I know the sound of boxcars clanging together in the middle of the night. Two giant containers being forced into a coupling — till next destination do they part. Years later, in a world a million miles from that space in time, I heard the sound again, and it brought with it the smell of rust that grew out of the discarded crossbeams too long in the Bridgeworks yard.
And I remembered that night.
Toad was the night watchman — and he drank. We all knew that he would raise his giant bald head as a mysterious silhouette in the dirty panes of glass late at night, trying to scare the kids, until he got drunk and fell asleep. We weren’t scared. We were waiting for him to fall asleep.
There was eight of us. We’d been spawned and nurtured on Beecher Street — a row of shotgun doubles opposite the Bridgeworks. Three blocks of sparks flying from welders and hard metal lifted by giant cranes during the day — Toad and his drunken silhouette by night.
And the smell of rust.
And there was a tower from which the cranes centered themselves and swung their incredible loads from flat cars to metal stacks waiting to be welded into supports by the day crew. By night, after Toad had descended into his twilight stupor, we challenged the new kids — a rite of passage — our defintion of moxy for the Beecher Street Roughs. You had to climb the tower.
And it was Bobby’s turn.
Bobby was twelve years old. He was an introverted pensive kid not natural to the plains of Beecher where thoughts caused distress, and few words needed more than four letters. A land of early graves and pointless lives. And there was a moment, in their limited capacity, when his parents thought, he is not like us. Maybe he would be a ticket out of their mimimum-wage, cigarette-stained, beer-soaked world.
Bobby did not want to climb the tower. Bobby was my friend so I convinced him that if he did not he would be a target for slaps and shoves and fearful days for years to come.
It got late; the gentlemen’s agreement among thieves, we let the climber set the pace. Some kids couldn’t wait and went up like monkeys with flaming tails. Others circled the tower waiting for fear to become manageable or boil to a fever pitch that launched them up one rust-colored hand and sneaker grip at a time. I knew Bobby was praying for his mother’s yell to call him home. Eventually the word was said that sent him up the black tower: chicken.
“Don’t look down,” I told my little friend.
Into the shadows Bobby went, each movement deliberate and slow like watching a sloth peel a banana or snake shed its skin. Touch the crane, was the final instruction, along with comic encouragement from Butch and Ronnie who always yelled “jump!” as if they meant it.
But Bobby froze.
Panic gripped him in a vice of doubt. He was sure his next move would be his last. Falling was his only thought. And the thought grew. And grew. Until it was all he could do.
The laughter stopped when we saw him coming down. Two seconds? Three? And the sound of him hitting the ground. I’ll never get that out of my head.
Or the smell of rust.
sn wright writes in Indiana.
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15 Responses to “THE SMELL OF RUST • by sn wright”
Comments
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December 2nd, 2009 at 6:25 am
Riveting suspense.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 am
Overwritten, purple prose. I almost gave up on the first paragraph, “in a world a million miles from that space in time” just bothered me. It was a small story, a “kids-rite-of-passage-challenge” that we have seen before, but it was blown up with too many fancy words.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:25 am
P3: I think “pains of glass” should be “panes”. Unless this is some play on words.
This was okay. As Jim (#2) noted, a right-of-passage story that for me had a certain inevitability from the moment of Bobby’s introduction. What made it fresh for me was the writing, which I found engaging, though the sudden POV shift in the 3rd to last paragraph was jarring.
–John
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 am
The first paragraph almost lost me because I felt (somewhat like Jim mentioned) the prose was a bit overblown. But I got past it and was swept away starting with the second paragraph. A sad and inevitable story. Thank you for the excellent read!
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:19 am
I didn’t find the writing all that engaging, and the ending was too inevitable for me to be interested in the lead-up, I’m afraid.
As well as pains/panes, that J.C. pointed out, “til” in the first paragraph should be “till”, and “deffintion” in the sixth should be “definition”, I think.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
i didn’t really understand the world this was in or why the people in it were the way they were. Perhaps it’s jus me, sorry.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Our ‘tower’ was the tallest structure in town – the concrete exhaust tower at the sugar refinery. It was way up above the flat prairie. You took me back there. Thank you Steve. Fortunately there were no Bobby’s when we were young, just the dare of the right of passage.
The prose, for me, was right on and quite applicable. Just needed a spell checker.
5 Stars
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:18 am
Predictable but fun. As for the “overblown” prose – I felt the style of writing moved the story along more by shifting emotions (fear to suspense, suspense to horror) than by action or image. Worked for me.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
Thanks for the story, I liked the languade and the tone. Okay, so maybe it could be scaled back a small bit, and spell checked, but I enjoyed it.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Sorry about all the typos — as an editor I should have caught those. Fixed now.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
I liked its simplistic nature. Some of us have been there.
Others merely CRITICAL…5 * from me
I wonder what silver spoons some folks grew up with??
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I share Jim’s confusion at the third sentence – that’s a heck of a sentence, too artful by half. So artful, it’s nearly meaningless.
This was an affecting story, hampered by the writing. Too many one-sentence paragraphs: “And I remembered that night.” “And the smell of rust.” “And it was Bobby’s turn.” It can be an effective way of emphasizing a point or setting a mood, but used too often in a short piece, it’s just annoying.
Also, too much use of the hyphen for emphasis. Was there really a need to separate “Toad was the night watchman” from “and he drank” by anything other than the good old-fashioned comma? Over-use of the hyphen eventually trivializes the thoughts or ideas that you’re trying to highlight.
The POV change near the end didn’t bother me so much, until another poster pointed it out – now it does.
There’s some really nice writing in this piece, some great turns of phrase. A little more discipline, a little pruning, a “voice” more in keeping with the milieu, and this would have been a great piece.
(And, vondrakker, it’s not elitist to point out where and how a writer can improve. Get over yourself.)
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:23 pm
3.50 stars. Good story, but, pay attention to your editing. I had a “Bobby” in my life, but, her name was Jean Hucklebee.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Nice imagery here, but occasionally overwritten and somewhat choppy (trying too hard for style with the short sentences and fragments, overdid it). The sci-fi element is out-of-place and not needed.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:39 pm
The line “..in a world a million miles from that space in time…” had me expecting Sci-Fi. Just sayin’.