I lifted my head up and looked over the top of my guitar. I saw the
crazy red glares from neon lights cutting against the clouds. Bushes and
hedges whizzing past with nice warm smears of electric lights from the
windows of houses. Spotlights and headlights from other locomotives shot
around in the rain. Chug holes and vacant lots standing full of water shined
like new money when the lightning cracked. I tried to keep the buckets of
water wiped out of my face long enough to see. "Edge of some town."
"Freeport. Ain't I done told yez oncet?" The runty kid snorted rain out
of his nose poking his head over the guitar. "I put da bum on alla dese
happy homes. Freeport."
All four of us got up on our hands and knees and listened to the
screaking and jamming of the brakes against the wheels. A red-hot switch
engine pounded past us. Heat flew from the fire box and every single one of
us set down and held our hands out to warm a little. The rain was falling
harder. Our car was wobbling along like a crippled elephant. Red and green
switch lights looked like melted globs of Christmas candy. A purplish white
glare was coming from a danger flare stabbed into a cross tie across the
yards to the right. To the left there I could make out a lonesome dull red
electric light blinking out through the windows of a burger joint.
Headlights from fast cars danced along the highway past the chili places.
Our train slowed down to a slow crawl, on both sides nothing but dirty
strings of every crazy kind of a railroad car.
"Alla dem bright lites up ahead, dat's de highway crossin'. Bull
hangout." The little kid was poking me and pointing.
"Shore 'nuf ? This a tough town?''
"Worse'n dat."
"Hay, dere, Pee Wee. You'n me'd betta unload." The tall kid kept down
on his belly and crawled over the end of the roof. "We left our packs in
this open machinery car," he explained to me.
"Wid ya." The little kid slipped along and followed him down the
ladder.
I eased along on my hands and knees and looked over the end of the roof
between the two cars. "Take it easy." I was holding my breath and watching
them slip down the slick ladder. The rain and the clouds made it so dark I
couldn't see the ground below him. "Watch out fer them wheels, big shot! All
right?"
"Made 'er!" I heard him tell me. Then I saw his head and shoulders drop
down into the end of the carload of machinery. Just then a bright streak of
light shot up along the car. Both kids kept ducked down out of sight, but a
man trotted along on the cinders and kept his flashlight beamed on them.
"Hey! Hey!" I heard him bellering out. He mounted the steps of the low
car and shot his light over the edge. "Stand up! Stand up! Stand up there,
you! Well! I be Goddamed! Where do you senators think you're going?''
The pair of kids' heads raised up between the machinery and the end of
the car. Wet. Dirty with coal soot. Hats gone. Hair tangled. Sheets of rain
pouring down on them in the bright glare of the cop's light. They blinked
and frowned and wiped their hands across their faces.
"Mornin', Cap'n," the little one saluted.
'Tryin' ta git home," the big one was slipping his canvas pack on his
back.
The little one grinned up into the flashlight and said, "Little rainy."
"That's a dam dangerous place to ride! Don't you know wet weather makes
these loads skid? Beat it! Skat! Hit th' ground!" He motioned with his
light.
Both kids slipped over the wall of the car and I rolled across the roof
to the right-hand side and waved my guitar over the side at them. "Hey, want
yer shirts back?" I swung down the ladder where the cop couldn't see me and
hissed at the kids as they walked along beside our train. "Shirts? Shirts?"
Both kids pulled up their britches, laughed a little, and said, "Naaa!"
I swung there on the ladder for a bit watching the little fellers just
sort of fade out. Rain. Smoke. All kinds of clouds. Night just darker than
hell. I felt a little funny, I guess. Then they was gone. I pulled myself
back up on top of the car and said, "Well, John, there goes our ridin'
pardners."
"Sho' gone, all right. You still got dem shirts wrapped 'round yo'
music box! Keep it dry?"
"Naw." I patted my guitar on the sides. "Couldn't be wetter. They
wanted to give 'em to me, so I just took 'em."
"Little tramps some day."
"Well, one thing they gotta teach soldiers is how ta tramp."
"I sho' wish't I could fine me a good fast job of truck
drivin'. I'd sho' as hell quit dis trampin'."
"Quiet! Duck down!"
As we oozed across the highway, a high-power spotlight shot its beams
from a black sedan under a street light. The train pulled clear of the
highway and then stopped. The sedan rolled up at the side of our car, a low
siren sounded like a mean tomcat under a barrel. About a dozen harness cops
wheeled the boxcar door wide open. Flashlights played around over the
sixty-six men while three or four of the patrol cops crawled in the door.
"Wake up!"
"Okay! Pile out."
"Git movin', you!"
"Yes, sir."
"One at a time!"
"Who're you? Where's your draft card?"
"Whitaker's my name. Blacksmith. Here's my draft number."
