Unger And His Duststorm Bride

Trouble Brewing

Unger pulled his pocket watch from its home in his coat, glanced at its face, and scowled. "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain, as they say..."

Zachary Goatflirter and Whiskeyblood Willie Sot scoffed in unison. 

Unger looked again at his watch. It read six-forty-two and a half, the same time it had announced for the past four years, since it had been run over by the famed Wabash Cannonball and rendered useless as anything more than a pocket weight. Truthfully, "run over" is misleading. The watch, which had been placed on the tracks by an angry woman who said it was either gonna be Unger's prized possession - or a quick stabbing, had actually shot out from under the leading wheel of the Cannonball and smashed into a telegraph pole. But it looked like the train had run over it, so let's just say it was run over.

"She'll be here," he sighed.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Zachary sneered.

"Her," Unger corrected.

"Her?" 

"Her."

Willie Sot cleared his throat. "Where did you say you met this supposed sweetheart, again?"

"Don't say 'supposed,' you old drunk. It's judgemental," Unger complained.

"How do you figure?"

"It means you think I've invented my dear sweet swain, and that you judge me to be batty."

"Huh. Alright, drop the 'supposed,' then," Willie said. "Where did you and your lovely bride meet? Zach's heard the story, but I haven't."

Unger smiled up at the deepening purple of the Arizona dusk. "It was two years ago - right after Roosevelt's third inauguration. I was walking the Southern Pacific rails southwest of Phoenix, near what's left of  Papago. I'm sure you've heard of Papago. It was the largest city west of Chicago, before the haboob hit..."

Zachary Goatflirter held up a stop-hand. "The what?"

"Haboob," Unger repeated. "You know - dust storm..."

"Gee whiz. Just say 'dust storm,' man," Willie groaned.

"Anyway," Unger continued, "Folks say that dust storms turn day into night, but I'm here to tell you, that ain't so - not at first, anyway. I was mostly looking down as I walked, that day, and the first thing I noticed was the glow. The rails started to glow. I stopped and looked around. Everything was glowing. Damnedest thing I ever saw. The sky - the whole world - was a bright, golden-brown. It was like the sun had been plucked from the sky and replaced by a million electric lights behind a universe-size screen of dirty yellow glass..."

"You talk funny," Old Willie Sot interrupted.

Unger glared at the drunkard for a moment, then continued. "As I was saying, it got super bright for a half-hour, before the glow became something else. It darkened, and it started to have features, like a wall of thick yellow-brown smoke, billowing toward me, across the scrubby hills. I stopped and stared at it and said a prayer, one hundred percent certain that I was about to die..."

"You do talk funny," Zach said, nodding at Willie. "Plus, Papago? Bigger than Los Angeles? San Fran? No way."

"Until the dust storm, I said! Ask anyone! Now let me tell it."

"Oh, for the love of Pete - please continue."

"So I'm standing there like an idiot, gawking at this big ol' fist of a sky, and I look down the tracks to the point where they disappeared into the brown cloud blowing toward me at the speed of hellfire, and she... she just sorta jumped out of the dust and ran toward me..."

"Faster than a dust storm," Zachary said flatly.

"Yes, faster than a dust storm. Shut up! I could tell she was a hobo. She had dungarees and a jacket more torn-up than mine, and a ratty little pack of whatever slung over her shoulder. Her hair was flying like copper-colored flames around her, and she clutched an enormous blanket to her bosom. She reached me a half-second before the dust, unfurled that big ol' blanket, threw it over my head and hers, and tackled me like a Notre Dame linebacker."

"I like this broad," Willie laughed. "Tough one."

"She ain't a broad. She's a woman," Unger growled, looking again at his pocket weigher-downer. "Anyway, we rolled down off the track-bed and into a ditch, and ended up face to face, wrapped up in that blanket. Before it went dark - and boy did it go dark - I saw the face of an angel, and looked into the smiling, starry eyes of true love..."

"That's it," Zachary declared. "I ain't listening to any more of your oddball description. Sand storm. Mystery girl. Blanket. True love. Saved your life. Blah-de-blah. All I know is, you talk funny. Now, Is she comin' or not?"

"She's coming, but you know what? I don't think I want you two bums around when she gets here. You ain't worthy to put your mean, dirty eyes on her perfect face. Now go on - get..."

