dependence on whiskey, but all the same, subject to the identical laws and penalties as anyone else. In that way, my father said, justice was blind.
Along the railroad tracks were the remains of fires and always an empty bottle of whiskey nearby, along with cigarette stubs and apple cores and discarded bits of clothing. Looking at their camps, Dougie and I couldn't piece together the lives of these men, not that we tried very hard. They were beyond our understanding and certainly beyond our help, and they seemed very far away from the poise—I suppose the better word is coordination—of our own fathers, part of another world altogether, a respectable, successful world. The tramps were the inhabitants of the uncivilized country down below the hill, a small, mean world with the promise and variety of a set of railroad tracks—except, of course, to Dougie and me, who saw it as a form of liberty, re-lease from the coat-and-tie milieu of our fathers.
When we reached the tracks we always paused for a cigarette, Old Golds for Dougie, Chesterfields for me, filched from cigarette packs at home. Something lawless about it, casually smoking a cigarette as freight trains lumbered by, and then snapping the butt at the rails and watching the shower of sparks. Often we would climb atop a switching box in order to see the lake a half mile distant, a sliver of blue beyond the bulk of the auto parts factory. Our terrain was so rough it was difficult reconciling it with the flash of color on the horizon. In summer we saw the sails of small boats and that was more incongruous still, the graceful lines of the vessels in sharp contrast to the underbrush and stunted trees around us, the clouds of mosquitoes and the dead campfires of the tramps. In the damp prairie cold of January and February ice built up along the lake, white replacing blue. The harbor was frozen all the way to the breakwater and sometimes beyond. The lakefront was out of reach because the auto parts factory stood in the way, the factory bounded by a chain-link fence with razor wire along the top. The rumor in town—vigorously denounced by my father—was that secret work was proceeding inside, something important to do with the war effort, and that New Jesper should be proud to be summoned to play a role. Once, standing at the fence and looking inside to see the secret work for ourselves, Dougie and I were shooed away by an indignant watchman. Goddamned kids, he shouted at us, but we thumbed our noses at him. The fence that kept us out also kept him in, though it took Dougie to notice that he was wearing a revolver in a holster and was carrying a two-foot-long billy club in his fist. We assumed that the fence was there to protect the factory and its secret work from the tramps and that set us to laughing because the tramps were so uncoordinated, as Dougie said. None of them had the cunning or initiative of Japanese spies. They were down and out.
I suppose Dougie and I were eight or nine years old when we saw our first tramp. He was asleep with his head resting on a discarded rail tie. He looked deflated, collapsed like a rag doll. I thought he was dead but said nothing about that to Dougie. We were twenty feet from him, staring at him as if he were an animal in a zoo. The tramp looked up, startled, and seeing we were boys and not rail agents, let out a high-pitched whoop and then smiled broadly.
You boys have a smoke for an old man?
Dougie and I looked at each other.
Give us a smoke, the tramp said.
I threw him a Chesterfield, underhanding it so that it bounced at his feet.
Match, he said sharply, so sharp it was almost a snarl.
I threw him a book of matches. He caught it, lit the cigarette, and sat Indian fashion, his arms on his knees. He put the matches in his shirt pocket.
Now where are you boys from? I'll bet you're from up there on the hill.
That's right, Dougie said.
Live in a fancy house, I'll bet.
We've got to be going, I said.
Stay awhile. Have a
Along the railroad tracks were the remains of fires and always an empty bottle of whiskey nearby, along with cigarette stubs and apple cores and discarded bits of clothing. Looking at their camps, Dougie and I couldn't piece together the lives of these men, not that we tried very hard. They were beyond our understanding and certainly beyond our help, and they seemed very far away from the poise—I suppose the better word is coordination—of our own fathers, part of another world altogether, a respectable, successful world. The tramps were the inhabitants of the uncivilized country down below the hill, a small, mean world with the promise and variety of a set of railroad tracks—except, of course, to Dougie and me, who saw it as a form of liberty, re-lease from the coat-and-tie milieu of our fathers.
When we reached the tracks we always paused for a cigarette, Old Golds for Dougie, Chesterfields for me, filched from cigarette packs at home. Something lawless about it, casually smoking a cigarette as freight trains lumbered by, and then snapping the butt at the rails and watching the shower of sparks. Often we would climb atop a switching box in order to see the lake a half mile distant, a sliver of blue beyond the bulk of the auto parts factory. Our terrain was so rough it was difficult reconciling it with the flash of color on the horizon. In summer we saw the sails of small boats and that was more incongruous still, the graceful lines of the vessels in sharp contrast to the underbrush and stunted trees around us, the clouds of mosquitoes and the dead campfires of the tramps. In the damp prairie cold of January and February ice built up along the lake, white replacing blue. The harbor was frozen all the way to the breakwater and sometimes beyond. The lakefront was out of reach because the auto parts factory stood in the way, the factory bounded by a chain-link fence with razor wire along the top. The rumor in town—vigorously denounced by my father—was that secret work was proceeding inside, something important to do with the war effort, and that New Jesper should be proud to be summoned to play a role. Once, standing at the fence and looking inside to see the secret work for ourselves, Dougie and I were shooed away by an indignant watchman. Goddamned kids, he shouted at us, but we thumbed our noses at him. The fence that kept us out also kept him in, though it took Dougie to notice that he was wearing a revolver in a holster and was carrying a two-foot-long billy club in his fist. We assumed that the fence was there to protect the factory and its secret work from the tramps and that set us to laughing because the tramps were so uncoordinated, as Dougie said. None of them had the cunning or initiative of Japanese spies. They were down and out.
I suppose Dougie and I were eight or nine years old when we saw our first tramp. He was asleep with his head resting on a discarded rail tie. He looked deflated, collapsed like a rag doll. I thought he was dead but said nothing about that to Dougie. We were twenty feet from him, staring at him as if he were an animal in a zoo. The tramp looked up, startled, and seeing we were boys and not rail agents, let out a high-pitched whoop and then smiled broadly.
You boys have a smoke for an old man?
Dougie and I looked at each other.
Give us a smoke, the tramp said.
I threw him a Chesterfield, underhanding it so that it bounced at his feet.
Match, he said sharply, so sharp it was almost a snarl.
I threw him a book of matches. He caught it, lit the cigarette, and sat Indian fashion, his arms on his knees. He put the matches in his shirt pocket.
Now where are you boys from? I'll bet you're from up there on the hill.
That's right, Dougie said.
Live in a fancy house, I'll bet.
We've got to be going, I said.
Stay awhile. Have a
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