January 25, 2023 • 44 mins
Danelle heads to Montana to meet the legendary CC Rider, who shows her how a woman survives life on the rails. Modern hobos weigh in, CC gets spiritual, and Danelle appreciates how a woman like Ruby will need smarts – and allies – to get by.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This episode deals with some heavy content, including substance abuse
and sexual violence, so please take care while listening. Okay,
I mean kitn here. That was fruit, but I heard
it fruit from heard that name. And then there's the
(00:25):
three amigoes. Who are they? Randy Man, eight Ball, and
Serge all dead. Randy Man he was murdered. Eight Ball
he died of malnutrition, and Serge Agent Orange took him.
So he's a Vietnam vat CECI writer who spent more
than twenty years riding the rails. Is looking through her
(00:47):
photo albums, there's Peter Billy on a gondola, dustin the
winds dead ghost is dead Oswald, he just disappeared off
the face of the earth. I kept asking every train
writer I met what it would take for my daughter
Ruby to survive on the rails, and some of the
(01:08):
older hobos told me I should find cc. She knew
more than anyone else what it was like for a
woman out there the other shallow pop culture. Reason I'm
excited to meet her is her name. See what you don't?
(01:28):
She must have earned it somehow, So I've traveled out
to have her Montana with Winner coming on to learn
what I can from CC. I met some nice people
from the rails, but I also knew they were criminals
who rode the trains, and there were railroad gangs who
fought each other for territory. What would it take for
Ruby to survive out there? What would hobo's expect of
(01:49):
my daughter, a newcomer in their world? And what should
she watch out for when she threw her sleeping bag
down in the box car? Who would be standing nearby?
To understand? In hobo life? Today I had to track
down more riders. I'm de El Morton and this is
City of the Rails. Are you hungry? I got chicken
(02:39):
noodle soup homemade. I'm hungry. I think I'm Cecy's reputation
is huge, but she's tiny, not even five ft tall.
She has straight gray blond hair tucked under a cap
that's decorated with patches of long ago railroads markers of
how long Ceci roade. She invites me into her trailer
out of the cold of October in Montana and settle
(03:00):
down in one of the plush, comfy chairs for a smoke.
So you keep here? You keep your cigarettes in the freezer? Yeah,
keeps it fresh? Yeah, Cecy keeps the windows in front
door open so that she can smoke inside and you
can hear the trains passing on the tracks nearby. The
trailer is full of Cecy's relics and keepsakes left by
(03:21):
writers who have passed through. This is a bracelet that
some kid made me for my birthday out of beer tabs.
Oh look at that, It's actually wearable. The walls are
tagged with drawings and graffiti like still crazy after all
these beers, many hoboes have lightened their loads by leaving
something behind. Distribute to Cecy. Even have hair. This chick
(03:46):
cut off her hair and give it to me, and
it got arrowheads, real arrowheads on it. People passed it
in present, take to the rails, on a whim, on
a dare, or on the run. I mean it's a
bit of all of those like I suspected with Ruby.
They knew hundreds of writers, and she knew their stories.
(04:07):
Maybe she could help me understand more about why Ruby
ran off to hop trains. So we began with how
Ceci started writing. It was in Amarillo, Texas, and what
Cecy told me sounded like a country song, but a
sad one. My boyfriend and his brother beat me up,
and after I got a little bit well, a friend
of mine took me to a hobo bar and to
(04:33):
get back at my boyfriend, I kissed this tramp on
a Friday, screwed him on a Saturday, hobo marrieding Sunday,
and then I took him to a judge on a Monday.
Who knows what the difference was between a hobo wedding
and an actual wedding, but with her new husband, Broken Arrow,
Cecy had both. And then he says, do you want
(04:54):
to go and watch me catch out? I went, yeah,
So you know, I got mommunu skirt on high heels,
my makeup, my hair is all done, and uh, I
go to the catch Out dog there in Amarilla, Texas.
Get up on this box car with me and check
it out. So he coated me up there, and the
next thing I know, I hear and a jerk. Quick,
(05:17):
what is that? He says, Well, you're riding now. Cecy
might not have been prepared to start writing, but she
decided to continue traveling with Broken Arrow, and he showed
her right away she'd have to give up her old
life if she wanted to come with him on the rails.
(05:39):
My first backpack, I had my lingerie, some dresses, some heels, makeup,
curling iron unit. Look, what are you gonna plug that
into a tree? I'm warning four hundred dollar high heels
to let us. We'll get the Pueblo, Colorado. How am
I gonna walk on these railroad rocks? So he breaks
(06:01):
off my high heel? Not talking man? Yeah, So I
went from high hill to combat boots to having money
to hold and cardboard. Cecy's linked to the regular world
got broken off with those high heels, but that didn't
scare her. She was ready to leave her old life behind.
This new life broken Arrow promised her was unpredictable but exciting.
(06:24):
She was eager to enter this unknown world. And after
she did, she stayed for two decades. But Ruby hadn't
been swept onto the rails by a man, at least
not as far as I knew. But what did I know?
Young women now are different from Cec, who hasn't ridden
in decades. So I also looked for younger women closer
to Ruby's age. You could tell me about writing today.
(06:45):
Through a friend I met at a party. I found Morgan,
who had ridden for two years. Hi can you hear me, Yeah,
I can. Okay, how are y'all? I'm good. Thanks for
agreeing to talk to me. Now do you know what
I'm doing? Morgan Ceci took a blind leap onto the
rails and then scrambled to catch up with her new reality.
And like Cecy, Morgan turned to the rails when she
(07:07):
needed to make a break for it. She had struggled
with heroin addiction in her teens and spent a year
in jail for drugs when she was eighteen, and like
pretty much all writers, Morgan's journey onto the rails began
with her leaving her possessions behind. It started when Morgan
was strung out again back home in Maryland, trying to
hold onto her car. Funny enough, I actually the night
(07:29):
before had gotten a bunch of drugs and I hold
the drug dealer that I would give to my car.
So really, when it all comes down to it, it
was that moment of waking up and saying holy shit,
and him and I both knowing, you know, I am
not giving him my car. We called my friends, who
both were trained hoppers, and I said, we want to leave.
(07:52):
What do we do? Where do we go? So we
were like, we're just going to drive until we really
can't drive anymore and try to make it disported to
this guy that was going to put us on our
first freight train. But way they got to Georgia, someone
stole Morgan's car and she had a decision to make
go back home to Maryland and try to make it right,
(08:14):
or jump a freight and leave it all behind. The
car was gone, everything that was in it was gone,
and all we had was the quotes that we had on.
Morgan decided she was going through with it, and her
friend Kayla gave her a quick lesson and the kinds
of things she needed to get before she hopped a train,
like cotton underwear because you're not going to be able
to change so much and they're just breathable, and any
(08:37):
other material. But something else, Kayla said, stuck with Morgan,
something she didn't want to consider but knew she had to,
something that she stressed to me that was like, I
remember kind of sinking in myself when she said this,
But she said, you really, as a woman, want to
dress as much like a man as possible. You don't
know where things form fitting. You know, you really need
(09:00):
to protect yourself because you're you know, you have to think,
and you know, I didn't think too far into this,
but we're going to be in like the biggest cities
in the country and in the most dangerous spots in
the United States. With these warnings, Kayla was advising Morgan
and how to fit in with the other travelers, but
Morgan didn't have what she needed. She was on the
run with her car stolen. I think I had like
(09:22):
three skirts and like three shirts and a few things.
So Morgan's high heels to combat boots. Moment came standing
in a Walmart. It was the moment when she embraced
just how brazen she'd need to be to survive on
the rails. I remember my first pack. I stole it
from Walmart and it was such a just in the
(09:43):
moment thought, and then I was just like, you know what,
I'm just gonna try this because it's less than a
thousand dollars, so if I do get caught whatever. She
went through the store of stuffing the backpack with cotton
underwear and hoodies and jeans, all boxing and loose everything
she'd need. Once it was full, she faced the big moment,
walking out past the cashiers I remember my brain saying,
(10:07):
walk out like it's yours, no one, it won't bring attention,
and who who's crazy enough to walk in and do that?
