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Tools, Rags and Slow Purple
(what’s in a name? You beget what you begot.)

Tom Sheehan

    For the first time in his life, running on empty, flying home, Tolbar “Tools” Barrack was fishing.
    Here he was, forty-five years later, coming back to Saugus, looking to find something he had lost. Though he was still handsome, his place in the world carved by a love of and for tools, enfranchised in a hardware business that offered heady spoils and wealth beyond first dreams, he felt hollow. He didn’t know what his loss was; he could bring no tool to it, him the master of tools, the helpless one at last.
    His wife Cricket, dead 15 years, had gradually receded, but had never really left him. She would not allow herself to leave all at once when she died, for there was so much to hang onto. But the separation grew, lengthened, managed to steal some of him, lots of him. The hollowness came in tow, like nothing follows nothing. A balloon stretching. Air. The fabric of an idea. His Cricket on the move.
    The fishing plagued him with perplexity, riding in him and nagging at him as he looked down at his old hometown from a window seat on the plane. The shape or force of that perplexity had earlier come with a full-bodied question mark, feeling as though it was worn outright and visible on his person. A costume complete with epaulets, chevrons, insignia, any and all part of it. Times came when he swore he could feel the drape of that costume settling on his frame.
    For some time he had accepted a number of things about himself. One of the acceptances came often, stayed longest, dug deepest: loneliness, it said, comes with silence, darkness, a cold river, a thick forest, anyplace at odds with activity or brightness or a day running with itself. He had been through all those elements, whatever the name presented or image given, and was coming home, he hoped, to escape the loneliness shrouding him, beleaguering him to his soul.
    The plight most likely would be unsolvable, yet he had a slim hope. In promise, the plane dipped its nose off the horizon.
    Tolbar appeared pleasant enough in a rugged, individual way; a face chiseled a bit by time, chosen of a good lot, hair dark and full, but eyes perhaps not saying what he was thinking, not read of them. Those eyes, in fact, might have made him a stick-out. While he wore a dark and neat blue blazer and a light blue shirt without a tie, his pants were rugged jeans atop rugged boots. In some other light he could have been a contradiction, or in some circles. A small mole, perched on his right ear lobe, appeared as an almost decorative but dark earring, catching the inquisitive eye immediately, a wandering eye almost as soon.
    He went there again, in that soulful search. It came up a void.
    How long he had been aware of the nature of the void, he could no longer remember. At times he accepted it as his shadow acting out at high noon, in him, with him, but unseen in the vertical existence. Back behind an indistinct form or structure were a scattering of stray moments of his early life; not many, but enough to hang onto. Apparently a few of those moments, after all this time, had been enough to hold onto, suggest a search, send him on this journey.
    As the plane swept into a long curve at approach, the sun screamed on the horizon as if it were yelling out the name of the city, but all Tools heard in that swift separation of sun from horizon was “home.”
    Images from the past flew at him and reflections rose as the plane tipped lower; he swore he could touch some of the images, even in their quick rush. He went backwards in thought.
    Schoolmates and pals had called him “Tools” from about his seventh year. The decision of name-setting had been easy; at play after school he continually walked around with a leather tool belt slung on his hips the way other kids might wear a cowboy gun belt. Every day he ran home from school to don his belt, snugged it tightly in place, checked the belt’s components. He didn’t say bang at a pistol or revolver shot, but at the proper burial of a nail by a hammer in one unerring smash. The belt and the nickname, like character development, fit him in a pivotal way. Later on they said he had the appropriate hands, and the eye, and knew all the theory of mechanics and its classic relatives. Thus, the name stuck with him all the way through adulthood, the way a scar hangs on, at times a neat diversion, at times nothing more than a jaunty embarrassment.
    The flight today had been serene, though he had slept fitfully for an hour or so at one stretch. Now, in the baggage claim area at the airport, at the end of a row of seats, he rested his one bothersome knee. All his life, away from this city, he’d been a people watcher, and at this break he studied those in transition about him, the fellow travelers, the lost now homeward bound, the celebrators, the newly wearied with the foreign look in their eyes, and set on their slack chins. He marked a turbaned man, a young man in military uniform, a pair of lovers so engrossed they saw nobody else, and nobody knew if they were coming or going.
