On Time Page 5

  Ulees offered a pleased nod.

  “I ‘member and I’m thankful. I just don’t care to get too far off.”

  Jim glanced about.

  “We’ve had this talk before. We’re only three blocks away. What could happen while you were gone?”

  “Well, you just never know. ‘Asides, the likes of me strollin’ down your street might have neighbor folks get me arrested for vagrancy.”

  Ulees motioned toward his shack.

  “Say, you got some time to spare? I just made me a fresh pitcher of sweet pink water. You’re welcomed to a glass.”

  Jim followed his sturdy friend inside a sparsely populated shanty. Though its appointments were few, taking up a handmade chair, it was the one dwelling that never failed to make Jim feel right at home.

  Gunnysack curtains hung from a pair of wreck-salvaged caboose windows. A door, potbellied stove, and single bunk were likewise, scavenged and set across its plank floor. An overhead beam supported a kerosene lantern, while assorted pallets had been reworked into storage shelves.

  Drinking water was at the-ready in a galvanized pail-dipper arrangement set atop a dry-sink, with a chipped porcelain bowl and yellow bar of harsh lye soap, standing by for meal and bedtime cleanups.

  Jim’s chair and another bracketed a broad wooden spool converted into a kitchen table. Left over from a roll of heavy electric cable, the manufacturer’s name of WESTERN ELECTRIC, was branded in charred letters across the upended side functioning as its top. There, also rested a worn, red bible.

  The book’s cover was frayed and its gilt edges, faded. For as many times as Jim had been in its presence, the peculiar clutch of scripture never came up in conversation. Yet, it always remained prominently set atop the makeshift furnishing.

  The large man poured pink drinks into a pair of old Mason jars, explaining.

  “Iffen’ I had me some of them icehouse chips right now, we might be drinkin’ fancy lemonade, like from a county fair. But, now, sweet pink water is all I can honesty call it.”

  Jim clinked jars with his host and took a sip. Surprisingly, even lukewarm, the concoction was tasty. He swirled and regarded it.

  “Good stuff. You make this up?”

  “Uh-huh. Not long ago I found me a clump of purple sumac growing up yonder, off the mainline. Picked and mashed its red berries down, trickled in a little sorghum juice meant for my humming birds and here it is. They seem to like it just fine.”

  “So do I. You ought to bottle and sell it.”

  The big man’s dark eyes flashed with amused pleasure.

  “You mean for people? Now, who’d wanna buy somethin’ made by the likes of me?”

  “You might be surprised,” said Jim. “These days we live in what they call, a seller’s market.”

  Ulees studied his friend with admiration.

  “You done it again.”

  Jim blinked.

  “What?”

  “Said something smart. Seller’s market. Who ‘round here would ever thought to say somethin’ like that? Or, knowed what it meant?

  “I said it before and again, now. You’re one man that don’t belong workin’ here. No sir. Anyone with those kinds of words in his head belongs inside a nice office buildin’ with other smart people, doin’ smart people things. Not sweatin’ or freezin’ with the rest of us.”

  Jim fended the praise.

  “I didn’t think it up. Just something I heard on the radio or somewhere. That’s all.”

  “Still don’t make me feel otherwise.” Insisted Ulees.

  The pair of dogs had finished with their treat and now interrupted. Curled up to nap in the shack’s open doorway, they gave off a stout, musky odor of their feral environment. Yet, the big man stooped to massage their fight-scarred ears with affection. A warm light glowed in his eyes as he did.

  “Could sure use some cleanin’ up. Can’t complain on ‘em, though. They really ain’t my dogs to boss. Just some that come and go, same as my birds, or a sometimes ‘possum, ‘afore headin’ off to who-knows-where else. But, feathers or fur, I just try an’ show ‘em all a little kindness; ‘til they’re gone and the next batch comes on through.”

  “None ever stay around long enough to get any names, do they?”

