A woman in the aisle of the Greyhound in Fort Worth, Texas pleaded we return her wallet. “I don’t know who took it, but just give it back, please. Just leave it in the bathroom for me. No questions.”
I glanced at my seat mate, who raised an eyebrow, and I noticed a curled railroad track tattoo above it. The woman glided forward, mouthing thank you to the driver and holding up the wallet. As the door whooshed shut behind her and we set off, a movement at my feet startled me. There was a dog looking up. My seat mate smiled, “Hope you don’t mind!”
Tony called himself a semi-retired hobo. He had ridden the rails since escaping foster care and was crossing from California to North Carolina now to reunite with his wife and son. After nine years riding freight together, they were settling down. He had stayed behind to finish out the season growing marijuana in Humboldt County.
"Every time we pass a train I like sit there and stare. So like this stuff right here,” he pointed out the window. “We’re near Dallas, so all these containers right here … that’s like important stuff. That’s called the intermodal right there. That’s high priority cause it’s got electronics and mail. That’s what you want to get on.”
One morning in an abandoned Appalachian town, he saw a puppy poke its head out of a bush. “We thought for sure, oh man, this guy’s not gonna make it another day or two.” The dog’s face was furless, covered in ticks, stomach all swollen with worms. “We took him in, fed him, gave him water and everything, like we just wanted to treat him good before he died. You know cause it was like sad. Like, damn, this puppy’s never been loved by anyone before.”
The dog pulled through and that first hot August together, they laughed at how the dog rolled in every mud puddle to cool off. “He’s two years old now. He’s seen more than most people have. His first birthday we like threw him a party in the Chippewa Valley in Wisconsin. His second birthday, he was in the redwoods. He’s ran with elk in the Grand Canyon.”
Tony chuckled and pointed to the second tattoo on his face, which was the dog’s name. “That’s cause that’s like the best thing that I got out of the road, is Pig.”
