Ragged Company Page 6

  Seeing the Square John in that line made it perfect. I’d wondered when we’d be thrown together again. Talking with him, teasing a little, joking was easy, and I liked his discomfort. It made him more real.

  “Friggin’ can’t get away from that guy,” Digger said on our way into the theatre.

  “Well, since we’ll be sitting with him, I guess we shouldn’t try to get away,” I replied.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding. Sitting with him. Us?”

  “Yes. He’s saving us seats.”

  “Jesus.”

  I grinned. Timber and Dick just watched me, waiting for their cue to move, eager to be out of the hustle of the lobby and into the dim security of the theatre. We’d made it just in time. There were no seats remaining, or at least not four together. I picked out Granite’s triangular hat easily enough and we moved down the aisle toward his row. The boys followed close behind me, none of them looking up at all, and if they could have run to their seats I believe they would have. This was the biggest crowd any of us had been in by choice for years, and all of us wanted the shelter that a seat provides.

  “Ah,” I said, easing into the seat beside Granite, who nodded at our arrival, “this is the life, eh, mister? Long night at the movies, in the company of your peers.”

  “Ahem,” he said, one hand edging toward his buttons. “Yes. It’s fine to be with others who appreciate fine film.”

  “Like us.” I nudged his elbow. “Me and the boys.”

  “Yes. The boys.”

  The boys were all taking huge nervous gulps from the bottles in their pockets at that moment, and he watched them from the corner of his eye. Then the lights began to fade and everyone settled deeper into their seats.

  As I said, some stories become your blood. As I watched this movie about a man who comes home for the first time in thirty years and finds an incredible gift from an old man he left behind, I felt it enter me with each frame. Here, in one place, was a story about falling in love with the movies, about shelter, about friendship, loss, and love itself. Here was a film about crying in the darkness. About seeing what you crave the most sometimes thrown up on the screen in front of you and recognizing it for the hole within you that it is. About faces, characters, and time—time passing, time stopping, and time reclaimed. It was wondrous. I couldn’t stop staring. I couldn’t sit back in my seat at all. Throughout the entire spectacle I sat leaning forward, elbows on my knees, chin cupped in my palms, crying sometimes, sighing, watching, feeling the blood moving in my veins, drinking it in, becoming it, feeling it becoming me. Invaded. Inhabited. Known.

  When it ended in a long series of captured kisses and the bright flare of romance, I felt alive. None of us moved. The five of us sat there in our seats staring at the screen and watching the Italian credits roll, lost in our thoughts. When the screen went blank I still could not move. Only Digger got us into motion again with a “Fuck” that was one part whisper, one part sigh, and one part the need for a drink.

  We walked out in silence.

  Double Dick

  ME, I WANTED TO CRY. Just wanted to run off into an alley somewhere an’ ball my eyes out. Don’t know why on accounta sometimes what’s going on inside me gets past my head. But I wanted to cry. I couldn’t follow the story on accounta you had to read again but I knew what was goin’ on. It was about bein’ in love with the movies. At least that’s how it started. Then it kinda got to be about rooms. Rooms you live in an’ learn inside out. Rooms you sit in all alone an’ quiet. Rooms you leave, all sad an’ alone an’ hurtin’. An’ in the end it was about rooms you come back to sometimes if you’re lucky, an’ I guess that’s what made me so sad on accounta I can’t never go back no matter how lucky I ever get. Me’n rooms is done. That’s how come I live outside. On accounta one room always looks the same as that one room I can’t never go back to. The one room I carry around inside me. The one room where my heart made big moves one time—big, sad moves. That Cinema Paradise movie reminded me of every-thin’ an’ I wanted to cry about it all for the first time in a long time. Cry an’ cry an’ cry. But I didn’t.

  “Drink, pal?” Digger asked, like he knew what I was feelin’. The others were using the washrooms an’ we stood outside waitin’.

  “Yeah,” I said, tryin’ hard not to look at him.

