by Sam Torode
Desperate to change the subject, I asked the first question that came to mind. “Say, are you a Harvey girl?”
She crossed her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. I just thought—”
“No, I’m a fucking Sister of Charity,” she said. This girl could out-cuss my Mama.
I asked the next thing that came to mind. “Are you French?”
“Look, babyface. I don’t get paid to answer stupid questions.” With that, she hurled a pillow. I ducked and it glanced off my shoulder.
When I looked at her again, the sheet was down around her waist and her breasts were there right in the open, dangling like golden apples. My mouth fell open. I could only bear to look for a second, then I took a sudden interest in the wallpaper pattern.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look like you’ve never seen a girl before.”
I hadn’t. Well, aside from one photograph, some cartoon drawings, and a hundred-thousand fantasies. But none of that prepared me for the real thing.
This was an unexpected opportunity. My goal had always been to get married and make love to a beautiful girl before the Rapture. But if there wasn’t going to be any Rapture, and no Judgment, why wait?
I needed some time to think it all over. Finally, I said, “Do you mind if we just talked for a while?”
“Talk? I’ve been talking, babyface. What do you want to talk about?”
Well, it would be nice to talk about sex, for one thing. I’d never had a chance to talk to anyone about it before. For all the time I spent thinking about girls, I didn’t know the first thing about what to do with them. All I knew about making love I’d learned from dirty comics and Mama’s health books. The comics didn’t offer much practical guidance; and those health books scared the dickens out of me, with their diagrams of female genitalia that resembled giant, man-eating tarantulas.
“Well,” she said, “what are you waiting for? Afraid I’ll bite?”
Maybe she would. I thought about that tarantula lurking under the sheet.
She looked at the clock on the wall. “Look, babyface, I ain’t got all night. Let’s get this over with.”
“I paid for the whole night,” I said. “The lady gave me a special.”
“Damn it all,” she said. “That’s money out of my pocket. You’d better be a big tipper.”
I thought she was talking about penis size. Did girls like them big? The thought terrified me. I’d never taken my shirt off in front of a girl, much less my shorts.
“What’s wrong—can’t get it up?”
That was the least of my problems—I was stiff as a flagpole. Finally, I decided to shut off my brain and let that part of me do the thinking. I climbed up onto the bed, and when I got close enough she grabbed my shirt and pulled me down onto her. Her breath was hot on my neck and her breasts were warm and soft against my chest, like bread dough. “Let’s see what you’re made of, babyface.”
I sat up, straddling her waist, and tried to unbutton my pants with trembling fingers. The room seemed to be spinning around me. My head was swimming. Everything went blurry. I closed my eyes and tried to steady myself.
When I opened my eyes again, the girl’s nipples were staring back at me like a pair of red eyes. And that’s when I saw the bruise. Just below her breasts, on her left rib, there was a brown and purple blotch with veins spidering out. That wasn’t the sort of tarantula I was expecting.
Who had hurt her—the big lady downstairs? Some Chicago businessman? My flagpole went limp as a noodle.
“Listen,” I said, climbing off of her. “I—I’m too tired to do anything. I just came here looking for a place to sleep. You’re a beautiful girl and all, but—”
“If you want me to suck you off—”
“No—that’s not it. Really, I’m tired. So I’m going to take the floor and you can have the bed to yourself.”
For the first time, she didn’t say anything. I flattened out a blanket that had fallen off the bed and picked up the pillow she’d thrown. I curled up and listened to her breathing up above. It sounded like she was sniffling.
Why should I care? Why couldn’t I just have my way with her? For whatever reason, I couldn’t do it. If sex was just about power—the weak over the strong, the rich over the poor—I didn’t want it. I’d rather jerk myself off than pay a girl to pretend like she loved me.
I started thinking about Charlie Chaplin—how he rescued the Gamin, and how the two of them found a shack by the railroad tracks and made it a home. I imagined running away with the girl. We could find a cabin somewhere in the Ozarks. We could grow a garden and raise chickens.
