Boys Life

the time it had reached the far side of Zephyr it would be running fast again.
    “I can’t write any apology, Davy Ray,” I said quietly. “Not tomorrow, not the day after that. Not ever. I guess I can’t ever go back to school, huh?”
    Davy Ray offered neither opinion nor advice. I was on my own.
    “What if I was to go away for a while? Not long. Maybe two or three days. What if I was to show ’em I’d rather run away than write an apology? Then maybe they’d listen to me, don’t you think?” I watched the moving star come nearer. The whistle blew again, maybe warning a deer off the track. I heard it say Corrrrryyyyyyyyy.
    I stood up. I could make it to the trestle if I ran to Rocket. But I had to go right this minute. Fifteen more seconds and I would face one more day of anger and disappointment from my parents. One more day of being a boy closed up in a room with an unwritten apology staring me in the face. The freight that was about to pass through always returned again. I reached into my pocket, and found two quarters left over from some purchase of popcorn or candy bar at the Lyric last winter when things were good.
    “I’m goin’, Davy Ray!” I said. “I’m goin’!”
    I started running through the graveyard. As I reached Rocket and swung up onto the saddle, I feared I was already too late. I pedaled like mad for the trestle, the breath blooming around my face, I heard the moan and clatter as I pulled alongside the gravel-edged tracks; the freight was crossing, and I could yet meet it.
    And then there it was, the headlight blazing. The huge engine came off the trestle and passed me, going a little faster than I could walk. Then the boxcars began going past: Southern Railroad cars, bump ka thud, bump ka thud, bump ka thud on the ties. Already the train was starting to pick up speed. I got off Rocket and put the kickstand down. I ran my fingers along the handlebar. For a second I saw the headlamp’s golden eye, luminous with the moon. “I’ll be back!” I promised.
    All the boxcars were closed up, it seemed. But then here came one toward the end of the freight that had a door partway open. I thought of railroad bulls bashing heads and throwing freeloaders face-first into steam-scalded space, but I shook the thought away. I ran alongside the boxcar with the open door. A ladder was close at hand. I reached up, hooked four gloved fingers around a metal rung, got my thumb wedged there, too, and then I grabbed hold with the other hand and lifted my feet off the gravel.
    I swung myself toward the boxcar’s open door. I was amazed that I had such dexterity. I guess when you hear a few tons of steel wheels grinding underneath you, you can become an acrobat real quick. I went through that opening into the boxcar, my fingers released the iron rungs, and I hit a wooden floor sparsely covered with hay. The sound of my entrance was not gentle; it echoed in the boxcar, which was sealed shut on the other side. I sat up, hay all over the front of my outermost sweater.
    The boxcar rumbled and shook. It was clearly not made for passengers.
    But someone was indeed along for the ride.
    “Hey, Princey!” a voice said. “A little bird just flew in!”
    I jumped up. That voice had sounded like a combination of rocks in a cement mixer and a bullfrog’s lament. It had come from the dark before me.
    “Yes, I see him,” another man answered. This voice was as smooth as black silk and had the lilt of a foreign accent. “I think he almost broke his wings, Franklin.”
    I was in the company of boxcar-riding tramps who would slit my throat for the quarters in my pocket. I turned to jump through the doorway, but Zephyr was speeding past.
    “I wouldn’t, young man,” the foreign-accented voice cautioned. “It would not be pretty.”
    I paused on the edge, my heart pounding.
    “We ain’t gonna bite ya!” the froggish cement-mixer voice said. “Are we, Princey?”
    “Speak for yourself, please.”
    “Ah, he’s just kiddin’! Princey’s always kiddin’, ain’t ya?”
    “Yes,” the black silk voice said with a sigh, “I’m always kidding.”
    A match flared beside my face. I jumped again, and turned to see who stood there.
    A nightmare visage peered at me, so close I could smell his musty breath.
    The man would’ve made a railroad tie look like Charles Atlas. He was emaciated, his black eyes submerged in shadow pools and the cheekbones thrust against the flesh of his face. And what flesh! I had