I walk in the dark with the grillos for company and the sweep of stars overhead.
I am alone.
I am afraid.
Will I make it onto The Beast?
Or will I die this night?
Ay Jesús what will become of me?
I hurry to where The Beast will stop, a thing I have learned from listening to talk in the tiendita. The stars help me find the way. I crouch as I go, suddenly certain that Papi is following me. One ancient street lamp is trying to light this lonely place, sputtering its life away. I shrink back from the light, hiding from imagined-Papi.
I hear The Beast roar before I see it. I feel its great terribleness. I smell the reek of creosote, the stuff that soaks the railroad ties. I smell the weeds along the tracks. I smell my own fear.
The night is cold. I wrap Papi’s sweater tight about me, the sweater with his scent. I grip tighter the morral with my food and pat the places where I have hidden the precious phone numbers and pesitos. These I hope—and the angels—will get me to Toño.
The Beast screeches to a stop in this alone spot. From here, so close, it is bigger, darker, more frightening than the thing I have seen faraway in the distance. All of metal. Crusted with dust and grime. And horrible. A chill shivers through my whole body, like the chill of death.
There are others like me here, strangers, hiding from police who will try to stop them. Waiting, I guess, for the thing to start up again. I barely notice them, so fixed am I on this terrible train.
Before now, in the pueblito, I have asked questions with my best casualness about this train. Has anybody here ridden it? Are there polis, police? What are the secrets? What must I know to last? I tried to ask Leo, my crippled friend, but he was scared silent by his Beast experience. Still, I have learned poco a poco, little by little. But I have made one big mistake. I failed to ask, when it gets going at a big speed, how do I scramble on without losing an arm or a leg? How to get on without dying.
So here am I. Here is The Beast come alive again with a roar. Already moving faster and faster. What now? I am paralyzed with indecision. Frozen. But I must this moment jump on.
Suddenly, magically, I see shapes emerging from the tops of the cars, from the sides, from myriad hidden places. People viajando de mosca, traveling like a fly. Hanging on however they can. Dark shapes like mushrooms spontaneously arising, arms flailing, signaling me what to do. A wild chorus of voices, a complete cacophony—not soft grillos—shouts crazily from everywhere it seems, urging me forth. Oye, chavo, grab the ladder in front! Grip tight for all you are worth! Do not slip! No, no, no! Not the back! One false step and the wheels, they will chew you up! Come on, come on, it is passing you, órale, hurry, jump on!
My head is buzzing. The Beast is racing fast like a panther. The brotherhood of Beast Riders is lifting me in a huge hum of instructions, with great ferocity of purpose, with a kind of love new to me. Love that says Stranger, we are in this together.
In this moment I am inside the hum. I listen to everything of this most marvelous noise. Mostly I hear The ladder in front! So I aim for that. I am running alongside The Beast. Running running at the flank, panting. I must move now or be dragged in the gravel and left behind.
The front! The front! The ladder! The riders keep shouting. The wheels churn, as if grinding this tip out, again and again.
I look up.
I grab hold of a ladder.
Wheel sparks burn my arm.
I mumble a prayer.
And I leap.