FIX KIT

     Droppy was looking for another line of work. This travelling life sickened him. Every night a different town. No roots, no reason for living. The few things he could count on – booze, heroin, the occasional cheese pretzel – were wearing thin for him lately. He was constantly surrounded by fucking clowns. Idiots who lived only for "the life," tent up to tent down. He had to get out of here before it killed him. Before it forced him to take it out on those around him. And the worst of it all was that he could actually remember when this was all he wanted to do.
     One night after the last show in Poughkeepsie, while the caravan packed up, he spotted a Burlington-Northern passing slowly like a lumbering snake before him. It was heading the opposite way the caravan was headed and that’s all he needed to see. Droppy snatched his suitcase and his fix kit and leaped onto a freight car, slipping at first, then tensing every muscle in his free arm to hold on for dear life. He was about to be free.
     Then, he looked back at the caravan. The tightrope walker, a little pixie waif, still in her tight, blue glitter outfit, was breaking away from the caravan as well, suitcase in hand. The Burlington-Northern was picking up considerable speed now and no matter how fast and powerful her little legs pumped away, she couldn’t get to it fast enough. The train left her behind as she gave up and knelt down to catch her breath.
     Droppy watched her get smaller and smaller as he pulled away from the safety of the car. At that moment, he couldn’t quite remember her name. Something foreign, he believed. The one thing he could recall was a night months prior when she had showed him pictures of her husband, who’d died at war in her home country, wherever that was. She had shared that painful memory with Droppy and, sadly, that was one reason why he almost hadn’t made his escape. But it was done now.
     She waved to him from the distance, where she sat on her feet, out of breath. She shouted something, but he was too far away to hear. The click-clack of the tracks drowned it out. He almost waved back, but he saw no point in it.
     He inspected the car’s interior. Mostly random boxes, pallets and bits of hay. The night air was biting at his nose. A cloud passed in front of the moon as he sat in the corner, throwing his suitcase on top of a pallet. He opened his fix kit and stared at the moon’s cloudy reflection in the glass hypodermic. This was his only comfort now in this unknown world he was moving into. He shot up and slowly leaned back, imagining the little tightrope girl was sitting next to him.




-SLL