The Tracks

Marianne lived close to the tracks that came winding down from Detroit past the old Tiger Stadium through the small towns to Birmingham and further on to Flint, Pontiac, and then God knows where. No one could remember a time when the tracks were not there. They existed before the Erb Lumber Yard, before the last century, in the dreams of our grandparents and even now when they built the parking lot and turned the train station into a medium scale restaurant where they sold over priced hamburgers. Marianne lived close to the tracks with her family in one of those poorly made homes erected with practically no money and added on to as an afterthought. That summer the weeds were over grown on the tracks and there was still plenty of space where people hadn’t built. You could walk for miles and see nothing but the old train cars left situated to the side of the tracks or on another parallel track waiting and abandoned, like some defrauded virgin at a high school dance, silly and old, as if no one had told her that the party was over a long time ago. They sat like that; empty, yellow and red paint splintering off the wood, dying in the summer day. Some of the old cars were originally used for dining, some for sleeping. They must have been in operation during the Depression or before the Second War because there was nothing left to them except the wood, metal and wheels. The conductor’s car was still there and Marianne would sometimes sit in the car and shout orders at another imaginary train. The weeds shook in the daylight and the cornflowers and daisies grew abandoned alongside the train tracks.

Marianne thought it would be a good idea to meet every day after three at the train tracks. At first we merely milled about with no plan sitting in the cars, exploring the few cars left there. We went in like illicit lovers afraid that someone else would discover our secret hide away. She touched her face, and I saw the small gemstone her father had given her buried in the cheap silver of her fat hand, so that it was hardly discernable. Her freckles stood out all over her face and her straight black hair hung down along side of her round cheeks. Her eyes were two black small holes promising nothing, with little or no anticipation. Her cotton blue dress hung over her like a bag billowing in the wind. Sometimes we would sit and say nothing, other times she would press into me and kiss me gently on the mouth. We would pretend to be dining like big shots in the small wooden car, or lovers escaping on a holiday. It could have gone on like this all summer, just us and the deadlock of summer, the sun shining off the metal of the tracks and the loose dirt over the broken railway tracks crumbling apart with the weight of time and countless empty adolescent summers.

Marianne’s father worked as a mechanic in the next town. He was married to a huge woman with dark hair and dark eyes. I often thought of them together in bed and her weight crushing his small spindly body.

He was a man with little or no humor and had fixed his house with no thought to structure or design; rather he erected walls where he saw fit and placed beds as an afterthought of convenience. The chairs and couch even seemed to be placed as a reflex rather than a thought much let alone an aesthetic. The plaid couch was torn in the middle, and the entire house smelled of grease and old meat. I didn’t like to stay there much especially after the father told me he didn’t want me coming around, but that was later. Marianne’s brother was always bothering me.

He always wanted something. He had freckles too, but his body was hard and lean, his bones seem to stick out to push or hurt. His shorts were almost to his knees and his shirt was usually untucked. The youngest sister was the prettiest, but her hair was always a mess and her beautiful brown skin dirty, as if they resented her beauty. She couldn’t talk either and went around with her thumb in her mouth. Her brother, Johnny, was bugging us. He always wanted something; our dolls, our makeup, always pushing himself towards us. The one day I bit him to get him away. After that the father announced that I could no longer come over, he wouldn’t stand for that kind of low class behavior in his house. So for months I stayed away, which is how we found the tracks. We hid there like thieves, like escaped convicts. We stayed there and no one could find us, no one could come, no one was looking and no one cared, but we didn’t realize this then, we just knew it was our place under the wide low Midwestern sky, under the unrelenting summer sun, the splintered black roofed train cars.

We were walking along the tracks towards the abandoned cars when we heard the low voices. We stopped to look at each other. The voices were slow and soft. They paused occasionally and because of this we moved on curious to see what visitor might be trespassing. The voices continued on in an almost whisper, as if you woke up in the middle of the night and heard the adults talking slowly and methodically. They could have been talking about the rain or selling their house, but you knew you weren’t supposed to hear. Then we could see them. One tall and sandy haired, the other shorter with red hair standing there with one arm hanging on the side door of the railway car. His plaid shirt was untucked and his Bermuda shorts hung from his thin frame, his hair hung over his eyes. The two boys froze the moment they saw us.

“Hey” The taller one spoke first. His hair hung over his eyes, and he pushed it away from his eyes. He looked at us for a moment before he spoke. “Where are you guys from?”

From my point of view this was an absurd question. We were from here, where were they from? Who would ask that when we were clearly from the town. It didn’t occur to me that they were not. His friend dropped his arm and moved towards us. I had wanted to flee, but now we couldn’t leave. It would look childish.

“My name’s Rob” He stood in front of us, and something in his manner made me think he had been told to do that, to walk up to someone and announce himself. He stood there looking at us. He was small boned with a plaid cotton shirt and jeans on. His shirt was untucked and looking closer at him, he didn’t appear so young. He had the slanted brown eyes of a 16-year-old. His freckles made him seem younger. He looked us over slowly.

“We’re from here.” I said looking over to the taller one.

Ok, wanna come inside in one of these cars.

“We always come here, in fact we’ve been coming here all summer without...”

Marriane interrupted me by walking past me toward the car door.

“Oh, it so cool inside. I am so hot aren’t you?” The taller boy followed her inside. I was left standing with Rob who hadn’t stopped staring at me.

“Yeah, let’s go in” I said. “might as well”

“might as well.” He followed behind me. When I entered the car, I saw that the taller one was sitting on one of the flat beds they had in back of the dining car. His feet hung over the edge of the wooden bed. He was smoking a cigarette. He jumped down when he saw me and pressed himself against me. He put his arms up around my face supporting himself with his elbows. His cigarette was still in his hand.

