“Emma, I lost th’ nickels, I wuz comin aroun the trail runnin an my han—”
“You jinky peckerwood muthafucka!” She pushed the table back and came at me. When she got within striking distance, she hit me in the mouth with her fist, knocking me into the corner by the jukebox. I slunk to the floor. Blood was running out of my mouth and my tongue quickly detected the loose front tooth.
Emma sat down on the daybed and pulled the table back up to her. Casually asking, “Whose shot is it, baby?”
For two chickenshit dollars, you’d do this to me?! my mind screamed while the crap room swayed before my eyes. Still dazed, I stood up and wobbled into my room, grabbed my navy jacket and tore my ass.
Chapter 7
I cut behind Ben E. Keith’s and stayed on the tracks until I got to the trestle and sat down underneath. When the freight train waiting back at the station blew its clearance whistle, I wiped away my tears and got ready. The big engine spun its wheels to get a starting grip to pull the long line of boxcars. It started rumbling slowly in my direction. Crouching in the weeds beside the tracks until the engine lumbered past, I waited until about twenty cars went by, picked out an empty one and hopped aboard.
I learned how to catch trains from Lonzo. In his drunken stupors he had talked about hoboing and being a brakeman until he would keel over backwards, asleep. He told me what the whistles meant, which end of the car to catch, all the brakeman hand signals, about the signal lights, how to brace the gondola from the inside so nobody could lock it from the outside, how to read the destination markings on the sides of the cars and oil tankers, how to ride the rails (riding underneath the boxcar on two rods), which way to face when on top, how to make a train slow down, how to stop it, et cetera (whistle), et cetera, et cetera.
Running away but taking it all with me, the boiling rage gnawing at my gut grew with every mile I put between us. I felt like an unwanted mutt and hated the day I was born. It was time for me to head for higher ground, or lower, whichever the case may be. Wherever I went I knew I could make it. I was alone, a survivor, a jungle fighter with a face that did not reflect the fury seething within.
I left the summer of ‘42. After Pearl Harbor, railroad security was tight and they would shoot hobos, no questions asked. When the freight came to a stop, I jumped out of the boxcar and made a dash for the underbrush. The “knob knockers” were already walking down the tracks inspecting the long string of cars for hobos while the train waited. After the passenger train whizzed by, the freight whistle sounded for clearance up ahead, the signal lights went from red to green, and it slowly started pulling off.
I left my hiding place and jumped back on. When it was running fast again, I fell asleep. I woke up and looked out of the open door and saw signs along the highway indicating Little Rock wasn’t far away. While the train was stopped in the Little Rock freight yard, I got off to hustle some grub, made my way to the highway and started walking. I wandered about a mile from the freight yard and came to a small country store. Approaching the entrance, I wondered what to buy with the thirty-five cents I had in my pocket. I settled for a dime’s worth of bologna, a dime’s worth of block cheese, and a nickel box of crackers. After paying I asked for an empty jug that I could fill with water, and stole an onion on my way out.
I ran back to the underbrush near the tracks, ate, and waited. Watching from my hiding place, I saw them switch engines. This was as far as old Texas and Pacific (T&P) was going; a Cotton Belt engine was hooked on. When the engineerman blew the whistle for takeoff, I climbed aboard. I had no idea where the train was headed and didn’t care, just as long as it was far, far away from Longview.
Lonzo didn’t lie when he told me the Cotton Belt was the fastest freight line. The train was going much faster now, like it had to be somewhere and was already late. Every time it neared a railroad crossing the engineerman started the old whistle to moaning, and I rushed to stand in the open doorway to wave at the car passengers as we streaked by.
It sidetracked for a few minutes in Memphis to let another train have the right-of-way, and took off again. Knoxville, Richmond, and on to Baltimore. I had to do some hustling in a hurry. That bologna, cheese and crackers had long since disappeared, and my belly talked in growls.
