V (Arriving in Belleville)

It was the change in the train’s momentum that roused her first, but Carla dismissed it and tried to return to the dream she’d been having about a very large cherry pie.  She was about to request that it be served a la mode when a hand touched her shoulder and she heard Nick’s voice.  “Hey.  Carl, hey.  Wake up.”  Her eyes opened, and she squinted at the orange rays of the sun setting right in her face.  Before Carla could forget that she wasn’t allowed to speak, Nick pulled her to a standing position and said, “We’re almost in Belleville.  Come on, we’ve gotta get off this train.”

She followed him carefully along the catwalk, noticing that the other “travelers” were preparing to disembark as well.  In the distance, she noticed a large railroad station, which was the reason that their train was decelerating.  When they reached the end of the boxcar, she watched how Nick climbed down its small ladder then copied him, carefully lowering herself onto the narrow hitch between the two cars.  Carla’s heart pounded.  She looked down and saw that although the train was slowing, the individual planks of the train tracks below were still whirring by so quickly that they blurred together.  One wrong step would be enough for the wind to cast her off balance and under the metal giant.

“Don’t worry, you got it,” Nick said and gave her hand a comforting squeeze as she stood beside him.  “When it becomes safe to do so, we’re gonna jump.  It’s not too far; just make sure you jump hard enough to get past the rails and onto the grass, okay?”

Carla nodded and held onto the ladder beside her for balance as the train began to pitch about more violently as it slowed.  Her newly cropped hair was blown about by the wind fiercely whistling past her ears, and she was grateful for its short length.  While they waited for the moment to leap, she tried to think about safe, peaceful things like the cherry pie she’d been dreaming of earlier.  And then Nick’s voice was in her ear.  “Ready?  As soon as you get to your feet, run.  Don’t stop until I tell you to, got that?  One… two… three!”

It seemed to Carla like Nick hit the ground running.  Her legs, however, buckled beneath her and she struggled to her feet.  With his free hand, Nick grabbed her by the elbow.  “Come on, can’t stop!”  Carla heard shouts from behind them, but they ran and ran until her sides ached and her feet felt heavy.  Several times she staggered and nearly tripped, but Nick’s steadying hand was always there to support her.  They kept going until they were well clear of the train yard and had reached the outer limits of the city.  “All—all right, we’re clear,” Nick announced.

“It’s... okay for me... to talk... yeah?” Carla panted, her hands on her knees.  The pack she wore felt like a dead weight when earlier she’d barely noticed the load, and she had a stitch that blazed like hot fire in her side.  “What... was that?  ...Why’d we... run?”

“Bulls,” Nick breathed.  “Hold on... I’ll explain.”  He reached into his bag and pulled out a canister.  After unscrewing the cap and taking a swig of water, Nick passed it to Carla.  He gave her another minute to catch her breath and then said, “Come on… I’ll tell you on the way into town.  I know a place we can stay a while.”

On the way she received her next lesson: “Now by bulls, I don’t mean the animals with horns.  Bulls are what we call certain guys who work at train stations, and they are every bit as mean as their namesake.  Their job is to check the train for stowaways, free-riders like us, and when they catch us it’s not pretty.  A bull is just about the meanest cuss you’ll ever meet in your travels if you have the unfortunate luck of ever running into one.  They’re not afraid to bully you around—excuse the pun—and violence is their favorite weapon.  Bulls don’t just take the train fare you owe; they clean you of every single penny.  So we who travel the rails stay clear of the stations in bigger cities like Belleville, here.  The little dead-end towns, though, with stops that the train doesn’t regularly call at, those are safe.”

Carla listened, absorbing his words like a school lesson, and before long they arrived at a little house with battered shutters and buttercup yellow siding in desperate need of a new coat of paint.  Despite its worn condition, however, even in the fading light Carla could see that the house radiated a certain warmth that made it seem like a nice cozy little place.  She watched bemusedly as Nick stopped, set his hands on his hips, and bellowed loudly, “WHAT?  Nick Carter in town and Mrs. Randal don’t roll out the red carpet?!” He looked back at Carla and winked as the screened front door opened.

A gray little woman in a bright sun dress and apron stepped onto the porch.  "Nickolas Gene, that you?  Why you ain’t been to Belleville in ages!  How come you don’t write me, boy?"  She bustled down the front steps and pulled him into a big grandmotherly hug.  Carla giggled inside to see that by height this Mrs. Randal barely reached Nick’s chest.  “Now I do declare—you just don’t stop growing.  Who’s your friend?”

“This here’s Carl.  He’s mute; still hears everything, but can’t speak a word.  Sorry, Mrs. Randal, I know how much you love having folks to talk with, but at least he can listen.”  On cue Carla smiled apologetically and waved.  “Anyhow,” Nick continued, sobering a bit, “how you faring, ma’am?  I heard Mr. Randal passed on.  I’m real sorry, he was a swell guy.  Has the world been treating you well since then?”

