Ragged Company

by Richard Wagamese

  “Amelia,” she replied. “My name is Amelia.”

  “One For The Dead,” Dick blurted.

  “One For The Dead?” Jilly asked.

  “Yeah,” Dick went on. “It’s her rounder name. We’re all rounders an’ we all got rounder names.”

  “Well, that’s interesting. What are your rounder names, Mr. Dumont?”

  Dick looked at his friends and then looked at me. I nodded.

  “That there’s Timber,” he said pointing at Timber, who nodded with his head down. “Next to him is Digger. This is One For The Dead an’ I’m Double Dick.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Double Dick.” He seemed pleased with the attention. “I’m Double Dick Dumont.”

  “What an interesting name,” Jilly said, a little red in the cheeks. “How, ah, how does someone get a name like that, I wonder?”

  Merton spoke up suddenly. “Well, you know, Ms. Squires, that’s a good question. But my clients are all a little anxious and I’d like to move things along. I would like to propose that Mr. Harvey and myself, through Ms. Keane from the Lottery Corporation, make ourselves available for background questions at a later time. Right now, I’m going to have to ask that you keep your questions specific to the matter of the prize. Next?”

  “Gordon Petrovicky, All News Radio,” an older gentleman said. “Amelia, what do you think you will do with the money?”

  Amelia took her time, and when she was ready she looked directly at Petrovicky as she spoke. “I guess it’s more important what we won’t do,” she said. “All the time we’ve known each other we have looked out for each other. We’ve shared everything. We’ve been there for each other. This money is a big thing but it can’t be bigger than that. It can’t be so big that we forget that we’re together, that we’re friends. That we take care of each other.

  “I guess we could spend it on anything. But I know that none of us knows what that anything might be. Not right now, anyway. We have James and Granite to help us and that’s enough. Today, like Dick said, we’d just like to go to a movie. Do what we know and try to stay as we are.”

  “So you have no plans? I mean, you have enough money now to set yourselves up for life. You don’t have to be street people anymore,” Petrovicky continued.

  “It’s happened too fast. We haven’t had time to sit and talk about it. Our lives have been about getting enough every day, not about having enough.”

  “Mr. Hohnstein? Or Timber, is it?” an older, greying woman asked. “My name is Susan Howell. I work for the Life Network. I’m doing a series on lottery winners and I wonder how you see this affecting your life?”

  “Can’t,” Timber replied.

  “Digger? How do you see it affecting your life?” the woman asked.

  “Right now it’s keeping me from getting another friggin’ drink,” Digger growled. “So far it’s mighty fucking inconvenient.”

  “Do you drink a lot, Digger?” she asked.

  “Now wait a minute,” Merton said.

  “No,” Digger said. “It’s okay. I can handle this.”

  He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his cigarettes, and lit one, exhaling dramatically. Then he reached in again, pulled out a bottle, and took a huge swallow before putting it back in his coat.

  “There. It ain’t so fucking inconvenient no more. Do I drink lots? I don’t know, lady. I don’t know what lots is. I drink enough. That’s all I know. Enough to handle this shit. Enough to handle your phony Square John concern and your friggin’ poking around where you ain’t been invited to poke. I drink enough for that.”

  “I didn’t mean—” she began.

  “Hey, we all know what you meant, lady. We’re fucking rounders. We ain’t idiots. We coulda come in here all dressed to the tits and not said word one about our friggin’ life. Rock or Jimbo here would have fronted us the cash to score some duds. Hey, Rock even offered to get us a room last night. Did we take it? No. Did we get all gussied up for your benefit and try ’n hide who the fuck we are? No. We’re rounders. We live on the street. We got plumb fucking lucky and won a big chunk of change that we got no friggin’ idea what to do with except go see Field of fucking Dreams like we were gonna do before all this shit started. Sure, you got questions. Sure, you’re curious. Sure, you wanna sell whatever you’re sellin’ and you wanna use us to do it for today. But you know what, lady?”

  “What?” she asked quietly.

  “You don’t give a fuck where we been or what we done to get by. You don’t give a fuck about that and you really don’t give two shits about what we’re gonna do with the money except that you wish it was you and you wanna tell this story to a whole bunch of other Square John fucks who will wish it was them too. You wanna know how all this feels? Imagine. Just imagine if it was all the other way around. Imagine if you landed on the bricks and you had nothin’. Then you had to start to live your life that way. How the fuck would that feel, lady? What would you have to say if someone stuck a camera in your mug and asked you what the fuck you were gonna do now? Would you have an answer? No. You wouldn’t know whether to shit, do a handstand, or go blind.”

  “You’re supposed to provide us with an interview,” the woman said.

  “The friggin’ interview’s over,” Digger said. “Jimbo over there said he’ll give you whatever you think you need. Rock’ll help him. Us? We just want out of here. Now.”

  Merton stood. “That’s it. I’m sorry, but at my client’s request I’m ending this now. Mr. Vance and Ms. Keane can provide you with sufficient information for your stories and, as I said, Mr. Harvey, myself, and Ms. Keane will ensure you get all the relevant details. My clients’ wish is to retire and reflect on their futures.”