I looked pretty grimy when I stepped inside the small cafe in the colored part of town and took a seat at the counter. There wasn’t a thing on the homemade menu tacked to the wall I could get for a dime. I ordered a twenty-five cent hamburger “to eat here” and bought a package of pigskins to munch on while I waited. The cook brought the hamburger and sat it down in front of me and went back to the kitchen. He’d collect for it after I finished. I caught him not looking, wrapped the hamburger in the napkin, and hit the door running. He came to the door shouting something, but I was long gone.
I bummed around town, sleeping here and there until I started hanging around Miss Lizzie’s place, running errands. She had six rooms upstairs, and rented them out for transient trade. With servicemen everywhere, her rooms were rarely unoccupied. I worked my way from errand boy to cleaning up the rooms behind the whores. For this, she paid me five dollars a week and board, and anything I could hustle short of stealing from her military trade.
Miss Lizzie’s place was safe because she actually did palm grease the police to let her operate her bawdy house. They only came by to collect their dough. With that in mind, I kept a crap game going out in the backyard after I got off work and kept all the neighborhood boys broke. Sometimes, my little crap game attracted grownups. They’d shoot for nickels and dimes with us for a while, but then invariably raise the stakes. That’s when I really “rolllled” the craps.
After losing more than expected in what started out as a nickel and dime kid crap game, one of the men would ask, “Where’d you learn how to shoot craps lak that boy?”
“I don’t know how to shoot ‘em sir, I’m jes lucky.”
With some good jeans and tennis shoes, a new multi-bladed pocketknife and some jingle in my pockets, it was time to move on. I still hadn’t seen any of the places and things in Lonzo’s stories. I headed for the railroad tracks. Each time I looked behind me I saw swirling dark clouds forming in mass. After about two hours of walking down the tracks, I spotted a switch tower in the distance. The law of riding trains (“train people don’t lak hobos”) shot through my head as I climbed the outer steel ladder to the upper platform.
I rapped on the window with my knuckles. The white man inside had on earphones and didn’t hear my knock. I opened the door, went inside and pulled off my cap, waiting for him to turn his chair around and see me. Startled, he quickly removed his head gear, “Damn kid, you scared the bejesus out of me! What can I do for you?”
“Would you give me a drink uv water, please sir?”
Pointing to the glass jug turned upside down, feeding the fountain, “Grab you one of those paper cups and help yourself,” he offered.
“Thank you.” I pulled a coned cup from the dispenser and swigged down four cupfuls before stopping. “Sho looks lak we gon git some rain.”
“Yep, it sure does. Where you headed?”
“New York,” and whipped out my much-used death-message telegram: Come home quick. STOP. Grandma sinking fast. STOP. Grandpa.
Raising his eyes from the telegram, “Gee kid, I’m sorry to hear that.” Luckily, he hadn’t noticed the eight-month-old date at the heading.
“I got to git home mister,” I murmured, faking sadness. Then I asked him the question nobody asks the switchman, “Kin you tell me which set uv these tracks I need to be on to ketch a train goin east?”
“You know I’m not supposed to do this,” he said in a warm manner and rose from his seat. Beckoning, “Come over here and look out the window. Get on those tracks heading straight up there toward that gap. There’ll be one through here in about,” taking out his big Elgin pocketwatch, “four hours from now. She gets here around midnight, but I don’t advise you to try and catch that one.”
“Why?”
“It’s an express hauling frozen meat. He’s pulling a lot of refrigerated cars and don’t be doing nothing but kicking up dust when he comes by here,” he explained. “If I was you, I wouldn’t try to catch that one, too dangerous. I’d wait for the one that comes through about six in the morning. I think you’d have a better chance.”
“Yessir, I ‘preciate you tellin me that, but I got to ketch this one.”
“Well, kid,” so friendly I couldn’t believe he was a railroad man and I was hoboing, “if you’re determined to catch it, walk on down the tracks about three or four miles. You’ll come to a deep curve. I expect it might slow down long enough rounding that curve so you can give her a try.” I thanked him and left.
