We rattled half the night up and out of the valley of the Colorado, up into the highlands of western Arizona. We sat in the corner of the boxcar, forward out of the wind, on piles of moldy straw, jounced and jolted by the iron wheels, the hard boards, the shaking, swaying car. Nevertheless, I slept. Missed the moonlight on the mesas. Awoke as the train slowed down outside Kingman, pulling into the division. We decided to stay aboard, though it meant chancing capture by the yard bulls. The train stopped in the center of the yards, surrounded by floodlights, other trains, the cyclone fences. An express roared through in a blast of iron, whistle blaring away and off into the distance. We huddled in the darkest corner of our boxcar, waiting, and heard the brakemen pass swinging their lanterns and talking. Nobody looked in. Our train backed off the siding, detached or attached a few more cars, lurched forward onto the mainline. Again we were rolling eastward, climbing in wide arcs toward the summit of the Colorado Plateau, into the yellow pine forests of the high country. Though it was still August, the night became very cold; the old bum and I squeezed together for warmth.

At Flagstaff I got caught. Not by the railroad men, but by the city cops. We’d jumped off the train as it was pulling into the yard and taken a detour around the station, intending to catch another freight on the east side of town. Half frozen, we also needed something hot to eat and drink. While my buddy skulked in the shadows, I walked toward the center of town to find a café that might still be open. It must’ve been after midnight. The cops picked me up. I still had forty dollars in my left shoe, but I wasn’t going to tell them about it. They drove me to City Hall, booked me for vagrancy and threw me into the drunk tank for the rest of the night.

Cold steel, cold cement, a rabble of coughing, drunken, sick bums sprawled on the floor, curled up in the corners. The smell of vomit and urine, the fumes of sweet wine, the peculiar stale and bitter odor of old sweat-soaked rags. There were no benches, no bunks, no tables, nothing but this tank of steel and concrete and in the center of the ceiling, protected by mesh wire, one yellow light bulb.

Ah, one other thing, most weird and marvelous, like something out of a dream. Did I really see it? Perhaps it was a dream. As I write these words a quarter of a century later, I am no longer certain what was real, what was unreal.

There was a cage within the cage. Yes. And the bars of this inner cage were painted yellow. And inside the inner cage—alone—was one giant, gleaming, half-naked Negro, mad as the moon, who howled and bellowed and sang and jabbered all night long.