And I kept it so cool that it was like
inside of me, the biggest adrenaline rush. I remember it
being just my heart pounding, pounding, pounding, and I got
away with it. And that was my first pack, and
I had it all the way up to my first
(10:29):
trip to California, um hoping trains and hitchhik and so
I had it for a very long time. Walking into
the parking lot with that backpack, Morgan had crossed the
threshold into the life she was taking on. Yes she
would be homeless, but not just because she was down
on her luck. She'd walked into it willingly, eagerly, both
feet first. Around the same time I met Morgan, I
(10:56):
met another writer, Alexei Would. Alexei was at different kind
of traveler. He was more like the writer's Mike Brodie
told me about early on the kids choosing to live
in poverty, to see the country that way, Even as
a teenager, I just was like, that's bullshit. There's got
to be something better than this garbage. Mike Brodie said,
(11:17):
there were plenty of hoboes like this from middle class homes,
families with assets. My daughter was one of them. So
I was eager to hear how Alexei ended up writing.
Maybe I could learn something about Ruby. Alexei told me
he left right out of high school, just like Ruby.
He looked out at the working world ahead of him
and knew he didn't want to life bound up by
the pursuit of money. I wanted to travel, and I
(11:40):
didn't want to pay for hotels. You know. I worked
hard to not spend money versus jobbing could make money.
So I learned how to do things myself and find food.
And he learned to live with very, very little money,
and I feel like it was the freest I ever lived.
(12:03):
Living without money gave Alexei freedom he'd never felt before,
freedom from living in the runt of the straight life.
In a way, it was a form of protest, but
it was also a thrill to be fully in control.
It was high adventure all the time. So I was
hitchhiking and you know, just train hopping, dumps, you're diving,
(12:24):
you know, just living well off of the decads of
the society. I'd usually hitchhike during the day and then
try to find a train yard or something and then
hop a train and just sleep on it all night
long and be cruising. Well, the feel of it is
the grittiness, the you know, hiding from bulls and trespassing
(12:47):
and just living in the cracks. But like Ruby's friend
Aaron told me, it goes way beyond living free just
because you could. For some riders, this is a political act.
As I was finding out among hoboes, there are a
lot of anarchists, you know. I knew tons of punks
(13:08):
who just hated money, wouldn't even touch money. Once you
get past the idea that you need money, you just
have your own It's your own life. You you have
your own time. If time is money, then time rich
Alexi was happy living by his wits, open to whatever
life brought his way. Even his very first ride affirmed
(13:31):
his new sense of freedom. I was going from San
Antonio to Houston, and I was on a grainer, and
I remember it had gotten to night time, and I
got up on top of the grainer and it cuts
right on the east side of the Houston downtown um,
(13:58):
and I just remember the seedy escape and all the lights.
He'd just been off the top of his train. I
just remember specifically falling alone with train hopping with that
He's the skyline, and I just felt like I could
go anywhere and I could do anything. Alexei had seen
(14:22):
that skyline a hundred times before, but from on top
of a freight train. He was feeling the power of
this boundless new life and attached to the mundane world.
He was hooked, and so he kept going for nine years. Yes,
he was giving up the comfort of knowing where he'd sleep,
when he'd get to where he wanted to go, and
who he'd spend his time with. When you give up
(14:42):
everything you know and leave behind the people you love,
what do you gain. There's places on train tracks that
(15:03):
you can't go on a regular road, you know. I
think back, and I'm like, you can't. I'll never be
able to see this again. One of the most beautiful
views I ever saw in the coolest moments was crossing
the Salt Lake and realizing that it was pink and
(15:26):
I was crossing it, you know, in a box car
and looking down and just completely surrounded by just like
pink water and just feeling like outside of this world.
I guess like I was floating on like clouds. Hmmm.
(15:52):
When you first step into the City of the Rails,
you see a world unlike any other. But this beauty
was a surprise to Morgan. She was first drawn to
the rails by the promise of a new adventure. I
had always imagined all the you know, adventure part of it,
and and just like how cool the pictures were, and
how big the trains were, and how small we are,
(16:13):
and how how big that must feel to be a
part of that. That feeling of being part of something
big is what draws a lot of drifters to the rails.
The late author Lucias Shepherd captured it well in his
book Two Trains Running. I especially love this quote, which
I thought sounded better in JP Right's voice, the voice
of a railroad man. There's no doubt the riding on
(16:37):
a freight car as it carries you through some moonlight
mysterious corner of the American night is a rush like
mystical whiskey for anyone with half an imagination. It's a loud, uncomfortable,
and a lot of the time it's damn cold, but
it's also romantic. You're riding with ghosts, those of Jack Carolak,
(16:58):
Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, and all of the ghosts
so famous hobo's only hoboes have heard of, and the
fact that it's illegal and a little dangerous makes the
moonlight extra silvery Beyond the hobo Shepherd mentioned. Other surprising
(17:23):
people who spent time on the rails include actors Clark
Gable and Steve McQueen focusing our burrow Ey's for you oldies,
and even one of John D. Rockefeller's sons for me.
The most surprising hobo was Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas,
who rode the rails during the Great Depression as part
of the Children's Army of two hundred and fifty thousand
box car kids. In his autobiography, he described hobo's as
(17:46):
kind and compassionate, adding that they had higher ideals than
some of the men who ran our banks and were
elders in the church. When Douglas became a Supreme Court justice,
in the press called him wild Bill for opinions that
definitely were shaped by his time on the rails and
striking down in nineteen seventy two Florida vagrancy law that
(18:07):
prohibited wandering without a stated purpose. Douglas wrote, wandering encouraged
lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence, even
with decades of distance. Once sh' a hobo, you're always
a hobo, and that tie goes through the years. I
once told a hobo I interviewed about William O. Douglas,
(18:28):
and his response was, we have a Supreme Court justice.
That's the community, the wei that people like Ruby and
Morgan ran off to join. And when you're a hobo,
you don't need much, but you do need your traveling partners.
From what I'd learned, the best way to survive the
trains is not to travel alone. You need your friends
around you to protect you and to keep you from
(18:49):
making some dumb mistakes. And even though Morgan hadn't been
traveling long, she wasn't alone in that box car floating
over the Great Salt Lake. She was with three friends
that when she traveled with everywhere for years, because, as
Morgan told me, the people you travel with become family.
When I was in Subsidy and I met Shiny and Harper,
(19:11):
they never left me like we'd leave each other, like
from town to town and come back together, but they
were they were like my traveling family. It was like
us for against the world till the end. Morgan said
that if you're traveling alone, the first priority was to
find a fellow traveler, and if you just find one
traveling kid and you meet up with them, then you'll
(19:32):
find the rest. And then that's your community and that's
your family. So no matter where you go, you have
the ways it means to like find your community of
traveling kids and you're safe within that. Finding your traveling
family meant having people to watch your back, keeping you
safe when you were drunk and preventing you from making
a fatal mistake. I was seeing from Alexei Morgan and
(19:56):
Cecy that there were so many different travelers, starry eyed hippies,
hardcore kids who like to fight, and eccentrics, including oddballs
you might recognize from a coffee shop or a music festival.
Morgan described some of them you got your like old
timey boat kids like I remember seeing my first like
old time folk kid, which with some sort of he
had like a ukulele or or a mandolin or something,
(20:19):
and an actual cat that just sat on his shoulder
and looked like he looked like Oliver Twists the way
he dressed. No matter which type of hobo, the way
they get information doesn't change. It's spread by word of
mouth or and online forums like Squat the Planet or
Read It, Morgan told me. New writers also learned from
the people they met traveling. When they rolled into town.
(20:41):
The experienced writers knew where to go to tap into
the network. There were bars where travelers hung out, and
since people come on and off the rails, writers who'd
settled down for a while welcomed people passing through. Like
me with no knowledge going into l A, I was
by myself when I got there, and I thought to myself,
where would traveling kids be? So that's where it went.
(21:02):
A lot of them were hanging out actually in Hollywood,
and so I found one, and then I found another,
and then eventually, by like the next day, I knew
every single squat in Hollywood. Squats are an important part
of the hobo network, a place to stay for the night,
usually in rougher neighborhoods. So a squad is with any
abandoned building, any abandoned shelter building, how that you go
(21:28):
into and take it for your own, whether it be
a short period of time one night, or some people
squat in houses without being caught for years. Not every
traveler got let in on the secret of where the
best squads were. Morgan said, you had to think carefully
about who you told. Even outlaws have hierarchies, and in
(21:48):
the traveling world, experienced writers are at the top. At
the bottom of the heap are Google's, the newbies, the loud, bumbling,
clueless kids who don't know what they're doing. They get
drunk and may noise, drawing attention that puts everyone at risk.