  “S’matter?” he asked, starin’ hard at me.

  “Tired, I guess. Too much work tryin’ to read what was goin’ on.”

  “Yeah. I know. Friggin’ good story, though.”

  “You think so?” I was glad he was gettin’ me away from my feelings an’ glad that he was sharin’ his rum with me.

  “Yeah. Little on the weird side, but it was okay.”

  “Digger? You ever think maybe someone else knows what’s goin’ on inside your head sometimes. Someone you never met?”

  He squinted at me while he took a big knock. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of one hand an’ rooted around in his pockets for a smoke. “My head? Nah. I can’t figure out what the fuck’s going on there most of the time. Why?”

  “Guess that movie made me wonder if other people know stuff. Like where you been. What you done. What you was feelin’ sometimes. Stuff like that?”

  “This movie got you all rattled up inside, eh?”

  “Yeah. Made me think about what I don’t wanna be thinkin’ about no more.”

  “Me too, I guess,” he said.

  It felt good knowin’ that someone like Digger could feel like I did. I was thinkin’ about that when One For The Dead an’ Timber walked out of the washroom doors.

  “Well, that was certainly a good one, wasn’t it?” she asked, squeezin’ my elbow when she reached me.

  “Yeah,” I said, lookin’ at Digger. “What are we gonna do now?”

  “Well, I think we have an agreement with our seat-saver,” she said.

  “Agreement?” I asked.

  “Fuck sakes,” Digger said. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No,” she said an’ nodded toward the doors where the man was just comin’ out.

  He was bigger than I thought. Sittin’ in the movies he looked like Digger’s size, but he was a big guy. Tall as me but bigger: wider, thicker. Like a worker kind of guy, an’ when he reached out to shake One For The Dead’s hand, his was so big it made hers almost disappear. Big guy.

  “Well,” he said, kinda lookin’ around at us, the street, every-thin’ all at one time.

  “Well,” she said back. “How’d you like that, mister?”

  “The movie?”

  “Yes.”

  “The movie was fine,” he said. “Very, very fine.”

  “Fine?” She looked at him an’ then at the three of us with that arched eyebrow that always told me she was gonna have some fun with one of us. “Fine like what?”

  “Well,” he said kinda slow, playin’ with the buttons on his coat. “Fine like … like, like … you know, I don’t know.”

  He laughed then. Shy kinda laugh like how I laugh sometimes on accounta I kinda know where I wanna go in my head but I can’t get there. The four of us all look at each other an’ I felt funny.

  “Well, why don’t you think about it while we’re walkin’,” One For The Dead tells him.

  “Fer fuck sake,” Digger said. “We ain’t gonna go through with this shit, are we? Where the fuck am I gonna go with some Square John? Tell me that, will you?”

  The guy just looks at him like I look at people now an’ again on accounta I’m mystified. I asked Digger one time what that word meant an’ he told me it meant “buggered all to hell,” so I figure he was mystified.

  “I think we should go somewhere where we can all be comfortable,” One For The Dead said.

  “The Palace,” Digger said.

  “The Palace? Downtown?”

  “Well, where the fuck else do you think I’d go? This frickin’ neck of the woods?” Digger asked all hard.

  “I know where the Palace is,” the guy said. “It’s a litt
le out of my comfort zone, though.”

  “Well, no shit, Sherlock,” Digger said, lightin’ a smoke.

  “It seems like a good idea,” One For The Dead said. “You know, mister, we’re not exactly the indoor type of people. Going to the movies is something we started to do because of the cold. We like it out where there aren’t any walls, so I guess that would be a little out of our comfort zone too.”

  “Well, let’s just do it then,” he said. “So I can get on with my evening.”

  “Yeah,” Digger said, “wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

  They looked at each other for a moment an’ I felt that funny feelin’ in my belly. I gotta give the guy credit, though. I ain’t seen many people get away with gunnin’ Digger off an’ he held that look for a good long time.

