“You are in no condition for polite society.” He turned from the mirror to the shower door.
Hot water sprayed hard on Dupree’s neck and down his back. He rotated his head and tried to loosen his tight muscles. Washing felt good and long overdue. A melody came to his mind. He began to hum softly, then louder. Words came to the tune, and he sang them. Within moments he forgot where he was and with eyes closed, he was singing Tramps like us, baby we were born to run! at the top of his voice.
Dupree dressed in a yellow plaid shirt with pearl buttons he selected from Chet’s closet. When he went into the kitchen, Valericia was holding out big mugs of steaming coffee.
“Morning Mr. Springsteen, did you rest well?”
“You heard me?”
“They heard you in Sacramento!” Chet teased.
“Stop, it was nice,” Valericia chided.
“Thank you.” Dupree bowed slightly.
In his past life, a remark about his shower singing would have angered and embarrassed Dupree and set the tone for the whole day. Somehow on this morning, with these people, it was just a natural part of the love and companionship of this house.
“I called the station; there is a train at eleven-thirty heading north. They never heard of White Owl, so I Googled it. You picked a dilly. You ever been there?”
“No, why?” Dupree’s voice gave away his apprehension.
“As far as I can tell, it is about as far from Lawyerville as is humanly possible.” Chet chuckled. “You like tie-dye, Zen Gatherings, and Americana Music Festivals?”
“I’m not sure. But if it is the opposite of high stress, twelve hundred dollar an hour, never satisfied clients, and wives with more social commitments than marital, and snotty kids with their hand out for money one minute, and their tongue sticking out at you the next, I’m in!”
“Good, ’cause you got a ticket, and the train leaves in three hours,” Chet confirmed.
“I hope you are hungry,” Valericia said, as she slid a plate of eggs, bacon, potatoes, and toast in front of Dupree.
“Starving.” He smiled up at her.
After breakfast, Chet took Dupree on a tour of the ranch in his Jeep. Most of the land was fallow. Chet explained that he just couldn’t afford to pay all the taxes on the ever-increasing payroll to harvest row crops. A large portion of the land in the back was irrigated and lush green. A herd of red and white cattle grazed near a large pond.
“Purebred Hereford stock. Never been cross-bred since my great-granddad’s time. We raise them purely for breeding purposes. There is a large return to heritage lines. It all started with tomatoes, of all things. People want food like it was a hundred years ago. I never imagined my father and grandfather’s absolutely fanatical dedication to keeping the line pure would pay off one day. I wish they could see the market now. They’d never believe it. I get as much for a bull as they used to get for a herd.”
“Have you registered the DNA? Big money there. You need to look into it. It’s kind of like a patent. If those cows are as pure as you say. It could be worth a lot more than you think. Call your alma mater, ask them. Then get a good lawyer.”
“I thought you were my lawyer.”
“I’m retired,” Dupree said with a smile.
“Couldn’t prove it by me!”
“You need an Agricultural attorney; UC Davis can probably help with that too.”
“Look at the time! We gotta get you to the train!” Chet whirled the Jeep around and started back to the house. “You get me going on those cows and I can talk all day.”
“That’s why you were born to do this. I can see your passion. It’s a wonderful thing, Chet. I envy you.”
“You’ll get yours back. Maybe not in L.A., but you were on fire last night. You got it, you’re just looking for a new outlet. Trust me, the time will come.”
Back at the house, Valericia was waiting on the porch. As the Jeep pulled up next to the house, she slapped her forehead in mock exasperation.
“I know, I know!” Chet pleaded.
“Rojas Vacas!”
“You grab your stuff and I’ll get the car,” Chet called back as he ran toward the garage.
In the spare room, Dupree smiled down at his bloody thrift store shirt in the wastepaper basket, as he carefully rolled his new shirt and stuffed it in his pack. Minutes later, the Weavers and Dupree were in the car and flying down the freeway toward the train station.
It was a strange parting for Dupree. He was a person of frequent and shallow encounters and acquaintances. His social circle was suspect at best, his colleagues were just that, and his family was a disaster. Somehow, in just a few hours he formed a bond with a couple of total strangers that pained his heart to part from.
“I’ve got to say this has been one incredible meeting. Your generosity is a treasure we will cherish. That paperwork you did, my goodness sakes, that’s something we would never have dreamed of. And the DNA of the cattle thing, I just don’t have words.”
“All in a day’s work.” Dupree smiled.
“Don’t take it lightly. You just changed lives here, my friend.” Emotion overtook Chet and he couldn’t speak. He turned and walked to the ticket counter.
“And I’m the one with brain damage,” Valericia stammered. “You promise to come see us again?”
“I certainly will try. Thank you so much for patching me up.”
“You look like I beat you up!” Valericia laughed.
From off in the distance, a long wail of a train whistle announced it was approaching the station.
“Just in time,” Chet said, thrusting out the ticket envelope.