    Tools’ eyes, random at first in their search, at query, at length had settled on a stately gentleman and a very neat and tall female companion dressed in casual gray slacks, a pale green sweater and earrings he had not seen before; gentle travel wear, comfortable but without obvious style. Once, he was sure, she had been a radiant blonde. The combination of the couple attracted him, the woman at first athletic and graceful in movement; the man slower, searching for steps. Their hands were alert for each other’s.
    Something of the woman’s youth remained in place at her hips, slimness; perhaps grace, practice at good health, weight management, activity. The display was subtle but legible, a combination speaking about confidence, surety. The couple to Tools was real; in them he could feel some kind of energy on the move. The woman’s facial light, her shine, said she was a care giver, deeply invested in a current case; her hand not letting go of her companion’s hand all the while. Not once had she let go of his hand since Tools had first spotted them coming down the concourse, her partially elegant, him partially unsure of some of the surroundings, each step of his measured, practiced. The intrigue, and the curiosity, crept through him as sure as welcome warmth. He loved the supposition of goodness in all such subjects, especially at airports and railroad stations. In his time, he’d been at a thousand places, seen a thousand travelers. He supposed himself keen at their make-up.
    A word unnerved itself from his vocabulary, broke loose, said Devotion. It was as if he had sent for it, the word coming across the air to him like a small pennant waving for attention, touching at his mind-set, bringing images. He had seen the same coupling at a few nursing homes when visiting two long-time employees at the last edge of life. This wasn’t all new to him, he reminded himself
    Then, a voice, barely intrusive, mellow, with a built-in pardon hanging in place, came from a man sitting a seat away from him. “I spotted them too, but her first,” the voice said, and quickly added, “Some days I sit here half a day just looking at people in their passage, wondering where they’ve been, where they’re going. I thought at the outset you were a people watcher too. Saw it in your eyes, the interest, and,” he paused again, “in your facial expression. You care for strangers.” There was no embarrassment in his words, at his intrusion. “You spotted that in her, didn’t you? That simplicity that generates life, then holds on for whatever comes along with it. What we’d call a keeper keeping up, like the marriage vows unfolding all the way open.”
    Tolbar “Tools” Barrack turned his full attention to the source of the voice. It had come from a quickly pleasant man with a wide forehead cut short by thick black hair obviously colored for effect. The hair seemed to be too dark to be the real thing. Sometime in this stranger’s past there had been a confrontation, a fight, a meeting with a hard object, for his nose was marked by that harsh encounter. But it was marked in a rather insignia way; the man was a survivor of something. And the face was an old and worn face, the eyes older and then some, but at home for a late turn at comfort, for ease, as if patience bore well or wore well.
    Tools assessed him as a long-retired teacher or professor with years in front of students, comfortable with words, saying them with venerated practice, moving gracefully with chosen words around the classroom, his stature evident, measurable, his footsteps near silent, barely intrusive. No other evidence of age or infirmity was visible, though the voice was well into his 80s; no cane or crutch, no dropped or discounted lip or droopy eye, no slur in the voice, no hand cursed by a half-grotesque knot and held helpless but therefore not on exhibit. Hale he was, and apparently in one good if not decent piece.
    A quick plunge of favor found its way in Tools, a sudden warmth, a catch at an inner spirit of joy. He believed, forthrightly, that he liked the man without knowing any more about him. If the sun had popped up on a dark horizon, he believed he would have felt the same way.
    Tools nodded his agreement, studying with interest the nose of the man with interests. “You are correct on that point, sir. She has the care of a nurse, the grace of a lover, the patience of a mother. You I assume, who is nameless to me at this point, agree.”
