by Cath Moore
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‘I gotta…shake the snake,’ Pat says and pulls over. I watch as he slides down the embankment like he’s being swallowed by quicksand. There’s nothing in the car to eat except a bag of jubes. I pick all the yellow ones out and throw them into my mouth. The jelly sinks into the ridges of my back teeth and my tongue flicks them out again. I watch the gum trees watching me and wonder if they know of Barry back home. When all the noise got too much like Dad screaming and throwing things, Mum would say ‘Go visit Barry,’ and I’d run down to the paddock at the bottom of Novis Lane where that big old gum tree stood. Ran so hard I’d be bent over when I got there, lungs sucking in more air than they could let out. Tall dry grass tickling the hairs on my legs. I’d climb into the cave in the base of Barry’s trunk.
Once when I was hiding inside Barry, I found myself in one of Dad’s old memories. My grandmother is crying and little-boy Dad wants to help but doesn’t know how. He watches as the pills fall like rainbow candy into her hand. When she stops crying and lies down on the bed, he stays with her for the rest of the day. Stroking her hair. Holding her hand. Until his older sister comes home from school. She pulls him off the bed; tells him to let Mama sleep. They want to pretend for as long as possible that she might wake up. And he will always remember looking back at his mama before the door closes, the palm of one hand turned upwards. Her fingers spread out delicately like a fan calling him back with a silent request: ‘Wait, don’t go.’
I knew that moment. I knew that hand. You are never further away from yourself than when your mama has gone. Dead mothers are the worst legacy of all. But you cannot keep that pain in your fists and take it out on other people. Sometimes when I curled up inside Barry I thought of being a cicada in the ground. I’m not alive yet and all I can do is wait until it’s time to dig my way up to the surface. All the noises are covered in a blanket of dirt and have no sharp edges at all. Inside Barry, time is always somewhere else and I don’t remember how long I’ve been there until Mum comes and finds me. She tries to hide the bruises but her smile is always a bit broken. I just hold her hand and walk extra slow through the paddocks because I want this to be forever, just the two of us.
Out here with Pat in the middle of nowhere, I wonder if all these other gum trees are safekeeping secrets too. Maybe there are stories deep down inside the roots or buried between layers of bark. Like the letters I hid inside Barry. I didn’t write them and they weren’t written for me. But I reckon when Dad left for good, he hoped I would find them all the same. Men always keep things they reckon will come in handy down the track. But that track is long and full of spare parts collecting not much more than dust. Dad was like Pat that way. The shed out back was full of junk from his hard-rubbish runs. Before the council truck chugged around town he would cruise the streets looking for treasure. Said people chucked good things out so they had an excuse to buy something shiny and new. I often hid in that shed, playing hide and seek with Mum.
One day I hid behind the bonnet of an old rusted Holden ute propped up against the back wall. Maybe it had been there when we moved in; I can’t remember. Underneath was a metal cabinet. And inside the middle draw was a shoebox stuffed with letters. ‘From Michael’ was scrawled in kid writing at the bottom of every single one. That’s my dad’s name. I stayed crouched behind the bonnet and read those letters over and over again. Forgot about the game I’d been playing, until I heard Mum screaming my name. Then my heart beat me back into the real world. Shoved the letters into my sock and stumbled out of the shed. Mum was mad as hell; thought someone had stolen me away. The next morning I ran straight down to Barry and hid those letters, carved out a slit in his trunk just wide enough to shove them inside. A bark pocket for past wishes and woes.
Pat’s taking his sweet time shaking the snake, so I slide my fingers into the bottom of my backpack and pull that stash of letters out. I’d marked them all with numbers so I could keep the story in the right order, but in the end it didn’t seem to matter. Dad’s trying his best to stay on the lines but his thoughts travel faster than his hand can scribble. He asks, ‘Are you coming back? Do you still love me?’ He wonders how it is possible to walk home from school one day and find every single piece of his father gone. No coat on the hook or whistle in the hallway. Just footprints leading out the door—to where, why, how?
