The Volunteer
10
JESS PUT AWAY HIS GUN and the guys at the fire kept talking but G2 kept moving further and further away until he was up next to the tracks on the trestle. He piled some leaves around him and huddled in his blanket. First train that comes, he thought. It was past the middle of the night when hell broke loose. Most of the action was on the other side of the tracks and trestle from where G2 huddled. There was no place further for him to go. He didn’t like to walk across trestle bridges—especially at night. If a train came there was no place to get to safety. G2 knew stories of people who’d been caught unawares and were killed by an oncoming locomotive. Most of them were amateurs or drunk, but G2 was careful around bridges like that. They were dangerous. It’s not that G2 never took risks. He’d once jumped from an overpass onto a passing train below him. He would probably have rolled off the top and been killed if one foot hadn’t broken through the top of the cattle car he landed on and held him there. It happened that the car was full, so if he’d fallen all the way through he’d just as likely have been trampled to death. G2 pried the splintered wood away from his leg and crawled along the top of the cars until he found an open grain car. He sat in the grain and picked splinters out of his leg for the next twenty miles. But G2 remembered an absolute positive feeling that he would be safe if he jumped that train. He hadn’t even considered what would happen if he fell off or fell through. He just acted. It was what he was supposed to do. And it was probably the right thing to do since he was being chased by a group of punks who had been going around town beating up homeless men. They didn’t seem to need a reason, and as long as they weren’t bothering regular people, the police seemed to be slow to act. G2 certainly wasn’t going to wait to see if the cops would protect him.
G2 didn’t feel safe when the police arrived under the trestle that night, either. There were dogs and lots of lights. Orders were shouted over a bullhorn down below as the police swept the area with powerful flashlights. G2 could hear Jess’s voice booming out, “Hell no, we won’t go!” Things were going to get ugly. G2 looked down the track to see redemption coming. The light of a slow-moving freight was coming around the curve to face the trestle. He crouched next to the track, ready to make his jump for the first available car. Then there was a gun shot from below and G2 felt panic take hold of him. The train was nearly there, but as G2 looked down the slope toward the water, he saw a figure come out from under the bridge, momentarily in the light, then in shadow again. There was a return volley of gunfire, then silence. Against the reflected light on the water below, G2 could see Jess moving up the slope. It was a steep ascent, G2 knew from having climbed it earlier in the night. Jess slipped and went down just as three police officers came out from under the bridge and began scanning the slope above them. With Jess down, G2 was the only thing visible above the police and as the light picked him out in the darkness, G2 leaped for the train. He felt the searing pain in his left leg and then heard the retort of the rifle below him. He hung onto the ladder as the train carried him out over the water on the trestle. The beam was swinging to pick him out again when Jess stood and started firing at the lights below him. There was an answering volley from below and this time G2 saw Jess pitch forward and down the slope toward the police officers. G2 dragged himself into the back well of a jimmie hopper car, but the lights did not return to scan the freight. They were focused on two bodies that lay at the bottom of the slope. It appeared that Jess would never get that brain transplant.
G2 examined his wound the best he could in the darkness of the freight as it picked up speed. He wondered if there were still county hospitals where they took people to die when no friends showed up to claim them. But in spite of the pain and through the tears that ran down G2’s cheeks, he knew he wasn’t going to go to any hospital. The bullet entered the back outside of his left thigh and exited the back inside of his thigh. It looked like he’d had a spike driven through his leg, but it hadn’t hit the bone. G2 opened his wine bottle and poured the last few drops into each of the wounds. He wept more—whether from the pain of the alcohol touching the fresh wound or from the loss of his last precious drops of wine, he was unsure. He pitched the bottle off the train and huddled in the corner of the well shuddering and crying. The salty tears ran through his beard and into his mouth. G2 slept with the taste of salt water on his lips.
