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  “Gee, if he’s that sure, maybe we should all run over to Eddie’s place and put some front money down right after work.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt.” Joe defended.

  “More likely to see the Bears and Cardinals playing each other on the tube.” Joked Ziggy.

  The group shared an incredulous stare. The notion of any sport but baseball ever dominating video airwaves was absurd.

  “What? Football - on TV?”

  “And maybe someday they’ll show stock car races!”

  “Or that stuff they play overseas – soccer!”

  Ziggy was the lone voice of dissent.

  “Why not? There’s wrastlin’.”

  Spike ruled for everyone.

  “Ah, that’s dif’rent,”

  With the cab having reached a consensus on one topic, Vint folded his racing form and winked at the others in a fresh round of devilment.

  “Speaking of new stuff, have you seen any of them ads on the new Dodges yet, Joebie? They’re sure lookin’ good for the new year.”

  “Why sure he has,” prodded Spike. “Probably got the color picked out and everything for a shiny new one. Right Joe?”

  Graczyk grinned at the knowledge that he did indeed, have a new ride in mind. His Spruce Green ’47 was still pulling valiant front line duty. But it would shortly be in need of another clutch, brakes, and tires. Worse, was a growing touch of blue smoke in the exhaust that spoke of high dollar valve or cylinder work. And its last ride on the grease rack had revealed serious underside rust from Chicagoland’s brutal winters.

  Car buying was a bitter-sweet event to Joe. In his mind, autos were like everything else - meant to last and he accordingly, treated them like family pets. After years of loyal service, a man knew their ins and outs, their strengths and weaknesses, and he worked with them. Finally admitting that one was terminally ill never came easy. But, in that fatal regard, Joe’s pickle-crock car fund was also nearing the down payment level. Soon, it’d be time to go on the hunt.

  His prize was to be a sedate, 1956 Dodge Royal, sedan. Its engine would be a gas-sipping, Coronet straight-six cylinder, with a three-speed manual transmission and fenders bathed in a minimal, Parisian Blue. A radio for Sarah might be grudgingly condoned. But otherwise, it’d come less any chintzy chrome trim and absolutely no unmanly automatic transmission, vain whitewalls, power systems, or extravagant V-styled engines.

  Even barebones, the darn things were approaching almost two thousand dollars these days - nearly a half-year’s pretax wages. No way would that be Joe’s price, though. Because a healthy dose of old world, horse trader blood flowed through his Slavic veins. It gifted him with all the spunk needed for nonstop arm-wrestling at the bargaining table. And haggling was one of the man’s few remaining joys.

  Joe cheerfully envisioned storming the beaches of Stephens Brothers Dodge on some forthcoming Saturday. There, he’d beat old Bill Stephens himself into submission with only a couple hours of determined bartering; dissecting and debating every single invoice item, until the other man verged on hysteric exhaustion.

  Joe could already imagine the sweet strains of agony in Willie’s voice as he closed for the kill.

  “Aw Joe, you’re not gonna haggle over a measly $17.00 destination fee, are you?”

  “Why not? That money feels just as good in my pocket as it does, yours.”

  Finally up against the wall, Willie would feign a forgotten appointment and Joe would know that the struggle was his.

  “Oh, hey, look at the time. I forgot, I’ve got to go. My nephew has a basketball game this afternoon and I promised I’d be there. We can take this up later. Huh, Joe?”

  “Why sure. Can’t hardly break a promise like that. In the meantime, I’ll head over to see what those Berwyn dealership guys can do for me.”

  At that point Willie’s restraint would reach critical mass. As a diehard salesman, who never wanted to lose a customer to the competition - even at a frustrating, rock-bottom profit on a stripped-down sedan - he would throw up his hands, moaning in the same cheated tone he always used when Joe Graczyk came shopping for a car.

  “Dammit, Joe! All right! You win, already! Take the thing and go home before you make my lousy ulcer bleed!”

  The contest won, his bargain table truculence would drain away and Joe’d immediately assume a more conciliatory posture.

