High brush and grass, broken glass bottles and sharp discarded tin cans made it impossible for me to step into that deep ditch gully. The din and excitement on the faces of people who had stepped out from their back yards to wave and welcome the service men on the train actually frightened me. I could not figure out what all of that meant. My mind, seized by some weakness within me went beyond the limits my of imagination. My brain could not function to send the signal for my legs to move. I just stood there frozen. It was the train`s loud blasting Wooo signaling a mile ahead that it was about to move that delivered a piercing stab of pain in my ear. I was in so much pain. I could see Jesse`s arms waving up and sideways through the high brush as he yelled at the servicemen leaning outwards on the windows of the train. Disillusioned I walked away towards the end of Comal Street. My curious mind wanted to see what was below deep at the dead-end street. There was only neglect to see. Brush and wasted pieces of wood and trash littered the floor of the wide swath of land, bulldozed into the wide trench to control a possible rain storm flooded community. The thin line of murky dark water for some reason named Alazan Creek lazily moved away to my right and out of sight into the high grass growing at its edges. I looked left under the black bridge and saw a path that led to the other side of the railroad tracks.
The loose dirt burned my bare feet as I walked towards the path. Two men sat on the ground under the bridge, leaning back against a dark wood barricade, built as a barrier supporting the end of the asphalt and gravel mound of the railroad tracks. They were drinking from a large bottle, passing it back and forth to each other. Trying to avoid eye contact with them I walked slowly towards the other side of the under bridge. "Hey boy", one of the men called out to me. I paused cautiously and looked at him."Where`s your mother?", he wanted to know. The other man glanced toward the one who asked me the question with a puzzled look on his face and said, "Uh, Jake leave the kid be", as he seemed confused by the question. "Do you know my mother?" I answered. "Have you seen her?" I wanted to know. The men looked at each other and laughed. "No kid, I don`t know her, now go on", he said as I continued slowly to the other side. I wanted to see what was on that side. I tried to walked faster as the old bridge groaned to the slow and heavy forward movement of the train. I thought of my mother. With each step wanting to tell her why my ear hurt so much.
Walking out from under the cool shade of the bridge I was surprised that this side of the railroad tracks was different. It did not have a deep gully running parallel to the tracks like the other side even though the slope was the same, absent of trash and discarded broken bottles and tin cans. Compared to the other side, this one had the front yards of shanty houses where people sat with vacant stares, on wooden crates looking at the train. Most just sat there, while a few waved at the servicemen at the windows of the train. The space on the ground between the bottom of the slope and the front yard of the houses was level. It served as a narrow street. Pot holes on the stony pathway made for the only one-way navigation route people could walk. Walking towards the under bridge where I emerged from only led to the dead-end. People had to walk the opposite direction to reach the nearest street. That street was the intersection that crossed this narrow outlet. For the first time I noticed that the people staring at the servicemen as they sat on wooden crates, were people of color called Negros back then. They would not ask or beg the servicemen for money. There were also poor whites living on this side as well. I would come to spend a lot of time on this side of the railroad tracks.
With no obstacles like broken glass or other objects that could add to my already painful ear by inflicting a cut to my feet, I sensed that I had made the right decision by coming to this side of the tracks. Although this narrow path had many house front yards facing the tracks I saw no one yelling close to the slope up at the servicemen. I started going into the same waving and yelling motions at the servicemen as I had seen Jesse do on the other side. Some of the soldiers that had been leaning out of their windows took notice and waved back at me. I held out my hands palms up and yelled for them to throw me a nickle. I had no idea what to expect as I saw some glistening small objects against the hot sun falling down on the ground near me. I heard the sound of something falling on stone and saw it bounce away. I saw several coins bounce on the stony path. I looked around and saw a small boy pick them up. I looked at him and he grinned. He came over and put the coins in my hand. I grinned back at him, placed the coins in the only pocket my tattered shorts had without knowing what I had. I obviously had no sense of the value of money, but I was enjoying myself.
The train was very long as I watched it sway to its side and back against the sun. I
must have been by the railroad tracks for a long time when suddenly Raul came and
found me. "Where the Hell have you been?" he seemed surprised to have found me.
"Come on, you have to come with me to my house, they are looking for you" he said. I was scared all of a sudden. I thought my aunt Elvira was looking for me. I asked Raul, "Who is looking for me?". He only grabbed my arm and pulled me and I followed him to his house. When we reached his house his mother appeared to be mad at me. "You have to go back where you came from", she said clearly angry. "I have not been hiding you as your family think", she said. "We have enough worries without you adding to them", she scolded me. "Now you go with Raul so he can take you where you belong", she said almost yelling at me.
My aunt Hortense it turned out had been raising hell with Raul`s mother accusing her of hiding me. My aunt was worried about me and wanted to take me to her home. It was never my aunt Elvira who was after me. I became more afraid thinking that now another aunt was going to beat me again. I felt trapped but I went with Raul. When we reached the block where my aunt Hortense lived, I was shocked! On the other side of the street to her house was a Cemetery that ran four blocks around. There were no houses on that side of the street, only tomb stones on the ground surrounded by a chain linked fence. Raul told me that at night, people rose from their graves and went into the homes on the other side of the street. I think that even if Raul was joking to make me scared, the lack of electricity in this particular area like most places, darkness at night would make for another wrinkle in my quest for safety and well being at my age.