3 Times Does the Trick- Outta Everett, Outta Everett Again, and Outta Everett once Again

[wokofshame]

I know a guy who rode out of Roseville 3 or 4 times in a row intending to get to Colton, got on a junk train to Oakland every time, rode back to Roseville every time, and finally caught a hotshot out with me to Eugene.
But this is the most times I've ever had to try to leave someplace. I was in Hauser Idaho this summer switching trains so as not to be headed to Pasco and Portland, but instead over the pass to Everett. Well the plane train showed up.
I nearly pissed my pants and pulled out the instant camera (still havent developed these). These are a set of flatcars which carry plane fuselages (like a Boeing 737 or 747, just without the wings) from the Kansas City area to Boeing's plant near Seattle where they finish them and I suppose put the wings on. This was on the front of what i was guessing was the KCKPAS, a junk train plying the MRL line. They were dropped and I risked freedom to foam them (and grab some well-needed water bottles from a train waiting for crew). I sat on this hotshot in a 53 well cherrying bowl after bowl of primo and eventually the crew showed up, broke our air, and grabbed the plane cars.
Around Hauser is all pine trees, it's a long and thin yard where they do almost no switching but instead swap big blocks from trains for SeaTac area or Portland. There is a large shed to one side where they pump diesel into the beasties that pull the trains around. It is lighted insanely brightly 24 hours a day and it is not particularly pleasant pulling thru what with catwalks near the top where carmen may look down and see you from above. Interestingly enough Big Narc Snitch Fucker or whatever you prefer to call these ingrates had eastbound but not westbounds refueling on this fine day.
So finally the crew hooked back on, aired up, waited for our signal, and away we rolled! On this 53 you could see out the back at an angle and I noticed the bull watching us leave. I always find it a wonderful feeling when you can see them but they cant see you. You know you have outfoxed them. Some people hate the bull but I just see it as a big game of cat and mouse. They're doing their job and we're performing ours. If you're always losing you need to brush up on your skills. And I sure won't ride with you if you are. Hate the game, not the player. Ahhhh, what was that quote again?
"Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor". -Sholom Aleichem
Away we roll! Along the highway, thru the Spook yard where I keep my head down, thru evereet jnctn and over the wonderful high viaduct a million feet in the air above the rushing Columbia. May salmon fill your waters once again, dear river. Beautiful red rock walls of western washington and spots from my memory. When youre moving it's like there is no time, no place, you're a totally different element. Sometimes I cry it's so pretty and it's the prettiest sadness you'll ever see. It's all the happy people you ride by and here we are tortured and driven by god knows what unable to be happy unless we're on the move. It's the warmth hidden in the cold wind, the romance of all your unrequited loves, the life in the drab browns covered by the snow white blanket of winter.
I love it.
Close to Wenatchee we side to let the Empire Builder pass and an abandoned truck bed liner grabs my eye. I run down the embankment, drop a deuce, and barely have hauled it back up to the train when the air hisses through her veins and she creaks slightly, old and arthritic today, grumpy from decades of odd hours and no tea. I throw it on and clamber aboard as we start to roll again. Now I can lie down and sleep with the bed liner covering the suicide bars. We pass massive apple sorting plants with thier own small railroad yards and reefer cars parked nearby.
Wenatchee is not as pretty as I imagined it. Much bigger than I thought and blemished by the impurities of our kind. I had thought about stopping off to pick apples but i do not like this place and it seems criminal to me to leave my steel bride while she is still breathing, still has the promise of 70 MPH and the flange squeal in her. Like any woman she is hard to read and has her tricks. I walk down the tracks to find the tags of friends when she airs up again and I am running for my lined suicide. Better lined than unlined. I get stoned again and joy fills my heart as we head up into the mountains.
Morning is moist and foggy, I jerk my head up to realize we are just leaving Interbay. The cascades, stevens tunnel, everett, all that was another dream which i did not dream. Instead i curled in my downy bag cozy and lulled by my paramour. We pass the planes which we must have just dropped. We roll under the tunnel, past King St ,the stadium, the container yard with cranes hauling cables like ill-behaved giants, argo of the trash, and my gear is rolled up as we slow for our destination of Tukwila where I do not want to be, I hit the ground running by Boeing Field and walk north towards the city again stopping at a coffee shop where i may drink the most delicious of beverages and eat a croissant and read the paper.

