Ricky And The Great Train Robbery
March 26, 2008 by supercynic
Well, it involves Ricky, a train, and a robbery (of sorts). I’m telling this story because a certain someone won’t post it. His initials are RC, but that’s all I’ll say. Ricky, Yack, RC, and I were all out one night. After closing down one bar, we decided to head to the legendary Subway Lounge, which was a somewhat famous after hours blues bar in Jackson, MS. The Subway was pretty small so you had to get there right at midnight to get a good spot. We decided that Yack and I would head to the Subway and save seats while Ricky and RC would buy beer. Yack and I gave them all the money we had except enough for cover and off we went. We paid the cover, got a table up front and waited for Ricky and RC. And waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour and a half of being broke and beerless, Yack and I left. At 7 or 8 the next morning, I got a call from Ricky’s girlfriend at the time. She was pissed that Ricky had not come home. I told her that I was pissed because he took my last $10 and didn’t show up at Subway; so having established that we were both pissed at Ricky, I asked if I could please go back to sleep.
She relented and I went back to sleep. An hour later she called me again. “I know where that son of a bitch is and you’re not going to believe it” were the first words out of her mouth. Knowing Ricky, I was thinking he was in jail, some other girl’s house, or found passed out and naked in the Silence of the Lambs pose in someone’s driveway. Her answer blew even me away. He was in Crystal Springs, which is about 30 minutes south of Jackson.
On the way to Subway is a set of railroad tracks that stay pretty busy. RC and Ricky apparently decided that instead of coming to the Subway, with Yack’s and my beer, they would instead pull a Boxcar Willie and ride one of the freight trains that must have been slowly cruising by. They rode the damn thing as far as Crystal Springs and Ricky’s girlfriend had to go pick them up. I’m sure that was a pleasant trip back. RC, if you’re out there, feel free to fill in the blanks of what in the hell y’all were thinking.
RC, please fill in the blanks. I’ve heard them from the Ricky viewpoint. I want to hear yours and everyone else needs to hear it from a 1st party. Try not to use the words “moron” “idiot” or “jackass” too much.
Let me first say thanks to Brian for a great idea. This has certainly brought back some great thoughts of Ricky and friends that I don’t talk to enough. I also want to warn all I am not the wordsmith that B is nor can I tell a story as well as Ricky.
I guess I should start by protecting the innocent namly ME, this was all Ricky’s idea. After picking up a icechest full of beer we were waiting for B and Yack at another dive bar before going to the Subway and that bar was next to the train yard.
Ricky and I were broke having bought the beer so we were in the parking lot having a “free beer” when we noticed the SLOW moving trains going back in forth. B and Yack weren’t there yet so Ricky says why dont we jump a train and ride to the end of the yard jump off and jump another one and ride it back. By then they will be here. For the life of me, and I have tried to figure it out, I don’t know why that sounded like a good idea.
The next thing I know we are headed to the tracks with ice chest in tow. For those of you that havent tried to run full speed when drunk, holding an icechest, and jump on a moving train it is not easy. We didn’t have much luck with the first one and had to let it go. Now that we knew what we were doing, we caught the next one. The reason, we were soon to find out, was it was actually stopping. Just as we were settled in and drinking our first beer it came to a stop about a mile down the track. At this point we had lived out our Boxcar Willly fantasy, but we needed to get back to the bar. Along comes another train and being experienced now we jump on with only one problem the ice chest got ran over.
Part two later
Part two
Knowing B and Yack the way we all do meeting them with no beer was not an option and it was a nice night for a train ride. I know this will come as a suprise but we didn’t do a lot of planning before jumping the train and instead of jumping in an open box car we ended up between two cars. As you may imagin it was not very comfortable.
After a brief disscussion on the likelyhood of surrviving jumping OFF of a train going 65 mph we settled in for the nite. I awoke at sunrise and got the scare of a life time. Ricky was gone. I knew he had fallen off durring the nite. Just as I was about to start crying because I knew Dr. Peden was going to kill me I hear this unmistakable sound, Ricky snorring! I climb on TOP of the car and Ricky is sound asleep.
