‘Ooowee!’ he said, as he showed me the pills. ‘I take these and work out at the Y, and some days my muscles start to twitchin’ and I jes be watchin’ ’em grow! You be scared when it happens the first time, till you get used to it.’
Yes, I was only too glad to vacate my mat as soon as the clipboard flunky marked me present. Compared to the crazy bunch at the Morrison, two alkie Vietnam vets like Keith and Bulldog seemed practically sane.
So I spent another night at the ‘trailer park’ and in the morning I went back to the Morrison to pick up the first of the three AV slips I needed. While I was there, I grabbed a shower and spruced up a bit for a day of job hunting, then set off downhill to the waterfront with high hopes. Only to discover, after I’d been given the same bad news at four different fishing companies, that there was no hope of me landing a galley cook’s job or even a slot on a cannery slime line.
It turned out none of the Alaskan companies would hire you unless you first came up with a security deposit to cover the cost of your airfare to Anchorage, plus the cost of any cold-weather gear you’d have to purchase to work safely in the Arctic. The numbers I was quoted ranged anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars. Apparently, the companies had gotten burned by too many wannabes who would fly up on the company’s dime and then quit before they’d fulfilled their contract. I could see why a deposit made sense – and, as they all pointed out, you’d get the money back eventually, once your contract was up. But I knew I had no hope of raising that kind of money before all the jobs were taken, so that grand scheme had unravelled mighty quickly. It looked like my only option was to go back to scouring the daily want-ads in the Seattle Intelligencer. I just hoped I could stick it out on the streets of the Emerald City long enough to land a job.
Well, I thought, at least in this town they won’t hold my blue parka against me.
I broke the bad news to Keith and Bulldog when I met up with them for lunch at the Indian Center and they both said, in that case, I’d be silly not to get over to the Welfare Office and fill out an application for the ‘drunk cheque’ programme.
‘It’s easy money, and it sounds like you could use it till you get squared away. They’ll schedule you for an appointment with the house shrink, but he’s a sucker for a sob story. A writer like you should have no trouble coming up with a tale of woe he’ll swallow. And once he signs off, you’ll get a cheque within two weeks. Go for it, man,’ Bulldog urged. ‘What have you got to lose?’
‘Yeah, maybe I’ll give it a shot,’ I said, noncommittal. I wasn’t really convinced it was a move I wanted to make. I’d have to sleep on it. Meanwhile, it was time to get busy checking the want-ads, so I rode the free bus back downtown to the library and went straight to the periodicals room to consult that day’s Intelligencer. And damned if I didn’t come across an intriguing ad right away – one seeking line cooks to work in Yellowstone National Park for the summer season. I’d never been to the Rockies, but in my youth I’d read so many Field & Stream stories about the trout fishing in Montana and Wyoming I already felt I had a sense of the place – this seemed like the perfect time in my life to go explore it.
The ad gave an 800-number you could call to request an application, which I promptly did – glad that I was already on the rolls at the Morrison Hotel because they were the only shelter in town that let you receive mail at their address. When I got through to the personnel department at TW Services, the concessionaire that ran the park’s hotels and restaurants, I spoke with a friendly young woman named Carly, who gave me a quick rundown of the application process and the encouraging news that they still had available slots in the kitchen at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, which was due to open for the season in three weeks’ time. She promised to ship an application to me in that day’s mail and informed me I’d have to submit three letters of reference and a twenty-five-dollar refundable application fee when I mailed my application back. I thanked her and said I hoped I’d be meeting her in person soon. As soon as I hung up, I started dialling Information to check the phone numbers of the only three people I could think of who might give me a favourable job reference: Ace, my buddy who owned the Raccoon Lodge; Danny B, my old chef-mentor; and Father Gary, at St Francis Church in Portland, even though I’d only worked a couple of months in his kitchen. I’d have to wait until tomorrow to call them, though. I’d need to raise cash at the Stab Lab in the morning before I could afford three long-distance calls. But I trusted all three would come through for me, and I could already picture myself in Yellowstone, cooking for tourists and fishing for cutthroat trout. After the discouraging news on the waterfront that morning, this was the break I needed, I was sure of it, and I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through every book about Yellowstone Park that I could find in the stacks, getting more excited by the hour.