"Next! Dam! What's been going on in this car? Civil war? How come
everybody all tied up? Wrapped up?"
"Greenleaf is my name. Truck mechanic. Well, see, mister officer, we
was havin' a sort of a picnic an' a dance in th' car here. Th' engineer hit
his air brakes a little too quick. So quite a bunch of us got throwed down.
Bumped our heads up against th' walls. On th' floor. Ah. Right here, My
draft card. That's it, ain't it? I cain't see with this rag over me eye."
"I don't believe a word of it! Been some trouble in this car! What was
it? Next! You!"
"Here's my card. Dynamite man. Lebeque. I broke my fist all to pieces
when I stumbled."
"Draft card, bud! What is this? Car load of drunks? All of you smell
like liquor!"
"Picolla. There's my number. Oil field driller. Somebody poured a
bottle of wine down my back while I was asleep!"
"Asleep. Yeah! I see they left the chipped glass all over your shirt
collar, too! Draft cards, men! Move faster!"
"My name's Mickey the Slick, see! I won't lie to yez! I'm a gambler. Da
best. I wear good clothes an' I spent good money! I was lookin' all right,
new suit, an' ever'ting. Den sombudy popped me with a quart wine bottle.
Cracked my head. Ruint my suit! Here's my number, officer!"
"Whoever cracked this man, I wish to congratulate him! Move on! Fall
out the door, there! Line op over there by that patrol car with the rest of
them!"
'Tommy Bear. Quarter-breed Indian. Mechanic."
"Hey, Cap! Some of these birds are all beat up! Trouble of some kind!
Every single one of them has got a busted ear, or a black eye, or a broken
fist, or their clothes ripped dam near off! Been a hell of a fight in this
car! About fifty of them!"
"Herd 'em out! All in a bunch!" The captain stuck his head in the door.
"Match 'em out there under that street light! We'll make 'em talk! Any dead
ones?"
"I don't know!" The sarg shot his light around over the car. "I see a
few that don't seem to be able to get up!"
"Load 'em out! Git along, you guys! Walk! All of you! Right here under
this light! Line 'em up! Finding any dead ones back there?"
"Three or four knocked out! Don't think they're dead! Well pull them
out in this rain and wake them up! Load that one right out through the door.
Shake him a little. He looks like he's still flickering. How is this one?
His eyes are still batting a little around the edges. Stick his face up to
the rain. Bring them other two, boys. Help them along. Shake them good.
Looks like they might be salvaged. God, they really must have had a
knockdown dragout! Hold them up a litlle.
"This boid's okay. Rain brought 'im aroun'."
"March him on over yonder to where the captain is. What's the matter
with you dam fool men, anyway? Is this all you've got to do? Fight! Beat the
hell out of each other! Why, dam me, I didn't think any of you had that much
spunk left in you! Why in the hell don't you spend that much energy working?
Walk along, there, stud horse! Walk! Here's these four, Cap. That's all of
them."
"They look like a bunch of dam corpses!" The captain looked the crowd
over. Then he turned toward the boxcar and hollered, "Any more in there?
Look for guns an' knives around on th' floor!"
"Here's a pair!" A big tough looker stood up on top of the car behind
John and me. "Duckin' outta sight, huh? Git movin' down dat ladder! Now.
Watcha got wrapped up dere, mister?"
"This thing?"
"Dat ting. Corpse a some kind?''
"Guitar."
"Aha. Yodel lay dee hoo stuff, eh?"
"My meal ticket."
"Where you headin', black boy?"
''Anywhere I c'n find some work."
"Woik, eh? Where 'bouts is yer shoit?"
"On his guitar."
"Jeez! Christamighty. Do yez think more 'bout dat music box den yer own
back?"
"Mah back c'n take it"
"Drop down dere on de groun'. Now git movin'. Over dere where yez see
de whole gang 'round dat street light."
I walked along, shaking the water out of my hair.
John said, "Sho' some bad ol' stormy night,"
"Here's de pair I caught up on toppa de car, capt'n."
"You two line up. Where's your shirt?"
"Ah done tole him, Dis boy heah got it wrapped 'roun' his music box.
Rainin'."
"You tryin' to tell me? It's raining! Men! Did you know that? It's
raining! Any of you get wet?"
The sarg was shooting his light in our faces and saying, "Wash some of
the blood off of this bloody bunch. What was the trouble, fellows? Who
started it all? Who beat up who? Out with it Talk!"
The last two officers trotted from the boxcar over to the gang. "Here's
their artillery," one of them said. He dumped a double handful of knives and
the necks of three wine bottles, "No guns."
"No guns?" The captain looked the knives over. "You could cut a man all
to pieces with the neck of one of these broken bottles. How many drunks
among them?"
