Aaron’s jaw went slack. ‘Me make trouble?’
She straightened up, supporting her lower back with one hand. Pain registered briefly in her pale eyes. ‘Steve told me what happened the other day with that new friend of yours picking a fight with him. I know you boys don’t get along, but getting someone else to fight your battles like that is a bit unfair, don’t you think?’
‘But, Mum, Steve –’
His mother raised a hand. ‘That’s enough. I don’t need to hear the whole story again. Just make an effort with your brother, that’s all I ask.’
‘For the last time he’s not my brother,’ Aaron snapped. He grabbed his backpack and thundered down the aisle. Why couldn’t his mother and Roger see what a Nazi Steve was? Roger was useless, said boys needed a bit of rough and tumble to make them men. And even though Aaron’s mother saw his bruises, she always found a way to excuse Steve: Steve’s having a difficult time right now; Steve’s exams are coming up; Steve’s having a bad hair day! Aaron stomped up the back stairs and into the house. Maybe if he let Steve put him in the hospital his mother and Roger would finally see the truth.
Metallica boomed through the walls of Steve’s bedroom like a giant’s heartbeat. Aaron dropped his pack and approached the door. If he were the one playing his CDs full blast, his mother would be screaming at him to turn it down. But not Steve. Oh no, Steve could make all the noise he wanted. Aaron gripped the knob and thrust the door wide. The music was a solid wall of sound that Aaron could feel all the way to his feet. It was a wonder his step- brother wasn’t deaf.
Steve, who was slouching on the bed, engrossed in a dog-eared music magazine, wasn’t aware of Aaron standing in the doorway. For a good minute Aaron simply stared at him, wondering what to do next and breathing so fast he was in danger of hyperventilating. He felt like a gunslinger at high noon in one of those old westerns, arms at his sides ready to grab his six-shooters at a moment’s notice. He would have laughed if his facial muscles weren’t frozen solid. If only he could remember what Rick had shown him the other night, something about angling his body and head in the direction of the throw. Or was that the opposite direction?
In the aching silence between songs, Steve finally realised he wasn’t alone and looked up from the magazine. When he saw Aaron, his mouth sagged open. It only took him a heartbeat to assess the situation, and with the first crashing drum roll of the next song, he flung the magazine aside and launched himself from the bed. ‘You’re gonna pay for coming in here, little bro,’ he bellowed.
Part of Aaron’s mind watched Steve leap at him with curious awe. This must be what it was like to be attacked by a grizzly bear. The rest of his mind screamed at him to get out of there.
Steve’s fingers dug into Aaron’s fleshy bicep. The stab of pain was all Aaron needed to pull himself together. His chest filled with fire. It flowed upwards, filling his throat, his head. His eyes locked on to Steve’s and his step-brother’s expression of triumph wilted. Aaron smiled, the first real smile he’d ever given Steve, and grabbed his arms.
De Ashi Harai, Rick’s voice whispered in Aaron’s
mind. It means, Advancing Foot Sweep.
In one fluid movement, Aaron stepped forward and swept his right leg across and behind Steve’s, sending his step-brother crashing to the floor. Before Steve could register what had happened, Aaron fell on him, pinning him down with a choke hold.
‘Got nothing to say for once, Stevo?’ Aaron yelled to be heard over the music. He resisted the urge to giggle. He’d never felt so high, so alive.
Steve stared up at him, surprise clear in his eyes. He pounded Aaron’s ribs with his fists, but due to his compromised breathing, the punches were weak.
‘This is where it ends. Got it?’
Steve’s eyes darted left and right looking for a means of escape – or perhaps a weapon. There were none.
Steve tried to buck Aaron off, but Aaron used his full weight and pressed his hand into his step-brother’s windpipe until he gagged. ‘I’m serious, Steve, it ends NOW.’
Steve must have seen the fire inside Aaron, must have felt the heat of it searing his skin, because his eyes grew so large it was a wonder they stayed in their sockets. ‘Argh,’ he said.
‘I can’t hear you!’ Aaron yelled in his face. Steve’s skin was turning a mottled grey. Reluctantly he let up on the pressure.
