A Vagrant Story (23 page)

The new bum stared mostly at Henry, who in return stared politely forward, and away. Henry had intended to let Sierra and Rum continue talking things out, but this visitor capped that plan. Instead he chose to make small talk with his own group, if only to tune out that intrusive breathing.

“How long did you say this trip would take, Sierra?”

“Maybe … a few hours.”

“Right. That’s a long trip then.”

The intrusive tramp’s eyes widened with devout interest, facial skin flexing in preparation for the next booming words. “That’s a very long trip!” He spoke in a dialect unfamiliar to their ears. It sounded like a worn devolution of an Irish accent. It was difficult to pin it down while distracted by his two beady eyes bobbing up and down on every word he spoke.

Henry nodded with the same polite intention to ignore him. He wouldn’t make the same mistake he did back on the bridge, when those two thugs approached. Rum warned him back then to avoid making eye contact with unusual sorts, and this one time he would heed the old man’s advice. It hardly dithered their new guest’s intrusiveness. 

“How long have you four people been on?” the wino asked still.

Henry now figured the safest way to end this to be to at least answer once. He opened his mouth to reply, but didn’t get the chance.

“I’ve been on this same carriage for two hours myself, like you know,” the haggard belted loudly. “I was sitting here all on my own until you four people showed up.”

“You were?” Henry replied. “I thought … we were here … first.”

“Don‘t bother, y‘stupid dud,” Rum said.

Henry grit his teeth. He could have cursed himself for answering since he now found himself trapped as mediator. The others were happy to sit back and let him do it.

“Absolutely! Been here all day now,” the wino exclaimed. “I went for a long train ride over the Christmas. I’m on my way back down now. May even ride back up again for the fun, like you know. Did you enjoy Christmas as much as I did?”

“It was okay,” Henry replied.

“Christmas should always be ‘okay’. Never anything less. I’m always happy for Christmas through New Year.”

“Looks like it.”

The haggard grinned wide, presenting his gummy toothed mouth. “Always stay cheerful this time of year. I tell you, like you know, this whole holiday I stay smiling. Let it drop and everything else does.”

“Keep a positive outlook,” Henry muttered.

“Exactly! Can’t stop to think or else bad thoughts start slipping in … like fire. It’s hot you know.”

“I guess it is.”

“Very hot!” the man echoed with greater devotion

The wino’s eyes drifted away from Henry and to nowhere else. “Should have fixed the ventilation, cleared the mould. The things I could have changed to change the way things are. Fire. It’s hot. Wraps around you, takes over so you can’t move. Stay in it, burning, until bleeping lights come to save you. Cooking flesh. Having your life flash before eyes through fiery goggles. Trapped.”

Henry began inclining away from the wino somewhere halfway through his little speech. A senselessly drunk tramp could be easily tolerated, not an inanely mad one with skeletons to unload.

Henry’s next words came with great expectation from the others. “Next carriage?”

A unanimous nod followed.

They shifted to the next carriage down using little imagination in their excuses. Rum peered through the view window to the previous carriage. Even abandoned to his own devices the wino didn’t sit down, even still he noticeably mumbled to himself.

Rum looked away, resting back against the joining door. “Guess things really could be worse. Well Alex, so much for ‘you never know who you might meet’.”

“I guess this makes us hypocrites,” Alex replied. 

“At least this carriage is empty too,” Sierra said.

She noticed Rum at once plonking himself on a seat, unsnapping another can. He fell back and gorged it thoroughly, tossing the empty can away. He caught wind of Sierra’s judgmental glare.

“What now? Alex gave me the cans, blame him. I’m on a break.” He put the cans in his pocket, folded arms and shut his eyes. The rate he fell asleep appeared genuine and immediate.

Her eyebrow twitched at his vain excuse. It twitched a second time because it was in large true. She’d be happier chastising Rum, but the true culprit stood beside her. Her menacing gaze fell up to Alex.

“Did it give you a kick, second guessing me like that?”

“I didn’t see any other use for them.”

“You could have thrown them away.”

“Would seem like a waste.”

She glanced at Rum to make sure he still slept. Her next words came in whisper. “The old fart will never give up if you keep handing him beer. He wants to quit drinking but it keeps falling into his lap. It’s as if the beer companies have placed a curse on him.”

Alex stared at her remorselessly. “Sometimes I swear you’ve never met the guy.”

“Say that again.”

“It’s like you expect better. You always seem so stunned every time he screws up, when everyone else just nods and says, ‘that’s old Rum.’ You try blame others for what he does, but the truth is he screws up because that’s what he wants. The old man could save his own life any time he chose. Maybe you see him the way you want to see him.”

“What do you know.” Sierra shrugged Alex off.

“I know he took care of you when you were a kid. He looked after you when you were out on the street on your own. I understand you might have looked up to him. Maybe you’re still blinded by kiddy goggles. You focus on trying to save him, when really you should be saving yourself.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t know him.” Sierra replied. “And you don’t know what I want either.”

“I know you want a normal life.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Then why were you carrying around all those self-help leaflets? Unorthodox reading material don’t you think, particularly the one about strained father-daughter relationships?”

“You read my stuff? I told you to mind your own business.”

“For a girl who goes traipsing across the city for someone she’s never met, you sure are defensive about your own history.

“There’s nothing to tell that I haven’t already told you. I was an orphan. I spent the first years of my life jumping from host family to host family. When I was sevem I was adopted by John and his … girlfriend. I lived with them for three years until John hung himself. I became homeless at age ten. Happy?”

“And you still want a family?”

“Of course I do!”

“You always did?”

