Roamers
by Patty Somlo
Killer gave Tom Hart’s short, styled brown hair and well-pressed pants the once-over.
“Hey, man. You got two dollars so I can buy lunch?” Killer asked Hart, a reporter from the Chronicle, who’d just walked up.
Hart stepped closer to where Killer sat next to a No Parking sign.
“My name’s Tom,” Hart said. He started to reach out his hand, but seeing the grime covering Killer’s exposed palm, he stopped.
“That ain’t gonna get me lunch,” Killer said.
Killer smiled, showing off teeth most people would have preferred to hide.
“I’m doing a story and wondered if I might talk to you. It’s about the Roamer lifestyle,” Hart explained.
Killer gave Hart the once-over a second time.
“Roamers ain’t got no lifestyle,” Killer said.
His voice skittered up, almost like a girl’s, when he said the word lifestyle.
“Well, maybe not,” Hart said, shoving both hands into his pants pockets, the right one fiddling with a quarter and a dime.
Hart took a breath and thought about what to say next.
“You’re here, you know, and you roam all over the city. I wonder about that. I wonder who you are, where you come from, where you’re going.”
“Don’t come from no place,” Killer said. He hadn’t bothered to stand up.
“Well, that can’t be true. Everybody comes from some place. Look, how about I buy you lunch? Or a beer if you’d like.”
Killer was reluctant to leave his spot. The well-dressed people were just starting to stream from their offices. New to the corner, Killer failed to understand that by clustering together, the Roamers, with their dark ugly dogs and backpacks, dirty dreadlocks, and unwashed clothes, didn’t stand a chance. Even if one of those secretaries, lawyers or accountants might be convinced out of fear or guilt or kindness to drop a quarter into Killer’s hand, they weren’t going to do so with that pack of Roamers sprawled out all around.
The thought of a beer, though, got Killer walking into the corner store, where he made Hart buy two bottles, each one slipped into its own brown paper sack. He headed for the river and told Hart if he wanted, he could follow.
When they got to a dark place under a bridge that crossed to the river’s east side, Killer stopped. The concrete was slimy with pigeon droppings and littered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and broken glass.
“Let’s stop here,” Killer said then.
Hart didn’t like the looks of the place. How stupid he’d been, coming here carrying credit cards, his driver’s license and a roll of cash.
“I’d rather stand over there,” Hart said, stepping out from under the bridge, to wait at the sidewalk’s edge, where joggers and couples and mothers pushing strollers and tourists with cameras passed by.
“Ain’t a good idea to drink beer out in public,” Killer said. “Ya get arrested for that.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Hart said, but then decided not to drink his beer at all.
Killer sat down in the darkest corner, on the ground. Hart could barely make him out there but smelled the smoke from his cigarette drifting toward the river. Hart had done his share of tough interviews, but this was something else. If he’d still been married to Cassie, she would have scolded him.
Cassie thought Hart’s chosen profession of journalism was a complete and utter waste of time. She’d decided long ago that everything in life – politics, jobs, money, advancement, college – was rigged. To Cassie, there was no point in voting or volunteering, donating money to charity or believing in anything.
Cassie did believe in one thing, and no statistic or well-wrought argument could change her mind. Life, Cassie felt certain, was dangerous. Criminals, germs, terrorists, defective airplanes built to crash, and foods that would give you cancer were just a few of the threats Cassie guarded against. Hart couldn’t help but smile thinking if he were still married to Cassie, what she would say about Hart standing under the bridge with a guy named Killer.
“So, what’d you want to know?” Killer asked.
Hart cleared his throat. He didn’t like shouting his questions across the dark to a guy he could barely see.
“You know, if you moved over here a bit, I doubt anyone’s going to arrest you. Look, I’ll warn you if I see a cop coming.”
“I like it back here,” Killer said. “I like the dark.”
“Why is that?” Hart asked.
“Why? Don’t know, man. Feels safe, I suppose.”
“Safe? Safe from what?”
“Oh, you know. Safe from all the bad guys.”
“Who are the bad guys?”
Killer laughed. “Everybody. Everybody’s bad. Didn’t you know that?”
“No,” Hart said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
It was Hart who moved a little closer. Even then, the distance forced him to raise his voice.
“Where are your parents?” Hart asked Killer next.
“Ain’t got none.”
The answer floated out from the dark, along with a thin drifting line of smoke.
“Did you grow up in an orphanage?”
Hart listened to the murmur of conversation out on the sidewalk while he waited for Killer’s response.
