Take a Life

by Phillip Gwynne

  But it didn’t last long.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, I am declaring a medical emergency for a priority landing.’

  Control Tower went quiet for a while, but when she came back on air she had good news.

  ‘Please join a five-mile final for runway nineteen,’ she said. ‘You are clear to land.’

  There was a cheer from inside the plane, followed immediately by an uncomfortable silence. We all knew – well, all of us kids anyway – that the Zolt had taken off successfully plenty of times, but he hadn’t nailed many landings.

  And this was the Big Dance, this was a major airport.

  ‘We’ll be fine, Otto,’ I said. ‘We’ll nail it just like we did the other time.’

  Mom and both my siblings were staring hard at me – what was this ‘we’ thing about? Control Tower came on again with some more instructions that Otto acknowledged.

  ‘You know there’ll be a welcoming party waiting for you?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But do you know what, I’m actually sick of hiding out, of always having to look over my shoulder. Law of averages says I have to get nabbed one day, so why not today? Give myself up, instead of being hunted down like a mongrel dog.’

  I looked over at Zoe. She didn’t seem so convinced, but kept quiet.

  The landing was just like last time, except instead of two impossibly tense people there were eight of us.

  As the ground came up to meet us, Otto talked to himself; weirdly enough, his voice seemed to have dropped several octaves. ‘Keep the nose level,’ he kept saying. ‘Keep the nose level.’

  The wheels kissed the tarmac, and what we had was pretty much a textbook landing. Miranda clapped. But she would. Before the plane had rolled to a standstill, a couple of fit-looking paramedics had jumped on board.

  The cops tried to come on board too, to nab one of Australia’s most wanted criminals, but the paramedics waved them away. Let me tell you, I would have done anything they said too.

  As one performed his medical magic on Dad, sticking a drip in him, putting his arm into a proper sling, the other asked Mom all the usual questions.

  ‘Smoker?’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Mom.

  ‘Dad was a smoker?’ said Miranda.

  ‘It wasn’t something he liked to advertise,’ said Mom.

  All I could think of was those cigarette butts in the coffin.

  When they’d finished, this paramedic said, ‘Your mum did really well; your dad’s going to be absolutely fine.’

  Was my dad really going to be absolutely fine?

  The paramedics, accompanied by Mom, stretchered Dad out of the plane. I could see how impatient the police were – they were itching to get their hands on the infamous Zolt. I looked over at Zoe and then Otto, who had a sort of smile on his lips.

  Sick of hiding out, my butt.

  Didn’t want to get hunted down like a mongrel dog, my rectal passage.

  Otto gave her a nod and Zoe slammed the door shut just as the first of the policeman tried to board. Then we were taxiing again. Control Tower, as you can imagine, was going ballistic. But in the end she had no choice, she couldn’t afford any sort of accident, so she gave us our take-off instructions.

  As usual, Otto had no problem with nailing the take-off.

  But as we all know, take-offs had never been an issue.

  In the absence of the moral authority provided by the parental units, Miranda leant over and kissed him, practically sucking his face clean off his head.

  ‘I hope Gus is okay,’ said Toby, looking towards the smoke-smudged Gold Coast.

  ‘He’s as tough as they come,’ said Miranda.

  ‘Your grandfather, right?’ said Zoe.

  I nodded – our grandfather.

  However, Zoe must’ve noticed where I was looking, straight at the parachutes. ‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘You want us to fly over Halcyon Grove so that you can parachute in and check on him?’

  I nodded; she was scarily smart sometimes.

  ‘So you know how to parachute?’ said the Zolt.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘But I could google it.’

  I didn’t need to google it, though, because Otto knew practically everything there was to know about parachuting. He told me how to strap it on. How I wouldn’t need to pull anything because I’d be using a static line. How to open the emergency chute in case the main chute didn’t open. How to steer using the steering toggles once I was airborne.

  I wasn’t actually that scared. That might sound a bit try-hard action man, but it’s the truth. It seemed like it was actually quite a safe thing to do, even for somebody with zero experience.

