MAINLINE

MAINLINE

Bozeman hitched a thumb at the sign on the switch-post that read, “We Use Aluminum”. Paris saw it too and shook his head.

“Beware of dog, eh?”

The two men laughed and moved down the track looking for the next bit of bounty. The moon was full and bright and the men did not need to use their torches until they were ready to strip. Either man carried a rucksack that held whatever they’d collect for the night, including their razors and gloves and maps and midnight lunches.

Paris called to Bozeman some yards away from the switch-post. Paris ignited the torch on his head and joined Bozeman and crouched down and dug into the cold, dry dirt.

Paris extracted a long yellow tube from the ground as if it were the root of a tree. He sawed and split it with his razor and handed one half of it to Bozeman who began skinning it with his knife. Bozeman flattened the blade along the plastic and pulled against it; the yellow hide came right off, revealing its gilded flesh.

Bozeman peeled and cut and quartered the copper until it was bare and then he opened his rucksack and piled it together with the rest of it. Paris did the same, though wincing at the pain in his back. They had collected somewhere around fifty pounds so far.

“Man, the cold’s getting to me”, Paris sighed as he stood up.

“Maybe you’re getting old”, Bozeman egged.

“Aint no maybe”, Paris said shaking his head.

Both men continued their grazing for the next hour, moving nearly a mile down the track. The process of extraction was familiar to both of them – they were old hats, after all – but the winter that year was strong and particularly harsh.

The cold and the wind and the weight on their backs made them slow. It might have been labor, and it might have been consuming, but it was for a purpose they both understood. Necessity, as it was.

On a cold winter’s night, the plastic coat of the tubing would stick and tighten around the metal. To combat this, there were applied techniques. Paris would roll the tube between his palms as if starting a fire – this was his preferred method. Bozeman, however, preferred cupping his hands and breathing into them and simply holding on to the tubing long enough so it would: “melt like chocolate”, he’d say. Better still were tools designed to counter the cold, to soften the plastic, but this often meant a higher overhead and less weight to carry back.

Bozeman was on one side of the track, cutting and stripping. Paris was on the opposite side doing the same. Paris was trying to make up time, quickly gutting and skinning yards of copper, but this, combined with the cold and body pain, made him sloppy. Paris cut a length of his forearm when he pulled too quickly on the tubing and his razor hitched on the plastic. He yawped loudly which surprised Bozeman.

“What happened?” Bozeman said turning to Paris.

“Goddamn wires. Goddamn knife!”

Paris thrusted his bloodied forearm at Bozeman. The wound looked deep, but Bozeman was shocked to see how little blood actually spilled out. At least it covered the tracks, Bozeman thought.

“Lemme see it”, Bozeman said grabbing Paris’s arm. “Doesn’t look good. But I don’t know. It’s not bleeding that much. Here.”

Bozeman let go of the arm and turned around and dug into his rucksack for an old piece of shirt they’d use to ward off any potential barbed wire. He wrapped Paris’s arm in it and tied an overhand knot.

“I don’t think it’s that bad; just keep pressure on it. But maybe that’s it for tonight, yeah?”

Paris cursed aloud and shook his head, kicking the dry, cold dirt as hard as he could. He threw his knife into the dirt but then picked it back up and slid it into the sheath in his pocket. Paris stood in the middle of the track for a moment assessing the damage to his arm, touching it where he could, wincing when he would. He cursed again and sighed.

“Dammit. I can’t use it now. God dammit.”

“Just use the other one”, Bozeman shrugged, picking up and slinging his rucksack over his shoulder. “Can you get yours?”

“Yeah, I think so”, Paris said. Paris struggled to get his rucksack on his back, but he could and that’s all that mattered. “I hate doing that, man. It never feels right. Burns, ya know?”

“We’ll clean it up back home. It didn’t look too bad. You’ll be fine.”

The two men walked the length of the track back towards the city, back home. Paris was visibly upset and muttered to himself.

“Can we go now?”

“Huh?”

“It’s not a lot, but, you know, it’s enough. I mean, Jesus, look at my arm, B. I need some help, here.”

Bozeman looked at Paris, at the drops of sweat pouring from his face. He understood.

“Look, I got you back home. Okay? But Danny’s not open tonight; Deeter’s uptown, anyway. We just have to go tomorrow.”

Paris breathed heavily and nodded.

“It’s a good haul, man. We’ll be fine.”

The trains on the line they travelled had been suspended due to construction, so the two men walked in the middle of the track unfettered. The moon hung high and still shone with clarity.

The two men walked in silence for some minutes until Bozeman scoffed, remembering a time when this was all too familiar.

“Ya know, I cut myself like that once”, Bozeman said with a smirk.

“Yeah? “ Paris said.

Paris walked with a pale limp, but it was expected with an awkward weight slung across his shoulders and one useless arm.

“Every weekend – when I was a kid, I mean, back in Montana – my Dad would make me weed the front yard. I guess it’s why I took to this so well.”

Paris snorted through a bit of pain and lifted his chin.