“No, man. I lived in a closet.”
“A closet? What do you mean, a closet?”
Killer snorted. Hart realized that he was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Hart asked.
“Everybody knows what a closet is,” the voice coming from the dark corner said.
“Of course, I know what a closet is. I’ve just never heard of someone living in one.”
“Well, you have now.”
“So, tell me. Where was this closet?”
“In my uncle’s house.”
Hart took this in, debating what to ask next. He breathed in smoke from Killer’s cigarette. It occurred to him that Killer hadn’t stopped smoking the entire time they’d been under the bridge.
“He let me out when he wanted to use me,” Killer said. Hart was surprised that Killer had spoken without being prompted.
Hart swallowed hard. If he had been sitting across a table from Killer and seen his face, he would have known what to say. Hart prided himself on getting men and women he interviewed to open up. He knew how to take a moment and not waste it. Sometimes, he let the words hang in the air and settle, so the man who had just made a harshly honest admission would become comfortable. Then Hart could ease him into a deeper question.
“And how often was that?” Hart finally asked.
Hart turned toward the river to get a breath of fresh air. The sunlight seemed brighter than it had been earlier. A sailboat, the wood golden and gleaming, its white triangular sail filled with wind, drifted past.
Hart thought about how long it had been since he’d taken a vacation. How long since he’d had any fun.
“Every day, man,” Hart heard the voice from the dark recesses of the underpass say.
Hidden in a brown paper bag, the beer bottle went up to Hart’s lips and he gulped and swallowed. He didn’t really like beer. Mostly, he avoided alcohol. He’d never been one to lose his cool, even when he was young. One drink could leave him with a raging headache, and he didn’t see the point.
Journalism had been his drug, he thought now. Why else would he have followed a scruffy guy named Killer into a dark and dirty tunnel and listened, while Killer talked about being molested by his uncle as a child?
“Did you ever tell anybody?” Hart asked now. “Did you tell the police or a teacher at school?”
Killer snorted, then laughed. “Naw, man. My uncle woulda’ killed me.”
“You never told anybody?”
The dark place under the bridge grew silent. It seemed to Hart that the noise of conversation outside increased the sunlight becoming almost blinding.
He watched a speedboat race through the water, causing waves to form, and barrel toward shore. The waves made him think about a trip he’d taken with Cassie to Hawaii, when they were first in love. He remembered holding her in the warm ocean, and then warning her to dive, right before a huge wave broke.
Hart had almost forgotten that he’d asked Killer a question and was still waiting for a response.
“I told my old lady once.”
Still daydreaming, Hart traced back where they’d left things before his mind drifted off.
“Your old lady?” Hart asked. “You mean, your wife?”
“Yeah, man.”
“Are you married?”
“Naw. Wadn’t really married to her, you know. We just shacked up.”
“Why did you tell her?”
Killer snorted again. Hart thought he heard the click of a lighter and then smelled smoke.
“Man, you don’t wanta know.”
At that moment, Hart realized that he didn’t. In a sense, the Roamer piece had been a last-ditch attempt to relive the thrill he’d always felt covering a good story. It was, he had tried to explain to Cassie more than once, like sculpting, chipping away at the outside layers of stone to reach the center, where the truth would be lying.
Hart knew there was no truth now. Everything had gotten so turned around. Sure, he’d managed to expose a few corrupt officials. But in the end, they all got away with their crimes. Hart hated to admit that Cassie might have been right.
“Hey, man,” Hart heard Killer say from somewhere in the dark. “What else you want to know?”
Hart watched more boats pass and joggers, bike riders and a couple smiling and holding hands. There was nothing else he wanted to know about this guy. He knew everything he cared to know and then some. These past twenty years, Hart had learned more than he’d ever wanted about the evil that abounded in the world.
“I want to know how to sail a boat,” Hart said, almost to himself.
“What’s that, man? I couldn’t hear you.”
Hart set his bottle in its wrinkled brown paper sack down on the dirty concrete, next to a pile of pigeon droppings. Then he began to walk. He headed in the direction of the marina, the sun hitting the back of his neck after the coolness of the shade under the bridge, making him feel for the first time all day relaxed and warm.
“Hey, man. You got two dollars so I can buy lunch?” Killer asked Hart, a reporter from the Chronicle, who’d just walked up.
Hart stepped closer to where Killer sat next to a No Parking sign.
