Demond has traveled the country full-time by freight train for 14 years.

I was riding a train in Arizona, in the mountains. It started lightning in the day. Was around two o’clock where I was. The sky was all blue. The sun was shining real nice. It was nice and hot, so I knew the Holy Spirit was really there. Looking to the southeast, I saw God. I saw the lightning striking. It struck, but it didn’t make any noise. It was just a presence. He was like, “I’m the presence.” That night, I got deep up in the mountains. It started raining slightly. It didn’t rain real hard. It drizzled, and I heard the voice of God. God was like, “I’m right here. I see you, my child.” He knows everything that goes on here in the world. This was heading to Houston coming from California. 

I left Houston and caught a train to Alabama. See, the way things are in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, you’ve got a whole bunch of tracks that look like they’re going the same direction, but they go different ways. You got to know what train’s going to take you where because they go opposite directions. So you’ve got to look at what name brand you’re on. I said, “This train is going to take me to Atlanta because Norfolk Southern goes to Atlanta.”

I ended up riding all the way to Roanoke, Virginia. I was with some white guys at that time. We all cliqued up that day. I was the only Black person there. They were trying to go to Baltimore, Maryland. We hit the train and traveled for miles and miles. I said, “Where are we?” We was all the way in Washington. When we got to Maryland, they decided to run up to the store. One of the guys goes and snatches a soda. I said, “Man, we can’t be doing this.” This lady’s talking about calling the cops. I took off because I can’t go to jail. There was a train coming and I got on that sucker. I was gone. They went the other way.

The next day, I woke up riding that train. I’m on the back, sitting by myself, thinking, “Okay, where am I?” I saw all that water. Boy, that water looked deep. The way the train was going, it was getting closer. I said, “Whoo, you can see a good shot, boy, because the Atlantic Coast got some deep water.” So I had got somewhere. The engineer told me, “Be careful. Don’t let somebody see you. You’re in New Haven, Connecticut.”  It was kind of cold, and it was morning.

I started walking for about a mile. I walked into a store. Some white lady said, “Are you hungry?” Because I didn’t have any money — I had nothing, like I have now — I said, “Yes, ma’am.” So she said, “Are you sure that’s all you want?” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” She said, “Where are you headed?” I said, “I’m trying to get to Detroit.” She said, “You need some money?” I say, “If you could help me get a ticket, that’s fine. That’s what I’m trying to do.” Man, they paid for a Greyhound ticket and put me on a bus to Detroit.

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Editor-in-chief — Andrew Fedorov

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