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Speaker 1: Just a heads up. The following episode deals with death, addiction,

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Speaker 1: and mental health. Take care while listening, and if you're

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Speaker 1: a new listener, this is our tenth episode, you probably

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Speaker 1: want to start with episode one. Oh, Danielle, daniel Zelle,

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Speaker 1: you and I have been leading rather parallel lies. Actually,

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Speaker 1: I live in San Francisco. I lost a kid to

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Speaker 1: the Rails, meaning he wrote them for almost a decade.

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Speaker 1: He comes from an impact family, and dad and I

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Speaker 1: have been together forever. Ec writer talking out to try

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Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing. We just had, sadly a very

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Speaker 1: different ending. Anyway, if you'd like to hear my story,

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Speaker 1: give me a call, Take good care, Bye bye. I

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Speaker 1: didn't think it was possible there was someone living a

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Speaker 1: life parallel to mine, but there was, and she was

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Speaker 1: listening to City of the Rails. Our specifics were different,

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Speaker 1: but I was telling her story and I was in

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Speaker 1: her neighborhood. Nanat Krupa lives in my hometown, San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and her son, Rooster rode for ten years until the

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Speaker 1: trains took him in December twenty twenty. I called Nanette

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Speaker 1: as soon as I heard her message. It was like

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Speaker 1: a lifeline to me. Wrapping up this show trying to

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Speaker 1: tell the story of a family that got bound up

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Speaker 1: with the rails. I'd answered my questions about who, where,

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Speaker 1: and why, But as I was bringing this to a close,

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Speaker 1: I started interrogating my role in all of this. I'd

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Speaker 1: met enough writers to know the kind of teen who

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Speaker 1: ended up on the rails, but was there a type

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Speaker 1: of mom who drove them to leave. I'd talked to

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Speaker 1: a lot of parents over the years, but back then

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Speaker 1: I'd been asking different questions. So four days after her

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Speaker 1: fun message, I was on my way to meet Nanette.

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Speaker 1: I wanted her to help me figure out if I'd

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Speaker 1: done something that pushed Ruby out onto the rails, because

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Speaker 1: if that was possible, if there was something I'd done,

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Speaker 1: I knew what it had to be. I'm de El Morton,

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Speaker 1: and this is City of the Rails. I relate to

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Speaker 1: everything you're talking about. It's so interesting that you've embraced

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Speaker 1: feeling everything that they're going through in a way that's

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Speaker 1: open and honest, and I tried to do that too.

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Speaker 1: Nana lives in the Foggy is part of San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: the Avenues, not far from where I went to high school.

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Speaker 1: I found her in a modest gray house with a

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Speaker 1: big front porch, and it was protected by her son,

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Speaker 1: Rooster's dog, Nikita Krushcheff, a sleek black hunting dog who

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Speaker 1: used to ride trains with Rooster. And when I settled

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Speaker 1: in on Nanette's couch, Nikita would not leave me alone.

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Speaker 1: She was right at my side, her big eyes looking

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Speaker 1: up at me from my lap and talking over Nanette

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Speaker 1: as she shouted from the kitchen, Yeah you want CAFCA

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Speaker 1: decaf would be gag because it's a fast name. I

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Speaker 1: was instantly at ease here in this confy living room,

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Speaker 1: Nanette in her favorite chair. A lot had happened in

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Speaker 1: these rooms before Rooster left, and I felt his absence.

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Speaker 1: Nanette and her husband Bob had raised Maxwell, Rooster's given name,

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Speaker 1: and his younger sister Alex, in this home. While we spoke,

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Speaker 1: Nanette kept pointing to Rooster's old bedroom just off the

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Speaker 1: living room, and it was clear Nikita knew what was

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Speaker 1: going on. There aren't too many of us train moms,

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Speaker 1: but when we get together, we get right to the point.

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Speaker 1: So like the Ride or Die Hobo cruise that hopped

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Speaker 1: trains as a pack for the engineer and the conductor

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Speaker 1: duos chugging through the deserts at night. Nanette and I

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Speaker 1: were about to become a family, at least for this afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Nanette said that Rooster was fascinated by trains long before

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Speaker 1: he read them. He just loved everything about them, goodness, graces.

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Speaker 1: She's so chatty today, Bob, and she just won't leave

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Speaker 1: to all alone. That's my girlfriend. She knows we're talking

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Speaker 1: about him. So did you do what I did? Did

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Speaker 1: you start looking into what the world of the trains was? No?

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Speaker 1: I did not. If it had been my daughter, possibly,

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Speaker 1: I was almost like knowing less is better. I didn't

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Speaker 1: want all the details. I knew that when he'd come home,

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Speaker 1: he'd tell me everything. Wow, that'd be a change of

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Speaker 1: pace for me and Ruby. But it was different from Nanette.

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Speaker 1: When Rooster came home for Christmas, he was a homebody.

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Speaker 1: I meetriad fresh sheets. I made him his favorite food,

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Speaker 1: which were my buffalo wings and Greek salad. And you know,

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Speaker 1: he would sneak off to seven to eleven and get

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Speaker 1: a forty and we would watch Last Week Tonight with

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Speaker 1: John Oliver, like all of them, all of Silicon Valley,

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Speaker 1: all the TV. We had so much fun. Rooster also

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Speaker 1: fit the profile I'd been developing of the dirty kid

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Speaker 1: who came from a middle class home. He was smart, sensitive,

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Speaker 1: and likely had a learning disability, and all the energy

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Speaker 1: around those qualities goes haywire when these kids hit the

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Speaker 1: teenage years. That exquisite sensitivity, usually artistic, too, makes the

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Speaker 1: crush of high school social life excruciating, and the learning

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Speaker 1: disability is isolating. A lot of them start life sociable,

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Speaker 1: but in high school kids like us or become loners

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Speaker 1: as they withdraw from the world. Frantic parents send them

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Speaker 1: to psychiatrists, get them on drugs like prozac and anti

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Speaker 1: anxiety medication. That's how it was with Rooster too. He

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Speaker 1: was an odd combination of stir up the ship and anxiety.

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Speaker 1: He was nerd, virgin adhd, fun, fun fun. That kid

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Speaker 1: was so active in such a blast, But Rooster was

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Speaker 1: extremely anxious. But he was fearful of change and things

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Speaker 1: he didn't know. It took a really long time to

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Speaker 1: get him to ride a bike. It took a really

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Speaker 1: long time to get him to swim. I wouldn't say

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Speaker 1: he was popular with his peers. He liked to push

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Speaker 1: people until he kissed them off. There was something entertaining

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Speaker 1: for him about doing that, and that's why he had

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Speaker 1: issues with his peers. And Rooster was a sleepwalker. The

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Speaker 1: door to his bedroom opens into the living room, then

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Speaker 1: that is a night owl watches TV late. Starting when

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Speaker 1: he was a little boy, several times a week, Rooster

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Speaker 1: would get out of bed, walk into the living room

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Speaker 1: and just stand there. But he had a lot of

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Speaker 1: problems turning off the brain at night, and when he

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Speaker 1: drank a certain amount, then the sleepwalking kicked in. Rooster's

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Speaker 1: teenage years were lonely, so Nanette was happy when a

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Speaker 1: new kid slightly older moved into the neighborhood. But then

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Speaker 1: he and Rooster started drinking together and Rooster escalated to

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Speaker 1: hard drugs. His senior year, he was less and less

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Speaker 1: interested in school. Rooster dropped out a few months before

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Speaker 1: graduation and got his ged. We were in therapy, We

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Speaker 1: were in family therapy. He was in outpatient rehab. He

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Speaker 1: spent two months at inpatient rehab. We went through the

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Speaker 1: whole thing, Nanette pointed to the door to Rooster's room.

