One night downtown, Zal spotted a patrol car, so he and Seemo ran down an alley and out to the rail yards to hide amid the trains. They found asylum between a boxcar and a warehouse platform. Seemo didn’t seem to want to stay still, and Zal spotted an open door on a boxcar nearby. He ran to the end of the platform where he could lead Seemo up onto it, and he dashed into the open boxcar. Seemo followed Zal into the car and growled. There was something or someone in there already.
“Easy, boy!” they heard a man’s voice say. Zal grabbed Seemo’s collar and began to pull him out of the car. “Come on in!” the voice continued. “There’s plenty of room. I don’t know about you, but I sure won’t bite.”
Zal hesitated. He couldn’t afford to put his trust in anyone. Anyone might report him. He smelled food. Hot, fresh, fast food. He saw a patrol car crossing the tracks a half a block away. He heard a guitar strumming. The voice said, “Why don’t you stick around for a song or two. Care for some fries?”
Something slid across the floor toward them, and a white paper bag emerged from out of the darkness. Seemo sniffed.
Haggard Country '99
Zal could smell fries. He picked up the bag, and split the contents with Seemo.
“I won’t trouble you about your names,” said the voice. “A feller’s got t’ exercise discretion.”
Zal swallowed the last of his portion.
Close up, the shadow was clean-shaven, well dressed, with a full head of black hair. He sat down against the steel wall with a guitar. He continued strumming, then he picked through several arpeggios, and he said, “You familiar with a lady named Dolly Parton?”
Zal hesitated, and then he cautiously held his hands up as if he were holding two cantaloupes up to his chest. The man laughed. “You know kid, she writes a pretty good song too.”
He worked through his progressions on the guitar, and continued, “Say, you must not be a hair over ten,” the shadow said. Zal nearly answered “Nine,” but he stopped himself for the sake of discretion.
“Does your mama know you’re not in your bed?”
“I don’t know.” Zal didn’t want to think about what his mama might or might not be thinking.
“Well you shouldn’t worry your mama. A boy your age just can’t guess how hard a mama tries.”
The shadow lightly cleared his throat and started singing:
I wanted more from life than four kids and a wife
And a job in a dark Kentucky mine
A twenty-acre farm, with a shackey house and barn
That’s all I had and all I left behind.
The shadow continued on strumming, picking, and singing while sleep overtook the boy.