A Vagrant Story

by Paul Croasdell

  “I never thought of it like that. That’s nice to know. Now I can be fully Buddhist.”

  “Good, now I can have all the meat we find. Far as I know Buddhists aren’t supposed to eat meat.”

  “Really? I thought that was only the monks.”

  “You really haven’t researched this whole religion thing have you, have you?”

  “It is a little gung-hoe. It’s fine if it works.

  “You did already give up one religion because you didn’t know anything about it. Are you going to let it happen again?”

  “Suppose I really should research the rules sometime … but I’ll do that after we eat.”

  “Just don’t rely on me too much. I don’t know enough about my own religion to start lecturing others on there’s. Let’s worry about theology later and focus on foodology.” Alex grinned for his joke, but no one else did.

  Today’s lunch came from a selection of different bins: an apple from one, half a sandwich from another, and so forth until they could all be gathered together to form one decent meal. Their bin tracking took them from one to the next until arriving in a whole new district.

  This area seemed isolated from the rest of the city. It gave the impression of a rural town, with its one main street lined with unfamiliar store names. It looked as if a small rural town had been picked up and jammed right into this bustling metropolis. Or maybe the town came first and those tall buildings crept up around it over time. In any case it remained unmoved, in scenery and retailers – the entirety of which seemed reliant on that single road cutting through the centre.

  Picturesque snowfall on the aged buildings might easily conceal apparent financial difficulties. In another time, this would be a fine place to live.

  Alex and Henry moved at a leisurely pace, somewhat sauntering as they crossed the snow clotted main road. With the road in such a state it was no wonder all the shops were closed up. It seemed this area wasn’t privy to same snowplough service as the rest of the city.

  The pair sought shelter down a tree strewn laneway, something of a turnoff from the main road. The trees, though barren, provided ample cover while they sat and ate. Amidst the city’s silence and the howling wind rustling leaves, they for a time forgot the metropolis around. The middle of the countryside would be so peaceful.

  “This is alright, isn’t it?” Alex said to Henry.

  “It doesn’t feel right. I screwed up once already, I feel like I’ve run out of timeouts. We should stick to the plan and stop making idiot moves.”

  “We’re idiots. We move.”

  “I’m tired of it. Sitting around here won’t accomplish anything.”

  Henry stood to usher Alex on, when the howling wind drained to a whimper. The trees stopped rustling and there came dead silence. Not a car, not a bird, not a word.

  “Crazy weather,” Alex said. “I’ve never heard silence like this in the city before.”

  “The calm before the storm? That Len guy did warn us about a blizzard due.”

  “Old Len also warned us of an impending alien invasion once. That was after he and Rum landed some tequila.”

  “He didn’t seem too drunk when we saw him last.”

  “Too drunk … that’s a very relative statement in the land of bums.”

  The silence shattered on the gasp of a horrible phlegm ridden cough. It descended quickly into a torrent of gasping, like a cat coughing up a hairball. It sounded awful, and though they couldn’t see the source, the sound echoed throughout the laneway, bouncing at them from every angle. It settled into arid gasping, and heavy pained breathing. It died suddenly, as though someone had.

  The few previous traces of noise were easier to track, leading Alex and Henry straight to the source. It was someway down the lane amidst the trees, and lying comatose in a ditch.

  A man lay with grey beard fallen backward over face, outstretched arms clutching a whiskey bottle. Another of the same brand lay empty beside. If his sorry state didn’t give it away already, his tattered grey trench coat and patchwork pants seemed suited for a bum’s life.

  Alex and Henry stood on top of the ditch in expectation for some sign of life. It popped up in an unconscious belch. They deemed it enough, and slid down to heave the man out. Belches came abound until they set him down on level ground.

  He lay in noiseless slumber, and would for some time.

  Chapter 17

  Sierra and Rum ordered from the nearest diner. They shared a bag of chips and took a burger each for takeout. In biting cold they settled for the nearest sidewalk bench, and ate there as they would inside any diner.

