One Dead Seagull

by Scot Gardner

  •

  I couldn’t get to sleep. I should have jumped on my bike and ridden home at three in the morning. I dozed and woke up twenty times between that thought and daylight. I wanted my own bed and the radio. Eventually daylight came and I got dressed and quietly left to have breakfast and some decent sleep at the flat.

  It was a foggy spring dawn and the magpies were calling quietly as I pulled up. Magpies, and in the distance a squawking seagull. Even the birds weren’t properly awake. The little alcove at the front door stunk. Not just that Velo-cat-piss smell, but something burnt and horrible. In the weak daylight I could see charring on the fibro and the door like someone had taken to them with a gas torch and the plastic fly-wire had been melted all over the steel of the busted security door that leant against the other wall. I pushed through the door and went to Mum’s room. She sat up like a rabbit and asked me what the matter was.

  ‘What happened to the door?’

  ‘Oh, we had a visitor during the night. Some idiots lit a whole pile of paper and . . . stuff on the porch. Scared the life out of me. I put it out with water from the kettle and called the police. They were here for about half an hour and helped me calm down and clean up.’

  Her hair looked funny, like her head had exploded during the night. She said that in the middle of the pile of paper was a turd. Someone had crapped in it and set it alight. That was sick.

  Dennis was a hero at school. The story I heard was that he had rescued a woman out of the wreck of her car. Saved her life. Gave her mouth-to-mouth and kept her going until the ambulance arrived. It was a bit of a laugh really. The Friday after the accident, the woman arrived at school. Her name was Katrina and the police had told her to ask for Dennis at the school. He’d had lunch with her and the teachers in the staff room. Afterwards he said it was a real wank but I think he enjoyed it. He told me that he thought Katrina was gorgeous. I had never seen him so animated about a woman. Ever. She’d said her husband had just told her that he was having an affair and their marriage was over.

  ‘It was like a bloody soap opera. And she was telling me like I cared.’

  I think he did. I would have given her mouth-to-mouth.

  Griz roughed him up again that afternoon. Den was hurrying to the bus from his locker and Griz pushed him into the corner so he dropped his bag. I shouted at Griz to leave him alone. Griz told me to shut my hole.

  ‘Two hundred bucks. Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t have two hundred dollars,’ he said, which was a lie. Den is loaded.

  ‘That’s not my problem. Tomorrow.’

  Den shrugged and picked up his bag. There was half a smile on his face. ‘All right. Here. Tomorrow.’

  Griz seemed satisfied until Pic whispered that tomorrow was Saturday.

  ‘We won’t be here. Make it Monday,’ Griz said.

  Den shrugged again and said that Monday would be okay.

  With that Griz bent down and punched him in the thigh and bolted out the sliding doors to the bike shed. Den limped out to the bus.

  We didn’t see each other until Tuesday. Den and Kerry had one of their ‘mental health days’ when their family goes camping or driving for the weekend and they all take the Monday off. They have done it about three or four times a year since Den was in kindergarten. Mum doesn’t let me take days off. I go to school unless, like my last day off in grade five, I’m coughing up blood.

  I was in the toilets before homeroom and Den rocked in to take a leak. He pushed me into the urinal mid-stream and I managed to pee on my runner and put my hand on the wet stainless steel. Mongrel. He laughed and showed me the bruise that Griz had given him while I washed my hands. It was yellowing already and the size of a tennis ball. He said it still hurt. I asked him what he was going to do about Griz and he grinned.

  ‘Pay him the money. You’ve got it in the bank,’ I said. He nodded. ‘That’s not the point. The pants and seat are worth about twenty dollars not two hundred. It’s extortion he’s into, not compensation.’

  Sometimes he sounds like his mum.

  Mandy was funny that week. She’d been strange since the party. It was the last day of school before I got to talk to her. Sally Thomas’s mum works at a bakery and had brought in a heap of cakes for our last day. It was like a little party in the common room.

  ‘Hey Mandy. How are you going?’

