A Vagrant Story (20 page)

They came upon the church when the bells stopped ringing. They stood in the centre of this locality, but a centre like no other. They saw no beggars hassling crowds, or morning bingers blocking traffic. They saw no crowds and no traffic.

Sierra approached Henry with cautious curiosity. The little man shrugged down as if pre-emptively shielding from a scolding.

“Henry … this place doesn’t look too bum friendly. You told us there’d be all kinds of desperate drunks.”

“I … said … I assumed there would be.”

An unsatisfied silence bludgeoned him till he spewed truth.

“I lied.”

The silence remained, telling him to explain his actions.

Henry’s lips tightened to ward it off.

Alex sighed, looking up at the church to draw everyone’s attention to it. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said to them.

    The chapel itself stood reasonably small, for a congregation of equal proportion. The main attraction seemed to be the graveyard which stretched three times the size of the main building.

“You … want to pray?” Rum said, dumbfounded.

Alex rubbed his head for the futility. He wondered if he was the only one who actually listened when others spoke. “Henry told us his parents died four years ago, but then he said it would be five years ‘today. It’s the anniversary of their death today, isn’t it Henry?”

Henry nodded with eager shyness. “It happened when they were driving home after mass on Boxing day. This is where they came to church. This is where they’re buried.”

“Henry,” Sierra said, “I know you only wanted to visit them but this has taken us out of our way. Coming here like this has taken up too much of our time, and we’ve lost so much already. You shouldn’t have lied.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I-I didn’t plan on doing this when we came here first, but when I heard those church bells it really hit me. I haven’t thought about my parents in so long, and I haven’t been here since their funeral. We were nearby so I took the opportunity. It’s not like I lied completely, the subway station really is close so it’s not a total waste. This will just be a quick stop off.”

Sierra folded arms with strong reluctance. It was the lie that grabbed her, not so much the proposal.

Alex set about voicing his plan. “How about this, Sierra and Rum go to the station and try to pawn off the whiskey. Henry and I will go to the graveyard and meet up the two of you at the station. That way we’ll kill two birds with one stone. Sound fair?”

Sierra squinted out what anger she couldn’t vent. She couldn’t vent it because there wasn’t any reason to. It was a sound idea, if not for a wholly unorthodox cause. She huffed an accepting grunt, then stormed away.

Without cue to follow, Rum watched her grow smaller and smaller into distance. He looked back at Alex and Henry. “Looks like you’re in her bad books.”

“Shouldn’t you follow her?” Alex said.

“Sure, at least I’ll get a break from you two dimwits for a while, emphasis on the Dud.” With that he hurried after Sierra, leaving Alex and Henry alone together.

A thick frown on his brow, Alex stared down on Henry. “I’m not going to stick up for you here. This is selfish, Henry. You shouldn’t have lied.”

“I didn’t think. Way I figured if I said anything about wanting to come here, Rum would have laughed at me. Then I’d be ignored.”

“Well, I guess that is sort of true. You know, you shouldn’t let that old bastard kick you around so much. He thinks like an animal so you have to use animal tactics to win him over.”

“So I should stop bathing too?”

“Well you don’t have to act like him. Just be assertive in your dominance.”

“I’m really not too worried about him. At least, I know he’s only joking around … most of the time. At least that’s what he says.”

“Henry, that’s what bullies say to prevent smaller kids from fighting back. If you don’t stand up to him he’ll keep on doing it. If it affects you enough to avoid asking to visit your parents’ grave then it really is that bad.”

“So, you think Rum is just a bully?”

Alex sighed. “When the drink clogs his good side. Deep under that layer of liquor there’s a good conscience down there. Any man who drinks like old Rum does has to be running from something. The fact that he hides it under all that alcohol demonstrates his empathy.”

Chapter 13

Alex pushed open the creaking graveyard gate. Stepping across the border their feet plunged through a thick layer of snow. The caretaker must have allowed it to build over time. Judging from creepers ravaging decaying tombstones there was no caretaker at all. Or any other staff to speak of. At least that’s what they could perceive under such heavy graveyard mist. There was one other man in here. He was draped in the foggy haze. He wore a brown swathe coat of little upkeep, and cargo pants of matching colour. He stood over a particular grave, carrier bag hung over one shoulder like the mourning hero in a storybook. He tossed the bag to the ground and fell to his knees in a bout of tears. The hollers he produced proved no less ambient to this place than the foreboding fog. 

Henry went straight to his parents’ gravesite as though he’d been here only yesterday. The two tombstones stood beside one another, his mother’s leaning crookedly toward his father’s. Time had been no kinder to these graves than the others here.

Alex leaned closer to read the inscriptions, both identical to one another: ‘Henry and Martha Walsh, tragically taken December 26th….’ Words of poetry and captions from loved ones continued underneath, but Alex looked away out of respect. He realised his faulted curiosity when Henry succumbed to his knees. Mentally, he contrasted Henry’s kneeling to the weeping man’s, and couldn’t help see a grim foreshadowing of Henry‘s future. 

“How did they…?” Alex asked.

“A … car accident, so to speak. Happened around Christmas time too. As you can imagine, this isn’t my favourite time of year.”

“It must have been tough, especially since your shop burned down right when you tried getting back on your feet.”

Henry nodded, sniffing his grievance.

“Stop lying, Henry. You never stop lying.”

Henry gazed up at Alex in mute surprise. “I already said I was sorry for lying. I told you, I had to come-“

“You never owned any shop, Henry. There was no fire. Nobody died. And that’s not how you became homeless. That story is so full of holes even Rum guessed it was a lie.”