I was still all fired up when I joined the boys in camp that night, and they both said they’d keep their fingers crossed that I got the job. I even let them talk me into a gut-burning swig of Rosie to toast the occasion, but one slug was all I could take. How they drank that poisonous crap day in and day out was a mystery.
‘Hell, if you land the job, you’re going to need travelling money,’ Bulldog said. ‘You could use that drunk cheque now more than ever. If I was you, I’d get right in there to see the shrink tomorrow so you can collect a cheque before you split.’
‘Yeah, it would definitely come in handy,’ I agreed. ‘I guess I’ll have to bum a few swigs of Rosie from you after we get out of the Stab Lab tomorrow so my breath will smell convincing.’
Even with a hefty slug of Irish Rose in my system, I still had the jitters when I walked into the Welfare Office the next day. The last time I’d had any dealings with a shrink was during my intake process at Rikers, where you’re forced to undergo a ‘psych-eval’ to see if you’re suicidal before you’re allowed to enter the general prison population.
The prison shrink, who spoke with a sing-song Bollywood accent, reviewed the questionnaire I’d filled out and raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re a Dartmouth graduate?’
‘That’s right,’ I nodded. ‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Well, actually, it does,’ he replied. ‘We don’t get many Ivy Leaguers in here.’
‘I imagine not.’ I shrugged. ‘And yet here I am.’
The shrink then ran through a list of questions about my drug and alcohol use, which I answered truthfully, but when he got around to asking if I’d ever tried to do myself harm I laughed in his face.
‘You find that question funny?’ he frowned, looking perplexed.
‘Come on, Doc, honestly,’ I grinned. ‘I’m sitting here wearing prison green. Isn’t the harm I’ve done to myself pretty obvious?’
The Welfare Office waiting room had a separate, glassed-off smoking annexe and to calm my nerves I ducked in before my appointment with the shrink. While I was lighting up, I overheard an old wino grandma giving the business to another white-haired alkie, a guy who had the shakes so bad he could hardly get his cigarette to his mouth.
‘Lookitchew!’ she said. ‘You better lay off for a while, or you’ll never make it to your next cheque. You’re shakin’ like a damned dog shittin’ razorblades.’
The alkie grinned at her and said, ‘Yeah, this morning I thought I was usin’ a ’lectric toothbrush.’
When I was finally sitting down in Dr Nelson’s office, he wasn’t as difficult to talk to as I’d feared. He asked me to tell him what I thought had led to my problem with alcohol, and I stammered out some bullshit about growing up with an alcoholic mom. Then I capped off my tale of woe by blaming my recent struggles with alcohol on the depression I’d been suffering since my wife Kate’s death. It wasn’t till I got back outside on the street that I came to the humbling realisation that most of the ‘bullshit’ I’d just fed the shrink was truer than I’d been willing to admit. But bullshit or not, my performance had earned me the doc’s seal of approval, and within the next two weeks I’d be cashing my first ‘dru
nk cheque’. My quest to amass a little getaway money was off to a promising start.
The Yellowstone application packet turned up in my mailbox at the Morrison Hotel a few days later, followed shortly thereafter by the three letters of reference I’d solicited. Everything was coming together nicely. My bighearted friend Ace at the Raccoon Lodge even tucked a twenty-dollar money order in with his letter of reference, which just about covered the application fee I had to send in with my packet, so he’d helped me out in more ways than he knew. Father Gary’s reference letter was the last to arrive, and the minute I had it in hand I rushed to the post office. Now all I could do was wait and pray.
When there’d been no response through the mail for what seemed like an interminable week, my impatience got the better of me, and I crossed my fingers and called Carly at the TW Services office. My timing couldn’t have been better. She cheerily informed me that she’d just put my contract in the mail the day before. I was hired! And the news got even better when she went on to tell me that she’d arranged for me to have my own private room in one of the employee dorms. I was older than the college kids who made up the bulk of the seasonal hotel staff and she figured I’d be more comfortable on my own. I told her that was fantastic, since I was trying to write a book, and the solitude would suit me fine.