The train roared into the station, drowning whatever Valericia tried to say. Dupree looked at the smiling couple and felt the Trust he did for them was of more value than all the corporate law, legal maneuvering, or intimidating letters he ever wrote. He felt a sense of pride in the service, not in the victory or deal-making, but in the ability of his knowledge to actually do good in someone’s life. Dupree thought of Tucker, the high school kid that would go to UC Davis, become an Aggie, and then securely be the fifth generation to raise cattle on his family’s land, and he smiled.
After a bit of small talk and waiting, came the “All aboard.” Dupree hugged Valericia, and a handshake turned into a manly bear hug for Chet as well. As he boarded the train, Dupree turned to see them standing hand in hand, waving. He gave them a big smile, and to his utter amazement, blew them a kiss.
CHAPTER 7
The train rolled along and Dupree self-consciously looked out the window. Women who passed him seemed to hold their bags a little tighter. One little girl asked her mother loudly, “Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?” It was at that point Dupree decided to face the window. The landscape changed little in the first hour, but gradually it began to incline and the grass greened.
Trees, oaks at first then pines, began to appear. There was a peace that overcame Dupree. This time he would have no contact with the driver. There was no waiting except with his new friends on the platform at the station. He felt a little foolish not thinking of the anonymity of train travel sooner. His thoughts were soon shattered.
“Mind if I sit here?”
“No,” Dupree said, turning to face the young man slipping into the seat across the table.
“Damn, what’s the other guy look like?”
“Like the one with the gun.”
“Pistol whipped?”
“That’s what they call it.”
“I’m Foster,” the man said, as he wriggled across the seats to adjust his weight next to the window.
“Dupree.”
“How far you goin’?”
“Washington.”
“Portland for me.” Foster grinned, exposing a chipped front tooth.
Dupree took in his new acquaintance. He guessed late teens, early twenties, but he could be even younger. Dupree wasn’t good at judging age, so he tried to use his son as a measure. The shirt he wore was freshly pressed
but the hours on the train left deep creases where he leaned and crossed his thin pale arms.
“I love trains, don’t you? I mean, what is more American than hopping on the Iron Horse and riding into the wind?”
“Foster, you are quite the poet.”
“Lonely headlight on a northbound train, brings cattle and timber, but takes my love, and leaves me in pain.” Foster sang in a clear engaging tenor. “That’s what I do. I’m a folksinger, country singer, like from years past. None of this straw hat, fake hole in your jeans, Hawaiian shirt crap they call country today. I’m more the Western half of Country Western.”
“I’m no judge of music, but I liked it. Is that what you’re going to do in Portland?”
“I’ve got a gig playin’ with a band called Weeds and Wire. They call their stuff Americana. I don’t care what they call it as long as I can sing my songs. I got a guitar case full. No guitar,” Foster grinned. “I’ll get a new one when I get there. The songs are more important. ’Sides, I don’t have a suitcase, so my clothes are in there too.”
“How old are you, Foster?” Dupree asked.
“Oh, don’t you start. Twenty-three. I know, I know, what’s a kid know about trains, broken hearts, and hard travelin’.” Foster’s grin was gone and the face of an artist’s defiance glared across the table.
“Quite the contrary, I was wondering how someone so young had such an old soul.”
“I’m kind of a story magnet. I like to sit and listen to the old folks’ talk of when they were young. They’re all dyin’ off you know? So somebody needs to capture their light and put it in song. I figured it might as well be me. I was never good at school. I really didn’t fit in with the kids my age, they never listen. They only care about cell phones, Snaptwits, ChatFace, and those big-ass sisters on the cover of every magazine ’tween here and hell. I cut all that loose when I turned seventeen. I been on the road since. Usually, I’m ridin’ in the boxcars, not up front with the ticketed folks.”
Dupree chuckled. “When I was in college I listened to this guy for a while that told people he ran away from home at ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, fifteen and a half, seventeen and eighteen, was born in New Mexico, worked in a carnival singing his songs, and rode the rails with hobos.
“Turned out he was from an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Minnesota, and never ran anywhere. He did travel to New York to meet his idol, Woody Guthrie, when he was twenty though. That changed the face of music forever. He won a Nobel Prize for Literature, too. His name’s Bob Dylan. Ever hear of him?”
“Yes, sir,” Foster said sheepishly.
“Want to start over?”
“My name is Peter James. I’m from Merced. My dad’s a high school English teacher. My mom’s just a mom. I went to Golden Valley High School, where my dad taught, and I spent two years at Merced Junior College. Happy?”
“Are you? You know, being one’s self is far more important than creating an image that you think will sell. I’m learning that pretty late. I bet you sat here because of the black eyes. Right?”
“So how’d you really get them?”
“I got pistol-whipped while hitchhiking. Aren’t you listening? The truth is far more interesting than some borrowed persona of what you think you should be.”
“I really am going to Portland to play in a band.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“They saw my YouTube video and liked my song. I did more, and they like them too.”
“Now, that is much more interesting and impressive than the whole Bound for Glory nonsense.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a book by Woody Guthrie. Your dad teaches English and you never heard of Bound for Glory?”
“It’s not his fault, the school…”
“It never is,” Dupree interrupted.
Peter “Foster” James sat quietly looking out the window.
