Casey Jones FICTION - a NOVEL idea!

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told.

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocketful of mumbles; such are promises.

All lies and jest - for a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest...
--Paul Simon

God, his @ss hurt. @ss, back, neck.

The seatbox, the old-timers called it. Back in the day, they said, it was an actual box – filled with tools. The engineer would perch on it, leaning forward, on the overhead throttle – which worked on linkages to feed steam into the twin cylinders out front.

All gone, now. This was a diesel, a new one – an SD-40. Painted, like most engines, in Penn Central flat black; but at least it was CLEAN flat back. Unlike the roster of older units, with dirty flat black and yellowed off-white stenciling. Or the even older colors of predecessor railroads, or lines that had sold surplus locomotives to the bankrupted failed mega Eastern company.

Seat aside, this one was relatively nice. Clean inside; everything worked. Noisy, but they all were. Shooter’s muffs helped with that. His instructors and the old-time brakemen and conductors looked askance; but they were mostly deaf as posts. It surprised them that he could hear the radio, hear conversation, with the muffs on, easier than they.

He was a “fireman.” A fireman, in railroad history, was the crewman assigned to stoking the locomotive firebox; tending the water level, controlling boiler pressure. That was gone over 20 years ago, but the job remained. A fireman was an engineer trainee.

He was out here to learn. Learn, how to keep the trains moving, in an era of battered track, broken equipment, angry employees and now a looming government takeover.

“...gonna get a Federal pension out of this?” Smitty was the “Head Man,” the brakeman riding the head end. Doug, the engineer, had been at a Brotherhood meeting two days earlier, and some preliminary news had ceom down from the regional union people.

“That’s not what they’re sayin’,” Doug answered. “It’s gonna be a private company, just like the P-company. Just with a new name – and owned by the government. Like Amtrak.”

That was not encouraging. Amtrak, in its five years, had become a circus of mismatched, obsolete, worn and damaged equipment and failures, of equipment, training and rules.

“So it’s gonna be the worst of the Post Office, the P Company, and government employment. All the dumb-ass rules and poor pay, and no security. All named Con-Rail. It fits – they’re gonna con us in a way the P-Company managers never even thought of.”

“Maybe.” Doug stared ahead, vacantly, for a moment, then remembered himself. His eyes went to the speedometer. 40 mph...this area was under a Permanent Speed Restriction, due to track conditions. Which were continually deteriorating.

“Allen. What was our last signal?” Doug asked. He knew. He knew his trainee probably knew. But there was a rule broken – and a lesson.

“Advance Approach.”

“Why didn’t you call it out, d@mmit.”

“You two were talking.”

“You know the rules, godd@mmit. A negative signal, YOU CALL IT OUT. And everyone has to repeat it.”

“Sorry.”

“What’s it telling us?”

Another lesson. “We’re gonna do something at Batavia.” East Batavia was three miles away. Track Three, used as a running track, and the area between East and West Batavia was a frequent passing location.

“Yes, but what’s the next signal gonna be?”

“Approach, or Approach Limited, or Medium-Approach.”

“Meaning?”

“We hold at East Batavia, or we cross over.”

“Why aren’t you braking?”

“No need, yet.” Passing an Approach signal only necessated a speed reduction to 40. The signals were set up for 60 mph operation. Few areas on the old New York Central mainline were in condition to run at that speed, anymore.

Doug turned his attention to the brakeman. “You see that Jeepster parked at the dorm?” The crew room and terminal were called “the dormatory” even though crews had been using off-site motels for rest stops for 15 years. “Looks like new. They haven’t made them for 20 years, and it looks brand new. Wonder who owns THAT.” Smitty was an old-car buff.

“That’s Allen’s, ain’t it?” Smitty asked.

“That thing yours, Allen?” Doug turned to him.

“Yeah, it’s mine.” A lie.

“That must have cost you.”

“Yeah, it did.” Another lie. It cost, but not Allen. Not money. It cost him time and inventiveness. It cost a dead man a lot of money. And now it’s costing him multiples in worry and hassle. The Wages of Sin.

“You still got Texas plates on it,” Smitty said. “If the Buffalo cops don’t get you, the state troopers will. You need to get them changed.”

“Yeah. I’m still got some problems with the title.”

And that, at least, was the truth. The title, with a forged signature on it, made out as a sale to Allen Richmond, resident of Aldine, Texas. Now trying to be retitled to Allen Richmond, resident of Cheektowaga, New York.

Jumping something there, aren’t you, young man? Take it back to Texas and have the title issued to you, and then we can see about re-titling it here.

Meantime, there’s the little matter of a new JOB, one he was unbelievably lucky to land. Time off work to un-snarl this mess...if he could even find a way to...would cost him that.

And in New York he couldn’t even drive it legally without insurance. Something ELSE he could scarcely think about – and now, as a newly-respectable new resident, couldn’t afford not to think about. For two months he’d been commuting the three miles from his rooming-house to the yard by bicycle – but rain and a “short call” had him driving the Jeepster in.

But, realistically, he’d probably have to either buy a junker locally or start taking a taxi in.

Around a curve, the “distance signal” to East Batavia came into view. “Approach,Medium” Allen announced.

“What are we doing?” Doug asked.

“Crossing over. Gonna hold at West Batavia.”

“Correct. What’s your speed gonna be?”

“Track 3, 25 mph by Timetable Special Instructions. By the signal, though, we’re legal to 30 mph through the plant.”