‘Yes, yes, we’re done.’ Steve’s Adam’s apple bobbed a few times and he rubbed the red welt that was already blooming on his throat.
‘I’m going to get off you now, but I’m warning you, Steve, if you ever touch me again, I’m going to kill you.’ Aaron got off his step-brother’s chest and staggered to his feet.
Steve grunted and started coughing.
Before the trembling in his limbs could take hold, Aaron left, slamming the door behind him.
Rick wished he’d gone straight round to Aaron’s after school. The only reason he’d told him he couldn’t go over till later was so he wouldn’t be home when the ice-cream man came. If Rick showed up too early, Aaron’s olds would be sure to start asking questions like: Don’t you have to be getting home for dinner, Rick? And: Why don’t I just give your mother a call and let her know where you are? If Aaron’s parents heard Rick’s mother raving on in her drunken drawl, they wouldn’t want Rick within a mile of their shop ever again.
He sat under the front stairs with his head resting on his knees. He was so tired, mentally as well as physically. The nightmares had been with him all week, relentlessly wearing him down until his stomach knotted painfully every time night closed in. Last night he was sure he’d heard the ice-cream man outside his house again as he’d clawed his way out of another dream – the same dream; always the same dream. And even if the freak hadn’t been there it made no difference, he was waiting behind Rick’s eyelids every night with that big gap-toothed grin, waiting to reach out and reel him in.
Rick’s mother was still bashing around upstairs. The second he’d walked in the door she’d started. How could he destroy his father’s planes? How could he do that to his memory? He reckoned his mother would blame him for his father’s death if she could.
It took a long time for the sun to finish painting the clouds the colour of dried blood and finally set. By then Rick’s arms and legs were a mass of mosquito bites. His mother had ceased screaming at the empty rooms some time ago, so he figured it was safe to go inside and get something to eat before heading over to Aaron’s. There should still be bread in the freezer and a couple of cheese slices left from his trip to the supermarket. He crawled out from under the stairs and got stiffly to his feet. His stomach growled.
Rick made his way upstairs, keeping his footfalls light. He half expected to see his mother flaked out on the couch as he passed the lounge, but the room was empty. That meant she was probably drinking on the back veranda, which was where she usually went when she wanted to avoid him.
He turned into the kitchen and stopped. He had a sudden uneasy feeling that something was wrong. It was too quiet. He backed out of the kitchen and turned towards the back veranda. ‘Mum? Mum? Where are ya?’
The walls rang with his words. Rick crossed the groaning floorboards to the veranda. It was empty. He spun around, heart thudding, and sprinted into the hall. The door to his father’s model room stood open. He peered in. His mother had been hard at work trying to resurrect the broken planes. A bottle of glue lay on its side on the work table amid scraps of grey and white plastic. Some of the planes, those he supposed his drunken mother would call fixed, were lined up along the table edge like a squad of deformed birds.
A sob caught in Rick’s throat. Forget it. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered!
He moved away from the wall and pushed open his mother’s bedroom door. ‘Mum, you asleep?’
The room was dark and suffocatingly hot. He crossed to the window and pulled open the curtains, expecting his mother to start yelling. When she didn’t, he turned back to the bed, blinking in the muddy
haze of early evening.
Her face resembled stone, or white chalk that had been carved by a sculptor with blunt tools. How could someone change so much – age so much – in such a short time? Rick shuffled over to the side of the bed, his uneasiness growing by the second. Why was she so quiet? His mother always snored when she was on her back like this. He used to tease her about it, tell her that he’d once heard the exact same sound on a wildlife documentary.
Rick’s heart thudded so hard he jumped. His eyes slid off his mother’s face, down the arm that was flung out across his father’s side of the bed and came to rest on a packet in her hand. On the bedspread beside the hand lay five blister packs. Each one had held ten tablets. All were empty.
His mother wasn’t sleeping. She was dead.
