MEMORIES OF TRAINS
Parental warning: Rated PG for mild language
At some point or another I decided I was big enough to walk the tracks. I didn’t ask because I wasn’t likely to get an answer I liked. It turned out that a train track and its edges are a fine source of interesting things. The fact that I knew I probably was doing something I shouldn’t made it all the better.
A couple hours of scavenging would usually lead to some exotic treasures along with enough empty soda bottles to return at the market for enough money to get a soda for myself. Oh the struggles I had deciding between an orange or a grape soda.
But one day I found something that really got my heart racing. Walking along the rails stepping from tie to tie my eyes trained down looking for the last bottle I need for a cool sweet grape soda no, wouldn’t an orange be good? No, definitely grape, when I almost stumble over…..a FOOT!
I know what you’re thinking.
“Dad, you mean you found a FOOT on the railroad tracks when you were, what, eight years old!?”
Well, yes, I found a foot, but it was attached to a leg, the leg was attached to a hip and the hip was attached to a man! A whole man there on the side of the tracks. And this man was not moving! Not one little bit!
“It’s a DEAD BODY!!!” I’m thinking. I’m gulping and my heart is in my throat.
“I’ve got to run home and tell Mom!!”
“A train could come and squish him!!”
But there are some ramifications here. If I tell Mom and bring her here, a pretty far piece from home, a lot farther than I could go without getting into a lot of trouble…………So I do the next best thing, I run and get Johnny. Johnny is my best friend and he’s a whole year older so he knows everything. So as quick as I can, I get to Johnny’s house up the street from mine and I’m standing outside in his yard yelling,
“JOHNNY! JOHNNY! JOHNNY!”
For some reason Johnny and I never resorted to knocking on doors or ringing doorbells. We just yell. Wouldn’t want to disturb the moms, you know.
Luckily Johnny is home and we’re soon running hell bent for leather down the tracks towards the dead body. When we get there, he’s still lying by the tracks. He hasn’t moved a muscle (not many dead men do). Johnny just kind of stares openmouthed for a moment, but just as I knew he would, he soon springs into action.
“WE’VE GOT TO GET HIM AWAY FROM THE TRACKS!!! A TRAIN COULD COME!!” Johnny yells.
He’s right of course, but HOW?
We decide if we sit side by side on the rail and push with our feet against the body, we might be able to get him rolling away from the tracks. Then what? you may well wonder, but we haven’t thought that far ahead. So we get into position and push, but no luck.
We figure we’re going to have to count to three and push real hard together. “ONE, TWO…….
We don’t make it to three. Right after TWO, our dead man decides he doesn’t like being kicked by a couple of idiot kids.
“WHATTTHEHELL YATHIN YERDOIN YA DAMNED LILPUNKS!!!”
Luckily he’s in no position to give chase as we take off down the tracks, scared shitless and running for our lives. He does throw an empty bottle at us. But luckily his aim is as poor as his speech.
We run all the way to the safety of the lot behind the seedy little market where we go to redeem the bottles we find on the tracks. I mention that I left all my found bottles back by where we found the dead man who turned into a drunk man. We look at each other as if to consider going back for them…………….”UH UHH! NO WAY!”
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…continue to: CHRISTMAS TRAIN