Devils in the Switchgrass

Around midnight the drumming on the boxcar roof stopped and Walt was woken by sudden silence. He sat and propped his back against the doorjamb. Drips still fell from the curved roof and the air held the wet earth smell that rides the tail of summer storms. The night relaxed and a fox barked off in the switchgrass. Walt listened to his own breath scratching and reached for the bottle of Jim Beam.

He regarded his busted shoe. The shoe revealed a busted sock. The sock revealed a toe and he addressed the grey-horned nail.

“Don’t go givin’ me that ole Eskimo look.”

What Eskimo look?

“Like you got sumthin’ to say but cain’t be bothered to say it. Like you know better’n me.”

Never said that.

“Didn’t have to. Known yuh long enough.”

You’ve know’d me all your damn life. Used to lie butt-naked on a towel and suck the face off of me. Couldn’t do that now?

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.”

Wouldn’t want you to, neither.

“I’ll stick to Bourbon.”

While you’re propping a doorjamb drinkin’ whiskey we don’t seem to be goin’ no place. Where we headed anyways?

“I figured Sacramento. Maybe join up with the transcontinental. Cain’t rightly say ’til we pull out.”

Reckon this here shit-wagon is headed for California?

“Reckon.”

Hope you’re right. Could use a rest. The Sunshine State. Sounds good.

“Think you’ll find that’s Florida.”

Either ‘ll do. Anywhere’s better ’n here. Look, I ain’t fussy. Just need a rest.

“Well, wherever I’m goin’, you’re comin’ too.”

Like I said, hope you’re right.

“Might get me another banjo.”

Now you’re stringin’ me along.

“Maybe.”

The fox barked again, nearer this time. Clouds parted like curtains in a whorehouse and a pock-faced moon, devoid of natural kindness, spied from the folds. The rails shone wet. A slab of moonlight crept across the floor toward the back of the wagon. Wrapped in darkness, a snare drum snore betrayed the sleeper lying there.

Drunk or sober, Billy sure knew how to sleep. They’d shared a wagon since Cold Creek south of Reno and he’d remained comatose most of the way. Dead drunk or just dead to the world, was hard to say. Walt knew him from before, back in Denver, so at least he knew what to expect. Riding the rails you meet familiar faces, always on the move but getting nowhere. Might say they was friends, might say they wasn’t. Friendships can be dangerous on the road, leading you places you never meant to be at.

That’s how Walt lost his banjo, smashed by a bunch of rednecks the worse for shine. He’d teamed up with a son of a slave named Cumberland Smith with a yearning for his lost love and blueberry hoecakes. The bastards put out his eye, but at least they didn’t leave him swinging from a tree. If they’d been Klan they could’ve and Walt could’ve suffered something worse than a busted banjo. Smith had some kin in Jackson so Walt left him there and headed back north alone, devoid of song, along the Mississippi to St Louis and west through Kansas.

“That’s the last time I’m going south of Memphis,” he told his appendage.

Yeah. Eight hundred miles for a bust-up banjo and a pile of pancakes you never got to eat. Not the smartest. Perhaps you’ll listen to me next time.

“I tole yuh. Ain’t gonna be no next time.”

 ‘Til next time.

“Hush up now or I’ll have yuh amputated.”

An owl made silent passage ’cross the moon. A rabbit squealed. Walt took a swig of Beam and pushed his wrist across his mouth.

Billy emerged from out the dark and hunkered down and Walt obliged him with the bottle.

“Bit early for breakfast ain’t it, Walt?”

“What’s the matter, you ain’t hungry?”

“Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with my appetite,” he said, tipping back the bottle. “Who was that you was talkin’ to just now?”

“Nobody.”

“Didn’t sound much like nobody to me.”

“Just an old Eskimo friend of mine.”

“The hell it was.” He passed the bottle back. “So, who was it?”

“What if I told you I was talkin’ to my toe?”

“Then I’d know you’d been drinkin’.”

“Well, there you go.” He took another slug and passed the bottle.

Billy sat, his legs dangling loose above the roadbed. He tipped the bottle, his Adam’s apple snake-swallowing a mouse, then passed it back and parked his elbows on his knees and reached in his pocket for some chew and pressed a wad into the pouch of his cheek. He placed the tin between them and said, “Help y’self.”