A full moon that came out of nowhere rose over my back as I walked down the tracks, my shadow dancing ahead of me. Every so often a dark cloud zipped across its glowing face, according to Miss Bertha a sure sign it was going to rain. I hoped not. I had no idea how much farther I had to go before I got to the curve the switchman described. After about thirty more minutes of walking, I heard thunder rumbling and tightened my gait. All I saw up ahead was this long set of tracks going straight through the middle of nowhere.
The wind picked up, got cooler, and was blowing much stronger. The moon disappeared and darkness swallowed me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw jagged streaks lighting up the coal-black skies. I could smell the rain coming and quickened my step as the flashes chased me. I knew it was getting closer because the crackling and peals of thunder boomed so soon afterward. Before long, the thundering light show lit up the entire sky.
I trotted along the crossties until a bolt struck the tracks behind me. Like a huge Fourth of July sparkler, it was walking them right toward me, sparks flying! I had heard stories in the hobo jungles about how lightning walked the tracks. It was raining hard now and I was running my heart out. The embankment was too high to jump off, so I had no choice but to outrun it. When I looked back I saw smoke rising where it had fizzled out. Shaking like a leaf, I was cold and soaked to the bone by the time the storm passed over.
That chickenshit moon ventured back out and showed its grinning face. Up ahead, a trestle. I wished I had gotten to it sooner so I could have quit the tracks and jumped underneath it. I was glad to unwind and squatted with my back against the pilings. My feet were hurting from the fresh holes in my tennis. As tired as I was from outrunning that lightning, I quickly dozed off.
How long I slept I didn’t know, but way over in the still of the night I thought I heard the faint sound of a train whistle. How far away it was, I couldn’t tell. I had to wait for another blow before I could make a decent guess. I heard it again. That’s when I realized what it was, a manifest express.
All the railroad companies hadn’t put on diesel engines yet, and I was expecting to hear a woooh woooh; instead, it was hummm hummm hummm. The part of the country I had been hoboing in had choo-choo trains. I never rode a manifest before and a chill ran up my spine because I knew they went much, much faster. “Well, shit,” I said as I made my way back up the embankment.
I walked along the tracks, hoping to get to that curve. Way after while, the whistle blew again and I began to trot. I had walked and trotted at least three miles and hadn’t come to a curve yet. Maybe the old guy had miscalculated. Damn, by the time I find that curve I’ll be dun walked to New York. The next time it blew, I put it in high gear. I could tell by the whistle the engineerman was asking for clearance up and down the line. It blew once more, and I guessed it to be a few miles behind me.
A couple hundred yards ahead, the curve. I felt the tracks vibrating and turned around to see if the train was in sight. I didn’t see it but knew it wouldn’t be long. I looked behind me again and saw the headlight flashing. I slid down the embankment and crouched close to the ground so the engineerman, fireman, and railroad dicks wouldn’t see me in the engine’s spotlight when it went past. Soon as it passed, I crawled back up the embankment and picked out a boxcar in the middle that I was going to catch.
That sucker was moaning and speeding faster than anything I had ever caught before. I summoned all of my freight catching know-how and got ready to make my catch. About twenty boxcars passed me, and I locked in on the middle one. When it got fifty feet from me, I took off running alongside the train. As soon as the boxcar caught up with me, I grabbed the handrail on it just as the train was bending the curve. WRONG! After all his instructions on how to catch a train the “right way,” Lonzo would have disowned me if he saw what I had done.
I should have caught the boxcar a little before it got to the curve or a little after. That way, the wind wouldn’t have me blowing in the breeze as straight as one of the stiff, starched shirts on Miss Bertha’s clothesline. After the train picked up speed coming out of the curve, the force of the wind had me. I couldn’t pull myself to the boxcar to put my feet on the iron stirrup. I was hanging on, waving like the Texas flag, and felt my strength slipping away. It’s a motherfucker when you have to turn something loose that you can’t afford to, but I had to let it go.
Slung out into the night, all I could do was shut my eyes and hope for the best. There was no need of looking—I was completely airborne and couldn’t dodge shit! When I hit the ground, BOOM! Tumbling for what seemed like forever through the underbrush, I tore up everything as I rolled down the steep embankment. I came to a stop at the bottom, shook my head and shouted, “Gotdam!” The cuts on my face were stinging as were my gashed elbows. I felt myself. Ripped pants, knees gritty, minor nicks and scrapes. After realizing every bone in my body wasn’t broken, I didn’t have any time to lose. The train was passing me by.