  There was a crescendo of complaint as reporters threw questions at the table. But my friends busied themselves with getting back through the door that led to the anteroom. Vance and Margo moved to the front of the room with Merton to make arrangements for further contact with and information about the winners.

  “Jesus, Rock,” Digger said. “That’s what you did for a living?”

  “Well, not really,” I said. “I was more of a political writer.”

  “Fuck,” he said. “That was weird.”

  Margo entered the room. “Okay. That was maybe a little less graceful than I’d hoped, but they can work with it. What we need to do now is make sure that they get enough later to file good stories. They’ll want to do follows, though.”

  “Follows?” Timber asked her.

  “Yes. They’ll want to follow this story with stories about how you deal with the money. Where you go, what you do.”

  “Do we have to talk to them?” Timber asked.

  “No,” she said. “You’re no longer obliged to talk to them.”

  “Good.”

  “Still, Granite and I should talk and provide them with more background. Granite, you know the drill. You know what they’ll want. Will you work with me?”

  “I guess I have to. In order for them not to hound everybody, we’ll have to give them what they want. When? Where?”

  “Anywhere,” she said. “But I think we should get everybody settled somewhere and then we can get to it. Can you give them a quick interview now?”

  “Alone?”

  “No. Mr. Merton said he’d help. Good old legal obliqueness always makes good copy. Remember?” She laughed.

  “I remember. Okay.”

  I turned to my friends.

  “I’ll do this thing with them,” I said. “I’ll make it fast. Then we’ll go with James. I don’t know what his plan is but we’ll get this out of the way first and then we’re gone.”

  “Fast, eh, Rock?” Digger said.

  “Yes.”

  I followed Margo to the door. Before I entered the media room I looked back. They sat there close together with Amelia in the middle, passing the bottle back and forth and smoking. It hadn’t been a stellar meet-the-press situation but it was over now. They no longer had to perform for
anyone. They no longer had to speak unless they chose to, and I was strangely ready to act as a buffer on their behalf. I wouldn’t let them be insulted or belittled. They had become elite. They had become the envied minority. They’d become visible, and I wouldn’t desert them now. I couldn’t desert them now. Amelia looked at me and grinned. I gave a small wave and stepped through the door.

  “Ready?” Margo asked.

  “No,” I said. “But let’s fucking do ’er.”

  She laughed and squeezed my arm.

  Timber

  I DIDN’T KNOW what the Christ to do. It’d been some long time since I was in a place where I didn’t know the next move. You live that way. You have to know the next move or you’re hamstrung and lost, and out on the street you can’t ever afford to be lost. But there I was sitting in that small room waiting for Granite and James to finish with the media and I was plum lost. And it scared me. None of us were comfortable. The free liquor helped but it didn’t do the whole deal, and I found myself wishing that it would. Liquor usually shut the lights out and deafened me, and I coulda used that right then. But all it did was stop me from shaking. I guess that was enough.

  It didn’t take long, like Granite said, and we were gone, back in the car, and headed for the bank in the same building as James’s office. He had the cheque in his briefcase. It felt better then. Better because of the feel of the four of us together and on the street. No one said very much. Everyone was out of sorts after the prize ceremony, and even Granite and James, who’d done this sorta thing before, were winded and spent and looking like they should dive into the bar too. We got to the bank and followed James inside, where we were directed to the manager’s office. The sign on the door said HARRIET PETERS and she turned out to be a friendly looking woman in a pearl grey suit and high heels.

  “Welcome,” she said and shook all our hands.

  We sat in leather chairs while James signed papers and chatted with Harriet. We rounders just looked around. No one spoke. I could feel myself getting edgier and edgier. Finally, they finished their business and the papers were arranged on a table at the side of Harriet’s desk.

  “Well,” she said in voice that reminded me of a schoolteacher I once had. “You’re all likely very anxious to get this fussing over with. Mr. Merton and I have papers for you to sign along with some papers that the bank needs in order to activate your accounts. Once that’s done, it’s official. You are millionaires.”

  We all worked our way through the forms, just scribbling our names where the Xs were, wanting to get the fuss over with like she said. Granite helped Dick, who gripped the pen in his fist and scrawled letters like a child across the narrow space provided for signatures. When we were finished and the papers were in a pile on Harriet’s desk, she smiled.

  “I’m your bank manager now,” she said. “Any time you need help with anything you ask for me and I’ll gladly sort it out for you. I’ve pre-approved credit cards for you. You signed for those already and Mr. Merton will advise you when they are ready. Likely in about two weeks.”

  “Credit cards?” Dick asked.

  “Yes,” Harriet said. “They’re what you use instead of cash.”

  “Like empties?”

  Harriet looked perplexed.

  “No, Dick,” James said, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a gold plastic card. “You get one of these and whenever you want to buy something you give the people this and you just sign for whatever you want.”

  “Free?”

  James laughed. “No. It only feels like it.”

  “Wow,” Dick said. “Now I don’t gotta mooch for money when I got none.”

  “Not only that, Mr. Dumont, but the bank provides you with other cards that allow you to buy things without having money on you at all,” Harriet said, gleaning the necessity for explanations. “You just present the card, punch in your secret code numbers, and the money is automatically taken out of your account.”

