Transcontinental (2 page)

He shuffled the papers, bringing to the front a sheet with an octopus at rest amongst seaweed and rocks, drawn in pencil. Leroy was particularly proud of this, and wondered why it had been left in the bag. His next thought was of his mother ignoring his proud pleas for her to admire the picture, which angered and confused him as much now as it did then. Even in death, she had a vice grip on him.

Leroy folded the papers in half, then dropped them in the trash.

He began a mental checklist of the items he might need along the way: a flashlight, a knife, a small blanket — the latter was in reach, so he folded it and slipped it in the bag. A pad and pen wouldn’t be a waste of space, he determined. And, of course, food and water. He slung the bag around his shoulders and skulked out.

He’d almost reached the kitchen when a flicker of light in the other room caught his attention, trailed by the sporadic giggles of a TV laugh track. Another late night for Ms. Stacey.

Leroy peeked around the corner. She lay on the couch.

That was that, he supposed. At least for tonight.

Ms. Stacey let out a snore, shifting her position.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Leroy entered the kitchen. From the pantry, he filled his bag with water bottles, granola bars, and some of Ms. Stacey’s plentiful beef jerky. Next, he grabbed a small flashlight, and an even smaller peeling knife. He didn’t want to be caught with a big steak knife on him. He didn’t want to be caught, period. All he wanted was to find the only person who’d ever treated him with genuine love and affection. The problem was, he couldn’t even remember her name. He’d been so young. But he could deal with that once he was free of Ms. Stacey.

The last items he needed were drawing materials. Leroy snagged the legal pad beside the phone, then set aside the pencil and found a pen. As he knelt down to slip them into the bag, the laughter emitting from the TV abruptly changed to a fast-talking man describing the benefits of his revolutionary rotisserie. “Set it and forget it!” the crowd shouted with him to eager applause.

The channel changed. Leroy hoped Ms. Stacey had sat on the remote, but it changed again as the woman sniffed hard, then cleared her throat—her disgusting trademark. She was awake.

Backpack around his shoulders, he slunk back to bed. He wasn’t going to let his plan slip away because he was impatient. For once, he felt confident in his direction. He knew what he had to do. But it could wait until morning.

* * *

Ms. Stacey’s car was a stark departure from Tim’s BMW. Shredded cloth seats, analog indicators and radio, rattling engine; this was more Leroy’s speed, and it was strangely comforting.

The sun lazed atop the meager Barstow skyline. As soon as she’d awakened, Leroy told Ms. Stacey he wanted to visit a friend, which put him in a difficult spot. He’d been guiding her for twenty minutes to a phantom location. He had no idea where they were, yet had to pass the destination off as a friend’s house. What if she waited until he went inside? It wasn’t her style, but she
was
legally responsible for him.

He needed to buy time. “Left here.”

“Sign says dead end. This his street?”

“Yeah, down the road.”

It wasn’t. There was no ‘him.’ The car turned left regardless. He had to think fast. If he knocked on a random door, someone would likely answer. He’d need some excuse, but one that wouldn’t attract too much attention.

Houses drifted by on either side of the car as they drove.

He could claim that there was a suspicious car following him, in the hope that they would allow him in, if only for a minute. Depending on the person, however, that could backfire. They could end up calling the cops. He could play it off as if he thought a friend actually
did
live there. Maybe the interaction between him and the homeowner would be enough to convince Ms. Stacey it was legitimate. He could even wait on the porch after they closed the door like he was waiting for his friend.

“Where to?”

Leroy looked up to find another dead end sign in front of the car.

“Sorry. Distracted. It’s about halfway up.”

He could see Ms. Stacey glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. She was getting suspicious. Ready or not, it was time to put the plan into action.

“Up here, on the right.”

He chose a one-story house, splotchy with stains that had an equal chance of being mud, pollen, or vomit, and a car in the driveway closer to death than even his mother’s. Ms. Stacey pulled alongside the curb in front. She put it in park, unlike Tim Harlow. Leroy appreciated that.

For a moment, he wondered if he was making the right choice. Ms. Stacey wasn’t a great person or caretaker, but she had a home she was willing to share. If he went back, though, he’d have nothing again—nothing to strive for, nothing to look forward to. The last thing he wanted was to become another nameless face in the system. He knew he was making the right choice.

“You
sure
you can stay a week?” Ms. Stacey asked. “I ain’t got time to be drivin’ all the way out here just ‘cause you got bored.”

Leroy looked her in the eye, hoping he was convincing. “I’m sure.”

“Pick you up Friday, then,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
 

Leroy nodded, lost in her empty gaze for a moment, then hopped out of the car. As he shuffled up the driveway, he noticed the window shades swaying, as if someone had just looked through them. Too late to turn back now.

At the door, he reached out and knocked. He looked back to the car. Just like he’d thought, Ms. Stacey was still there, watching him. He waved, hoping it might be enough to send her off, but it wasn’t.

The door swung open as Leroy was yanked inside, then slammed shut.

* * *

The house was cavernous in more than one respect, dark, dank, and bare as it was. An oddly familiar aroma wafted Leroy’s way as his eyes adjusted, skunky and thick but not quite unpleasant. Before him stood a large black man, with a Hispanic man at a table further back in the room, weighing out a mound of powder on a digital scale. The big man opened his mouth, revealing a set of teeth a meth addict wouldn’t envy.

“Well?”

Leroy wasn’t equipped for this situation. “Well what?”

“What you need?” he growled.

“I… I don’t need any—”

The man reached into his waistband and pulled out a sleek black gun, small enough to conceal but big enough to scare the hell out of Leroy, then slammed him onto the door with one arm, poking the weapon stiffly into his chest. The brute beckoned to his partner. “Check the window.” Tilting his head, he sneered at Leroy, beer-smoke breath fuming out. “You one of Fowler’s goons, you goin’ back to him in a box, boy.”

