Zigzag Street

by Nick Earls

  Okay. Great. Thanks.

  He takes the shoe and the heel around the corner into his workroom and I hear a single loud whack. He comes back.

  I’d say you’ve got two minutes twenty seconds up your sleeve Mr Hiller. He hands me the shoe.

  I thank him profusely for at least the twenty seconds and he stands behind the counter exuding quiet, professional cool. The members of the queue resume their places, confident that their shoes will be safe in his hands.

  Who’s next? I hear him saying as I run out the door.

  I circle round into the mall, watching out for the muscular dystrophy guy, and my shirt is flapping wet against my body with sweat and I feel disgusting. I dodge among shoppers and small children, tourists with icecreams, crowds around a banjo player, crowds around a fire-eater. Don’t these people have anything to do? Can’t they at least understand that not everyone is aimlessly browsing? And I get into the inevitable dodging duel with someone walking towards me and at the last second he staggers out of the way, but he does manage to smear his satay stick all over my sleeve.

  I decide to cut through a shopping arcade. I run into Broadway but it’s packed too, mainly with people just hanging round in the air-conditioning and browsing even more aimlessly than outside. I fight my way up the escalator to the less busy gallery level. Up here I can run. I’m picking up speed. I’m going to make it now. I’ll get there on time. I’ll get there early and scrape the satay sauce off my sleeve and wear my jacket the whole afternoon. Things will be fine, just fine.

  I cover the whole length of Broadway in about ten seconds but it feels like four, and I’m hardly slowing down when I hit the escalator to go back to ground. I’m going to make it now.

  And the shoe slips from my sweaty hand and sails out ahead of me off the down escalator and I shout, Look out, just in time for a woman to turn her head and take it in the face.

  This is bad, this is one of those horrible moments of slow-motion inevitability. The shoe turning over and over in its downward arc, her turning head. The two of them meeting with an almost mathematical certainty. Her head snapping back, the dark frame of her glasses snapping right in the middle at the point of impact, her knees buckling, her bags dropping, her fumbling, instinctive attempt to catch the shoe as she crumples to the ground between the ornamental figs at the base of the escalator.

  And I’m careering down the escalator four steps at a time, vaulting the rubber hand rail, pushing people aside to get to her, and I’m shaking her. I’m shaking her as though that might be useful and I’m shouting, Are you okay? Are you okay? when obviously she isn’t. Her eyes open and she fights to see what’s going on as she props herself up on one elbow. I put my arm around her to support her and her face is pale, apart from the growing bruise low in the middle of her forehead. And I don’t know if that’s from the shoe or if she hit her head on a fig pot, but either way it’s a bad day for her face, either way it’s all my fault.

  Um, she says, thinking hard. I can’t see without my glasses.

  This, of course, is a problem, as I have smashed her glasses to buggery. One lens is in pieces about a metre away, with its arm a metre beyond that. I’m trying to work out where the other half is when she pulls it out from beneath her and tries to wear it. She seems unable to understand why it keeps sliding off her bruise.

  It’s broken, I tell her.

  Oh, no, she says. I just bought them. How am I going to get new ones? I can’t afford new ones.

  That’s okay. I’ll get you new ones.

  Really? she says, holding the lens up to her right eye like a monocle. Why? Why would you get me new ones?

  I broke the old ones.

  How?

  It was an accident.

  I think I’m missing something here. What happened? Am I okay? Hey, I’m sitting down. I’m sitting on the ground in Broadway. Between two little trees. Wait, do I know you?

  No, no. Something slipped out of my hand and hit you and you fell over.

  Look, take my money. Take my money. I don’t have much. It’s all in my purse, just, please, don’t hurt me. And she starts to cry.

  No, no. This is all right. This is an accident. No-one’s taking your money. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.

  The Mastercard’s no good. They cancelled it.

  Yeah, fine. That’s smart thinking, but just listen to me. You’ve had a bump on the head, but things are going to be okay. You’re quite safe now.