Zachary Goatflirter put an angry finger in Unger's face. "Watch who you're callin' a bum, mister."

Willie tugged at Zach's coat sleeve. "Lookit - someone's coming up from the gully. Think it's a woman. Say, is that her, Ung?"

Unger fixed his gaze in the direction of Willie's gesturing. "My love," he sighed.

Zachary squinted, struggling to get the woman to come into better focus. Willie did the same. Unger walked toward her, meeting her some thirty feet from where his two fellow hoboes stood staring. Willie and Zachary shared a moment of simultaneous recognition, then alarm.

"Unger!" Willie shouted. "Get back - that ain't no woman..."


Once again - I was prompted! The words du jour at Our Write Side's Two Word Tuesday were "swain" and "sweetheart," and what do you know - I used both!

Spectral Love Finds David No-Ears

Stop, Look, and Listen.  Death owns this right of way.  Photo by [Maris].

Tennessee Ernie Dietz sat by his small campfire, scraping the dregs of his hobo lasagna from the bottom of his favorite bean can/sauce pan/sauté pan/storage tin/urinal.  He stared at the flames as they danced and hissed.  An exceptionally disheveled hobo emerged from the woods, shuffled up to the fireside, and grinned madly at Ernie.

"Jeepers, mister - you scared me half to death!  Say... David?  David No-Ears?  Is that you?"

"Well, sure it's me, pal."  The man's face was encrusted in dirt so thick and chunky, it might as well have been a western omelet.  He doffed his raggedy, poorly-knitted lint cap, revealing his bald head and noticeable lack of ears.  The open holes looked rather like scars, and as such were best hidden away under a hat.  To be fair, he had ears.  He could hear as well as anybody; he simply didn't have the external cartilage that makes up what most people envision when they think of ears.  But "David No-External-Cartilage-Only-Ear-Canal-Holes" was way too long for a hobo moniker.

   

"I'll be damned - it is you!  What you been up to, David?"

"No good.  I can promise you that.  Just got back from pickin' cranberries, up north.  Been hoofin' and ridin' southbound for weeks, chasin' what's left of the sun.  And get this - I'm in love!"

"No foolin'?  In love?  You?" Tennessee Ernie had a reputation on the rails as being gullible, and he was making a concerted effort to be more skeptical.  "I don't believe it," he added.

"Hand to God," David No-Ears affirmed.  "Mind if I share your fire?"

"Have a seat, friend.  My fire is your fire.  Got a few beans here, somewhere..."  Hoboes never asked, "are you hungry?"  Hunger was always assumed.  They just offered. 

 

"I'm much obliged, Ernie.  No beans for me, thanks.  Just want to warm up for a bit and get back on the road.  Got to get to Little Rock to see my girl."

"What girl?  Who?  And no offense, but... how?"

"I'm tellin' you, Ernie.  It's the genuine article.  I love this woman, and I'm gonna marry her.  I met her in New England, a month ago.  I hopped a New Haven freight outside of Providence, and there she was, curled up sound-asleep in an empty cattle car."

Tennessee Ernie wrinkled his nose and chortled.  "Cattle car, huh?  Romantic.  Must have been love at first sight."

"Laugh all you want, bub.  You know me.  I barely believed in love, let alone love at first sight - until I saw this gal.  I dropped everything I was carrying, and of course the clatter woke her right up.  She jumped up and hissed at me and waved a stick and gave me a profound death stare, but I just stood there smiling at her.  She had skin that looked like it might never have seen the sun, or a hard day, or a speck of grime.  Her eyes were like a child's - twinkling like diamonds in the snow - yet it seemed she might have been looking right through me."  No-Ears sighed happily and rubbed his hands in the warmth of the fire.

"Yeah, yeah.  Get to the good part, you old tramp.  I'm tired."

"If you mean for me to talk about her figure, I won't.  She may be a hobo, but she's a lady, and I ain't here to talk about her poetic caboose, or her pinup-girl legs, or her perfect bosom, which might have been sculpted out of marshmallow by Alexandros of Antioch himself.  I could tell you that she sings like an angel, kisses like the devil's daughter, and seems to scarcely touch the ground as she glides from place to place.  She emits her own light.  She's cool to the touch, and no one gives her any guff.  She's gonna be my wife, I'm tellin' you.  Since I met her, the sun rises and sets on her.  I can't think of beans or cops or dogs or lint or anything - only her.  She is the reason for every beat of my heart, these days.  I get younger, just thinking about her.  I have to meet her old man and all that, and then she'll be mine."