“My name’s Tom,” Hart said. He started to reach out his hand, but seeing the grime covering Killer’s exposed palm, he stopped.
“That ain’t gonna get me lunch,” Killer said.
Killer smiled, showing off teeth most people would have preferred to hide.
“I’m doing a story and wondered if I might talk to you. It’s about the Roamer lifestyle,” Hart explained.
Killer gave Hart the once-over a second time.
“Roamers ain’t got no lifestyle,” Killer said.
His voice skittered up, almost like a girl’s, when he said the word lifestyle.
“Well, maybe not,” Hart said, shoving both hands into his pants pockets, the right one fiddling with a quarter and a dime.
Hart took a breath and thought about what to say next.
“You’re here, you know, and you roam all over the city. I wonder about that. I wonder who you are, where you come from, where you’re going.”
“Don’t come from no place,” Killer said. He hadn’t bothered to stand up.
“Well, that can’t be true. Everybody comes from some place. Look, how about I buy you lunch? Or a beer if you’d like.”
Killer was reluctant to leave his spot. The well-dressed people were just starting to stream from their offices. New to the corner, Killer failed to understand that by clustering together, the Roamers, with their dark ugly dogs and backpacks, dirty dreadlocks, and unwashed clothes, didn’t stand a chance. Even if one of those secretaries, lawyers or accountants might be convinced out of fear or guilt or kindness to drop a quarter into Killer’s hand, they weren’t going to do so with that pack of Roamers sprawled out all around.
The thought of a beer, though, got Killer walking into the corner store, where he made Hart buy two bottles, each one slipped into its own brown paper sack. He headed for the river and told Hart if he wanted, he could follow.
When they got to a dark place under a bridge that crossed to the river’s east side, Killer stopped. The concrete was slimy with pigeon droppings and littered with cigarette butts, candy wrappers and broken glass.
“Let’s stop here,” Killer said then.
Hart didn’t like the looks of the place. How stupid he’d been, coming here carrying credit cards, his driver’s license and a roll of cash.
“I’d rather stand over there,” Hart said, stepping out from under the bridge, to wait at the sidewalk’s edge, where joggers and couples and mothers pushing strollers and tourists with cameras passed by.
“Ain’t a good idea to drink beer out in public,” Killer said. “Ya get arrested for that.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Hart said, but then decided not to drink his beer at all.
Killer sat down in the darkest corner, on the ground. Hart could barely make him out there but smelled the smoke from his cigarette drifting toward the river. Hart had done his share of tough interviews, but this was something else. If he’d still been married to Cassie, she would have scolded him.
Cassie thought Hart’s chosen profession of journalism was a complete and utter waste of time. She’d decided long ago that everything in life – politics, jobs, money, advancement, college – was rigged. To Cassie, there was no point in voting or volunteering, donating money to charity or believing in anything.
Cassie did believe in one thing, and no statistic or well-wrought argument could change her mind. Life, Cassie felt certain, was dangerous. Criminals, germs, terrorists, defective airplanes built to crash, and foods that would give you cancer were just a few of the threats Cassie guarded against. Hart couldn’t help but smile thinking if he were still married to Cassie, what she would say about Hart standing under the bridge with a guy named Killer.
“So, what’d you want to know?” Killer asked.
Hart cleared his throat. He didn’t like shouting his questions across the dark to a guy he could barely see.
“You know, if you moved over here a bit, I doubt anyone’s going to arrest you. Look, I’ll warn you if I see a cop coming.”
“I like it back here,” Killer said. “I like the dark.”
“Why is that?” Hart asked.
“Why? Don’t know, man. Feels safe, I suppose.”
“Safe? Safe from what?”
“Oh, you know. Safe from all the bad guys.”
“Who are the bad guys?”
Killer laughed. “Everybody. Everybody’s bad. Didn’t you know that?”
“No,” Hart said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
It was Hart who moved a little closer. Even then, the distance forced him to raise his voice.
“Where are your parents?” Hart asked Killer next.
“Ain’t got none.”
The answer floated out from the dark, along with a thin drifting line of smoke.
“Did you grow up in an orphanage?”
Hart listened to the murmur of conversation out on the sidewalk while he waited for Killer’s response.
“No, man. I lived in a closet.”
“A closet? What do you mean, a closet?”
Killer snorted. Hart realized that he was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Hart asked.
“Everybody knows what a closet is,” the voice coming from the dark corner said.
“Of course, I know what a closet is. I’ve just never heard of someone living in one.”
“Well, you have now.”
