Next I counted the flyers again, all five were there, I slid all of them back, except for the blue one. I held it up so it could catch some of the light from the big fire. I kept looking at the picture and wondering why this one bothered Momma so much. The more I thought about it the more I knew this man just had to be my father. Why else would Momma keep these?
I used a little trick to help me fall off to sleep. I pulled my blanket right up over my head and breathed in the smell real deep. After doing this three times the smells of the shack and Hooverville were gone and only the smell of the blanket was in my nose. And that smell always reminded me of Momma and how she used to read me to sleep every night.
I took two more breaths and pretended I was hearing Momma reading to me about the Billy Goats Gruff or the Fox and the Grapes or the Dog That Saw His Reflection in the Water or some other story she'd checked out of the library. I could hear Momma's voice getting farther and farther away as I imagined I was in the story until finally her voice and the story all mixed into one.
I'd learned that it was best to be asleep before Momma finished the story because if she got done and I was still awake she'd always tell me what the story was about. I never told Momma, but that always mint the fun of the story. Shucks, here I was thinking I was just hearing something funny about a fox or a dog and Momma spoilt it by telling me they were really lessons about not being greedy or not wishing for things you couldn't have.
I took two more breaths and started thinking about the little hen that baked the bread. I heard, "Not I," said the pig. "Not I" said the goat. "Not I" said the big bad wolf" then ... woop, zoop, sloop... I was asleep.
I started dreaming about the man with the giant fiddle. He was walking away and I kept calling him but he couldn't look back. Then the dream got a lot better, I turned away from where Herman E. Calloway was and there stood Deza Malone.
I told her, "I really like your dimple." She laughed and said, "See you in seven years." A MAN SCREAMED, "Get UP, they're trying to sneak it out early!" I jumped straight up and banged my head on the top of the shack. I ran outside. It was still dark and the fire was just a pile of glowing sticks. The man was screaming at the top of his lungs. "Get up! They've fired the engine and are fixing to take off!"
Bugs and the other boys came and stood next to me. Bugs said, "Is it a raid?" Someone said, "No, they're trying to sneak out before we get up!"
People started running all over Hooverville. Bugs said "Come on, Jojon, get your stuff, we got to get on that train!"
I folded my blanket up and put it in my suitcase and tied the twine back. I put my jackknife in my pocket and Bugs and I ran outside. I hadn't got six giant steps away when a boy stuck his head out the door and yelled, "Hey, Slim, is this your paper?"
I looked back. My blue flyer! I forgot to put it back in the suitcase! Bugs said, "Hurry, I'll wait."
"I'll catch you, go ahead."
I ran back and took my flyer from the boy. "Thanks a lot!" I ran back out into the crowd that was tearing through the woods. There were a million men and boys running in the same direction.
I didn't want to fold the flyer up so as I was running I slid it between the twine and the suitcase, I'd put it back inside once we got on the train. No one was talking. All you could hear were the sounds of a million feet smacking on the trail and the sound of a million people trying to catch their breath. Finally a hiss sound started getting louder and louder and I knew we weren't too far away.
We broke out of the woods and there in the dark sat the train. The locomotive was hissing and spitting coal-black smoke into the sky, every once in a while a big shower of sparks would glow up from inside the dark cloud, making it look like a gigantic black genie was trying to raise up out of the smokestack. The train went as far back as you could see, there must've been a thousand boxcars, but everyone had stopped and was just standing there watching. No one was trying to get on.
I pushed my way to the front to see if I could find Bugs and I saw why everyone had stopped. There were four cop cars and eight cops standing between the crowd and the train. The cops all had billy clubs and were spread out to protect the train.
The crowd kept getting bigger and bigger.
One of the cops yelled, "You men know you can't get on this train, just go on back to Shantytown and there won't be no trouble."
A white man said, "This is the only train going west for the next month, you know we got families to feed and have got to be on it. You go get back in your cars and you'll be right, there won't be no trouble."
The cop said, "I'm warning you, the Flint police are on the way, this here is private property and they have orders to shoot anyone who tries to get on this train."
A man next to me said, "I'd rather be shot than sit around and watch my kids go hungry."
The cop said, "This is America, boys, you're sounding like a bunch of Commies, you know I can't let you on this train. I got kids to feed too, and I'd lose my job."
Someone yelled, "Well, welcome to the club, brother." It seemed like we stood looking at the cops and them looking at us for a whole hour. Our side was getting bigger and bigger and the other cops started looking nervous. The one who was doing all the talking saw them fidgeting and said, "Hold steady, men."
One of the cops said, "Jake, there's four hundred men out there and more coming, I don't like these odds. Mr. Pinkerton ain't paying me enough to do this." He threw his cop hat and his billy club on the ground.