This is a story about temptation. This is a story about the people who have fallen through the cracks. This is a story about how Candle Jack bested the Devil.

Candle Jack was given his moniker because of his looks. He was a tall drink of water, pale of skin and red of hair. That mop of his would blow in the wind of a passing boxcar like a flickering flame. But, like the shine of his smile, Candle Jack’s flame never went out. No matter what the situation, Candle Jack was as easy going as a pig in slop.

It was a fact, well-known by hobos everywhere, that there was a certain railyard in Kansas that was an unsafe place to rest one’s head. Those that ventured to stay the night there were never heard from again, though the nature of the danger was highly disputed. Some said a ferocious pack of bone polishers patrolled the yard, and, unlike normal canines, they had taken to the taste of human flesh. Others said the place was protected by a particularly ornery railroad bull that was quick with a pistol and just as likely to bury a hobo then send him to the big house.

Sadly, Candle Jack found his very self in this particular railyard one night with no train leaving the station and no prospects for a hot meal and a warm night’s sleep.

“Ah well,” thought Candle Jack, as he often did. He shrugged, in his mind and with his shoulders, more than any other man alive. “If I am accosted by any authorities than I will deal with then, but at the moment my problem is one of exhaustion.” So Candle Jack laid his bindle under his head and went to sleep.

He awoke at some point in the middle of the night, with a dark figure standing above him. Candle Jack was ready to bolt, when he realized that this man was a fellow hobo. At least, he appeared that way.

The strange man work a suit of pitch black that soaked up what little moonlight filtered down into the railyard. Not a hole in the jacket, not a smudge on the pants, but it still seemed ill-fitting on the man. A top hat sat crookedly on the man’s raven hair. A thin Van Dyke with traces of silver framed the man’s wide mouth. And he wore tinted glasses. This last fact unsettled Candle Jack, for reasons he could not quite put his finger on.

The man introduced himself as Bennie the Crow and reached his hand down to Candle Jack. The still sleepy hobo shook the hand and flinched in pain. The hand was as cold as a block of ice.

“You look lost, friend,” said Bennie the Crow, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Without waiting for an answer, the stranger proferred an invitation to a fantastical place that could be found nearby. A place where cigarettes grew on trees and waterfalls of gin spilled into lakes. A place where the ground was a soft as a bed and there weren’t any cops to hassle the wandering man.

Candle Jack admitted that it all sounded like the bee’s knees, but the truth of the matter was that he had everything he ever needed already. Maybe some day when was older, Candle Jack might welcome these comforts, but today his legs were strong enough to bear his own load.

Bennie the Crow’s face hardened for a brief moment, and then burst into a huge grin. He said that each man must find his own way and fished a coin out of his pocket. He flipped the coin to Candle Jack, wishing him a world of luck on his journey. And then, just as mysteriously as he had appeared, he was gone.

The coin was a quarter, and it too, filled Candle Jack with a strange sense of dread. It felt oddly greasy to the touch and fill up his palm and weigh down his hand like no other coin had done. The markings on one face were unfamiliar to Candle Jack, so he set the coin beside him on half a brick before attempting to sleep again.

When Candle Jack awoke, the quarter was gone. Relieved, he set to traveling once again.

Somewhere in Colorado, a few weeks later, Candle Jack found the quarter in the pocket of his pants. He gave it away to another hobo called Duckpin, but it reappeared in his jacket a couple of days later. He then took it out into the desert and buried it. But it came back again. And again after he tossed it into the ocean. And all the while the quarter was in Candle Jack’s possession, his luck turned sour. He missed trains, got chased by housewives with brooms, and had an encounter with an ill-tempered skunk.

Frustrated, Candle Jack returned to that railyard in Kansas and began looking around for Bennie the Crow. He found the strange hobo behind a rusted out boxcar and confronted Bennie with the quarter, trying to get him to take it back.

“No can do,” said Bennie, “but I’ll tell you what. You come with me, and you’ll never have to worry about bad luck again…”

Well, Candle Jack had no choice but to agree and Bennie led him through the yard to a small wooden door, its red paint nearly faded completely away. Beyond the door was everything that Bennie the Crow had promised, but Candle Jack was worried. He saw a number of other hobos, lazing about a lake of whiskey and he could see that this place took the spirit out of man. But he also knew that Bennie would let him leave so easily, so Candle Jack began to think of a plan.

“Say, thanks pal! Let’s celebrate,” Candle Jack cried and scooped his tin cup into a nearby stream and took a sip. It was pure hooch, warm and strong. He offered the cup to Bennie, who drank it dry.

The two of them kept drinking, as Candle Jack’s friendly smile kept Bennie off guard. Soon, each of them was downing whole cups in a single gulp. And that’s when Candle Jack, who was able to keep his wits about it on account of being of Irish descent, slipped the quarter into Bennie’s drink. Candle Jack watched nervously as Bennie grimaced as the booze went down, but he gave back the cup completely empty.

Candle Jack then plucked a lit cigarette from a nearby bush and said, “Well, Bennie the Crow, I thank you for the drinks, but I must be going.”

“You can’t,” growled Bennie, his words slurring. “I’ve paid for your soul, so here you must stay!”

“Afraid not, friend. You can keep your money.” With a wink, Candle Jack pointed at Bennie’s gullet and strode back to the railyard to continue with his wandering ways. The shrieks of Bennie the Crow echoed throughout the land, and a number of hobos that night turned restlessly in their sleep.

This is a story about temptation. This is a story about the people who have fallen through the cracks. This is a story about how Candle Jack bested the Devil.

Sadly, though, this is just a story.