"Gee, David," Ernie said, "that's swell.  I'm happy for you.  Congratulations."

"Thank you very much.  And thanks for the fire.  You're a good man."  David No-Ears rose to his feet and extended a grateful hand.  "I should be on my way."

"Not at all.  Help each other - whenever and wherever - right?  Say, if you don't mind my asking, what's your dream girl's name?"

"It's Jane.  Itinerant Jane."

Tennessee Ernie Dietz swallowed hard, and what little color his face had possessed to this point utterly vanished.  "Itinerant Jane?"

"Yep."

"Blonde?  Western Pennsylvania accent?  Loves pierogi, and sandals?"

"That's her."

"And you met her when?"

"About four weeks ago, in Rhode Island," David said.  "Why?"

Ernie put his hand on David's shoulder - a rare gesture, for a hobo.  "I don't know how to say this, brother, so I'll just say it.  Itinerant Jane died over a year ago.  She got shot by a hunter, walking the tracks between Syracuse and Buffalo.  It was an accident."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?  You bent or something?  I spent a week with her, before she went on home - ahead of me - to break the news to her folks.  I'm on my way there, now.  You must be thinkin' of someone else."

Ernie shook his head sadly.  "Maybe you're thinkin' of someone else, friend, but I was there, not thirty minutes after the accident.  I watched Itinerant Jane die.  I don't know what to tell you.  I'm sorry.  Your fiance is a . . ."

David No-Ears waved a dismissive hand at his hobo friend, and laughed as nonchalantly as he could, but as his time with Jane replayed quickly in his mind, a sickening, sinking feeling took hold of his stomach, and refused to relinquish its warm black grip.

"Super," he said eventually.  He left the campsite, not spooked, not haunted, but utterly and completely defeated.  

Okay, here we go.  Instead of the insanity of this year's National Novel Writing Month, I'm going to attempt to complete National Blog Post Month, cranking out a little bit of drivel every day for all of November.  Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.  Anyway, the little bit of drivel through which you have just finished slogging was inspired by the STUDIO 30-PLUS prompts "best hidden away" and "scar," from NOT JUST ANOTHER MOTHER BLOGGER, whose material lives up to her blog's title.  29 more posts to go.  Come with me, won't you?

On Inspiration, Love, and Music - Briefly

Tread Lightly On The Sand Of Unnecessary Drama

"A great idea wakes you from a sound sleep and refuses to let you rest until it is written," they said.

"The best songs haul off and belt you within the first thirty seconds," I've heard.


"You know immediately when it's the real thing," they said.

I'm not buyin' it.

Sometimes, inspiration dawns on me, rather than manifesting itself as some blast from the dark.


Likewise, great music needn't be so grabby.  Sure, it needs to need your attention, but to say that it should pounce on your throat the instant it sees you?  Not necessarily so.

"The real thing?"  You mean love?  Yeah - that had to whack me over the head with a club and drag me to its cave, but did that make it any less real?  Nope.  I've known love you wouldn't believe, but that knowledge wasn't immediate.

So.

Beware of drama for drama's sake.

(Some songs don't pounce - they rise)

Once again writing in response to a prompt from my friends at Studio 30 Plus - this time I had to use "it should pounce," from the brilliant Thomas Marlowe and his poetic piece SILENCE - and I had to do it within the cozy confines of no more than 150 words!  Seriously - I can only hope to be a fraction of the writer that this man is.  Check him out.

 

Summer Says Let's Not Divide Up The CD Collection Just Yet

It started early, this year, and it didn't surprise me at all.  

Okay, it surprised me a little, but only because I hadn't heard it in four years.  Here in the Mid-Atlantic, after three consecutive mild and relatively snow-free winters, our comeuppance came up, with a vengeance.  Worse than the winter weather itself has been its extended duration, its mule-headed refusal to go away.  

Foo Dog, Failing.