Gerald loved salt water taffy. There was something special about the sweet saltiness of the sticky candy, especially if you got it at the county fair. It was even more exciting at this year’s fair because he had a championship photography exhibit. All Gerald’s friends were in 4-H, so it seemed natural for him to be in 4-H as well. Of course, he couldn’t enter any of the animal husbandry categories. His family didn’t live on a farm. They lived in the suburbs. They didn’t even let him keep rabbits like Brian did that year. But for some reason, his mother thought he needed something to keep him busy this summer, so she entered him in three different projects in the 4-H Club. Head, heart, hands, and health, his mother said. It was a mantra that Gerald memorized since they repeated it at every 4-H meeting. The meetings were held at the local junior high school and it was fun. Gerald especially liked Woodcraft I. Each boy was given a piece of maple and a picture of a pig. Mr. Graves showed the boys how to use the flat of a pencil to cover the back of the picture with graphite. The boys taped the picture to the maple with the graphite down and carefully drew over the pig outline. When they untaped the pattern and lifted it from the wood, the drawing had been transferred to the maple. Each boy was given a coping saw, and over the next three club meetings, they cut the pig shape out of the wood. Then they were given sandpaper. “A cutting board,” Mr. Graves told the boys, “needs to be smooth as glass so your mother doesn’t get a splinter when she uses it.” After they had smoothed the board, they oiled it with tung oil. That “raised the grain” and they had to use fine steel wool to smooth it back down to its glassy finish. Finally, the boys had to mark the spot for the center of the half-inch hole that would be drilled in the pig’s tail so it could be hung on a peg. Each boy took his pig to Mr. Graves and positioned it on the drill press. Mr. Graves would pull the handle down so the point of the drill was just above the spot marked and ask if that was the right spot. The boy could adjust the pig until it was perfect and then Mr. Graves turned on the drill and bored a hole through the pig. Gerald’s hole was off-center. In fact, it was so far off-center that there was scarcely any wood between the hole and the edge of the wood. Nonetheless, Gerald finished the project, sanded it, and entered it in the competition. He received a white participation ribbon for his efforts. His mother, who loved her new cutting board, often pointed out that some of the projects weren’t identifiable as pigs at all and she didn’t have a peg to hang hers from anyway, so the off-center hole didn’t make a bit of difference. She loved it. She was still using it that last time Gerald had visited her.
But Gerald’s presence at the Brown County Fair was not for his woodworking project, nor for the carefully collected and pressed leaves glued to a piece of poster board for his Forestry I project. Gerald was at the fair because of his photography project. Gerald’s camera was not the greatest. He had a Kodak Instamatic 104 with a flash cube. Photography I was a competition for black and white photos. Gerald shot three 12-exposure cartridges of photos over the course of the summer. None of the shots were great. They were all in focus, though, and Gerald had chosen good subjects and composition. When they got the film and negatives back from Walgreen’s Gerald had a hard time choosing which of the shots he should exhibit, so he took them to Indian Guides and showed everyone his photography. Something about the picture of two horses with their heads over the fence got Mr. Buckley to thinking. He spoke to Gerald’s dad and the next day Gerald and his father took Gerald’s negatives to Mr. Buckley. They talked about the project and about the rules for the entries. Then Mr. Buckley and Gerald’s dad went to the dark room while Gerald and Dennis went out to play. Mr. Buckley had a good eye for composition and saw right away that Gerald had good subject matter that was hampered by the quality of the camera and the processing of the prints. He chose twelve photos for Gerald to exhibit and made new prints, improving contrast and using paper that would yield more solid blacks. When he saw the results, Gerald was very proud of his accomplishments. He carefully mounted the photos on his poster board, labeled them, and submitted his entry. Gerald’s photo exhibit was the county champion Photography I exhibit.
