One Dead Seagull

by Scot Gardner

  ‘Hi Wayne,’ she said softly and I jumped. She sighed and opened her eyes.

  I apologised for disturbing her and Jesus lifted his head when I spoke.

  ‘Oh, I had finished anyway. How are you?’

  I told her I was okay and she motioned for me to sit down at her desk chair. Asked me if I’d had any more dreams.

  ‘No. No more poxy dreams, just sleep.’

  There was half a minute of uncomfortable silence and I thought I had better go and wait for Den in his room. She sat up and Jesus jumped onto my lap, pinning me to the seat and purring like he’d just got a new set of batteries.

  ‘Did you hear the full story about Mr Richards?’ she asked as she clicked the stop button on her Walkman.

  ‘Yeah. Well, no. Mandy Masterson told me one story about Richo and Kylie Simpson. She reckons some of her mates heard Mr Johnson on the phone to somebody telling them all the details.’

  ‘Heard that story . . . that Richo’s the one who got Kylie pregnant? Sounds a bit off to me. Mandy is a bonehead.’

  I nodded. She might say some stupid things but she isn’t a bonehead. She gives me a bone in the pants, though.

  ‘I was mates with Kylie right up until the week before she left and she didn’t know she was pregnant. She was like, four months gone or something like that. I can’t believe that.’

  Must be time to leave. I started patting Jesus a bit roughly hoping he’d get the hint and jump down. He seemed to like it.

  ‘When I ovulate, right in the middle of my cycle, I get seriously horny and if I haven’t been drinking enough water then I get wicked pains in the guts. I reckon I’d know I was pregnant the month before it actually happened! Can’t believe that people can be so ignorant about their bodies.’

  I heard the toilet flush. Thank God. I stood up and Jesus obligingly dropped to the floor. Kerry started laughing.

  ‘You must have needed the toilet pretty bad, huh

  Wayne?’

  I looked at my crotch and it was covered with cat hair and wet spots. My face got hot and I left brushing the hair and fishy-smelling spit off my pants. Dumb cat.

  Dennis closed the door, and put a CD on—The Feral Pigs, title track from their Nasty Piece of Work album. Slash metal is soothing to the soul sometimes.

  ‘Kerry said Rebecca Hanson’s having a party tonight. Her mum and dad have gone to Brisbane or something. I think we should go,’ he shouted over the music.

  Den’s not exactly a party animal. Rebecca’s mates with Mandy and Cheryl and that group. She might be there. Mum would probably let me go if Kerry and Den were going. I asked him if his mum and dad knew about it.

  ‘Yeah. Mum’s driving us and picking us up.’

  Amazing. Wish my mum was that co-operative. I knew I’d have a bit of bargaining to do so I told Den I’d see him around eight o’clock. He nodded and closed the door behind me as I left. Kerry stormed past as I came down the hall and skidded on one of the floor rugs. She thumped on Den’s door.

  ‘Hey! Turn it down,’ she screamed.

  The music faded from a roar to a yell. She flared her nostrils, smiled and disappeared into her room.

  I cleaned up my bedroom. I know that sounds stupid but I have played this game before. I ask for something and Mum says ‘go and clean up your room while I think about it’. One step ahead when she gets home. I found about seventy dirty socks—the things breed under my desk. I have to admit it felt good when I’d finished. I sat down to marvel at how easy it was to turn my mosh pit back into a bedroom.

  ‘Hello love,’ Mum wheezed as she passed the door to my room. She stopped, stepped backwards and poked her head inside my door with a comical expression on her face.

  ‘What happened in here? Did you smell something rotting?’

  ‘No. Just thought I’d clean up a bit.’

  ‘Oh yeah ... nice job.’ I smiled. ‘Oh, Mum?’

  ‘Yeahhh?’

  ‘Could I go to a party with Den and Kerry tonight?’ There was a pause for thought. ‘Where?’

  ‘At Rebecca Hanson’s place on the other side of Fairleigh.’

  ‘How are you getting there?’

  ‘Gracie’s taking us.’

  ‘Well, how are you getting home?’

  ‘Gracie.’

  There was another pause for thought.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  My least favourite end to a conversation.

