Ragged Company

by Richard Wagamese

  But I still needed to walk. I don’t know why really, only that something inside me was tied to the concrete and straight lines of curb and gutter, something that needed to know that it was all still there, that it hadn’t been a dream, that I had been a rounder and the street had framed my life for years.

  The others understood and they let me do my thing without comment or question. I’d get up and move quietly through the house gathering my coat and shoes, hat and gloves, moving through the darkness easily like I had through the boarded-up buildings I used to squat in once upon a time. I’d coffee up, sitting on the back porch with a cigarette, and then I’d step out the door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk that led around the house to the front where it bordered the driveway and tumbled down a slight incline to the street. I’d stand there at the end of the driveway and look back at the house. It stood against the morning sky like a living thing, all hushed up and quiet, its lines and edges sharp as solitary decisions made in darkness. It sat there heavy and solid. A place to come back to. A place to remain. I’d look and see it, follow its lines from the roof to the bottom step leading from the front veranda and down to where I stood anchoring it in my head.

  Then I’d do what I started doing the very first time I took a morning walk. I knelt in the street. Knelt down and put my hand on the curb and felt the pocked surface of the concrete. It felt like it always had: rough, cold, unyielding; but I felt it every morning anyway. Felt it on the palm of my hand, rubbed it, anchored it in my soul. Then I followed it with my eyes as it flowed down Indian Road, past the grand old houses, the manicured yards, the shiny cars, the kids’ bicycles, the discarded toys, and onward to the corner, where it split like choice. I imagined it from there, snaking through the city leading a wanderer through neighbourhoods, areas, zones, and boroughs, linking everything it passed, tying it all together in a long, flowing vein until it reached the inner city. It always led back there. Always. So I’d kneel in the street and feel the concrete, follow it in my mind to its inescapable returning, and then I’d stand, heave a breath, and start to walk.

  I walked down Indian Road. I walked through the park. I walked through adjoining neighbourhoods. I walked in a haphazard loop that led me back to the house after a couple of hours. I never measured it. I never wondered how far I’d gone. I just walked, feeling the street moving beneath my feet like it had for years. I liked the feel of the city waking up around me. It was a strange comfort for me to hear the hum of wheels growing louder and louder, punctuated by slamming doors, the whoosh of bus doors, the clank of garbage cans, the cawing of crows, the twitter of songbirds, the chatter of squirrels, and eventually, the voices of the people starting their days. Walking that way that early made me feel a part of it at the same time that I felt detached, removed, isolated from it, and it took me a few weeks to realize that I was recreating the feeling I’d had as a rounder. Part of the flow but removed from it all, like an island in a stream. I guess that’s why I liked it. Why I needed it. To remind me that I was still a rounder despite the money, despite the house, despite the fact that I slept indoors and my life was contained. Still a rounder, still what I knew.

  And in the evenings, when the light was seeping away, I’d walk again. I’d watch the city curl up and prepare for sleep. Watch the energy recede. Watch it tuck itself away in private places until the streets emptied, became quiet and hushed, and echoed the deliberate footsteps of walkers alone in the gloaming. I’d walk and watch the lights come on in living rooms, the hard click that captured the disembodied heads of families engaged in dinners, chats, and connection. I’d walk and look at the walls of all the houses on Indian Road, captivated and mesmerized by them, by all the possibility that lived there until sometimes, standing at the end of our driveway looking at those homes, it seemed they were enchanted places, filled with the magic light of permanence, elegant with the sound of returning, made divine almost by belonging.

  I’d heave a huge breath then. Breathe deep and long, turn my head toward the sky, close my eyes and prepare myself to turn inward again, to enter my own enchanted world, to settle, to rest until the concrete called me forward into another day.