  Snow fell sparsely and soft like the last traces of flour sifting through a strainer. It came at just the right speed to be admired without ruining their lunch. With the silent road before them and glitter like frost in the air, it seemed a worthwhile endeavour to endure this heavy cold. Those who bottled up in warm houses would seldom see such placid streets. For a few days this city would be changed into a whole new location, with changed scenery and changed atmosphere. For a few days a year every person in this city could take a free holiday without ever boarding a plane, and most choose to spend it bottled up inside.

  Sierra chomped down the last piece of her burger, dug into some chips and waited for Rum to finish. “Just because I bought you lunch it doesn’t mean you should take your time. You said you were hungry so eat like a hungry man.”

  “It was my booze we sold. I’m buying you lunch, all you did was hold my money.”

  “If I let you hold the money it’d be spent on booze by now, then we’d have nothing to eat. Think of me as a financial planner.”

  “One who gives shitty deals - I’d rather booze.”

  “Booze, booze, booze … same old Rum.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You know it ain’t true.”

  “Alex seemed to think otherwise.”

  “Alex don’t know shit. Don’t listen to that freak.”

  “Then stop drinking and prove him wrong.”

  “I’ll stop drinking when-“

  He snagged there.

  “When hell freezes? When you die? When you get rich?”

  “Two of those might work. I couldn’t give a crap about getting rich.”

  “You did once.”

  “Never.”

  “Course you did, I saw it in your face the night we met. It started to die a little every day after.”

  Rum’s eyes gazed straight ahead into the foggy haze. His thoughts went someplace else. “You were just a kid back then. Too dumb to know better.”

  Rum fell silent. Sierra fell silent. Together in misty mid-evening snow the two reminisced to a bygone decade to the night they first met.

  It was a dark and lonely night…

  ***

  The rain fell in torrents that night. The hostels had opened their doors and shut them the moment they filled. While others banged outside for entry, one ten year old girl relinquished her position in fear of the place. She didn’t like the noises, or the darkness. She had only recently quit her night lamp, now to find herself alone in a room full of warty men and women, coughing and groaning. It was more than she could handle so she braved the rainfall, running to the only familiar place nearby.

  John, her foster father, had taken her down this end of the city a few times before. Thanks to her fondness for ducks and tall trees, the pair of them always inevitably came back to the same location, Middle Park. In days before she would tug John’s hand the whole way along. She had led the way here so much she came to know it by heart.

  This would be the very first time she travelled to Middle Park without towing John’s hand behind. This was the very first time she’d been out on the streets alone. She worked on childish instinct, but somewhere within she hoped the familiarity would calm her fear. So she travelled to the heart of Middle Park, settling at the base of a great Oak tree. It lay at the bottom of a shallow hill, hidden by bushes and various other trees.

  This used to be their privat
e picnic spot. Sierra could never understand why this particular location received so few day trippers. It lay in a prime location, based just off the mid-intersection of the whole park, where the usual central themed statue resided – in this case a General on horseback.

  She intended to let the familiarity calm her. Instead she found herself huddled at the base, fending from cold and droplets bouncing off her green earflap hat. It was a noisy quiet, a lonely quiet. Through thunder and rain, noises of memory boomed inside her skull. She could hear John laughing – she could hear herself laughing. She could hear them laughing together. It was the memory of the first time she genuinely laughed with a would-be parent.

  Thunder clapped, and clapped away the memory. That noisy memory became replaced with the noisy storm. And it was of her own free will to disperse the thoughts. John was dead, and she sat alone under an Oak tree in bitter cold. This would be the new reality.

  Her huddling stance collapsed, and she fell in on herself. She tucked her head between knees, and for the first time in her life wept in total silence.

  She wasn’t all alone in the park that night. Somewhere out there was a man walking by himself nearby. He couldn’t yet hear her crying and she couldn’t yet hear his cursing.

