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Served in the Union army, was director of the Railroads, met with Lincoln frequently. Had a temper.
After 20 hours of waiting it was here. The noise and fury from the locomotive was as intense as anything I had ever felt. I could feel the entire ground trembling underneath me. It was just pulling out, but I decided to stay put in my little hiding spot behind the weeds. I quietly donned my beat up army jacket and put on my pack still cautious that this could be a fluke and this wasn’t a northbound train at all. All it took was one goddamn Union Pacific bull to see me and this whole game was over. Hanging out in freightyards was odd, it was as if a bomb had gone off and all that was left was railroad tracks and these massive locomotives that were piloted by a shadowy figure behind dark glass. Maybe once in a while the bull would drive past in his explorer, oblivious to my presence.
The train stopped. Go time.
Looking both ways I ran across the tracks towards the train, hopped over it and onto the south side of the train where it seemed I was less likely to be seen by the bull. It was 11pm already, but the yard was lit well enough. I hadn’t waited 20 hours to get arrested as I got on the train. I sized up the train deciding which car I could ride in relative comfort. The brakes released in their cascading cacophony, the train was moving again. I started running and caught my car. Slowly but surely the train picked up speed, we cruised through Emeryville and slowly made our way into the night. I let out a triumphant yell as we hit 50 miles per hour, this was everything it was cracked up to be and more.
I passed fisherman by the tracks bathed in the glow of a lantern, homeless folks staring into a fire by their ramshackle cardboard and tarp houses which were built underneath bridges and far away from prying eyes. Soon I was enveloped in a canopy of eucalyptus trees, which had an odd synthetic smell to them when combined with the exhaust from the train. We cruised past oil refineries in Martinez and under the sugar factory at the Carquinez Bridge. We climbed slightly in elevation and were suddenly high above Suisin Bay. It was one of those old railroad bridges that were painted silver and stained black at the top from countless trains going past.
We made it into the night, and stopped occasionally to let other trains pass. Nothing but rolling hills, fences and the sound of crickets. I laid out my pad and sleeping bag and started to shut my eyes as the train rocked me to sleep. I wondered where exactly this train was going to take me, but for now I didn’t care.
We decided on a remote hillside out in the desert in E. Nevada. It was nothing fancy, but the best you could do with corrugated tin, galvanized fencing and rocks. Nothing compared to the treehouses we fantasized about in our youth, yet more than adequate for lounging about in the heat, drinking iced tea, looking for antelope, and bracing for attack from imaginary enemies. It's one of the beautiful things about the desert - you stop for a minute, take in the whole landscape and within minutes life has turned into this gigantic time lapse segment. Hours can go by before you notice, and all you can hear is the wind. We'd built an island within an island for ourselves, would we ever leave?
Ok, its been almost a year since I have been able to have two jobs which allow me to save for the future. I have spent 7000 dollars of my savings in the past year. Money which could have been put to better use in a less expensive city. After paying a good deal today to have my car unbooted, I finally came to the realization that the employment situation is not getting better and that my savings is slowly being drained. I think this is the point where I decide to cut my losses and just GO. Sure, I would have liked to have had more in the bank than I have now, but my chances for employment in this city are looking slim, and if I can find a job elsewhere why not just do it? This is so unexpected, scary and well...exciting. I could be out of here by the end of May. Never saw it happening this way.