  Double Dick

  I CHOSE INDIAN ROAD. It sounded right to me on accounta One For The Dead is an Indian an’ she was the one what got us all together. She’s the one made us all feel like we was supposed to be together. When I seen it, I knew. Like when you know what someone’s gonna say before they say it or how you know the next car comin’ around the corner’s gonna be blue an’ gonna almost hit the guy just startin’ to walk across the street. That’s kinda how I knew, I guess. It was a nice house. It had big windows all over so you kinda felt like you was outside when you was inside, no matter where you were. The veranda went most of the way around an’ I liked when we all sat out there at night. It was like when East Coast Willie an’ Hand Jive Pete had their oil drum down in the hollow by the expressway. Big buncha us sat around passin’ a jug back an’ forth an’ tellin’ stories around the fire in that drum. It felt like that. ’Cept we didn’t have no fire. We sat there most nights on accounta none of us wanted to be inside too early. Me, anyhow. Even when it got cold that first winter, Granite got us a heater so we could sit out back on the closed-in porch. Anyhow, it was a big old house kinda looked like it’d been around an’ I picked it out of all of the ones we seen.

  Fourteen-oh-four Indian Road. It sounded like one of them poems. We all chose where we was gonna sleep and me ’n One For The Dead got rooms on the second floor. I liked that. Knowin’ she was nearby was nice. We spent lots of time with Miss Margo an’ Granite goin’ around gettin’ things for our house. I never knew there was so much stuff. We’d wander around for hours in some big stores an’ they had everythin’ you could want long as you could afford it. Us, we could afford lots an’ I had fun buyin’ stuff for my room.

  I liked my room. I slept right close to the window on accounta I could open it an’ hear the outside an’ feel the air on my face. It was big an’ I got a real big chair that was stuffed real good so I could watch movies an’ feel like I was sittin’ in a movie house. Me ’n Granite found a really big TV an’ then we got a movie player an’ hooked it up to a sound system so that it would sound like in the movies too. But what I liked best about it was my shelves, on accounta I got to buy whatever kindsa movies I wanted to watch. I bought all the ones we first seen together right off the bat. Then I got the ones that Granite and Miss Margo told me about. I musta had a couple hunnerd pretty quick an’ the guy down the street at the swap place was always glad to see me come in to talk movies an’ swap some of mine for some of his. He said I had a great collection. I thought so too. My shelves was lined with movies an’ I liked to sit there an’ look at all of them. All them imagined lives. All them stories. All them dreams.

  Digger got me a popcorn machine that made it with hot air. Mr. James brought me a drink machine that kept sodas an’ had them little paddles that you push in with your cup to fill it like at the movies. So I could sit there an’ watch movies an’ have drinks an’ popcorn. I liked that.

  But I couldn’t tell nobody that watchin’ movies was how I got through the nights most times. I’d pour a big bottle of vodka into one of my pop machines an’ sit there alone after everyone had gone to bed. I’d put a movie on an’ then put on the headphones Granite got me so no one could hear an’ I sat there watchin’ movies an’ drinkin’ until finally I fell asleep. Most of the time I heard Timber goin’ out for his walk before I slept an’ that was good on accounta it meant the night was over. I was scared of the night. I was scared to wake up in the flickerin’ light of the TV screen on accounta it was like the room I never wanted to see again an’ I was scared to dream. Dreamin’ always took me back to that room an’ I needed to have some booze an’ I needed to know the night was over so’s I could sleep without dreams. I never told nobody that. I’d get up around noon or so an’ they’d all be busy doin’ what they liked to do an’ wouldn’t ask me nothin’ exce
pt how I slept an’ stuff. I just lied and said “good.” They never knew. I wished I could tell ’em but I couldn’t. Everything was going so good for us in our new house, I didn’t want to spoil it by worryin’ anybody. Me, I figured maybe I’d be able to sleep okay after a while an’ it wouldn’t be no problem no more. But if that was what was supposed to happen, it was awful slow about it.