  The man was too busy in his own misfortune, gracelessly stumbling his way through the mid-intersection of the park. Originally the man entered Middle Park in pursuit of someone, as he went deeper into the park, and deeper into a bottle, he soon forgot the reasons why, and instead staggered slowly with little direction.

  He lost track of time until arriving at a statue of a General on horseback. It bore a clock on the front of it. He shrugged for the late hour, and plonked himself at the base of the statue.

  He eyed his drenched clothes. He’d started the day in his favourite, and most expensive black suit, neatly ironed and fresh from the cleaners. Now it hung low, the stitching tearing more each step he moved. It would never be the same again. Only one week ago he would have cared about this suit.

  “Rain!” he yelled. “Miserable rain … ripping my suit! Ripping my life!”

  He knocked back for another slug, shocked to find the bottle empty. He held it to the rain as if waiting for a godly refill.

  “Rum!” he yelled. “More rum!”

  When his prayers died after his echo, he arose in a stupor, falling forward in effort to stabilise himself. His footing slid to and fro until he came to a wobbly steadiness.

  “Where are you God!? Create a disgusting little mess like me then bugger off when I ask y’help. Moron can’t even fill a lousy bottle with lousy rum. What kind of fucking God is this? Sure you’ve no trouble ruining lives, but fixing them … that’s a whole other story.”

  Against the rain, the man stared up to the cloudy night sky.

  “Give us something! Let’s see those miracles! If you won’t catch me when I‘m goin‘ down, let’s see if you can catch this!”

  With one great swing he thrust the bottle skyward, and in his stupor aimed the wrong direction. He threw the bottle into the foliage of a tree. Beneath the leaves, it shattered so suddenly and chimed as to have struck solid metal.

  The whole tree began to shudder in response. A creaking sound followed like something leaning onto a branch, then the tree shook a second time as if a heavy object fell to the next branch down. It continued like this, a concealed object rustling and snapping branches, falling bit by bit from branch to branch.

  The man did little but stare in dumbfounded curiosity.

  “God?” he mumbled.

  The weight pressed a branch till breaking point. It gave way with one solid snap. The object revealed itself from the leaves, rolling out backward. It took him a moment to realise what it was, or maybe to fathom what it was. It was the rear bonnet of a pink car hanging onto a branch by its front wheels.

  In that second of realisation, the man dived away as the car came crashing to the ground behind him. The leap sent him thumbing down a shallow hill, through thorny border bushes designed to keep day-farers out. He stumbled with face to the dirt and arse in the air until sliding to a steady halt at the base of the hill. Grovelling in mud and wet grass, he sat up on knees, panting till the shock left.

  “Not what I had in mind. Elaborate though.”

  His words went eclipsed by the noise of wreckage rocking back and forth at the top of the hill. He hardly beckoned the reason of it all when a new noise overshadowed the old. Low pitched like something of a whimper, a brief one existing no longer than the time it took to notice. It came from a bundle of wet rags sat at the base of a Great Oak. Of course there was a person under there, a bum no doubt.

  He shied a glance and intended to carry back up the hill from which he fell. When he found the climb too thorny and awkward, he shrugged inwardly and turned to the bum for directions out.

  Only when he stepped closer to address did a second whimper peep out from the rags. It was of a lighter tone than he realised first, and those rags looked too small for an adult. He saw tiny hands and tiny legs, a tiny head lowered in tears.

  “You’re just a kid,” he said, expecting the girl to react. She didn’t seem to hear under her oversized green ear flap hat.

  She would have stayed down there crying had a cold hand not touched hers. She fell away in shock, back pressed against the Oak tree. In her hurry the hat fell off, revealing a length of blonde hair that seemed to shimmer in this darkness.

  In a plea for solidarity, the man formed a less aggressive stance and backed away some. “Hey now, come on, I won’t hurt you. Are you alone out here, where are your parents?”

