The name of the book I am not going to write might be 'Walking the Railroad Tracks'. Or 'The Railroad'. Something like that.
The first story I think I might put in the book is.
'The Man That Could Not Shave'
He was a black man. I say that because that is true. He came up from Florida with a company that bought green tomatoes from our local farmers. The black man worked for the people from Florida. So did I.
We worked in an abandoned RR Freight terminal setting next to the New York Central RR Tracks. The building of wood construction was long and narrow.
The black man slept at night on an old mattress in a room which was once an office I suppose. His face was terribly scarred from the pox he one time suffered. There were valleys and mountains covering the poor man's tormented face. To make matters worse (I am guessing) his whiskers grew heavy and tough.
I watched him one day applying a cream which some how melted his whiskers away. There were tears in his eyes from the pain. I guess.
The white fellow working with me was attending college to become a Doctor. We would unload a truck of its hampers of green tomatoes. Then we stood around talking and smoking. We were talking about smoking and cancer (Yes that long ago). The Doctor allowed that one day there would be a cure for the cancer we might develop some day.
I was about thirteen then I think.
And then I might put this in the book I will not be writing.
'The Train'
The train left the big city along about nightfall. It traveled west following the setting sun. In full darkness the train passed through my village and roared past the building where the man could not shave.It passed through the forest lands where we used to play. From the darkness of the woods I could imagine my little playmates waving good byes. Bye Eddie bye they would be saying. There was Carl and Janie and Earl. Ronnie was not there he had already gone down the tracks and across the Pacific to Korea.
The train clickity clacked past the ravine where the hobo camp was. The train air horns screamed us through the night and in the bright morning light of the next day we off loaded at The US Navy Great Lakes Training Center.
The ditch full of water stretches a thousand yards or so parallel to the RR Tracks. In the clear water are orange black spotted salamanders and green frogs and snakes. Cottontails grow there too. Mysterious plants wave in the gentle winds and currents. Dragonflies with their four wings dart about in great numbers doing their dragonfly chores. We kids called the Dragonflies 'darning needles' and it is said that they sew up the mouths of curious children if they want to.
Ronnie caught a snake there in the ditch. The snake is fat around as though maybe full of little snakes. Ronnie with his knife cut the snake open to see. And sure enough she was full of wiggly tiny new snakes. Ronnie put the now dead snake lengthwise on the RR track for further punishment and we all wait for the next train and after it passes us by nothing is left.
do not grow there too. I meant to say 'cattails'. Cottontails grow on bunnies and there were plenty of them along the rail road. Except for those that Ronnie shot.
My great-grandfather was run over by a train. He and his dog at the same time. We knew grandfather drank heavily but we never will understand how the dog got hit.
We are near an Indian Reservation. Sometimes Indians walk the tracks after drinking in the whiteman's village. I know of two that died on the tracks. It is so sad.
One day I climbed aboard a slow moving freight train just like the Hobos do. Soon I was on my way to west. As the train gained speed I had to leap off and I rolled in the rocks and soot for a little distance. Got up dusted my self off checked for broken bones. My head came within a foot or so of being squashed.
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