Stymie Stonewrist and Ol' Stiffpants and The Bond

Dew, Leaf, Ballast - Point of Rocks, MD 1997 JMS

 

They didn't choose to be bonded, but bonds can have a way of imposing themselves on the unsuspecting. Sometimes the bond chooses you. Fifteen-year old Stephanie Steinquist was about a year from becoming Stymie Stonewrist when she began her seven-hour shift at the the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in Greenwich Village on Saturday, March 25th, 1911. A few blocks away, Albert Huffheinz, who would later be called Ol' Stiffpants, was struggling to obtain his father's death certificate from the coroner's office. His mother was working a sewing machine on the 8th floor at Triangle Shirtwaist, one row behind Stephanie.

There was a fire. The stairwell doors were locked. The lone fire escape was not up to the task of stewarding all of the factory workers - mostly women and girls - to safety. 146 of them died, including the recently-widowed Mrs. Huffheinz. Young Stephanie survived - rather miraculously - with a broken and subsequently improperly-set wrist, several lacerations, and an undiagnosed concussion. She also suffered profound survivor's remorse, and although she had barely known Mrs. Huffheinz, she went to sit Shiva with the woman's family for several days following her discharge from the hospital. That was where she met Albert.

There wasn't much said, sitting Shiva with the grieving family and friends, but after a couple of days, when the older Huffheinz women began to quietly converse, Albert sat next to Stephanie and gestured at her plaster-wrapped wrist. "You were there? You worked with Ma?"

She nodded sadly. "I didn't know her very well, but she seemed swell," she whispered. "She always had the older ladies in stitches."

"Ha!" Albert's laugh surprised him as much as it did his fellow mourners, some of whom regarded him with a mild, give-the-kid-a-break-he's-an-orphan-now disapproval. "'In stitches!' She was a seamstress! That's funny. You're funny."

She stared at the floor for a moment. "I'm... I didn't mean to be funny..."

"It's okay," he assured her. "Ma was a hoot, and I promise you, she woulda laughed and laughed at the stitches bit. "I'm Albert." He took her hand and shook it gently.

"Stephanie," she said softly. "I'm awful sorry about your mother - well, and your father, too. I'm just dreadfully sorry."

"My uncle says I'm getting all of my sad things out of the way early, so that the rest of my life can be peaceful and happy." 

"That would be nice. I'd say you've earned it," she offered tentatively.

"I don't know. My uncle drinks a lot. Say, how'd you get out of there - if you don't mind my asking? I know those bastards kept the doors locked - they all do."

She looked at the floor again, then looked up at him, then quickly looked away. "I don't think I'm ready to talk about it," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. I'm sorry to pry."

"When I'm ready to talk about it, you'll be the first to know."

Over the next six months, they became best friends. She found another job at a similar garment factory, doing her best to supplement the meager incomes her parents earned as line cook and bookkeeper at a Greene Street steak house. Albert, too old for the orphanage, went from one menial job to the next. When not working, they spent countless hours visiting and gossiping and commiserating and walking and people-watching. Their friendship even survived a brief ill-advised foray into romance, which they quickly and decisively declared was not to be. 

She was a sturdy girl, and had learned to fight in the sweatshops. He was short and slight, and not at all a fighter, and on more than one occasion she had helped him fend off bullies and would-be muggers. "Why'd you do that," he'd protest, "I coulda handled 'em." She always said, "I know, but it's the least I can do," which puzzled him. 

Then, Albert read a book about hoboes. He quickly became obsessed with their lifestyle, their culture, their oddly humanitarian code of conduct, and their freedom. With a promise to return and tell her all about it on the first anniversary of the Shirtwaist fire, he left New York City in a boxcar bound for Buffalo. "If you don't show up at that memorial, mister, I'm coming looking for you - and if anything happens to me, won't you be just the saddest!"

He did not show up at the ceremony commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fire. She scoured all of Washington Square Park. He was not there. She even saw his uncle, who could offer little more than to shrug a helpless "We haven't heard from him." Inside her, panic and resolve engaged in a rousing bout of fisticuffs, with resolve emerging victorious. "Swell. I suppose I'm a hobo now," she growled, stomping away.

"He goes by 'Ol' Stiffpants' now," the uncle shouted helpfully after her. "Something like that, anyway."

"Thanks. If you see him, tell him I'm heading to Buffalo, and I'm gonna call myself, um... Stymie. Yeah - Stymie Stonewrist."

She followed the New York Central back and forth across the state, and struggled terribly for the first few months. She was assaulted - mostly by non-hoboes like cops and railroad workers. She was bitten by police and other dogs, harassed in towns, robbed, and worse. She learned as she went. She developed calluses. A lot of calluses. And she asked every hobo she met if they knew Ol' Stiffpants. For months, the answer was no. Then, at a junction outside of Albany, the answer was yes. 

"I heard of that fella," an extra-dirty and profoundly stinky hobo named Jack Skunk told her. "New kid. Little guy. Jewish, from the city.

"That's him! Do you know where he might be - or where he might be headed?" she asked, with hope in her heart for the first time in ages.

Jack Skunk laughed hard. "He rides the Pennsy, not the New York Central. Sorry miss - you're on the wrong railroad."

"Well, shit."

It took several more months, but on November 1st, 1912, she found him. That is, he found her. She was sharing a camp just south of Buffalo with a few other hoboes, and had inadvertently looked at Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick in just the wrong way, and was a half-second from getting good and stabbed - quick. A little blur of a man leapt from the darkness and kicked Ol' Barb's knife from her hand and sent it spinning off into the woods. 

"Come with me," he ordered, as Stymie's assailant raced after her wayward blade.

"Albert??" she shrieked as he nearly dragged her away from the camp.

"It's Ol' Stiffpants, ma'am," he started. "Wait. Stephanie? Is it you??"

"I go by Stymie Stonewrist now," she said breathlessly as they ran. "I can't believe I found you - sort of - I've been looking for you since March!"

"I know. I'm sorry. If it helps, I've been looking for you since March, too. I got to the anniversary ceremony a couple hours too late."

"I wish you hadn't saved me from that crazy stabby lady, though. Now I owe you TWO life debts."

"What?" 

They ran a mile or so, then found a suitable bridge, under which they lit a small fire and huddled together and cried and hugged and tried kissing again and this time it kind of worked. And they shared their respective stories of rookie hobo trial and error and more trial, and eventually slept.

