I rub the scar on my forehead. My hair’s all gone and I got more wrinkles than one of those hairless cats. Lately, the scar hurts worse than my back. I don’t ride the rails no more. They shut down the Harrison County Railroad in 1988, but sometimes I wake up hearing the whistle. I been hearin’ it all day sitting on this damn porch with my aching back so I must be going crazy.
Woooo-weeee. Like it’s callin’ me home.
I work at that scar like I’ll wipe it off my face if I rub hard enough and all the pain with it.
Stubo died. At his funeral, the preacher called him Stuart like that was his real name. Man hasn’t been Stuart since we were five and he punched George Guffman in the gut for calling him Stuart and ran cryin’ to me. “My name ain’t Stuart,” he said, wiping snot from his nose. “You ever call me that, Marky, and you ain’t my best friend no more.” We shook on it and no more Stuart.
The scar feels like it’s pushing into my brain. I dig a fingernail into my forehead. The train whistles. My mind turns fuzzy and I fall from my rocker onto my bad knee. But I don’t feel nothing. I reach down to tie my shoelaces. I’m wearing slippers and my hands go back to the scar.
The train whistle blares again. Woooo-weeee. Like Billy’s callin’ me home.
***
Nothing to do now but ride the rails. I been retired for years and my back feels like it’s a ball of fire just sittin’ there, burning. Get a call from Mama that Beth Ann died from cancer somerounded by her five children and twelve grandchildren. Mama goes next. Now it’s just me and Stubo. My sister, Sally, don’t count cuz she only calls me to tell me I’m a fool and why’d I let all the good things in my life slip away. I tell her she’s a goddamn idiot and stop calling. Sometimes Stubo rides the trains with me ‘cept he don’t buy no tickets even though he’s filthy rich somehow. We climb into the open cars like we some hobos or kids running away from home.
Stubo’s always good for a story, but when I ride alone, I feel like I’m alive again. Not that I been dead. But somehow floating through life. Like nothing I do matters. I stick my head out the window and the wind blows through the few strands of hair left on top. I think of Billy sometimes. Why’d he have to go be an idiot? Maybe things’d be different if he’d told his idiot friends no and stayed home that day. I ride and ride and ride.
***
My back hurts all the time and my knees creak and swell when it’s hot. Stubo says he feels like he did when he was twenty, but I know he’s a lying bastard. He’s got some hotshot job doing maintenance or some shit down by the train yard. We meet by the tracks and walk to some new coffee shop where I can only afford black as shit coffee unless Stubo says he’ll pay. He tells me Beth Ann had her third kid last week. I smile but feel an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. I been on disability after an accident at the factory and I walk by the tracks every day.
Sometimes I sit on a bench and watch the trains go by. I count how many seconds it takes. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand. I make it to three hundred. Then five hundred. Once seven hundred sixty-three. I count slower and slower, so the train seems to take eternity to pass by. Like it’s been passing my whole life.
***
I rub the scar on my forehead, a nervous habit since my accident, while Beth Ann yells at me. “You’re a worthless shit, Marky. We’ve been married five years, and we still live in this shithole dump and I ain’t got no bigger ring like you promised me. And I still ain’t knocked up. What’s wrong with you?”
What happened to not saying ain’t and going to hell from swearing? But I don’t say it. I ain’t dumb, even though I dropped out of college. I don’t say nothing, just let her rant and rave. She always calms down and then makeup sex is okay. Not like first-married sex, but I’m too tired from those long days at the factory to want sex much anyway.
“Then leave, Beth Ann,” I say. “If you want to, just do it. You always say you’ll be happier without me. Maybe some other dude’ll give you all the babies you want.” I wince at the word dude. I didn’t sabotage Beth Ann getting pregnant, but everytime she took a test and it turned out negative I let out a breath of air I didn’t know I been holding in my lungs like a trap. Maybe it was the fact that we still lived in Cadiz, near enough to the tracks to hear the train whistle. “Just go, Beth Ann. I want you to have those babies.” I pause. “Just not with me.”
***
In college they don’t let you say ain’t. “Isn’t,” my English teacher corrects me and I feel like an idiot. Beth Ann giggles and holds my hand under the table. I copy her notes cuz she writes in blue and pink pen and puts little hearts over her i’s.
