CHAPTER 8

SOMETHING STEPPED on a little stick. As soon as the twig cracked my eyes
snapped open and I was wide awake. I held my breath and kept as still as I
could. Whatever it was that was sneaking up on me knew I'd woked up 'cause it
stopped moving and kept as still as it could too. Even though my head was still
under my blanket, I could feel two eyes staring at me real hard, and I knew
these weren't critter eyes, these eyes made the hair on the back of my neck raise
up the way only human beings eyes can do.

Without wiggling or jiggling around too much under my blanket I got my
fingers wrapped around my jack- knife. Right when I was ready to push the
covers off of me and start running or stabbing, whoever it was that had been
watching jumped right on top of me. I was as frapped as a roach under a
dishrag!

I tried to guess the exact spot that the person's heart was at, then pulled my
knife back. A voice said, "If you ain't a kid called Bud from the Home I'm
really sorry about jumping on you like this !"

It was Bugs!

When I tried to talk it felt like I had to suck all the air out of Flint, I finally got
breathing right and said, "Doggone it, Bugs, it is me! You nearly scared me to
death!"

He got off of me and I threw the blanket over to the side. "You don't know how
lucky you are, I was just about fixing to stab you in the heart!" Bugs looked
like he knew he'd just had a real close call. He said, "I'm sorry, Bud, I didn't
mean to scare you, but everybody knows how you like to sleep with that knife
open so I figured I'd best grab hold of you so's you wouldn't wake up slicing
nobody."

Shucks, even though it was Bugs who'd come real close to getting his heart
poked, I was the one who was still having trouble catching my breath.
I asked, "How come you aren't back at the Home?" But before he had a chance
to answer I knew. "You're on the lam."

Bugs said, "Yup. I'm going back to riding the rails. When I heard about you
beating that kid up so bad that you had to take off I figured it was time for me
to get going too. I thought you might be hanging around the library so I come
down to see if you wanted to go with me."

"Where you heading?"

"There's always fruits to be picked out west, I heard we can make enough
money to get by out there. There's supposed to be a train leaving sometime
tomorrow. Did you really beat that kid up in the foster home?"

I said, "Uh-huh, we kind of had a fight. How long's it take to get out west?"
Bugs said, "Depends on how many trains you got to hop. Was he really two
years older than you?"

"Uh-huh, he was twelve. Is it fun to hop a train?"

"Some of the time it is, some of the time it's scary. We heard he was kind of big
too, was he?"

I said, "He was pretty big. I can't see how we can hop on a train, they look like
they're moving pretty doggone fast."

Bugs said, "Most times you don't hop them when they're going fast, most times
you try to climb on one when it's sitting in the train yard. Did the guy cry after
you whupped him?"

"Well, kind of, he looked real scared, then told his momma to keep me away
from him. They even said I was a hoodlum. Will we be sleeping on the train
and everything?"

"Sure we will. Some of the time the train don't stop for two or three days. Man,
I always try to tell people that just because someone's skinny it don't mean they
can't fight, you're a hero now, Bud!"

"Naw, I didn't really do nothing much. Well, how 'bout the toilet? How we
going to use the toilet if the train doesn't stop?"

Bugs said, "You just kind of lean out of the door and go."

"When the train is still moving?"

"Yeah. You get a real nice breeze."

"Oh, man! That sounds great! Count me in, I can't wait!"

Bugs spit a big glob of slob in his hand and said, "I knew I could depend on
you, Bud."

I spit a big glob in my hand and said, "We're brothers forever, Bugs!" We
slapped our hands together as hard as we could and got our slobs mixed up real
good, then waved them in the air so they'd dry. Now it was official, I finally
had a brother!

Bugs said, "We'll go down to the mission. There's bound to be someone there
that knows about where we can hop this train, then we'll be on the lam
together!"

 

WE FOUND OUT that we'd have to go to a city called Hooperville
just outside of Flint. The only trouble was nobody knew exactly where
Hooperville was. It was dark before we found out the right direction. I'd never
heard of a city that was so doggone hard to find.

We walked on a trail through some woods that run right up against Thread
Crick. We could tell we were getting close to Hooperville 'cause we heard
somebody playing a mouth organ and the smell of food cooking was getting
stronger. We kept walking in the direction that the sky was glowing with a
orangeish light.

