Illustration by Ian Huebert
Monday, May 26, 2008
Two days passed in northern British Columbia. Then three. Cricket was in desolate country waiting for a freight train, stuck at one of those crossroads that most folks experience only in metaphor. The question was inevitable. Do I want to keep doing this?
Four days passed, going on five. A full work week that could have been spent clocking in at the same job, sleeping in the same bed, watching TV on the same couch, he had spent sitting in the same lonely spot, waiting.
Cricket had been 17, an inexperienced kid from a North Carolina suburb, when he had caught his first freight train in 2000, from Eugene, Ore., to Portland. The ride lasted 12 languid hours that felt like four beautiful days.
Eventually, he had started traveling year-round, breaking only in the cold of winter. He had seen some beautiful country that only trains pass through, and the rivers, lakes, canyons and desolation of northern British Columbia was the most beautiful he had seen.
Audio clips: Voices of Wanderlust
It was there that he got stuck. Two years had passed on freight trains, then three, four, going on five. The transitory lifestyle wears on a person—the constant flow of new friends, the hustle to pick up work.
At any number of points, in any number of towns, he could have cemented himself in place. He thought through the comfort of a home, the boredom of predictability. Do I want to keep doing this?
“Would I rather have a routine,” he remembers thinking, “or have this thing happen to me, where…I don’t know what’s going to happen?”
•••
What motivates someone to give up home and travel around the country with no job, no health insurance, no assurance of safety, nor of prosperity, just a bedroll and a backpack?
If you’re in Lawrence, you have to ask Trainwreck, a veteran traveler known coast to coast by the tattoo of the train that runs ear to ear across his jawline. A willing propagator of traveler’s wisdom, he’ll offer to take you on a train ride and give you hobo book recommendations (Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie and You Can’t Win by Jack Black are good ones, he says). He has a hacking laugh and dentures he’ll take out and clean while he’s talking.
Now 36, Trainwreck says he’s been on his own since he was 13. Growing up in a “difficult growing-up situation” that took him up and down the Oregon coast, he lived on people’s couches and in abandoned buildings. He got into drugs, became a heroin addict and started checking in and out of jails and methadone programs.
He rambled around but describes himself as more of a purposeless junkie than an intrepid traveler until he kicked his 17-and-a-half-year heroin habit about six years ago.
Photo by Frank Tankard
Trainwreck, PBR, Replay Lounge
“I rode trains and stuff, but I wasn’t at that point where I had my head out of my ass,” he says. “I started riding freight and found a bigger world. A lot more opportunities, a lot more people, a lot of stuff that I’d rather do than sit at home and do dope.”
On March 13, 2006, he arrived auspiciously in Lawrence the day after the bizarre microburst had toppled trees, yanked power lines and wreaked havoc across town. He got a job at Milton’s, first as a dishwasher and then as a cook, and then he started making a living as a glass blower. He met a girl that’s he’s marrying in June and settling down with. It’s all happened pretty fast.
Sitting at a work bench in the shop where he blows glass—a little garage with an old couch, a rug, a dog, a mini-fridge, a trash can full of PBR and a CD player blaring Johnny Cash—he wears a white T-shirt that says “Tick Fest” and gives old-fashioned advice. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”
Back to the question. What motivates someone to give up home and travel around the country?
“My big thing about traveling has always been never being content with just one thing. Consistency is good in some ways, but new things, well, they spark you up. When you find new things that you’re into…Sorry, your recorder’s gonna have to hear this song,” he says, and he dials Johnny Cash way up and shouts along with him.
Illustration by Ian Huebert
The meanest thing that he ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me Sue
Well, he must have thought that it was quite a joke
And it got lots of laughs from lots of folk
He starts again, “It doesn’t matter where you go, or the country you’re in. You got a solidarity, but it’s a change of scenery, other things to get into. For me, I quit doing dope and I needed new things to stimulate me. Riding freight trains is freedom. That’s the ultimate, last true freedom. You can have a look at a train, get on and know that by tomorrow you’ll be in another town, doing something else—kind of along the same lines, but something different. Different scenery, different people.”
My name is Sue, how do you do? he and Johnny shout.
“Some people got it and some people don’t. It’s a wanderlust. It’s always looking for something else until you actually find what you want. Once you do, then you’re gold. Now I only do trips. I’m not year-round, full-time looking for something. I found it. It’s right here in the middle of the United States, halfway to anywhere you want to go.”
Photo by Ailecia Ruscin
Alyssa Kelly (right) and her "tanarchist" traveling friend Murry, posing here for the Kansas Anarchists Exposed! 2007 calendar.
•••
Sometimes what a traveler is looking for, as cheesy as it sounds, is oneself.
Alyssa Kelly’s boyfriend of about five years had just broken up with her and kicked her out of their house. A short time later, she went on tour with a band selling merchandise, leaving Houston at 19 to live on the road for the first time.