  Timber

  “FINE LIKE RAIN sometimes,” he said.

  We were all seated around a table at the Palace, something I found to be unbe-fucking-lievable in the first place, and then this guy, this Square John guy, comes out with an unbelievable description that I could see in my head as soon as he said it. Fine like rain sometimes. When we all just stared at him, he went on.

  “There’s days when the colour and the light of things are perfect for how you feel,” he said. “Or at least you think so. Grey days. You look out your window and you stand there feeling like there’s no separation between how you feel between the ribs and the shade of the day in front of you.”

  “Monochrome,” I said.

  He looked at me for a moment and I saw his puzzlement. “Yes. One cold, flat, ache of colour that’s not really sadness, not really regret, not really sorrow but maybe a shade or two of them all.”

  “Yearning,” I said quietly, and he nodded.

  “Yes. All you know is that the day, the day that’s all around you, is inside you too, and you think that it’s a perfect fit. But you go outside and you walk in your woe. You take it to the streets or the fields or wherever and you walk in it. And then it rains. Not a real rain. Not a downpour or even a shower. A mist. A thin sheen of rain that doesn’t really hit your skin so much as it passes over it.”

  Like a hand, he said, and I knew what he meant.

  “That’s how that movie felt,” he said. “Fine. Fine like the rain sometimes.”

  I don’t know about the rest but I just sat there looking at my hands. Feeling those words and feeling like that movie had moved me beyond where I was too.

  Amelia raised her head and looked around the table at each of us. Then, she reached over and patted the guy’s hands that were folded on the table just like mine. “That’s a beautiful description,” she said. “I guess I know what fine is now.”

  The guy took a sip from the whisky he’d ordered.

  “I know what that means too,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me, as surprised at my willingness to talk as much as I was. I swallowed some beer and went on.

  “When I was a boy I used to stand at a window just like you were saying,” I said. “It was a farmhouse and the window looked over the forty acres that kinda flowed down to where a railway track ran across at the bottom of the hill. I used to wait for the morning train and try ’n guess where it was going, who was on it, all those kinda kid games you play.

  “And something about the train moving through the fog and the mist at the end of those forty acres used to really get me somehow. Made me want to cry. I don’t know why. It just did. So when you talk about the rain like that, I know how that feels.”

  He nodded.

  “The movie took you back to that window, Timber?” Amelia asked.

  “Yeah, I guess it did.”

  “How about you, Digger? Did it make you feel fine?” she asked.

  Digger swallowed all of his draft in one long gulp.

  “Look,” he said, wiping at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, “what I think is what I fucking think, and I don’t share that with anybody. Ever.”

  “Come on, Digger,” she said, “all I want to know is if you can tell me what fine means to you.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all.”

  “No scooting around in my head, trying to get me to talk about shit I don’t wanna talk about?”

  “No.”

  He waved for another beer. “Okay. Okay. Well, here then. Fine is like that half-empty bottle of brandy I found that time. Remember, Timber?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I remember.”

  “Fucking thing had a name we couldn’t even pronounce. Got a couple bucks for the empty, too. Anyway, strangely enough it was raining that day and we were all cold and wet and miserable. We were in the alley back of the fucking Mission and man, that fucking stuff slid down my throat and into my belly like fucking sunshine. Now that was fine. And after a few swallows it changed the fucking colour and the light of things for me too, guy,” he said, staring at the Square John and swallowing the new draft as soon as it landed.

  “Fine’s like Sunday brunch at the Sally Ann,” Dick said suddenly.

  We all looked at him and he took a nervous gulp of his draft.

  “Like you gotta go to chapel first ’fore they’ll feed you. Most people don’t like that an’ kinda sit there all pissed off, but me, I like it on accounta it’s different. I like the songs. Especially the one about gatherin’ at the river. I like that one. But after, when you all move downstairs an’ line up for food an’ you gotta wait even though you’re hungry as hell an’ everyone’s bitchy, it gets all antsy for me. Then, I get my tray an’ pick up my food an’ find a seat an’ take that first mouthful. Man, that’s fine. All that waitin’ just to get to that first mouthful.”

