Railroad Man Read online

  RAILROAD MAN

  By Alle Wells

  Edited by S. M. Ray

  Cover by James Junior

  Copyright 2011 by Alle Wells

  ISBN: 978-0-615-58374-7

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters, and some places are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademarks owners.

  To Danny

  Chapter I

  Decatur

  1978

  A Red-headed Woodpecker taps out a new pattern on the trunk of the pecan tree in the backyard. Over a hundred seasons have come and gone since I planted that tree. The low, sturdy limbs branching out on either side remind me of sitting in the crook of another limb with a beautiful redhead a lifetime ago.

  The flimsy paper plate in a basket flies across the table. I hold out a shaky hand to stop it from winding up on the kitchen floor.

  “There you go, Old Man, that’s all you get.” Flo says the same thing every morning as she serves up a half-fried egg and piece of loaf bread from a pop-up toaster.

  “Don’t we have any grits?” I ask, just in case or maybe just to irritate her.

  Flo points the greasy egg pan in my direction. Her voice sounds raspy from sucking down too many cigarettes. “I only buy instant grits, you know that. You don’t like instant grits. I’m not slaving over a hot stove to make grits for you. Besides, I just got my hair done.”

  I look at her hair and then back at the woodpecker probing inside a crevice looking for the perfect morsel. The older Flo gets, the higher her hair rises like the biscuits she never bakes. Flo never was a good cook. I long for the buttery biscuits I remember having in Riverside that rose high and fluffy sort of like Flo’s dyed hair.

  Water splatters on the green-speckled linoleum floor as Flo throws the egg pan into the sink.

  “Mick MacDonald, what the hell are you staring at?”

  I come back to the dirty kitchen with the plastic poinsettia print table cloth and loud-mouth Flo. She stands over me. Her face looks mean and wrinkled with time, her bony frame lost in a maroon velour housecoat. She waits for me to keep the exchange going. Since retirement, my life has been reduced to Flo’s constant bickering. I shake her off.

  I twirl my fork in the sunlight. I learned over the years to always check the seat before I sit down and the utensils before I use them. “I was just trying to figure that out.”

  Flo backs off like I knew she would. She slings the dishwater while I wash down the half-cooked egg with frozen concentrate orange juice.

  After breakfast, I clomp out to the living room and turn on the TV. My ten o’clock show, Bonanza, is on. I don’t hear so well from all those years running the engine, so I turn up the volume.

  Flo raises her volume above the TV and wags her knobby finger at me. “Look, Old Man, I have to watch my show at eleven o’clock. So you just keep that in mind.”

  Flo found religion watching those bloodsucking TV evangelists since she got too old to do much else. She shuts the bathroom door, wiling away the next hour even if somebody else might need to use it. I lean back in my recliner for a power nap and a little peace. A sharp fingernail goes rat-a-tat on my tender bald spot. Rolling my eyelids up from a blissful dream of what might have been, I see Flo’s face that holds more war paint than her TV idol.

  “Get up, Old Man. It’s time for my show. You can have the bathroom now.”

  I have a half mind to leave that old bat and go back to Riverside. I clamber unsteadily to the bathroom, wishing I wasn’t so stiff. I press some Brylcreem on my thin hair, make it look nice and neat just the way the ladies like it. The steamy mirror tells me that I’m still tall, dark, and handsome; Killer, they used to call me. The small knick on my chin tells me that I’m just a little shaky, that’s all.

  I pull the last fresh white shirt from my bedroom closet. Checking myself in the mirror, I pop the starched seam in my pinstripes and straighten my tie. I slide the lockbox that holds the vinyl coin keeper from underneath my bed. I drag the duffle bag of dirty laundry out the bedroom door. I turn the small key with a click to keep her out of my room while I’m gone.

  The key-shaped whatnot hanging by the front door is empty. Flo leans in close to the TV, blubbering as she fumbles with the checkbook. I try to tune her in.

  “Don’t you give those people any more of my money! Where are my keys? I have to take my shirts to the laundry.”

  Flo stabs the checkbook with her ballpoint pen spotting the check with globs of ink. “Look here, Old Man. My name is on this checkbook, too. You’re just the devil, that’s what you are, trying to stop God’s work.”

  I pick up the remote from the coffee table and click. “There, it’s stopped.”

  Flo pounds her knobby fists on the upholstered chair. “Why did you do that? You are so mean! Now I don’t know where to send this check.”

  “Good!” I boom back at her. “Where are my keys?”

  Flo looks around the room like she’s lost in her own house. She shuffles through the pile of junk on the dining room table. She gives me a wide-eyed look. I know that look; something’s up.

  “They must be here somewhere.” Her voice is quiet. Something’s definitely up.

  Flo lets out a weak little laugh. “Uh, whatta-ya-know, they’re right here!”

  I grab the keys and make a break out the front door. Outside the air is fresh and clean, free of stale food and cigarette smoke. I hold onto my neighbor’s picket fence as I amble down the steep driveway. My neighbor, Jim, sticks his head out the back door.