  ‘What do I do if I land in somebody’s swimming pool?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Otto.

  Then I got it. ‘You’ve never actually jumped yourself, have you?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I’m all over the theory,’ he said as we swooped low and made towards Halcyon Grove.

  I hugged my sister and my brother. Hugged them hard. Who knew when I’d see them again? If ever. I told them to enjoy Barcoola, Marcoola or Yarcoola, whatever coola they ended up in.

  I hugged Imogen.

  And hugged Imogen.

  And hugged Imogen.

  ‘You better let go of her now,’ said Otto. ‘We’re almost there.’

  I didn’t want unhug Imogen. Not then. Not ever. But reluctantly I let go of her.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ she said. ‘It looks like hell down there.’

  I peered through the window – she was right, Halcyon Grove was now Scorched Grove.

  But I had to find out if Gus was okay.

  And I had to face The Debt.

  I attached the static line just like Otto had taught me. Just as I was about to climb onto the wheel Otto said to wait, and dug into his pocket. He held something out to me.

  Something I knew very well.

  A Saint-Gauden’s Double Eagle.

  ‘For good luck,’ he said.

  I wasn’t exactly sure how lucky the coin was, but I sort of got where he was coming from. I took it, and put it in my pocket.

  ‘I guess we’re about even now,’ I said to the Zolton-Banders.

  They looked at each other, and then at me. Yeah about even.

  I climbed out onto the wheel just like he had taught me. And when he said, ‘Jump!’ I pushed myself out and away just like he had taught me.

  One, two, three seconds, and the parachute opened and I was floating down like an autumn leaf. I got the theory of the steering toggles fine, it was just that in practice they weren’t so easy to use. So, to answer my own question as to what you do if you land in somebody’s swimming pool: well, you just get out of your harness as quickly as you can before your parachute drags you to the bottom and you drown.

  It was the Jazys’ pool, ironically, but I couldn’t see any of the Jazys, and when I looked inside the house I could see why: it had been completely trashed.

  ‘Anybody there?’ I yelled, but nobody answered.

  Imogen’s house had also been trashed; the windows smashed, front door broken down.

  I walked past Imogen’s house – also trashed: the windows broken, the front door torn off its hinges – and towards my house and my first thought was that I’d actually gone in the wrong direction because my house wasn’t there.

  But then I saw the rubble, and the twisted metal, and the deformed plastic, the smoke twisting into the sky – they’d burnt my house down. And I felt like I should cry, but there were no tears.

  I kept walking.

  Gus’s house was still there, the front door on its hinges, the windows intact.

  And as I got closer I could hear the sound of techno techno-ing from the shed.

  Gus was still pumping tin, the crazy old fool. It was like that old Roman dude who kept on playing the fiddle while Rome burnt around him.

  I walked into the shed, expected to see those sinewy arms shaking, eighty k
ilos on the bar, yet another PB.

  A man was sprawled on the concrete, on his back.

  Rocco Taverniti.

  He’s dead, I told myself.

  But when I got closer and I could see the rise and fall of his chest I felt a sense of relief – dead men don’t go to court.

  One side of his head looked like a Big Pete’s Meatlover pizza, and a kettlebell lay next to him, the six kilo by the look of it. He had a gun in his hand.

  I kept walking.

  Gus was pretty much where I’d left him, stretched out on the bench. I looked up at the barbell, did the maths – I’d been right. Eighty kilos, a new PB.

  But Gus wouldn’t be lifting it, not today.

  The front of his singlet was stained red.

  So Rocco had come at him, Gus had brained him with the kettlebell, but Rocco had managed to get a shot away before he’d kissed the concrete.

  I turned off the techno, and then I could hear footsteps.

  Standing at the entrance to the shed was Seb.

  He reached down and took Rocco’s gun and pointed it at me.

  I looked over at Gus. No, that wasn’t Gus, it was the vessel he’d inhabited during his stay here on earth.

  I moved towards him.