In the cold light of morning, with Lake Erie lapping at the nearby shore, a southbound train of empty coal hoppers thundered through the woods and over the trestle that sheltered them. Albert Ol' Stiffpants Huffheinz snapped awake and reached for his soul mate. She wasn't there, but she hadn't gone far. She sat on a fallen tree near the lake's edge, watching the little waves. He approached her cautiously, making sure to snap a couple of twigs as he walked. He stopped. He reached for her shoulder.

"Morning," she said. "Mind if I walk with you a while, Ol' Stiffpants?" 

"I'd like that," he said without hesitation. "Stymie... Stonewrist, is it?"

"Yeah - on account of my wonky wrist. I kind of made it up on the spot." she turned to face him and smiled. "I'm ready to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"How I survived the fire."

"Oh. You don't have to," he said softly, taking her hands.

She inhaled deeply. "No, I think I should. It's okay. So, I was on the fire escape with the others when it collapsed. Your mother was there. She had pulled me and another girl out with her - practically dragging us by our hair - and almost as soon as we got on the fire escape, it broke free and we were falling, falling. Everyone screamed and fell. I held onto a piece of metal that swung down a few floors against the building, then hit a window ledge, and then, well..." She took another deep breath as Albert squeezed her hands. "I landed on your mother. She saved my life, and I think I killed her. I'm so sorry."

Albert stifled an odd sort of laugh, and wrapped his arms around her. "I have no doubt that she saved you, my dear, but you must believe me when I tell you that it was the pavement that killed her, not you."

She looked up at him. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely certain, and I will thank her every day for that, as long as I live."

"So will I," she whispered. They held each other for hours - or seconds, who could tell? Finally she said, "I assume the 'Ol'' is on account of your prematurely-greying temples, but what's the 'Stiffpants' part about?"

Ol' Stiffpants sighed, and shifted uncomfortably in her embrace. "I'm not ready to talk about that. But when I am, you'll be the first to know."

 

Jimmy "New Man" Neandertal And Hugo Stares Are Not On The Same Page

 

"I have a message from the universe, but never mind." Photo by Joe

On a warm late-September afternoon in 1939, 30-year old Jimmy "New Man" Neandertal - so named because of his penchant for reinventing himself - was following the Southern Railway mainline north out of Charlottesville, Virginia, deep in thought. He was formulating the next incarnation of his persona, and felt that he was getting close.

"I feel that I am getting close," he said over his shoulder, in the direction of his traveling companion, a fellow hobo five years his senior, by the name of Hugo Stares. "Wanna hear what I've come up with? Hugo?" He turned to find the space previously occupied by Hugo now fully empty, save for a few gnats and a nosey dragonfly. Hugo had stopped about thirty feet back, and was now standing between the rails of a switch that led to a long siding. He was staring into a dogwood tree, hands on hips. Jimmy rolled his eyes and backtracked his way to where Hugo was standing with his gaze fixed somewhat accusingly on a sparrow sitting in the dogwood.

"Whaddaya suppose this guy's problem is?" Hugo growled, not interrupting his stare-down with the bird, who seemed puzzled, but undeterred from his chirping. "What the hell you want, ya dumb bird? What you think he wants, Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked at the sparrow, and the bird gave him a look in return, one that said, If I could shrug, sir, I most assuredly would. "I would be apt to wager that your diminutive avian acquaintance desires only what any sparrow would have - a meal, a song, a mate, and a nest - not necessarily in that order."

"Well I don't like him."

"Peep!" said the bird, as he made a tiny hop to the left and bent forward slightly, possibly in preparation for departure.

"My friend, it would behoove you to stand clear of that switch," Jimmy suggested, "lest you wish to find yourself here and there, a victim of the oft-overdue local freight, on its way to utilize this very siding at any moment."

Hugo finally turned his attention from the bird to his hobo companion. The sparrow decided that this was as good a time as any to depart, and departed - vanished really. "I see the switch, Jimmy - wait. Why you talkin' like that? That sounds familiar..." He thought for half a beat. "Say - are you quoting Foreign Tomas, The Strangetalker?"

"Um, yes - I guess so. More or less. That's what I was trying to tell you when I discovered that you had been waylaid by that malevolent presence, perched as it was so menacingly in a dogwood tree that you were left with no choice other than to engage it in an inter-species verbal tussle with nary a point in mind..." 

Hugo was staring at his friend, now. "What's wrong with you?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Nothing. I'm just tired of expressing myself, you know, not good. So, while my aim is not to imitate Foreign Tomas, or to be the next Foreign Tomas, I do indeed aspire to a more refined manner of verbal expression."

"Oh, I get it. You fixin' to become a new man again, mister New Man Neandertal? Again?"

"I am. It's what I do."

"Your pop was a two-star general in the Great War, and you guys was set to ride out the Depression just fine, but you took off, because you liked trains..."

"True enough," Jimmy agreed.

"And you decided to live up to your family name of Neandertal - never did understand how that could really be your actual honest to god name, by the way - and you spent your first five years as a 'bo using nothin' but grunts to communicate."

"Right. Admittedly not my most savvy move..."

"Yeah - you suffered more ass-whoopings than a delinquent in a nunnery - and that was mostly before I met you. Then, you assumed that tough, hunky Johnstown steel mill foreman persona. I gotta admit, you got the accent down pat, but you were not believable as a tough boss man type."

"Not my proudest few years," Jimmy sighed. "But I made it through, and you must admit, these last couple of years of being super-laid-back South Florida hobo Jim have worked okay for me."

"Eh... So-so, buddy. Everyone just thinks you're slow or something. And yeah - on the one hand, that takes the pressure off of me tryin' not to be the dumb one, but on the other hand, I kinda like bein' the dumb one, man! Fellas would ask me how I manage, takin' care of myself and my slow friend, and I had to just shrug like an idiot, and they'd walk away goin' 'well, birds of a feather and all that...' I hated it."

Jimmy put his hand on Hugo's shoulder. "I'm sorry, friend. I've been trying to put a stop to that dynamic for some time now. I only just came up with this 'talk like a smart and/or weird guy' persona. I memorized a lot of Foreign Tomas' sayings, and I think I can extrapolate from there. I think I can talk better. More interesting, you know?"

Hugo had found a wooly bear caterpillar making its way north on the polished steel of the outer rail of the Southern main, and he stopped to stare it down. "I dunno, Jimmy. Sounds like you might be headed for a whole bunch more ass whoopin's. Now, whaddaya suppose this little monster's beef is? What's your problem, fella?"

"Well, I intend to try it on for size, my old friend. I shall eat time and convert it to life, watching seconds become inklings, minutes begetting thoughts, and so forth... You're not even listening to me, are you?"

Hugo was not listening. Hugo was gearing up for a decidedly one-sided altercation with an insect.

"Good talk, Hugo. Good talk."

