The Obstacle Course (33 page)

The bum woke up, glanced over at us, pulled a half-pint from his back pocket, and took a healthy swig. Then he held the bottle up to us, offering it.

I shook my head and turned away. The thought of sharing anything that bum had put his mouth on was enough to almost make me puke my insides out. Burt was turning yellow from the thought.

“Suit yourselfs,” he croaked, grinning at us. His teeth, the ones he had left, were coated with years of tobacco-juice stains. He took one last hit and tossed his empty bottle out the car.

“Listen, boy,” he told Burt, “this here’s the best education money can buy, so you might as well enjoy it while you can; ’cause right now, you ain’t goin’ nowheres.”

Burt and I slumped against the side of the car, as the truth of what he’d said sunk in. Outside, as the night closed in on us, the train continued traveling south into uncharted territory.

T
HE TRAIN CREAKED TO
a halt, the wheels throwing metal-on-metal sparks as they ground against the tracks. Even before it had stopped completely the bum was wide awake and on his feet. Standing in the doorway, he took one look around outside, threw a hurried “see you in hell, boys,” over his shoulder, and jumped to the ground, hitting and rolling heavily. He was probably so drunk from that cheap booze he’d been drinking he hadn’t felt a thing.

It was night. The moon was down and the stars lay buried under a thick layer of fog. We didn’t know where we were, or what time it was. We’d been lying on our backs, strung-out in the boxcar, for hours.

I walked to the open door and looked out. The train was resting in a small freight depot, on a siding. Up ahead, near the front of the train, there was a water tower standing tall against the darkness, the kind you see in every southern town. I could read the name “Staunton” painted in black paint on the white tank.

We were about one hundred and fifty miles from Washington as the crow flies, which I knew for a fact, because Staunton is the town where Staunton Military Academy, Admiral Farrington’s archrival, is located. The catalogues from Farrington had stories and pictures about football and basketball games between the two, because theirs was as intense a rivalry as between Annapolis and West Point, since Farrington is a Navy prep school and Staunton does the same thing for the Army. I’d dreamt of being here, but not under these circumstances.

My mouth tasted like shit. Neither of us had had anything to drink or eat, since we were prisoners on this fucking train, and I was thirsty as hell. My tongue felt like a caterpillar, I was so thirsty. Sometimes the most important thing in your life is something real trivial; right now the most important thing in my life was to have a glass of water.

Burt joined me at the door. He was still pale as a ghost, hardly able to stay on his feet without holding onto the side of the boxcar.

“Let’s go,” he said, super-anxious. He was as thirsty as me, maybe more, he looked about one heartbeat away from losing it completely, breaking down and bawling like an infant; probably thinking he’d never get home again, see his family, all that shit. I knew I would, and wasn’t looking forward to it.

Burt stood in the doorway, ready to jump.

Even though I was thirsty as a motherfucker and wanted off this train, I wasn’t leaving. I sat down in a corner, leaning back against the wall.

“What’s the matter?” Burt looked back at me, anxiously.

“I ain’t going.”

“Why not?” I could hear the crying in his voice, it was right under the surface.

“You go ahead if you want to. I’m staying in here.”

“What for?” He sounded like he was in second grade.

“I ain’t jumping off this train in the middle of the night, for all we know there might be one of those railroad detectives around the corner, waiting to nab our ass.”

“That’s a bunch of bull,” he cried, “that prick was full of shit. Anyway, he jumped out and nothing happened. Jesus Christ, Roy,” he whimpered, his voice rising about two octaves, “we can’t stay here, what the fuck’s wrong with you?”

He was losing it, losing it completely, and it was pissing me off. Being around somebody that scared is like looking in a gas tank with a lighted match to see if there’s any fuel inside.

“You’re crazy, Roy,” he continued. “You’ve gone plumb loco.” He was beaten down completely—his voice sounded like air coming out of an old balloon.

I felt shitty. Burt was my best friend and we were at each other’s throats, like we wanted to kill each other. Being on the run like a couple of gypsies can do that to you. But I didn’t have a choice—my destiny was ahead of me, down this railroad line.