  Dennis phoned as we were sitting down for tea and asked if I wanted to stay at his place after the party. Mum had just levered a huge forkful of lamb chop and potato into her mouth. She nodded slowly. Yes!

  ‘No drinking, you hear? And if there’s any trouble I want you to start walking. Don’t be a bloody hero. If there’s any trouble you won’t be going out for the rest of the year.’

  I was a few minutes late getting to the Humes’ place but they weren’t waiting. I wished I hadn’t pedalled so hard up the Garrison Street hill and that I hadn’t had that smoke before I left. Dennis had just got out of the shower and his hair looked like it had been painted on. He reported that the giggling we could hear was Kerry and Carly getting ready. Carly was staying the night too. Den’s mum crept up behind him and ripped the towel off that had been covering his lower half.

  ‘Whoooooo!’ she cooed as she strode up the hall. She rapped on Kerry’s bedroom door. ‘Girls! Come on! The floor show has started.’

  Instead of freaking out, like I knew I would, Den just stood there, his penis nestled in curly black pubic hair. It hung to the right, just like mine. I can’t believe I noticed that. The door of Kerry’s bedroom burst open and Den bolted to his drawer and grabbed a pair of jocks. He looked cleaner and smarter than I did but he topped it off with that old leather vest and I felt at home again.

  Gracie dropped us off and said that she would be back at midnight to pick us up. I had butterflies that got suddenly stronger as I heard the thumping bass drum sound leaking from the walls of the brick house that Kerry told us was Rebecca’s. Bold as a fox terrier, Kerry waltzed in the front door, closely followed by Carly and me. Den was taking a leak on the lamppost in the nature strip. I wish I had thought of that, my bladder was going to burst.

  There were about ten people in the lounge room. Lit by a lamp in one corner, the lounge room was dark and I couldn’t recognise anyone. Kerry was squinting at someone sitting in a deep armchair perusing a CD cover. The person looked up and returned the squint. They recognised each other and squealed their delight, hugged and kissed at the air beside each ear. Carly joined in and they jiggled with excitement. Bizarre. Must have been all of five hours since they were last together. My eyes finally adjusted to the light and I began to recognise people. Most of them were around our age but I only knew them as faces mostly from Chisholm Catholic, where Rebecca went before she was expelled for smoking. I recognised the one boy in the room—Gary Reardon, the geeky school brain from Mrs Kneebone’s home group. I moved over to say hello; he looked like his mum had dressed him.

  ‘G’day Wayne,’ he said and took his hand out of his pocket to shake mine. Shake hands? What a tosser. I took his hand anyway. It felt like a dead eel. I asked him where all the lads were and he told me they were there a minute before but had disappeared. He offered me a drink of something yellow in a small Coke bottle. I regarded it suspiciously and he assured me it wasn’t poison. I uncapped the bottle and took a swig. Warm cough medicine. The type my mum puts herself to sleep with every other night.

  ‘You like it? Galliano. Top shelf.’

  It wasn’t bad. I had another slug and took a bit into my lungs. I started coughing and Gary was slapping me on the back and laughing.

  The side gate was open and light coming from the garage lit up a rectangle of grass under the clothesline. I found a lemon tree and nipped behind it to unload my bladder. Not a moment too soon. A shadow moved through the rectangle and I peered in the window. At first, I could only see backs but they were people I knew. David Henderson, Shane Lee and Carlso
n were the three closest to me—all from my year at Chisholm. Carlson goes to Venturers with Den. They were huddled around, looking at something. Shane leant over and grabbed a lighter off the bench and nearly hit his head on the single light bulb dangling from the roof. He’s the tallest kid in school— even bigger than the year twelves. Mr Davis was talking about him in Earth Science the other week, saying that he was a genetic anomaly because he was already a foot taller than his mum and dad. Mr Davis said he hoped Shane would be a basketball player. Shane went red. He’s useless at basketball. He’s so uncoordinated it’s dangerous. Constantly tripping over his feet. Everyone stays away from him in PE.

  There was a flash and the little huddle began to disperse letting clouds of smoke tumble and fill the space. Den was the centre of attention, holding a bong the shape of a skull and sucking frantically on the draw pipe, the contents of the cone glowing bright orange then dark in time with his cheeks.

