Railroad Shorty Catches The Westbound Train-With Townes Van Zandt Brazos River Song In Mind 

Tacoma Tommy and Platte River Knobby laid old Railroad Shorty out along the Brazos about a mile above the river from their old railroad jungle camp. Laid him out as best they could, put a little half-ass cross made of small twigs over the shallow grave they had dug for him, maybe enough to keep the scavengers away maybe not, just in case he was a Christian and wanted it that way. Funny in the hobo, tramp, bum world except when some soup line missionary workers, usually the blessed damn Sallies (Salvation Army), wanted you to repent along with your soup, no man spoke much about his religion so old Shorty could have been a Mohammedan or an atheist for all anybody knew.

All Tommy and Knobby knew was that morning when they tried to awaken Shorty he had not responded, had caught the freight train west like a lot of travelling men before him. All they knew as well was that the only proper burial for a hobo and Shorty qualified in spade for that title was to get the body away from the railroad jungle and buried before the police or some authority came snooping around asking who he was, did he have family, did he leave anything behind all that noise for a vagrant burial in some town’s potter’s field. Both men agreed no thank you Shorty was better off against the banks of the Brazos, the banks of any river, down in any arroyo, under any railroad bridge if it came to that.  

Their hot sweaty work done Tommy opened up a pint bottle of old rotgut whisky, Shorty’s only valuable possession at the end, and took a swig for Shorty and then passed it to Knobby who did the same. As they started to reminisce for a moment about Shorty Knobby asked Tommy how old he thought Shorty had been, roughly anyway. Tommy answered that he figured about fifty but you could never tell with hobos because the weather, the booze, the irregular and usually awful food, and the living conditions aged a man quickly out on the road. Tommy asked Knobby how old he thought he was. Knobby said sixty and Tommy answered with a blush beneath his wind-burned, tanned, wind-burned again face and said forty-five. That ended that line of inquiry and as they took another swig each for Shorty they talked about the deceased and how he was always a straight-up guy.  

 Tommy could remember that first time he set eyes on Shorty out in the Gallup, New Mexico railroad jungle out along the Southern Pacific tracks outside of town as Shorty welcomed him with a fresh swig of Ripple wine, all Shorty had at the time. See Shorty was one of the original founders, you might say, of that camp at that site (there was an older site near Kingman in Arizona but the local sheriff and his boys busted that up one night just for the shear hell of it and the local citizenry stood by and applauded as they “threw the bums out of town”). So Tommy and Shorty went back a ways, a pretty long time as far as travelling men goes, and everybody had a good word for Shorty since if he had dough, had food, had hustled an extra package of cigarettes, and most importantly, if he had booze, he shared.

You might hear from some guys from the cities, college kids, folksingers or troubadours, guys who spent maybe a forlorn couple of days doing research or something talk about the camaraderie of the road, the “honor among the brethren, among thieves” maybe says it best but don’t bet on it, don’t leave a bedroll, a swig of Thunderbird wine, hell, even a cigarette butt around without keeping two, maybe three, eyes on those items or that will be the last you see of them. But Shorty was a master hobo, held a high degree in that railroad kingdom. Just then Knobby though he heard some car coming up the road so they hit the road back to camp and left Railroad Shorty, name unknown, age unknown, place of origin unknown along the sweet Brazos never to cross that river, the Trinity, the Pecos, the Colorado, the Platte and a hundred other rivers no more. RIP, Shorty, RIP.