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If you didn't get here from Tuesday, Jan. 9 We wander out of the post office around 5:30 a.m., heading to the train yard to pick up our bags from where we'd stashed them the night before. Again demonstrating his touch for getting train information, Rapid-T headed to the yard office, where he traded my Buzz Potter CD -- Poems of the Hobo Road -- for a "ticket": a map of the train yard and the number and time a train bound for Columbus would be called. It was scheduled to head out around 7:30 a.m., but as I'd already learned, that didn't necessarily mean anything. Mechanical problems, oversleeping crews and congested tracks could all conspire to make a train, once made up, sit for hours. Nevertheless, we walked for about 40 minutes to the other side of the yard, with my feet getting colder with each step. By the time we got to the departure point, my feet were numb, a coldness that no amount of stamping did anything to dissuade. We wander around, quizzing passing brakeman, before discovering -- after about three hours -- that the train hadn't arrived in the yard yet. We have the right track, though, and the right train. We wait. By this point, I can't feel anything below my knees. The scarf wrapped around my face was keeping my chin from going totally numb, but was turning my mustache into a slash of hoarfrost: as the moisture in my breath percolated through the scarf, it froze, dotting my upper lip with pellets of ice. My waterproof gloves are similarly decorated, from wiping my constantly dripping nose on them. Sure, it's gross; but getting a handkerchef from my pocket requires removing my gloves, a task that's just too much trouble after the dozenth time. The train finally shows up shortly before 11 a.m. It's a long string of coal cars -- a dangerous ride (because of the chance of getting buried by a shifting load) in the best of weather, but perilously exposed with the weather some 15 degrees below freezing even without the wind chill. The train has one unit, and we take the hobo's last recourse, asking the conductor if he would mind a few passengers. Getting caught would mean his job, however, and he tells us no. Somewhat discouraged, we head to a nearby switchman's shanty -- nicely heated -- where we sleep on narrow benches for a few hours before heading into town. This is the first time Rapid-T and I have really interacted away from rail yards since leaving my apartment, and the Conductor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde syndrome comes into full play. Rapid-T insists on hitting every store along the stem, including a florist's shop where we're horribly out of place, and a Mexican restaurant where he begs a bowl of tortilla chips, eats two, and then bolts out the door. We wander into a clothing shop (which has pictures of trains in the window) where the proprietor tells us about a local woman who was killed on the tracks the other day while walking home from the grocery store -- a somber tale that has us promise to be careful a dozen times as she relates the gory details. At the Chamber of Commerce, Rapid-T falls back into railroad speak (suggesting that Willard host a hobo convention, a proposition the Chamber president receives quite dubiously) before weirding out and quizzing the man about Mexican Pentecostal churches in the town. Rapid-T wants to next head to a Mexican grocery store down a side street -- a scene I can't begin to imagine -- so I mosey over to the local newspaper office. After a few minutes of chatting with an employee, Rapid-T comes in, forcing a quick exit when he begins insisting that the paper do a story on us. Hoping for some peace and quiet -- and a chance to check my email -- we head to the Willard Public Library, a visit that gets off to a bad start when Rapid-T discovers its collection doesn't include a Torah. After working his way up the chain of command, he's finally mollified when a senior librarian promises to order one. Meanwhile, I've read through a few days' papers and headed to the computer room. Twenty minutes later, Rapid-T tracks me down, plops down on the floor and begins arguing with the librarian who tells him he has to sign up to use the machines. He finally does, and things quiet down, although Rapid-T's habit of removing his shoes (a practice accentuated by the one white and one blue sock he's wearing) garners him some odd looks and an eventual command to please put his footwear back on. Although we didn't meet the editor when we stopped by the Willard Times-Junction, our sojourn there sticks enough in his memory enough that he recognizes us when he runs into us at the library later that afternoon. After chatting for a while, Clif Spires invites us back to the office for a cup of coffee and some fruit. During the conversation, Rapid-T tells his stories about working for a paper in Vermont -- a palpable lie. Nevertheless, Clif's heading out to a city council meeting, he tells us, and invites us along -- a situation I know will end badly, but that Rapid-T is committed to experiencing. Having covered hundreds of city council meetings, I'm interested, too, if for no other reason than the surrealness of it. On the ride to city hall, Clif explains the big news at the meeting: a local businessman is seeking some additional tax abatements, a topic that makes Rapid-T quite irate, prompting a lecture on the evil of businessmen. We get to the meeting right before the public comment portion of the agenda, the part of the meeting I'd dreaded. Sure enough, Rapid-T raises his hand when the council president asks if anyone wants to say something, and, saying he lives in Willard, begins a tirade against tax abatements, urging the council to pass a living wage law instead. The businessman gets up and leaves and I see Clif write in his notebook: "Note to self: Don't pick up strangers." During a break in the meeting, an old woman -- one of the few spectators at the meeting, instantly recognizable to anyone who's covered city government as the local crazy -- comes up to Rapid-T and congratulates him on his keen insight. The meeting breaks up for good after a long-winded discussion on overtime for the local cops. Clif drives us to the local