  “Secret code numbers? Wow,” Dick said. “Let’s go do that.”

  “Okay,” Harriet said and led the way to the main banking room. “This area is called private banking and it’s for our larger account holders. Any time you come in, you just come here and we’ll take really good care of you. This way, please.”

  For the next while we were busy getting the bank cards sorted out and punching our numbers into a small machine to activate them. Harriet told us that we had no pre-set limit, meaning we could take out and spend as much as we wanted every day. Digger and I just looked at each other blankly when she said that. We were introduced to the four tellers who worked in our area and though they had a moment or two of shock at seeing us there, they relaxed and became quite charming once they heard we’d won the lottery. It wasn’t long before we were finished.

  “So how much would you like today?” Harriet asked.

  “What?” Digger replied.

  “How much of your money would you like? What do you think you need for today?”

  We all looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

  “Lemme get this straight, lady,” Digger said. “Now that we’re all set up here we can just ask for however much we want and we can have it right away?”

  “Yes, Mr. Haskett. It’s your money. You can have as much as you want.”

  “Jesus. I like that. How about a hundred?”

  “A hundred is fine, sir,” she said.

  “Sir? I get a yard just like that and a ‘sir’? I like this already,” Digger said, and headed for a teller.

  “I could have a hundred, too?” Dick asked.

  “Yes,” Harriet said, and Dick dashed off after Digger.

  Amelia and I just stood there.

  “You can have what you want. You know that, don’t you?” Granite asked.

  “I know,” she said. “I just don’t know what that is right now.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “I just want to get out of here.”

  Granite nodded. “Yes. Well, we need to stop at James’s office first. He wants to make sure you’re taken care of and then we can head out. It won’t be long. Are you sure you don’t want to go over and get some of your money?”

  “Not right now,” Amelia said.

  Digger meandered over with a big grin on his face and we headed up to James’s office. When we got there, Margo Keane was waiting for us. She was all smiles and made sure she talked to each of us for a moment while we sat down.

  “Margo’s here to help Amelia,” James explained. “Hanging around with you three guys must be tough on a girl, and Margo’s taking some time off to travel around with her to help her get settled.”

  “Well, thank you,” Amelia said. “It will be good to have a woman to talk to.”

  “I’m glad to help,” Margo said. “What Digger said at the media scrum really touched me. I can imagine how I would feel if I was suddenly thrust into a world I had no idea how to negotiate. We’ll get you settled in no time.”

  “Granite, since you know the boys already, I want to ask you if you’d mind travelling around with them a while longer and making sure they adjust smoothly?” James asked.

  “I don’t mind at all,” Granite said. “In fact, I was just starting to think that I’d like to spend more time with them now. What Digger said was important. It’s a whole new world and everybody needs a guide now and then.”

  “Well, we’re agreed then. Margo and Granite will be your chaperones, for lack of a better word, and I will manage the accounts and finances. I’ll only ask that if there are going to be major purchases that you talk to me first. Investments we can discuss with people I know. That’s a good idea to look at, but I think we’d best look at getting the basics covered first.”

  “The basics?” I asked.

  “Yes,” James said, leaning back in his big leather chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. “I don’t mean to scare you or to make you feel demeaned at all. But your life is different now. It’s just different. It’s as big a change as any human being
can make. Bigger than any other lottery winner has had to make, because up to now everyone who’s won has had an established life before they won. They’ve had things. They’ve owned things. They’ve belonged somewhere. They’ve had homes. But you’re all starting from less than zero and it means that everything, everything that happens from now on, is going to be absolutely new territory, and I don’t want to see you swamped by all of that. That’s why Margo’s here and that’s why Granite’s agreed to help too.

  “When I say the basics I mean you all could use a good wash. Then you could use a good selection of clothes. You need a place to operate from, a place to settle for now, a place to live until we can find you the kind of accommodations you’d like. A good friend of mine is the manager of the Sutton Plaza. I apprised him of your situation and he’s agreed to give you suites there. The bills will come to me. I want you to go there. I want you to get settled. Then I want you and your chaperones to go shopping. Get whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel good.

  “Please don’t think I’m telling you what to do or that I’m trying to control your lives. I’m not. It’s just that Digger told the truth over there this morning. You’re being thrust into a strange new world and someone needs to help you make decisions. Good decisions. Good choices, because there are a lot of wolves in the woods, my friends, and they’re all going to be after you now. I’m just making sure they don’t get you.”

  “How much?” Digger asked. “You one of the friggin’ wolves there, James?”

  James stood up and looked Digger square in the face. “No. I’m not. I’m a Square John, Digger. A friggin’ Square John. But I’m a Square John that had to work his ass off to get here. I didn’t have my fucking ticket punched for me. I worked my way up here from a start that’s not all that far from yours. I’ve been poor. I know what money can do. Am I one of the wolves? Fuck, no. I’m just someone trying to get by the best he can. It won’t cost you an arm and a leg for me to help you. But it will cost you. That’s how the world works.”

  “Okay,” Digger said. “Works for me.”

  “This is nice,” Amelia said quietly.