Ragged Company (40 page)

So I worked. I let my hands feel our friendship. Those moments when our less-than-perfect selves hold the adze we shape togetherness with. I let my hands trace the face I knew so well. Allowed them to cut and gouge the hollows I had never taken the time to fill with learning, let them trail the fine spray of wrinkles around the eyes that told stories I’d never heard, the dump of mouth above the chin that spoke of disappointments grave and eternal, the angular cut of jaw that spoke of a resolute holding back, a reining in never questioned: the geography of my friend I had never walked. I worked in shadow and allowed shadow to permeate the image, because that is where he was born and lived and dreamed, if he allowed himself to dream at all. I allowed myself conjecture because conjecture was all I had, and I sculpted an idea, made it live and breathe, made it hope, made it dream, made it offer up prayers to a god shunted away perhaps because the crimes of living in the shadow’s realm made any
other kind of god too difficult to seek out. I carved that. I carved my friend in all his unspoken woe, and I carved my shame over my neglect into the blanket he wore draped around his shoulders.

I
DROVE THE SHIT
out of that truck. I stormed around the city going places I’d never gone in twenty years because rounders like Dick and me know how to dis-a-fucking-ppear and recent places ain’t the hole-up you head for. No. You head for the private places. The ones you never talk about, like I never told no one about the Palace. Out of all of us, me ’n Double Dick was the most rounder of the bunch and we knew the drill better than the other two on accounta they landed on the street and me ’n Dick was made there. So I drove around like a crazy motherfucker trying to live in his head and figure where he mighta gone those days before we met. Or I tried to think of a new place he’d pick to stash himself and I drove and drove and drove. Gave me time to think. Fucking guy always used to piss me off in the beginning.
How come this
and
how come that
. Loogan talk. Drove me crazy until I started to understand that his wick wasn’t completely lit. The light didn’t shine into all the corners, and that was okay with me then. The real loogans and loons I never had no time for, but once I realized that Dick was short a few matches I started to lend him some of mine. Goofy motherfucker was always solid, always there, always game even though he’da been as good as a loose fart in tight trousers in a fight. Solid. Stand-up. A fucking rounder. I’da taken him as a winger over a hundred better-spoken, better-thinking assholes who’d crumble under half the shit we seen. I loved that fucking guy. Loved him on accounta he showed me it was okay to not be in fucking control all the time, that sometimes not being fucking clear was good for a guy on accounta the questions got sharper so the answers could come. He taught me that, the flat-footed fuck, and I loved him for it. But I never told him. I never told him. So I drove and I knew that when I found him I was gonna let him
know a few things. I was gonna let him know that he taught me something big. I was gonna let him know that he was a solid fucking rounder I was proud to have on my wing. I was gonna tell him that no matter what the fuck was going on I was gonna be on his wing and there wasn’t nobody big enough or bad enough to move me from there. Ever. And I was gonna tell him I loved him. On the sly, though. Wasn’t no need for anyone else to hear that coming from me.

T
OM
B
RUCE
couldn’t remember about Tucumcary. When I asked him he just laughed an’ told me to have another drink. That was okay. People always forget stuff an’ we was just kids. He didn’t remember nothin’ about me an’ little Earl neither an’ that was even better on accounta I didn’t wanna think about it no more. He made sure I didn’t. We got goin’ on a really good run. Tom Bruce knew the hooch delivery guy an’ we was always workin’ on a bottle even when he was supposed to be workin’ the desk. Some of the girls he knew brung me movies an’ we’d sit in my room an’ watch them together an’ some of them girls gave me blow jobs an’ stuff. I liked that. Made me forget all about
Ironweed
an’ Earl an’ even bein’ afraid of wakin’ up at night. Sometimes they stayed with me an’ I liked that better on accounta I could roll over an’ feel them beside me an’ they’d let me fuck them before I gulped down some hooch, rolled over, an’ passed out again. I liked that. We never had parties like that with Digger an’ Timber. All Tom Bruce needed was some cash every day, so me an’ one of the girls would take a cab to a bank machine an’ I’d get it for him. He took care of my room an’ made sure we kept the party goin’. I was with Tom Bruce again. My first friend an’ he made sure I was took care of.

