Thomas Leverett - plays and writing
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Through Train
At about midnight, we crossed into Kansas and I knew I had to wake Flanagan up; he would have slept all night if I'd let him. But our plan was to get up a game of cards in the dining car, and it was a good opportunity; some fancy dressers with big mouths and little brains were gathering and talking. The question was, really, if, when cheated, they would see through it, get angry, get violent. Flanagan was to play a rich guy: new suit, half drunk, looking to make a wad but fatally careless. I was to just stay in the game, let Flanagan draw the attention, and pull out my aces at the right moment. Flanagan and I had done a similar deal in Rogers Park, north Chicago, just last week. But it turned out that one of the guys we took sent one of his goons after me the next day to try to run me off the road- at that point I knew he'd try again, so I took Flanagan up on his offer to hop on the Amtrak, the Southwest Chief out to LA, through Albuquerque, through Kansas. Flanagan had bought the tickets and we got on earlier tonight.
Flanagan, when shook, woke up and agreed to do as planned; he stumbled around, looking for his coat and cigarettes. I went back toward the dining car, trying not to look like I had any business with Flanagan or anyone else. My own seat was back in the coach area; we'd agreed to be separate so as to not look like we were traveling together. I checked in on my seat, where some guy who had planted himself next to me in Kansas City was checking a little computer thing and saying there were tornado watches out in the western part of the state. That was still hours away; we were due in Dodge at about 6 AM; but it made me nervous nevertheless. I'm from Ohio; I hadn't seen too many tornados. Didn't like the idea of being on a train in one, either.
The fellow was friendly enough, but I told him I'd be playing cards in the dining car probably, to go ahead and lay out on my seat if he wanted, but try not to crush the little pack I had on the floor. On the way back to the dining car I tried to spot where the empty seats were, for future reference; one was by a young woman with a come-hither look; sorry, I tried to say with mine; I'm busy. Trying to make some money off of a few hacks. Maybe later.
Not that I was out of money; having won a few grand, with Flanagan, back in Rogers Park; I'd simply bought a car, put most of the money inside the door panel, and stored the car in a garage on the west side; but, I was on a roll, doing well with my luck, and holding a few aces in my sleeve. Two or three for the red deck I carried with me; two or three for a standard blue one, and most important, two or three for the Amtrak deck that would most likely be the compromise, if we couldn't agree on one of the ones we were carrying. My goal, back in the dining car, was to not appear like I had started the game, or even suggested it. I bought some coffee and slipped into a corner booth. A couple was occupying the booth, but the man gladly moved over a little to make room for me. They were about thirty; traveling alone, the best I could figure, quiet. Other hacks I'd become familiar with a little earlier; some had been on since Chicago or earlier. Michigan Jake, I called him, a kind of loudmouthed but friendly guy, earring in one ear, dressed up and vain, let us know he was from Michigan right away, but also mentioned he'd grown up in Kansas. Those Michiganders don't like Ohio, I thought, so I was quiet about where I was really from, and just said Chicago when asked, which was more or less true. Jimmy, from the Bronx, a rough accent, a tough customer- he would most certainly be in any game, and would not appear to let any slip go unnoticed. He was vain, too, which was good; he knew a lot about everything, which was also good, as he wouldn't want to admit that he didn't know a sting when he saw one. Jimmy was not alone, I thought, though I wasn't sure; also, I had no idea if he actually had any money; they had to have a little wad in order to make it worth my time, really, that and they had to think they were a good deal smarter than the rest of us, or at least smarter than Flanagan, who was soon to arrive. Then there was Abilene Al, or so I named him, anyway; I still hadn't learned the rest of his name or even if he was really from Abilene, all I knew was that he kept talking about it, and was apparently from there- he was a tall fellow, liked his cards, it seemed, was used to the train, maybe even knew the clerk at the snack bar. Had one of those Southwest Chief cups where you got all the free coffee you wanted on the Amtrak. It seemed that, if even two of these guys would agree to a game, we'd have a lively one. The subject had come up, right back outside of Kansas City, and now we were leaving Lawrence, so I was looking for it to come up again.
