“Can’t never get enough of that sweet woman’s way.”
“What woman?” Dick goes, all worried-looking.
“Lady luck, Double D,” I go. “Sweet old lady luck. Once she calls your number, you better be home because that baby’s mighty picky whom she favours.”
“Well, Digger,” the old lady goes, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a poetic mood before.”
“Dig it while you can, mama. Dig it while you can.”
So we lumber on out of the Mission and head down the street. It’s a bright, almost spring day and there’s people everywhere. Dick’s going on to the old lady about the birds and the squirrels and the other things that loogans always seem to notice, and me ’n Timber are just moseying along in silence. We swing into a liquor store and I grab a mickey for each of us.
“You sure?” Timber goes when I hand him his.
“Sure I’m sure,” I go. “Let’s stop over in that park for a minute.”
We head into the park and stop by a big tree. I pull out my mickey and hand it over to the old lady without even thinking about it. She nods her head at me, unscrews the cap, pours a little splash on the ground, and goes, “There’s one for the dead.” She does the same thing with the other guys’ bottles and we all take a drink.
“Ah,” I go. “Now then, let’s hit the flick.”
“Why don’t you check the ticket at that store over there, Digger? You never know, you know,” Timber goes.
“Fuck,” I go. “The chances of us winning anything is a million to one at least. Me, I figure I scored enough already.”
“But you never know,” he goes.
“Right. You never know. Fuck it. Let’s go.”
It’s just a regular corner store. Garden Grocery, it’s called. I walk in and the others wait outside. It’s kind of dark in there and when the old Chinese guy behind the counter sees me he gets all nervous.
“Y-y-yes?” he goes.
“Yeah,” I go. “How do I check this out?” I show him the ticket.
“Oh, very easy. You no play before?”
“No. No play.”
“I check,” he goes, and I hand him the ticket.
I stand around pretending to look at the shelves, eager to be out of there. He pushes a couple numbers on the machine behind the till and waits for something to happen. Silence. Then all of a sudden there’s music. Not riotous fucking music but just tinkly little music like you’d hear from a doorbell or something. He looks at the ticket, looks at me all wide-eyed, and then starts yelling something crazy in Chinese. He’s standing there all excited, yelling his head off, and I can’t figure out what the fuck is going on. The door at the back opens and this big, young Chinese guy comes into the store on the run. They gibber away at each other all in a panic and I figure it’s time to hotfoot it out of there. The fucking thing probably came up stolen and I’m off to the hoosegow.
“Winnipeg!” the old guy goes, pointing at me.
“What?”
“Winnipeg!” he goes again.
The young guy looks at me and starts around the counter. I’m no track star but I figure my fear can outrun this guy’s anger, so I book it on out of there. The fucking ticket was a heat score and I was about to take the pinch, so I was gonna make it at least hard for them to take me in.
The old man’s still yelling about Winnipeg when I hit the door and shoot past the other three. I sprint across the street and into the park, figuring on heading over to the alleys where I have a chance of losing them. I hear Timber yelling. I hear the old lady scream but I’m making tracks as fast as I can, thinking they won’t have to take any part of the pinch if I pretend I don’t know them. The mickey falls out of my pocket and breaks on the sidewalk so I cut to the grass but it’s slippery as fuck. I wipe out and take a fucking header into some bushes. As I scramble to get out of there, the young Chinese guy catches up and reaches out to grab me. I swat his hand away and try ’n make another break for it but I lose traction and land on my ass again.
“Wi-wi-win-winni-winnipeg,” the old guy goes as he chugs up to us, still holding the ticket.
“I never been in fucking Winnipeg,” I go.
“Winnipeg?” the young guy goes, pulling me up.
“Yeah,” I go. “What he said.”
The other three arrive just then and Timber gives me “the look” to see if I wanna clock this guy and make a run for it. I shake my head.
They jabber away in Chinese again and I hear Winnipeg and figure that this ticket belongs to someone in Winnipeg and I’m the fucking stooge who tried to cash it. I’m thinking that I’d probably only pull a month or so in the joint for fraud, and that’d give me a nice little rest, when they stop jabbering and look at me.
“What?” I go.
“Not Winnipeg,” the young guy goes.
“Not Winnipeg?”
“No, not Winnipeg. Winna big. My father says you ‘winna BIG.’”
“Yes,” the old guy goes. “Winna BIG! Winna BIG!”
“Winna big? How fucking big?” I go.
“Pretty fucking big,” the young guy goes, smiling.
“Well, exactly how big is pretty fucking big?”
“Thirteen-and-a-half-million-dollars big,” he goes.
“Thirteen and a half …”
“Million,” he goes.
“Thirteen and a half million dollars?” I go, and I hear the old lady gasp behind me.
“Yes. Yes. You just won thirteen and a half million dollars!”
I fall flat on my ass on the wet grass.
Wind on stone.
Pardon me?
