Down by the railroad tracks there lived this guy named Sam who used to always have a bottle of Jim Beam.
One day the bottom of his sneaker ripped off and Sam walked to O’s liquor store to buy his bottle as usual. When he got back his left foot was trailing blood. He kept drinking oblivious to his foot.
I was 13 years old. I was sleeping down by the tracks that night because it wasn’t safe at my house. And that was the night I wrote this song which I scrawled on a napkin and it blew away but I remember the words.
Crimson red
Blood of dead
Indians
Fled
From their own land
It was more like a poem I guess since I didn’t ever sing it out loud. Seeing all that blood on the railroad tracks really inspired me.
I found Sam this old black T shirt and wrapped his foot up to stop the bleeding and keep him from getting glass in it. People were always breaking bottles against the railroad tracks especially the high school kids when they were drinking – like it made them some big heroes to be able to do that. Jerks. All it did was make it hard to find a place to sleep on the ground.
Sam’s friend Lou kept a supply of cardboard that he stole from a store downtown. It was corrugated with these big flapped layers of cardboard that felt like a mattress to sleep on if you kept it dry. Once it got wet it just smushed up and was ruined.
Lou always gave me a piece when I showed up at night and I took it behind the dumpster if it didn’t smell too bad back there to sleep because there was a roof there and that way I didn’t wake up if it rained. A couple of times some drunks passing by wanted to take my spot there but that’s why I got myself a knife because all you have to do is pull that out under a street light even if it’s a small knife and when it glints it looks bad enough that people back off .
No one wants to be cut.
The next day we woke up hung over and I took the rag off Sam’s foot and knew we had to get some peroxide to pour on that foot and it was going to hurt. I had to go to school. I told him I’d be back later.
But I decided to try to get the peroxide first because his foot looked really bad. I went into the drug store with two dollar bills and got a bottle of peroxide and some cotton bandages to use, then ran back to the railroad tracks. Sam was walking around on his bad foot with the T shirt off picking up more glass. He was so out of it and screaming IT HURTS GODDAMNIT . I made him sit down while he was still screaming and poured the peroxide on and put the cotton under his foot to try to keep things antiseptic as if he was in a doctor’s office because it’s not right that someone who’s got no money has to have his foot treated in dirty surroundings. It’s like adding insult to injury.
Sam screamed even more IT HURTS GODDAMNIT WHY YOU DOING THAT TO ME I THOUGHT YOU LIKED ME and I told him to shush because people were driving by the tracks on their way to work and I was going to be late to school as it was even if he cooperated which he wasn’t.
His foot bubbled up really bad from the peroxide. He stopped screaming and started to cry asking for his Jim Beam bottle but it was empty and he tried to get up so he could go to O’s for another one. “Sit down, Sam”, I told him. He just started screaming at me I’M GOING TO GET MORE BOOZE I NEED MY BEAMERS like a two year old and he was being such a pain in the ass I was tempted to just go to school and let him manage on his own except I knew he couldn’t manage and Sam had saved my life one night when I crawled down to the tracks after I got beat up really bad. He stayed sober long enough then to take care of me but I knew damn sure he wasn’t going to stay sober to take care of himself. Drunks are like that.
I knew I wasn’t going to get to school today. I sat on his knees so he couldn’t get up and patted his shoulder and told him he was going to have to cooperate with me.
YOU GOTTA GO TO SCHOOL he said AND I GOTTA GO GET MY BOTTLE and I told him today we were going to try something different because of his foot and he said he was sorry he was causing so much trouble. Then Lou woke up from all the noise and he said he would walk to O’s to get Sam his bottle of Beamers and that calmed Sam down. I told Lou to get more peroxide at the drug store too. Lou said we could wash out Sam’s foot with booze and we didn’t need to bother wasting money on peroxide but I pointed out that peroxide was cheaper. Lou said that’s smart thinking and Sam said THAT’S WHY YOU GOTTA GO TO SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU’RE A SMART KID and I told him it was okay if I missed one day.
I told Sam stories I made up as we sat by the tracks waiting for Lou to get back. He fell asleep for a while so I guess his foot stopped hurting. I got up and cleaned up the bandages and empty bottles. I found a bag of half eaten peanut butter sandwiches some kids threw in the dumpster on their was home from school and considered myself lucky since I was hungry. I kept some for Sam because it would help fight the infection if he ate some real food.
Lou got back with the peroxide and I went to wake Sam up to fix his foot and give him some sandwiches to eat but he didn’t budge even when I shook him. Lou stood and shouted at Sam and then jumped up and down which made me laugh because he looked like a clown since he was as fat as Sam was skinny. Lou laughed along with me because he was like that, an easy going kind of guy until we both saw that Sam wasn’t waking up.
DAMNIT Lou said.
CRAP I said.
MAYBE HE’S NOT GOIN’ TO WAKE UP, said Lou.
I shook Sam again but this time his head slumped over and I saw his right hand was clutching his chest and I knew he had a heart attack. CALL AN AMBULANCE I said to Lou but Lou just stood there and did nothing but point.
There was a cop car right near the dumpster and Officer Greer was getting out of his car coming toward us. There we were with Sam all slumped over and all Lou could do was hide the bottle of Beamers and his own stash in the few minutes we had and try to straighten up and fly right like the cops told him to do when they dropped by.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school, young lady?” Officer Greer asked me but I was crying, not fake crying, but for real crying so he looked past me at Sam, shook him a bit and said “Shit.” Then he radioed for an ambulance and we heard the sirens coming closer and closer.
Lou just stood there with the bottle of Beamer hanging out of his coat pocket but Officer Greer never said a word. He didn’t even bother to lecture Lou so I knew he thought Sam was dead too. I tried to stop crying so no one would see me like that because I knew Officer Greer was going to haul me to school and I had a reputation to maintain even if Sam was dead.
I couldn’t imagine Sam being dead but there you have it. When someone dies you sort of know. There’s an emptiness in the air and no one knows what to do or say. Suddenly it’s too late to say the things you meant to or do them favors you owe. I didn’t know if Sam died from the cuts on his foot or just from all his drinking and living rough outside but I sat there next to him wishing I had snuck him into someone’s garage when it was cold out like I thought of doing.
I didn’t have to sleep outside every night. I was lucky.
They didn’t bother to take Sam in the ambulance because he wasn’t going to any hospital so Officer Greer had to call the coroner and said he’d have to wait for all that so he told me I was on my honor to just go to school. I don’t think he really meant for me to go but I had to leave Lou standing there all alone next to the cop with Sam now on the ground from the EMT’s working on him, his shirt all open.
“He’s going to get cold,” I said and knelt down , closed Sam’s shirt and kissed him on his cheek. I knew he couldn’t feel it but it mattered to me.
I started up the hill toward school while Officer Greer and Lou watched. Lou waved a little but I turned around on my heel and began to run.
I didn’t go back down to the tracks for a few weeks. On the nights I had to sleep outside I went to the park instead. I didn’t want to go to the tracks and find Sam gone.
Copyright 2007 Ruth Harrigan
