Transcontinental (3 page)

Leroy turned to find a wiry man wearing a wry grin and a rent-a-cop uniform at the helm of a golf cart. He let out a lemony snicker into the walkie-talkie he held. “I got him.” The security guard stepped out of the cart, tube socks and cargo shorts sandwiching a set of knobby knees. He pocketed the walkie and shuffled up to Leroy, hands on his hips.

Leroy knew that if he stopped biting his lip for more than a moment, he’d burst into a nervous giggle at the sight of this silly man. He knew, too, that he was caught, and that put together, these two elements could react explosively. He trained his eyes on the ground.

“Whatcha up to there, son?

“Just checking out the trains, sir.” He stifled a final laugh.

“Ah, railfan, are ya?”

He’d never heard that term, but it made sense so he went with it.

“Yes sir, ever since I was a child.”

The man nudged his sunglasses down his nose with his finger. “That’s real cute. Might’a believed it if ya weren’t wearing that backpack. Ya know how many tramps I catch every day?”

Leroy thought fast. “Half day. Just got out of school.”

“Do ya take me for a fool, son? It’s summertime.”

“Math tutoring. Numbers ain’t my thing.”

“I caught ya climbing the fence, y’hear? I hadn’t stopped ya, you’d be sittin’ pretty on an outbound hopper right now.”

It’d given him hope when the guard had referred to their location as ‘departure’ earlier, but that was confirmation he was in the right place.

“Just looking to get a better view, sir.”

“Now don’t lie to me, son. Nobody climbs a fence topped with barbed wire just for the view. Look, you can come with me and make this easy, or we can get the police involved. Which’s it gonna be?”

Going with him sounded sketchy, but Leroy did not want the police involved, so he reluctantly opted for the easy way. He nodded to the man, who started back to the cart.

“Smart choice. Hop in.”

Leroy took shotgun and the cart started with a stir, the engine whining as it pulled away from the curb and made a U-turn.

Leroy having complied, the guard seemed to lighten up a bit.
 

“Ya know, I was just like you at your age. Not quite so dark, though. Heh!”

Leroy forced a smile. He doubted that. The cart was headed straight back the way he’d came, erasing his progress by the moment.

“Anyway, I used to sneak out to the yard every weekend, shoot the shit—beg pardon—with the crew, get up close and personal with the trains. They are amazing machines. That’s why I took up working here.”

Leroy nodded, watching a train crawl across the yard like an ironshod caterpillar searching for somewhere to cocoon.

“That was the past, though. Things is different nowadays. Security’s clamped down like a puppy waiting to get his bits lopped off.”

The station was just ahead. Leroy wondered if he’d be taken into custody.

“Ya know, we got an observation deck in the main building. Just ten bucks, and ya can stay out there all day long if you’d like.”

Leroy was done observing.

“Didn’t know that, sir.”

As they came to the intersection of the station parking lot and the exit, the cart turned right and stopped at the main road.

“Ya seem like a decent kid, so I’m gonna let ya out here. Come back and see us sometime, hear? The right way.”

“I got the afternoon off, so I’ll stop by home and get that ten bucks.”

The guard smiled at him.”That’s a true railfan. We’ll see ya later.”

Leroy hopped off the golf cart, waved to the man, and crossed the street, scanning the strip mall before him as he wove a plan for progress.

* * *

It was all about the towers, he figured.

Security wouldn’t be a problem if he wasn’t lost in a daydream. Assuming he could get in unseen, he’d have a golden chance of holing up in a car until one of the trains left. If it wasn’t his, he could easily bail before it hit dangerous speeds. How to evade the towers’ all-seeing supervision was another issue.

A little diner called the Railway Cafe, starved for customers as Leroy was for real food, was located on a corner that allowed him to keep an eye on the departure yard while he chewed beef jerky at a table out front. The stuff might have protein, but it didn’t leave him feeling full. Maybe he hadn’t eaten enough.