"Smell and see."
"I don't think you could tell by smelling, chief. Some bird broke a
whole quart over another one's head. Then two or three other jugs got broke
over other's heads. Everybody smells like liquor."
We passed by in double file, the cops guiding us, watching us. The sarg
looked at one string of draft cards. The big chief looked at another string.
"You two boys. No draft card? It's th' jail if you haven't got 'em.
Huh?" the chief said.
"Too young. Sixteen," one boy said.
"Seventeen," the next one nodded.
"All look okay, chief?"
"You, there! What you got wrapped up there--a baby?" The chief asked
me,
"Guitar."
"Ohhh. Well. Why not take it out and plunk us offa ditty? Like this.
Dum tee dum. Dum tee dum. Tra la la la la! Yodel layyy dee whooooo! Ha! Ha!"
He flumped his coat sleeve and danced around.
"Too wet to play," I told him.
"What th' hell do you bring it out in this stormy weather for, then?"
he asked me.
"I didn't order this stormy weather.''
"What's this all over you fellows?" the sarg asked us.
"Cement dust," John talked up by my elbow.
"With all of this rain," the chief asked us, "what's gonna happen to
all of you?"
I said, "Gonna turn inta statues. You can set us around in yer streets
an' parks, so rich ladies can see how purty we are."
"No, men. I ain't holdin' you for nothin'." The chief looked us over.
"I could jail you if I wanted to. But I don't know. Vag. Disturbing th'
peace. Fighting. Lots of things."
"Riding the freights," the sarg put in.
"Or just bein' here," I said.
"Tell you one thing, by God. I never did see such a dirty, messy,
bloody, beat-up bunch of people in my whole life, and I've been a copper for
twenty years. I could toss you men in the jug if I wanted to. I don't know.
You see, men...."
A big eight-wheel driver locomotive pounded across the road, throwing
steam a hundred feet on each side, easing along, ringing its bell, snorting
and letting out a four-time toot on its whistle, and drowned out the chief's
talking.
"Westbound," John was telling me over my shoulder. "She's sho' a daisy,
ain't she?"
"Mighty purty," I told him.
An old gray-headed hobo trotted past us in the dark, swinging his
bundle up onto his back, splashing through the mudholes and not even
noticing the patrol men. He got a glimpse of all of us guys there under the
light and yelled, "Plenty o' work! Buildin' ships! War's on! Goddam that
thunder an' lightnin' to hell! Work, boys, work! I gotta letter right
hyere!" He bogged on a few yards past us, waving a white sheet of paper in
the dark.
"Work?" One guy broke and trotted hi after the old man.
"Job? Where 'bouts?" Another man swung his bundle under his arm and
started off.
"Letter?"
"Lemme see it!"
"Where'd he say?"
"Hey! Old man! Wait!"
"Don't let dat stuff fool yez, men. Tain't nuttin' but justa dam hobo,
wid a dam sheeta paper!"
"Seattle ! Seattle!" I heard the old man holler back through the rain.
"Work, worrrrrk!"
"Crazy."
"Yuh know, men, they ain't no work out at Seattle. Hell's bells, that's
more'n fifteen hundred miles west uv here!"
"Out toward Japan!"
"Th' old man had th' letter right there in his hand!"
"Reckin he's right?"
Three more men tore loose through the dark.
"I know them Seattle people. You cain't beat 'em. Mighty purty women.
An', by God, 'they don't write letters, less they mean what they say!"
"I slep' under ever' bridge in Seattle! That's a workin' town!"
"You men going entirely nuts?" a cop asked us.
"I want as close ta Japan as I kin git!" Another man drifted off in the
dark.
"Ah wants a crack at that Horehouse Heato man own se'f!"
"Pahdon me, mistah poleese. Is dat train headin' to'd wheah
them Japs is fightin'?"
Men sloshed holes of water dry, and bogged off through the spray of
wind and rain. Cops stood behind us in the street light, scratching and
laughing. I snuffed my nose and squinched my eyes to keep the water from
getting me.
"Risin' sun! Wahooo!"
"See ya latah, offisssahh!"
"Rain on, little storm, rain on!"
More men charged after the moving rain. It creaked along, the wet
enamel flicking the dim light from the telephone pole where the cops stood
around. Big iron wheels groaning along on the shiny rails. Slick ladders.
Slippery tin roofs, bucking first to one side, then the other, and the black
shapes of the men sticking like waterbugs, sucking on like snails, swaying
with the cars, everybody mumbling and talking and cracking jokes back at the
storm.
"Did Mr. A. Hitler say we was a nation of sissies?"
Four more men sidled off down and caught onto a boxcar right beside me.
Six more slushed along behind them. Eight swung up the ladder at their
heels. Whole boxcars littered with men talking and going to fight.
