Train Hopping

[GT Jones]

Levi looked upward to his only view, unfeathered by clouds, just empty space between himself and the heavens. Everything in a different state of disappearing, blanched by exposure, disassembled into the seasoned chalkdust.

Death angels in the diesel engines, black smoke ghosts revealed the slow burn of destruction without flame, drying, crumbling, fading layer by layer until it no longer existed. The only sign of life was a dust devil spinning through an uninhabited valley, it held the life of everything.

The great yellow fleet of the Union Pacific lead the units, UP6500, the Union Pacific shield recently re-painted on the sidewall, “Building America” written underneath. The train never left the side of the highway; billboards strung perpendicular between the train and road, consumer seines netting the desirous commuter. Shredded cotton fibers were caught along the length of a highway barbed wire fence.
Traffic signs twisted in a breeze he couldn’t feel. Power cables hung on skeleton metal racks along the flats, delivering power to unseen locals hundreds of miles away. The Gila River had been tamed, corralled into concrete canals, and fed through irrigation gates to the arid desert farms.


Henry felt the engines back off, a wave of mechanics pulsing through the metal car to car, riding the inside. The engine was slowing to its approach. The signs of the town brought him comfort.

He pulled a torn page from a road atlas from the brim of his hat. He listened for the couplers to go slack, when steel cars can snap like terrycloth.

Gila Bend. Circled in red Sharpie, bled by perspiration. Gila Bend, nestled between a barren bombing range and Tohono O’odam reservation land. The road atlas didn’t show the yard. He’d have to be ready.

North of the road and highway the Gila Bend mountains lay like crumpled beadsheets. Gila Bend looked drawn in pastels. The trees were even covered in the pale talcum dust.

Unsquared buildings made of dryrot plywood lined the backside of the tracks on a gravel easement road. Graffiti covered the fence wall facing the train, urban gang style lettering left for passengers on commuters to see, placed only to announce the existance of a kid, to say, “you are not the only ones”. There are places in between.