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FLYING HOBO Sitting on the top walkway of a grain
railway car which was concatenated to a mile and a half train heading south
from Tucson to El Paso through the low mountains, legs hanging over the edge in
the gap between cars, blowing on a tarnished banged-up trumpet bound by a hemp rope
looped over his head and torso, playing jazz for the wind and wild animals that
sporadically lined the tracks. The slapping of the trains wheels against the
tracks accompanied the hobo like a tremendous metronome. No job, only freedom. As long as he
was allowed to hop from train to train he would travel the country hustling a
living. What better way to live than taking in great chunks of diverse
geography without paying tour bus prices. The complex spider web of railway
tracks guarantees that a persevering hobo can get anywhere he wants to go. The
odd thing about this gigantic steel network is that it can be considered to be
one unbroken line. In a way, the tracks of Hobo's have a lot of time to think about
stuff like that. And play the trumpet. The personage of our attention played
on this warm spring day as the train, as big as a two-story house, sped along.
Grain to here, oil to there, bricks to here, corn syrup to there. The great
commerce of He had logged many hours journeying
this way from coast to coast. He'd heard of disaster on the rails before, in
fact, he considered his past life a sort of train-wreck. Howe'er, he never b He stopped puffing the notes out as
car after car, screeching and grindingly, twisted as they jumped the tracks. The
poor Hobo was spellbound, slack jawed, and in awe at the inescapable
preposterous tragedy unfolding before his eyes. It seemed like an eternity
before the car in front of the one he was perched on bucked in turn. Then, he
was flipped off like an insignificant insect by the active force of the
derailment. Monstrous catastrophe is impatient when it decides to finally
strike. At the rate of forty m.p.h. and twenty feet in the air he flew downward trying to
apprehend an gravel embankment which fell away before him. Behind, the total
mass of the train was squabbling for shoulder room in the compacting attempts
of chaos. Dust, steam, hydraulic fluid, and smoke shot sky-ward protesting the
insanity of it all. The hobo crash landed in a big ole
bushy cedar tree which couldn't make up its mind what to do with the hobo and
was extremely offended over being pounced upon. The cedar tree momentarily held
the hobo extended at branch's length, consternated, while the laws of motion
and gravity debated the hobo's fate. The hobo groaned in this suspended
animation, glancing up at a horrendous commotion behind him. The hobo and the
cedar tree, which would've jumped out of its roots if it could have, both saw a
boxcar on its side rapidly sliding down the steep inclivity towards them. The cedar tree’s branches cushioned
the blow as the boxcar crashed into the hobo pushing him further downward
towards a sizable cliff. Our friend, the cedar tree, who was previously minding
his own roots quietly in the country-side for forty years, was summarily clipped
at ground level. The boxcar grinded to a halt; howe’er,
the momentum caused the hobo to hurtle out of the crushed cedar tree skidding
on the gravel which was tenuously hanging onto the incline above the cliff. The
hobo barely managed to slow his descent so that he didn't shoot over the rough
outcropping of rocks crenulating the rim. The hobo, bruised, felt temporarily
safe. This sequence of events was something he never expected to happen. He
heard an irritated whirring noise and hesitantly peeked down to spy two
rattlesnakes on a ledge directly below his feet. His soul screamed as he kicked
and squirmed his way back up and away from the cliff's edge, lucky that the
serpents did not hit their mark. Once on top he took inventory of the
situation. Well, his trumpet was crushed and so was he it felt like. He looked
up and down the tracks at the wreckage which reminded him of the destruction of
the convoy of Iraqi troops fleeing He would be there awhile before the
next train it looked like. END |