“Correct again. Bring it down to 25 by the time we hit the plant. Use your dynamic. Remember, we’re a TV train – LIGHT.” Trail-Van unit trains were a relatively-new concept. About half the weight per foot of a conventional freight train, TV trains were fast, light, and easy to pop off the rails with sudden brake applications.

That damned car.

* * *

Oh, how he’d wanted it. It represented the last link – a key to freedom. He had schemed his escape, from the time his mother died...his drunken Irish father becoming intolerable. School, work – his mother taught him to play piano, and no doubt never imagined he’d use the skill in a brothel. But it was good money. Lying to his father about working as a soda jerk and busboy...saving, scrimping, dreaming...freedom, over the horizon.

To work at Frannie’s, an underground sporting-house on Aldine Mail Route, he had to ride his motorized bicycle an hour each way – rush hour traffic coming in, and then the midnight drinker traffic going home. It was good money, though – better money than many full-time jobs.

Allen Richmond was 17 and a senior in high school.

The Jeepster was for sale on Arline Drive, near Little York Road. Sitting out front of a house...typical oldster’s house, preserved but not kept up. A 1967 – the first year. Price $1700. JUST what he wanted. He wanted a Jeep, and this was a Jeep in a tuxedo. A roadster body on a Jeep CJ-6 frame, and this one with a steel bolt-on hardtop.

The old man, Ferris was his name...would not budge on the price. Nor hold it – you come by when you got the money, boy. Otherwise don’t waste my time.

A week later, he’d come by on his bicycle, with the Chicken-Power auxiliary motor helping him...when he saw an ambulance in front of Ferris’ home. Coming out with a gurney. Didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Coming home at 1 AM, he saw lights on in the house. The garage door was still opened. A daring, stupid plan unfolded…

He put his Chicken-Power in a drainage ditch. He went in...aside from some disorder in the kitchen, everything looked normal. The television was still on, though the station had signed off for the night.

He was looking for papers. If he could get the papers on that Jeepster…

In a second bedroom was a rolltop desk and some file cabinets. Looking in the fourth cabinet, he found the folder. It had insurance papers, title, the newest registration, three months old...and a spare set of keys.

He grabbed it. He had to get out of there, and secure things.

The Jeepster started right up – no drama, no noise. He fired it up, loaded up the bicycle, drove it a mile away, and parked at a closed gas station. He rode the powered bicycle back, hid it, and went back inside.

There had to be money about. The old man was a miser – this was obvious. Somewhere, there was money.

He found it. In, of all places, a file cabinet. In a file, was paper money – hundreds, paper-clipped together in bundles of 20, four bundles in all. He grabbed those, put them in a paper grocery sack...locked up the house, turned out the lights, pulled down the garage door.

There was doubtless more money in there. But he wasn’t greedy. He wasn’t a thief; this was money from heaven, to make an escape with.

Three days later – and he was watching – he saw the DEATH NOTICES listing of one Samuel Jefferson Ferris.

There was no mention of a robbery. By then, the Jeepster was in long-term parking at Houston Intercontinental Airport, awaiting Allen’s high-school graduation. The house had some official-looking activity going on about, but not police activity. Seemingly, Mister Ferris didn’t have any immediate relatives.

Around a bend, the crew of TV-7 could see the East Batavia home signal, a mile away.

“Medium Approach,” Allen announced. “Guess we’re holding.” The train speed was 27. The consist – two new SD-40s and an old GP-9 in Pennsylvania Railroad livery – at was slowing on light dynamic braking.

The light of the opposing train was aimed at them. It wasn’t dimmed, as it would be if the train were stationary.

The East Batavia signal changed. “Limited Clear” Allen announced.

“Guess they’re gonna keep us rolling. Block operator’s on the ball. That must be Amtrak – it’s gotta be a short train.”

Just then, the signal changed again. Two reds, one over the other.

“Light dropped,” Allen announced. It was not an uncommon event – the fail-safe nature of railroad signalling was, any problem or temporary break in circuitry would “drop the signal” – make it go red. A false green was impossible, but any conceivable fault or issue could cause a false red. And there were a lot of issues with Penn Central Transportation.

“Bring it to a nice, safe stop,” Doug said. “We don’t want to buckle this train. Are you bunched or stretched?”

“Bunched. I was in dynamic.”

“Full service, then. Hope Murph and the Rat have a good place to hang on.” The conductor and rear brakeman were in the “cabin” or caboose.

The approaching headlight and surrounding bulk, grew to blotting out the home signal on the right. “Jesus H. Christ, they’ve run the plant!” Doug yelled. “DUMP IT!”

Smitty was already on the floor, under the center window. Doug was scrambling for a place to brace himself. Allen looked, and shrugged. No room for me, I guess. Here goes nuffin.

Speed dropped...slowly, then with gaining momentum. Twenty...15….ten...seven….the ugly profile of an Amtrak EMD E-9 streamliner grew in the windshield.

“God-D@MN, that was close!” Smitty said. He got up, just in time for impact, at six miles an hour. His nose and front tooth were broken on the glass of the center windshield. Allen, about to go out the back door to jump, was launched forward over his own seat, to hit his head on the heater cabinet box in front of the engineer’s windshield.

* * *
The air in the waiting hallway was hot, stifling. The disciplinary hearing was being held in company offices above the Buffalo Central Terminal.

Railroad discipline proceedings take the form of a court inquiry, with a company official presiding. Employees in question are entitled to, and presumed to have, union representation to defend. Other defense representatives are allowed only at company discretion.

