Ragged Company (49 page)

I don’t know what thoughts passed through his mind that day. I don’t know where he went as he stood there so strong and free, the breeze rippling his grey hair. But I hope he went to the horizon he always sought, stepped into it and found the world he’d been looking for all his life. When he came down, he punched Granite lightly on the shoulder, squeezed Timber’s hand firmly, and looked at me. He looked at me and I saw right into him. Saw Digger at home. He runs that wheel three times each week now. He goes for hours and gives people rides for free. You can hear them laughing. You can hear them chatting excitedly as they pass backwards by the old wheelman on the stool. You can hear them reliving old days when Ferris wheels were the highlight of the carnival shows that passed through their towns. You can hear them telling stories, talking to each other, making new memories. And you can see Digger smiling.

The statue brought Timber much attention. After the funeral, several gallery owners called and asked to see more of his work. James found him a studio space of his own and he set to work. He was marvellous. He concentrated on people. Many days he would take me with him on long walks through different parts of the city and we’d watch people, we’d talk to people, we’d listen to their stories, and Timber would sketch quietly and quickly. Then he’d go back to his studio and bring those people to life in wood. He sold plenty. He became well known. But it was the two pieces he didn’t sell that made his name.

The first was a mural carved in wood. It was a street scene, a downtown street scene, and at first it seemed plain what it showed. But you had to get closer. There was a power and a magnetic pull to the lines of blade and hewn surface that attracted you. As you
moved closer, it began to feel as though you moved into it, that you were a part of that scene. Finally, you stood there and were absorbed by it. Only when that feeling sank in did you begin to see what you hadn’t at first glance. There were faces in the concrete, faces in the walls of buildings, faces in profile, faces in cameo relief, faces everywhere that you had to inhabit the mural to see. Looking closer, you saw people in the corners, people hidden by line and edge and action. Ragged people. Rounders. Street people. It captured you. Snared you with the power of the invisible people you missed while you were busy trying to take it all in. He called it
Shadowed Ones
and it was sublime.

The second was a statue of Sylvan. She held a jade plant in her lap while she rocked in a chair. The detail was stunning. Her eyes were melancholic, squinted slightly, and her focus was far away, beyond you, over your shoulder to some place only she could see. Or not see. The lightness in her hands was compelling, the fingers laced around the pot that held the plant. The word was
grace.
They spoke of a grace carved into the fine lines of her face, the set of her shoulders, and the delicate placing of her feet. But the mystifying part was how he managed to suggest something missing. Something off to the right of her shoulder that spoke of a longing, an absence, an unfilled space. I knew what went there and every time I see it, I see Jonas Hohnstein standing proudly beside the one true love he carried all his life. Saw that space filled forever. It was where he belonged. She sits in the Richard R. Dumont Gallery in a special window framed by smoked glass, looking out at the world, at the street.

Granite bought the stone house back. He and Margo moved there and he wrote a column for the paper. Not political pieces. Pieces about people. He told Digger’s story after the wheel went up. He told about Fill ’er Up Phil, Heave-Ho Charlie, and a lot of the other rounders we introduced him to. Then he told stories about the barber who’d had the same shop on the same corner for forty years. He told about the immigrant man who reunited with the love he thought he’d lost in the Second World War. He told about the engineer who retired and built an enormous miniature
railroad in his basement for the neighbourhood kids to enjoy and learn about days long gone. He told real stories because he discovered there were a few of those left after all.

He hears the songs again. He feels them. He raises his face to the beams and timbers, closes his eyes and feels all that history envelope him like clouds, he says. I’m happy about that. When I see him now, I see a man surrounded by time and place. He wears it like a soft wrap and he’s comfortable.

Me? Well, I used my money to make a special place for women. It’s called Deer Spirit Lodge. In my people’s way, the deer is a gentle spirit, healing and nurturing. The lodge is a place for women to go to learn to nurture themselves after a life on the street, in prison, or just life in its toughness and difficulty. Wawashkeezhee Manitou. Deer Spirit. It’s what I wish for them. I bought a nice building on a quiet street in a family-oriented neighbourhood and filled it with soft furniture and warm things. Margo and I worked together to set up a program that has spirituality built into every facet, and then I stepped aside and let her run it. Oh, I drop by as often as I can to talk to the women, make a soup maybe, or go on a movie outing, but mostly I leave it in Margo’s hands because I’m busy elsewhere.

I’m busy on the street. See, it wasn’t enough for me to just drop by and visit. No, I know a rounder’s ways and I know that there’s always a big lack of trust of someone from the outside. Always suspicion. Always a perceived lie. So I went back. I left the house on Indian Road and went back to the street to live among them again. They need me. They always needed me. The boys are okay. They’re strong now. They have lives and they don’t need me to lean on or tell them how things are supposed to go. But others do. I sleep outside. I make runs for them. I listen to them. I’m one of them. I always was. I always will be.

But now and again I come home to Indian Road. I come home and sit on the veranda with Timber, Digger, Granite, Margo, and James and we talk about the old days, about Dick and cold snaps, Square Johns and rounders, shelter and fortune, and dreams and home. We talk a lot about home. Then we go to the movies to sit
in the hushed atmosphere of magic and let the light of someone’s dream light up our worlds again.