 |
| Hobo Wine, made from weeds |
They came from three of the four corners of the country; from Bangor and Seattle and the Everglades - and from all sorts of starting points in between. They gathered in the West Virginia woods, between the Tygart Valley River and the frozen steel of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, just north of Grafton. Twelve of them, all told. To call their ragged assembly a celebration would be a stretch, but these homeless drifters had come together to eat and drink (mostly drink) and mark the occasion of Christmas, 1934.
Sally Hoot-Hoot, who had organized the gathering, mostly by scrawling hieroglyphic invitations in mud and grease on telegraph poles and boxcars for the past year, had envisioned many rounds of toasts to the first Christmas since the end of Prohibition (which it wasn't, but as 1933 ended, booze was still scarce), and a few words from each of her hobo brethren about their respective 1934s.
"Like what," asked Gin-Bucket Greg, so named for his insistence on carrying his belongings in an old bucket, instead of the traditional hobo stick-and-bindle. The "Gin" part of his moniker was just wishful thinking.
"A few words - nothing fancy," Sally Hoot-Hoot said, "Something good that happened in 1934 - you know, like something you're grateful for."
Microbrew Stymie scoffed. "Sounds like maybe you're thinkin' of Thanksgiving."
Sally groaned and rolled her sky-blue eyes. "It'll only take a minute. Just humor me. And somebody help me with the fire. It'll be dark soon."
"Fine - I'll start," Stymie said, "but it sure sounds like a Thanksgiving thing, to me. Let's see... 1934 should have been a swell year for me, what with Prohibition being over, and with the CWA and all that New Deal stuff. But no. Still no jobs that last more than a day or two, and when I finally did come up with my ticket home - my recipe for small-batch artisanal beer - some wicked 'bo stole it. Also, I lost two toes to frostbite last winter."
Sally looked at him expectantly for a moment, hoping there was more. There apparently was not more. "That's it?"
Microbrew Stymie shrugged. "Well, Prohibition's over. So, we got that goin' for us."
"I'll drink to that," Lonnie Pina Colada declared, holding a rusty old cup of hobo wine aloft.
"You'll drink to anything!" Beery Clive The Eunuch sneered.
"Shut up, Eunuch!"
"I told you not to call me that! Call me Beery Clive."
"Whatever you say, Eunuch."
"Say, why are you called that, anyway?" Gin-Bucket Greg asked.
Beery Clive sighed heavily and stared at the ground. "I don't wanna talk about it. Why are any of us called anything?"
"I like Pina Coladas, that's why I'm called that," Lonnie offered.
Gin-Bucket Greg laughed loudly. "What the hell is a pina colada?"
Lonnie looked lost. "I don't know. Anyway, I'm thankful for that New Deal, too. I worked more this year than I have since '29. Still not enough to afford a new coat or shoes, but I can't complain."
"Maybe Saint Nick will bring you some shoes for Christmas," Sally said. Who's next? How 'bout you, Farley?"
Weedwine Farley, The Weed-fermenter, at forty-something years old, was the eldest of the group, and the only one to have chosen the hobo life prior to the onset of the Great Depression. He had dropped out of the real world in 1924, after several unlicensed-distillery-related encounters with the criminal justice system, and immediately found belonging. He lived happily among the wandering dreamers, dropouts, and fugitives of Hobo Nation. He was able to thrive on the road because as long as there were weeds, he had weed wine to trade for the things he needed. It was his wine - a special Christmas blend of dandelion, clover, and milkweed, aged in dogwood buckets - that they drank, tonight.
He raised his cup. "You," he said simply, looking around the group, "I'm glad to know ya, and even gladder to spend Christmas with ya."
"Hear, hear!" they chorused.
"Back at you, Farley - and thanks a million for the wine," Chiptooth Berman, The Bottle Biter said.
Microbrew Stymie snorted. "I bet you'd prefer a nice bottle of beer, though. You know - something you can really break your teeth on..."