The next week and a half kept me busy, as I ran around town making preparations to leave. My drunk cheque came through, and I had Keith sell half my next Food Stamp allocation for cash at the crooked grocery store where he always cashed in his monthly stamps. I was happy when he got me seventy cents on the dollar. It was better than the scam artists in Portland paid. With that money, and the cash I’d been squirrelling away from my visits to the Stab Lab, I had about $250 to spend on getting outfitted for the trip to Montana. By the time I was done buying clothes and camping gear and a serious backcountry backpack, I had spent nearly all of it, but I didn’t care. I’d be earning a real pay cheque soon enough, and in the meantime I wouldn’t need much money since the trip out to Montana wouldn’t cost me a thing. I’d be making it by freight train.
As luck would have it, I’d met a guy from the Blackfeet reservation in Montana the previous week while I was eating lunch at the Native American Center and he’d told me I could take a city bus north to the neighbouring town of Everett and catch out from there on a train that would take me east to Spokane. He said then I’d just have switch tracks to what he called the Southern Line and I could catch a train that would take me clear through to Bozeman, Montana, only ninety miles north of Yellowstone. Depending how the trains were running, I could probably make the trip in three or four days tops, he figured, which was good to know, because now I could set the date for my departure. I had to be in Yellowstone by the start of the third week in May. If I set out from Everett a week before that, I should make it in plenty of time.
When the Sunday of my departure finally arrived, I joined Keith and Bulldog for a final breakfast at the Union Gospel Mission, and there were backslaps and fist bumps all around as I said my goodbyes. They’d been a real help to me over the past month, and good company to boot. I could only pray that one day they’d get it together and find a way off the streets the same as me. But I had a sad hunch Rosie wouldn’t relinquish her grip on their lives anytime soon, so for me our parting was bittersweet.
The bus to Everett dropped me off in the downtown business section, and after getting directions from one of the locals I set off through the sleepy Sunday streets toward the railyards on the edge of town, glad not to be lugging a duffel bag for a change. My new backpack was roomy enough to stow everything I owned and, with my sleeping bag now properly stored in a waterproof stuff-sack cinched to the bottom of my pack, I’d have the use of both hands when it came time to board a train, so I was more confident than I’d been in Vancouver. I couldn’t wait to get rolling.
On the way to the yards, I stopped at a park beside the tracks and read a memorial plaque commemorating the Wobblies who’d been shot up by local vigilantes in the labour riots back in 1916. I thought I could remember hearing Woody Guthrie singing about the massacre on one of his old recordings, though I couldn’t recall the specific song. There were several tramps lounging on benches in the park, enjoying the mild spring weather, and I walked over to see if they knew anything about when the next eastbound freight might be passing through. They did, and it seemed I was fated to spend the night in Everett; they gave me the same bad news I’d gotten in Vancouver – no freight trains ran through on Sundays. But they showed me where to find a cut flap in the tall chain-link fence that separated the park from the tracks, and said I’d be safe making camp overnight in the bushes on the far side of the yard. Oh well, I thought. Another night under the stars. No biggie. At least with my new one-burner camp stove, I’d have coffee and hot beans for supper.
My vigil in Everett turned out to be longer than I’d hoped. The eastbound freight I was waiting on didn’t show up until almost sundown on Monday. The good thing was that it turned out to be a train full of container freight, and that usually meant a hi-ball express, so maybe I’d make up some time out on the rails. Even better, the train came to a full stop in the yards, so I didn’t even have to make a run for it. I got spotted by a brakeman who was walking down the line as I scrambled aboard one of the container cars, but he just gave me a sympathetic nod and when he passed by the car he asked how far I was headed.
‘Spokane first, then on to Bozeman,’ I told him.
‘We should make Spokane by sun-up,’ he said. ‘After that, we cut north to the Hi-Line, so you’ll need a different train to get you to Montana.’