He’s too scared to send those words in case the answer, the only answer, is ‘No’. So he writes the same letter over and over again. But without an answer, questions buzz around his head like TV static. Finally the noise ignites a volcano in his mind and it grows and grows as he does, from a lonely little boy into a man who likes to be alone. A man who hurts other people like he wanted to hurt his dad. Finally he leaves his family too. How could he not? It was in his genes. I trace the words on the page with my fingers; the question mark is like a snake with a full stop at the bottom. If you asked, I’d still say I don’t know why I keep those letters so long past their due date. But the wolf inside would shake his head and call me a liar. He knows as well as I do they need to be delivered, one way or another.
Sitting here in the hot car my mind’s playing silly buggers. Maybe there are real snakes out there and Pat’s been bitten by a black one with a red belly. Maybe that snake is coming for me. I’ve left all the car doors wide open, so I close them again, catching my little finger in the last one as I slam it shut. Throbbing like a drum it feels like it’s gone puffed up triple size, even though it looks the same. I scream blue murder and Pat comes stumbling over the dunes, pants halfway down his legs. A thin line of blood runs across the inside of my nail.
Now a scratch is okay—you’ve got enough time to tell the blood to go back the way it came. But if I get cut from a tin lid or a blood vessel bursts ’cause I blew my nose too hard then there’s no telling what might happen. Maybe I’d go all haemophiliac and keel over right there. And even though it is right and normal to have your ‘little friend’ visit every month, a period is not friendly and when it finally comes it could be the end of me if the bloody tap isn’t turned off in time. Besides, there’s magic water in your blood that keeps you alive. If it leaks out, you’re very quickly not.
‘What the hell are you screechin’ about?’ Pat’s furrowed brow is all shiny with sweat, bulging on his forehead like a fleshy avalanche. No one’s pretty when they’re cross. He looks at my finger.
‘You’re not bloody Rasputin all right, you’re not gonna die. It’s not even on the surface!’
I still get the first-aid kit out and plaster my finger with three bandaids so I don’t have to see the blood under my nail. I try to stretch out those creases on Pat’s forehead with my good hand, but he just slaps it away.
‘Just lay off, all right! You’re drivin’ me round the bend!’
‘I’m not driving anywhere! It’s not my fault you’ve got a weak bladder!’
He starts the car up, clears his throat like he’s coughing up half a lung and we hit the road again.
‘Rasputin never had no problems with his blood. It was that boy prince,’ I tell Pat just to set the record straight.
He sniffs through his nose and I squish a smile between my lips. Cat-bum style.
7 He’s right on time, that Pat O’Brien
After a while you forget how long you’ve been driving. The road becomes a no-man’s-land that stretches on forever. I wake up with a jolt, confused. The inside of my thighs are wet with sweat but there’s a drought in my head, pounding. I crack open a can of Coke that tastes like warm sugar water. Pat holds out his hand so I pass it over knowing that’s that. Men take one gulp and it’s gone, Adam’s apple bobbin’ up and down like a cork in the water. When I shift, knee sweat trickles down my legs. Nothing feels good in this heat and mess makes it worse. The car’s full of Pat’s work stuff, promotional posters and a cardboard cutout of a guy holding a beer. In his hand there’s a slit where Pat puts brochures about a competition to win prizes.
Pat works for a beer company. It’s not his
job to sell the beer, but to sell the selling of the beer. He travels from one dusty town to the next, talking to the publican (the man who runs the pub and might have a wife or might not). Pat has to find out which beer will sell, survive or suck. What the customers want and what they don’t know they want, but will as soon as Pat’s company gives them a free hat with every carton. He has to tell everyone that it’s ‘no worries, too easy, not a drama’, that he’ll ‘call that one straight in, sort it out, turn it around, check in, check out and call again soon’. One publican called Tom always popped a coldie on the counter at 12.45 pm, leant on the bar with both hands stretched out. And come rain or shine Pat would walk on in. ‘He’s right on time, that Pat O’Brien.’
Pat would smile and down that beer in five seconds flat.
