Waiting For The Evening News
Jordan Roberson
Ms. Pichon
ENGL 2110.03N
14 October 2013
Innocence or Ignorance Tim Gautreaux introduces Jesse McNeil, the main character, as a drunk running a locomotive. Although Jesse is intoxicated, he was “charging up the main line at fifty with the chemical train, rattling through the hot Louisiana night like a thunderstorm” (Gautreaux 327). Gautreaux tells us that “he had roared through it a thousand times with a hundred cars of propane and vinyl chloride”, “it” being the same old route he was used to (Gautreaux 328). Even though Jesse is no rookie when it comes to carrying a dangerous load, he is still riding on a rolling bomb. The author tells the reader “he reached for the whistle lever in the dark cab and missed it, remembering the half-pint of whiskey he had gulped behind the engine house thirty minutes earlier” (Gautreaux 328). This tells me that he knows he is wrong but still chose to throw back the alcohol. There is no excuse for drinking on the job but Jesse thinks otherwise. “He was fifty years old today, and he wanted to do something wild and woolly, like get half-lit and pull the chemical train”, this is Jesse’s poor excuse for working while intoxicated (Gautreaux 328). It seems as if Jesse is just tired of the same old routine and wants to do something different for a change. All of a sudden things took a turn for the worse for the experienced engineer. Just after “laughing at how free he felt, how nobody cared what he was doing, how lost he was in the universe”, Jesse has another thing coming (Gautreax 328). “With a jolt, loose wrenches and lunch boxed flew forward in a convulsion of iron, and Jesse was knocked from his seat, his thermos flying over his head and sailing out into the thundering darkness”, the train was in some kind of trouble (Gautreaux 328). All of the commotion put Jesse into a state of panic. He decides to figure what is going on by “Leaning out the window and looking back along the mile-long trail of tankers, he
Ms. Pichon
ENGL 2110.03N
14 October 2013
Innocence or Ignorance Tim Gautreaux introduces Jesse McNeil, the main character, as a drunk running a locomotive. Although Jesse is intoxicated, he was “charging up the main line at fifty with the chemical train, rattling through the hot Louisiana night like a thunderstorm” (Gautreaux 327). Gautreaux tells us that “he had roared through it a thousand times with a hundred cars of propane and vinyl chloride”, “it” being the same old route he was used to (Gautreaux 328). Even though Jesse is no rookie when it comes to carrying a dangerous load, he is still riding on a rolling bomb. The author tells the reader “he reached for the whistle lever in the dark cab and missed it, remembering the half-pint of whiskey he had gulped behind the engine house thirty minutes earlier” (Gautreaux 328). This tells me that he knows he is wrong but still chose to throw back the alcohol. There is no excuse for drinking on the job but Jesse thinks otherwise. “He was fifty years old today, and he wanted to do something wild and woolly, like get half-lit and pull the chemical train”, this is Jesse’s poor excuse for working while intoxicated (Gautreaux 328). It seems as if Jesse is just tired of the same old routine and wants to do something different for a change. All of a sudden things took a turn for the worse for the experienced engineer. Just after “laughing at how free he felt, how nobody cared what he was doing, how lost he was in the universe”, Jesse has another thing coming (Gautreax 328). “With a jolt, loose wrenches and lunch boxed flew forward in a convulsion of iron, and Jesse was knocked from his seat, his thermos flying over his head and sailing out into the thundering darkness”, the train was in some kind of trouble (Gautreaux 328). All of the commotion put Jesse into a state of panic. He decides to figure what is going on by “Leaning out the window and looking back along the mile-long trail of tankers, he
Cited: Gautreaux, Tim. “Waiting for the Evening News.” Literature: A Pocket Anthology. R. S. Gwynn. 5th Ed. Boston: Longman, 2012. 327-342.