When we could hear the music real clear, and folks talking to each other and
the sound of sticks cracking in a fire, we started cutting through the trees. That
way we could peek into Hooperville first.

We looked out from behind a big tree and saw that a big wind or even two or
three big wolves huffing and puffing real hard could blow Hooperville into the
next county. It was a bunch of huts and shacks thrown together out of pieces of
boxes and wood and cloth. The Amoses' shed would've looked like a real fancy
house here.

Right near our tree was the big fire that had been lighting up the sky. It looked
like a hundred people were sitting around it, watching things burn or waiting
for the food cooking in three big pots set up in the fire. There were two littler
fires burning in Hooperville. One had a pot that was big enough to boil a whole
person in it. A man was stirring things in the pot with a big stick and when he
raised the stick up he'd pull some britches or a shirt out and pass it over to a
white man who was hanging the clothes on a line to dry. There was a mountain
of clothes on the ground next to him waiting on their turn.

The other fire in Hooperville was real small. It was off to the side, by itself.
There were five white people sitting at this fire, two kids, a man, and a woman
holding a little wrapped-up baby. The baby sounded like all those new sick
babies at the Home, it was coughing like it was a half-dead little animal.
Bugs whispered, "Shoot, this ain't no city, this is just another cardboard jungle."

"A what?"

"A cardboard jungle, somewhere you can get off the train and clean up and get
something to eat without the cops chasing you out of town."

I said, "Well, what're we going to do? We can't just go busting into this city and
expect someone to feed us, can we?"

Bugs said, "One of us has got to talk to them, let's flip for it."

"OK."

Bugs rumbled around in his pocket and found a penny. He rubbed it up against
his britches and said, "Heads I win, tails you lose."

"OK."

He flipped the penny up into the air and caught it, then slapped it down on the
back of his left hand. He peeked underneath his right hand to see and a big smile cracked his face.

Shucks!

Bugs said. "Tails. You lose."

"Dang! So what should 1 say?"

"Ask them if this is Hooperville, see if they got any extra food."
I moved out from behind our tree and walked over toward the biggest fire, I
waited until some folks noticed me, then said, "Excuse me, is this here
Hooperville?"

The man who was playing the mouth organ stopped and everyone else around
the fire looked up at me.

One of the white men said, "What is it you looking for?"

I said, "A city called Hooperville, sir."

They all laughed.

The mouth organ man said, "Naw, son, what you're looking for is Hooverville,
with a v, like in President Herbert Hoover."
I said, "Oh, is this it, sir?"
The man said, "This is one of them."
I said, "One of them?"
He answered, "They're all over the country, this here is the Flint version."
"And all of them are called Hooverville?"
"That's right, Mr. Hoover worked so hard at making sure every city has got one
that it seems like it would be criminal to call them anything else."
Someone said. "That's the truth!"
I said. "Well. How’re we going to know if we're in the right one?'
The mouth organ man said, "Are you hungry?"
"Yes. sir."
"Are you tired?"
"Yes, sir.
"Are you scared about what's going to happen tomorrow?"

I didn't want anyone to think I was a baby so I said, "Not exactly scared, sir,
maybe I am a little bit nervous." The man smiled and said, "Well, son, anyplace
where there're other folks in need of the same things that you are is the right
place to be. This is exactly the Hooverville you're looking for."

I knew what the man was trying to say. This was the exact same kind of circletalking
and cross-talking that Momma used to do. Bugs hadn't had that kind of
practice, he came from behind the tree and said, "I don't get it, you said there
were Hoovervilles all over the place, what if we was looking for the
Hooverville in Detroit or Chicago, how could this be the right one to be in?"

The man said, "You boys from Flint?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

The man waved his mouth organ like a magic wand and pointed it all over the
little cardboard city.

"Boys” he said, "look around you."

The city was bigger than I thought it was. The raggedy little huts were in every
direction you looked. And there were more people sitting around than I first
thought too, mostly it was men and big boys, but there were a couple of women
every now and then and a kid or two. They were all the colors you could think
of, black, white and brown, but the fire made everyone look like they were
different shades of orange. There were dark orange folks sitting next to medium
orange folks sitting next to light orange folks.

