Letter from Dayton
- 3 years ago
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I tried to sleep, and I nodded off for a few hours, but it didn’t stick. I was tossing and turning. I was hot, and my various joints and muscles were aching me more than usual, or perhaps I was just more conscious of it than I usually am. In any case, I was tossing and turning. I was conscious, too, that this might be hurting Kelly’s quality of sleep. After an hour or so, I was wide awake, nervous, in pain, and feeling like a nuisance. I got up and went back to the downstairs bar.
While we stocked a few different varieties of family alcohols- we made a legal corn moonshine like what Samantha used to make, but weaker, three styles of aged whiskeys, a vodka, and a gin, all of which we sell in small batches- I also had started bringing in some other types. We had a variety of single malt scotches, decent bourbons, ryes, and Plymouth Gin. But I was in the mood for our private stash of full strength moonshine that we didn’t sell. Samantha still distilled it herself for private consumption among the few of us who could stand it.
I poured myself a nice tumbler on the rocks, lit the fireplace, and sat in one of the armchairs facing it. I missed my dad. I wasn’t ready for him to go. I mean, intellectually I was ready for him to go; my mother died at 77, and all of my grandparents had died by the time I left home, all in their 70s and one at 80. My father making it to 90 was an impressive achievement for our line. So I understood he wasn’t going to last forever.
Emotionally, though, I was just not ready, damnit. We had found each other after 25 years, and we had made friends. He had became an important part of my life; I suspect we were much closer than the average kid with their parent at that stage of our lives. He was happy, too. I know he still missed my mother, but he wasn’t alone; he had all of his family, and he had Cheryl.
I don’t know what they did in bed, and I don’t care. Cheryl said it wasn’t sexual, and I had no reason to doubt her. But I knew from my own experience just how emotionally fulfilling it is to have somebody who you know loves you, and trusts you enough to lay asleep next to you on a bed, there to help warm the room. Letting people close enough to you to let them sleep next to you in your bed requires a strong amount of trust.
He had that. He had all kinds of wonderful things. He was living a fulfilling life. A lot of people die when they have lost the will to continue living; he didn’t have that. He was frail, but he was not sick. It was a bit of a shock to me; to all of us. I still felt a degree of guilt that I didn’t see him more than a few times a week. I was trying to live life in a way contributing to my family; we could have made it on Kelly’s income alone, but we were part of the rest of the family, and felt a need to contribute to it.
“You are nuts, Johnny,” my dad said, “Your job as a married adult is to contribute to your family. You were doing your job. We saw each other plenty. I’d gotten over what you did long ago. I couldn’t be more proud of you!”
I started; there he was sitting on the love seat opposite my chair. He was wearing that really nice green wool flannel shirt Cheryl had made him for last Christmas he loved so much, with suspenders and a pair of khaki canvas pants. His hair was the whispy white I had last seen it, and his beard was the same precision trimmed Van Dyke he had started wearing when he settled in here. Cheryl helped him with it; that’s how it stayed so precise. His gold-wire glasses were still perched on his head. He was holding the cane I made him a few years ago with the chestnut wood and gold-plated duck head, in both hands in front of him, as he always did sitting on a chair like this.
“But what about what I did to mom?”
“I forgive you, too,” my mother appeared beside him, wearing a blue flower print dress, with her hair done up in a bun. I had seen pictures of her late in life; she looked just the same, “Johnathan, I hate that you left like that, and I was angry at you for it, but you didn’t have a choice. I wish you had come back to visit, but your father explained it all to me. You’re still my son, and I still love you.”
“I should have treated both of you better,” I said, “And Rachel, too.”
“Listen, tragedy queen,” Rachel appeared wearing one of her Henley crew shirts and a pair of overalls., “Yuh have tuh stop feelin’ sawhry fawh yawhself. Okay? I didn’t fall in love wit’ yuh becawze yuh were de perfect American Male (TM), I fell in love wit’ yuh becawze yuh got me. Ya’ dig? I got your numbuh, too, Johnny. I loved all of yuh, includin’ your fears; if yuh didn’t have those fears, yuh’d nevuh have gotten me. Yuh with me? I was afraid too! Okay? I love yuh fawh who yuh are, don’t yuh get it, or what? We all do, I tink! Okay?”
