Carpet Bag

By Kyla Terhune

Jack tilted the bag in his grubby hand, as I set the parking brake on my wheelchair. I reached down with my own grubby hand, grabbed a few potato chips, and shoved them into my mouth, tasting a mix of dirt and canola oil when I licked my fingers. I could have had my own bag, for a quarter and a dime of my day’s work, but someone else’s food always seemed to taste better.
I took a look around our current abode, cardboard boxes and layers of blankets, stretched between the parking lines, lines that offered property boundaries to our village. The parking lot itself was vast, owned by the nearby movie theater, and even at primetime, was only half-full. So we’d sprawled out for almost a week, and hadn’t yet been harassed. Our ceiling, the Interstate 95, was cathedral, providing us both with shelter and the soothing, amniotic drone of vehicles through day and night. I had joked with Jack that Santa Claus would get run over come Christmas. But I knew we wouldn’t be there at Christmas anyway. It was the middle of June now. By that time, we’d disperse to shelters across the city; and I’d get kicked out periodically for drunkenness, which would keep me warm, or at least unconscious, until I sobered up and sought another shelter.
But for now, we were a nomadic bunch, four men and one woman, sleeping until noon and making our way over the few blocks to South Street every afternoon. We’d catch a few drunken businessmen or their wives or girlfriends or whatever, and hit them up for their spares as they reached into their pockets to feed the meters or as they left the convenience stores with coffee in one hand and a pocketful of bothersome change in the other. If it was a bad day, at least the trash was put out frequently in the evenings and again at the closing of the bars, when one was guaranteed a few half-eaten slices of pizza or soda cups with an ounce or two of watered down cola.
Our admission policy for the group was rolling, and we weren’t too particular, so we had a few new stragglers join every few weeks. But they usually were on their way a few days later. Jack had stuck around a little longer than usual, but he was still pretty typical. I enjoyed shooting the breeze with him. This evening, he’d dragged his cardboard boxes over next to mine, and was sitting, eating his potato chips, watching the cars speed up the exit ramp to join the melee of the interstate.
He wore an old army uniform, complete with a few stripes on the shoulder, but he was far from a clean-shaven soldier. Maybe he could have passed for an officer in the middle of war, living in the trenches, eating stale bread. I suppose that wasn’t too far from the truth now. His gray and brown beard grew down his neck, and his wispy hair hung limp with the weight of street smut, curling at the edges of his shoulders. With the uniform, I could almost believe he was a true veteran, and he milked that, carrying one of those folded cardboard signs that read, “I fought for your freedom. God bless,” scribbled with a black sharpie in different sized letters.
“It makes ‘em more willing to part with a dime,” he grunted, when he saw me again eying his uniform. “Picked it up in Baltimore, at one of them thrift stores.”
It was obvious that Jack had been on the street longer than me, he seemed to know all the tricks of the trade. He’d spoken over the past few nights of several cities he’d visited, contrasted the streets, the cops, the contents of the trash. But despite his worldliness, he still smelled the same, still looked like the rest of us. If he knew all the tricks of the trade, one would think he’d moved on from the trade itself.
I’d watched him over his stay. He did the same thing every day. He’d rise for the day, tuck his sign under his arm and grab his bag, one of those overnight suitcases that looks like a mix between wallpaper and carpet, gray with a pattern of large pink and green flowers. Then, he’d limp off in the direction of the street, as if he just might hop on a bus to go visit his old army buddies in the slums.
I had admired his uniform once before, and I figured that if anything showed up like that in my rounds, I’d grab it too. For now though, I wore whatever I found, and my wardrobe changed with each seasonal cleaning of the city’s residents. If the trend were flannel, it would show up on the back steps of the thrift shop two years later, and on my back within a few hours. The thrift shop was one of my regular stops in my daily wanderings. The other regular stop was the pawnshop just south of South, where anything nice from the thrift shop steps found its way. I had no use for candlesticks, but I certainly had use for the 25 cents they’d win me at the shop, and the owner would take anything decent enough to re-sell at his weekend flea markets over in New Jersey.
I looked over Jack’s uniform again, and wondered how much he racked in on a rainy day. That’s when we made the most, a rainy day when those city dwellers felt sorry enough for themselves for having to walk to work each morning, that they passed it on to you. And that’s when we stayed the driest—the cops seemed more reluctant to boot a bum from the stairwell of the subway when the drenching downpours greeted us at the doorway. Too much trouble.