  One For The Dead

  I LIKED THE WAY THE HOUSE SAT. Right away, when I first saw it, I liked the way it sat on the ground. Kind of like an old sow bear. She’s big with her age and proud and she sits on her haunches watching her cubs in the meadow chasing mice. With the sun on her face and the warm earth beneath her, she is firm, planted, a part of it all. That’s how that old house looked to me, and walking through it I felt no sense of loss here, no shadowed ones lurking in the corners, no weight of history. Instead, the house felt blessed with stories. As if the family that had lived here had been a happy one and their moving on from here had been as natural as an old sow bear lumbering off to hibernate or to find a new hunting ground. History and lives flowing forward, unbroken, unbent, and unbowed. I knew it was our home as soon as I saw it.

  There was a big yard in back and I got the boys to clear me a good patch of ground for a garden. I remembered Grandma One Sky and me weeding her small patch of ground and talking when I was a young girl, and I wanted a growing place for our new home. Sometimes one or another of the boys would wander out when I was fussing around back there and sit on the ground like I used to, idly plucking small weeds and talking. It was a good garden that first year: lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, and peas, a few potatoes, and some corn. Gathering it all with one of the boys helping was a small joy.

  Margo and Granite took me to a play just after we moved in and I loved it. It was like one of our stories, one of our Ojibway stories come alive in front of me. When I was a girl and Grandma One Sky told one of her stories, I would close my eyes and see the Animal People or the Ojibway people moving around just like the actors moved around on that stage. I loved it. It became one of the things that the three of us did together regularly.

  We still went to movies. None of us could quit doing that. We’d scan the papers or watch the ads on TV and choose the ones we wanted to see. Most days, we went. None of us liked the feel of a crowd and we chose to go to afternoon showings to avoid the crush and push of lots of people, and because in the beginning that’s how it had been—our little ragged company seeking the shelter of the movies. Granite showed up now and then and it was always a joy to see him there. We’d sit in our row together, talk quietly for a minute or so and wait, almost holding our breaths until that first dimming of the lights that you felt before you actually saw it. Then we’d breathe, sit back in our seats, and disappear into the magic of story one more time. It was always like that, and all of us loved it as much as we had that first time. Always.

  But I knew there were changes, and I knew that those changes were hard for us. Only Digger seemed to settle, and I think the scare of almost losing Dick made it easier for him to make choices in his new life. The other two boys worried me. Timber couldn’t shake the concrete from his soul. His walks told me that. He couldn’t see himself, couldn’t envision himself, couldn’t imagine himself away from the street. It was like he’d convinced himself in the most desperate way that it was all he deserved. When he walked I’d stand back from my window so he couldn’t see me and watch his ritual touching of the concrete, see him looking down the road where it led, and know inside myself that he was seeing himself walking there, now and always. There were always shadowed ones there, just behind his shoulder, and I worried that he might never find a way to rid himself of the weight of their presence.

  Dick thought I didn’t know about his nighttime habit. I knew he wasn’t sleeping. That only the promise of morning made it possible for him to drift off into troubled, tossing sleep. He thought I didn’t know that the pop machine was never just soda. I could sit in my room and see the flickering light from his television against the big oak tree that stood outside our windows, or see it living in the crack under his door against the floorboards. I gave him his space. I left him alone. I would only embarrass him by entering his room late at night and asking about him. He was still a rounder and rounders needed the privacy of the night, needed the ritual of alone time, needed to pull the night around them like a blanket and huddle in it, planning what they planned, thinking what they thought, and preparing themselves for the battle of the next day. When the time was right for him, he’d let us know.

  Digger carried the street in his chest. Timber and Dick carried the street on their shoulders. They carried the story of their street life, the story of how they got there, the story of how they had survived. Even though that splendid old bear of a house we lived in bore no weight of loss, no burden of sorrow, no hauntings, it didn’t need to. Some of us brought our own.

  Digger

  THE FRIGGIN’ GARAGE was mine. I claimed it right off the hop. I seen it sitting back there and I claimed the fucker. I had a room in the house but I wanted to sleep out back. So me ’n Rock and Merton got together and fixed it up. We put in insulation, changed the windows, put a real floor down over the concrete, carpeted it, put in heat, a shower, and lickety-fucking-split I had me some digs I could handle. After the talk died down on the veranda or the porch at night, I’d mosey on back and settle in. It was like digs. It was like being in my little alcove looking out over the hill except there weren’t no view there. But it was tucked away and quiet and I liked it fine.

