The Cowards’ Line

John Wilkes Booth and Pat Garrett and Robert Ford rode a ghost train through my living room every night. The first time it came was a week after I moved in. I’d rented a trailer in a park in Seguin to be closer to the end of the earth. The place had a toilet and electric light and front and back doors, which satisfied my needs. I had just laid down in the bedroom so I could get some rest and stare into my phone when I heard the rumble and the “whoo-whoo” of the whistle.

“Whoo-whoo?” I said to myself, because I was the only person there.

I got up and didn’t bother to put on pants or a towel or a robe — constant nakedness was one of the many upsides to recent changes in my lifestyle — but I did grab a baseball bat. It was a small, metal baseball bat, like a kid would use. I didn’t wonder if the kid missed it, because I don’t like to think about things like that.

I walked into the living room, dragging the tip of the bat against the fake wood paneling of the hallway wall, like a bad guy in a horror movie. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” But I didn’t say that. I’m not weird.

When I got to the living room, there she was: The Arizona Limited! She was massive, much bigger than the living room, so the whole trailer had to kind of stretch and bend around her. She was streamlined in steam, so she made me feel like she was leaning back to glare down at me with her one massive headlamp. She was red and silver and looked like the devil made machine.

The conductor hopped down and checked an old-timey pocket watch. He was dressed like a train conductor, so I knew that was his job, even though he had a goat head instead of a human head.

“Mother flubber,” he said, just like that. “Fifteen minutes, and not one more.”

Then off they came, the three of them, one at a time, each in his own way looking dead tired (haw, haw) and hard-traveled. Each tipped his hat to me, though Booth — I didn’t know then it was him, I wouldn’t learn that til a couple nights later — wore no hat and gave me only the sharpest little nod I ever saw. Then they cued up in my hallway outside the bathroom. Each took his turn, then waited beside the train. They stood there stretching and looking around my living room without much curiosity until the train conductor shouted, “All aboard!” and one by one they climbed back on. Then it was rumble-rumble, whoo-whoo, and the Arizona Limited was gone, out of my living room, but not out of my life.

Ford talked to me first. It was on the third night. The second night, when the train came, I was pretty surprised. I figured a train rolling right through your living room, especially a streamlined steamer like the Arizona Limited, was pretty rare. That’s maybe a once-in-a-lifetime thing. So I still hadn’t bothered to put on pants when it came the second night and everybody got off and got right in line to pee. I didn’t pester anybody, and none of them pestered me.

On the third night, the first two headed right to the bathroom and the third, who had a face like a little boy at his grandma’s funeral, stumbled off, looked down the hallway and said “mother flubber,” then walked up to me kind of slow, sticking his pelvis out in that way you do when you’re trying to hold something in that wants to get out.

“Hey, sir,” he said. “There another toilet?”

No, I said, it’s just the one toilet on account of I’m the only person here. He didn’t like that news, and his face got all like maybe he just got invited to his other grandma’s funeral. So I ran to the bedroom, my penis flip-flopping along, grabbed an old camp shovel and a roll of toilet paper I kept under the bed for emergencies and ran back with them. The dude understood right away and made like a bandit out the back door. When he came back, he handed me the camp shovel and the toilet paper, and I put them by the sink, to keep them handy.

The train conductor gave us about as disapproving a look as a goat can give, but just said, “All aboard!” Then Bob offered me his hand. “Robert Ford. I appreciate your kindness.” We shook and I told him my name and that he was welcome to crap in my backyard any time. What did I care? I didn’t own the place.

The next night the train returned, and I put on pants, which I think made everyone feel a lot more relaxed, even if no one said so. Bob and I slapped high-fives as he hustled to the bathroom first. That gave me a chance to introduce myself to the other two.

Garrett was tall. He was tall like my baseball coach in high school had been tall, all hanging arms and little eyeballs and shoulders that bend in some like lovers who long to be united but are tragically kept apart by unseen forces. One time, I took a swing at my high school baseball coach in the parking lot after a game, after he benched me and another guy he didn’t like when he knew a scout from the Cincinnati Reds was coming. It was a little hard to punch him, because his head was way up there. But I got him. I played American Legion ball all through the rest of high school until I got bored with that.