    “Yes, I do. On all points. They call me ‘Rags,’ sir. And that’s just about everybody I know. They’ve done so for years, for things I did as a youngster. Believe it, I was an early recycler of useable goods. cloth, newspapers and magazines, aluminum pots and pans, copper and lead, anything the junkman would buy from ten cents a pound up to the really good stuff, like copper, mercury, lead for tin soldiers by the thousands. But mostly old clothes, worn clothing, so I was ‘Rags’ to one and all.”
    Tolbar Barrack started to laugh. He held out his hand to the old man, the new acquaintance. “Rags,” he said, “meet Tools.” Two men of the world laughed easily, in an unconscious way, provoked but totally reactive. They laughed loud and long, so long that the stately couple had disappeared, had apparently gone off into life. Tools’ suitcase still floated on the luggage belt console, the final piece to be claimed. People along the concourse eyed the two men; some smiled at the noisy gaiety, some merely nodded a kind of understanding.
    “What brings you here?” Rags said, standing beside Tools as Tools grabbed his single suitcase from the console. Rags seemed nimble enough, getting to the console as soon as Tools. His khaki pants, government-issue color, were pressed with iron edges showing, and his checkered shirt, open at the collar showing no chest hair, had distinct press lines down the sleeves. The belt cinching Rags’ waist had no sudden bloat to its circumference. A quick shine came from his shoe tops, and Tools registered care, neatness and preservation for the man. A sudden sense of synesthesia came on him.
    “You been here before?” Rags said. “Coming for a reunion? I was trying to figure out what you were doing here, besides watching people the way I do. I’m not prying, but observing; it’s a way of life with me and will end in my journal, if you will permit me. Saw you come in earlier, the limp evident, the quick seat you took for that reason. I’d rather sit here than in a bar with a cool one, though I’ve enjoyed that too.” He assessed his own questions, shook his head, smiled, and said, “If you’re going off to Saugus or near there, I’d ride out that way with you if you have the wheels. I live there, about 12 miles out from here. I don’t drive anymore, or I don’t keep a car. Too damn expensive for me. I hustle rides. I’m a ride hustler. I love this airport, the comings and goings, new faces or old friends.” He facially measured his last statement, and then appended, “Though there’s damn few of them these days.” Then came a throaty assessment of self agreement, a small cough almost a word.
    Tools nodded his answer first, then vocalized it. “One hustler to another. I am going to Saugus. I have a rental waiting on me here down the line. But the trouble is, I really don’t know why I’ve come back. Come home, in a manner of speaking. I grew up in Saugus and left the day after high school graduation. I’ve never been back. The whole journey feels like it began yesterday, though, or, perhaps, late last night.” The whole bit of facial punctuation was a question mark.
    Rags, wearing the look of another new care giver, said he was still curious, still fishing for information. He wore an aura that Tools could feel the way one senses a source of heat in the darkness, a sterling emanation. “I love a mystery, that’s for damn sure. It leads me to say you have a haunt working on you, an old face, a kiss you can’t forget and can’t remember, at least not all the way? You wear a tunnel in your eyes, yea, a pair of tunnels. I haven’t seen that look in a long time, the way a person might look at a house he used to live in, and can feel the rooms collide inside himself, the noise coming back, the faces almost gone but hanging on for the catch of a memory, somebody long gone but back for an instant.” He held up both hands in a sign of halting, as if he had proceeded too far too quickly.
    “You’re right there on the mark, Rags. Will that go in your journal, a man found, a look at, a discovery or revelation? I’m not sure at all of what brings me back. I keep looking for a good concrete reason and can’t find one. All my old pals, such as they were, have moved on one way or another. I bet I haven’t heard from a single one of them in 20 or 30 years. Could be more if I was a counter all those time. But I lost my wife about 15 years ago, after a damn good marriage. We had no kids and she let me get buried in my work when I needed it. That’s where I really took myself when Cricket died, deeper into the work. Been there ever since.” The smile when he pronounced her name was warm and sincere. “Something brought me out of it. Perhaps it’s only the small promise of a small adventure. It might be the river here, upstream on a cool morning, or a breeze coming across the marsh, carrying something in the air, sending something.” The pause was a dominant punctuation. “Whatever,” he said, as if in partial measurement, “it got me here.”
