Monthly Archives: May 2025

My Life in Jeopardy Again

I’ve had numerous close calls,
Starting in childhood when the fire
Department rescued me
And the neighbors stood
On their porches and cheered,
Then being saved from
Falling off a mountain cliff.
Then many other close calls that make my
Wife shudder to hear me talk about.
I could write a book about close calls.

 

When You Grow Up In Chicago

Chicago is the home of great
Financial institutions and universities, but
When you grow up in Chicago as I did
You coexist with gangsters. You know their
Names and nicknames and you
Read the papers about them and hear about
Them, or they live in your neighborhood.
Chicago is the city of neighborhoods.
I dated a famous gangster’s sister–a lovely girl–
But her family lived in shame. Her brother was
Slain because he double-crossed other gangsters,
His body found bullet-riddled as double-crosser’s
Bodies usually are.

 

Here are four close calls I’ve had.

 

In a North Side Chicago Bar at Two A.M.
Gangland Killer

In the bar at 2:00 A.M. on the fading
End of a magnificent summer night that had been warm
But turned pleasantly cool like a breath of October
Were four people who had nothing in common:
A waitress, a bartender, a drunk man, and I.
The waitress and I were twenty-two or three then,
She was pretty, her complexion as fresh as clover.
Her periwinkle blue eyes made you recall a sky you once saw.
Both of us were as care-free as the magic of our youth,
She younger than wherever her life would lead, I not yet
The writer I would soon be. We never knew each other’s name.

She was fearless when she said to
The surly drunk man everyone all night had been afraid of
And kept their distance from because he seemed to be
A dangerous man, “Sir, I can’t serve anyone who has
Had too much to drink. Do you understand? ”
She had manners. She was a nice girl.

The drunk man then spit in her face and I
Went over there and chastised him, saying to him
That he must apologize to her,
That in civilized society you don’t spit on people–I said,
“That’s something everybody’s supposed to know,” and he
Cursed me and growled that he now intended
To kill me.

Pissed, I stood in front of him and said,
“Go ahead pull out a gun right now
And shoot me.” He cursed me again and furiously
Stormed out the front door. Then the bartender
Said to me that I had picked the worst possible man
To antagonize: “When he said he would
Kill you he really could. He is a murderer.
He tortures and kills people. That’s what the man does.
That’s his profession. This is serious.
He’s in that car at the curb waiting for you to
Come out. If I were you I wouldn’t plan on
Living a long life.”

The waitress and I hugged goodbye, never
To see each other again, then slipped
Out the back door and down the dark alley
Laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation–
“How will we explain this to anyone?”–
Running for our lives.

 

When I was seventeen I rode freight trains across America for six months for the sake of adventure, living the way hobos live, and had close calls daily, my life continually at risk.

 

 

Nature’s Cruelty:
The Bitter Cold of Night

Cold settles savagely on Utah’s
Great Salt Lake desert late at night.
I had reached the desert by freight train
After a scorching day,
The red sun pulsating in the sky
Like a throbbing heart. The temperature then
Fell precipitously. Then there was an ice storm.
Then nothing to warm me, exposed to the open air.
How in the unspeakable cold of interminable night I suffered,
Hoping not to freeze to death by morning and be
Found in a boxcar as stiff as a six-foot plank of wood,

 

Shot at, Chased By Dogs

When my freight train reached Kelso-Longview
The railroad police were waiting,
Holding the leash of a German shepherd
In one hand, waving a gun in the other.
Shouting and running, I, youngest, running fastest,
Hobos leaped or fell from the cars and dashed
In every direction, chased by the cops
Firing their weapons everywhere.
As I ran I laughed at how out
Of my element I was, far from Chicago, and how ludicrous
The whole scene must appear–a hundred
Running hobos and bulls, men firing revolvers,
Other men praying not to be shot,
Ferocious dogs snapping at my heels,
Shots grazing my head.

 

Milk: The Ordeal of Thirst

The freight train we caught hadn’t stopped
Going on three days and our canteens
Were empty. We were worried about water.
We had never been as thirsty.
We were losing hope. How long can a
Human live without water? When would
This train stop, free us, and let us live?

I fell asleep in the heat and dreamed
That I opened the refrigerator
At home and saw every shelf loaded
With bottles of milk.

Then in a second dream
I saw waterfalls of milk spraying
And roaring down like Victoria Falls–
Streams of milk, rivers of milk–

An ocean of cold milk. My friend asked if I was
Still alive and I answered that I was.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“Milk.”
“Milk?”
“Milk.”

The train stopped
And I jumped off onto ground.
I found a providential water pump
And filled our canteens–the
Stream of water from the pump
Pouring over my boots.
We drank the foul tasting
Egg water and found it life-saving.

 

© 2025 David J. Rogers

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