"All these people" the mouth organ man said, "are just like you, they're tired,
hungry and a little bit nervous about tomorrow. This here is the right place for
y'all to be 'cause we're all in the same boat. And you boys are nearer to home
than you'll ever get."

Someone said, "Amen, brother"

The mouth organ man said, "It don't matter if you're looking for Chicago or
Detroit or Ortando or Oklahoma City, I rode the rails to all of them. You might
think or you might hear that things are better just down the line, but they're
singing the same sad song all over this country. Believe me, son, being on the
road is no good. If you two boys are from Flint, this is the right Hooverville for
you."

Someone said, "Brother, why don't we feed these boys? That one looks like he
ain't eaten in two or three months."

Shucks, he didn't have to point or nothing, everyone knew who he meant.
But I didn't care, the food that was bubbling up in those three big pots even
sounded delicious.

The mouth organ man said, "You’re welcome to join us, but we all pitch in
here, so's unless either one of you is carrying one of them smoked West
Virginny hams in them bags, it looks like you'll be pulling KP tonight."

I said, "Pulling what, sir?"

He said, "KP Kitchen Police, you do the cleanup after everyone's had their fill.
There're a couple of other young folks who'll show you what you have to do.”

Me and Bugs both said, "Yes, sir!" This seemed like a real good trade.

A woman handed me and Bugs each a flat, square, empty tin can. "That,
m'lords, is your china. Please be careful not to chip it."

My china had the words JUMBO A&P SARDINES stamped into the bottom of
it. She handed us two beat-up old spoons and said, "Don't be shy, you two just
about missed supper, you'd best hurry up."

 

She took us over to one of the big pots and filled up our tin plates.

"You're lucky” she said, "it's muskrat stew and there's plenty left over tonight,
eat as much as you can."

The stew was made out of dandelion greens and a couple of potatoes and some
small wild carrots and some crawdads and a couple of little chunks of meat. It
tasted great! We both even got seconds!

When we were done, the woman told us, "You boys leave your bags here, it's
time to do the dishes now." Uh-oh. "Ma'am, I like to keep my suitcase with me
wherever I go."

"I promise you your suitcase will be safe here."

I remembered the Amoses had promised the same thing. I said, "You'll watch it
yourself, ma'am? You'll make sure no one looks inside of it?"

She said, "Son, we don't have no thieving in here, we all look out for each
other."

I said, "Thank you, ma'am" and put my suitcase down near the woman's feet.
Me, Bugs, a little white boy and a little girl loaded a whole mess of dirty tin
cans and spoons and a couple of real plates and forks into a big wooden box
and lugged them down to Thread Crick.

The little girl had been in Hooverville the longest so she got to tell the rest of us
what to do. She said, "I don't suppose neither one of you new boys knows how
to do dishes the right way, do you?"

Me and Bugs had done tons of dishes in the Home so I said, "Sure we do, we
used to be real good at cleaning up."

Bugs said, "Dang, girl, you act like this is the first cardboard jungle I've been
in, I know how you do dishes at here."

She said, "OK then, we'll split them up, you and you"--she pointed at Bugs and
the other kid--"can do half, and me and this boy can do the others. What's your
name?"

I said, "Bud, not Buddy."

She said, "I'm Deza Malone."

Deza handed Bugs and the other little boy some rags and some soap powder
and they started splashing the dishes in the water.

Me and the girl walked a little farther up the crick and started unloading the rest
of the dishes. "You dry, I’ll wash," she said.

She handed me a rag and just as soon as she'd splashed one of the tin cans in
the water and give it to me I'd dry it and stick it in the wooden box.

She said, "Where you say you was from?"

"Flint, right here."

"So, you and your friend come down here to get on that train tomorrow?"

"Where's it going?"

"Chicago” she said.

"Is that west from here?"

"Uh-huh”

"Then yup, that's where we're heading” I said. "Where you from?"

"Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

"You going to take the train too?"

She said, "Uh-uh. My daddy is. Folks say there's work out west so he's going to
try again."

"So you're going to wait here for him?"

"Uh-huh."

She was real fast at washing the dishes but I noticed she got kind of slow and
was touching my hand a lot when it came to giving them to me.