  They cancelled my Mastercard and I was only slightly over my limit.

  No-one wants your Mastercard.

  By now, we have a ring of people around us, all of them curious to see the woman I have knocked out rediscovering the world, realising she is not being mugged, coming to terms with her credit crisis, looking with her one available eye at the semicircle of knees in front of her. And she seems completely oblivious to the steadily enlarging mass rising from the front of her head.

  So, she says, there was an accident. But I’m okay now.

  Yeah. Basically okay, yeah. But I think we have to get your head looked at. You’ve got a bit of a bump there.

  Yeah. I don’t feel very well. I’m a bit thirsty. Are you thirsty?

  Well, yeah. It’s a hot day. But we can have a drink some other time maybe. I mean you can have something to drink soon, but I think we’ve got to get your head looked at.

  Some problem here? a big male voice says just behind me.

  I look around and it’s a security guard, a man with shoulders so big they only just leave room for his bullet-shaped head. And a scar on his right cheek, and hands that could crush a watermelon. And I may be stereotyping him, but I don’t think he’s too clever.

  It’s just … this woman just fell over, I tell him. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.

  He keeps staring at me.

  It’s really okay. I’m a doctor. I can sort this out. She’s just a bit dizzy. A bit dehydrated maybe. It’s a hot day.

  He kneels down on the ground, and I think my body is about the same size as each of his thighs.

  Are you right there? he says to her.

  She nods.

  Will you be right if I leave you with the doc to sort you out?

  Yeah. I’ll be fine. Thanks.

  Okay then. He stands up again. Thanks doc. I’ll leave her with you if you’re happy with that. If there’s anything you need, just send someone up to centre management on the first floor and we’ll sort it out for you.

  I thank him and he swaggers away (as men with those thighs must), happy that this problem is now successfully delegated.

  She’ll be right, I tell the people around us. She’s just a bit dehydrated.

  And they recognise this as the voice of authority, telling them they should leave now.

  So am I dehydrated or did I have an accident, or what? she says when she’s had time to process this apparent inconsistency. And she peers at me through the lens with big blinks of an attractive grey eye.

  An accident. So we’re going to get you to a doctor now.

  But you’re a doctor.

  Yeah. I’m not that kind of doctor.

  What kind of doctor are you?

  That doesn’t matter now.

  No, what kind?

  I’m a dermatologist. Okay?

  Wow. You’re a very young dermatologist.

  I’ve just looked after my skin well. It’s my job. Now, let’s try to get you standing, slowly. And I’ll help you.

  She takes my arm, puts one hand on my shoulder and pulls herself to her feet. She leans heavily against my side for balance. Her face goes pale again, but she tells me she’s okay.

  Then I remember the shoe.

  We’re going to get you to sit down for just a second. I’ve got to get rid of this shoe. Okay? So just sit here and I’ll be back in a second.

  And I ease her down onto a bench.

  I run out to Adelaide Street and I flap my arms till a taxi looks like stopping.

  Twenty bucks to take this shoe to
an office two blocks away, I say to the driver as he pulls over.

  Sure. And who do I ask for mate, Cinderella?

  Hillary. I mean, that’s very funny, but you ask for Hillary. Hillary Fisher on fifteen.

  I write down the address and Hillary’s name and ask him to tell her there’s an emergency so I can’t make it, but everything’s okay.

  And he takes the shoe and the twenty dollars, says, No worries, and sends the car screeching off up the street with a far greater sense of urgency than I ever meant to suggest.

  Back in Broadway the woman sits where I left her, still looking dazed. I pick up her shopping bags and lead her outside, and I flag down another cab.

  Have you got a doctor? I ask her. A regular doctor? Someone in particular we should take you to?

  No.

  Okay. Okay, we’ll go to mine.

  I give the cabbie the address.

  I’ve got this rash, she says. It keeps breaking out, just on my fingers.

  Yeah, well, we’d better get your head sorted out first. That’s probably more important right at the moment.

