When Craine T. Eyebrow-Smeller Met Chelsea Bacon

There's magic 'neath that old roof. Photo by Joe, 87 years ago

As a fake expert on fake hoboes, I'm often asked by no one about the famous series of hobo speed-dating events that took place from 1934 to 1938 in the B&O's Baldwin roundhouse in the Mt. Clare section of Baltimore. If you're one of those who have previously asked me about this, you needn't read on, for no new information follows. If, however, you fall into the category of literally everyone, here's a peek at a typical encounter at one of these meet-ups.

The events were held on Sunday evenings, the only time the roundhouse and surrounding Mt. Clare shops weren't crawling with workmen. There were two night watchmen, but as luck would have it, they had a soft spot for lonely hoboes - and a rather startling addiction to hobo wine. With the guards outside drinking their bribes, the hosts (Sausage Patty and Gummy Miles, a married hobo couple) would arrange pairs folding chairs and crates on the turntable in the center of the cavernous roundhouse. Attendance varied, because hoboes, but on most nights there would be about ten to twenty single 'boes, ready to mingle. They paired up for five minutes at a time and hurriedly familiarized themselves with each other. Hookups often followed, as well as fisticuffs, and - rarely - a real connection.

Sausage Patty yelled, "Gentlemen, switch," and all the men switched stations. 

Chelsea Bacon looked up at the exceptionally tall, wiry man as he approached and lowered himself onto the crate opposite her chair. When he sat, his long legs creaked and bent, and he looked like a grasshopper. But his freckled face was kind, and his tired eyes smiled - and he clutched his ratty hat to his chest, minding what manners he could remember from his time before. She offered her hand and he took it, gently but confidently. "Chelsea Bacon," she said, "Charmed, I'm sure."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Craine T. Eyebrow-Smell-- er, sorry. I'm Craine."

"Eyebrow what?" she asked, head tilted quizzically.

He looked away for a moment. "Eyebrow-Smeller. It's not what it sounds like."

"Well that's lucky, because it sounds like maybe you have a penchant for sniffing people's eyebrows."

"I'm just tall, is all. When I became a hobo, they gave me a lot of guff about how my nose was right at the height of everyone's eyebrows, and, well... you know how stupid men are. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it stuck. As God is my witness, I've never smelled an eyebrow."

"What's your given name, then?"

"Craine Thomas Browsmellier."

"Huh."

"Enough about me. We have so little time. Let's talk about you. Is your name as silly as mine?"

She stared at him for a moment, fighting the urge to pout. "Chelsea Beacon is my real name."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I like bacon," he offered nervously, "and Chelsea is pretty. So, where are you from? How did you come to be a hobo? Sorry - I'm not very good at this." She smiled and he fell in love a little.

"You're doing fine. I grew up in Cincinnati. My parents died not long after the crash, when I was seventeen, and I hit the road with a couple of girlfriends from school who were in similar straits. They've both died since then, as well."

"Good Grief!" he gasped. "That is a lot of loss for one person to endure. I lost my parents, too. Mine were taken."

"Taken?"

"By President Hoover's gypsies, yes. What happened to yours?"

"My pa was a shoe salesman. One night, while stocking his backroom shelves with the latest shipment, he stepped on a wooden shoehorn and it snapped, sending splinters of wood flying. One zonked him right in the eye, and he died three weeks later, of getting hit by a streetcar."

Craine frowned thoughtfully while his brain struggled. "Gee whiz..."

"And my ma, she was a school nurse. She kept working after Pa died, but little did my brothers and I know, she was taking all sorts of drugs from the school, and one night, she drank a whole bottle of ipecac syrup, and she vomited to death."

"I'm so sorry," he said sincerely. He thought for a moment and added, "This is a strange date."

"Indeed. So, Craine T. Eyebrow-Smeller, the man who doesn't smell eyebrows but is merely very tall - what were you before? And are you ever going back, or are you a lifer?"