Out of time but i'll get to the main story in a few days.....

 

[woodstack]

yee. i actually remember saying to stefan that i could tell that you loved riding trains. during those few hours of waiting in the scorching heat, under those gnarly black berry bushes, and while on the train you had the biggest smile on your face the entire time

 

[coolguyeagle76']

hel ya

 

[stove]

Damn MURT your writing is something else!

 

[thefourthgeorge]

Very poetic, very interesting. Thumbs up!

 

[shwillyhaaa]

wow.. you have a beautiful talent here. dam i could see exactly what you ere talking about in my minds eye... i am scary impressed. which may not mean much, but dam. just dam.

 

[wokofshame]

I drain the last dregs of the coffee, feel happy from the warmth through my lips. It's sort of a Patronus charm to the Dementor drab of Seattle's grey hues. On this day I was so happy to be here though.
Miles of pounding the pavement led me up the long streets to Pike Place Market. I needed more of that coffee and my stomach was grumbling from the slog. Noisy diesel trucks rumble by, imbuing me with a childlike fascination. Strange to think the quick effortless few miles of round steel whirring along flat steel this morning are now an hour or two of boots hitting the harsh ground.
The Market is a gold mine of half-empty cups of coffee and I take them like shots of vodka, the faster the better. There's a hole in my heart to be filled with greed and indulgence. Crates and boxes of blemished fruits lie waiting for me on the curb and there are bits of pastries and even whole meals left on tables and trashcans. I eat all I can and stuff my pack until it's hard to zip it shut.
Next is the obligatory visit to King County Human Services to get an EBT card. It is a maddening melange of hard luck and warm bodies to wait behind inside. A man offers a dollar to anyone who will give up their place in line to him. Half of the day and I am out, 1200 dollars richer. I mean to walk down to Lake Washington and relax by the water but fate has me run into a mission which gives me a free city bus ticket. I catch the city bus to Everett and look sideways out the window the whole ride, not wanting a single bit of this world to pass me by without seeing it. It's mostly forgettable carwashes and frustrated people though and I receive a sore neck for my troubles.
My second visit to Everett today and I am awake this time. It’s a hot and humid afternoon and I recall my last visit, also a hot and sweltering day. I made the mistake of donating blood and then walking miles across town to the Delta Yard. About to pass out from depletion, I got in a conversation with a kind man who brought me back to his house. He had been the captain of the Port of Everett for 20 years, now he and his son are nudist slackers! They let me do laundry, grilled dinner for me of delicious chicken and asparagus, had a guest room for me to sleep in, then gave me a ride to Seattle in the morning!
Today I also meet friendly people when I duck into Jodie's Drink looking for some relief from the heat. In no time it seems I have new friends as well a constant cold Bud in hand. Jody is a wonderful person and stop by her bar if you are ever in Everett, the address is 1817 Broadway. As dusk comes, it is time to head on again. The final four or five miles of my journey pass quickly and finally I am at the Junction where I can hop out. Hey! What’s that? A freight train waiting for the Snohomish lift bridge to lower!
I rush down the embankment, too excited to notice the thorns tearing my arms open. Until the blackberry bushes stop me dead that is. They are five and six feet high and I have to hold my pack in front of me and bludgeon them with my gear to get through. There are thorns at eye level and I have to close my eyes to avoid getting one impaled. The berries on these trailing bushes are still green and hard and at the bottom of the blackberry hill before the tracks lays a wide swampy ditch with no way around it. Oh shit! I can’t possibly get back up the hill even if I wanted to. I only managed to make it down here with the help of gravity and adrenaline. I take the plunge and wade my way through the swamp and out of it to the edge of the wye. Here I must wait in the thorns so as to be hidden from the crew in their metal steed. My combat boots are covered in green ditch growth and filled to the brim with water, my feet squelch like geese quacking.
It is only a minute before the locomotives throttle up and come to life as the signal lights up green. I drain a boot and lace it back up while the magnificent sounds of our ten thousand ton horse fill my world. The ditch lights shine bright to cut through regrets. I share her today with two men I do not know, men in the employ of BNSF Railway Co. We do not know each other and they don’t even know of my existence yet we are in a deadly ménage a trois, cast together by fate to ride the untamable.
Boom Boom Boom the slack runs out and iron rolls true for Canada. I emerge from my shadows to watch. Tankers tankers tankers closed boxcars shit it’s 60 cars deep now and no ridables. One grainer but somehow I miss it with the speed increasing. Aaaaaah oh it’s the last car, a very closed BcRail box and there is the FRED, blinking it’s way off into the distance with all the finality of a thousand broken dreams, blinking, the clatter fading off across the river.