Flanagan staggered into the dining car and sat in a booth a couple down from me, not appearing to recognize me or anyone. He had in fact been asleep since Chicago. He had a slick blue suit, sharp shirt and tie that he'd bought in Chicago with the money we'd made, presumably, or possibly with the fake credit card he'd bought the train tickets with. In a couple of minutes he ordered a coke from the snack bar and proceeded to pour a little gin in it from a small bottle in his pocket. He didn't hide it in any way; didn't flaunt it either. He was good, I had to admit. I didn't trust him entirely, but at least he knew what he was doing.
Michigan Jake was the first to mention a hand or two of Texas hold 'em, and I was elated. The best game. I waited a minute, not wanting to be the first to jump in; Al said he was interested but would probably wait for maybe later. Flanagan jumped in and so did Jimmy, so, after a minute I jumped in too. It would be fine with just Jimmy and Jake, provided of course that one of them had money; the important thing, though, was just to get started, get some money on the table, see if we could draw in a big fish or two. Al, I knew, was eyeing it. Just wanted to see if we were civilized, or maybe had enough money to make it worth his while.
We retired to Jake's compartment, got the money out on the table; Jake had some greenish cards, and I had my red ones, so we agreed on Amtrak cards which Flanagan went over and bought in a split second; with a fake ID and credit card, he was apparently going by the name Duffy, and this raised the eyebrows of Al, who was standing near the snack-bar clerk and watching the transaction.
The Amtrak deck was all by plan; I'd hoped we'd end up with the Amtrak cards. I watched Al and Jimmy warily keeping track of who came forward with the decks of cards we were arguing about, so as to know who not to trust. Everyone came back to Jake's compartment together: Al, Jimmy, Flanagan/Duffy, me, Jake. Jimmy, it turned out, wasn't alone; some large guy found us after about ten minutes, whispered something in his ear, and left. This of course made me nervous. Jimmy might be more ok with dropping a few hundred than this bodyguard-goon kind of guy might be. We set some money out on the table, got some change from the snack bar.
The game went along for a while, pleasantly, a few quarters and dollars flying around, Flanagan/Duffy doing a fair amount of wild betting and bluffing, and winning quite a bit, in an ostentatious kind of way. Michigan Jake was also doing quite well. He was slick, knew his Texas hold-'em, talked a lot, but knew what he was doing. Flanagan/Duffy and Jake did most of the talking; Jimmy got contemplative; Al watched on silently. I was down about seventy bucks but didn't mind. The Kansas countryside rattled on outside the windows, and the wind picked up; we'd come to these roads where telephone poles went off into the night, into the Kansas prairie, and what few trees there were shook in the wind, an occasional car stopped at the tracks. Playing the game, I was in my element. It was clear to me there was a grand or two in the room, at the least, if I did it right, not counting Flanagan, of course. I won a few, lost a few more, got absorbed in the game.
On the way back to Jake's compartment I'd overheard someone mentioning the tornados in the west again, and that got us all a little nervous. Flanagan, in his half-drunk kind of way, said that an Amtrak was like a trailer park, full of metal and unstable, and tornados always went straight for the trailer parks, everyone in the Midwest knew that. You couldn't find anyone who would deny that clear and straightforward fact. The light of the sleeping berth shone of his slick hair and new suit; he was an arrogant buffoon. He claimed that there had to be some scientific basis for that, for those tornados coming over to trailers like that. You know, electromagnetic characteristics of aluminum, air currents on metal, or something that drew those tornados right over to those trailers every time.
Michigan Jake, with his long hair and rimless glasses, single earring, designer shirt, jumped in to say, he grew up in Kansas, he knew Kansas, and knew tornados, and knew it was all economic. The rich people knew where the good land was, up on the hill, out of the way, checked the county records and the history of the area, and bought the high ground. The trailer slumlord didn't care if his lowland river-bottom got wiped out every ten or twenty years because he'd just go build another one anyway. So he put his trailer parks down there and let the poor people live down in the flatlands, waiting for the tornados.
A silence filled the car. Nobody could argue with that, I figured, it made so much sense, who could dispute it? He had, after all, grown up in Kansas. Al, who hadn't said much, shifted in his seat. I dealt another round.