He should try to revive her, try to do something, but he couldn’t bear to touch her cold, clammy skin. He turned and ran blindly from the room, rebounded off the doorframe and stumbled into the bathroom where he threw up in the tub. How could she do this to him? She’d gone and left him, just like his father had done. A spasm caught Rick in the midsection and he retched again.
When he was done he balled his fist and pounded the wall beside the medicine cabinet until the plaster cracked and his knuckles bled. It was too late to save her, but he had to do something. Then he had to get out of here.
He crashed into the lounge room, kicking and hitting anything in his way, searching for the phone through a veil of tears. Strange hitching sounds came from deep in his throat and he couldn’t stop them. He swiped at his burning eyes and picked up the cordless phone on the side table. With trembling fingers he stabbed at the emergency number.
‘H-hello? I-it’s my mother. P-please –’
‘Which service do you require?’
‘Geez. Any – all of ’em. I don’t c-care. Just get someone. P-please.’ Rick’s hand shook so badly the phone beat a tattoo against his ear.
‘If you’ll just stay calm I will –’
‘SHE’S DEAD! DO YOU HEAR ME? SHE’S FRIGGIN’ DEAD! SHE’S DEAD. SHE’S DEAD!’
Music.
Rick’s head snapped around.
Half a pound of tuppenny rice; half a pound of treacle; that’s the way the money goes. Pop! goes the weasel.
His mother was dead and now the Grim Reaper had come for him – the Grim Reaper in his shiny pink ice-cream van.
‘Are you still there? You must give me your address,’
the voice on the other end of the phone line said.
A numbing calm swept over Rick and he embraced it gladly. He couldn’t face this, not now, not ever. With a thunk the phone hit the floor. Rick walked towards the door.
11
When Rick failed to show up on Thursday night as he’d said he would, Aaron feared the worst. The ice- cream man had done something to him, Aaron was sure of it.
The following day he was surprised to see Marty at school. His friend looked like he’d been thrown around the ring a few times by a two-hundred- kilogram wrestler on speed. Aaron was desperate to tell him about Rick, but he didn’t get the chance until after school. By then Aaron was wound tighter than a yo-yo.
‘Where were you at lunchtime?’ Aaron called to Marty, who was waiting by the bike compound, hunched in his chair like an old man. Aaron jogged towards him, almost colliding with a group of kids, which earned him a mouthful of abuse.
Marty threw a nervous glance over his shoulder.
‘Had to see the physiotherapist.’
Aaron stopped before him and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of a hand. ‘I hate to tell you this, but if you’re trying to hide from someone, that chair isn’t exactly invisible.’
‘My mother’s over there, in the car park,’ Marty said. ‘If I don’t hurry, she’ll come looking for me. I tell you, she’s driving me mad.’ He gave Aaron a lopsided grin, which did make him look slightly unhinged.
‘Did you see the police?’ Aaron asked.
‘What? No. Why?’
‘Mrs Miller said they were asking about Rick. She wanted to know if I’d seen him today.’
‘And have you?’
‘No. You?’
‘Nope.’ Marty frowned. ‘I don’t get it. Why would the cops be looking for Rick?’
Aaron readjusted his backpack and blew hair out of his eyes. ‘Come over here. I want to tell you something.’
‘Make it fast, my mum’ll spot me in a minute,’ Marty said, taking another quick look over his shoulder.
Aaron moved towards the rear of the compound where they wouldn’t be overheard. He turned to face Marty, pressing his back to the chain link. ‘Rick was supposed to come round to my place last night and he didn’t show,’ Aaron said in a low voice.
‘That’s not so unusual.’
Aaron shook his head. ‘Yeah, but he did something really stupid, which might be why the cops are looking for him.’
‘What?’
Aaron licked his lips. ‘The ice-cream man’s been going up Rick’s street every night, sometimes two or three times. Rick was really mad when he heard the creep rang you up, so he . . . he waited for him and then painted the word FREAK on his van.’
Marty let out a low whistle.
‘But the thing I don’t get is, some guy caught him and wanted to call the cops, but the ice-cream man said no. He told Rick he’d let him know when it was time to even the score.’