“Much obliged.”

They sat and chewed and spat, drank whiskey and made low-voiced conversation.

Around them, the darkness stirred with sounds conjured by the night when the wind dies. The rain excused itself to find the safety of ditches and unseen cuts, odd drips still falling like lonely tears from the roof of the boxcar.

“What made y’all choose to ride the rails?” asked the younger man.

“A million reasons.”

“Try me with one of ’em.”

“Why d’you wanna know?”

“Interested is all.”

“Well, I s’pose I got plum sick of my Pa beatin on Ma and me. And then when Ma died I got double helpin’s.”

“Most kids get a beatin’. Don’t mean they cut and run.”

“When I hit fifteen, I wanted to stay on at school, get me enough learning to get the hell out, but Pa got me apprenticed at Smithson’s where they rolled out corrugated tin. There was two of us rookies. Me ’n Jonas Wilson. Jonas was a long streak of piss. ‘Bonus Jonus’ they called him on account of his surplus height. The fruit-loop was always walkin’ round lookin’ at the floor like he’d lost a dollar, found a dime. So, the other kids picked on him. Reckoned they’d get around to me too ’ventually, but he was first and obvious.”

“What d’ey do?”

Walt took another tug at the bottle and watched the moon wobble and drown in amber. He whispered, “One day I’ll swaller that bastard whole.”

“What bastard would that be?”

“Moonshine, talkin’ sweet, livin’ fine,” crooned Walt to himself.

“Will you stop talkin ‘riddles and make some sense. So, what the hell happened? What d’ey do?”

“Who?” asked Walt as if he was fresh to the conversation.

“I dunno. S’your story, not mine.”

“What story?”

“The guys at that tin fact-tree place. Come on. I know we’re in no hurry but we all gotta die sometime and it could be tonight.”

Walt spat out a worm of spit that landed, faintly glistening across a rail.

“Ringleader, guy called Mack Mullin, offered Jonas a smoke.”

“Friendly ‘nuff. Didn’t he smoke none?”

“Well, Mack didn’t offer so much as force it on him while two others held him. Then a little rat-faced piece of excrement by the name of Ben Bennett gets a can of thinners and pours it all down his front sayin’ as how it’s good for stain removal. Then Mack gets out his Zippo and offers Jonas to light up. Jonus is shit scared, breaks free and runs, heads for the John ’n bolts himself tight inside a stall. There’s a gap under the door about a hand’s width so Mack flips the Zippo, turns up the flame, says, “Hey Bonus, want a light?” and holds it through the gap. Then . . . Whump!”

“Whump?”

“Yeah. The air inside is loaded with thinners see, the vapours ignite and Jonus burns to death in the locked stall.”

“No shit?”

“That’s almost what Mack said. I don’t think he was necessarily evil. They was only kids, little older ‘n me. I reckon he simply hadn’t thought things through enough.”

“I guess he weren’t too bright, huh?”

“I guess not. But they gave him time to work it out in his cell while he waited on his hangin’.”

“Weren’t he too young for stringin’ up?”

“Apparently the judge couldn’t count too well. And this was a long time ago.”

“Didn’t people count too well back then?”

“I guess enjoyment of arithmetic took second place to a good hangin’. Anyways, I refused to go back. My Pa went ape-shit, so I figured I’d take a permanent vacation. Always fancied goin’ on a train ride so I hitched one to Mobile, not that I had a particular yearning to taste the Gulf, it’s just that was the end of the line. I turned round, headed north and been ridin’ ever since.”

The men sat nursing their separate thoughts like they were counting a row of dead moles hanging in the slow twist of the wind. Billy spat tobacco juice to decorate the verge and Walt tossed the empty bottle out into the switchgrass. A cloud crossed the moon and its shadow walked the rails. A coyote howled and a red-eyed weasel hunted in the dark.

Glyn says: An ex-teacher/artist from Cheshire, I enjoy a passion for shorter written forms, often viewing the world through a child’s eyes although, perversely, Devils in the Switchgrass assumes a different perspective. However, I always write for the child within us.