Guilty+Shoes

Guilty Shoes His contorted body lay sprawled across a rotten tree stump. My hands ran across the coarse fabric of the shirt sliding through a slick layer of congealed blood and dirt while tracing the mangled limbs down to the smooth leather shoes. My questing fingers found the leather laces which had frozen stiff in the cold. * * *  It was a chilly September night in ’33 when the Fort Point Channel wharves started firing their dock workers. I had worked there for six months after i turned sixteen, first lying about my age, and then spending long days hauling heavy shipping crates off the rusting cargo ships. I was the last working male of the Doyle family, my father having previously been crippled in an accident at the docks. I needed to make money and I had heard there were jobs in New York. After seeing Wild Boys of the Road I saw the freight trains as an efficient and fast way to travel and I didn’t have the twenty five cents to spare for a train ticket. When I returned I home I gathered up all my belonging and put them in my beaten old suitcase that my dad had brought when he came over from Ireland. I bundled up in my warmest clothes put on my favorite cap and headed for South Station. Before I departed the house, I put a note on the bed that my three younger brothers and I shared. “Mom, Dad, Thomas, Edgar, and Benjamin, Sorry to leave without telling you, but I got fired from the docks and I’m going to New York to look for a job. Hopefully some money will come home soon. Love, Patrick.” I opened the rough wooden door to my house, slammed it shut and left on the long and lonely walk down to the station, passing hordes of men with their heads hung in despair. I kept walking until I reached the wild mass of bushes and reeds half a mile from the station, but outside the range of the bulls. A slow mournful whistle filled the air at about ten past and the powerful thumps started to resonate in the air. A crowd of bodies rose like specters grabbing what few belongings they carried with them. The mob of bodies surrounded the narrow metal bands on the ground and waited, like lions surrounding their prey. The giant black mass inched over the horizon and all our eyes swiveled to follow the approaching silhouette. The images of the train became clearer in the foggy dusk air. My eyes moved toward the rickety ladders framing the sides of the beaten and grimy metal cars. I ran as fast I could my suitcase flopping in my arms. I tried to catch a ladder, one hand closed on cold steel rungs and I tried to climb up. My hand reached for the next railing only to find empty air. I flailed for the railing that I knew was there when a grimy white hand reached down and hauled me onto the rough boxcar top. I lay on top, gasping for air, holding my precious suitcase close to my chest when the man introduced himself as Thomas. He used to be a college professor who lost his job when the school closed; he had been riding the road for almost of year and was covered in what he called a perpetual layer of coal and dirt. He was a chatty man and talked with the ten odd people who had managed to climb on top. He especially talked to new riders like me, saying that he had seen too many die and wanted to help us. I happened to be the only new rider so took it upon himself to be my tutor and was going to teach me the ropes of the rail. He was talking to me about the best jungles when the train went around a sudden turn. Thomas stumbled, and then my suitcase slid into his ankles. His arms flailed as he toppled off the top of the train and the battered suitcase which had survived so much was now lost. While I mourned my friend, I found that I would long for the contents of that suitcase more. After three days the train reached the city of New York. I hoped off the train as it slowly rolled into the station. I had heard all about the majesty and the opportunity that New York presented, but as I looked around the situation looked worse than it had in Boston. After a month’s search it was clear there were no jobs in New York and I now understood Thomas’ complaint about the constant grime, but the hunger was worse. The lines at the soup kitchens were hours long and the missions kept throwing me out after one night. Then, while at line at a soup kitchen I was mugged for the ragged shoes that I wore on my feet. I decided to catch a train out west and look for some work in the farms, at least then I would be able to eat. Catching a train in New York was harder than it was in Boston, but I managed to catch one going out west. The days turned unto a blur when I was on the train. The festive colors of autumn dulled by the depressed and hostile atmosphere that emanated from the towns the train stopped in. it came to be that I didn’t know when or where we stopped. Jungle after jungle and weeks in town after town blurred into one the labor and begging mutated into a never-ending nightmare. The only way I knew time was moving was because of the changing season. It seemed like I had been riding for years when I finally got caught by a bull. The train slowed to a crawl and I sat up from my snow covered blanket to find a flashlight and a nightstick jammed in my face. The bull picked me up by my collar and dragged me to the town jail where I sat in the filthy jail cell with four other hobos. While the conditions were appalling it was nice to be out of the snow. The others in the cell told me about a jungle that was just out of town next to a sharp turn in the tracks. When we were released the next day I set off toward the jungle my bare feet freezing in the fresh white snow. I reached the ramshackle set of tents, huts and stoves and set about acquainting myself with the local buzzards. By the end of the day I had settled with a place to lay down my blanket for the night and shut my eyes. In the middle of the night I heard the ground thunder with the passing of train then a hollow thud. My curiosity got the best of me and I went out to the tracks. The crystal moonlight highlighted a body thrown against a broken tree. My eyes analyzed the mashed body and paused when I saw the beautiful brown leather shoes at his feet. I crept forward until I reached the red stained snow and started to untie his shoes. There was a rustle and cry behind me and i turned and fell into the blood soaked body, watching an owl take to the sky. I quickly finished untying the shoes and grabbed them. The guilt got the best of me and I caught the next train I thought was going west, hoping for less snowy terrain. I fell asleep on the vibrating boards with my new shoes snuggly settled on my feet. When I woke in the morning I stared again at the growing skyline of New York City.