Raising chickens with the girl sounded more appealing than screwing her—? What kind of fool notion was that? I knew less about raising chickens than I did about sex, if such a thing was possible.
Finally, I screwed up the courage to ask. “Have you ever thought about marriage?”
She let out a sharp laugh. “I told you—I don’t answer stupid questions.”
“I’ll bet there’s lots of fellows that want to marry you.”
Another pillow came sailing over the edge of the bed, hitting me in the face. “Go to sleep. I don’t talk to drunks.”
The pillow was damp with tears.
CHAPTER 9
I woke up thinking of Hosea. That’s the curse of being a preacher’s son—you wake up in the same room with a naked girl for the first time in your life, and what’s on your mind? Bible stories.
Hosea was the prophet whom God commanded to marry a prostitute. I once asked Father if God would ever tell someone today to do something like that. “No,” he said. “That was a special revelation, so that Hosea could stand as a sign of God’s faithfulness at a time when the people of Israel were whoring after foreign gods.”
But if God commanded it once, why couldn’t he do it again? His people weren’t any more faithful today than they were in Bible times. Was God telling me to marry this girl?
I stared up at the ceiling and listened for God, but didn’t hear anything—not even the girl’s breathing.
The folks at Remus Baptist had a direct telephone line to God. “The Lord told me,” they’d always say, or, “The Lord laid it on my heart.” But God never spoke to me. I used to lie awake at night begging for a few words—even a simple “hello”—just so I’d know he was there, but I never got a peep out of him. Maybe it was just as well. If I ever heard the voice of God, I’d shit my britches.
According to my father, God’s main way of speaking was through the Bible. And Hosea wasn’t the only biblical precedent for marrying a loose woman. In Sunday school, they made it sound like the women of the Bible were a bunch of pious schoolmarms—but nothing could be further from the truth. Take Tamar, for instance. She disguises herself as a harlot and sleeps with her own father-in-law, just to prove what a hypocrite he is. Or Ruth. When Ruth spots a man she likes, she gets him drunk, strips off his clothes, and hops into bed with him. When he wakes up the next morning, he has no choice but to marry her.
And Tamar and Ruth weren’t the fallen women of the Bible—they were the righteous ones. In fact, Matthew puts them on Jesus’ family tree, along with that other seductress, Bathsheba. These women were Jesus’ great-grandmothers! If they were alive today, I thought, you wouldn’t find them at a Sunday school picnic. You’d be a lot more likely to find them in the Pink Palace.
If Father ever complained about me marrying a whore, I’d tell him to go read his Bible. What a day that would be.
I lay on the floor daydreaming about all this for quite a while. All this time, I didn’t hear a peep coming from the bed above—the girl sure was a sound sleeper. Then I noticed that the door was slightly open. And next to the door, my extra change of clothes was strewn out on the floor. I climbed up to check the bed.
It was empty. I looked under the sheets, checked the other side, threw open the closet, searched every corner of the room. She was gone—and all my money with
her.
+ + +
I paced the room thinking about what to do next. I couldn’t go downstairs and face the mademoiselle—she’d just laugh at me. There was a fire escape outside. I was terrified of heights, but that seemed like the best exit. I unlatched the window.
Then I heard a ruckus in the hallway—someone yelling and kicking and scratching at the walls. Another satisfied customer, I thought. The commotion grew louder and closer. I shook at the old window, trying to wrestle it open. But before I could escape, my door burst open. Mademoiselle Colette stomped into the room, dragging the girl behind.
The mademoiselle threw her onto the bed. “You little slut,” she said. “We don’t treat our customers this way.” The girl’s face was streaked with eye shadow and she had a new bruise on her arm.
Mademoiselle Colette handed me a wad of bills, then pressed her fat knee against the girl’s chest. “Apologize to the gentleman,” she demanded.
