An excerpt from the second chapter of Waiting for the Train, by John MacDonald:
“Walking along a highway that is lighted so poorly as this one wasn’t a very pleasant evening’s stroll. However, I was going someplace [and] wherever that was would sometime or other present itself if I walked long enough.
From Waiting for the Train, a journal by John MacDonald
I finally came to a crossroad and here I turned left and not fifty feet from there I banged smack up against a wooden building.
I must have created an awful racket, for before I recovered from the impact, I heard someone shout out: “Who is that?! What do you want?! What do you want around here – get the hell out of here!”
I made no answer but instead I got the hell out of there as he told me, turned about, and got clear of the place as fast as I could.
As I continued on in the opposite direction, I happened to glance back and see the rays of a big flashlight stabbing the inky darkness, no doubt looking for me. But by that time I was out of the focus of his light, and thought I was safe and gave attention as best I could to the road in the darkness. Thinking everything was O.K. I started to search my pockets for my cigarettes and, just as I struck a match, I heard the crack of a revolver shot, and not a split second later, I heard a bullet whip over my head, and that galvanized me into instant action.”
John MacDonald, the author of this journal, was no stranger to action. During World War I, he saw combat as an infantryman. His experience serves him well in his journey traversing the railways across the country, because the rail yards, city streets, and slums of Depression-Era America are far from safe.
In this excerpt, John encounters a gun-wielding stranger who resents the rookie rail-rider’s accidental incursion onto his property. Throughout his travels, he will face many other threats, including rival hobos, corrupt police, and aggressive freight officers. The world he dives into, driven by his circumstances, is a brutal one, but John makes it through. Find out how in Waiting for the Train, a Depression-era journal coming soon from Warner House Press.
