by Peter Malakoff

It was a night train , westbound out of Cicero

a predominantly Black area on the west side of Chicago

known for its high crime rate

and the westbound terminus for all freightrains out of the city

It was almost midnight, nearly freezin' and a big harvest moon was sailin' the sky

I had just walked across the city of Cicero carrying a heavy knapsack

and lookin' for all the world like a traveling hippy

There were many of us on the road that year,

young people, long-haired, well-educated, some of em'

but

I don't think many had passed through this way

People had warned me not to walk through Cicero, to take a bus instead

but, I went anyway

It was late fall,1969

I was 17 years old and headed for the Burlington Northern freight yards

lookin' for a high speed straight through Hot Shot train

out to Denver, Salt Lake City and on to the California sun

and the unique and legendary company that would live along its coast

The walk through town had been fairly eventful

I got to witness a robbery

The lookout man had waved to me as I approached

He was outside a store, shufflin' about, nervous, but smiling

As I walked by, I looked in and saw a man with a gun on another guy

I walked faster and didn't turn around

A couple blocks away I heard the sirens

I walked into the yard just as my train was pullin' out

A yardman pointed it out to me as a hotshot to Denver,

"Only 19 hrs and you'll be in the Mile high city.", he yelled . . .

"You're gonna freeze your ass off!"

The train was already pickin' up a good bit of speed as I ran alongside the gravel embankment

looking behind me for an empty boxcar

It was far too cold to ride the outside underneath a piggyback

Finally, I saw it coming

Still running

I slide the pack off my back onto one arm and throw it up inside onto the floor

and then, changing to a steel handle on the door

I kick up my feet and haul myself on board

I made it, it looked clean

It should be a good ride ahead

On an empty boxcar, pulling out of a freight yards at night

I always like to watch the bright flood of the yard lights sweep across the inside of the car

First they strike the back wall in a long, piercing look

and then, as the train pulls on

they broaden, moving, plastering the side wall like a billboard

and then sweeping quickly across the car

narrow again to the front

and you leave them behind

Well, the light entered the car, swept across the back and side walls and then

as it shone into the front of the car

I realized I was not alone

There was a dark figure squatting on the floor

I gave a start, but only inwardly

After walking through Cicero, I was already on full alert

I had heard many stories from the hobos

particularly the older ones

about the bad people ridin' these trains

The man was black and bearded and heavily dressed

He gave no welcome or sign of acknowledgement

I immediately felt this was not a good situation

Usually

when you ride in a empty boxcar, you ride towards the front

you are out of the wind and it's generally the best place to be

particularly in the case of a sudden stop when you can be thrown quickly and violently forward

(I once went from one end of a boxcar to the other

when they hit the brakes going across the desert outside of Kingman, Arizona)

Because I had come onto the car after he did

because he offered no greeting or sign of friendliness

and because it seemed too late to jump off

I thought it best to sit opposite the open door

It seemed better than the far end of the boxcar

not only because it was less in the wind

but it also seemed to hold out some possibility of relationship

with my dark partner on this all night ride

I spread out a blanket for a pad and leaning back against the wall

and bending my knees

I slid my back down the wall until I was half sitting on my blanket

my knees drawn up to my chest

the best position for absorbing the shock and bouncing of a freight car

I looked at the dark figure alone in the far corner and I thought to myself

"This is going to be a long night

I don't dare go to sleep with this guy here"

I would have to stay awake and alert

I didn't have long to wait before things started to happen

I had been watching the city outskirts go by at an ever increasing rate

listening to the clackety rhythms of the wheels and bouncing steel

when all of a sudden he was standing in front of me and just to the left

"Got any food white boy?"

It was his opening statement

He was a large black man

obviously in an angry and antagonistic state of mind

I was taken by surprise and I didn't answer right away

He growled again: "I said, you got any food white boy?"

"No, I don't have any food"

I answered in my

come on lets be rational and talk this all out educated Jewish liberal white boy voice

"I know you got food in that knapsack white boy"

His voice was getting louder and more insistent

"I don't have any food, man"

I now replied in a more firm tone of

'although I was never brought up this way, this is how it is' voice

I was telling the truth

I did have some brown rice and miso

but, I knew that wouldn't count in this situation

"I know you got food in that knapsack white boy"

He took a step towards me as he spoke

He had definitely approached within the critical range for a conversation of this sort

I had to do something

I knew the train was going too fast for either one of us to leave now

I envisioned a fight with someone being thrown out the door . . . it all wasn't pretty

The train was flying along and the whole boxcar had that rolling sway of a fast moving ship on land

Our eyes were locked together and even though we couldn't see each other clearly

I made my move . . .

I was wearing two pairs of pants, two undershirts, three flannel shirts, a heavy sweater, a vest

a large heavy dark grey oversize ankle-length salvation army coat

I had on gloves and hiking boots

I had a three-day growth of beard and even though I wore glasses

I made the right impression as I stood up. . . slowly, taking all my time

drawing myself almost lazily to my full height of over six foot-four inches and more in my heavy hiking boots

and looking slightly down on him and straight into his face said, in a deep and forceful, 'ain't gonna' take this shit no more' :

"I don't have no food, maaannn!"