"Read that letter, old man! Yippeee!"
Ten more come up the ladder. Twenty behind them.
I told the cop next to me, "Those boys are shore gonna need some music!
Let her rain!" And I shinnied up the iron ladder of the next car.
I hunkered down on top of the car, with John setting right beside me.
"Thunder! Let 'er crack!" An older man was waving his arms like a monk
praying on top of a mountain.
"Ain't you th' dam guy I split in th' mouth? I'm sorry, man!"
"You broke a wine bottle over my head? We won' break de nex' wine! By
God, we'll drink it! Yah!"
Men rolled around and laughed. Rocked back and forth as the train
picked up speed. Smoke rolled back down along the tops of the cars, blotting
them almost out. I looked back at the dozen cops standing around under the
street light.
"Too bad we cain't ride inside!" I was yelling around at the night
riders. "Gonna git wetter'n holy hell!"
"Let 'er ripple! What th' hell d'ya want in a war, boy, a big soft ass
cushion? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"Trot me out a ship needs a buildin'!"
"Whooofff!"
I was having a hard time standing up, blinking my eyes to try to get
some cinders out. I looked around with my head ducked down into the wind and
smoke.
And in that one blink of my one eye I got another look along the train.
Men. A mixed-up bunch of blurred shadows and train smoke. Heard about work.
Just heard about it.
"I'm da wattah boy!"
I looked down at my elbow.
"How. How'n th' hell come you two on this here train? I thought you was
a long time gone!"
"Nawww. Nuttin' like dat," the little runt spit out into the rain.
"Nuttin' like dat."
"This train's a-goin' ta Seattle! Fifteen hundred miles!"
"Yeaaaa."
John was riding at my feet, setting down with his bare back to the
wind, talking. "Gonna be one mighty bad ol' night, boys. Rainy."
"Yaaaa."
"Stormy."
"So whattt?"
"We're goin' out ta th' West Coast ta build ships an' stuff ta fight
them Japs with, if this rain don't wash us out before we get there!"
"Wid ya. Wid ya."
"Hell! We're fightin' a war!"
"Cut de mushy stuff."
I listened back along the train and my ears picked some low singing
starting up. I strained in the storm to hear what the song was. The
whoof-whoof of the big engine hitting her
speed drowned the singing out for a minute, and the rattle and creaking
of the cars smothered it under; but as I listened as close as I could, I
heard the song coming my way and getting louder, and I joined with the rest
of the men singing:
This train don't carry no smoker,
Lyin' tongues or two-bit jokers;
This train is bound for glory
This train!
Wet wind curled in the drift of the train and cinders stung against my
eyelids, and I held them closed and sung out at the top of my voice. Then I
opened my eyes just a little slit, and a great big cloud of black engine
smoke pushed down over the whole string of cars, like a blanket for the men
through the storm.
Bound for Glory was first published in 1943. Since that time Woody
Guthrie and his songs have traveled from one end of America to the other.
Woody Guthrie wrote more than 1,000 songs between 1936 and 1954, when
he became hospitalized, a victim of Huntington's Disease (chorea).
The songs and ballads of Woody Guthrie have continued to grow in
popularity. His songs have become as much a part of America as its rivers,
its forests, its prairies, and the people whom Guthrie chronicled in them:
'This Land Is Your Land," "Reuben James," "Tom Joad," "Pastures of Plenty,"
"Hard Traveling," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh," "Union Maid,"
"Pretty Boy Floyd," "Roll On, Columbia," "Dust Bowl Refugee," "Blowing Down
This Old Dusty Road," and 'This Train Is Bound for Glory."
These songs and dozens more have been recorded by Guthrie and other
folk singers. Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, The Weavers, Peter, Paul
and Mary, Judy Collins, Odetta, and Jack Elliott are among those who have
expressed their love and admiration through their loyalty to Guthrie and the
songs he wrote.
Woody's songs and his guitar made him a spokesman for the downtrodden
everywhere, but he also sang of the beauty of America, a beauty he viewed
from the open doors of boxcars as they sped across the country. He saw
America from the open road, and he knew its people firsthand.
In 1943 he and his old friend the late folk singer Cisco Houston joined
the merchant marine and Woody saw war and the world beyond the oceans.
After the war he briefly rejoined the Almanac Singers, a group that
included Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, and others. He wrote a
second book, American Folksong, a collection of thirty songs and sketches. A
collection of prose and poems by him, Born to Win, 'edited by Robert
Shelton, appeared in 1965. He was a member of People's Songs, also with Hays
and Seeger. This group was described as a "new union of progressive
songwriters."