  He finished his beer off and stared at his feet.

  “That sounds pretty fine to me,” Amelia said.

  “Me too,” the Square John said. “What about you?”

  She looked at him squarely. “This.”

  “Pardon?”

  “This. This is fine,” she said.

  “What?”

  “This. Us. All of us, sitting here together talking. It’s fine. Very fine,” she said. “Except that we don’t know who we’re talking to. We don’t even know your name.”

  “That’s right. Well, excuse me,” he said, sitting straighter. “My name is Granite. Granite Harvey.”

  He reached out and shook her hand.

  “Granite?” Digger asked, squinting. “Like the frickin’ rock granite?”

  He grinned. “Yes. Like the frickin’ rock granite.”

  “Well, fuck me,” Digger said and reached over to finish off my draft.

  “Odd name,” I said, nodding at Digger.

  “I suppose it is,” he said. “My father named me after the rock. My family has been stonemasons for generations. Quarrymen. And granite is how they made their living.”

  “It’s a good name. A strong name,” Amelia said. “I’m pleased to meet you, Granite Harvey.”

  “Pleased to meet you, too, whoever you are,” Granite said.

  Amelia chuckled. “Let’s start with the boys and then we’ll get to me,” she said. “This is Timber. That’s what he’s called at least and that’s how we know him. The tall one beside him is Dick and, of course, you know that this is Digger.”

  The three of us sat there not knowing how to move. Granite stood up slowly, reached over the table to Dick, and shook his hand solemnly.

  “Dick,” he said. “A pleasure.”

  “Sure,” Dick said shyly.

  “Timber,” Granite said, “glad to meet you.”

  I shook his hand. It was a warm, soft hand. “Granite,” I said.

  When he reached over, Digger just stared at the outstretched hand. Then he raised his head and looked squarely at Granite for a moment. “So what’re you gonna say to me? Great to meet you? Glad to make your fucking acquaintance? Let’s buddy up? I’m your wingman, pal? Fuck.”

  To his credit, Granite stood there with his hand held out toward Digger. He never moved and never stop
ped looking right at him while he spoke. Digger stood up and looked across the table at him, finally. The two of them matched looks for what seemed like forever.

  “Digger,” Granite said finally, “meeting you is like trying to pet a cornered tomcat.”

  “Fuck’s that mean?”

  The two sat slowly at the same time. Granite took a sip of his whisky but never took his eyes off Digger, who stared hard across the table.

  “Well, when I was kid, our neighbours had a barn and there was always a whole slew of kittens around each spring. But every now and then there’d be a tomcat on the prowl that’d come along and kill the kittens. Trying to protect his territory, I suppose. Anyway, everyone wanted to kill him. But me, well, somehow I got it into my head that all that was really needed was for someone to show that cat some attention and maybe he’d quit killing kittens.

  “So I waited. One day, I walked into the barn and that cat was sitting on a beam looking down at me, just like you are now, all far away and cold. When I saw that look I thought, Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this cat really is a mean son of a bitch and I should stay away. Maybe he is a killer at heart.

  “But you know, Digger, something in me understood that there was something in this that I didn’t understand, the learning of which could change everything. Now, I can’t explain that. I just knew. So, inch by inch, as slowly as possible, I moved toward that cat. He just watched me. Just sat looking at me in that cold, scrutinizing way. Finally, I got close enough to touch him.”

  Granite waved at the waiter and signalled for another round.

  “So? What happened?” Digger asked, frowning.

  “Well, the son of a bitch scratched me. Leaped onto my chest and tore the bloody hell out of my jacket and scratched my hands and neck. Then he jumped off and ran away. Never saw him again.”

  “And?” Digger asked, moving slightly so a fresh draft could be dropped in front of him.

  “And? And what?”