So, what started early?  The protestations started early, and right on their heels came the reflexive anti-complainer complaints.  "You'll be whining about the summer heat in no time," and "You'll be missing winter by June," and so on.

I will not.  I promise.  There are some things I need to tell you about Summer.

Summer is the first girl who ever holds your hand, and you instantly get drunk on it.

Summer whispers things in your ear - exciting, confusing, innocent and racy and dangerous things.  Coming from Summer, they all make perfect sense.

Summer says yes, it's hot.  You've spent months all covered up, bundled in layer upon layer, as if you're being shipped cross-country.  It's unnatural.  Now, let's have a look at you.

Summer sings to you at night, replacing the dead silence of winter with a sweet, invisible symphony.  

She wraps herself around you every time you step outside, and when she refuses to let go, it is out of love, not desperation.  She adores you, but if you leave her, she'll remind herself that life is short, and simply wrap herself around someone else.  Everyone else, actually.  Her willingness to love others leaves you desiring her even more.

Sometimes, Summer falls down, but she always thinks it's funny.

If Spring is the chase, Summer is the conquest.  And it's a mutual conquest - the very best kind.

Summer is comfortable in her skin, whether she's sleeping by the pool all day, or howling, thundering, and storming all night.  She is who she is.

Summer doesn't mind making you uncomfortable.  She'll bite you, sting you, make you sweaty, even lightheaded, and give you poison ivy - all of which remind you that you're alive.

Summer doesn't need to drink; she wants to drink.

She doesn't care where you've been - she's happy that now, you're here instead of there.  

Summer doesn't watch the news.  She loves baseball, but has no idea where her team is in the standings, and she doesn't care.

Summer says come sail away with me.

Summer Sails

She makes you stare, catches you staring, and smiles at you when she does.  If you don''t stare, that's okay, too - she knows she's hot.

She's a smiling stranger in an open car, peering mischievously over shiny sunglasses, tempting you to climb inside and take off into the still warm air, where you entertain thoughts of never going home.  Summer has nowhere to be, and everywhere to go.

As August becomes September, Summer kisses you with strawberry-stained lips, says she loves you, and promises to return.  Hers is one of the few promises that, over your lifetime, will never be broken.

She is the rarest of first-loves - the one that never dies.


Another post prompted by the words of a fellow blogger, this one springs forth from "strawberry stained lips," which can be found in Theinnerzone's post NUCLEUS, on the blog A Beetle with Earrings.  There are over five hundred bloggers at Studio 30 Plus - check us out...

Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick's Search for Love

Dewy White Flower, by [Maris] - Louisa, KY 1997

"What about Knee-Brace Kenny," Laura Delite suggested.  "He seems positively smitten with you, Barb."

Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick scoffed.  "I don't even want to dignify that with a response.  You're lucky I don't--"

"Stab me?" Laura said.  "I mean, stab me again?"

"You know me so well.  Look - Kenny's very sweet, but he's just a boy.  I need a man.  A real man.  Plus, knee braces give me the willies something awful."

"Well, how about Magnetized James?  He's a man's man.  All the lady hoboes think he's a dream."

"Oh Laura, be serious," Barb groaned.  

"I am being serious," she insisted.  "You two made a swell couple.  Everyone said so."

"Oh, I know," Barb admitted, "but we had no future together.  The man is magnetized, you know.  Anything I had that was metal - my fork, my cans, my knives - they all stuck to him.  Once, I was about to stab this yard cop, and James got too close to me and ZAP!  There went my trusty stabbin' knife.  Cut him pretty bad.  Again."  She shook her head.  "No.  No future."

"Yes, I remember that story.  I felt bad.  If he weren't magnetic, it might have worked out."

"And don't even say Ironbelly Norton," Barb cautioned.

Laura Delite laughed.  "Oh, I wasn't going to bring him up, honey.  'Yes, Norton - you can eat gravel and newspapers and dead frogs, and not even throw up or anything.  We're all very impressed.  Isn't there anything else you can talk about?'"

"He was such a braggart," Barb nodded, looking down at the Louisville and Nashville trackbed as she walked.

"Say, how about Huge Crybaby McWeepy?" Laura proposed.  "He took a shine to you the minute he saw you."

Ol' Barb laughed loudly.