  “Good morning, Mick. Is everything all right?”

  I look at my neighbor. The few sprigs left on his bald head make him look older than me. I wonder how old he is.

  “Sure, why?”

  Jim points at the car. “I see you had an accident.”

  My heart falls flat when I see the frontend on my darn good-looking Buick smashed in. I knew it! I knew something was up.

  “Uh, so I see. Well, thanks for pointing it out, Old Buddy.”

  I throw him a wave to escape, get in the car and toss my shirts in the back seat. A foul odor greets me. I look around for the source and shake my head. That dingbat bangs up every car I buy. I turn the key hoping it will start and it does. I’ll head over to see my buddy, Jack, to get her fixed up.

  I turn off Edinburgh Drive and up East College Street. I used to know this town like the back of my hand. Now, the faces I see look more like pictures from National Geographic than my neighbors. Foreigners run the local shops and barter on the street. Around the corner, a familiar red Texaco star sparkles in the sun and lifts my spirit. Jack steps out quickly to greet me and wipes his hand on a rag before he grabs mine. Jack brings a smile to my face for the first time today.

  “Good to see you, Mickey, Old Buddy!”

  I give him a hearty man shake and answer, “And you too, you old son-of-a-gun!”

  I feel the lying grin on my face as my finger points out the damaged frontend. “Hey, Buddy. My neighbor backed into me. Can you fix her up?”

  Jack inspects the damage, rubbing his chin. “Sure thing, but I’m kinda backed up. How about leaving it with me for a few days, say ’til Tuesday?”

  Jack’s salesman smile never flinches at my disappointment. “Oh, sure. Well, can you clea
n her up on the inside for me?”

  “Sure can, Old Buddy! I’ll get my boy, Randy. He’s a good kid, you know.”

  I settle down in the service station waiting area and get on the horn to request a rental car. I pop open a Coke and pick up the morning paper while waiting for the spare car to arrive. I’m not too keen on losing my ride for a few days all because of that dingbat. And good ole Jack didn’t have to rub it in about how great his kid is when he knows that my kids are lying in Lawrenceville Memorial Gardens.

  Randy comes bee-bopping in, holding something between his fingertips. “Hey, Mr. MacDonald, I found this here cigarette butt under the seat. And the carpet’s all burnt up under there. You better be careful!”

  I ignore him and hide behind my paper.

  Smiling Jack walks in with a wad of cash in his hand and calls him out, “Randy! Stop bothering Mr. MacDonald.”

  That’s right. Jack knows better than to let that little twerp run off his business. Me and Jack go back a long way to working on the Georgia-Alabama Line in ’29. I see my old friend’s reflection in the sparkling picture window, counting his money. He always looks so damn happy. My own haggard image jumps out at me. I look at the two of us and wonder what happened.

  Chapter II

  Georgia-Alabama Line

  1929

  Fresh out of high school, having strong backs and weak minds, Jack and I signed up for hard labor building a branch of rail from Tennessee to Alabama. We paired up and shared a railroad issued tent at the end of the line in the middle of nowhere. I leaned against a tree studying a curl of black smoke drifting through the camp at dusk. Swinging a pickax ten hours a day left little energy for anything else. Jack and I kept to ourselves, being the youngest workers among thirty-some guys toughened by years in the blazing sun. The foreman, Sarge, sat in a sling back chair in the truck bed smoking a cigar.

  Jack sliced our weekly roll of boloney. “Ol’ Sarge has it made camped out in the back of the truck with his fancy cigars and gas-lit hotplate.”

  “Yeah, I wonder if he really did kill all those men in the Great War like he says.”

  Jack slapped the piece of the meat between two pieces of hardtack. “I don’t know. I know he’s mean enough. The way he acts, you’d think we were working on a chain gang.”

  I leaned back and sighed, “All I know is that Thursday’s coming.”

  Jack snickered. “Yeah, I’m having a great time installing indoor plumbing at Aunt Ethel’s place.”

  “Too bad, Old Boy. I’d invite you down to Riverside if I thought they could feed another mouth. Times being the way they are, I’m thankful that Uncle Johnny Mack takes me in.”

  Jack washed down his hardtack and boloney with a gulp of chicory. “Yes sir, you and me are lucky to have a job even if we do have to put up with Sarge.”

  “Yeah, well, at least we ain’t colored. He gives those guys hell. Anyhow, Thursday’s coming.”

  I laid back, searched for the Big Bear in the sky and thought about sweet Marianne.

  Thursday afternoon, Jack and I jumped off the back of the railroad truck at the Huntsville station. Jack set out walking down the road to his Aunt Ethel’s house. I felt sorry for Jack having to spend his weekend installing indoor plumbing while I lived it up down in Riverside. My cousins, Noah and Seth, rode up in the old Model T. Fourteen-year-old Seth jumped off the sideboard and ran to meet me.

  “Hey, Cuzz, did you hear that the Yankees won the World Series?”