Though I already knew that, I thanked him anyway, but then he gave me a tip that turned out to be crucial. He warned me we’d be running through a really long tunnel on the way north through the Cascades, where the diesel smoke from the locomotives got pretty thick. ‘Better tie a wet cloth around your face as soon as we enter the tunnel, or you’ll be choking before we get halfway through,’ he advised.
Now there was a wrinkle I hadn’t considered. Thank goodness whatever angels looked after fools who hop freight trains had sent a kind-hearted brakeman my way. Even with a wet bandana tied over my nose and mouth, I sucked in so much eye-watering smoke on the way through that endless tunnel I was still coughing hours later when we stopped in apple country in the middle of the night to take on more cars in Wenatchee. While the train was stopped, I scouted the yard for bulls. Seeing none, I hopped down to the tracks to take a quick piss and spotted some tramps jungled up in a grove of willows at the far side of the yard. I’d have envied them their campfire if I hadn’t had my sleeping bag to keep me warm. Even with the night air whipping all around me when the train was doing sixty I was comfortably snug in my bag, and when I crawled back into it as the train pulled out of Wenatchee I didn’t wake up again until the morning sun was shining on my face.
We were rolling through the high desert wheat fields of eastern Washington now, and in the bright morning sun the farmers’ giant irrigation wheels were spraying rainbows all around me as the train commenced a long arching sweep to the north and went barrelling over a series of high trestles that brought us to the outskirts of Spokane. I quickly stowed my sleeping bag in its stuff-sack, clipped it to my pack and got ready to toss it overboard whenever the train’s speed slacked off.
The one element of a proper flying dismount that my practice session with Keith and Bulldog hadn’t taught me was how to gauge when a train is travelling at a speed slow enough to safely perform the manoeuvre. That was a skill you could only get from experience, and my woeful lack of it was on display that morning as I tossed my pack overboard prematurely – and then discovered that the train was still moving way too fast for me to keep up with when I tried dangling from the ladder and running beside the container car. The instant my first foot touched the gravel I knew I was in trouble. The ground was flying by so fast beneath me it snatched my foot and threw it backwards like a shot, right toward the mauling steel wh
eels. No good! Pull up! my brain screamed, and with a panicked burst of strength I hauled myself back up onto the ladder’s bottom rung and heaved a big sigh of relief.
I was two miles further down the track when the train finally slowed to a speed that seemed more manageable and this time my flying dismount went off without a hitch. However, my miscalculation had just cost me a four-mile hike back to the spot where I’d tossed my gear. As I was backtracking – and cursing myself for making such a rookie mistake – I encountered another tramp walking along the tracks and I asked him if he knew where I could catch a Montana-bound train.
‘That’d be the Lo-Line you’re looking for, then,’ he said. ‘But you’re heading in the wrong direction. The Lo-Line junction’s back in the main yard. You need to turn around.’
‘Got to go retrieve my pack first,’ I grinned. ‘I threw it off the train too soon.’
‘Been there, done that,’ the old tramp grinned back. Then he warned me that I might have a long wait ahead of me, since not many freight trains took the Lo-Line route any more. ‘You could be waiting two or three days before an eastbound train comes through,’ he said.
‘Shit, really?’ I frowned. ‘Guess I’ll just have to hitchhike. I need to be in Yellowstone Park by the end of the week.’
‘Well, then hitching’s the way to go,’ the tramp agreed. ‘If you get lucky with your thumb, you might just make it by nightfall.’
By God, I hope he’s right, I murmured, as I continued down the tracks to retrieve my gear. But the tramp’s prediction proved to be overly optimistic. By nightfall, I’d only made it as far as Missoula, Montana, after a series of short-hop rides across the Idaho Panhandle – and a lot of time spent standing around on the outskirts of shabby little mining towns in the Bitterroot Mountains, wagging my thumb till the next Samaritan came along. Two hundred miles in eight hours of hitchhiking was pretty pathetic progress, but when my final ride of the day brought me over the crest of Lookout Pass and I got my first glimpse of Montana, the hard miles I’d put in seemed worth the effort.
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