Ragged Company

“You live on concrete long enough, you pick up the nature of it: cold, hard, and predictable. It’s called survival and every rounder knows it. Me, I’m a rounder.”

Digger describes his life as a “rounder” and how he came to be one. This passage accurately pinpoints Digger’s character as well as his motivations for being the way he is—his barriers are up, and he doesn’t succumb to emotion and feeling, as it’s a question of his survival on the streets. Part of his story is his learning to adapt and let go of this mentality when he’s thrust into a different kind of life, where the “rounder” rules don’t apply.

“Guess that movie made me wonder if other people know stuff. Like where you been. What you done. What you was feelin’ sometimes.”

Dick describes to Digger how he feels after watching Cinema Paradiso. Dick’s simplistic summation reveals why movies affect him and the rest of the group as deeply as they do: They tell stories, and most people can relate at some level to stories about human experience and emotion. Dick’s feeling of being seen and understood keeps him and the others returning to the movies; sharing this feeling with Granite lays the foundation of their unlikely friendship.

“I guess it just seemed to me that he taught everyone that life is never clear for any of us. […] Not just the ones that didn’t get dealt a better hand. […] The Rain Man was able to remind people that it’s part of all of us—and that it’s okay because we survive.”

Timber offers his thoughts on why he enjoyed Rain Man. He makes an insightful observation about life, and this points to a couple different things in the context of the story: First, it displays Timber’s characteristically reflective nature; second, it points to his own experience of life having been confusing and difficult for him despite having been dealt a “better hand” than the other “rounders” in early life. In addition, it foreshadows how Dick, who sees himself as the “Rain Man,” will have similar lessons to teach the group by the end of his life.

“‘It’s getting to always be your treat,’ Amelia said.

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I like the company.’

‘This ragged company?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. ‘This ragged company.’”

Granite offers to buy the group drinks again, after they all watch Stealing Home. The book’s title derives from Amelia’s reference to the four of them as “ragged company.” Granite’s willingness to keep meeting them, even paying for everyone’s drinks, displays the growing strength of the group’s friendship as well as his own open-mindedness to hear and learn about stories different than his own.

“‘We just want to treat you special, that’s all.’

‘Special?’ Digger asked. ‘Whatta ya mean, special?’

‘Well, you’re a millionaire now. You’re special.’”

When the people at the lottery office discover that Digger holds a winning lottery ticket, he and the group are immediately invited to the VIP lounge to be “treated special.” This sudden change in other people’s perceptions of the group once they come into money is something that both awes and overwhelms each of them at different points. Digger later lashes out at the media for its sudden, superficial interest in the group, while Timber marvels at how strangers in the street address him as “Sir.” This change in behavior contrasts with how, despite the changed circumstances, the “rounders” are still haunted by the same things they always have been—their internal struggles remain unchanged.

“What mattered was the fact that we were all learning to be together and that we were willing to risk things we might never have risked before. Us, heading to a Square John’s home and a Square John inviting us there. The world widens incredibly sometimes.”

Amelia marvels at Granite’s invitation for the group to join them in his home while he helps them with the lottery claim process. Amelia astutely notes that the bigger change in the group’s life isn’t the money they’re about to come into but that their world has expanded to include a friendship with someone like Granite. At the heart of it, this friendship is what will help change their lives.

“Movies were our common ground and we all knew how to be when one was playing, we all knew how to feel when the buildup started inside just before the first flicker of light on the screen. It’s what made us friends. It’s what had brought us all here.”

Amelia reflects on how movies are what Granite and the “rounders” have in common and form the foundation of their friendship. This astute observation points to the theme of Personal History and the Power of Storytelling, particularly the power of cinema, which allows people to relate to the stories playing out on the screen and, in viewing them together, allows people to relate to each other.

“Stories are a great wheel, always turning, always coming back in line with each other.

They make the world go round.

Indeed they do. Indeed they do.”

The unnamed voices, eventually revealed to be Amelia and Dick, reflect on how stories are often layered and cyclical, much like life itself. The assertion that they make the world go around once again reflects the book’s central theme of Personal History and the Power of Storytelling.