Oh. Sorry. Just musing a little there. But I was thinking about something I heard somewhere in my travels about change. Someone told me that sometimes it happens like wind on stone—invisibly, secretly, mysteriously—but it happens nonetheless. Change is like that sometimes.
And other times?
Sudden as a panther from the trees.
Yes. Like then. Like on that day.
Yes. The panther dropped right in among us and we were all suddenly different. Except we really didn’t know it. We thought it was the world that had altered. We couldn’t see the wind performing its sorcery.
No. You really can’t remember where you heard that?
No. It’s funny but I’ve been so many places, seen and done so many things, that it makes it hard to recollect simple detail.
But that’s okay, because detail obfuscates. I just recall the teachings now. It’s wonderful. Memory is like sorcery, too, sometimes.
Yes. It transports us.
Lets us transcend time and distance, longing even.
True. Do you remember everything that happened after?
Like a great dream.
Like a vision.
Like a life.
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Timber
“I DON’T BELIEVE IT,” I said, more to hear myself speak, to feel real, than for anything else.
“It’s impossible,” Amelia said.
“I don’t understand,” Dick said, looking back and forth at Amelia and me for guidance.
“None of us do,” I said to him.
Digger was sitting on the ground staring at his shoes and shaking his head. The two Chinese guys were all smiles and talking to each other in Chinese. The young guy finally reached down and handed Digger the ticket.
“You got to keep this safe,” he said. “Better that you go down now and take care of it.”
“What?” Digger said, reaching up to take the ticket. “Go down where?”
“Lottery office. Downtown,” the young guy said.
“Downtown?”
“Yes. I write down address for you.”
“Go down and cash this in?”
“Yes.”
“For thirteen and a half million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck me.”
The young guy smiled. “For thirteen and a half million dollar, lots o
f people want to fuck you now.”
Digger laughed. “I fucking guess,” he said and stood up. “This is for real?”
“Yes. For real,” the young guy said.
“Jesus. Jesus. I need a smoke. I need a friggin’ drink. I need to sit down.”
We moved to a bench under a tree and sat there, smoking and drinking, not saying a word but looking around at each other like you do when no one really knows what to do or say next. The two Chinese guys walked away but the young guy came back a few minutes later and handed Digger a slip of paper.
“Address,” he said. “You lucky. You very lucky.”
“Yeah,” Digger said. “Winnipeg.”
The young guy smiled. “Yes. Winnipeg. You go now or you lose it. You go there now.”
We looked at each other again. Amelia moved over and sat beside Digger and put an arm around his shoulder. To my surprise, Digger slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed her gently. “Jesus,” he said again. “Jesus.”
“What do you want to do, Digger?” she asked.
He looked at her. “I don’t know. What’s a guy supposed to do at a time like this?”
“Cash it in,” I said.
“Cash it in?” Digger repeated, looking at me and reaching for my mickey.
“I guess,” I said. “What else?”
He drank. “I don’t fucking know. I just do not fucking know. Whatta you figure there, loogan?” He looked at Dick, who stood there scratching at the dirt with the toe of one shoe, trying to make sense of it all.
“You’re asking me?” he said.
“Yeah,” Digger said. “I’m asking you.”
“How come?”
“How come? On accounta you ain’t so busy in the brain as me and maybe you got a way to figure this I don’t.”
“Oh,” Dick said. “I don’t, though. It’s like a movie.”
“No shit,” Digger said. “It’s like a movie. Only what do you think happens in this movie?”
Dick looked at him. “I think the friends all go down there together.”
“And?”
“And, I don’t know.”
“Me neither. I don’t even know where to start. I never figured this, you know,” Digger said and squeezed Amelia again.
“No one could have,” she said. “But I know one thing for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“I know that someone wants you to have that money. Or else it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a friggin’ minute. You don’t think I’m going through this all alone, do you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, we’re all wingers, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then if we’re wingers, then what comes to me comes to you.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying that one-fourth of thirteen and a half is four point three or something like that, if I figure right.”
“One-fourth?” I asked.
“Yeah. Each of us. Together. Think about it. A guy like me don’t have clue number one about what to do with a fucking chunk of change like this, but four of us, well, we might just be able to figure out what to do.”
“What’s he saying, Timber?” Dick asked.
“I’m saying that you’re rich, buddy boy,” Digger said.
“Rich?”
“Yeah. Filthy, lousy, stinking, way-more-fucking-money-than-brains rich. Just like the rest of us.”
“Wow,” Dick said. “We can go to way more movies then, huh?”
“Way more,” I said.
“Then I guess we’d better get down there, claim our loot, and then head off to, what was it again?” Digger asked.
“Field of Dreams,” Amelia said.
“Field of Dreams,” I replied, and felt the world I thought I knew slipping away.
Double Dick
I WANTED TO RUN AWAY AGAIN. I don’t like it when things happen fast on accounta I fall behind an’ it takes me forever to catch up an’ when I do it’s movin’ away even more. Rich. Digger said we was rich. I didn’t know what that meant but I hoped it didn’t mean that we was gonna get away from each other, that rich would mean we couldn’t be friends no more. I didn’t want that. All I wanted was to go to the movies with my friends like we was doin’. I didn’t wanna try ’n handle no more than that.