The obvious problem is, the union is often in a conflict of interest. One union member’s story may contradict another’s. And the Union Local Chairman may have his own belief, or friendships. Moreover, new employees are not granted union membership until the 90-day probationary period is up.

The Amtrak engineer was one Lisa DiNardi, hired with fanfare a year earlier. It was celebrated as a breakthrough for women – and proof that the new government-owned passenger-railway service was enlightened and forward-thinking. Advancement that quickly was unheard of, but not when there’s PR at stake.

The Block Operator had stated in deposition that Amtrak 58 had been lined through West Batavia, but at East Batavia, TV-7 had been lined to divert onto Track 3 from Main 1. The switching equipment, untouched after the event, supported that.

Amtrak’s Engineer DiNardi had given a statement that she had passed West Batavia with an Approach signal, but at East Batavia the signal showed Clear. She had said that TV-7 was around the bend and not visible.

Amtrak engineers worked alone – the conductor would be in the passenger coaches; the fireman’s position had been abolished.

The weather had been clear, with bright early-evening sunshine. There was the question of cleanliness of the signal lenses and equipment. Neither the Union Local Chairman from the P-Company, nor Amtrak, were interested in bringing up Ms. DeNardi’s training or work record.

Allen Richmond began to smell a rat.

The crews were out of service until preliminary inquiries were completed. Doug, Allen’s trainer, had been un-reachable by phone. The union local chairman said he’d relay a request to call, but the call never came. Doug was not here, this afternoon – although he was supposed to be giving his version of events.

Smitty was. He was distant, cold. The injuries, Allen rationalized...but then, Smitty grabbed his shoulder.

“I gotta do what I gotta do,” he said. “We all do. Doug, too...he’s got kids, he’s got a mortgage. I got my responsibilities. Good luck, kid.” Smitty went in, the door closing behind him.

Every railroad event has to be pinned to a fall guy. It’s almost fortunate if there’s a death involved, because things can be worked around to blame the event on the deceased. Lacking that...if there’s a new hire or probationary employee involved, he’s found to be in some sort of violation – and terminated.

Allen was about to learn this.

Smitty came out, at a trot – a man on a mission. He avoided eye contact as he made a beeline to the elevator.

Allen was called in.

* * * *
Two hours later, Allen was in the trainmaster’s office, turning his equipment in – switch keys, timetables, which were considered proprietary. His final check and Notice of Termination were being prepared. He was to sign receipt of the Decision of Inquiry.

“You done with him, Ed?” It was the Road Foreman of Engines, sticking his head in.

“Just about. Another minute.”

“Richmond. Could you stick your head in my office before you go?” Allen had no idea what business they could have. No need to pretend to respect, to honor status. They’d sacked him. Because they didn’t have the guts to sack that Amtrak...engineer.

Grabbing his check and bundle of documents, Allen went down the corridor to the RFE’s office. He didn’t knock.

“Allen. This is all off the record, okay? I’m sorry. I’m not the only one who’s sorry. There’s bigger forces at work here.”

“You did good here. It’s not on paper; it can’t be on paper; but Doug told me how it really went down. You were right and you did good. So maybe I can help you...there’s a short line, up in the Adirondack Preserve...they need crews. I can make some calls...”

Yeah, time to put this up. However crude it looks - crude, in terms of craft. I know the subject is crude. The people within are crude, like me. Nice guys don't often have engaging stories.

I've been putting it off, and now, going out of my mind with cabin fever...I'm gonna try. I'll have to find a better home for my scribblings, but maybe for now, I can keep the click-count high for Mr Bug..

A few rules, I'd ask. I WELCOME any and all constructive comments - meaning something I can work with. Positive or negative. But I'd ask that they go on a separate thread for feedback.


When you have a specific post/piece comment, link to the post in question on that other thread.

I'm going to try to be a little more organized then I was in throwing samples out there; I have no idea how this will work out - as a masterpiece or doggerel or a waste of electrons.

Thanks for the help and toleration.

"Vengeance is mine; I will repay. Thus sayeth THE LORD."
--Romans 12:19

"Free will is a myth."
--B. F. Skinner

"If my hands slack, I rob God - for God cannot make Stradivarius violins without Antonio."
--Antonio Stradivari, violinmaker

PROLOGUE: The Red Line



There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

--W. Somerset Maugham

A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone.
Gazing out my window
Unto the streets below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow…

--Simon & Garfunkel

Boxing Day, it’s called, in Britain – December 26. So named, originally, because the loyal servants and staff received cartons of what was gifted but not wanted. It remains, the day more plebian celebrants box up what’s not wanted, with an eye for returns for credit.

In the States, it’s the second-busiest shopping day of the Christmas season – where much of the commerce is backflow, from car trunks, to shoppers’ arms, and then to the EXCHANGES windows.

It’s an official unofficial holiday, with many non-retail businesses remaining closed. You want a mechanic, or a dentist, or, perchance, an attorney? Forget it.

Nonetheless there was one such, in his firm’s conference room high above in Cleveland’s Terminal Tower...not receiving clients, but cleaning up paperwork. On the clock, of course. He was not a partner – that would come later, he was told. How much later? It was a question never answered; it was poor form to ask. The partnership remained the carrot on the stick...as the hours required, grew, the work stretched, the billings kept multiplying in tandem with dissatisfaction.