I watch her go, then head down the tracks to find a slightly better place to sit. A private overpass has no tags but is where any tramp would wait so I sit there. I spark up a bowl and then another, holding the smoke in my lungs as long as I can. I drain the other boot and start to wish I had beer with me when whoa…it…no way….cripey! yes! Another train for me. Those 1000-watt lights are unmistakable. As she creeps along past me and stops for the red block, I shoulder my pack and hoof it down the train, half-walking, half-running as she airs up and the brakes release. Just as she starts to roll, I see a string of single-hole grainers and grab the second of them. This train is short and I figure the cars must be the second section of the Van run. I’m glad not be next to the poisonous chlorine tankers anyway. It’s every tramp’s dream to have a train just waiting there when we reach the yard, but I have not only received this but also a reprieve. That horseshoe up my ass is solid gold today.
There is heavy metal mesh covering the grainer hole, something I haven’t seen for a while. It’s easily pulled back though and I squeeze into the hole to hide from the bridge operator, then as soon as we’re across I head back out onto the porch. My tall ass has a hard time fitting in those little single holes anyway. There are some kids with a couple hundred yards across the bridge, one runs up to check out the train as we pass and they look like trainriders. I wave but they don’t see me. It’s now fully dark and I wish they were riding this train. Nothing can bring me down though. The aroma of freshly manured pastures and the headlights of I-5 feed my glee.
At Samish Bay we come out onto Puget Sound and it’s just like pure delight from here on out. This and Tacoma to Olympia are by far the best part of this line. You roll along the water and smell that wonderful salt air and life is so wonderful. Words can’t even describe how happy I felt. Like a junkie the first time they ever shot up. Ocean, a short tunnel, I love tunnels, more ocean, and I know we are close to FairHaven. More spots from my memory pass me and I think of old friends and wish they could share this moment with me right now. A large group of kids have a fire going and are standing around it happy, close to one another and passing bottles. I wish the train would stop right here for the night.
On we roll into town and stop at the south end of the yard in New Whatcom, I’m apprehensive about crossing the border in this setup and head farther down the train to look for something else, perhaps a Canadian or Cadillac grainer. At the rear end there are a few unsealed boxcars and I am trying to wedge open a door which does not give when she airs up again. Fuck! I’m too far from my grainer to run back but I try in an all-out sprint, she moves faster and faster and at the end I’m only a car or two away but I can run no faster. My lungs burn and my head hangs as I give up, spittle flecking my jaw like a hunting dog chasing after a rabbit that dives into a hole in the ground.
I see two people walking and ask them if they have heard of my friend Felix Sonnyboy as he used to often play gigs in town. They haven’t but let me use their phone to try to call him but no answer to his phone. They saw me getting off the train and we end up walking to downtown together, talking about this and that. We have a good rapport and I’m invited to come have beers with all their friends they’re meeting up with. Beer, hmmm, damn that sounds good so in a couple blocks it’s goodtimes again with a few pitchers to quaff. The guy’s name was Aiden though I forget the girl’s name. We had an arm-wrestling tournament and I won. Things wound down and I dumpster-dived the coop for a few munchies, found some water with my sillcock key, and went to sleep in a trash 53 in the yard. It had been a long day.
Brrrrrrrraaahhhhmmmmmrrrrbbbbbbbm. “You better get out of there!” Instantly I awoke as the local’s conductor yelled at me from the pilot of the locomotive one track over. This pissed me off. No-one ever sees down into 53 wells and here I was sleeping on a piece of scrap plywood at the bottom of one, just minding my own business, when this fucking asshole with eagle eyes comes along and sees me in the little 3 foot slice between trash containers and metal railcar wall. I sat up as the local roared off and rolled things up. It was almost 7 am and I headed to the coop for all the coffee I could drink plus all manner of foodstamp-bought extravagances. Smoked salmon, goat cheese, bagels, and gallons of odwalla made a much nicer start to the day than the smalldick who had to wake me up.
I spent most of the day exploring town, drinking coffee, and watching homemade porn videos at the library. I waited for a train most of the evening with a six-pack or so and a couple bowls of smoke but this night’s train rolled too fast, a good 20 MPH. Ah well, sleep is always a good option if others won’t do.
Morning brought a whistle. Woot woot! Gear is rolled up and I crouch behind a concrete pillar as yet again it’s a train rolling about 20 MPH. This is a problem as there is a local to Bellingham from Everett now and then, but no such thing going into Canada. Another visit to the coop, more coffee and delicacies and it’s time to hitchhike back to Everett.
A ride comes quick and a nice lady brings me all the way with good conversation. I head back to Everett after my two day absence and make my way back under the bridge to smoke a bowl. This time I tag it. I explore the area and find a hammock high in the trees in the woods, I climb one of the trees and hop in and get stung by a bee. Poor bee. I guess bee stings are supposed to help prevent arthritis so after the initial shock a cold beer cures the pain. I find a working pair of binoculars in the woods and a bucket to sit on.

