They are in London they are in California and they are on this page. Three “chapters” from this “book”. Pretty much this is just 2023 autofiction.
I suggest that you read this with kindness in your heart. And let it not be the first thing you have-ever-read from me.
14 Stripes! Train-Hopping, For your viewing pleasure.
We’re out here in this town called (I can’t remember right now), In the Mojave Desert? San Bernardino County anyway. I’ve driven through here so many times and almost died a few of them. My dad, his road rage. We’re sitting on a rock out here, nice and cool in the shade of a manzanita tree. I’m resting my hand on it too, feeling the smooth trunk. It’s a heat transfer situation, cooling me down nicely.
A train out in the distance, finally, finally! I’m thinking. Into the sun, feeling the heat on my face as if it were a lamp right in front of me, I’m looking at this big train approach us. It looks so small for so long until suddenly it’s not and it’s huge. So loud, the sound of the engine and the movement and the motion of it all fills my ears like liquid poured into a funnel. We stand up fast from under the manzanita tree and throw on our backpacks and hats and pick up speed reaching the side of the train barreling through. We match and run alongside until we find an open door. Bags are thrown in and then I’m thrown in next. I hit the haystack on one side of the room. Then I’m up again at the door with my hand stretched out and grasping outside against it is [] until our hands lock and I pull him inside too. He rolls over onto a haystack. Palms up. All exasperated. Now, he’s resting kind of slumped over so only the first half of his back is upright like he’s sitting but the second half is laying flat. His hat is pulled over his eyes so I can’t look at them and the light can’t get in.
I sit with my legs dangling over the edge and I kick my feet back and forth. Red shoes and rushing track underneath, a few feet below. The wood floor is warm. The wind feels good on my face. I close my eyes and just listen to it all with my ears. Machine-sounds that break against the humming desert evening. The train is going really fast, really fast, for no reason. I didn’t think non-passenger cars went this fast. I was expecting a journey that would last multiple days and we’d be hopping on and off. It looks like we’re making San Diego before 9 o’clock.
“Can you hold this for me please?” Cummerbund is speaking at a polite and soft volume but I can still hear him over the sound of the train car.
He rolls over and I’m handed a folded up piece of paper that, when un-folded, is revealed to be a drawing, in ballpoint pen, of a strawberry with a face. In quotations, underneath, like a title, or a name: “cake”. Cummerbund hands it to me and then goes back to the sun patch on the floor.
A few minutes later and we’re shaking around in there like coffee beans in a tin. I’m trying to steady myself like were on Bart from West Oakland to 12th street, hitting the bend.
He staggers over to the sliding door and pulls it all the way closed. He latches it and then slumps down onto a crate. Now the light is coming through some of the cracks where the seams are in the sheet metal. It’s hitting his face and I’m looking at him as the orange glowing slivers dance across his eyes and
“Alright let’s do this” he claps his hands together and stands up.
The California desert flashes by us, screeching, wind whistling. Us both bouncing around in there, things rolling, crates shifting, boxes tumbling over. [] gets up to walk over to me and falls halfway to the floor tripping over his cute little shoes. He catches himself with his arms outstretched for balance a little before he hits the ground completely. Instead he falls just enough into me that his face is in the right place.
This is when the train door he had just latched comes flying open of course. Flying open and then these two guys in striped suits and hats hop in. Striped suits as in striped jumpsuits as you’d see in a black and white silent film on your grandparent’s TV. Not as in pinstripe suits that Frank or Dean might wear. No fedoras here.
These two hop in the car out of breath and throw a sack of money onto the floor in front of us. Cash is spilling everywhere, coins: gold and pouring out like a fountain. This is also when they see us there for the first time. Looking like Ferdinand and Marianne in Pierrot le Fou. They stare back at us, Cummerbund is slumped over so awkwardly like a deer that can’t use its legs yet. It can’t be comfortable, is always what I’m thinking when he’s leaned over like this, the strain it must put on his waist. Maybe it’s a nice stretch. Anyway, while I’m thinking all this the two stripe guys grab a club and a flail from their back pocket and start swinging. We’re running around this tiny-packed-full train car in circles like a cartoon: there’s smoke and stars everywhere. Pieces of hay are swirling around and getting in our eyes and hair. No one’s saying anything it’s just the silent scuffing of shoes on wood and sometimes cracking wood pallets and the club hitting the wall and the flail whirling through the air. Then? One of the stripes slips and his ball-and-chain changes trajectory right into his face. He hits the ground hard and fast and then he’s lying there and his buddy is standing over him.
