But the trains came often. The day-and-night bump-and-rattle of trains was a given. The tracks also provided footpaths to the west end of town. One Friday night at about eight o’clock, Pug and Cousin Eustace were waiting for the dinner crew to disperse and for Vera to get off from the plant, where she worked as a bookkeeper. I was helping box up some groceries for a young Polish girl and her mother who lived on the far south end. The girl was a skinny blond with buckteeth, and, like others in this account, she was said to be a bit feebleminded. It seems that Boy Cleatus and a couple of his friends had taken advantage of her. My grandmother’s term for it was “molested.” I wasn’t at all sure what that meant. I did know that the girl, whose name was Lois, was very poor, but by all accounts her mother was honest and hardworking. Lois didn’t make eye contact much, but the more I looked at her, the more I was certain that I was in love with her. My grandmother was giving them food, which meant staples like bread, potatoes, and dried fish. I swiped a couple of Chunky bars, a Three Musketeers, and a Snickers, and put them in the box under a bunch of bananas when Vera came running up the front porch screaming, “Jack Buffmeir is out on the train tracks, and the train is coming!”

“Well, hell, didn’t you pull him off?” Pug asked.

“I tried that and he slugged me,” Vera said. “He just yelled, ‘Fuck all and leave me alone!’ Then he set that dog on me and I ran here.”