“As well as can be in these hard times,” the woman’s bright smile faded a bit.  “But,” she beamed again, “Mr. Randal always took good care of me before he went to God, bless his dear soul.  Everything is paid off and secure, and he never was too trusting of those banks so we kept most of our money safe at home when the crash came.  Thanks to him, I don’t got the same problems as plenty of other folks—‘cept for old age,” she added, wrinkling her nose.  “If I were ten years younger, this house would be painted and pretty again, I tell you.”

"Well, maybe we can help you out then, ma’am.  The reason we’re visiting is because me and Carl are gonna be trying some gigs in town, but he needs to brush up on the piano still, and I know there’s no one better to ask than you—”

“Aw, shucks.”

“—so I was wondering, are you renting out that spare room of yours right now?  ‘Cause if we could lease some lodgings from you for a time, that would be just super, Mrs. Randal.  And, of course, we’d help around the house wherever you needed it.”

“Nicky, I’ve known you practically forever, boy!  While I gladly accept the help, you don’t expect me in good conscience to charge you or your friend a cent, do you?  Lease a room, how silly!”  She shook a finger at him before he could object.  “The room is yours for not a single penny.  Now, you and Carl just make yourselves at home.  You remember where the spare room is, right?  I’ll go and grab some extra blankets for your friend.  The extra cot is still in the corner.”  Already, she was walking into the house and beckoning for them to follow.

Carla looked around as they headed for their room and found the home as bright as its owner:  Yellow and white doilies brought color to the cozy parlor, and a piano stood glowing off to one side.  Down the hall their bedroom was warm and fresh, even though no one seemed to have lived in it for some time.  Mrs. Randal came in with a spare blanket and pillow.

“When’s the last time you two’ve had a bite to eat?” she asked.  “I’m sorry I don’t have nothing prepared just now, but I can scrounge you boys up a fried egg sandwich or two if you’d like.”

“That’d be greatly appreciated, ma’am,” Nick told her.  “Oh, and I’ll take the cot, Carl.  The bed’s too short for me,” he explained.

Carla nodded and put her bag by the bed.  As she unpacked a few of her things, she listened closely to the others’ conversation, trying to figure out how it was exactly that they knew each other, since the two didn’t appear to be related.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything for housing us, Mrs. Randal?” Nick unfolded the cot and took a seat on it.

“No, dear boy, I could never take anything from you!”

“But I have money this time,” he insisted.

Carla caught the incredibly earnest tone to his voice.  Never heard someone so eager to pay for something before, she mused.

“If you want to pay me back, we’ll do the same as last time, a’right?  You just keep sendin’ me them letters and telegraphs to keep me current on how you are and so’s I can write you back once in a while, too.  That’s all I need—to know that you’re doing fine.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll fix up somethin’ to eat and let you both get settled.”

As soon as Mrs. Randal had shut the door behind her, Carla leaned over and whispered, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Nick replied, “she’s great, huh?  I feel terrible, though, not being able to give her any money for all she does.  She’s incredibly generous, but I know for a fact that she takes on boarders whenever possible so she can live comfortably.”

“Are you... relations?”  Carla asked curiously.

“No, but she’s one of the closest things I got to family.  You see, one of my band mates grew up here in Belleville.  She was his music teacher, and whenever we were in town, he’d make us all drop by with him to visit her.  None of us complained, of course, ‘cause she makes the best pancakes you can imagine.  Well, when the band split and the boys left me, it was right here in Belleville.  So I came to the Randals—after working off my buddy’s tab at the diner.”

Carla laughed.  “No money?”

“I was absolutely broke.  Before that I’d been getting by because the band covered all my expenses, but when we broke up I got nothing.  Had nowhere to go, no one to turn to, but Mr. and Mrs. R took me in even though they’d only met me a few short times before.”

“You had no family at all?”  Carla was surprised.

“No.  My band was the closest I had to that back then.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.  The only family Nick had... left him?  She felt his pain; Carla knew what it felt like to be unwanted.

“Anyway, at that time Mr. Randal was still alive, and he was the one who first told me about traveling the rails.  I had a great time staying here with them, but I knew I couldn’t just depend on them forever.  So I improved my music skills under Mrs. Randal’s care and hit the road... or the train tracks, whatever.  They gave me a little bit of money to make it on my own and never asked for a thing from me in return.”

Carla felt her eyes watering.  “That—that’s so good of them.  I had no idea when you said your band dumped you that you were all alone in the world.”  She sniffled, “Gosh, I’m sorry for being nosy.  I pretty much just made you tell me your life story, didn’t I?”

Nick gave her a strange look.  “Why are you sorry?  It’s not nosy of you to want to know what’s going on in a situation that affects you.  And why’s that got to make you cry anyway?”

“It’s just that... you had no one to turn to and they took you in.  Then I had nowhere to go and you were nice enough to let me come along...” she was really tearing up now.

“Oh, God,” Nick rose from the cot.  “You’re honestly going to cry, aren’t you?  Don’t cry, I hate it when girls cry!" he whispered in alarm.  She saw him turn away with his hands on his face in what was almost feigned horror.