And if an Google proved to be too much trouble,
that Google would be left by the side of the
track at the next stop. If you're cool, not it
(22:11):
didn't matter. But like you're annoying, Maybe you are a liar,
you're somebody that blows up the spot, like you're super
loud and like tell people you don't need to be saying,
or you know, like people would be like, you don't
tell him where we're going, Like let's lose them. No
matter where they stand in the hierarchy, writers are always
(22:33):
sizing up everyone they meet. There are some scary people
mixed in among the characters, with cats on their shoulders
and squats aren't the only places hobo's come together. Many
big train yards have places where hobo's camp out nearby.
But knowing where camp is doesn't mean you know who
else will be there. Your campmates might be criminals or
people who have a score to settle with another writer.
(22:55):
You need to keep your wits about you. I met
another hobo named Cherry Blackburn's sort of a modern CC writer.
I kept hearing about Cherry from other hoboes before I
finally got to meet her. But what I did. Cherry
told me about a night in camp with her boyfriend Eric.
They were just hanging out waiting for a train near Roseville.
But when word got around that a notorious hobo named
(23:16):
Dirty Mike was coming, the whole mood at the camp changed.
It's kind of a crazy night. There was a bunch
of us under the Antelope Street bridge and if we're
all drinking, and somebody said, oh, you know, Mike's coming
down here. Sure enough, Mike showed up down there, and
(23:37):
he immediately like ran up to Eric and was like,
we need to talk. Jerry could see that Mike had
a real problem with her boyfriend, so she tried to
keep the peace. He pulled Eric aside and they started
walking away, and I could hear them like escalating and
then arguing, and so I like walked up, like, hey,
what the hell, you know, what's what's going on? You
guys need to chill out what you guys don't need
(23:58):
to fight? And out of nowhere, and Mike pulls a
gun out, so he points a gun at me first,
and then he was holding the gun at Eric's head
and I was and everybody at this point noticed what
was going on. I was like, oh my god, and
everybody ran over him like, dude, you need to calm down.
I'm right. At that same moment, my friend Jason noticed
(24:19):
that his dog was missing, and he's like, oh my god,
my dog. Where's my dog? The lost dog was just
enough to break the tension. Everyone started to look for it,
even Mike. Mike kind of forgot about what was going
on for a second because Jason was good friends with
Mike and so he we all like started looking for
the dog, and then they found the dog dead on
the overpass, and my friend Tim went to go buy
(24:41):
a shovel so that we could bury the dog under there,
and then Mike helped Mike was like really bummed out
for our friends, so he helped dig the hole to
bury the dog can from being like a crazy gun
wielding maniac to distraw trying to help out somebody, and
like in like a half hour period, a night in
(25:05):
camp could be that unpredictable. So any season hobo knows
the size up the scene when they arrive. Who's around
the fire? How well do you know the people you're
with if a fight broke out? Could you trust them
in that climate? Cherry might have saved Eric's life? Did
we be have companions whould look out for her like that?
But there's another hurdle that not everyone faces. Like the
(25:27):
rest of the world, the hobo community is deeply patriarchal,
and being a woman could be a liability. The women
I spoke with were so strong, so confrontational. But despite
how badass these women are, men run the scene. So
CC writer has some advice for younger women about how
to survive in camp. Gotta have your etiquette, keep your
(25:48):
hands to yourself, don't make googlias at anybody else. Just
don't be stupid. And that's what I've tried to teach
other women out there. Don't be flirting around, you know,
do not cause chaos in camp. You do that on
your own with your men, y'all go off and beat
(26:12):
each other up. I don't care, but you're not doing
it in this camp. Cecy spent years as the only
woman allowed to travel with her husband Broken Arrows Railroad
Gang the Wrecking Crew. Sometimes, as she put it, that
meant knocking some sense into other female writers to save
them from worse violence. One woman, we're in camp, the
(26:33):
six of us, two o'clock in the morning, night here.
My brothers, if you don't shut the funk up, we're
gonna kill you. I roll over and say, broken there,
how I gotta do something. So I got up and
I said, my brother's told you to shut the funk up.
I suggest you do. She opened her mouth and I
put my fist in her throat, And when I was
(26:57):
done with her, I told her the only reason, and
I whooped your asses to save your life because you
would not shut the funk up. On top of the
danger in the yard, there was violence at its edges,
a blow that could come from any direction. But what
a wild move from CC punching a woman in the throat.
(27:18):
So men wouldn't come for her. Ruby is tough, smart,
resourceful too. She makes fools of everyone, but she's not
easy to fool. But after talking to Cherry and Morgan,
I saw that wasn't enough. In a world that was
sent mail according to government survey of railroad trespassers, how
(27:39):
would she beat the odds and survive? Would she ever
get to be as old as cec h. Talking to
(28:00):
former writers like CC and Morgan showed me the rules
and the risk of joining this mobile community like Ruby
did when she split a graduation. Outsiders might dismiss hobo's
as street beggars, never knowing that they have ideals, unspoken
rules of conduct, and a social order. These were rules
with long traditions, and if a new writer didn't pick
up on these things quickly, she'd never graduate from Google status.
(28:23):
But either way, there was one thing Ruby couldn't shake.
She was a young woman. For women everywhere, that's a vulnerability.
It definitely was on the rails, but it also has advantages,
like when trying to make money on the street, she
could make a lot more money and faster than men
she traveled with. In the beginning of the day, writers
(28:43):
fanned out to spange, meaning asked for spare change. As
Morgan described it, all her friends pitched in if everybody
goes off on their own to like make money during
the day. Harper would always joke around and with maca like,
this is fucking bullshit, like I've been. I've been actually
like playing guitar ol day and this bitch fucking made
all this money and didn't do a goddamn thing. It
(29:05):
is unfair to say Morgan made money doing nothing. In fact,
she told me about a technique she used often when
that guaranteed should make a couple of bucks, and this
was something she could only pull off because she's a woman.
I would go to grocery stores and I would go
up to women and I would say I would go
up and say, hey, just got my curios. I'm leading
(29:27):
all over myself. Do you have a tampon? And that's
all I would say, because here's what, here's the deal.
A woman getting asked by another woman who's homeless, who
just wants such tampon. She's not even asking for money.
If I end up with tampons, great because I needed
them anything great. And then they're they're kind of pricey,
pracy enough that if they didn't have a tampons, they
(29:49):
were willing to give me five ten dollars. The people
Morgan traveled with would share everything, so it was a
big advantage for the group to have a woman who
could make a hunter us. It didn't matter if I
made twenty dollars and you made two dollars, and we
made twenty two dollars, like we all made this and
we're going to split it and get sucking alcohol, you know,
(30:10):
and we're going to get together. We're gonna get food together.
Money wasn't something you held onto, Morgan said, or even
thought it as yours. What little they had they held
together without saying like it wasn't even like a conversation
of like, al right, guys, we're getting the spear fucking
make sure everybody gets the same amount. People are like
don't know, traveling kids or people of the culture like
(30:31):
probably see them and think, like, while they're very scary,
but like, truly, some of these people are the most beautiful, kind,
amazing people you'll ever meet. I could feel that the
draw to a world where everything is shared and where
people look out for each other. I was even grateful
for it, because maybe these people could keep really safe.
(30:52):
And I knew she had people around her because she
was always calling me from other people's cell phones. So
one day, when I was trying to find her, I
went through the list of phone numbers I jotted down
from the various times she called me. On my third try,
someone answered. I identified myself, said I was looking for Ruby,
my daughter. I could hear them calling out to her.
It's your other mother, other mother, it's really a herd.
(31:19):
Since she left, I wondered where I stood with her,
so to feel like I'd been replaced really stung. So
when she came to the phone, I confronted her, and
she thought it was funny. Why was I so uptight
about this? Of course she knew I was her mom,
so maybe I was being uptight, and maybe I should
(31:40):
be grateful. She had people so close that she thought
of them as family, but even that family was sometimes
not enough. The City of the Rails is a world
of extremes. It's a place where the beauty comes laced
with danger, with the same person who points a gun
at you helps you find your lost dog minutes later.
For women on the rails, this meant choosing who you
traveled with carefully, so in my experience, I usually had
(32:06):
a boyfriend and and and usually the groups of people
that I was with were people that I knew. Morgan
was with the same guy for most of her time
hopping trains. She was attracted to him, yes, but there
was something pragmatic about the man she chose, and I
met him the most attractive thing, Like he had a
great personality and his fun and stuff. But like I
think it was just so attractive to me that like
(32:29):
if like with him, he could just take me anywhere.