The office was of course closed – there would be no corporate consultations, no high-powered civil litigants bringing in matters on such a day – but there were a handful of junior attorneys, employees, essentially, doing the same as one John Walters – originally Johann Van der Waalt.

A few steps away, in his cubicle office, on a wall, were his diploma, from Cornell University School of Law, made out, likewise to John D. Walters. It was a forgery, done by a skilled engraver. His true diploma lay in a trunk at home, with his given Dutch name.

The law license was likewise a second copy, after his legal name-change was probated. John, Johann, wanted to appear as nothing but one more WASP-ish member of the bar.

Outside the windows of the conference room, the fat flakes of a Lake Erie snow squall fell silently by. It was a long way down, to Public Square.

The work commenced. Drudge-work, mostly. He edited in margins; he noted paragraphs. He did it by rote – his mind was elsewhere. A troublesome day with proletariat nuisances; with a high-maintenance wife. His trip to work was of the most inglorious imaginable: he took the Rapid.

His Scirocco wouldn’t start. Renee had “shopping” that she “had” to do today – so there was nothing left to do but have her run him from Berea to the Brook Park Rapid stop, like a janitor hustling to work at the Sheraton.

It wasn’t even convenient. If he’d listened to co-workers, and looked for a home in Beachwood or Cleveland Heights, he’d have had the Shaker Rapid nearly at his door. But he chose Berea – with the college, Baldwin-Wallace; the Metroparks; the edge of the suburban belt. Screw status – Berea’s trendy enough.

The snow fell. The sun, obscured by snow and clouds, dipped.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Who had said that? Didn’t matter – it was said a hundred years before he was born, and with all his education, Ithaca College, Cornell Law...he’d done it.

Cohabitation, he was told, put forth the wrong image. We want you with our firm; but we have standards within that we have to hold up. Dewey, Niccum & Howe has prominent clients, with conservative standards. We have to think of their standards; and our staff and partners need respect those standards.

Yeah, okay. Well, it would be a chance to maybe smooth things over with Renee’s father. They had been at loggerheads since before they even met. Renee was rebellious; she moved in with him at least partly to spite her father. It was a chance flaunt disobedience while glomming on to a man on the move up.

Then this first coercion, at the first crossroads. Johann expected it in the legal field. Okay...it is what it is. A weekend discussion with Renee; and the decision was made: Get married, but not with the silly Establishment folderol. Fly to Vegas; find the tackiest wedding chapel they could; and do it. Then spend a week in the Grand Canyon.

It was so done. Johann wore a black tee-shirt with a white silk-screen of a bow tie. Renee was in white jeans and blouse. Running shoes on both.

They were respectable.

Except, even in their irrepressible way, it chafed.

Renee’s father was a tool-and-die man for the Ford engine plant...he had aspired for a better life for his daughter. He helped her to enter SUNY Geneseo, far away from the family’s working-class environment in Parma...and instead, she apparently chose to major in Alcohol Abuse. Field research led her to this apparently-Dutch nobody from Albany.

Aspirations led to a field with close-to-no satisfaction; with little renumeration – but always the promise of that pot of gold, if he just tried just a little bit harder.

The snow fell, outside. The time was long past sunset, yet the outside was brilliant, in the way of winter landscapes with diffused lighting. The snow was orange, with the glare of sodium street lamps...the traffic on Euclid Avenue, light.

Time to pack it in, Johnny-boy, he thought. I’d showed I’m a good company boy – coming in on an off day, clocking billable hours...yes, massah, I doon juss like you want.

Johann thought of the irony. It was the Dutch, fresh off the boats, who were frequently put to work by Southern planters to oversee the field slaves. They were scarcely more than slaves themselves, and knew little more of English than the Africans they were to drive.

Here it is, 150 years later. Lincoln freed the (expletive)s, but we Dutch still face the lash.

He gathered up his stack of file folders, and set them in the cabinet in his office. No reason to take a satchel home – it promised to be a lively weekend ahead. Renee needed attention – he was going to fight with her or love her senseless, and either way there’d be no time for fooling with what should be left at the desk, anyway.

The other wage-slaves had already left. John turned on the security alarms, set the lock, and headed for the elevators.

****

Once, it had been the Cleveland Union Terminal’s Concourse – below street level, with two department stores and an office tower above. The stamped decorative copper above the little shop openings, spoke of turn-of-the-century prosperous business environments. It was intended to be nostalgic, when fashioned, in 1932.

It was no longer 1932; it was no longer Union Terminal. The space was undergoing a slow, staged conversion to an urban shopping mall. And Amtrak’s train station was a mile away, in a pre-fabbed structure nearly impossible to enter except from the Shoreway.

The former train shed below, housed only a dark, disquieting parking area. And, walled off with added concrete partitions, tracks for the Shaker light-rail transit cars, and the Red Line heavy-rail system – a legacy line dating from 1950 or so, running from a no-longer-fashionable eastern inner-ring suburb, to Hopkins Airport.

Beyond the airport, was Berea – with its wooded suburban lots, its borders on Rocky River and unincorporated wooded copses. Home to the Browns and Baldwin-Wallace. The place where the lower-tier successful might still find most of their perqs.

Johann hadn’t bothered to call. He’d do it at the Brookpark park-and-ride; it was literally five minutes to the house from the station.

****

The elevator opened into the street-front lobby, onto Public Square. To get down to the Red Line railcars, he had to walk down a ramp, down a story, and then down escalators to an underground stop. Plans called for a modern, well-lit platform. For now it was naked concrete, still stained in places with soot from C-U-T steam switchers of 50 years earlier.

