A Vagrant Story (51 page)

Then some days later it just reappeared at his feet without reason. Except the items he’d left inside were gone, replaced with … something else. And that is why he had to run. That is why he had to go to his ex-wife’s apartment. That’s when he found his child left there, alone.

Now he’d won. He saved his daughter.

“Daddy?” the girl said, questioning eyes.

Daddy, or John as some liked to call him, removed his brown suede coat. He placed it over the back of his chair. “What is it, Emma?”

“Where did Mammy go?”

“I … don’t know.”

“When will she be coming back?”

“I don’t know. She might be gone for a while.”

“She‘ll be back.”

“You think so?”

“Yup … cause Mammy said you weren’t coming back and you did.”

“Mammy said that?”

“She said … you wanted to leave me.”

“I wouldn’t want to leave you. Besides … I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Will you look for Mammy?”

John allowed his lip to snarl inward. A motion that went unnoticed on the child. “Yeah … I’ll look for her. I‘ll bring her back. Someone has to bring her back.”

“Who brought you back? Maybe they can help Mammy too?”

“I don’t know … someone must have been watching over me I guess.”

“Like angels?”

John reached down to pick up his large swathe carrier bag. Sorting through the innards he removed a small wallet sized photo of his ex-wife and daughter … their apartment number scribbled on the back.

Staring into this forgotten second from a hopeful past, he breathed out one deep breath, handing the picture to his daughter. Turning back to the bag, he this time removed a single note of paper. He read the words in his head, and suddenly they seemed so foolish as to when he wrote them just eight days ago before they were stolen by those muggers. With one flick of his wrists he tore the note in two.

“Yes Emma,” John said. “Angels.”

Emma smiled wider. The child too fixated on the photo, failed to notice the tearing of the page. Her eyes lost deep in that single framed memory, John took as long a break as he could in a young child’s eyes, a brief moment. He turned to the television, only then noticing the screen showing the outside of this hospital before it changed for a new breaking story.

A male anchorman spoke over images of a street side warehouse, its walls shattered from the outside. Women in short skirts, glittery ones, crawled from dust and debris to what their extended arms considered freedom. An overweight gentleman in a suit came crawling out, arms extended after the girls as if trying to continue whatever he started. The screen clicked over to a live feed where the scene of chaos changed to one calmer. Officers patrolled the area amidst layers of yellow tape. They took statements from the girls while that old chubby geezer in the expensive suit looked quite uncomfortable with those grabbing arms of his shackled in handcuffs.

John perked his attention. He actually recognised the scene. He’d passed it earlier while taking his daughter to the hospital. That was the exact same place he saw the van from the bank robbery crash, where police said it dropped several thousand dollars … where as John saw it drop six, and someone else saw it drop five.

The news reporter explained that the escaping van crashed open one of the building’s walls before disappearing. When police and paramedics showed to help all those within, they uncovered what appeared to be an underground prostitution ring. The brothel, as it turned out, belonged to one Jack Matters. The camera zoomed in on that chubby man in handcuffs to indicate who. He’d apparently been apprehended.

“What’s that daddy?”

John clicked off the television. “Nothing important.”

Just happy to see her eyes again, John reached back down into his brown swathe bag. He reached down past his spare clothes, down past his hundred or so thousand sorted dollars and down to one slip of paper of lesser value. It was a self-help leaflet for creating a better home life for one’s family. There were a lot of them inside, each for different things but mostly for families. The cover image depicted a happy smiley family around a dinner table, the mom in a summer dress the dad in Khakis and a blue shirt. On the side of this particular leaflet someone had scribbled a note in thought. It read: ’would Rum wear khakis?’

John read the introductory line out loud.

“Trust is the most important aspect…”

There roared a noise from outside, pouring through the hospital walls like heavy rainfall. It streamed down from Middle park, through the suburbs running then to the streets and through the alleys. It yelled numbers from ten down to one. On zero they let out the cry: Happy New Year.

Then good cheers ruled the night.

Chapter 37

Henry stumbled out over a garden fence as a woman behind screamed lividly for his roguish blood. A small crusted pie clenched in hand, he crashed to the sidewalk and immediately scurried to a safe enough distance to enjoy his new found feast.

At the time he’d only been homeless for about a month. Due to that bout of wetness behind the ears he’d not yet resorted to rooting in bins. When possible he plucked what food he could from open windows and doors left carelessly ajar. Each day he grew that bit more daring, that bit more careless. Today he takes a pie from someone’s backyard, in a week their trash would meet the same fate. The downward spiral had long begun.

Henry ran until arriving at the subway station. Seating himself on top step, he took one long sniff of the pie.

“It was worth it,” he mumbled, biting into the crust, wholesomely savouring each bite, appreciating every iota of flavour.

If back then he’d only been more aware of his surroundings, he might have noticed three other homeless people standing in his vicinity. Perhaps if he had noticed them he’d never have sat down here. They were an intimidating bunch. To this little speck of a man they did not ‘seem’ intimidating, they wreaked of it.

A shadow enveloped Henry, the shadow of bearded man, gruff and ill-kempt in his green trench coat. Behind that tramp stood two of his companions, a blonde haired girl and a tall man who seemed hardly interested.   

Henry quickly jumped to his feet then backed away. For a time he stood blank, before muttering, “C-can … I help you?”

An amused smile crossed under the man’s beard. “You gonna share that? I’m starving.”

“You mean we’re starving, you old fart!” the blonde girl cried from behind.

Henry squelched back and presented the pie. “Here, take it!”

The bearded man scratched his chin. “We’ll just take a piece, thanks.”

Those words knocked Henry upright and like that melt the fear from his quivering hands. Streetlights flickered on in single file, coaxing the night to a brighter dye. Like a spotlight, one shone right above them.

And together, they stood in one another’s company, on those cold damp streets where no one will listen and nobody learns. That night there started a story of just four people, who nobody saw.