But like that's what attracted me. If you knew what
you were doing, that's where I wanted to be because
I wanted to learn from you and I wanted to
be safe. Morgan's boyfriend was more experienced than she was.
He acted as both her guide and protector. This is
typical for relationships between men and women on the rails.
(32:51):
In fact, a woman by herself on the rails is
expected to find a man. Morgan told me about one
time when her boyfriend ended up in jail. I was
on myself for the first time, and I called my
friend back home, who had train hopped a little bit
when she was younger, and she was like, you got
to find a guy. I was like, okay. She found
an older writer who agreed she could tag along with him.
(33:12):
He was nice. They drank and went to an anarchist bookstore.
It was fun, but when the evening came to a close,
her protector went to payback. When it was time to
go to sleep. Um, he like kind of you know,
it was kind of like suggestive, like, hey, you wanna
sure sleeping back because you know it's it'll just be warmer.
(33:37):
And I remember feeling really intimidated and you know, scared
a little bit just in general because I'm by myself
and I feel like almost you are protecting me, so
I need to just do whatever you're you know what
I mean. I don't want to upset you and be alone.
(33:58):
And it didn't go all all the way, but but
there was some you know, physical uh you know, things
that happened that I did not want to happen, but
did not feel strong enough in many different ways to
um kind of stick up for myself. And sometimes you
were consciously trading sex for protection. Absolutely definite. So do
(34:24):
you think a lot of women end up making that sigon?
I'm sure I can imagine, especially women that are new
women new to the world have trains. I mean I
have their road dogs. Yet for them every night is
like that one when Morgan's boyfriend was in jail. Morgan's
(34:45):
stories of tampon, panhandling, and coerced sexual encounters aren't unique.
Generations of female writers have faced the same dangers and
taken advantage of the same opportunities. Of course, this is
something that happens to women everywhere. We make trade offs
to survive. For Morgan, she tried dressing like a man,
but that wasn't enough control. Back in her trailer, Cecy
(35:09):
told me she took it a step further. She decided
to act like a man. And I think you asked
me the question, why have I done manly things? Because
I'm getting my anger out. All these skills come in
handy when you get on the rails. Mm hmm. I
got an attitude. I don't want none, don't need none,
(35:32):
But if you want them, come and get it. But
even a tough old bat like Ceci traveled with a
protector broken arrow. His gang, the Wrecking Crew, was a small,
violent group that worked the rails in the nineteen nineties.
At that time, there were several vicious gangs like the
freight train riders of America and the Dirty who fought
(35:54):
each other for dominance on certain big rail lines. So
after pulling See See up into a train and breaking
off her stilettos, Broken Arrow still made his bride earn
her place beside him. They didn't break me in as
a woman, he broke me in as a man. He
broke me in as he was broken. I had to
carry a case of bottled beer for two months without
(36:17):
breaking any I mean, would drinkle, but would replace them
despite the hazing. Cecy's loyal to the Wrecking Crew to
this day. She even has Wrecking Crew tattooed on her ass.
Broken Arrow was violent but a great protector, and Cecy
needed him until she didn't. After twenty years of riding together,
(36:37):
their time came to a close. She was getting older
and increased security was making the rails harder to ride.
So when Broken Arrow beat her up again, Cecy decided
she was done. It took me forty years to grow up, mother,
and to find what I wanted to do. Granted ahead,
(36:57):
get my ass beat again. That I finally found my
whole mm hmm, and I also love me and me
said stop it, so I started all over again, and
now I'm a homeowner twice. Cecy bought a trailer and
(37:19):
a piece of land in Montana, not far from the tracks.
And even though she's settled down now, Cecy hasn't left
the rails. She hosts travelers and she still keeps in
touch with her fellow train hoppers. None of us ride anymore,
none of us were all on a crew. Change somewhere,
and I go and see him where they come and
(37:39):
see me the ones that are left. I can count
on two hands that I rode with, that I camped with,
swap gear with. At age sixty two, Cecy's seen a
lot and lost a lot of friends while she'd been
brought into this life by broken Arrow. This world is
(38:00):
hers now, and she's seen how much it's changed. But
she enjoys her new position as the grand old lady
of the rails, and she's got words for the new
class of writers. Today. It's not a good day to
right freight. It's just full of stupid kids out there.
You know, you get drunk and you get on a
(38:22):
train that means you've got a good chance to be
and pulled under the train and lose a lamb or life.
Every culture has its elders who want to explain things
to these whipper snappers, but it comes from a place
of love. And I was surprised that, despite her tough exterior,
being in a position to help writers touch a soft
(38:42):
spot in CC. I know that all of the works
that have done for these kids, coming off the tracks
and stuff, I'm gonna be less than I'm gonna be blessed.
When I take the west wind, I'm gonna be riding high. Sorry,
(39:06):
I just try to be righteous. So all these years later,
Cecy still makes sure she has enough space for any
writer's passing through, even the new kids. But whoever you
are and wherever you're going, when you stop by, have her.
The price of admission is a lecture from CC. I
tell them what you gotta do. First priority is you.
(39:32):
You gotta be righteous with thyself before you can be
righteous with others. That's the first thing I say, be
righteous with you. You understand that I don't ask for respect.
I'd be manned respect for the simple fact I've earned it.
(39:53):
I'm CC rider for Christ's sayings. I don't put up
with stupid ship. After that visit with c C, I
had the answer to my question. When we we threw
down her sleeping bag. I bet she had people she
knew and trusted nearby. This was a comfort to me
(40:14):
that she had joined a community that lived by a
code of loyalty and compassion. There was a network to
tap into a web of generosity and support. She hadn't
just run off on the life she knew, but toward
a life she wanted. There were dangers in this world.
Google's had to learn quickly or be left behind. And
the women I had met from the rails were some
of the fiercest females on Earth. They'd have to be
(40:36):
or they wouldn't last long. By now, I had a
pretty good idea of the train yard inside and out,
and the hair trigger insanity of the camps, and I
understood that this community might protect an Google like Ruby.
At least I prayed that she was with people who
were watching out for her, guiding her between squats and
train yards. Because no matter who you traveled with, the
point was the hot train, all right, and we're in.
(41:01):
We're in. We are now tress to understand the realities
of train hopping. I know what I have to do next.
I'm going back to Roosevelt to find out what it
actually takes to hop a train. Hello, this is what
it sounds like inside the box car. You know, you
just run next to it. You grab the ladder and
(41:22):
you just run with it until you get your balance
and you just kind of like swing on. I wasn't
even doing nothing, honestly, except taking him back. He was
being a little fucking handy with me, you know, like rough.
So I remember throwing my pack and I just right
in that moment, I had to go right then, and
I jumped. That's the next episode on the City of
(41:44):
the Rails, as well to drinking gas. Look what You've done.
(42:22):
City of the Rails is hosted and written by me
Danielle Morton and developed in partnership between Flip Turn Studios
and I Heart Podcasts. Having a strong reaction to this episode,
I think we got it all wrong. Call in and
tell us. Especially if you're a group of badass women
who ride without men to protect you, I definitely want
to hear from you. The number is seven oh seven
(42:43):
six five three oh three three nine. You might end
up on the show at I Heart. Our team is
executive producer and showrunner Julian Weller, Senior producer and editing
master Abooza far and our excellent producers Emily maronof Sina
Ozaki and Zoe Denkla, who survived hours and hours coaching
me how to speak with production support from Marcy de Pina.
(43:06):
Excellent original music every episode by Aaron Kaufman. Our theme
music is Wayfaring Stranger, performed by Profane Sass thanks to
Scott Michaud at Flail Records. Our logo is by Lucy
Kingtonia and uses a photograph by Mike Brody. For all
of you can make it to the end of the
credits every episode, I have some good news. Mike got
(43:26):
in touch with me. He made a bold move and
dished his cell phone but not his email. Shout out
to CC writer for bringing me out to have her
Montana for the first time ever, and also to Morgan
for being so candid and available to answer all my
many follow up questions. Our executive producer at flip Turn
is Mark Healey. If you want to follow along, find
us on Instagram at flip turn Pods and at I Heart.
(43:49):
Thanks to Nikki Etre and Bethann Machaluso. Want to help
us out, you can do it very quickly by leaving
us a rating or review wherever you're listening to this.
It will help more people find the show, and it's
a big deal to all of us making this show
every week. We'll be back next week in Roseville because
it seems like I'll never get the funk out of Roseville.
