The Night Train

By Carl Purdon

What could make a boy run away?

 

… from everything he knows.

 

From his mother. His home. And all those things he doesn't yet understand.

 

Every evening Jayrod sits on his back porch and listens to the train rumble through the woods beyond the field. Beyond the boundary set by his father. It sounds like freedom. Like adventure. He's too young to know the dangers that lurk aboard freight trains. In the boxcars and on the flats. The bad men. It's no place for a boy.

 

The man calls himself Farley. He's an odd man. Mysterious. Deadly. Is he protecting the boy or using him? And will Jayrod figure it out in time to find his way home again?

 

The Night Train pulls back the curtain to expose a silent epidemic as old as time itself. There is no cure … only awareness.

 

You'll love Jayrod because he's a fighter, even when he doesn't know there's a war. His innocent determination will make you cry. Laugh. And cheer.

 

Meet him now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carl Purdon
• Release date: Feb 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781393204572

Carl Purdon

The voices spoke early to the young boy growing up in 1960s and 70s Mississippi. As soon as his education permitted, he began to write down some of what those voices told him and entertained his family with  boyish poetry. As he grew into his teens the voices spoke of darker things, so he stopped sharing, and soon abandoned writing altogether. The voices didn’t stop. Around the age of forty, Carl began writing his first Novel, The Night Train, and published it in 2012. The Reconstruction Of Walter Pigg is his seventh novel, and picks up where The Deconstruction Of Walter Pigg left off. Carl lives in Pontotoc, Mississippi with his wife, Sharon, and two of their four children. He still listens to the voices.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Jayrod stood at the edge of the gully, paralyzed with fear, as the thick vine swung toward him for the third time. Horace Plunk and his two hangers-on, Bobby Greenhall and Tony Farse, hadn’t seemed a bit scared when they swung across, but nothing ever scared them. In the distance he heard the tinkling of the bell - her bell - the bell even Horace Plunk didn’t dare ignore. Below he saw the tangle of honeysuckle and briars. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle ......

Grab it fatass! Horace taunted as the vine came within reach.

He’s skeered, Bobby said. Jayrod closed his eyes, bit his lip, and swallowed the lump in his throat. The vine hit the fingers of his outstretched hands and he grabbed it. It felt rough in his hands, like a rope badly twisted and peppered with burrs. He opened his eyes and pushed off with his feet, toward his classmates, knowing he hadn't pushed hard enough. Over the ditch he swung, trying not to look down as he passed halfway, then three-quarters, until his feet touched the red dirt where his tormentors stood ready to push him back should he manage to find his balance. They didn't have to. A toehold proved not enough and he swung back toward the other bank, missing it by several inches. Like a pendulum he swung, back and forth, to and fro, until his hands slipped and he spiraled downward. Briars ripped the flesh of his bare legs and arms as he plummeted ten feet to the bottom of the ravine.

Jayrod broke the vine! Horace laughed. Big fat Jayrod!

At first he thought he was blind, or blurred, then he realized it was his glasses. One lens was missing and the drastic difference in vision between left and right gave him the sensation of being knocked in the head. Glasses were a big deal. A huge deal.

Think he’s dead?

Nah, he ain’t dead, Bobby. He’s just too fat to get up, Horace said.

The bullies cackled themselves giddy while Jayrod felt around for the missing lens in the tangle of briars and weeds and pine seedlings. He wallowed out quite a circle by the time he managed to get to his feet. Something cracked beneath his left sneaker and it sounded like glass.

All at once Horace and his gang fell quiet, then scampered away like mice, leaving him in the bottom of the gully to find his own way out.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. The sound of Mrs. Snitch’s bell was muffled but unmistakable. Climbing out was impossible. Both banks went straight up. He looked left, then right, but the thicket was taller than he was and blocked his view. Every way he turned he was met with briars that ripped at his arms and at the tender white flesh of his half-naked legs. There was nothing to do but pick a direction and hope it led somewhere.

The next few minutes seemed like an eternity. Off in the distance he could hear the vigorous shake of the bell. One step at a time he pushed back the briars, trying not to stick his fingers and thumbs, until the gully widened and grew shallow enough for him to climb out. As he neared the picnic area he could hear Mrs. Snitch’s aggravated voice.