And that was why Gerald was dropped off at the fairgrounds by his father on the way to work that Monday morning. The 4-H champions were photographed and interviewed for the local newspaper. Tuesday morning a two-page spread ran in the paper about the county fair and the exhibits that people would see when they went out to the DePere Fairgrounds that week. The problem was that the interviews and photos were done at 10:00 in the morning and nothing else at the fair really opened until afternoon. Gerald wandered through the horse barns, the cattle barns, and the sheep barns. He looked at the commercial exhibits, but they were all draped with sheets until the exhibitors and shillers could get there. He wandered the midway, but there was nothing open. No rides would run until 3:00 in the afternoon. That was when Gerald saw the big taffy pulling machine at work. The front of the Salt Water Taffy stand still had the shade pulled down, but when Gerald walked through behind the trailers, he saw that the door of the taffy wagon was open. He stood there rapt as the arms of the machine went around in opposite directions pulling the taffy first one way and then another. Two old people with white hair tended the machine and kneaded and rolled the taffy on the big stone slab then cut it into rounds. Gerald couldn’t believe how fast their hands went as they wrapped candy and tossed the wrapped treasures into bins by flavor. As the man was taking a batch of candy off the puller, he caught sight of Gerald watching through the open door.
“Martha, we’ve got a spectator,” he said. The woman turned from her work without slowing down as she wrapped and twisted the ends of the papers on the candy.
“Do you think it’s an elf?” she asked. The man bent over to look at Gerald, then turned and flipped the mass of candy onto the kneading board.
“No, I don’t think so. His ears aren’t pointy.”
“Now George, you know that the Northern elves have round ears.” Then Martha paused and looked into Gerald’s shining eyes. “But you are right. The pupils are round. Elves have vertical pupils, like a cat. What do you suppose it could be?”
“You don’t suppose it’s a child, do you?” George asked as he poured a ladle of fruit over the candy on the table and began to roll it up.
“A child?” Martha asked. “Whatever would a child be doing here? Why I haven’t seen a child in twenty years.” Martha stooped again, looking at Gerald and then asked, “Are you a child?”
“I’m a boy,” Gerald said, almost laughing out loud.
“A boy? George, it says it’s a boy.”
“You don’t say! Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure.” George came to the door. “You say you’re a boy? Do you like salt water taffy?” Gerald didn’t know. He told the man that he didn’t think he’d ever had salt water taffy. “Well, let’s find out,” George said. With that he turned with a rolled piece of candy. “Now you have to take the paper off of this, and then you eat it. Not the paper—what’s inside it. Can you do that?” Gerald nodded his head. He took the piece of candy from the old man, unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth. The first chew almost welded his jaw shut, but the burst of flavors was overwhelming. It was sweet with just a little hint of salt—and peppermint. It was delicious. Gerald loved it. This was the best thing he had ever tasted. “Do you like it?” George asked him.
“Yesh,” Gerald said, his mouth was watering around the candy so much that he couldn’t speak without slurring the word.
“It’s a boy,” George said proudly. “And just in time, too,” he added. “Do you have anywhere you are supposed to be?”
“Not until 1:00,” Gerald said.
“Well we could certainly use your help, since you are a boy and all. It’s slow work, but if you like salt water taffy, you could be our tester this morning.”
“What does your tester do?” Gerald asked excitedly.
“Well, each time a batch of candy comes off the puller and we add flavor to it and start cutting the pieces, the tester has to take the first piece off the roll and chew it up to tell us if the batch is okay. Are you willing to try?”
“Oh yes,” Gerald answered. Over the rest of the morning, Gerald had a piece of salt water taffy about every fifteen minutes as the couple expertly flipped each batch off the puller and put a new one on. The cut fruit, vanilla, cinnamon, wintergreen, jelly candies, and chocolate into the still hot candy as they kneaded it, rolled it, and cut the first piece off the roll to hand to Gerald. He pronounced every batch the best he’d ever tasted. During the course of the morning, they talked about his winning project and George and Martha both promised they would go look at his pictures when the exhibits opened. From that day on, Gerald had a weakness for salt water taffy.