  And I bought a friggin’ truck. Me. Digger. I had me a fucking old Mercury some Square John had fixed up and couldn’t afford to keep. Fucking old Mercury with headlights like cat’s eyes. I’d head out early in the morning on my new route. I’d drive about three hours along the alleys of the new neighbourhood, listening to music on my CD player and slurping coffee, looking for interesting castoffs. I didn’t grab bottles or cans no more. Didn’t need to. But I loved it when I found some Square John toss-off that could be fixed up. I found bicycles, lamps, radios, televisions, toasters, stoves, all kinds of shit left for dead that still had life in them if a guy wanted to spend some time coaxing the breath back. I did.

  I found out I had a talent for it. Don’t know why but I could eyeball a thing for a while, kinda follow its line and wires and shit and figure out how it was supposed to run. Then I’d tinker around. That’s all. That’s how I explain it. I’d just tinker around and feel the way it was supposed to be, like feeling the wheel, like knowing from the sound of that old MacCormack engine what was right and what was not. So I fixed things. Made ’em work. Made ’em live again.

  Merton found me an old store in an area filled with antique joints. It had a fair-sized front end to show off stuff and a big frig-gin’ work area in back. We got me all kinds of tools and I sat back there fixing up the toss-offs, painting them, making them breathe again, listening to music on an old stereo I fixed. Now people brought me stuff to sell for cash. Except I didn’t do no buying. I didn’t even try too hard to sell anything but people always wanted to buy it. Couldn’t get my head around that Square John kinda thinking that says something’s useless and tossable until someone makes it all new and shiny again and then spend way too much friggin’ money on it to let folks know they got a soft spot in their hearts for old and fucking charming. Only a Square John thinks like that. So I sold some shit but I was always more interested in getting something back into the sky again, so to speak, and I hired a young rounder named Gene to work the front. It was a good go. Damn good go, really, and I slipped into it without even thinking much about it. We called it Digger’s. There wasn’t much of a choice to be made about that even though we toyed around with calling it The Wheelman’s, Rounders, or even From the Street, but Digger’s had a nice ring to it. So there it was, a tiny store with a wooden sign painted bright orange like a carnival sign that said digger’s. And it was mine.

  Joined the AAs too. Well, not friggin’ really. I w
ent to a meeting now and then to keep my head straight, but I still liked my hooch on the veranda at night and I liked to lay in my garage digs, slurp from a bottle late at night, and listen to music. But I went. Rock made sense when he told me I could piss it all away, and once I got going with the fix-up thing, the store and the house—well, it was too much to risk pissing away. Plus, almost getting Dick killed scared me. I wouldn’t tell nobody that. But it scared me and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get close to that again. So I went to the odd meeting. Couldn’t buy the whole psyche but I liked hearing the old guys that’d been around tell their stories. Kinda like rounder stories and I got a kick out of hearing them. Never told mine, though. None of their friggin’ business. I just listened. I’d say something about looking for a fix-up project and take off from the house every once in a while. None of them said nothing and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to volunteer any information but they could tell I wasn’t as drunk or drinking anything like I used to.

  So there I was living on Indian Road, working for myself, driving a charming old fucking truck, staying more or less sober with a pocketful of loot, and hitting the flicks like regular. Life was good, and if I missed the rounder life at all I didn’t notice.

  Granite

  I RENTED An Affair to Remember for Amelia and Margo, really. There was a charm to the saccharine sweetness of old romance movies that Amelia had come to love, and Margo was easily swept away by the tug on the heartstrings that Old Hollywood seemed to specialize in. I much preferred the classic dramas or film noir, and they got a much better reception from the guys, but on that night, browsing the aisles for a quality rental, I was drawn to the Cary Grant–Deborah Kerr love story.