We just partied. It was like it was never gonna stop an’ I liked that on accounta finally there wasn’t nothin’ in my head. I kinda felt bad about not tellin’ anyone where I was but when I told Tom Bruce he said that it was better if I let them be an’ stuck with him.

“We’re old buds,” he said. “We’re pals. Old times, huh? Old times.”

We partied. Night an’ day. No one said nothin’ when I got sick. No one said nothin’ when I couldn’t walk to the bathroom an’ had to piss in an empty bottle at night. No one said nothin’ about nothin’. We just kept right on rollin’. We had movies, music, girls, an’ hooch an’ a room like the hideout me ’n Tom Bruce used to have in the woods behind the sawmill town.

“Linda needs shoes,” Tom Bruce said one day, an’ I gave him some money on accounta I liked Linda.

“I gotta get some work done on my car,” he said another time, an’ I gave him a hundred or so even though he never brung his car around.

“Pearl don’t have enough for the dentist,” an’ I’d shell out on accounta Pearl would strip for me whenever she come around. Real slow an’ sexy an’ then she’d let me fuck her. I liked her smile.

Every day I went to the cash machine an’ that’s all I had to do. Tom Bruce took care of the rest. When I started to get sick from the drinkin’ he got me some pills that fixed me up real fast. I never had that before. I never knew you could find some pills that’d take the sick away an’ let you keep on goin’. Pretty soon I was takin’ pills every mornin’ or when I woke up at night feelin’ all antsy. Tom Bruce called them my “magic pills” an’ they sure was. Helped me forget about everythin’. Everythin’. Once I got goin’ on those pills we started goin’ around to where Tom Bruce’s new friends hung out. He knew lots of people an’ they was always real glad to see me.

For a while it looked like I found a whole new kinda life. I’da stayed there except for the one night. I was alone. It was rainin’. Everyone had somethin’ else to do an’ I was sitting there all alone, drinkin’ an’ starin’ at the television. I didn’t feel nothin’ except a buzzin’ in the head that wouldn’t go away. There was a man on the TV. He was just sittin’ there talkin’. Talkin’ to me. Talkin’ to me an’ tellin’ me about my life.

“There’s nothing you can do to change things,” the man said. “You can run but you can’t hide. The facts are the facts and you can’t get away. You can’t get away.”

That’s what he was sayin’, an’ pointin’ at me an’ lookin’ at me all hard an’ angry. I didn’t like it. I didn’t know how the man knew who I was or how he knew about my life. But he did an’ he kept right on talkin’ to me. I was scared. Scared. So I walked over to the television an’ clicked it off. Except it was already off. It was off.

I felt the walls start creepin’ in on me. My heart started pound-in’ in my chest an’ I couldn’t breathe right. There was crawly things on the floor an’ in the walls an’ the rain outside was blood. Blood on the sidewalk. The shadows from the streetlights were movin’ an’ comin’ toward me. I saw them through the open door an’ I ran over an’ slammed it shut. Then I grabbed a bottle an’ tilted it back an’ gulped an’ gulped an’ gulped, feelin’ the fire in my chest an’ closin’ my eyes like I could push it into my blood an’ make the horrible things go away. I fell on the floor an’ felt the crawly things on me. I stuffed a corner of a blanket hard into my mouth so I wouldn’t scream an’ when I felt the cottony numb feelin’ at the sides of my head that told me the whisky was work-in’ I opened my eyes. The pill bottle was by my head an’ I fumbled it open an’ swallowed a few before I took another few gulps of hooch. There was still crawly things but they was slower now an’ the TV was blank. I got to my feet, grabbed my coat, an’ got out of there. Got right out of there an’ walked down the road. Walkin’. Walkin’. Walkin’ an’ tryin’ to remember how to breathe.