Next week on City of the Rails,
This episode deals with some heavy content, including substance abuse
and sexual violence, so please take care while listening. Okay,
I mean kitn here. That was fruit, but I heard
it fruit from heard that name. And then there's the
(00:25):
three amigoes. Who are they? Randy Man, eight Ball, and
Serge all dead. Randy Man he was murdered. Eight Ball
he died of malnutrition, and Serge Agent Orange took him.
So he's a Vietnam vat CECI writer who spent more
than twenty years riding the rails. Is looking through her
(00:47):
photo albums, there's Peter Billy on a gondola, dustin the
winds dead ghost is dead Oswald, he just disappeared off
the face of the earth. I kept asking every train
writer I met what it would take for my daughter
Ruby to survive on the rails, and some of the
(01:08):
older hobos told me I should find cc. She knew
more than anyone else what it was like for a
woman out there the other shallow pop culture. Reason I'm
excited to meet her is her name. See what you don't?
(01:28):
She must have earned it somehow, So I've traveled out
to have her Montana with Winner coming on to learn
what I can from CC. I met some nice people
from the rails, but I also knew they were criminals
who rode the trains, and there were railroad gangs who
fought each other for territory. What would it take for
Ruby to survive out there? What would hobo's expect of
(01:49):
my daughter, a newcomer in their world? And what should
she watch out for when she threw her sleeping bag
down in the box car? Who would be standing nearby?
To understand? In hobo life? Today I had to track
down more riders. I'm de El Morton and this is
City of the Rails. Are you hungry? I got chicken
(02:39):
noodle soup homemade. I'm hungry. I think I'm Cecy's reputation
is huge, but she's tiny, not even five ft tall.
She has straight gray blond hair tucked under a cap
that's decorated with patches of long ago railroads markers of
how long Ceci roade. She invites me into her trailer
out of the cold of October in Montana and settle
(03:00):
down in one of the plush, comfy chairs for a smoke.
So you keep here? You keep your cigarettes in the freezer? Yeah,
keeps it fresh? Yeah, Cecy keeps the windows in front
door open so that she can smoke inside and you
can hear the trains passing on the tracks nearby. The
trailer is full of Cecy's relics and keepsakes left by
(03:21):
writers who have passed through. This is a bracelet that
some kid made me for my birthday out of beer tabs.
Oh look at that, It's actually wearable. The walls are
tagged with drawings and graffiti like still crazy after all
these beers, many hoboes have lightened their loads by leaving
something behind. Distribute to Cecy. Even have hair. This chick
(03:46):
cut off her hair and give it to me, and
it got arrowheads, real arrowheads on it. People passed it
in present, take to the rails, on a whim, on
a dare, or on the run. I mean it's a
bit of all of those like I suspected with Ruby.
They knew hundreds of writers, and she knew their stories.
(04:07):
Maybe she could help me understand more about why Ruby
ran off to hop trains. So we began with how
Ceci started writing. It was in Amarillo, Texas, and what
Cecy told me sounded like a country song, but a
sad one. My boyfriend and his brother beat me up,
and after I got a little bit well, a friend
of mine took me to a hobo bar and to
(04:33):
get back at my boyfriend, I kissed this tramp on
a Friday, screwed him on a Saturday, hobo marrieding Sunday,
and then I took him to a judge on a Monday.
Who knows what the difference was between a hobo wedding
and an actual wedding, but with her new husband, Broken Arrow,
Cecy had both. And then he says, do you want
(04:54):
to go and watch me catch out? I went, yeah,
So you know, I got mommunu skirt on high heels,
my makeup, my hair is all done, and uh, I
go to the catch Out dog there in Amarilla, Texas.
Get up on this box car with me and check
it out. So he coated me up there, and the
next thing I know, I hear and a jerk. Quick,
(05:17):
what is that? He says, Well, you're riding now. Cecy
might not have been prepared to start writing, but she
decided to continue traveling with Broken Arrow, and he showed
her right away she'd have to give up her old
life if she wanted to come with him on the rails.
(05:39):
My first backpack, I had my lingerie, some dresses, some heels, makeup,
curling iron unit. Look, what are you gonna plug that
into a tree? I'm warning four hundred dollar high heels
to let us. We'll get the Pueblo, Colorado. How am
I gonna walk on these railroad rocks? So he breaks
(06:01):
off my high heel? Not talking man? Yeah, So I
went from high hill to combat boots to having money
to hold and cardboard. Cecy's linked to the regular world
got broken off with those high heels, but that didn't
scare her. She was ready to leave her old life behind.
This new life broken Arrow promised her was unpredictable but exciting.
(06:24):
She was eager to enter this unknown world. And after
she did, she stayed for two decades. But Ruby hadn't
been swept onto the rails by a man, at least
not as far as I knew. But what did I know?
Young women now are different from Cec, who hasn't ridden
in decades. So I also looked for younger women closer
to Ruby's age. You could tell me about writing today.
(06:45):
Through a friend I met at a party. I found Morgan,
who had ridden for two years. Hi can you hear me, Yeah,
I can. Okay, how are y'all? I'm good. Thanks for
agreeing to talk to me. Now do you know what
I'm doing? Morgan Ceci took a blind leap onto the
rails and then scrambled to catch up with her new reality.
And like Cecy, Morgan turned to the rails when she
(07:07):
needed to make a break for it. She had struggled
with heroin addiction in her teens and spent a year
in jail for drugs when she was eighteen, and like
pretty much all writers, Morgan's journey onto the rails began
with her leaving her possessions behind. It started when Morgan
was strung out again back home in Maryland, trying to
hold onto her car. Funny enough, I actually the night
(07:29):
before had gotten a bunch of drugs and I hold
the drug dealer that I would give to my car.
So really, when it all comes down to it, it
was that moment of waking up and saying holy shit,
and him and I both knowing, you know, I am
not giving him my car. We called my friends, who
both were trained hoppers, and I said, we want to leave.
(07:52):
What do we do? Where do we go? So we
were like, we're just going to drive until we really
can't drive anymore and try to make it disported to
this guy that was going to put us on our
first freight train. But way they got to Georgia, someone
stole Morgan's car and she had a decision to make
go back home to Maryland and try to make it right,
(08:14):
or jump a freight and leave it all behind. The
car was gone, everything that was in it was gone,
and all we had was the quotes that we had on.
Morgan decided she was going through with it, and her
friend Kayla gave her a quick lesson and the kinds
of things she needed to get before she hopped a train,
like cotton underwear because you're not going to be able
to change so much and they're just breathable, and any
(08:37):
other material. But something else, Kayla said, stuck with Morgan,
something she didn't want to consider but knew she had to,
something that she stressed to me that was like, I
remember kind of sinking in myself when she said this,
But she said, you really, as a woman, want to
dress as much like a man as possible. You don't
know where things form fitting. You know, you really need
(09:00):
to protect yourself because you're you know, you have to think,
and you know, I didn't think too far into this,
but we're going to be in like the biggest cities
in the country and in the most dangerous spots in
the United States. With these warnings, Kayla was advising Morgan
and how to fit in with the other travelers, but
Morgan didn't have what she needed. She was on the
run with her car stolen. I think I had like
(09:22):
three skirts and like three shirts and a few things.
So Morgan's high heels to combat boots. Moment came standing
in a Walmart. It was the moment when she embraced
just how brazen she'd need to be to survive on
the rails. I remember my first pack. I stole it
from Walmart and it was such a just in the
(09:43):
moment thought, and then I was just like, you know what,
I'm just gonna try this because it's less than a
thousand dollars, so if I do get caught whatever. She
went through the store of stuffing the backpack with cotton
underwear and hoodies and jeans, all boxing and loose everything
she'd need. Once it was full, she faced the big moment,
walking out past the cashiers I remember my brain saying,
(10:07):
walk out like it's yours, no one, it won't bring attention,
and who who's crazy enough to walk in and do that?
