Freight Trains

I spent the hours before dusk curled up in the dirt beneath a bush, with empty bottles and cans of beer scattered around me, left by past train hoppers.  Plastic bags of trash dangled from the limbs of holly trees lined up along the tracks while I lay there patiently waiting on a westbound train to NOLA.  The series of bushes camouflaged me from the cameras by the railroad tracks, allowing me to lay there

Scotty was a dreamer, a raconteur of tales at sea, a bullshitter.  He stood about the same height as myself, maybe slightly taller, with a stubbly, red beard, a face tattoo of a diamond pointing inward towards his left eye, and a hummingbird decorating his neck.  An assortment of other various tattoos colored his forearms like The Illustrated Man.  I studied his hands and could tell he had served time in prison from the spiderweb

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