  “Thanks Willie. I knew we could deal.”

  Struggling to regain a shred of lost self-esteem, the bested salesman would toss out a closing bid.

  “You’ll at least buy some tickets to the firemen’s ball, won’t you?”

  “Why sure. Gim’me two when those title papers are done. And can you have the office gals put a rush on it? I want to get home before it rains.”

  Joe was relishing the sweet glory of that affaire d’honneur, when Spike’s teasing voice pierced his daydream.

  “Going with an automatic transmission this time, Joe? Power steering and brakes? Maybe some white walls. Hey, I know, one of them hot, new, 352 hemi V-8s!”

  Joe played along. He thumbed up the brim of his work cap, as if suddenly realizing the error of his longstanding ways and was now eager to capitulate.

  “Yeah. Why sure. Maybe you’re right. I should sign up for all that stuff. And while we’re at it, why not toss in one of those glove compartment record players, too? Then we can paint it all two-tone, titty-pink and boozer-nose purple and make it a full-blown bawdy house on wheels!”

  Vint cawed.

  “And Ziggy can be the pimp!”

  “No!” Blurted Spike. “The madam!”

  The engine cab echoed in another round of genial laughter, while Joe again peered at the loitering pass-train.

  “Lousy thing never gonna get here? What time is it, Spike?”

  “Five minutes since last time,” came the man again. “Sure don’t have any love for those oil burners, do you?”

  Joe sucked an intemperate breath.

  “Damn growlies. Why should I? We’re steam men and this is a steam road.”

  “Varnish crews say they’re not all that bad.” Offered Ziggy. “Closed cabs, nice padded seats, quiet, and out of the weather.”

  Joe winced at the blasphemy.

  “Uh-huh. Varnish crews. And look where they’re going, these days. Dee-zels and varnish both should be done away with and their men put back on steam powered freight, where they belong.”

  Spike regarded his old friend in brotherly fashion.

  “You know Joe; TVs, cars, locomotives, whatever. Times are changing. Maybe we ain’t got much choice other than change with ‘em. And even if a guy doesn’t want to, it’ll just drag him along. Kicking and screaming maybe, but draggin’ him, just the same.

  “I mean, heck, look at all them airplanes that got made during the war. Thousands. And all propeller jobs. Now, just a few years later and the newspapers say that soon everything will all be jets.”

  Joe raised a facetious brow.

  “No kidding? Maybe locomotives too, huh?”

  The brakeman sagged.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Joe bobbed his head in rebuttal.

  “And you know what I mean. This is a freight hauling line and in my book, that means steam power. Always has. Always will.”

  Spike drew a telling breath.

  “Admit the truth, Joe. With you there’s just no room for change - in any way.”

  Graczyk didn’t deny it.

  “Rushing into new things is no good, pure and simple.”

  He slapped a hand against the sill of his steamer in oath.

  “If they built everything like this here, we could run ‘em for all our lives.”

  Ziggy called from across the cab.

  “If he had his way, cars would still have chain drive and hand crank starters. Or, maybe even
be steam powered. Ain’t that right, Joe?”

  The engineer snapped his head.

  “Damn right! Wasn’t nothing wrong with either one of ‘em! Kept the riff-raff off the road. And 30 years before Mister Ford’s Model-T ever puttered along at a top speed of nine or ten miles an hour, a Stanley Steamer car was clocked over 100. If they still made ‘em, I’d own one now.”

  Spike raised his arms in hopeless surrender.

  “Okay, Joe. You’ve got us surrounded. We give up!”

  A last round of chuckles skipped about the cab. With it, the pass-train’s crawling shadow finally edged closer. Joe leaned out the window, shaking his head in pity at the approaching other crew, while graphically checking his watch.

  “Okay guys!” He called to his own men. “Now that the prima donnas have had their beauty sleep we can get started doing honest railroad work!”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Sinyus, your lunch is packed!”

  Jim Graczyk collected his dresser top effects as mother Sarah’s pet name of sonny drifted upstairs. He drew a deep breath of the heavenly pastry scent rising with it.

