Ragged Company (41 page)

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if you hadda talked insteada whittling this might not have gone down like it has.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about being solid. I’m talking about not letting a pal go down without trying to help. I’m talking about wasting fucking time with a knife in your hands when you could be looking for the fucking guy.”

“You’re putting this on me?”

“Fucking rights I’m putting this on you. You seen him all fucked up and didn’t say word one to him. Didn’t ask. Didn’t tell nobody. All you did was pick up your little tools and whittle.”

“You know the routine,” Timber said. “Never ask. Let it ride.
We don’t talk unless we want to talk. You know?
Your
religion. The only thing you believe in. The rounder code. The way of the street. The friggin’ gospel according to Digger. So if you’re going to put this on anyone, put it on yourself.”

“On me? How the fuck do you figure that?” Digger asked, putting down his utensils.

Timber gave him a level look. “Because he listened to everything you ever said. He worshipped you. You were his idea of what he was supposed to be, and when you told him to ‘never say nothing to nobody’ he listened. But the only problem is: we don’t live on the street anymore, in case you haven’t noticed. Those rules don’t apply here. They only work on the street. But you never told him that, did you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, thank you for the feedback,” Timber sneered.

“I’ll feed you back a shot in the fucking head.”

“That’s your answer to everything. Except maybe driving around in your little truck all day.”

“At least I’m doing something.”

“In your own words, you’re doing shit.”

“At least I didn’t ignore a pal in pain.”

“Actually,” I said. “You did.”

“Fuck you, Rock.”

“But you did. We talked at the Palace and I told you what Amelia had told me about his not sleeping and the nighttime drinking. You said all that needed to happen was a buddy-buddy shot on the shoulder. Remember?”

“You’re telling me that I’m not solid because I saw him on the porch and said nothing? Now I find out that they actually asked you to talk to him directly and you said no? Who’s not solid now, Digger?” Timber asked.

“Hey, fuck you,” Digger said, standing. “I know rounders. I did what a rounder would do for a rounder.”

“Oh, yeah,” Timber said, standing too now. “Rounders let a friend go down?”

“I didn’t let him go down.”

“What do you call not offering a hand when a hand was called for?”

“I call it minding my business.”

“Your business isn’t your pal’s safety?”

“My business is my business.”

“Now there’s a fucking thought,” Timber sneered. “Not real deep and not real useful, but it’s a thought.”

“Hey, listen, Mr. I’m So Sad Cuz I Ditched My Fucking Wife, I wouldn’t be talking about turning my back on people if I was you. You’re the fucking pro when it comes to that.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me? Fuck me?”

“Fuck you.”

“Stop it!” Amelia said, rapping the butt of her fork on the table. “Stop it. Both of you. This isn’t what we need.”

“Yeah, and you really know what we need, don’t you?” Digger replied.

“Not this,” Amelia said.

“Who told you that? Some spook in the corner? The ghost of Humphrey fucking Bogart whispered in your ear, did he? Jesus. Shadowed ones. That’s what got us into all this in the first place.”

“It’s what got us out,” Amelia said.

“Got you out,” Digger said. “Where the fuck is Dick right now? Huh? Can your fucking shadowed ones tell you that? Huh?”

“Leave her out of this!” Timber said angrily.

“Why? Why? She’s so fucking sacred? I’ll tell you something, pal. If we’re fucking wrong here, she’s fucking wrong.”

“She’s not wrong.”

“No? No? Did she say anything? Did she walk up to his door one of them nights she knew he was in there hurting and ask him
what the fuck?
No. No. All she did was walk up to the Square John and say, ‘Please, Mister Square John, tell me what to do.’ Like a fucking Square John was gonna know.”

“She did what she thought was right.”

“Bullshit. What was right was coming to us.
Us
. We’re the fucking rounders. We’re the fucking crew. We’re the ones who
hung together through a hundred different kinds of bullshit. Not him. Not them. We’re still fucking entertainment to them, don’t you see that?”

“They’re our friends,” Timber said.

“Yeah,” Digger said, looking at the three of us. “They got a few million reasons for being our friends, don’t they?”

“We don’t care about your money,” James said.

“We care about you,” Margo said.

“ ‘
We care about you
,’” Digger echoed in a singsong voice. “Yeah, well I don’t see you exactly burning up the sidewalk looking for Dick. I don’t see you doing anything except coming around every day looking at us, watching us like we’re some fucking movie and then going back to your little Square John love nest and talking about the poor rounders. The poor rounders who can’t get a fucking life even with thirteen-million dollars. Fuck you, you care about us.”

