After nearly 50 years, a man recounts an impulsive decision to hop a freight train with three friends in their late teens going nowhere. What would you tell your younger self?

SYNOPSIS:

TOM (66), in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts, approaches a freight train in Jack London Square, the seafood restaurant capital of Oakland, California. Four college freshmen pull him to safety only to be cornered to hear his autobiographical tale. Flashback to the summer of 1971, where four teens going nowhere meet at the same spot. TOMMY (19) is a younger, impetuous, irreverent version of TOM. He wears wild curly hair and bellbottom pants and works part-time at a grocery store with BOB (18), who sports a ponytail. Dear friend, BILLY (19), works at a fast-food restaurant and smokes more than cigarettes. Tommy, Bob, and Billy are community college students, but no one knows Tommy’s innermost secret: he reads like a fifth-grader. DRAKE (19) seems out of place as the tall, handsome university quarterback and aspiring architect. When Tommy has an impulsive idea to hop a freight train, all the boys are inexplicably onboard.

The young men hop on an open-air automobile-carrier and have to hold on tight as the train gains speed. The cars are all locked, so they must cling to the railing and ladders to avoid falling off as the train switches tracks. There is no escaping the train. Their spirits are high for several reasons, but they are slowly being covered in black soot, and spirits dim. At 2 AM, the train comes to a stop in the Milpitas Train Yard, where barking German shepherds and engineers await them. It’s a mad race to scale the chain-link fence to freedom and the diner by the freeway.

With little money for food, Drake is called upon to sweet talk the waitress, who works nights while seeking her teaching certificate by day. The waitress observes Tommy’s poor reading skills when he struggles with page four of the 100-page portion of Don Quixote he carried in his back pocket for weeks. Tommy relishes her succinct summary of Don Quixote, while his buddies dine on free pancakes. The adventure is over for Billy and Drake, who hitchhike home to Oakland, but Bob suggests extending the adventure to Tommy, and they hitchhike south to the Santa Cruz mountains. Bob and Tommy break into Bob’s grandpa’s cabin to spend the night, and argue, vent, and reflect on life.

A morning cleaning up in the ocean and an afternoon clearing their minds is badly needed. Hitching a ride home in a truck hauling mattresses is great luck. Bob falls asleep immediately providing Tommy the time to read the first hundred pages of Don Quixote. Our story ends back in the present, where Tom ponders what he would tell his younger self, who wouldn’t listen anyway. “You’re on your own, kid! Everyone hops a train!”

EVERYONE HOPS A TRAIN