trees.
He spun like a dancer and bowed. As he swaggered towards me, he bent down once to pick up and toss a rock. I could see that he was stoked.
“Easy, huh?” he said. “Goddamn, that brings back some memories.”
“You do that often?”
“I did,” he said. When the caboose passed, we walked back on the high side of the ditch and took a seat on the tracks. “I rode trains all over this state when I was a kid. You had to be careful, though, even then. This was the early sixties. You’d hear stories how these tough-ass railroad men would beat up tramps trying to catch trains out of the yards. Of course, in my old man’s day, they’d throw you right in the chain gang if they caught you.”
“You like growing up down here?”
“It was all right,” he said, and passed me the brandy. “I lived in quite a few places, but I was a teenager in Carolina.” He stared ahead and absently reached back for the bottle, a grin on his face. “I did some crazy shit, like any kid I guess.”
But I had a feeling that he had been a little more out there than most. He had once shown me a photo of himself as a young man, standing balanced atop a split-rail fence, shirt off and arms crossed and flexed, with one eyebrow devilishly raised below a DI brushcut.
Time passed and the night was uncommonly bright. Black woods surrounded the moonlit clearing. As we killed the last of our beer and brandy, I felt a slight vibration beneath me and heard the low rumble begin.
“Come on,” McGinnes said, and I followed him to the edge of the woods where there was no light.
He pushed down on my shoulder and we crouched in some leaves and soft earth. The rumble increased in volume. A swift wind rushed behind and through us, and I felt my adrenalin pick up.
“Talk to me, man.” I was anxious and a little pickled from the booze.
“All right, Jim,” he said, his hand on my arm. “When that first car passes and hits the trees, get out of here fast and run to the right side of the clearing, up the ditch and sharp left so you’re parallel to the train. I’ll be ahead of you. Just watch what I do. Remember, swing up that ladder, don’t let it drag you.”
I could barely hear him between the crush of sound that was on us now and the wind that had picked up and was blowing leaves past us into the clearing. My fists were tight as the first car came suddenly out of the trees. I remember feeling that I only wanted to be up and moving away from the blackness around me, up and out and into the light.
“Book!” he shouted, and we were in the clearing and sprinting towards the train, down and up the ditch where I stumbled, then regained my momentum, then alongside it, feeling its power and thinking it was much stronger than I had imagined. McGinnes was in front of me and moving his head back and forth from the train to the trees ahead, then quickly and fluidly grabbing the rung of a boxcar ladder and rising up upon it. He yelled back at me and I saw that the clearing was running out, and I grabbed, white-knuckled the ladder of the car behind him, and ran as he yelled again, and I put one foot on the bottom rung and pushed upward with my shoulders and I was on the machine, tight against the ladder, as the clearing ended and we all roared into the woods together.
I looked behind and the clearing was gone. Around us were only dark forms, and, ahead, the engine cutting a path through the trees. The cars were rocking wildly, and I kept a tight grip on the ladder.
McGinnes was silhouetted against the moonlight and climbing up the side of his car, which was swaying in an irregular pattern to mine. When he reached the top, he let go one arm and one leg, and released a yell and burst of laughter. His hair blew wildly about his head.
“This is great!” he screamed back at me. “Isn’t this fucking great?”
“It is,” I said, and realized I was smiling. My grip loosened and I took a deep breath. The time between the clanging of the rails shortened as we picked up speed.
McGinnes was attempting to open his boxcar with his