  “On my way!”

  A few routine cranks of the room’s wind-up alarm clock and Jim trotted out.

  “Dad and I are having pot roast for supper,” Sarah announced at his arrival. “I’ll have a covered plate in the warmer for you after work. Try not to be late, so it doesn’t get dry.”

  Jim paused to stoop and tug at the oven door.

  “Can’t always guarantee that, Mom. So maybe you’d better let me sneak a nice hot chunk right now.”

  She playfully slapped his fingers away.

  “Half cooked? You’d get sick or worms or something.”

  Jim rubbed his lean belly with an exaggerated swipe.

  “This iron gut? Never! Now, let me at it!”

  “Iron gut, iron gut,” she mocked, pointing ahead. There, a heap of wrapped pastries awaited.

  “Give those fresh kolaczki to your berry-growing friend. There’s a mix of fruit toppings. This other bag’s got some kitchen scraps and old bread for his birds and animals.”

  Jim studied the greying, auburn-haired woman, as she spoke. Barely topping five feet tall, Sarah Graczyk brimmed with a determined serenity and was the most honest, gentle, and valued counsel that a person could hope to find.

  Her face was a repository of so many things. Pain and grief. Love and joy. Lean times and doing without. She was an archive of wisdom and experience, a woman made tough by the raw forge of disappointment so common to immigrant life, but lit with a personal joy not made bitter by any of it.

  Even in middle age, Sarah possessed a natural inner glow guaranteed to follow all her days and Jim cherished her. His words came from deep within as he received the still warm, paper-wrapped parcels she handed over.

  “Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

  The woman gazed back with equal affection and a depth of special regard, as if she had something else to say, but was decided to hold off, until another, more proper time. Instead, she offered a calm smile.

  “I know. Now, you’d better get going.”

  Jim pecked her cheek as he tucked his cargo underarm. Before starting off, though, it was his turn for some scrutiny. This was a house always offering home baked treats; breads, pies, cookies, all sorts of confections. And their hands-on creation was a labor of love for Sarah Graczyk. But, Jim had long ago come to know that besides being an artistic ritual, her bakery efforts could sometimes also be a kind of therapeutic outlet for the woman. Saturdays were her standard rolling pin sessions and those done otherwise could spell a degree of troubled heart.

  “Baking’s not normally a weekday thing for you,” Jim dared. “Something on your mind, Mom?”

  Sarah dismissed the possibility with a toss of her head.

  “No more than usual.”

  His gaze narrowed.

  “You sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. Now, on your way.”

  “Okay then. Home around midnight.”

  The woman playfully swept the backs of her hands after him. Shooing her son away as if driving off errant barnyard poultry, she added her standard Polish word of caution.

  “Uwazaj!”

  Jim stopped in a moment’s fun.

  “Careful? Where’s the fun in being careful? I was thinking about seeing how far I could jump from on top one moving boxcar to the next, late tonight, after it’s really nice and dark.”

  Sarah wagged a silent finger of mock warning and returned to her supper pots.

  The youngest Graczyk scanned both directions as he crossed the freight yard’s snarl of trackage. The rails about him flowed with their normal chorus of laboring engines and Jim waved at various crews pulling in or headed out.

  The cramped landscape he traversed was a curious patchwork of unplanned, add-on utilities. It’d simply come into existence as an overflow livestock site ages ago, one meant to relieve the main yards, further downtown. As such, there’d always been the jealous argument, that with its paltry few-hundred car storage limit, the place deserved no special sanctions. But, always proving its mettle as reliable and expedient, greater responsibilities had instead, been regularly gifted here.

  First, had come a second mainline that gave the yard official autonomy. Although the innermost run had actually begun as a simple lap track, meant for low speed, opposing trains to clear each other, it was eventually converted to its own fast track entity. Oddly, the original crossover switches from the first main to what had become the second, were never removed. But, locked and left in place, they’d been pretty much forgotten and posed no crash danger, unless opposing traffic might purposely be diverted. But to date, remained accident free.