Where is Jayrod? Has anyone seen Jayrod?

No ma’am, Horace said. Maybe he got lost in the woods or something.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.....

Mrs. Snitch told the children to finish their lunches and be sure to throw their brown paper bags and empty milk cartons into the trash can. And don’t wander off. No sense losing the entire fourth grade class. Every few minutes she snapped her bell and asked if anyone had seen Jayrod. He watched from the bushes, ashamed to show himself because of the rip in his shirt, and because of the bloody scratches on his arms and legs, and because of the broken glasses he held in his hand.

Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!

Jayrod swallowed hard and stepped out of the bushes.

Scarlet Tanner glanced up from her half-eaten pimento cheese sandwich and saw him first. She was pretty with her pink pigtails and white sundress. There he is, Mrs. Snitch! And he’s peed his pants!

Jayrod looked down. It was true. True in a big way. What he had thought was sweat from his exertions was pee. Probably from the fall, or the impact of it. He wanted to turn and run back into the bushes but he knew Mrs. Snitch would drag him out again with her bell.

Get over here this instant Jayrod Nash!

Jayrod took a step, then another, toward his classmates. Blood trickled down both arms. His shirt was ripped and useless for anything but his mother’s rag box. Juice from the leaves he had ripped off the vine on his way down had left his palms sticky. Bits of grass and weed were matted into his thick brown curls. Numerous stickers from the briars dotted his chubby legs. His face was almost red enough to hide his freckles. He was bloody and in pain from head to toe, but no one noticed any of those things. All they saw was the big dark piss stain ringing the crotch of his shorts.

His classmates gathered quickly. What had been a loose group scattered amongst half a dozen picnic tables tightened like a fist. Twenty fourth graders at one picnic table, and all of them laughing at him. He also learned that when Mrs. Snitch says let’s have a look at you she means the class, not just her, for she took him by the earlobe and led him to within a few feet of the cackling children. She twisted him, and turned him, and looked him up and down. Hard as he tried to stop them, tears began to roll down his face. Snot tickled his nose. If he sniffed he would snuffle, and if he snuffled he would cry, so he let the snot seep out onto his lip.

Fine mess you’ve made of yourself, she said. What will your mother think of me?

Jayrod pissed his pants, Horace Plunk said.

You watch your language, Horace Plunk, or I’ll wash your mouth out with soap again.

After what seemed an eternity, she ordered the children back to the bus. Jayrod watched them as they stuffed their wax paper wrappers and empty juice containers into their brown paper bags and tossed them into the steel trash can chained to a pipe that was cemented into the ground. His stomach growled. There was one bag left in the box atop Mrs. Snitch’s table and it was rightfully his.

Can I ha..have my lun..lunch?

Lunch? Why I’d think the last thing you would want right now is more juice. She dumped the box, bag and all, upside down into the trash can and gave him a shove toward the bus.

ON THE BUS RIDE HOME Jayrod saw his father. Actually, Horace Plunk saw him first.

Hey, Jayrod, ain’t that your old man picking up trash on the side of the road? Yeah, hey everybody, there’s Jayrod’s daddy picking up trash!

Jayrod’s father had left rather suddenly one night a few months back. His mother had said he was away in the army fighting for their country and was somebody to be proud of, but there he stood, wearing an orange jumpsuit dragging an orange garbage bag with a half dozen other men wearing the same clothes dragging the same bags. Jonce Nash was a jailbird. Bobby Greenhall chanted it over and over until the bus dropped Jayrod off amid a cloud of brown Mississippi dust at his mailbox.

Jayrod’s daddy’s a jailbird! he yelled again, as Jayrod walked with his head down toward the white wood-framed house with its rusted tin roof and a front porch that sagged in the middle like a swaybacked horse. No wonder he lives in a pig sty.

"Oink! Oink!, Horace yelled. Maybe you’d better wear a diaper to school tomorrow in case you pee your pants again."

The roar of laughter died away as the bus clattered on to its next stop down the road and around the curve. Ellie Nash was in bed when Jayrod poked his head through the half-open door and whispered momma. He was glad she was asleep because that meant she hadn’t heard the part about Jonce being a jailbird. Finding out he was in jail might make her condition worse. When she didn’t answer he turned away from her room and went to his own, changed into clothes that didn’t smell like urine, and wondered if she might get up in time to fix supper. She often forgot to cook now that his father was away.

