Wheelies

I was moving and had a van full of random furniture - an old table, a couple of chairs, whole sacks of clothes, that kind of thing. This particular move was across our new town, but I wasn't thoroughly versed in the layout of the town, so I got stuck by a train that was going right through the center of it. This train was quite long, but I didn't mind; I looked absentmindedly at the graffiti on the boxcars, trying to read it when I could, and checked my phone. The trains made a very loud noise of metal on tracks such that you couldn't hear anything else. It was like three in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and it was July; it was plenty hot.

A couple of kids were also caught by the train; they were on bicycles, and they were doing wheelies somewhat recklessly in front of.me, using that little flat part of the tracks that isn't technically road but is part of the railroad itself. I felt the arrogance of youth with every one as invariably the wheelie would be right in front of my car; mine was the front car. I felt like telling them it was dangerous, and it would be easy for them to get hurt, and hurt badly. A wheelie is when you go up on the back wheel of your bike and just ride on that wheel alone for a while. I wouldn't want to have a bike go the wrong way right into an oncoming train any time; I did a lot of reckless things in my youth, but that wasn't one of them.

Much as the boys were reckless, and purposely taunting me, I felt, practically daring me to yell out the window something about being careful, as I was in fact the adult on the scene, they were also taunting each other. One was slightly older, maybe fourteen, showed signs of a rough home life, and was especially vicious to his younger partner. He called the younger kid some name like "weasel face" although they were clearly friends riding together. He clearly felt he was better at wheelies since he was doing so many of them, so close to the train, and he was egging the friend on to do more in spite of the obvious risks.

The friend, about twelve with red hair and freckles, seemed like he had a slightly better disposition, but was clearly irritated by the older kid's ruthless taunting. He'd scrunch his face and try to do wheelies that were each slightly more risky than the previous one, although pleasing the older boy was clearly impossible. Somewhere, I thought, these kids have parents who wouldn't approve of this. Somewhere out in the neighborhoods behind me, they would be worrying about their boys out here doing wheelies by the train.

It was an unusually long train, coming from the east, and somewhere in the middle of it were four more engines and another train, all attached, so it was really two long trains, whether those engines were running or not. I watched as car after car, with colorful graffiti displaying urban art and free expression, passed by with deafening noise. The boys continued doing wheelies, mostly parallel to the train going either east or west, as cars piled up behind mine; those other drivers were witnesses, albeit indirect ones, of the wheelie show. On the east side of the road was a sign that said simply "Look," with an arrow pointing both ways beneath it; its message was clearly intended for the drivers.

The older boy, doing a wheelie going east, got to the sign, and leaned in to the far post of the sign, grabbing the sign with his right hand, and bringing his bike back around to go west again. It was really quite a trick, since you can't really steer a wheelie except with your own weight, but he did it, and then shouted, "Try that, weasel face!" at the younger kid. The younger kid, to my right, scrunched his face again, getting ready to try something daring.

But just then, the train ended; the last car crossed and headed off into the west, and it seemed like the loud noise would subside. The younger boy, now right in front of me and on both wheels, pivoted to cross the tracks as fast as he could, and started across. But just then, an eastbound train was arriving at the intersection, also going about thirty miles an hour, and hit him head on. We could hear the metal brakes on the eastbound train as the conductor tried to stop, but it would take him half a mile or more, and the damage was done; he'd killed the boy. That conductor would never live it down; neither would the older boy, probably. It was a mess. Ambulances were called and traffic was bottled up for another several hours while we drivers had to find another way around.

While I was unloading furniture I thought again of the parents of the red-headed boy, and whether they would ever hear the truth about how he came to be in such a hurry to cross the tracks. I felt guilty, of course, for not at least saying something to the kids to put them a little more on guard. Kids tend to think they'll live forever, and aren't any more likely to read a sign than to use it as part of their exhibition. I myself, though, will never see that sign the same way again.