Strays on Fourth Street

I.

To call this place nothing would be an insult to emptiness: tattered streets, faded houses held together by spider webs, and air that was always grey. “Fourth Street” had been untouched by the postwar booms and was bedrock in the economic chain. That fact radiated throughout the street emitting permanent misery. Except, not everyone on the block was miserable. In fact, there was one little girl—who “was growing up too fast”—that became one of the few things worth fighting for on Fourth Street: Ally Rumm.

She sang songs in Conway (the cleaner, whiter district) and brought back her little blue bucket with enough money to get baby Angeline down the street a Christmas present or hold a Free Lemonade Day for her neighborhood youngsters. Her father never understood why she gave away all that money, so she started doing it in secret.

Ally’s father didn’t understand much, especially not Ally’s plans after school. It had been a long time since Ally was honest with her father. Some suspected Ally was out because she was hiding from him. But that mystery had long vanished in the neighborhood’s conscious. Within the latest resident of Fourth Street, there was a new secret to captivate.

“Did you see his car?”

“Has anyone talked to him?”

“I don’t trust that man.”

Concerning the car, a red Pontiac Coupe which was the cleanest thing on Fourth Street since baby Angeline, it wasn’t long before desperate kids broke the windows looking for something valuable to show their mothers. Yet, the man went unbothered and never called the police. Concerning his sociability, it would help to know that the only person on that street who knew the man’s name was the man himself. He was white with inky black hair that shagged loosely on his head. His facial hair aged him; it was a patchy mess with white swirls around his chin. The demeanor of the stranger highlighted the sore thumb that he was on Fourth Street: he looked over his shoulders, didn’t speak a word when spoken to, and—most curiously—he carried a black banded journal everywhere he went (which was just to his trashcan).

Nothing resuscitates a drab street like a mystery. It was only a matter of time before the stranger and Ally met. She was far too curious and brave, and he was far too lonely and strange for distance to be kept. Week three was when she learned his name. Ally knocked on his door every day of the week prior just before walking to school.

“I just want to know your name, mister.”

She became the stranger’s alarm clock, chirping and pecking the door at the same time every morning.

Eventually, Ally heard, “It’s Shillings, dear!” come from the door before she knocked.

“I’m Ally Rumm. Nice to meet you, Shillings.”

Poor Shillings should have learned that if you let the camel put its nose in the tent, you’d soon be sleeping with a camel. And, of all the names to make the mystery intensify, ‘Shillings’ couldn’t have been a better choice. Week four, Shillings was waiting outside his door for Ally, writing in his black book. They shared silence in the moment, eulogizing their once simple relationship and waiting for the other to pounce.

“What type of name is Shillings?”

“What type of name is Ally Rumm?”

“It’s my name,” Ally said.

“I see that. Wear it proud, precious. And—well, a shilling is a coin from overseas.”

To give a bad—but apt—analogy, this was the equivalent of two dogs growling, sniffing bottoms, then befriending each other. The stranger, it turned out, was the biggest babbler in the state once you got to know him. By week five, Shillings placed a folding chair on his doorstep for Ally to sit on during their visits. The mundane, gentlemanly action gave way to a miniature revolution in the community. Of course, the people were only anxious for Ally’s safety.

“What do you two talk about?”

“Where’s he from?”

“You stay careful of that man, Ally Rumm!”

Ally had become a type of publicist for Shillings: placating Fourth Street’s concerns about their stranger. All she’d say was his name and how witty he was. She was protecting Shillings, but she also didn’t have many of the answers herself.

Shillings only spoke to Ally on his doorstep—which became a local stage for the neighborhood to freely spectate. Though, the show wasn’t entertaining. Shillings and Ally would speak like friendly garbage cats and, when Ally left, he would read that black book.

Mr. Rumm grabbed Ally’s arm on her way out of the door one morning.

“I better not catch you with the white man up the street.”

He grabbed Ally in that all too familiar way, squeezing hard enough to leave a bitter cold shadow that felt like rattlesnakes bit her arm when he let go.

She still saw Shillings because he was still a mystery to solve.

“Just when are you going to tell me why you’re here?” Ally asked one morning.

“I don’t think I can,” said Shillings.

Ally felt—if she weren’t careful—she would have sprung a bear trap around her ankle.

“You’re a predator, aren’t you?”

“No, I am the furthest possible thing from a predator!” Shillings replied in a snap.

It felt good hearing that, but Ally was old enough to know that it was the exact answer a predator would give.

“Then prove it.” Ally stung at Shillings.