And I kept it so cool that it was like
inside of me, the biggest adrenaline rush. I remember it
being just my heart pounding, pounding, pounding, and I got
away with it. And that was my first pack, and
I had it all the way up to my first
(10:29):
trip to California, um hoping trains and hitchhik and so
I had it for a very long time. Walking into
the parking lot with that backpack, Morgan had crossed the
threshold into the life she was taking on. Yes she
would be homeless, but not just because she was down
on her luck. She'd walked into it willingly, eagerly, both
feet first. Around the same time I met Morgan, I
(10:56):
met another writer, Alexei Would. Alexei was at different kind
of traveler. He was more like the writer's Mike Brodie
told me about early on the kids choosing to live
in poverty, to see the country that way, Even as
a teenager, I just was like, that's bullshit. There's got
to be something better than this garbage. Mike Brodie said,
(11:17):
there were plenty of hoboes like this from middle class homes,
families with assets. My daughter was one of them. So
I was eager to hear how Alexei ended up writing.
Maybe I could learn something about Ruby. Alexei told me
he left right out of high school, just like Ruby.
He looked out at the working world ahead of him
and knew he didn't want to life bound up by
the pursuit of money. I wanted to travel, and I
(11:40):
didn't want to pay for hotels. You know. I worked
hard to not spend money versus jobbing could make money.
So I learned how to do things myself and find food.
And he learned to live with very, very little money,
and I feel like it was the freest I ever lived.
(12:03):
Living without money gave Alexei freedom he'd never felt before,
freedom from living in the runt of the straight life.
In a way, it was a form of protest, but
it was also a thrill to be fully in control.
It was high adventure all the time. So I was
hitchhiking and you know, just train hopping, dumps, you're diving,
(12:24):
you know, just living well off of the decads of
the society. I'd usually hitchhike during the day and then
try to find a train yard or something and then
hop a train and just sleep on it all night
long and be cruising. Well, the feel of it is
the grittiness, the you know, hiding from bulls and trespassing
(12:47):
and just living in the cracks. But like Ruby's friend
Aaron told me, it goes way beyond living free just
because you could. For some riders, this is a political act.
As I was finding out among hoboes, there are a
lot of anarchists, you know. I knew tons of punks
(13:08):
who just hated money, wouldn't even touch money. Once you
get past the idea that you need money, you just
have your own It's your own life. You you have
your own time. If time is money, then time rich
Alexi was happy living by his wits, open to whatever
life brought his way. Even his very first ride affirmed
(13:31):
his new sense of freedom. I was going from San
Antonio to Houston, and I was on a grainer, and
I remember it had gotten to night time, and I
got up on top of the grainer and it cuts
right on the east side of the Houston downtown um,
(13:58):
and I just remember the seedy escape and all the lights.
He'd just been off the top of his train. I
just remember specifically falling alone with train hopping with that
He's the skyline, and I just felt like I could
go anywhere and I could do anything. Alexei had seen
(14:22):
that skyline a hundred times before, but from on top
of a freight train. He was feeling the power of
this boundless new life and attached to the mundane world.
He was hooked, and so he kept going for nine years. Yes,
he was giving up the comfort of knowing where he'd sleep,
when he'd get to where he wanted to go, and
who he'd spend his time with. When you give up
(14:42):
everything you know and leave behind the people you love,
what do you gain. There's places on train tracks that
(15:03):
you can't go on a regular road, you know. I
think back, and I'm like, you can't. I'll never be
able to see this again. One of the most beautiful
views I ever saw in the coolest moments was crossing
the Salt Lake and realizing that it was pink and
(15:26):
I was crossing it, you know, in a box car
and looking down and just completely surrounded by just like
pink water and just feeling like outside of this world.
I guess like I was floating on like clouds. Hmmm.
(15:52):
When you first step into the City of the Rails,
you see a world unlike any other. But this beauty
was a surprise to Morgan. She was first drawn to
the rails by the promise of a new adventure. I
had always imagined all the you know, adventure part of it,
and and just like how cool the pictures were, and
how big the trains were, and how small we are,
(16:13):
and how how big that must feel to be a
part of that. That feeling of being part of something
big is what draws a lot of drifters to the rails.
The late author Lucias Shepherd captured it well in his
book Two Trains Running. I especially love this quote, which
I thought sounded better in JP Right's voice, the voice
of a railroad man. There's no doubt the riding on
(16:37):
a freight car as it carries you through some moonlight
mysterious corner of the American night is a rush like
mystical whiskey for anyone with half an imagination. It's a loud, uncomfortable,
and a lot of the time it's damn cold, but
it's also romantic. You're riding with ghosts, those of Jack Carolak,
(16:58):
Jack London and Ernest Hemingway, and all of the ghosts
so famous hobo's only hoboes have heard of, and the
fact that it's illegal and a little dangerous makes the
moonlight extra silvery Beyond the hobo Shepherd mentioned. Other surprising
(17:23):
people who spent time on the rails include actors Clark
Gable and Steve McQueen focusing our burrow Ey's for you oldies,
and even one of John D. Rockefeller's sons for me.
The most surprising hobo was Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas,
who rode the rails during the Great Depression as part
of the Children's Army of two hundred and fifty thousand
box car kids. In his autobiography, he described hobo's as
(17:46):
kind and compassionate, adding that they had higher ideals than
some of the men who ran our banks and were
elders in the church. When Douglas became a Supreme Court justice,
in the press called him wild Bill for opinions that
definitely were shaped by his time on the rails and
striking down in nineteen seventy two Florida vagrancy law that
(18:07):
prohibited wandering without a stated purpose. Douglas wrote, wandering encouraged
lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence, even
with decades of distance. Once sh' a hobo, you're always
a hobo, and that tie goes through the years. I
once told a hobo I interviewed about William O. Douglas,
(18:28):
and his response was, we have a Supreme Court justice.
That's the community, the wei that people like Ruby and
Morgan ran off to join. And when you're a hobo,
you don't need much, but you do need your traveling partners.
From what I'd learned, the best way to survive the
trains is not to travel alone. You need your friends
around you to protect you and to keep you from
(18:49):
making some dumb mistakes. And even though Morgan hadn't been
traveling long, she wasn't alone in that box car floating
over the Great Salt Lake. She was with three friends
that when she traveled with everywhere for years, because, as
Morgan told me, the people you travel with become family.
When I was in Subsidy and I met Shiny and Harper,
(19:11):
they never left me like we'd leave each other, like
from town to town and come back together, but they
were they were like my traveling family. It was like
us for against the world till the end. Morgan said
that if you're traveling alone, the first priority was to
find a fellow traveler, and if you just find one
traveling kid and you meet up with them, then you'll
(19:32):
find the rest. And then that's your community and that's
your family. So no matter where you go, you have
the ways it means to like find your community of
traveling kids and you're safe within that. Finding your traveling
family meant having people to watch your back, keeping you
safe when you were drunk and preventing you from making
a fatal mistake. I was seeing from Alexei Morgan and
(19:56):
Cecy that there were so many different travelers, starry eyed hippies,
hardcore kids who like to fight, and eccentrics, including oddballs
you might recognize from a coffee shop or a music festival.
Morgan described some of them you got your like old
timey boat kids like I remember seeing my first like
old time folk kid, which with some sort of he
had like a ukulele or or a mandolin or something,
(20:19):
and an actual cat that just sat on his shoulder
and looked like he looked like Oliver Twists the way
he dressed. No matter which type of hobo, the way
they get information doesn't change. It's spread by word of
mouth or and online forums like Squat the Planet or
Read It, Morgan told me. New writers also learned from
the people they met traveling. When they rolled into town.
(20:41):
The experienced writers knew where to go to tap into
the network. There were bars where travelers hung out, and
since people come on and off the rails, writers who'd
settled down for a while welcomed people passing through. Like
me with no knowledge going into l A, I was
by myself when I got there, and I thought to myself,
where would traveling kids be? So that's where it went.
(21:02):
A lot of them were hanging out actually in Hollywood,
and so I found one, and then I found another,
and then eventually, by like the next day, I knew
every single squat in Hollywood. Squats are an important part
of the hobo network, a place to stay for the night,
usually in rougher neighborhoods. So a squad is with any
abandoned building, any abandoned shelter building, how that you go
(21:28):
into and take it for your own, whether it be
a short period of time one night, or some people
squat in houses without being caught for years. Not every
traveler got let in on the secret of where the
best squads were. Morgan said, you had to think carefully
about who you told. Even outlaws have hierarchies, and in
(21:48):
the traveling world, experienced writers are at the top. At
the bottom of the heap are Google's, the newbies, the loud, bumbling,
clueless kids who don't know what they're doing. They get
drunk and may noise, drawing attention that puts everyone at risk.