The train door is open, so this whole scene unfolds against the landscape: for your viewing pleasure. The Stripe is there: dead: on the floor. His buddy is standing over him, looking down, he drops his club to the floor and kneels beside him. He takes his face, maybe still barely breathing, maybe his eyes are open just a crack, maybe there’s a final tear falling down his cheek. He takes his face in his hands and cradles it there, the knees of his black and white striped suit becoming brown with the caked-on-filth of the worn down wood planks. So worn down they’re soft when you touch them, like the coat of a cat. The four of us, three out of four alive, are there in the rushing train car set against the falling sun. California rock and earth behind us: like a painting, in a frame, we move through the desert.
The Stripe hops off first, then Cummerbund. They’re running along side the train car while I pick up Dead Stripe we wrapped in some convenient canvas. I throw Dead Stripe down and out and then I hop down myself. Now it’s us three alive and walking next to the train as it disappears away from us, towards Tehachapi. We look pretty beat up. The Stripe has Dead Stripe draped over his shoulder like a pool towel. Cummerbund and I are walking gingerly next to him.
15 Paris, Texas
“Sure stripes”
We hop into the Land Rover and tear off into the desert, at night, down the one lane highway where the dash dotted road swipes by underneath us. Stripes isn’t driving. He’s in the back with his head out the sun roof and some sort of fast firing bullshit mounted on top. He’s wearing jockey goggles so I’m sure he can’t see a damn thing. In the front it’s just us two, uninterrupted for miles unless by the occasional kick from Stripe’s foot bumping into us as he resets himself for a better view.
A few hours later and a car pulls up alongside us and keeps speed. They roll down the driver’s window and start shouting something at Stripes. I don’t know what’s going on and then we hear a thud that turns-out-to-be Stripes hitting the top of our neighboring car. He landed hard on his side, probably going to bruise. Stripes reaches across the gap of the two side by side cars with a cane and yells at us like we’re supposed to come over. So, what can we do, except tip toe across Stripe’s cane. It’s thick enough that we can fit half of our shoes and we hop across, over the rushing highway until we’re safe and sound in someones Caddy. Up front, driving, across from stripes: in the passenger seat, is a girl who’s maybe nine(?). She can’t even see over the wheel. I’m looking out the window at the Land Rover driving off into some shrubs. I’m thinking I might come back to this spot later, if I can remember where I am.
Anyway, the girl who’s maybe nine looks like she’s had to deal with Stripes for years. She’s lecturing him about “not abandoning the cash” and “not getting his brother killed”. Stripes is just nodding along with his head hanging low.
We pull into a small town that looks like Texas: Paris, Texas. I grab a slice of pizza from the middle seat and the girl rolls out a map on the center console. The car lights are orange and unoffensive. Outside-the-car it feels like we’re maybe surrounded, in enemy territory. Stripes and the girl have got to be involved in something bad.
This is when the dead one, dead only a few hours earlier, walks out from one of the shacks. Shack like something they’d build at an amusement park for the horror season. Like it would fall down if you leaned against it, or even just tapped it lightly with one of your fingers. Dead Stripe (now living) walks right up to the Caddy and starts tap tapping on the glass of the driver’s window.
His sister says, “God damn it James,” and she unlocks the doors.
The locks click and Dead Stripe pushes in the button on the door handle so he can pull it open. Now I’m remembering when Jeany got his second car and I was getting inside and I didn’t know how to open the doors.