“How would I go about proving that? Do I need to prove to you that I am not some creature sent from the lagoon, as well? Look precious, I’m hiding out here.”

When Ally Rumm knocked on the stranger’s door it was to quench her curiosity, but she only thought the man would be a failed painter or bankrupt banker. If only she knew how wide her eyes would get when Shillings told her why he was really on Fourth Street.

I think it’s time I told you what Shillings and Ally spent their mornings talking about. On the first day Shillings laid out a chair for Ally, they had their first honest conversation.

“Why come here, Mr. Shillings?”

“It felt right at the time. An uncle of mine lived here back when it was less—well, I’m not sure how long ago.”

“Less what?” Ally asked.

“Less, well you know…this. When the only splash of color wasn’t pigeon droppings, and the walls weren’t stained with smoke and brown spots.”

Ally wasn’t prepared for how offended she would become hearing him say that. Even though she knew those words were true, they sounded just like the sniggers she heard in Conway. Shillings, like a big brother who caught himself playing too rough, followed Ally’s wounded eyes to the street.

“What do you see, Ally? What do I not see?”

“I see Mr. Kegler picking up toys in his yard because the boys are inside helping their momma with dinner. I see the newspaper, wrapped in plastic, on Ms. Daniel’s porch that her neighbor picked up two blocks away for her. I see how big and bright our houses’ greys and withered reds get when the sun arrives to shine on them. And I see the stray cat who—for two years—has come to Fourth Street because, even though we don’t have a thing to our names, she knows we’ll feed her better than Conway folks ever would. That’s what I see.”

Ally Rumm wanted to be a poet when she graduated school—a reality three weeks from the day she told Shillings about the stray cat. And, by fate’s command, she found herself sitting next to one of the few people who believed she could do it. Every morning, Ally would share a poem with Shillings and Shillings would look at Ally like the bubbling geyser she was.

II.

“How would I go about proving that? Do I need to prove to you that I am not some creature sent from the lagoon, as well? Look kid, I’m hiding out here.”

“Hiding from who?” Ally asked.

“I loved someone who I wasn’t supposed to. And, well, they died. And now I have all this money and I was being threatened because they said I wasn’t family—and.” Shillings said with tears.

Ally had never seen Shillings lose his composure before. In fact, this was the first time she saw a man cry. In a slightly perverse way, she found it relieving to know that men could bear feelings too.

That was the day Ally and Shillings walked up and down the block. She managed to bring the Boogeyman of Fourth Street out of his cage.

“I will never understand how a person can stare at another person like an animal,” said Shillings.

“Be nice! You can’t blame them with your hair looking like that,” Ally returned.

“There is nothing wrong with my hair, precious. A man’s hair should be able to hang free.”

“Tangled spider swinging through/ I have just the job for you/ Take your web and sew for me/ hair that men can swing around free.”

“That’s very good, Ally,” Shilling said after laughing. “Now, you promise me that you get away from your father and you work to write the best poems you can. He won’t hurt you if you get away, you understand.”

Ally nodded but hope was hard to keep on Fourth Street.

The next morning, Ally returned but Shillings was not there to greet her. She knocked to no answer. When she saw the black book sitting on her chair, she realized she would not see Shillings again; that was the first time she saw the black book separated from him.

She opened the book to find a letter.

“Precious Ally Rumm,

I am sorry to leave you without a goodbye, but I find them to be exhausting and unproductive. There should be no need to place finality on anything. I should also apologize for lying to you. I loved a very rich man named Sam Shillings. I think he took to me because I used to be like you. I saw beauty around every corner but especially in him. When he killed himself, he left a lot of what he had to me. His wife and family weren’t very happy. They are who I am hiding from. I hope I was a worthwhile mystery. I have left you something within my book. Please, dear, use it to become everything you were meant to be. Write and keep writing.

-Nathaniel

(No, Shillings was not my real name, though, I wish it were. Then again, what type of name is Shillings anyways?)”

After turning the page, Ally thought she saw the treasury department fall on her lap. In total, the man had given her $20,000. She thought of him as “the man” because Nathaniel didn’t sound right and calling him Shillings felt like committing him to a lie. Even though he left her alone, it was hard to be scornful. He was the man who changed her life, and, in the end, he left with her a lifetime's worth of truth in his journal.

The strange man’s book wasn’t filled with black magic or a madman’s equations. From front-to-back, the book was lined with love letters he could never share. Each one of them starting with, “To my precious Sam.”

Ally Rumm published the letters twenty years later in 1973 along with this story.

Thank you for your help, from one stray to another.