  “My parents?” she replied still shaken.

  “I see … No matter how locked, I’m not one to leave a kid here like this. How long you been out on the streets?”

  She didn’t move, only frowned like all she wanted was to keep crying.

  “You’re too young for this. Whatever happened to you must have happened recently. This isn’t your first night on the street is it? I suppose … this would be mine too. Can I know your name?”

  The girl seemed to eye his pricey black suit as if to question his honestly. The more she stared the more worn down it appeared, and the more it looked like he’d been wearing it quite a while.

  The man leaned down and picked up her hat, placing it back on her head. “Shy thing ain’t ya.”

  What childish tenacity she tried to maintain shattered for an instantaneous bout of tears, starting then stopping. Following the brief on-pour her face hardened and stayed that way.

  He placed his hand on her shoulder to provide comfort. “Hey, come on now blondie, things’ll be alright.”

  For that instant he stared at her and she stared back at him. In the next instant he stared at her tiny foot booting toward his face, and heard the words:

  “Get away from you old freak!”

  The kick didn’t hurt. If he hadn’t seen it coming he probably wouldn’t have noticed. In any case she stood above him, fist raise as if she’d sent all the forces in the universe pummelling into his face. He let her believe it too.

  The man held his nose, falling backward. “Oh my nose!” he cried, rolling about in dire pain. “It hurts so much!”

  The girl frowned curiously. She’d like to believe she’d successfully toppled an adult, but this man was a poor actor. His tone was largely sarcastic, even a little mocking. John often attempted the same fits of pain during their many play fights.

  The girl smiled, and even released a little titter. It caused the man to stop rolling in the mud and smile up in kind. The girl laughed more freely, this time at his muddy state and stupid grin.

  The man looked himself over, making attempts to wipe the mud away. “You’re right. It is muddy out here. Going to be tough getting a good night sleep on this, but I have an idea.”

  The girl continued to watch curiously as he crawled about in the mud, picking up sticks, logs and even fallen leaves. He brought them under the Oak and laid them down.

  “We�
�ll build a house right here, just you and me, blondie. Sure it’ll start as a small dank shack, but this dank shack’ll be the greatest dank shack! You with me?”

  She ran away to the bushes. For a moment, as he sat muddied amidst quiet rain, he felt very much abandoned.

  In another moment she repapered under-duress from a hefty bundle of sticks. She smiled and he smiled.

  ***

  A strong chilly wind flushed by, seemingly carrying the metropolitan sounds they had tried shut out. Rum finished his burger, tossing the wrappings to the ground. He didn’t get up, only sat as if waiting for Sierra to say something. Rum wouldn’t move yet, and neither would Sierra. Standing now would only disrupt their moment.

  “How much did we sell my old black suit for again?” Rum asked.

  “About fifty bucks.”

  “It was worth a grand. I think you owe me another lunch.”

  “It was a good sale price for the state of the thing. To be honest I just wanted to get rid of it anyway. Made you look sort of pathetic.”

  “Suppose it was a little worn.

  “In shambles.”

  “Okay, okay. But I would have liked to keep it … for safe keeping.”

  “We’ll buy you a new one when you start job hunting.”

  “Knock it off.”

  Sierra giggled slightly, Rum did too in his crotchety own way. If not for a sudden passer-by emerging from the fog they’d have continued laughing, but they silenced to preserve the moment for themselves.

  The passer-by, head shielded under thick winter hood, nodded partly in greeting. Sierra and Rum nodded back, then he disappeared as he had emerged.

  A bum would rarely be fit for such a greeting. Normally Sierra and Rum wouldn’t be either. It was however a peculiar thing, as they sat there on sidewalk bench, coated in winter fog and drifting snow, they would have seen to any passer bye, a father and daughter sharing a moment.

  Rum poked his hand through his pocket, taking out a stubbed cigarette. Lighting it with a spare match he fell back lazily into the bench. He took a drag, and released.