(No warnings -- you know why you're here. Why you're here really doesn't begin until the end of Part One, but I hope you'll read the beginning too, so you can be introduced to the setting and the characters.

I am not a big fan of now, so my fantasies generally take place either then or when. Any relationship to reality is purely coincidental.

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Boxcar Boys

Part One

Yes, times was hard. I borrowed every nickel I could from everybody I knew who might part with one, but those suckers was plumb out of luck so far as getting paid back, at least for the duration of the Great Depression. There was no work to be had. None.

Me, I'd earned my living making old tractors keep running for small farmers, and sometimes fixing a truck for the rare customer who couldn't do it for himself -- but pretty soon there was no small farmers, and all the old tractors was scrap, and I was out of luck and money. Some folks was headed out for California, where they said there was still some stoop labor to be had. I didn't want to be no field hand, but I figured if they had farms they likely had tractors and other machinery, and maybe I could find work.

Having no money for a ticket, I figured I would have to do like a lot of other men were doing, and jump a freight. A big problem I had, though, was I was not too clear on how that was done. Just the same, I headed down to the freight yard one afternoon, thinking I might be lucky enough to find some hobo willing to let me tag along. And that's how I met Wayne and Billy.

I was eyeing an open boxcar on the westbound track, and was all ready to sprint across and dive in, when somebody grabbed me by the back of my overalls. "Not now, dumbass," he whispered, "the bulls ain't been through yet."

I looked back behind me and saw a young boy, with an even younger boy behind him. They looked awful young to be hobos, but I figured anybody'd know better than me, so I hung back. Sure enough, along come some kind of thick looking guys, with guns and clubs and nasty looks on their faces, checking out the cars. If I'd been in that car I'd been aiming at, they'd of had me for sure.

When that freight train started moving, the boys took off after that open boxcar. It took me a second or two to figure out what was happening, but I followed along fast enough, and managed to throw myself through the boxcar door before the train picked up too much speed.

I caught my breath, and said, "Thanks. Those guys didn't look too friendly."

"They ain't," said the littler one. "They'd of beat the shit out of you, and maybe kilt you if they was in the mood."

"Then thanks a bunch more," I answered. "I'm Harlan. Trying to get to California. They say there's some work out there."

They looked me over. Then the older boy said, "I'm Wayne, and he's Billy. We don't know where the hell we're going, but it ain't been too good where we been, so it don't hurt to try someplace new."

I asked if they was brothers. They wasn't. Wayne told me he was sixteen, but I couldn't believe he was a day over twelve, with not even a drop of peach fuzz on his lip. Billy said he was thirteen, but I figured he was maybe ten, at a stretch. "Well, don't worry, boys," I told them, "I won't hurt you, and I thank you sincerely for helping me out. I never jumped a freight before."

"You looked like a greenhorn," Billy said in a voice that sounded like it wouldn't change for years. "We better get some sleep."

The boxcar was cold as all hell, and the door was jammed so we couldn't get it closed, even with my roll of tools that I was counting on to make me some money when I hit the west coast. I guessed that was why the door was open in the first place. The boys had a couple of threadbare blankets, and found a pile of old burlap sacks and crawled in amongst them. My blanket was better than theirs. "Mind if I toss my blanket on top and get in there with you?" I asked.

"Why not?" answered Wayne. "Heat is heat, and you're a bigger heater than either of us is."

So I crawled in amongst the sacks and blankets, and the boys curled up around me, and all of us was warmer than we would have been alone.

..........

Wayne shook me awake. "We gotta get off pretty soon. Train's slowing down. Must be almost to Amarillo, and them bulls there are real mean sons of bitches.

I rubbed my eyes and looked up. Billy was at the open door, pissing out into the wind. I figured I could use a good piss myself, but I figured if we was getting off anyways, I could just piss off in a corner, away from the wind. So that's what I did.

"Not so nice for the next guys to ride this car," Wayne told me, "but what the hell. I guess it'll air out. There's a pretty tight curve in the track coming up, so they slow down a lot. Good place to jump off."

"I guess you been here before," I said.

"Been all over the Southwest. It all stinks. If you're going to California, maybe me and Billy can tag along."

"With me?" I asked.

"It ain't easy being kids on the road by ourselves. You seem okay, and if we're with you, guys are less likely to mess with us. Whaddaya say?"

I said okay.

..........

Wayne was right about the bulls at Amarillo, and we got run off before we even got near a freight train. Billy could run real fast for a little guy, and hearing the gunfire made me and Wayne run extra fast too. A while later, we was walking down this empty road through all that flat nothing. I shifted my duffel bag from one shoulder to the next, and took a good look at the boys.

Like I said, they was a lot younger than they told me. Both of them had fuzzy blond hair that looked like maybe their heads been shaved a month or so before. Billy had an Irish look about him, but Wayne looked more German or Dutch. Cleaned up real good, both of them would have been real good looking kids.