  A seven-stall roundhouse and 90-foot turntable were later added for locomotive servicing, both of which had been paid for many times over by the yard’s tiny, but efficient mechanical staff. Lastly, came Mayhew’s hulking 750-ton coal tower and modest icing station. One topped off freshly serviced locomotives, the other maintained the chill of outbound refrigerator cars delayed in transit.

  Also known for its pool of expert local carpenters and sheet metal workers, repair needs of the road’s entire caboose fleet were similarly, met on this exclusive lot.

  A common link that Mayhew did share with all its freight yard counterparts was in its coloring. The world of railroading was characterized by a universal shade of cocoa brown unique to the profession; one generated in this gritty domain of cinders, dripped oil, and forever-rust that little in its realm escaped.

  Yet, here again, an exception was found. Nestled in a concealing pocket behind the seldom-visited stub tracks and curtained off by their stored array of derelict rolling stock, was a little oasis of vibrant green. A thriving copse of volunteer birch and poplar trees claimed it, encircling a tiny shack made of discarded planks, cinderblocks, and assorted shipping dunnage. Though crude and purposeful, the grounds radiated a diligence that put the grandest manor to shame.

  Nearing the end of this growing season, a modest garden rested to the shack’s north side, while a latticework of cultivated berry bushes claimed the south. Scrap wood birdhouses dangled from the dwarf tree branches and the air about them flitted with a rare, winged spectrum not much seen in these parts anymore. Cardinals and humming birds glided leisurely about, while rarer meadowlarks and nearly unheard-of orioles, also called the place home.

  Jim halted his approach to the shack as a couple of mangy dogs circled out, from behind. They were part of the ever-changing roster of stray animals also finding temporary lodgings here. This time, a couple of mutts. Next, maybe a transient raccoon or vagabond opossum.

  He didn’t recognize these two campers. And like most others, they looked to have had a rough life. One was missing an eye and the other a forepaw; likely casualties from their tentative existence about the industria
l town. Yet, neither was the least bit intimidated by its handicap and both took careful stock of Jim before provisionally accepting his presence.

  He set a knee at their level, daring to reveal his treat.

  “How’re you boys doing? Don’t think I’ve seen you two before. Got something here for you, though.”

  The burr-snarled mutts again studied both Jim and the gift, waiting until he had stepped away, before approaching the package of kitchen scraps. Considering their host a last time, the dogs sniffed, then assailed the delicacy, while beyond, the shack door opened to a solidly built man in his mid-thirties.

  Dusky-skinned and of striking, cast features, the man watched gratefully. When he spoke, it was in a gently scolding, southern tone.

  “Young Jim, you’re gonna have my strays fat and sassy, you keep treaten’ ‘em so good. Nature’s kin are s’posed to be makin’ their own way in life. Not gettin’ no easy handouts. What’d happen to them if I t’was ever forced to up-and-leave and you quit comin’ by?”

  Jim teased the only other person who never called him Jimmy.

  “They surely don’t get any easy handouts from you, do they Ulees? Besides, you’ve been uppin’ to leave, for as long as I can remember. But, you’re still here. Should I be watching out for the cops, or something?”

  The bigger man’s grin constricted a bit, yet relaxed as Jim displayed his other parcels.

  “Mom sent these over, too. One has some dried bread crusts for your birds and the other, a few kolaczki for you. She hopes this pays you back for all of those garden berries you sent our way this summer.”

  The man’s melon-sized biceps flexed in accepting the gift. A quick whiff of the jam-topped pastries brought his earlier smile back in full.

  “Your mama didn’t need to do this. She’s done paid me back ten times with those ever-sweet pies of hers. Don’t get me wrong, though. I ain’t about to turn down no free delight. Ha! Guess it makes me no better’n them dogs, huh? Anyway, you be sure to thank her proper for me.”

  “I will,” said Jim. “But you know, you could do it yourself. That invitation at our place, is still good.”