His best idea relied on the cover of night. It wasn’t foolproof, but it was a start. It was only one o’clock, though. There he was, wasting half a day pretending to read a free local newspaper. He’d already been caught there once. If it happened again, it’d expose his lies from earlier and likely be the end of the line.

For a moment, he thought that might not be the worst outcome. In one day, he’d had a brush with death. Was this woman worth his life?

Leroy tugged at a strip of beef between his teeth until it ripped in half. It was worth the life he’d
been
living. He hoped to change that.

He lifted another piece of dried meat to his mouth, then dropped it as a train horn, deafening and robust, blared from the yard down the street. He craned his head to get a better view as a train slogged out of the yard, puffs of white escaping the vertical exhaust pipe like a string of pearls being pulled into the sky, growing blurrier and more ethereal as they ascended.

That could be the only north-bound till tomorrow, or the day after. He didn’t know how often trains ran, or how far they went.

Through the glass of the diner, he noticed the owner scowling in his direction. The last thing he wanted to do was offend or annoy anyone. Leroy packed up the jerky and the newspaper, in case he needed insulation at some point, pushed his seat in and vacated the premises.

He needed to kill time, but had no idea how. If there was anything around besides a few local businesses, the rail yard, and an ocean of ankle-height shrubs, Leroy couldn’t see it. He regretted not grabbing one of Ms. Stacey’s word search booklets on the way out.

The first task was to get out of the heat, or at least out of the sun. One of the few buildings nearby was a clothing store called Overall’s. Leroy had never been a beacon of fashion, as most of his clothes came from the same budget superstore from which his mother bought groceries, but he assumed a clothing store would have dressing rooms, air-conditioned and perfect for hiding.

He headed down the short road toward the shop, his shadow thick and black beneath him in the overwhelming sunlight. A bell dinged inside as he pulled the door handle, and was awash in a gust of air, refreshingly chilly on his sweaty skin. The place seemed to specialize in rail workers’ clothes, and it looked the part, painted in earthy tones, walls lined with fake railroad track. Jumpsuits, slacks, and hard boots covered the shelves, and strange specialized gloves, the function of which escaped Leroy. The featured item: overalls.

A young man near the back spotted him. “Welcome to Overall’s, home of the overall. Can I help you find anything today?”

Leroy focused on the T-shirts he pretended to sift through. “Just looking.”

“If you need help, let me know.”

Leroy doubted the man would help him if he told him what he needed. He continued to shuffle through the shirts until the employee lost interest in him. Halfway between the front door and the fitting rooms to his right, Leroy slipped his shoes off and held them in one hand, then crept over to the front door, his eyes never leaving the employee. He placed a hand on the door, readying himself, then shoved it open. The bell rang as he sprinted silently to the fitting rooms, then peered around the corner at the young man, who threw a lazy glance to where Leroy used to be, then resumed folding shirts.

He cracked a fitting room door open and slipped inside, releasing the doorknob slowly to avoid the
click
it made when it closed. A small bench jutted from a corner of the cramped room, decreasing the space he had to lay down, and the bright fluorescent lighting wasn’t very restful, either. Still, Leroy managed to curl up around the bench, laying on his side, which is how he liked to sleep anyway. If he couldn’t catch a train and get moving, he could think of no better way to spend the day than sleeping in the air conditioning.

* * *

When he awoke, the store was still and dark.

He scampered to the front door, but it wouldn’t open, until he found a deadbolt at the bottom and yanked it upward. Outside, night had fallen, daylight replaced by dark and stars, as if the sun had split into trillions of tiny fragments.

The plan worked even better than Leroy had hoped. He was well-rested, awake, alert. Which could prove to be an issue later, in the midst of a lengthy train ride, but he’d just have to grin and bear it.

A mile out, the golden glow of the rail yard’s floodlights looked, fittingly, like a forcefield, protecting it from penetrators such as himself.