"I was a freelance lightbulb changer in Richmond, but after the crash, jobs went from scarce to nonexistent, so I hit the rails and I've been doing the best I can, ever since. I take whatever day jobs I can find, and I try to keep to the code and avoid stealing any more than absolutely necessary. Mostly, I just keep walking. I have this fear that if I stop walking, I'll stop hoping, and if I stop hoping, well that's that, isn't it?"

"What are you hoping for?"

"Something better. I don't know if that means a way back to the world, or finding peace with this life, or just finding someone to walk with. You know - something good."

Her eyes widened and she drew a profoundly long breath. "That's exactly why I keep walking," she whispered.

"Which one - the something better, or--"

"All of it," she said. "Just - all of it. I keep walking. It's what I do. I've seen so much loss, as you say, so much despair and dirt and sickness and godlessness and hopelessness. I cling to my hope like it's my own newborn baby and jackals are trying to grab her. It's all I have left. I guess that sounds silly."

"That sounds anything but silly, Chelsea. I see Sausage Patty is checking her watch. Our time is up. If I may be so bold - would you like to walk a while with me? I've only my hope left, as well, but I'd be happy to share it with you."

She smiled again. He fell in love a little bit more. She stood and took his hand, and led him toward the door. They walked a while together and pooled their collective hope. 

Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins Tries To Explain

 

Choose wisely. East Brunswick, MD - 1992. Photo by Joe

As I've reported numerous times in these stories of John Hodgman's 700 hoboes, there were many who deliberately chose the life of the wandering poor. These men and women embraced the freedom of the road and were beholden to no one and nothing but their own hunger. Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins was not one of those hoboes. He lived among the ranks of hoboes who had lost everything and now spent their days searching for work, desperately seeking a way back to normal, back to the world as they had known it. 

He was born in 1913 to a working-class couple in Philadelphia. His father was a longshoreman at the seaport, and his mother was a homemaker who often washed and mended neighbors' clothes, when money was tight (money was always tight). The only store-bought toy they were ever able to afford was a big canister of Tinkertoy - essentially just a bunch of wooden dowels and spools with holes drilled in them. Little Bobby Nubbins adored Tinkertoy, and created impressive engineering works with them. Miniature carnival rides, cranes, bridges - even a replica steam locomotive - were all part of his repertoire, much to the chagrin of his mother, who had to navigate the floors of their small apartment with great care. When he was six, and his little brother Jimmy was four, their mother died suddenly, having not navigated the floors of the small apartment with great enough care, tripping and falling atop a particularly spectacular Tinkertoy Ferris wheel. Those little wooden dowels had punctured both of her lungs - and her aorta in two places.

Bobby became Jimmy's primary caretaker, while their deeply depressed father trudged back and forth to daily double-shifts at the docks. When he turned fourteen, he began working at the port, himself. A couple of years later, in June 1929, his father died of salmonella poisoning after a coworker had handed him a thermos of seafood bisque and said, "Does this taste right to you?" By the end of the year, Bobby Nubbins was laid off, and soon after found himself and his kid brother evicted. Jimmy was lucky; he had a girlfriend, and her parents were able to take him in - as soon as he married their daughter, which he immediately did at the courthouse, using his last couple of bucks for the license. They had no room for Bobby, so he hit the road in search of work, and was a full-fledged hobo within six months. 

He obtained an odd moniker, as hoboes do, and came to be known as Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins. The what of how that came to be was simple; the why of it, less so. After years of caring for his brother, Bob had developed some of the best characteristics of good providers, the most important being generosity, and the ability to put other's needs before his own. As a result, he was always quick to offer his fellow hoboes - especially those worse off than he - whatever he had, with humility, grace, and humor. Whenever someone approached his campfire, he would grab an old bowl from his pack and say "Beef? Or chicken?" His visitor would stare at him, puzzled. "Would you like beef," he'd ask, "or chicken?" At this point, his visitor would either state a preference (always beef), or simply continue to stare. "Hahahaha," he would laugh, "I haven't any beef or chicken - can't you see I'm a hobo! But I do have some pigeon meat, and lint, and I think there's still some squirrel - and I've got a couple pieces of venison jerky. What's mine is yours..."