The sunset was beautifull that day. As we disscuss where we may be and how we were going to get home. We figured that we would be in New Orleans any minute. About this time the train starts slowing down to go through another yard only this time we were spotted by a guy with a radio. We know that he is using that radio to call the FBI train stow away division so it was decided to get off of the train. After a long discussion on the best way to jump off a train we were at an impass. Ricky thought we should jump in the grass and roll. I was sure that if we waited for a crossroad we could jump off and be able to run it out. Ricky was right. He jumped rolled and hopped right up. I jumped hit the road and rolled and rolled and rolled. Rick swears that my shoe flew higher than the trees.
Ricky gets to me right away and helps me up. I have lost a shoe a sleeve and I am bleeding. He has a rip in his jeans and we are both filthy. As luck would have it on the other side of the track is a church bus, and you may think this story has come to a happy end but, since we are blocking the way they give us a ride to the church. However they will not let us in to use a phone. They point us in the direction of the nearest highway.
After a long walk, did I mention that I am missing a shoe, we arrive at the Crystal Springs Country Club just as they are preparring for the Sunday lunch crowd. We are starving and have $10 between us, enough for one lunch. After a call to Brian and no answer we call Ricky’s girlfriend. Of course she is just happy we are alive and says she will be right there.
In our present state the manager of the CC asks us to leave the property and packs our lunch to go. We walk back out to the highway to eat and wait for our ride. We are full and exhausted so we fall asleep. Just as I am starting to dream we are awaken by a horn going off about 12 inches from my head. One of MS finest figured that was the best way to get us up. He also didn’t like us sleeping on his highway, but it was Sunday and he felt sorry for us. He gave us an hour to get off of his highway or else. He leaves and we immediately fall back asleep only to be awaken by Ricky’s girlfriends car horn. Needless to say that was a long loud trip home.
Come on Ted I know you have some to share.
I’m still laughing. I had not heard that side of the story. Who can beat a story involving a train, a run-over ice chest, and the loss of a shoe coupled with having to walk a couple of miles? I love how y’all called me before calling Ricky’s girlfriend. Smart move and sorry I didn’t answer the phone. I probably thought it was her calling me yet again to complain that Ricky wasn’t home.
I’m still pissed off about not having any beer at Subway!
Yack raises a good point. As we see it, Ray, you owe us $150, which includes interest and penalties. Remember this was 20 years ago. That crap adds up.
Those Sheaffer Lites would be good about right now since I can’t sleep.
It would be great to see you guys. I would gladly buy all the Sheaffer you could drink if we could get together.
Where do you live now Ray? I occasionally travel to the coast if you’re still down there.
By all means give me a call the next time your down. I live in Long Beach and my cell is 228-547-2980.
I will save your number and give you a call next time I’m down. I talk to Jeff White occasionally. I wonder what the rest of Ricky’s posse has been up to?
Brian and I used to joke about our trips to Gulfport to hang out with Ricky. It would always end up being about 100 people going to the smallest restaurant we could find to eat dinner. I eventually learned to grab a snack prior to dinner becuase we were on “Ricky time”. This meant dinner usually occured around midnight!
The following day about half the dinner crew would show up to meet for brunch around 2pm. I guess the rest were still in bed.
In retrospect, Ricky and I (or anyone with him) meal schedules usually went this way:
lunch/brunch - 2pm
dinner - 11pm
breakfast - 4am (waffle house)
Lordie, Lordie. You guys make me really miss Ricky. I realized when he was at Garden Park that his legacy will be his friends. He really loved yall and I am sure he loved getting you into trouble even more.
Peaches–so glad to have you. I know Ricky is in Heaven asking God, “Can’t you do something about those folks? The Red Sea, The Flood, Water Into Wine, no problem, but you can’t stop those people from printing all those lies about me. I never did those things. Ok, one or two, but there’s some embellishment going on. C’mon, God, lift the rule on haunting. Please, please let me haunt.”