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Runaway Train Chronicles

By Max Lawrence Eastwood

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Everyone else had long since abandoned the runaway train and only the conductor and the young boy remained.

The conductor had determined that he was missing a button on his overcoat and was checking each pocket in case he had put it there and forgotten.

“When I had a wife, she did this sort of thing for me.” He patted each pocket a second time and shrugged his shoulders and looked down at his hands. “Shit. That’s the sort of thing that she did for me. You know, you know that you aren’t married anymore when you lose a goddamn button. That’s the sort of thing they see.” The conductor was looking out at the steady blur of passing trees. The boy was watching the conductor. The engine growled and threw something with a crash.

“She’s mad now.” The conductor said. And smiled a little toward the boy because he looked frightened.

“Um. Have you ever heard the story about the headless soldier?” the conductor asked. Only the fact that he had to yell over the enraged engine concealed the awkwardness in his voice. “Maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

“Maybe you lost your button in one of the cars,” the boy said, rubbing his arms in his nervousness.

“Yeah. Maybe. Let’s go give it a look. Ain’t no harm in trying.” They pulled themselves up and made the short, awkward walk into the first car.

“It’s a goddamn ice box out here anyway.” The conductor said as he closed the door behind them. There was again the strange silence of the empty car and its restless shaking that kept them from ever really settling their weight.

The boy was already checking each row of seats for the missing button.

The conductor made a cursory glance at the floor.

“Uh, listen, boy. Ain’t no use in looking for it here. I can find it any time.”

The boy looked around unsure of what to do with himself. The conductor was reminded how all children are good. It made him want to punch through a window in rage. He smiled at the boy. “It will turn up. Maybe I left it up in the engine car.”

The boy looked towards the floor, obviously trying to avoid the windows.

“Ok. What the hell. We’ll find that goddamn button. I need it. And when we do, I’ll sew that son of a bitch back on myself.” He began to look for the button with some exaggeration. The boy eagerly did the same.

“Don’t need a goddamn woman to do that now do we?” he said, half to himself.
After some minutes had passed, the boy stopped to watch the conductor, still mumbling to himself.

“Maybe it’s in another car.” The boy said.

“Yeah. Maybe it is. But who the hell needs it right?”

Again, the boy stared blankly at the conductor, who scratched his neck. He couldn’t stand the boy staring at him like that. But he smiled back, and amazingly, the boy smiled too. Children smile no matter what the circumstance, thought the conductor. He glanced out at the trees, flying by with a fury, painting the windows with angry strokes of white.

“Who the hell needs it.” He imagined himself leaping out of the window, into the angry motion of the trees and the hard ground that must lay outside. The thought had no emotion attached to it.

“It’s probably up in the engine car anyway. I do all the devils work up there, probably lost it shoveling coal.”

The boy nodded and slapped his hands to his side.

“But lets see what we can see back there anyway. Maybe we’ll find some treasure someone left behind.”

The boy’s face lit up and it made the conductor want to cry. But he smiled in return and the two of them left for the second car. The boy was out the door first and raced ahead through the slender conduit. The conductor followed, the wind hitting him like the angry waves of a ship in a storm. The metal of the railing was so cold that it burned his skin.

Inside, the boy had already found a purse and was proudly holding it up for the conductor to see.

“Good, boy. You would make a good pirate.” The boy laughed aloud and eagerly dug into the purse. The conductor stopped where he stood to watch him at play. It was a thing of rarest beauty. The conductor wanted save the boy from the storm outside and it tortured him that he could do nothing.

“Look!” the boy held up a string of pearls.

“Well Christ, boy! That’s a string of pearls! You just made yourself rich. What the hell you going to do with the money?” he hated the words as soon as they had left his mouth.

“I’m gonna give it to all to my mom,” The boy said, “And to you. I’m going to give it to everyone.” The boy put the necklace around his neck and continued searching.
The conductor had to turn his back to the boy.

“What are you going to find?” asked the boy.

“Oh, I’ll look up in these luggage bins.” He wiped a tear from his face. “There’s probably lots of treasure in here.”

He pulled down a big leather suitcase and dragged it towards the center of the car.

“Look,” the boy said with a big smile. He was draped in jewelry.

The conductor chuckled when he saw, “You look like the goddamn prince of Persia, boy.”

“Yep. That’s who I am. The Prince of Persia.”

“You’re a fine pirate.”

“You can be the captain pirate and I’ll be the pirate helper fighter.” He took off the pearls and held them towards the conductor who hesitated, holding perfectly still for a moment.

“Thank you boy.” He put them over his own head. “You’re a damn good pirate, I mean Prince of Persia.”

“I know. I’m a good boy,” he said absently as he tore into the purse again.

Someone tells him he’s a good boy, thought the conductor. God bless them. He’s mouthing the words someone says to him. I’m a son of a bitch.

He unbuckled the suitcase and kicked it open. The boy was immediately there, by his side. It was full of nicely folded men’s clothes.

“Nothing,” the boy said.

“I think you’re right,” the conductor said, moving the clothes with his boot. Beneath the clothes were other items. A tin of tobacco, a pipe, a shaving kit.

“This is nice stuff. These people don’t know what they’re missing now.” He remembered how he had seen men and women jumping off into the snow with large bags of valuables and thinking to himself that they were mad. Why bother? Save yourself.

