Home for the Holidays

After spending several days pouring over maps and schedules I decided my cheapest ticket home for the holidays was to have no ticket at all. Airfare is way too expensive for me, rental car will cost about the same, and it will take me two days to get home via bus. There is only one way home, and that is to hop a train. What about a ticket? Who needs a ticket, those are for wimps.

I left home with nothing more than a few tens in my front pocket and the clothes on my back. Parking my car at my sister’s house I watched as the train slowed for the intersection ahead. You can do this, I thought. It’s just like high school track, clear the hurdle and you’re home free.

There were three empty cars with their doors open. I rushed from the forest on the North-West side of the tracks. The closer I got the slower the train went, just as I made it to the edge of the forest I saw the conductor poke his head out of the window, looking to the South for oncoming traffic. With one courageous leap I was on the train. In the darkness I couldn’t see the other person, but I could smell several weeks’ worth of body odor tearing through my nostrils and forcing my gag reflex into action. I tried to hold it back, but it was no use, turning around I leaned my head out of the freight car and tossed my night’s dinner all over the side of the train. It seemed as if I puked for miles, but my car-mate was extremely nice about the entire situation.

Pulling my head back into the car he said, “Motion sickness, eh?”

“Yes, I get sick quite easily,” I said as I pulled my sweat jacket up over my nose and mouth.

“That ain’t gonna help, what helps is to take your mind off the ridin’. Let me tell you a story:”

“My son, he just graduated from Boot Camp, I’m gonna see him for the holidays.” Pulling a flask out of his jacket pocket he tipped his head back and took a swig or two before offering me some. 

“What is it?” I asked.

“Vodka, you’re gonna need a lot of this to get you home. Where you headed anyway?”

“Philadelphia,” I told him as I reached for the flask and against the olfactory sense took a nip of the burning liquid.

“Warms the soul, don’t it?” he asked me.

“Mm,” I responded.

“So, my son, he just finished Boot Camp.”

“What branch?”

“He’s a Marine,” the man said. “I’m headed to his graduation. Ain’t seen him in two years, though it feels like a hundred. I’m gonna surprise the young’un and his Mama too. She don’t know I’m headed that way.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I haven’t been home for a few years, just can’t afford it, that’s why I decided to travel this way.”

“I can tell, you’re a newbie, too clean to be doin’ this for a livin’. My son, he don’t approve of this here means of life. Thinks I’m worthless, but I’m gonna show him, remind him where he done come from. His mama been talking crap ‘bout me his entire life. I’m gonna prove I ain’t all that she done told him. Gonna ride this here train all the way through to South Carolina, then I’m gonna clean up in the river, runs right behin’ their house. I’m gonna knock on the door and they’s gonna say, ‘Holy crap, he ain’t dead after all.’ I’m gonna show dat boy my battle scars, all that I’ve been through, a Vietnam Veteran and years on the rail, he’s gonna find out his Daddy ain’t no deadbeat.”

“Wow, South Carolina, that’s a long way!”

“Maybe so, but worth the trip,” he said as he placed his lips on his flask and drew another nip. “That boy o’ mine ain’t gonna know what hit him when I sit him down and tell him all the lies his mama done told him. And the government, I fought for this country and they don’t offer nothin’ for bein’ homeless. They done say I need a permanent address to receive services. Hello, homeless, no address, what the hell are they thinking anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” I said as I felt the train begin to slow; I crawled to the gaping opening of the freight car, feeling the need to puke. Tossing the last of my stomach’s contents I sat back and the man spoke from the darkness again.

“Eh, dat there stomach ain’t made for life on the rail.”

“No, not really. I think I’m on empty now. Can you tell me more? What was it like in Vietnam?”

“Nasty. Ain’t a damn American that understands what dat war stood for. Blamin’ us soldiers for fightin’ for a cause. We fought ‘cause we was ordered too. Do you think we enjoy dat fightin’?” 

It was a rhetorical question and somehow I just knew I better not answer.

“Watchin’ people, innocent people done bein’ hurt for no reason other than we were train to kill the enemy. Ain’t no enemy in a seven year old girl, but those damn Gooks, had little girl’s carryin’ ‘gernades in you know where. We ain’t have a choice but to kill dem all, ‘cause we had no way of knowin’.”

“Wow!” I said, only half believing him.

He tipped his head back, with his flask close to his lips, he wasn’t nipping at the flask anymore, he was chugging. The stranger pulled another bottle out of his sack, which was sitting close by, and filled the flask again. The sun was shining into the car now and I could see my new friend was missing several front teeth and he was extremely unkempt. He seemed to have a nervous habit of pulling at his long beard. If he had been a bit cleaner and a lot heavier I would have described him as a Santa look-alike with his long beard and rosy cheeks.

Suddenly he rose his voice, startling me, “Ya ain’t believin’ what I have ta say about the war is ya?”

“I believe you,” I lied. “I just never heard it told like that.”

“Yup, it’s da way it was. We wasn’t killin’ just to kill, like all those peace lovin’ hippies thought, we was killin’ to stay alive. Mighta been some innocents we done had to kill, but we ain’t know who was holdin’ a ‘gernade in their body and who ain’t holdin’, so they all had to go. ‘Very damn one of dem was the enemy. Worse, when we came home we was spit on, cussed at, damn draft jumpers comin’ back from Canada and spittin’ on us for stayin’ alive. Dat’s all we was doin’, fightin’ for our life. When you sick, you go to da doctor, when you at war you fight like hell. Some us made it home, but ain’t all us so lucky, or unlucky. I done came home to a war of another kin’, my first wife done left me, I got a place o’ my own and the neighbor’s, dem son bitches, they done egged my house, busted up windows, all sorts of shit. Dat’s da truth. Dat’s why I ain’t want no permanent address. I fought da war over da sea, now I fight da war on my own turf. Ain’t nuthin’ worse than being called a ‘kiddie killer’ ain’t nuthin’ worse than dat.”

My new friend must have talked for hours, because it seemed like he just started talking and it was time for me to jump train and wait for the next one. I was sorry to go, sorry to see him left in such a mess. “I hope your son enjoys your visit,” I said, but secretly, I knew it was going to be an intrusion in his son’s life.

I looked at my new friend, “What’s your name, anyway?”

“In dis life, ain’t no one got a name, we just faceless Veteran’s.”

I left it at that, as I leapt from the train, and rolled down the hill away from the tracks. I came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, I crawled forward and waited at the edge of a new forest for an East bound train.