“So, tell me. Where was this closet?”
“In my uncle’s house.”
Hart took this in, debating what to ask next. He breathed in smoke from Killer’s cigarette. It occurred to him that Killer hadn’t stopped smoking the entire time they’d been under the bridge.
“He let me out when he wanted to use me,” Killer said. Hart was surprised that Killer had spoken without being prompted.
Hart swallowed hard. If he had been sitting across a table from Killer and seen his face, he would have known what to say. Hart prided himself on getting men and women he interviewed to open up. He knew how to take a moment and not waste it. Sometimes, he let the words hang in the air and settle, so the man who had just made a harshly honest admission would become comfortable. Then Hart could ease him into a deeper question.
“And how often was that?” Hart finally asked.
Hart turned toward the river to get a breath of fresh air. The sunlight seemed brighter than it had been earlier. A sailboat, the wood golden and gleaming, its white triangular sail filled with wind, drifted past.
Hart thought about how long it had been since he’d taken a vacation. How long since he’d had any fun.
“Every day, man,” Hart heard the voice from the dark recesses of the underpass say.
Hidden in a brown paper bag, the beer bottle went up to Hart’s lips and he gulped and swallowed. He didn’t really like beer. Mostly, he avoided alcohol. He’d never been one to lose his cool, even when he was young. One drink could leave him with a raging headache, and he didn’t see the point.
Journalism had been his drug, he thought now. Why else would he have followed a scruffy guy named Killer into a dark and dirty tunnel and listened, while Killer talked about being molested by his uncle as a child?
“Did you ever tell anybody?” Hart asked now. “Did you tell the police or a teacher at school?”
Killer snorted, then laughed. “Naw, man. My uncle woulda’ killed me.”
“You never told anybody?”
The dark place under the bridge grew silent. It seemed to Hart that the noise of conversation outside increased the sunlight becoming almost blinding.
He watched a speedboat race through the water, causing waves to form, and barrel toward shore. The waves made him think about a trip he’d taken with Cassie to Hawaii, when they were first in love. He remembered holding her in the warm ocean, and then warning her to dive, right before a huge wave broke.
Hart had almost forgotten that he’d asked Killer a question and was still waiting for a response.
“I told my old lady once.”
Still daydreaming, Hart traced back where they’d left things before his mind drifted off.
“Your old lady?” Hart asked. “You mean, your wife?”
“Yeah, man.”
“Are you married?”
“Naw. Wadn’t really married to her, you know. We just shacked up.”
“Why did you tell her?”
Killer snorted again. Hart thought he heard the click of a lighter and then smelled smoke.
“Man, you don’t wanta know.”
At that moment, Hart realized that he didn’t. In a sense, the Roamer piece had been a last-ditch attempt to relive the thrill he’d always felt covering a good story. It was, he had tried to explain to Cassie more than once, like sculpting, chipping away at the outside layers of stone to reach the center, where the truth would be lying.
Hart knew there was no truth now. Everything had gotten so turned around. Sure, he’d managed to expose a few corrupt officials. But in the end, they all got away with their crimes. Hart hated to admit that Cassie might have been right.
“Hey, man,” Hart heard Killer say from somewhere in the dark. “What else you want to know?”
Hart watched more boats pass and joggers, bike riders and a couple smiling and holding hands. There was nothing else he wanted to know about this guy. He knew everything he cared to know and then some. These past twenty years, Hart had learned more than he’d ever wanted about the evil that abounded in the world.
“I want to know how to sail a boat,” Hart said, almost to himself.
“What’s that, man? I couldn’t hear you.”
Hart set his bottle in its wrinkled brown paper sack down on the dirty concrete, next to a pile of pigeon droppings. Then he began to walk. He headed in the direction of the marina, the sun hitting the back of his neck after the coolness of the shade under the bridge, making him feel for the first time all day relaxed and warm.
Patty Somlo’s most recent book, Hairway to Heaven Stories, was published by Cherry Castle Publishing, a Black-owned press committed to literary activism. Hairway was a Finalist in the American Fiction Awards and Best Book Awards. Two of Somlo’s previous books, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), were Finalists in several book contests. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Gravel, Sheepshead Review, Under the Sun, The Los Angeles Review, and The Nassau Review, among others. She received Honorable Mention for Fiction in the Women’s National Book Association Contest, was a Finalist in the Parks and Points Essay Contest, had an essay selected as Notable for Best American Essays, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times, as well as to Best of the Net.