All I could think about was that train getting away and leaving me stranded in the middle of no damn where for God knows how long. I clawed and crawled my way back up the embankment more determined than ever and said through gritted teeth, “I’m ketchin you, you bad muthafucka.” That catch I made redeemed me with Lonzo and elevated me to true hobo-dom. I knew from then on I could catch a freight train with the best of them, but not in the fucking curve! After all this shit to catch the thing, I didn’t even know where it was going. I took my belt off, strapped myself to it, and rode on.
I headed on up the Eastern Seaboard: Trenton, Newark, and finally New York City. It didn’t take long for my money to run out. I started shining shoes in Grand Central Station by day and sleeping at one of Father Divine’s flophouses in Harlem for a quarter a night. Each night the rows of cots were filled with derelicts, drunkards, and run-of-the-mill down-and-outers. The shelter also provided one meal a day. When passing through the chow line, we were required to say “Peace Father” before receiving a helping. Occasionally Father Divine, a black preacher (followed by an entourage of “angels”—all pretty white women), paid a visit to the facility, in the flesh.
I was so busy trying to survive I almost forgot about the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. After about a year, I came to realize “The Big Apple” was full of very private people who could care less. I could hardly wait until winter was over so I could get back to hoboing. Soon as the weather broke, I headed west. It was late spring and the railroad dicks were chasing me all over the Chicago freight yards. The train I caught in Akron was loaded with military equipment. With the war raging in Europe and fearing possible sabotage, railroad security was on high alert and extra precautions were taken to keep hobos off. I had to sneak back that night to catch one.
Just this side of Omaha the train stopped and I headed for the bushes, following my nose to the smell of brewing coffee. Walking into the clearing I saw five colored hobos crouched around the fire. “Hi,” I said and gave them my best smile. Two or three nodded their heads. “How bout a shot uv y’all’s java?”
“Sho boy, c’mon an hep yosef.” After I filled a tin can from the gallon bucket brewing in the middle of the fire, “Where you comin frum boy?”
“Chicago,” adding, “I wuz lucky to git outta there, them dicks run me
all over the place.”
“Yeah,” another said, “they priddy rough now on account uv the war. Where you headed?”
“West.”
“Where west?”
“Jes west.”
“Good thang you is, cuz it sho be hard hoboin thru the South. They gotta dick name Texas Slim wekin twix Fort Worth an East Texas that ain’ jes throwin hobos off, he been shootin ‘em lef an right.”
One of them got around to asking me, “You ever smoked any grass?”
I knew he wasn’t talking about rye, “I kin roll it in the dark an light it on top uv a movin freight train,” accepting the joint that was passed.
I made it to Omaha, and joined up with a traveling carny. When it left Omaha we made Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, southern Illinois, crossing the Mississippi River and the Big Muddy at least a dozen times. I did everything from hawking for the sideshows to operating the concessions. I stayed with the Smith Brothers Show almost two years, and indeed, saw some of the places Lonzo had told me about.
The Huckleberry Finn in me gave call and I headed west once more. I caught a freight out of Illinois and left the carny behind. After a change of trains in St. Louis and another in Kansas City, I made connections with the Denver Line. I climbed up inside the empty cattle car and squatted down in a corner. It was dark as a sack of black cats. The only light came when a flickering poked its way through the open door. The train had been running and “hollerin” steadily for what seemed about two hours.
There wasn’t much to see in the darkness outside except the green signal lights alongside the tracks. By watching the ground as it zoomed by, I could tell the “monkey motion” on that old engine was really churning and the green lights beckoned “c’mon.” I pulled some of the ankle-deep, loose hay up under me to soften the hard floor. My belly said it was time to knock out that last can of sardines I had in my back pocket. I took out my all-purpose hobo pocketknife and began opening them up.
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