After watching videos on YouTube, he figured out he needed something slow and heavily loaded. A freight train heading out of Philly rather than into it, headed west to the open country beyond the Mississippi, where adventure began and the boring confines of his life could be left far behind.
And on the very next moonlit night, burdened by his gear, his freshly washed blue bandanna wrapped loosely around his neck, he stood just off the platform at Lawndale Station in the patch of dirt and grass and gravel and listened for the train. Shivered when he heard the wail of the whistle, one long blast announcing its approach.
The thunder of two diesel engines burst out of the trees along the tracks.
Jack held his breath and did not let himself step back. He was on a bit of high ground, watching as the train slowed down as if waiting for him to judge the right time to grab hold of a ladder or a handrail and jump on. As if it were that easy. As if his life could begin anew, filled with light and air and movement.
That’s what he wanted. All he had to do was jump.
A flatcar went by. Then two boxcars, their doors tightly shut. The light from the moon flickered, tree branches waving in the train-produced wind. Then he saw it: the narrow shadow of an open door on a boxcar, just coming up the slope to the station.
Jack threw himself into the shadow and rolled across the gritty wooden floor of the boxcar, his gear slung on his shoulder, dense, rock-heavy.
He scrabbled to a stop inches from tumbling out the other side. Checked himself, sitting up, knees bent and arms looped around them as his head rattled with the echoing bangs of the train along the tracks.
The moon jumped into the boxcar and then out again. In and out, a flickering energy that he realized was the overhang of Lawndale Station cutting off the beams of light and then admitting them, illuminating the rusty dirt inside the boxcar. The new scrape on his army boots. The sift of dust in the air.
He was inside a boxcar, riding on a train, headed west. He was on his own. This was a new beginning that, while it held no promises, hinted at the wide-open spaces that beckoned from beyond the world he had been raised in.
His heart thumped hard. He could get off when the train slowed again—which it would do, over the low hills of Lawndale and Melrose Park and North Philly. Or he could stay right where he was and seize the hopes that all the tomorrows would bring.
As for what his dad would say or do come morning when he discovered Jack gone, Jack did not care. The world awaited him, and he was on his way.
CHAPTER 15
nimble
Morgan was fully asleep by the time Nimble had crossed the threshold from the bedroom to the hallway. But that was fine by Nimble, because of what Morgan had said and done. How he’d looked as he’d listened to Nimble’s tale of woe.
Nimble had always thought his past wasn’t great, but wasn’t anything to fuss about, either. A boy from a small neighborhood whose dad didn’t like it that he was gay. Boo-hoo. Who cared. A lot of people had it worse.
Like Blue, who’d sometimes looked at Nimble with cold eyes, as if Nimble were the enemy. Always on the defensive. Sparked easily to anger, like his whole life up to that point had been one big fight with some unbeatable foe.
Or Star, who walked with hunched shoulders and kept his back to the wall whenever he could. Who sometimes whimpered in the dark, high-pitched cries that stabbed into Nimble’s heart.
Then there was Strider, who’d lost his legs and his life getting run over by a freight train.
Compared to them? Compared to them, Nimble was alive and well, didn’t have nightmares, and was no longer trapped in a corner while his dad loomed over him.
His life had been good after he’d left home, and he’d been generally happy. However, calling his dad had brought all the reasons he’d left crashing back down on his head, shaking him to his core. He must have forgotten how much his dad hated him, because talking to him for five seconds made Nimble feel lower than worm dirt.
Morgan had changed that by asking and listening, unshocked that Nimble was gay—but then, why would that be a problem for him? Morgan had his own story to tell about a guy named Bradley, who wasn’t very nice. Who was, in fact, an asshole.
Morgan’s expression had been the best part. Sympathetic. Kind. His blue eyes soft, as if every part of him was full of acceptance. He’d looked at Nimble like he wanted only the best for him, like he’d hunt down and hurt anyone who dared to give Nimble less.
Nimble’s vulnerability had been met with Morgan’s own. He’d wanted a drink, and Nimble had fetched it for him, forgetting that he shouldn’t have alcohol if he’d just taken Percocet. Morgan had remembered a second too late, chastising himself with comical dismay.
A little snoring sound came from the bed, and Nimble smiled. In the stillness, without the wind banging the windows, the apartment was quiet except for those snores.
He went downstairs, shivering as he got farther from the fire, and checked to make sure all the doors were solidly closed. Then he hurried back to the kitchen and finished cleaning up. When everything was tidy, he hunkered in front of the fire in the parlor with the quilt wrapped around himself and tended to the coals with the little iron shovel.
If not for that train starting up unexpectedly, Nimble might have been all the way to Santa Monica by now, splayed on the sand like a starfish, soaking up the sun, listening to Star rattle on about something and to Blue’s quiet, measured replies.
But he wasn’t. He was here, in this apartment with a handsome man who didn’t seem to know he was handsome and who was carrying memories that dragged on him like dark weights.
Nimble had memories like that, so he knew how it felt. And maybe he was glad, now, that the train had left him behind so he could have nights like this, in a place where, even if a zillion miles from the nearest beach, he could at least soak up some warmth. And listen to Morgan’s snores.
His head was swimming a bit. Maybe the liquor was hitting him harder than he thought.
