by Michael Hyde
As the train blared its horn at him for the second time that night, sparks from the screeching wheels lit up the night. The brakes clamped and bit. Without a second to spare, Max hurled himself onto the floor of a safety cage Another body crashed into the cage, onto Max. The train squealed along the rails past Max and Fatman, uniting them in a crazy dance of shadow and golden light. Then it came to a halt.
Passengers gawked into the darkness. The train driver clambered down from his cabin. Frank was screaming for his lost partner.
Max and Fatman sprawled together on the metal grate. Fatman was the first to recover. He grabbed Max by his jacket and climbed to his feet, twisting the jacket tighter, lifting Max up onto his toes, pressing his balled fists into Max’s windpipe. His face was so close that Max could have read his mind. A two centimetre gash dribbled blood, just under his cheekbone, and his nose was swollen. Anger and exhaustion distorted his words.
‘We’re going to take you back with us, mate. You won’t believe what we’re going to do with you, you little fucker!!’
The last words sprayed into Max’s face. He could taste the spittle on his lips. Fatman let go with one hand and smacked the side of his head.
‘That’s just the smallest taste, mate. Our little graffiti friend. Our little fucking vandal. You nearly killed me. What’d you think you were doing, running at the train? D’you want to kill yourself?! If you’re so fucking keen, why don’t you jump off? Here! I’ll give you a bit of help!’
He pushed Max against the metal rail, bending him backwards, out over the gully. His hands bunched at Max’s throat. Max wanted air. He needed air. He needed to gulp it down like water. Blood spots danced in his eyes; the metal rail bit into his spine; his temples pounded like a voodoo drum.
He heard voices, running feet, more voices. His head was as heavy as a load of bricks but his body was lighter than angel wings.
‘Oh Christ, mate. You’re alive. I thought you were gone for all money,’ Frank panted, holding onto the rail of the bridge. ‘At least you got the little cocksucker. What’re you trying to do? Kill him?’ He gave a laugh that ended in a hacking cough.
Max felt like his life wanted to jump out of his head. Just wanted to jump out and run away. He could see Fatman’s face, redder than any paint, his bulbous nose, blood trickling down the side of his mouth.
‘That’s what I’m going to do, Frank. Help him do what he wants to do. Isn’t that right my little graffiti writer?’
He edged Max further over the railing. Frank grabbed Fatman’s arm. ‘C’mon, mate. You can’t do this. You can’t just shove him over. He’s only a kid.’
That gave Max the split second he needed. He pushed down with his legs and vaulted backwards, away from Fatman’s grip, flipped himself over the railing and out into the darkness.
‘Jesus Christ’, yelled Frank. ‘He’s gone! Jesus Christ, mate, what’ve you done?!! You mad bastard.’
Fatman stood with his hands outstretched, gripping thin air, tasting his own blood curling into his mouth. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish.
‘You better get down there’. The train driver came up behind them, flashing his torch on the bushes and silent creek below. ‘It’s a long way down there – a long way down.’
Max hung in mid-air like a river eel on a line, gripping the rung as if it was life itself. It felt icy cold. His left hand was becoming clammy as he writhed and twisted, trying to bring his feet noiselessly to the rungs of the ladder. There were voices above him, a light swinging past and then feet walking back along the line. He heard a match strike. He smelt a cigarette.
The crossing bells were still clanging and the train hissed patiently on the bridge. Max’s foot grabbed a rung. He eased the weight of his body onto the ladder and sucked air into his lungs, filling them to the brim.
Clinging there, he felt a strange sense of elation sweep over him. ‘Fantastic’, Max thought. ‘Unbelievable!’ He heard the cops at the end of the bridge, trying to find a path down the slope of the gully. ‘Better get moving or else they’ll be down here with their torch lights up my arse.’
He let go the top rung and began to swing down the hundred-or-so rungs that lead to the gully floor. He’d done it with Lou many times before but never at night. Never after having been nearly throttled by a bleeding cop.
The voices spurred him on. The men were stumbling through the bushes, their torches trained on the path, allowing Max a few minutes of darkness. His throat was sore and his temples ached. All he could think of was getting down the ladder and stealing away.
Near the bottom his hand slipped but he grabbed the rung and dropped lightly onto the river rocks strewn along the bank. He bounded across the creek, slipped on the mossy rocks, and clawed his way up the bank and across a gravel path. Then he climbed the other side of the gully, until he reached the low branches of a stunted tree, leaving the ladder, the creek and Fatman far below.
He watched for some time as they poked their torch beams here and there, fossicking for the body of a dead boy.
Max was exhausted and scared but he knew he had to get out of there. So he crawled up the rest of the slope, without feeling the sharp stones or the broken glass embedded in the dirt. He knew it was only a matter of time before they found him. But he couldn’t resist another look back at the train on the bridge. Its lights shone along the line, catching the thousands of fine metal shavings flecked in the grime and dust of the track. Finally they came to rest on a painted wall:
You should’ve talked to me
I’m supposed to be your friend
3
LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH THE LEAVES of the plane trees, enough to make Max open his eyes. Morning fog was breathing on the window panes. The warmth of his bed held him. Held Max until` his mind filled to the brim with thoughts of Lou: Lou talking, Lou walking that swagger, mucking around, arguing, lying about sex, raving about tits and arses. He swallowed and felt the bruising of his windpipe and Fatman’s fists at his throat. He remembered the ebbing of his life on the bridge and thought of Lou’s last breath. What was that last breath like? What was Lou’s last thought in that millisecond between life and death? Nothing? Did Lou feel shit scared like Max had? Like he did now?