“How come this happened?” I asked One For The Dead while we was walking toward downtown.
“I don’t know, Dick,” she said. “But maybe you can keep thinking about it like you were.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Well, you said that it was like a movie, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It is like that on accounta in the movies there’s always things going on that you never know about until they happen.”
“And what do you do in the movies at times like that?”
“Well, mostly I just wait an’ things move ahead on their own an’ everything comes out the way it’s s’posed to in the end.”
“Can you do that with this?”
“I guess. But this scares me.”
“What scares you about this?” she asked, and took my arm in hers.
“Well, in the movies when I don’t know what’s gonna happen I’m excited. Now I’m just scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Scared that everything’s gonna be different on accounta we’re rich. I don’t know how to be rich. An’ I’m scared that on accounta everything bein’ different that we’re not gonna be together no more.”
She squeezed my arm. “Dick, I will never, ever leave you. No matter what. You and I are always going to be together.”
“Even though we’re rich?”
She smiled. “Even though we’re rich.”
“What’s that mean, anyhow?” I asked.
She laughed. It felt good to hear someone laugh. “I don’t really know. I’ve never been there in my life. But I think it means that you don’t have to struggle anymore.”
“Struggle?”
“Yes. Fight. Tussle. Strain. Struggle to get enough to do what you want to do. Struggle to make it through your day or even plan your life. For you, it means you don’t have to panhandle anymore because you have enough.”
“Wow. What’ll I do if I don’t gotta be out there for hours at a time?”
“You can do whatever you want.”
“But I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Well, I think rich means that you can learn how to do things different.”
“But that’s what scares me. I don’t wanna do things different. I like how it is. Like how we’re always together. Like how we always go to the movies an’ talk an’ stuff,” I said, getting more scared by the minute.
“I guess we can always do that too,” she said.
“Hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”
One For The Dead
GRANDMA ONE SKY used to tell me about the Trickster when we picked berries. They were very funny stories. Sometimes the Trickster was a raven, sometimes it was a coyote, other times a man named Nanabush. The Trickster travelled around the world getting into all kinds of adventures with animals and people. I remember laughing lots. But Grandma One Sky said that the stories were very serious and that one day when I was older and had seen more of the world myself, I would recall those tales and go back into them and learn from them. The Trickster was a teacher, and the lessons the People needed to learn were buried within its adventures. The thing was that you didn’t need to be afraid when the Trickster appeared if you believed that it was only around to help you learn what you really needed to learn. In its way, booze was a Trickster. Only when I went back and looked did I see what it had to teach me. This money was a Trickster. I saw that right away. The things about these teachers is that they can appear on the sly so you never know they’re among you, or they can make a big entrance that stuns you and catches you unaware. This second way is the Trickster’s best
way. The big entrance. Digger blasting past us with two guys from the store in hot pursuit reminded me of an old Nanabush story about a footrace, and I knew the Trickster was among us. Finding out about the money was the next clue.
All the way down to the office where we needed I go, I looked around us. The city seemed suddenly more real. There was a speed to it that I hadn’t seen before, an energy, a frenzy, an antsy, frantic kind of motion. It was like the edge of a hangover. A paranoid, scared, but not yet terrified way of seeing what used to be normal. The Trickster weaving a spell.
The boys could feel it too, in their own way. None of them was comfortable and I worried for them.
“That looks like the place,” Digger said after blocks and blocks of silence. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, then passed the pack around to Timber and Dick. He pointed to a small green space between buildings and we moved to it. The boys took a few drinks and we studied the office we needed to go to.
“Looks pretty shiny over there,” Dick said.
“Looks like money,” Timber replied. “All shiny like big loot.”
“Wonder why they call it that?” Digger asked.
“What?” I asked.
“Loot. Why do they call money loot?”
“It’s a pirate word,” Timber said. “When pirates used to board another ship and take everything they wanted—the gold, the jewels, hell, even the women sometimes—they called what they did looting. Taking. Pillaging. Getting by overthrow. So they called what they gained loot.”
“Well, thanks there, perfesser,” Digger said. “I like that. A pirate word. Makes scoring all this loot a bit closer to my heart. So I guess we better do this thing.”
The boys looked at each other and then at me. Behind us I could see shadowed ones gathering. There were a lot of them. They filled the empty space leading back to the sidewalk, moved restlessly back and forth, waiting for us to move. “Okay,” I said, finally. “Let’s get this done. There’s a movie I want to see.”
“Me too,” Dick said. “Field of Dreams.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do it,” Digger said, and crushed out his smoke with the toe of one shoe. “Let’s fucking do it.”
We moved out to the sidewalk and toward the building. It was a business area and the people were all dressed smartly, so when we walked toward the office there were a lot of stares, whispered comments, and shaking of heads. The boys walked with their heads down, hands stuffed deep into their pockets. We reached the doors and walked through.
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