I grabbed the mademoiselle’s hand and shoved the money back in her plump fingers. “She didn’t steal it,” I said. “Really—I gave it to her.”
The mademoiselle released the girl and waddled backwards, leering at me. “She’s not worth it.”
I stepped between the two of them. “Well, I think she is.” My voice was shaking. “It’s my money, anyhow—isn’t it for me to decide?”
“If that’s what you want,” Mademoiselle Colette laughed. “But I get my commission.” She stuffed half of the money into her dress and threw the rest onto the floor. “Fuck her again,” she growled. “Till you get your money’s worth.” Then she stomped out and slammed the door.
I picked up the bills and laid them on the bed, next to the girl. “Here you go,” I said. “Keep it. Get out of here.” She didn’t say anything—just kept her face buried in the sheets. I wanted to ask if she’d come to Texas with me. I wanted to ask if she knew anything about raising chickens. But instead of asking another stupid question, I squeezed out the window and onto the fire escape.
CHAPTER 10
I didn’t have sex with the girl, but I sure got screwed. There was no going to Texas without money. And there was no going back to Remus empty-handed, either. Even if the railroad let me return on credit, there was no way to pay it back—Father had given me the last of his money. And supposing I did go home, what would Father say? I could picture him shaking his bandaged head and saying, “As it is written in Proverbs, ‘Many a man is brought low by a loose woman.’”
Why did I have to give that girl my money? I felt sorry for her, I wanted the hell out of there, and I was too flustered to stop and divide it between the two of us.
I bummed around town all morning, staring in shop windows and sitting on park benches. I went into restaurants and offered to wash dishes in exchange for food, like people in the movies always do, but no one would have me. In the afternoon, I swiped a bottle of warm milk off someone’s porch. I took one swig and spit it out—it was as sour as an old sock.
Around dinnertime, the gray sky let loose with a cold drizzle. I sat under a tree and pulled my coat over my head, but it was no use. I was cold, broke, and lonesome. In other words, I had the blues.
I started humming a tune I’d once heard a logger sing back in Remus:
I got the blues so bad,
the whole round world looks blue;
I ain’t got a dime, and I don’t know what to do.
Somehow, that made me feel a little better. It helped to know that I wasn’t alone—lots of other guys had been down and out, just like me. And what did they do? They sure didn’t sit around and mope.
When a woman gets the blues,
she hangs her little head and cries;
But when a man gets the blues,
he grabs a train and rides.
That’s what Sammy Swisher did, and Eddie Quackenbush, and Bucky Hendershott—all my old friends. They’d jumped freights and beat it out of town. I’d always been too scared to try, but now there was no other choice.
+ + +
By the time I got to the trainyards, the sky was pouring buckets. I walked along the tracks, past rows of empty boxcars, soaked through to the bone. Finally, I came to a tin-roofed shed with an open door, and ducked inside for shelter.
It was dark inside, so I was startled to get a welcome. “Hey ’bo—got any grub?” When my eyes adjusted, I saw five or six men huddled in a circle around a makeshift stove. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of brewing coffee.
I’d read a few stories about hoboes, so I was anxious to try out their lingo. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m busted. Flatter than a pancake.”
But instead of welcoming me as one of their own, they looked away and muttered amongst themselves. “Awfully fancy duds for a ’bo,” said one.
“Too soft for a bull,” said another.
“Must be a punk,” said a third. He turned and called out to me—“Hey kid, where’s yer jocker?”
They all laughed. I didn’t know it at the time, but a jocker is an old hobo who lords over a young boy—or punk—forcing him to beg for handouts and do things you couldn’t pay me to describe.
As I tried to explain myself, a Negro in a black overcoat walked over from the other side of the car and put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t waste your breath on these buzzards. They ain’t worth a fart in a whirlwind.”
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a face creased and oily like worn leather. Between his white whiskers and lively eyes, he looked both ancient and ageless—a look I’ve only seen in black men. Atop his head was a frayed derby, just like Chaplin’s.