  ‘Dom!’ said Seb. ‘Look at me.’

  I knelt down next to my grandfather, and I put my hands on the rough stubble of his face.

  ‘Dom!’ screamed Seb.

  ‘Gus, I love you,’ I said, and the flower of sadness in my chest burst out again, growing and spreading, growing and spreading.

  The sound of a gun, and a bullet whizzed over my head.

  I turned away from Gus, and faced Seb.

  ‘Why did you do it, you idiot? See what you’ve done! Why did you do it?’

  ‘“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”’

  Seb waved the gun at me.

  ‘We’re cousins, you know?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, of course I know.’

  ‘Shame about you and Miranda. Hey, but nobody wants three-headed kids.’

  Again he waved the gun.

  ‘What is wrong with you, Dom? Don’t you understand, it’s all finished. You’ve ruined it all.

  ‘Ruined what, Seb?’ I said.

  ‘You paid the instalments, you had it made. And now we could’ve worked together, you and me.’

  I got it now – Seb had been there to test me, too. To help me, like at the Colosseum, but to test me.

  ‘I mean, what is there to do now?’ he said.

  ‘Well, we could go for a run,’ I said, looking at Gus, my coach – he pretty much thought running was the answer to everything.

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘I’ll race you to the beach.’

  ‘It’s madness out there.’

  ‘They won’t catch us,’ I said.

  I started jogging up and down on the spot, just like Seb used to do outside Big Pete’s when I’d meet him on our morning runs.

  ‘A gazelle wakes up in the morning knowing that –’

  ‘Shut up, Dom!’

  ‘– it must run faster than the –’

  ‘I said shut up!’

  ‘– fastest lion.’

  ‘Shut the hell up!’

  ‘Come on, Seb,’ I said. ‘It’s time for a run.’

  I started moving off, still jogging, out of the shed. I wasn’t sure if he was behind me or not, but when I turned around, there he was.

  He was running like one of those no-style marathoners, knees hardly lifting, feet dragging, and the gun was still in his hand.

  I waited for him to catch up and gently took the gun from him, tossing it onto the ground.

  ‘Come on, Seb,’ I said. ‘Race you to the beach.’

  I found some pace, and when I glanced behind it was to see that he had, too. I didn’t bother with the gate, just ran through the hole the ram-raider truck had made in the wall.

  I turned into Chirp Street, the birds eerily quiet.

  And then across the bridge and onto Chevron Heights.

  Most of the shops had been looted, but Big Pete’s looked like it was still open for business.

  I looked through the window and I could see why – Big Pete himself was standing there, a shotgun cradled in his hands.

  I could sense that Seb was behind me, keeping his distance.

  But I struggled up the Gut Buster; my hand had started bleeding again. I really did need to get that stitched, I thought.

  When I was about a third of the way to the top, Seb powered past me, in the effortless languid style that he had.

  I wasn’t going to let him do that, however. I found another gear, and I caught up to him. We crested the hill abreast of each other.

  ‘Hey, cuz?’ I said.

  ‘What?

  ‘Loose as a goose on the juice?’ I said.

  ‘Loose as a goose on the juice,’ he said.

  We cruised down the descent together, building speed, the wind in our faces, heading for the sea and the distant horizon.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It takes a team to write a series such as this, and I would like to thank mine. Firstly, to my agent, and coach, Margaret Connolly for your encouragement, for the many pep talks. Thanks to my publisher, and indefatigable team captain, Anna McFarlane; your knowledge of story is second-to-none. To my editors, the tireless midfield trio of Julia Stiles, Hilary Reynolds and last, but certainly not least, Rachael Donovan. Rachael, without your tenacity, perspicacity and extraordinary eye for detail, this series would not have even made it onto the field. I would also like to thank my son Gabe Gwynne, skater extraordinaire, my nephew Luke Dowd, pilot extraordinaire, and Maxine Denton, diver extraordinaire, for your technical advice. Lastly I would like to thank my family, especially my gorgeous wife Eliza McCann. I owe you, darling. Big time.

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