  I banged on the steel door and in my deepest, most adult voice said, ‘Right, what’s going on in here?’

  ‘Shit. Hide the bong,’ Carlson whispered. He needs to be in Venturers—got no common sense.

  I rattled the handle on the door and then barged in. They were wide-eyed and panicked.

  ‘Jeez you’re an idiot, Wayne,’ Carlson said pulling at his collar. Den produced the bong from inside his jacket and giggled as he lit up again. The skull bubbled and gurgled as we each took our turn. Apparently it was Carlson’s bong but I don’t think he’d ever used it. He coughed his guts up for about a minute after his first toke. Den looked like he had just woken up.

  Mandy had arrived. She looked like a bloody angel, all smiles and golden hair. I smelt her before I saw her. She was standing against the space heater talking to a bloke I didn’t know with a goatee and three earrings in his left eyebrow. Are they still called earrings when they’re in your eyebrow? It looked all right on him, fitted in with the blond dreadlocks and the leather bracelets. He was nodding as Mandy was speaking to him, nodding from the shoulders. Sort of head-butting the air. I walked straight up to Mandy and put my arm around her waist. She jumped and then she realised it was me and put her arm around my shoulder. Gave me a peck on the cheek.

  ‘Wayne, this is Steve, Steve ... Wayne. I go to school with Wayne.’

  Her arm dropped from my shoulder at the end of the introduction and I tried not to look obvious as I took my arm from around her waist. I felt like a dork. I didn’t realise she and Steve were, you know, at the party together and that. Steve was still head-butting the air and I realised he wasn’t nodding; he was dancing. I looked around, trying to find an escape route—someone to talk to or something to do—when Cheryl Bickerton darted out of the door beside the space heater, checking out her clothes. She gave Mandy a shove with her hip and claimed the front of the heater. Then she grabbed Steve by the front of his surf pants and dragged him into a hug. Suddenly they were pashing like Siamese twins joined at the lips and I didn’t feel like an idiot any more. Then Mandy looked around for someone else or something to do. There was an empty spot on the couch and I asked her if she wanted to sit down. She shrugged and started towards the couch so I dived in and patted the seat next to me but she had already turned around, miming that she had to get a drink. Did I want one? Yeah!

  Henderson was off his tree. He was in the corner showing Kerry and Carly the stupid condom trick. He sniffed the unrolled tip up one nostril then coughed it out of his mouth. The ring bit hung out his nose and the floppy tip dangled out of his mouth. He pulled it back and forth and loudly announced that it’s the best way he knows to clean out his sinuses. He only does it when he’s really stoned. I’m sure it’s the only way he’s ever used a condom.

  Felt like she’d been gone a long time. Heaps more people had arrived and I guessed the kitchen was a bit of a maze like the rest of the house. Den floated across the room and landed in Mandy’s seat.

  ‘Someone sitting there, mate,’ I shouted.

  ‘Wha?’

  ‘That seat’s taken already.’

  ‘Wha?’

  ‘Shift your arse, Mandy’s sitting there,’ I shouted right in his ear. There was a dedicated pause as he thought about what I’d said.

  ‘Yes thank you. I’ll have two with onion,’ he chuckled. Just for a split second the room fell quiet. There was a gap between songs on the CD and it was like there was a huge hole in the party. Everyone stopped talking. Den had time to look at me in bewilderment before Hendo broke the silence with a massive burp that made me and a few others laugh. The next track on the album was the Black Glass song ‘Jungular’ with the fiercely distorted guitar intro. The very second those guitars started, a flash of white erupted from outside and the house fell into darkness. The guitar sound vanished with a pop and was replaced by the sound of breaking glass and girls squealing. Den shouted for everyone to get down. With my head between my knees I couldn’t tell if anyone else was listening to him. In time, the breaking glass faded to a musical tinkle. I was waiting for the next noise; the next calamity but there was nothing. Hendo was the first one to speak.

  ‘What the bloody hell was that?’

  Gingerly lifting my head I looked around the room. I was expecting to see blood and guts everywhere but there were only frightened eyes. Carly started to cry.