Within two or three hours of this along comes another train. Hells yeah. Great luck has abounded for the last thousand miles. Same deal except I’m in the sauce and get a dirty Canadian this time. Same ride but no stop in Bellingham. 1st group of kids isn’t there anymore but 2nd still is. We stop at a place under a spotlight about where the border should be and I pass out, it is close to noon the next day when I awaken. Turns out we’re not at the border, instead we’re at this obscure place outside Custer called Cherry Point. There is a big BP refinery a mile or so away through the woods and this is where my train was bound. I roll up and take a little walk.
There are white minivans marked SECURITY on the road, I have no idea where I am and there is no other traffic except for a gas tanker. The sun is hidden and I have no idea which way is north or south. It’s the middle of nowhere. I turn onto a chained-off woods road and the woods are beautiful, they were always my solace growing up and it’s still the same now. I tire of the noisy cities quickly and it is good to be here even if it is not Canada. A fox darts through a clearing and bracket fungi, which I grew up calling tree-ears, grow on the mossy birch trunks. I walk through the woods towards the refinery to check it out but it opens up and I spot a security checkpoint. Back to the woods to wander and I hug a tree, lie down and take a nap.
I head down the road again and see a cross roads when I notice one of the white minivans is following me at 3 miles an hour. No, not conspicuous at all. I pretend not to notice it when along comes another minivan and follows it. I reach the tracks when yet another minivan comes along and stops in front of me. The driver gets out, tells me I was on BP property, and asks for some ID. He seems like a fairly average guy but I don’t like his serious-looking EMT blue jumpsuit.
“Are you a cop?”
“No, but we’re BP security and you were just on BP property”.
“Well why don’t you call the cops and get them to ask me for my ID.”
Well, isn’t that just special. He doesn’t seem to know what to make of this when turn and start walking again. The procession, now three strong, tails me slowly in their matching white Chevy Assblasters. We reach a larger road. Dude, I am somewhere. Out of pure luck I turn the right way. The procession breaks up and go 3 different directions. I know the cops are coming so I head into the woods quick before one of the vans turn around. No sooner am I in the woods when my assigned tail does come back. I’m more annoyed about this than anything else so I light up a bowl and imbibe. I am just barely out of sight of the road in some thimbleberry bushes and can see the van parked as another pulls up. My disappearance seems to be an issue.
Mid-smoke along comes the cops. Ah, well, well, well. A little talk between po and rent-a-po and away races the Crown Victoria. Soon it comes back. Another little talk ( I am so close I can hear all of this and by now I’m beginning to regret I didn’t retreat farther into the woods) and the cop car goes down the main road each way then comes back. I hide the weed and bowl under some leaves so I don’t get caught with it if they do come into the woods and listen to their conversation. “Musta vanished.” They sit there for about 10 minutes before the party finally ends, another ½ hour before BP leaves but I am nice and stoned so I actually fall asleep for a little bit.
I unleaf the smoke, pocket it, and check to see if the coast is clear before hitting the main road. This is kind of a problem. There’s about one car/minute and 1 out of every 2 cars is BP security, who probably won’t be too happy to see me after our last little escapade. I walk about a quarter mile when the 3rd car to pass stops ahead. A van backs up to me and I start running for it as I see BP security turn onto the road at the crossroads back where I’d been hiding. I jump in and this awesome Native dude is driving who is way cool, he’s headed to Everett but needs to stop in Ferndale for a couple hours. I feel so great! We’re cruising down the road listening to the Rolling Stones in a minivan and BP Security can suck my balls.