“Are you Rachel?” My dad asked.
“No way,” she laughed, “I’m Allan Sherman! Okay? Can’t yuh tell from de birth control glasses and de mediocre singin’ voice, or what? Hello Muddah! Hello Faddah! Here I am at Camp Granada! Okay?”
We all laughed.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” my dad said.
“Who’s Rachel?” My mom asked.
“Me,” Rachel said waving, “I’m Rachel, right ovuh here! Okay? Hi! Who are yuh?”
“Nice to meet you, Rachel,” my mother said, “But who are you to Johnny?”
“I’m his partnuh in crime,” Rachel said, “And yuh?”
“I’m Mary Harris, Johnny’s mother,” my mother said, “What do you mean partner in crime?”
“We were always travelin’ togethuh, lady,” Rachel said, “We got up tuh all kinds of mischief and fun. Right?”
“Damn skippy,” I replied.
“I didn’t realize you look so much like Josh,” my dad said.
“Fuhgeddaboudit,” Rachel said, “He’s my son, ain’t he?”
“Oh, you’re Josh’s mother,” my mom said, “It is really nice to meet you.”
My head was starting to spin.
“Look,” I bellowed, “I know you forgive me for all the horrible things I’ve done to you, but that doesn’t make it right. I hurt all of you, Cheryl too. I know she was lonely without me in her bed. I’m still doing that to her. I hurt everyone I love! I don’t know why I’m happy, I’m such a horrible person!”
“Yer’re ‘appy because yer’re not a bleedin’ ‘orrible bloke,” Cheryl said. “Cor blimey, Johnny.”
My ghosts disappeared as Cheryl walked over from the stairs and sat down across from me on the love seat. She was wearing a home made set of red wool flannel pajamas, and no shoes. She rarely wore shoes in the house. Her somewhat full figure managed to be flatteringly on display in the straight-cut pajama set. Her face looked older than her 62 years, and her hair had faded recently to almost white, but was still a full head of hair.
“Who the chuffin’ hell fire was yer yellin’ at?”
“My inner demons, I suppose,” I replied, tearing up a bit, “I am horrible, you have to be so angry at me for not being there for you.”
“Oh for goodness sakes, yer roit silly bugger,” she said, and patted the seat next to her, “Yer come right ‘ere.”
I got up and sat next to her. She put her arm around my shoulder, and pulled me close and snuggled me to her. We hadn’t done this in decades; 18 years at least. She kissed the top of my head; It felt so good, I put my legs over the armrest, and lay back against the other arm rest, on her lap, looking up at her face. She was smiling.
“I’m so sorry, Cheryl,” I said, “I distanced too far from you. It was so weird, with Kelly and you and...”
“I got that,” she said, brushing my hair with her hand, “Yer didn’t need ter explain it ter me, yer silly twit.”
“I didn’t need to go quite so far,” I said.
“Yer’ve never been one for regrets, me lovey,” she said to me softly, “Don’t yer start now. If yer ‘adn’t done that Oi wouldn’t ‘ave been able ter ‘ave wot Oi ‘ad wiv yor dad. That were roit nice for me. ‘e were a luvly man, yer roit are ‘is bleedin’ bottle o’ water, yer know.”
I looked into her eyes; age hadn’t dulled the warmth in them, or the love.
“It wasn’t Kelly,” I said, “It was me.”
“Oi bleedin’ know that, yer twit, we went on about it,” she sighed, “Oi roit miss ‘im.”
“I miss him, too,” I said, “So much. But I’ve missed you, too. I’ll do better, I promise.”
I got up, grabbed the tumbler, and tossed it.
“I don’t know ‘ow yer and Sammy drink that rotgut,” Cheryl chuckled.
“It’s delicious,” I replied, “I love you, Cheryl, in almost every way imaginable. It’s weird, but it’s true.”