He watched television for an hour then went to the kitchen and made himself a peanut butter sandwich as quietly as possible. She didn’t like him wasting food but his stomach was starting to hurt. Maybe if he washed and put away the butter knife and went outside, so as not to drop any crumbs on the floor, she wouldn’t notice and, if she did notice, maybe she would give him one more chance since he didn’t get lunch at school. Sometimes she would give him one more chance if he cried a little. Most of the time he could even get away with swiping one of her snack cakes from under the kitchen counter because a bad memory was one of the symptoms of her condition.

Jayrod sat on the back porch with his feet dangling over the edge and ate his sandwich. He dreaded telling her about the glasses more than the shirt because he supposed they cost a lot of money. Thousands of dollars, probably. Maybe millions.

Ellie Nash didn’t have a little silver bell like Mrs. Snitch but Jayrod heard his mother moving about and slipped back through the back door before she caught him outside. She didn’t like him playing outside when she was bedridden because sometimes she needed something fetched and he wouldn’t hear her call.

Momma, he said softly as she opened the refrigerator door and began to rummage. I had a little accident today.

What now? It’s always something with you these days.

I fell in a ditch and broke my glasses and ripped my shirt.

At school?

We took a field trip to the park, remember? You signed the permission slip last week.

Did you drink all the milk? I know there was milk in here last night.

Yes ma’am, I fixed me some cereal for breakfast and there wasn’t but a little bit. I tried not to use it all.

Now I can’t have my milk and bread. You know milk and bread helps me sleep. Lord knows I get precious little of that.

I’m sorry, momma.

Sorry don’t put milk back in the jug, she said, pulling a lump of something wrapped in foil from the bottom shelf. She unwrapped her find, sniffed it and took a bite of what looked to him to be a Spam sandwich.

Do you think we can get my glasses fixed? I’ll be real careful with them from now on.

She took a second bite and mumbled something about welfare and his father being away and about kids being such a burden. When the last hunk of sandwich crossed her lips she took a swig of water and withdrew again to her bedroom with a warning to keep the racket down or he’d be sorry.

Jayrod slipped back outside and played in the back yard until dark, then went inside and took a bath before going to bed. Sleep came late, after hours of replaying the scene at the park over and over in his head. More than anything he wished he could play hooky for the rest of his life. At least until Horace Plunk had grown up and moved away.

When morning came his mother gently shook him awake. He rubbed his eyes, wiped away the sleep, then popped them open and sat up with a shock.

I’m sorry, momma, I didn’t hear my clock go off.

That’s because I turned it off. Now get dressed and eat your breakfast before the bus comes.

Breakfast? Something strange was afoot and it had him a little worried. Maybe somebody had died, but he didn’t know of anyone being sick. If somebody had to die he thought it might as well be Horace Plunk, but his mother didn’t know him and wouldn’t be fixing breakfast because of it. Then he felt guilty for thinking such a thing. Then he heard his mother humming as her back disappeared through the door.

By the time Jayrod dressed and combed his hair and made his way to the kitchen his mother had his plate on the table with a piece of dry toast and a tiny clump of scrambled egg. Instead of milk, since they had none, she mixed sugar with Hershey’s cocoa and hot water. She called it kid’s coffee. It stung his lips when he took the first sip but he couldn’t make himself wait until it cooled.

WHEN JAYROD BOARDED the school bus he was glad to see his best friend Arnold sitting in their assigned seat halfway back. He and Arnold had been best friends forever. Jayrod slid in beside him and told him about breakfast.

Guess you won’t be wanting this then, Arnold said, pulling two chocolate bars from his pocket and offering one to his friend.

Jayrod grinned and took the chocolate. Ever thought how funny it is that your momma’s name’s Candy and you’re always giving me candy?

Arnold laughed. Maybe that’s why she always keeps it around the house.

I think I’ll save it for later, Jayrod said.

That’s a first.

She might be sick or something, Jayrod said after tucking the candy bar away in his backpack.

Momma?

Not your momma. My momma.

But you said she was smiling. Don’t sound like being sick to me. Maybe she’s got a boyfriend. New boyfriends always make my momma smile.

Married women can’t have boyfriends.

