The Night Walk Men (3 page)

When the Word is said, the
harbingers must throw out the nets. And so, like countless moments
before, countless since, the nets were thrown.

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“There he is!” Braille
would always say when He arrived, as a coin flicked from a gentle
turn of His wrist into the black sax case near brown leather
slippers, made ratty and comfortable with time. With regulars and
strangers alike, he could tell how much you threw in and he could
tell if kids scampered by and swiped some. Petty thieves would
think he’s just an old cripple. But he’d always catch them in the
act. As they slyly reached in to snag one of the bigger bills, the
music would stop on a pin and out would come Braille’s fingers like
pinchers, latching onto your arm or your shoulder like a giant
insect with strength that fooled you coming from an elderly blind
man who smells of liquor and cigar. He’d hold onto you until you
dropped whatever it was and if you were stubborn, he’d holler for
the station security. Some people swore that we wasn’t blind at
all, that behind his black glasses, he could see better than
anyone. Twenty-twenty vision for this undercover cop, or this
transit patrolman, or this simple-minded scammer who just wants to
play sax and milk the system for its sympathy, falling through the
flaws year upon year.

Thieves didn’t bother him
anymore. Nowadays, Braille the Rail was a fixture at the station,
like the wall sconces and the newsstand. To some he was as old as
the trains, had been there before the longest-standing employee, a
man in his late sixties who had managed to outlast everyone else on
the payroll, even the top brass. And even to him, Braille was a
myth, a living legend of dark flesh and bone. And
his
predecessors had
swore to him thirty-five years ago when he started, “The Rail Man,
well he’s always been here. For years and years, was here even
before I was...” and with that kind of longevity, word spread that
you didn’t mess with that old blind geezer. Bad Karma. Just enjoy
the music, if it’s your cup of tea. Or walk on by if a scraggly
welfare case without a real job makes you uncomfortable.

“He’s back,” Braille would
say, coming off the reed of his saxophone, not even out of breath
after thirty or forty minutes of playing straight on through. “Obo
da Hobo is back in the Station House, everyone listen up, you gotta
know. There’s a special coin in the case to-nite. And now at long
last, Obo and Braille, we gon’ do what they call a doo-ette.” The
tradition was unbroken, their first few moments together unfolded
like they always had on any number of nights over the years. Obo
flicked a coin into the sax case and Braille said his short piece,
same as ever. Then, like he always did, he put out his hand, steady
as it had been when he was a young man. Obo always appeared at the
end of a tune, never in the middle, never interrupting the flow of
the impromptu jazz that spilled through the hollows. And it was
always out of nowhere, almost as if he’d descended from the
sky.

And Braille? He would
always be excited. After the coin toss and their handshake, it
would be a few pleasantries, then some of the ol’ “How’s it
treating you?” or “Where they paying you to go these days, young
man?” or “You still up to the same tricks ol’ feller?” Obo would
reach out and take the old man’s arm -- firm, but not forceful --
just as he always did. Then he would lead Braille away and the two
would sit at a table near the coffee stop. It was dark in the
station tonight – no trains on schedule for a few hours. The
hallows were empty except for the two souls.

On this night, nearly the
same as any other, they talked for a good long while. A good long
while, for sure. And then Obo the Hobo did what he always did. He
stood up. He led Braille back out onto his ages-old stoop, where,
on this night, a misty rain had begun to blow in, laying a blanket
of damp down. Braille’s dark glasses clouded with spittle and he
moistened the reed with his tongue and his lips. For these rare
occasions when Obo was present, he would stand facing the tracks,
his back against the brick – and not the other way
‘round.

“Play me a tune, old
friend,” Obo said, “Play it slow, so I can learn the notes and
remember them when I’m on the road and away from my
home...”

And so Braille played. And
on he played. Loud and proud, for an hour or more, giving
everything he had left to the song. And to his friend.

As he played, Obo moved in
closer to him. Minutes of long languid music would pass and still
he played. And Obo would move in closer. More minutes of music
would ring out. And still Obo the Hobo would move in closer. A
bridge and then a heartfelt solo. Obo moved closer. And then a
return to the first verse. Obo moved closer. And then back up into
the heights of the song. And here was Obo, his lips wet from the
rain next to Braille’s ear, so close they were almost
touching.

“Someone dies,” He said to
His friend. “Every day, every minute. Every continent, every
island, every everywhere. Could be you.”

And then He was
gone.

Brailled stopped
playing.

He crept out from his spot
near the brick wall. He called out for his friend. But Obo was
nowhere. The station was empty.

Where did He go? No trains
had come for him, Braille knew that much because he knew the
schedules like he knew the keys on his sax. A train would arrive in
moments but wasn’t here to pick up passengers yet. So where did He
go? And what did He mean? What was He saying?

The rain came harder
then.

It doused the old
man.

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Fifth: Gabriela The
Great

Little Gabby was running
from her brother when she took a tumble on the cold tile of the
train station. Her parents were taking her and Galbraith on the
early train out to Dow Lake where they owned a sizeable resort
home. Braille the Rail’s long drawling music had faded for the
moment and a light rain had begun and turned harder.

The twins were three now,
old enough to know better but young enough to still stir trouble
up. When Gal threw Gabby’s dolly over the edge of the train
platform, the children’s daddy was at the ticket counter asking if
their train was still running on schedule and their mommy was
digging in her purse to find a hairbrush or a bit of lipstick or
some other trivial necessity.

