Hobo — Tough

"How do you do it?" the kid asked. "How do you stay out here?"

"You’re leaking heat, kid," Artie rasped. His voice sounded like gravel in a blender. hobo tough

As the train crested the mountain pass, a "bull"—a private rail security guard—shined a high-powered spotlight into the car during a slow-down. The kid panicked, looking to jump. "How do you do it

It was mid-November in the High Desert. The temperature had plummeted forty degrees in three hours, turning the air into a razor. Artie was hunkered down in an empty grainer car, the kind with the "suicide" porch—a narrow metal ledge that offered no protection from the wind. As the train crested the mountain pass, a

Artie didn't argue. He just moved. He didn't have a heater or a thermal blanket. He had a stack of old Sunday Gazettes he’d scavenged in the last yard.