Jayrod was glad Arnold had been absent yesterday and hadn’t witnessed his ordeal at the park. No doubt he would hear about it as soon as Horace Plunk boarded and took his seat behind them. Of all the people who had to sit behind them the bus driver picked Horace.

I might as well tell you what happened yesterday, Jayrod said, before Horace beats me to it.

He left nothing out. By the time he was through Arnold looked as though he might cry himself. A few minutes later Horace bounded up the steps all full of life and told it again.

You should’ve seen the way he pissed his pants!

The morning bell rang and Mrs. Snitch ordered the kids to their seats. Jayrod and Arnold shared a table with Digger Jones and Tony Farse. Tony ran with Horace Plunk and was not to be trusted. Digger, like Jayrod and Arnold, was an outcast because he picked his nose a lot and had been known to eat the find. Jayrod and Arnold tried to avoid them both as much as possible.

Mrs. Snitch paused when she came to Arnold’s name on the roll and demanded a note from home to explain his absence the previous day - a note he readily delivered to her desk. On his way back to his seat Horace stuck his foot out and sent him sprawling to the floor.

Quiet! Mrs. Snitch snapped. Horace, you go stand in the hall. Arnold’s face glowed crimson as he gathered himself up and made his way quickly back to his seat.

You walk like a girl, Tony Farse whispered when Arnold sat down.

Without his glasses Jayrod could barely make out Mrs. Snitch’s handwriting on the blackboard and relied on Arnold to read it to him at a whisper. Tony Farse repeatedly tattled to the teacher that his two tablemates were talking, until finally Arnold had to stop and leave Jayrod to squint his eyes and make it out as best he could. Jayrod had no trouble reading up close so he was able to complete his bookwork without help.

At recess Arnold approached Miss Snitch with caution as she sat in her folding chair reading a paperback romance novel. Ma’am, he said softly after she had failed to notice him standing in front of her. She looked up from her book and pierced his courage with her sharp glare.

Uh..

Spit it out, Arnold, I’m trying to read my book.

Uh, ma’am, it’s just that, uh, well, Jayrod broke his glasses yesterday and, uh, well he can’t see the board from back where our table is.

Then his parents had better replace his glasses.

But...

No buts, young man. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students to make special arrangements for Jayrod.

Yes, ma’am, he said, and walked back to the swings where Jayrod was sitting and watching.

What was that all about?

Oh, nothing, Arnold said. I was just asking her if I could go to the bathroom and she told me to wait until recess is over.

Figures.

Ellie Nash was humming to herself when her son strode through the front door and it didn’t take Jayrod long to figure out why. There he sat, big as life on the green vinyl couch, with a cigarette dangling from his lips and a beer in his hand. Jonce Nash was home.

Chapter 2

Jail hadn’t taken the edge off Jonce Nash as far as Jayrod could tell. Jayrod’s father was a gangly creature with a thin face and a hooked nose and thin, almost invisible, lips. If not for his scant mustache it would be easy, at first glance, to think the man had been born lipless. Jayrod had once heard his Uncle Ralph say the doctor had grabbed his little brother by the feet when he was born and snapped him like a whip. Jonce had spent the rest of his life snapping back.

Jayrod slipped his backpack off and let it drag the carpet behind him on the way to his room. The backpack was the same dull green one he had carried last year, and the year before that. Sometimes he wished it would fall completely apart so his mother would be forced to buy him a new one. Instead it came apart one tiny hole at a time until Horace noticed one day and told the class it came from the city dump. After that the holes seemed bigger and the color duller.

He made it across the living room against the backdrop of a Dukes Of Hazard rerun on the 50-inch projection TV that looked as out of place in their living room as a princess in a soup line. Jayrod had learned not to ask questions when his father showed up with expensive packages. Jonce sat on the green sofa with one hand wrapped around a beer can and the other stuck down the front of his boxers. From the kitchen he heard his mother humming a tune he had heard but couldn’t place. His nose told him she had made a trip to the supermarket.

Jay finished his homework quickly and listened for his father to go to the bathroom, then slipped out the back door to play outside until supper. Breakfast should’ve tipped him off that his father was coming home. He could remember at least three other times when his father had to report to the army for a few months. Those stretches of life were mixed bags of emotion for Jay because escape from his father also meant the onset of his mother’s condition. He wondered if those other times had been jail, and thought how hard it would be on his mother if she knew the truth.