"What?  So he cried.  Most fellas cry when they get stabbed by a gorgeous blue-eyed dame from the road - or by anyone, for that matter."

"It's not just that he cried," Barb countered.  "But he's an ugly crier."

"An ugly crier?  Oh come now - who's not just a little bit ugly when they cry?"

"He looks like a circus clown when he cries.  So, no ma'am.  I think I'll pass on Mr. McWeepy."

"You're impossible," Laura said.  "You can't be so choosy, out here.  How about Stool-Sample Frank?  He's nice.  Tall, handsome, great smile, seems strong and kind."

"He's always trying to sell me a stool.  I'm a hobo.  What am I going to do with a stool, for goodness' sake?  And if I could afford a stool, would I be out here walking from town to town looking for work picking crops and cleaning stables?  No.  You're welcome to him."

Laura thought for a moment.  "No, you're right.  I forgot how hard he tried to sell those stools.  You'd be better off marrying No-Banjo Burnes."

"Ha!  The only man I ever failed to stab, and dare I say, he scared me, just a little.  I had nightmares of being beaten in my sleep with that rusty old banjo."

"If only you hadn't--"

"Don't."  Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick stopped in her tracks.  More accurately, she stopped in the L&N's tracks.  Either way, she stopped.  "Don't say his name."

His name was Shane Stoopback, and Barb had loved him, once.  He didn't love her back, and it made her as irrational as a schoolgirl with her first crush.  He ran from her, he hid from her, he begged her to leave him alone.  One night, she saw him sitting by his fire, singing a soft, pretty song to some woman she didn't know.  In a blind, jealous rage, she stabbed him to death.  The other woman ran off and hadn't been seen since.

"Have you ever considered trying not stabbing people?  It might help..."

"Never mind, Laura.  Some gals just ain't meant to find love.  I'm coming around to it.  I'm learning that it's not in the cards, for me.  I'll never find love, and that's just how it's going to be.  Thank God I have you, though."  She took her best friend's hand, and they continued west toward Memphis, into a hazy orange setting sun.

You silly woman, Laura thought.  Love has already found you.  You just don't see it, yet.  But so help me, you will.

Once again, I wrote in response to a wonderful prompt, "He's an ugly crier," excerpted from fellow STUDIO 30-PLUS blogger LM Leffew's elegant post THE KING IS DEAD.  Check it out.  She's really good!



 

A Sort Of Homecoming

February 13, 1942

My Darling Buckingham,

     I hope this letter finds you well.  I hope this letter finds you, at all.  I heard that you were working the orange and grapefruit groves again, this winter, so I have employed the services of Juan The Southernmost Finder to locate you and deliver my message.  I am also counting on him to convince you to read it, or to read it to you, chasing after you, if necessary.

I am leaving New York City.  I could write for you a long list of reasons for my decision, but paper, as you may have heard, is scarce.  However, I have space enough to share with you three of my principal motivations.  

First, I cannot abide for a single additional day the overwhelming sensation of being a rat at the bottom of a labyrinth of trenches in France in either this war, or the first one.  Glimpses of sunshine - or even of sky - are few, far between, and tortuously brief.  I can't breathe.

Second, and I am well-prepared for - and deserving of - your "I told you so," but I have found that success as a designer of couture hats is as tenuous and short-lived as the rays of light that reach my face in these canyons of concrete.  I can still find buyers, but I can't ever count on when or where that happens.  It's a terrifically-exciting lifestyle for some, but it just makes me nervous.

Finally, I have realized that happiness for me has proven twice as elusive as sunbeams and success in the big city.  It peeks into my lonely soul just enough to remind me that I had once mastered it completely and set myself up for a lifetime of it.  The "once" of which I speak is, of course, the time I spent as your dusty drifter wife.

Happiness, it seems, can flit and fly and scurry away and hide, but what cannot do any of those is my unflagging love for you, my dear, destitute migrant laborer.  

So, there you have it, Buckingham.  I will find you.  I pray that your heart has not fully hardened to me by the time I do.

Walk safely, and remember to look both ways, my husband.

Yours Always,

Mildred The Mad (Former) Hatter

This post was prompted by the word "FLEETING" and my good and supportive friends at  STUDIO 30-PLUS, and is inspired by (although not a part of) my 2013 Camp NaNoWriMo novel.  Thanks for stopping by!