  ‘Yeah good, Wayne. How are you?’ she said pecking at the corner of an apple slice.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  An uncomfortable pause broken by stupid laughter as Hendo and Carlson pretended to ride around the corner on the big yellow Labrador that everyone calls ‘Spitball’. They’re really mean to that dog and it annoys the hell out of me. It must be someone’s pet. I knocked on the window and told them to leave the dog alone.

  ‘How would you like it if someone rode around on your back?’ Mandy yelled.

  Carlson extended his middle finger and gave me the bird. Hendo motioned for Mandy to come outside and get on his back. Mandy told him to piss off and I laughed.

  ‘Are you going away for the holidays?’ I asked and she shook her head.

  ‘You?’

  I nodded and shrugged, having just stuffed a creamy slice of sponge in my gob. I chewed hard and explained that I was working with Dad in the first week and going to Mars Cove with the Humes after that.

  She lit up at the mention of Mars Cove, explaining that her family had been going there for years. She said I’d enjoy it. Cheryl cut into the conversation then and I decided it was time to leave.

  ‘Hey Wayne!’ Mandy called as I walked off. ‘If you’re working over the holidays, remember it’s my birthday first week back and I’d love a really big present.’

  I nodded and asked her what date it was. She said that she liked chocolate and hadn’t got the new Feral Pigs CD. Twenty-second of September. She laughed it off and continued her conversation with Cheryl but I jotted it down in my mind. Maybe I could get her something.

  Den was unusually manic over lunch. Griz hadn’t turned up at school so he felt as though his death sentence had been reprieved.

  Dad burst into the flat at seven o’clock the next morning. Mum asked him to look after me and he grumbled that he always does.

  His old ute was parked out the front and it had a bit of a lean to the driver’s side. It used to be white but it’s more red-brown rust and mud now. There’s so much shit piled in the back that it looks as though he’s constantly heading for the tip. All his decent tools are locked in two battered steel toolboxes that live in the back and the ladders he needs are tied to the roof racks with shaggy rope.

  The passenger’s side door handle is broken—has been since before I was born—so Dad leant across the piles of clothes and papers to let me in. Two green beer cans fell out of the door and clattered into the gutter. I picked them up and stuffed them back with the others in the foot well. Stale beer and cigarettes. It smelled like adventure. Dad pumped the accelerator pedal and braced himself as

  he turned the key. The starter motor barked and the engine roared into life. We bucked and lurched down Vincent Drive and into Merrimans Creek Road. Five minutes and we were there. Wasn’t even in the next suburb.

  The house was one of those flash-looking Federation-style places with a dozen bedrooms and an upstairs. It was totally unlike the sort of shack Dad normally works on. A waist-high brick fence surrounded a garden bursting into springtime. The trees were covered with lime-green baby leaves and the lawn neatly finished where the rose beds began. It looked perfect except for the stacks of bricks and piles of sand and crushed rock that were blocking the side gate. Dad parked the ute on the nature strip.

  I shovelled crushed rock into the wheelbarrow and carted it across the yard. It looked like Mr Thompson was just trying to spend money. A big area of concrete had been pulled out—Dad said contractors did that, thank God—and he wanted Dad to lay bricks the same colour as the house in its place. We spent the whole day moving rock and putting planks of w
ood in level. At about four o’clock, I filled a barrow a bit too full and rolled it onto the grass, spilling the rock everywhere.

  ‘Smoko,’ Dad chuckled and got the thermos out of his bag.

  We got to talking about the flaming shit-bomb incident and he asked me if I knew anyone that would have a reason to do it. No-one, except maybe Griz. I told him that Griz was a bit pissed at Dennis. Yeah, it would be something Griz would do.

  ‘What’s the bloke’s name again?’

  ‘Shane Grizotto.’

  Dad didn’t have a single smoke all day. Maybe he had quit. Jesus, I was dying for one. I picked up my mess and put it where it was supposed to go.

  Mum invited Dad to stay for dinner. That was out of the blue. He said he’d love to. I was getting a drink and Mum said under her breath that it would probably be the first home-cooked meal he’d had this month. Shepherd’s pie. Bliss. I ate like a kelpie and dragged myself from in front of the telly to bed at about half past nine. Knackered.