We stood there for a few seconds

swaying in unison as the boxcar bounced along on the rails

The silence in the midst of all the noise around was crying out a million things

I didn't know what he was hearin'

I had played my cards and now it was up to him

He spat on the floor

not in my direction

(I knew it was gonna' be all right at that point)

he mumbled something about the white race

and he walked away to his end of the boxcar

It had worked

I stayed up all that night, thinking plenty of thoughts

with my man like a backup horn section

playin' some remembersome licks of apprehension

but the train was rockin' like a lullaby cradle

and he was passed off to sleep in his anger

I watched a bunch of lovely moon-night country fly by

the fields all barren

white birds scattering in the fall moonlight

thinking the thoughts

of an angel at war

The next morning before sunrise

while pulled off on a siding to let a passenger train by

I left that boxcar and found another

for the rest of the ride to Denver

Lookin' Back at Anger

When the black man came at me in the boxcar,

I felt a situation in which neither passivity nor aggression would work

To be mild in the face of a crazy, angry man seemed to invite disaster

To be aggressive and fight, was an unnecessary and dangerous violence

It was a third consideration on which I acted

a consideration I first heard in the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna was a great God- Realizer of late 19th Century India

Often, when teaching, he would recount the many tales and stories

he heard as a child growing up in rural India

By means of these stories, he would add spice to the transmission of his own Realization

and give new meaning to previously unexamined issues

Let me tell you a story of his

a story which gave me another way to act in the face of violence:

Some cowherd boys used to tend their herd in a meadow where a terrible poisonous snake lived.

Everybody was always on the alert for fear of it

One day a saint was going along that way to the meadow

The boys ran to him and said:

"Revered sir, please don't go that way

A terrible venomous snake lives over there."

"What of it, my good children?" said the saint.

"I am not afraid of the snake."

and

So saying, he continued on his way through the meadow

But the cowherd boys, being afraid, did not accompany him

In the meantime, the snake heard him and moved swiftly against him

with upraised hood.

As soon as it came near, the saint recited a mantra

and the snake lay at his feet like an earthworm

The holy man said:

"Look here. Why do you go about doing harm?

Come, I will give you a holy mantra.

By repeating it you will learn to love God.

Ultimately you will realize him and also get rid of your violent nature"

Saying this, he taught the snake the holy word and initiated him into spiritual life

The snake bowed before the teacher and said,

"Revered sir, how shall I practice spiritual discipline?"

"Repeat that sacred word", said the teacher,

"And do no harm to anybody"

As he was about to depart, the saint said,

"I shall see you again, for sure"

Some days passed and the cowherd boys noticed that the snake seemed passive

They threw stones at it. Still it showed no anger

It behaved as if it were an earthworm

One day one of the boys came close to it

caught it by the tail

and whirling it round and round, dashed it against a tree and threw it away on the ground

The snake vomited and became unconscious

It was stunned

It could not move

Thinking it dead

the boys went their way

Late that night the snake regained consciousness

Slowly and with great difficulty it dragged itself into its hole

its bones were broken and it could scarcely move

Many days and weeks passed

The snake became a mere skeleton covered with skin

For fear of the boys it would not leave its hole during the day time

night and day it practiced its mantra

and at night, it would sometimes come out in search of food

Since receiving the sacred word from the teacher,

it had given up doing harm to others

It maintained its life on dirt, leaves

or the fruit dropped from trees

About a year later the saint came that way again and asked after the snake

The cowherd boys told him that it was dead

But, he didn't believe them

He knew that the snake would not die before attaining the fruit of the holy word

with which it had been initiated

He went out into the fields and searching here and there,

called the snake by the name he had given it

and

hearing his guru's voice, the snake came out of its hole

and bowed down before him with great reverence

"How are you?" asked the saint

"I am well, sir", replied the snake

"But", the teacher asked, "Why are you so thin?"

The snake replied

"Revered sir, you ordered me not to harm anybody

So I have been living on leaves and fruit.

Perhaps that has made me thinner."

The snake had developed the quality of sattva (purity); it could not be angry with anyone

It had totally forgotten that the cowherd boys had almost killed it

The saint said:

"It can't be mere want of food that has reduced you to this state

There must be some other reason. Think a little."

Then the snake remembered what the boys had done

It said: "Yes, now I remember

The boys held me by my tail and dashed me violently against the tree

They are ignorant after all

They didn't realize what a great change had come over my mind

How could they know I wouldn't bite or harm anyone?"

The saint exclaimed

"What a shame! You are such a fool!

You don't know how to protect yourself

"But, Guruji", the snake protested

"you told me not to harm anybody"

"Yes, I asked you not to harm anyone

but I did not forbid you to hiss

You must scare them away by hissing!"