  Sorry, it was rude of me to ask. I just thought, Here I am in a cab with a dermatologist, you know?

  Okay, maybe it’s the detergent you use. If it’s fingers it could be detergent.

  Oh, right. So what should I do about it? Is there any cream I should use, or anything?

  Cream. Yeah, a cream would be good.

  Which cream? Could you give me a name?

  She’s got me with that one. Just when I’d impressed myself with the detergent theory.

  Okay, I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m not a dermatologist.

  You’re not a dermatologist?

  No.

  Then why did you say were a dermatologist?

  It was a spur of the moment thing. A moment of weakness. It seemed like the thing to say.

  So what sort of doctor are you?

  A lawyer. I’m a lawyer.

  Really? I could have sworn you said doctor back there. That’s why I asked you what kind of doctor you were. This is very strange. I guess it’s just from being knocked out. I can just hear this conversation, you and some guy, and you’re a doctor. Weird.

  We turn a corner and the sun comes in her side of the cab, and she shuts her eyes.

  It’s only now that I look at her properly, without the overlay of horror and fear, and I realise I have KO’d a babe. It concerns me that this has even occurred to me, as though I have some shoe-thrower’s ethical duty to offer all victims the same post-injury consideration.

  She gets comfortable with her head on the headrest and her eyes still closed and her dark, straggle-ended hair reaching down to her shoulders. And she looks as though she’s biting the left end of her lower lip, just slightly, and I think I should look away, but I don’t. Here I am, on a work day of some importance, riding out of town in a cab with a babe I’ve just concussed with footwear.

  With a head injury, we’re told Doctor will see you next, and we’re taken into the treatment room. I tell her the story about the flea-bath suicide attempt.

  So they’re going to think a lot of you now, aren’t they? she says. First you try to kill yourself with a cat, then you try to kill me with a shoe. Not a very competent man.

  Greg comes in and remembers me and says, Oh, hi Richard. How are things?

  Fine. Good.

  So you’re bringing your friends here now. That’s nice.

  Thanks.

  Now, we don’t have a file yet, so you’ll have to introduce me.

  The woman laughs. So go on Richard, introduce me to the doctor. Tell him about us.

  I don’t know your name, do I?

  No.

  Greg starts to look confused.

  I’m Rachel, she says. Rachel Vilikovski. And I’m here because Ricky knocked me out with a shoe.

  No-one calls me Ricky.

  No-one?

  Well, essentially no-one. And the shoe thing was an accident. It slipped out of my hand.

  Well, I don’t recall it. I was knocked out. He tells me it was an accident.

  It was an accident. Just one of those things. I was running for the down escalator. I’d been getting the shoe fixed and I was in a hurry and it slipped out of my hand.

  Okay, Greg says, and looks as though he wants to steer this back on track. So, Rachel, do you have a problem with this, with the shoe, or does it not bother you? I’m just thinking, and you’ll have to excuse me for this one Richard, but if you were going to take any action against Richard …

  I think he should go to jail for this, she says looking at me.

  Piss off. It was an accident. I’ve got witnesses.

  Oh, yeah. Like the security guy? Think about it Ricky. Think about his story.

  No, I’m thinking, well, look at Rachel’s nose, Greg says, fumbling for control. The bridge of Rachel’s nose. Supposing there’s a fracture there that needs cosmetic surgery. I don’t think that’s likely, but supposing …

  I’d pay. It’s okay. I’m responsible for this.

  I’m just thinking, maybe we should take a couple of photos, document the injury.

  Rachel, of course, agrees right away.

  So Greg takes down details, checks things out and thinks she looks okay, and sends her for x-rays, which are fine too. But we take the photos nonetheless, with Rachel grinning like a bulbous-headed babe.

  That’s a lovely smile, Greg says as he snaps the front-on view. It’ll look great in court.

  He gives her a Head Injury Card to carry with her for twenty-four hours, and a list of things that might suggest she is bleeding inside her skull or that her brain is being crushed by increasing pressure. Good list.