Booth was a creep. You know you meet these guys and you feel right away like they want something from you, but you don’t ever know what that thing is? Everything he’d say, he’d lean in a little and tell you like it was a secret. His eyes were always looking around to see if there was someone more important nearby he should be talking to instead. Joke was on Booth though, because it was just me, and probably would be forever.

I tried to talk to the train conductor, but when I did his eyes went all black and he just said to me, “Si loqui vis, tesseram eme et in tabula conscende. Usque adeone hene, inepte stultus.” Well, I didn’t know what that meant. So then I caught Bob as he was coming out the crapper, still fixing his pants. I asked him if everyone on the train was dead, and he said that yeah, they were, and that it was just the three of them — Bob, Garrett, Booth — and the conductor. I asked if that was nice, getting all that space to themselves, getting to stretch out. Bob said he guessed so. Then the conductor, who all of a sudden could talk English again, shouted, “All aboard!” and off they went.

They came back the next night and the next, and pretty soon I got used to it. I even started making coffee for them, which Garrett and Bob would drink, but Booth never would, which was fine, stupid creep.

One night we were all sitting there around my card table. See, I’d been good with just the TV tray for myself, but once I realized I was going to have visitors every night, I figured I should make things comfortable. So I went driving around looking for comfortable things until I found it, a gold mine — a card table and three folding chairs sitting next to a dumpster like nobody in the world wanted them. Well, I sure did! There’s a lot you can do with a card table and three folding chairs. You can have a birthday party. You can entertain guests. So I dragged those back to the trailer and set them up and pulled out a stack of paper cups I borrowed from the lobby of a car dealership and had coffee waiting there for everybody and we all sat around for a couple minutes while the train conductor made his goat scowls and checked his watch. I let the three of them sit in the folding chairs. I sat on a bucket.

“Narc,” I muttered in the direction of the train conductor, not loud enough for him to hear, just for the guys. Then Bob laughed and Booth laughed, but Garrett didn’t laugh. He only frowned a little under that big monster mustache of his. Then Booth said, waving a sweaty palm at the conductor, “a knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave.” And Bob laughed at him and said “Johnny, what the hell is that?” Then Booth called Bob stupid and Bob got real mad, and they were about to be fighting when Garrett said, “Boys, that’s enough.” Then they got quiet, and he lectured them on how they were guests here, how this depot was also the station master’s home and they needed to respect that, and the way he moved his big, wide forehead at me when he said “station master,” I knew he meant me. Then Garrett asked me why I lived all alone all the way out here. “I just like it like this,” I said. “It’s nice to stretch out.” And Garrett waited a second like he meant for me to say more, and when I didn’t he just said “alright.” Then the conductor called, “All aboard!” and they all thanked me for the hospitality. I still didn’t like Garrett. He reminded me too much of a lot of guys I hate, and I wondered what it might feel like to punch him in the face, whether my hand would break on that rockjaw of his. I thought for a second the pain might be good, that I might want to feel the shattering and my arm go wild and my fingers spread and curl into a claw, like an animal, not like a person at all. I sat there and drank my coffee and thought about that even after the train left, even though it was late.

The next few nights were a lot the same. They’d get off and use the john, I’d pour coffee, we’d sit around, Bob and Booth would mix it up until Garrett would make them quit it, then they’d get back on the train and go. I never asked where they were heading or where they’d been. I’d mostly listen. I got the feeling they didn’t talk to each other much on the train, and I could get that. It’s real nice to have a lot of time to yourself.

Then one night Booth and Bob got off the train and sprinted together, pushing and shoving, to the bathroom. Booth got in first and slammed the door. Bob stood there pounding with his fist and cussing for a second, then marched with his eyes hot and pointed down over to the sink and grabbed the shovel and toilet paper and went outside. Garrett just shook his head, went to the kitchen and got himself a cup, then came and sat down at the table with me.

“What did you do?” he said.

I told him I didn’t know what he meant. Garrett smiled, and I didn’t like that. When Bob smiled, you knew he was happy. When Booth smiled, you knew his creep brain was plotting something ugly. But when Garrett smiled, it was like he thought he was smarter than you and wanted you to know it.

