The Night Walk Men by Jason McIntyre

Author:Jason McIntyre
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: thriller, suspense, life, train, death, history, destiny, thriller suspense, twins, rain, storm, weather, mcintyre, jason mcintyre, obsidion, fallow
Publisher: Jason McIntyre

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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.

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