G2 couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a piece of salt water taffy, and that only made the tears run more.
G2 was on the wrong side of the lake. It was the hottest summer he could remember and he had been heading west from New York. He got as far as Detroit and realized he would have to go into Chicago, or try to find a way around the northern end of the lake. G2 would have liked to go around the north, but the rail lines that went up that way had been abandoned long ago, which meant he’d have to hitchhike and take his chances. It was a bad territory to be abandoned in. But if he went south, he would have to go through Chicago and head north, a prospect that he also didn’t relish.
Gerald was thirteen when Brian’s father took the boys to St. Ignace, Michigan. In his own kind way, Howard was trying to step in to fill the void left by the death of Gerald’s dad. On Labor Day weekend that year, they’d gone up to St. Ignace and walked the five miles across the Mackinac Bridge to Mackinaw City. Then they caught a bus back to St. Ignace. Gerald wasn’t sure how to act on the trip. It had always been so natural when the boys went up with Gerald’s dad. Even though Gerald respected Howard and even admired him because he worked in a factory, it seemed different somehow. But Howard was undaunted. He took the boys to the Mystery Spot, and Gerald was impressed that it was even cooler than the one he’d seen in the Ozarks. A ball actually rolled uphill. “Amazing,” Brian said, when they got in the car. “Incredible,” Gerald added. “You won’t believe your eyes!” Howard chimed in. They all laughed and started using the words from the signs for the Mystery Spot for everything that happened. “How was lunch, boys?” Howard would ask. “Amazing!” Gerald said. “Incredible!” Brian added. “Mind-boggling,” Howard said. He took the boys to the ferry terminal in St. Ignace and they boarded the boat to Mackinac Island. The Island was only reachable by ferry and Howard said that when they were offered the option of being included in the early plans for the bridge, the people turned it down emphatically. There were no cars on Mackinac Island and they wanted to keep it that way. They explored the shops and even went on a short horse ride. The horses proved to be so set on getting back to the barn, though, that they ignored the commands of the three novice riders entirely after about half an hour and took the shortest route back to the stable, crashing through underbrush and trying to lose their riders all the way. “Amazing,” Howard said when they dismounted. The boys broke out laughing so hard they couldn’t finish the lines. The trip back across the strait was harrowing, though. The winds had picked up and the passenger ferry was tossed around. Brian and his father stayed below, but Gerald felt compelled to be at the prow of the boat, as far out as passengers were allowed to go. He leaned out into the wind as the boat cut through the choppy waters, splashing a spray over the foredeck with every plunge. Gerald was sure he was going to die when this ferry sank. That was the way it would be. But he would face death proudly, feeling like he was flying over the water. When they made it back to St. Ignace, Gerald was cold and soaked through. His teeth were chattering so hard he could hardly speak. “Are you okay?” Howard asked Gerald as they stepped ashore. “I… in… incredible,” Gerald stammered. “Amazing,” Brian said sarcastically.
G2 stood a little ways off from the small group that gathered in the cemetery. It didn’t make any difference what city he was in; this ritual took place once a year. Half a dozen preacher-types in the robes of different faiths gathered around a grave as a stone was laid over it. They sang a song G2 didn’t know. A man with an ID badge hanging around his neck spoke about the county’s responsibility to provide a respectful burial for the indigents who have no family able to care for their remains. This year, over 200 cremated remains were to be added to the vault where hundreds already lay. “We need to take care of our homeless population,” said the man with the badge. “Sometimes that includes taking care of their final resting place.” A television crew interviewed the man and one of the preachers at the gravesite. There were only a dozen others present by the grave. G2 looked around. The homeless were there. No more than shadows behind a tombstone or a tree, they silently said their goodbyes to family, friends, or acquaintances and then slipped away from the cemetery before anyone noticed them. G2 sat beside a marker that read, “James Martin, devoted husband and father, 1942-2001.” 59 years old, G2 thought. He was nearly that. Almost two thirds of his life had been spent with no place that he called home. James Martin had a home. It was right here in this graveyard. That’s what a home was, after all. A graveyard.