“[…] I got up and began walking back toward the hotel. Toward downtown. Toward the streets I knew. Toward a predictable place with the people I’d inhabited it with. Toward Dick and Digger and One For The Dead. Toward shelter.”

After walking around on his first night as a millionaire, Timber eventually walks back to the hotel and the people he knows. Notably, he doesn’t call them “friends” or the place they reside “home.” At this point, Timber still feels the “rounder” loyalty only to the people he shares his life with, and he’s far away from feeling at home anywhere. This is reflected in the titles of the first and last parts of the book: Book 1 is “Shelter,” while Book 4 is “Home.”

“So this money gives you two big friggin’ gifts, Digger. It gives you the power to choose to be whomever the fuck you want to be, and it gives you the power to help the others become whomever they want to be.”

Granite has a hard talk with Digger after Dick’s hospitalization following the wild party on their first night as millionaires. Granite recognizes Digger’s influence over the others because of the respect he commands within the group, and the protectiveness Digger feels over them. In addition, this passage shows more about Granite’s character—he’s honest and tough enough to have this kind of conversation with someone like Digger.

“The movies were supposed to be escape. They were supposed to be a seat in the darkness, a darkness I pulled around me like a cloak to keep the world away. The trouble is that they are the stuff of the world, the stuff of life, all the great internal stuff, all the hurt, grief, joy, turbulence, pathos, tragedy, displacement, rage, tenderness, and love. They are all of that. At least, the good ones are. The sum of our experience.”

Granite explains why the movies, which are supposed to be an escape, also end up drawing out things one wants to run away from or keep hidden. His description underscores the relatability of movies and the power of stories, in keeping with the theme of Personal History and the Power of Storytelling. Granite follows this assertion by sharing his own story with the group—a common occurrence in the book: Movies prompt each of the characters to reveal their pasts to the others.

“The other part of the journey is a returning to yourself. Reconnecting. Getting whole again. That’s what the Spirit World is for. Getting whole again and preparing to continue the journey.’”

Amelia explains to the others about the “shadowed ones” and how they eventually move on. Her description of returning to oneself and becoming whole again aligns with what happens to Dick after he dies; he describes having traveled and learned lots in his time after death and how he feels at peace and at home everywhere. In addition, he assures Amelia that they’ll meet again, indicating that the journey is infinite.

“You’re never retired, Granite. Not guys like you. Not born-in-the-blood storytellers. Not lifelong journalists. Stories just walk right up and beg you to be told, and when they do there’s nothing you can do but tell them.”

Granite’s old editor brushes away Granite’s worries about writing again, assured that storytellers like Granite can never retire. This foreshadows the individual destiny that Granite will eventually fulfill; he writes not just the story of the “ragged company” but also the stories of many other people, typically unseen by the larger population.

“[…] that action told me a lot about how much you loved Sylvan. That you would leave a reminder even though you didn’t believe she could ever be reminded. Hope against hope. Against all odds. Love.”

Sylvan’s second husband, Greer, tells Timber how his act of leaving the jade plant for Sylvan served as proof of his love for Sylvan and assurance that he’d return one day. The jade plant is an important symbol in the story, signifying exactly these things: love and hope. Just as Timber left it for Sylvan, she returns the favor when she gifts Timber a potted cutting of Eudora before he leaves.

“‘She got to be more.’

‘Yes. She got to be more.’

‘So maybe you don’t have to be sad about the thing you left. Maybe whoever’s taking care of it now has let it get to be more.’”

Sylvan shows Timber how Eudora has grown and thrived over the years to reassure him that whatever he once left behind may have also gotten to be more than what it once was. Seeing Eudora, and Sylvan’s new life, too, helps Timber make peace with his past, and his decision to have left Sylvan all those years ago. The plant and this interaction symbolize how the circle of life continues, and things are reborn and grow in different ways over time.

“Dreams. Of all the things we carry, they are the lightest and the heaviest all at the same time.”