“And, uh, I’d have to do it bare-handed, right? No gloves, on my knees, digging with my hands, square by square. And my Dad, he’d just stand there in the doorway, smoking. Watching me. Like he couldn’t trust me or something. He’d watch me pick each one for hours. Watch me throw it the garbage bag, watch me put the bag in the trash bin on the dirt path, watch me grab another bag and do it all again. I mean, what’s more boring; watching someone pick weeds? I don’t know. Sometimes he’d bring a lawn chair and a radio and just sit there. Like he was at a game or whatever.”

Bozeman laughed and adjusted the weight of the rucksack on his shoulder. He shook his head and continued in a hushed tone.

“I’ve always hated classic rock.”

“I don’t know, I liked the Stones--”, Paris said quiet.

“--Well, so this one time, he falls asleep. Passes out, more accurately, I guess. And his radio’s on and the sun is hot and high and I stop weeding and just look at him. I’m just looking at him, staring at him, right? Head over the back of the chair, mouth open. And I see the beer in his hand. And I notice it’s sliding out, but, like, real slow. So, I’m just watching, compelled sorta. And, I dunno why, why I’d care, but I thought to wake him up, right, tell him before the beer smashed on the stoop. But I don’t. I just watch him. And, sure enough, the beer falls down and shatters all over the place, in big chunks. Bam! The thing is he doesn’t wake up. Just mouth open, sucking air. Can’t even hear glass break right next to him.”

The two men crested above a small hill and saw the ingress to the city about a mile away. The city burned away all natural starlight, but the two men weren’t concerned with that.

Bozeman continued his story, “So, I, uh, get up, walk over to the stoop, to my Dad, and I sorta peek over this little crater of glass – I don’t know exactly what I was expecting to happen – and for whatever reason right then, I decide to clean it up – maybe I thought he’d think I did it, I don’t know – but as I’m picking up the biggest piece, my Dad just snaps to – bam!—resurrected like a holy shock from God. He grabs my hand that’s still holding the piece of glass and he balls it into a fist. And I mean, it’s deep. Damn near through it; blood immediately. But I don’t make a sound, okay. Not a peep. And in this moment, staring at him, I feel like I’m looking at – I don’t know, like something greater than my Dad? Like a word I can’t think of. Or maybe don’t exist. Like, like an idea? I dunno, I can’t explain it right. Like something way more real than I was ready to understand. Something deep or whatever. And this whole time he’s just squeezing my fist with the glass, looking at me, not saying anything; white-noise for eyes. After what feels like forever, he finally mumbles, ‘In the corners. That’s where they are. Always the goddamn corners’. Boom. And then he passes out again.”

Bozeman shook his head and chuckled.

Paris shook his head, too.

“Yeah. My Mom was a drunk, too”, Paris said rubbing his arm. “I mean, she was nice or whatever, but she said the weirdest shit loaded.”

“Well, after, you know, I had to stitch myself up. Thank god I was a Scout. He just passed out and didn’t wake up ’till I was eating dinner. Came into the kitchen and told me the yard looked good and then went into his room and went to sleep. See? Still got the scar.”

Bozeman held his up his hand. Paris squinted through the waning moonlight. He couldn’t see it, but he knew Bozeman was telling the truth. Paris nodded, and then shook his head.

“Well, I mean, I appreciate your help, but I just need to get right – that’ll help me more.”

Paris lifted his injured arm.

Bozeman sighed and nodded.

“Yeah, I get it.”

The two men walked to the industrial western outskirts of the city, to the last stop on the A-track. The moon dulled and faded as the city became more vibrant with heat and saturated light.

They would need to walk across the industrial yard to the service track, to the one line not under construction, and take that train into the city, then switch over to one that would take them to the other side of the city by the river. Then they would walk along the length of the river until almost breaching the city outskirts again. There were old buildings there, old property left to wither and bake in the heat or freeze in the cold. But it was quiet and untrodden; a godsend for anyone not acclimated to this modern life – for these two men, anyway.

The scrapyard was close, too. A short twenty minute walk the next day should net them at least a few hundred dollars. From there, a quick journey uptown to meet up with friends that could help them, and then back home, where they could get right again. It was far more laborious and industrious than most might assume and that was okay with them.

Back home, Paris collapsed on a mattress lined with kiddy sheets, graphics of fruits and animals eating the fruits. Bozeman prepared a meal for the two men.

Bozeman only had a gram left, enough for both of them, enough for the night, anyway. Tomorrow would be come as any other day, and with that, more. Bozeman helped Paris as he could. After dressing and stitching and cleaning his wound, he helped Paris get right. Before he fell asleep, Paris thanked Bozeman as he always did.

It always felt like sunlight in his blood. Hot and high and all over. At the height of it, Bozeman thought he saw his father standing in the doorway of their bedroom. He was smoking, but shadowed and quiet.

“Is that really you?” Bozeman asked the shadow in the doorway.

The shadow said nothing and continued smoking. Bozeman studied the figure for a beat.

“Sometimes”, Bozeman muttered to himself before he nodded off, “I wonder if it was easier...”

The figure in the doorway took a long drag from its cigarette.

The figure spiked the cigarette onto the cold floor and walked away.