  “They all got names,” declared Ulees. “Ones gave from above. Just ain’t cared to share ‘em. If I was to start callin’ ‘em somethin’ else they might not take it kind. So, things’re fine, just as they are.”

  One of the feral mutts punctuated the statement in gazing favorably at Jim before closing its eyes, leaving their visitor feeling an honored part of something special.

  “So,” Jim asked. “Have you been keeping busy?”

  Uless sipped his drink, nodding.

  “Yup. Bad order car work and some mainline stuff keeps me about. Otherwise, I just tend my birds and my garden and enjoy life. Good people hereabouts, like your folks, reach out with their hearts. Otherwise, I don’t need much to get by.”

  Ulees slid over his bible and took some loose bills kept inside.

  “That reminds me. I gots a bit more foldin’ money saved up. Think you might send it off for me, again?”

  Jim took the cash without hesitation.

  “To your sister, sure. Want to count it out?”

  This time, the big man did register offense.

  “And tell the world I didn’t trust you, young Jim? I ain’t got no worries with a friend. You still got her road number, do ya’?”

  “Still do,” said Jim. “But, are you sure you don’t want me to show some kind of return address, even if at my house? That way she could at least write back to you.”

  Ulees shook his head

  “Naw. That’s somethin’ best left as-is.”

  “Okay. Just asking.”

  The big man again considered his guest.

  “Say, you met that new yard boss yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “From what I see, he might be one to stay clear of.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Just seen him myself, in bits and pieces. But, I once knowed someone a lot like him and he was a body to stay clear of, too.”

  Jim made note of something new and troubling in the man’s tone. He let it pass, though, commenting on the scuffed bible, instead.

  “Might be needing a new one of those pretty soon, Ulees. It’s definitely seen better times.”

  The man set a gentle hand atop the book.

  “Was like that on the day it found me. Don’t matter. I can’t read much. I do know all the stories, though, hearing ‘em over and over, from my Great Aunt Marvella, growin’ up. But this here’s one book that’s got a special tale not wrote inside.”

  The man spared a delineating glance for his guest.

  “That’s a dog story, too. Mebbe one I’ll tell you some day. But, enough on me for now. How’s about you? How’re you and the gals gettin’ on?”

  Caught off guard, Jim felt himself flush.

  “Me? I’m not much of a lady’s man.”

  Ulees appraised him.

  “You sayin’ there ain’t a special, secret one out there, holdin’ the strings to your heart?”

  Jim glanced away and Ulees rocked to a knowing smirk.

  “Uh-huh! That there look tells me everything I need to know - least on one side of the fence. Who’s the lucky lady?”

  Eyes still averted, Jim shook his head somberly.

  “It’s a long story that doesn’t have much chance for a happy ending.”

  Ulees straightened.

  “Now, how can you know that? Things worthwhile need workin’ at.”

  “This is different,” said Jim. “Believe me.”

  “Mebbe not. But, I won’t press you on it. That leather-tough pops of yours - how’s he been? Haven’t seen him mu
ch, lately. He doin’ okay these days?”

  Jim huffed.

  “Yeah. Tough as ever.”

  “Still havin’ your little go-rounds over railroadin’?”

  Jim downed the last of his drink with a shrug.

  “I don’t suppose that’ll ever change - at least until something really bad finally comes along.”

  “Hope it never boils down to that,” Ulees replied. “Cain’t fault him none, though. Any good father only wants what he thinks best for his chil’den.”

  “Only wish I knew what was best for me,” replied Jim. “Can’t really say that road crewing isn’t what I could do and maybe even grow to like. But, when Pa comes on strong about it I guess I just resist on the principle of things. And that’s not good, either.”

  “Well, don’t think too harsh on ‘em,” said Ulees. “He’s a good man. And you never mind. ‘Cause the right answer for things a’tween you’ll come in good time. Just like it does for any of us.”

  “However long that might be.” Jim mused.

  Ulees brushed the scuffed red cover of his Good Book.

  “Somewhere in here it says that with faith, all things are possible. And that’s gotta be with females and fathers, too.”