Mad Max And The Goose And Not The Goose: A Christmas Story Sort Of

With snow and everything! Photo by [Maris]

Mad Max was in no mood. His feet were soaked and nearly frozen. Much of the rest of him was likewise damp and/or painfully cold. His sidekicks were fussing and bickering, which was not helping matters at all. "I am in no mood, you two!" he spat. "I gotta find us some shelter from this freezing rain - I'd settle for an awning, about now. I can't handle another Christmas like this. I wish I'd taken your advice and headed south a couple of months ago, The Goose."

The Goose growled out a low sequence of throaty sounds that could be approximately translated to, "Told you so." Under his breath, he added, "I'm just happy to be waterproof, tonight."

Maxwell Small hadn't always been mad. In fact, he wasn't at all fond of the "Mad Max" moniker his hobo brethren had bestowed upon him in the early 1930s - mostly because he didn't see himself as even remotely crazy (or angry, if we're going to split hairs). He'd had a normal childhood in Bedford, Indiana. He graduated high school and started work as an apprentice mechanic, repairing everything from Model A's to the newest farm equipment. He buried both his parents (double-fatal yo-yo trick accident), joined hobo nation, acquired a clingy Canadian goose, and later a German shepherd-golden retriever-half-albino Labrador mutt who thought she was a goose, and like it or not he became Mad Max.

The Goose and the dog, who came to be called Not The Goose, were best friends from the moment they met. It was often hard to tell whether The Goose thought he was a dog - or Not The Goose thought she was a goose - or both. They chased each other. They mimicked each other's speech patterns and dialects. They slept together, curled up like a pair of kittens. They stole each other's food and fought and made up and vied for Max's affection. But one of them... was a goose.

Most of the time, this fact was not a problem. It was cute. "Oh, look at that crazy hobo," they would say, "with his odd-looking dog, and his goose that thinks he's a dog. So cute." But Halloween would come, and then everything from St. Louis to Atlantic City would turn brown and dead, and just like that it was open season on critters that looked like The Goose. Getting past Thanksgiving in one piece wasn't too hard, but soon after, he'd start hearing the words "Christmas" and "goose" together, and things would take a turn.

"This is ridiculous," Mad Max groused, "We're going south, next year - if we live that long."

"Honk honk, hisssss, honk," said The Goose.

"Aroo rowrowooo," Not The Goose Agreed. And they shared a good long laugh.

The Goose had put on a pound or two since the previous December, so apparently he looked more appetizing than ever. As Mad Max had led his anserine and canine charges east from Dayton to Zanesville to Wheeling to Morgantown, they were harassed by a dozen cleaver-wielding maniacs, bent on turning The Goose into the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. Max and Not The Goose had been extra vigilant since Thanksgiving, and had fought off every threat, but they were exhausted. 

"I love you, The Goose," Mad Max groaned, "but I think if we find a fella with a campsite - or just a proper fire - I might let him have you, just so that I might warm my toes before they die and fall off. I'm sorry."

The Goose laughed it off, as if Max was obviously joking, but he shook his feathers from neck to tail, and hunkered down defensively.

They passed a shed along the B&O main into Cumberland, and found themselves bathed in a warm glow. "Say, strangers," a gravelly voice called after them, "care to share a fire?"

They turned. The Goose hissed reflexively, then relaxed a bit. Not The Goose growled reflexively, then stood tall and let her tail wag - just a little. Mad Max braced himself for another attack on his plump waterfowl, then likewise eased up. "Great day in the morning, guys - it's JACK SKUNK, working his way as far east as he can get before New Year's! Jack, ol' buddy - you're a lifesaver and a saint - a true gentleman. We can't repay your kindness, this cold and rainy Christmas Eve, but we will gladly walk the rest of our days in your debt..."

And the three wet, frozen travelers huddled around the fire of one of the smelliest hoboes ever known, and were welcomed and warmed and not eaten, and it was good.

Mister Torso, The Legless Wonder Hitches A Ride

 

I failed subject-centering class. Photo by Joe

I think by now it's been well-established that life was hard for America's hoboes. We've probably also touched on the added difficulty of hobo life for minorities and women (I'll check later to confirm that). But to all of the above hoboes, tonight's 'bo says, "Hold my beer..."

Try traveling the country and hopping freight trains whilst having zero legs, and presumably just as many feet. How would that even work? Some sort of wheeled conveyance, and a ton of upper-body strength? A horse? Cyborg legs? For Mister Torso, The Legless Wonder, it was mostly the wheeled thing. 

In late 1940, he lost his job as a side-show attraction in the Cruel Horrible Circus, and became a hobo. He did indeed use a kind of homemade cart to get around. It was a lightweight plywood box with oversized rubber tires. It operated much like a simple wheelchair; he sat on his leg stumps and worked the wheels with his hands. It worked great on smooth, flat surfaces, but for obvious reasons, it was rubbish on railroad tracks and the gravel ballast in which they rested. He could steal rides on trains, but they had to be very slow-moving trains, and it really only worked if he was on a train-adjacent freight or passenger platform, as said train rolled past. Even then, it was incredibly challenging to grab one of the train's iron ladders with one hand, and the cart with the other, and then not die (or drop the cart).

The cart-dropping bit happened, one miserable, rainy night in 1941 - in Gary, Indiana. He rode the train until it stopped in Cleveland, racking his brain for ideas, but apart from "build a new cart," ideas wouldn't come. He was summarily evicted from the train by an unsympathetic yard cop, who recommended that he find a shopping cart and a gondolier's pole, for the getting around. Mister Torso pulled himself through the jagged ballast and out of harm's way, next to the tracks, and felt the weight of his disability. Woe was him. Some hours later, the rain dried up and the sun warmed everything just a bit, and he noticed a big, square silhouette stomping purposefully down the yard lead track toward him. The figure stopped when it was perpendicular to Mister Torso's trackside moping spot.

Atlas Flatshoulders was huge - at least six-foot four and 270lbs. - and he stood for a moment assessing Mister Torso and his situation. "Brother, where you bound?" he said at last.

"Pittsburgh," Mister Torso replied sadly. "Or, that is, I was - until I lost my wheeled cart. I'll never get there, now."

Atlas thought, scratching his big square chin. "Well, brother... How do you feel about heights? You okay sittin' up high?"

"I guess so," Torso speculated.

"I ain't had a traveling companion in I don't know how long," Atlas said. "And I've always wondered what use I'd ever have for these oddly flat shoulders of mine. What say we try an arrangement?"

For the next seven years, the two hoboes were inseparable. Atlas Flatshoulders had a friend, and Mister Torso The Legless Wonder had a ride - and a great view. And a friend.