    Rags shifted about on one leg, searching out balance, found it. “Cricket? Like a little chirper? A cute little trick with lots of energy? You give her that name, Tools?”
    Rags asked questions, Tools thought, that made his approach warm, the sure way he could frame them, soften an otherwise harsh impact, gain ground on his own. He also believed Rags had quickly changed the direction of the conversation. He took the older man by the arm, and nodded toward the car rental counter.
    Rags continued. “You know there’s not much to pick from room-wise in Saugus, if you want to get away from the real commercial stuff, away from the Pike. I have a pal who has a furnished rental available. I get a cut if I land it for her, as long as I do my one chore a day on the place. It’s not too expensive either, but you have to take it for a month anyway.”
    “You’re the Saugus Welcome Wagon, Rags. We’ll take a look.” Much further down the concourse, and through a wide window, Tools saw the tall care giver woman in the green sweater and the gray slacks guide her companion into a taxi, her hand on top of his head the way a policeman does it. With a silent praise he saluted her. “And you have to tell me about one chore a day, Rags.”
    Tools retrieved the rental car and the two new friends, and old strangers, set out for Saugus, Rags noting quickly the easy and comfortable driving skills of the younger man on the circuitous drive out of the airport proper. On more than one occasion, he rode with a driver who had made a wrong turn and headed back into Boston.
    Tools said, “Tell me about this one chore a day and who’s the party that established it. Makes me think it’s a pretty sound concept. One chore a day, in a month, can get a lot done, never mind a whole year.” He thought over the options and added, “As long as some of the chores have teeth in them and make demands on the person doing the chores.”
    The traffic thinning alongside them coming across the Marsh Road, the Saugus sign a solid black on gray cast iron announcing its perimeter on the saline and brackish spread of the Rumney Marsh, Rags slowly turned in his seat. “You are perceptive, my man, very perceptive. It’s a niece of mine, though at some distance. She inherited the house from within the family. It’s no great place, modest in fact, and needs lots of work, but it’s cheap enough for her to handle as long as I do my one chore a day and try to keep down any extra maintenance costs.” His pause was selfless. “For what that’s worth.” He laughed again showing a hand marked with a few harsh knuckles.
    Tools caught the edge of the thought. “You’re saying she has more motive in her madness, Rags? She has a plan? She thinks ahead? Sounds like a smart woman. What’s your take on her?”
    “Let’s face it, Tools. I’ve seen the raw edges of life, day and night. Felt them too, day and night. All the raw edges. No place not seen. No deed not done. Not on my road everywhere and nowhere. My own enemy, as you can well imagine. This simple demand on her part is not retribution for my storied past, but it is maintenance of a sort, or the assuredness of maintenance. It’s simple and positive, if you stop to think about it. If she keeps me going, if there’s a daily demand, I get some longevity out of it. I get additional life. I get my own kick in the ass. There were times I could have folded it all and laid down, even as recently as a couple of years ago. But she gave me this dictate. And here I am, moving on, finding things in this life I never knew. Like seeing that tall lady at the airport taking care of what we assume to be her frail husband. I would never have noticed that before. Mine eyes have seen the glory, I could say.”
    “Well,” Tools countered, “I get the picture of her, or pretty close to what makes her tick. She’s an understanding soul. She cares, she loves and she has patience. Now what shape’s her house in? Do I picture it as badly as you painted it? And what’s her name?”
    Rags laughed loudly. “By God, man, you still got the ginger, and we could use a man like you for a month or two. I can see the hammer flashing in your hand, nails getting knocked home in one swing, the skill saw abuzz on the morning air, the crooked fence down and a straight one up. Our own Habitat for Humanity on the morning prowl. A dozen chores a day. A dozen, man!” He laughed loudly. “I damn well knew this dawning was going to be special!” He chuckled anew, more accompanying words buried in his throat. Then, in a continuance of his feeling, he shook his fist at the windshield, or at the horizon, or at the blue sky, at whatever.