She said, "Where's your momma and daddy?"

"My mother died four years ago."

"Sorry to hear that."

"It's OK, she didn't suffer or nothing."

"So where's your daddy?"

"I think he lives in Grand Rapids, I never met him."

"Sorry to hear that." Shucks, she held right on to my hand when she said that. I
squirmed my hand a-loose and said, "That's OK too."

Deza said "No it's not, and you should quit pretending that it is." "Who said I'm
pretending anything?"

"I know you are, my daddy says families are the most important thing there is.
That's why me and my momma are going to wait together for him to come back
or write for us to come to him."

I said, "My mother said the same thing, that families should be there for each
other all the time. She always used to tell me that no matter where I went or
what I did that she'd be there for me, even if she wasn't somewhere that I could
see her. She told me .. ."

Shucks, there're some folks who'll have you running your mouth before you
know what you're doing. I quit talking and acted like I was having a real hard
time drying the tin can she'd just handed me.

"What'd she tell you, Bud?''

I looked at Deza Malone and figured I'd never see her again in my life so I kept
shooting off my mouth. "She would tell me every night before I went to sleep
that no matter what happened I could sleep knowing that there had never been a
little boy, anywhere, anytime, who was loved more than she loved me. She told
me that as long as I remembered that I'd be OK."

"And you knew it was the truth."

"Just as much as I know my name's Bud, not Buddy."

She said, "Don't you have no other kin here in Flint?"

"No."

"I guess I can't blame you for wanting to ride the rails. My momma says these
poor kids on the road all alone are like dust in the wind. But I guess you're
different, aren't you, Bud? I guess you sort of carry your family around inside
of you, huh?"

"I guess I do. Inside my suitcase, too."

She said, "So you been staying in a orphanage since your momma died?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, you're kind of skinny, but I can tell by the way you talk and the way you
act that you haven't been out on the road for very long. You still look young."

I said, "Shucks, I'm not all that young, I'm going to be eleven on November
fourteenth, and I'm not skinny, I'm wiry. Some folks think I'm a hero."

 

"So, Mr. Hero, we're the same age. But you have been staying in a orphanage."
"I been staying in a home."

"My daddy says being on the road ain't fit for a dog, much less a kid, how come
you don't just go back to your orphanage?" She started up touching my hand
too much again.

Deza Malone seemed like she was all right so I came clean with her. "Don't tell
no one, but I lit out from a foster home so I'm on the lam. And I wouldn't go
back to the Home even if I could. It's getting so's there's too many kids in
there."
"So? That's better than being cold and hungry all the time and dodging the

railroad police."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't think they just let people jump on the trains, do you?"

"Well, I guess I hadn't thought about it."

"See, I knew you were too nice to have been out on the road, you're going to
have a bad surprise tomorrow morning."

"That won't bother me too much." She said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot, you're a hero to
some folks." When Deza smiled a little dimple jumped up in her brown cheek.
I didn't answer, I just kept drying tin cans.

We got to the last four or five tin can plates and Deza said, "You ever kiss a girl
at the orphanage?"

Uh-oh! "Are you kidding?"

"No. Why, you afraid of girls?"

"You must be kidding."

She said, "OK” and closed her eyes and mooshed her lips up and leaned close
to me.

Dangee! If I didn't kiss her she'd think I was scared of girls, if I did kiss her she
might blab or Bugs might see me and tell strangers about what happened. I
looked down the crick to where Bugs and the other boy were still splashing in
the water. It was dark enough that I didn't think they could see us too good.
I scooched my lips up and mashed my face on Deza Malone's. We stuck like
that for a hot second, but it felt like a long time.

When I opened my eyes and pulled back Deza kept hers closed and smiled. She
looked down and stuck her hand in mine again and this time I let her keep it
there. She looked out at the crick and the woods on the other side and said,
"Isn't this romantic?"

I looked out to see what she was talking about. The only thing I could see was
the moon like a big egg yolk way up in the sky. You could hear the water and
the sound of the mouth organ man playing a sad song back in Hooverville. I
sneaked another peek at Deza's dimple.

She said, "You hear that? That's 'Shenandoah' he's playing. Isn't it pretty?"

"I guess so."