  Jim gazed whimsically at the man and his ream of tired scripture.

  “Promise?”

  Hand still in place, Ulees nodded firmly.

  “Promise.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Joe waited for Spike to throw the final siding switch. Train 29 could then return to the mainline and its short trip home, ending his workweek. Joe gazed about as he waited, his mind wandering over both the ground and the years.

  At the start of his career, squatty Moguls, lanky Atlantics, and footsore, Brooks-built wagon-top engines still ruled the high iron. Most of the kind he’d first set foot on had been out-shopped as wood burners back in the 1890s, when his true father had yet been alive and a laborer on this very road.

  Nicknamed cherry-busters, man-eaters, and widow makers, those old-fashioned, hand stoked, high-wheelers had been inefficient and poor steaming, back-breaking gluttons for fuel. Mixed in with some ill-natured, senior engineers, many a promising rookie’s career had been extinguished before ever really getting started and at times it yet seemed curious to Joe, that he’d ever wound up working the rails.

  Even living in its shadow, the man had grown up indifferent to railroading’s din and motion. Unlike so many of his counterparts, Joe didn’t share in the soulful itch to be off, somewhere else. Still, from the start, he did feel a certain instinct and ease about an engine cab that kept him biding his time, working hard and honing his skills. He endured the demanding, seven-day workweek of freight hauling, often many state lines and days removed from home; toiling in open prairie winters cold enough to freeze freight car wheels solid and blistering summers that could sun-warp trackage and derail trains.

  Now though, all of those long and distant miles were far behind. Nearing 40 years of service, Joe Graczyk, along with most of his crew, had grown enough whiskers to work the home rails. These days he ran the turn-around local, which, Monday through Friday, shuttled assorted loads to various industries south of his home yard. That made weekend work rare and voluntary for the veteran. Although, he’d pitch in without question if the need arose, this late in his career, he certainly didn’t mind having seniority enough to keep his weekends free.

  Among the industries Joe serviced were fertilizer plants, iron foundries, structural steel firms, lumberyards, brickyards, and assorted warehousing districts. Trading empties and fulls, he spent his days dodging mainline traffic, while cutting and splicing his train with the skill of a master puzzle builder. When finally reaching the division midpoint, Joe’s southbound crew swapped trains with their northbound counterparts, for the return home.

  His travels had made Joe intimate with the surrounding terrain from a perspective hidden to most people. And that vista was becoming one that lately made the man uncomfortable. Joe’s longtime prairie world was rapidly evolving.

  Fueled by the postwar economic boon, longstanding acreage of outlying onion and peppermint farms was now cultivating another kind of produce - the explosive flowering of residential construction. All of those once broad, lush smelling acres, where, along with his mother, stepbrother, and stepsister, young Joe had walked gunny sack in hand, harvesting shiny white bulbs or lush green leaves, were now rapidly being parceled into a vast checkerboard of bedroom communities.

  Blocks upon city blocks of new lumber and brick were being laid and joined. The white concrete of fresh streets and yet untrod sidewalks was being poured. Worse, just beyond Joe’s view, but still within earshot, the final surfacing work for a new double-ribbon roadway was being completed. Not one slated for rails, but competing vehicular traffic, it was what they were calling a superhighway and this one was to be christened Interstate I-55.

  Rumor had it destined to run clear from Chicago’s Lakeshore Drive to St. Louis and naysayers were prophesying that it would put venerable old Route 66 out of business. Worse, it would yank more of the rug from under Joe’s profession - by allowing greater truck traffic door-direct delivery, something the rail systems couldn’t possibly hope to match. There was no denying that guns were being loaded in a formal war of railroad attrition.

  Joe turned his attention skyward, seeking a moment’s reprieve in the changeless heavens. When he was a kid, birds of prey still crisscrossed the air over this very spot. Legions of painted turtles had sunned themselves between hunting crayfish in nearby wetlands and spotting a pheasant or ermine wasn’t unusual. Now though, like so much else the engine driver understood, it too, was all going away.