After business Pat and the publican have a yarn. This is when two men mumble about the way of the world, the lay of the land and old Farmer Ned who packed up and left Susan to take care of the whole bloody lot. The drought that wiped out half the crop and cattle that had to be shot ’cause you can’t let a walking bag of bones suffer like that. Then there’s Joan that’s on dialysis in the city three times a week so for her birthday the CWA ladies got on a bus and brought the whole bingo hall to her, nurses joined in too. And what about the Thompson boy who just got up one morning, ate his corn flakes, kissed his mum on the cheek, walked into the shed and shot himself with his father’s gun. Yeah. A yarn pretty much covers it all.
But I’ve got things to talk about too. Secrets from the past. I close my eyes and search inside my backpack. Feel the wrinkled texture of creased paper on the tips of my fingers, run circles round and round the page, lines up and across, down and over onto the other side like a wayward map with a million directions. It’s a drawing of an eagle flying through the sky with a long neck, blue face, purple eyes and an orange-feathered Mohawk. ‘To Michael,’ it says. These are the words of my grandfather, William Freeman. The only words of his I have ever seen. The picture is a bit torn and there’s a Vegemite stain in the corner. If you look close enough you can see my dad’s little-kid fingerprints in those brown smudges. Like ink.
That bird’s like me. A bit funny-looking. Not quite right. I remember when Dad gave it to me. He was sitting at the end of my bed. He was crying so I’m pretty sure he was drunk. I waited for him to say something but he just bowed his head down like he was gonna kiss my feet. I thought I’d seen that eagle fly through the night skies in Beyen, wings heavy and tired trying to find somewhere to land. Maybe I just dreamed it. After all, they don’t come from here. Hard to tell waking and sleeping lives apart sometimes.
‘When was the last time youse went up this way?’ Pat asks.
I had been here before, a long time ago. Mum said once we went to visit my grandfather, but I don’t remember. He’s probably got volcanoes in his head too—I would have gone against my will or written a protest sign on cardboard. That’s what French people do. Resist. Sometimes I imagined him as a big shadow travelling across the land, sending small creatures running under rocks for cover. He’d scream so loud the earth would shatter into lots of pieces like it used to be and we’d all be floating around on Titanic plates. For the sake of keeping everyone together I tried not to think about him too much. If I were the gambling kind I’d bet he’s the reason why Dad went bad. No doubt about it.
‘Never been here before,’ I say just to play it safe. Pat bangs on the air-conditioner, which never fixes anything.
‘Machines are strong on the outside and delicate underneath like a Turkish Delight covered in steel.’
‘Yeah, righto. Maybe you should go on Sale of the Century. Win us a new air-con unit.’
I crank down the window and the cardboard-cutout man in the back seat almost flies out! I reckon people would love to see him floating overhead holding a beer like he’s saying, ‘Cheers, good on youse all!’ to everyone down below. But Pat shouts at me to roll the window back up again. The plastic handle snaps off which, as the mechanic told Pat, was the car passively demonstrating its lack of servicing. Pat just got fixed what he could afford, not what was needed.
‘Listen, Dylan. I still got a job to get done. That’s what you do in the real world.’
‘I’m in the real world too,’ I said. But then I started to think about how I would support myself in Paris without a job. I’m only fourteen and don’t really have any work experience apart from picking up Margie’s toenail clippings and putting them in a plastic sandwich bag. With no sustainable income I’d fall into a spiral of poverty and end up on the streets, standing in line waiting to get a cup of soup from Le Salvation Army. My clothes would turn to shreds and they’d shave my knotty hair off. Hair is an important signifier of identity. If I had no hair how would I remember who I was?
‘Don’t let them shave my hair, Pat, please!’ I cry so hard snot slides down the back of my nose into my mouth. It tastes salty. Pat’s got one hand on the wheel as he pulls out a big blue hanky, the one Margie gave him at the funeral. I don’t even know if he’s washed it since but I take it anyways and bury my whole face inside. I’m breathing through the cloth, watching my mouth blow a hole in and out, in and out. I count until my eyes are quiet and there are no more tears. Pat shoves the cardboard-cutout man under merchandise boxes in the back and tells me to go for glory, crack the window wide open. That’s Pat. A frozen river that melts in the middle of winter.
