Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese

Author:Richard Wagamese [Wagamese, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780307372635
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2008-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Digger

THE FRIGGIN’ GARAGE was mine. I claimed it right off the hop. I seen it sitting back there and I claimed the fucker. I had a room in the house but I wanted to sleep out back. So me ’n Rock and Merton got together and fixed it up. We put in insulation, changed the windows, put a real floor down over the concrete, carpeted it, put in heat, a shower, and lickety-fucking-split I had me some digs I could handle. After the talk died down on the veranda or the porch at night, I’d mosey on back and settle in. It was like digs. It was like being in my little alcove looking out over the hill except there weren’t no view there. But it was tucked away and quiet and I liked it fine.

And I bought a friggin’ truck. Me. Digger. I had me a fucking old Mercury some Square John had fixed up and couldn’t afford to keep. Fucking old Mercury with headlights like cat’s eyes. I’d head out early in the morning on my new route. I’d drive about three hours along the alleys of the new neighbourhood, listening to music on my CD player and slurping coffee, looking for interesting castoffs. I didn’t grab bottles or cans no more. Didn’t need to. But I loved it when I found some Square John toss-off that could be fixed up. I found bicycles, lamps, radios, televisions, toasters, stoves, all kinds of shit left for dead that still had life in them if a guy wanted to spend some time coaxing the breath back. I did.

I found out I had a talent for it. Don’t know why but I could eyeball a thing for a while, kinda follow its line and wires and shit and figure out how it was supposed to run. Then I’d tinker around. That’s all. That’s how I explain it. I’d just tinker around and feel the way it was supposed to be, like feeling the wheel, like knowing from the sound of that old MacCormack engine what was right and what was not. So I fixed things. Made ’em work. Made ’em live again.

Merton found me an old store in an area filled with antique joints. It had a fair-sized front end to show off stuff and a big frig-gin’ work area in back. We got me all kinds of tools and I sat back there fixing up the toss-offs, painting them, making them breathe again, listening to music on an old stereo I fixed. Now people brought me stuff to sell for cash. Except I didn’t do no buying. I didn’t even try too hard to sell anything but people always wanted to buy it. Couldn’t get my head around that Square John kinda thinking that says something’s useless and tossable until someone makes it all new and shiny again and then spend way too much friggin’ money on it to let folks know they got a soft spot in their hearts for old and fucking charming.

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