Somewhere his father and mother had a home. Maybe other people G2 knew, too. He wondered if in the cemetery the dead ever talked with each other. If so, would James Martin be sauntering over to the indigent grave saying welcome to the neighborhood? Or would he be organizing a committee to get the homeless campsite moved to a different part of the cemetery so the value of his lot didn’t go down. Or maybe, James Martin was too busy with playing his harp and shining his halo to notice that 200 more people had just moved into his neighborhood. It seemed there was always room for more.
When the camera crew had left and the preachers were gone, a crew came out and took down the little tent that they’d put up over the site to keep the rain off. G2 was pretty damp by then, but when they left he stumbled over to the marker and read the list of names. He thought he recognized one or two. Didn’t know what had happened to Margaret McGwire. Now she rests in peace, better cared for in death than she had been in life. “God bless,” G2 whispered and then wandered out toward the highway.
“It was only a fish,” Gerald’s mother said. Nonetheless, she prepared the tiny goldfish respectfully as the children watched. There would be a “burial at sea” she told them. Sparky the goldfish had come to them as part of a children’s carnival at school. Gerald still wasn’t sure what he had done to “win” the fish. It seemed that everyone who attended had managed the feat, however. He had thrown balls at milk cartons, bean bags through a clown’s face, and had skipped, jumped, and hopped over ten feet. Marion had only managed three feet, but she was only three years old. Sparky lived in a quart Mason jar in Gerald’s room and he fed the fish generously two or three times a day. In two weeks, the jar was filled with cloudy water and Sparky was listing to one side. His mother used a kitchen strainer to transfer Sparky to a clean jar and water and soaked his former home in dish detergent and hot water for most of a day before she could face putting the bottle brush into the opening. But Sparky had never straightened up and two days later was floating on his back at the top of the jar. His mother had put the fish through the strainer again and set another jar to soak. She dumped the body out onto a piece of toilet paper and rolled it up. “It’s a burial shroud,” she told the children. Then they marched into the bathroom and she slid Sparky off a wooden spatula into the toilet bowl and flushed. “May Sparky swim in freedom in the underground rivers and sewers from this day forward,” his mother intoned as the children stood at attention and saluted.
Gerald had never thought of the notion of underground rivers before. It was cool. If he had his choices, maybe he would be buried at sea as well. He wondered how you would flush a person into the sewers. That must be what they did at the big sewage treatment plant. He imagined a big toilet bowl where his body would go round and round in a circle until it flushed out of sight into the wonderful world of underground rivers to swim there forever. It didn’t bother Gerald that poop also got flushed down that hole. After all, it had been a clean bowl when Sparky went down. He was sure there were different passages. For several nights after that, Gerald dreamed of going round and round in circles to the underground rivers to swim there forever. Amen.
G2 found himself once again in front of the Manhattan Club. He was pretty sure it was Wednesday, but he hadn’t seen the guy. Maybe he was on vacation. It was hot enough, even up north. Maybe he’d gone to the lake and was dragging his kids on skis behind a big powerful boat. G2 knew that was what he’d be doing if he were at the lake this time of year. In fact, he bet he could still find his way up to that lake. What was the name of it, anyway? Something Indian-sounding. He sat there in front of the café and held his sign in front of him. Most everyone ignored him. He didn’t care. He had a bottle stashed in his bag and knew he could get a little food from the kitchen if he went around back, even if he had to dumpster dive to get it. The guy would be there. He was as sure of that as that his name was G2. Or Gerald Good. Whatever. Gerald automatically reached for his pad of paper when he saw the green Toyota pull up to the curb. 666-BST. How could that person drive around in a car that had the mark of the beast on it? It was risking an awful lot. Not that G2 believed in a beast or a mark, but a lot of hobos held the mark in high regard. Putting 666 on a tree or mailbox spoke ill of the family who lived there. They all avoided railcars numbered 666 and G2 had once seen the numbers tagged on the inside of a box car. The car had a foul odor and G2 found a different one to ride in.
