Tumbleweeds Passed By

[Richard A. McCullough]

Tumbleweeds Passed By

Copyright
By
Richard A. McCullough
All rights reserved


There was a time when I laid on park benches in Detroit, LA, Boston, San Francisco, through the seasons, and it was grand, riding trains, taking my relief out the sliding doors of boxcars into the passing country. Your own private highway made of twin steel ribbons. You didn't have to pay taxes or check your mail. There was only the rhythm of the rails and the smell of packing straw.

"Sam, look at that day, will ya?"

"Yeah, it's a fine one, ain't it?" He rose from the corner and stepped unsteadily into the angle of light let through the doorway where I stood. He was forty, had been a laborer of different sorts, shifted freight on the New York docks, counted cattle into boxcars, but that was in his youth, before he had set his feet to quest the origin, his origin of it all. Now here he was, rubbing squinted eyes against the breaking day that splashed its face against the hills of Nevada and crept, its light unguarded, across the vast expanse of desert where we rode.

We had watched many a day begin as this one, with the light first in the mountains, had watched from hobo camp or early morning park as the rays turned from their indifferent gray, heating the tips of the peaks to a crimson fire.

"Woo oo, woo oo." The engineer signaled into the fading darkness and we shivered stiffly together in the door of a boxcar moving north by northwest, watching as the sun came, with rimy red eyes, feeling this day begin.

Sam knew a place in Windover, Nevada where he was getting off. I was riding on to San Francisco and beyond. At the next stop we would go our separate ways. We stood together but huddled into ourselves saying nothing as the engineer howled his horn again and began slowing the long procession of clanking wheels to a siding outside of town.

As the thudding of the wheels eased to match the beating of our hearts we each stared intently into our own vastness. And felt our tongues working the corners of words that stuck to the roofs of our mouths.

Sam finally turned and we clumsily griped hands and looked into each other's eyes. We stood that way for a long moment while the empty desert took shape outside our doorway.

Then Sam pulled away and left my empty hand and jumped. He landed with a practiced roll, stood and dusted his pants, recovered his bedroll from a bush and hung his hand in the air in a motionless farewell.

My own hand hung too in the chilly air until he faded out of sight, words still clogging the back of my throat.

That was the last I saw of Sam, otherwise known as Samuel Blake.

I don't know how long we waited on that siding. The bull checked my boxcar once, rapping his stick against the latch and paused to listen before continuing his rounds. I lay almost sleeping between two crates, hidden from the doorway in case some other bindle stiff* should enter. "In this world," Sam was fond of saying, "every man is your enemy. Never give 'em the advantage of surprise." Sam was well educated, although you would never guess from his ragged clothes. His pants had been patched many times, and many times left un-patched. What he was running from he never said and I never asked, although I could not help but feel that in his leaving, his leap from this moving train, that he was returning.

He was always quiet about himself, except that one night in hobo camp when he told me about the star.

We had built our stew fire off from the others in a small glade of trees near a tiny stream and had lain back to let it simmer. The number ten can was filled with blades of grass and a frog we had caught and skinned that evening and cut in chunks. It smelled inviting in the clear air. We lay with our feet stretched to the fire, drying our toes, our shoes off, our socks on a stick, and we stretched our legs and felt warm and suddenly relaxed and forgetful.

"Rich," he said, "did you see that shooting star?"

I nodded my head, but it wasn't necessary.

"I had a dream about a star once," he said. His eyes fixed into the prickling expanse of a moonless sky. "I had a dream, that a star fell on a corn field. I was this . . . scarecrow, and I ran and ran to catch it, but the corn kept getting in the way, but I kept trying. Finally I fell down, and suddenly gave up. I lay there for a long, long time. I was so tired I couldn't bring myself to move. As I lay there I kept thinking of that star and consoling myself - that I had tried. I HAD tried. Then suddenly it was light - but the stars were still shining and I rolled over on my face in the corn stalks and there was my star, right in front of me. All I had to do was reach out and stick my hands into its blinding light. All I had to do. . ." His voice trailed off, giving over to the soft bubble of frog legs and the breathing of the trees.

And now he was reaching out, jumping out into the sand - the dust of his star. I wished him all and left him, even in my thoughts.

The train was moving again, and I woke from my half-sleep to slide the door back and stand in the full light of spring - as tumbleweeds passed by.


THE END

bindle stiff n, slang : a transient usually carrying a bundle (as of clothing or bedding): as a: a migratory worker b : tramp, hobo.

bindle [prob. alt of bundle] 1 slang a : a bundle usually containing clothing and cooking utensils b : blanket roll 1, bed roll 2 slang : a small package, envelope, or paper containing a narcotic (as morphine, heroin, cocaine); also a usually small quantity of a narcotic : a narcotic dose.

[Richard A. McCullough]

Well said Don. I couldn't agree more.

I'm pleased and honored that my humble little piece warrants such thought and consideration.

I've always rather liked it and I'm pleased that others find it intriguing as well.

[Francis Don Daniels]

Richard,

Absolutely. The reader contributes to a writing by offering his viewpoint of meaning. Sometimes and often the writer's and reader's are very much the same. But that's neither here nor there. If you take Thomas Paine as an example, in his Common Sense you will find both political conservatives and progressives find agreement in his works. This is the mark of good writing that it is embraceable by many.

The lesson on living to me would be that if one were patient enough and persisted despite all hardships and contrary forces, he would "catch his star". Becoming a tumbleweed is rather a via to that realization and not a given as to happy outcome, though it may very well end that way as in the case of Sam.

[Richard A. McCullough]

Very interesting comments, Don.

I don't know about the "lesson on living part". But as the reader it's yours to do with as you please.

And that's a funny thing about stories. They tend to take on a life of their own. A reader reads (experiences in some way) the story and makes it his/her own. Which I believe is a high complement. And the story now becomes his/hers in some special way and it lives on in them - interesting.

In that sense it really doesn't matter - the writer's intent. The story, like a child born, leaves home and takes on a life of its own.

And the wise parent would never embarrass the child or his/her friends with baby pictures or anecdotes' about learning to walk.

Your comments allowed me a view of this piece from different eyes. I appreciate that. Thank you.

[Francis Don Daniels]

Rich,

An excellent lesson on living. You write as if you've been there. I really like your "human" perspective.

Life can be a tumbleweed's existence. Ever blown by the wind without its own self-determinism. It's freedom is but a guise. True happiness is dreaming and sticking to the dream, unwavering from the goal. Unlike the tumbleweed you must HOLD a position.

Maybe sometimes we must be a hobo Sam to discover our frailties and to garner enough strength to confront living. Sometimes a change of environment makes good therapy.

Sometimes we must be tumbleweeds to know real freedom.

[Richard A. McCullough]

Thank you very much, Chazz. I'm gladdened by your kind words for this piece.

Sometimes you have a feeling but you're never sure until someone else lets you know that it touched them too.

Thanks.

[Charles Brian Van Heyden]

"As the thudding of the wheels eased to match the beating of our hearts we each stared intently into our own vastness. And felt our tongues working the corners of words that stuck to the roofs of our mouths." This I REALLY like, Richard. Nice, nice short story.