Timber reflects on how the dreams that one carries are equally uplifting and burdensome at different times. This reflection aligns with the events unfolding at this point in the story: In Book 3, appropriately titled “Dreams,” Timber’s past comes to light, and he journeys to resolve things left unfinished. Dreams, both literal and metaphorical, are a recurring motif throughout the story; while Timber was haunted by his metaphorical dreams of Sylvan and the love they once shared, Dick is haunted by literal dreams of a past he’s terrified to revisit.

“[…] I’m flummoxed to say why I met these people. I mean, I figured I’d hid out pretty well. Then the cold front comes along, we meet in the theatre, next thing you know these ragged people have become my life. Mystical as all fuck, wouldn’t you say there, pal?”

Granite discusses the strange circumstances under which he and the “ragged company” became friends. Granite’s description and his use of the term “mystical” point to the role of destiny and fate in how the story unfolds, which is one of the book’s central themes: Fortune, Fate, and Individual Destiny.

“But the thing is, it’s emotion, feeling, that’s the most powerful tool in finding the truth of things. It’s also the most difficult to employ. You actually have to allow yourself to feel the experience, then explore it with thought, and then express it in words to capture it, own it, learn from it.”

Amelia and Dick discuss the different tools with which one can arrive at the truth—and how emotion is the least valued and the hardest one to use. This realization comes in retrospect; when Dick’s mental health deteriorates, rather than sit with the feeling, think about it, and eventually talk about it with his friends, he keeps his secret close to his heart and finds every way to escape thinking about or reliving it.

“They’re sad, wistful, lonely, scared, and weary all at the same time, and they pull you, even in profile, to the hint of history, the vague tease of experience and circumstance that shaped this face, this great, sad face hung in solitude over all the ragged miles.”

Timber watches Dick sitting in the rocking chair and wonders at the sadness in his eyes. Timber goes on to sketch, and eventually carve Dick, in this pose; it’s a tribute to his friend and symbolizes how all the money in the world couldn’t change certain things for Dick. In addition, this passage is an example of the kind of poetic imagery Wagamese uses throughout the book.

“I was ashamed […] (of) history […]. Of what happened here. Of what people allowed to happen here. How we let a people die right in front of us. How we let a way of being disappear.”

After watching Dances with Wolves, Margo expresses her shame at the fate of the Indigenous peoples in America at the hands of white colonizers. Here and throughout the book, Wagamese draws attention to the culture, identity, and struggles of these communities in subtle yet poignant ways.

“We come together in our brokenness and find that our small acts of being human together mend the breaks, allow us to retool the design and become more. I never taught him that.”

Timber reflects on how, by refusing to show his own imperfections to Dick, he taught the latter to keep his hidden too. Dick’s disappearance prompts vastly different reactions in each of the other “rounders,” which are specific to their characters: Timber thoughtfully reflects, the spiritual Amelia prays, and Digger industriously roams the streets in his truck, looking for Dick.

“Beggary. It’s not the sole property of the street people or the ill defined. It’s part of all of us, part of everyone who has ever suffered loss. […] All of us beggars. We are in the end, all of us, beggarly, seeking connection, the redemption of contact.”

After Digger lashes out at Granite, the latter reflects on the kernel of truth in Digger’s angry words. He realizes that he and the others, at their core, have even more in common than he’d imagined; it isn’t money that the “rounders” need most but human connection, forged through a sharing of stories, just like anyone else. This realization points to two central themes in the book: Finding Home and Family in Friendship, and Personal History and the Power of Storytelling.

“Time disappears inside us. It becomes real through memory, recollection, and feeling. Then, only then, can it last forever. When it becomes a part of us, a part of our spirit on its never-ending journey.”

Amelia and Dick reflect on how time becomes real only through memory, and memory helps immortalize people. Shortly after this, the group learns of Dick’s passing. Thus, this passage foreshadows Dick’s fate; he remains immortal in everyone’s memories after his death, and his spirit continues on its infinite journey.