He was so intent on analyzing the license plate that he almost missed the guy coming out of the restaurant. He was alone, that was strange. Usually they only came to the Manhattan on business or with friends, but the guy was looking a little tipsy. Must have had a two martini lunch. Maybe three, G2 thought when the guy tripped in front of him and almost fell. His hand snaked out and G2 could see the wadded up dollar bill in his fingers, ready to drop in his cup. But then it happened. The guy didn’t let go of the bill. He turned toward it as if it had hold of his hand rather than the other way around. And when he looked at the dollar, he looked at G2. Their eyes locked and G2 could see in them all that he’d missed in life. He could see a wife and family, money, success, a house, community standing. It was all there, right where he’d left it… what? thirty years ago? thirty-five? Forty? It was his. All his. The guy snatched his hand back.
“Let’s go get a drink, buddy,” he said. The guy waved him along and G2 got up and followed around the corner from the Manhattan Club. They went toward the waterfront and near the ferry terminal the guy led G2 into a bar that was dark. The floor was sticky and G2’s feet tore away from it as they walked to a table. They sat down and the guy hollered at the bartender. “Bring this guy a glass of wine and I want a whiskey and water. No. Forget the water.” The guy turned and looked at G2. “I’m celebrating,” he said. “Celebrating my freedom.” They waited until the bartender brought them their drinks and the guy ordered himself another as soon as he had one in hand. “To freedom!” he said as he clinked his glass against G2’s. G2 hadn’t drunk wine out of a glass in months. And that was a water glass he stole from a shelter. And it was plastic. He picked up the glass and swirled the wine around the edges. It’s got legs, he thought absently. He took a thoughtful sip and held the wine in his mouth, swished it around and let the feeling of the tannins and oak fill the back of his palette. The bartender set down another whiskey and took the guy’s empty away. “We got a God damned connoisseur here,” the guy laughed. “This is no wino.” They sat for a long time in silence as the guy nursed his second whiskey and G2 took another sip. “You need some food to go with that,” the guy said. He hollered at the bar tender again and eventually a pile of French fries showed up at their table. G2 smiled and ate one so fast it burned his mouth and his throat. He had to take another sip of wine to cool it off. Frankly, it wasn’t that good a wine. He’d had better out of a three-liter box that he got for fifteen bucks when he was feeling flush once. Boxes were hard to carry in his bag, though, so G2 didn’t get them unless he owed a camp boss a round.
“I have been the national salesman of the year fifteen times in the past twenty-five years,” the guy said. “That’s pretty damn good.” He clinked his glass against G2’s again. “They’re thinking of renaming the God damned award after me when I retire, but I never do. I’ll retire someday, I suppose. Till then, they’re stuck giving me the damned thing. I got a house out by the water, beautiful view and a whole shelf full of sales awards and recognitions. Cabin up north on Lake Superior, too. Nice car. Two. Expense account. I need an expense account. I’m on the road half the year. So of course, I got a mistress or two tucked away in different cities. Not that they’d miss me, but I’d miss them. Just like I’m going to miss my wife. She left me this morning. Said there wasn’t really any sense being married since she never sees me. No hard feelings, but she’s moving to Omaha fucking Nebraska to be with her sister. Oh. Not my first wife. She took the kids and left years ago. I never see them. Christmas card in the email. I send them a bunch of money and they don’t even call me.” They sat in silence again for a few minutes. G2 took another sip of the wine. Well, it wasn’t that bad.