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Speaker 1: Crack cocaine in your house. No, No, He would use

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Speaker 1: in the tender and then come home and be in

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Speaker 1: their sleeping for thirty six hours. I knew the exact feeling,

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Speaker 1: having a troubled team living in close quarters, seeing the

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Speaker 1: closed bedroom door right there, wondering if you dare open

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Speaker 1: it or when to bar gin ready for a confrontation.

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Speaker 1: That's where it feels like a rebuke of you as

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Speaker 1: a parent, of what you've been trying to offer. As

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Speaker 1: Rooster's addiction got worse, and then that and kicked him

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Speaker 1: out of the house. This was a turning point for them.

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Speaker 1: And as my mother said, he will be attracted to

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Speaker 1: the lowest common denominator because they will accept him wholeheartedly.

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Speaker 1: And finally I said, look, you have to stick to

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Speaker 1: the rules. You have to go to work every day,

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Speaker 1: you have to take care of yourself, and you can't

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Speaker 1: use I don't even care if you smoke pot. I

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Speaker 1: don't even care if you drink a few beers, but

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Speaker 1: you may not do drugs and stay here. That's the rules.

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Speaker 1: And we had a first incident, a second incident, a

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Speaker 1: third by incident. Ten I said okay, this is it,

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Speaker 1: and I threw him out. So it was really tough.

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Speaker 1: And as you can tell, we're in a thousand square

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Speaker 1: feet and you know it took a real toll in

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Speaker 1: all the other family members. It was really hard to

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Speaker 1: live with, and then it tortured herself over this decision,

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Speaker 1: fearing she was sending Rooster out to his death on

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Speaker 1: the streets of San Francisco. But Rooster didn't like the

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Speaker 1: tenderline either. After living on the streets for a while,

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Speaker 1: he found his way to Santa Cruz, where he met

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Speaker 1: a lot of train hoppers and it wasn't long before

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Speaker 1: he was on the rails. Calls me and says, guess what,

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Speaker 1: I'm on a freight train. I said, you're kidding me.

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Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I'm loving it. I'm having the time

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Speaker 1: of my life. I'm like, are you using No, because

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Speaker 1: you can't be high on a train, you will die.

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Speaker 1: I'd heard this all the time, that writers with anxiety

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Speaker 1: disorders discovered an eerie calm, a heightened focus when they

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Speaker 1: were hopping trains. The situation they'd thrown themselves into was

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Speaker 1: so dangerous and demanding, their anxiety for a while seemed

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Speaker 1: to disappear. I knew his anxiety would keep him safe.

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Speaker 1: I knew because of his anxiety that he was going

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Speaker 1: to know every single thing that he had to know.

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Speaker 1: To be safe on these strains. When kids leave middle

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Speaker 1: class homes for the rails, one of the first things

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Speaker 1: they do is throw away the prozac anti anxiety medication, lexapro,

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Speaker 1: and whatever mood stabilizers their child psychiatrists put them on,

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Speaker 1: even if it strugs for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The

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Speaker 1: new travelers want to feel at all and not be

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Speaker 1: lulled into complacency by pharmaceuticals, so instead they self medicate

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Speaker 1: with alcohol and drugs, sometimes heroin. They want to feel

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Speaker 1: it all on their own terms, even if it might

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Speaker 1: kill them. And when Annette told me we'd led parallel lives,

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Speaker 1: she wasn't kidding. Rooster became such an experienced hobo he

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Speaker 1: learned about how CEC Writer offered travelers a place to

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Speaker 1: stay and have her Montana. He ended up staying with

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Speaker 1: CEC three or four times a year. They developed a

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Speaker 1: strong friendship. I called Ceci to ask her about Rooster.

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Speaker 1: He always makes an excellent impression on me because he's

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Speaker 1: just was a genuine dude man, I mean genuine as

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Speaker 1: genuine can beat. And as it turns out, CEC Writer

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Speaker 1: taught Rooster had a drive, and Ceci told me he

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Speaker 1: had no choice. It was to save her from a dui.

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Speaker 1: As they left a bar near Cecy's house, she threw

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Speaker 1: Rooster the keys to her car. Well, we went to

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Speaker 1: the bar and I got messed up, and I said, sorry, bro,

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Speaker 1: but you gotta drive. He says, I don't know how

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Speaker 1: to drive. He said, you're gonna learn. He was kind

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Speaker 1: of wobbly in the beginning. What the bar is only

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Speaker 1: across the tracks on the north side, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: like a mile and a half away, so he didn't

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Speaker 1: have to go far. But Ceci went to know something

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Speaker 1: from me. How Nikita the dog was going, Oh funny,

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Speaker 1: she was telling you stories. I knew she was from

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Speaker 1: the intense way Nikita looked at me when she was howling.

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Speaker 1: I wondered what those stories would be. As Nikita was

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Speaker 1: not your typical road dog. Now everybody says she hated

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Speaker 1: train hopping. Well, when I taking the cats out, should

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Speaker 1: get all giddy and sit and start shaking real bad, like,

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Speaker 1: oh no, not again. Yeah, she didn't even like driving

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Speaker 1: in my car. Nikita hated train hopping so much Rooster

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Speaker 1: had to stop traveling with her, which is how the

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Speaker 1: dog ended up with Nanette and Bob while Rooster kept writing.

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Speaker 1: Nanette had simple rules for Rooster when he was on

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Speaker 1: the rails. You had to come home for Christmas, and

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Speaker 1: if I called you, you had to return the call

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Speaker 1: or text me why you couldn't return the call or so.

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Speaker 1: Christmas twenty twenty, Rooster was on his way home from

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Speaker 1: Yuma when Nnette told him he had to find a

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Speaker 1: way to quarantine for ten days. She just had COVID

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Speaker 1: pretty bad. So Rooster hung around in Yuma and hoped

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Speaker 1: to train out of Tucson. Max decided to take the

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Speaker 1: Coastline back up to Roseville and then the Amtrak from Roosevelt.

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Speaker 1: He'd have enough time that he could come back and

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Speaker 1: see us because he really really missed Nikita and he

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Speaker 1: missed us. Nanette and Bob expected him home by New

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Speaker 1: Year's but late one night after Christmas, Bob woke up

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Speaker 1: to a firm knock at the door. Bob went and

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Speaker 1: looked out and he goes, it's the police, And I went,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, it's probably Max. And I'm calling his

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Speaker 1: cell phone. I leave Max a message, what are you

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Speaker 1: doing now? What's going on now? Geez? And I hang

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Speaker 1: up and they just told me we found him dead

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Speaker 1: on the on the side of the railroad track. That

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Speaker 1: was it. And Bob comes in and he said Max

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Speaker 1: is dead. And I screamed for about three minutes, just screamed.

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Speaker 1: It was the most awful feeling in the world. And

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Speaker 1: Bob and I were just we just hugged. Nat believes

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Speaker 1: Rooster was sleepwalking when he got it from his sleeping

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Speaker 1: bag and walked off the side of the box car.

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Speaker 1: And he was never suicidal. He never had a death

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Speaker 1: wish ever. He loved life. Then Nat and her sister

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Speaker 1: went to human to collect the body and to speak

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Speaker 1: to the sheriff. So the train was going very very fast,

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Speaker 1: sixty five to seventy miles an hour, and he said,

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Speaker 1: walking off of that he felt no pain. And they

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Speaker 1: went to see where Rooster spent that last Christmas and

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Speaker 1: meet his friends. They were so sweet, they were so kind,

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Speaker 1: and they said, do you want to see the hop out?

