Time flies when you’re having fun—only two months to go if I behave myself. I’m trying to work out what you have to do to end up staying longer in here, anyway. Last night a kid tried to karate chop a warden and I would have thought that’d count for an extra day or two but so far he’s only been denied gym access, and you’d think they’d taken his teddy away or something, the way he’s carrying on.
Think Sull’s got a fair whack longer to do. Eight months, no probation, they said. He’s in some other joint way out woop-woop.
Mum visited me, which was pretty bad. She cried and shit. I told her to thank the old man for coming.
Anyway, where the hell are ya? All I’ve heard is ‘down south somewhere’ and ‘in hiding’. Mum told me where to write to but where the fuck is Nallerup? Isn’t that the joint where all the magic mushies grow—remember they caught a whole bunch of hippies a couple of years ago picking em out of some farmer’s paddock? I’m there! Any spare room on the floor? Reckon I’ll need a holiday after this little tour of duty, and I don’t think the old man’ll be opening the door for me, so whaddya reckon?
Take it easy and spin me some news. Like me new address?
Craggles
I read over Craggs’s letter again. I put it down. I read it again.
The envelope is stamped: Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.
Fucken hell.
I knew I shouldn’t have read it tonight. I wish I’d never got it. He sounds weird—too cheerful—like there’s other stuff he’s not telling, or bad vibes going on in his head. It’s hard to tell because he’s always pretty dry, you know. Doesn’t let on much.
The rain’s so loud now that I can barely hear myself think.
There’s a sort of coldness around my foot. I look down. A puddle. On the floor, inside, and I’m standing right in it.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ I spit, ripping off my sock and almost taking my ankle in the process.
I prise open the jammed cupboard under the kitchen sink and chuck all the rags and sponges I can see onto the water, and my sock for good measure. As I’m feeling around in the cupboard, I come across an old towel wrapped around something. I unwind the towel, keeping the thing at arm’s length, just in case.
A torch falls out. A torch —finally, something fucking useful! I examine it, as though I know something about torches. It seems in reasonable nick. This could come in seriously handy. I open the battery compartment to rust and bubbled-out acid. I clean it out with the only dry rag left in the place—my other sock. Batteries. Of course: I don’t have any. I feel a slump coming on. Something else for the shopping list. I’ll have to wait days before I know whether it works.
I look up at the ceiling. Water is almost running in along one of the wooden beams.
‘Icecream container,’ I mumble, rummaging through the remaining cupboards. I yank my hand back. Big spider web. There’s too many surprises in this joint.
I stay away from the cupboards. There’s movement in that web. Maybe a bowl will do. A large salad bowl. Cos I’ve been having so many salads since I’ve been down here—you know, with rocket and parmesan.
I find a very seventies bowl and line it up so most of the drips hit it.
It takes a while for me to realise that once the drips have hit the bowl, they then bounce out of the bowl.
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, release me.
Newspaper, I think wearily. I need some paper to put in the bowl so the drips are absorbed. I look around. That’s not something I’ve been doing much of, either, funnily enough: reading the papers. Craggs’s letter catches my eye. It’s paper. I snatch it, shove it into the bowl.
It’s funny about Craggs. There’s this total other side to him. He’s got this thing about poor people—street kids and people asking you for money and stuff. Whenever we catch the train into town he ends up giving someone something. A dollar here, a ciggie there. He’ll give whatever he’s got to whoever asks. I’ve never seen him say no. Buskers in the mall, he’ll sling em a few coins. Little Aboriginal kids running around in a park—if they come over, he’ll swap the chat with them, throw their Frisbee back to em, kick the footy, whatever.
These kids approached us in town one day. One says, ‘Gotta cigarette for me, man?’
And Craggs just pulled out his smokes and let them go for it. There were two of them and they took two each.
‘Thanks, brother.’
He didn’t say anything when they went off, like it was completely normal.
‘Jeez, man, don’t you mind?’
