Pantless, Sockless, Shoeless Buster Bareass - On Loss

In my quest to tell the stories of John Hodgman's 700 HOBOES, I have often struggled to find any useful information at all, beyond a name.  Many of these people are nothing more than ghosts.  Interviews of actual hoboes have been helpful, but short of that rare face-to-face meeting, I have found that the best window into the forgotten lives of America's legions of train-riding wanderers is found in the letters a few of them left behind.  

The following letter was found in 1949 in the woods near the Louisville and Nashville tracks, twenty-two miles southwest of Mobile, Alabama.  It was in a glass bottle, clutched in the skeletal remains of a long-dead man - presumably its author - next to a shallow grave marked only with a number of small rocks arranged on the ground in the shape of a cross.  Local authorities had the remains exhumed, and they were able to determine that it was a woman, estimated to have died at least fifteen years prior, probably in her mid-twenties and eight-to-ten weeks pregnant when she perished.  Nearly all of her bones had been broken.

My Dearest Eleanor,

I will try to be brief. I know you hate when I ramble.  I hope I needn't remind you that I view our time together as nothing short of a miracle, but in case you forgot, there it is.  I never believed in soul mates before you stumbled so drunk and pretty into my campfire.  Enough said, I'm sure.

It has been five years, but the only difference between how I feel now and how I felt when it happened is that now, I'm older and more tired.  They said time would heal me.  It hasn't.  They said I could take comfort in knowing that you and the baby are at peace.  I cannot.  And Lord knows I have tried.  They even said I would love again, the fools.  I have not.  I will not.  I cannot.  I love you, and that is all.

I tried to convince myself that it wasn't my fault, that if you couldn't hear the train over the storm, there was no way you could have heard my voice.  I don't know.  I said nothing.  I just stood there, paralyzed and stupid in my disbelief of my own eyes, and it was over.  You were gone.  Our life, ended in a horrible blink.  No, I will not forgive myself this loss.  We knew plenty of losses before this one - my pants and shoes, my watch, your scarves and the photograph of the two of us with the sideshow madam in Cincinnati.  Even the fingers I lost to frostbite were nothing.  I am empty, I am dead, I am lost.

I still wake at night and speak to you, as if you are beside me.  I dream of our baby, always a girl, and she looks just like you.  Every day, I tell you I'm sorry, over and over.  I have returned here twice a year - on your birthday, and on our anniversary, to bring you flowers that I paid for myself. 

And now I think I've cried enough, trying to reach you, and to be where you are.  There was frost all the way down near Pascagoula last night, and it feels just as cold, tonight.  I'll sit with you, sweet Eleanor, and drink all this hobo wine, and I'll pass out, and freeze right to death, right to you.  And we will be happy - you, me and the baby.  I hope you haven't met someone new, where you are.  That would be awkward.  Anyway, if that's the case, I'll have only myself to blame, for not doing this sooner.

I'm sure when they find me, they'll say, "Oh, this poor bum - he had nothing of his own," but I know better.  I'm not a bum.  I am a hobo, and I had everything.  I had you.

With all of me,
Buster

P.S. I didn't freeze to death, and I have a splitting headache.  I'll try again tonight.

This post was written in response to another Studio Thirty Plus writing prompt.  This time, the phrase (He had nothing of his own) comes from one of my own posts, last week's little ditty about Packrat Red And His Cart o' Sad Crap.

Cecelia Graveside and The Dead Hope

"It all turned on a dime," she said, shaking her head as if still trying to come to grips with it, fourteen years later.  "One minute, we were living high on the hog.  I had more dresses than I could count at age five, and it seemed my hair was never without a ribbon.  Mother and Father belonged to the country club, and they had martinis every night with Mr. and Mrs. Loy from across the street.  The next minute, Father was gone, having jumped to his death from the roof of the Stock Exchange, and Mother had transformed into a monster.  I was too young to understand much of it, of course, but I was told that something called a depression was on, and that it was the cause of Father's suicide, and that it was the reason for our moving from Manhattan to a tiny, smelly apartment in Queens."

"That's all well and good, ma'am, but like I said, you're gonna have to clear out of here," the policeman repeated, his patience straining.  "There's still a war on, and we've got a troop train due to stop here in the next half-hour, and there's a trainload of brand-new tanks coming out of the yard ahead of that."

"I understand," Cecelia Graveside said, careful not to meet the officer's eyes.

"So listen," he continued, "I got a heart, lady.  Really, I do.  You can come back here tonight, if this campsite is so important to you--"

"It is important," she insisted.

"But the Army don't want a bunch of hoboes hangin' around the tracks, you know?  And when the MPs show up, trust me, they ain't gonna be as nice about this as I am.  So I'm asking you one last time..."

"I'm going, I'm going," she said, slinging her stick and bindle over a shoulder, and patting the makeshift grave marker of her late hobo husband.  "I'll be back dear," she whispered to it.  She stepped past the officer and toward the town square, across the tracks.  Between her and the square, a couple of dozen newly-enlisted men gathered, worried wives and flag-waving children in tow.  Cecelia plotted a route that she hoped would help her avoid the whole scene.  She sighed heavily.

"Ma'am?" the cop called after her.  She stopped, but did not turn back.  "I know it's none of my business and all, but, well..."

"Yes?"

"I was just wondering if you've tried signing up for one of those jobs at the factory - you know, like Rosie the Riveter."

"I have not," she said flatly.  "That is to say, not at that particular factory."

"Well, I heard they're still at least two dozen hands short - even on the first shift.  I heard they're taking everybody.  They got free training.  They might even have some spots left in the workers' dormitory.  I know it's not my place - I'm just tryin' to help..."

Cecelia turned to face the earnest young peace officer, and a tear made a surprise exit from her eye and onto her cheek, where it was made to feel so profoundly unwelcome that it leapt off, fell to the ground and exploded.  "Mister, I know better than to get in line outside that factory.  Don't get me wrong - it's a swell idea, and I'm not sore at you for the suggestion.  But you see, since I lost my dear husband, I've tried twenty other factories, just like that one - from New York City to Chicago and back again.  Every time, I've gone in with a smile on my face, hope in my heart, and a firm handshake.  I still have my handshake, but that's about it.  I can't take another rejection.  Mother used to say that hope springs eternal, but I can tell you, it doesn't."

"I understand," the policeman said.  "I don't blame you."  A loud, throaty steam whistle echoed through the town.  "That'll be the tank train.  Time to move along.  Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I will."  Cecelia Graveside made her way around the gathering military conscripts and their loved ones, up Main Street to the town square.  

She stopped.  Hope hung in tatters above her.  

Her dreams, she had often said, were the stray dogs that ran around the rail yard, and sometimes followed her.  She looked to her right, at the road that led to the next town.  She turned to her left, where the smokestacks of the factory peeked above the low skyline.  She sighed, looked up at the sun, shook her head slowly, and started walking.

...eternal.  Photo by [Maris].

This one springs forth from yet another STUDIO 30 PLUS writing prompt.  This time, the goal was to use "hung in tatters above her," a phrase lifted from fellow blogger Tara at THIN SPIRAL NOTEBOOK.