  Only one thing in this outside world remained constant for Joe Graczyk and that was a boiler back head. During his career, global borders had grown and shriveled. Economies waxed and waned. Yet, an engine cab always remained unchanged. In facing these new suburbs, interstate highways, and fuel oil locomotives, though, the man sensed that both he and it might soon share in the dinosaur’s fate.

  “Now that’s a cryin’ shame.”

  Vint’s lament brought Joe back.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean what happened to the old Rahl Brothers place, over there.”

  Joe swept his gaze across the mainline, toward a gated and locked industrial property. Corralled within, its half dozen familiar, though idle factory structures, were another victim of the times.

  “Yeah,” he mused. “Sure is.”

  The place set as one more failed landmark the man knew only too well. During the war years its tricky, single rail spur had bustled with traffic. Carloads of brass coil-stock arrived for the company’s monstrous stamping presses and critical shipments of finished shell casings exited, destined for loading at southern munitions plants.

  The Pacific Fleet had depended on the product made here to keep their big guns hot, protectively hammering belligerent shorelines for assaulting infantry ranks and knitting the sky above its ships with a defensive mesh of antiaircraft fire. But now, that once busy siding was abandoned. Just another postwar casualty.

  Wartime production was a fickle thing. Both patriotic and purposeful, its huge demands also meant big manufacturing dollars. And many times, the separate pockets of industry drawn together to face a common foe (in the proud name of national defense) suddenly found themselves without a guaranteed paycheck once the guns stopped firing and those massive government contracts evaporated.

  In the case of a metal stamping field bankrolled and regulated by a desperate Uncle Sam, Rahl’s cultivated prewar customers were put on hold. Its new wartime business was then expanded and parceled out to a host of additional government-subsidized players, all working to keep pace with the military overload.

  But at the end of hostilities, a bevy of eager and rival competitors, who had all been nonexistent just four years prior, were no
w equally tooled and left scrambling over each other to stay alive. Any return to previous domestic work became a survival of the fittest.

  Long established and dominant Rahl Brothers Manufacturing was reduced to simply another hopeful pup in a litter of excess peacetime capacity. It came to exist on a niche market of small lot work, making short-run radiators and heater cores for material handling equipment and second tier car manufacturers. But, Hudson, Nash, and Kaiser watched their market share also shrivel before corporate Detroit and its Big Three, automotive manufacturing barrage.

  So started the beginning of Rahl’s end. Tactical furloughs of longtime personnel followed. Sales of excess equipment were tried. But all efforts were only brief, band-aid fixes. Nothing could stem the company’s cash-bleed and the noble business began its slippery descent into bankruptcy, finally closing its doors, short years later.

  What remained within the vine-woven fence these days was merely a hulking, unburied carcass. Drained of all lifeblood, it simply awaited court appointed scavengers to pick at and divvy up. Even now, an old CC&S freight load remained trapped on the premises, locked in legal maneuverings while lawyers and secured creditors haggled over the company’s scrawny remains.

  Only once things were finalized might the rolling stock and cargo be returned to their rightful owners. But while due process dragged on, the neglected trackage within fell into disrepair. Summer heat and winter cold didn’t care about bankruptcy delays. Harsh weather cycling continued to loosen spikes and anchor plates. Hidden beneath a burly snarl of chest high weeds, rail-supporting ballast still washed out. Ties rotted and sank. The tracks they carried began a subtle shift from their proper alignment.

  “During the war, that place never closed,” Joe declared. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When the night breeze was just right, you could hear their late shift punch presses slamming out artillery shells clear to my house. Everyone in town came to know that bump-bump-bump as the sound of our freedom.”

  “And look at it now,” said Vint.

  Joe added a huff.

  “Yeah. Look at it now.”

  “I’ve heard that spur track was pretty tricky. I’ll bet you ran it your share of times, huh, Joebie?”