“I ain’t moving until I can see that the coast’s clear,” I told him in the toughest voice I could muster, trying to stay cool and collected, which wasn’t at all the way I felt.

“Well, shit,” he moaned. He stood in the doorway, looking out; then he turned back, looking at me like I might change my mind.

“You want to go, go ahead,” I told him. I wasn’t changing it.

Burt wasn’t going anywhere without me, I knew that for sure, and I wasn’t leaving this boxcar, not now. As soon as I’d seen that sign on the water tower that read “Staunton” I knew exactly why I was on this train, and where it was taking me. It wasn’t an accident, the result of some normal teenage fucking up back there at the junkyard. This was a twist of fate that I had to follow.

It took a while for the train to get moving again. We rode it through the night into the following day without one stop, the two of us not talking to each other the whole time, just sitting in the hot, smelly boxcar. Occasionally one or the other of us would drift off into a troubled sleep and then jerk awake, hot and sweaty with fear. Burt was feeling sorry for himself, wishing he’d never jumped this stupid train, maybe even wishing he’d never met me. I had a feeling that when all this was over it would be the end of the Three Musketeers. Every man for himself, and fuck all the rest.

Finally, around dusk, the train started slowing down. We were coming to a town. I looked out the door to see if there was a water tower. There was: “Randolph” was written on the side in bold letters.

“Goddamn, I’m starving,” Burt said, coming up next to me.

I hardly heard him, because my heart was beating a mile a minute. Randolph was the town where Farrington Academy was located.

The train was making for the yard, the middle of it, not a siding. There were quite a few trains parked in it, it must’ve been a crossroads of some kind.

“My old lady must be worried sick,” Burt said.

“She’ll get over it,” I told him. I knew that was cold, but I couldn’t help it. I had more important things on my mind than his mother’s feelings.

“Jesus,” he said, looking at me, like I looked different somehow, like he didn’t know me.

The train ground to a stop, the cars banging against each other. I looked outside. No one seemed to be around.

“See anyone?” Burt asked, trying to be sarcastic, like he could give a shit less; but I knew he was shaking in his boots.

“Don’t matter,” I told him, “I’m out of here.” I dropped to the ground and started running for the edge of the yard.

“Hey, wait up!” he called, more scared that I was going to leave him than he was of any railroad detective who might be lurking in the weeds. He jumped out, hitting the ground hard, and chased after me.

Randolph was one of those picture-postcard southern towns, sleepy and old-fashioned, like it hadn’t seen any progress at all for at least fifty years and would be just as happy if it never did.

We passed by a Mobil station a couple blocks down from the train yard and washed up as best we could, first drinking a gallon of water apiece and gargling the puke taste out of our mouths, then checking ourselves out in the grimy mirror over the sink—two road-dirty kids who looked like runaways from reform school.

“We’d better lay low,” Burt said, trying to comb his hair with his fingers, which just made it look worse, his cowlick stood up like a rooster’s tail, “cop sees us, our ass’ll be in the clink.” He had his shirt off and was giving himself a sponge bath with some wadded-up paper towels.

“Can’t throw you in jail for being dirty,” I said. I knew they would, though, they’ll do that to kids; they don’t like the way you look they’ll kick your ass good, just because they feel like it. I’d stripped all the way down to my drawers and was washing myself off from head to toe. It didn’t make me look much better, but at least I felt cleaner.

“How much money you got on you?” Burt asked me after I’d dried off and put my clothes back on.

I checked my pockets—a quarter, two dimes, two pennies. He had three dimes.

“We’re fucking millionaires,” he said, real sarcastic.

I thought on that for a second. “Maybe we could find us some washing machines in some little apartment house,” I came up with.

“No fucking way!” he protested, backing away from me. “That’s all we need, get arrested in some cracker town, we’d be in jail the rest of our natural lives. You’re crazy, Roy.”

“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar,” I told him. “Anyway, we don’t have a screwdriver.”

“I wouldn’t give a shit if we had a stick of dynamite, I ain’t breaking the law, not after everything else we’ve been through.” He picked his sticky shirt away from his body. “I sure as hell wish I had me some clean clothes, I feel like I’ve fallen into a barrel of piss.”

