The+Lonely+Track

The Lonely Track A creative writing story by: Jillian Rae Wenfre February 11, 2011 There is no greater feeling of solitude and hopelessness than ridin’ these rails. At first, when I first started out, it seemed kinda exciting, like an adventure. I used to picture myself as one of those cowboys from the Sunday matinee showings of westerns they used to show back home in Chicago at the old movie theater. I remember paying a nickel to get in with my sister Molly. Wes only gone there twice in my entire life, and I don’t suppose I may ever go back to that theater again. I miss those times, when wes had money. Money to spare even for a western. But those times are no more. I don’t know if I feel more sorry for Molly or myself or my daddy just about now. When Papa lost his job, I knew we kids couldn’t go on living the way we had been living. I remember the day it happened. He came home late, eleven. He barely stumbled through the door, and just slumped down and cried. I never seen him like that before. Now Papa, who I had looked up to all my life, was crumpled in the corner, shaking with sobs. I’d never seen him cry before. My daddy’s a strong man, he is, and always protected us kids and mother with a sense of pride. He can’t do that for us no more. After Papa lost his job, things got bad. Mother wouldn’t stop hollering at Papa to find a job. With four kids, the younguns at three an’ seven, mother couldn’t just up ‘n go work. Us kids started to figure out when to hide and cover our ears, and Molly ‘n me would take care of the little children, too young to understand. One day I asked Papa if he would ever get his job back. He said to me that I better watch my mouth and start respectin’ my daddy if I knew what was best. He told me everything was just about under control, and not to worry. That was when I knew Papa’s pride was too much. He knew we weren’t all right, what with missing meals and eating sandwiches made from scraps of cheap bread n’ butter. So I left to go get work. If I couldn’t get it in the big city of Chicago, I knew I had to go west, far west, maybe even all the way to the fields of California. Molly was the only one who knew, and I promised Molly I’d write. Molly stayed home, even though she’s older at seventeen, and I’m only just now fifteen. She stayed to go care for the little ones and help mother out, and see if one of them can’t get a job. As for Papa, Molly wrote me shortly after I left and told me he’s a broken man. He can’t do nothing to support us, and though Molly’s said he’s sad I ran away, I think he’s a little glad the burden of my mouth is gone. It’s okay, though; now I done got me all the more reason to find work, and make Papa proud. Now the adventure and rush of the wind and dirt isn’t nothing but a nuisance, and the sense of purpose is gone. In the very beginning, when I was starting to feel hopeless and homesick, I climbed atop the train for the very first time. The adrenaline of the courageous new move pulsing through my veins, I carefully trod along the violently shaking train. If I hadn’t been being more careful, I think I would’ave tripped over the ole hobo curled in a plastic blanket on that train. His figure startled me, and I nearly fell off the train of fright. I kicked ‘im to see if he was dead, ‘n he done start up at once, hollerin at me for waking him. The ‘bo was younger than I’d expected, maybe eighteen, though sleeping, I’d thought him a man of thirty. When the boy realized I wasn’t ‘bout to kill him he relaxed. He laughed, and said, “Damnit boy, you gave me a fright! I thought you were a bull. Wassyer name, boy, you don’t look like nobody I’ve seen on these rails.” I barely stammered out my name, “Thomas.” “Thomas? Hmmmm… mind if I call you Tommy? Course ya don’t, Tommy. Well my name’s Robert—least that’s what my folks back home used to call me. ‘Cept me pa kicked me out when the crops started to fail, since he couldn’t use me. He don’t care about nothing but his crops. The dust started to swirl, and he forgot his whole family. No, you don’t call me Robert. Here I go by Raider. I got the name cause I can get the most goods outta anybody in the towns, I raid ‘em clean out.”j Raider told me all sorts of things from there on out. I had already traveled to Iowa by the time I met him, and wanted to cross the country all the way to California. I told Raider all about it, and how I had heard of the lush fields full of workers. Raider weren’t as sure as I was, but I persuaded him to go. In exchange, he made sure I learned how to hobo. I quickly was forced to learn to live on the rails: sleeping on top o’ the trains, hiding n’ running from bulls, how to get the most food in towns we’d stop at, and what jungles were worth going to. The jungles scared me, almost as much as the bulls did, but I kept moving with Raider, trusting his judgment, just as a boy looks up to a brother. One day we stop at a town, and Raider done jump off the train fast that time. I was more hesitant to do so, an liked to get off when the train was going slower. Raider gone an’ took two steps, afore a big policeman of a bull done pluck him off the track. I was so scared. The bull hadn’t seen me yet, so I gone an’ hid. There wasn’t much else I could do for Raider. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to either o’ us, but I knew I had to go on, and stay away from the bulls. Turns out the town we was gonna stop in didn’t allow hobos, an’ picked up any they could. Raider didn’t know, guess it was silly, but I had thought he, Raider—Robert, had know just ‘bout everything. I has no more family, I done ran away from them. I got no money, I hasn’t got myself no job. And now, I done lost Raider to the bulls. I had always thought it would be the jungles or the suffocating train smoke that would get us, but it was the bulls, the bulls done got him. Any hope I’d had before is blown away, like the soil in the great dust bowl where Raider’s from. I got no home, no food, nothing for Molly an’ Mother an’ Papa, nor for the little ones. I can’t go home, but I’ve no where to go. Oh the loniness of the road, of the track. The wandering track that winds through this desolate, lonely, depressed land.