A
WEEK WENT BY
. Two. Then three. The house on Indian Road became a glum place. It sat within the weight of its own shadow. The rounders kept more and more to themselves and the television in the living room was ignored, as though it were to blame for Dick’s absence. James had informed us that because Dick was making regular withdrawals from his bank account, he didn’t qualify as a missing person to the police and so there was nothing they could do. It was, apparently, his choice to be absent. That news hit them hard. They sat in their chairs dumbfounded;
the idea that one of them would want to be separated for longer than a night was as awkward in their minds as choosing to starve. They tried to stick to their routines. Digger still drove the alleys and back streets in the mornings, but looking more for signs of Dick than for castoffs. Timber carved, but for increasingly shorter durations, returning to sketch in his room for long stretches at a time. Amelia read and sewed and fussed about her garden, but always with an eye to the door or the driveway and always ending on the veranda more content to sit and wait than pass time in activity. They barely spoke to each other. Margo and James and I would arrive each day and need to seek them out in their private spaces rather than be greeted at the door by the gruff boom of Digger’s voice or the quiet, almost regal welcome of Amelia. Our discussions centred on word of Dick, and when none was forthcoming they dwindled off into clumsy small talk that itself trailed off to silences huge and rife with unspoken sentiment. When we departed at night it was a sepulchral house we left behind us, shades drawn against secrets or stories unbidden and unwanted, only the glow of the one small candle Amelia kept burning offering any indication that hope nestled beneath the eaves.

“This can’t go on like this,” Margo said while we were driving over after three weeks had passed with no word or sign of Dick. “They’re eating themselves up and it’s so sad to see them not even talking to each other.”

“I know,” I said. “But they’ve all got that iron-rod spine the street gave them, and when they don’t want to speak they certainly don’t speak.”

“But it’s pulling them apart.”

“I know. After everything they lived through all those years, hanging together through it all, I didn’t think anything was capable of pulling them apart.”

“Maybe we should ask them to talk about it. Maybe we should sit them all down together and ask them to tell us how they feel. Get some air moving in there. Get some discussion happening. Anything is better than nothing. Better than this heavy silence.”

“Like mourning.”

“Yes. It worries me.”

James was already there, sitting alone in the living room moving a single checker back and forth between squares. He looked up as we entered—eager, anxious—and then slumped slightly, nodding in recognition. It was mid-afternoon and there was likely a lot of work waiting for him at his office, but he’d taken to spending longer and longer periods at the house. He was a good man.

“Friggin’ checkers,” he said with a grin. “Digger used to beat me all the time. I didn’t pull back. I played to win but the scoundrel did it to me every time. Or at least he did.”

“You’ll play again,” I said, sitting opposite him.

We told him about our wish to get them talking. While he called in an order for Chinese food we moved through the house gathering the rounders together like children. Digger was rewiring a blender in the garage, Timber was scraping away at an oaken cameo, and Amelia knelt in the garden idly plucking at the small heads of weeds barely visible above the soil. Each of them merely nodded and left to wash and get ready for the meal they accepted news of without their usual glee. The three of us shook our heads sadly watching them. Once the food arrived, we gathered in the dining room and arranged ourselves about the table. They busied themselves loading their plates with their favourites and then idly munched on the food. Silence. Margo and I exchanged a glance and she prodded me gently with a toe under the table.

“So, Timber,” I began slowly. “How’s the work coming along?”

“Good,” he said.

“Good?”

“Yeah. Okay. No problems.”

“What are you carving?”

“A man.”

“What kind of man?” Margo asked.

“A sad man.”

“Anyone we know?” she asked.

He looked at her and squinted in concentration. “I don’t know,” he said. “I thought so in the beginning. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Meaning?” James asked.

“Meaning he don’t friggin’ know,” Digger grunted. “Jesus. Questions. Always friggin’ questions.”

“Sorry, Digger,” James said. “It’s just that no one’s been very talkative lately and we want to know how you’re doing.”

“How we’re doing?” Digger asked. “How we’re doing?”

“Yes. It’s been hard, I know.”

“You know shit,” Digger said. “You got no idea about hard. Never will, really.”

“We would if you told us,” Margo said quietly.

“It’s hard to know what to say,” Amelia said. “There’s so much going on.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like doubt,” she said. “Like fear.”

“Never a good combination,” James said.

“No,” Amelia answered. “Never.”

“So, why don’t you know about your carving, Jonas?” Margo asked.

“Because it’s D,” Digger said. “It’s a carving of D when he seen him on the porch before this happened. He seen him all fucking worn down and screwed. So he started a carving. Only now it ain’t working.”

“I don’t need you talking for me,” Timber said shortly.

“Someone should,” Digger replied.