Catholic church, where Rapid-T says he knows the priest. "Knows" turns out to be a bit of an overstatement: he'd heard about the father through his social work, and knew the priest will provide a night's lodging at a local hotel for those down on their luck. Father Mac sets us up the Country Inn and, in the type of generosity I still find amazing, slips us 15 bucks to get some food. (After which Rapid-T begins a theological discussion, centering in whether people who paint pictures of Jesus as a white guy are true Catholics.) The true weirdness was only beginning. While walking to the hotel, Rapid-T picks up a cheap bottle of wine, a purchase that surprised me, since, for all his faults, he didn't appear to be a drinker. He says he'd drink it in the hotel, but when we stopped by the nearby Denny's-knockoff, he pulled it out. First, some background is in order: Rapid-T is of Checkoslovokian Jewish descent, coming from a family that had been, probably forcibly, converted to Catholicism centuries ago. At 28, Rapid-T was now trying to rediscover his Jewish roots, a pursuit that could be summed up by his habit of eating kosher whenever it was a pain in the ass to do so. So my first order of business at the Country Kitchen is to stop him from complaining that every breakfast dish comes with pork products. Finally he decides to order the only breakfast food that comes pig-free: a ground beef and cheese casserole over eggs. Needless to say, that ain't kosher either. He didn't notice. He did notice that it came with pancakes, though -- and he wanted French toast. That occasioned a 15-minute discussion with the waitress about substituting, a request that she refused to fulfill. Finally, she summoned the manager, who told us the same thing, and Rapid-T subsided. (It's interesting, I noted at the time, that much of Rapid-T's train-riding advice was about keeping a low profile, a stance he seemed to utterly forget when back to civilization.) While waiting for our food he began pestering the waitresses, walking (shoeless) into the kitchen demanding a plate of bread. ("Three pieces. Whole wheat. On a plate. With nothing else.") It turned out the bread and wine were to serve as a Jewish meal blessing, with Rapid-T pouring small glasses of the drink, salting the bread, and consuming both in silence. When the food finally came, he made two more trips to the kitchen, asking for Tabasco sauce and French dressing, both of which, combined with maple syrup and butter, he poured over his Fiesta Skillet. Meanwhile, perhaps in the spirit of combining things, he poured some more wine into his orange juice. He never got to drink it. At some point, his erratic behavior had pissed off the wait staff to the point they called the cops. Four boys in blue -- Sgt. (no joke) Pepper, looking a bit like a younger Kevin Spacey; Officer Helden, wearing an Eskimo-like hat; and two others -- showed up tableside. Officer: "Heard you guys had an open container." Me: "I don't have anything." Rapid-T: "We're just sitting here eating. We're not bothering anybody." Officer: "Do you have an open container? We heard you came in with a paper bag. Do you want us to search you?" Me: "I don't have anything." Rapid-T: "This is private property. You can't search us. Do you have a warrant to search our possessions?" Officer provides explanation of the law, the hallmark of which is that restaurants aren't private places and he's not going through our bags. Finally, he pulls Rapid-T out of the booth, finding the bottle in a bag on the floor. Rapid-T: "We didn't do anything. It's not an open container. Look, the top's on it." Sgt.: "You boys have IDs?" Rapid-T says nothing, but tries pulling away with the cop holding him. I give them my driver's license. Sgt: "How'd you'd get here?" Me: "Walked." Sgt.: "You walked here in 20 degree weather?" I smile. Sgt.: "Where you heading?" Me: "Down south." Sgt.: "Walking?" I smile again. The sergeant smiles. Rapid-T, finally, remains silent -- but now the officers want him to speak. His not answering any of their questions finally pisses the cops off to the point that they cuff him, at which time Rapid-T begins spouting various legal phrases, none of which, as far as I can tell, have any application to the current situation. One officer asks him where he got his legal degree, to which he replies "Ohio State." One his way out, being dragged by two of the officers, Rapid-T asks the waitress to bring a doggie bag. When she does, I wave it away -- a decision I hear complaints about for the rest of the trip. With Rapid-T gone, the situation calms down a bit. They pull Rapid-T's Social Security Card from the discarded camouflage suit he left behind, calling in the number and expressing surprise when it turns out to be valid. I chat with the two officers left, wondering how likely it is I'll get picked up for trespassing. Like many of the people we meet on the trip, it turns out the officers couldn't care less. "We don't care if you hop trains," Sgt. Pepper says. "If the railroads care, they'll take care of it." "We get kids in here all the time," Helden says. "We didn't even want to do anything when we came in here," the sergeant says. " If he'd given us the bottle, we'd probably have taken it and told you not to do it again. When he started giving us trouble, we had to do something. Everyone here's watching. They expect us to do something." Making it clear they weren't arresting me, the sergeant then asked if I wanted to head down to the jail, or if I had another place to stay. "It's 20 degrees out there," he says. "We don't want you freezing to death on the street." I settle the bill, apologize to the manager and live a dollar tip -- another decision I hear about for days. The hotel is across the parking lot. When I show up alone (the priest had told her there'd be two), she's surprised for a second, and then nods at the restaurant. "Over there?" she asks. "Yep," I reply. I get the keys, and proceed to take the longest, hottest shower of my life. Rapid-T shows up a few hours later, just after 1 a.m. Charging him was too much of a hassle, the cops said, and simply told him to catch the first train out of town. I fall asleep again while he mutters about police states. |