‘Mind what?’ he said, looking at me. ‘It’s just a fucking smoke, Joel-boy.’
‘Yeah and they’re about twenty bucks a pack.’
‘Twenty bucks those dudes don’t have. You and I can thank our shining stars, sonny-boy,’ he said to me, grinning as he slapped me on the back.
I guess I took his point. But it was a hard one to remember the night when I was on my own and three blokes came up to me at the Freo train station. They were the kind of dudes who wear basketball gear even though they don’t play basketball. Long and loping and hoody and shiny. Anyway, I didn’t hear what they said to me but I just went, ‘Nah,’ and swung a 90-degree walk-off. I thought I was going to get smacked. I missed my bus home. I ended up walking most of the way. They probably only wanted a smoke or whatever but...
After that I began to really appreciate how Craggs handled those situations.
I hold the shack’s only piece of mirror up to me. It doesn’t even get my whole face in. I look pale and flat and uninteresting. Then I add a smile, and it all comes together. I’ve got an okay face; Bella says my eyes have a sort of kindness in them. There’s a bit of ratbag in there, too, but overall I don’t look like a shitty person. But I know: I have been. I’ve been involved in some evil stuff—I’ve been across a line that almost everybody else does not cross. I can’t ever take that back. I can’t undo it. It’s like I’ve got a stamp on my forehead that says juvenile offender, but it’s not like other stamps that you can wash off later. This one’s a tattoo. Those things don’t come off without surgery.
People say stuff like Something good often comes from something bad, but quite frankly I think that’s a full load of shit. What good thing can come out of me ruining my life, getting a criminal record, losing most of my mates, freaking Bella out and having to be so far away from her, pissing off my old man, almost getting kicked outta school for The Rest of My Natural Life (jeez, bummer) and screwing up my mind? Uh, hello, as the girlies say. Not much, I’d suggest. Not much at all.
I grab a piece of paper off the mouldy stack.
Joel Stratton is ... tired, pissed off, lonely, stupid. Bored. Boring?
Joel Strattan is: student on sabbatical, juvenile offender, problem youth, screwed up, messed up, fucked up. Blowjoel to Craggs, Joeyjoel to Bella that night down by the river, Joel Cameron Strattan to the cops. Just Joel. He is dangerous, safe, doing okay, going bad, on his way, on a one-way, on the wrong way, on the highway. Highway to hell. He’s a kid in the forest, a kid with a past, a kid with a heart; a livewire, a loser, a lost soul; a boyfriend, a son, a kid with a file.
Joel’s like junk in a river, drifting this way and that, going nowhere, maybe going somewhere, origins unknown; getting sucked down, murky down, way way down, going, going...
16
I stagger out of the shack in the morning like an old dero. I just have to get out of the place, get some sun. I want to write to Bella but not with my head the way it is at the moment, or I’ll probably say all sorts of lame stuff I regret. I’ve got a bottle of water and a packet of Saladas with me so I should be okay for a few hours. It’s clear like space out here—everything looks hyper-real in the morning sun.
I take some deep breaths as I get going and try to settle my head a bit. I’m going walking; I’m going to find the swimming hole. That’s today’s list of activities from start to finish. Thinking, you may notice, is not on the list. Especially that psycho twisty-thinking that’s like
being on one of the rides at the Royal Show—you go over and over and over and over the same patch of ground until not only do you need to hurl into the crowd but you know nothing’s going to change as long as you’re on that ride.
The bush is thick and I get hell scratched trying to follow the old fenceline, but I can’t afford to lose sight of it because it’s my only guide. I hug the fence as it heads deeper into the forest, in the opposite direction from town, until it meets the hiking trail. The Bibbulmun or Bubblegum or Bubblebum or whatever the hell it’s called. I work out that it’s about 2 kilometres from the house, based on the estimate that it takes me about ten to fifteen minutes to walk a kilometre. As in, extremely bloody slow. You end up doing about 4 or 5 kilometres an hour, depending on how much you’re gunning it. Dad said to get to the swimming hole you follow the track until you get to a hut where hikers camp at night, and the river isn’t far from there. The track is pretty easy, over flat ground, and there are small triangular signs every kilometre or so, so I know I’m not gunna get totally lost or anything. It’s quite reassuring to see signs of life round here to be honest, but I’m praying I don’t come across anyone, cos I’m not up for small talk, if you know what I mean.