Max pulled up his covers and winced as he remembered Fatman. He wondered if Fatman and Frank would come looking for him. Maybe they’d go back to the wall and look for clues. And read those words. Those words? Max didn’t have a clue about where they’d come from.
‘That’s it. Enough.’
Max pushed the doona back and rolled out of bed. He put on yesterday’s jocks and trackpants, pulled a thick jumper over his black, curly hair. ‘Should’ve been called Heathcliff’, his mother had always said.
‘Probably still says it,’ Max thought, digging the sleep out of his eyes. His eyes were bloodshot and his body felt hot.
He looked out through the window and picked up the paddle next to his bed. He stepped softly on the polished floorboards of the hall, turned the handle of the front door and clicked it quietly behind him. Out onto the verandah and into the sweet smelling fog.
He had tried to turn Lou onto paddling-canoeing-kayaking – anything that floated on rivers. But Lou wasn’t interested.
‘Too bushie for me, Max,’ he’d say. ‘Too many flies, too much like hard work, mate,’ saying the words in his slow way, keeping them to a minimum. ‘Just leave me in the city. Burning rubber, smelling smoke, cigarettes, billboards, trains and brick walls.’
‘Stay in the city, mate. Stay in it! I’m not asking you to go join a commune and milk cows, for Chrissake. Just go paddling.’
‘Where ya gonna spray, Max? Tell me that! On the water?! On the tree trunks?’
‘There’s a bridge up near the paper mill. You could do a job there, on the pylons.’
‘Give up on me, Max. It’s too much like fresh air and clean living.’ Then Lou would finally light the cigarette he’d been fingering and blow the smoke up into the blue sky.
&nbs
p; ‘Truth is, Lou,’ Max would say, ‘even if I knew of a brick wall running along the river for a kilometre, you still wouldn’t try it.’
‘That’s right! You’re absolutely right. Now, enough of this shit talk. I finally got to talk to Mary. Geez, is she the original space cadet. She’s either dreaming or talking like a fuckin’ machine gun...’
And on it would go. Sitting in Max’s bedroom or on the collapsing brick fence out front or sometimes, just to make Max happy, Lou would lie beneath the trees and together they would ramble the afternoon away.
Paddling was nearly everything to Max. School was OK; something to do between weekends. He thought girls were great, even though they often confused the hell out of him. There were times when he didn’t go out spraying with his mates, just to see a girl. Then he’d tire of her, make an excuse and wish he’d gone and done the other thing.
Getting pissed? Yes, Max had had his fair share of that and all the laughs and sickness and fights that went with it. Not forgetting all the lies and truths that were told.
Smoking dope? Pretty funny sometimes. But he fell asleep too often and missed the end of the video. And dad used to smoke, so where was the rebellion in that?
Doing graffiti. That came close to paddling. The sweeping colours, the arching spray, tags, and bombing trains gave Max a rush he’d never known. ‘Like having a girl for the first time’, Lou would say. ‘I wouldn’t know about that’, Max would say. And Lou would leave it alone.
Paddling had been in his veins since birth. Before Max’s parents split up, they took him on short trips, long trips, and even a camping trip once, on the Glenelg.
Photos of Max in canoes and kayaks spilled out of every album they had. But when little Woody came along, the trips stopped. Nobody was sure why.
His parent’s marriage had been falling apart for some time and having another baby didn’t fix it. Losing the family river trips was a sore point with Max but he went along with it as graciously as he could. He knew they were having a hard time and figured that his mum and dad had probably lost their way. In any case, it’s difficult with two kids in a canoe.
But Max kept on paddling and Dad gave him his own kayak when he turned thirteen. ‘Just to help your hormones settle down’, he said. ‘Give ‘em something else to think about’, he’d laughed out loud while he fixed tea for the three of them.
So why try to convince Lou, the yellow fingered city boy, to step into a canoe and slip into water world? Because he was a friend. Lou could be relied on. He could shut his mouth. Max could talk about absolutely anything and say the stupidest things and Lou would treat him as though he were Einstein, discussing the theory of relativity. Birds’ droppings or God... it was all the same to Lou.
Max stood on the mound of packed mud and clay as fog crept all around him. Each time he came down to the river, this was his ritual. To stand, kayak hanging sideways in his left hand, long and heavy. His other hand held a lightweight carbon paddle, black from one blade to the other; his pride and joy.
Max would suck in the air until it reached the tips of his toes and the top of his head. Then he would wait for the moment when it felt right to go. He was about to edge down to the water when he heard – no, not heard – felt something. Sensed a prickle on the back of his neck...
He caught his breath and waited for another sign. Standing in the quiet, he tightened his grip on the shaft of the paddle and knocked his kayak against a stump, sending out a hollow thud across the water.