“Oi know yer do, me boy,” she replied, “Yer always ‘ave, for as long as Oi can bleedin’ remember. Wot we’ve made together, our family, is roit fantastic. We will rise above this, all we need is each uvver. But don’t go thinkin’ we luv yer by mistake or for the bleedin’ wrong reasons. Yor favver were so proud o’ yer, more than ‘e could bring ‘imself ter tell yer. Go up ter yer wife, and go ter bed. Yer ‘ave nuffink ter be ashamed o’. I needed the chuffin’ cheerin’ up ter, thank yer.”
I went up to my bed, and got in. I was more at peace, but I thought back over the past ten years. I had thought that changing my ways was going to be a monumental task; but it was actually easy. They made it easy, all of them. Kelly and I spent so much time on the farm that first year. I could make that hour and a half drive in my sleep, we did it so much.
I had my kids; I taught them, told them stories, tucked them into bed. I just thought of them as my kids not long after Kelly and I got married. We went on adventures, to the swimming hole, horseback riding, target shooting, archery, and hunting. I taught them woodcrafts, metalcrafts, painting, drawing, and writing. It wasn’t just one way, either. They taught me, too. Both in areas I was teaching them, and in things I didn’t quite understand about life and love.
Then one night, Jason, Samantha, John, Kelly, and I had a conversation. I had finally been made privy to the family finances; Cheryl had come into this area fairly wealthy; she had several million dollars. She was cheap, and she made some of it stretch, but the truth is the money had started dwindling some years ago; it was one of the impetuses to restart the farm as a farm back in the mid-90s. That had done enough to bring expenses in line with revenue, but it was not creating savings, which was a problem, because the family was growing.
I wasn’t bored, but I had felt like I wasn’t contributing enough to the family’s bottom line. The co-op we were reselling raw goods to was a limited earner; the co-op market to which we sold more processed goods was taking an impressive percentage of the revenue. We tossed around some ideas, but as the discussion went on, an idea solidified.
We would expand the farm to about triple its current size; this would essentially maximize the capacity of our farming machinery. We would broaden our lineup of produced goods to include baked goods in addition to limited produce, expand our meat business, start a more serious dairy business, start dealing in homemade wool fabrics, and in a few years time, if we could get the required licenses, start distilling liquor in limited quantities.
All of this stuff was to be primarily sold through a store ... which I would run. It would be based in Fargo, and sell all of our products, eliminating the middle man for most of it. The farm itself would remain primarily a family operation- although in time we ended up hiring people- and the store would be my domain. I would run my business on the basis of hiring itinerant workers- that is to say, hobos.
We had the available cash to easily fund this at this point, but it would be taking a sizable chunk of our reserve, so it was a risk. We thought we could pull it off, though. We would provide Fargo with the finest quality organic meats, cheeses, dairy, produce, fabrics, and eventually liquors. We would run our business in a responsible manner, hiring people nobody else wanted to hire. We would keep our expenses low, and our returns high by providing room and board as part of the compensation for employment.
When we brought the idea to Cheryl, she was skeptical at first, but we managed to convince her it was the future, with my father’s help. It took us close to a year to set up the whole thing, but by early 2013, we had the store running on a soft opening, and by the beginning of 2014, we were firing on all cylinders. It took almost until 2015 for the whole investment to begin to show a total return ... which was good, we had expected it to take until 2020 for our investment to be recovered.
For my part, I was fully engrossed in my work. I would make stock runs to pick up stuff for the store on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We would open at 11AM and close at 7PM. For the first year, I was usually working seven days a week or six days a week, alternating, spending only one at the farm every two weeks. But my family put their foot down, and the weekend operating of the store was mostly left to employees, with our family being together on the farm every weekend.
The rote of my routine finished my wiring in to family life, as did the permanent moving of all of my minor children to the Fargo house in 2014. But somehow it remained fun and interesting. The whole enterprise was allowing savings to accumulate again, which meant we didn’t have to worry about things like funding education for kids who wanted it. We were back to where Cheryl was at the time I met her- not stinking rich, but not ever worrying about money, either.
