The Tracks, 1966, pt. 1

VIA Train by Kermit Geary Jr.

I was warned not to play on the train tracks, so, naturally, I was there all the time. It was a great place to explore alone and I was always alone.

The best spot along the tracks was the black, wrought-iron bridge for the signal lights, which arched over both the eastbound and westbound lanes. It had a metal ladder along one side, which I was able to climb, and, lying flat-out on the catwalk, I had a birds-eye view in all directions. I tried to find courage to lie there when a train passed below, but I would always chicken out as soon as I saw the flash of a headlight on the horizon.

I was always alone, so there was no one around to laugh at me, so I didn’t care.

I also liked to walk the tracks, heading west towards the Fourth Line, out past the factories, where the farmer’s fields were. Nobody was around, nobody could see me, and so nobody was going to bug me.

One day I found a dead dog lying beside the tracks; its head had been ripped off and the brown fir was covered with hordes of flies (I could actually hear them buzzing before I saw them, saw the body). I didn’t cry – it wasn’t my dog – and I wasn’t afraid either, I just looked.

But one time I saw something else. I had to take a piss, so I went down the embankment, into the tall grass where I was invisible. I had just got out of sight of the tracks when I saw her.

She was lying on her back, like she was dead or something, but what really shocked me was the gaping hole at the end of her neck, where the head should have been; she was headless, like the dead dog I had seen that time. Her skin was snow white too, like she’d lost all her blood.

Yet she was still living. I couldn’t see her chest moving up and down, so she didn’t appear to be breathing, but, I knew she wasn’t dead – I was pretty sure I knew what she was.

I did know what she was.

I thought I’d better get the heck out of there, but then I saw the purse.

I knew I shouldn’t do it, that it was wrong to steal, but since the old man died I didn’t get an allowance or anything like that and there it was and I opened it. I took $11 in bills (one five, two twos, two ones) and $1.40 in change, closed it and put it down where I found it. There was stuff in there with her name on it; Kathleen, but with an Italian last name.

I peeled away from there pretty fast and I didn’t look back.

When I got back to the plaza, I thought about going to the Variety store and using my loot to buy some comics or a Monster Mag, but how would I explain them at home? We only had a small apartment, so Mom was bound to find them and then start asking questions

So I settled instead for some Bar-B-Q chips and some Sweet Tarts. I hid the rest of the money in the hidey hole at the bottom of the stairwell.

Nobody knew what I did, but I still didn’t feel good about it.