“See, the thing is I was like you once. I got a big break and I went out to make something of myself. And by God I did. I’m a successful man. I’ve got it all. And you know what? I don’t fucking care. You could take the whole thing and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to my life. I’d still be a drunk, fast talker, who could sell refrigerators to Eskimos as well as I sell iron to the steel companies. Wouldn’t make a bit of difference. It doesn’t make you happy. It’s a deal with the devil, that’s what it is. Barkeep! Whiskey!” the guy waited until the bartender had cleared the glass and checked G2’s. The fries were gone, so he took the plate. “I’ve got a deal for you, mister. I’ll give it all to you. Don’t worry about not being able to do my job. You don’t need it. I got plenty of money, even after the wife gets her share. You take all my money, my house, my car, and my life. I’ll take whatever you’ve got in that bag and you’ll never see me again. Deal? I took the deal. You should take the deal.” He was silent for a moment and then looked at G2 as if he were stone-cold sober. “I’m serious,” he said. “I’ll give it all to you. That’s how I got started. It’s the least I can do for someone else. Maybe then it would all have some kind of meaning. I’d be satisfied that I did something good for somebody. I’d know in my heart it was all worth it. I got a buddy who’ll make it all legal and everything. What do you say?”
This was it. G2 to could reclaim all that was his. He thought about Lori. He’d go back to her. He’d go see his sister and find his mother. He’d talk to a publisher about the book he was going to write and all the notes he kept over the past thirty some years. He’d drink good wine again and not whatever rot-gut he could get with a screw top on it. G2 could be Gerald again, take a shower and sleep in clean sheets. He could drive a big car. He’d have an ex-wife or two and a mistress in a couple places where he traveled. First he’d have to get a shower and shave. No. First he’d call his sister. No. First he’d buy a bottle of good wine and celebrate. No. As much as G2 tried to put himself in that life, he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t even decide what he should do first. He took another sip of wine. It wasn’t bad at all. Would he get the mistresses and the ex-wives and the children who never called? He’d go straight up to the lake and drive the ski boat. No. He’d take a long vacation and fly in an airplane to Paris. No. He’d… Maybe he should think this through. He’d never have to ride the rails again—never be able to ride the rails again. Always be in his one house with its roof and its mortgage and the plumbing to get repaired. It would be a home without a headstone. He’d have neighbors he’d talk to. People would want him to speak at seminars about the homeless. They’d want his advice on how to deal with the problem. G2’s heart was beating hard. His mouth was dry and he took another sip of that fine wine, held it in his mouth and let the vapors fill his sinuses and wash down his throat. There was a twitch in the leg that had been wounded once and it beat in time with the clack-clack-clack of the rails as the train went down the track. And the stars. Sure, it would be cold out in the winter, but that’s what Florida was for. There was a ringing in G2’s ears and through it all he could hear was his own voice as he stood and laid a hand on the guy’s shoulder. “I volunteered,” he croaked.
G2 turned. He’d just eaten hot greasy French fries and a glass of fine wine. He headed toward the door of the little bar, then turned and bobbed at the man, still sitting with his whiskey glass half way to his mouth. “God bless,” G2 said, and left. He wasn’t happy or satisfied. But he wasn’t sad or depressed either. He was G2, and there really wasn’t any sense thinking about anything else.
It was still hot outside. G2 headed for the tracks. A freight was just beginning to move in the yard. G2 sprinted toward a jimmie and caught onto the ladder and jumped into the well He’d have to go south a ways before he could catch a freight train west. He’d see some mountains. He reached for the bottle in his bag and realized that he’d left it in the bar. His heart jumped into his throat and he stood in the hopper well. He could jump and go back to get his bag. But then the train would be gone. He’d have to wait. Maybe he’d reconsider his decision and take the guy up on his offer. The train was picking up speed. There was no sense in going back. It wasn’t the last bottle of wine in the world. He’d just ride this train away. That was the thing about trains. They never took you back. They only took you away.
The End
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