excerpt
…ineffectually by a blond six- year-old who cried as he ran. I picked up my pace but it didn’t do much good. He was gaining fast. Then I heard the blast of a locomotive horn. It was one of those old coal burners they still used to shunt freight cars around the city. As it caught up to me and chugged by, I had an idea. I matched my pace to the speed of the car, reached up and took hold of the iron ladder’s highest rung, then swung up and held on with both hands as my feet left the ground and I settled one foot after the other on the bottom rung, the way I’d seen the railroad men do it, many times, from the bathroom window that overlooked the elevated tracks between Fifth street and Sixth.
As the train rounded a curve, I could see a tunnel about half a mile ahead. Once I got through that, even on a stolen bicycle Buster would be too far behind to catch up. Lucky, I thought. My lucky day, and I laughed out loud.
But as soon as the train hit the tunnel I knew I had blown it. Thick waves of coal smoke swirled around me. It smelled like rotten eggs and stung my eyes until they ran with tears. Get off, I told myself. Go Back. I looked around and couldn’t see anything but darkness and white smoke. I didn’t know how much room I had between the car and the tunnel wall, and I couldn’t even see the ground that was rushing beneath me.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, to stay calm, but the smoke burned my lungs and cut so sharply into the membranes of my nose and throat I had to hold my breath and hope the tunnel was a short one. I felt dizzy. Then it felt like there was a darkness rising inside of me. I almost passed out, but held on, fighting to stay awake. The wheels of the train clattered and swayed in the echoing reek and the tunnel seemed endless. Stupid, I thought. How could anyone be so stupid! There was a fire in my chest, burning, burning, and I thought I was going to die, or explode, when I was hit with a blast of sunlight and could breathe again. I sucked in draught after draught of hot summer air, coughing so hard I nearly lost my grip on the iron ladder.
The train was moving faster now, and I knew I had to get off or end up God knew where, in some strange town, a hundred miles away. Maybe I should, I thought, indulging a fantasy, just go where life takes you, leave all this crap behind. But even as I had these thoughts, I was looking for some place to land.
Libros Libertad 