I'm often asked by no one ever about romance on the American hobo road. Well, in a word, it's.
In two words, it's complicated.
With the penniless wandering and camping and being chased and beaten and arrested and beaten some more and re-arrested and the losing of toes and fingertips in winter, and the summertime bouts of poison ivy and malaria - and also the bad stuff - hoboes had enough on their plates. Initiating, developing, and sustaining relationships just didn't factor into the average hobo's plans.
Amorous Luminous Dirk was not the average hobo. He was spectacularly successful with the ladies, both hobo and non-hobo. He was the maestro of the hobo pickup line. The reality show bachelors of 2018 could take a lesson from this filthy drifter.
[Editor's note: It was the 1930s. Times were different. Men were different. Women were different. Everything was different.]
In no particular order, here are Amorous Luminous Dirk's ten favorite pickup lines:
- Hi. Yes, that is a lint ball in my pocket, but I am definitely happy to see you, nonetheless...
- Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven - or from the running board of the refrigerated box car that carried you here from heaven - or the stock yards? Or Baltimore? I think you know what I'm trying to say, wink-wink...
- Top of the evening to you, m'lady. I can just tell that you didn't vote for Hoover...
- My parents died of gangrene, after having their lower legs shredded by an angry mother black bear of whom they ran afoul along the Appalachian trail in 1928 - what horrible fate met your folks...
- I'm sure you hear this a hundred times a day, but I would trade all the creosote and plywood in the world for five seconds of holding your hand...
- I fought in the Great War, and I came home in one piece. My pension will afford us a lovely little home in Utica, with a yard and a white picket fence and a dog, and I promise you here and now that my drunken night terrors have all but cleared up, so whaddaya say, doll...
- Do you like beans? 'Cuz I... Wait - where are you going...
- Hey, baby - have I got a New Deal for you...
- How d'you do, ma'am - Do you know what bio-luminescence is?
- Hi. I'm sorry I am a hobo. I promise that I am a good and honorable, righteous and respectful man. May I please have this dance? I promise to disappear at your slightest frown of disapproval...
He had other lines, some more effective than others, but almost none of them landed. Until, that is, the night in mid-1942 when he snuck into the war bonds fundraiser under the stars in Allentown, where he tried #9 on Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick, and his whole world changed...
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| Train. |
Had he only spoken to her.
The girl who, for virtually the entire semester, had been there every day when he left Fine Arts for the short walk to the dining hall. That girl. The one who smiled at him - not once, but three times, this year. He didn't know her name, and neither did his friends. It was concluded that she must have been a transfer from another college, as she did not look young enough to be a freshman. She had fair skin and freckles, startling gold-flecked blue eyes, and a smile that seemed to contain a hundred teeth. Her hair was the kind of fiery red that girls without it would pay a king's ransom to have, and which girls with it seemed to hate.
Most days, she had two or three girlfriends hanging around, but not today. Today, the second-to-last day of classes, before next week's final exams, she was alone. She was sitting atop the short brick wall, smoking and tapping her dangling feet to unheard music. She wore torn jeans (possibly ironically-torn) and a Waterboys t-shirt, which strained slightly to fit itself around her, for she was not one of those stick-figure girls who seemed to ever rule the campus.
Had he spoken to her, he would have tried to open with something about how he liked the Waterboys, and had just bought "Fisherman's Blues," but how he didn't like it nearly as much as their earlier work. If that failed to send her fleeing in search of someone - anyone - else to talk to, he would have added that his favorite Waterboys song was either "A Church Not Made With Hands," or "A Pagan Place." Beyond that, he had no plan.
When he saw her, she was already looking at him, and he could have sworn that smile number four was being offered in his direction. That's it, he thought, I have to talk to this girl, before I graduate and never see her again - or some frat boy swoops in and takes her away in his golden Camaro. He picked his way through the fast-moving cross-traffic that funneled through this intersection of red-brick campus walkways, mentally reviewing his Waterboys opener. About halfway across, he looked up to see that a couple of the girl's friends had joined her.
He swallowed his rehearsed lines, turned right, and headed toward the dining hall, rationalizing that he'd have one more chance before finals. She peeked around her friends, disappointed. Again.
Had he only spoken to her, he would have found his insights into that obscure t-shirt band to be a well-received ice-breaker. He would have learned that her name was Erin. Each would have quickly learned the other's year, major, residence hall address, hometown etc.. A date would have been efficiently arranged, almost without either party officially asking. She had been looking forward to this conversation since January, and now there was only going to be one more chance to make it happen. Apparently, starting it was to be her responsibility.
Two days later, the girl with the hair like a sunrise wasn't sitting on the short wall outside the Fine Arts building.
Had he only spoken to her, she would not have had to be the first to speak. She was on the near side of the brick-lined confluence of walkways, smiling directly at him as he emerged into the noonday sun.
"Hey," she said.
This one comes in response to another STUDIO 30-PLUS writing prompt. This time, my friends chose a fragment of one of my own posts, so I had to reuse "Her hair was the kind of fiery red" in a new post. Kinda weird, but I enjoyed it. Hope you did, too!
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 !
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