“Gotta have a crowd pleaser,” he said, savoring the last few crumbs that had fallen onto his pants. “What’s your pity-pot, the wheelchair?” he nodded at my rusty chair with the blue seat. I’d taken it from the front of the University hospital a few years ago.
“The wheelchair’s real,” I said. It really irked me when people doubted my injury. He looked at my legs, grunted, shrugged his shoulders, and returned his stare to the on-ramp. A white Volvo accelerated upwards, and a small face peered at us from its backseat window. I wondered if Jack had noticed my lack of atrophy. I tucked the blanket in around the edges, careful to keep my body motionless in the process.
“What’s in your bag? Your fatigues?” I jeered. He smiled, but gave no response, so I took a draw of my beer that I had wedged into my seat and stared back out to the on-ramp. I wasn’t quite sure how this companion had happened upon our camp, or how he’d taken a liking to me, but whatever. It’s not that I really knew the others either. We just happened to end up in the same city, in the same parking lot, next to the same on-ramp, at the same time.
I looked again at the suitcase. “Seriously, what’s in your bag?” I repeated.
He adjusted his boxes and leaned back, tipping his cap to cover his eyes. “Just some memories.”
I’d never seen him pull anything out of it, and he never changed clothes. Sometimes he used it as a pillow. Other times, he clutched it while sleeping, as
if he were sleeping in with his lover
on a weekend morning. However, he
never left it more than three feet from his person.
I checked the brakes on my wheelchair, tossed my beer bottle into the distance and lowered myself to the ground carefully onto the fleece blanket some man had been anxious to give me one early morning last winter as I lay motionless on a grating. The noise of the highway was punctuated with a rhythmic click as semis drove over sections of road, making their way up to New England, or down to Wilmington and Baltimore. It lulled me, and my eyelids began to get heavy in the thick humid air.
“Actually, it was my wife’s,” he said. I was brought back to complete consciousness immediately, but considered faking a snore. Stories of the past were always painful, sometimes because they reminded me of my past, but mostly because I just hated to hear the sob stories of those who felt as if they were good enough to be back in the real world. As if a roll of the dice had driven them out of warm homes with baking bread, to street grime and wall-pissing. I didn’t really want to listen to this guy cry. But I also didn’t want to lift myself into the wheelchair again and pack up.
“We were expectin’ a baby, and she packed up for the hospital. This here suitcase was hers.”
I opened my eyes, but stayed motionless. Judging from the gray in his beard, he must have carried that bag for twenty years or so. I’ve seen men on the street push their own belongings in a grocery cart, pull them in a laundry bag, wear them in layers. But I’d never seen them carry something that belonged to someone else, just for the memory of it. Memories that are touchable are generally also sellable.
I acknowledged his statement with a grunt.
“The doctor said it was a boy, but he didn’t live. Neither did she.”
I rubbed my eyes and brought my forearm up to my forehead.
He continued. “I remember when she felt the first pain. The suitcase sat by the front door, and my job was to get momma and suitcase to the hospital.
“Once we pulled out, I realized I forgot the suitcase. So I left the motor on, ran back inside, grabbed it, and threw it in the backseat. Remember asking her what the hell she had packed in there.”
I could hear another car accelerate up the ramp.
“Anyway, I drove real fast, and on the last turn, a son-of-a-bitch in a semi slammed into the passenger’s side. We were right there, in front of the hospital, and they couldn’t save either one.”
I turned my head to the side and darted a look at his face. There were a few scars I hadn’t noticed before, up the cheek on the right side, ducking under the strands of hair and partly hidden by the edge of the cap. I would have easily passed them over earlier as wear and tear of the street. Now, I wondered if smashed glass had been wedged there at one point, if he’d ended up in the hospital himself, headed for joy but drowned in sorrow.
“So, I lost them both, and the nurse handed me the bag when it was all over.
“When I got home, I put it next to the front door, right where the little lady’d had it. And I saw it there, day after day, drunken night after drunken night.
Lost my wife, lost my baby, and then, lost my job.
“When the people knocked on my door to take my house, I just picked up the bag and started walking.”
1I imagined a clean-cut man, slowly growing whiskers, his hair getting longer, the stains on his clothes getting bigger. I could see the dirty dishes, the dusty house, the closed blinds with the sun peeking around the edges. And I could see the suitcase, pristine and untouched, sitting next to the front door, so that she could reach in and grab it if she needed it.