Bronx Jimmy, rough, slick, hardened, an educated man, jumped in at that point, though. He said it was all the media. When a tornado hits a trailer park, you see, it makes a much better picture. Wipes out a dozen homes with all kinds of metal shards at angles all over the picture. What the media like is a good picture, lots of agony framed inside metal angular pieces of trailer. So the trailer parks get in the news a lot. More ruined lives per square foot.
We were in Topeka now- we'd agreed to take breaks in the cities, and we all got up from the table This of course would give any one of us the chance to jump off, if necessary, but we all left the loose change on the table, grabbed only the bills, and headed off for the bathroom or wherever. I thought I'd go back to the coach section and see if the guy at my seat knew anything about those tornados. We were, after all, going west. I didn't care why they were attracted to metal, but wasn't interested in being trapped in a little metal box with these guys, and wanted to know as well as I could find out, what was going to happen. It seemed like a long night ahead; it was around one in the morning. Throughout the cars, a few people were mumbling about the tornados, asking the people who had gotten on in Topeka what they knew. The train was dark. At my seat I overheard someone saying, in a low voice, that they knew a farmer who had claimed a tornado had come in, under the radar, and destroyed his barn, and left…it had never been seen by the radar. He'd had a heck of a time convincing the insurance to pay him off too. But it was clearly a tornado, you could tell by the way it ruined the barn.
The seatmate didn't know much. The tornados were out west somewhere past Hutchinson; we'd be heading south around there, and would be out of the area soon after. He didn't think they'd get us…he figured they'd cross around Hutchinson, a little after we went through there, but then, he didn't know. It made me feel better. He was at least watching them, on his little machine.
The train was quiet now, as I walked back through, the girl asleep, everyone else asleep except the talkers back by my own seat. In Jake's car though, the air had turned a little hard. The conductor or some voice on the train was mumbling about being in Newton in a little under two hours, not wanting to wake anyone up; and we settled in for some serious cards. Now I took a good hard look at the people. Al was now in the game, silent, intent, watching, waiting for the big score maybe. Jimmy also was intent- thought his New York version of Texas hold-'em would wipe out us rubes, maybe. And he had that bodyguard off on the train somewhere in case it didn't, I figured. He seemed to be more irked than the others that Flanagan was up, that he was winning, riding everyone, getting on their nerves. I also pretended to be quite irritated, having lost some money quite blatantly right before the break. Jake kept up the banter; Flanagan was riding him, but Jake was at least about even. Beneath it he was boiling though. I knew that economic theory of tornados was another way of saying he wouldn't mind taking a rich jerk like Flanagan/Duffy/whoever, and putting him down a notch.
Two hours was a long time to go without a break, but everyone was in the mood for some serious gambling. The Kansas night pushed on outside the windows; the wind was picking up. Hand after hand was dealt; Flanagan kept winning steadily, getting more obnoxious by the minute; the others steaming but remaining polite. Somebody could kill this guy, I thought, before I even get to pull my scam and win it all. Little did I know.
The question was when to play the big hand. Right before a town, preferably, when I could walk out into the night with the money, not look back, give Flanagan half or meet up later according to our arrangement. But something about western Kansas, the wind, and the possibility of tornados made me less eager to step out into it, made me more cautious. From my perspective, though, the train was by no means safe either. Each of these guys had an evil look in their eyes- and it wasn't getting any better. It crossed my mind that any two of them could be teamed up too, not to mention the bodyguard, or maybe they even had some other game. One never knows about these things; if I lost everything, at least I had my ticket and the car back in Chicago.
Flanagan took Jake on a big hand right before we came into Newton, and he threw in a few insults in the process, which, if I was correct, were eating at Jimmy more than Jake. Al was somewhat impassive but losing steadily and not appreciating Flanagan's humor. Newton and Hutchinson were important, being near Wichita; a few people stirred around the train as we rolled into Newton.
