“Right around where we hopped this train—Johnson City, Tennessee. Mother’s a drunk. Father drinks, but he’s more into the abuse that delivers his point when you do something wrong. Big on the old fist upside the head or a heated kitchen utensil to teach a lesson.” Anne pulls up the sleeve of her sweatshirt and shows off some of her father’s fork-and-stovetop handiwork.

“Branded you good,” Cinnamon says, shaking her head. “That’s cruel. Real battle scar. How about you, thin man? How’s your parents?”

“Not abusive,” Trot says, puckering his lips, “They just never accepted my interest in the same sex. Couldn’t get that their young man liked other young men, like being queer was a choice. They saw it more as a terroristic threat to their cozy little lives. Tried sending me to counseling. Private schools. Public schools. Christian Summer Camps. Group therapy. You name a supposed cure for being gay, they tried it on me. It was easier than just accepting what I was.”

“That sucks five kinds of ways,” Cinnamon says as she sits down. A big brown North Face pack cushions her back from the grainer wall.

Everyone’s bones are rattled from the train travel, but the tension begins to ease with the passing of words, and the sense that no one here poses a threat to anyone else.

“How much you know about freight hopping?” Cinnamon asks Anne.

“Only what Trot’s told me, which ain’t much.”

Cinnamon says, “This train here is run by Norfolk Southern. They run the tracks through half the Midwest, North, South, and East. Then it switches over to Union Pacific—they go west and north and south. They’s certain cars you want and some you don’t when you’re catching out or, uh, hopping freight.”

“Grainers are best, least in my experience,” Trot says. “It’s what we looked for back in Texas. Or boxcars.”

“Grainers with the double barrel like this one are a sweet ride. Boxcars are good. Gotta be careful, you hop one. Sometimes, they carry vehicles inside, could crush your ass. Also, the doors—good idea to jamb the track with a railroad spike, cause that son of a bitch shuts on you, you’re trapped till someone in the yard opens it a day or a month later. If you’re still alive, you’re caught.”

Trot doesn’t say anything, lets Cinnamon have the stage. Then he says, “I hear they’ll beat you silly and then call a bull, and he beats your ass too.”