Higbee was a major department store chain, and the Terminal Tower store was their original...but even for December 26, foot traffic was light. There were not many people in the concourse, and fewer headed for the Rapid platform. Only a handful were waiting for the next trains, east or west. Crime, Johann postulated – the area was much safer than twenty years before, the time of the Hough riots, but memories last a long time.

John Walters, Esquire, pretend WASP yuppie of Cleveland, took a seat on a bench, with the rest of the proles. An eastbound came, stopped, and left. No one got off, or boarded. Not surprising – from Terminal Tower, the old Rapid right-of-way headed towards East 55th, and then to Windermire Street.

East Cleveland. Once fashionable, where high-tech industry met high-income residences; it had become the focus of b-busting real-estate hucksters, and now was an expansion of the Euclid Avenue ghetto.

The Red Line Rapid ran there because it always ran there. From the Cleveland Street Railway Company, to the municipal Cleveland Transit System, to the county Regional Transit Authority...it just kept on its route drawn up two generations ago, a route that made no economic sense.

A westbound string of railcars pulled up. Empty...they must have just been made up at the shops at 55th. RTA was running a weekday schedule, probably anticipating shopping traffic that didn’t appear to be here. The string was unusual – there were two Tokyu Japanese railcars tied together, as normally ran in non-peak hours, and behind it, one old 1960s Pullman Airporter car. Pantograph down; lights off.

The handful of riders walked aboard. Johann entered the second car, a comfortable distance from other passengers, and zoned out.

The noisy, clattering ride over switches and crossovers, took the railcars from the train shed, into open space – the strange faint orange background lighting of hundreds of sodium street-lights, reflected in airborne snow – and then across the bridge over the river.

“Twenty-Fiff Street. Next stop, Twenty-Fiff.”

The baseline noise suddenly increased. An open door – a passenger was moving from another car. There were no vestibules connecting these cars but the end doors were unlocked, and with safety chain handholds. For emergency use, apparently.

This passenger entered. Western hat; tinted glasses; moustache. Oily black hair. His body language sent Johann’s senses off. A good lawyer learned to read body language, well and quickly; and this actor was on a mission.

Behind those unneeded sunglasses, he was reading faces. Looking for someone.

Walking past Johann, he went back about four rows of seats, and sat. In the aisle seat. Staring intently at the black window – watching something, probably a reflection.

He had ignored three passengers towards the rear of the car. So, whatever he was looking for, he’d found it.

There was something about him – Johann was sure he was the preyy. Mistaken identity? Murder for hire? This was silly – Johann didn’t work criminal law, never had. He was, to this point, a technician, not a trial lawyer.

He wanted to know less, or more. Put distance between them, or force the confrontation. Johann grabbed his satchel and walked back to the Pullman car, ostensibly out of service. He pulled open the exit door, stood on the platform, half-expecting the door to the Pullman to be locked.

It was not. He went in, in the dark, in the cold, walked halfway back, and took a seat. Brook Park was still 15 minutes away. He could quickly move back in time.

Passing the stranger to walk back, he’d gotten another impression. The hair.

Johann had been in his high school’s Drama Club; and had done a little community theatre before his present job. He’d have never considered it as a possible vocation, but he had a bit of a ham in his nature.

But the smells stuck with him. Of theatrical face-paint – and hair dye.

That was a dye job. And not a permanent one. One that would quickly rinse out.

There was something about him. The body language. His bearing. He knew him...and he knew he was the object, the hunted.

The end-door opened, and the Western hat came in.

****

Johann stared hard out the window. Let him come to me, he thought. He needs me. I don’t need him. He can come forward with his business.

The train stopped at Madison, and then quickly pulled out. No announcement, not in this car.

The sunglassed theatrical cowboy walked back, stopped in the aisle, a few feet away, and stared.

“What’s your problem, mister?” Johann said. He was trying for firm, fierce, but without panic or strain. Control him with your voice, he thought. He had few other tools. Aside from the legality of it, going to work – in a law office – with a concealed handgun, was, at the very least, gauche.

It had never been an issue. Now it was an issue. Johann was no stranger to firearms, but he viewed them as tools of sport, not of self-defense. He would have to re-think that.

“I think I got my problem mostly under control, looks like.” Johann gave a start – so deep he was in his own thought, suppressed panic, self-reproachment. ‘

The accent was a thick East-Tex drawl. Johann allowed a smile – he knew this guy. Or knew what he used to be.

“Isn’t this a bit below you? You didn’t have to come all the way from Hamilton County, to Cleveland to work a transit rail job. Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be in uniform? Up front, or something?”

“Nope, I’m just a tourist. Or, actually, I had some business to work out. Looks like we’re about getting it squared away.”

He pretended to be looking out the window. “Cleveland. The Mistake On The Lake.” He spat on the floor. “You needed a Cornell education to come and do law-clerk work with a bunch of shysters in Cleveland? Couldn’t you find some law firm in White Plains or something? Maybe even Massachusetts? Martha’s Vinyard. Yeah, that would be your speed – Ivy League, law school, then filing papers for a law office in Hyannisport or something.”

The stranger smirked. “Back in Houston, a rich gentleman might call that “downwardly socially mobile. That’s you – given all the advantages, and still you’re a fraction of what got put into you.”

