Big Rock Candy Mountain Ch 02

The fates aligned with me, the next three trains I hopped all took me south and west heading closer to Texas. The fourth train, mostly loaded with empty petrochemical containers, took me nearly all of the way there deep into Southeast Texas and almost to the coast.

I felt I was somewhere close, but not quite there yet, and it had been a very long time since I had been anywhere near this far south before. There was harvesting in the Rio Grande Valley, but there was an amply supply of Mexicans to do that labor, and hobos were not needed and there were a great many unfriendly Sheriffs in-between.

In the end, I decided to trust my nose; it usually had better sense than the rest of me put together. I had vaguely remembered a town near the coast, but not quite on it, so I just aimed my nose south and determined to keep the Gulf on my left side and marched on forwards. It took awhile to find, but one rainy mid-summer afternoon when I stopped for shelter under a small railroad trestle, I found exactly what I was looking for, a nearly invisible scratched marking on the wood of the trestle with my circled initials on it and dated from 1969.

I had been here before. The town must be nearby, as I now vaguely remembered walking to here to catch a train out of Texas, and the next day I found it. A small backwater rural town of no particular account or importance near the coast called Lovett, Texas.

Things seemed a bit changed since I was last here, folks seemed a bit nicer and the Town Centre definitely looked more prosperous than when I had briefly passed through nearly 30 years ago. The smell of fresh paint and optimism was everywhere. Suited me fine, I could use a fresh coat of each on my own soul.

The first order of business was to find some work, and the first three people I asked all gave me the exact same answer - 'go to the Church'. I expected some trouble with a young lady Deputy Sheriff who politely asked if she could help me, but when I told her I was looking for the Church, she offered to give me a ride directly over there, and then bade me a good day and good luck with my job hunting. Definitely different from the attitude of most Sheriff's offices in most places I had been.

The opportunities available to me for employment via the kindness of the Church did not seem particularly promising. There was a quite successful computer company in town, but I had no skills for that and couldn't even type decently. There was also a revived aviation industry just outside of town a bit at the County airport, but my skills were lacking a bit there too. I joked that I had a fairly strong back and was used to spending all of my time with my fingers in the dirt.

This engendered a loud laugh from a man about my own age who seemed to be the local priest whom everyone called Father Al. He suggested that I go offer my services to a lady by the name of Dr. Rosalyn White, and that he would even offer to drive me over there to meet her himself.

The lady Doc I found out was not a medical doctor, but she was an expert in rare tropical plants and had been recently hired by some millionaire out of Houston to setup and maintain a greenhouse botanical research station down here. The millionaire was, of course, Chris' old friend and the lover of his wife, one Robert Simmons.

Father Al seemed to appreciate the irony of the situation when I told him that an old friend of mine had a different experience with the town's new benefactor and he replied cryptically. "Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the cross. All is not gold that glistens. Swift deep currents often pass below calm ocean surfaces. Listen often, speak less, learn, love and live - all the mysteries of God shall be revealed over time." With that he smiled and let me get out in front of the research station, before giving a friendly wave and he drove off again back to Lovett.

Absolutely typical, I had only been in this town for less a day on two occasions about thirty years apart, and nothing but strangeness occurred each time!

There was still time to find a train north and get up to Washington State for the grape harvesting in the Columbia Valley and maybe a little salmon fishing in the cool mountain rivers. Well I was already here now, so I might as well make the best of it, I convinced myself, and somehow managed to give the glass on the front door of the main greenhouse a firm rapping.

My initial evaluation of the place was not promising. Someone had gone through a considerable amount of time, effort and money to build several good huge greenhouses, but outside of these structures virtually nothing else was done. I soon found out why. The 'good Doctor', to put it mildly, was a bit of a harridan. No employee yet had lasted longer than a single day of working for her.

She seemed a little bit younger than me, but I got the impression that her mileage had been adding up a bit too. She certainly didn't dress for looks; she was definitely 100% 'utility', all go and no show. She didn't think very much of me either, and let me pointedly know so in case I hadn't been paying attention. But since there was no one else to do the work, I was it... and there was certainly an awful lot of work to be done.

The first step was an endless assembly of sturdy metal tables that would be supporting the greenhouse plant growth boxes. This was hard fussy sweaty work, especially under the glass roof of a mid-summer South Texas heat wave, and my boss didn't cut me the slightest amount of slack as she worked beside me just as hard all that afternoon long. I think she had expected me to quit within an hour or two, but seemed surprised that I had held up so well. It wasn't the first time I had toiled under a hot sun under a heartless taskmaster.

She found a camp cot bed for me that after several decades of sleeping on the ground felt like luxury. She had a tent and disappeared into it fairly early after dark without saying a word to me. Probably also pointing a shotgun at the entrance to be ready if I made any nocturnal unwelcome advances.

There was supposedly going to be a house built here for the staff to live in, but everything had been delayed with the constant rain they had been getting here this summer.

By the end of Saturday, most of the plant tables had been assembled in the first and main greenhouse. The rest I was told could wait until later. Now it was time to assemble and emplace the large planters onto the tables and I started right away on this that next Sunday morning.

