He has not made any moves on me or any overtures that I can tell. He’s been a perfect gentleman, but we are two people of opposite genders, alone in a room at night, and he’s letting me stay for nothing. At some point he’s going to expect something.

  At first I don’t think he heard, but after a minute he gets up and lies down next to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

  I lean into him and press my lips against his in a hard kiss. I pull his shoulders toward me so that he’s half on top of me.

  All of a sudden, like he’s just forgotten something, Snake breaks away and sits up. “You don’t have to do this,” he says.

  “But, I thought …” I pause. “I mean, you’re letting me stay here for free.”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “Really. I don’t want sex. Not like this. I want to help you.”

  Funny, that’s what Clara said. Well, not the sex part but about wanting to help. “Why?” I ask.

  “You need help,” he says. “More than you need sex.”

  I laugh at this a little bit. He’s rejecting me and I’m laughing.

  Snake goes on, “Not that I don’t find you attractive. I totally do. I think you’re beautiful and sad and really interesting. There’s something deep inside you. It’s just that it’s not always about the fooling around, you know. I don’t want to be that guy.”

  I roll over with my back to him. I fiddle with my bracelet.
It’s fraying. The colors are faded. It looks like a dirty, limp string around my wrist. “I have a boyfriend anyway,” I blurt. “He’s back home.”

  “Oh,” Snake says. Silence for a minute, then: “He must be looking forward to seeing you.”

  “I guess,” I say.

  Snake shifts away from me and moves to get out of the bed. Now he must think I’m a real jerk.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “He’s not really a boyfriend. I don’t know what he is. I don’t even think he knows or cares where I am. He’s some guy I thought loved me, but now I don’t know. I’m confused.”

  Snake lies down again. “Do you want to just cuddle? We don’t have to do anything,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  We shift so that his body wraps around mine. I stare at the copperhead on his arm as it coils around me. I remind myself that this is Snake, not Jake. Did Jake and I ever cuddle? I may not remember everything, but I’m pretty sure we never did. Snake starts snoring lightly, and I feel his warm, minty breath on my neck.

  I think about getting home. It’s not only to see Jake. It’s to finish my last year of school, to be in my room, to see my parents. I miss my parents. They may not be perfect, but I know they care. I ought to be nicer to them. I will be nicer to them. But what if it’s too late? I shiver.

  I know the stretch coming up is going to be especially hilly. So far, I’ve been lucky. I’ve managed to find food, places to sleep. I’ve avoided arrest. And my body has kept going. Will it keep going? A train, I think. A train would be easy. A train would be fast.

  Shadow wakes from his spot on the foot of the bed and gives me a sideways glance. I can see the whites in the corners of his eyes. “What should I do?” I whisper.

  Shadow blinks. Try it, he says.

  BEFORE

  I hadn’t heard from Jake for days. I checked all means of messaging a thousand times. I even checked the mailbox at the end of the driveway, just in case he was going to be romantic and send me an actual letter.

  Nothing.

  I don’t know what I expected. I was the one who left his party without saying goodbye. But I thought for sure he’d contact me to find out what happened. Maybe he was really too drunk to remember that I was even there.

  Finally I went to his house. I had to see him. I had to tell him about the move. There wasn’t much time left.

  His mother answered the door. She was a nervous, thin woman with blond hair piled on top of her head.

  “Is Jake home?” I asked.

  “Jake’s been sick,” she said. “Stomach flu. He’s still in bed.”

  “Can I see him? I’m a friend.”

  She looked at me skeptically but held the door open. “Only for a short time. You don’t want to make it worse, or get it yourself.” She pointed the way to his room on the second floor.

  It was a typical boy’s room: rolled-up futon on the floor, dirty clothes strewn about, rock posters on the wall. More than half the room was devoted to the latest electronic gadgets: computer, wide-screen TV, speakers. Jake was at his desk playing a video game; massive soldiers holding massive guns were running around blowing things up.

  I stood in the doorway. “Hey,” I said.

  He looked up for barely a second, then went back to the game.

  I traipsed through the maze of clothes and stood next to him. “Can I sit?”

  “If you want.”

  I pulled up a chair and tried to watch the screen but was really watching him. He was so caught up in the game. I didn’t know how to ask him what was wrong. I wasn’t even sure if there was anything wrong. Maybe this was all normal.

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked.

  “I’ve been sick.” He swore at the screen as one of the soldiers let out a bloodcurdling scream and disappeared in a crumble at the bottom of the screen. Then he turned to me. “Really. I had the stomach flu. I’ve been throwing up for days. This is the first time I’ve been out of bed. Ask my mom.” He turned back to the computer. “I’m surprised you didn’t catch it.”

  Something was definitely wrong. Maybe he had been sick for real, or maybe he was faking it just to avoid me. I didn’t know how to know. Usually he kissed the top of my head and said, “Hey, babe,” when he saw me. But now he could hardly look at me. I sat in silence while he went on blowing things up. It reminded me of the Jake I knew when we were eight—the one who was nice to me, then knocked me on the head. Wasn’t this the same thing? I buried my head in my knees. I was about to start crying, and I didn’t want him to see.