And if an Google proved to be too much trouble,
that Google would be left by the side of the
track at the next stop. If you're cool, not it
(22:11):
didn't matter. But like you're annoying, Maybe you are a liar,
you're somebody that blows up the spot, like you're super
loud and like tell people you don't need to be saying,
or you know, like people would be like, you don't
tell him where we're going, Like let's lose them. No
matter where they stand in the hierarchy, writers are always
(22:33):
sizing up everyone they meet. There are some scary people
mixed in among the characters, with cats on their shoulders
and squats aren't the only places hobo's come together. Many
big train yards have places where hobo's camp out nearby.
But knowing where camp is doesn't mean you know who
else will be there. Your campmates might be criminals or
people who have a score to settle with another writer.
(22:55):
You need to keep your wits about you. I met
another hobo named Cherry Blackburn's sort of a modern CC writer.
I kept hearing about Cherry from other hoboes before I
finally got to meet her. But what I did. Cherry
told me about a night in camp with her boyfriend Eric.
They were just hanging out waiting for a train near Roseville.
But when word got around that a notorious hobo named
(23:16):
Dirty Mike was coming, the whole mood at the camp changed.
It's kind of a crazy night. There was a bunch
of us under the Antelope Street bridge and if we're
all drinking, and somebody said, oh, you know, Mike's coming
down here. Sure enough, Mike showed up down there, and
(23:37):
he immediately like ran up to Eric and was like,
we need to talk. Jerry could see that Mike had
a real problem with her boyfriend, so she tried to
keep the peace. He pulled Eric aside and they started
walking away, and I could hear them like escalating and
then arguing, and so I like walked up, like, hey,
what the hell, you know, what's what's going on? You
guys need to chill out what you guys don't need
(23:58):
to fight? And out of nowhere, and Mike pulls a
gun out, so he points a gun at me first,
and then he was holding the gun at Eric's head
and I was and everybody at this point noticed what
was going on. I was like, oh my god, and
everybody ran over him like, dude, you need to calm down.
I'm right. At that same moment, my friend Jason noticed
(24:19):
that his dog was missing, and he's like, oh my god,
my dog. Where's my dog? The lost dog was just
enough to break the tension. Everyone started to look for it,
even Mike. Mike kind of forgot about what was going
on for a second because Jason was good friends with
Mike and so he we all like started looking for
the dog, and then they found the dog dead on
the overpass, and my friend Tim went to go buy
(24:41):
a shovel so that we could bury the dog under there,
and then Mike helped Mike was like really bummed out
for our friends, so he helped dig the hole to
bury the dog can from being like a crazy gun
wielding maniac to distraw trying to help out somebody, and
like in like a half hour period, a night in
(25:05):
camp could be that unpredictable. So any season hobo knows
the size up the scene when they arrive. Who's around
the fire? How well do you know the people you're
with if a fight broke out? Could you trust them
in that climate? Cherry might have saved Eric's life? Did
we be have companions whould look out for her like that?
But there's another hurdle that not everyone faces. Like the
(25:27):
rest of the world, the hobo community is deeply patriarchal,
and being a woman could be a liability. The women
I spoke with were so strong, so confrontational. But despite
how badass these women are, men run the scene. So
CC writer has some advice for younger women about how
to survive in camp. Gotta have your etiquette, keep your
(25:48):
hands to yourself, don't make googlias at anybody else. Just
don't be stupid. And that's what I've tried to teach
other women out there. Don't be flirting around, you know,
do not cause chaos in camp. You do that on
your own with your men, y'all go off and beat
(26:12):
each other up. I don't care, but you're not doing
it in this camp. Cecy spent years as the only
woman allowed to travel with her husband Broken Arrows Railroad
Gang the Wrecking Crew. Sometimes, as she put it, that
meant knocking some sense into other female writers to save
them from worse violence. One woman, we're in camp, the
(26:33):
six of us, two o'clock in the morning, night here.
My brothers, if you don't shut the funk up, we're
gonna kill you. I roll over and say, broken there,
how I gotta do something. So I got up and
I said, my brother's told you to shut the funk up.
I suggest you do. She opened her mouth and I
put my fist in her throat, And when I was
(26:57):
done with her, I told her the only reason, and
I whooped your asses to save your life because you
would not shut the funk up. On top of the
danger in the yard, there was violence at its edges,
a blow that could come from any direction. But what
a wild move from CC punching a woman in the throat.
(27:18):
So men wouldn't come for her. Ruby is tough, smart,
resourceful too. She makes fools of everyone, but she's not
easy to fool. But after talking to Cherry and Morgan,
I saw that wasn't enough. In a world that was
sent mail according to government survey of railroad trespassers, how
(27:39):
would she beat the odds and survive? Would she ever
get to be as old as cec h. Talking to
(28:00):
former writers like CC and Morgan showed me the rules
and the risk of joining this mobile community like Ruby
did when she split a graduation. Outsiders might dismiss hobo's
as street beggars, never knowing that they have ideals, unspoken
rules of conduct, and a social order. These were rules
with long traditions, and if a new writer didn't pick
up on these things quickly, she'd never graduate from Google status.
(28:23):
But either way, there was one thing Ruby couldn't shake.
She was a young woman. For women everywhere, that's a vulnerability.
It definitely was on the rails, but it also has advantages,
like when trying to make money on the street, she
could make a lot more money and faster than men
she traveled with. In the beginning of the day, writers
(28:43):
fanned out to spange, meaning asked for spare change. As
Morgan described it, all her friends pitched in if everybody
goes off on their own to like make money during
the day. Harper would always joke around and with maca like,
this is fucking bullshit, like I've been. I've been actually
like playing guitar ol day and this bitch fucking made
all this money and didn't do a goddamn thing. It
(29:05):
is unfair to say Morgan made money doing nothing. In fact,
she told me about a technique she used often when
that guaranteed should make a couple of bucks, and this
was something she could only pull off because she's a woman.
I would go to grocery stores and I would go
up to women and I would say I would go
up and say, hey, just got my curios. I'm leading
(29:27):
all over myself. Do you have a tampon? And that's
all I would say, because here's what, here's the deal.
A woman getting asked by another woman who's homeless, who
just wants such tampon. She's not even asking for money.
If I end up with tampons, great because I needed
them anything great. And then they're they're kind of pricey,
pracy enough that if they didn't have a tampons, they
(29:49):
were willing to give me five ten dollars. The people
Morgan traveled with would share everything, so it was a
big advantage for the group to have a woman who
could make a hunter us. It didn't matter if I
made twenty dollars and you made two dollars, and we
made twenty two dollars, like we all made this and
we're going to split it and get sucking alcohol, you know,
(30:10):
and we're going to get together. We're gonna get food together.
Money wasn't something you held onto, Morgan said, or even
thought it as yours. What little they had they held
together without saying like it wasn't even like a conversation
of like, al right, guys, we're getting the spear fucking
make sure everybody gets the same amount. People are like
don't know, traveling kids or people of the culture like
(30:31):
probably see them and think, like, while they're very scary,
but like, truly, some of these people are the most beautiful, kind,
amazing people you'll ever meet. I could feel that the
draw to a world where everything is shared and where
people look out for each other. I was even grateful
for it, because maybe these people could keep really safe.
(30:52):
And I knew she had people around her because she
was always calling me from other people's cell phones. So
one day, when I was trying to find her, I
went through the list of phone numbers I jotted down
from the various times she called me. On my third try,
someone answered. I identified myself, said I was looking for Ruby,
my daughter. I could hear them calling out to her.
It's your other mother, other mother, it's really a herd.
(31:19):
Since she left, I wondered where I stood with her,
so to feel like I'd been replaced really stung. So
when she came to the phone, I confronted her, and
she thought it was funny. Why was I so uptight
about this? Of course she knew I was her mom,
so maybe I was being uptight, and maybe I should
(31:40):
be grateful. She had people so close that she thought
of them as family, but even that family was sometimes
not enough. The City of the Rails is a world
of extremes. It's a place where the beauty comes laced
with danger, with the same person who points a gun
at you helps you find your lost dog minutes later.
For women on the rails, this meant choosing who you
traveled with carefully, so in my experience, I usually had
(32:06):
a boyfriend and and and usually the groups of people
that I was with were people that I knew. Morgan
was with the same guy for most of her time
hopping trains. She was attracted to him, yes, but there
was something pragmatic about the man she chose, and I
met him the most attractive thing, Like he had a
great personality and his fun and stuff. But like I
think it was just so attractive to me that like
(32:29):
if like with him, he could just take me anywhere.