    Tools decided the fist shake was at the blue sky, a signal, a promise nearly rendered true. And he himself was warmer, found an old comfort, felt his undernourished body settle into a long-forgotten groove. And old movements, old sensations and awareness, made themselves known deep inside Tolbar Barrack, like one part of his body talking to another part, telling it how to act. A meter could not have made them any more accented; now and then a wire leaped, a loose end in contact with the past, or the future. The possibilities loomed again where they had lain dormant for so long. At least this would bring about a meeting, a confrontation instead of the old daydream of newness. The options.
    “Tell me what she looks like, Rags. How old she is. What’s her health like?” He wondered what made him ask that question so hurriedly, trying to clear the decks of worry, and something trying to take hold. He was back there again. Pictures of Cricket rushed him. her arms thin and getting thinner, her whispering, her stubborn smallness becoming the biggest thing in his life, her slow departure bringing a new rush of agonies never really put aside. Now, on this piece of an old road, she sifted away again, thinner, more shadow, a question of existence in what realm.
    “Hurry gets you no place, Tools,” Rags said. “You know that. Not so fast on the approach, man, though the lady is hale, in her fiftieth year, or close to it.” He paused to make a point of it; “I might say it’s more or less being what a woman makes of the difference. She’s inventive as we agreed, and where we think we have something different in Tools and Rags, she goes by the name of.” His response, a gathering of breath, a shift in his seat as well, was a shift in dramatics, his head turning ever so slightly as he said, half in a pause itself, “Slow Purple.”
    The name came with colors attached, a host of them, ablaze in intention, sunlight and moonlight, a bloom in a side yard a whole house lives for, the air filled with a suggestion of simple purple essence, mere sense of the violet, yet a soft bloom, the coy lavender of it.
    Tools looked at Rags, an inquisitive nod almost taking place at the same time. “Slow Purple?” He mouthed the name a few times, felt it come back in a sweet sensation, the color running at his mouth, the taste of it. A softness flowed with the name. “Slow Purple?” There was a tint on the far horizon, an acuteness he could feel.
    They took a left through an intersection after a stop sign before Tools spoke again. The river ran beside them as they drove and a fleet of lobster boats floated on the high tide, their colors brilliant blue and brilliant red in the slanting sunlight. He felt an old sense of energy and adventure, even as the river and the marsh and the brackish odor pulled him along once more.
    “No kidding about that name? That’s her real name? It seems to go with the idea of her. I never heard a name like that before. It sort of grabs you. It really does.” His eyes were talking too, as if shaken loose from some old post or station of the past. “That’s a name to remember,” he said.
    They rolled up a slight incline, passed through another traffic light, drove by the long curving stone wall of a cemetery. Soon, they passed over idle railroad tracks, went by blocks of stores and through the center of town where a statue and a flagpole stood tall. The traffic was abuzz in the sweet day, townspeople out walking alone or with dogs on leashes, maple limbs hanging in proper disorder, new scents rising in the air. A huge delivery truck double parked on the main street. Two boys on bikes delivered newspapers, taking turns at houses, flinging papers in a high arc. Tools thought he heard somebody whistling a tune. It was not Rags.
    When they turned the corner, at Rags’ direction, the house was directly in front of them. The fence loomed as a first order of business, for it leaned crazily in a snaky way. Then the lack of paint announced itself on just about most surfaces on the front of the house. It was as if the place had been decorated in drear and drab. The porch was half painted, two of the steps were newer than the others, a tall, thin flag pole, without rope or flag, had proceeded in many spots to rust.
    But there was a distinction about the house, standing in front of all the need. The woman on the porch facing them was regal, but in a softened way. Tools parked the rental about twenty feet in front of her; a short walkway of deep gray cement passed through a small patch of lawn. As he looked at her, as she looked down at him with a slight twist to her head, the loose wires in him that had been fumbling around for over a decade made a new connection. Ignition was immediate. There came the near insurmountable old urge to touch himself, to gather all complements, to measure. It ran through him. The redness of embarrassment measured him anew. A small gasp caught in his throat and his thighs tightened at the same moment, the sympathetic wires in more connections. Warmth flooded his extremities. He couldn’t remember the last time those muscles had shuddered this way.