“No! I did … I really did.” Henry turned solemn before Alex’s unwavering expression. “Even Rum guessed? How did you figure it out?”

“More like how did we prevent ourselves from blurting it out. The most obvious reason was your age. You were twenty four when we met you, too young to have your own business.”

“It’s possible.”

“Improbable. Secondly, with no intended offence, you’ve no backbone. Even the sloppiest of entrepreneurs need a backbone. From the day we met you didn’t seem like the person who would even consider tackling competition, let alone starting your own company.”

“It’s possible. Maybe that’s why I went bankrupt.”

“It’s improbable. Thirdly, you obviously got your dates confused when telling us when your parents died. They died when you were aged twenty, you became homeless age twenty three. There wouldn’t be enough time for you to plan, establish, and run your own company within a three year period, not to mention let it fall to ruin. You became emotional, you slipped up and gave the wrong date. Sierra caught this mistake too, that’s why she prevented me from calling you on it.”

“It’s possible. I could have had contacts to help me.”

“It’s still improbable, Henry. Lastly, when you told us about the fire in your shop, at first you said ‘she died’, then you changed it to ‘he died.’ Normally I’d pass it off as a slip up, but not in this instance. It’s just improbable.” 

Henry stared vainly into the tombstone. “Sierra knew too? She even let me go on saying it? I thought I was careful.”

“Well then?” Alex asked.

“What?”

“What really happened to you? Why are you homeless?”

“Nothing. No reason.”

“You’re not going to tell me.”

“That’s how it is. Nothing happened to me. That’s exactly how all of you knew I was lying, because I looked like a nobody … just some damn loser.”

“Henry…”

“Want to know the truth? Just ask Rum. He was right. I’m worthless. I’ve never accomplished anything in my life. Right up to my parents’ death I spent all my time reading comics and playing games. I never took responsibility. I’m lazy and inept. I never wanted to leave my comfort, but I got smashed right out of it when my parents died.” Henry froze. “Standing there, watching their coffins being lowered, I realised I really was alone - a loser with no hands on my shoulder to ease my troubles. There was no one left to look after me. I couldn’t pay rent. They took the house. Off I went.”

“What about your brother?”

“He … went away shortly after the funeral. He was around twenty seven then actually, and he’d been through a few hard times before then. He said he needed to get away from everything, he said trouble followed him around.”

“Did he … blame himself for your parents’ death?”

“No. Death just seemed to follow him around. It started when he began working in a launderette. It was in a good location and bound for success. When success did come he got promoted to store manager, a real sweet job: easy on the back, good pay, and good to have on a resume.” Henry sighed. “But the wrong kind of people took notice of their success. Robbers showed up in droves to raid their cash registers, it happened almost monthly yet my brother stayed. Then one robbery went wrong, very wrong. A customer interfered and bullets started firing. Two people died - a mother and her baby. My brother froze, he watched the few seconds as the baby gasped blood till death. Her eldest son, a ten year old, held them both until the end.”

Alex watched Henry’s face. It stayed still without a twitch, so too his words poured out clearly, void of usual stuttering. A great deal of emotional investment hung in his story. He recited it clearly as if he gathered this knowledge from the official crime report. At last, Henry spoke truth.

“I can understand, his wanting to get away after something like that.”

“He didn’t leave after that, although he should have. A few years later, after managing to pull himself back up, he decided to open up his own store using the insurance from the launderette robbery.”

Alex nodded understanding. “But his new company caught fire, and someone died. So that story wasn’t a total lie after all. It really did happen.”

“He became low on funds so he requested help from an outside investor. The investor was notoriously known for exploiting inexperienced entrepreneurs, but he had nowhere else to turn. Turned out, in exchange for aid my brother wound up having to hand half the business over. Straight away, the investor started cutting back to save funds. The guy turned the place into a total fire hazard. You could drop a match on the floor and the place would burn down. He even started all these crazy money making schemes, little side endeavours designed to exploit people who didn’t know better, desperate artists, things like that. My brother hated the guy, but he was completely at his mercy.”

“Could sound like someone I‘ve met,” Alex joked.

“When the place did inevitably catch fire, the investor became trapped somehow. My brother never told us how exactly. My brother always said he should have saved the man, that he should have pulled him out when he had the chance. But he was afraid. He always told me, if I ever find myself in that position, try and help. Do something. Don’t live in regret. That’s why I ran into that burning building like I did. Even though the guy trapped inside wasn’t the one we were looking for, I don’t regret it. Beyond the advice he gave me, my brother never really spoke to us about the event. The police were convinced someone else was there that night, but my brother never testified to that. So they abandoned the case as an accident - now that old building lies in ruins, falling down somewhere. It’s just another public eye sore, a pile of rubble.”

“The sins of the past are engraved in stone.”

“Philosophical … cool. My brother started to become like that right up until he left.”

“Where did he go?”

“Africa, on missionary work.”

“Touched by God, I suppose.”

“A priest actually.”

Alex blinked. “Come again?”

“It started eight years after the incident in the launderette. For the 8th anniversary my brother visited the church the woman who died belonged to when she was alive. When he finished praying the priest inquired as to why he looked so sad. He told the priest, ‘A very sad event took place ten years ago today, so I’ll be sad today.’ The priest understood. He replied to my brother, ‘This is a sad anniversary for us both. Ten years ago my mother and little brother died in a launderette robbery, and I remember your face.’”