Outside Jay put the finishing touches on the fort he had been building over the last few days. Behind the house stood a dilapidated shed with the remains of a wooden rail fence tacked to its rear. Two years ago the Nashes had tried their hand at raising a calf but it ended in disaster when the animal kicked down the fence and trampled through the neighbor’s garden. Jonce had denied ownership even though the man said he could see the pen from his back porch and had watched Jonce and Ellie unload the animal from their pickup. There had been a heated argument that almost came to blows and ended with the man leading the calf back across the field to his house on a rope. The new owner sold it at the livestock auction that following Saturday. Jayrod studied the pen, the top rail of the fence still kicked down, and remembered how his father had vowed to get even. It was all he knew of the incident and he had never heard it mentioned again.

Jayrod pulled the still-attached end of the fallen board loose and pushed it underneath the shed so he wouldn’t step on the exposed nails and have to go to the health department for a tetanus shot. Just remembering how bad the last one had hurt caused him to rub his left bicep. Then he straddled over the remaining rails and cleared the ground of empty beer cans and pint-sized Old Charter bottles. He had the makings of a first rate fort.

Even John Wayne couldn’t fight off an Indian attack without his rifle, so Jayrod slipped back into the house to fetch his BB gun from his room. He eased through the back door and walked quietly through the kitchen to the living room then into his bedroom. Jonce, who by now was stretched out on the couch instead of sitting, glanced over at him as he passed back through but said nothing.

Back outside, Jayrod flew off the porch and ran for cover inside his fort. Almost immediately the Indians attacked from three directions but his rapid-firing BB gun held them at bay. For several minutes he fired through the walls of the fort, over the top board, underneath it, then through the bottom gap with his belly and chest on the soft dirt, until the whooping stopped and the Indians retreated back up the soybean rows to the safety of the woods. Jayrod raised his head and peeked over the top rail, careful not to show himself all at once. Then he saw his father standing barefoot and shirtless, glaring at him from an arm’s reach away with his leather belt dangling from his clenched fist.

What’s this shit?

Ju..just playing. Jayrod stood and let his BB gun slip to the ground, butt first, and drop against the rail.

Who said you could tear down my fence?

Jayrod shrugged, then remembered how many times his father had warned him about answering a question with a shrug, not that it mattered because Jonce Nash had the fire in his eyes.

Jonce grabbed him by the arm and jerked him over the rail of the fort, then went to work. Up and down his legs the belt fell at least a dozen times, then across his back a couple more for good measure. Jayrod wailed at the top of his lungs as the thin leather strap stung his tender flesh. Jayrod tried to stand still but couldn’t help but jump forward with each blow. Had not his father held him by one arm he would have strutted across the yard like a rooster. As it was, they went in a circle, round and round, swinging and hopping.

Now put it back like I had it! Jonce dropped the belt to his side again and glared at the boy like he might not be quite done.

Ye-ye-ssir, Jayrod snuffled. The stinging felt like he had tumbled into a beehive, but he knew better than to move until his father blinked. It seemed like an eternity before his father looked away and started back across the yard. Jayrod wiped his eyes and pulled the old board back from underneath the shed and used the butt of his BB gun to tap the single nail back into the rotten post. He let the other end rest on the ground, because that’s the way it was before he moved it. Then he collapsed to the ground and cried like there was no tomorrow.

After some time the stinging stopped. So did the crying. It would be dark soon and he knew better than to stay outside too late so he mounted the back porch and entered the kitchen. All he wanted was safe passage to his room. His mother looked over at him from the stove when he came through the door.

Try not to upset your father, she said. He just wants you to be a good boy.

But she didn’t fare much better when she called them to the kitchen for supper. The beans had too much salt and the potatoes didn’t have enough. He had tasted sweeter tea in jail and in jail they gave you meat. She flew away in tears and Jonce finished eating like nothing had happened. Jayrod picked at his food and hoped his father would hurry up and finish.

After supper Jayrod snuck back outside and sat on the back porch listening to the freight train rumbling past as it did every evening just about the time darkness fell across Chutahachie. He called it the night train. Back during the hot months of summer vacation, he and Arnold had carried their hatchets down the long