  We’re about to go when he notices my knee, and I have to tell him I bumped into a wheelchair. He looks at Rachel and she just says it’s before her time. So I drop my pants and I cop two stitches and a tetanus needle. Rachel insists it’s her right to stay and watch, and every time I wince she laughs.

  And Greg says, in the middle of tying the second stitch, I’m not sure I understand your life.

  I try to think of something useful to say, but in the end I just tell him, It hasn’t always been like this.

  He gives me a look that suggests considerable doubt, that I think suggests I have just come out with the standard response of a habitually self-destructive person. But I might be reading too much into it. It might just be his suturing face.

  Rachel looks round in her purse for her Medicare card and finds someone has put the lensless half of her glasses in there. So the three of us take a roll of surgical tape and fix the glasses together so that they just balance on her face and still manage to make allowances for her altered contours. She looks in a mirror.

  Hey, very attractive, she says. Nice look. I don’t know if I’ll need new ones. This is very ugly, isn’t it.

  She signs the Medicare form and I offer to drive her home and she says, Okay. I leave her in the air-conditioning and hobble up the hill to fetch my car. And it occurs to me that maybe I should have thrown my shoe at the cellist in the rain when I drove past her, instead of giving her the chance to get away. Beating a woman over the head and dragging her to your lair is, however, a very paleolithic way to get to know her, and not highly regarded in the late twentieth century.

  I bet Sal would be impressed if I began a relationship by knocking a woman out.

  Why do I think this? Why, after maybe an hour of female company, do I start imagining myself talking to my friends years later about how our relationship started?

  As I’m driving back I begin to wonder if she will still be at the medical centre. If I’ll park and they’ll say, It’s okay, she caught a cab. And then I can go back to work.

  But she’s there.

  And in the car all the way to her house at West End I’m thinking, what can I do to see this girl again? And I’m thinking I shouldn’t be thinking this, but fuck it, I am, and if I don’t think it now there’s no point in thinking it at al
l. I could at least get to know her better. We could maybe have coffee or something. Can I try that? Can I suggest coffee to a girl I’ve only met through rendering her unconscious? I’m unaware of the etiquette in this situation, but I expect I am not in a position of strength. Besides, she’s concussed. Her judgement might be impaired.

  But she is terribly attractive. That is, assuming the Elephant Man lump in the middle of her forehead goes down. Assuming it wasn’t there before the shoe hit her. And I can’t recall now. I can’t recall any detail of her, without at least some swelling. I could be sitting here nursing a massive erection through the traffic of South Brisbane, all on account of a girl with a very large additional piece of bone in the front of her head. But I can’t get a good look at it now because she’s holding an ice-pack over it. Not that it would be right to look.

  I think I am a very shallow person. I think it is bad to be put off someone just because of a piece of bone, and bad to be packing an absolute railway sleeper in my pants for someone to whom I feel I owe a duty of care. And there are many other things I can think of that are bad, but I tell myself this is not a time for making lists. This is a time for action.

  She wears no rings. I noticed that. Not that that necessarily means too much. She doesn’t talk about having a partner. But then, why should she? I don’t talk about not having a partner.

  How old would she be? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? I think that according to Jeff all babes that age seem to end up in your house at night fucking footballers. I’m not sure what was behind that, but it’s likely to have been a bad experience in his early twenties that he’s much more comfortable dressing up as a universal truth.

  So who do you think’ll win the Super Ten series this year? I ask her.

  The what?

  Doesn’t matter.

  Excellent. She has no idea about Rugby, and I think, on reflection, it was Rugby Union players who were of concern to Jeff.

  So, do you live in Red Hill? she asks me.

  Yeah.

  Nice area. In a house or a flat?

  House. My grandparents’ house, or at least, the house they built.

  That’s nice. Is it just you there or …

  Yeah. Well, at the moment.

  You’ve got plans?

  No, not plans. I just thought I might get some people in to share.