“So, what’s in it?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know, I’ve never looked. She packed it by a list from one of those damn baby books. Only thing I know is in there is that cheap little wedding ring.” He chortled and held out his hands in front of him. “Her hands must’ve swelled up as big as mine during the pregnancy. She couldn’t wear any of her rings. Always swore she’d put ‘em on as soon as she could, in the hospital, so no one would think she had a bastard child.”
Despite his sentiment, given the life he was now leading, I was still surprised that he had the bag at all, carrying his sadness from shelter to shelter, maybe even city to city. But to be honest, that’s where I stopped thinking, and even listening. All I could imagine then was that wedding ring. A beautiful, gleaming ring of gold, maybe wrapped up in a scarf, or perhaps tucked in the inside pocket of that bag. A ring that would win me a twenty-dollar bill at the pawn shop. Surely he not been naïve enough to share that story before, or he wouldn’t have the bag still at his side.
I mumbled a minute and started a snore a few minutes after that. He muttered something else, but I was too busy concentrating on my fake sleep. It must’ve been three a.m. by this time. I could hear some snores from the rest of the bunch and the continued road noise. Soon enough, he was asleep as well.
I can’t explain my motivations from that point, except that it’s a matter of economics on the street. I’m not a therapist. I never asked to hear Jack’s story. I just live day to day, buying and selling what I can afford and what I can find. I didn’t want to take his memories, just the ring. And if he never noticed that the ring was gone, if I returned his intact suitcase, then his memories of his dear wife would live on just the same, and I’d be a little bit fatter in the winter.
As soon as he was asleep, I rose from my spot, walked silently around his body and gripped the handle of the bag. He wasn’t clutching it tonight. Taking care not to scrape the bottom on the asphalt next to his head, I lifted it straight to the sky and walked quickly yet silently across the parking lot to the street, where I broke out into a run and dashed around the closest building.
I found a perfect spot behind the dumpster, set the grimy bag on the grimy ground, and began to pick the lock. Suitcase locks are really no problem. A pocketknife works well, and I still had one that had been in my pocket since my fleeting days in the real world. This suitcase was a little more difficult than usual though. The shiny metal was a scuffed and bent, and the spaces usually amenable to entry were warped. Finally, I found a wedge, slid the blade underneath, and heard the simple click.
An easy job. I heard what I thought was a footstep behind me, but when I took a look around the edge of the dumpster, all was still, save the continuous rhythmic clunk of the overpass and a few horns in the distance.
The lid creaked as I opened it, and the anticipation of a big draw at the pawnshop was immediately replaced with a well of anger and shame in my throat. He must be insane. Must be crazy. What the hell.
The suitcase was stuffed with hundreds of newspaper clippings, a pencil or two, and a few rocks. I grabbed at the top several of the newspapers with my hand and flung them in fury across the alley. They ignored my emotion and floated slowly to the ground. I picked up the rocks and launched them as far as I could, trying to reach the overpass. I kicked the suitcase down the alley, stomping and clawing the papers along the way, until I stopped, breathing hard, and sat amongst them.
I picked one up, and then another. They were all the same sections, from paper after paper after paper. They were the daily horoscopes, and they were underlined. The bastard was a Sagittarius. As I grabbed the suitcase, and threw a few rocks inside, I saw several faded clippings taped to the inside cover.
I tilted the suitcase and squinted in
the streetlight to make out some underlined words.
January 20, 1993: You will meet the love of your life today.
February 15, 1996: Beware of haste. It breeds bad decisions.
February 16, 1996: You will experience a great loss. Be strong.
So, he was a crazy. A fragment of pity for him returned, but this time a pity for the insane, the deranged, those on the street who can’t separate reality from fiction. I decided I would return the suitcase to its spot, sleep the night through and move on the next morning. I’d find another overpass, another group to sleep with each night. I’d leave the poor man alone. Tired from my antics, I picked up some of the clippings and placed them in the suitcase. The ones covered with oil, I threw in the dumpster. I took a few rocks, and shoved them into the side pocket of the suitcase. And then I carried the suitcase back to our complex.
As I rounded the edge of one of the support beams, my parking spot came into view, and my stomach churned. Where the old man’s legs had previously been stretched, there was nothing. The others continued to sleep. My eyes darted around, as I wondered which beam he hid behind, waiting to slit my throat. I opened my pocketknife, although I knew that my best defense would be to wake the others, since they knew nothing of my exploits that evening. But as I came closer, I realized something else was missing.
A crumpled potato chip bag sat where my wheelchair had been.