Born Dead

BORN DEAD!

By Patricia Fox

I woke, my torn jacket folded up under my pounding head, too much wine to drink, I think. I don’t remember hopping this one, I must’ve been really wasted already. There is no ticket required to ride the freights, thank the gods. I wonder if the train will hit the next rail yard before dark, so I can maybe get some food. I remembered there is this field of vegetables and some apples trees right near the station. I can hop off, then it’s about a quarter-mile to the rail yard, so I can avoid the Rail Yard Guards, too. I think the yard ahead is the place that has that field of vegetables by it, and those lovely fruit trees. Perfect.

I’ve noticed I have a hard time recalling how long I’ve been riding the rails these days. I think I’m about seventeen now. I don’t know any more if I ran away from home or got kicked out. The beatings I’ve taken, before and after, have challenged my long-term memory. I have also bumped my head more than once landing, after jumping off a moving train, so I might have concussion too.

This one old tramp I was riding with, probably about a year, or so, ago, said something to me I’ll never forget: Time is an artificial construct. He went on to explain that the modern way of keeping time started with the first rail lines, before then, people told time by the season of the year, and the position of the sun in the sky during daylight. It wasn’t until there were several train-car crashes, then the train scheduling system started, the modern nineteenth century clock was invented, with sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day. He winked, with a twinkle in his one, good eye, as he pontificated the phenomena of five minutes going by like a snap of one’s fingers, or conversely, when five minutes felt like an eternity. I nodded as he talked. I had had similar experiences in my life, like right this second, I felt like it had been a year since I last ate, but it had only been about seventy-two hours.

I took a can of red spray paint out of my knapsack, turning it over and over in my hands. Someone left it behind in a train car recently, so I grabbed it, mostly for protection. I figured if someone tried to fuck with me, spraying them in face with paint would do the trick. The June sun had already dipped below the horizon, it must be about ten at night. In the summertime, the sun completely disappears here then, but there’s still a bit of twilight. This railway is in Minnesota, probably close to a town called Worthington. The last time I saw a calendar, it was 2020. I’m guessing it’s 2021 now. I wanted to write something, but I’m not sure what, yet. I’m alone in this car, there are a few bales of hay left over from the last rail yard. They didn’t get unloaded, for some reason or other.

I opened the train car door, sliding its heavy medal panel to see the world zipping by in front of me. It seemed the train should already be there at the railway, but it wasn’t, the train still moved at a pretty fast pace. Sometimes the railway does make changes to its schedule in certain parts of the country. I saw a long, coiled rope in one of the corners of the car. I snatched it up, unwinding it, I tossed it on a big medal hook that was hanging from the ceiling of the train car, right by the day. I swung on it briefly to see if it would hold my weight. It did. I grabbed the red spray paint off the car’s floor and swung outside the door, and grabbed the outside of the train car’s wall. I popped off the cap of the paint bottle. It had been a very long time since I tagged anything, I smiled deeply as I thought about what I’d write.

BORN DEAD! I wrote this in all capital letters. The writing was legible, neat, and pretty. I pushed against the exterior wall, swinging out further to get a look at it from a bit of a distance. The letters were about three feet tall. Nice!

The rope started to unravel and tear… I fell….

********************

We were driving back to Minneapolis from Worthington, Minnesota. My husband was driving. This was probably the tenth trip we had made in the last three months. It was about three hours each way and we had become accustomed to making this trip in one, longish day. My father-in-law had dementia and it was getting worse, and then, even worse yet. Sometimes he knew who we were, sometimes he didn’t. But he was always patient, and gregarious, even if he couldn’t summon the right word to finish his joke. His third wife was often in tears on these days we visited. I suspect most days she is in tears; tears of anger, frustration, profound grief and loss.

It was his birthday we were celebrating, I hugged him goodbye and he earnestly said, "Thanks, but i don't need another of these. I'm getting off the ride." So, there was that...

In 1963, my father-in-law won the AHRA Nationals with a racing car he had modified himself. His racing story was published in a national racing magazine, this young guy from Sioux City, Iowa. His business as an adult was having his own auto salvage yard. Now, when you talked to him, his memory was still intact on two subjects, his parents, who have been gone now for a very long time, and his racecars… he can tell you the make, model, color, and mods made to each vehicle. On these two topics, he seemed to still be living in his heart completely and totally.

I was thinking over the heavy day of lost words and awkward pauses, when I saw someone swinging outside one of the train cars on a rope, spraying graffiti on its side with a can of paint. I nudged my husband to follow may gaze to the racing freight train car.

“What does that say?” My husband asked.

I squinted a bit in the twilight, “Born Dead.”

Neither of us said anything as the writer of that dark thought, swung wide on the rope outside the door of the train car, the rope snapped and the person fell. My husband slammed on the brakes hard, the tires squealing, as the body of this vagrant was swept on the tracks, the train pummeling the body.

“Oh, fuck!” I yelled, as I dialed 911.