Berman shook his head and laughed. "Nope, nope, nope. I told y'all I was gonna quit biting bottles, once every tooth was chipped, and I did. Haven't bitten a bottle all year - so I guess that's what I'm thankful for. I finally kicked the habit."
"What? When did this happen?" Sally asked excitedly, moving closer to Berman and trying to look into his mouth. He opened wide and pulled the corner of his mouth back to the left, revealing nothing but damaged teeth, including the back lower molar that had been the last holdout. "Oh, I see it! Gosh, you finally did it - congratulations!"
"Thank you. It was last Christmas, and it was a whiskey bottle."
There was a round of congratulations from everyone in the group except Stunned Silent Hopkins, who naturally was stunned silent - although not at the news of the end of Berman's bottle-biting days. He had been struck dumb on October 29th, 1929, when during a lunchtime walk with his fiancée on Exchange Street in New York, he watched in horror as she was crushed by a stock trader falling from the sky.
"I got one," offered Acid-Saliva Curly Stokes. "I'm grateful for the so-called god who made my own spit so acidic that it can accelerate the fermentation of grain into alcohol tenfold, and also dissolve metal, because the alcohol part is good. But mostly, I'm grateful for my freedom. I steal rides on trains, sure - who doesn't? But I also walk from town to town, and if I mind my P's and Q's, nobody says nuthin' to me. In the summer, I sleep with the stars as my night-light. I know I only joined this hobo world on account of there being no jobs and all, but I ain't lyin' when I tell you, if it was all fixed tomorrow, and jobs was suddenly a dime a dozen, I'd tip my cap--"
"You ain't got no cap!" Stymie heckled, to no effect.
"...I'd tip my cap and say 'no thanks - I'm a hobo now, and I ain't goin' back."
"Damn straight!!" Jan, The Jager-Meister declared with a stomp of his ratty boot. He was called the Jager-Meister because he possessed some innate ability to keep seabirds away from his food, though unbeknownst to his friends, the birds were in fact repelled by the smell (which only they and some dog breeds could detect) of Jan's hyper-aggressive multi-system cancer. "I have a toast. Here's to good health, and a life without seagulls trying to steal your food."
"Cheers to that," Sally agreed. "Anyone else wanna share, before I retire to my gals-only, no-boys-allowed tent, where almost NO boys will be allowed, wink wink?"
"I'll wink to THAT," Curly enthused, winking at Sally.
She gave him a sympathetic smile and shook her head. "Not you, Curly. Sorry."
"On account of my acid saliva?"
"Yep."
"Pooh."
Doctor Hall, A Slang Term For "Alcohol" cleared his throat and lifted himself from the log on which he'd been sitting.
"Everybody hush," Lonnie Pina Colada said. "Doc's got something to say."
"This should be good," Sally said.
Doctor Hall, A Slang Term For "Alcohol" was a man of few words. In fact, only Stunned Silent Hopkins said less. So, when the doctor (who wasn't really a doctor, but had gotten through a year of medical school, before the economy collapsed and he was forced to drop out) spoke, his friends listened. "I'm glad my parents are not around to see what's happened to this country," he said. Then, he sat down on his log and took a sip of his hobo wine.
"Well, that wasn't very good," Gin-Bucket Greg and Weedwine Farley chorused.
"That's what I'm thankful for," the doctor said with a shrug.
"Yikes," Sally said. "What a sad thing that is. How did your parents die, by the way? Were they very old?"
"Blizzard," he said. "They were both still in their fifties."
"That's terrible," Barrel-Aged Milton Oakbreath said. They died in a blizzard?"
"Murdered," Doctor Hall said flatly. "They were murdered during a blizzard. And when did you get here, Milton?"
"What do you mean? I've been here the whole time!"
"Huh."
"And I'm grateful for this life," Milton Oakbreath added. "And everyone in it. You gents - and lady - are the nicest hoboes and just about the best people I've had the pleasure of knowing. Here's to you - even you, Hopkins. Cheers - and Merry Christmas!"
Stunned Silent Hopkins laughed, and finally spoke. "God bless us - everyone."
