Doak Walker's Backup
Standing next to the tracks in San Antonio I watched my rail riding advisor disappear as the boxcar we shared traveled east. He said he had been backup to Doak Walker at SMU but when later I checked the roster his name was not there. Also I could not find any evidence that black men were attending Southern Methodist back in the late forties. Strangely, this did not make me doubt any of his stories, even the ones that could not be backed up with hard facts because most of what he had told me had served me well, like how to jump off a train without hurting yourself. Unfortunately he had told me this last bit after I had jumped once, and hurt myself.
I had to catch Interstate 10 to Interstate 35, the right side of my face was a black and red scab from temple to jawbone, and I was overall a dirty boy with rail riding grime coating most of my surface.
An amorous Native American picked me up and I told him I would be appreciating the lift but no nooky would be exchanged between us. The offers of man love had shocked me at first but I was coming to understand the game better and this guy was drunk, at eight in the morning, and I had a weapon, and I was tired, and that was that. He dropped me at a place that left me a short walk to I-35, which would take me into Austin.
I was a few days late for the start of the spring semester at the University of Texas. I wasn't a dropout yet, but in retrospect, I was very close. This train trip, it was already starting to wear the weight of a seminal moment in a boy's life.
I don't even think I was hitchhiking, I was just walking to the right spot, when a VW Beetle pulled onto the shoulder. It was Dave, this guy who had roomed next door to me at Kinsolving (a girls dorm) during summer school. He was a few days late for the start of the spring semester too. He asked me what happened to my face and I said I fell off a train and that became the refrain for the casual acquaintance regarding what happened to me. Most people thought I had just gotten my ass kicked and the train thing was me and my dry wit.
He took me to the apartment on West Lynn and Ninth that I was sharing with three other guys. Off campus, bigtime, grown up stuff. I got to see myself in a mirror for the first time in a week (we stayed in an El Paso mission that first night after the train accident and I saw myself there but it was one of those shiny metal mirrors and the detail was lacking.)
My roommates were all gone--presumably attending college--so I had a little time to collect my thoughts, wash up, shave around the scab, get dressed and...go to college?
It was too late for classes but I walked up West Lynn to Enfield, caught the Enfield shuttle bus, and walked the UT campus. I was tweaked, circuits sizzling. I wasn't who I was so who was I?
I entered the undergraduate library and took a seat by myself at a table for four. As soon as I sat down I knew I was done with the college thing.
I had taken another trip right after summer school, in August, with a friend named Billy, and we had hitchhiked together up into Telluride, for the Jazz Festival. That was a life-changing, life-affirming trip too, but more for Billy than for me and it was me telling him to hang in there, don't drop out, when he discussed his doubts about school to me in December, right before I hitchhiked to USC and came back on a train.
I went through the motions for awhile, attended a few classes, tried dropping acid before some of them to see if that would help, but it didn't.
At the end of January my father wrote to say he had opened for me what looked like official mail. As he was handling most of my "business" affairs I did not take issue with his felonious behaviour. He was sure this was a mistake but their was a ticket for me from Los Angeles, or Anaheim maybe, for hitchhiking. Oops, those damn CHiPs, I had forgotten all about that.
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Standing next to the tracks in San Antonio I watched my rail riding advisor disappear as the boxcar we shared traveled east. He said he had been backup to Doak Walker at SMU but when later I checked the roster his name was not there. Also I could not find any evidence that black men were attending Southern Methodist back in the late forties. Strangely, this did not make me doubt any of his stories, even the ones that could not be backed up with hard facts because most of what he had told me had served me well, like how to jump off a train without hurting yourself. Unfortunately he had told me this last bit after I had jumped once, and hurt myself.
I had to catch Interstate 10 to Interstate 35, the right side of my face was a black and red scab from temple to jawbone, and I was overall a dirty boy with rail riding grime coating most of my surface.
An amorous Native American picked me up and I told him I would be appreciating the lift but no nooky would be exchanged between us. The offers of man love had shocked me at first but I was coming to understand the game better and this guy was drunk, at eight in the morning, and I had a weapon, and I was tired, and that was that. He dropped me at a place that left me a short walk to I-35, which would take me into Austin.
I was a few days late for the start of the spring semester at the University of Texas. I wasn't a dropout yet, but in retrospect, I was very close. This train trip, it was already starting to wear the weight of a seminal moment in a boy's life.
I don't even think I was hitchhiking, I was just walking to the right spot, when a VW Beetle pulled onto the shoulder. It was Dave, this guy who had roomed next door to me at Kinsolving (a girls dorm) during summer school. He was a few days late for the start of the spring semester too. He asked me what happened to my face and I said I fell off a train and that became the refrain for the casual acquaintance regarding what happened to me. Most people thought I had just gotten my ass kicked and the train thing was me and my dry wit.
He took me to the apartment on West Lynn and Ninth that I was sharing with three other guys. Off campus, bigtime, grown up stuff. I got to see myself in a mirror for the first time in a week (we stayed in an El Paso mission that first night after the train accident and I saw myself there but it was one of those shiny metal mirrors and the detail was lacking.)
My roommates were all gone--presumably attending college--so I had a little time to collect my thoughts, wash up, shave around the scab, get dressed and...go to college?
It was too late for classes but I walked up West Lynn to Enfield, caught the Enfield shuttle bus, and walked the UT campus. I was tweaked, circuits sizzling. I wasn't who I was so who was I?
I entered the undergraduate library and took a seat by myself at a table for four. As soon as I sat down I knew I was done with the college thing.
I had taken another trip right after summer school, in August, with a friend named Billy, and we had hitchhiked together up into Telluride, for the Jazz Festival. That was a life-changing, life-affirming trip too, but more for Billy than for me and it was me telling him to hang in there, don't drop out, when he discussed his doubts about school to me in December, right before I hitchhiked to USC and came back on a train.
I went through the motions for awhile, attended a few classes, tried dropping acid before some of them to see if that would help, but it didn't.
At the end of January my father wrote to say he had opened for me what looked like official mail. As he was handling most of my "business" affairs I did not take issue with his felonious behaviour. He was sure this was a mistake but their was a ticket for me from Los Angeles, or Anaheim maybe, for hitchhiking. Oops, those damn CHiPs, I had forgotten all about that.
- jimlouis 12-14-2003 3:31 pm