Gabby didn’t think twice
about moving out from under the overhang and into the rain then
right over the edge of the concrete and tile platform. She did it
without thinking, as three-year-olds do. She had scraped her knee
when Gal had been chasing her moments before but that pain didn’t
stop her, didn’t even make her cry, so why would the edge of the
platform and a bit of rain hold her back now? She had no idea how
deep the pit was and over she went, onto the dirty tracks below
with a bad thumb, bruising her hip and bloodying her arm from her
elbow to her armpit. Her beautiful summer dress was scuffed and
filthy now, black with dust and wet with the rain. And her hat took
a breeze and landed some twenty feet down the track in the mouth of
the train tunnel which led out of the station and into the rest of
the world.

But Gabby reached
–
strained
—to get
hold of her favourite dolly, thinking only that she would be in
trouble from mommy for getting her dress dirty and losing her
hat.

When her fingers touched
the hem of the doll’s dress, that’s when she felt the first rumble
and that’s when her mommy let out a scream.

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Braille the Rail had let
the reed of his friend’s saxophone fall from his lips. He had heard
a short discourse whispered next to his ear and found himself alone
in the rain, coming to grips with what it meant when he heard the
little girl go over the edge of the platform. A dog had been loosed
in the station years ago and before it had been crushed by the
coming train he could tell by the echoing of its whimpers that it
was down in the track pit.

The little girl’s whimpers
and grunts of effort had that same distinct hollowness and Braille
knew in his bones that she was somewhere down below the platform,
just as that dog had been.

The mother’s scream
confirmed it.

Braille’s sax hit the tile
floor hard. And he was off across the distance and into the pit
before he could rationalize the decision.

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He’s lived past his
due
, Montserrat had said to Obsidion, as
they had drank tea.
He’s old and he’s
tired and he’s slipped through the cracks for too long. No good can
come of his creeping existence. You must perform your
Duty.

Obsidion thought for a
long time. The two of them sat in silence, Monserrat sipping from
his cup, Obsidion saying nothing, only looking into his own
lap.

Finally, he
spoke.

But she still has so much
life
, Obsidion said to Montserrat,
ignoring his own tea, not caring for its bitter taste any
more.

Yes, but understand the
Word, my brother. The Word says it’s her time as well as
his.

And so Obsidion had. He
bowed his head to Montserrat, as He had always done, and had set
forth to perform his Duty yet again.

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The train roared into the
station, not easing on its brakes as usual but trying to slow down
faster than intended when the engineer saw what appeared to be two
people on the track ahead. The window of the ticket booth
shuddered. The brakes squealed.

As he scooped up the
little girl, Braille the Rail had a recollection of Obo the Hobo’s
final discourse, whispered to him only a half-minute before and
finally understood what it meant. Moments after the blind sax man
reached up to the platform with a dirty three year old girl in his
hands, handing her off to the girl’s daddy, the train came in and
took his place.

A panic-stricken father,
only three or four paces behind the old blind man who had ambled
over the edge faster than his age should have allowed, was now
cradling his little girl, wet faced and shocked, still bawling at
the ordeal. A similarly-shocked mother and twin son soon huddled
them as other station employees began to crowd around.

Gabriela the great was
healthy, save for bruises and that long gash on her arm. She would
grow to be a young woman. But the Night Walk Men will come for
her.

They always do.

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Braille the Rail, the old
blind saxophone player, living long past his run, to the age of one
hundred and nine, was finally taken at his train station on that
rainy night in September, 1964. Before the train hit his body,
Obsidion gently let his heart stop. Along with his
music.

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Last: The Flowing Robes of
Montserrat

You’re greedy. Look at
you: you’re still here. Still wanting to hear the sordid details,
still wanting for every last crumb. Can’t you let our Gabriela live
her life, what’s left of it? Must you have your nose in it
all?

You think you know so
much. You think you’re so special, that you’ve done this and you’ve
done that. The truth is that you think you know it all. But
I’ve
been around
a
lot
longer
than
you
have.
I’ve seen a whale of a lot more in my ten lives than you have in
your one life. The truth is, I’m probably more human than you
are.

Fine. You’re still here. I
can accept that. Let’s finish this then. It won’t matter much.
You’ll still be the same as you were before.

I told you that I’d share
what I know. Fine. Let’s share.

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What is a Life?

If you would ask Obsidion,
standing with your feet in the warm sand, his robes of black
touched lightly by movement off the ocean, He would tell you that a
lifetime is a beautiful, throbbing piece of work. Obsidion is a
lover of art, you already know this. But what you don’t know is
that He often speaks in riddles and in infinite loops. So you
should not be surprised that He would also tell you that real art
cannot be seen in real life. A life
time
is a beautiful thing. But a
Life, capital “L”, is nothing at all like true art. He would say
this to you without an ounce of self-righteousness, without a mote
of pretentiousness.

And he would clarify. He
has clarified for me so I know. Life, He has said in my presence,
is not like art insomuch as art contains finality, absolution,
insomuch as art may contain meaning, depth. Insomuch as art may
have recurring motif or symbols that convey universal truth. Or
even characters with moral compunctions, conundrums and eventual
successes with such conundrums. In life,
not in art
, good rarely seems to
triumph over evil. Good does not always leave the table with all
the chips. Not in real life anyway.