The railroad is dead. Its dried-up bones lie rusting beneath a California sun in the dusty rockhills of Riverside. A screech and a clank from another time breathes life into its dry bones and a ghostly cart and a cart and a cart passes by. We are sitting in a restaurant. Ours. Though the faded sign – Crazy Greek’s – would call me a liar. The ’s is possessive, but the owner is Mexican and perfectly sane as far as we can tell. We sit nursing cheeseburgers and french fries. I entertain a mild concern for Grandpa’s meal, as he’s diabetic and a thousand other things.

He grabs my hands firmly in his soft, wrinkled paws and prays loud as a bullhorn. Baptist preacher in his blood, in his voice, sounding to the ringing ears of this squinty-eyed Oriental (as he lovingly refers to half of me and all of my mother). “WE COME TO YOU LORD THANKING YOU FOR THIS FOOD ASKING THAT YOU NOURISH OUR BODIES AND MAKE US WHOLE. ALL IN JESUS’ NAME AYMEN.” I cringe, embarrassed by his eye-clenching devotion.

And then it is acceptable to eat, though neither of us do.  We are here for tradition, sipping our drinks out of the white Styrofoam cups that mark a restaurant as family-owned. The same stories relived. Grandpa reliving, repeating himself, telling:

– Of the time I walked home from the kindergarten on Tyler Street all by myself. And my parents looked everywhere for me, and how my father cursed at my teacher, and how I conducted my own search for my parents through each neighbor’s house until I found myself right at home.

– Of how I asked him over and over if I could play with Rosie when we got home. And how he got fed up and told me in as stern a voice as he could muster, “Now if you ask me one more time you ain’t going nowhere but straight to bed.” And how I refused to talk to him all the way home and didn’t go to Rosie’s straight out of spite.

– Of how we went for butter pecan ice cream at the pharmacy, me on his shoulders. And he would open the automatic doors with a magic proclamation of “OPEN SESAME.” And how I fell asleep on the way home so that the ice cream dripped all over his frosty-haired head. And how a “colored lady” told him so, and how he replied with a chuckle, “It’ll wash, won’t it?”

“So Grandpa,” I ask, pulling us both back into the present. I am writing a story on his life.  It will be a novel: great, American, and epic. “I want to write a story about your time on the railroad.”

“You gonna write me a bunch a’lies, eh?” Grandpa’s whole face dances at his own wit as he chuckles to himself.

“Nothing but lies. You know me. But we should go get good and drunk first.”

The words are liturgical. They carry magic for memory. And the memory makes me old and Grandpa young, reversing time with the stories repeated at every meal.

He beams me a serious smile. “So, whatcha wanna hear?”

“Everything,” I reply. Though what I mean is something grand, but sure that it’ll arrive regardless, I leave the lie alone and chew a french fry. The restaurant still calls them “freedom fries” as if it were 2002.

***

Bobby sits at the booth munchin on a tater. Asks me ‘bout my life, about the railroad, so I need to sit and think. Driving in my mind like we did through them parks in our motorhome with Dorothy by my side and Bobby on her lap spittin’ sunflower seeds. Driving down on boats from Porkchop Hill to the lakes of Michigan. To the smell of Pa’s chewin’ tobacco and the sweat of the railroad.

I find a story and say it as I see it, “Bout 12 years old when I started on the line. Just a little guy ‘bout this high.” I show with my hand how high so that it matches the top of Bobby’s head.

***

Grandpa sits with his wrinkled hand hovering below his buzzcut hair as if in salute. His burger, on a plastic plate on an orange tray on a dirty blue table, is untouched. 4 o’clock sun kissing a greasy top bun through the streaky window on my left, his right. I smile. “So what was that like?” He smiles back. We are always smiling. A picture of him too old for color proves it’s the same smile that I’ve stolen in his absence.

“Well, back in them days lots of boys worked a job with their pa. But you had to be what they call initiated, you know. That’s what’cha call it when you get to be one of the gang. So what they did back on the line in them days was chase ya down, pull off your drawers, and,” Grandpa’s eyes twinkle mischievously, “pour engine grease all over your bollocks.”

I laugh. “Why in the world would they grease your balls? Does it sting or something?”

“Nah, it don’t hurt none. But the grease’d git all over your drawers and undergarments and you could be mighty sure that when you got home Mama’d give you a whoopin’ like nothing you’d ever seen for bringing home extra wash. Now Pa was foreman in them days – he got me the job, see? – and his buddy, what you call the assistant foreman, there were two on that line, or was it three?, nah, it ain’t three it’s two, he calls me over and says ‘Now jus’ cuz you’re the boss’s boy don’t mean you can’t get initiated like the rest of ‘em.’ So I come home and ask my pa ‘bout what I should do to not get my bollocks greased.

So my pa sits me down and says, ‘Son, I’ll tell ya what. You show up like you always do tomorrow and if the old boys wanna grease your bollocks you walk straight up to them fellahs and drop your drawers with your chest out and nose high. And you see just what happens.’”

“That sounds like pretty bad advice.”

Grandpa chuckles. “Now I ain’t too keen on this neither, and all night I’m worrying about what I’m gonna do, tossin’ and turnin’ and just picturing the whoopin’ I’d get with Mama’s belt for coming home with my drawers all dirtied up with grease. Next morn’ I hurry my breakfast and get to work. Don’t even say bye to my ma or grab any lunch. And I’m working and working, setting down them big heavy rails one after one, working so hard so as I get to forgettin’ about that engine grease. Now come lunch time the assistant foreman – Laverne’s his name, or was it Larry?, no, no, it’s Laverne – now Laverne calls me over again. So I set on down the rail seeing all the gang takin’ their lunch and starting to stand from where they’re sitting. And they go to make a line behind me, laughin and telling jokes and following me so I get real nervous. When I get to Laverne, all the railmen are crowded ‘round me in a circle and the bossman says, ‘Boy, looks like it’s about time to start your runnin.’

Well now I look around and see all them men with me in the middle and there’s nothing runnin’s gonna do. So I walk right up with my chest out and nose high like my pa told me and I close my eyes and drop my drawers just like that. Now the gang’s all riled up and they’re a’hootin and a’hollerin, shouting to ‘get him, get the boss’s boy!’ and you know what Laverne says?”

“What?”

“He says, ‘Hell, he ain’t no fun if he ain’t gonna run.’ And they let me alone just like that!” He tosses his hands, amazed by his own punch line.

And now we’re laughing, Grandpa and I. Always laughing. I breathe deep, chest out, nose high, and hear the stories as they whistle through my grandfather’s dentures. Outside a faint rumble is building through the dead hills, from the dead rail. A train is speaking through graffiti, rust, and the dried-up bones of the dried-up bones.