# Out of jail to lose my first love, breaking a rib and checking out random girls and train



## wokofshame (Aug 2, 2011)

got out of jail in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine 160$ lighter from bailing me dear old self out and hitched down to Portland. My final ride is partying it up in his Starfleet van with some beers, he tells me a story about his friend ODing on his couch years ago. He called a buddy to help drag the body out and plant it in the dead guy's parents house. 
I'm going straight to hell, he says. 
I'm sure you won't; you gave me a ride.
He gives me his last Marlboro which is my first in about 6 months, he drops me off at Fisherman's Wharf and I put on my XtraTufs. The 3rd person I ask for work offers me 25$ to pack some bait, mostly frozen tuna, into 55-gallon bait barrels. It's like a party with 20 people speaking rapidly in Vietnamese and guys drinking Heinekens while running forklifts while 3-year old kids are sitting on their laps.
I get a job on the Fishing Vessel Sugarfoot, we wait around for random shit, one night I visit my friend Mae on Long Island Maine, we go to the beach. 3 days later we finally head out into the Gulf of Maine to catch slime eels. Eeling works pretty much like lobstering or crabbing in that you set strings of traps with markers on each end, you bring them up, rebait and reset them every day or two. 
The bait we use is pretty fucking ripe, I get tasked with being baiter, of course. Some of the highlights are getting one of the birds (stabilizers that hang off the outriggers) caught up in someone's lobster gear, I headed out to the end of the outrigger in healthy seas to untangle it which is pretty fun, 30 feet out and 20 feet in the air, rocking back and forth. And I leave my sneakers on the generator to dry and of course they fall of into the bilge, I fish them out with a gaffing hook and toss them since they are worn out anyway and now soaked in motor oil.
Also there was this old dude Pop who cooked for us and worked on deck also, we got to be good friends and he told me about killing so many people as a south vietnamese fighter that he couldn't even remember. He showed me where he had been blown in half by hand grenades, huge ugly scars from his groin to his chest, and tried to sell me on heading to Vietnam "1 dollah blowjobs". I imagined old Pop as a young man cooking rice over a secret little fire in the mountains of Vietnam living in stealth, fully the warrior.
After 2 weeks we get back and my girlfriend meets me in Portland and breaks up with me, it was sort of a long time in the coming the whole spring. It's almost like things are better between us as soon as we break up and we stay friends. It's so odd because we still feel exactly the same way about each other, we're still treating each other the same way and still love each other. We just admitted that future wouldn't work.
I hang with another deckhand Travis at his old lady's place that night after we unload, get some new Asics, we have a campfire and I pass out by the fire. The next day I head off to Rigby yard in South Port, a day of waiting and I catch to Haverhill Mass, drop my fishing gear off at my grandfather's in Rhode Island, see my grandmother too.
I get to the Guilford yard in Ayer and I realize I have no clothes. I have 3 T-shirts and one pair of shorts. It is raining hard and I am miserable. I hole up inside a bar and talk to a old lady about her hospice.
I find two long-sleeved shirts in a donation bin and get some new carhartts and I'm set, the next day I roll off on a Pib.
I wake up and we're in New York state, I slept 13 hours straight. The old D and H is gorgeous and daylilies are blooming everywhere. We're grinding up a hill and I'm lost in reverie when I feel a warm splash of water, almost hot, all over my head the back of my neck. I glance back and we're passing a train on the siding.
No way.
It's the engineer and he's standing there pissing off the unit, didn't see me deep in the pib, I just happened to be caught in the line of fire. I wipe the back of my neck, smell it, and it indeed is piss.
Chicago and I see my friend Karina who is awesome, her new roommates are excellent people and we listen to metal and get drunk. Matt illustrates metal album covers and zines and Grumpy skates. Karina is working for an out-of-school literacy program that combines art and theatre with reading for kids, Reading in Motion.
The Missouri river and it is flooding, Tree frogs croak deafeningly and there is water coming up between the rails in the middle of the night, big diesel pumps droning fruitlessly and sandbags stacked around signals.
Lincoln Stinken yard lights thunder and I pack up my gear down in the coal car 4AM WHAAABM slam the Slack Action comes in my head whacks into a beam inside the coal car's bowels and I break one of my ribs the first bone I ever broke on a freight train I guess it's about time.
A long shower at the mission and breakfast city bus to north end of town blood bank whatcha know. Hot nurse and I give my blood, rest my ribs.
A day of the loathesome hitching punctuated by a strange Kansan homosexual and a christian 18-yr old passing people at 100 almost getting us in headons buys me 2.75$ of food but no more. Pecan pie and chcolate milk. Then an arguing christian couple overbearing husband. More strange people from Kansas. Why is everyone from Kansas so fucking weird? 
Up to Shoestrings throw a stick hit his 2nd floor window. He thinks its a bird knocked itself out hitting the window comes out to look and it's me.

It's very comforting here. Clean and quiet and full of good food. There are pretty women everywhere and they smile at me. Bicycles, EBT cards, pills to return for gift cards, sunscreen, copper, produce, day labor, all this seems to rain out of the sky.


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## CelticWanderer (Jan 15, 2015)

thats a dope ass story man. s'was a good read


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## Deleted member 2626 (Jan 15, 2015)

Good revival Celtic murt has some great stories on here.


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## Johnny P (Jan 18, 2015)

Aww man, getting pissed on by an Engineer in passing! fucking classic!


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