Hey, everyone. I had the occasion to be out late tonight. I was driving North and passed a south-bound train as the tracks happened to be next to the highway. It was a pretty night, 75 degrees and a big, bright moon. I had my roof open and my driver's window down. I could hear the click clack of the train on the track and the creaking of the box cars as they wobbled. There must have been a couple of miles of empty box cars, some with their doors open. As I looked over at the silent box cars, peering idly into their deeply shadowed interiors, I felt a chill in my inmost being. The creeps, as they called it when I was a kid.
"What an odd thing to feel!" I said out loud. I couldn't see any reason for it, really. I never was one to ride the rails. I hitch-hiked when I was young, all over the United States, but I was not a hobo. As I watched the cars rattle by I wondered what dark deed might be even then taking place inside one of them. What a scary place to be if you were a young kid, like me when I was hitching rides in remote places. What might have happened to me if I had traveled in one of these dark cars? I have lived to be an old man but it could have worked out very differently.
As the train and I passed a lighted area, I saw a ragged man sitting in the open door of a box car. The train was ripping along at a decent pace, probably in excess of 50 M.P.H. The wind blew the guy's long hair about his face. He had one boot propped casually against the rolling door of the car and seemed to be enjoying his free ride and the warm southern night. In the few seconds he was within my sight, he saw me looking over and threw up his hand in casual salute. In typical reflex, I waved in return and within the blink of an eye we were receding from one another's sight.
As he disappeared, I had that sort of profound feeling that it was not all happenstance. Had I known this guy? Would I know him in the future? Would he be a character in one of my books? Had I attended school with him many years ago? Maybe I had been friends with his mother, or his father. Perhaps, except for the grace of God or pure coincidence, I might be him and he might be me. I might be heading south to some unknown fate, rather than toward the green retreat.
I thought of a character from my novel, Spam And Rice. A guy who traveled in box cars and whose hobby it was to leave trains for a day or a night and kill women. Then he would jump another freight and be long gone before the body was discovered. I think there was actually a guy who did this throughout the southwest many years ago. Freak-a-zoid.
Tonight was just another trip home, with my writer's imagination drifting as my car somehow drove itself home, here to the green retreat and the bed where my woman lies softly breathing. Dreaming her dreams and keeping me warm. I don't miss the freedom of the road, nor do I envy the hobo his open box-car and warm southern night. His freedom does not entice me because Janis Joplin told me, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
Tonight I'll lay in bed next to my baby and think about the man in the box car. I wonder if he would rather be in the green retreat?
I'm CE Wills.
"What an odd thing to feel!" I said out loud. I couldn't see any reason for it, really. I never was one to ride the rails. I hitch-hiked when I was young, all over the United States, but I was not a hobo. As I watched the cars rattle by I wondered what dark deed might be even then taking place inside one of them. What a scary place to be if you were a young kid, like me when I was hitching rides in remote places. What might have happened to me if I had traveled in one of these dark cars? I have lived to be an old man but it could have worked out very differently.
As the train and I passed a lighted area, I saw a ragged man sitting in the open door of a box car. The train was ripping along at a decent pace, probably in excess of 50 M.P.H. The wind blew the guy's long hair about his face. He had one boot propped casually against the rolling door of the car and seemed to be enjoying his free ride and the warm southern night. In the few seconds he was within my sight, he saw me looking over and threw up his hand in casual salute. In typical reflex, I waved in return and within the blink of an eye we were receding from one another's sight.
As he disappeared, I had that sort of profound feeling that it was not all happenstance. Had I known this guy? Would I know him in the future? Would he be a character in one of my books? Had I attended school with him many years ago? Maybe I had been friends with his mother, or his father. Perhaps, except for the grace of God or pure coincidence, I might be him and he might be me. I might be heading south to some unknown fate, rather than toward the green retreat.
I thought of a character from my novel, Spam And Rice. A guy who traveled in box cars and whose hobby it was to leave trains for a day or a night and kill women. Then he would jump another freight and be long gone before the body was discovered. I think there was actually a guy who did this throughout the southwest many years ago. Freak-a-zoid.
Tonight was just another trip home, with my writer's imagination drifting as my car somehow drove itself home, here to the green retreat and the bed where my woman lies softly breathing. Dreaming her dreams and keeping me warm. I don't miss the freedom of the road, nor do I envy the hobo his open box-car and warm southern night. His freedom does not entice me because Janis Joplin told me, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
Tonight I'll lay in bed next to my baby and think about the man in the box car. I wonder if he would rather be in the green retreat?
I'm CE Wills.
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