Rosalyn seemed surprised to see me working on my 'day off', but I had never been much of a church man and 'these planters weren't going to get moved by themselves'. Soon she was helping me and we again spent a long hot day under the broiling glass, neither of us uttering a word of complaint. She was one mighty tough woman, hard as nails.

I could also tell that she was a really a bit of a softie inside, but something had hurt her bad and fairly recently, and her armor was always on. The trouble with heavy inflexible steel armor is that it always has a weak joint or two that leads into the soft unprotected insides, and I found Rosalyn's. At heart she was as sentimental as any old hobo I had ever met.

In no mood yet for sleep, I had been puttering around the campfire near her tent that evening. As usual, she had migrated to her tent right after dinner and I was adding wood to the fire and giving it a good stir to keep it going - I have always loved a good cheerful campfire. Without thinking I started to softly sing a few of my favorite old hobo songs, and was about halfway through "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" when I heard her come out of the tent and stare at me. I stopped and turned to look at her, and she was crying her eyes out with real tears. That song, she told me, had been her late husband's favorites, and she had heard him sing it often.

His father had worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad all of his life, and often took his children camping in the woods and taught them all of the old railroad and hobo folk songs. Her husband had shared his love of camping with his wife and their young daughter and they had spent many an evening around the campfire singing songs together. She had lost both him and their daughter in a tragic car crash a few years ago, and nothing had been quite right for her ever since.

She asked me to re-sing "Hallelujah" for her and I did, and asked her if her husband had ever taught her "Big Rock Candy Mountain", as it had been written by the same man, Harry McClintock in the 1920's.

"No" she said, but she wanted to hear it, and so I sang it for her, slow and wistfully as if it were a prayer.

"One evening as the sun went down

And the jungle fires were burning,

Down the track came a hobo hiking,

And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning

I'm headed for a land that's far away

Besides the crystal fountains

So come with me, we'll go and see

The Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,

There's a land that's fair and bright,

Where the handouts grow on bushes

And you sleep out every night.

Where the boxcars all are empty

And the sun shines every day

And the birds and the bees

And the cigarette trees

The lemonade springs

Where the bluebird sings

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

All the cops have wooden legs

And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth

And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs

The farmers' trees are full of fruit

And the barns are full of hay

Oh I'm bound to go

Where there ain't no snow

Where the rain don't fall

The winds don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

You never change your socks

And the little streams of alcohol

Come trickling down the rocks

The brakemen have to tip their hats

And the railway bulls are blind

There's a lake of stew

And of whiskey too

You can paddle all around it

In a big canoe

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,

The jails are made of tin.

And you can walk right out again,

As soon as you are in.

There ain't no short-handled shovels,

No axes, saws nor picks,

I'm bound to stay

Where you sleep all day,

Where they hung the jerk

That invented work

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

I'll see you all this coming fall

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

"That's the hobo idea of heaven?" she asked.

"Pretty much", I replied. "If nothing else, it's peaceful there and a poor man can be free from worry or want, for at least a little while, until he takes his final rest. I think I've looked all my life for a place very much like it, but now that I'm older and tired I think I'll just settle for now a place where I can rest my head in peace each night without fear that some stranger will beat my head in with a piece of pipe just to take my shoes. And if the place just happens to have a crystal fountain full of gushing lemonade, so much the better."

I sang for her a few other songs; some she knew well, others just a bit and a few were quite new to her. At length she returned to her tent, but this time not before wishing me a good night.

*******

The next week was hard, and the week after that was harder even still. Once all of the soil enclosures were prepared it was time for the endless back breaking job of bringing in never ending forty pound sacks of soil, each carefully mixed and sorted by Rosalyn. The soil mixture had to be perfect, she said for the very special plants that they would soon be growing.

I was exhausted by Noon each day and I honestly don't know what kept me up on my feet working except that Rosalyn was working just as hard herself alongside me. About mid-afternoon one day when the August sun had never felt hotter, I stumbled and fell when bringing in one of the very last loads of soil for this greenhouse, and Rosalyn came running over to my side and grasped my hand. I thought I was about to die and it seemed like perfectly good time and way to go.

"Don't even think about it!" she muttered at me, "You're not having any heart attack because I can't do any of this without you, so your hobo paradise is just going to have to wait!"

She helped me up, but I determined that the last three sacks would indeed be brought in before we quit for the day. I did not like to leave any job half done, let alone 99% done before quitting, and she helped me with the last few bags.

We were both far too hot and overheated, and even drinks of cool water weren't reviving us. I suggested we move to the nearby beach shore of the small bay we were close to and cool down in the water, and she at once agreed. Used to splashing around in my clothes, I dove right into the water after just taking off my shoes and socks. I had expected Rosalyn to do the same, but she stripped down into her bra and panties before entering the water. I don't think she realized that her white bra became nearly transparent when wet, providing me with a superb look at her dark areolas and nipples.

I grinned and got a bit embarrassed and told her that she was showing off maybe a bit more of herself than she might have intended and she just laughed.

"I think we're both a bit too old to care much about that sort of thing these days." She said with a smile, and I laughed back with her.

