Train Hopping Across Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California, and Oregon by Aaron Dactyl

Author:Aaron Dactyl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Published: 2016-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

Cheyenne, Wyoming- Lastnight’s festival in downtown Depot Square boasted families with kids and a large crowd of cowboys drinking Busch from clear plastic cups and dancing with their girlfriends who all looked 10-15 years younger, like done-up twelve year olds yet somehow still like their mothers. I drank for free at the Albany restaurant and bar (apparently any found, expired creditcard can be swiped to open a tab). This morning a large farmers market occupies Depot Square, which is great except that they do not accept foodstamps (Cheyenne is just not that advanced yet); and since no grocery is within walking distance of downtown I have to eat from the Kum & Go.

I encounter several train hoppers downtown on this particular morning, including one hipster with a mullet who was from Nebraska, he says, and his peroxide-haired friend from Iowa, both of who are heading to Oakland, they say. I sense poseur in them both. There are also two kids from Michigan who are just about the most lively humans I can imagine—dirt-poor train-riders in subtle crusty attire, full of life, adventure, and charisma, humbled yet emboldened by their life experiences and humored by their hardships (having to eat some of their dog’s food after running out of foodstamps and showing no fear or remorse for sometimes having to steal their sustenance). They are heading to New Mexico with a young girl from Washington State who has adopted the crusty dress code, complete with a septum piercing (but who on her I.D. looks like Avril Lavine). One of the guys, Floppy Bag or something (I forgot), travels with a small dog, and the girl, Dove, I think, travels with a year-old cat attached to a leash. I found them in front of the Kum & Go loitering cordially, eating Arbys sandwiches on day-old and week-old receipts, a scam they informed me of along with several other ways to acquire food from fastfood chains. Floppy, or whatever was his name, then relayed a monumental story about getting pulled out of a suicide-well in Troy Montana a few weeks before. Workers saw them and called the cops, who came and wrote them trespassing tickets (“You guys aren’t going to pay these are you?” “Fuck no, we’re not going to pay them!”), then gave them food vouchers and a ride to the police station and let them glean snipes from their ashtrays. They ended up hanging around Troy for five more days, hiking, swimming, and cliff-diving around nearby Yaak Mountain, never again being hassled. They do appear to have this sort of good fortune, and are enjoying kick-downs from all over town. But I think it is their got-nothin’-to-lose mentality that serves them most well.

Downtown under Warren overpass I run into Rick drinking with another man who does not wish to talk. Rick, an older tramp who used to ride with the FTRA years ago, is dying from some kind of colon or liver cancer. He lifts up his shirt to show me a discharge bag attached to him like an insulin tube.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.