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Speaker 1: Do you want to see where he lived? Yes? So

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Speaker 1: I went and met them. I gave them fifty dollars.

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Speaker 1: They didn't want to take it. I said, you'll take it.

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Speaker 1: They gave me two bottles he had decorated at Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and that brought out the bottles for me to see.

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Speaker 1: This was there a little great gift to us. She

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Speaker 1: showed me two tequila bottles hand painted with blue cymbals

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Speaker 1: and Christmas greetings. It was a quiet moment in a

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Speaker 1: room that had been filled with conversation for more than

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Speaker 1: two hours, And this was my moment to ask, did

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Speaker 1: Nanette pour over the past? Asking herself if there was

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Speaker 1: anything else she could have done? I tried everything I

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Speaker 1: possibly could think of, so I didn't think I did

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Speaker 1: something wrong. I didn't do enough, And what else could

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Speaker 1: I have done? Like Nanette? I've asked myself that. But

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Speaker 1: today Nanette has peace because she has nights when she

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Speaker 1: feels she can still speak to her son and he

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Speaker 1: soothes her. So people ask me all the time, how

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Speaker 1: do you live with us? First of all, I'm really

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Speaker 1: really lucky because I can kind of break through the

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Speaker 1: veil a little bit. I've seen evidence of souls after

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Speaker 1: they've left bodies and before they've come into them. And

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting right there about five hours later, and I'm crying,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, Max, what were you thinking? In my head?

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Speaker 1: Instantly the voice comes through, Are you kidding? It was epic.

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Speaker 1: It was fantastic. It was a perfect way to die.

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Speaker 1: Nanett's feeling of connection through the veil gave her a

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Speaker 1: sense of mystical peace. I'm not someone who pierces the veil.

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Speaker 1: I don't even believe it exists, but sometimes I wish

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Speaker 1: I did. I recognize what I comfort it would be

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Speaker 1: to connect to the people who are gone, and that

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Speaker 1: last sentence stayed with me long after I left Nanette.

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Speaker 1: It was a perfect way to die. Living with so

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Speaker 1: much risk gives hobo's an acute sense of life and death.

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Speaker 1: We all know our lives could end in any minute,

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Speaker 1: but hobos see that daily, and for them, it's all

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Speaker 1: part of the ride. You can hear it in the

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Speaker 1: chorus of Profane Sass, a song about the Squat Fire

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Speaker 1: twelve to twenty eight. It is deep with sadness, but

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Speaker 1: it's also a fond send off. You were loved, you

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Speaker 1: are missed, but you are a rare person who lived

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Speaker 1: as they chose and raised their middle finger to the consequences. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but you shouldn't cry. No tears, No tears tears their waterfall.

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Speaker 1: Say something funny about that person and play their favorite song.

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Speaker 1: Rry own, carry on something in their name. I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about this as I made my way home from Nanette,

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Speaker 1: Bob and Nikita. I wanted to make sense of my

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00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:44,080
Speaker 1: own maternal response, and I got what I came for.

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Speaker 1: With Nanette. I realized there was no maternal playbook for

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Speaker 1: a child who just wanted to be free. The rejection

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Speaker 1: of the conventional world is at the heart of every

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Speaker 1: person who takes to the rails. But had I done

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Speaker 1: something to make our side of the tracks even less

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00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:02,120
Speaker 1: appealing to Ruby? Nanette struggled with the decision to kick

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Speaker 1: Rooster out after he'd been using so heavily and right

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Speaker 1: when things were on the brink. With Ruby, I had

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Speaker 1: done something I was beginning to question, and the worst

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Speaker 1: part about it was I did it to protect her.

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Speaker 1: After Ruby attempted suicide, I went to visit her in

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Speaker 1: a mental institution where she was under a seventy two

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Speaker 1: hour hold. She was still high from all the drugs

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Speaker 1: in her system. We held hands across the narrow formica table,

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00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:29,879
Speaker 1: the edges worn down from the thousands of elbows that

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00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:33,520
Speaker 1: had rested there as concerned families dealt with their crises.

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00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:37,080
Speaker 1: I asked her if ending up here was a significant

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Speaker 1: enough shock that she wouldn't do this again. She thought

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Speaker 1: about it for a minute, then she said she'd probably

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Speaker 1: stick it out for a month or two, but she

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00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,399
Speaker 1: would try this again. When I left the hospital, I

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00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 1: knew I couldn't bring her home. I couldn't guarantee that

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Speaker 1: I'd be able to keep her safe. As I sat

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00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:57,159
Speaker 1: in our empty apartment in Santa Monica, I had no

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00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:59,840
Speaker 1: idea what to do, but I had to do something.

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Speaker 1: When Ruby was hospitalized, I consulted with her psychiatrist, who

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Speaker 1: suggested we send her off to an emotional growth boarding school.

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Speaker 1: I'd never heard of a place like that, but it

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00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:31,439
Speaker 1: was only twenty four hours later when I was up

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00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:34,440
Speaker 1: on Big Bear Mountain, three hours east of Santa Monica,

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Speaker 1: a place where frantic parents send their teenagers, and I

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00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,439
Speaker 1: was frantic. Like so many parents. I figured this was

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Speaker 1: the best place to send my daughter because I didn't

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Speaker 1: know how to keep her safe. Little did I know

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Speaker 1: this was not just any boarding school. It was the

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Speaker 1: worst one seed, a place that traumatized hundreds of kids.

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Speaker 1: Although I didn't know about that at the time. The

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Speaker 1: Cedar campus looked like a happy summer camp from the outside,

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Speaker 1: with tennis courts in a swimming pool amenities that did

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00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,919
Speaker 1: a pretty good job of hiding from distraught parents what

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Speaker 1: was taking place in the sweet little Swiss chalets looking dorms.

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Speaker 1: The program was rigorous, with lots of group therapy an

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Speaker 1: individual therapy for an added fee. In the daily group sessions,

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00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:21,640
Speaker 1: guided by their counselors, they confronted the issues in their lives,

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Speaker 1: the things that led their parents to send them away.

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Speaker 1: This sounded good to me, as well as intensive sessions

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00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 1: called profets, where they would focus on a single idea

333
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:34,679
Speaker 1: for days like I want to live another thing that

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00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 1: sounded like it might benefit young people who had considered

335
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Speaker 1: or attempted suicide. I only found out later how brutal

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00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,080
Speaker 1: these sessions were for the teens. When I had my

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Speaker 1: weekly call with Ruby, she couldn't speak freely on the phone.

338
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Speaker 1: Staff monitored the calls, and students could be reprimanded or

339
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 1: even isolated if they complained to their parents too much,

340
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 1: and if I got emotional about something. Ruby told me

341
00:21:58,000 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: i'd later get an email or a phone call from

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00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 1: her counselor about trusting the process and supporting the staff.

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00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 1: From what I heard from her counselor's Ruby was doing

344
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:10,399
Speaker 1: well getting more and more privileges, and as the months

345
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: went on, we had longer visits, starting with one on

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Speaker 1: campus and then a weekend away at a hotel on

347
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Speaker 1: the mountain. At every visit, I was anxious to see

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Speaker 1: how she was doing, and I braced myself the second

349
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: she got in the car with me. She complained about

350
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:26,120
Speaker 1: all the things they were doing to her and her friends.