Me, I have kind of a weakness for good looking kids, but I never done much about it back home. Everybody knew everything that happened in that little town, so I just fixed the tractors and stayed out of trouble and found excuses not to walk out with the girls who set their sights on me. People said I was shy. Maybe I was, but not like they thought.

Them boys, though, was on their own, and we was out in the middle of nowhere. Just the same, Wayne had told me I seemed okay, and I really wanted to kind of be okay to them. Squeezing all together in the boxcar, under those burlap sacks and blankets, felt real nice. I wanted to do that again. Maybe every night for a while. I didn't want to mess that up.

And that's what I was thinking when I saw the car by the side of the road, off in the distance through a bunch of dust devils. We kept walking, and in a couple of minutes we came up on it. The left rear tire was flat, and there was a very stylish gent sitting inside, thumping his fist on the steering wheel. He didn't even notice us until I said, "Hey, mister, got a flat?"

He looked at me and said, "Yes, I noticed that. But I'm not really dressed for changing a tire."

"Well, if I changed it," I grinned at him, "you wouldn't have to mess up them nice clothes you're wearing. Where's your jack?"

So I took off the flat and put on the spare, and said, "Now maybe you could give us a ride to the next town."

Well, he looked at us, all covered with dust and dirt, and decided that wasn't a good idea. Instead, he pulled out his billfold and handed me a bill. Then he just drove away. Me and the boys looked down at the bill in my hand.

"Holy cow," Billy gasped, "it's a fiver! He gave you five bucks!"

It was more money than I'd had at one time in months. All I had left in my pocket was one nickel and one dime, and the boys had no money at all. That morning, we'd eaten some day-old bread I'd bought for a penny in Amarillo, and a couple of apples Billy stole off a fruit stand. Five bucks was a fortune.

..........

An hour later, we got to a town so small it didn't even have a sign to say what it was called. It had a little eatery, though, where I paid forty-five cents for three blue-plate specials, and left the lady a nickel for a tip. Another four bits got us the littlest room in a rooming house and enough hot water into the bathroom to get most of the dust off. Nobody was in the hallway, so we snuck back to our room naked, so as not to have to put our dirty clothes back on "til morning.

There was just the one bed, and it was made up for one person, but the boys were small. We all got in, still naked, and they cuddled around me like they did in the boxcar the night before. It felt real good. It felt so good, I got very hard, but I hoped they wouldn't notice. Naturally, I had to put my arms around them so they wouldn't accidentally roll out of bed -- and just as naturally, my hands landed on their sweet little bottoms.

I pulled them in very close, and squeezed those little bottoms until we was all in a wonderful hug, and they hugged me right back. I really, really felt like kissing them, but I was thinking they would think it was too weird, so I just closed my eyes and lay there all wrapped in smooth, soft boys, thinking how lucky I was to have found them.

It was about then that I noticed how Wayne's little willy, pressed up against my leg, was every bit as hard as my own. "Well," I thought to myself, "boys his age get stiffies all the time. Don't mean nothing special."

It had been some hard traveling the past couple of days, and it wasn't hard falling asleep -- it would have been a lot harder to stay awake. And when I woke up the next morning, both boys were licking my peter like a Popsicle. I pretended to be asleep a while longer, wondering how to handle the situation, when one of them took me into his mouth and pretty much swallowed me.

Okay, I'm no giant, but I'm kind of normal sized, and I figured it had to be a trick he'd done before. I squeezed open my eyes a little to see which one done it, and I was surprised to find out it was little Billy. Wayne was busy licking my balls.

Well, what can I tell you? I shot my load. Big time.

..........

The landlady gave us half a dozen hard-boiled eggs before we left, because she said the boys looked a little too skinny. She also gave us some boy clothes from her own son, who was all grown up and moved away. "You make sure you get those boys plenty to eat," she told me. Little did she know what Billy'd been eating.

We caught a ride for a while on the tailgate of a truckload of chicken crates, and got let off near another big bend in the railroad tracks, where the train had to slow down enough so we could jump on, if we was careful. While we was sitting, hidden in the tall grass where none of the railroad men would see us, I said, "You didn't have to do that, you know. I mean, this morning."

"Well, you liked it, didn't you?" asked Billy.

I guess I must have blushed a little. Or maybe a lot.

"Well, we like you," Wayne put in. "And it's no big deal if you're letting us travel with you. Sure beats getting raped by some of those crazy bastards in the hobo jungles."

"You still don't have to," I said, feeling kind of like crying, which was even more embarrassing. "I'll still take care of you, best I can, long as you tag along."

Wayne scooched up next to me and kissed me a couple of times on my cheek, and Billy followed just a few seconds later. Before you know it, Billy and Wayne and me are kissing like your usual stupid young'uns, and we're all crying, and I'm feeling up their sweet little asses, and their tongues are in my mouth.

Sometimes, being good works out for you. You just have to convince yourself it's good.

(More to come from heedon@tormail.org )