My First Freight and the Puke that Followed (2016)

It all started back in March of 2016.  I caught my first freight that spring. I was working as a dishwasher in the Grand Canyon to hike and explore that 'big hole' that so many tourists flock to every year to see.  I loved it. I loved partying with co-workers, learning Spanish curse words with the Peruvians, dancing, the sleepless nights, hiking and camping, all to wake up and do it again the next day.   

I didn't spend much time in the Canyon.  Just like all my other jobs, my desire to work quickly faded and when my boss promoted me to pizza pub server, for 10 cents more an hour, and twice as much work; I quit.

I hitched out with a trail worker, Randolph, after spending two and a half months working for Xanterra Resorts.  Randolph had hopped trains between seasonal jobs with the National Park Service. He had left his home in Virginia at the age of 18 and started walking down the Appalachian Trail.  The first train he saw rollin’ through town he caught and he's been riding the rails ever since then between work.  

He would come into the pub, tip his elbow, boozin', and tell me stories about riding trains around America, intriguing me deeply with his prose, enthusiasm, radiant eyes and chipper voice.  He was a real raconteur, an intellect, and his every word piqued my interest so much; I would always slip him free chicken wings, the ones at the end of the batch we couldn't sell, every time he came in for a drink just to listen to his stories.  

I don't even know why the idea of riding freight resonated with me so deeply.  I knew of the dangers, and horror stories, but I just wanted to ride, wanted to wander, to see more of America for free.  Maybe it was the freedom surrounding it all or the romanticism from stories I had read by the beatniks.  

Either way, I wanted that freedom, that state of mind, but I didn’t know the slightest about hopping a train.  I didn’t understand the dynamics. I didn’t understand slack action; how trains were built; what a FRED was; what a crew change was; where the departure tracks versus the classification yard were at.  I knew nothing. I was completely green and Randolph taught me very little honestly.

We cruised towards Flagstaff in his beat-up pickup truck, smoking a spliff, getting pretty high and looking out at the desolation as desert ran endlessly to the horizon.  His old truck chugged on down the road sputtering and coughing while tendrils of smoke touched the ceiling in a gray, foggy cloud, from our roach.  

When we reached Flagstaff, it was mid-day.  He parked his vehicle down by the mall near Route 66 just past the Greyhound station.  I sat there completely dazed, elated in the passenger seat, staring off at the parking lot.  All that giggling, all the happy sensations, slowly shifted to paranoia and uncertainty. Was I really about to do this?  What was I getting myself into? I really had no fucking idea.  

Thoughts ran wild in my mind, faster and faster; my anxiety surged.  Sweat trickled down my head like a cataract into my puffy, bloodshot eyes.  I rubbed them aggressively turning my head to Randolph as he snickered.

“Well…ya ready?  This is it. Just over there in them bushes, train should come in about 2 or 3 AM I think accordin’ to the Crew Change.  Never hopped outta here myself, lemme know how it goes.”

“Yeah man.  This is where I saw 'em sided before on my way up to the Canyon back in January."

I opened the passenger door and slung my small, 35-liter pack, up over my shoulders.  I couldn’t even hear our doors slam shut because of the thunderous roars from a passing freight train plowing through town, one of many that day.

We cut across the far-end of the empty parking lot making our way to the shoulder of the road.  He walked alongside me, as we made our way to the hop out, giving me pointers along the way.

“Now you see this freight goin’ by?”

“Yeah, it’s long,” I yelled over her bellowing horn and shrieking wheels.

“Don’t catch ones goin’ that fast…you can tell how fast they’re goin’ by the bolts on the wheels…if ya can count three bolts easily…then ya know it’s safe to catch on the fly…if not, it’s goin’ too fast…but actually, don’t worry bout that just yet.  You shouldn’t be catchin’ on the fly anyway for your first freight. Get on a stopped train.”

“Ok...stopped train it is.”

“You’ll understand the more you ride…this is a siding so you’ll be gettin' a stopped train, but sometimes it’ll be easier to hop on at the throat of a yard to avoid security.  Sometimes it'll be easier to just get on in the yard. It's always safer to get on a stopped freight.”

“Alright.”

“You know what you’re lookin’ for…to ride I mean?”

“Yeah, wells with floors, grainers, open boxcars if there is any, empty gondolas, and that’s about all I know.”

“That’s a start, just don’t ride suicide and look for the old well cars, the ones with the ribs.  The new ones are all suicides…don’t ride them...ever.”

He gave me the quick rundown of train hopping 101 in the span of a few minutes as we plodded onward down the hot asphalt road in the blistering sun.  I stared off into the endless horizon of pines trying to absorb all he had told me, forgetting most of it in my heightened euphoria.

Right as we tried crossing the highway to get to the train tracks bright lights started flashing and sirens wailed, piercing my ears.  

“OH FUCK,” Randolph yelled.

From my peripherals, I watched a plastic baggy soar into the air, landing in a vast array of scrub brush between mountains of desert sand.  The police cruiser bolted past us down the long straightaway shooting up plumes of dust and desert sand as the wheels screeched the pavement. 