“What kind of dumb question is that? I was a kid, all I wanted was a family.”

“You told us you ran away from a few homes. You were so desperate for a family yet you ran from every chance you got. Why did you run? You could have stayed with any of them.”

“You want to know why I left so many homes? People don’t want a baby who cries too much. They don’t want an infant who demands attention. They don’t want a pre-teen who sets fire to the couch. They don’t want a kid too big to hold, they don’t want someone with a ‘problem child’ sticker on her head. By the time I reached that point the only people willing to adopt me were … I ran from those people.”

Alex bowed understanding. Her garbled little summary painted a clearer image than any painter might. In truth he merely sought to test the waters, to see how she would reply about Rum. She did so in a satisfactory manner, and something close to what he expected. For the first time in a long time, he uncovered something new about Sierra, and something he truly did decide, wasn’t his place to pry.

He remained in silence until the silence took over to a point of pungency. A break came when Rum shifted with a pig like snore. It cracked some smiles and lowered tension to a stable degree.

With no more qualms to rid, or personal space to invade, Alex took note of Henry who sat up attentively throughout the exchange, but dipped his head thoughtfully afterward.

“Something the matter, Henry?” Alex asked.

He sat up surprised at having been acknowledged. “No … well, one thing. If you want a normal life again, does that mean you really think we stand a chance?”

“You mean if we’ll ever slip on our big boy shoes: get a car, house, family, grab a cat and call it mittens? All that bullshit?” Alex replied.

“Yeah … that bullshit.”

“Nothing stopping you,” Sierra said. “If you want it you could start climbing back up the chain whenever you want. Why are you asking this now?”

“I’ve been thinking. Maybe when this is all finished I could get a job somewhere, nothing too fancy just something simple. It struck me how much time had gone by since my parents died. I haven’t changed much since then. Even as a bum I’m still the same person. It can’t always be like this.”

“It won’t be, Henry,” Sierra said.

“Just don’t go moving out of the shack too soon,” Alex replied. “With you gone it’d be me against Sierra and Rum. Stuck with that pain in the ass I’d end up throwing myself into a lake.” He nodded at Rum to emphasize his target. 

He realised then that Rum had awoken some point prior. In fact he hadn’t changed position since the time he fell asleep to the time he snored pig-like. The rag lines on his face merely concealed his little shifty eyes squinting out. They stared at Alex and had been for some while. A trace fury stifled in his glare.

“Rum,” Alex said. “You’re awake. I didn’t notice. Don’t get too angry. It was a joke I could put up with you.”

The glare didn’t fade. From under the shadow of his beard, lips moved slow with daunting words. “You ever talk that way to Sierra again I’ll smash your face till it looks pretty.” The glare hung on his words until the train began easing into the next station.

Alex nodded. Since the day he’d met Rum first he’d never heard words so dedicated coming from his lips. The old man meant it. And Alex wouldn’t take this path of conversation again.

Passengers began boarding the carriage. Some took one look at the bums and retreated to the next one down. Those who stayed sat at the opposite end. Some of them pinned their noses against the bums’ natural odour. The ones who didn’t, struggled to keep their hands down in general courtesy. When the train started moving again a man stormed into the next carriage in a show of clear unease for these unwanted passengers. He might have hoped for better company but merely walked into the wino’s path. Suffice to say the man returned with renewed perspective.

The journey continued in relative ease. Few passengers glanced their way, only sometimes scornfully to demand their silence. Alex and Henry stayed complacent. Sierra and Rum responded more generally with raised middle fingers.

Rum yawned loud enough to cause a stir through the carriage. He spoke in kind. “So much for my snooze then. What’s wrong with these stuck up fucks? Look at them trying to avoid us. How snobby can they be riding on a public train? At least that wino could see us.”

“Something tells me that guy sees a lot of things,” Sierra replied.

She chanced a glance through the view window to the previous carriage. The wino was gone now, replaced by a new multitude of passengers. The train jolted in breaking for the next station, pushing her face against the glass.

The automatic doors hissed open for an empty platform. They remained open for the average length of time and began closing shortly after. It was then a woman’s voice cried from the station floor. She screamed lividly for someone to hold it, but wound up crashing into the doors and getting stuck between. With all determination she hung on, forcing the doors apart. To make some blind claim on the train she tossed her shopping bag on ahead of herself.

No one moved to help, the four bums included. There hung a certain survival of the fittest notion over the event. Most passengers watched with interest like spectators of a dramatic comedy.

This caused Rum to shift to her side and stand over her with a deducing stroke of his beard. Grabbing one half of the door, the other parted to allow her a chance to fall through, which she did, quite harshly.

She quickly regained composure, retying the buttons of her brown winter coat and shaking her blonde hair free of snow. This was her first reaction having safely landed onboard. The thought of properly thanking her saviour of the hour came right after. She turned to face Rum with a wide smile, which cracked the moment she saw him. None the less, she thanked him politely yet quickly, and scurried to the rear section with the rest of her wayfaring kin. A large gap of empty seats slashed the carriage into two social divides.

Rum shrugged off the woman’s reaction as one more obliging than most would offer. He sank back to Sierra, awaiting credit for his effort.

“See that, not such a bad guy now am I?”

Sierra stared half-wittedly past Rum to the blonde haired woman. Cautiously slinking back behind a seat to peek out, she began deciphering past the woman’s age wrinkles to see a familiar face from some early reach of her past. Sierra shrieked inwardly, falling flat behind the seat for cover.

“Blondie? The hell are you doing?” Rum asked.

“Nothing. I’m not doing anything. I’m not even here. Go away,” she whispered.