Now Johann was pissed. “Where the hell you get off, working your big mouth like that? Why’d you leave Old Forge, anyway? What did you have to do with that mess?”

“That’s not the question. It’s you that’s got questions you need to answer. And not to me, either – I have the answers I need. Now it’s time to meet the Big Guy.”

The Texan was looking at the door at the end car, and Johann turned slightly to see what was coming. And felt the sting of a knife in his sternum. He’d been feinted...one of the oldest tricks, and done crudely.

But the damage was done. He felt the blade twist and then pull out, felt the wetness, the shock, the light-headedness...and in the course of short seconds, was on his way to whatever justice lay in waiting for him across the vale.

His assailant, took the knife...opened the door on the end, threw it out. The string of railcars was slowing for Puritas Station. With the car slowing, he headed onto the V-shaped anti-climb platform...found the maintenance steps, and let himself off expertly, before the cars stopped.

The knife was thrown over the Conrail tracks that ran parallel, and the assailant disappeared, down a maintenance walkway, into the parking lot, Puritas Avenue, and a few miles to a cheap motel he’d arranged.

The lawyer with an unsettled past, a turbulent present, and no future, remained in his wheeled cooling chamber until morning’s light.

Prologue II is at this link - https://www.pmbug.com/threads/fiction-maybe-somewhere-west-of-laramie.4810/post-72351

I was going to cut, paste and edit it out over there, but I guess old threads can't be edited.

Next chapter: The Dream.

EDIT: We're out of order, but it's all here, now...

The story is supposed to be told in flashbacks, but this is a bit disoriented. Story order: First, you find two low-performance people, meeting in the dark, on a dirty railcar.

Then, you take a train ride, over the jewel of the Penn Central's network. And learn of their enlightened labor relations.

We are about to find out what happened to our modern Huck Finn, once he got himself north, to the job connection he was offered...

The air in the bedroom was nearly 100-percent saturated. The windows were open – to water, on three sides. Overhead, a light rain was drumming a patter on the tin roof, on the other side of the particleboard ceiling.

The lone occupant of the old bed, twisted restively.



He was in the back of the old Suburban – his father’s “work truck,” a 1964 Chevrolet. Unlike later versions, this one didn’t have back doors. Or roll-down windows. This one had an aftermarket air-conditioning system installed – which wasn’t working.

His father was at the wheel. They were headed to...where? A shooting range. His father was going to teach him gun safety. Something his mother opposed.

His mother sat on the other side of the front seat. He saw her head, from the back – the black hair, the slender profile. The clipped English she used, speaking with his father. The soft Spanish she’d use, talking to him.

His father was drinking beer. Not his first. There were dozens of cans on the floor by his feet.

“You should not drive when you drink like this,” his mother said.

“I’m only having one, Triana.”

“And what about those?” She nodded to the footwell.

“I had those before we left! I’m not drinking and driving – I drank, and NOW I’m driving!” He smirked with his sarcasm – knowing his wife’s ways, knowing she wouldn’t speak against her husband.

Senora Triana Richmond did not drink. She had seen too much of it, in her home and in Texas, to desire it. “We will have an accident on this freeway, the way you are driving,” she said.

He veered off an exit ramp. It was the Texas City exit off the 610 Loop. “There. Now I’m not driving that way. Nice and slow – so I can have another beer!”

Now they were headed to Pasadena. The gun-safety training had become a trip to look at a new house. Something a little closer to his father’s jobsite.

Traffic was gridlocked. They were somehow on Westheimer, near the Galleria. The other side of Houston.

Allen had to go to the bathroom. There was no moving – NOTHING. Intersections jammed.

His mother gave his father baleful glares, and spoke quietly to Allen.

His father was working on another can of beer. Somehow the crosswalk two cars in front of the truck, had become filled with young black men.

“(Expletive)’ (epithet),” he said. “Neighborhood’s going to a camp-meeting Hell since they had to let them in these malls.”

Four of them heard, and started moving to the truck, big stage grins, in a Stepen Fetchett lope. They went to the four corners of the truck.

“Hey, what you think y’all doin, boys!” his father slurred. One of them stood up, holding a hub cap.

“Yass, boss, we just see these things layin inna road. We didn’t want you to run over them with that fine car of yours.” The three others moved alongside, arms loaded in similar fashion.

“Yeah, I knew y’all was good boys. Don’t get hurt in traffic, son it moves fast ‘round here.”

The leader looked at the rows of stopped cars, smiled big, and loped out of sight.

“I like to see a boy like that – knows his place.” His mother’s blank expression turned fierce. She muttered something quietly… ”Pinche gringo…”

Allen’s need to go potty was getting more urgent. He wispered to his mother, quietly – “Necesito ur al Bano?”

“Si.” His mother had had enough. “Stop over at this place,” she pointed at a Stop-N-Go. “We will use the toilet.”

“They won’t let anyone use the toilet.”

“I will ask nicely. And if they refuse, Allen can go behind the trash can.”

Now his father was angry. “I gotta get over two lanes, for THIS?” He violently swerved the Suburban in front of a Mercedes, a Cadillac, both of which blew horns. Somehow there was a trolley-car about to cut them off, short of the driveway apron. The trolley-car had become a railway locomotive. Bearing down on them, the engineer playing Chicken with Allen’s father. The horn blew….BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….

Allen screamed and sat up. The electric clock alarm was going off. 6:00.

He was home. Or what passes for home. His bed. Rented, with the cabin. He was grown, he was in New York.