“Name’s Craw,” he said. “What’s your moniker?”
“Tobias. Tobias Henry.”
He shook his head. “That’ll never do, greenhorn. If you want to be a hobo, first thing you need is a proper moniker. Where you from?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know the place,” I said.
“Try me, kid—I’ve been everywhere.”
“Remus.”
Craw looked up and scratched the whiskers under his chin.
“It’s in Michigan,” I said, trying to help him out.
“Damned if you’ve haven’t stumped me,” he said. “Now—where was I … ?”
“You were saying I needed a moniker.”
“Ah, yes.” He put his left hand on my shoulder. “I hereby christen you … the Remus Kid.”
I wished he hadn’t. It was embarrassing enough to be from Remus. Even worse to be called Remus.
“How about Glen Rose, Texas,” I asked. “Ever been there?”
“Sure have. In fact, I’m headed that way now—to Oklahoma, maybe on to Fort Worth.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t even know which train I needed to hop. But if I could follow this veteran …
“Mind if I tag along?” I asked.
“I’d enjoy the company.”
When I held out my hand to shake, Craw pulled his right arm out of his pocket and held up a steel hook. “Lost it twenty years ago in Cincy,” he said. “Last time I ever tried to shake hands with a brakeman.” I shuddered at the thought—and the sight. “I assure you I’m quite harmless,” he said. “Unless prodded, provoked, or otherwise perturbed.”
+ + +
We milled around for a while, till a whistle moaned in the distance. Everyone quieted down and straightened up. It was the Southern, Craw said, and that meant we were getting on board. “The metal will be slick—for God’s sake and your mama’s, step lively.”
As I followed Craw towards the door, one of the hoboes laughed. “Looks like the punk found himself a jocker.”
“Better watch out for ol’ Craw,” another told me. “He’ll bugger anything with two legs.”
Craw flashed his hook. “Shut your grub hole, or this’ll be up your arse.” The ’bo stopped laughing and backed off. “I’ll have you know,” Craw continued, “I’ve met some very fine one-legged women in my day. I even bagged a three-legger once, out in Frisco.” He paused. “Ah, the things she could do with that
leg.”
Great—I was about to climb into a boxcar with an old pervert. Craw turned and gave me a wink—whether to assuage my fears or confirm them, I wasn’t sure.
The whistle blew again, much louder. “So when you jump,” I asked, “what exactly do you grab hold of?”
“A ladder,” Craw said. “if you can find one. Just stick behind me and do just as I do. That is, unless I fall. If that happens, do the opposite.”
As the train approached, it rattled the shed like an earthquake. The hoboes waited inside till the engine rolled by, so as not to be seen by the engineer. Then they spilled out the door and scampered like a pack of gray rats toward the train.
One man turned around and pushed his way back inside. “It’s rainin’ like Billy-be-damned out there. I ain’t gonna break my neck.” I looked to see if Craw had heard, but he was already lumbering towards the train. I threw my pack over my shoulder and followed.
The ground shook below and rain pounded down from above. Boxcars and tankers whirred by with increasing speed. Smoke and steam billowed out in thick clouds that clung to the damp air. I could barely see Craw and had to run my fastest to keep pace.
We ran alongside of a boxcar till Craw got even with the ladder. Then he leapt up and hooked it. Hand over hook, he climbed up the bars to make room for me. I came as close to the spinning wheels as I could bear, then lunged for the ladder with all I had.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much. I snagged a low rung and my legs flew out from under me, whipping my body to the side and slamming my gut against the edge of the car. With all the wind knocked out of me, I hung there limp as a ragdoll, my toes kicking against the gravel and raindrops pelting my face like nails.
I reached for the next rung with my right hand. My fingers slipped off the cold, wet bar and my arm fell to the side, sending my pack tumbling under the train. I hung by only one hand now, and my arm felt like it was tearing out of its socket. I pictured that lone arm riding all the way to Texas, still holding on long after my body had been ground into hamburger.