In 2016, I took on, with John and Kimmy’s help, a new enterprise. Jeffery, as I mentioned before, loved to cook. He was not only very good at it, but he was a competent chef- he could organize efficient cooking of large amounts of varied food, yet manage to make everything taste fantastic. He was, however, doing piss-poor in school. We had a family adult meeting, and decided to stop wasting his time in school. We would branch out our business into a restaurant.
He quit school when he turned 16, and we had already had much of the restaurant business set up. We owned the building, which like our country store, had living space above it. He lived there with Jared for a while until he turned 18, and had management help from John and Kimmy. The restaurant was already profitable, and on its way to recouping its investment. I was involved in the management of its supply chain, and hiring employees- we mostly hired hobos in the kitchen there, as well.
We all had different talents in the family, and we managed to work them together to create a surprisingly efficient organization that worked with each other more than against each other. That was the secret; as it always had been.
As I was nodding off to sleep, I thought of a time in Dayton, Ohio. I had met a young kid who was running away on the train, from her family, and for the wrong reasons...
It was a warm day some time ago, I want to say 1998, that I boarded a freight train not far from Troy, Ohio. It was a box car, with no lock on the door, which was weird. It was an empty car, owned by, if I recall correctly, by TTX industries, which is a company who primarily owns rail cars and leases them to people who need them.
Anyway, the car was occupied; the occupying party was a little girl about age 13 or 14. She seemed terrified of me, which I don’t blame her for. She was far too young to be trying the hobo lifestyle on for size. I approached with caution; I didn’t want to give the poor girl a heart attack.
“Hello, kid,” I said with a friendly smile.
“Hi, mister,” the girl said, with a distinct sense of nervousness.
“My name is Johnny,” I told her, “I’ve been riding the rails for 14 years. How about you?”
“I jus-just got on,” she replied, “A few hours ago, in Dayton.”
“What’s your name, kid?”
“I-I don’t kn-know if I should te-tell you that,” she replied.
“First name will do, kid,” I continued smiling, “Unless you want me to keep on calling you ‘kid’ for now.”
“Sh-she-Shelly,” she stuttered, “Or Michelle.”
“I’ll call you whichever you prefer,” I said, “It’s your choice.”
“Michelle,” she decided, “I feel more grown up, I guess.”
“What made you run away?”
“My parents were being very abusive,” she said, “I didn’t want to put up with it anymore.”
“That’s not good,” I replied.
But I was bothered by it. Kelly had clearly been a victim of a hard life for a variety of apparent and definable reasons. She wasn’t trying to act badass that day in Chicago; she was lonely and scared and desperate. She wasn’t thinking about how much of an adult her actions made her; she didn’t care. It was so far down her list of priorities, it would be impossible to find it.
Kelly cared only about survival, in several different areas. When she approached me that day back in 1994; just four years ago- the idea that she would one day become my wife would have been an absurd postulation. The idea that I would have any wife at all besides maybe Rachel would have been absurd, but I digress. Kelly approached me because she was so desperate that the colossal risks of approaching a random street rat was outweighed by the reality that if she did not get warm she would likely die from exposure.
Kelly’s desperation had been palpable in a way that made me almost discard the idea of sending her “home” out of hand. She ran from home for the same reason she approached me: the potential hell of the consequences of not being there were substantially better than the alternative of still being there. Her fear was extensive, and she was too desperate to hide it. It was a last ditch effort to try to get help.
Michelle was a totally different thing. She was not exuding a sense of endless desperation. She was exuding the sense of trying to be an adult that comes out when a kid, for instance, tries to play house- or teacher. She was trying to convince me she was a strong, capable hobo just like me.
Most people under the age of 25 or so are not fully aware of their own mortality, beyond perhaps a limited intellectual understanding. Once you reach a certain point in life, you become aware that your time left is not infinite. However, there is a point where some people stare death in the face, and they become aware that their death is inevitable, and might be soon- and it changes them into a different person- and their innocence perishes. Kelly had looked into the face of the death and had been rocked to her core, and she had that look on that cold Chicago winter night.
Michelle did not have any of these things. Michelle was an ordinary kid who was running away from the grave injustice of things not going her way. She didn’t have what Kelly had. She didn’t have the strength, the will, the intelligence, or the resolve to make it in this world, not by a far stretch.