“I know why I’m here. I know why those other boys are here. Hell, I’m even pretty sure I got figured out why that train conductor with the goat head is here. But I’m wondering why you’re out here on the Cowards’ Line.”

I popped him then. I got up out of the chair and took a big, wide swing at him. It hurt, but not like I expected. He hadn’t got out of his chair, after all, so I had all kinds of leverage on him. His head spun around and he almost fell, but didn’t, just grabbed the table to steady himself. I figured he’d jump up then, and big as he was, he’d work me over. Instead he just looked at me the same way my baseball coach had that time, like now he’d got my number.

I stood there staring at him and he stared at me, and right around that time Booth came out of the bathroom and Bob came in from the backyard, and they both got right on the train, neither of them saying anything, just giving each other dirty looks. Finally I sat down and looked around the trailer while Garrett finished his coffee. And when the conductor shouted, Garrett stood, tipped his hat, thanked me, and climbed aboard.

When the train left I put the coffee cups in the trash, then went to the hall closet and pulled out my three boxes — Bacardi, Captain Morgan, Japanese whiskey. I sat criss-cross-applesauce on the floor and removed their contents as if handling toxic foodstuffs in delicate containers. A dusty yearbook. Papers from the lawyer. A framed photo I set glass-down, the cardboard backing and flappy kickstand challenging me like the sealed door to a tomb that holds the secrets of the pharaohs.

Then I found a legal pad, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. It was step four, self-inventory. On the top of the first page was written “Childhood,” underlined. I knew there wasn’t much written below that, knew there was nothing written on the pages underneath. I tossed it over where I couldn’t reach it. Then I found the other pad, step eight. That was what I needed. On the front was my list. The first three names hurt to read, but after that it was an easy ride downhill. I’d padded the list when I made it, didn’t know how long it had to be. The good thing about being your own sponsor is you get to work the program however you want. You can make it work for you. So much better that way. I flipped to the next page, to the first letter. “I am reaching out because I want to right the wrongs I did back when your mom and I were together.” I hadn’t written anything else. I never got farther than that. There was nothing written before that, either, no greeting. Writing that name once at the top of the list on that first page had been enough for me, thanks.

I thought about getting up to look for a pen. Instead I packed up Bacardi, put it and Captain Morgan and Japanese whiskey back in the closet, and headed on to bed.

The next night when the Arizona Limited rolled in, Bob and Booth got off first and headed to the hallway and the bathroom. Garrett came last and was slow getting off. He nodded at me, then looked down the hall at where Bob stood, with his back to us, shifting from foot to foot.

“I’m gonna head out back, if that’s alright by you, station master.”

“Fine by me,” I said.

I set the coffee to start. Then I made for the back door.

I found Garrett outside with his dick in his hands, taking a long, slow leak under the stars. I made my way to him and came up beside him, a respectable few feet away. I didn’t want him to think I was like Booth. I hitched the waistband of my shorts down, and let loose a stream of my own.

I heard Garrett’s fountain trail off to a trickle, then caught him giving himself one good shake from the edge of my vision.

“You think there’s room for me on the train?” I said.

Garrett didn’t turn to face me, probably because I was still peeing. He looked up at the sky over Seguin, sky that probably looked to Garrett a lot like the sky over Lincoln County, Uvalde, White Sands, El Paso. It probably looked to him just like the sky over Las Cruces, where Garrett rode one day to see Jesse Brazel about some goats and never rode back from. It probably looked like the end of the earth.

“I suppose,” Garrett said. “We’ve got to see the conductor, but that’ll be alright. Just let me talk to him.”

That was good news, I said. Then I gave myself one good shake and followed Garrett up the steps to the back door, into the trailer, into the station.

G.D. HOLLOWAY is a Florida-born, California-based writer whose first published short fiction appeared in the spring 2024 issue of Saw Palm. A former journalist, he is the recipient of a Folio: Eddie Award for investigative reporting on sexual and workplace misconduct in the entertainment industry and a Southern California Journalism Award for coverage of corporate upheaval at Marvel Entertainment and the Walt Disney Co.

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