The End.

 

Fatman And The Creature*

 

"Don't bother me. I'm... I'm pollinating." Photo by Joe

"I don't see how that's any of your business, but as a matter of fact I have had plenty of girlfriends," Fatman declared with righteous indignation. His wandering companion, The Creature, was needling him again. "Besides," he continued, "it's not like you're one to talk. I figure I ain't ever seen you with a dame, not once."

The Creature retorted with some odd clicks and slurps and grunts that only Fatman could understand.

"Yes, I know that's because you're a creature. But when I was a kid, even our old bloodhound had a girlfriend. Never seen you with a girl creature. Just sayin' - maybe don't give me so much guff about a thing you ain't exactly excelling in."

More clicks and guttural sounds from The Creature.

"Sure, bub. She's from Canada. I wouldn't know her. Whatever you say. Let's change the subject..."

Growls, a snort, two coughs and a long throat-clearing.

Fatman stopped shuffling westward and removed what was left of his cap, clutching it to his chest. "You're right. It is the 27th. I completely forgot the anniversaries. Here's a moment of silence to honor my dearly-departed mom and pop. May they rest in peace... What? I know I've never told you what happened to them. I don't want you making fun of me - or them."

Weird noises from The Creature.

"No, they did not jump into the lion yard at the zoo and get eaten. What's wrong with you?"

Snorts and gurgles.

"Obviously they were not cut down by tommy gun-wielding gangsters. My folks were good people. Never so much as crossed paths with the mob. They ran a candy shop. That much, you know. But if you're going to keep tossing ridiculous guesses at me, I might as well tell the stories. There's not much to them, anyway. Mom forgot her hairnet once in all her years in the shop. Just our luck - it was on taffy-pulling day. Not a lot of people know how powerful that machine is. Pulled her head clean off. Ruined a batch of peppermint."

Alarmed squeaks.

"I'm not being callous. Just stating facts. Anyway, exactly one year later, my old man was making a batch of cinnamon hard candies, and-- no, he didn't choke on one of them. Stop interrupting. Good guess, though. He inadvertently inhaled some cinnamon and coughed so hard he fractured his skull on a metal shelf."

Subdued grunts and a sigh from The Creature.

"Oh, that didn't kill him, no siree. One of the nurses at the hospital did. With a pillow. She said he was never going to wake up anyway, so she wanted to free me or some such nonsense... No, no - it's okay. She was probably right. Although it did trigger my year and a half of grief-eating, leading to my metamorphosis from a regular fellow named Arthur, to a stinky old hobo called Fatman. But it's still okay. I got an okay life. I got more lint than the average 'bo..."

The Creature emitted a question-y sort of sound.

"Oh, I do! I adore lint. It's not merely currency, to me. I like to pull mine from my pockets, roll it into a big fuzzy ball, and just stare at it and pet it. It's almost as entertaining as reading hobo graffiti on sheds and telegraph poles. I'm also pretty handy with a buck knife, and my skills in the area of squirrel cuisine ensure that I'll never go wanting for company, out here on the road. Speaking of which - it's getting late. Better nab me some dinner before the little fellers all head to their nests. I hear Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick and a couple of her gal pals will be passing through on their way east. I further hear that one of her friends likes her men a little portly, so I'm fixin' to make this a good night."

The Creature was pointedly silent.

"Oh I see what you're doing. I don't care what you say or don't say. A man can dream, can't he?"

*(Note: There was no creature) 

El Top-Hat Swindlefingers And PomPom The Texas Dancing Dog

 

A dog that's neither PomPom nor dancing, but you get the idea. Photo by [Maris]

It was a match made in hobo heaven. It was Thanksgiving weekend in Amarillo, and El Top-Hat Swindlefingers was sure he wouldn't make his self-imposed arbitrary revenue goal for the year. The harvest festival circuit had been a major disappointment. It was 1934, and the first wave of the drought that would come to be known as the Dust Bowl had taken its toll on northwest Texas. With failing crops and everyone down on their luck, there were precious few pockets worth picking, in Amarillo. He hoofed it to Lubbock. No better. So he headed west, hoping that Phoenix, or maybe southern California would provide more fertile scamming and stealing grounds.

Of course, El Top-Hat wasn't always a Swindlefingered hobo. He was born Derby Grabbinghands, to the Oklahoma City Grabbinghands, and his childhood was completely normal - apart from his grueling hours-long after-school lessons in grifting, pick-pocketing and assorted swindles. Then, in 1927, his father was indicted for embezzling from his employer, and while out on bail drowned himself in crude oil (There was a lot of oil in Oklahoma, at the time. When it got deep enough, indicted ne'er-do-wells could drown themselves in it.) His mother remarried within a year, and lived okay ever after. Derby made it through high school, graduating in May 1929. He enrolled at Oklahoma State University, but by the end of his first semester, the Great Depression had come along and ruined everything, and he dropped out.

After months of failing to find work, he gathered his things and hit the road and joined hobo nation, wandering the central and southern plains and stealing, grifting, and pick-pocketing his way though every town. He was good at his profession, smooth and careful and quick - and when he added a found top hat to his wardrobe, he became an elite street criminal. Sleight of hand relies on misdirection, and pickpocketing doubly so, and as top hats were rare in southwestern towns in the early 1930s, his served as a built-in rube distractor. He made out like a proverbial bandit for a while, and even thought about returning to the real world, getting a little apartment in a big city, and plying his trade on the populous. He just needed to bring his game to the next level.

He met his ticket to the next level in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the form of PomPom The Texas Dancing Dog, a prancy little white four-legged hobo stray. She was bopping about in a downtown park, just having a grand old time - and, El Top-Hat was quick to note, distracting the living daylights out of everyone. She danced like any dancing dog, but without a human partner/handler. It was enthralling, and a crowd of passersby stopped and stared. El Top-Hat had his most profitable pickpocketing day yet. He hatched a plan - a simple one with almost no hatching even required. 

PomPom The Texas Dancing Dog was a true hobo, in that she wandered the railroads, chased - and sometimes stole rides on - trains, and was as fiercely independent as she was reliant on the kindness of strangers and/or said strangers' susceptibility to being robbed. She could be tricky to follow, but follow her, El Top-Hat did. They became the pickpocketing and petty street theft dream team. PopPom was a fabulous distractor. El Top-Hat was a gifted thief.