351
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: It was a long list about everything from the food

352
00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 1: to complaints about individual counselors. I know for sure I

353
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,080
Speaker 1: wasn't fully grasping what was going on. What I retained

354
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 1: was she hated being away and wanted to come home.

355
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:43,800
Speaker 1: I wanted that too, but it was too soon, so

356
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: I just let her vent. But I missed her desperately.

357
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: Every day I wondered when would be the right moment

358
00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: to bring her back, and what situation would be right

359
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 1: for her return. I'd moved home to the Bay Area

360
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 1: after I sold the single mom effect, thinking whenever Ruby

361
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 1: got out of that place, this would be a good

362
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: place for a fresh start. And then suddenly there was

363
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: an urgency to solve that problem right away. She'd been

364
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,199
Speaker 1: there nearly a year when Cedu discovered that Ruby had

365
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,439
Speaker 1: a crush on one of the male students, and the

366
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: two of them had been leaving notes for each other

367
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:18,919
Speaker 1: in their cubbies. This is strictly forbidden and both of

368
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 1: them had to be punished. They were both put on

369
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Speaker 1: something called bands, which meant they were not allowed to

370
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:27,200
Speaker 1: speak to anyone, had to set alone at the dining hall,

371
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Speaker 1: and we're not allowed to make eye contact or smile.

372
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Speaker 1: How was this helping them? This being shunned for a

373
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Speaker 1: normal teenage response that would just piss them off more

374
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Speaker 1: and make them more defiant. When I called the staff

375
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 1: to get a full explanation of what bands meant, I

376
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:46,200
Speaker 1: said I wanted this stopped, but unbeknownst to me, they escalated.

377
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 1: They told Ruby that if she kept breaking the rules

378
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 1: like this, she'd end up as a single mom with

379
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: no employable skills outside of manual labor, and decided to

380
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: introduce her to what that life would feel like. They

381
00:23:57,320 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: assigned her to scrub the bathroom on her hands and

382
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 1: knees and gave her an animatronic baby to take care of.

383
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 1: The baby was set to cry a few times an hour.

384
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: Ruby would have to stop to soothe the crying baby,

385
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: then go back to work. When I found out what

386
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: they were doing. I was furious that the way they

387
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,120
Speaker 1: were humiliating her, how would this motivate her to change?

388
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:20,679
Speaker 1: And certainly this was not the single mom Ruby was

389
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: raised by for the single mom, as I was writing

390
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: about in my book This Archaic Sexius crap. As a punishment,

391
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,640
Speaker 1: I blew my stack on the phone with the office

392
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: and demanded that they stop, but the punishment was already over.

393
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: When I got the full story, it turned out Ruby

394
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: was as pissed off as I expected. The baby wouldn't

395
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 1: stop crying, so in frustration, Ruby gave it a shake

396
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: and it died. The staff had already forced Ruby to

397
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: conduct a funeral for the robot baby, with all the

398
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 1: other students standing at the grave. The so called father

399
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: had dug for the burial. How was this supposed to

400
00:24:56,240 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: make Ruby think life was worth living barbaric? Her father

401
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: and I agreed we needed to get her out of there,

402
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as easy as just pulling her out.

403
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: We needed to have the right school to place her

404
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: in so she had the best chance of success when

405
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:15,440
Speaker 1: she came home. And while we were exploring options, CID

406
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: went bankrupt. I got a call on a Thursday afternoon,

407
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: ordering me to come pick up Ruby within twenty four hours,

408
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: as the place was shutting down. Ruby was on spring

409
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:27,479
Speaker 1: vacation with her father. When I got through to them,

410
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 1: they were on their way back to the campus. She

411
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: was elated that this would be the last time she

412
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: saw CEDU. When her father and she pulled up to

413
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 1: that place, it was like Lord of the Flies on

414
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: the mountaintop. The staff had split that hadn't been paid

415
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: in weeks, leaving the kids to manage themselves. They'd broken

416
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: into the commissary and were gorging on candy. Some of

417
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: them were having sex in the bushes. We grabbed her

418
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: stuff and she and her father split. A few hours later,

419
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: I picked her up at the Oakland Airport, both of

420
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: us in shock. Ruby sat in my unfamiliar living room,

421
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,479
Speaker 1: blinking like a newborn, happy to be out, but unsure,

422
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: as both of us were, what would come next. Eventually

423
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: we found this school that was perfect for her, small

424
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 1: and with strong academics. As her friends changed from schoolmates

425
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: to train hoppers and musicians, she started to confront me

426
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: about Sea. Do you sent me away? She'd say bitterly.

427
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 1: I wasn't impressed by her anger, then I dismissed it, saying,

428
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 1: and you're alive to tell me I suck, So I'm

429
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: okay with that. At the time, i'd been desperate. I

430
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: thought this was at least one place I could guarantee

431
00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: she'd be safe. But all these years later, after all

432
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: I'd learned and come to appreciate about the uniqueness of

433
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: Ruby and the people she chose, when she left to

434
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: Hop Trains, I was ashamed. I was so dismissive of

435
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 1: her pain. My shame came to a peak the day

436
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: Ruby made an appointment with me to talk about Sea

437
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: Do January of twenty twenty one, when Paris Hilton was

438
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: lobbying on Capitol Hill trying to get Congress to regulate

439
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: emotional growth. Boarding schools establish some standards for the staff

440
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: and put some limits on what they could do to

441
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: the children under their control. Seed forced us to participate

442
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: in attack therapy designed to humiliate and degrade you. At SED,

443
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: I was not allowed to speak to or look at

444
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: my peers. The staff verbally abused me, calling me vulgar

445
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: names that should never re said to a child. I

446
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: did not comply with the program, so I was brought

447
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:37,199
Speaker 1: to Ascent in Idaho. I knew about his Scent, a

448
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 1: wilderness program the staff often threatened to send the kids

449
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: to if they didn't follow the Seed program. There are

450
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: many of these places where the selling point is that

451
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: your child needs to be shocked scared into complying with

452
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: the rules. Ruby never ended up at his Scent, But

453
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 1: when Paris said those bold things about her experience at SDO,

454
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: I had an idea of what Ruby would want to

455
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: talk about. Before I versation, I took down my journals.

456
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: I've kept a journal for nearly thirty years, at page through,

457
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: looking for every time I mentioned CD to prepare for

458
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 1: whatever issues Ruby wanted to raise about that time. I

459
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,120
Speaker 1: didn't want to be defensive, as I'd lost any need

460
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: to defend what I'd done. I knew more about this now,

461
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 1: and I could apologize, but I wouldn't apologize for trying

462
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: to keep her alive. Sometimes, as a parent, the only

463
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: choices you have are bad ones. I had failed in

464
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: a way, though, and I knew it. Yes, she was alive,

465
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: but she hadn't been safe. We talked for nearly two hours,

466
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: and we cried. Ruby had no idea that her father

467
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: and I were trying to get her out months before

468
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,479
Speaker 1: the place closed down. She thought we were just going

469
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: to leave her there forever and didn't care how she

470
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,479
Speaker 1: was being treated as a parent. Is hard to know

471
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: which of the many complaints to take seriously. Ruby had

472
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: told us so much about it every time we got

473
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: her away for a visit, but I didn't appreciate just

474
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: how terrible it had been for her. We forgave each

475
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: other for all of it, what led up to it,

476
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: what happened while she was there, and how it ended.