“Digger,” I said sharply. “Watch your mouth.”

He turned slowly and stared balefully at me. “Watch my mouth?” he asked. “Watch my mouth? At least I opened mine. At least I had the balls to talk about where I come from. Did you? No. You didn’t say shit about how fucked up things got for you, how it made you think it was all for shit. Well, you know what, Mr. Toe-Rubber Square John motherfucker? Maybe if you hadda opened your mouth and talked about yourself, maybe Dick woulda heard some of that and been okay to let the cat outta his bag. But no. You just sat back and listened to our stories and didn’t offer up your own. You sat back and let us enter-fucking-tain you. Well, we ain’t no movie. We ain’t no flick you can walk in and out of whenever you fucking please. So, you can take your fucking Square John friends who don’t do nothing for us anyway and get the fuck out of my house.”

“It’s not your house,” Timber said. “It’s ours.”

“Well, get the fuck out of my part, then.”

“Digger,” Amelia said. “You’re just upset.”

“Fucking rights I’m upset! I’m upset that we’re the only ones who ever have to spill the beans. We’re the only ones on display.
We’re the only ones who have to do anything about finding Dick. We’re the only ones who ever have to pay the fucking price for anything. These Square Johns just come around for the show.”

“Is that how you really feel?” I asked.

“Fucking rights.”

“Then I guess we’d better leave.”

“I guess,” he said.

“No,” Amelia said. “Everyone’s just hurting. Please don’t go.”

“We’d better,” Margo said.

“Yeah. You’d better or someone
will
be hurting,” Digger said.

“Not if I can help it,” Timber said.

“Hmmph,” Digger snorted. “You ever make a move on me, you better have one of them fucking carving shanks in your hand and you better know how to fucking use it.”

“Digger,” Amelia said sternly. “I won’t have that talk. I won’t have it. Not in this house. Not ever.”

He looked at her with his head tilted back cockily. Then he looked at each of us in turn, shook his head sadly, and smirked. “Sad fucking bunch,” he said. “Sad fucking bunch.”

“We’d better go,” I said.

“Don’t let the door punch you in the pants on the way out,” Digger said.

It didn’t.

T
HE LADY
in the library said Tucumcary was a place. It was in New Mexico. I told the lady I couldn’t read an’ she helped me even though I didn’t know how to spell it. We found it on a map. Tucumcary. It was real. It was a place. Even though I kinda knew once my head cleared up that the guy at the Rainbow wasn’t really Tom Bruce an’ I kinda knew that all them people was only after my money, Tucumcary was real an’ I still wanted to go. I figured maybe if I slept under them palm trees I could figure out
how to deal with my nightmares on accounta Timber went to the city by the sea an’ he wasn’t so sad no more. Timber. I hoped he was okay. I hoped he wasn’t worried on accounta I didn’t wanna make no one worried. I walked out on accounta the movie freaked me out an’ I thought I hadta get away. I walked out ’cause my nightmare felt real. Like it was right in the room with me. Now it didn’t. Now I had them pills an’ they was makin’ it go away from my mind. I liked that. The Tom Bruce guy got me a big bottle of them an’ when one wasn’t enough I took another one an’ it worked good. So I started to figure that Tucumcary would work for me like the city by the sea worked for Timber. I started making a plan to go there.

After I left the library I went to where the lady said I could get a map. The man at the store was nice an’ found me a big book with maps of the whole world an’ kinda dog-eared the page I wanted an’ put a circle around Tucumcary. I never had no book before. Never. Not my own, least ways. Felt funny in my hands but I liked lookin’ at the maps. Then I went to a place that sold tape recorders an’ I bought me one of them ones that fit right in your hand. I couldn’t write no letter to my friends on accounta I can’t write, so I figured to say what I wanted on that tape recorder an’ mail it to them. I had to go to Tucumcary alone. I could tell them I was goin’ to sort out some stuff. They’d understand that on accounta it’s what a rounder does when somethin’s got him by the short an’ curlies, like Digger says. Digger’d know what I meant an’ wouldn’t worry. One For The Dead would worry, though, an’ I wanted to say somethin’ good to her on accounta she always been so good to me. The tape recorder was my best idea in a long time.