She stayed with the band in Baltimore for a while, until something terrible happened. She was walking in the middle of the city when she was attacked on the street and raped. Her mother flew her back to Houston.
With she and her boyfriend estranged, their mutual friends had been put in a weird place. And here she was, making her return after ditching town with some band, doing who knows what and getting raped. It looked like she had gone off the edge.
“I didn’t really feel like I had anyone to talk to, and my mom kind of rejected me, for some reason,” she says. “I decided, at that point, I’m just going to go on the road and figure out what to do with my life, because nothing is making me happy right now.”
The full Q&A with Alyssa Kelly
She left again, to Norfolk, Va., where she had a friend who was in the military. “The day that I got there, he was like, ‘By the way, they’re shipping me out. I leave in 72 hours, so we’re not going to get to hang out,’ ” she says.
Her friend paid for a hotel room with a credit card, but after a couple of nights the card was rejected. She grabbed her stuff and ran. Wandering around on the beach, she met some traveler kids and went with them to New York City. She checked into a shelter for a while and dealt with the depression she’d been feeling since being raped. When she felt a little better, she checked out.
Like Cricket waiting to catch a train in British Columbia, she was at a crossroads. Over the next two years, she would hitchhike and ride freight trains all over the country, making friends and running through cycles of burnout and exhilaration.
But before any of that could happen, she had to discover a basic fact: she had no idea what the hell she was doing.
Illustration by Ian Huebert
She found some travelers from Columbia, Mo., in front of the McDonald’s in Times Square and decided to go to Harlem with one of them. He hadn’t ridden the subway before. She stepped off. He didn’t make it out before the doors closed and was gone.
Her first night in Harlem, she lost her shoes. She was alone and out of place. She smoked crack with homeless people so she could fit in with someone and, somehow, not feel as threatened. After about a week, a guy walking by on the street offered her some work out of pity.
“I was really upset, had no shoes and was filthy and rolling a cigarette that somebody gave me,” she says. “He was like, ‘Hey, I work for this comedy club, let me give you a job.’ ”
After making a little money, she bought a bus ticket to Columbia in search of the new friend she’d lost on the subway. Not wanting to return to Houston with her tail between her legs, she didn’t have many other options. “I wanted to prove that I could do it,” she says, “to all these people that had doubts.”
•••
Cue Johnny Cash:
Somewhere far away, a lonely bell was ringin’
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
Illustration by Ian Huebert
“I actually got to know myself,” Trainwreck says. “I got to see what I was made of. When you walk a 20-, 30-mile day with a 70-pound pack on your back through the brush, it’s a big deal. If you make it 15 miles in the brush in a day, you’ve done some f*cking mileage. That’s hard walking. On concrete or on a gravel road, it could be an easy 20-, 30-mile day.
“Some kids can’t do that. Some kids aren’t into it. I walk. I walk fast and I don’t wait up for people. My idea is, get there fast, relax later. If you want to relax in between, it takes you forever to get there. Get there, then relax. Soldier up. There’s no f*cking crying in baseball.”
How much you learn about yourself on the road, the rails and in the wilderness, Trainwreck says, depends on how many times you’re willing to falter and get licked.
“Some new kid comes rolling up in a drinking circle, and he’s liable to get his ass kicked,” he says. “Now, if he sticks around and takes his ass-kicking with a grain of f*cking salt and realizes that there are bound to be a few of those before he actually gets it, then he’s gold.”
There are plenty, of course, who can’t handle a stretch of hard times.
“But there are breeds of kids that come out that have that wanderlust, that have that in them,” he says. “Maybe it was bred like that, or built like that, but that got in them. Those are the kids that come out and everybody thinks they’re a waste of life, hopeless pieces of shit. That’s not the case at all.
“They just have different goals and different ideals, different things that they see are good. That’s us kids. We just want to be left the f*ck alone. We want to do our own thing. We like to travel, whether it be thumbing it, rubbertramping or f*cking riding trains. It’s just a different breed.”
•••
When we last left Alyssa Kelly, she was headed to Columbia. Now for the two-year blur.
She found the guy she’d met in New York, met some new kids and stayed in Columbia for a while. Then on to Lawrence and the Haunted Kitchen, a punk house at 19th and Louisiana streets. Hitchhiked to Pointless Fest, a big punk show in Philadelphia, where the cops decided to crack down on traveler kids.
Caught her first freight train, a nonstop ride to somewhere near Columbus, Ohio. Traveled to Asheville, N.C., Savannah, Ga., Knoxville, Tenn., and Nashville. Hated Nashville. (“It’s f*cking Nashville,” she says. “I thought it was going to be excellent.”)
Got hassled by the cops between Macon, Ga., and Augusta. Returned to Houston, reconnected with her friends and family for a week, took two friends hitchhiking to Austin. Squatted in New Orleans in houses that had been abandoned after Katrina. Added a guy named Billy, a girl and a dog to the group. Caught a ride on an 18-wheeler, the five of them and the dog, to Florida. The truck ran out of gas on the way. (“That’s what he did for a living—drive from point A to point B, fill up, keep going,” she says. “He totally forgot.”)