“What’s your name”

“Kelly” I lied.

“Kelly, I’m Mike.”

“Hey”

“So whatcha doing up here?”

“We live here” I said a little more forcefully than I wanted to.

“Yeah. You said that.”

“What are you doing…here, what are you doing here?”

“We just found this place.” He withdrew himself and walked toward the dining car.

“Hey I want some eggs and some service.” He slid into a booth, “Come on now, where’s the waitress?” He reached out to Marrianne and touched her arm, “Where’s the food?”

The shorter boy was sitting crouched in the stairs that led to the outside.

Let’s play a game,” he said.

“What kind of game”

“Oh I don’t know, how bout truth or dare”

“How ‘bout hide and seek,” I countered.

“Ok.”

“You first,” the taller one squashed his cigarette. “You hide first, I’ll count.”

He placed his hands over his face. “I’ll give you till 50,” and he started counting. I turned for Marianne, but she was already gone. I felt a sense of panic that I wouldn’t have enough time, and I needed him not to find me. Maybe he would leave and we could just spy on them if he couldn’t find us. I glanced over the landscape. It was unforgiving. There wasn’t much to hide around that wasn’t broken or spindly, where an arm of leg would stick out and the brush was too low to hide in without being seen.

He was up to 25 and I hadn’t even seen a spot yet, so I started down off the railway car and at the last minute, I jumped into a red empty train car. Once Inside I noticed a small thin closet and opened it. Despite the spider webs, I crouched inside. I was thin and small and just barely fit in. I was sweating and praying he wouldn’t find me. I thought of Marianne. Where had she gone? She was too big not to be noticed. What if they found her and stopped looking for me, what if they planned on doing something to her? My stomach growled and I remembered that my grandmother had forgotten to feed me lunch again. I heard him jump onto the train. My stomach launched into my bowels. I could barely hear him and for a moment thought that maybe he had left the car. But then the door opened and he stood there staring at me with his hair over his eyes.

For a minute I wasn’t afraid. I saw nothing in his eyes but a connection to him as if we had known each other before. I felt ok, but then he grabbed my arm and pulled me out. I jerked my arm away, “Ok ok. I’m here”

“I see you. I found you. That wasn’t a very good spot. I found you fast. You gotta give me that. “ “Yeah.” I moved over to the other side of the car, but he followed slowly and half smiling like he knew everything that was going to happen. I turned toward the shaft of light in the car and he pushed me back against the wall. He kissed me on the lips and his hand was under my blouse, but he was moving slowly and it was as if something had stopped there because I no longer felt like leaving. His kiss was gentle and he took my hand and placed it on his body. I could feel his breast and his stomach. He leaned in closer to me. “I need to find my friend.” I said “Oh, she is fine, don’t worry. Robbie is with her. She’s fine. Where do you live? “ “Live?”

“Yeah, you said you live here, where?”

“I live on Bower.” I lied again. That was the street next to Marianne’s. “Bower, what number?”

“103”

“Is it ok if I come over sometime? Why don’t you write down your phone number?”

“No”

“Come on, it’s ok. You don’t have a boyfriend or anything like that right?”

“No”

“Well then, what’s the big deal?” He pushed his mouth into mine and I could smell the grass on his clothes and he drew his arms around me. I could feel his body against mine and I started to become afraid. I needed to find Marriane. I pushed him away from me. He stood there apart but he looked at me and didn’t move. “You’re a funny girl”

“I gotta go”

He slid back against the railway car. He took a cigarette out of his pant pocket and lit it. He stood there leaning against the wall staring at me. It would have been the perfect time to leave. It was getting on to four o’clock and my aunt would be home from teaching. I knew that I couldn’t stay. “I’d like to see you again. Do you come here often?’

“Yeah. Pretty much every day. There’s not much to do”

“Ain’t that the truth”

He walked toward me. His angular face seemed to mock me. His eyes were hard to see because his hair hung over them. He reached out and put his hand up to my hair. “Let’s lay down right here for a little while.” I moved past him, but he grabbed my arm “where you going? Slow down.”

“My grandmother expects me home now. I told you.” He unexpectedly withdrew his hold on my arm and I jumped off the car. I ran all the way down the tracks to my side of the town, where our house was. I know it was bad. I didn’t even try and find Marianne, but I had to get out of there. Our spot was ruined from now on. When I got home, my grandmother told me I needed to take a shower.

The next day I decided not to go to the tracks. He called me at three.

We talked for a bit, but I hung up as soon as I could. His name was really James. Marianne called and tried to get me to come with her. I said I didn’t feel like it. The summer was ending anyway. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay friends with her. I was tired of her dirty house and her neighbors. I was tired of the small porch that led into her living room and the busy street that abutted her house. I hated the color of her carpet in the living room. I spent a lot of time walking in the field near the school imagining things. I looked at the low cloud cover and tried to imagine my life in ten years.

One day I was walking home and I decided to go to the tracks to see if he was there. It was early September, and everything pretty much looked the same except there was pussy willow, but the wildflowers were still there blue and small purple flowers moving in the wind. The small buds were reassuring to me somehow. I walked up the tracks. It was still hot, so I was wearing my shorts and Jack Purcells. I knew my hair was messy, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about that kind of thing then. I just wanted to see if he was there and if he would remember me.

I wanted know for sure that at least one time I had essence that was real and not just desired. But I also wonder if desire isn’t part of being. I wanted it to be and I think it makes it so.