Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese Page B

around me. I’d busied myself studying the architecture of the nearby buildings but brought my gaze to earth at the sudden tone of apprehension. The focus of attention was the four street people I’d met a few weeks prior. They were approaching slowly, heads down, eyes cast warily about. They seemed the epitome of the street urchin to such a degree that standing there I imagined myself in a scene from Dickens. All of them, with the exception of the old native woman, seemed perched on the edge of fight or flight. She was merely curious, looking about her and taking in the sights of this neighbourhood in much the same way I had on my stroll to thetheatre. The closer they got to the lineup in front of The Plaza the more audible became the confusion of my compatriots.
    “Goodness,” exclaimed a pert young woman in a fur coat behind me, “they must be lost. We don’t get them in this area, especially at night.”
    “Well, we’ve got them now,” her companion said. “Hopefully they don’t put the touch on any of us. I’ll be damned if I’m being hit up for change tonight.”
    “Poor woman,” a rail-thin, hawk-nosed woman said. “I hope she’s safe with those three.”
    “You don’t think they could be heading over here do you?” asked a pretty young red-headed woman.
    “Here? This is The Plaza, not the Union Mission. What would they want here?” her bespectacled friend replied, slipping a protective arm around her waist.
    “Coming to the movies, I suspect,” I said, surprised at the blurt as much as those close to me who heard it.
    There were polite guffaws and chuckles that melted away into stunned silence as the four of them approached the line and surreptitiously joined it.
    “Hey, mister! Hey, hey, mister!” I heard suddenly.
    Everyone began looking about in something close to panic as the old native woman pleaded for attention from the back of the line. I could feel people pulling themselves inward, downshifting from judgment into a pretended ignorance and sudden deafness.
    “Hey, I thought it was you,” she said, approaching me and extending a hand rough and raw from wind and chill. “You remember me, don’t you?”
    I glanced about in embarrassment and then reached out to shake her hand. “Yes,” I said, “I remember. How have you been?”
    “Good. Me ’n the boys, we’ve been good. Been to quite a few movies since that cold spell,” she said and smiled.
    “Yes, it would seem a good place to go for warmth, I suppose.”
    “Well, it kinda started out that way but the more we went the more the boys seemed to enjoy it. Now, I guess, we’re hooked,” she said with a wink.
    “It’s a good thing to be hooked on,” I replied, scanning the crowd.
    “Better’n some things.”
    “Yes. Yes.”
    “So will you save us some seats?”
    “Pardon me?”
    She grinned. “Could you save us some seats? Something near the middle? We’d appreciate it.”
    Faces were turned toward us all along the line. I could feel myself getting warmer. “Yes. I’d be happy to. Something near the middle.”
    “With you,” she said.
    “With me?”
    “Well, yes. We got a date, remember?”
    I heard a few guffaws.
    “Surely you don’t think …” I began.
    “Wait a minute now,” she replied, with one hand held up palm forward. “A promise is a promise. You said the next time we met at the movies we were gonna go for a drink. Right?”
    Snickers now. I could see grins on people’s faces. “Yes, well, I never meant it seriously.”
    “How’d you mean it then? As a joke? You were joking with me? Playing with my affections?”
    I could see that people were really beginning to enjoy this.
    “No. I was not playing with your affections. I was merely being polite.”
    “Oh, yeah? Polite in your world means lying to people?” She winked at me again.
    “Look here,” I said sternly, “I was not lying, I was merely applying a deflection, an off-the-cuff, inconsequential politeness. I didn’t mean anything