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."

Foreign Tomas, the Strangetalker Said...

[The following was translated and assembled from hieroglyphic scribble found along the Pennsylvania, New York Central, and Western Maryland railroads in 1942 - by rail and hobo historian Tommy Dummychuck (later "All-But-Dissertation Tommy Dummychuck").  Enjoy.]

"I haven't the time to waste on the pursuits of the common hobo, nor have I the slightest inclination to find it.  I should sooner die of starvation, my body digesting itself out of sheer mechanical desperation, than eat a bean of any hue other than green.  I find thievery and beggars' banquets equally abhorrant, and I pity the grown man who barters with lint and bits of burlap.  What, you may ask, does strike my fancy?  Solitary, somnolent circumambulation of the earth strikes my fancy.  And pies.  I so adore pies."

"It would behoove you to stand clear of that switch, lest you find yourself here and there, a victim of the Midnight Special, so named because of the unique quiet it maintains as it descends into Altoona from on high like a ghost train.  They say it hisses down the tracks, hovering in fact just above the steel.  They also say-- well now, where did he go?"

"My parents were removed from my life by force when I was but small boy, and it is my profoundest duty to honor their memory with every waking breath I draw until the day I am called Home by my Maker.  My father worked on the Johnstown Inclined Plane Railway - built by his own father, among others - but that dangerous occupation was not the cause of his demise.  My mother was the only female fireman on the floor at the steel mill, and although it was dirty and dangerous work, it did not kill her.  No, the two of them were accidentally shot dead while walking me to church on the third day of doe season.  The single shot that did them in had been fired from at least a half-mile away, and the shooter was never found.  I've been asked just how it is that my miserable vagabond life in any way honors their memory, and to anyone with the gall to loft such a query in my direction, I say only this - how dare you?"

"In the air between your words, I taste your hate, and to me it smacks of spun sugar at the fun fair - blue, I think."

"On a clear night, when all the stars in the heavens gleam and glimmer freely, the enormity of the time between here and there weighs on me as would a boot on a cricket, pressing me into oblivion until even Betty Boop makes sense."

"The Charleston is insipid."

"I have known love that would make you foul your trousers, speak in tongues, and vote for Alf Landon.  Her name was... um... Well, what's in a name, anyway?  She was most comely."

"Do not trifle with the crows when the frost lingers beyond sunrise, for they will be cross, and hungry."

"I eat time and convert it into this squiggly line I call life.  It is the blessing and the curse.  Seconds become inklings.  Minutes beget thoughts.  Hours are the ample bosom of ideas.  From days, we become.  A week is a book - a month, a library.  Years become tears and joys and everything in between.  I am never filled.  The capacity for turning time into being is as limitless as the sky.  I do not know why I am here, but I step ever closer to that understanding with every instant of time I consume."

"So long..."

 The preceding drivel is mostly harmless, and was prompted by a STUDIO 30 PLUS writing prompt, TIME.