Most of the so-called "deliberate hoboes" - those who left the regular world behind and hit the rails by choice - did not set forth without a head full of dreams. Some dreamed of lives unfettered, walking and riding free from one interesting place to another and sleeping under a blanket of Arizona stars along the Union Pacific. Others envisaged wandering for a while, seeing America, getting it all out of their system, and eventually finding a place to settle down and restart their lives. A few dreamed of being discovered by a big-time Hollywood talent scout in search of a scruffy, disheveled man to play the heavy in the next Bogart flick. [Note: This only happened four times.]
One deliberate hobo, however, took a more modest approach to his dreaming. They called him Plausible Zane Scarrey, because he kept his dreams plausible, and his name was Zane Scarrey.
He had fled the violence and futility of the Wisconsin Milk Strike in November 1933, and his only expectation for the future was to find a version of the Great Depression in which people were not shooting strangers over busted headlights and picket signs. He made his way to the Illinois Central, then to the Santa Fe, and finally to the fabled rails of the Union Pacific in California. He picked oranges and strawberries for pennies a week, and raisins for slightly less, and rarely stopped moving and/or working.
When he allowed himself the indulgence, he imagined that one day, he might get hired on full-time by one of the farmers he served. That never happened.
He pictured a world in which his black hobo friends could illegally ride in the same unlocked rail car with his white hobo friends. That happened, but not until the mid-fifties, a half-decade after Zane's death at the hands of mindless Indianapolis cops who had mistaken him for the Beech Grove Groper at the 1951 Indiana State Fair.
Once, when he was three sheets to the wind on hobo wine and grilled baked lint fritters, he imagined that he could land a job with the railroad. He always got along with the train crews, and the yards cops (and their dogs) seemed to adore him. Unfortunately, he was a cow-teat-puller by trade, so this never happened.
As his hobo years rolled on, he developed a skill with pot-brewed hobo coffee. He dared, from time to time, to see a future world in which he started a humble coffee shop on a corner in downtown Fresno, and worked hard and made really good coffee and expanded to two locations, then three, then a hundred, then a thousand, until eventually his coffee shops sold indy music and sub-par sandwiches on every street corner in the USA (in some cases, on more than one corner of a given intersection, and in a few special spots, more than one in a given coffee shop).
This happened, but Plausible Zane Scarrey didn't live to see it, and received no credit for the idea, because he hadn't deemed it plausible, and never told anyone he had thought of it.
He kept it plausible. Imagine that.
This post prompted by the words ENVISAGE and IMAGINE, from the good folks at Studio 30 Plus.
"That's it?" The Union Pacific detective asked, looking not at his suspect, but at the two-way mirror on the back wall of the interrogation room. He knew that behind the glass, the Oklahoma City cops were shaking their heads.
"That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it, copper." Fonzie, a six-year veteran of the grinding, often brutal hobo life, had been in trouble before. His smile spoke of relief, as if he'd confessed everything.
He had not. Not nearly.
His confession had covered only the petty crime committed that morning - his attempted theft of a woman's purse at Union Station.
"Buddy, we got all night. I already told you the purse snatching ain't your biggest problem. So, before we go any further... Arturo Hebert Fonzarillo--"
"Call me Fonzie," the hobo said smugly.
The policeman cleared his throat. "Arturo Hebert Fonzarillo, you are hereby charged with the murders of Estelle Jane and Frank Joseph Fonzarillo. You have the right to remain silent--"
"What??" Fonzie slammed his handcuffed fists on the ancient wooden desk, and began to lunge from his chair, before several officers rushed into the room and encouraged him to reconsider. "My parents? What's wrong with you, bub? My parents died six years ago."
"Yes - the day you disappeared, Mr. Fonzarillo," the lead interrogator said flatly. "The day you murdered them. Now, you pays your money and you takes your choice, see..."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"What he's trying to say, Fonzie, is you did the crime, so now you're gonna do the time. I'd say about twenty-five to life."