He couldn’t wait to get on a train and make this place his past.

Eager to leave as he was, Leroy knew he couldn’t rush things. Caution was key. He wasn’t sure if guards scanned the property at night as well as during the day. A yard this big, it was likely they did. Couldn’t be that hard to see them coming though, he hoped. It was his own fault that he’d gotten caught anyway. He wasn’t paying attention. He fumed at himself.

Leroy hiked parallel to the yard, keeping a lucid awareness. He couldn’t see a car in any direction, and the terrain permitted sight for miles.

The scent of the evening desert intoxicated him; he found himself nearly hyperventilating to fill his lungs with an aroma that was soft and pungent, lush and crisp, floral and piney. It was vaguely similar to a laundry detergent his mother had used a long time ago, but there was something missing in those chemicals that could never be manufactured, the special ingredient that only nature could add—a whiff of life.

And if he couldn’t smell the life of the desert, he could certainly hear it. The wind blowing through the various types of brush produced a distinct sound, a constant dull roar, which Leroy found relaxing. Countless insects and frogs added layers of high-pitched chirping and thick, textured buzzing to the concerto. Occasionally an owl or a coyote would take a solo, the latter of which grew somewhat worrisome to Leroy as he lumbered down an unlit, undeveloped street on a clear but nearly moonless night.

A cursory glance across the way told Leroy that he was nearing the departure section of the yard, as he recognized the worn section of fence he’d begun to climb. But, it might be better, he reasoned, to reach the edge of the train yard and scale the fence there. He doubted any security guards would be positioned at the furthest point from the station, and once he was in, there would be a vast number of places to hide, were he to encounter trouble.

As he approached the embankment the train yard sat atop, Leroy sipped on a bottle of water from his bag, cool from its time in the air conditioned fitting room. He savored each reinvigorating swallow as it blazed a cold trail down his throat.

It wasn’t the steepest hill, but Leroy had a hard time getting up due of the sand. He had to grab onto a bush at one point just to keep from falling backward. Near the top he knelt, kicking sand into one shoe by repositioning the other.

The faint glow escaping the train yard’s bounds aided Leroy as he perused the perimeter with an eye out for golf carts. The coast looked clear as the night sky to him, but he needed to be sure. He peered hard into the darkness and examined the scene. Shadows carved shapes out of the night sky, but none of them moved. He only had to travel the parking lot between himself and the fence successfully and he’d be in.

Sending more sand into his shoes, Leroy stood from his kneeling position and crept around the edge of the parking lot, now thankful for the dark clothes he had cursed in the harsh sunlight. His gaze darted in all directions. Still nothing, no one.

Crouching at the edge of a row of bushes, he looked to his left and nearly fell back in shock. A tower, right there on the edge of the yard. The trees around it had obscured it from sight until he’d gotten near. The thought of turning back and regrouping crossed his mind; he didn’t really have a plan B. He couldn’t have one. It would be an easy way out, and the temptation wasn’t worth it. But squatting and thinking wasn’t going to help anything. It was time to act or go home, and he didn’t have a home.

Leroy peeked at the tower. It was set back about fifteen feet, right on the edge of the forest. He needed to sneak past it and over the fence without putting himself in its sight, and the only way to do that was to go under it.

He determined it was best to approach the tower from the woods behind it, using the trees for cover. From the tree line, it was about five feet to the base of the tower, and another five or so to the fence, but hopefully he could shinny over and find somewhere to hide before anyone noticed.

Like Batman in a cartoon he’d seen he dashed around the fringe of the broad bushes and into the forest, nothing more than an inky blur.

He’d thought it was dark on that lonesome desert road earlier, but any light from the evening sky was blotted out entirely in the thicket of trees surrounding him. He recalled the trick he’d used at home on the rare nights his mother wasn’t blackout drunk and he craved a snack from the fridge, on the off chance there was one. He shut his eyes, then counted to ten.