Rufus Dunnem walked along the section of tracks he usually headed for when his head was exploding. His head was exploding on this day because his woman, Wanda, had made him feel like an un-housebroken, witless, barely tolerated freak with the potential of a zero . . . again. He wanted to kick Wanda and her shit out the window, but it would probably kill her and leave a mess of underwear all over the ratty yard for the neighbors to root through. Also, subsequently, he'd have the police to deal with, which would be worse than death by drowning in a cesspool. He walked on.
When he can't take Wanda's crap any more, he heads for the tracks like a lemming, especially when sober, and struggling to remain sober. At the moment, he had things crawling all over him . . . on the inside.
It’s the only place nearby where he can get away from people and their cars, their damn machines, their mean noisy stupid children, and their ugly dogs, that follow him like the hounds of hell, especially when he has a killer hangover. He figures he probably gives off a scent of vulnerability that having snakes crawling around inside you might. The dogs smell it on him, and become feral. What the hell . . . it's as good a theory as any.
This is how he tends to think when he follows the tracks. He's normally a merciful enough man, but on the head-exploding days, if asked, he would probably say he wasn't in the best frame of mind, which would be a major understatement. Walking along the tracks soothes him, puts the demons to rest for a while.
It's beautiful there in its way.
Fields of crops lie to the South of the tracks, to the North there's a barrier of growth thick enough to block out the sounds coming from the street, and the backyards of houses. Every yard has a barking dog, fenced in or chained.
Except for the dogs, it’s mostly very peaceful.
Ratty old tomcats stalk families of quail to their homes in the growth, and large colonies of stinging red ants build mounds beside the tracks. Rusted railroad spikes can be found occasionally among the rocks, along with all the debris that has been dumped there, or blown in on the wind.
If he walked due West he'd eventually reach a stand of cottonwood trees near an irrigation ditch. Fat fence lizards nimbly move to the hidden sides of the trees as humans approach. Not much further along there's a trestle, which spans the main irrigation canal. Beyond that there are only more speeding cars, and there’s nothing left to do but turn around and go the other way.
Walking due East, he'd cross a single street with the tracks; there are more fields to the South here, and then there are huge piles of rock and gravel, large trucks and assorted equipment belonging to the County to the right, and the Community Center and College to the left.
On these ever more frequent walks, no matter which direction he chooses to follow, he'll walk parallel to a pipeline that carries jet fuel, buried some thirty feet down, on the North side of the rails. Small signs placed every 100 yards or so warn him, almost ironically at the moment, of the presence of the pipeline. Such pipelines have been known to ignite spontaneously, from time to time, turning a giant flame-thrower on any thing and any one in its vicinity.
Still in his black mood, and crawling with heebee jeebee snakes within, he wonders as he stumbles along, if this is to be his day. The odds are in his favor that it won't be, but at the moment he considers the idea of fate's favor to be a curse. He can't erase the words Wanda spilled over him. He's scalded and scorched at the same time. Again.
The pipelines don’t go up all that often; on the other hand, it would make a fitting end to this particular day, to be reduced to less than ash, and leave everyone who ever knew him wondering.
He smiles at the thought of Wanda standing there in the doorway, looking at a single charred shoe in the hand of a policeman - half listening to the question - "M'am, do you recognize this shoe?"
There’s a dead gull up ahead. Rufus walks toward it, and stands looking at it. The town is full of gulls and pigeons. They live off scraps of leftovers from people’s fast-food feeds. "This one's seen better days," he thinks. It’s been in place for a day or two and a crew of small but industrious workers are slowly dismantling the carcass and carrying it away. This is going to take a while. He wonders what they’ll build on the other end . . .
Walking on, there’s a white cat hunched and frozen in the brush, gazing at him suspiciously. Quail explode out of the scraggly Russian Olive trees and disperse. The white cat twitches and is gone, leaving only its ghost image in his retina. Stopping to rest beneath a tree by the fence, a couple of nesting songbirds spitefully curse him out for being there, diving repeatedly to within inches of his head. Just like home.
It begins to rain just a little bit - barely enough to wet the soot on the leaves. But he feels it's going to pour any minute now. Someone has painted a marijuana leaf on the back of an old, discarded oil-burning stove sitting there. Tiny black ants explore the ankles and cuffs of the lumbering brute that has planted its big feet on top of them.
Looking up, he spies a high metal tower in the distance. No telling what it was meant to contain, but it’s a rusted white in color now, and bears a large block letter, stenciled near its domed top.
He stands in the fine drizzle, with his roll your own cigarette stuck to his lips, staring upward. A trickle of rainwater runs off his hair and down the back of his neck. He has a sense of endless strife passing over him with its relentlessly heavy stroke.
"Christ," he mutters to himself, " it's a fuckin' 'W' for Wanda. It's like her voice from the bowels of the earth, where they probably keep hell, yelling in my ear. That acid tongued bitch . . . "
He lets out a sigh that is more a groan, and reaches into his pocket, feeling the reassuring round shapes of the coins with his fingertips. Carefully, so as not to drop any, he counts them out on a shaky palm.
Enough for one can of beer.
Salvation.
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