Read Online Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese - Free Book Online

by it.”
    “In the habit of not meaning what you say to women. Bit of a player, are you?” I could hear open laughter around us now. “I’ve been around, mister, so this isn’t what you might call an out-of-the-world experience for me. I’ve been dumped by pros.”
    It was my turn to laugh.
    “You’re right, of course,” I said. “Only, let’s talk about this later.”
    “Later?”
    “Well, after the film.”
    “So you’ll save us seats?”
    “Yes. I’ll save you seats.”
    “With you?”
    “Ahem,” I said, scratching at my lapel and glancing around. “Yes. Of course.”
    “Good. Well, we’ll see ya in there.”
    “Fine.” I watched her walk back to her friends. Digger leaned out from the pack and glared at me.

One For The Dead
    S OME STORIES become your blood. They move beyond the telling or the showing and come to rest inside you. Invade you. Inhabit you. Like there was a secret crevice in your being that it took the tale to fill. That’s what that movie was like.
Cinema Paradiso.
I liked how it sounded. A movie about heaven. Or, at least, that’s how it sounded to me. And there’s always a part of you that knows about the big somethings long before they happen in your world. Always. For me, that night, it was the colour of the night itself. The cold had cleared and left behind it a freshness like the kind we’d get in Big River after a good, hard, cleansing rain. Like the earth was declaring itself one more time, saying,
I am. I am. I am.
I always liked that feeling, and that night while walking to the theatre there was a feeling to the air that made it seem like a colour: a blue kind of colour, all steel and shadow, water and woe, all at the same time. Walking through it, I could tell that this was a night to remember.
    The boys couldn’t feel it. Each of them was having a hard enough time keeping their feet moving in the direction we were heading. This was a difficult neighbourhood. This was a far step beyond where we normally went. This was one of those areas ofthe city that shone and glittered everywhere. For those boys it was stepping out of shadow and being seen, and none of them liked it much. But for me it was following a beacon. It was the pull of some strange magnetic force like yearning or coming home or love even, and while that scared me some, it thrilled me too and I walked lighter than I had for years. There were no shadowed ones here, or at least they had no need to tell me of their presence that night.
    Seeing the Square John in that line made it perfect. I’d wondered when we’d be thrown together again. Talking with him, teasing a little, joking was easy, and I liked his discomfort. It made him more real.
    “Friggin’ can’t get away from that guy,” Digger said on our way into the theatre.
    “Well, since we’ll be sitting with him, I guess we shouldn’t try to get away,” I replied.
    “You have got to be fucking kidding. Sitting with him. Us?”
    “Yes. He’s saving us seats.”
    “Jesus.”
    I grinned. Timber and Dick just watched me, waiting for their cue to move, eager to be out of the hustle of the lobby and into the dim security of the theatre. We’d made it just in time. There were no seats remaining, or at least not four together. I picked out Granite’s triangular hat easily enough and we moved down the aisle toward his row. The boys followed close behind me, none of them looking up at all, and if they could have run to their seats I believe they would have. This was the biggest crowd any of us had been in by choice for years, and all of us wanted the shelter that a seat provides.
    “Ah,” I said, easing into the seat beside Granite, who nodded at our arrival, “this is the life, eh, mister? Long night at the movies, in the company of your peers.”
    “Ahem,” he said, one hand edging toward his buttons. “Yes. It’s fine to be with others who appreciate fine film.”
    “Like us.” I nudged his elbow. “Me and the boys.”
    “Yes. The