Beneath the Apple Leaves(12)



Andrew waited at the center concourse under the giant clock for over an hour, his bag crumpled at his feet, his hands resting in the front of his pant pockets. Passengers weaved in an endless web. Men traveled with fine silk top hats and three-piece suits while others donned creased trousers with turned-up cuffs, their shoes filled with short gaiters. A group of boys wearing Norfolk jackets and knickerbockers smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, posed as miniature men in the corner. Women clicked upon the white marble floors with high heels, fox stoles wrapped around necks. There were middle-class men in dark broadcloth and workingmen in homespun cloth, encumbered with shipping trunks and luggage. But no coal miners darted between the travelers; no men in soot left footprints across the clean, smooth floor. Absently, Andrew pressed his father’s miner tags for comfort. He saw the station from his father’s vision, could feel the thudding of his heart along with his own. This would be a new world for them both.

A nun led a pyramid of girls in ascending levels of age pointedly through the concourse. The oldest girls in the last row of crisp pinafores glanced at him, whispered coyly before the prettiest gave a short wave. “Constance!” called the Sister. The girl quickly hid her hand but continued to stare as she walked dutifully ahead. And for the first time, Andrew thought of the other benefits Pittsburgh might offer a young man.

“You Andrew?” asked a gruff voice.

He turned and picked up his bag. “Yes, sir.” The man was formidable in figure. Andrew was six-foot, but this man was a near match. His denim overalls and cap were worn and soft but his white shirt clean and unwrinkled.

“Wilhelm Kiser,” he greeted Andrew. “Been waiting long?”

“No, sir.”

“All right, let’s get you settled. Train leaves in thirty. Ever been in a caboose?”

“No, sir.”

“Well.” He laughed. “You’re in for a treat. Hope you’re steady on your feet.”

*

The days upon the railroad blended in a landscape of brackish rivers, squat brick towns, and smoking factories and mills. Andrew rose from the bottom bunk in the dark, held on to the wooden walls of the caboose with both hands to keep from falling. The last car rattled and rocked endlessly, felt as if the couplings were trying to disjoint from the rest of the train. In the rear of the space, he tried to keep steady while using the toilet—the straight-dump kind that sent everything over the rails. He was glad his uncle slept; otherwise there was no privacy at all.

Andrew shoveled coal into the stove just as he had done for his mother not long ago. The car was frigid away from the stove and excruciatingly hot near it. The caboose always smelled of smoke. When he ate his oatmeal, the cereal tasted like ashes. The burning coal from the stove and the firebox between the engine and the tender made his eyes water and tear black. The caboose, insufferably loud, played with the brain, held it between two palms that shook vigorously.

Wilhelm Kiser creaked down the ladder from the top bunk, nodded to his nephew as he headed to relieve himself. The cast-iron stove was bolted to the floor and Andrew made the coffee and boiled oats upon the top surface, the metal lip secured to keep the pots from falling off with the train movement. When breakfast was ready, they sat across from each other on splintered dynamite boxes, their bodies swaying in tandem to the rolling train. The tracks followed the Monongahela River, the churning water foaming yellow and sordid with chunks of debris.

“We’ll be coming upon Braddock in a bit.” Wilhelm stirred his coffee and licked the spoon. “You can check the couplings like I showed, make sure they’re properly set.” He sipped the scalding drink between nearly closed lips. He was a lean and muscular man, his dark brown hair neatly trimmed under his cap.

“Need to look out for signs of hotbox, too. Our last load heated up the axle bearings something rough. Remember that smell? If it overheats, be twice that. Smells so bad it burns the nose hairs outta your nostrils.”

Andrew and his uncle settled in with each other. The first few days had been tense, lags of silence as they found their rhythm and space within the tight quarters.

“My wife’s looking forward to having you. You got her eyes. She’ll like that.” Wilhelm said the words plainly and without flattery. “Eveline and your ma didn’t get along, she tell you that?”

Andrew nodded. “Because my mother eloped.” He wondered how far along the Atlantic his mother had traveled by now, hoped her body was warm within the ship.

“She don’t hold any grudge against you, though,” Wilhelm explained. “Be good for her to have you around. Got two sons and twins on the way. She’ll be happy to have someone over the age of six in the house.”

The man chuckled then, low and gruff. “Should probably warn you, though. My Eve hates the city. Here she is with one of the finest houses in Troy Hill and all she does is complain. Nags me about moving to the country. Got an indoor toilet, you know that?” He took a large scoop of oatmeal and chewed it carefully. “Only telling you this because that’ll be the first and last thing you hear every day—Eveline asking for a damn farm.”

Between his sentences, the monotony of the pistons and the clang of the ties grew bold. The drum of noise lulled the thoughts. Usually Wilhelm was not a man for idle chatter, but today he was animated and there was a comfort to the conversation.

“I grew up on a farm and I’ll never go back.” Wilhelm folded his arms loosely at his chest and leaned back. “Watched my father turn weak and sour against the land. Saw it drain every ounce of strength from him and my mother and I vowed never to follow the same fate. As soon as I was sixteen, I ran off with a circus train and never looked back.”

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