And oh, dear God, his mother was dead. Dead, of cancer, thirteen years earlier. She was Mexican by nationality; Castilian by ethnicity. Only her black hair suggested any Inca blood. She moved from the upper caste of Mexican society, only to be handcuffed to an Irish-American engineer, an alcoholic.

Allen had to urinate. Urgently; critically. Only good luck had the alarm go off before his over-hydration of the night before, had him wet the bed. He stumbled into the bathroom, took care of things, and regarded his reflection in the mirror over the sink.

He didn’t look too bad. He’d cut back, last night – he had a big day today. Orientation for the seasonal help. He was expected to help get them situated. Training would start today – for them and, hands-on, for him.

For the last eight months, he’d been working with a skeleton crew – running a train to Saranac, switch, and overnight. Then down past Thendera to Utica, again, switch and overnight. Back up to Thendera, yard everything, tie it down until the following week.

Pay was a pittance. This was a startup – the old New York Central Adirondack Division. The Penn Central had run it, unwillingly, until 1970. Bankruptcy led to emergency appeals to the ICC to abandon, and uncharacteristically, it was granted.

The State of New York was up in arms. It immediately obtained an injunction to prevent the removal of rails, and seized the right-of-way. Several civic leaders, seeing an opportunity, put a business plan together: They would run a scenic passenger train over the old right of way, to the connection in Montreal. This would not make money, at least not at first; money could be made by picking up the sparse freight business that the Penn Central was leaving behind.

If it worked according to plan, it would increase lodging and dining business for the area – and perhaps even operate in the black. If not, the owners could convert to non-profit status, sell shares among supporters’ businesses, and take tax losses.

It was into this mess that Allen Richmond had been offered a job lead – take it or leave it. Penn Central fired you. Now it’s Conrail, but they have the personnel records. You were sacrificed in defense of a political hire who made a mistake.

He took it. One of the principals behind the startup, was part owner in a tourist cabin-court, closed some years earlier. A few of the structures were still habitable. He was given a small two-bedroom unit, no foundation, wood stove...one of the bedrooms emptied out to make a front room. A wall was removed to open the interior.

It was part of his pay. On the one hand, it was generous – it had a rustic charm; he couldn’t have afforded an apartment this nice with his pay. On the other hand, it reflected his tenuous hold on life. The job goes, you have nothing, not even a home, not even for the balance of the month up to the next rent period.

He regarded himself in the mirror. Eyes...not bad. Not much of a hangover. For sixteen years he’d hated and loathed his father, his loud, beer-drinking ways...and here he’s showing he’s his father’s son. Winter was long – and lonely. A small country market was a few miles down the highway. They sold a number of things tourists and hunters might want – frozen dinners, ice cream, and beer.

Beer made it all easier. The lonely nights. The isolated days, with the time hanging over his head. There was no television stations in the area. The new cable franchises hadn’t come out this way – it was unlikely they ever would, with the technology of the time. Population was thin – the Adirondacks were not thickly settled, never would be. The State claimed most of the land as a forest preserve.

There were libraries in Old Forge and Saranac. He’d taken to reading histories and some murder-mysteries.

Eyes, good. No bruises. No hangover. He didn’t feel like eating but he had a busy day ahead. Not running a train, but taking new hires around. So...a hard-boiled egg; some bacon. He would cook a pound as he bought it, and refrigerate it, and heat it up quickly in a skillet as needed. Not only for breakfast – many had been the dinners of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

The coffee was ready – out of an old plug-in percolator that came with the place. He’d brew eight cups – drink several cups and fill up his Stanley thermos for the rest of the day.

He reflected on the wet landscape – the driveway was pea-gravel; the cabin was built under the forest canopy. Various conifers, with paper-birch interspaced. His porch looked out over Fourth Lake – a small, deep bay, a tenth of a mile across. Beyond a stand of timber, was the main body of water.

Time to go. He had 25 miles to drive – and a new hire who needed a ride. Elmer, the hostler who was filling other roles, scheduling, training and some maintenance, had dropped that on him two days ago, as he got off work.

“He’s staying at The Mohawk,” Elmer said. “He needs a ride in, at least this time. We’ll have to see how it goes once we get cranked up.”

“Yah? What happens if’n he don’t find a way in, every day?”

“Says he can borrow his mother’s car. Or she can take him in. He’s sure of it, and anyway, it’s not like we have a lot of people to choose from.”

So. Grabbing his lunch – his timetable, his work clothes, all already in the Jeepster – he headed out. His ball-cap wasn’t enough to keep the rain off his head.

The driveway was pea-gravel; ferns and blue-spruce saplings growing up in the center. Allen hoped it was the right place.

Elmer, the all-purpose old-head and straw-boss, had given him directions – terse ones. “He’s at the Mohawk. Cabin 7. Sign’s by the road, Fourth Lake. You’ll find it.” Roger that, boss.

He took the Jeepster slowly down the embankment. Wet, sandy soil and smooth small stone, made it slippery. He was looking for numbers. There didn’t seem to be any...until he noticed white metal numbers on thick pines’ trunks. He passed 5, marked on a tree deep inside a side driveway. The 6 was opposite the next set of tracks to the right. Leaning against a tree, marked 7, was, apparently his passenger – wearing a fishing-hat and hi-viz raincoat.

He reached over to open the door. “John?”

“Yeah,” he said. He threw his grip into the back seat, uninvited. “Allen, right?”