  Sunday was much of the same except my arms and bum ached and after lunch Dad had me racing around with a thing he called a ‘whacker’. That’s exactly what it does. It weighs about as much as I do and it vibrates like hell as it whacks all the rock into place. Turns loose rock into hard, flat rock and then we put the sand on top of that, one wheelbarrow at a time, and make it level with a screed—a long bit of wood with a handle nailed to it. At half past four I was totally whackered and screeded out, so we went home and Mum had tea ready for us both again. She’d been at Uncle Ted and Auntie Penny’s place all day so she’d bought pizza on the way home. And a couple of beers. It was something else sitting in front of the telly with my mum and my dad eating pizza and drinking beer. The beer was good and I almost finished a whole can. Give me bourbon any day. After tea Mum and Dad started to talk so I wished them goodnight and left them to it. I think I heard one song on my radio before I dozed off but I can’t be sure. Knackered.

  I got the surprise of my life the next morning. I showered, had breakfast and went to wait for Dad out the front and his ute was already there. It hadn’t moved. I ran into Mum’s bedroom and gave her a kiss goodbye—he wasn’t there either. I asked if she knew where he was and she grumbled that he’d slept on the lounge. Something was going on. Dad hadn’t slept in the same suburb as Mum since I was seven and Mum had let him camp in the lounge room. Wicked! He was sort of scrunched up in a ball and I hadn’t noticed him while I was getting ready.

  ‘Hey Dad. You coming this morning or what?’ I said and shook him gently. He sat up straightaway, still in his grubby work clothes. He took a leak, boiled the kettle, made a cup and a thermos full of coffee and slipped his boots on. The whole act took less than five minutes.

  ‘See you, Sylvie. Thanks,’ he shouted with the doorknob in his hand.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  It started raining as we pulled up in front of the Thompsons’ place. Dad said that the rain would mess up the work we’d done with the sand but it didn’t last long and we were screeding and moving sand for most of the morning. Just before lunch, Dad cracked through the metal tie on a pack of bricks with the claw of his hammer. All afternoon I had the privilege of moving bricks and putting them into piles. Dad laid them down as quickly as I could cart them. Quicker. He had to stop and help me unload a few times. Mr Thompson came home at about two o’clock and Dad introduced us while he oohed and ahhed at the work we’d done. It did look good and Dad was right—Mr Thompson was a nice bloke. He wore one of those train driver’s hats and he laughed a lot.

  We were packing up when a group of kids rode past the front. Griz and Otto Christiansen with his Saints beanie pulled too far down over his eyes. There were two other kids I didn’t know. They were scoping the place out and hadn’t recognised me. Griz spotted me at that exact moment.

  ‘Hey Wayne. What are you doing? Building a sandpit?’ Otto looked bewildered. ‘Is this your joint?’

  I didn’t say anything, just prickled.

  ‘No. Dickhead, he lives over on Vincent Drive. Don’t you Wayne? Having fun on your holidays and all that?’

  They laughed.

  ‘Hey Wayne,’ Griz said. ‘Tell that mate of yours that I’m coming around to collect my money tomorrow. Okay?’

  Dad came around the side of the house and they rode off.

  ‘Mates of yours?’

  ‘Nup.’

  He looked up the footpath until they disappeared. We finished loading the stuff into the ute and took off home. Didn’t say a word the whole way. He dropped me off out the front of the flat and said he’d pick me up in the morning. Mum had made tea for him again.

  ‘Arsehole,’ she said under her breath when I told her that he’d gone.

  Den rang that night. He hardly ever phoned. He wanted to know for sure whether I’d be coming with them on Sunday. He’s a different person on the phone, like he struggles with the whole thing. I told him that Dad and I would be easily finished by Sunday and that it would take a heap of horses to stop me from going with them. I gave him the message from Griz and he laughed.

  ‘All piss and wind.’

  •

  Dad had me laying bricks for a change on Tuesday. It was easier for him to cart them and he only had to fix a few. We laid them in a basket-weave pattern and when we’d finished the big area it did look like it was woven. Dad went to get a brick saw from Stilson’s Hire and he taught me how to mark the bricks to be cut so they would fit along the edges. It seemed like a simple operation but the first few he cut didn’t fit into the holes they were supposed to so I had to mark them again.