She looked angry, and like she was trying to project toughness and wildness to the world. But she was having trouble maintaining that facade in the face of the bearded ugly fat fellow.
In the way I was living my life, I needed to be able to decode the people I was confronted with in a snap judgement. It was a tool of survival, and it had been honed over the past 14 years to the kind of fine point of a barber’s hot-shave straight edge. I needed to be able to determine if someone could be my friend, if they could help me, or if they might rob me or kill me. My reflexes were good; but they were aided by the fact that I was already anticipating a fight long before the first move was made.
My instincts told me this girl didn’t belong here at all. They also told me that if she stayed in this world, she was either going to end up dead, or more likely, in the underage sex trade. I wanted to help her, but I knew that if I came at it straight on, I was going to be immediately dismissed as being an adult that “didn’t understand,” as many teenagers see that sort of thing.
She was Kelly’s age, or thereabouts. She was not my first encounter with a teenage girl, not by a long shot. I knew that the city of Sidney, Ohio was coming up; I figured the first thing I had to do was get this girl off the train.
“I’ve been a hobo for a long time, Michelle,” I told her, “I can show you the ropes if you like.”
“I’m sure I can figure them out,” she said, “How hard can it be?”
“It’s harder than it looks,” I said, “I had a bunch of mentors when I started out, and I almost died more than a few times.”
“Almost died?” She asked, looking a little shocked.
“From the cold and the heat, mostly,” I said, “People think it’s the food that’s the hard part, but trust me, it isn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s relatively easy to find food in various places,” I replied, “People throw it out all the time. People are willing to give you food, too, if that’s all you want.”
“You eat food people throw out?”
“If that’s the only option, yes,” I replied, “It’s not my preference, but this is what life on the street is like, Michelle.”
“How did you end up living on the street?” She asked, “Did your parents abuse you?”
The train was slowing down; we were likely coming up on Sidney, and I wanted her to get off the train. The ultimate goal was to get her to return to Dayton and back to her parents, unless there was a good reason she shouldn’t.
“The train is slowing down, likely for the next town,” I interrupted, “let’s get off this train and we can talk somewhere a bit quieter.”
“Okay,” she said.
That was good, I was gaining a bit of trust. I opened the door up a bit to look out on the landscape. It was night time, so there was a limited likelihood people would see us. The train was going perhaps ten miles an hour; unless it was stopping here, this was about as good as it was going to get.
“Lean out and look out ahead,” I told her; she complied.
“Do you see that tall grass patch coming up?”
“Yes.”
“When we come up along side it, spring off the side of the car and jump towards it,” I explained, “Like you would off a diving board. You do not want to land on the track ballast.”
Track ballast consists of hard and sharp rock whose purpose is to keep the railroad ties in place. If you land on it properly on your feet, it hurts a bit. If you land on it wrong, and start rolling, or snag it wrong, it will cut you up at best, break your legs, or your neck, at worst. I knew how to land on ballast properly, Michelle would not know that particular skill. And even I avoid it if alternatives are available.
“What about my bag?”
“I got it,” I told her.
She jumped off, like I told her, but with not quite enough force. Her body landed in the grass, her knee hit the ballast, and she yelled as she rolled over a few times. I jumped off after her, hit the ballast flat with my feet, let my knee crouch take most of the force, and then sprang forward into the grass with my coiled muscles. The maneuver neutralized most of the lateral force on my limbs, resulting in a soft landing on the grass.
I immediately got up and ran over to her. I knew her landing was imperfect; I didn’t know how imperfect. It was not ideal in the least to have her jump off the train, but I didn’t want her to get too far from home, and I had no idea where that particular train was heading; it would be a bugger of a problem if it was going to Toledo, Detroit, or worse. Any train heading southbound on this line at this point would almost certainly pass Dayton. Once you got to Toledo, an opposite direction train could be going practically anywhere. Also a 42 mile hike back to Dayton, while difficult, was possible.
I looked her over carefully. She had skinned her knees fairly badly, but not bad enough to require medical attention. Her shins looked like they probably were bruised enough for it to hurt like a hell for a few days. My hypothesis was correct; we were in Sidney. She didn’t need a doctor, but she was certainly injured enough to require a bit of work.
