Alvarez’s fatigue-ridden eyes peered out from beneath a navy blue knit cap that he had pulled down to try to keep warm. Still, unruly black hair escaped the cap in oily clumps. A brown turtleneck was pulled up over his unshaven chin to keep out the cold. It protruded from beneath a rat-holed sweatshirt. Over that, a faded fleece vest that had once been turquoise. The stacked dishwashers occupied half the boxcar, secured by tattered webbing straps held together by castiron buckle clasps. The rhythm of the wheels on rail—
two loud bumps followed by whining steel, followed again by the two bumps—contributed to Alvarez’s pounding headache, a sound that would remain with him for days, on or off the lines, a sound that lived in any rider’s bones: cha-cha-hmmmm, cha-cha-hmmmm. Pale blue light from the fire ring limited his vision. He could barely see to either end of the forty-foot boxcar. There was spray paint graffiti there, if he remembered right, or maybe that had been another car, another day, another line. It all blended together—
time, weather, hunger, exhaustion. He’d lost track. The train could move him physically from one destination to another, but it couldn’t change the way he felt. The weary darkness that surrounded him had little to do with the dim flicker of the stove. It lived inside him now. His grief was suffocating him. Minutes earlier the open cracks at the edges of the P A R A L L E L L I E S
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boxcar’s huge sliding door had flickered light from a small town. The train’s driver sounded the locomotive’s horn on approach. Through the car’s rough slats, street lamps cast shifting ladders of light throughout, reminding Alvarez uncomfortably of prison bars. The train had clattered through the crossing, the warning bells ringing and sliding down the musical scale, driving Alvarez further into depression. Any such crossing was an agonizing reminder of his past. The minivan carrying his wife and kids had been recovered nearly a quarter mile from a similar crossing, flipped onto its side and shaped like a barbell—flat in the center, bulging at either end. He felt only a sharp, unforgiving pain where he should have felt his heart. Nearly two and a half years had passed, but still he couldn’t adjust to life without them. Friends had comforted him, saying he would move on, but they were wrong. He’d lost everything and now he’d given up everything. To hell with sleep. To hell with his so-called life. He’d turned himself over to the grief, succumbed to it. He had purpose, and that purpose owned him: Payment for atrocities against him and his family would be made in full. If not, he would die trying.
For the past eighteen months the media had reported a string of derailments: a freight train in Alabama; another in Kansas; still others west of the Rockies. Drivers were blamed. Weather conditions. Equipment failures. As many lies as there were train cars torn from the tracks. He had not begun with any 510
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grand plan, but somehow one had evolved. He had not awakened one morning to think of himself as a terrorist, although the description now fit. He had a meeting with a bomb maker scheduled for the next day. He had never followed a script, and yet he now found himself with a clear mission: nothing short of destroying the huge Northern Union Railroad would do. David versus Goliath: he’d assumed the role effortlessly. While one hand stirred the chili with a red plastic stir stick, a shadow drew his attention. Shifting shadows were routine in a boxcar; it was the shadows that did not move that attracted one’s attention. But this shadow was caused by something—someone—on the outside of the boxcar; it—he—moved slowly, boldly negotiating on the outside of a moving freight. Alvarez alerted himself to trouble—some drunken or crazed rider, no doubt, catching a whiff of the chili. It was no easy feat, what this man was doing—inching along the boxcar’s exterior; it implied someone strong, or hungry enough to risk life and limb for a can of chili. Alvarez rose to block the door, but too late. The heavy door slid open—a one-handed move!—another near impossible feat.
Alvarez stepped back. The faceless visitor, silhouetted in the dark opening, stood tall and broad, a big son of a bitch, with a football player’s neck. This man reached for his belt and a flashlight came on, blinding Alvarez, who felt another wave of dread: maybe not a rider but a security guard, or even a cop. The feds had cracked down on riders since one recently had been P A R A L L E L L I E S
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arrested for butchering people in seven different states. Hobo Homicide! one of the headlines had read. The Rail- road Killer, on the TV news.
“Smells good,” the visitor said in a friendly enough tone, the voice low and dry. He did not sound winded by his effort.
The comment confused Alvarez slightly, lessened his anxiety. Maybe this guy was just trying to invite himself to dinner. But then again, that flashlight was oddly bright, too bright. Sure, some riders carried penlights, even flashlights. But one with fresh batteries? Never. Not once had Alvarez seen that. Discarded batteries were scrounged out of Dumpsters, the last few volts eked out of them. If a rider had two bucks in his pocket it went to booze, cigarettes, reefer, or food—usually in that order. Not batteries. The crisp brightness of that light cautioned Alvarez. Heat flooded him. Finally warm.
“You alone?” the visitor asked.
Alvarez had long since learned to keep his mouth shut, and he did so now. Most of the time people tended to fill the dead air, and in the process they revealed more about themselves than they intended. The bright light stung his eyes. Alvarez looked away, the chili boiling at his feet.
“You Mexican?” his visitor asked. The man’s round face was now partially visible. A white man, with the nose of a boxer and the brow of a Neanderthal. Riders beat the stuffing out of one another for the damnedest reasons. Most of the time it had little to do 512
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with reason—just the need to hit something, someone. Maybe this guy rode the rails looking for Mexicans to pummel. Again, Alvarez glanced down at the simmering chili.
“Or maybe,” the visitor suggested, “your father was Spanish, and your mother, Italian.”
As a part-time rider, Alvarez had learned to live with fear, had learned to compartmentalize it, shrink it, rid it of its power to seize control. You couldn’t be fighting fear and someone else simultaneously, so you learned to let the fear roll off your back. But what he felt now wasn’t fear, it was terror.
He knows who I am!
There was little he could do about terror. Terror, once allowed inside, owned you. There was no fighting off real terror. Survivors could harness it, redirect it, but could never be rid of it. Terror had to be dealt with quickly or it would freeze every muscle. Alvarez bent down and launched the boiling chili into the visitor’s face. He charged, hoping to drive the man out the open door. But behind the ghoulish scream, as his face burned, the man produced a nightstick or a sap, connecting it with the side of Alvarez’s face. He felt his nose crack and he spewed blood. Alvarez faltered, regained himself, and turned, diving for the small stove. Coming to his feet, he waved it as a weapon, prepared to strike.
This would be a fight to the finish. Alvarez knew it before the next blow landed.
Document Outline
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
Excerpt from, Parallel Lies