Southwest Freight Company, 42nd Line
June 24, 2008
Uncle Lyons used to sell me promises of fame and fortune between four hour fits of restless, and maybe even fake, sleep. I always assumed trains were a smooth ride, given they slid to and fro on a couple of flat rails. Still it manages to hop , bump and skip in a horrible way. It used to hum and rattle like a strange lullaby, all chocked full of wood and iron notes. That was before last week, when one of the security folk put a dent in the side of uncle Lyons head with a flashlight that doubled as a cudgel, between a few of the most vulgar sentences I've ever heard come out of someone with a job, and most likely a family. I still can't believe Lyons made us get back on. I haven't slept a wink since.
Uncle Lyons started out with a bundle of money he comfortingly referred to as our bundle of money. That bundle had been gone at least a few days before I knew, and he never did tell me. I had to pick up clues from his mean, sweaty, and pleading withdrawal. Now he's so poor he can't even pay attention. When the money was ours, it was ours, and that sounded nice. Now he's gone and spent it, and it's him that's broke. Broke and feverish. The food's the only difference to me. His bouts of inspiring and flattering hope had simmered down to an occasional promise of a bite to eat, and an empty one at that. Now he lies in the corner of our little boxcar, body a jostle with a tale of the terrain sliding beneath us at forty miles an hour. His eyes are yellow and his hands are white like raw poultry. He takes deep rambling breaths every couple of hours. Sometimes i wonder if he's dead in that corner, I wonder if that heaving and jumbling about is just the shake of the engine. I nudged him with my foot yesterday, and he returned with a ghost of a swat and a wheezing grumble. I haven't checked again because I haven't cared again.
I'm getting off next time we slow down enough for a safe jump. I know I'm gonna wish I'd rifled through his pockets, even though I know they're empty. Like looking in the same corner for the same cigarette butt that hasn't been there for days. I hope he's not dead, that he has a few hours left in him. Just long enough to know I've left him alone the way he's left me alone.
Tags for this piece: fiction drugs strange creative trains