"Do you know the words?"

"Uh-uh."

"Listen.

It's been seven long years
Since last I've seen her,
Way hey, you rolling river,
Been seven long years,
Since last I've seen her;
Way hey, I'm bound away,
"Cross the wide Miss-oo-ray."

I said, "Yup, that's a sad song." I didn't think it was pretty at all.

She squeezed my hand and said, "Isn't it? It's about an Indian man and woman
who can't see each other for seven years. But in all that time they still stay in
love, no matter what happens. It reminds me of my mother and father."
"Your dad's been gone for seven years before?"

She looked out over the crick like the big eggy moan had her hypnotized. I
pulled my hand from hers and said, "Well, that's just about it for the dishes."
She smiled again. "Bud, I’ll never forget this night."

I didn't tell her, but I probably wouldn't forget it either, I'd practiced on the
back of my hand before, but this was the first time I'd ever busted slob with a
real live girl.

We loaded all the dishes in the box and walked down to Bugs and the other kid.
We put their dishes on top of ours and headed back.

Bugs said, "How come you're looking so strange, Bud? You look like you been
chunked in the head with a rock."

Deza Malone laughed, and for a second I thought she was going to rat me out.
I said, "I don't know, I guess that song is making me kind of sad."

Bugs said, "Yeah, it is kind of sad."

Right before we got into the cardboard jungle we passed the white people with
the coughing baby at their own little fire. I said to Deza, "How come they're off
alone, they aren't allowed to sit around the big fire 'cause that baby's making so
much noise?"

Deza said, "Uh-uh, they been invited, but my daddy said you got to feel sorry
for them. All they're eating is dandelion greens soup, they're broke, their
clothes are falling off of them, their baby's sick but when someone took them
some food and blankets, the man said, 'Thank you very much, but we're white
people. We ain't in need of a handout.' "

When we got back to the main fire of Hooverville we put the dishes in another
box. Deza made us turn them all upside down so's if the rain got into them they
wouldn't rust.

I went to the woman with my suitcase. It was in the same spot I'd left it and the
knots in the twine were the kind I tie.

I said, "Thank you very much, ma'am." She said, "I told you not to worry."
I went back to the big fire to sit with Bugs.

The mouth organ man said, "I suppose you boys are going out on that train
tomorrow?"

I said, "The one for Chicago, sir?"

He said, "That's the one."

I said, "Yes, we are, sir."

He said, "Well, you'd best get as much sleep as you can. It's supposed to be
pulling out at five-fifteen, but you never know with these freights." We got in
one of the shacks with some other boys. Bugs was snoring in two seconds, but I
couldn't sleep, I opened my jackknife and put it under my blanket.

I was thinking. Deza's momma was right, someone who doesn't know who their
family is, is like dust blowing around in a storm, they don't really belong any
one place. I started wondering if going to California was the right thing to do. I
might not know who my family was, but I knew they were out there
somewhere, and it seemed to make a whole lot more sense to think that they
were somewhere around Flint instead of out west.

I opened my suitcase to get my blanket. Even though I trusted the woman
who'd guarded it for me I checked to make sure everything was OK.

I picked up the tobacco pouch that had my rocks in it and pulled the drawstring
open. I shook the five smooth stones out and looked at them. They'd been in the
drawer after the ambulance took Momma away and I'd had them ever since.
Someone had took a pen or something and had writ on all five of them, but it
was writ in a code so I couldn't understand what they meant. One of them said
"kent land in. 5.10.11." Another said "loogootee in. 5.16.11” then there was
"sturgis in. 8.30.12" and "gary in. 6.13.12" and the last one said, "flint in.
8.11.11."

I put them back in their pouch and pulled the string tight. Then I pulled out the
envelope that had the picture of the saggy pony at the Miss B. Gotten Moon
Park. It was fine.

Next I counted the flyers again, all five were there, I slid all of them back,
except for the blue one. I held it up so it could catch some of the light from the
big fire. I kept looking at the picture and wondering why this one bothered
Momma so much. The more I thought about it the more I knew this man just
had to be my father. Why else would Momma keep these?