She unknowingly helped ol' Swindlefingers accumulate a hobo's fortune (which here means just enough cash for a couple of months' rent on a grubby one-room loft in a bad part of a mean town). They drifted northwest, away from the worst of the horrid Dust Bowl, and by the time PomPom peacefully crossed the rainbow bridge in 1939 (the hobo vet estimated that she was about thirteen years old), Top-Hat's hobo's fortune had doubled. He found a cheap room in a Portland flop house, bought a secondhand suit, and did the unthinkable, for his kind.

He returned to the world. Went straight. Got a legitimate job. Met a nice widow. Got married. Lived happily ever after. 

He did, however, continue plucking the occasional wallet from a random pocket, just to stay in practice - because you never know...

Constantly Sobbing Forrester Has A Moment

Point of Rocks - E. Baldwin, Architect - photo by Joe

Constantly Sobbing Forrester was lost. Again. He had been striding confidently along the B&O tracks through Harpers Ferry, across the Potomac and southward into Brunswick. He turned left onto Maple Avenue and was about to take the next left at Potomac Street, where he knew of a church that never failed to provide a bite to eat and a glass of milk to a hungry hobo.

Suddenly, he had no idea if left was the way to go, or right. Or was it straight for another block, up the hill to "A" Street? He stood there on the corner, turning slowly and studying the street and its buildings and storefronts, and just when he thought he had his bearings, a terrible panic buzzed through him. Not only could he not discern which was the right direction to go to reach the - what was he looking for? Diner? Hobo jungle? Church? Before he could come to terms with not remembering that, a second, heavier panic wave hit him, nearly knocking him off his feet. How did I get here? I can't even retrace my steps, he thought. I can't remember ANYTHING. He sat on the curb and sobbed.

At sixty-one, Forrester was impressively old, for a hobo. It was October of 1940, and he'd been a card-carrying member of the nation's wandering poor (note: they did not carry cards) for twenty years. He was born to a Civil War vet - would never divulge whether Union or confederate - and his nurse-turned-bride, in 1879. He carried with him vivid memories of ice skating on a frozen pond, and wintertime trips to the outhouse, and the sound of chalk on slate. Clear as day, he saw his mother, young and strong, showing him how to blow out the candle on his birthday potato pancake. He could still feel the sting of his father's belt, from that time when he unthinkingly swiped a few bits from the collection bowl at church. He was so little, and he saw coins, and grabbed them. Why? Why did that warrant such an assault. Things were never quite the same, after that.

He knew every curve of the B&O tracks, from DC and Baltimore to Cleveland and beyond. He could tell you what kind of train was coming - and the name of the engineer - from the signature of its whistle as it echoed off the hills of the Potomac Highlands. But he couldn't tell you how he got to this intersection, in this town he'd visited a hundred times. Lately, he was sobbing more often than not. His body was still strong - well, strong enough - but his mind had gone. He could see his childhood and his mum and his pretty, doting sisters with sparkling clarity, but he couldn't remember the steps leading from the train tracks to this spot, a hundred yards away. 

It was beyond cruel. Forrester sobbed, and sobbed. After that, he went on sobbing. After an hour - or maybe forty-five seconds - a strong but caring hand on his shoulder.

"Friend," a voice said, neither a question nor a statement.

"Sob," Forrester sobbed.

"Friend, you seem lost," said the stranger. "Let's get you back on track, before trouble finds us both..."

"Okay..." Forrester felt himself rise to his feet.

"This way," the stranger said. "Back to the tracks. I saw you earlier. Looks like you were headed south..."

Forrester shrugged.

"Toward Baltimore? Or maybe DC?"

Forrester knew those words. Those were cities. Small, but with many trains. He nodded.

"Let's go," urged the stranger. "Are you okay? Can you walk?"

Walk, thought Forrester. I know what walk means. I understand! He nodded again.

The stranger led the old hobo back to the railroad, and they walked southward (which here, in railroad terms, is "east") for two hours, past the east end of Brunswick yard, and along the Potomac past Catoctin creek and round the big curve to Point Of Rocks. He asked the old man questions, and the old man shrugged or said "I don't remember." 

Forrester sobbed off and on, as they trudged onward. He knew that these rails were his home. He knew what a hobo was, and that he was counted among them, but for a million dollars he wouldn't have been able to tell you how he had come to join their ranks - or why.  But then they rounded the rocky outcrop that demarked the north end of Point Of Rocks, and he saw in the distance the churchlike structure that was its train station.

"Baldwin," Forrester managed to say, between sobs.

"Beg pardon?" said his new friend.

"That's Point Of Rocks station," Forrester declared, wiping away some tears, "Designed by Ephraim Francis Baldwin. You can tell by the roofing, and the way it looks like a church. Devout Christian, he was. I'm not - but I can feel his faith in his designs. He did Kensington and Bryn Mawr and all kinds of other stations. I remember this place."

They walked on in silence until they reached the bricked passenger platforms of the station, and Forrester stopped and gazed up again at the church-y train station, illuminated by an autumn sunset, with a pile of cottony clouds behind its spire. "I know this place," he said. "I don't know how I got here, but I know where I am. This is good."

The stranger looked up at the structure and tried to see what the old hobo, who was once again sobbing, although now somewhat differently, could see.

"This is good," he agreed.

My Self-Assessment Of My 2022 "Resolutions!" It's SO Late! Hang On...

 

Hap-py New Year! Photo by Joe

By now, both of you dear, dear readers probably know that I'm not a huge fan of New Year's Resolutions, but I actually made a few of them back in 2022, and I totally forgot to revisit them and see how successful I was in achieving them. This shouldn't take long, and I can't help but think that it will go a long way toward preventing me from publicizing (or even making, for that matter) resolutions, ever again. Then again, there's a reason I don't have a reputation as a lesson-learner.

So. Let's see how I did...

First one's easy, because it's measurable! Employers love it when you come up with goals that are measurable, and we should, too. I resolved that I would produce 52 blog posts in 2022. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I did FOUR!! A record low. I knew I wouldn't get 52, but daaaaaaaaamn...

I said I would finally take some action on my poor neglected 2013 novel - or at least find a beta reader or two. *sigh* Maybe next year...

I vowed to beat my all-time high score on "Yar's Revenge." FAIL. Funnily enough, I actually have a working copy of that old game - on one of those multi-game throwback Atari consoles - but it's almost as neglected as that novel.

I resolved to finish writing back stories for all 700 of John Hodgman's HOBOES, but that's just crazy. Even counting the ones with 2-line stories in my three "88 Lines About 44 Hoboes" posts, and those who only made cameo appearances in other hoboes' tales, or in Rumpshaker Phil's Orchestra, I'm just over halfway done. Unless I counted wrong, just now. My eyes were glazing over as I scrolled through my highlighted list. Maybe someday, though...