477
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,959
Speaker 1: But after Ninette and I spoke, the weight of that time,

478
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: my sarcastic dismissal felt heavy on me, and sending her

479
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: away to that awful place, I had broken some fundamental

480
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: link in our family life, some basic trust between us,

481
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: and that time before her suicide attempt, Ruby was sensitive

482
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: to the hypocrisy of the adult world, the bullshit of

483
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: everyday life, and the stupid bargains we make to appear respectable,

484
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: and we are withering inside. But when I sent Ruby away,

485
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: it was like I had cast her out of the family,

486
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: and in a way I was shaming her more than

487
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: the funeral for the robot baby. Suddenly, family was part

488
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: of the bullshit too. I'd made it a lot easier

489
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: for her to reject family along with everything else. When

490
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: she didched us a graduation, it was an echo of

491
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: what I'd done to her, sending her away without warning.

492
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: I am at the stage of life when regrets hit hard,

493
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: and after all I'd learned exploring the City of the Rails,

494
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: I had to own up to this decision being one

495
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: of the biggest regrets of my motherhood. I don't know

496
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: what else I could have done, but I am sorry

497
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: that I sent her off to se Do Well. I'm

498
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: still stuck on this. Ruby just wants me to move on,

499
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: get over it. She certainly moved on. When I told

500
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: her I was doing a podcast where I would blend

501
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: the story of what she went through on the Rails

502
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: with my decade of research, she was exasperated with me

503
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: and then enraged. She gave me three instructions, change her name,

504
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: talk about her suicide attempt, and talk about sending her

505
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: off to s DO. I wasn't going to talk about

506
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: those things at all. I felt like those parts of

507
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: the story were hers to tell. Plus she didn't want

508
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: to give me any guidance on how to address them.

509
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: We have forgiven each other, but those scars remain. There

510
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: isn't a family I know of that doesn't struggle through

511
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: scars and all and work toward a future founded on

512
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: the fact that love indoors, love survives. That foundation is

513
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: something we can return to once we've said what we

514
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: need to say about the past and been humbled by that.

515
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 1: And I know the fact that I have not been

516
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: able to let loose of the railroad and have kept

517
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: plunging deeper and deeper in long after Ruby left has

518
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: not been helpful to this healing. It's the problem of

519
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: being the child of a writer. I have told this

520
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: story about her, but it's not her story. I think

521
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: I'm getting why she never answered any of my questions.

522
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: She wants to keep that story as her own, and

523
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,959
Speaker 1: she's gone some length to protect it. And one thing

524
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: I've come to understand during my time in the City

525
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: of the Rails is that no matter if you are tough, smart,

526
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: or just stubborn, and even if you do everything right,

527
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: the rails break your heart. Coming up against their brutal

528
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 1: power reveals things in you and in others. Sometimes those

529
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: are things you'd rather not see, rather look away. So

530
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: many people die out there, so many lives are lost

531
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: to the trains, and riders carry those losses with them

532
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: even after leaving the rails. Once riders do get off

533
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: the rails, it's hard for them to figure out how

534
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: to live a good life, and it can be difficult

535
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: to fit back into the world they left behind. Ruby

536
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: had to figure that out too. I was worried at

537
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: first that Ruby wouldn't find much meaning in life back home,

538
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: but I didn't need to. She has made a life

539
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: of her own, something to be very proud of, using

540
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: what she learned on the rails to make a positive

541
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: impact in the community getting off the rails. The people

542
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,479
Speaker 1: who make that transition the best are ones who did

543
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: what Ruby did. They find a way to support themselves

544
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: while holding conventional society at arm's length. That's what Kiwi

545
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: from Profane Task did too. We have to get through

546
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: the maze of dogs. A few years ago, her partner Daniel,

547
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: got a permit to start a weed farm in Oklahoma

548
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:05,959
Speaker 1: away for them to sustain a life off the rails.

549
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: Their farm is well organized with rows and rows of

550
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: plants ready to harvest. Right now, we have three rows

551
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: of cannabis and they are all in flower, so we're

552
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: about four weeks away from a harvest, and this will

553
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: be our third harvest in this greenhouse this year. Oh

554
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: that's very productive. Yeah, we're trying our hardest. Kiwi, who

555
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: was the banjo player for Profane Sass, the band that

556
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: performs our theme music Wayfaring Stranger, has been off the

557
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: rails for more than a decade. We got Kiwi off

558
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: the rails was a tragedy after the squat fire in

559
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: New Orleans. Profane Sas was devastated. They just lost eight

560
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: of their friends. And then nine months later, Thomas, the

561
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: lead singer of Profane SaaS, died on the rails while

562
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: he was taking some kids on their first ride. He

563
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: was their charismatic, barefoot mandolin player who everyone called Toe.

564
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: When he passed, Kiwi needed to get off for a while.

565
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: Right after Toe died, I was like, I don't know

566
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: what I'm doing with my life. I mean, the reason

567
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: I even got into cannabis is it was basically how

568
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: I healed myself from my best friend dying. So I

569
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,720
Speaker 1: really love, you know, the piece that comes with farming.

570
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: We were supposed to go be rock stars and have

571
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: you know. We had big plans. But after he died,

572
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: you know, we all had to lick our wounds. That

573
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: death shook Kiwi and everyone else from profane SaaS. Thomas

574
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: was in a lot of ways the heart of their music,

575
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: a big man with a powerful voice and personality whose

576
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:53,799
Speaker 1: death affects her to this day. I don't think I

577
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: can talk. I don't want to go play music on

578
00:34:56,120 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: the street. I'm heartbroken. And I got a job offer

579
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: in that spring to like just live on a mountain

580
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: and grow weed, which is perfect. I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah,

581
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 1: I just need to go cry in a greenhouse for

582
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: a year. But it also led to this new career path,

583
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: I guess you can say, so accidentally becoming a weed farmer.

584
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things about her new life KeyWe

585
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: didn't expect. She grew up in Rena, never thinking she'd

586
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,320
Speaker 1: end up in Oklahoma and as a farmer no less.

587
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: Seems like she and Daniel have a knack for this

588
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,839
Speaker 1: accidental career. The greenhouse is lush, jungle like with all

589
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 1: the plants about to be harvested. But yeah, so now

590
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,319
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of the greenhouse and we're like

591
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: surrounded by five foot tall plants, which is about as

592
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: big as we want them in the greenhouses, and it

593
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: probably smells really strong. I can't even smell weed anymore.

594
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: It's definitely a lot of labor. There's only two of us,

595
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: so whoa. We do all the farming everything, but you

596
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: guys have to do your own trimming as well. We

597
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: do some, and then we hire some friends. We still

598
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: have some friends that are like still touring musicians that

599
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 1: come trimp for us and make some extra dough because

600
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: we all know music doesn't pay well. We also have

601
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: some like babies in their twenties and they're like riding

602
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,799
Speaker 1: trains now and doing the cool stuff that I used

603
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 1: to do, going to New Orleans, playing on the street

604
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 1: and busking, and they come and trimp for us. He

605
00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: we started this business when she was trimming weed in California.

606
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: Now she hires people off the rails to help the

607
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: farm at harvest season, a full circle giving back to

608
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: where she and Daniel came from. This attitude of welcoming

609
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: people from the traveling community reminded me a lot of

610
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: CC Rider living by the tracks, and on top of

611
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: himploying her hope of friends on her organic weed farm,

612
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: ken We opens her home to all kinds of strays.

613
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: We're part of a dog rescue or there's like a

614
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: lot of stray dogs and we're trying to like clean

615
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: them up and get them into nice families. Two are

616
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:18,319
Speaker 1: like retired train riding dogs. They're old. Do you think

617
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: they missed the train? Maybe a little bit. But my

618
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: dog she's almost sixteen and I got her when I

619
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: was sixteen, so she's definitely in retirement these days. Kiwi's

620
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: found a way to live a full life off the

621
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:39,399
Speaker 1: rails on her own terms. The Kiwi still thinks about them.