‘Maybe the ice-cream man only told him that to make him think he was off the hook and rang the cops anyway,’ Marty said.
Aaron frowned. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘You don’t sound so sure.’
‘It’s just that Rick not showing up last night and then today . . . I’ve got a bad feeling.’ Heat flooded Aaron’s face. He looked away.
‘So, you think the nut-job has done something to him?’
Aaron shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’ Marty looked towards the car park again. ‘Oh,
no, she’s headed this way.’ He turned back to Aaron.
‘Look, I’ll give Rick a call when I get home. Maybe he just wagged or something.’
‘But what if he didn’t?’
‘Well, we can’t do anything else right now,’ Marty said.
‘Maybe we should tell the cops,’ Aaron said. ‘If they know about the graffiti then they might listen.’
‘I say we wait till we have proof,’ Marty said. ‘If the cops do know about the graffiti, don’t you reckon they’ll think we’re making up stuff about the ice- cream man to pay him back for dobbing on Rick?’
Aaron sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’
‘I’ll come round to your place tomorrow morning and we’ll figure something out.’ Marty turned to go.
Aaron grabbed his shoulder. ‘What’s Rick’s address? Maybe I can ride round there now and see if he’s home.’
Marty looked around. ‘Um, you can’t do that
’cause I haven’t got a clue where he lives. I’ve only got his number.’
‘Oh.’ Aaron’s shoulders slumped. ‘Well I’ll see you tomorrow then.’
‘Round ten,’ Marty called.
Aaron hung around the shop till late, serving customers and sweeping the floor, but mostly getting in his mother’s way. When it got quiet his mother went upstairs leaving him to take care of the last few people who usually dropped in for milk or cigarettes on their way home from work. Every half hour or so Aaron would wander out onto the footpath and scan the street for Rick. If the ice-cream man was involved then what had he done with him? Aaron decided there and then that he would go to the police if he hadn’t heard from Rick by tomorrow.
He moved through the shop, checking everything was in its place and then locking up. Muffled voices drifted down from upstairs. Steve’s music, not as loud as usual, pounded steadily in the background. Aaron turned off the lights and used the bluish glow cast by the row of fridges along the far wall to find the cash register. He wasn’t comfortable emptying the register of the day’s
take with all the lights blazing – even though the door was locked. You never knew who might be watching from the street.
As Aaron opened the drawer, the phone rang. He stared from the phone to the open till then pushed the till closed with his hip. He leaned across the counter to turn on the answering machine but picked up the phone instead.
‘Kathy’s Korner Store. We’re closed right now, but if you –’
‘Hello, Aaron.’ Silence.
Aaron dragged his sticky tongue across his lips and swallowed. ‘I-it’s you.’
Laughter. ‘Aw, come on, Aaron, you don’t sound very happy to hear from me.’
Aaron’s mind reeled. He spun around, eyes scouring the dark street for any sign of life. He knew with eerie certainty that the psycho was watching him. Goose bumps marched up his spine.
‘What have you done with Rick?’ he hissed. More laughter. ‘Nothing – yet.’
Aaron had a sudden, horrifying thought: what if the ice-cream man was in the shop? He searched the shadows, looking up, down, left – and then his eyes fell on the answering machine. He could tape the call and take it to the police!
‘If you tell me where Rick is,’ he said, slowly pressing the record button, ‘I won’t tell the cops about you, okay?’ He held his breath, praying the psycho hadn’t heard the click.
‘No can do, buckaroo.’
Aaron gripped the edge of the counter so hard his fingers cracked. ‘Stop playing games and just tell me where he is, you weirdo, or I’m going to hang up right now and ring the police.’
Heavy breathing. ‘Now listen to me, mister, I’m the one in control here, not you. You’re nothing. Got that? NOTHING!’
‘W-where’s Rick?’
‘Ring the police and you’ll never see your little friend again.’
Aaron’s legs began to tremble. ‘Please, you can’t hurt him.’ He heard the desperation in his voice and felt sick. He had to keep it together, show the ice- cream man he wasn’t afraid.
The Ice-cream Man Page 10