“Last time I checked,” he said – noting the irony. Through the cloud of half-truths, he almost had to do a review. His passenger shrugged off the wet raincoat, threw the dripping hat next to the sodden bag on the back seat. In his mind, Allen could hear the water dripping from the seat onto the bare steel of the floor. It wasn’t that bad – he could mop it up once he got to the shop. It was just water. This was just a utility truck. Never mind it was his baby; hard-won with forgery and legwork and two trips to Vermont to launder the title. Two years, now...what’s the Statute of Limitations in Texas?

His passenger watched him, after wiping the flat glass of the windshield. It was getting steamy inside. John was looking at the dash. “Where’s the defroster?”

“My side.” Allen clicked it on. His passenger was staring at the instruments. “What kind of car is this, anyway?”

Allen smirked. “It’s a Kaiser C-101.” Technically true.

“No, I mean, what kinda car IS it. Everything says Jeep; and the front looks a little like a Jeep, but I’ve never seen one like this. Is it an export model?”

“Nope, a Jeepster. Jeep used to be made by the car company Kaiser. This was made in its last year. American Motors changed a lot – this model was discontinued. It’s just a different body on a CJ-7 frame.” Not exactly true, but close enough.

“I never heard of it.” He leaned forward – Allen got a look of him in profile. Styled hair. Weight-room body. Yup, a preppie. “You know – you got an engine miss on this thing. Wet spark wires?”

“Again, nope. It’s the engine design - what they called an odd-fire V-6. It was a V-8 with two cylinders cut off. There’s no way to make it run smooth.” His passenger looked at him in disbelief. “You can see with the distributor cap – the plug wires aren’t spaced evenly.”

The engine did lope, but it ran strong. The rain, and the S-curves, brought speeds down to 40, but a jab on the gas would make it stand up and dance. The transmission was only a three-speed; and he ran out of wind in 2nd at 25. The driver would have to lug it in 3rd. Old-school in more ways than one.

“They tell me you have experience with steam,” Allen said, to break the silence.

“Yeah – I fired, Cumbres & Toltec, New Mexico, a year ago. It was a rare chance – and I took a year off after high school. I was always interested in railroading, but of course I didn’t want to make it a career.” Of course not, Allen thought – not part of the Preppie template. “This year I don’t have the time. Going back to school in September. So I’ll do it out here.”

So, he wasn’t asked back, apparently. Fired. Something we have in common, maybe.

“Your folks rent the place at The Mohawk?”

“Grandparents. They have a 99-year lease with the owners. It’s transferrable – for all intents, they own it. My parents will be in and out, over the summer.” He looked over. “How about you? Are you one of the old heads, here?”

“Not hardly. I started under a year ago. I’d been a new-hire fireman with the Penn Central, and stepped in some ca-ca while I was still on probation. They let me go but recommended me here. Now I’m running weekly freight – with diesels.” There. It’s out. Tell the truth and save a lie.

“So, you’re going to be doing freight, not the passenger stuff?”

“It’s not decided yet. Frankly the steam operation isn’t ready yet. The boiler inspection isn’t done; if we don’t have everything in order by July 1, they’ll start with our road-switcher, to begin with.”

“I guess – I’m not the training officer, but I guess – they’re going to start you out getting qualified on the run. You’ll have to take an operating-rules exam; then you’ll have to be trained on physical characteristics. That probably means a couple of runs on the freight, up to Lake Placid and back down. Then, you’ll probably have to train me on steam.”

His passenger looked in his lap for a moment. “You were with Conrail?”

“Penn Central - before it became Conrail.”

“Where were you working?”

“Buffalo to Selkirk.”

“So...right out here. How do you come to have a Texas accent?”

“I’m from Houston. I hit the road after I finished with school.” Again, the truth, as far as it went. He was finished with school. School had a lot more it wanted to do with him. He wasn’t going to let it.

“So, of all places, you came up to Central New York. Odd choice.”

“What, y’all don’t approve?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that there’s not much drawing people up here. Industries are closing.” He looked out, at the wall of green that the roadside forest laid down on each side of the 1930s-era two-lane. “My family’s from Long Island, and they’ve done okay. I’ve traveled a bit – to the Rockies, as I said, and I’d like to do some more; but my roots are here.”

Silence. Allen wasn’t going to bare his soul – his lack of family, not even any sort of compass to give some direction.

The roadside was littered with small shops, now, the speed limit dropping. Old Forge – the big little town in the area. The Enchanted Forest amusement park, several waterfront motels. A Howard Johnson’s – and then the commerce thinning out, as they reached Thendara on the southern outskirts. Allen turned left onto a gravel road, over an unmarked crossing of rusty tracks, and over to a decrepit series of outbuildings. About eight gutted old Pennsylvania Railroad passenger coaches, rotted on dilapidated tracks. Four coaches in fresh paint stood on another set of weed-encrusted rails. On the tracks going to a new pole-barn, sat two GP-9s and an Alco RS-3. Tracks to the old turntable were overgrown; the old roundhouse had burned years before. Sitting, on a wye not far from it, was a 1923 Lima 2-8-2 that once had belonged to the Boston and Albany.

Allen aimed the Jeep into a parking spot next to a picturesque rustic building. “This used to be the station restaurant. Now it’s our office. They’re trying to figure out where they want to put facilities once things get going – to move the office, or put up a hot dog stand, or what.”

John, the passenger, grabbed his gear and followed his host through the double-doors into the restaurant-office.