622
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: So when did you stop riding? I wouldn't say I stopped.

623
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: I'll go to the the top a train, but I just

624
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: have enough time. I'm busy right now. But I've put

625
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: all my eggs in this basket. But you know, if

626
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: it all fails, I can go back to living under

627
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:02,959
Speaker 1: a bridge and hoping trains. There's always the back plan.

628
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: There's always plan B. Yeah. Yeah. My partner he's also

629
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 1: an old train rider, So yeah, if it all fails,

630
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: it's all good. I think there's there's a type of

631
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: person that's just like there's always somewhere else to go.

632
00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: I look at the trains every day. I'm like, oh, yeah,

633
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:24,919
Speaker 1: I could just hop on that and be out of here.

634
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: No matter how long or short of a time you've

635
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: been on the rails, it seems there's always a dry

636
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: to go back, that feeling that when you're at a

637
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: low point in life, escape is just a few feet

638
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 1: from this side of the tracks. I saw this with

639
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: Lee sleeping under his truck in the California Desert mining

640
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: for precious metals, and I heard it from Thomas Wolf

641
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: two from episode four, even though he's been off the

642
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: rails for ten years. Well, when my daughter asked me

643
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: by I explained to her that it was the sound,

644
00:38:56,719 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: you know, the smells, the creosote, the whistles was even now,

645
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: when trails of people are worked with yore holding down,

646
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: holding down, that pull of the rails is something people

647
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: just can't shake. I was drawn into this world by Ruby,

648
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: but at this point I'm into deep and thankfully the

649
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 1: story I moved on to next has nothing to do

650
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: with Ruby. It's all about another world I discovered inside

651
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: the city of the Rails. I started out this journey

652
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: trying to tell the story of my daughter going on

653
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: to the rails, but when she came home, as the

654
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: year is piled up. My fascination was less about her

655
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 1: and more about the unforgettable people, the history and the

656
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,439
Speaker 1: culture in the city of the Rails. When Ruby first left,

657
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: I was seeking the romance and the beauty. But you

658
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 1: know that clack clack on the railroad text it's called

659
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: the Hogoes lullaby and looking down and just completely surrounded

660
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: by pink water, just feeling outside of this world. But

661
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: beyond that was the intrigue and the mystery. There is

662
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: another world out there and it's dark. I'm going to

663
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: go head first into the darkness so I don't have

664
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: to do what you do. And history too, how the

665
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: railroads created modern America pus it's behind the scenes. You

666
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: have the finger on the pulse of the nation. The

667
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: railroads show you had raised capital, set up management, and

668
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: also they show you how to cheat. The more I learned,

669
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: the more I came to see the train yard as

670
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: the last lawless place. We're bulls, we're in control. He

671
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: comes running up, She's the dude, has my sign, and

672
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: he fucking paunches them for the beauty and community. The

673
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:55,600
Speaker 1: rails are brutal. Nobody treats other human beings in the

674
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: way that we are being treated unless they actually hate us,

675
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,479
Speaker 1: says this is for the dogs so they can eat,

676
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: not for you, and walks off. But even if they

677
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 1: are treated roughly and with disrespect, they made a conscious

678
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: choice to embrace this life, and they didn't want anyone

679
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: to pity them. I cherished me, and I know that

680
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: when I take the west Wind, I'm won't be riding huh.

681
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: As I worked my way further into the City of

682
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: the Rails, so many things caught my interest and felt

683
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: important to pursue. But there was one detour that landed

684
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: me somewhere I couldn't have imagined. When I started chasing

685
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: after Ruby and all my time reporting on the trains,

686
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:36,839
Speaker 1: there was one guy who kept popping up in every

687
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: train yard. And that guy was Dirty Mike. You might

688
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: remember him as the guy who had barbecue supplies stashed

689
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: in train yards all over the country. I'm like, wow, man,

690
00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: I wonder if this guy's got it like this everywhere?

691
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: You know, you really knew a ship. Even if his

692
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,839
Speaker 1: knowledge of the trains was legendary, no one trusted him.

693
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: What's up? I'm Dirty Mike FTR, King of the Hoboes,

694
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: I think were his first words. Something and this guy's

695
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: a good The writers never forgot the way Mike strode

696
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: into the hobo jungle, talking loud so everyone would have

697
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: to react to him, and everyone knew he was bullshitting them.

698
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 1: He bragged about being up at the top of the

699
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: Freight Train Writers of America, supposedly the most violent gang

700
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 1: on the rails. Dirty Might claimed he was the ftira's hitman,

701
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: sent out to clean up situations on FTRA territory where

702
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: another gang was trying to take over. But I also

703
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,720
Speaker 1: heard from people who liked Mike. Sometimes Mike rescued people,

704
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: like when he protected Sylvia from being harassed in Colton

705
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: and I yelled Dirty Mike's names. He comes running up,

706
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: She's the dude has my sign and he fucking punches them,

707
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: throws him over the off ramps, he goes flying down

708
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 1: the hill. We were friends ever since. I honestly felt

709
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,919
Speaker 1: like he was constantly lying to me about how many

710
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: people he had killed and the stings that he did

711
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: for the FTR and I just I felt like he

712
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: was a bullshit artist. Hops had a lot to say

713
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 1: about Dirty Mike, and there were a lot of conflicting stories.

714
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: So who was he and what was the FTRA. I'd

715
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: heard about the Freight Trained Writers of America when I

716
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 1: was getting to know the rail cops. When I met

717
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,399
Speaker 1: Joe and Larry in El Paso, I asked them about

718
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: the gang's reputation. The rail cops knew the f T

719
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: was aggressive. This was one gang. Even the bulls stared

720
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,760
Speaker 1: clear of most of the hobos. They just kept to themselves.

721
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 1: These guys were looking straight in the eye and like,

722
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid of you. You know. I didn't even

723
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: dare to search them or give him a hard time,

724
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: because that's all they needed, something to spark up a fight.

725
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 1: The f TERRYA was founded by disgruntled Vietnam vets angry

726
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: that Ronald Reagan cut their veteran benefits. So the f

727
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: r A also stands for fuck the Reagan administration. So

728
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: when Joe knew the f tr were in the yard,

729
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: he avoided them. There's this gang. You've got to be

730
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: careful with these these guys. They have these challenges of

731
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: shooting security and robo police. It goes actually you can

732
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,240
Speaker 1: look inside a training, they'll shoot you in the face. Everybody,

733
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: everybody stayed away from those guys, you know, and then

734
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: they have their camp like that hobo jungle were clear

735
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: for them, nobody want to be associated with them. Throughout

736
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,919
Speaker 1: my reporting, I kept wondering who really ran the train yard,

737
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: and it seemed like the answer might be the FDRA,

738
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: which is exactly why I figured they could help me.

739
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: After we became home, I started investigating the rail cops

740
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: and even got a couple of journalism grants to support me.

741
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: And at this point in the show it should be

742
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 1: no surprise I had a tough time finding sources, so

743
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: I figured if I could get one of these old

744
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 1: FTIRA guys to talk to me, he could tell me

745
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: a lot about the rail cops. The FTRA knew every

746
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: trainyard in America had a lot of run ins with

747
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: rail cops and no reason to protect them. Dirty Mike.