"I will reach my target weight." Oh, that's just sad. Another one for 2024, perhaps. Or for never. Maybe if I plump up enough, I'll become jolly and people will like me.

I vowed to toast marshmallows over the fire that is our nation and world at large. Obviously, that was metaphorical, but I'm working on it. I can't do much about the end of our empire, or our species, but I can choose to live on in spite of it all. To walk on, like my hoboes. 

I did not take holophonor lessons, but in my defense, there is no such thing as a holophonor.

I resolved to find out in 2022 whether or not my friend Godfrey Ozzenbarq III (not his real name) was alive. SUCCESS! I found out, and he was, and still is!

I did not, however, use my 20% off Bed Bath & Beyond coupon, and now that store is no more. Gone into the Beyond, I assume. Oh well. It was going to be one of those purchases one makes only because one has a coupon, and I'm NOT falling into that trap again. Although I *DO* have a coupon thingy for Tommy Bahama...

I also resolved to go figure, and I'm proud to report that I totally did! Score another for Joe!

I resolved (resolutely, in fact) to NOT find out what "Wordle" is. Fail. It was bound to happen. I've still never touched it, though!

Finally, I foolishly resolved for the who-knows-how-manyth time to find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt. I'm starting to think I never will. It's gone the way of my original Max Headroom cup.

Not the original, but it gets the job done - Photo by Joe

Will I make resolutions for 2024? Don't bet on it, but yeah, I probably will.

Night!

Eustace Feetbeer v. Lil' Max Meatboots

 

Untitled. Photo by Joe

Remember when no one asked me about hobo romance, but I ANSWERED ANYWAY? Wasn't that sweet? Well dig this - lately no one is constantly asking me about hobo breakups. Enough, already! I'll tell you. You see, a lot of people don't know (or understand, or accept) this, but hoboes were people, and as people, they did most of the same people-y things that people do*. That includes divorce. They divorced at a lower rate than the general population, but that is mainly due to the facts that A) they had very little access to courts or legal representation, and B) to a lot of hoboes, "divorce" was defined as "push off a trestle."

In the matter of Eustace Feetbeer v. Lil' Max Meatboots, the divorce decree was read by Judge Roughneck.

"In the matter of Eustace Feetbeer versus Lil' Max Meatboots, this court finds in favor of the plaintiff, and does hereby decree that plaintiff's marriage to the defendant is dissolved, and all of plaintiff's claims are hereby awarded..."

"'AMEN,' said the church!" Eustace exclaimed, stomping a yeasty foot and raising both hands heavenward.

The judge struck his sound block with its matching gavel. "Order, please."

"Sorry, your honor."

"Defendant is hereby ordered to immediately relinquish full and complete custody of all of the marital progeny produced by this union..."

"Fine," Lil' Max Meatboots sneered. "Take 'em, and here's to good riddance. Have you seen the price of mealworms, lately?"

We love Mommy and Daddy equally. Just feed us. Photo by Joe

Another smack of the gavel, a little harder this time. "Order, Mr. Meatboots. Both parties will observe silence while the judgement is read."

"Will we, though?" Max wondered aloud.

"You will."

Eustace raised her hand, and when the judge returned his attention to the document before him, pointedly ignoring her, she said, "Wait. I don't really want the lizards..."

"Iguanas," Max corrected.

"Whatever. Shut up. If you did other things as well as you correct me, maybe we wouldn't be here! Anyway, I don't want a bunch of iguanas. I'm a hobo; they'll be nothing but a hindrance."

Additional gavel strikes. "Order, both of you! Please let me finish. You're welcome to go argue your little divorced heads off - outside, after we adjourn. Understood?"

"Yes, your honor," they chorused.

"Mr. Meatboots, you are hereby prohibited from sharing, in public or in private, the story of Ms. Feetbeer's parents' untimely demise, no matter how funny you may think it is."

"Oh come on, Judge!" Max protested. "Sharing a romantic smooch in the city fountain, only to be eaten by carnivorous whelks?** That, my friend, is funny."

Even SNAILS?? Harsh... Photo by Joe

"Order. I'm begging you..." 

"But she's allowed to share my stories? That's not fair!"

"It's as fair as you breaking your solemn vow, and canoodling all over the Union Pacific with Ol' Barb Stab-You Quick," Eustace said flatly.

"For the hundredth time, that was not canoodling. I was at knifepoint. She was going to stab me..."

"Whatever you say, mister. I now have the court-ordered right to tell everyone about how your folks met their fates - your dad with the nickel overdose, and your mother asphyxiating, face-down in a giant mixing bowl full of proofing pizza dough. I can't wait for the next fellowship dinner..."

"Mean," Lil' Max said with a pout.

"Order! Just let me get through this, please. There's not much more."

"Yes, sir."

"Defendant is prohibited from describing Plaintiff's feet and their hoppy, intoxicating aroma..."

"Ha!" Eustace gloated. 

Judge Roughneck was undeterred. "Plaintiff is likewise forbidden to discuss Defendant's rancid gamey footwear, or its disgusting, unholy origin."

"Ha!" Max shouted.

"Boooooo," Eustace booed.

"Finally, on the desperately-contested matter of the custody of the icicles..."

"Mine!" they chorused, glaring at each other.

We don't like red thermometers. Photo by Joe

"Custody is hereby awarded to the earth," the judge deadpanned.

"What?" Max asked. "What does that mean?"

"They were icicles, sir. They are no longer icicles, having long ago melted. You're not very bright, are you?"

"YOU'RE not very bright!" Max countered.

"Okay," said the judge. He banged his gavel one last time, rose from his chair and headed for his chambers, declaring "Adjourned!" over his shoulder.

Eustace laughed. "You tell him, Max. You still don't take no guff, do you?"

"Thanks," Max said, "I do not."

Eustace thought for a moment. "Say, crazy idea," she said, "Shot in the dark. You wanna go get a drink or something - for old time's sake?"

"Love to, Eun. Love to."

*You are not going to find many bloggers willing to put that many people (FIVE!) in a single sentence.

**"Carnivorous whelks" courtesy of [Maris] - all rights reserved.

Mikey Gluesniff: I Had A Dream

 

I was in the dream.

(an excerpt of the journal of Mikey Gluesniff, a hobo who came by his name honestly...)

March 7th, 1937

I had the dream again. Shorter than usual, and deeply unsatisfying. My after-supper glue smelled delicious, but then I got lost. I tried walking. Still lost. My trousers felt heavy, like they were wet, so I knew the old penny farthing was not going to be an option for getting to my brother's wedding in time. That was a shame, because who doesn't love a giant wheel and a tiny second wheel? There were no trains. Anywhere. Trains did not exist. I asked. Everyone looked at me with pity, and shrugged and shook their heads. Except this one old man; he laughed and laughed and repeated "train" over and over, like it was the punchline of his new favorite joke. It started to rain.