In the early thirties Woody Guthrie married the former Mary Esta
Jennings and in 1942 the former Marjorie Mazia Greenblatt. Woody died on
October 3, 1967. He is survived by five children.
crazy red glares from neon lights cutting against the clouds. Bushes and
hedges whizzing past with nice warm smears of electric lights from the
windows of houses. Spotlights and headlights from other locomotives shot
around in the rain. Chug holes and vacant lots standing full of water shined
like new money when the lightning cracked. I tried to keep the buckets of
water wiped out of my face long enough to see. "Edge of some town."
"Freeport. Ain't I done told yez oncet?" The runty kid snorted rain out
of his nose poking his head over the guitar. "I put da bum on alla dese
happy homes. Freeport."
All four of us got up on our hands and knees and listened to the
screaking and jamming of the brakes against the wheels. A red-hot switch
engine pounded past us. Heat flew from the fire box and every single one of
us set down and held our hands out to warm a little. The rain was falling
harder. Our car was wobbling along like a crippled elephant. Red and green
switch lights looked like melted globs of Christmas candy. A purplish white
glare was coming from a danger flare stabbed into a cross tie across the
yards to the right. To the left there I could make out a lonesome dull red
electric light blinking out through the windows of a burger joint.
Headlights from fast cars danced along the highway past the chili places.
Our train slowed down to a slow crawl, on both sides nothing but dirty
strings of every crazy kind of a railroad car.
"Alla dem bright lites up ahead, dat's de highway crossin'. Bull
hangout." The little kid was poking me and pointing.
"Shore 'nuf ? This a tough town?''
"Worse'n dat."
"Hay, dere, Pee Wee. You'n me'd betta unload." The tall kid kept down
on his belly and crawled over the end of the roof. "We left our packs in
this open machinery car," he explained to me.
"Wid ya." The little kid slipped along and followed him down the
ladder.
I eased along on my hands and knees and looked over the end of the roof
between the two cars. "Take it easy." I was holding my breath and watching
them slip down the slick ladder. The rain and the clouds made it so dark I
couldn't see the ground below him. "Watch out fer them wheels, big shot! All
right?"
"Made 'er!" I heard him tell me. Then I saw his head and shoulders drop
down into the end of the carload of machinery. Just then a bright streak of
light shot up along the car. Both kids kept ducked down out of sight, but a
man trotted along on the cinders and kept his flashlight beamed on them.
"Hey! Hey!" I heard him bellering out. He mounted the steps of the low
car and shot his light over the edge. "Stand up! Stand up! Stand up there,
you! Well! I be Goddamed! Where do you senators think you're going?''
The pair of kids' heads raised up between the machinery and the end of
the car. Wet. Dirty with coal soot. Hats gone. Hair tangled. Sheets of rain
pouring down on them in the bright glare of the cop's light. They blinked
and frowned and wiped their hands across their faces.
"Mornin', Cap'n," the little one saluted.
'Tryin' ta git home," the big one was slipping his canvas pack on his
back.
The little one grinned up into the flashlight and said, "Little rainy."
"That's a dam dangerous place to ride! Don't you know wet weather makes
these loads skid? Beat it! Skat! Hit th' ground!" He motioned with his
light.
Both kids slipped over the wall of the car and I rolled across the roof
to the right-hand side and waved my guitar over the side at them. "Hey, want
yer shirts back?" I swung down the ladder where the cop couldn't see me and
hissed at the kids as they walked along beside our train. "Shirts? Shirts?"
Both kids pulled up their britches, laughed a little, and said, "Naaa!"
I swung there on the ladder for a bit watching the little fellers just
sort of fade out. Rain. Smoke. All kinds of clouds. Night just darker than
hell. I felt a little funny, I guess. Then they was gone. I pulled myself
back up on top of the car and said, "Well, John, there goes our ridin'
pardners."
"Sho' gone, all right. You still got dem shirts wrapped 'round yo'
music box! Keep it dry?"
"Naw." I patted my guitar on the sides. "Couldn't be wetter. They
wanted to give 'em to me, so I just took 'em."
"Little tramps some day."
"Well, one thing they gotta teach soldiers is how ta tramp."
"I sho' wish't I could fine me a good fast job of truck
drivin'. I'd sho' as hell quit dis trampin'."
"Quiet! Duck down!"
As we oozed across the highway, a high-power spotlight shot its beams
from a black sedan under a street light. The train pulled clear of the
highway and then stopped. The sedan rolled up at the side of our car, a low
siren sounded like a mean tomcat under a barrel. About a dozen harness cops
wheeled the boxcar door wide open. Flashlights played around over the
sixty-six men while three or four of the patrol cops crawled in the door.
"Wake up!"
"Okay! Pile out."
"Git movin', you!"
"Yes, sir."
"One at a time!"
"Who're you? Where's your draft card?"
"Whitaker's my name. Blacksmith. Here's my draft number."
