Two Trains Running

He woke to find that the freight had pulled off onto a siding. His face was stiff from exposure and a back tooth was throbbing. Winter light shafted through the cracked door of the boxcar, shining upon frozen particles of dust so they looked like silver atoms. He and Grace had wound up spoon-style in the sleeping bag, and his erection was prodding her behind. He tried to shift away, but only succeeded in rubbing up against her.

“I cain’t sleep with you poking me,” she said muzzily. He unzipped his side of the sleeping bag and she protested: “I didn’t mean for you to get up!”

“I gotta piss,” he told her.

The cold floors stung his feet; he went on tiptoes to the door and peeked out to see if anyone was checking the cars. Fresh snow blanketed an expanse of rolling hills, framing rectangles of golden winter wheat. An ugly smear of egg-yolk yellow had leaked up from the eastern horizon; elsewhere the gunmetal blue of the sky had gone pale at the edges. The train was a local, stopping at every shithole, and Madcat figured they were still a ways from Missoula. He let fly and his urine brought up steam from the gravel.

“I hafta pee, too,” Grace said.

He dug a roll of toilet paper from his pack, tossed it to her, and went back to the door. A few seconds later she jittered up beside him, doing a hopping dance to fight the chill. In the sunlight her red hair was even more startling in contrast to her pallor, reminding him of a National Geographic photo he’d seen of African dancers with white clay masks, their hair dreaded up, caked with dried mud. She gave him a nudge, trying to move him aside, and said, “Lemme out.”

“You gotta do it over in the corner,” he said. “You go outside, brakeman or someone’s liable to see you.”

She squinched up her face but otherwise made no complaint.

Up ahead, about a quarter-mile from the tracks, lay a tiny reservation town. Trailers, shanties, rusted pickups. One trailer pitched at a derelict angle, slipped partway off its blocks. Clouds with pewter edges and blue-gray weather heavy in their bellies were pushing in low from the north.

The sound of Grace’s water tightened his neck.

It took him several minutes to stop shivering after he got back into the sleeping bag. He drew up his knees and turned onto his side, facing the wall. Grace propped herself on an elbow, leaned over him. A rope-end of her hair trailed stiff and coarse across his jaw, and he scratched where it tickled.

“You like my hair?” she asked.

“It’s all right. Doesn’t feel much like hair.”

She pretended to dust his nose with the bristly end and giggled. “I’m the same color down below,” she said. “Know that?”

“Guess I do now.”

She was silent a few ticks, then: “Why you so paranoid ’bout the cops? I mean I know what you said about ’em’s true, but you was in an awful hurry last night.”

He started to tell her to fuck off, but decided she was entitled. “My wife had an affair with a cop. I came home one afternoon, and they were going at it in my bed. I jumped on top of ’em and beat the shit out of him. I knew they’re bound to file charges, and with both him and my wife testifying, no way I wasn’t gon’ do some time.”

“So you took off runnin’, huh?”

“Went down to the yard and caught out on my first freight. I was just too sick to deal with all that lawyer crap. I’d been getting these headaches, blackouts and shit, for a couple years, and I couldn’t work. Doctor thought maybe it was job-related. Environmental. But wasn’t no way to prove it.” He eased onto his back and rolled his shoulders, working out a stiffness. “No money coming in, the wife gets unhappy, she goes to humping Dudley Do-right.” He made an embittered noise. “That’s my story. The Making of a Hobo. Reckon I can sell it to the movies?”

She didn’t appear to notice that he had made a joke. “You still sick?” she asked.

“I get spells now and then.”

With a shattering rush, a train stormed past on the adjoining track, and speech became impossible. The shadow of its passage caused the light to flicker like the beam from an old projector. Grace settled beside him.

“You know,” she said after the last car had gone by, “I bet my uncle could he’p you with them charges, I’s to ask him. Man must have a dozen lawyers workin’ for him. Maybe you should come on down to LA with me and see what’s what.”

“’Round Tucson’s where I like to winter,” he said.

She snuggled closer and the warmth of her body seeped into him; soon his erection returned.

“’Pears you gon’ have trouble sleepin’.” Her fingers traipsed across his thigh. “Want me to take care of that for you?”

He felt oddly shy and looked away from her. “Yeah. Sure…whatever.”

“Now that’s what a girl wants to hear.” She removed her hand and mimicked his delivery. “‘Sure…whatever.’ Hey, I can go on back to sleep if you’re not interested. But if you are, it’d be nice to know I’s bein’ ’preciated.”

“I appreciate it,” he said.

“That’s a little better, but still…” She cupped his face in her hands. “C’mon, tell me somethin’. Say.”