Train Time

 

            Maurice waved anyhow, and he whispered, “See you on down the road maybe.”
            Catching an open freight car going west in Springfield was a whole different deal from catching one going east in Skykomish. It had been easy deciding that he was going to do exactly that, but now he had to find the right car, with an open door too.
            There were many tracks. Maurice knew which direction was west, but he wasn’t sure it was that simple. He walked out among the lines, examining two trains that were headed by locomotives faced in a westerly direction. He kind of liked one. There were more than a dozen cars behind the locomotive. He walked along the track examining each car’s door.
            He thought about Ralph, and where he was going and it lifted  his heart. As he was standing there in the dark yard grinning, a small lighted thing with wings, no bigger than a large dragonfly came to him. It flashed around his shaggy head a few times and then having gotten his attention, it zoomed off to one of the cars and hovered there impatiently.
            Now, Maurice could take a hint, so he decided that this had to be the right car. He slipped on over there and tried the door. It slid open easily.
            “Say, did Mable send you?” Maurice asked the flashing winged thing.
            “I’ll tell you a spell, but will not tell,” it said in a voice like a bee, if a bee had a voice. “Say, ‘I’m neither here, nor there. You cannot find me anywhere!’ And they won’t see you!”
            “A gift indeed, small one. You have the gratitude of a true Howler,” said Maurice as the tiny being vanished into the darkness of the Springfield, MO night.
            He climbed into the car, and slid the door shut. The car was empty except for wooden floorboards. He backed up to sit against the wall beside the door, remembering other days and other train rides. He took off his size 15 high top sneakers. He suddenly felt silly wearing shoes. So, he tied the laces together and set the shoes beside himself. That felt better. He could feel the floor under his feet, and it made him feel more like himself. Then he remembered the Oreos Mable had given him. He ate them all and thought fondly of a cup of coffee, as he dozed there.
            Right before sunrise the train started to roll, dead slow, but picking up speed after a bit. Soon it was making that familiar clacking sound, and Maurice slept all the way to Kansas City. When he woke he knew he needed to find something to drink. The train was still, so he slid the door open a few inches and looked out at another enormous train yard in the blasting sunlight. He pushed the door a few more inches open and hopped lightly out, leaving his sneakers behind without a thought. Looking around himself he saw a man in a BNSF uniform walking his way.
            “I’m neither here, nor there! You cannot find me anywhere!” Maurice whispered, hoping for the best. He picked his way across several lines of tracks, heading for the tall buildings downtown. No one even turned their heads as he passed them.
            Maurice considered his options. He and Sleeky Sue and Folkie Joe had done well in parks, so he kept going. He knew there were bound to be parks in a city as great as Kansas City. There were usually water fountains in parks too.
            The park he landed at had a small lake in its center. Maurice padded over to its edge and bent down and drank lake water. It was a little muddy in flavor, but it was wet. He got up and wiped his muzzle on his coat sleeve and thought about food. He was still pretending that he didn’t have two hundred bucks on his person, playing it like a game. Could he do this or not?
            Folkie Joe had been able to feed the three of them by busking. Maurice was pretty good with a harmonica. So, why not try it, he thought.
            Not giving a thought to the spell, he found a nice bench on a path by the lake and settled in. There was a newspaper folded on the bench, so since he didn’t have a hat he laid the paper down on the path in front of the bench and put his two feet on each side of it to keep it from blowing away.
            There were a few passersby, not paying him much mind. “OK,” Maurice said to himself. He pulled his harmonica out of his pocket and started a quiet bit of Train Time. He felt pretty good about it, so he played it louder.
            A black lab dog walked up to Maurice and sat to listen. This was cool, but didn’t make any money. Several pigeons wandered over, setting up camp under the bench.  Their soft cries added a little something to the music. Then several mallards swam over to the edge of the lake and started walking to Maurice’s bench. They gathered in front of him and sat, listening.
            A small boy, hearing the harmonica, pulled his mother by the hand over to the bench with Maurice and his entourage. They listened for a while, then the woman handed Maurice a five, which he tucked in his pocket with Allegory. “Bye, bye!” the child yelled as they walked away.
            You’d think that being a Fae sort of critter, that Maurice should have been used to magic and such, but such was not the case. He played some more Cream tunes, and then All Along The Watchtower, wishing someone was there to sing with him. A singer would  have been a lot of help.
            A blind woman, in dark glasses who looked strangely familiar, walking with a Rottweiler dog came slowly down the path. She sat beside Maurice. “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” she sang when he played the song. Then they did All Along The Watchtower again, together.
            Two men, one old and one maybe his son, listened for a few minutes. The older one handed Maurice several ones, said thanks, and they walked away.
            “That was really cool, Lady,” he said, putting the harmonica back in his pocket.
            “I was a singer in a band,” she said softly.
            “I believe you, Lady,” said Maurice. “I better go find something to buy with the money those folks gave me. It’s getting hungry out here.” He folded up the newspaper and put it back on the bench. The black lab wandered off. The ducks went back to their lake, but the pigeons all went to sleep underneath the bench.
            “Tell you what, Honey,” the blind lady said, “I’ll give you my lunch, then I’ll go on home. I’ll get some lunch there for me and Roscoe here. We live just across the street.”
            It was a strange sort of a lunch for a little old lady to be planning to eat herself. There were two very thick roast beef and horseradish sandwiches, half a dozen oatmeal/raisin cookies, and two bottles of chocolate milk. Maybe she was going to share with Roscoe, was all Maurice could surmise.
            “There’s a westbound BNSF freight calling your name, pilgrim, and you better go get on it before it leaves Kansas City,” said the little old blind singer.
            “Thank you!” was all Maurice could get out, sitting there with his mouth hanging open.
            “Now, git!” she said, so he did, at a lope.

🤎🥪🍪🤎