Freedom in the Form of a Boxcar

This chapter recounts the trip that the author and his gutter punk traveling companion, Zeke, took aboard a series of freight trains that carried them far into west Texas. The chapter documents the trip’s many drifting experiences: waiting in railyards, hiding from railroad workers, sleeping in the rain, moving from one train or one rail car to another (hotshots, units, boxcars), ultimately arriving in Pecos, Texas—and along the way getting lost in what gutter punks call “the drift.” Interwoven with this narrative are similar accounts from the long history of hoboing and the more recent history of gutter punk train hopping, along with considerations of particular aspects of such travel: dirt, filth, visibility, and “dirty kid” identity; bandana symbolism; beer drinking; and Railroad Workers United. The chapter ends with the author’s discovery of a bit of graffiti that Zeke has written inside the boxcar in which they are travelling, which says “Freedom in the form of a boxcar.”

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