THE LAST TRAIN OUT

I shot a man to save my life. I didn’t really want to watch him die. A foreign man, who just happened to be going through my pockets while I slept by the tracks in a solitary jungle of frost and drunk. I had to bed down under the bridge because I missed the last train out. By the grace of God, I had some scratch, some hooch, a loaded .44, and a gritty will to survive. Come hell or high water, I’d live to see it through. That night, my dream of a Vegas girl seducing me lustfully was abruptly muted by a blade at my throat and an unknown hand in my front pocket. Out of my back pocket came the loaded .44 and a silent prayer for the condemned thug who was dumb enough to tangle with the likes of a throwaway hobo. A hobo with an unbending spirit against the odds, to make it out of town and down the line to a slim chance of something better. That was years ago, in a past life. And yet his ghost still manifests like a melody from an unknown source and jolts like electricity on an indirect course. His passing, nonetheless, permeates like water deep into my roots. That desperate night is a permanent shadow in my memory, like frost that bites and refuses to thaw from my boots.