Max placed the kayak on the mud and slid it into the water, settling it with his hand. Placing one hand on the right edge of the kayak and the other on the left, he eased himself into the cocoon of his boat. With the paddle held along the length of the kayak, he pushed sideways out into deeper water and then, another ritual, sat swaying his body from side to side, rocking to get his balance, watching the currents catch the lowest leaves that jived with the slippery water.
Max heard the cry of a plover long before it skimmed into view, with its mate not far behind, tracing the path of the river from upstream. The fog on the river was like a chapel.
And thoughts of Lou fell around him as the mist fell around the river. Box gums formed a tunnel which opened up before Max and his kayak, inviting him to enter and rest, to enter and be held.
4
ON THESE EARLY MORNING TRIPS the yawning, stretching gums were living poetry. Each leaf a word, each branch a verse. Living poetry. Everytime the twigs and leaves fell weightless to the waiting currents, new growth would push out with all the vigour of a new born baby, crying to be part of it all.
Just past the Tarzan ropes the river emerged into a straight where, if you read the currents right, you could power upstream, and feel the stretch of your muscles and the strength of your belly.
Max paddled hard, then allowed the kayak to glide on the glass-topped river, cleaving the mist.
‘Wonder if Nick’ll be there?’
It was the question he always asked; some days not caring whether he was or he wasn’t. Other days he desperately wanted to see Nick, to talk. That was when Max was like a baby, longing for his mother’s breast.
Nick’s camp lay on a small island in the middle of the Maramingo River. To the untrained eye, the only evidence was a steel wire stretched between a small tree on the island, to a bigger one on the bank. A short jetty ran from the same side, the walkway made of cracked broken slats from packing boxes.
As Max slid past the rushing of a small creek, he heard the familiar sounds of the flocking crows: ‘gwar-gwar-gwar’ varied at times with the softer, more angelic end call: ‘wa-a-h’, that seemed to float away in the air.
The water around the island was always swirling. When he dug in his paddle, it seemed to offer no resistance. If you didn’t balance your body, the eddies could throw you, making your heart race in anticipation of an icy bath. But it was difficult water for another reason. Normally, you pulled your paddle backwards, away from the direction you were going. But in this kind of water, nothing was normal. The only way to deal with it was to move strongly into the centre of the stream, reach forward and dig your blade in, then ease your way into the maze of exposed roots in the mud beneath the trees.
But this morning the river spun him around, very nearly tipping him into the cold river. He floated out from the island and sat in his kayak, holding onto a small rock near the shore. ‘Nick... Hey, Nick!’, he yelled, his voice swallowed by the fog. The crows stopped bickering in the trees. They fluttered and settled.
‘Nick! It’s me – Max.’
A crow let out a single cry and then all was silent.
There was no sign of Nick. Sometimes Max would wait around for the old guy to show up, even though he knew this was useless. If Nick wasn’t there, he wasn’t there. He was like fog that vanished in the first rays of sunlight.
Max let go of the rock and allowed the current to take him back downstream, under leafy branches, past clumps of water grass, using his paddle to steady the boat. ‘I just wanted to see him’, thought Max, ‘to talk, to tell him about last night, about those words. He was the only one I could think of asking.’
He floated under the Wangrabelle Highway where massive brick pillars supported a towering bridge and the slap of the early morning traffic echoed on the water.
The pylons were graffiti targets. Names and years were daubed on the bricks, old memories of Noah’s Ark style floods. Lower down were the colourful tags and swirls of graffiti artists, who would abseil off the bridge, only the darkness listening to the clink of the carabiners and the slip of nylon ropes. Pushing out from the steel walkway, they’d swoop down, feet landing flat on the vertical sides of the pylon. Then they’d go to work with their spray cans. Beautiful yellow loops and blue splashes. Fat red circles outlined in black.
Max swivelled the kayak around to get a better look. He knew Lou would have loved being up on that wall, floating above the water like a city angel. He looked up at the bridge and wondered why his mate had done it. Don
e that. Max heard the call of a crow and tears welled in his eyes.
He’d had many dreams on the river, most of which he couldn’t remember much about. Some were daydreams, some were of revenge, some so beautiful they only came when paddling and breathing became a riff that took you to the stars.
There was this one dream, however, that Max never forgot. He’d dreamt of being able to stand up in his lighter-than-air kayak, arms outstretched, and float gently downstream, perfectly balanced.
At the end of a rare paddle with his little brother Woody, Max had made the mistake of telling him about his dream. Woody said it reminded him of how he felt about rivers – like he was the water and the water was him. Which was one of Woody’s many comments that could drive you crazy and suck you in at the same time.
5
MAX SLID HIS KAYAK into the rubber slings nailed to the back wall of the house. He had a hot shower and then lay on his bed. He heard his father wake up and curse the cold weather. He heard the rustle of a newspaper, the tearing of toilet paper, wiping his bum, the flush, the cistern filling and then the shower running over skinny feet and down the plughole.
‘Havin’ breakfast, Max?’ Woody poked his head in the door.
Max gazed straight ahead. ‘I’ll come in a minute.’