Six hours later...
"You know what, coppers?" Fonzie sighed, exhausted. "I know I didn't kill my folks. God knows I didn't do it, and I'm pretty sure you fellas know I didn't do it. But, you know what? Write up a confession, and I'll sign it. Whatever you say - I did it. I drowned my dear old mama in the lobster tank in our restaurant. I knocked my pop unconscious with the pizza paddle from the kitchen, then burned him in the oven. Done and done. Where do I sign?"
The detectives stared at each other for a moment, then at Fonzie. "We'll get that typed up in just a minute, Fonz. But we been here for hours - with you proclaiming your innocence up one side and down the other. What gives?"
The weary hobo sighed heavily. "Like I said, God and me - we know I didn't do it. But there ain't a judge or jury that's gonna believe me. So, the way I see it, I already been punished to hell and back, over the past six years. You say I'll get twenty-five to life in the clink. About now, that sounds like a step up. A cot, a shower, food that don't have bugs in it, vaccinations, a roof over my head and no more running - I'll take it. Where do I sign?"
This time, I combined the STUDIO 30-PLUS prompt "he'd confessed everything" from Kirsten A. Piccini's "Man on a Mission," with the LIGHT & SHADE CHALLENGE prompt "You pays your money and you takes your choice," and the name Fonzie, from John Hodgman's list of 700 hobo names.
So. Did he do it?
For three years and eight months in the mid-1930s, Toddles Strunk roamed the American Southwest from one day-labor job to the next. He stole rides on Union Pacific trains, walked hundreds of miles a month, slept in flop houses, or under the stars, subsisted on little more than the kindness of strangers, and made strategic friends when he could.
He was born Nathan Hoth, to immigrant parents from Greenland, in 1905. His father was a watchmaker and his mother was a primary school teacher. They died in 1934, minutes apart and on opposite sides of town. Mr. Hoth was working on a commissioned pocket watch for the mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania, when he lost control of a hairspring, sending a compensating balance wheel rocketing into his forehead with the force of a gunshot. He died on the way to the hospital. Mrs. Hoth asphyxiated on chalkboard eraser dust, just as the principal was receiving the news of Mr. Hoth's demise.
Nathan, who had never held onto a job for more than a few months, couldn't bear to stay in Allentown, and with stick-and-bindle in hand, he hit the road west. He was slow to learn the hobo way, but after about a year of arrests, forcible removals from train yards, and beat-downs at the hands of cop and criminal alike, he began to get the hang of it. He remembered the only good advice his parents ever uttered - "kill 'em with kindness" - and made it his mantra.
After another year on the road, he was widely known as Toodles Strunk, one of the nicest hoboes anywhere. He made sure he worked hard when he was lucky enough to land day jobs. He constantly smiled, no matter what was happening inside him or out. He remained chipper through the most desperate poverty, through illness, robbery, assault, and battery. He gave more than he took. He said please and thank you and when in town, he always tipped his ratty cap to women he passed on the street.
And to his friends and hobo brethren, he always said "so long," instead of "goodbye." He said that "goodbye" was too permanent, and that because he never met anyone he didn't want to see again, "so long" felt better, because to him it meant "until we meet again." He also sometimes said "Toodles!" in a sing-song falsetto, for the same reason.
 |
| So long! |
This hobo's story has no ending.
Yet.
I guess what I'm trying to say, gentle reader(s), is that after three years and eight months of Mostly Harmless Drivel, I'm going to be taking a bit of a hiatus from my beloved blog. As some of you know, I cranked out 62,000 words of mostly harmless novel during July's Camp NaNoWriMo. Novels are needy things, and this one is not finished. Apparently, I can't adequately divide my attention between this place and that.
So, for as long as it takes, which hopefully won't be more than a couple of months, off I go. It's not goodbye, but simply so long for now.
Toodles!
This post partially prompted by my friends, whom I will dearly miss, at STUDIO THIRTY PLUS. So long for now, bloggy web-friends!
