Hearing nothing but the crunch of weeds under my shoes, the scatter of pebbles, and the rush of wind.
Only there isn’t wind.
Just sound.
Jimi says, “We got twenty-two seconds, kiddos.”
“What is that noise?” I ask.
Jimi laughs. “Noise. Just noise.”
And then he stops. I run into his back. He puts a hand on my shoulder and says, “Just sit still. Right there. Feel that?”
And I do. Vibrations. The earth moving beneath us like the thick bass from a lowrider. I can feel my intestines jumping. My heart fighting back with its own beat.
“What the hell is going on, Jimi?”
Vauxhall is not with us. She’s standing about ten feet away and I can just make her out by the faint light that at first I think’s coming from Jimi’s phone but it’s not. It’s white light and it’s getting brighter by the second. Bigger and brighter. It’s behind us. The rushing noise, it’s as loud as a building coming down.
Jimi grabs my shoulder, holds me tight. Says, “Fifteen seconds.”
Of course, it’s a train behind us. I hear the conductor pulling the horn down hard.
But there is no squeal of brakes. The conductor, he’s not trying to stop.
I’m shaking.
Breathing out fast.
Jimi can tell, he says, “Ten seconds, dude. Hang tight. This is going-”
But I can’t hear the rest of what he says. The noise of the train is the noise of a thousand trains. It is the buckling of the world. It is the ripping-open of the sky. And the light, it’s like we’re floating out into the sun. I remind myself that I will live. That I’ve seen myself in the future. That nothing can happen right now.
Jimi pushes on my shoulder.
The train horn is the yell of a dinosaur. It shakes the air.
There is dust in the light around us like bubbles deep underwater.
I tell myself that I will live. I tell myself not to think that maybe the visions have been wrong. That I saw Vauxhall and she’s here now, watching me. That she’s here now and any second Jimi and I will jump out of the way.
Only we don’t.
The train is on our heels.
The sound of it has turned me to jelly. I can’t feel my feet, the vibrations of it are that numbing. I’m standing on a jackhammer and Jimi, the suicidal nut job, is grinning.
Hand on my shoulder, he pushes me down hard.
I close my eyes ready for the impact. Ready to feel my bones shatter and ready to see myself spray off into mist. I grit my teeth. I tense up. And I count it down.
Four…
The light is blinding, even with my back turned. Even with my eyes closed.
Three…
The rumbling has me deaf.
Two…
The rails whip around like snakes.
One…
Nothing. I open to see the train just to my left on a second track. It’s passing maybe a foot from us, maybe a half-foot from Jimi. The train rattles by and Jimi lets me go. I stand there for a few seconds, my body twitching as it comes back to life, and then collapse on the rails.
It takes five full minutes for the train to pass. I know ’cause I time it on my cell phone. Jimi stands, looking over at me, smiling. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes shrugging. Saying things I can’t hear.
What has me worried, though, more than the thought that Jimi almost just got me killed, is that for a few flashing seconds I actually was kind of psyched at the thought of getting the World’s Greatest Concussion.
Me spinning off the front of that locomotive at a million miles an hour, can you imagine how many hundreds of years into the future I’d see?
How crazy the Buzz would be?
When the train finally passes, and my hearing returns, Vauxhall walks over and sits down next to me. She gives me a hug and having her close is like diving in a cool pool. And right there, my brain kind of has a freeze-frame moment. With Vauxhall’s arms around me I don’t care about the concussion that I missed. For the first time in a long, long time I actually want to be slowed down with all the other fossils around me. I want to be right here with Vauxhall in this instant.
Vauxhall, stepping back, smiling, says, “That was the nine-twenty Rio Grande on its way to Cheyenne.”
I ask, “Why did we just do that?”
Jimi walks over, sits next to us. He lights another smoke, the red of it casting demon light on his face, and asks, “You close to your family, Ade?”
“Yeah, I guess… Seriously, though, Jimi. That was the most-”
He interrupts, “How close?”
“I don’t know. Close. You know, I love my mom and my dad and whatever. What are you trying to ask me? Would it be something worth almost dying for?”
Vauxhall whispers, her lips only an inch from my ear, “Just humor him.”
Jimi says, “I don’t think you’re that close. I can tell it.”
“Fine,” I say. “My mom’s a bit of a freak. Religious stuff. My dad, he’s in a coma.”
Jimi nods slowly. “You’re like us. Abandoned.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No. My dad was in a car accident. He didn’t-”
“He was a drunk, right?”
I just stutter. “He was drinking, but he didn’t-”
“Your dad chose the bottle over you. Worst kind of abandonment.”
“Wasn’t like that at all, Jimi.”
He ignores me, says, “I’ve been tracking my dad. For years, I’ve been slowly but surely, step by step, tracking him down. He left me, my mom, back when I was just a little kid. Not even two. He just up and vanished. I was able to kind of make a life for myself, able to avoid a lot of the traps other kids like me fall into. And how I did it was by keeping myself focused. Focused on one thing.”
Vaux, whispering, says, “Ask him what the one thing was.”
“What was the one thing, Jimi?”
Jimi takes a drag. More drama. Drags it out. He says, “At the end of most Westerns, the good ones, the spaghetti ones, there’s always this scene where the good guy and the bad guy come face-to-face. Just mano a mano in a dusty street. Vultures overhead. Harmonica on the sound track. Tense. That’s it. Confronting my dad. The big showdown. Ka-boom.”
I nod. Not sure what to say.
Vauxhall, beauty at my ear, breathes, “Just make him think you’re interested.”
Jimi tells me that his childhood was the stuff that people write bestselling memoirs about. He tells me that his mother used to torment him mercilessly and when she died he kind of felt guilty that he was so elated. He says, “It’s the past that makes us who we are, Ade. It’s not destiny, I don’t like to use that word. But your parents lay down tracks for you to follow. Most of us don’t ever get off them. Most of us don’t need to.”
“And the train?” I ask. “Why we almost died?”
“Metaphor. Allegory. Past sneaking up on you. I’m not sure what, but I thought it was a nice touch. Train was like ten feet from you, dude. You weren’t ever really in danger. Just thought you were.”
Vauxhall murmurs, “He planned it out for like a week.”
Jimi stands up, reaches out a hand, and when I take it he pulls me up. Pulls me up fast. Then he hugs me hard. Tight, the way football players do after a game. He says, “Welcome to the club, buddy. What do you want to do next?”
I say, “Sleep.”
