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in the green underworld and still reading the same editorial over again and wont understand where I’ve been or what for or what.— I have to get out ofthere or suffocate, out of Third Street or become a worm, it’s alright to live and bed-wine in and play the radio and cook little breakfasts and rest in but O my I’ve got to go now to work, I hurry down Third to Townsend for my 7:15 train—it’s 3 minutes to go, I start in a panic to jog, goddam it I didnt give myself enough time this morning, I hurry down under the Harrison ramp to the Oakland-Bay Bridge, down past Schwei-backer-Frey the great dim red neon printshop always spectrally my father the dead executive I see there, I run and hurry past the beat Negro grocery stores where I buy all my peanut butter and raisin bread, past the redbrick railroad alley now mist and wet, across Townsend, the train is leaving!
    FATUOUS RAILROAD MEN, the conductor old John J. Coppertwang 35 years pure service on ye olde S.P. is there in the gray Sunday morning with his gold watch out peering at it, he’s standing by the engine yelling up pleasantries at old hoghead Jones and young fireman Smith with the baseball cap is at the fireman’s seat munching sandwich—“We’ll how’d ye like old Johnny O yestiddy, I guess he didnt score so many touchdowns like we thought.” “Smith bet six dollars on the pool down in Watsonville and said he’s rakin’ in thirty four.” “I’ve been in that Watsonville pool—.” They’ve been in the pool of life fleartiming with one another, all the long pokerplaying nights in brownwood railroad places, you can smell the mashed cigar in the wood, the spittoon’s been there for more than 750,099 yars and the dog’s been in and omt and these old boys by old shaded brown light have bent and muttered and young boys too with their new brakeman passenger uniform the tie undone the coat thrown back the flashing youth smile of happy fatuous well-fed goodjobbed careered futured pensioned hospitalized taken-care-of railroad men.— 35, 40 years of it and then they get to be conductors and in the middle of the night they’ve been for years called by the Crew Clerk yelling “Cas-sady? It’s the Maximush localized week do you for the right lead” but now as old men all they have is a regular job, a regular train, conductor of the 112 with goldwatch is helling up his pleasantries at all fire dog crazy Satan hoghead Willis why the wildest man this side of France and Frankincense, he was known once to take his engine up that steep grade… 7:15, time to pull, as I’m running thru the station hearing the bell jangling and the steam chuff they’re pulling out, O I come flying out on the platform and forget momentarily or that is never did know what track it was and whirl in confusion a while wondering what track and cant see no train and this is the time I lose there, 5, 6, 7 seconds when the train tho underway is only slowly upchugging to go and a man a fat executive could easily run up and grab it but when I yell to Assistant Stationmaster “Where’s 112?” and he tells me the last track which is the track I never dreamed I run to it fast as I can go and dodge people a la Columbia halfback and cut into track fast as off-tackle where you carry the ball with you to the left and feint with neck and head and push of ball as tho you’re
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throw yourself all out to fly around that left end and everybody psychologically chuffs with you that way and suddenly you contract and you like whiff of smoke are buried in the hole in tackle, cutback play, you’re flying into the hole almost before you yourself know it, flying into the track I am and there’s the train about 30 yards away even as I look picking up tremendously momentum the kind of momentum I would have been able to catch if I’d a looked a second earlier—but I run, I know