Instead of just having me slide over, Dead Stripe climbs over me to sit in between Cummerbund and I. He sits there like a kid in time out with his hands folded neatly in his lap and his head hanging low. The nine year old puts on some sunglasses, at night, and lets out a big sigh before taking off the parking break. Next thing we know we’re pulling into a garage and hopping out into the kitchen where there’s someone standing impatiently at the counter, tapping tapping tap tapping his shoe, tap shoe, on the floor. He’s tall, slender, wearing a shiny suit jacket that, in combination with his feathery long hair, makes him look like an agency-hire-celebrity-impersonator you’d see on a cruise ship. Like he’d be holding a ribbon microphone in his hand and pacing the stage, kicking out the cord, pandering to the audience.
“God dammmmmit James!”
Where is Harry Dean Stanton when you need him.
The nine year old, who I know now to be the sister of the two stripes, is making an example out of No Longer Dead Stripe in front of this rocker guy. Stripe off to the side is trying really hard to keep the smile off his face, I can tell. Cummerbund and I are just standing a good ten feet back and looking at the scene and then at each other and then back at the scene and communicating with tiny gestures between scowling eyes.
“Is it often you have an experience, and you think, immediately after, how it was probably the worst experience of your life?”
“What are you referring to?”
“Earlier, on the train car, I thought I was going to die, I hated that shit.”
“Thanks for going with me.”
I’m looking at his soft face as he’s watching the girl yell at her two (three?) brothers. He’s just looking at it with no readable expression and I’m watching his soft face. I’m watching each and every part of it and all the fine details. Like if it were a painting I’d be able to see the individual brushstrokes, that’s how well I know this face. I’m waiting for him to look back at me because I’m starting to get bored with all this STRIPES bullshit and I kind of want to steal the Caddy and scram.
He looks back at me and I look into his eyes and scrunch my face a little bit: we’re on the same page, on the move, out the door, in the caddy, parking break off. And now I get to watch his face against the screaming highway behind us.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m noticing things”
“Noticing things?” His mouth curls up at the ends, like a little cat.
“What are you noticing?”
“I’m looking at your cheeks right now and noticing they’re getting red.”
He laughs and leans forward a little bit as his head falls.
“You ever been to Paris, Texas?”
I tilt my head and look at him softly with tears in my eyes. I kind of wanted him to pull the car over.
“No, never been”
“Welcome” He gestures to the big giant huge neon sign that says: Paris, Texas in a really nice script. Curved and delicate.
Up to the little motel we hop out the stolen Caddy and slam the doors shut. Gently though. We stand in front of the hood and I put my hands on my hips and breathe in deep and lean back and I’m just about to say how much I like how everything looks, how great this little place is. How the cute wood detailing on the balcony is so sweet, and the signs all look hand painted and all of that in contrast with the vibrant street lights of night and how perfect that works together to create this little picture for us here and then he’s already walking away to the front desk so we can check in.
“Nice ride you kids got there!” That’s the first thing this guy at the front desk says.
“Thanks, we just stole it.”
I think he expected the guy to laugh but there was too long of a pause before the laugh so instead Cummerbund laughs at himself to break the silence and then the front desk guy joins in on the laughter, awkwardly.
“Joking, joking.” Only joking.
“Can we get a room.”
The front desk guy is soon handing us a room-key on one of those key-rings with a plastic tag that’s embossed to say Paris Motel and then the raised letters are painted in gold against the hot pink plastic. I’m swirling those keys around my pointer finger and walking down the hallway in front of Cummerbund and I’m feeling the carpet squish underneath my shoes.
“I thought they were going to ask for your registration,” I’m turning the key in the lock. No keycards here, not in Paris, Texas.
“I thought the gig was up!” He shuffles in in front of me.
I plop right down on the bed, fall onto my back and look up at the ceiling.
“Not yet”
He goes into the bathroom and I hear him wash his face and brush his teeth and then he puts on the motel robe and pajama bottoms and plops right there on the bed next to me. The blankets fold and ruffle and as he slides closer, on top of me. His head on my chest.
“Not yet,” He falls asleep.
I need to floss my teeth.
