Tracking Lives

Harry Ludlow enjoyed living by the railroad. It went right by his house—the very house he was born in—both day and night, the wheels of progress always a formidable presence. Harry had been sufficiently warned of the dangers of trains by his parents even though a warning wasn’t necessary. It was obvious that trains were dangerous; he didn’t doubt it for one minute. Still, when there was no train in sight, Harry would spend some of his leisure time during the summer months practicing his balance on a rail, hands and arms outstretched to help steady him as he wove from side to side, carefully putting one foot in front of the other. His current record was 47 steps without falling off, but he knew he could do better.

Another game he liked to play with his friends was tag, jumping from the baggage carts that lined the platform, silent sentinels that proclaimed the pending arrival of a train loaded with goods for the local businesses or a layover for a weary traveler. Whatever needed to be toted, the baggage carts were there waiting and they offered a perfect venue for tag. The carts’ wheels were chained to keep mischievous kids from playing pranks, so that made them even safer since they couldn’t roll off the platform.

Harry was aware of hobos although he had never seen one close up. None had ever come knocking at his back door even though he would have welcomed it. He did see them, from time to time, talking in small groups when a freight train stopped to unload its cargo. Seeing him from their boxcar living room, they usually ignored Harry. Even so, he was not afraid of them. Actually he looked forward to the day when he could see one up close. When it finally happened, however, it was the most frightening moment of Harry’s eleven years of living by the railroad tracks.

He had had a great day playing softball at the school playground, even though they did lose one ball when Jimmy Bob Atkins hit a homer that landed in Miss Lloyd’s back yard. It was common knowledge among all the kids on Riley’s playground that any ball that landed in Miss Lloyd’s yard was a lost ball. No one had ever had the courage to challenge the woman who, more than once, shook her broom at them and then went back into her house, only to part her kitchen curtains and stare at them with her hairy eyeball. The ball had belonged to Carl Rosen and since Harry didn’t like Carl anyway, the loss was of little consequence to him. He did have a slight headache from swinging on the playground’s swing set too much, trying to beat his best jump of about 15 feet. He didn’t get headaches often, so it was not easy for him to deal with the throbbing that was growing more severe as he walked the three blocks to his home. Upon entering his house, he plopped down on his bed to wait for supper, studying the pattern of the wallpaper despite his best efforts not to.

After eating his favorite meal—meatloaf and mashed potatoes—Harry decided to sit on the front porch and rock in his favorite chair. The headache had diminished some, but Harry knew it was still there. He tried to ignore it by counting the boxcars of the train that was just beginning its journey south.  It had stopped to have its water supply replenished by the huge water tank that stood at the end of the depot and platform. The tank had a long neck which swung over, dipped downward, and dumped gallons of water into a thirsty reservoir. The train was inching forward when Harry saw a hobo sitting in a boxcar with his feet dangling over the edge of the car’s floor. He was starting to smoke and didn’t bother to look in Harry’s direction. Suddenly, without warning, the train lurched, causing the cars to bump into each other, a common occurrence. Its suddenness, however, caught the hobo by surprise just as he was lighting his cigarette. The jerk caused him to overreact in his attempt to keep his balance and, almost in slow motion, he fell out of the car and beneath the train’s wheels. He didn’t even have time to utter a cry of distress before a wheel cut off a leg. The man’s body rolled over the rocks next to the rails while the leg fell between the rails. The train rolled forward, gathering steam. There was no way for the engineer to know that a catastrophe had just occurred. Mesmerized, Harry stopped rocking and stared at the severed leg which was playing hide and seek with him as the wheels of each car rolled forward. He jumped off the porch and ran across the street to the edge of the gravel embankment to view the dying hobo. Immediately he wished he hadn’t. The headache returned instantly, his stomach churned from the undigested meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and he hoped he would vomit before he fainted.  He had seen too much.