When the snow stopped, I left the printing press showroom (no idea how I got there) and went across the street to Pittsburgh, for one of their famous crusts with the bread cut off. They were all out. That girl was there, like she always is - ten years old and dressed for school, lecturing passersby about their oral hygiene and bookkeeping. I could do without the bookkeeping talk, you know? Anyway, I turned around and was a child again, myself. I was sketching my latest yacht design, and when I finished and held it at arm's length, it was a naked lady, and the cops came and took it away. I got dizzy, so I closed my eyes for a minute.

My head hurt. Not like a headache. More like someone was scratching my scalp with nails. I fell down some stairs and went to a humdinger of a party in an abandoned warehouse, thrown by a man nobody knows. There was dancing. Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick was there, but for some reason everyone kept calling her Jane. Someone offered me a smoke and said they knew what trains were. Thank goodness, I said. But I blinked and the fool turned into that goat, again.

Always the goat. 

The goat says I need to lay off the glue.

Another 88 Lines About 44 More Hoboes

 

Cloudy with a chance of hoboes - Photo by Joe

I've done this before. Twice, actually. Once in 2013, and again five years later in 2018. After another five years, I guess it's time to have another go. Re-re-inspired by a song by The Nails, here comes another 88 about 44. Deep breath - we can do this, together...

• Salami Sunshine was named for the contraband he made. It was salty and fatty and tasted of the photons of the nearest star.
• Monk, The Monkey Man (which is to say: "the Man") was not permitted within 500 feet of any zoo. The less said about that, the better.
• Lois "Charles" Ladyfinger didn't decide she was born wrong. She discovered it.
• Nosepicker Rick Pick never touched his nose. He did, however, steal the nose off anything he could find that had a nose.
• Thad Malfeasance was so adept at getting away with his crimes, he went ahead and put it right there in his name. Eventually, by the grace of all that is right and just, he learned that there is a limit, and it can be reached.
• Speaking of evil... Sinister Leonard Longhair looked exactly like Jake Busey's character in the movie "Contact," right before he blew up the giant space travel machine. Fortunately for him, he died 45 years before that movie came out, so no one ever mentioned it.
• Bum-Smiter Phillip went around bopping hoboes on the head with a huge wooden spoon. His death was neither quick nor painless, as hoboes HATED being called bums.
• Emergency Exit Aisle Gustav Nook was ahead of his time. There were no emergency exit rows on trains (not that he'd know, as hoboes almost never saw the inside of a passenger coach).
• The Rambling, Rambling Boris Wander had one of those paradoxical names. He never went anywhere - which is weird, for a hobo.
• Alternate-Dimension Bela Boost was ever haunted. She spoke wistfully of the existence of a fourth dimension, but could not describe it.
• Duke Jermiah Choo-Choo sneezed constantly. He had few friends.
• Sanfor Who Lacks Fingerprints didn't really lack fingerprints. He just wore socks on his hands and never removed them.
• Thor Hammerskold, The Mexican was good with a hammer. He also liked tequila or tacos or something.
• Smoke-Collecting Reg never exhaled and was never satisfied. He died at 29 - but so did a LOT of other hoboes.
• Godigisel The Vandal always carried spray paint. His graffiti jigsaw puzzles with missing pieces were beloved from Minneapolis all the way to St. Paul.
• Sammy Austere refused to carry more than a half-piece of lint. His fellow 'boes grew tired of him always asking to borrow their supplies.
• Aspiring Jaster thought he was funny but really wasn't. This might have been funnier, had he known how to spell jester.
• Dr. Zizmor was an expert on all the maladies that plagued hoboes. He never cured anyone of anything, but he could always tell you what you had.
• Silas Swollentoe was Dr. Zizmor's number one patient. Yes, it was gangrene, and yes, it killed him.
• Eyepatch Resse Andiron had a small tear in his retina, causing a flood of floaters and some weird flashes of light. Pity he didn't live in the age of lasers - or have health insurance.
• When he was a baby, Huckle Smothered was nearly murdered by a jealous brother with a pillow. We're glad he survived, because he grew up to be a really nice man.
• Ponzi-Scheme Jeremiah Ponzi got away with it for years. By the time they caught him, he had half the lint in Pennsylvania.
• Dennis Big-Ear Fox hated being asked to listen for faraway train whistles. His gigantic ears scarcely worked at all.
• Deformed Abe was similarly frustrated, for he wasn't deformed at all. Hoboes just weren't used to seeing one of their one with ten fingers.
• Fast-Neck Nell enjoyed kissing, a lot. You got a problem with that?
• Desert Locust was from Arizona. He looked more like a cicada, if you ask me.
• Extra-Skin Dave always gave away his fried chicken skins. No one ever told him that was the best part.
• Everyone loved Manny Stillwaggon, The Man With The Handlebar Eyebrows. He had a wagon that produced moonshine, and his eyebrows were neat.
• Human Hair Blanket Morris Burnes was never cold. He was, however, profoundly creepy.
• Opie, The Boston Bum is gonna go get his oldah brothah to come out and kick yah ass, yah moron! What'd I tell yah about callin' hoboes bums!
• Thermos H. Christ had an air of holiness. His coffee was always hot, and never ran out, no matter how many hoboes' cups he filled.
• Abraham, The Secret Collector Of Decorative China had to change his name, and quick. Decorative China collecting and train-hopping mixed about as well as tequila and that one friend who had a really bad experience with tequila.
• Socks Monster was simple enough. He was humongous and scary-ugly, and stole a LOT of socks.
• Stain-Sucker Duncan had few friends. I think we all know why.
• Sharkey, The Secret Cop didn't know that's what the other hoboes called him. He wasn't very good at undercover work.
• Captain Slick-Talk wasn't much better than Sharkey. Anyone who spoke well was immediately suspected of being a cop.
• Samuel Gel Insole could have sold hundreds of his foot-saving invention. Unfortunately, hoboes tended to have no money for such extravagances.
• Stupefying P, The Riddle-Maker amazed his friends by coming up with the most ingenious stumpers. The problem was that he had NONE of their answers. 
• Todd Flaky-Palms was the friendliest of hoboes. It saddened him that no one would ever shake his hand more than once.
• Mariah Duckface, The Beaked Woman would have thrived in the age of selfies. Is duck face still a thing?
• I wish I could say that Burnt Goathead was one of those mis-named hoboes. Yes, it's as bad as it sounds.
• Saint Sorryass was constantly apologizing when he didn't need to. His friends let it go, because he was just so freakin' NICE, you know?
• Hubie Hewitt, The Broadway Legend was insufferable. Everyone knows you were never on Broadway, Hubie!
• And Myron Biscuitspear, The Dumpster Archeologist - here's a kiss. I chose you to end this list.