748
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: Other writers told me I knew a few of the

749
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: bulls by name, and they'd seen him greeting them like

750
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 1: old friends. He just might be the key to Unlucky

751
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 1: the story of the rail coops. So I kept googling

752
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:13,319
Speaker 1: Dirty Mike and the FTRA, and then one day there

753
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: was a bee on the lookout bulletin for Dirty Mike.

754
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 1: We are now going to turn to the urgent man

755
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: hunt for a Texas man who went on the run

756
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: the night before. The bullet had listed his name as

757
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,240
Speaker 1: Michael Elijah Thompson and had a lot of aliases beyond

758
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: Dirty Mike, Little Bear, Crazy Mike, and Nasty Mike. And

759
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: the first time I met Larry Diaz, he told me

760
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: he'd seem Dirty Mike around. I knew him because I

761
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: saw him here and there, would run into him on

762
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: multiple occasions in different areas. He knew who I was

763
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 1: better than I knew who he was. I just clumped

764
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 1: him together as part of that group, the FTRA group.

765
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 1: Need to be careful with them, and you know they

766
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: don't give him Matt Fox kind of attitudeing Larry didn't

767
00:45:57,680 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: suspect Dirty Mike was a murderer any more than the

768
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: obos did. But after the Crime Stoppers bulletin where he

769
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: got around in the traveling community that maybe Dirty Mike

770
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: hadn't been exaggerating, maybe he was a murderer. I never

771
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 1: paid any attention until me and Chad got pulled off

772
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: of a train in El Paso and the Bowl asked

773
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: us if we knew and dude named Mike with railroad

774
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: tracks tattooed by his eye, and that he was wanted

775
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: for murder. Straightaway, me and Chad were like, oh crap,

776
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: he's talking about Dirty Mike. And we were like, yeah,

777
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: we do know that person. And he's like, you know

778
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,439
Speaker 1: where he is and he said no, we have no idea.

779
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: You know, we haven't seen him since Colton, which was

780
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: probably about two or three months before that. So all

781
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the police were looking for Dirty Mike.

782
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: How many years had he been on the rails? How

783
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: many people had he killed and gotten away with it?

784
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,800
Speaker 1: After all, dirty Mike could kill someone hop a train

785
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 1: and before states away before anyone discovered the body. So

786
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: suddenly I was very interested in Dirty Mike and what

787
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: he could tell me about the rails that no one

788
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: else could. It was June when I found out Dirty

789
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 1: Mike had been arrested in Vancouver, Washington, and extradited to

790
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 1: Plaster County for a murder outside the Roseville train yard

791
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,719
Speaker 1: back in two thousand. So I'm navigating us to the

792
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: Roseville Market, which has kind of always been getting dropped

793
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: off point. Police had discovered the body near the Roseville Market,

794
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 1: where Zoe and I stopped before my Google attempt to

795
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: hop a train. It's like a little convenience store. Yeah,

796
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 1: pretty much like this is the closest place to get water, food, cigarettes. Yeah,

797
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,919
Speaker 1: that's where Dirty Mike allegedly stashed the body of John

798
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: semler owens El Paso in Roseville. Now, there were two

799
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: murders in counting, so I decided to go visit Dirty

800
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: Mike so we could have a little chat about the

801
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: rail coops. I checked the prison website for visiting hours

802
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: and made my way up to the Plaster County Jail

803
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: on Thursday, summer afternoon. Dirty Mike had no idea I

804
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,759
Speaker 1: was coming, and he might refuse my visit, as was

805
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: his right. But what did I have to lose? At

806
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: the jail, I filled in a form listing myself as

807
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: his friend and watched while the officer did a quick

808
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,439
Speaker 1: background check. He handed me number seventeen, the seat where

809
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: Dirty Mike and I would be face to face, with

810
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: just bulletproof glass separating us. In the waiting area, I

811
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: settled in a hard plastic chair among the other visitors,

812
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: mostly family members. The doors opened and the inmates strode

813
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: to their places. Families jumped up and rushed to their

814
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: seats and grabbed the phones. Every seat was occupied except

815
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: number seventeen. I walked up to the guard to ask

816
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: what was up. I had only half an hour with him,

817
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: and ten minutes of it was already gone. Where was

818
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: Dirty Mike? Oh? He said, your guide needs four armed

819
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: guards to escort him anywhere. We're getting those guards together.

820
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: You'll get your full half hour, it just won't be

821
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 1: at the same time as anyone else. The room cleared out,

822
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 1: leaving me alone. Then the door opened and two guards

823
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: shoved Dirty Mic into his seat at nover seventeen, while

824
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: another secured the chains around his wrists, waists, and ankles

825
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: to a metal loop in the floor. Another stood by

826
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: with a rifle trained on him. They won't let you

827
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:16,360
Speaker 1: bring anything into the visiting room, so I had no

828
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 1: tape recorder or no pat I rushed to the stool

829
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: to take a good look at him, trying to memorize

830
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,879
Speaker 1: every tattoo, every scar. He was looking over my head,

831
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: right past me, refusing to look me in the eye,

832
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:30,880
Speaker 1: which gave me time to examine all the marks on

833
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: his face. I counted nine railroad ties on the tattooed

834
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: Sylvia made across the right side of his face. The

835
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,240
Speaker 1: one she gave him in Colton, and he had SSC

836
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 1: south side Colton inked further down on that side of

837
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: his neck, ftira across the top of his chest, slow

838
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: ride on his knuckles, and he was missing a lot

839
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 1: of teeth. He picked up the phone and started yelling

840
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 1: at me, really telling me off. But I couldn't hear anything.

841
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: He'd picked up the wrong phone. I pointed at mine

842
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: with a sarcastic smile to show him I couldn't hear him.

843
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: He laughed. The tension was broken. Dirty Mike and I

844
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: size each other up through the glass. He picked up

845
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:15,239
Speaker 1: the correct phone and asked, who are you. I'm a writer,

846
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: I replied, Oh, thank god, he said. There were a

847
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: few seconds of silence while his eyes looked past me

848
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: over the top of my head. I watched Dirty Mike's

849
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 1: wheels turning, trying to decide how to use my arrival

850
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: in the visiting room to his advantage. He knew a

851
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: writer's weakness, A writer wants a story. When his focus

852
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: drifted back to me, there was a glint in his eyes.

853
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: They have me for two murders. They easily could get

854
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: me for twenty five, twenty five murders. If he was

855
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 1: telling the truth. Dirty Mike was the nation's least known

856
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 1: serial killer, all because he picked his victims in the

857
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:56,319
Speaker 1: place where people go to disappear. The people he killed

858
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: were drifters. No one was expecting them to show up

859
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: for work or be home for dinner. In a lot

860
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: of cases, their families had written them off years ago.

861
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: As I realized in El Paso, the train yards connect

862
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,239
Speaker 1: some of the roughest neighborhoods in the country, and the

863
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: trains are filled with criminals and people on the run.

864
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 1: Like Chris Rose told me in New Orleans, you don't

865
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: know when you're walking down the street if the guy

866
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: passing you as a serial killer. And that's even more

867
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: likely if he's covered in trained tattoos and chained to

868
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: the floor across the bulletproof glass from you. Dirty Mike

869
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: sat there for a sec calculating what to say next.

870
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: Then he said, I'm going to spend the rest of

871
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:36,720
Speaker 1: my life in jail. All I have left is my story.

872
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:44,720
Speaker 1: I'll tell it to you. That'st next season on City

873
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: of the Rails. And we went back with the gentri

874
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 1: talking about other marks for thought. Ask them, you know,

875
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: are there any others? And he said We'll talk about

876
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,879
Speaker 1: that when you come get me ft. They just took

877
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:58,919
Speaker 1: whatever from anybody, and he did what they're wanted. Those

878
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: guys were in the shadows. They did everything at night.

