Mike Helps Harley Leave

Harley had explained to his parents what he was going to do. He assured them both that he would take all precautions to keep himself safe. No one except he and Mike knew when Harley planned to leave, but Lena thought she would be driving him to Adel, like she had driven Charley. Charley thought he had convinced Harley to go up to Granger to hop on the line that went up through Perry, and on into South Dakota, through northwestern Iowa. That was so, Charley explained, he would not have to ride through Denver with all the old wheat bums and the crazy young kids trying to get to California to find their fortune. They were both wrong. Harley wanted to see the Rocky Mountains, so Denver was exactly where Harley wanted to go. He put his plan into action.

After church on Sunday, Harley told his parents he was going to go shoot baskets at Mike’s house; that he had been invited over there for one last Sunday dinner. That part was true. He gave both his parents a big hug and a kiss when he left them at the farmhouse around noon on Sunday. He told them that he would be back later; they had no way of knowing that he meant later that summer.

He did go to the McMichael’s house for Sunday dinner. Then Mike took him down to the Rock Island station. It was more crowded than Harley expected it to be. The train that was there was a passenger train. That wouldn’t work at all.

Mike suggested they go drive around the Iowa Capitol building and the park over by the river while they figured out what to do. They got out and acted like little kids on the swings at the park. There were some men playing baseball in an open field and the boys watched them for several innings, then Harley had Mike drive him farther over on the east side of town. There were packing plants on the southeast side, with tracks running right past them.

As a farmer, Harley had no problem riding with raw refrigerated meat. When he thought about it, and he and Mike talked about it, it made good sense. The other bums, if they were from cities, might be upset at the idea of riding in the boxcars with the raw meat. It made no difference to farm boy Harley. Mike tried to help Harley reconnoiter the best place to hop on. The train might not be moving, or it might be going slowly. Either way, Harley was sure he’d have no problems getting on the train. His dad had told him the best way to do it and not get hurt or killed.

What Harley didn’t reckon was that it was Sunday, and the meat packing plant was closed. There would be no trains loading there and leaving until tomorrow! Mike tried to talk him into going back to his house and staying the night. Harley didn’t want to do that because when his parents called the McMichaels to find out why he did not come home Sunday night, he could not ask Mike’s parents or even Mike to lie for him. That would never do!

“I’m just going to camp out here for the night, Mike,” he told his doubtful looking friend. “I have my pack and bindle in the back of the car. I’ll take it out, you can tell your dad I have left town, and he can help you take my parent’s truck back to the farm. Sound good?”

Mike was not ready to be that flexible. This was not the plan. “This sounds crazy, Harley! Really, why would you sleep outside when you could just sleep at my house? Or you could just go home, and I could bring you down here tomorrow night. Who knows what kind of awful bums hang out over here on the east side at night?” Mike questioned him.

“Are you really serious? That is funny, Mike. Do you realize I am going to be sleeping outside for at least a week? It is going to take me that long or maybe longer to get to my uncle’s farm in Washington. There are going to be questionable people around me all day and all night. My dad told me what to watch out for. And besides that, I have my hooks and jabs from boxing, remember? I can take care of myself; don’t worry,” Harley reassured him.

“Hooks and jabs won’t do much if some bum comes at you with a knife, Harley,” his friend warned him.

“I have a knife in my bindle. Actually, I have two of them. My dad gave them to me. He insisted I have one in my pack and one in my boot. He rode the rails last summer, remember? I told you all about it. I’m ready for anything, honest.”

Mike shook his head, “You sound so sure, Harley. I’m gonna be sayin’ a bunch of Hail Marys for you, if that’s okay?”

“Sure, Mike. Prayers never hurt anybody!”

“Oh, hey,” Mike blurted out, “I almost forgot. I brought you a lucky charm…well, it’s a saint, but it’s the saint that protects travelers, St. Joseph. Just put him in your pocket, okay?” Mike shoved a little figure of a man into Harley’s shirt pocket. The thing looked a little like Jesus to Harley. It was only about two inches tall.

“I have plenty of room for a little guy like him, Mike. Thanks,” replied Harley, as he reached out to shake Mike’s hand. With a sly smile, he added, “You’d better be getting home. No telling what kind of unsavory fella you might run into over here on the east side.”

“Wait, where are you going to go now? Maybe I should stay with you until it gets dark. Don’t you think?” Mike asked.

“No, I am going over by that shed next to the gate. I will just hunker down in the corner where the shed meets the fence. No one can sneak up behind me, and I will wake up right away when they open the plant in the morning. You had better scram. Now, get out of here!” Harley shooed his friend away with his hands and turned to walk to the shed. “Get going! Take my folks’ truck back. Tell them I’ve already left town, and that you couldn’t stop me.”