  ‘Is everyone okay?’ Den shouted. I felt paralysed from the neck down. Henderson, filled with bent courage and too much grog, moved to the front door. I looked to where the glass had come from and saw a football-sized hole in the lacy curtain and behind it, a shark’s jaw in the glass. A spotlight from outside illuminated the window.

  ‘Shiiiit.’

  ‘What is it, Hendo?’

  Den moved for the door and I followed him, hanging on to the back of his leather vest. On the nature strip laid a crumpled Saab with a wooden lamppost broken over the bonnet. A cobweb of wires lay on the neighbour’s grass, fizzing and crackling. The one remaining headlight of the car was twisted up and pointing at the broken front window of Rebecca’s house.

  ‘Shiiiit.’

  ‘Rebecca. Ring the ambulance. Now. And the cops,’ Den barked as he walked briskly to the wreck. I was still hanging on to his vest and being dragged along until he smacked my hand off. Here I am, I thought, finally going to see my first real—live—dead person and I’m hanging on to Den like I’m two years old. I couldn’t believe how confident he was. Maybe it was the dope. Maybe it was all that bloody first-aid training at Venturers. He walked straight up to the busted car and stopped. He gingerly brushed the back of his hand against the door then grabbed the handle. I had pictures of heads rolling out when he opened the door. Maybe he did too because he stopped and looked in the tinted window. After a few frustrated seconds of putting his hand on the glass to try and stop the reflection he just ripped the door open.

  ‘Hey. You okay?’ I heard him say softly. ‘Come on. Let’s get you out of there.’

  I was suddenly aware of the strong smell of petrol.

  ‘Den. This whole thing could blow up . . .’

  ‘Too right, Einstein.’

  Part of me wanted to run back inside and part of me wanted to start running home but by far the biggest part of me wanted to see the blood.

  Den was reaching in to undo the seatbelt, speaking quietly and reassuringly to whoever was inside. He pulled himself out and brought the driver’s hand with him. Long, red fingernails gripped tightly around his palm and the body inside began to move.

  ‘Come on. Gently does it.’

  ‘Den. The phone’s dead,’ Kerry yelled from the doorway.

  ‘It’s okay, my wife has phoned the police,’ said a gravelly voice. A man with grey hair and a grey moustache stood watching from the safety of the other side of the road.

  Den helped the lady to her feet. She was shaky and very tall. Her long, red hair splashed across the back of Den’s vest as he put his arm around her waist and slipped under her arm. I moved to her other side and helped her into the house. Someone had lit some
candles and set them up on the dining room table. We helped her sit down. She was thanking us and trying to get the hair out of her face. She looked like a model underneath the running mascara and tears. There was no blood.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Den asked again and she nodded.

  I suddenly realised that there might have been other people in the car so I ran back out. All the seats were empty and an airbag lay limp like a used condom against the steering wheel. There was another limp airbag on the passenger’s side hanging over the glove box. The lady’s wallet was on the floor and I reached in to get it. Outside I heard a loud electrical crack and remembered the potential bomb that I was in. I hurried back inside and gave the lady her wallet.

  The ambulance arrived in all its flashing, wailing glory. Then the police came and soon after that a lumbering great fire truck that sprayed foam over the fuel and the car. The ambulance men were polite and gentle. The policemen were gruff and told everyone to go out the back, shining the way with bright torches. Carly was sobbing now and Rebecca complained that it was her house. The policeman apologised and escorted her out the back explaining that it was still dangerous to be in the front of the house.

  ‘Bloody kids everywhere,’ one of the cops said to Steve. In a while, a fireman came out through the side gate and told the cop that everything was okay. He reflected like a traffic sign in the cop’s torch and his rubber suit squeaked and squawked as he walked.

  ‘Can we go?’ Steve asked the cop.

  ‘Yes. Let me write down your names and addresses and you can go.’

  Mandy, Cheryl and Steve were the first ones to leave. Steve told the cop his name was David. It was eleven o’clock and we started walking back to the Humes’ house. Gracie was getting ready to leave as we got there. She listened without making a sound as Kerry and Den took turns in telling her what had happened.

  ‘Lucky you guys were there to sort things out,’ she said. I could hear her talking to Barry for hours after that.