Casey Jones picked up C.C. in Union City, TN with 213 grainer cars from Illinois Central Railroad pulling coal from Kentucky. C.C. had gotten done with a 67-town season with the Barnum circus crew. Barnum’s had been taking whatever help they could have. Circuses were declining in popularity at the turn of the 20th century and with dwindling profits came lower requirements for recruitment. This meant that carnies pushed out of their usual seasonal runs with their respective troupes were picked up by Barnum for their knowledge involving loading/unloading rail cars that carried the tents and animals from one city to the next.
C.C. was born to a carnival family and following in their own tradition never had a birth certificate or was assigned a social security number. He was raised bilingual with English being spoken in the company of outsiders and Parlyaree being spoken around the close knit communities of carnies.
Casey Jones had been a train engineer for most of his adult life. He graduated from being a rail bull dog to brakeman eventually to the post of engineer where he drove solo runs across coal country down to New Orleans to be shipped out of port. He was known for a particular combination of six whistle blows that announced his departure/arrival through the stretch of America now known as the Mason Dixon line. He was a favorite of Illinois Central because he would run cars for 24 hours and turn around and do the return route with no complaint.
When C.C. got to Union City he had managed to carry with him a pound of pure cocaine he scored from a Merck pharmaceutical rep in Cleveland over a ring-and-bottle side bet off the carnival’s midway. The cocaine was kept along with a few shorts and an extra pair of socks in a crack leather briefcase. He heard the distinctive blasts of Casey Jones’ engine and headed towards the rail yard. Never had the two men met. As the engineer jumped off the staircase leading from the engine cab to urinate on the brush lining the rails, C.C. waved and offered some company to wherever the train was heading. Casey was not used to having passengers but could sense that this passenger’s back story was more interesting than the risk he posed was. He was used to long hauls with little sleep and nothing had kept him from meeting a deadline.
The two headed south out of Tennessee in to Mississippi as the sunset turned into fog and rain. C.C. opened up the briefcase exposing the contents. Casey Jones was never one for drink and enjoyed the smoke from the combustion engine more than the few fine cigars he’d smelled in his lifetime. Nevertheless the two walked into a tavern. C.C. whispered something as they bellied up to the bar and the owner set before them a deck of cards and laid five $10 bills in front of them. After several hours they left the tavern empty pocketed and late for the delievery in Lousiana.
With one whiff they were off into the darkness. Two, three, four and five toots later his whistle was blowing between towns. They made plans to visit Madame Soire’s establishment and furnish a fine hotel in New Orleans with the remainder of the cocaine as trade.
The rain picked up. The fog pick up. The speed picked up. The two hurled down the tracks and the engine belched out black smoke as they shoveled more coal into the furnace. The cars began to shake on the tracks. The lone beam from the engine’s headlight could hardly see ten feet in front of the guard rail yet they pressed on gaining speed. They were talking sixty miles a minute about profoundly forgettable topics and travelling close to a hundred miles an hour.
By Casey’s pocketwatch, they would be in New Orleans only a little late for the barge’s departure. So he stoked the fire, piled on the coal and put another pile of cocaine into his left nostril. The engine careened onward. Just before Vicksburg, Mississippi they collided with a parked tanker carrying crude oil that had been stalled from an earlier collision with passing livestock. The explosion could be seen from miles around. When the morning sun exposed the wreckage, a little boy in a conductor’s hat found Casey Jones’ broken pocket watch on top a briefcase holding just a pair of socks. Coincidence or irony, the child carried the watch with him and never forgot the purpose of things at hand for the allure of life’s diversions.