"Next! Dam! What's been going on in this car? Civil war? How come
everybody all tied up? Wrapped up?"
"Greenleaf is my name. Truck mechanic. Well, see, mister officer, we
was havin' a sort of a picnic an' a dance in th' car here. Th' engineer hit
his air brakes a little too quick. So quite a bunch of us got throwed down.
Bumped our heads up against th' walls. On th' floor. Ah. Right here, My
draft card. That's it, ain't it? I cain't see with this rag over me eye."
"I don't believe a word of it! Been some trouble in this car! What was
it? Next! You!"
"Here's my card. Dynamite man. Lebeque. I broke my fist all to pieces
when I stumbled."
"Draft card, bud! What is this? Car load of drunks? All of you smell
like liquor!"
"Picolla. There's my number. Oil field driller. Somebody poured a
bottle of wine down my back while I was asleep!"
"Asleep. Yeah! I see they left the chipped glass all over your shirt
collar, too! Draft cards, men! Move faster!"
"My name's Mickey the Slick, see! I won't lie to yez! I'm a gambler. Da
best. I wear good clothes an' I spent good money! I was lookin' all right,
new suit, an' ever'ting. Den sombudy popped me with a quart wine bottle.
Cracked my head. Ruint my suit! Here's my number, officer!"
"Whoever cracked this man, I wish to congratulate him! Move on! Fall
out the door, there! Line op over there by that patrol car with the rest of
them!"
'Tommy Bear. Quarter-breed Indian. Mechanic."
"Hey, Cap! Some of these birds are all beat up! Trouble of some kind!
Every single one of them has got a busted ear, or a black eye, or a broken
fist, or their clothes ripped dam near off! Been a hell of a fight in this
car! About fifty of them!"
"Herd 'em out! All in a bunch!" The captain stuck his head in the door.
"Match 'em out there under that street light! We'll make 'em talk! Any dead
ones?"
"I don't know!" The sarg shot his light around over the car. "I see a
few that don't seem to be able to get up!"
"Load 'em out! Git along, you guys! Walk! All of you! Right here under
this light! Line 'em up! Finding any dead ones back there?"
"Three or four knocked out! Don't think they're dead! Well pull them
out in this rain and wake them up! Load that one right out through the door.
Shake him a little. He looks like he's still flickering. How is this one?
His eyes are still batting a little around the edges. Stick his face up to
the rain. Bring them other two, boys. Help them along. Shake them good.
Looks like they might be salvaged. God, they really must have had a
knockdown dragout! Hold them up a litlle.
"This boid's okay. Rain brought 'im aroun'."
"March him on over yonder to where the captain is. What's the matter
with you dam fool men, anyway? Is this all you've got to do? Fight! Beat the
hell out of each other! Why, dam me, I didn't think any of you had that much
spunk left in you! Why in the hell don't you spend that much energy working?
Walk along, there, stud horse! Walk! Here's these four, Cap. That's all of
them."
"They look like a bunch of dam corpses!" The captain looked the crowd
over. Then he turned toward the boxcar and hollered, "Any more in there?
Look for guns an' knives around on th' floor!"
"Here's a pair!" A big tough looker stood up on top of the car behind
John and me. "Duckin' outta sight, huh? Git movin' down dat ladder! Now.
Watcha got wrapped up dere, mister?"
"This thing?"
"Dat ting. Corpse a some kind?''
"Guitar."
"Aha. Yodel lay dee hoo stuff, eh?"
"My meal ticket."
"Where you headin', black boy?"
''Anywhere I c'n find some work."
"Woik, eh? Where 'bouts is yer shoit?"
"On his guitar."
"Jeez! Christamighty. Do yez think more 'bout dat music box den yer own
back?"
"Mah back c'n take it"
"Drop down dere on de groun'. Now git movin'. Over dere where yez see
de whole gang 'round dat street light."
I walked along, shaking the water out of my hair.
John said, "Sho' some bad ol' stormy night,"
"Here's de pair I caught up on toppa de car, capt'n."
"You two line up. Where's your shirt?"
"Ah done tole him, Dis boy heah got it wrapped 'roun' his music box.
Rainin'."
"You tryin' to tell me? It's raining! Men! Did you know that? It's
raining! Any of you get wet?"
The sarg was shooting his light in our faces and saying, "Wash some of
the blood off of this bloody bunch. What was the trouble, fellows? Who
started it all? Who beat up who? Out with it Talk!"
The last two officers trotted from the boxcar over to the gang. "Here's
their artillery," one of them said. He dumped a double handful of knives and
the necks of three wine bottles, "No guns."
"No guns?" The captain looked the knives over. "You could cut a man all
to pieces with the neck of one of these broken bottles. How many drunks
among them?"
"Smell and see."