My mind roves over life at home. There’s a few memories that are particularly large, no matter how long ago they happened. It must be the quality of the sun or something this morning, but this one time keeps popping up. I’d ridden over to Craggs’s. I was bored and thought he might want to go for a cruise or something. As I got closer to his house I realised that was never going to happen. I almost veered away, to leave them all to it, but instead I pulled up along the side fence and looked over, keeping my head down, in case Mr Adams was there.
I saw Craggs and his sister straight away.
‘What’s happening?’ I said quietly, trying to get a view of anything inside the house.
Craggs’s head jerked up. He was out the back of his place, with his little sister, Hannah. ‘Jesus! What are you, a bloody jack-in-the-box?’
I laughed gently. ‘Sorry, was just seeing what you were up to—but I guess it’s not a good time.’
From inside their house I could hear his old man raging, and the high-pitched shrieks of Mrs Adams in between.
‘Nah, bad time. Very bad time.’
‘What are you doing?’ I nodded towards Hannah.
‘Oh.’ Craggs kind of shook his head. ‘Just getting her set up.’ He looked over briefly. ‘She’s only seven.’
He was arranging some plastic chairs around an old plastic table outside, in the shady side of the garden shed. He got Hannah to sit down and then he brought over a bucket of textas and pencils and a few sheets of paper. She didn’t look at me, but I could see from the side of her face that she’d been crying. Craggs looked about as stressed as I’d seen him.
There was a smashing from inside, like someone was taking to the furniture with an axe. Then screaming—Mrs Adams—and more bellowing, more smashing. Hannah looked at Craggs but her chin didn’t let her get any words out. Craggs pulled his chair close and put his arm around her. He said something to her that I couldn’t hear and I reckoned then it was time for me to leave.
I turned my bike and mumbled, ‘See ya, guys. Come over if you need anything.’ There was no need to wait for an answer before riding off. I felt scared. How must they have felt?
The track doglegs after half an hour and through the trees I can see the hut. It’s pretty sweet—there’s sun all over it and a fireplace out the front. There’s space to sleep about eight and a wooden table to sit at. It’s only got three walls, though, so it must get bloody ball-clamping at night. I reckon they’ve kept it three-sided for the view, cos the place looks down over tall, old forest. If it had four walls I reckon I’d nearly say it’s better than my joint. There’s a water tank around one side. Could come in handy if I run out.
I swing around the back of the place, which is empty—no sleeping-bags or warm fires or anything—and find an old trail leading away. I can’t see anything else that looks promising, so I follow it. It goes way down, so I figure I’m doing okay, cos you usually have to go down to get to rivers, don’t you? Rivers are always at low points in the land, I remember Mr Hanrahan saying. Cocksucker. But hey, he taught me one useful thing: that rivers are always at low points in the land. I meander down, trying not to think about Bella or Craggs or the old man’s letter that I still haven’t read, or the fact that I’m gunna have to go into town again horribly soon.
A kooka flies right across the path with a gecko in its mouth, bloody scares me. The track gets super steep and I slip down until I can see a round, green, perfect pool in the river. It’s big, at least 20 metres across. And it looks deep—I can’t see the bottom. There’s a mini-waterfall rushing in at one end, so the water can’t be stagnant or anything. It’s awesome. I rip off my jeans and jocks and am about to throw myself in when I figure I should test it out first for temperature. I stick my foot in up to my ankle. And I pull it out again. It’s ridiculously freezing, but I’m starkers out here so I just hurl myself in like a lunatic.