In Newton we took another break; Flanagan now staggered off to the bathroom with hundreds of dollars in his pocket. He even had some of Jake's money, maybe a couple hundred; he'd taken over five hundred from Jimmy. Everyone left the room but me; Jimmy came back quickly, cussing, mumbling to himself, looking for something in his pockets. I waited, but nothing happened. A few more minutes and the train would leave Newton for Hutchinson. Jimmy's bodyguard did not arrive. There was no sign of Jake or Al. And Flanagan never came back from the bathroom; finally, the train started up again. Could any of these other guys have robbed him, just for the money? I decided to head back through the train to find him. I left Jimmy back in Jake's compartment, cussing and looking through his address book. No sign of the bodyguard anywhere.
Down the aisle of a coach car I saw Jake, coming my way, and when he got close we stopped at a turnout. He mentioned something about Duffy (Flanagan) not being on the level, and, also, not being anywhere in sight. He put down Flanagan; was fishing, maybe, for someone to agree to gang up with him against the guy, go find him, take his money and run. From that I surmised that he hadn't killed him, at least not yet. And that he, Jake, didn't have a partner, or at least, was willing to work without the one he had, if he had one. It was all in his manner of suggestion; he hadn't yet made a real offer. I didn't go for the idea though. I wasn't selling out Flanagan yet. He was my partner and I still intended to find him.
It occurred to me, though, that Flanagan himself could have taken the money and run, since we'd have only made about twice as much, working together on our bigger scam, and even then he would have had to split it with me, and, he would have had to trust me to carry all of it, at least at first, if we did everything according to plan. He could have sized up the situation and stepped out while the stepping was good. Deep down, I didn't trust Flanagan any more than he trusted me, with his drunken act and his fake credit card; I figured he very well could be out there in Newton Kansas somewhere. With everyone's money, including some of mine.
Between the cars, I could hear the wind howling outside and paused for a minute. I half expected the bodyguard to jump me, or maybe Flanagan himself. But no, Al caught up with me, right there, and slammed me up against the door. "You aren't gonna see your friend again," he said.
"What friend?" I said, trying not to let on which one was my friend. But Al knew, apparently.
"He's dead," he said. There was a wild look in his eye. "Jumped from the train."
"What are you talking about?"
"I was robbing him. Trying to get that fake ID off of him. But I didn't get it. He jumped first. Happened just now. He didn't live, I figure."
Stupid Flanagan probably thought Kansas was so flat, so slow, he'd survive. "How'd you know it was a fake ID?" I asked.
"It's my ID. Duffy's my name. I lost it in Chicago about a week ago, but, instead of going to the police, I asked around, used some sources. I know a little about this stuff. Found out it was being used to buy this train ticket, for example. And yours, too, by the way." This was a fact. He had used that credit card to buy my ticket. Al was breathing hard, had his hand in his pocket, he could have had a gun there - or the money. I let him continue.
"I knew it was him when he used the card to pay for the cards. So just now I confronted him, right in one of these spaces between the cars. And he jumped."
"And how am I supposed to believe that?"
"Believe what you want. I'm getting off in Hutchinson…I'm just saying, don't wait around for him."
"They'll find him…you're a murderer! They'll catch up with you!"
"He jumped. I'm not a murderer; I never laid a hand on him. I didn't get the money; didn't even get the ID; didn't put a print on him. All I wanted was for him to stop using the ID. And now he will.
"And, they won't find him, at least not right away. I know this country; I know what happens in tornados. They're busy. A tornado's coming into Hutchinson, as we speak. It might not be here right away, but when it comes, it'll hide things for a while. Keep people busy. Give them a reason he died. He was out in it, he went where he shouldn't; he's a casualty of the tornado."
I knew, then, that he was probably right. The story was far-fetched, but but he was believable, in an odd kind of way; it's hard to explain. Flanagan was gone. So was the money. And a tornado was on its way to cover it up.
He leaned into me once more, lowering his voice. "You know something else? When they do find him, they'll think he was Duffy- me. I didn't leave a whole lot of dental records back there in Atcheson. And you'll be the only person who will know for sure that he was not."
With that, he stepped off; we were coming into Hutchinson now, and he disappeared into the windy night. Storms were coming, and people weren't hanging around in the streets.
9-2006.
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