Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #20 November 2015 | Page 6

An Incident
in
Hooverville

the slope between the camp and the line to wait for the
next freight.

While it was running slow he heaved his
bedroll up and over his head into an open door on the
third carriage. Then he grabbed hold of the floor and
started to heave himself up. He was laughing fit to
bust and I heard him say he would see us all in hell
or heaven, whichever place the good Lord thought fit.
But then he lost his grip and fell on the tracks and that
old train just rolled over his legs and sliced them off
at the knees as clean and neat as you please. We called
him Legless Willie after that until he died just over a
year later.

So you want to hear the story do you kid?
There was near three hundred of us living
Something to fill a space in your college paper huh?
there and they were folks from all over and all kinds
Something for a laugh I guess, or so you can get your
too. Stockbrokers, farmers, clerks, families, bankers,
byline in print? Well, here goes and I don’t mind if
lawyers or salesmen, they all ended up in Hooverville.
you don’t believe me. Most don’t, apart from kooks
We were a family and we lived in a place that was
and lunatics. Guess that’s just the way it goes. Got
as much a state of mind as anything else. We lived
your mic ready? Here goes nothing huh?
there and we’d watch the freight trains roll on past,

dreaming of being on one of them one day. We were
Hoovervilles were everywhere back in the
the biggest damn family in the world and we looked
Depression, in every city and damn near every town
out for each other.
of any real size in the country. We called them that

after President Hoover who started the dad-blamed
Hoovervilles had a way of finding the same in
mess. Ours was just south of Denver alongside the rail people you know what I’m saying? We were all the
line. Not much passed along that line, five or six trains same in there and until that night in ‘32 I expected
a day both ways I recall, full of freight and people
us to stay that way too but fate deals a different hand
looking for something better. Of course to jump them
when it pleases. For a few weeks up to that night the
you’d need to get them at the yard before they started
weather had been so hot you could shove a hotplate in
out or were moving real slow. Dodging the railroad
the sun and fry eggs and bacon. Getting water was the
dicks was the tricky part, they were mean, cursed men, hardest thing, we’d been hard at it trying to get enough
down on their luck too and happy enough to take it out to make a coffee and help rinse the latrine buckets in
on those lower on the pecking order than them.
the cesspit—and the stench from that sure blistered

your nose hairs but we got used to it, we always did.
You could jump a freight by our camp if you

were lucky or keen enough. Up the slope and just
The hot spell was straight from the depths of
about level with the camp was the best place to try,
hell and I reckon the freights hauling up that incline
they were moving slow after huffing and snorting up
felt it. The world wasn’t fit for man nor beast, nor
the incline that ran about a mile or so. It was there
machinery and they struggled up that grade and hissed
they were going slowest and there was just enough
with relief when they made it. At night you could see
brush for cover to hide so you weren’t seen. Old
the lights glowing and the sparks shooting from the
Willie reckoned he was going to give it a shot one day. wheels like Old Nick had a foundry running overtime.
Been here long enough was what he said as he hauled Couldn’t get me a coffee could you son? I’d ask for a
his ass, his bedroll, and what else he could carry up
beer but the staff here would steal it.

By Tony Dews

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