WE MADE IT!! Wait - are you still with me? If so, give yourself a round of applause. That was arduous, and you are a trooper, and I salute you. Go and rest, now. Tomorrow we'll do something easier.

Troglodytic Amory Funt's New Roommate

Scram, Norfolk & Western - this is a B&O story! Photo by Joe

"Did hoboes ever establish a kind of home base," I'm never asked. If only someone - preferably someone pretty and/or young - would ask me that. I would then have the life's-trajectory-altering opportunity to say, "Yep." Or maybe, "Oh, you betcha, ya."

Amory Funt's road from boy to hobo was just like most others of his time. We've heard it repeated so often, it's hardly worth mentioning. Fourteen-year old boy wakes in his family's Adamstown, Maryland farmhouse to find a note from his parents, curtly informing him that they and his sisters are fed up with his constant throat-clearing and have left him there. "Don't try to find us," the note closes, followed by the post-script: "Oh, and you'll need to find a place to live, as the bank will be foreclosing on the house any minute, now. Bye!" 

Sound familiar? That's what I thought.

So he gathered his stuff and went. But his family left a lot of their belongings behind, and even at fourteen he understood the utility of a couple of pots and pans, some extra blankets, and tools and oil lamps and candles and all sorts of whatnot. He knew that as soon as he left the house, all those useful things were fair game. It was 1930, and if opportunistic poor folks didn't find this trove, the bank would be there soon enough. So he found a cave in a hard-to-reach spot near the confluence of Catoctin Creek and the Potomac River, and he spent the next 72 straight hours hauling cartloads of household materiel to his new home. On his final visit to the house, there was a new note, informing him that his parents had returned to retrieve some of their belongings, and something about wanting to talk about it. He scribbled "Don't try to find me," across the page and was gone.

For the next two years, Amory was technically not a hobo. He wandered the Baltimore and Ohio, from Sykesville to Point of Rocks on the old main line, and from Harpers Ferry down to Barnsville, on the new metropolitan branch, but he wasn't truly homeless. He just lived in a cave. It was the best-furnished and equipped cave on the eastern seaboard, but it was still a cave. He told other hoboes he encountered that he sheltered in a cave, but was careful not to give away the location, and was doubly vigilant about ensuring he was never followed there. He also sold its contents, so for a while he wasn't even poor. He would sell an old lamp or woodworking tool, and then eat for a month or more. This system worked for him, and helped to ease his transition to real hobo-ing.

There weren't a lot of other hoboes along this stretch of the B&O, and most of the few he met were "city 'boes," from Baltimore or DC or Rockville, so Amory Funt found it difficult to relate to them. But in 1934, about two years after he'd sold the last of the things he was willing to sell (he kept a pitcher and two glasses, a pot, an iron skillet, a couple of blankets, cooking utensils, and a tree saw), he met Fossilwise Opie Fingernail. Opie had heard of Amory, and it was he who was the first to share with Amory the hobo moniker he didn't even know he had.

"Do you get sore when people call you 'Troglodytic Amory Funt,'" he asked, almost in passing, as they walked the tracks between Tuscarora and Point of Rocks, not two hours after they'd met, further down the line in Dickerson.

"WHAT??? Troglodytic - as in like a neandertal or something?" Amory demanded.

"Not exactly. It's just that you always tell folks you have a cave that you kinda live in, is all. So they figure it's like you're a cave man, I suppose. You know - in the literal sense."

"Ah. I see. That's fair. I don't love it, though. So, how'd you get tagged with Fossilwise Opie Fingernail, and what's your story, friend?"

"Name really is Opie. Last name was Huffnail, but I have fingernails that could dig through the walls of Alcatraz..."

"What's Alcatraz," Amory interrupted.

"It's a prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Thick stone walls. No one's ever escaped. Anyhow, I grew up on a farm in Lusby, near Calvert Cliffs, down on the Chesapeake. Starting in second grade, I loved fossils, and I read every book I could find about them. Every chance I got, I was down on the beach near the cliffs, looking for shark's teeth and anything I thought might be a fossil. I became an expert on the subject. I still have about two pounds' worth in my bindle sack. Hence the name Fossilwise."

"Why ain't you a college professor or something? What happened," Troglodytic Amory asked.

"Same story as any hobo," Opie sighed, "My mother took off - literally - with some hot shot zeppelin pilot from Patuxent Station, my father had a shoe-tying accident and lost a fingernail, which got infected and before long he was dead - from running over himself with his own tractor..."

"Same ol' story," Amory nodded thoughtfully. "Boy, if I had a nickel..."

"Yeah, so that was five years ago, and I've been walking the rails and hopping trains ever since."

Troglodytic Amory and Fossilwise Opie became friends, sharing the common ground of their farm-based childhoods and identical hobo origin stories. They walked the B&O as far  east as Baltimore and westward to Cumberland, and did all those hobo-y things that hoboes did. Eventually, Opie talked Amory into letting him share his cave - infrequently at first, but with increasing regularity over time. They became an odd, mostly homeless pair of roommates. 

Until.

One day, Amory had left Opie asleep in the cave and walked to Brunswick to try to score a free meal at one of its churches. He was unsuccessful, and returned at dusk, finding an exhausted and filthy Fossilwise Opie Fingernail sitting on a tree stump outside the cave, proudly holding up what appeared to be a tiny stone skeleton for Amory's inspection and approval. 

"Keen, pal," Amory affirmed. "Where'd you... find... that..." He looked inside the cave that had been his home for years. The once-smooth floors were rutted and full of holes. The walls were riddled with divots. There were little piles of loose soil and rocks littering the entire space. "What did you do?"

"Sorry, buddy. I've been looking for this trilobite for years. Just needed you to leave me here alone long enough to finally dig. I hope you understand. It's the best-preserved specimen anyone's found yet. I didn't mean to destroy your cave, but the piece wasn't exactly where the old Indian said it would be, and one thing led to another..."

"Take your rock and go," Amory spat. "Are you even a hobo?"

"I am not," Dr. Opie Huffnail said. "Again, sorry about your, um, cave."

Amory though for a moment. “Oh, that’s alright, professor. You can stay and help me get my floor smoothed out. Fair enough?”

“Sure.”

“And when we’re done, I’ll kill you with a rock.”