I took off my shirt and pants and clad in only my underwear left my clothes by my shoes to dry. She upped the ante and unfastened her bra, and added it with her pile of clothes along the shore. I played my last card and dropped my shorts, leaving myself nude in front of her, and she in turn played her final trump card and removed her panties, leaving us wet, grinning and quite naked in the warm but delightful water.

I think for the next half-hour we both turned back our odometers a bit, and frolicked and splashed each other as if we were both still youngsters. When we left the water over an hour later, we were both walking hand-in-hand, we found a grassy spot to lay down in. Still naked, we sat next to each other and talked about everything and nothing until close to sunset, when we found we had little else to say, but our lips wanted to meet and have a personal conversation all of their own.

"Make love to me Sandy." These were the only words she uttered once our lips finally parted, and I was ever so happy to oblige her. We enjoyed the experience so much that we made love again in her tent later after dinner. I never slept on my lone camp cot again.

Somehow, we got everything finally situated in the main greenhouse and soon the plants began to arrive.

"Exotic nearly one-of kind ultra-rare stuff" Rosalyn said, from legendary and inaccessible places around the world, and soon she began teaching me patiently everything she knew about growing these extremely rare and delicate plants. In my time I had probably ripped or cut a million plants out of the ground when harvesting, but now I was on the growing and nurturing end... and I enjoyed it a whole lot better.

Once I even got to meet our mysterious millionaire boss, when he came down for a visit, and I must admit that despite everything I had been told about the man I did seem to like him. He struck me as a fairly troubled man who probably now realized that he did had more than a few sins on his soul, but I got the innate impression that 'attempted murder' was not one of them. He seemed like the sort of man who would make a very hard deal, but once it was done would try to be very fair to all of the particular parties.

I staying in the background and kept my mouth mostly shut. I didn't discuss my meeting with Chris with him, but I admit I was tempted. Later I made a point of asking Father Al about what to do about the situation, and he seemed lost in thought for a good long time.

"The last time we talked I mentioned deep ocean currents - that is what is driving him now and will yet for some little time to come. He's just discovering that his fate is not really his own and certain past decisions are coming back to haunt him. He will be better for the experience, but later. He certainly bears Chris no ill will and never has, and sometimes the greatest stage comedies do start with a tragic error or misunderstanding. All will be well, but now is not the time to go fishing into those abyssal depths. Remain a seed pod gently floating unseen on those still calm waters and pray instead that you continue to find fertile soil in which to grow yourself, and pray that the great sharks and leviathan creatures of the deep never spot you. For starters your mistress, the most formidable Doctor White - or is it soon to become Gartner? - would be most perturbed. It seems she has just the perfect soil prepared for your rebirth and has some extensive plans for your nurturing and tending."

What a typical preacher! They never make a lick of sense even when you ask them a simple question! Father Al was even trickier than most, but I had to admit that I was starting to like him very much. Sometimes, but not always, I'd even visit his church, where I made to feel quite welcome by everyone. A strange situation for a hobo!

He did give us some straight forward answers to our request for him to marry us a few months later. It wasn't a big ceremony, I had no family to speak of and neither did she, so it was just the town folks at the Church that Sunday afternoon. We had to write our own vows which was a bit tricky, and involved lots of botanical and gardening inferences by both of us, followed by a symbolic planting of a tree by both of us together.

Although my beautiful bride had never looked better (

all

brides should be married in the nude with just a white veil, garter belt, stockings and high heels - that's one of the very odd local town traditions that I did enjoy very much!), I had to admit that the highlight for me was that someone had found somewhere a pair of crystal fountains that were set up prominently on a table to gush forth both lemonade and champagne. There was also a small tree decorated with cigarettes and a stuffed bluebird on top of it.

In short, there was everything provided that a happy hobo could ever need or want or find on the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Including my old friend Chris! He had arrived with Robert and their wives to be present for the Doc's wedding, and the kid and I recognized each other instantly and immediately ran and hugged each other as the long lost friends that we were.

"I take it the bad guys chasing after you were indeed something of a misunderstanding?" I muttered to him privately when things had quieted down.

"Apparently so," He said with a shrug. "Actually, the threatening conversation I heard while hidden in a closet involved someone else other than me whose legs did in fact probably need breaking. He actually always rather liked me it seemed, and it did hurt him a bit to end up being lovers with my wife. Accidents just happen."

"Ummm, how is that going to work out now? Is that situation going to be a bit delicate, I noticed you have a rather pretty redhead under your arm now - that doesn't look like the photo that you shown me of your wife that you always looked at."

"Indeed, it's working out all for the better, so far anyway. Penny has been living with Bob for the last three years so they're fairly set now domestically. I met this pretty redhead Rose up in Iowa and we were just about all set to play house together too, when one her ex-boyfriends got suspicious of me and tipped off one of the nastier PI's hunting for me. They thought they'd hit the jackpot and arranged a little kidnapping for me, using a whole lot more force than their employer had ever authorized. Rose hightailed it after me down to Houston and we got everything settled. The Divorce papers are in front of a judge and sometime next month we'll all be back here ourselves for our own double-wedding ceremony."