We were standing outside the filling station. Even though the sun was almost down it was still hot and humid, as bad as Washington in August.

“Say no more,” I told him, coming up with one of my brainstorms.

“Say no more what?”

“See that nice big tree over there?” I asked, pointing across the street to a little park, that had a big white oak in the center and some old wrought-iron benches set out under its shade, “you park your weary ass under that tree and think sweet thoughts until I come back.”

“Hey, wait a minute, where’re you going?” he asked, his voice all high and scared.

“I ain’t gonna leave you, don’t worry,” I assured him. “Just sit down and rest. What you don’t know ain’t gonna hurt you.” I wasn’t going to do anything bad, not really, but I didn’t want somebody panicky around me for what I was contemplating—he’d go crazy on me and then we would be up shit’s creek without a paddle. “Cool your heels and I’ll be back lickety-split,” I promised.

He didn’t feature letting me out of his sight, but he knew I was going to try something hairy, something he didn’t want to be a part of, so he walked across the street and slumped down on one of the benches.

I strolled down the street, turning the corner, looking back one time at Burt, who was staring at me. Even from a distance I could see sorrow written all over his face. That boy was learning a lesson he’d thought he’d wanted but didn’t, and he was paying a heavy price for it.

I, on the other hand, was feeling all right. I was on my own, really on my own for the first time in my life, and even though it was tough, scary, and could turn to shit any moment, I was surviving. I was making it in the world.

The block I was walking down was houses, two-story wood, with nice green lawns and well-tended flower beds. A few people were sitting out on their porches, drinking lemonade and watching the world pass by. I waved to them, and they waved back to me. Another neighborhood boy on his way home.

After about two blocks, I saw what I’d been looking for. I glanced around to make sure nobody was watching me suspiciously; but like I said, I was just another kid, invisible. I circled around the side of one of the houses and peeked over the fence, into the back yard.

There wasn’t anybody there. More importantly, there wasn’t a dog. Nothing but a freshly mowed back yard, some lawn furniture, and a full clothesline, shirts and pants and socks and dresses hanging from it, flapping in the breeze.

I didn’t waste any time counting back from a number. I hopped the fence and crabbed over to the clothesline, keeping low to the ground like an Indian scout so if anybody was looking out a window they wouldn’t see me. I checked out the man’s clothing; it all belonged to a grownup, a few sizes too big for Burt and me, but passable, much better than the grubby rags we were wearing, and anyway beggars can’t be choosers.

One more look at the windows. No shadows moving in them, no face looking down. I’m good at telling if someone’s spying on me, it’s something I’ve learned over the years from pocketing shit from the dime store. Faster than a speeding bullet I snagged two shirts, two pairs of pants, four socks, and two pair of drawers, boxers, the big billowy kind, which I normally hate like the plague, but this was no time to be choosy. I wrapped everything in a bundle and was back over the fence and down the block like a bat out of hell.

“What’cha got?” Burt asked, sitting up as he saw me strutting towards him, my booty tucked under my arm.

“Your wardrobe, sire,” I grinned, unwrapping my package and spreading the clothing out on the grass.

“Where the fuck’d you get this shit?”

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”

We ducked under some nearby bushes and changed into our new clothes. They fit us pretty well; the guy who owned them must not have been too tall. Nice stuff, nothing fancy, just right.

“Shit I reckon.”

“You trust me now?” I challenged.

“I never said I didn’t trust you,” he said, trying not to sound defensive.

“But you acted it.”

“Do you blame me?”

“Naw, I didn’t hardly trust myself,” I confessed.

We threw our old, dirty clothes into somebody’s trash barrel and headed towards the center of town. I was on a mission, but Burt didn’t know it, and it wasn’t something I could share with him.

Admiral Farrington Academy was exactly the way it looked in the pictures. Like the Naval Academy, which it had been modeled on over fifty years ago, only smaller. I knew there was a river nearby, because sailing was a big part of what they did—there were sailing photos all over their catalogue. We weren’t near that area. We were standing outside the main gate, looking past the stone walls to the dormitories and buildings inside.