  I tousled Seth’s straw-colored hair. “Little buddy, I’ve been camped out at the end of the world. I ain’t heard nothing but the five-o-clock Whip-Poor-Will.”

  I listened to Seth describe the ballgame play by play, but I didn’t care about the World Series. I only wanted to see Marianne. We bumped down the dusty road in the old Model T. I can still feel the excitement I felt so long ago when we reached the tree-lined path heading up to the rambling old farmhouse. Uncle Johnny Mack’s five boys’ ages ranged from six years to twenty. Sweet Marianne was a ripe sixteen. Uncle Johnny Mack’s prized horses pastured to the right and cattle to the left. The bird dogs howled, and the younger boys ran to meet us as the battered Model T clambered to a stop.

  Aunt Mary greeted me like one of her own, always welcoming me to her table. Midday dinners served on the long polished pine table remain more vivid in my mind today than what I had for dinner last night. Aunt Mary and my lovely Marianne laid out a spread that filled the void in my stomach after a week of hardtack and baloney. Smokehouse cured hams, fried potatoes, fresh corn, butter beans and Marianne’s famous biscuits. My belly was full twice over when I put my feet under Aunt Mary’s table.

  I caught Marianne’s eye and said, “By Golly, these biscuits are so good; they’ll send a man to his knees begging for more.”

  My heart melted when she cut her green eyes at me, bit her bottom lip, and smiled shyly.

  Noah, Seth and I filled carefree afternoons practicing for the statewide rodeo championship that we never got around to entering. We chased, roped, and dragged Uncle Mack’s calves around the pasture like the real cowboys did at the state fair. When the calves began to steer clear of us, our horses raced the old Model T down the dirt roads until it spit, sputtered and died. Adrenaline ran high in those days. My cousins and I couldn’t get enough adventure.

  High-spirited and competitive, we stood ten-foot high on the trestle, landing hard into the deep Tennessee River. Marianne covered her eyes and screamed when we jumped off the bridge. Then she counted one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two until the first head surfaced the water.

  The churning force of the cold water felt like it would crush my body as I sprang from the sandy bottom and shot twenty feet up to the river’s surface. My head pounded as I gulped air into my empty lungs. I would have jumped off the Empire State Building just to see my reward in Marianne’s face.

  “Whoohoo! Mickey’s the winner—seven seconds!”

  ***

  I looked forward to Saturday afternoons when Marianne and I could be alone. The slow three-mile ride down the sandy dirt path relaxed me after playing rough with the boys. Marianne led the way to Tern Lake on her chestnut mare. I watched her sleek body sway to the horse’s rhythm as I followed a few steps behind on Uncle Mack’s old gelding. Blue jeans like women wore in the western movies hugged her slim hips and lengthened her long legs. The red and white gingham checked shirt set her curly red hair afire.

  We heard the crying birds a quarter mile away from the twenty-acre lake. The noise grew louder, almost deafening, as we reached the marshland that surrounded the lake. Marianne pulled her long red hair up into a safari hat wound in mosquito netting before dismounting. She fed Meg knotty green apples from a burlap sack.

  “Take care and wear a hat, Mickey. The mosquitoes will eat you alive out here.”

  “Aah, I’ll be fine. I’m not sweet like you.”

  Marianne turned and wrapped her long arms over my shoulders. Her touch made me feel safe and whole. She pecked me on the cheek through the netting. “That’s cute but put the hat on anyway.”

  “Let’s share,” I said, tucking my head under the netting. I wound my arms around her narrow waist, nuzzled my nose into her neck. I never wanted to move. Then, Marianne’s full lips held mine captive and could have kept me forever. Locked together, passion, tension and chemistry flowed freely between us. Meg nudged Marianne’s hair, breaking the spell.

  “Ach, off Meg, off,” she cried, waving the horse away.

  I pointed a finger at Meg. “I’ll get you back for that one, you old nag.”

  “Oh, come on, you silly. Put on this Jafari or you’ll be scratching all night.”

  I did as she instructed, objecting, “You should know, Miss, that I can build an entire railroad with my bare hands. Do you seriously think a tiny insect can beat a railroad man like me?”

  Marianne tied Meg’s rein to a tree limb and shook her head thoughtfully. “Silly. I love you.”

  Thousands of screeching waterfowl cir
cled the lake as we entered their sanctuary. Marianne knew a perfect spot, a mound of sand hidden in the tall reeds where we sat hidden. Our low canvas sling back chairs provided a perfect angle for bird-watching. Marianne propped a large sketchpad on her thighs and colored pencils at her side. A Blue Heron strolled between the green lily pads, jabbing at tadpoles circling in a pool.

  “I hope those tadpoles keep that Heron busy long enough for me to get a rough sketch. He looks fierce, but he’s almost tame. He might just come over and shake your hand.”

  “I don’t know that I could grab hold of one of those slippery flip-flaps, and those beady yellow eyes sure do look evil.”

  Marianne kept her eyes on her work. “Oh, Mickey. You say the funniest things!”