“Why did they all forget to take their stuff?”

“They didn’t forget. There just wasn’t enough time.”

“Well. We got it now.”

The conductor sighed, and the two of them were down squatting like Indians around the suitcase that smelled like a man. It had the strange and wonderful smell of cologne, leather, coffee and travel. It smelled like the life of someone who jumped far, and probably first.

The boy took the empty pipe and put it into his mouth.

When the conductor looked up he simply said, “Prince of Persia,” and they both smiled.

Then there was a loud, violent crash and the two of them fell. The engine screamed and something broke with a crash. The conductor looked at the frightened boy, and the boy looked back.

“It’s ok. She’s just mad because there’s no one left to drive.”

“It hates us. Because we didn’t get off. It wants everyone off.”

“It’s too late for that. She’s just mad, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Here.” The conductor picked up the boy’s pipe and put it back into his mouth, “Prince of Persia.”

There was another ferocious shake and the engine screamed like a giant with its body all aflame.

He pulled out the obligatory silver flask from the suitcase and took a long drink.
Slapping the boy on the back, he said, “Let’s tear into all of their stuff, huh?” He waited for a sign on the boy’s face.

“Let’s make a real mess out of it. We’ll make them sorry they left.”

He hurriedly began to empty every overhead compartment. “Like real pirates then!”
The boy was into the first suitcase before the second had hit the floor. Soon the whole place was littered with clothes and magazines and cosmetics.

And still the train pressed on through the world, trying to shake off its wheels, to press out its bolts, as though it had some strange affliction. a raging bull, rabid dog with staples through its skin, chased by something wretched, itself wretched, it pressed on without thought.

“Can I cuss?”

“Can you what?”

“Can I cuss? Pirates cuss. Can I?”

The conductor blinked his eyes and pulled his head back. “Why the hell not. We’re pirates. Hell. Scream, cuss, and make a goddamn mess. I don’t care.”

“Yeah. I hell will. Hell.”

“My mother doesn’t let me cuss.” The boy was talking half to himself as he dissected the luggage in front of him. “But I’m a pirate now. Pirates don’t have mommies. Pirates cuss. Hell. Hell they do. They do cuss.”

The conductor picked absently through the box before him. He was watching the windows. They shook malevolently. The trees had long since disappeared, turning to liquid and bleeding away.

Something in the timbre of the glass told him it had come. Taking his eyes away he saw the boy, tossing clothes into the air, where they seemed to hang.

The car was picked up and thrown through the air and everything launched into the air and for a moment there was no gravity.

Then, with a jarring crash time began again and the train took up its hellish race toward something always just ahead.

The boy was beginning to cry. He crawled to the conductor and held him tightly.
The conductor patted the boy’s head and tried to think of what he might say to comfort him. Then he remembered the story of the soldier.

“How about I tell you that story now? Would you like that?”

The boy nodded his head.

“Well, a long time ago, after an army had fought in the jungle for a long time. All the soldiers had gone home. All but one. A soldier who had lost his head. He was in love with a pretty girl that had left and forgotten all about him. But he still walked around the jungle, night after night saying, ‘Where’s my head? Where’s my head?’”
The conductor checked on the boy, whose face was still buried in the fabric of his jacket.

“That’s all I know of that story. I don’t know any more pretty way to tell it but I think it’s true. That soldier did run around at night without his head. Some people tell it that he’s already got his head and he carries it around saying, ‘Where’s my girl? Where’s my girl?’ Or sometimes he’s askin’ for his head anyway, even though he’s got it right there in his hand.” The conductor was talking to himself now, staring up into the nothingness, his eyes gray with memory.

Then there was another tremendous jolt and something fiery exploded through the wall of the first car. Windows shattered and the scream of the engine burst through the air like a hurricane. The boy covered his ears and the conductor held him, putting his hand over the boys to deaden the evil sound.

The boy was screaming. His scream was swallowed completely by the sound of the angry engine but the conductor could feel the scream of the boy through his hand and it made him want to kill.

“You fucking bitch! You leave this boy alone! You hear me!? You leave us alone and stop scaring us or I swear I’ll come up there and rib your goddamn throat out! You fucking whore!!”

He rushed over and put his fist through a window.

Then, he kicked the door heading towards the first car with all his might.

“You hear!? You hear me?!! You fucking whore! I’ll kill you!!! I’ll kill you!!! What are you waiting for?!” Tears of rage streamed down his face.

Fire poured through the front cars with a sound that seemed to come from inside the ears and not from without. Heat and motion continued to shatter the glass that remained. The motion of the train was altogether more violent now. An angry turbulence that made one’s teeth clatter together without rhythm or kindness.

Taking the boy by the hand, he made his way to the next car, which was the last. The others had been set free some time ago. The two of them pressed their noses against the back window to see where they had been and they saw no tracks. The train was pummeling down the mountain, an angry javelin on fire. The conductor held the boy to his side with one arm.

And still the train screamed on, beyond exhaustion, gutting itself, throwing off metal as the smell of its white hot stomach spilled into every breath of air it left behind. It seemed as though it were attempting to press its nose through the fabric of time and space.

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© 2004 Me Three