This didn't always end well, for him. The hobo's life was a hard one, and many of them had long since had their humor worn away. But Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins' little joke landed at least as often as it missed, and eventually he developed a reputation. Hoboes who knew him knew that he had neither beef nor chicken, but they also knew that he was going to share with them whatever he had. His kindness was rewarded now and then, with referrals for day-labor jobs and the occasional interview for real employment. Great Depressions are Great Depressions, though, and he was of course a dirty vagrant, to any prospective employer. He kept at it, and saved his pennies in the hope that one day he could buy a suit of clothes, and rent a room and get cleaned up for an interview. And he kept walking.

One cold December night in 1934, as the Depression dragged on and there had been no work for weeks, and things seemed especially bleak, Newton Fig approached Bob Nubbins' campfire. Bob was cooking a pot of real kidney beans, which he had procured in the crossroads town of Chillicothe Ohio by way of begging - something he truly hated to have to do - and he was looking forward to his first full stomach in ages.

He looked up from his pot and smiled, dirtily but warmly, at Newton Fig (who was called that because he came from Newton, Massachusetts and his surname was Fig - hey, not all hoboes got super-clever monikers!). "Hey there, brother! You look hungry. Beef or chicken?" 

"Hardy-har-har," Newton deadpanned. "I know damn well you ain't got no beef or chicken, but friend, I'd love to have a sit by your fire, and maybe just one bite. I had a decent meal just yesterday at a church near Richmond Dale, and by the looks of you, that pot of whatever you got there is the first food you've had all week."

"Well, you're right about that, Newton," Bob sighed, "but what's mine is yours."

"You're the best hobo I know, Beef-or-Chicken Bob Nubbins. A better friend than any of us deserves, but you mind if I ask you a serious question?"

Bob laughed. "Is it about my hobo name?"

"Sort of."

"Fine. Ask away. I'll do my best to answer."

"We all know why you're called Beef-or-Chicken - that's obvious. But, why do you do it?"

"Mostly 'cause it's funny..."

"Yeah, but I've heard stories of you gettin' pounded pretty bad for your little joke - and robbed and whatnot," Newton said.

"Oh, that was only a few times," Bob assured him. "Besides, there's a lesson in my dumb joke."

"A lesson."

"Yup."

"There's a lesson in your offering strangers two options for dinner - neither of which you have?"

"Yup. Everyone knows there's no beef, and what hobo has any chicken..."

"Well..." Newton interrupted.

"Okay, yes - that one time, Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick had a whole chicken for Christmas dinner - a stolen chicken, I might add. Anyhow, everyone knows I got no beef or chicken, and I know they know it, but there's that little bit of hope in the offering, isn't there? That tiny optimistic voice inside that says, 'hey - maybe this time there really is beef or chicken.'"

Newton looked skeptical. "Okay - I suppose..."

"And here's the important part," Bob continued. "There may not be chicken or steak, but there's always something. As bad as things get - and we know bad, don't we - there is always something to be had. Like, maybe there's more than just two choices, in life. Maybe there will never be any beef or chicken, for us. But there will always be something. And if there isn't something today, there can be, tomorrow."

"You're an odd bird, Nubbins," Newton laughed, "but God bless you and your odd bird heart."

"Well, thank you, brother." He reached into his pack and pulled out an old bowl and a wooden spoon, and leaned over the pot steaming away above the fire. Now - will that be beef, or chicken?"

 

 

Jack Skunk Fils And The Ghost Of Hope

Yeah, I see you...

"It's too cloudy. I don't think we'd be able to see the dawn, even if there were three suns. I'm going to sleep," Tommy Lice-Comb muttered. "And my scalp itches."

