William Vollmann - The Royal Family

Thanks to the benevolence of the city council, the Home Start shelter disallowed single men from sleeping there, so a drunk warned, and Tyler had neither means nor inclination to bring a whore along to be his wife, so he trudged directly to the park and napped uneasily until dawn, attacked by mosquitoes from the river. With relief he returned to the edge of the yard, an inch on the legal side of the NO TRESPASSING sign, watching the trains. Immense shadow-blocks craned across the embankment, carving up his world. — Jist wait in the shade, Riley the tramp had advised him. Wait by the liquor store. — That was easy, because right now it was all shade. Under the Crystal Dairy trucks lay old clothes and empty sardine tins; his predecessors had taken their shade where they could find it. Blue-overalled trackmen rollstepped in the distance, speaking into walkie-talkies. Everybody said that trainhopping was more likely to get punished now that Union Pacific had bought Southern Pacific.

A freight train lay still and ready, with three locomotives on it. That meant it was going somewhere. Looking both ways, he spied no spies, and ran to the open boxcar. He threw himself in, insured his life with the spikenail, crawled into the back, and met a migrant worker who smiled at him gravely. He offered the man a drink of water. The man smiled, and gave him a fresh ripe peach.

The boxcar jerked. The train began to move.

Well, looky here, laughed the railroad dick. All right, fellas. You might as well come out now.

His heart overwhelmed him with booming echoes as of dark boxcars.

Come back here now, said the railroad dick.

The train slid away, leaving him and the Mexican alone on the gravel with the railroad dick. It was almost night. At the back of the receding train blinked a red eye. That was FREDdy, the Fucking Rear End Device. A tramp had said that it was called that because it had stolen three railwaymen’s jobs. FREDdy flashed triumphantly in the twilight. Two more parasites, two more evildoers had fallen into the hands of the righteous.

You first, said the railroad dick. What’s your name?

Tyler, said Tyler.

What’s your excuse?

I’m homeless.

Yeah, you could pass for homeless. That’s against the law. Don’t get upwind of me. I could cite you. I should cite you. Now get out.

Thanks, said Tyler, as sincerely as he could. He started walking away.

Now you, said the railroad dick to the Mexican. We don’t call you wetbacks no more. Call you scratchbacks from duckin’ under the border fence. Call you gravelknees. Is that right? Hey, fella, are you a scratchback?

The Mexican smiled and nodded three times quickly.

Okay. That’s the spirit. Now beat it, and don’t let me catch you riding my train again.

When Tyler and the Mexican were out of sight, the railroad dick radioed the locomotive and told the driver that his two unwanted pasengers were gone.

What were they this time? asked the driver, bored.

Usual. One drunk and one Spic.

Used to be just them hobos, the driver ruminated. Pleasant people. Sometimes you just gotta throw rocks at ’em. And them migrant workers, them scratchbacks. But now I keep seeing the gangs. They use my train for transportation. They got guns. What am I supposed to do against a gun?

Carry a gun, laughed the railroad dick.

Well, see, those people are kinda leery, unless you have the look, the tattooed man said.

So you’re saying I don’t have it, said Tyler. Ain’t that a shame.

That’s what I’m saying. Now, that Mexican there, he has it, but who cares? He’s just a Mexican. As for you, they gotta be careful. Maybe somebody could justify how you look, but they don’t trust you.

Who doesn’t trust me, partner? You?

The Mexican waved and began to walk away. Tyler waved back, a little sadly.

What are you about? asked the tattooed man.

Riding the rails, I guess, said Tyler. How come I need to justify my existence to you?

The tattooed man smiled weakly and resentfully, his gaze like some cold yellow light at the end of a long trestle bridge, and Tyler sighed.

All right, he said.

What are you about? asked the tattooed man again, standing in his way like a sentinel in some ancient myth.

Looking for somebody I know I’ll never find, said Tyler. Getting away from people who know me.

Amen to that, said the tattooed man; and Tyler felt that he had answered correctly and could move on. — So which way goes east? he said.

As far as how to go, said the tattooed man, carefuly spying him out, they got certain routes. There’s certain places they got to catch you, but normally they let you do it. I more or less quit doing it after my last stretch in jail. I don’t really enjoy dogging it that much. Where you from?

Sacramento.

Oh. Well, what’re you gonna do? You got to run it somewhere else. Sac’s just got that evil feel to it. Just feels too negative to me.

Tell me about it. I was born there.

The tattooed man laughed, his eyes yellow like empty plastic cigarette lighters on railroad gravel.

So where was you an’ that Mexican when you got busted?

Boxcar, said Tyler.

Normally, the boxcar’s the lousiest ride you can get. I can see you need advice. Now, the ones that know, they’re lookin’ for the grainers, those T-48s or whatever. There are holes in the back. You just pop right in like a prairie dog. And you got water? You don’t want to go without a bunch of water.

Yeah, I have water, said Tyler. And when that runs out, I can just marry somebody and drink her spit.

Ooh, said the tattooed man with a sort of sinister gentleness.

So which track runs east?

Normally, see, some people are hooked up with the people in the yard. There’s certain tracks set up already. So if I want to go to Salt Lake, these here are the tracks I can get on. You got another track there that’s gonna wind north. Let’s say you want to go to Washington…

And suddenly Tyler felt an exultation that he hadn’t been able to own for so long now, a breezy thrill of freedom even as he stood there sweating with the evening sun burning his arms. He could go anywhere. He had nothing to guard and defend except his own body. He had fallen, but he had landed. Now he was happy and safe.

The tattooed man read his eyes and said: There’s something about trainhoppers, anyway. All of us are transients on this earth. I’m a Buddhist. This is just taking it to the next level.

And you feel free? Tyler couldn’t help asking.

My whole concept is, what’s out there and rolls my way I have a right to. Like if I go into a supermarket and can walk out with a can of tomato soup in my pocket and they don’t catch me, I have a right to it. See what I’m sayin’? Because they’re bilking the world anyway. And when I steal from them, nobody gets hurt.

Well, I guess I’ll be heading my way, Tyler said. Thank you.

I been wanting to ride the rails myself, the tattooed man suddenly volunteered. I just can’t decide which direction to go…

Behind the man’s wistfulness, behind his softspoken charm, Tyler had begun to sense a crocodile’s soul, intelligent and vicious, perhaps even lethal — held in check right now mainly by the inertia of this exceedingly hot day (certainly over a hundred degrees). If a cloud were to pass over the sun, so that the tattooed man’s reptilian blood could cool sufficiently to refresh his torpid brain, then Tyler might be in danger. This was only intuition, and very possibly wrong, like the intuition of so many street-whores who had been sure at first that Tyler was a cop; nonethless, he was afraid of the tattooed man.