Heads, We're Dancing

It must have been the lasers.  Edward hadn't seen lasers in a night club in fifteen years.  This was primarily due to the fact that he had not seen the inside of a night club in fifteen years.  The dancing beams of light, bone-buzzing music, liquor and a sea of youth around him combined to give him the sense that anything was possible.

He was fully aware of the enormity of what he was about to do, and it both terrified and thrilled him.

He stepped outside of his comfort zone and, second-guessing himself all the way, left his safe perch at the back bar, circumnavigated the throbbing mass of humanity on the dance floor and climbed halfway up the six steps that led to the front bar, stopping in front of the girl he was pretty sure had twice smiled at him.  He took a quarter from his pocket and held it up.  It was a brand-new coin, and at that moment caught a bit of laser light, sending it for an instant directly into the girl's eyes.

"Ow!" she yelped, her squint quickly becoming a glare.

Edward was oddly undeterred.  "Sorry," he shrugged, then leaned forward with the hope that she, and only she, would hear him.  "Hey, listen.  Heads, we're dancing."

She stared at him as if he had just stepped off a passing garbage truck and proposed marriage.  Really? She thought.  Before she could come up with an appropriately stinging brush-off line, he was even closer, yelling over the music.

"Come on.  Head's, we're dancing."  He flipped the quarter high into the air, and it spun and flickered and played with the flashing colors as it ascended.  Too high.  It arced gracefully out of Edward's reach and bounced down the steps, stopping on the bottom one.  He scrambled after it and bent over to check the result of his gamble, though he figured at this point the coin would have no say in the matter.  He picked it up, disappointed, and turned to smile some sort of apology at the poor girl and leave her alone forever.  Dumbest pickup line ever, and I am way too old for this shit, he scolded himself.

"Well?"  She had followed him to his wayward quarter, and was smiling brightly when he turned around.

"Huh?"

"Heads or tails?"  She blinked expectantly.

Edward's honesty betrayed him, and he frowned down at his hand dejectedly, and shook his head as if to say, "Tails, because this stupid quarter is broken."

"Best two out of three?" she suggested.

Edward's world turned away from the abyss and came back to life.  "Okay!"  He flipped the coin again, and again he sent it spinning out of control.  They followed it to the edge of the dance floor, where it eventually twirled itself to a stop.  The two of them bent over it.  Tails again.

"Oh well," she laughed.  "Better luck next time."

"That's okay.  Thanks for playing along." He could swear he felt himself bow slightly - what was THAT? - and he started to make his turn toward the nearest exit, then he stopped.  "Wait.  We didn't say what tails would be."

She laughed.  Again, his world put down the bottle of sleeping pills and perked up.  

"Oh, I know what tails was," she smiled. "You picked the prize for heads, so tails was up to me."

For the first time in at least two years, Edward allowed hope to open the door - just a crack - and peek inside.  "Oh?"

"Tails was 'We're not dancing.'" she said flatly, and she held her face expressionless for as long as should could stand, which was not long, before laughing and giving this affable stranger a playful shove.  "I'm just messing with you!  Tails was 'Let's go outside where we can hear each other.'  Come on."  She motioned toward the main entrance, and felt a little flush of warmth run through her when he gave her the happiest, sweetest and most sincere smile she could remember ever seeing on a man.  

As they picked their way through the crowd, she took the lead, and took his hand.  He died a little happy death inside.  "I'm Edward," he shouted over the thundering beats.

"Nice to meet you," she answered over her shoulder. "I'm Callista."


Another fine writing prompt (ENORMITY) from my friends at STUDIO 30 PLUS !



 

Obligatory Valentine's Message From Gallant: Sometimes, They Do

My Dearest [Soul Mate],

     I pray this letter finds you well, I hope that you have opened it, this time, and further allow myself to dream that you are reading it.  Yes, I still walk beside the silver ribbons of commerce and transportation.  No, I won't be home for this year's St. Valentine's Day.  Yes, I wish I could be.  I mean to be there, but not until I can tell you that I am once more gainfully-employed.  I promise you that I am trying.