He drops me off in Ferndale and I hit up this gas station for Doritos, Fritos, and milk. The Sikh owner lets me buy this tasty awesome Alaskan Amber beer with foodstamps and I head down to the bridge to tag it. He picks me back up and we talk about life and the Harley his wife gave him and it’s Everett again before I know it!
This time only 2 hours again before a train comes. I read The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle and finish my beers, which I wish I had more of, hop on a Canadian and once we are moving it turns out this motherfucker SHAKES like nothing else. If you have never been on a shaker you may not understand how truly awful it can be. Unlike a flatwheeler, you can’t tell until it’s up to about 15 or 20 MPH. If you’re a woman picture this like being fucked by a guy who’s really bad at sex and just jackhammering away like you’re a sidewalk, while you all you want to do is sleep. I have fortunately never been on this end of the deal but shakers have made me understand how shitty bad sex can be for women. This may be worse though as it goes on for hours instead of minutes. I have to brace myself with all my might against the corners of the grainer hole the entire ride, our only reprieve coming when we briefly side south of Mt Vernon. I get off and piss and shit at the edge of the track and hold my bruised kidneys before away we go again.
North of Bellingham we speed up to about 45 and the shaking lessens enough to get out of the hole. Before this, I literally was trapped inside the hole. Then shaking was so bad that every time I tried to get out my head would be bashed into the metal no matter how I tried. My ears and temple were seriously bruised and I had a fat eyebrow. I guess there must be a harmonic which exists only inside a certain speed range. At South Swift siding we stop right underneath the VACIS, I have the weed stashed on the adjacent car in case I am busted.
Two years ago I nearly had quite the unfortunate experience when I was pulled off the train in this exact spot while smoking weed, southbound from Canada. The Border Patrol VACIS operator saw my skeleton on the X-ray and called enforcement, who showed up in, what else, Chevy Astros. Unmarked green ones, to be exact. I was mid-toke as they ordered me off from inside my owl-eyes grainer hole. Shit was looking bad as I tossed ganj and bowl in bag to hide it. An agent started searching my bag, but, amazingly, was distracted enough by my complaints about rights against unreasonable search that he failed to finish searching. Or smell it.
No worries this time. We roll right thru and I can change cars to something better, whee we be speeding up oopsiedaisy does it, oh yah, oh yah, oh yah, what bitch, what, oh GOTCHA SUCKAZ! I think that’s Canada! Woot! On thru White Rock and then onto the beach, yeah, beach, then rocky beach with no swimmers but there’s three teenage girls in bikinis who notice me now on the porch and wave and cheer. I wave back and try to get them to flash me (yeah, that was kind of a chauvinist pig move) and they wave some more and smile some more and blow kisses and life is good and I’m in Canada and OUTTA EVERETT!

 

[cranberrydavid]

Man, that's some of the best prose I've read in a long time!

Back in the 80's that blackberry bank had well maintained trails and little terraces in the trees. It's kind of sad when I go see how the old spots are neglected or trashed now, but it sure makes me smile to know that guys like you are still out there riding regular! Carry on, man!

 

[woodstack]

man, such sick writing!
was all this the day before we met in poco?

 

[CvP]

"That horseshoe up my ass is solid gold today."

You paint a strikingly vivid picture. I love how excited you are to FINALLY cross the boarder; almost as if I can almost hear and see you smiling.

 

[Dmac]

man, i love to hear good stories about being on the rails! sure beats the usual "how do i get here or do this" posts.

 

[dartagnan]

Damn Murt, that was fucking beautiful. I like your spirit. Safe travels duder.

 

[kokomojoe]

came across this story while searching for something else, real good story though

 

[WanderLost Radical]

Bushwacking to exhaustion only to end up facing a swamp... been there, done that ahahah I stank for 4 days lol