After class we makeout in front of her house. I try to feel up under her sweater, but she pushes my hand away. “Not till we’re married, Marky, or we’ll go straight to hell,” she says. I touch her boob over her sweater and she swats my hand away and gives me a big smooch, one of those smooches to replay later in bed with a box of tissues.
I run off to find Stubo. He’s either at his job at Custer Pharmacy–at least until he gets fired again for stealing–or at the tracks. I won’t go to the tracks. Not after Billy. Maybe Beth Ann will marry me if I ask her. Then we can have sex and I’ll buy her a nice house. I can quit school and get a real job. Something cool and manly like a construction worker or a truck driver.
***
Billy doesn’t call me “little dude” no more. It’s “big dude” now that I’m taller than him. Stubo and me swipe some candy from the penny section at Custer Pharmacy. He fills his pockets with red licorice cuz it’s his fav. I only take three pieces of gum and Stubo calls me a yellow-bellied chicken. I call him a bastard cuz I heard his mom yell it at Stubo’s dad ‘fore he ran off, but I don’t know what it means. Must be bad, cuz Stubo punches me in the jaw and runs off home. My lip is split and my jaw stings, but I don’t mind. I’ll show Beth Ann at school tomorrow and she’ll feel sorry for me. Maybe even rub my cheek or hold my hand on the way to class.
Billy ain’t home, which is good. He’ll say something like fighting won’t get you into college. He thinks I’ll be the first in the family to go to college cuz I ain’t no idiot like the rest of this family. Not like Billy who runs around town with his dumb friends doing dumb shit. Billy says don’t say shit but I’m thirteen and I’ll say whatever I damn well please. Except the g-damn word. That’ll send you straight to hell.
Mama’s sitting in her chair cryin’ and Daddy’s home pacing. He’s never home before dinner. Mama doesn’t holler cuz I still got my muddy shoes on. Sally’s curled up under Billy’s jacket like she’s a stray dog and she hisses when I come close and then tries to hug me like she can’t figure out how to feel. “Billy ain’t gonna like that you got his jacket and you’re sittin’ in his favorite spot,” I tell Sally. Mama says some nonsense about Billy being dead. Hit by a train messing around with his friends. What a load of bull. Bull’s okay to say. But bullshit’ll get Mama to shove a bar of soap in my mouth.
Mama tries to hug me, but I push her away. Run down to the tracks where I know I ain’t supposed to play. But l do anyway. Everyone does cuz there ain’t nothing else to do in Cadiz, Ohio in 1950.
Flashing lights and an ambulance parked near the tracks. The street’s blocked off. Why isn’t the ambulance moving? It’s supposed to speed off to the hospital so the doctor’s can yell, “clear” and pump blood back into the bodies like on TV.
My vision blurs and my heart races. Maybe this is what a heart attack feels like. I run home.
***
Crossing the street at five years old to play trains with my best friend, Stubo. His real name is Stuart Finley, but everyone calls him Stubo. My shoe’s untied and a bend over to tie it. I can’t tie shoes, but Billy can. He’s my big brother and if I can only grow taller, I’ll be just like him someday. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. I know I won’t turn into my big sister, Sally, cuz she’s a girl and boys and girls are different. Stubo says they are. I don’t know how, but Stubo’s always right, just like Billy.
I twist the laces over each other, trying to make a knot. My knee is right on the yellow line. I look up and see the bumper before it hits me. Don’t feel nothing, but wake up in a hospital. Mama’s there and Billy too. Daddy’s at work.
Billy thrusts a toy train car into my hands. It’s the caboose, his favorite. “Ten is too old for toy trains. You can have it,” he says. He leans in close. “I chase after the real ones now, but don’t tell Mama.”
I rub my forehead and feel bumpy lines like soft staples. Clutch the caboose in my sweaty palm.
“Seven stitches and a scar,” says Billy. He holds out his hand for a high five, and I slap it. “Cool, little dude.”
*****
Rebecca Kamps has a B.A. in Creative Writing from Denison University. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her family and works as a middle school math tutor. Riding Backwards is a debut.