If you are still reading this, I can hear you as you make that little "tut-tut" sound and say - aloud, to the cat - "Hoboes never keep their promises."  Angel of my heart, know this:  Sometimes, they do.  I have faltered, these past four years, and allowed destitution, sickness and despair to rule my world.  But Sweetness, it cannot be said that I'm not trying to mend my broken life.

Lest you forget, there have been other times you've bandied that word about - never.  "I'll never find a soul mate, for there is no such thing as one perfect mate for any soul," you said.  "No one finds a perfect match."  With my help, you later admitted that yes, sometimes, they do.

I remember your friends (and mine), back in '26, telling you not to wait for me.  Do you recall what they said, O Light of My Heart?  "A man will never ever marry his mistress," they said.  Well, while I must admit that that is generally true, sometimes, they do.

Then they said that a love such as ours wouldn't last a week.  It did.  Some gave us a year.  My mother, bless her soul, gave us two.  "Such marriages don't last," we were told.  Well, sometimes, they do.

My friends along the tracks have told me that a woman like you has surely declared her husband dead, or had the marriage annulled, and long-since remarried by now.  I should accept that my "walk around the block for a breath of fresh air," now nearly four years long, was the end of us.  Beautiful, smart, strong women such as yourself never take back their wayward men.  As I type this letter (don't ask what I had to do in order to borrow a typewriter), I can only pray that sometimes, they do.

You see, my angel, my dawn, my light, while I won't be home in time for St. Valentine's, I estimate that I will be there by the sixteenth.  I'll understand if you have gone, or refuse to see me, but I promised you I would find my way back to you.  I know they say that "Hoboes never keep their promises," and I have no doubt that it's true.

But sometimes, they do.

With all of my heart,
Your Gallant

P.S. - It's Reginald, if you had failed to surmise.  Gallant is my hobo name.  

Not exactly Depression-era wardrobe, but she's always been fashion-forward.

       
-- for [Maris]

They Wrote Their Own Vows

I have been asked many times about hobo relationships.  Were there female hoboes?  Did they date fellow hoboes?  Did they ever marry?  What were their weddings like?  Where did they register?  What did they do for honeymoons?  Now that I think about it, I've never been asked any of those questions.  But I have wondered why no one's been asking.  There are plenty of stories of hobo love.  Here's a peek at just one.

The October 1932 wedding of Maria the Pumpkin-Patch Crooner and Pierre Tin-Hat was lightly attended, because it was raining.  Rufus Caboose was their officiant, because he "liked God stuff," and could talk fast enough to get through the ceremony before the hobo congregants had time to get bored and wander off.  Given the average hobo's miniscule attention span, this was no small feat.  He got to the vows, which the bride and groom had written themselves, within ninety seconds.

"I, Pierre Tin-Hat, take thee, Maria the Pumpkin-Patch Crooner as my wedded drifter wife.  I promise to give you half of my beans and all of my heart.  I will protect you from vermin and police dogs, and let you wear my coat.  I will not harshly criticize your singing, or your constant, obsessive searching for pumpkin patches.  I will not yell at you, and I promise to share you only with my very best friends.  This is my more or less sober vow."

[Long pause, during which Maria the Pumpkin-Patch Crooner stared at her groom, tears welling in her eyes, as Pierre Tin-Hat grinned sheepishly at her.]

"I, Maria the Pumpkin-Patch Crooner, take thee, Pierre Tin-Heart, to be my partner, my best friend, my love.  I promise to help you with your crippling inability to read hobo signs.  I will chop firewood when you are weak, which everyone knows is always.  I will listen to you better than you listen to me.  I will stand watch while you relieve yourself, so no one sees you and makes fun.  I will walk beside you and remind you to look both ways before crossing.  I promise not to bring you to any of the hundreds of pumpkin patches I have, um, visited before with other men.  I'm sure eventually we can find at least one to call our own.  I will mend your trousers when there is thread.  I will not light your whiskey on fire unless I'm terribly, terribly cold.  I will bear you no children, unless we can find nothing else to eat.  Ha ha ha.  But seriously, I'm barren.  What?  I thought you knew that.  Sorry.  I also promise to read to you from what's left of my Bible.  I choose you, Pierre, and I will walk the length of the Union Pacific with you as together we weather life's storms.  Also, yes, I will finally sleep with you.  But you just mind your manners, mister!  Oh, and I love you.  Amen."