“Can you get up?” I asked her.
“I don’t know,” she cried, “My legs really hurt.”
I looked around; there was a Hess gas station a few hundred feet away; it was closed. I picked her up in my arms, and carried her to the bathroom door. It was, unsurprisingly, locked. It had a Kwikset lock on the door. I’m not sure why they bother. I took my lockpick set out of my pocket, selected a tension bar and a simple rake pick, inserted the tension bar to put tension on it, raked the rake back and forth, and had the lock opened in about five seconds. I carried her inside, and sat her on the toilet.
Using her shoe, I propped the bathroom door open slightly, and went back to where we got off and got our packs, and carried them into the bathroom. With the bathroom light on, I could see her more clearly. She was a very comely girl, nicely shaped and attractive. She had dirty blonde hair, and brown eyes. Her appearance backed up the apparent attitude with what clearly appeared to me to be an affectation of angst and anger, the kind teenagers sometimes drape over themselves like a cloak.
She was wearing capri pants, and a baby-sleeve t-shirt, the pants in red, and the shirt in light green, which made no sense. It partially explained the severity of the bruising on her legs, which were beginning to turn already. She was lucky the shorts were red; her knees and the upper part of her shin were gushing blood. They were also torn up.
“Do you have a change of clothes in here?”
“No,” she said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Take off your shorts, then,” I said to her.
“What the fuck?”
“I need to attend to this wound, and then we need to get you new clothes. If you don’t have another pair of pants, you need to take them off so I can turn them into cut offs. You need clothes to go to a store and buy new ones, and you can’t go in looking like that.”
“These pants were from Hollister,” she said, “They were very expensive.”
“They are also ruined, kid,” I said, “They are shredded at the knee and blood stained.”
She took them off. She was wearing an interesting set of panties, with a thin hip strap and a mesh diagonal section that made it seem to me that she shaved herself. They were clearly, like the pants, also quite expensive. The shirt was also Hollister; her parents were spending decent money on her clothes. They were also a bit on the rebellious side, I’d guess. Cheryl would never let her girls wear panties like that.
I took a pint bottle of cheap vodka out of my backpack. I broke the seal on it, and handed it to her.
“Take two deep swigs of that,” I told her, “It’ll help with the pain.”
She took one, and gagged a bit, then coughed. It was really crappy vodka I kept around for emergencies, not for drinking.
“Take another,” I said, “Trust me, it’ll help you.”
She took another, looking at me with some distinct distrust.
I took it back from her, and poured a bunch of it on her leg. She screamed.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“I need to disinfect the wound,” I replied, “Cheap vodka is basically 40% alcohol and 60% water. It’s essentially drinkable diluted rubbing alcohol.”
I wiped the wound relatively clean with a wet paper towel. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best option I had for her at the moment. I then went back into my bag and took out one of my handkerchiefs. I folded it to the right size, and placed it over the actual cuts. I then pulled out a bunch of toilet paper and wrapped it around the handkerchief like an ace bandage.
“Toilet paper, really?” She asked.
“It’s what I got,” I told her, “Welcome to living life where you have to carry everything with you.”
I then took out a roll of masking tape, and wrapped it around the toilet paper, in the same manner. The handkerchief was the relatively sterile bandage wadding. The toilet paper’s main purpose was to protect the skin from the tape. The tape’s purpose was to hold the makeshift bandage on.
“Can you bend your leg?”
She tried to bend her leg, and she grimaced, but managed it.
“It hurts,” she said, “But I can.”
I took her shorts and draped it over her lap, took a pen, and marked a line on both legs, took out my knife, rested the shorts on the sink ledge, and sliced them off just above the lines. They’d do. They didn’t look amazing, but they also didn’t look like she had been severely injured in them. I helped her put them on.
“Lets see if you can stand up.”
I took her hands in mine, and helped her to her feet. She could walk, but she had a very distinct limp. That was not ideal, frankly. I helped her out of the bathroom, and then closed the door, and relocked the deadbolt.
“You’re really good at lockpicking,” she said.
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