It takes a while before I can breathe again, even once I’ve popped up. I actually think my heart might have stopped beating for a few long, icy seconds. My balls shrink to lentils and my eyes probably resemble a frog’s. It’s the coldest water I’ve ever been in; it’s pain ful. Once I’m sure I’m still alive I do some rapid freestyle to warm up, and then the water starts to feel halfway bearable. Soon I’m floating on my back in heaven, just happy to have found this place. The water is amazing! My eyes feel as though they are open—really open —for the first time since I got here. Lying on my back and looking up at the trees, I feel like I’m in a flotation tank or something. Eventually, I swim to the edge and crawl up the bank and it’s about then that I realise I didn’t bring a towel. It’s too cold to sit here and dry naturally—my cods still haven’t recovered from the shock—so I use my T-shirt to wipe most of the water from my body. When I pull on my jeans I feel like a new man. I lie out on the rocks for a while longer, soaking up the sun.
Tonight maybe I’ll sleep.
17
I hear something moving through the bush on the other side of the pool. Sticks are snapping and leaves shuffling and I’m wondering: what the hell is this thing? What animals are out here, anyway? Roos, okay—it could be a roo. Pigs? Bush pigs? The real kind, I mean, not the ones at school. Wallabies? Most of the other critters are nocturnal, like possums and numbats and whatever. Let’s face it, numbats may as well be extinct for how often anyone ever gets to see them—and stamps and coins don’t count.
I can see branches moving and something coming closer—and it’s quite big. Can’t make anything out yet but I stay super still and silent. My heart’s beating to an African rhythm, and then whatever it is comes right out, right out into the open, and I’ve seen one of these before, oh yeah, everyone’s seen one of these. They usually hang out in the city, mumbling crap to themselves or going through the bins looking for half-eaten lunches. Species: Oldus derus. I’m pretty shocked to see this guy out here, actually, and don’t know whether or not to say anything. The guy has obviously split the park bench scene and headed down here for a spot of quiet time. He looks about sixty or seventy, big beard, old clothes but they look clean, and he’s leaning down at the edge, cleaning out his pots and pans in the stream! Who knows what I’ve been swimming in—leftovers from last night’s old-dero ravioli? Jesus. I lean forward a bit and see that he’s actually washing his gear in the running stream as opposed to the pool, so that’s not quite as bad. It’s then that the pointy rock under my left butt cheek decides that it’s had enough of the view and falls away, clacking loudly on the rocks further down.
I’m busted. (How many more times am I gunna have to say that?)
He stands up straight and peers over the water.
I stand up, too, and raise my hand and call out like a total ask-the-Leyland-Brothers loser, ‘G’day there.’
He squints at m
e suspiciously.
What do I say? Anything? Nothing? I’m Joel? Nice weather? Nice outfit?
‘You one o them hikers?’ he grunts out over the water.
‘Uhh ... n-no.’
I can see his eyes narrowing. He’s looking seriously pissed off.
‘Well, what are ya, then?’
Good fucken question, mate. If only I knew. I concentrate on not stammering like a clown, highly likely when I’m nervous. ‘I’m staying in my dad’s cabin, just up there.’ I wave weakly in the general direction.
His eyes open up then. ‘What, the old shack?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Bloody bejesus son of Mary.’
Just what I was gunna say. And pretty much how I feel about it, too.
‘No one’s been there for years.’
‘Yeah, I know. Where do you—? Do you live around here?’
Major squinting again. ‘Never you mind, sonny. A man’s got a right to his privacy, that’s all I ask.’
Jeez-uss. Sorry. Just tryin to be friendly, mate. ‘Yeah, course, okay.’
There’s a fairly long silence. Parrots cry in the distance.
‘I went for a swim,’ I finally blurt out.
‘Cold, was it?’
‘Oh yeah.’
That gets a laugh out of him. ‘Yeah, come down meself every now and then for a bath.’
Eerg.
‘Real refreshing, eh.’
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