Leroy couldn’t even begin to form a sentence with the prospect of death sticking in his ribs. All moisture had fled his mouth. He shook his head weakly.

The other man slunk over to the window, peeled back the edge of the blinds and peered outside. “What am I looking for, here? A car?”

“Yeah, a car, dammit.”

“No car.”

Face inches from his, the man said, “I’ma ask one more time: what you need?”

Leroy took a second to collect himself, surveying the nearly empty domicile, but all he could croak out was “Got the wrong house.”

The hulking man grabbed Leroy by the arm and shoved him further into the room. “You damn right about that, boy. Get over there.”

The Hispanic spoke up as he found his way back to the table and pressed a button on the scale. “Woods, man, kid’s like twelve. No threat.”

Woods grabbed Leroy’s backpack and ripped it off him from behind, extending Leroy’s arms just a bit too far. He sucked in air at the pain.

His possessions tumbled out of the bag as Woods upended it. “What’s this? You goin’ to a slumber party or some shit?” He laughed at his joke as his partner smiled meekly, then tossed Leroy the bag. “Get out. Now.”

Leroy quickly reversed the process that Woods, an appropriate name for a man of his size, had just put his items through and shouldered the bag. He stepped to the door and stopped in front of it, looking back.

“What you waitin’ on, man?”

Leroy twisted the handle and slipped out as quickly as he was pulled in.

* * *

He didn’t stop running until he was outside the neighborhood, and was out of breath long before he got there. A quick glance behind him revealed a lack of pursuers, which was reassuring. He hadn’t realized running away required actual running, and especially not from big men with guns.

Ambling along the sidewalk, catching his breath, he tried to convince himself it was just happenstance. He’d chosen that house, and randomly. Could’ve picked any of them. It was the luck of the draw. Once he got to the train yard, things would get better.

That last thought surprised him. On one of the many occasions he had threatened to run away from home, his mother said something that stuck with him. “You leave, and then what? You gon’ be a hobo, ride the rails, boy?” At the time he had emphatically denied it, but the idea of riding a train right out of his hated life had grown so enchanting and romanticized that somewhere deep down, he supposed he’d always known the plan.

He wasn’t sure which way the train yard was, so he headed the direction Ms. Stacey had come from. During the ride back to Barstow with Tim, he’d seen a train yard a few miles out that seemed about as empty and inactive as possible. Bad for catching a ride, maybe, but good for not getting caught. He’d rather wait a day or two if need be than get sent back where he’d just left.

A mile or so down the road he became aware of how sweaty he was. Must be at least ninety-five degrees, he figured, and the hot rush of exhaust from cars cruising by didn’t help. Leroy stopped a moment to grab a water bottle from his backpack, but the warm liquid left him dissatisfied.

It was a minor inconvenience in light of the life-threatening situation he’d just endured, but enough to make him stop in when he reached a gas station.

A middle-aged woman greeted him from behind the counter as he entered. He searched his pocket, emerging with a few dollars. He spotted a row of maps on a shelf and scanned the selection. His sweet tooth almost got the better of him as he briefly considered buying a candy bar or two and just winging it, but ultimately, he grabbed two maps — California, and the United States, though he hoped it didn’t come to the latter. Looking up, he handed them to the woman, and watched as her confident hands, tipped with dirty fingernails, slid the items over the scanner.

“How are you today?” She looked up from her register at him.

“Just had a gun pointed at me, but can’t complain.”

The woman eyed him, unsure if he was joking. “It’ll be three-fifty.”

Leroy forked over his money and received two quarters and two maps.

Outside, he sat against the wall. It was difficult to see the tiny details, but near Barstow there was a line with three hash marks through it he gathered from the legend was a railroad. A nearby street sign informed him the gas station sat at Rimrock and Montara. He scanned the multitude of colored lines on the map, and after a moment, fixated on Montara Road. Tracing it south, he found Rimrock Road. Comparing the distance to the legend, he determined the train yard was only about three miles out. Not bad. He’d be there in an hour or so if all went well. From there, it was northward bound.

Filing the maps into his bag, he set off.

* * *

The sun was merciless, a spotlight shining only on him. Drenched in perspiration, Leroy sauntered along the tan, sandy landscape. In the distance ahead, blurred by the haze of the heat, rows of train cars lined the ground as if the desert shrubbery had bucked its sporadic nature in favor of order.

As he approached the yard, he began to appreciate how massive it was. Parallel tracks scarred the earth for miles in each direction, extending outward from the heart of the station. The place looked beyond secure. It was sectioned off with high metal fences, some even topped with barbed wire. Dozens of cars sat parked along the various buildings and warehouses. Still, he couldn’t imagine it would be
that
hard to hop a train. People did it all the time, didn’t they?

Leroy came to the fence. He stared it up and down, estimating it at eight feet. Before he made his move, he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get caught as soon as he got over. His little expedition would be over before Ms. Stacey even knew he was gone.

On the other side of the fence, the yard was busy with a slow drone of activity—railroad workers unpacked cargo, road gangs inspected lines of track, and brakemen threw hand switches, redirecting long strains of freight cars to sit dormant for unknown periods. He gazed up at the towers, imagining how it felt to be lord of this impressive herd of iron horses.

Ahead, the yard narrowed, and the various tracks fused into two—outgoing and incoming, if he had to guess. The fence near that part of the yard was more worn than elsewhere. Evidently, this was as good a spot as any to get in.

He lifted his foot, placing it in one of the holes in the fence, and stepped up to grab onto it when the sound of a man speaking behind him caused him to slip off and land hard on one leg.

“We got a climber near departure.”