My name is Shotgun Willie, and I was born in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, cradled close by the Potomac River, the CSX train station not far off. A place where the mountains sigh low and the river murmurs its secrets, where the fog rolls in with a softness and settles into the hollers like an old man’s memory, vague and thick.
In this place, time moves slowly like syrup in winter, and the whistle of the trains was as constant as the heartbeat of the earth beneath my feet. It was all a rhythm. The wind in the pines. The Potomac rushing past rocks smoothed by years beyond reckoning. And the long, low howl of the train whistle, the rumble of the cars on the tracks, shaking the ground, stirring dreams.
As a boy, I spent my days in that river, cool against the sticky summer heat, my arms swinging through the water like a fish, letting the currents take me wherever they willed. The river was alive to me then, full of life and pull, and I never feared her waters. Even when I was small, there was something there, something drawing me to the deep places, the places where the bank gave way to steep drops and the current was swift, as though it had something to tell me if only I’d listen closely enough.
The other kids played there too, but for them, it was just a way to cool down and splash around. For me, it was a teacher, a companion, a thing that knew things about the world I hadn’t yet learned. I’d sit by its banks sometimes, feeling the sun’s heat on my skin, listening to the rush of the water, and watching the shadows of fish flicker just beneath the surface. And always, in the distance, the trains would rumble by.
I’d watch them too, my back to the water, eyes squinting in the direction of the tracks, the long lines of cars clanking past, their bodies heavy with coal or grain or something else that seemed important but distant from my world. The hobos sometimes huddled by the edges, dirty and ragged, smoking cigarettes or pipes, their eyes squinting against the sun or the cold, depending on the season. I’d watch them with something like awe, their faces marked with the roughness of roads I hadn’t yet walked, but somehow I felt I knew. I wasn’t scared of them.
A part of me longed to join them; I imagined myself hopping aboard one of those rail cars, the wind whipping through my hair, taking me someplace far, someplace unknown. The idea of a destination didn’t matter much to me then. It was the movement, the going. The journey was the thing. I wanted to be one of them, a drifter, free from the chains of school, chores, and home. The clanging of the tracks, the open sky, the rush of the wind as the train sped along—that was the music I wanted to live to.
But those dreams—those wild, hazy dreams of running off, of seeing the world from the back of a rail car—were put on hold. Life has a way of steering you into places you didn’t think you’d end up. And girls—girls came into view. I found myself not so much dreaming of trains anymore but of hands, soft hands, and warm lips, and the way a laugh could catch me like a fish on a line.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as it sounds. I was shy, painfully shy. I could barely string two words together in the presence of a girl without feeling my heart in my throat and my stomach in knots. They were strange creatures to me then, full of mystery and grace, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to talk to them. I spent more time admiring from afar than doing anything about it, awkward and fumbling in every attempt to be more than just a shadow in their world.
By the time I was old enough to work, the dreams of hopping trains had faded to the back of my mind, filed away in that place where boyhood fantasies go to rest. I took whatever jobs came my way—mill shutdowns, plant work, hard labor that made my hands calloused and my body ache at the end of each day. There wasn’t much glamour in it, but it was honest work. It filled my pockets just enough to keep going, keep moving, even if I wasn’t exactly sure where I was moving to.
When I wasn’t working, I spent time with my nan. She was a tough old woman, full of sharp wit and a laugh that could fill a room. We’d sit for hours watching game shows together, her perched in her chair, hands folded in her lap, throwing out guesses like she was on the show herself. It was a comfort—those quiet moments, the hum of the TV in the background, her occasional cackles of triumph when she got an answer right. She was my rock in those years, steady and unyielding, her presence like a familiar song.
But time doesn’t care for our comforts. It moves on, takes what it will, and leaves you with the ache of its passing. Nan passed quietly one morning, her chair empty, the TV still flickering with game shows she would never see. The house was quieter after that, the silence thick and oppressive, like the weight of the mountains themselves pressing down on me. There were no more guessing games, no more laughter to fill the spaces between the hours.
I don’t remember exactly what made me do it—the final push that sent me packing. Maybe it was the quiet, the stillness that crept in after her death. Maybe it was the memory of those hobos by the tracks, dirty and free, the sound of the train whistles that never stopped calling me. Or maybe it was just time. Time to go, time to leave behind the pieces of a life that felt too small, too suffocating.
So I packed a bag. I threw in a few tins of beans, some clothes, and whatever else seemed necessary for the road ahead. Didn’t bother to plan; I didn’t care much where I’d end up. It wasn’t about the destination, after all. It was the movement. The journey.
I walked down to the tracks—the same tracks I’d watched all my life—and when the train came, I didn’t hesitate. I climbed aboard the first boxcar I saw, the cold metal biting into my hands and the wind whipping through my hair, and as the train picked up speed, the mountains, the river, and the station faded into the distance.
I didn’t look back.
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