  The brick saw was something else. A whirling, wet, noisy, bench-mounted saw that you operated with your foot. Big petrol motor. The cover had a hose attached to it and a jet of water shot onto the spinning blade. It kept the blade lubricated and stopped the bricks from jamming.

  It made a bloody mess, spraying fine red mud on everything, so and Dad had to wear a funky yellow raincoat and pants. No goggles though because they’d get totally covered with water and brick-dust in two seconds flat. Dad wore earplugs and earmuffs but it was nowhere near as loud as the Feral Pigs concert that Den and I went to last year so I reckoned he was being a bit wimpy about it. I asked him if I could have a go on the saw and he fobbed me off.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow, mate. This thing’s a bloody beast. Whip your fingers off in a flash-of-where’s-your-grand-mother.’

  The next afternoon he decided that he’d show me how to use the saw. I think he got pissed off with using it. What a beast. Cuts through solid bricks like butter. Dad was shouting instructions at me but I’d been watching him so I knew what to do.

  ‘Just keep the brick moving. Backwards and forwards. You don’t need to press down hard. That’s it. Let the blade do the work.’

  Very cool. A little bit scary when I got to the bottom of a cut and the two bits fell apart in my hands. I imagined being a gem cutter or one of those palaeontologists who cut open rocks to find fossils. The cut surface of the brick was shiny and silky to touch.

  I guess I was getting a bit cocky. Running my finger over the side of the spinning blade and tracing patterns in the water. Dad had crept up behind me and scared the shit out of me.

  ‘Oi! You bloody idiot. Keep your mind on the job. It’s not a freaking toy!’

  I didn’t say another word that afternoon. Griz, Otto and a few of their mates rolled up. I think they were impressed with the brick saw too. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, pointing and laughing, but they stayed a while. They’d just left when it happened. Dad had parked one of the legs of the wheelbarrow on the hose and unloaded the marked bricks. As I piled the cut bricks into the barrow, the weight had gradually cut off the water supply to the blade. The mud had turned to dust. The engine started to labour. I got a flash of Dad running at me, screaming. The brick grabbed and dragged me into the blade. My head smacked into the cover. My arm got stuck at the back of the blade and I could feel it cutting me. Rasping the bone. Red dust. Red blood. B
lack.

  I wish I could say that I just got up, dusted myself off and kept at it. That’s what always happened before then. Even when Den and I were nine and we had that massive crash on our bikes at the bottom of Merrimans Creek hill, I still got up and rode home.

  When the saw bit me, I didn’t get up.

  Dad has filled me in on the details. He said I had my eyes open while it was all going on but I don’t remember a thing. Weird. Like those moments just don’t exist in my mind. He said he used his singlet to stop the bleeding from my arm and when the blood came through he got some scungy overalls out of his toolbox. He was screaming for help until an old lady came out from the house over the road. She watched from her fence for a few seconds— wasn’t game to cross.

  ‘For Chrissake,’ Dad finally said, ‘call an ambulance my son’s been hurt.’

  Then, he said, like a flash-of-where’s-your-grandmother, an ambulance rocked up and a bloke and a woman jumped out—like on the telly—and carted me off to the hospital. Sirens and lights and everything. I wish I remembered that bit.

  When I was eight I got really sick and had to go to hospital for a few days. I had measles and I spent the whole time sleeping then catching glimpses of people looming over me. It was scary then and I was in the same situation now, floating in and out of consciousness and feeling frightened by the people hanging over me.

  The scariest part was when I woke up and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t hear. I shouted out for Mum but she couldn’t hear me or no sound came out. My legs were frozen and my arms were like lead. My hand hurt and it’s like I was looking at the world through a cardboard tube, watching the people in the blue gowns ghosting about. I screamed in terror and then it was all black but I was still awake. I stopped screaming, still thinking with my eyelids strained open. Like I was in the deepest rainforest in South America at night searching for the faintest light. I knew there was something out there. I could feel it.