“MY LAST TRIP”

 by Joseph Bickel

The hobo beside me on the park bench snored so loudly that I could not sleep. The proverbial 1og was half sawed through, when he awoke with a low cry at my continued jabbing of his ribs. I intended to ask him where the railroad station was, but forgot it in my excitement. That cry, could it be possible? Yes. I could recognize that voice anywhere as belonging to an old schoolmate of mine - Ronald Smith.

He didn’t know me, and mumbled something under his breath about people looking where they’re going.  However, I introduced myself and soon fell to talking about old times.

He had been a reporter for the Horn Town Daily for three years, when the paper suddenly went bankrupt. After that, his story was just a case of drifting from one city to another, occasionally landing a job.

 As for me, I had spent the best years of my life as motorman of a rural trolley company. My favorite run had been a fifteen-mile line, winding through the hills to a neighboring city; a stretch of sharp curves, sudden steep hills, and innumerable small-bridged streams.

We decided to stay together awhile; then to hop a train for the west in the morning. I found a bench not far away and lay down under the star-studded sky. My head was buzzing with recollections.

The lightning skipped about in the bright pink sky, stretching jagged fingers to the tips of giant trees. The crash of thunder echoed among the hills and valleys, veritably rocking the ear. My headlight jabbed into sheets of rain and hail, which battered in volleys against the windows in sudden attacks. The rails were slick as glass. I had turned off the car lights and with it the low hum of the voices of about twenty passengers ceased; for it was only then that the terrific forces of nature were evident. It was peculiar how the interior lights had seemed to act as a barrier against the flashes of lightning, which now seemed too huge through the very windows.

 I had originally planned to try to make it to Bridgeton, where the East-bound and West bound cars normally passed, but I was already due at Bridgeton when I pulled into the passing siding a mile east of the town.

 The signals were out, so that I could not tell whether the eastbound ear had entered the block ahead or not. I decided to wait fifteen minutes, enough time to give the car from Bridgeton a chance to get here.  Those fifteen minutes seemed like a half-night of blinding flashes, sharp thunder, and under­neath, the rhythmic knock of the air pump.

At the end of fifteen minutes, I concluded that the eastbound had been late and was waiting for me at Bridgeton. I started up the long curving hill, from where the tracks took an easy dip into town. The car was barely crawling around a sharp turn uphill, when I perceived through the rain a faint glimmer of light. It steadily became larger and all of a sudden, the eastbound car whipped around the corner.

I gave a long howling yank on my whistle cord.

Too late!

I saw the horrified face of the motor-man, ghostly white in the light of my headlight. Crash!!!

The park policeman was tapping me on the head with his nightstick telling me to move on.