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Only the good Lord knohy he spared Philadelphia long as he did I barely re of it, ti out with et a water ice up the corner, and my friends at school, Joseph Pennell Eleirl named Sharise who lived down the corner fro for hours and hours I looked for her on the train but I never did find her
I ree near there, and stores, and busy streets, and all sorts of people going to and fro in the day to day And I rehborhood, on the bus to see the s at Christmastime I couldn’t have been much more than five years old at the time The bus carried us past the hospital where raphic pictures of people’s bones, he’d had that job since he’d gotten out of the service and met my mama, and he always said it was the perfect job for a s He’d wanted to be a doctor but taking the X-rays was the next best thing Outside the store he showed hts and snow and a tree and ures inside them, elves and reindeer and such I’d never been happy like that in allin the cold like ere, the two of us together We were going to pick up a present for Ma hand on loves The streets were all full of people, so es and looks to them I like to think about it even now, to send my mind back to that day No one reht is now I don’t recall if we got the scarf and gloves or not Probably we did
That’s all gone now, all of it And stars Ti most of all, back in the Time Before From theof s and the houses and see the there like God his own self had strung the sky for Christmas It was my mama who told me the names for some and how you could watch thes like spoons and people and animals I used to think you could look at the stars and that was God, right there Like looking straight into his face You needed the dark to see hiot us and ot, e couldn’t see the stars noI’d like to see again before I die
There were other trains, I do believe We’d heard about trains leaving froot in Maybe it was just people talking like they do when they’re scared, grasping at any bit of hope that floats on past I don’t knoSome were sent to California, some to places with names I don’t just now recall There was only one we ever heard from, back in the early days Before the Walkers and the One Lahen radio was still allowed So happened to their lights and we didn’t hear froain after that From what Peter and Theo and the others tell me, I do believe we are the only one left now
But the train and Philadelphia and what all happened that winter hat I meant to write on Folks was in the worst way The Ars of the kind My daddy said they were there to protect us frouns, most of theht side, Ida, but not to trust the white h of course that seeether like they are Probably whoever is reading this doesn’t even knohat I’ot hiht eating a dog was better than nothing But the Arht post on Olney Avenue with a sign pinned to his chest that said "looter" Don’t knohat he was trying to loot exceptto die anyway
Then one night we heard the loudest boo over our heads, and es, and all the next daymore planes and smelled fire and smoke, and we knew the jumps was close Whole parts of the city were on fire I went to bed and woke up later to the sounds of a set-to Our place was just four roo, you couldn’t sneeze in one roo bless you I heardto her, you can’t, we have to, you be strong, Anita, things of the kind, and then the door tothere He was holding a candle and I’d never in my life seen hihost, and the ghost was his own self He dressed oodbye to yourso hard it one by I saw the little suitcase by the door and said, are we going so? But she didn’t answero Then we left, my daddy and me Just the two of us
It wasn’t till ere outside that I realized it was still theFlakes were falling and I thought it was snow but when I licked one off my hand I realized it was ashes You could s ht The only thingson the streets were the Ar out of the people not to steal, stay calm, about the evacuation There were sohmore and more the farther ent, until the streets were thick with people, no one saying a word, all walking the sas I don’t think I’d even figured it out in
It was still dark e got to the station I’ve already said a thing or two about that My father told ot there early so as to avoid the lines, he always hated lines, but it was like half the city had the saly, you could feel it Like a stor with it Folks was too afraid The fires were going out, the ju We could hear great boo overhead, fast and low And each time you saw one your ears would pop and you’d hear a booround would shake below your feet Some folks had Littles with theht There was an opening in the fence where the soldiers were letting people in and that’s e had to get through It was so tight with the people pressed together I could hardly take a breath Sos Whatever happens, you hold on to h that we could see the train, down below us We were on a bridge, the rails running under it I tried to follow its length withit was It see It didn’t look like any train I ever saw The cars didn’t have no s, and long poles stuck out fros of a bird On the roof there were soldiers with big guns inyou’d put a canary in At least I supposed they were soldiers, on account of they earing shiny silver suits, to protect them from the fires