Made it to Florida and stayed in Billy’s parents’ beach house. Found out the girl with them was a minor, and a runaway. Called her parents, turned her in. Said sayonara to her Austin friends. Rode with Billy to his parents’ big house in upstate New York for Christmas. Bicycled through the ice and rain all the way to Richmond, Va. (“That was a terrible idea,” she says.)
Broke into an abandoned apartment, finding electricity, running water and a note welcoming squatters. Caught a Craigslist ride to Ocala, Fla., for an annual gathering in the national forest of a group called the Rainbow Family of Living Light.
Rode with them by bus to Langerado, a music festival in Sunshine, Fla. Traveled with some kids back to Savannah then to Asheville. Went to a friend’s birthday party. Got punched in the throat by Billy, who was drunk, wouldn’t leave, the cops were called, he was jailed. Left the next day, minus Billy.
Stayed in the Smoky Mountains with an awesome family that had moved to the country and built a house from scratch with money from a car accident settlement. Got a tattoo from the guy living there.
Returned to Columbia, landed a job at a sub shop. Reunited with Billy, who was out of jail and promised to stop drinking but was still “shitty.” Left for Lawrence, minus Billy.
Met a boy named Noah Kelly at the Haunted Kitchen. Hung out for a couple weeks, then a couple months, then got pregnant. (“I’ll do anything to help you, and if you want to have a baby, we can have a baby,” she remembers Noah saying. “And if you want, we could just get married or something.”) Had a miscarriage. Got married anyway in August 2007.
This afternoon she’s in the Haunted Kitchen, taking a break from hanging out with a bunch of traveling kids on the front porch to be interviewed in a bedroom where she and Noah scratched their initials into the wall before moving out. She’s been in Lawrence for a year. Settled down at 21 with a husband, a home and a job at Wheatfield’s, this is far from what she had envisioned.
“It all happened in a couple of months. I said I would never get married and I’m not having kids ’til I’m 30,” she says. “We’re adopting a baby now in December because a friend of ours can’t take care of a baby and she’s pregnant.”
•••
Johnny Cash is on to “Man in Black.”
I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
“You could roll up under certain bridges or certain places in certain camps, man, where you’d get your life taken, and your old lady’d get raped, and you’d be beat to death after you’d be pinned down and watch her get raped,” Trainwreck says. “I’m not even kidding you. There are some f*cked up people out there. You’re talking about a community of people that’s real under the radar.
“Not that that happens all the time. People been riding trains since the trains started rolling across the transcontinental railroad. That was a long time ago. And in those years, there’s been a lot of different types of breeds. Some people get under the radar to get away from things or to avoid legal problems.
“But most of us are out there mainly because we’ve got a wanderlust and we really don’t know where we want to be. We haven’t decided where our spot is, where are place is, haven’t found our niche. But we’ve found it now. And eventually, you’ll either die or you’ll end up settling down somewhere and doing the f*cking normal thing, which is what we all never wanted to do. But when it comes to brass tacks, in order to have the things you want and do the things you want, you’ve kind of got to,” he pauses, “abide.”
Illustration by Ian Huebert
•••
So here’s Cricket, waiting for a train in northern British Columbia, contemplating his future. Do I want to keep doing this? You know the answer. It was as inevitable as the question.
That was in 2006. At 25, Cricket is still traveling, but not as much as he was. He’ll stick around a place, like Lawrence or Portland, for longer than he used to. He has a map on which he highlights all the railroad lines he’s ridden. Many will disappear before he can mark them.
Last week, he rode from Kansas City to Los Angeles. He’s trying to make his way up to Seattle, but Union Pacific isn't running as many trains up the coast as it used to, he says. “You got to ride them before they close them down,” he says. “Right now I’m riding the coastline, and there’s not much left to ride.”
In Seattle, he plans to sublease a friend’s room and fill his job at a bakery for the summer. He’d like to stay beyond that. He still wants to settle down. Bad things can happen if you travel too long.
Like most longtime traveling kids, he can tell you about a time he could easily have died. It happened two years ago in Chicago when he was trying to catch a moving train. The train was going a little too fast, moving up a gradient that was a little too steep, his backpack was a little too heavy, and instead of two bars to grab onto there was only one.
He didn’t get a good grip and swung down backward, hanging upside down on the ladder with his head coming to a stop one foot from the wheels of the train. He managed to kick himself off before falling under. “I should have peed myself or shit my pants, for sure,” he says. “It was a harrowing experience.”
And still, in spite of all, he hasn’t satisfied that wanderlust. “Some people are thrown into these situations, and some people do it because they want to, because it makes them a better person,” he says. “That’s how I am.” «
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