She should have seen it coming.
Red Barrett had for eight long years endured a loveless shotgun marriage to the daughter of a Pennsylvania steel baron. She was a domineering daddy's girl, and from day one, she made no attempt to hide her disdain for Red. On good days, she ignored him, but often she was openly hostile. After a few years, he had stopped fighting, quit defending himself against her insults, and no longer believed that happiness was a possibility for him.
He trudged along the streets of Allentown, surviving as best he could the soul-crushing employment his father-in-law had arranged for him. By day, he peddled toiletries and tools from a heavy, wobbly-wheeled cart. By night, he suffered the slings and arrows of his wretched wife.
Until.
Until the onset of the Great Depression. It didn't ruin him; he had nothing of his own. What it did was put stories about hoboes in the newspaper. Before he took his melancholy out the back door, hit the road as Packrat Red and made a life of challenging but happy wandering, he left his wife a note.
"Lynnette - I don't love you. You don't love me. If I die tomorrow, walking free the rails to Reading, it will be a far better fate than another hour of life in this house. You may keep the filthy cart."
It's good to be back! This little warmup was written in response to the STUDIO 30 PLUS prompt "He took his melancholy out the back door," from Katy Brandes' ON THE CUSP OF SPRING.
For three years and eight months in the mid-1930s, Toddles Strunk roamed the American Southwest from one day-labor job to the next. He stole rides on Union Pacific trains, walked hundreds of miles a month, slept in flop houses, or under the stars, subsisted on little more than the kindness of strangers, and made strategic friends when he could.
He was born Nathan Hoth, to immigrant parents from Greenland, in 1905. His father was a watchmaker and his mother was a primary school teacher. They died in 1934, minutes apart and on opposite sides of town. Mr. Hoth was working on a commissioned pocket watch for the mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, when he lost control of a hairspring, sending a compensating balance wheel rocketing into his forehead with the force of a gunshot. He died on the way to the hospital. Mrs. Hoth asphyxiated on chalkboard eraser dust, just as the principal was receiving the news of Mr. Hoth's demise.
Nathan, who had never held onto a job for more than a few months, couldn't bear to stay in Allentown, and with stick-and-bindle in hand, he hit the road west. He was slow to learn the hobo way, but after about a year of arrests, forcible removals from train yards, and beat-downs at the hands of cop and criminal alike, he began to get the hang of it. He remembered the only good advice his parents ever uttered - "kill 'em with kindness" - and made it his mantra.
After another year on the road, he was widely known as Toodles Strunk, one of the nicest hoboes anywhere. He made sure he worked hard when he was lucky enough to land day jobs. He constantly smiled, no matter what was happening inside him or out. He remained chipper through the most desperate poverty, through illness, robbery, assault, and battery. He gave more than he took. He said please and thank you and when in town, he always tipped his ratty cap to women he passed on the street.
And to his friends and hobo brethren, he always said "so long," instead of "goodbye." He said that "goodbye" was too permanent, and that because he never met anyone he didn't want to see again, "so long" felt better, because to him it meant "until we meet again." He also sometimes said "Toodles!" in a sing-song falsetto, for the same reason.
 |
| So long! |
This hobo's story has no ending.
Yet.
I guess what I'm trying to say, gentle reader(s), is that after three years and eight months of Mostly Harmless Drivel, I'm going to be taking a bit of a hiatus from my beloved blog. As some of you know, I cranked out 62,000 words of mostly harmless novel during July's Camp NaNoWriMo. Novels are needy things, and this one is not finished. Apparently, I can't adequately divide my attention between this place and that.
So, for as long as it takes, which hopefully won't be more than a couple of months, off I go. It's not goodbye, but simply so long for now.
Toodles!
This post partially prompted by my friends, whom I will dearly miss, at STUDIO THIRTY PLUS. So long for now, bloggy web-friends!
Another on a long list of misunderstood hoboes was a hard-hearted vagabond named Teary-Eyed Fingal. He claimed that nothing made him cry. As a teenager, he had worked alongside his father at a Bethlehem Steel mill in Allentown, Pennsylvania. His father suffered a massive heart attack on the job, and died in his arms. He was fired for staying with his lifeless old man and refusing to immediately return to his post. He had not cried, that day.
He had not cried when his daughter was born, nor when his wife took the child and disappeared, leaving a note that read simply, "Goodbye - don't look for us." He hit the road and lived day-to-day with no regrets.
Hobo names were like herpes, so Teary-Eyed Fingal was stuck with his, despite his stony demeanor. The reason was simple. There wa
sn't much that happened on any given day that didn't make his eyes water.
He could walk around during a spring rainstorm, and the pollen would find his eyes. He could stomp through a dead, snow-covered field and the dry air would sting his eyes, and the tears would fall. He had even seen the mill doctor, years ago, who had come up empty.
Here are some other things that would make Teary-Eyed Fingal go all teary-eyed:
Pickles.
Baseball scores.
Getting boils lanced.
Sending telegrams to his mother in the nursing home.
Staring at the sun.
Coal dust.
The headlamps of the Norfolk & Western J-Class locomotives.
Sleeping too long.
Not sleeping long enough.
Wool coats.
Cats.
Beans.
Reading hobo hieroglyphs on telegraph poles.
Hearing the news that President Harding had died.
Walking.
Removing his shoes.
Bending over.
Stretching.
Mornings.
The sight of a flock of starlings in flight.
Mud.
Hats.
Radishes.
Sandwiches.
The end of the Great War.
Newsprint.
Meat.
Sunsets.
Gloves, especially gloves with the fingers cut out.
Gravel.
No wonder his eyes were teary.