"I don't think you could tell by smelling, chief. Some bird broke a
whole quart over another one's head. Then two or three other jugs got broke
over other's heads. Everybody smells like liquor."
We passed by in double file, the cops guiding us, watching us. The sarg
looked at one string of draft cards. The big chief looked at another string.
"You two boys. No draft card? It's th' jail if you haven't got 'em.
Huh?" the chief said.
"Too young. Sixteen," one boy said.
"Seventeen," the next one nodded.
"All look okay, chief?"
"You, there! What you got wrapped up there--a baby?" The chief asked
me,
"Guitar."
"Ohhh. Well. Why not take it out and plunk us offa ditty? Like this.
Dum tee dum. Dum tee dum. Tra la la la la! Yodel layyy dee whooooo! Ha! Ha!"
He flumped his coat sleeve and danced around.
"Too wet to play," I told him.
"What th' hell do you bring it out in this stormy weather for, then?"
he asked me.
"I didn't order this stormy weather.''
"What's this all over you fellows?" the sarg asked us.
"Cement dust," John talked up by my elbow.
"With all of this rain," the chief asked us, "what's gonna happen to
all of you?"
I said, "Gonna turn inta statues. You can set us around in yer streets
an' parks, so rich ladies can see how purty we are."
"No, men. I ain't holdin' you for nothin'." The chief looked us over.
"I could jail you if I wanted to. But I don't know. Vag. Disturbing th'
peace. Fighting. Lots of things."
"Riding the freights," the sarg put in.
"Or just bein' here," I said.
"Tell you one thing, by God. I never did see such a dirty, messy,
bloody, beat-up bunch of people in my whole life, and I've been a copper for
twenty years. I could toss you men in the jug if I wanted to. I don't know.
You see, men...."
A big eight-wheel driver locomotive pounded across the road, throwing
steam a hundred feet on each side, easing along, ringing its bell, snorting
and letting out a four-time toot on its whistle, and drowned out the chief's
talking.
"Westbound," John was telling me over my shoulder. "She's sho' a daisy,
ain't she?"
"Mighty purty," I told him.
An old gray-headed hobo trotted past us in the dark, swinging his
bundle up onto his back, splashing through the mudholes and not even
noticing the patrol men. He got a glimpse of all of us guys there under the
light and yelled, "Plenty o' work! Buildin' ships! War's on! Goddam that
thunder an' lightnin' to hell! Work, boys, work! I gotta letter right
hyere!" He bogged on a few yards past us, waving a white sheet of paper in
the dark.
"Work?" One guy broke and trotted hi after the old man.
"Job? Where 'bouts?" Another man swung his bundle under his arm and
started off.
"Letter?"
"Lemme see it!"
"Where'd he say?"
"Hey! Old man! Wait!"
"Don't let dat stuff fool yez, men. Tain't nuttin' but justa dam hobo,
wid a dam sheeta paper!"
"Seattle ! Seattle!" I heard the old man holler back through the rain.
"Work, worrrrrk!"
"Crazy."
"Yuh know, men, they ain't no work out at Seattle. Hell's bells, that's
more'n fifteen hundred miles west uv here!"
"Out toward Japan!"
"Th' old man had th' letter right there in his hand!"
"Reckin he's right?"
Three more men tore loose through the dark.
"I know them Seattle people. You cain't beat 'em. Mighty purty women.
An', by God, 'they don't write letters, less they mean what they say!"
"I slep' under ever' bridge in Seattle! That's a workin' town!"
"You men going entirely nuts?" a cop asked us.
"I want as close ta Japan as I kin git!" Another man drifted off in the
dark.
"Ah wants a crack at that Horehouse Heato man own se'f!"
"Pahdon me, mistah poleese. Is dat train headin' to'd wheah
them Japs is fightin'?"
Men sloshed holes of water dry, and bogged off through the spray of
wind and rain. Cops stood behind us in the street light, scratching and
laughing. I snuffed my nose and squinched my eyes to keep the water from
getting me.
"Risin' sun! Wahooo!"
"See ya latah, offisssahh!"
"Rain on, little storm, rain on!"
More men charged after the moving rain. It creaked along, the wet
enamel flicking the dim light from the telephone pole where the cops stood
around. Big iron wheels groaning along on the shiny rails. Slick ladders.
Slippery tin roofs, bucking first to one side, then the other, and the black
shapes of the men sticking like waterbugs, sucking on like snails, swaying
with the cars, everybody mumbling and talking and cracking jokes back at the
storm.
"Did Mr. A. Hitler say we was a nation of sissies?"
Four more men sidled off down and caught onto a boxcar right beside me.
Six more slushed along behind them. Eight swung up the ladder at their
heels. Whole boxcars littered with men talking and going to fight.