"I think I can see a couple of stars peeking through, over that way," Jack Skunk Fils said, gesturing by way of dipping his right shoulder toward the west, "and of course your scalp itches. You're pretty much just lice, from the neck up."

"You makin' fun of my condition?"

Jack held up a defensive hand. "Now, don't get sore, fella. You know what I mean."

"And you know that lice killed my mother."

"Yes, I know. Everyone's mother was killed by something awful and strange. I'm sorry to know about your mum's passing - and the lice that done it."

"I appreciate that," Tommy said. "Now, tell me again why we had to hoof it all the way to Maine in the middle of winter - no food or jobs or friendly folks in sight for miles?"

Jack Skunk Fils, son of the late, smelly, optimistic hobo Jack Skunk, re-explained his mission. They had made their way as far east as the railroads of America would allow, so that they could resurrect Jack's father's tradition of being the first hoboes to see the dawn of the new year on the morning of January first. Hearing himself recite it aloud, Jack suddenly felt that he'd been rather officious in his insistence that poor Tommy Lice-Comb accompany him, but what was done was done. "Pop died ten years ago tonight," he added. "It's only fitting."

Tommy sighed and poked at their struggling campfire, which had begun to hiss irritably as icy raindrops fell into it. "Your old man sure loved that New Year, new hope jazz. He ever lose that?"

"Nope. The sicker he got, the more broken the world became, the uglier people grew, the more hope he had. It was downright bizarre, to me. Still is, really."

"You don't feel that same hope in the first light, then?" Tommy said.

"Not for years now. I'm just doing it to honor Pop's memory, at this point."

"That's sad, man. Just give it up. Maybe visit his grave once a year, and say a little prayer for him on New Year's - which you can do from, you know, someplace warmer - where the smart hoboes are. Somewhere like Jacksonville, maybe?"

Jack stood up and stomped an angry foot in a ratty shoe. "I am NOT going to spend another night in Florida! Not after what happened in Baldwin!"

"Oh, shut up about Baldwin," Tommy groaned. You know as well as I do that that wasn't a turkey. It was a groundhog, and probably rabid. Those kids did us a favor, stealing it."

"I don't care. It was rude. I'm gonna stop talking for a bit, and just get drunk."

"Good idea," Tommy said. "Me too."

The first of January slogged its way from midnight to one, then to two, skipped three, four and five, and lurched unsoberly toward six-thirty. The rain got bored and wandered northeast from Portland, and ever so grudgingly, the clouds thinned and eventually parted - sliced open by a blade of golden dawn.

Jack Skunk Fils stood and stared, as his traveling companion and only friend, wrapped in an old burlap sack, snored his way toward his traditional New Year's hangover. Jack had expected to feel a renewal of grief, a fresh sense of the loss of his father, ten New Year's sunrises ago. On cue, it washed over him in a cold wave. "I miss you, Pop," he whispered.

Gazing at the first light of 1952, what he hadn't expected was the hope. It felt like a physical presence, as if his father were suddenly standing there next to him, and it made no sense whatsoever. The world was still an alien place to which an old (32 whole years old) hobo could not return. For over a year, trains full of tanks and trucks had been rumbling west to feed the war in Korea. The hobo code was beginning to lose its meaning, and the dwindling population of hoboes was increasingly drunk, lazy, and hostile. Jack had pains a healthy man shouldn't have. Nothing was looking remotely hopeful.

But there it was again, standing with him and imploring him not to give up. Jack marveled at its persistence, its ridiculous resilience. It just didn't know when to quit.

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and sighed, "Anything is possible, Pop. Anything."


Okay, so this was supposed to be a New Year's post, but the world has really gotten in the way, lately. Then I saw the "Two for Tuesday" prompt (Officious) last week at Our Write Side, and I just had to push on through. Thanks for bearing with me whilst I work thought this bleakness...