    Slow Purple smiled. It was a new radiance.
    Standing on her porch steps, not quite as soft as an evening sunset, she was close enough for Tools’ admiration at the very first glance. Blonde hair was swept up on her head, clearly showing blue eyes set fairly apart and a full brow, matched by a tugged-tight blouse and skirt. Another wire touched, flared a spark. Her wave, in spite of the house’s cry for more of his attention, was at Rags but her eyes quickly fell on Tools. He felt a long-gone fever also come at abrupt quickness. With hands on her hips, curiosity abounding, she nevertheless had marvelous legs, inviting hips, and cheekbones for a fifty year old widow set up as high and as mighty as hope. The loose wires came onto more serious play. Static climbed the air.
    Slow Purple pointed at Rags, talking at him, her voice musical. “You being my agent again, Rags? You capture this man at the airport?” She laughed, a kind snicker of a laugh. “You kidnap this one, too?” She nodded a nod of approval. “You saying he’s a new customer, a paying customer?” Her voice was as warm as a sun ray across Tools’ brow. Her throaty laughter was sincere and not forced. She smiled deeply and looked at Tools the way an old friend marks recognition. no hooks, no curves, no reservations, an open book for readers.
    Tools, believing in a kind of play land of the mind, did not perceive her as real.
    Suddenly, as if informed by another being, another mind, a co-host within his body, he saw that her clothes did not fall upon her, but were pushed from inside, the mass of her moving its inside pressure. The parts of her made entry under cover, shaping her, designing her in his mind, pushing parts onto the field of fabric. Oh, he thought, the fabric of her. The fabric of her. Tools searched his mind for a caliper of sorts. He found none; Cricket’s slightness fell away from him in a halting bound.
    Carried from earlier parts; Inside his psyche, someplace elemental, aching against unknown edges, he was conscious of a hole, a black and unnatural hole that had its own essence and had been hanging around for a long time. Yet he had no tool or gauge to measure it, its depth, its width, its emptiness, and that lack of measurement bothered him endlessly. But the hole was there, drawing on him with tenacity. How long he had been aware of its nature, he could no longer remember.
    It was not her who did it at first, not Slow Purple, but an idea that grew from her, because of her; it was the house that did it, no matter how he employed the idea of it.
    The house, her house, became the bridge from the void within him, the passage outbound. So in short order, after Slow Purple accepted him as a new boarder and with the conditions set up with Rags, the tools came out, the artful tools, the powerful tools, the tools unused by him for so long. In one grand hurry, the fence came down; the fence went up. The flagpole came down; the flagpole went up, to stand keen as a white arrow. The old front porch, torn from its moorings against the house, at his hand became a new spread thing, a gateway in itself; new deck and railings, new balusters, steps, white paint where white was wanted, schemed at colors otherwise, and flower boxes, a neat half dozen to each side, red ones to boot, bloomed almost instantly. In another morning he stripped away the front door and replaced it, a whole new entryway including all the side lights of Colonial glass framing the doorway.
    And every move he made, with every tool employed by an unearthed energy he had not used in a long time, Slow Purple was at the end of the line as he sized things up, straight lines, curves where curves became important, whenever he set a line for his eyes, Slow Purple smiled back at him her agreement.
    He taught Rags how to drive again, in a rental pick-up truck, the straight line from the house to the local building supply center, gave directions, took hints, made adjustments, cocked his eye on a new line, saw agreement and accord, felt the light descending or rising someway, somehow. Became new.
    Rags smiled endlessly, nodded, spoke little, silently gloried as a matchmaker.
    Tools, one bright morning, was rocked! He was in love again. Cricket said it was okay, from all the way out where she hung out, she said it was okay.
    Where are you now?
    Where?
    In your life journey, perambulation, the grand walkabout.
    Away from the tools too long!!!!!!!

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