I used a little trick to help me fall off to sleep. I pulled my blanket right up over
my head and breathed in the smell real deep. After doing this three times the
smells of the shack and Hooverville were gone and only the smell of the
blanket was in my nose. And that smell always reminded me of Momma and
how she used to read me to sleep every night.

I took two more breaths and pretended I was hearing Momma reading to me
about the Billy Goats Gruff or the Fox and the Grapes or the Dog That Saw His
Reflection in the Water or some other story she'd checked out of the library. I
could hear Momma's voice getting farther and farther away as I imagined I was
in the story until finally her voice and the story all mixed into one.

I'd learned that it was best to be asleep before Momma finished the story
because if she got done and I was still awake she'd always tell me what the
story was about. I never told Momma, but that always mint the fun of the story.
Shucks, here I was thinking I was just hearing something funny about a fox or a
dog and Momma spoilt it by telling me they were really lessons about not being
greedy or not wishing for things you couldn't have.

I took two more breaths and started thinking about the little hen that baked the
bread. I heard, "Not I," said the pig. "Not I” said the goat. "Not I” said the big
bad wolf” then ... woop, zoop, sloop... I was asleep.

I started dreaming about the man with the giant fiddle. He was walking away
and I kept calling him but he couldn't look back. Then the dream got a lot
better, I turned away from where Herman E. Calloway was and there stood
Deza Malone.

I told her, "I really like your dimple." She laughed and said, "See you in seven
years." A MAN SCREAMED, "Get UP, they're trying to sneak it out early!" I
jumped straight up and banged my head on the top of the shack. I ran outside. It
was still dark and the fire was just a pile of glowing sticks. The man was
screaming at the top of his lungs. "Get up! They've fired the engine and are
fixing to take off!"

Bugs and the other boys came and stood next to me. Bugs said, "Is it a raid?"
Someone said, "No, they're trying to sneak out before we get up!"
People started running all over Hooverville. Bugs said "Come on, Bud, get your
stuff, we got to get on that train!"

I folded my blanket up and put it in my suitcase and tied the twine back. I put
my jackknife in my pocket and Bugs and I ran outside. I hadn't got six giant
steps away when a boy stuck his head out the door and yelled, "Hey, Slim, is
this your paper?"

I looked back. My blue flyer! I forgot to put it back in the suitcase!

Bugs said, "Hurry, I’ll wait."

"I’ll catch you, go ahead."

I ran back and took my flyer from the boy. "Thanks a lot!" I ran back out into
the crowd that was tearing through the woods. There were a million men and
boys running in the same direction.

I didn't want to fold the flyer up so as I was running I slid it between the twine
and the suitcase, I'd put it back inside once we got on the train. No one was
talking. All you could hear were the sounds of a million feet smacking on the
trail and the sound of a million people trying to catch their breath. Finally a hiss
sound started getting louder and louder and I knew we weren't too far away.
We broke out of the woods and there in the dark sat the train. The locomotive
was hissing and spitting coal-black smoke into the sky, every once in a while a
big shower of sparks would glow up from inside the dark cloud, making it look
like a gigantic black genie was trying to raise up out of the smokestack. The
train went as far back as you could see, there must've been a thousand boxcars,
but everyone had stopped and was just standing there watching. No one was
trying to get on.

I pushed my way to the front to see if I could find Bugs and I saw why
everyone had stopped. There were four cop cars and eight cops standing
between the crowd and the train. The cops all had billy clubs and were spread
out to protect the train.

The crowd kept getting bigger and bigger.

One of the cops yelled, "You men know you can't get on this train, just go on
back to Shantytown and there won't be no trouble."

A white man said, "This is the only train going west for the next month, you
know we got families to feed and have got to be on it. You go get back in your
cars and you'll be right, there won't be no trouble."

The cop said, "I'm warning you, the Flint police are on the way, this here is
private property and they have orders to shoot anyone who tries to get on this
train."

A man next to me said, "I'd rather be shot than sit around and watch my kids go
hungry."

The cop said, "This is America, boys, you're sounding like a bunch of
Commies, you know I can't let you on this train. I got kids to feed too, and I'd
lose my job."