Bound for Glory, Dupree thought. Where in the world did that come from? He read it as a junior in high school. He was trying to make points with a girl in his history class that always carried around a beat-up guitar. Vicki Templeman, nouveau-hippie, child of communist parents who were the scourge of their homeowner’s association, head of every committee and petition in town his father was against and didn’t celebrate the holidays of organized religion or the bourgeois misinformation media. Dupree was totally in love with her for about three months, until Jennifer Wenerholtzer, a Dutch exchange student, transferred into his English class.
“What’d you mean, it never is?”
“How long has he been teaching?”
“I guess about twenty-five years.”
“Does he belong to the union?”
“Sure, and they almost went on strike a couple of years ago,” Peter said excitedly.
“Then they can’t fire him. He has tenure, near retirement, the union would never allow it, they would defend his ‘Academic Freedom.’ He could teach any book he wanted. If he wanted. My bet is he is burned out, hates kids, the administration, and can’t wait to retire.”
“What makes you think you’re so smart?”
“I’m not, but if you intend to tell the truth, capture the light, like you were saying, you have to be able to see the truth no matter how much it hurts, or inconvenient to the narrative you have written for yourself.”
“My dad’s a good teacher.”
“I’m sure he is. But we all, sooner or later, see the futility in what we’re doing. When it becomes ‘not our fault’ we have resigned our authority to someone else. Then it’s time to get out. Do something else. Become Foster, so to speak. The real truth to your ‘Foster story’ is that you didn’t fit in. That’s the artist trying to break free. It’s not my fault I don’t have any friends. That’s when you gave in to the bullies, cool kids and jocks. You did great YouTube videos, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet you have never played in front of an audience in your life.” Dupree smiled at the scowling kid in front of him. “Have you?”
“No, but…”
“No buts, where’s your guitar?” Dupree pressed.
“Back in the carry-on rack.”
“Go get it.”
“What?”
“You heard me, go get it.”
The young man scooted out of the seat and up the aisle, past the senior citizens, Mexican families, and hipsters with the silly little hats, big beards, backpacks, and earbuds. A couple of minutes later Peter returned with a guitar case that never left his bedroom, until today.
“Nice case. Open it up.” Dupree insisted.
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
Peter obeyed and took out a shiny Taylor guitar that obviously never saw a minute of hard traveling.
Dupree stood to his feet and at the top of his voice said to the hundred or so people in the train car, “Ladies and Gentleman, Senors y Senoras, it is my honor and privilege to introduce an incredible new talent on the train with us today, Foster James!” Dupree began to applaud and so did the captive audience on the train.
“I can’t…” the young man said, quaking in fear.
“Then you never will,” Dupree replied, then sat down.
Foster James stood, put the guitar strap around his neck and cleared his throat. “I would like to…” he said strumming his guitar nervously, “I would like to sing you a song called He Held My Hand.”
The first verse was shaky and slightly ahead of the guitar, but the chorus rang out bright, clear, and confident. That moment Foster James, singer-songwriter and newest member of Weeds and Wire, was born.
Three songs later, and after enthusiastic applause, he sat down.
“How’d that feel?” Dupree grinned.
“Oh my God, oh my God, it was like pure energy shining out from every pore of my body. They liked my songs. What a feeling, what a, I don’t know, moment. I never want to lose it. Ever.” The young singer was barely able to contain his delight.
“I hope you never
do,” Dupree nodded.
Foster began patting his pockets and finally found what he was looking for. “Want a Snickers? I mean to celebrate, I mean, to say thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything, you wrote the songs.”
“Yeah, but you made me sing them.”
“I just nudged. Yeah, give me half of that.” Dupree laughed.
The sugary candy bar was not what the kid needed. A few minutes later he shook hands with Dupree and went to the next car.
Well after dark, Foster returned.
“Well, hello,” Dupree said when Foster tapped his shoulder.
“I sang in every car behind us! Look at this!” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills and a handful of change. “Can life get any better? I was just heading for the cars that way. Thanks again.”
“Good luck in Portland,” Dupree offered, but Foster was already heading up the aisle to the next car.
The lights dimmed in the rail car and the conductor approached Dupree. “Would you like a pillow or blanket or anything? It gets a bit chilly though the mountains.”
“Yes, that would be great. Leaning on this window is kind of rough on my head.”
“The seat does lay back.”
“I know, but it makes my nose throb. I tried it earlier.”
“You get in a wreck?”
“No, long story.”
“I got all night,” the conductor said skeptically.
“I got pistol-whipped and dumped while hitchhiking.”
“Okay, I get it, none of my business. Have a good night.” The conductor handed Dupree a pillow in a plastic bag and a blanket to match.
“No, really that’s what happened.”
“Uh-huh,” the conductor replied in disbelief, as he turned to the next passenger.
Dupree unwrapped the blanket and pillow and placed the plastic wrappers on the table. He wound the strap of his pack around his arm and covered up with the blanket. It took a little adjusting, but he found just the spot between his head and the glass for the pillow, closed his eyes, and as the train rattled along through the night, he fell fast asleep.
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