Slice of Good Ol Boy Life

With Stanley’s words ringing in my ear, I set out to find a little joy in my life.

Working the graveyard shift in the train yard made doing things on my days off a challenge. When I was up and ready to go, most people were sound asleep.

So while David slept, I put on headphones and watched a lot movies in our little studio apartment. I did some writing and cooking too and worked out in an empty gym.

But I was lonely. Very lonely.

Then one night, I came to work and everything changed.

I walked into the cleaners’ shack to find a new guy sitting at the table, staring intensely at his phone with a big backpack by his side.

A young man in his late 20s, tall and lanky with curly hair and a smooth skin tone that showed he had recently spent some time in the sun.

I sat down beside him as the other workers filed in and prepared for another tedious shift of cleaning trains. He looked up from his phone, nodded his head at me and immediately turned his attention back to the phone.

“Are you new here?,” I asked.

“Yep, first day,” he replied, without looking up while pecking away at his phone.

“Well, welcome aboard, I’m John.”

“Hey buddy, I’m River.”

I felt good energy between us. Positive vibes for sure.

After our crew meeting, the supervisor pulled me aside. A highly intelligent Navy mechanic, the sup knew how to communicate with me with little words or explanation.

“Look out for River, will ya,” he said.

“Sure thing,” I replied.

The sup informed me River would be taking the train to work too, which gave me a little more peace of mind on the commute. There was always some sort of drama on the train not to mention it had basically become a rolling homeless shelter — another casualty of Portland’s laissez faire attitude.

River’s attitude, on the other hand, was upbeat and cheerful.

He gave compliments without hesitation, was quick with a joke and talked frequently of his bold plans for the future.

“I want to own a house in different places all the world,” he told me one morning on our ride home.

“How are you going to do that?,” I asked.

“Oh, I have connections,” he grinned.

Those connections came from his previous work. It was a lifestyle that I was quite familiar with, albeit buried deep in my past.

“I was a dancer before I got this job,” he said. “Made a lot of money too, but I spent it just as fast as I made it.”

“What kind of dancing?,” I naively asked, already decided that I was going to play dumb for a while.

“Strippin’ at the bars downtown.”

As I listened, memories of my very first relationship with a man came flooding back into my consciousness like a tidal wave of emotions.

He went on, “There’s videos and pictures of me all over the internet.”

Before he could say any more, the train reached my stop and I wished River a good day.

“Get some sleep and I’ll see you later,” I said.

But I wouldn’t.

That was the night River was attacked.