Someone yelled, "Well, welcome to the club, brother." It seemed like we stood
looking at the cops and them looking at us for a whole hour. Our side was
getting bigger and bigger and the other cops started looking nervous. The one
who was doing all the talking saw them fidgeting and said, "Hold steady, men."
One of the cops said, "Jake, there's four hundred men out there and more
coming, I don't like these odds. Mr. Pinkerton ain't paying me enough to do
this." He threw his cop hat and his billy club on the ground.

Everybody froze when the train whistle blew one long time and the engine
started saying shuh-shuh-shuh. The big steel wheels creaked a couple of times,
then started moving.

Four of the other cops threw their hats and billy clubs down too. The boss cop
said, "You lily-livered rats," and it was like someone said, "On your mark, get
set, go!"

The engine was saying SHUHSHUHSHUHSHUH- SHUH -- and a million
boys and men broke for the brain.

I got pushed from behind and fell on top of my suitcase. Someone reached
down and pulled me up. I squeezed my bag to my stomach and ran. The train
was going faster and faster. People were jumping on and reaching back to help
others. I finally got to the tracks and was running as hard as I could. I looked up
into the boxcar and saw Bugs.

He screamed, "Bud, throw your bag, throw me your bag!"

I used both hands to throw my suitcase at the train. Bugs caught it and when he
set it behind him the blue flyer blew out of the twine and fluttered outside the
door. But it was like a miracle, the flyer flipped over three times and landed
right in my hand. 1 slowed down and put it in my pocket.

Bugs reached one arm out and screamed, "Bud, don't stop! Run!"

I started running again but it felt like my legs were gone. The car with Bugs in
it was getting farther and farther away. Finally I stopped.

Bugs was leaning out of the door and stopped reaching back for me. He waved
and disappeared into the boxcar. A second later my suitcase came flying out of
the door.

I walked over to where it landed and picked it up. Man, this is one tough
suitcase, you couldn't even tell what it had been through, it still looked exactly
the same.

I sat on the side of the tracks and tried to catch my breath.

The train and my new pretend brother got farther and farther away, chugging to

Chicago. Man, I'd found some family and he was gone before we could really
get to know each other.

There were six or seven other people who didn't make the train, so we all
walked back toward Hooverville. They must've lit the big fire again, the sky in
that direction was glowing orange.

The cop that first threw down his billy club walked over to us and said, "He
wasn't lying about the Flint police coming, but they're coming to bust up the
shanty-town, you all should get out of here."

When we got close to Hooverville we heard four gun-shots. We all spread into
the woods and sneaked up to see what had happened. I peeked from behind a
tree and could see a bunch of cops standing around with pistols out. All the
men and boys and women that were left in Hooverville were bunched up on
one side and the cops were on the other.

The fire had been lit and was burning bigger than ever, but now it was burning
because the cops were tearing all of the shacks down and were throwing the
wood and cardboard and hunks of cloth into the middle of it. One of the cops
dragged the big clothes-washing pot over to the side and stuck his pistol down
in it and shot four more times. Whew, instead of shooting people they were
shooting holes into all of the pots and pans.

A man was yelling, "You yellow-belly lowlifes, you waited till you knew most
of the men was gone, you cowards!"

The cops wouldn't talk or nothing, they just kept piling Flint's Hooverville into
the fire.

I tried to see if I could spot Deza Malone but there were too many people.
It seemed like the only good thing that came out of going to Hooverville was
that I finally kissed a girl. Maybe someone was trying to tell me Something,
what with me missing the train and the blue flyer floating back to me, maybe
Deza Malone was right.

Maybe I should stay here in Flint.

I walked back farther into the woods and sat down. I pulled the blue flyer out of
my pocket and opened my suitcase back up. I smoothed the flyer out and took
another good look at it.

Maybe it came floating right back to me because this Herman E. Calloway
really was my father. Wait a minute! I sat up. The names Caldwell and
Calloway are a lot alike, both of them have eight letters and there aren't too
many names that have a C, a A, a L, and a W all together like that. I
remembered what I read in that Little-Big Book, Gangbusters. It said a good
criminal chooses a alias that's kind of close to their own name. Except I
couldn't figure out who was a criminal here and why anybody needed a alias.

I wanted to stay and look for Deza and her mother but it was too hard to hear
all the people crying and arguing. Besides. I was still on the lam. I started
walking.

​

If I hurried I could get breakfast at the mission.