Nurse the Hate: The Railroad Trestle

There was a railroad trestle that ran over the stream.  It had been built during the FDR Public Works Program era in the early 1930s and harkened back to that time when things were built to last.  Thick beige stonework provided sturdy support for the train tracks that ran above it.  The structure was two large stone tunnels, large enough for five men to walk down it shoulder to shoulder.  Even in the heaviest rains the creek would never fill the tunnels completely, but in the Spring it would produce a lively current.  A perky waterfall was created by the flow of the creek through the trestle.  Small colorful trout would feed under the falls, gliding gracefully in the deep pool.

This was a known fishing spot.  When trout season began, grizzled men would shake off the winter and line up shoulder to shoulder to allow the trout to ignore their baits.  No one expected to catch anything, but everyone felt good to be out of the house after the long bleak winter.  Occasionally heated arguments would break out when lines tangled, but the men rarely came to blows.  After a few weeks, the men would launch their boats into Lake Erie and forget about the little trout spot.  This left it to the teenage boys with too much time on their hands.

There were two ways to get to the trestle.  One was a twisting path through often muddy trails in thick woods on a gradual descend to the creek bed.  The other was a straight shot, right down the steep embankment of the train tracks with the coal soot and rocks from the track bed.  It was impossible to go that route without becoming filthy, and there existed the possibility that by descending that way, too much momentum would be created and you could fall from the top of the trestle into the creek.  This was a fall of about 25 feet into a small deep pool of water.  Ledges of shale jutted out from the shoreline rocks, so a small miscalculation would be a major injury or possibly death.  This was part of the allure of the trestle.

As a young teenage boy, it was important to keep your head on a swivel while in the area of the trestle.  This was a known gathering place for some of the roughest kids in school, boys old enough to drive and smoke cigarettes.  Andy and two twin brothers from near my house would often perform spectacular leaps off the ledge into the water below.  It could not have been any deeper than eight feet and likely about 15 feet across.  There was little margin for error.  The boys were aware of their audience and would make flips as they fell into the pool.  None of us would dare speak to those older boys much less try that jump ourselves.  We had not yet earned the right to even attempt it in the presence of those boys.  This was their turf.  We would have to wait.

We usually hung out in the creek area below on the large rocks surrounding the creek.  If we would hear the tough older kids coming down the hill, we would hide in the woods until we could assess the situation.  If they were in a good mood, they would sun themselves on the rock and smoke cigarettes and let us goof around nearby.  If they didn’t appear in a good mood, we’d disappear into the woods like the Viet Cong.

One time a boy named Scott dared to step over what ever the understood behavioral line was with these boys.  This incensed the two twin brothers that insisted Scott prove he “wasn’t a pussy” and jump off the trestle.  Scott, a well-known pussy, was not in favor of the idea and tried to come up with any possible excuse to avoid it.  The bad news for Scott was that the brothers were not going to accept “My Mom doesn’t want me to get wet” or “I just don’t feel like it today”.  They grabbed him and dragged him up the small hill.  Scott struggled as they shoved him to the edge above the creek pool.  Scott pleaded with them to let him go.  We all stood below the ledge looking up, afraid to even breathe.  Scott started to cry.  Andy said, “For Christ’s sake.  Let’s let him go.”  Scott began to sniffle but relax.  He thought he was off the hook.  However, Andy had just done this to make Scott drop his guard.  With a lunge he shoved Scott off the ledge into the water.

Scott never made a sound as he fell off.  He must have been as surprised as we all were.  It was obvious though that he was falling at the wrong angle.  He was going in feet first, but at a slanted jack knife angle.  He was too far right.  My heart leaped up into my throat.  Scott hit the water, and at first it looked like it might be OK.  Scott went under and then resurfaced.  He looked wrong though.  He was pale and gasping.  That’s when I saw his lower leg twisted at an unnatural angle.  Blood began to fill the creek.  His leg was broken.  He began to scream out in pain.  There was a general panic from all the boys surrounding the creek.

The older boys reverted back to the children they really were and ran off, abandoning Scott.  Scott’s brother and one of my friends were the fastest runners.  They sprinted down the path in the woods to get help.  It was a long way though.  Scott floated in the water and grabbed onto a rock to avoid having to swim.  Myself and another boy talked to Scott, trying to tell him he was going to be OK, though we were just reciting back things we had heard on TV.  Scott was probably going into shock.  After a long while, two fishermen came down the path and pulled him out. Scott was laid out on the rock as they men swore and tried to stabilize the situation.  A siren sounded far off.  Dust started to appear at the top of the trestle as a paramedic van bounced down the railroad tracks.  The paramedics brought a stretcher down and hauled Scott up the filthy hill with a rope.  Being boys that knew someone was going to get blamed for this as soon as the crisis dimmed, and most likely whoever was standing there, we drifted back into the woods to disappear as they loaded Scott into the van.  The lights flickered in the dust and the fading sun of dusk.  We walked home assessing our grim chances of avoiding punishment. 

My friends and I skated through with little more than angry questions about why we were there.  The older boys got in trouble.  They then blamed Scott for getting them in trouble, which was generally agreed upon in the schoolyard.  In retrospect, I think Scott was within his rights to tell the paramedics and cops who had to haul him out of a creek with a compound fracture who the person(s) were that had shoved him off a 25 foot fall into sharp rocks.  Yet, at that time, it was more of a gray area open to great debate.  The excitement faded as it always does.

We went back to the trestle after the heat cooled off.  Scott was in a cast and it became old news.  The cops had chased off the older boys.  It had become our place now.  We would stand at the top of the trestle looking down at the creek, replaying again and again what had happened to Scott.  The dare to jump off into the water became very real once again.  I never did it.  If I ever get the chance, I am going to walk that path to that creek side and take a look at that jump.  Sometimes things aren’t as big as you remember them.  I bet this is one of them.