"Now ya know you boys ain't s'posed t'be in there!"
A railroad dick dispenses shit-eating sarcasm while his big stick hammers its way along the first of several empty freight cars being backed toward a cavernous hanger. I imagine if Gordon and I aren't actually collared by him in the next few minutes, we could wind up locked away and left for days ... or weeks even. Another bull trails just twenty-feet behind him as though he's watchin' for some poor unfortunate bastard to break and run. Well, it's not gonna be either of us we've decided. We'll stay put and ride it out, taking our chances that they really don't know we're in here.

Just bad luck to have been aboard one of only three cars unhooked smack in the middle of the yard — in plain sight of the crew's shanty. No chance to scramble out before the switchman rolled us onto a spur and then off toward the terminal. That's where the two dicks were waiting.

Now, we're jerked to another stop— to sit and sweat like a couple of pot roasts in this giant galvanized oven under a scorching St. Louis sun. Actually, I'm guessing St. Louis; we don't know where the hell we are, but judging by time elapsed since jumping the freight in Dayton, and given the weight of the humidity, I'm thinking we're not in California yet!

"Hey Leroy, I do believe we're gonna be kickin' some fuckin' derelict ass 'fore this fuckin' day's over. Waddayou think?":

That's one detective throwing a rhetorical question in the direction of his partner whose nightstick's now begun tapping like a telegraph key on the sheetmetal siding of the box car behind us. The threat of a beating's got plenty enough on it to sail over the other's left shoulder and bounce around inside our rat trap as it was clearly intended to do.

40


Gordon can tell I'm nervous-a-plenty. He motions that I should hold my position. Okay, why the hell not?; there's nothing on record so far in our four-day friendship to suggest my instincts might be better than his. Anyway, at this point, I've got no intuition left — only abject fear. I stay put.

Our pressure-cooker jerks again. Slowly, it starts tracking out of the blistering afternoon flames into the cool shadow of the mammoth cave. Were it not for that yard boss's billy club ticking its relentless reminder like the long-hand on a doomsday clock, I might be able to enjoy at least the promise of some shady relief from yet another stifling day of the worst midwestern heat wave in years. Burying my head in my arms serves to muffle the clap of the countdown reverberating throughout the 30-ton rectangular bell that tolls for me, but every few seconds I gotta come up for air.

"Do ya think they could just kill us and get away with it?", I whisper at Gordon, looking for a definitive "NO" ... and maybe a little reassurance.

"Yeah, they prob'ly could," comes the response, "We're ridin' in their goddamn private property!".

Obviously, Moore's understanding of the rights of ownership differs from my own. So I reassure myself the only way I know how. I shut the hell up.

Suddenly, our car's huge sliding door's rolled full open from the outside. Moore and I jump as a single animal out the narrow slit in the other. On the same wavelength now, we speed through dark vacuous space toward a shrinking rectangle of light beneath an enormous overhead door; loudly, rapidly a Giant Genie is lowering the curtain on us. As we barrel-roll into blazing sun and molten blacktop just feet beyond the fallen guillotine blade, a police squad car brakes to a stop and empties its contents: two plainclothes no-necks on springs. Halleluyah, ... saved by the "real" cops!

The joy was short-lived, however. My first arrest, but Gordon's umpteenth I found out later, began to go sour even before we got to jail. If there ever were a perfect case (figurative and literal) of jumping from the frying pan into the fire ours was it; 'cuz city police department personnel have an infinite amount more lattitude when it comes to kickin' your ass than private cops do. And kick our asses they did! I also found out that you gotta especially watch it with rookies as they're sensitive by nature. Like I wasn't gonna lie? I'm a fifteen year-old runaway with no identification and a bad dye job — and these guys take it personally when I tell them I'm 19, but lost my ID back in Dayton where I keep an apartment with Gordon who's also 19, and, yes, ... NEON RED is my natural hair color!

Anyway, there's a happy ending. They let us go three days later, along with a vagrant, a drunk, and a drunken vagrant ... and an admonition: "The St. Louis Police Department does not care how you gentlemen choose to leave the city, but do not ... we repeat ... don't ... attempt to hop a freight train or hitch hike".

Seeing as how Gordon and I had just under a dollar between us, we chose ... "hitch hike".


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