Two Trains Running

For more than six months my life was occupied by menial chores, and by studying and reading. The two favorite books I read were Gulliver’s Travels and Richard Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels, which was a travel book published a half-century before. It was full of black-and-white photographs of the pyramids and South Pacific islands and the Himalayas. When I compared them to mental snapshots of the switchyard in Topeka and tramps sleeping among piles of cow crap in a Missoula cattle pen and various hobo jungles, I wished now I’d done some real traveling back in the world instead of just riding the freights and drinking my liver stiff. Thinking what I could have seen, a world of blue sky and ice from twenty-nine thousand feet up or tropical fish swarming like live jewels in aquamarine water, it stirred me up, and I would go off exploring throughout the tree, climbing rope ladders from floor to floor, peeking into chambers where ex-hobos were engaged in mending shirts or decorating their cells, and ex-punk riders were playing chess on a makeshift board. The atmosphere reminded me of this idiot farm a Seattle judge sent me to when I was so fucked up they couldn’t tell if I was sane or not, a place where you sat around all day whacked on thorazine instead of jungleberries and smeared finger-paint all over yourself. Even though this state of affairs was preferable to the lives most of the residents had led prior to crossing the dimensional divide or the River Styx or whatever border it was that we had crossed, I just didn’t understand being satisfied with it.

One morning about an hour before sunup—if it was a sun that rose each morning and not, as Bobby theorized, an illusion produced by the software into which our essences had been transformed—I rolled out early and waited for the fishermen and the hunting parties to set out, and when I spotted Euliss Brooks, the best fisherman in Yonder, a rickety-looking, stiff-gaited, white-bearded black man with three rods on his right shoulder, carrying a net and a bait bucket, I fell in behind him, as did a handful of dogs. He glanced at me over his shoulder, but didn’t say anything and kept walking. I followed him along a path that cut inland for a mile, then angled back toward the river, rejoining it at a point where the banks widened and lifted into steep cliffs of pocked grayish black limestone, forming a cup-shaped gorge that shadowed the green water, and the perfumey heat of the jungle gave way to a profound freshness, like the smell of spring water in an old well. Birds were always circling overhead, their simple shapes like crosses against the high blue backdrop, then diving down to settle in the spiky-leaved trees that fringed the cliffs.

At the edge of the gorge was a wooden platform that could be lowered on ropes and pulleys to a ledge sixty-some feet below, just above water level—that’s where Euliss did his fishing, while the dogs waited for him up top. Euliss didn’t utter a word until he was ready to mount the platform, and then asked me how much I weighed.

“Hunnerd ’n fifty maybe,” I said.

He mulled this over. “Reckon I’ll let you go on down alone,” he said. “Just hang onto the rail and don’t worry it sway back and forth. Damn thing always do that.”

I offered to take the bucket and the rods down with me, but he said, “Naw, you might drop ’em.”

“I ain’t gon’ drop nothin’,” I told him, annoyed—what did he take me for?

“First time down you liable to drop somethin’,” said Euliss. “My word on that.”

I began to lower myself, and the platform swayed sickeningly, scraping against the limestone. I gripped the rail hard. Up close, the cliff face resembled the smoke-blackened ruin of a derelict cruiser: rocky projections clumped with blue-green moss; flat surfaces hung with twists of vine; punched into here and there by caves, the largest being about five feet in diameter. As I descended past one of the cave entrances, I thought I spotted movement within. I peered into the blackness, and a wave of giddiness overwhelmed me. My vision dimmed, my throat went dry. I had a moment’s panic, but that was swept aside by a rush of contentment, and then I had a sense of a shy curiosity that seemed distant from me, as if it were something brushing the edge of my thoughts, the way a cat will glide up against your leg. Allied with this was an impression of great age and infinite patience…and strength. A strength of mind like that you’d imagine a whale to possess, or some other ancient dweller in solitude. I lost track of myself for an unguessable time, and when I pulled myself together, I could have sworn I saw something go slithering back into the cave. Panic set in for real this time. I lowered the platform hastily, and when I jumped off onto the ledge, I shouted up at Euliss, asking him what the fuck had happened. He waved for me to send up the platform. Minutes later, after he had joined me on the ledge, I asked him again.