"Read that letter, old man! Yippeee!"
Ten more come up the ladder. Twenty behind them.
I told the cop next to me, "Those boys are shore gonna need some music!
Let her rain!" And I shinnied up the iron ladder of the next car.
I hunkered down on top of the car, with John setting right beside me.
"Thunder! Let 'er crack!" An older man was waving his arms like a monk
praying on top of a mountain.
"Ain't you th' dam guy I split in th' mouth? I'm sorry, man!"
"You broke a wine bottle over my head? We won' break de nex' wine! By
God, we'll drink it! Yah!"
Men rolled around and laughed. Rocked back and forth as the train
picked up speed. Smoke rolled back down along the tops of the cars, blotting
them almost out. I looked back at the dozen cops standing around under the
street light.
"Too bad we cain't ride inside!" I was yelling around at the night
riders. "Gonna git wetter'n holy hell!"
"Let 'er ripple! What th' hell d'ya want in a war, boy, a big soft ass
cushion? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
"Trot me out a ship needs a buildin'!"
"Whooofff!"
I was having a hard time standing up, blinking my eyes to try to get
some cinders out. I looked around with my head ducked down into the wind and
smoke.
And in that one blink of my one eye I got another look along the train.
Men. A mixed-up bunch of blurred shadows and train smoke. Heard about work.
Just heard about it.
"I'm da wattah boy!"
I looked down at my elbow.
"How. How'n th' hell come you two on this here train? I thought you was
a long time gone!"
"Nawww. Nuttin' like dat," the little runt spit out into the rain.
"Nuttin' like dat."
"This train's a-goin' ta Seattle! Fifteen hundred miles!"
"Yeaaaa."
John was riding at my feet, setting down with his bare back to the
wind, talking. "Gonna be one mighty bad ol' night, boys. Rainy."
"Yaaaa."
"Stormy."
"So whattt?"
"We're goin' out ta th' West Coast ta build ships an' stuff ta fight
them Japs with, if this rain don't wash us out before we get there!"
"Wid ya. Wid ya."
"Hell! We're fightin' a war!"
"Cut de mushy stuff."
I listened back along the train and my ears picked some low singing
starting up. I strained in the storm to hear what the song was. The
whoof-whoof of the big engine hitting her
speed drowned the singing out for a minute, and the rattle and creaking
of the cars smothered it under; but as I listened as close as I could, I
heard the song coming my way and getting louder, and I joined with the rest
of the men singing:
This train don't carry no smoker,
Lyin' tongues or two-bit jokers;
This train is bound for glory
This train!
Wet wind curled in the drift of the train and cinders stung against my
eyelids, and I held them closed and sung out at the top of my voice. Then I
opened my eyes just a little slit, and a great big cloud of black engine
smoke pushed down over the whole string of cars, like a blanket for the men
through the storm.
Bound for Glory was first published in 1943. Since that time Woody
Guthrie and his songs have traveled from one end of America to the other.
Woody Guthrie wrote more than 1,000 songs between 1936 and 1954, when
he became hospitalized, a victim of Huntington's Disease (chorea).
The songs and ballads of Woody Guthrie have continued to grow in
popularity. His songs have become as much a part of America as its rivers,
its forests, its prairies, and the people whom Guthrie chronicled in them:
'This Land Is Your Land," "Reuben James," "Tom Joad," "Pastures of Plenty,"
"Hard Traveling," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh," "Union Maid,"
"Pretty Boy Floyd," "Roll On, Columbia," "Dust Bowl Refugee," "Blowing Down
This Old Dusty Road," and 'This Train Is Bound for Glory."
These songs and dozens more have been recorded by Guthrie and other
folk singers. Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, The Weavers, Peter, Paul
and Mary, Judy Collins, Odetta, and Jack Elliott are among those who have
expressed their love and admiration through their loyalty to Guthrie and the
songs he wrote.
Woody's songs and his guitar made him a spokesman for the downtrodden
everywhere, but he also sang of the beauty of America, a beauty he viewed
from the open doors of boxcars as they sped across the country. He saw
America from the open road, and he knew its people firsthand.
In 1943 he and his old friend the late folk singer Cisco Houston joined
the merchant marine and Woody saw war and the world beyond the oceans.
After the war he briefly rejoined the Almanac Singers, a group that
included Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, and others. He wrote a
second book, American Folksong, a collection of thirty songs and sketches. A
collection of prose and poems by him, Born to Win, 'edited by Robert
Shelton, appeared in 1965. He was a member of People's Songs, also with Hays
and Seeger. This group was described as a "new union of progressive
songwriters."
In the early thirties Woody Guthrie married the former Mary Esta
Jennings and in 1942 the former Marjorie Mazia Greenblatt. Woody died on
October 3, 1967. He is survived by five children.