I wind the handle down and this time it doesn’t break. Whoosh! I suck in hot blowy air and look out over the paddocks. High, dry grass moving side to side in the wind.
‘You got a yarn for me?’ says Pat. He glances over but all I see is the wide blue sky reflected back in his sunnies. He gives me the go-ahead with a nod ’cause he knows I got hundreds of them. Stories are everywhere—you just gotta turn on your senses and wait. I hear those blades turning, the big wind machines that birds fly into. They were far away, beyond the mountain range that bordered the horizon. I can hear lots of things that the eyes can’t see. So I tell Pat about those machines that store energy in the ground. Wind turns those propellers round and round and then if you were to go underground you would find tunnels where all those blades are turning other little blades and wires and cogs and locks and grooves and pistons and shoots. All working together to put energy into little metal boxes that men come and collect at the end of the day. The light down there is fluorescent electrical blue like threads of lightning, and if you touched it you might go flying down those tunnels so fast you’d end up in Estonia or somewhere else unexpected.
The energy collectors wear special suits and gloves that protect them almost one hundred per cent from all the loose electric particles. Sometimes when they pick up the metal boxes they can still get a little shock, like when you run on the carpet during library time and then sit next to Cole Larsen and touch his arm and you hear that ‘crack!’ They also wear special glasses because if you look too closely at the energy it makes your eyes go see-through and zaps all the colour out. Then no one would know how to talk to you because eye colour reflects your personality. Brown is warm and open, blue is intolerant and aloof. The energy is then put in trucks that carry it all over the country. Not too many people know they are watching the Friday night footie or cooking spag bol because of those boxes underground.
Pat says the propeller machines are called turbines and if he could, he’d watch them go round all day, until the sun had set and turned them into giant shadow puppets.
8 White vultures
Ahead I can see the outline of a petrol station. There’s a coach there too and all the people milling around look like the little dwarfs from Snow White marching off to the mines. The gold’s long gone from here but they’re spoilt for choice if they’re after roo nuggets. When I step out of the car and straighten my legs, oh boy my knees feel Gerry-hat-trick. Dropping my head I look between my legs and see the last of the dwarfs heading back towards the bus. Even upside down I can see they’re as old as my knees are painful. A whole gaggle of
them with high-pitched voices, sun visors and sneakers so white they gotta be straight out of the box. But one of them, I can feel it, has sorrow like a sharp stone in her shoe. Something that lady thought she’d left behind was dragging her down all the same. I could help that woman come up for air; tell her what she needed to hear even if it hurt.
‘Now you stay there, righto?’ Pat says and he goes inside the petrol station to pay just as his big old clunky phone starts to ring.
Divine intervention—a sign from JC himself. I press a button and hold it to my ear. A man with a voice like gravel answers so maybe it is actually God.
‘Are you there yet?’ he barks.
The oldies are lining up, ready to board the bus again.
‘Almost.’
I hang up, stuff the phone in my pocket and run over. They’re all talking at the same time like channel-hopping on the TV.
‘…oh, but that’s what I told Joe!’
‘…she’s so surly, pay no mind.’
‘…grew over half her neck!’
I follow one thread but get the tale end of another, all the words knotted up like I got crazy voices in my head. And before I know it I’m on that bus sitting in the ninth row on the left-hand side by the window. (Inside the servo Pat’s thinking about whether to get a Chiko roll or not. I still got time.) Then this nice-looking lady sits down next to me, but it’s not her I’m looking for. She’s a human dot-to-dot, hundreds of freckles jumping up and down between her wrinkles. Her name is Lou and she’s come from Atlanta, which is where they make Coke for the rest of the world. She says she hadn’t seen me at the last pick-up and am I one of the guides for the Indigenous Reservation? Involving the young people in these tourism ventures she says, is such a positive thing to combat all the problems we have, which their First People have as well. She isn’t making much sense but I don’t want to embarrass her so I say that yes, this is a working trip and I push some buttons on Pat’s phone to make my story look real.