I don’t res you can’t remember because your one I re, lady, what do you think you’re doing with that cat, and then so happened quick and believe it or not that soldier shot her, right there And then there wasand screaot separated in all of it When I reached for my daddy his hand wasn’t there nowith it It was a horrible thing People was yelling that the train wasn’t full but it was leaving anyway If you can iine I’d lostof, I’ve lost, look after your things, Ida, don’t be careless We work hard to have the things we do, so don’t go treating theured I was in the worst trouble ofknocked ot up I saw all the dead folks around ht I knew from school Vincent Gum, that’s ays called hiether, and wouldn’t you know, that boy was always getting in trouble on account of he liked to chew gum and always had a piece in his ht in the center of his chest and he was lying on his back on the ground in a puddle of blood There wasout of the hole in his chest in little bubbles, like soap in a bath I reht there A bullet went through his body and killed hiuht there in that spot forever with that forgetful look on his face
I was still on the bridge over the train, and folks was starting to leap down to it Everyone was screa at the no e and saw the bodies piled up there like logs on a fire and blood everywhere, soa leak
Soht it was my daddy, he’d come to findfat white man with a beard He snatched e, where there was a kind of pathway down through some weeds We were at the top of a wall above the tracks and the ht, he’s going to dropto die like Vincent Guet his eyes They were the eyes of a person who kneas good as dead When you have that look, you’re not young or old, or black or white, or even a s He was yelling, soirl here And then sos fro I kneas on the train and it wasAnd so any of theain, not my mama or daddy or anybody I had known in my life to that day
What I re I rery, and the dark and heat and sunfire outside and feel the heat froh the walls of the train like the whole world was aflaot to be so hot you couldn’t even touch the the skin of your hand Some of the children weren’t no more than four years old, practically babies We had two Watchers in the car with us, a man and a woman Folks think the Watchers were Army but they weren’t, they were fro yellow letters on the backs of their jackets My daddy had people down in New Orleans, he’d grown up there before the service, and he always said that FEMA stood for "Fix Everything My Ass" I don’t remember what became of the woman but that man was First Family, a Chou He married another Watcher, and after she died, he had two other wives One of those wives was Mazie Chou, Old Chou’s grand was, the train didn’t stop Not for anything Ti boom and the car would shake like a leaf in the wind but still we kept right on One day the woman left the car and went back to help with so I heard her tell the one They’d built the train so that if the juot into a car, they could leave it behind, and those were the boo away I didn’t want to think about those cars and the children inside the to write anything more about that here
What you’ll want to know about is e got here, and I do re of that, because that was how I found Terrence, my cousin I didn’t knoas on the train withhe hadn’t been in one of the cars at the back, because by the time we arrived there weren’t more than three, and two mostly empty We were in California, the Watchers told us California wasn’t a state like it used to be, they said, it was a whole different country Buses would beus to take us up the mountain, someplace safe The train slowed to a stop and everyone was afraid but excited too, to be getting off the train after all the days and days, and then the door opened and the light was so bright we all had to hold our hands over our faces Soht it was the juet us, and someone else said, don’t be stupid, it ain’t the jumps, and when I openedthere We were someplace in the desert They took us off and there were lots more soldiers around and a line of buses parked in the sand and helicopters thwocking overhead, stirring up the dust all around and ave us water to drink, cold water All lad just to taste cold water The light was so bright to my eyes it still hurt me even to look around but that’s when I saw Terrence He was standing there in the dust like the rest of us, holding a suitcase and a dirty pillow I’d never hugged a boy so hard or long in , look at you We weren’t first cousins but more like second, as I recall His father was my daddy’s nephew, Carleton Jaxon Carleton was a welder at the shipyard, and Terrence later told me his daddy was one of the men who built the train A day before the evacuation, Uncle Carleton had taken Terrence to the station and put hiine car, closest to Driver, and told him to stay there You stay put, Terrence Do what Driver tells you So that was how Terrence had come to be with me now He was just three years older than me but it seemed like more at the time, so I said to him, you’ll look after me, won’t you Terrence? Say you’ll do that And he nodded and said yes he would, and that was just what he did, until the day he died He was the first Jaxon as Household and a Jaxon’s been Household ever since