But like that's what attracted me. If you knew what
you were doing, that's where I wanted to be because
I wanted to learn from you and I wanted to
be safe. Morgan's boyfriend was more experienced than she was.
He acted as both her guide and protector. This is
typical for relationships between men and women on the rails.
(32:51):
In fact, a woman by herself on the rails is
expected to find a man. Morgan told me about one
time when her boyfriend ended up in jail. I was
on myself for the first time, and I called my
friend back home, who had train hopped a little bit
when she was younger, and she was like, you got
to find a guy. I was like, okay. She found
an older writer who agreed she could tag along with him.
(33:12):
He was nice. They drank and went to an anarchist bookstore.
It was fun, but when the evening came to a close,
her protector went to payback. When it was time to
go to sleep. Um, he like kind of you know,
it was kind of like suggestive, like, hey, you wanna
sure sleeping back because you know it's it'll just be warmer.
(33:37):
And I remember feeling really intimidated and you know, scared
a little bit just in general because I'm by myself
and I feel like almost you are protecting me, so
I need to just do whatever you're you know what
I mean. I don't want to upset you and be alone.
(33:58):
And it didn't go all all the way, but but
there was some you know, physical uh you know, things
that happened that I did not want to happen, but
did not feel strong enough in many different ways to
um kind of stick up for myself. And sometimes you
were consciously trading sex for protection. Absolutely definite. So do
(34:24):
you think a lot of women end up making that sigon?
I'm sure I can imagine, especially women that are new
women new to the world have trains. I mean I
have their road dogs. Yet for them every night is
like that one when Morgan's boyfriend was in jail. Morgan's
(34:45):
stories of tampon, panhandling, and coerced sexual encounters aren't unique.
Generations of female writers have faced the same dangers and
taken advantage of the same opportunities. Of course, this is
something that happens to women everywhere. We make trade offs
to survive. For Morgan, she tried dressing like a man,
but that wasn't enough control. Back in her trailer, Cecy
(35:09):
told me she took it a step further. She decided
to act like a man. And I think you asked
me the question, why have I done manly things? Because
I'm getting my anger out. All these skills come in
handy when you get on the rails. Mm hmm. I
got an attitude. I don't want none, don't need none,
(35:32):
But if you want them, come and get it. But
even a tough old bat like Ceci traveled with a
protector broken arrow. His gang, the Wrecking Crew, was a small,
violent group that worked the rails in the nineteen nineties.
At that time, there were several vicious gangs like the
freight train riders of America and the Dirty who fought
(35:54):
each other for dominance on certain big rail lines. So
after pulling See See up into a train and breaking
off her stilettos, Broken Arrow still made his bride earn
her place beside him. They didn't break me in as
a woman, he broke me in as a man. He
broke me in as he was broken. I had to
carry a case of bottled beer for two months without
(36:17):
breaking any I mean, would drinkle, but would replace them
despite the hazing. Cecy's loyal to the Wrecking Crew to
this day. She even has Wrecking Crew tattooed on her ass.
Broken Arrow was violent but a great protector, and Cecy
needed him until she didn't. After twenty years of riding together,
(36:37):
their time came to a close. She was getting older
and increased security was making the rails harder to ride.
So when Broken Arrow beat her up again, Cecy decided
she was done. It took me forty years to grow up, mother,
and to find what I wanted to do. Granted ahead,
(36:57):
get my ass beat again. That I finally found my
whole mm hmm, and I also love me and me
said stop it, so I started all over again, and
now I'm a homeowner twice. Cecy bought a trailer and
(37:19):
a piece of land in Montana, not far from the tracks.
And even though she's settled down now, Cecy hasn't left
the rails. She hosts travelers and she still keeps in
touch with her fellow train hoppers. None of us ride anymore,
none of us were all on a crew. Change somewhere,
and I go and see him where they come and
(37:39):
see me the ones that are left. I can count
on two hands that I rode with, that I camped with,
swap gear with. At age sixty two, Cecy's seen a
lot and lost a lot of friends while she'd been
brought into this life by broken Arrow. This world is
(38:00):
hers now, and she's seen how much it's changed. But
she enjoys her new position as the grand old lady
of the rails, and she's got words for the new
class of writers. Today. It's not a good day to
right freight. It's just full of stupid kids out there.
You know, you get drunk and you get on a
(38:22):
train that means you've got a good chance to be
and pulled under the train and lose a lamb or life.
Every culture has its elders who want to explain things
to these whipper snappers, but it comes from a place
of love. And I was surprised that, despite her tough exterior,
being in a position to help writers touch a soft
(38:42):
spot in CC. I know that all of the works
that have done for these kids, coming off the tracks
and stuff, I'm gonna be less than I'm gonna be blessed.
When I take the west wind, I'm gonna be riding high. Sorry,
(39:06):
I just try to be righteous. So all these years later,
Cecy still makes sure she has enough space for any
writer's passing through, even the new kids. But whoever you
are and wherever you're going, when you stop by, have her.
The price of admission is a lecture from CC. I
tell them what you gotta do. First priority is you.
(39:32):
You gotta be righteous with thyself before you can be
righteous with others. That's the first thing I say, be
righteous with you. You understand that I don't ask for respect.
I'd be manned respect for the simple fact I've earned it.
(39:53):
I'm CC rider for Christ's sayings. I don't put up
with stupid ship. After that visit with c C, I
had the answer to my question. When we we threw
down her sleeping bag. I bet she had people she
knew and trusted nearby. This was a comfort to me
(40:14):
that she had joined a community that lived by a
code of loyalty and compassion. There was a network to
tap into a web of generosity and support. She hadn't
just run off on the life she knew, but toward
a life she wanted. There were dangers in this world.
Google's had to learn quickly or be left behind. And
the women I had met from the rails were some
of the fiercest females on Earth. They'd have to be
(40:36):
or they wouldn't last long. By now, I had a
pretty good idea of the train yard inside and out,
and the hair trigger insanity of the camps, and I
understood that this community might protect an Google like Ruby.
At least I prayed that she was with people who
were watching out for her, guiding her between squats and
train yards. Because no matter who you traveled with, the
point was the hot train, all right, and we're in.
(41:01):
We're in. We are now tress to understand the realities
of train hopping. I know what I have to do next.
I'm going back to Roosevelt to find out what it
actually takes to hop a train. Hello, this is what
it sounds like inside the box car. You know, you
just run next to it. You grab the ladder and
(41:22):
you just run with it until you get your balance
and you just kind of like swing on. I wasn't
even doing nothing, honestly, except taking him back. He was
being a little fucking handy with me, you know, like rough.
So I remember throwing my pack and I just right
in that moment, I had to go right then, and
I jumped. That's the next episode on the City of
(41:44):
the Rails, as well to drinking gas. Look what You've done.
(42:22):
City of the Rails is hosted and written by me
Danielle Morton and developed in partnership between Flip Turn Studios
and I Heart Podcasts. Having a strong reaction to this episode,
I think we got it all wrong. Call in and
tell us. Especially if you're a group of badass women
who ride without men to protect you, I definitely want
to hear from you. The number is seven oh seven
(42:43):
six five three oh three three nine. You might end
up on the show at I Heart. Our team is
executive producer and showrunner Julian Weller, Senior producer and editing
master Abooza far and our excellent producers Emily maronof Sina
Ozaki and Zoe Denkla, who survived hours and hours coaching
me how to speak with production support from Marcy de Pina.
(43:06):
Excellent original music every episode by Aaron Kaufman. Our theme
music is Wayfaring Stranger, performed by Profane Sass thanks to
Scott Michaud at Flail Records. Our logo is by Lucy
Kingtonia and uses a photograph by Mike Brody. For all
of you can make it to the end of the
credits every episode, I have some good news. Mike got
(43:26):
in touch with me. He made a bold move and
dished his cell phone but not his email. Shout out
to CC writer for bringing me out to have her
Montana for the first time ever, and also to Morgan
for being so candid and available to answer all my
many follow up questions. Our executive producer at flip Turn
is Mark Healey. If you want to follow along, find
us on Instagram at flip turn Pods and at I Heart.
(43:49):
Thanks to Nikki Etre and Bethann Machaluso. Want to help
us out, you can do it very quickly by leaving
us a rating or review wherever you're listening to this.
It will help more people find the show, and it's
a big deal to all of us making this show
every week. We'll be back next week in Roseville because
it seems like I'll never get the funk out of Roseville.
Next week on City of the Rails,
Host
Danelle Morton
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