  Finally I got up. “I’m going to go, then,” I said.

  “Okay.” Still not looking.

  I got to the door, then turned. “We’re moving,” I said. “My mom got a job. It’s five hundred miles away. We already sold our house and everything.”

  He glanced at me, nodded, and gave a faint smile. He looked so sad I wanted to go over and hug him. But I didn’t, and he went back to his game.

  As I left Jake’s house I ran into Bradley. Obviously Jake wasn’t too sick for more visitors. “Hey, there,” Bradley said, sizing me up. “Visiting your boyfriend?”

  I raised my arm in a lame half wave, but I didn’t acknowledge his question.

  Bradley’s eyes fixed on my more-than-friendship bracelet, and he grinned. “I didn’t think he’d do it. I didn’t think you would, either. Guess I underestimated. I’m here to give him the fifty bucks I owe him.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I knew I did not like this guy. I couldn’t understand how Jake could be friends with him.

  NOW

  Freight trains. Boxcars. Hobos. Migrant workers. Railroad songs. Escaped convicts. These are the things that come to mind when I think of hopping a train.

  We’re sitting on the side of the tracks, waiting. I feel like we should sing some kind of hobo song, but we don’t. We crouch in silence for what seems like hours. Shadow and Pity wander around restlessly.

  “The trains can be way behind schedule,” Snake says. “There’s supposed to be one here at six, but it’s already getting dark. You have to be ready to run and jump as soon as they come.”

  “Why not just get on when it’s stopped at a station?” I ask.

  Snake shakes his head. “Too risky. Too many rail bulls.”

  “Rail bulls?” I ask.

  “They’re like cops, but they work for the railroad so they have their own rules. They don’t like hoppers. They’ve been known to beat them up, even shoot at them. That’s why I carry this.” He takes a hard plastic case out of his pack and opens it. Inside lies a shiny pistol. It looks like a toy. I stare at it, then at Snake. I’ve never seen a gun before. I’ve never known anyone with a gun before.

  He closes the case. “I’ve never used it. I just have it, you know, for protection.”

  Just then I feel the earth rumble ever so slightly beneath us. I look at Snake, still thinking about the gun. Shadow stands alert, his ears straight up. In the distance is a faint chug.

  “It’s coming,” Snake says. I start to get up, but Snake holds me back. “Wait till the engine passes.”

  The chug gets louder and the tip of a black-nosed engine appears around the bend. Chugging like the little engine that could, determined and steady. My ticket home.

  Pity is small enough to fit in Snake’s backpack, but Shadow will have to be thrown in. He is wagging and dancing around, caught up in the excitement.

  The engine passes. The screech of metal on metal is deafening. The train is not so little anymore—it’s more like a long, wild, and dangerous creature.

  Snake gives me a signal to go. I run toward the tracks after him, but the force of wind blows me back. I stagger a few feet, then fall.

  I yell but Snake can’t hear me. I watch him run alongside the train looking for a car he can jump into. Pity’s head pokes out of his backpack and bobs. Shadow runs up and tugs on Snake’s pant leg. Finally Snake turns and sees me. He comes over, helps me up.

  “Come on. You can do it,”
he says.

  I brace myself, then run steadily alongside the train.

  The first cars are liquid containers with no doors. Then the first boxcar passes. The side door is clamped tight. The second, the third, and the fourth boxcars are all padlocked.

  “There’s usually an open one at the end,” Snake yells.

  He’s right. The very last car is a boxcar, and miraculously, the side door is open.

  Snake jumps in first. That way he can help with Shadow and me.

  I pick Shadow up and secure my arm under his belly like he’s a giant football and hold his chest with my hand. His long legs dangle down. He’s not heavy, but he’s not exactly light, either.

  It’s really awkward to run while carrying a dog and then try to throw him into a moving vehicle. Snake’s arms are outstretched waiting to catch him.

  “Now!” he yells.

  I swing my arm back, and with a heave-ho I toss Shadow in. Snake grabs him. Now for me. I reach. I touch the tip of Snake’s fingers. He is about to grip my hand, but the train suddenly gains momentum and my hand slides out. The grip is lost. The train keeps on moving.

  Snake shouts, “Run! Run!”

  I fill my lungs and push all my energy into my legs. I let a superstrength take over. I am the Bionic Woman. I am faster than a speeding bullet. Run, run, run. I don’t take my eyes off Snake’s hand. I reach it and clasp with all my might while I grab the side of the door with my other hand. Snake pulls and I am able to touch the floor with my feet so I can push up with my legs and swing them over, and voilà, I am in.

  I roll across the floor of the car and lie there, panting. Shadow comes over and licks my cheek.

  Snake helps me up. “Welcome aboard,” he says.

  I start to laugh and cry all at the same time. “Wow!” I say.

  “Quite the adrenaline rush, isn’t it?” Snake grins.

  We are in an open-air boxcar, which means it has sides but no roof. The train whistles and the wheels squeal along the tracks. This is not the romantic notion of train hopping Snake had built up. It’s loud and fast and somewhat scary. Not calm at all.