Reach for the Stars (2016)

I'll never forget our peaceful stay, down by the old trestle, that's since gone away.

We sat.

And we waited.  

The seconds to minutes.

The minutes to hours. 

I started losin’ hope.

Hope that we'd catch a day ride outta that spot near the Genesee.

Wantin' to send my friend off to Chicago with somethin' to remember, years down the road.

When the sun began to die below the milky clouds the wind hissed through the verdant treetops.

They danced over our heads like a fleet of flailin' tube men.

Water raged in the gorge below with the mist ravin', flirtin' with rainbows, between the stone faces of rock.

They sprawled out between the falls like chiseled staircases.

Nature carried the tempo in the silence of man and my patience grew with the fadin' sky while we waited in the Grand Canyon of the East.

I really didn't wanna waste my boy's time sittin’ here.

Waitin’.

But that's the schtick about trains.

You just never know.

Just when my mind wondered, a soft, subtle belch sliced the air and teased my ears.

I looked over at my boy with that questionin' stare.

"You hear it?" I said.

"Was that what I think it was?"

"So you heard it?"

A sharper ring echoed on the steel.

I smiled.

"Is that the train?" He said.

"Yeeeeeep."

"Which way's it goin'?"

"Doesn't matter.  Gettin' on it.  Ridin' blind."

That train horn bellowed and pierced the ears.

The grin on my face matched the feelin' in my heart as the blood pumped and I jumped up to my feet.

"Get ready!" I said.

My boy looked tense as it all finally sank in.

He was doin' this.

We were doin' this.

He was gonna grab his first freight.

All that fear.

All that anxiety.

Churnin' like a cauldron in the pit of your stomach.

The adrenalin curdlin' end-over-end like you just opened the door to a jump plane.

You're lookin' out below at the tiny homes stenciled into the landscape.

Dots followin' those matchstick lines of dirt and asphalt etched into your eyes as far as you can see.

There's no where to go but down. 

So you jump and then it hits you.

It's the same feelin'.

That freefall.

The same rush.

The same unknown.

An innocence soon to be a happy memory.

It made me snicker.

That's how I felt catchin’ my first freight and makin’ my first skydive.

That janky boxcar that yanked me side-to-side through that dark-desert sky full of endless stars.

And my boy, in the span of three days, was about to experience both.

He held it together.  

He didn't look like he was gonna yack, and if he did, he held it back.

Not like me on my first freight.

But this was different.

This was shared.

She squelched around that bend. 

Pummelin' over that wooden trestle like she was in a hustle.

My head flicked back-and-forth like a pendulum as I stalked the bolts on the conical wheels.

Waitin' on the right car.

Waitin' on the right speed.

Waitin' on the train gods to send us on our way.

And now, if you know anythin’ the train gods, they never seem to disappoint.

As she zipped over that silver path, she sank deeper into her brakes, those wagon wheels that whistled now shrieked. 

Good ol' speed restriction holdin' her back.

They clenched onto those thin bands and went to a slow-rollin' slither.

Suicide.

Porch.

Suicide.

Porch.

Suicide.

Suicide.

Nothin' to ride as she rolled on by.

Freight cars showcased on that runway — I began to melt as I set my eyes on the perfect ride.

Just in time as her tail-end slowed to a halt, long enough to grab a deep well.

I looked at him, my boy, Marien.

"Hop on." I said.

"We're doin' this?"

"We're doin' this!"

And just like that, I hoisted myself up those cold rungs and into that empty, steel bucket.

My boy followed.

A smile plastered on his face from ear-to-ear.

She roared through the countryside.

King of the Road.

Plowin' through crossin' after crossin' like a stampede of Buffalo.

When I looked over, I could tell he felt alive.

We didn't get a day ride, but that monster—darkness—crept up through the sky like vines suffocatin’ the landscape.

She thrummed onward through the desolate silhouettes of towns.

Everythin’ turned to black.

But then we looked up.

And I'll never forget the look on his face.

Those bright flecks of sky burgeoned through total darkness as that freight train hummed along the steel.

So bright you could almost reach up and grab ‘em.

"You don't have stars like this in Chicago?"  I said.

"Never seen anything like this."

So I’ll never forget that day down by the old trestle.