I looked over at Randolph.  He stood there dumbfounded just shaking his head with a sour puss on his face.

“Dammit…can you help me find my bag of weed?”

I laughed.  My feet sunk into pillows of sand as I walked in the sparse patch of desert by the roadside.  I crouched down on my knees, sifting through loose tumbleweeds and dead cacti, tossing shovels of sand around with my cupped hands as I scanned the ground for a small bag of reefer.  If we didn’t look suspicious before, now we definitely did. What did I get myself into?

I peered over at Randolph and a smile lit up his face ear-to-ear.  He stood up straight and tall. His crimson eyes matched the color of his cheeks.

“I found it!  Alright…we should get back to the truck…I’ll just drop you off down the road so it’s less suspicious than us walkin’.”

“Alright…”

We moseyed back to his truck for whatever reason, most likely paranoia, and he pulled out of that lot like he was driving Miss Daisy, slowly putting down the highway until he reached the next pull-off.

“Alright bud, this is good enough.  The tracks are right there, but you’ll wanna hide in any of these bushes.  Sleep, read, think…do whatever ya gotta do to make the time pass, but stay put until nightfall.  If someone sees ya they might call ya in. Be safe. Text me if ya have any questions.”

“Thanks man.  Will do!”

I watched dust clouds shoot up from his tires as he pulled a u-ey.  His engine zinged loudly as he shifted to higher gears and then he disappeared down the road into the scorching sun.  I never saw him again after that.

The pines shaded me that day from the vivant fire in the cloudless sky.  I sat beneath them by the roadside, staking out for hours and hours until nightfall, unsure of how to feel, anxious and scared with racing thoughts and paranoia.  

My innocence bled through that desert sand in those moments leading up to the screeching wheels of my first freight train, waking me from my sleepless stupor as my heart jumped out of my chest, and the cold breath of night lit up my eyes.  I hustled. I packed up all my gear as quickly as possible. My adrenaline pumped like a surge rushing through my veins.

It was roughly 2 AM.  That squelching noise resonated louder and louder in my ears as she approached closer.  I crouched there in the shadows, completely alert with a devilish grin chiseled into my face, waiting to board my train.  That high-pitch shriek sliced the air and then she stopped. Everything turned to pure silence afterwards and that latent beast sat there on the steel as bright stars painted the sky like glitter.  This moment would forever change my life of travel. I just didn’t know it yet.

In that moment, I made a run for it along the dark highway, peeking at the freight cars as I snooped through the shadows, afraid of meeting the eyes of a worker or security, not knowing what I was doing in the slightest.  I met a hill of steep ballast from the road, slipping and sliding on the pointy grooves of rock, working my way up the embankment until I reached the tracks. Heaps of sweat crawled over my skin, running down my face, making me grimace.  

I gasped for air as I rubbed sweat from my eyes.  The salt stung with every blinking motion. In the distance, when I looked up, I saw the dark shadow of an open boxcar through watery, blurred vision.  I scampered towards it, throwing my gear up inside, hopping up on that cold ledge, shimmying into the ice box. Frozen sensations at the touch of steel shot up through my stiff hands and I tucked myself away into the corner, waiting for departure.

I had no idea what was going on or where I would even end up.  I just sat there, curled away in my sleeping bag, ready for her to power up and move along that endless silver path through that cold, desert, night sky.

The brisk metal floor sent chills straight up from my ass through my spine.  I shivered. My teeth chattered. My hairs stood on their ends and the cool pools of sweat gripped to my skin from my clothes.

I waited; antsy for her to move, but afraid of getting caught.  A sea thrashed about in my empty stomach, adrenalized, and full of fear.  I felt woozy. My blood boiled, but I waited patiently in anticipation for this beast to move, to inch on the steel, to gallop and run free.  That's all I could do.  

After a while that churning in my stomach turned into a storm.  Almost instantly, I shot up out of my bag, nauseous, and darted across that metal floor towards the open boxcar door.  I couldn't hold it back any longer. I yacked; vomit shot out of my mouth plopping onto the ballast like slop.

I wiped my face and stood there a moment longer, but the nausea finally subsided.  I felt better and slipped back into my cocoon, shortly nodding off and on as my my impatience fueled anxiety.  It eased to a plateau after some time.

Suddenly, I heard the sibilant sound of air fill the hoses and my train roared.  Her wagon wheels rolled on the main line in a stampede, billowing plumes of smoke, shrieking around every sinuous bend.  I burst out into a huge grin, ready for anything ahead.  

She charged through that endless desert, whistling, squealing, clanking and shrilling as I watched a million stars smile in the sky, lighting up the night.  My hand clung to the open boxcar door. The breeze hit my face in chilling droves tearing my eyes between my wide smirk.  

Suddenly, all that fatigue and fear disappeared, fading into the silhouettes of blurred landscape, the dark contours, and rattling cacophony.  I stood there just along for the free ride, sleepless, and wide awake. I barely slept that night riding blind through the Sonoran Desert on my first freight train to nowhere.