Harley got to the corner where he was going to spend the night and turned to see Mike pulling away. They exchanged waves, and then Harley was alone as the shadows on that side of the packing plant got longer and longer. The night turned out to be uneventful, except for the late spring chill that brought shivers to Harley’s whole body. He decided not to pack much of a blanket because summer was right around the corner. It was the end of May and he didn’t figure he would want to drag a heavy blanket around all June, July, and August.

Covering himself with almost everything in his pack and throwing his bindle on top of all of that, Harley crouched down in the corner and slept off and on. It was quite dark around the packing plant and it did not smell good at all. It smelled like…well…like dead animals. Not the kind of dead animals that laid out in the road for a couple of days, but like a lot of old dried blood, and like burned animal bones. He was pretty sure they didn’t burn bones at the packing plant, but he knew they must have done something horrible with them to make that odor. He had heard the west-side kids at Roosevelt making jokes about how stinky the east-side smelled because of the packing plants, but he had never smelled it before. They were right; it was really foul. He tried to cover up his nose while he slept, but would wake himself up, not able to breathe clearly because of the clothing he had put over his face.

He was pretty sure he heard his father’s voice, telling him, “Ya better toughen up, son. You ain’t even started yet and you is already actin’ like a weak kitten.” He knew he must have dreamed that, but it seemed so real. Charley was right, even if it really wasn’t his voice; Harley was acting like a baby, not like an independent young man ready to ride the rails with grown men and bums.

Suddenly, as he was awakening for what seemed like the tenth time, he saw car headlights coming around the corner. He shrank back against the fence, as far as he could, gathering up his stuff that he had spread over himself for warmth. The car drove past. That is when he decided to pack up and go wait somewhere besides right next to the gate. After filling up his pack and moving the bindle to his back, he started to walk around the whole building. It took up most of an entire city block.

Most of the back of the packing plant had fencing around it, but then he found a dock where they probably unloaded the animals. He wondered if they only slaughtered cattle, or if they only slaughtered pigs, or maybe they did both. Figuring he would find out as soon as trucks started pulling in, he moved around the building to the opposite side from where he had been sleeping. He was now at the front of the plant. The workers probably entered by that back gate where the shed was, and only the executives and bosses came in front. The double entry door had engraved brass panels and door knobs, as well as glass windows on it. Pretty fancy for a place that killed cows and pigs, he thought to himself. Then the thought crossed his mind…wondering what it would take to be the owner of a packing plant? Nah, that was not how he wanted to earn his Lincoln. He could come up with a better way than that. With some certainty, he told himself that meat packers did not get to work with people the way he liked to work with people.

As he continued to circle around the fourth side of the building, headed back to the gate, he saw a truck pull up and a man got out to unlock it. Well, then he knew he could not go back to wait by the shed. He looked around, and across the street was an abandoned gasoline station. Times were pretty poor on the east side and there were many small businesses that had gone out of business, he guessed. He decided to just go sit on the stoop of the closed station and wait.

Harley sat there all morning, through all the packers going in to work and then, hours later, coming out for lunch and smoking. He supposed they were not allowed to smoke inside the factory. Some of the tobacco might end up in the meat, or something like that, maybe. He wasn’t sure, but it made sense to him. Also, he noticed there were not as many men working there as he imagined there might be, and not many trucks pulling up to unload animals. Charley had told him multiple times about how he would never take his cattle to the packing house in Perry on a Monday, because that was the busiest day. Sure didn’t look too busy today, but that may have been the result of these horrible money times for everyone. Hardly anyone he knew could afford to eat meat unless they lived on a farm and raised their own animals to slaughter.

Harley was starting to get restless. He was anxious to get on a train and get going. He had been sitting around for almost twenty-four hours. Soon, the plant would be closing and it would start to get dark. He could have been past Omaha and halfway to Denver by now if he had left yesterday. This trip was not getting off to a start like he wanted. He’d better start figuring out how to get on a train and get out of this town!

Finally, a train inched up behind the plant. It only had six cars behind it, so there weren’t many to choose from. Only the doors facing the plant were open. How was he going to get on the train without the other side of the cars being open? He had to figure out how he was going to get on that train, and he had to figure it out fast! It was not going to take them long to load it once they got started.

He crept along the side away from the plant and tried to find a way to get in one of the cars. There was not one door he could get open on his side of the train. He could have hopped on easily, if any of the cars had been open. Men were hollering about “Hurry up!” and “Time to be done!” and Harley still had no idea what to do.