879
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,280
Speaker 1: You know, they scared everybody here. Dirty Mike is happier

880
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: than a pig in shit to know that you are

881
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: going around talking to his ex traveling partners and his

882
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,720
Speaker 1: old friends about him. They had all friends of money.

883
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: They didn't look like it, but these guys were like

884
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,360
Speaker 1: Hell's angels. The Hell's Angels were angels in comparison, and

885
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: a lot of the FHRA. The FHRA would have taken

886
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:36,320
Speaker 1: you off the split second. That's next season on City

887
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: of the Rails. Wet the end of the show, and

888
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 1: I wanted to sign off with a heartfelt thank you

889
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: to this audience. Thanks for letting me lead you head

890
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: first into the darkness. It's been rough at times, scary too,

891
00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: but you stayed with me. He did not look away.

892
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: As a toxic train wreck in East Palestine shows people

893
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: should be paying a lot more attention to the railroads.

894
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: You are such a diverse group, including many current and

895
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,919
Speaker 1: former hobos. A lot of people have hopped trains, even

896
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:14,280
Speaker 1: if they only rode for a month or two. Living

897
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 1: that life of absolute freedom and taking incredible risks is

898
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 1: something they'll never forget. And if my voicemail is any indication,

899
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: those memories got even stronger as they listen to this show.

900
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 1: Beyond hobos, just regular folks, school teachers, firefighters, pipe fitters,

901
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,719
Speaker 1: lawyers even heard the stories from the train yard and

902
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 1: began to re examine their lives. Sober responsible citizens started

903
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 1: to consider Momo's great question, why do you do what

904
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 1: you do? I never expected City of the Rails would

905
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 1: bring people together in that way, and shout out to

906
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: the many moms who have called and written, moms who

907
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: see a bit of Ruby and their teenage daughters and

908
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 1: are wondering what's coming. Just this week, I got a

909
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: message from a mom in Texas whose son has been

910
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: on the rails for twenty years. She's never known how

911
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 1: to talk to him about this life, but since you

912
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: found City of the Rails, all of a sudden, she

913
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: knows what to ask. I am so proud of that

914
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:09,720
Speaker 1: to while you train moms, mothers of those who rode

915
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: or are still out there. Nanette thinks we should have

916
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 1: a train mom zoom call, and I'm all for it.

917
00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 1: If you're into it, leave me a message at the

918
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: show phone number seven oh seven six five three three

919
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: three nine. I also wanted to acknowledge the people who've

920
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 1: passed on while I've been researching the Rails. In this season,

921
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: we've lost two byron Yorke, who survived the Squat fire

922
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: and Josh Brack, who told me Colton was the capital

923
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: city for Hoboes. As for what's next, don't unsubscribe to

924
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: the show feed. We're planning some great bonus episodes inspired

925
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: by Nikita. We're collecting road dog stories, so leave them

926
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:49,399
Speaker 1: at seven oh seven six five three oh three three nine. Also,

927
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,920
Speaker 1: I've been working with pro Publica, the investigative journalism nonprofit,

928
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:57,640
Speaker 1: on a series of stories about the Rails, so workers, engineers, conductors,

929
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,560
Speaker 1: Carmen and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way. I want

930
00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:03,279
Speaker 1: to talk to you seven h seven six five three

931
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: three three nine. Stay tuned because there are a million

932
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,840
Speaker 1: stories waiting to be told in the City of the Rails.

933
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 1: We've heard great things from you about the music, many

934
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 1: new followers of my modern Hobo playlists, and new fans

935
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: of the band that plays our theme song, Profane Sass

936
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 1: and We're excited to announce that our composer Aaron Kaufman,

937
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: is releasing an album entitled The Yard Songs, inspired by

938
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: City of the Rails. You can find it on Spotify

939
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 1: and all major streaming platforms, or by using the link

940
00:55:33,200 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 1: in our show notes. San Molica Senmica dos Turn fourteen

941
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 1: as well be Drinking Gasoline, Send Far Away, No Talking

942
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: on the telephone, and when my broprey you places away

943
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:32,560
Speaker 1: for Menasten. City of the Rails is hosted and written

944
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:35,799
Speaker 1: by me Danelle Morton and developed in partnership between Flip

945
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: Turn Studios and iHeart Podcast. If you want to follow along,

946
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:42,400
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at flip turn Pods. I'll be

947
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: posting more too at Danelle Ryder. Our production team is

948
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: executive producer and showrunner Julian Weller. Julian also produced Our

949
00:56:49,560 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 1: Trips to Al Paso and Colton sound directed, edited and

950
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 1: mixed the show. Our executive producer at flip Turn is

951
00:56:56,120 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: Mark Healey, Senior producer Abooza Far Producers and Lady Squad

952
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:06,319
Speaker 1: Zoe Denkla, Emily Marinoff, Shina Ozaki, Jackie Huntington, Trisha Mukherajee

953
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:10,920
Speaker 1: and Jessica Krinchich, with production support from Marci the Pina.

954
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 1: We had a very modular team making this show, and

955
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 1: many people pitched in to make it sound as good

956
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 1: as it does. But special shout out to three people

957
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: who were here for the whole ride. Zoey Denkla, who

958
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: was at the other end of the zoom for every recording,

959
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 1: battling with me over the script, always with the goal

960
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: of making it authentic and easier for listeners to understand.

961
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: She made great contributions in story discussions and an episode

962
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: edits too, and Julian Weller assembled the great team I've

963
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 1: gotten to work with, sound directed, edited and mixed the show,

964
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 1: and more than that, drove through the Texas desert with

965
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: me and snuck into Southside Colton Yard to record train sounds.

966
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: Plus struggled through eighteen months working with a very demanding

967
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:55,400
Speaker 1: host and, best of all, my business partner, Mark Healey,

968
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: who two years ago convinced me we should make a

969
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 1: podcast when I thought that was the craziest thing in

970
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: the world. You were right. Mark is working so far.

971
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: But if it all goes horribly wrong, we can just

972
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: blame Jamie Kitman for introducing us. You still owe me

973
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 1: that Manhattan. Original music every episode by Aaron Kaufman. O

974
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: theme music is Wayfaring Stranger, performed by Profane SaaS thanks

975
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: to Scott Michaud at Flail Records. Our loco is by

976
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: Lucy Kingtonia and uses a photograph by Mike Brody and

977
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: I Heeart thanks to Nikki Etour and Bethan Macaluso. Because

978
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 1: We'll see you again in the City of the Rails

979
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: and Danielle look, come just to give your ring from Australia.

980
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 1: We're up. Been listening to that fantastic story of yours

981
00:58:49,720 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: and your beautiful writing. I've enjoyed it homously. M It

982
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: reminds me so much for the time and I was

983
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: on the road in America by music on the streets

984
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:04,919
Speaker 1: and seeing some of the musicians and the kids out

985
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 1: there playing and busking reminded me so much of my

986
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:12,640
Speaker 1: years traveling and hanging on and off trains. I just

987
00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 1: wanted to say how much I've enjoyed it, and how

988
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:20,200
Speaker 1: so many memories that sort of come studding back at

989
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:24,920
Speaker 1: the time. Anyway, I thought I'd just play you one

990
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: of the songs that I used to play a lot

991
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: when I was when I was around. You won't hear it. Guys,

992
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 1: m m h m hm hm hm Women