Once I got batteries, I bought some clothes an’ a bag to tote them in an’ a bottle of vodka an’ found a nice hotel. The Hilton. They was nice there even though I guess I kinda looked rough after the Rainbow. I paid for three days in cash an’ left a few hundred more for room service an’ everyone was real nice to me. I got a nice room with a view of the whole city. There was a bar in there too, and a big TV. I planned on stayin’ there until I figured
out how to get to Tucumcary. Jet, maybe. Even a bus. A train would be nice too on accounta I could relax an’ watch the country roll by like in them western movies. I’d figure it out.

I had a shower an’ put on some of the new clothes. I was get-tin’ kinda shaky again so I swallowed some more pills, had a big snort or two of vodka to wash ’em down an’ watched some TV while they kicked in. It didn’t take long. They made me float. Float so I couldn’t really feel my feet. Walkin’ on that thick carpet in my room was funny-feelin’ an’ I kinda giggled when I walked back an’ forth to the bar on accounta I felt like I was walkin’ in the air. Them pills was good. Later that night I got my book out an’ found the dog-eared page of New Mexico. I lay on my bed an’ let my fingers trace all around New Mexico, all along the roads that led to Tucumcary, past all the little dots that was towns, past all the country there that I tried to imagine from movies I seen, past the cows in the fields, the rivers, the forests, the mountains, past all the things I ever figured Tucumcary was all about. An’ as I let my fingers trace them roads, I had a few more snorts of vodka an’ another coupla pills an’ remembered my hideout talks with Tom Bruce when we was kids an’ Tucumcary was a dream we had, a dream that was comin’ true for me now on accounta it was the only place, the only place to be, the only place to be free. The only place where the breeze blew in from Old Mexico across New Mexico an’ made little swishin’ sounds through the tops of the palm trees I lay under an’ found a way to tell little Earl that he could let me go now on accounta I learned everythin’ I needed to learn from him an’ I needed to be with my friends in our house on Indian Road on accounta that was my life, an’ him an’ that room with the flickerin’ TV an’ the shadows an’ his tiny little feet an’ my puke an’ my sick an’ moose milk an’ wagons an’ sleds in the snow an’ shacks by sawmill towns wasn’t part of nothing no more. So goodbye little Earl. I’m gonna try real hard to forget you now even though I don’t wanna on accounta it was you brung me where I went an’ without you I couldn’ta met up with my friends an’ won all that money for our house on Indian Road an’, boy, was they ever
gonna be glad to hear from me. So I reached over to that tape recorder an’ pushed the red button an’ started talkin’ about everythin’ that come to my mind layin’ there on that big bed in that fancy room with that vodka an’ them pills. I talked about what I wanted for them an’ how I wished sometimes that people like us didn’t need to go to places like Tucumcary on accounta sometimes you think that friendship oughta be enough to see a guy through things, an’ how even though I was gonna go there alone I was takin’ them with me on accounta it was them give me everythin’ I got an’ I wanted to give back. So I needed to go an’ say goodbye to little Earl once an’ for all so I could go home on accounta home was the most important thing for all of us an’ there wasn’t no room no more for little Earl an’ nightmares an’ not sleepin’ on accounta bein’ afraid to wake up in your own home wasn’t what home was supposed to be. I seen in a movie one time what home was supposed to be an’ it wasn’t like that an’ I was gonna come home soon, soon, soon, once I made the trip that I was gonna go on right after I had this sleep that I could feel behind my eyes an’ at the sides of my head. So good night, good night, an’ I love you an’ I’ll sing a song for you all in Tucumcary where the breeze blows across Old Mexico to New Mexico an’ carries secrets an’ songs an’ tales that I’ll tell, like One For The Dead tells tales in a voice like the breeze that blows in the top of the palm tree where I’ll lay an’ learn to say goodbye.

I
HATED
what had happened. There had never been one single solitary thing that could get between us in all the years we’d been together until this. It was all about pain. It was all about those things you can’t understand in life. The things that should be so simple but never are. Like feelings. Like hope. Like love. I guess love sometimes doesn’t have the most gracious vocabulary. It can’t. It can’t because it comes from the deepest part of us, the part that never sees the light until love itself calls it out of us, and
when you live the way we lived for so long your ears aren’t attuned to the sound of love so you never learn to talk its language. You learn pain’s vocabulary, though. Very well. That was the language spoken in the living room that night. Pain’s talk. Love’s talk, really, dressed up in anguish clothes. The silence the house fell into was thick like a bush you’ve never walked through before with no pathway, no blaze on the trees to tell you where to plant your foot, no clear-cut, no way to see direction. All of us without a compass.