17 Orange Grove Boulevard, Really the delta
The wind is hitting my face as we rush against the air in our Honda CRV. The music is so loud and we’re singing into the streets. I’m driving of course, somehow James Dean is alright with sitting in the passenger seat. Stripes is in the backseat and he’s sticking his head out the left window trying to see all the street signs. Hollywood and Vine, Sunset, Verdugo, bullshit like that. He’s kind of holding a disposable camera in his hand and wearing a too tight fitting baseball cap and lanyard around his neck that holds his phone in a waterproof pouch. Stripes hangs his head out the window like a dog, Jeany walks along side us, at his normal nonchalant pace. He’s got his sunglasses on and a leather jacket that is draped over him like the curtains of an old cabin. He’s there swinging his arms back and forth like some un-found creature.
Like some un-found creature he walks down Hollywood Boulevard. His jeans are skinny and loose and they scrape on the pavement. James Dean is yelling at him. He just keeps moseying on down until we catch him at the light. We’re far enough east that the air starts to thread and twist around our faces sweetly and you can twine it in your fingers. On the 210 in the express lane when the red truck comes along side us and that old guy that cooks a shitty burger starts “yelling obscenities at us”. Since he’s legally considered a danger to others, his step-daughter can’t live with him anymore. She has to live with her other-step-father out in the delta. She hardly sees anyone and is stunted socially. Her hair is in a low ponytail and her face is framed with cowlick and frizz, her shirts are old and faded, she’s afraid of riding her bicycle because of that one time the wheel popped off and her half-sister had to walk her home. She sings online for people four times her age and one day she’ll be playing the super bowl.
Now it’s 3pm and we’re sitting on the couch in the room with painter’s tape up on the walls. We’re sitting in humid silence and chewing on boiled potatoes from the can. The fork scrapes against wet metal. Through the doorframe is our dad who isn’t even human. The paper plate in my hand is slick on one side and rough on the other. The carpet is matted together with substance.
Then we’re feeling the air hit our faces again this time really whipping it down in the van. Down the two way traffic road along the water which looks like empty space in the dark. Dad’s laughing, we’re laughing. Two different laugh tracks.
Then what happens next is something we had fantasized about forever. The car gets pulled over. It’s some group of guys that dad owes money to, probably more than money. For a few minutes they’re arguing and dad is not getting out of the car. The guy closest to the door who is really handsome and has a nice smile keeps smiling at me his toothy smile where one of his canines has a gold cap on it. He keeps flashing his toothy smile at me and asking me to please tell my dad to get out of the car. It’s really quick when it happens. My dad opens the door and quick pop on the window the splat of gummy blood smears against the windows the front window and the window that James Dean is sitting at and some on the windshield. Now we’re all laughing and our dad is not. He’s dead, finally dead on the side of the delta highway. I get out of the car and shake the hand of that handsome man.
“Pleasure doing business with you”
He hands me a card that says:
and he walks away first and then the two other guys fold in after him like the swinging doors to a saloon. They walk down the bank and straight into the water until we don’t see them anymore.
The van is still sitting here idling and this is when the three of us look at each other for the first time, look across the dead warm body of our dead old dad and we smile as we leave him there on the road. Nobody will find him because the first person to find him is going to pick up the cold dead body and flop it over into the trunk of their Nissan Altima and drive up the California coast.
We get back to our dead dad’s house and we let his dog out the front gate. White picket fence gate. She runs across through the neighbor’s front door as she smiles at us and waves her in. She knew this was coming.
In the kitchen, with the backdoor open and just the screen closed, we’re going through the fridge and finding something to eat for dinner. In two gallon zip loc bags are the ribs dad barbecued for dinner-last-night and they’re soaking up all of that sauce and I pick up the bag and feel them move around in there, cold meat in a bag. Cold meat in a bag like my dead old dad. Jeany and James Dean and I are looking at each other like we’re all thinking the same thing. We take the ribs out of the bag that my dad pre-cut for us and we put them on paper plates and take turns using the microwave to heat them up, we put a wet paper towel on so they don’t splat sauce all over the white insides of the $25 microwave. We scoop out a big sludge plop of potato salad onto our paper plates and then we sit outside on the steps.
