Machines for Feeling

by Mireille Juchau

  It takes him a while to realise, but once he gazes out toward the Heads he’s sure of it. This is the sea! A great roaring thing tamed and captured in the teeming city. Ferries bobbing and gliding across it, fat gulls wheeling above. His thoughts come slowly, hot and stunning like a blush. He catches the scent of the ocean’s salty heart, watches the waves carrying white lines of foam in the distance, the gulls sailing down to bob on the rainbow oily surface.

  He’s dreamt of the ocean, seen it on TV and in photographs. Once he was supposed to visit on a weekend excursion from the Home, but he woke sick and fevery that day and stayed behind while the other kids filed onto the three coaches outside the Home gate. He had a queasy afternoon dream of being carried in a wave to a weedy cavern where wriggling fishes led him into the giant jelly centre of a purple creature. The dream was full of lust, shame and confusion. It burnt brightly until he woke, slimed with sweat and wanting air, then vomited a surprising coloured stew onto the pillow. Rien and Mark visited him in the late afternoon, sunburn and strap marks beneath their clothes, a white crust of salt on their arms. Mark opened his hand into the pale cup of Dog Boy’s palm and left behind a skeleton of shell, speckled with sand – in its spiny centre another, smaller shell was trapped. ‘Treasure,’ Rien whispered and Dog Boy closed his hand around it – the seaside sun still caught there, warmth spreading across his palm. Later he put his tongue in the chamber of the shell to taste the green salt tang.

  He sits now on a wooden bench beside the water and checks the strap of leather beneath his shirt. The shell is still hanging there, beside his key; both relics from his former life. A street performer is juggling balls, his feet teetering on a larger ball. The man begins his banter while the lunchtime crowd sits chewing sandwiches and chips, surrounded by scavenging gulls.

  ‘What’s wiv seagulls, eh? Seagulls are the vagrants of the bird world. Do you ever wonder where they live? They never go ’ome and they’re always begging. And d’ya notice how they’re always slightly deformed, y’know they’ve got one mangled leg or one eye’s missing. It’s deliberate, I’m tellin’ ya, it’s a play for more food, they have these secret meetin’s and then they attack each other so us humans’ll take pity on ’em. Y’know the drill – oh poor seagull, only has one leg, ’e must need some extra food.

  ‘Y’know what I fink – next they’ll be tryin’ that ’omeless sign fing, you know, sittin’ on the pavement with their heads kinda hangin’ low and their feathers all covered in dirt, wiv a sign round their neck saying: “Please help me, my wings have been clipped so I can’t fly and I only have one leg so I can’t hop back home to Bathurst, plus I’m blind.” Or a variation on the war-veteran fing, y’know, sign sayin’ “Leg bitten off in ’85 trying to rescue three chicks in Gull-f War” or “Lost beak in airport offensive, hit by Boeing 747” …’

  On the seat beside Dog Boy a man in a suit mutters to the woman beside him, ‘He’s terrible – hope he doesn’t give up his day job.’

  ‘They’re actually giving him money,’ the woman replies.

  An old man shuffles past, pushing a pram. Dog Boy stands to look inside, blocking his nostrils against a fishy whiff. There’s a dirty blanket, something tucked beneath it.

  ‘Coochy coo,’ the man says, revealing four teeth that remind Dog Boy of a graveyard with tiny white headstones. The baby doesn’t move. Dog Boy steps closer to take another look. The head in the pram glints in the midday sunlight, a goggly eye looks up. The man pushes the fish-baby toward the white waves of the Opera House.

  Dog Boy looks beside him where the couple sit with their meal of fish and chips in a paper packet on the bench. His stomach growls and lurches. He hasn’t eaten since the morning when he’d gulped down a hamburger, pulling out the meat patty and throwing it toward some sparrows. Despite his new identity, his hounded wolf demeanour, he still cannot bring himself to eat the flesh of other creatures. He fishes around in his pockets to measure the small change remaining there. He feels the smooth crumple of something papery and his mood lifts for a brief moment until he sees it is not cash but the secret folded message he will deliver to Rien. He sighs, smoothing out the paper and peers down into the dark blur of words on the page. Then he counts his coins and decides, puts one stealing hand out fast then leaps into a gallop toward where the man and his fish-baby have disappeared.

  Dog Boy eats his stolen meal up high in the Botanical Gardens where he can look out at the choppy seas between the Heads. He throws small pieces of fish to the gulls on the lawn before him and stuffs the chips into his mouth. Then he wanders down to the walled sea to search for signs of life beneath the water. He hangs his feet above the surface and gazes out to where the sea blends with the sky. Two yachts wave their hanky sails in the breeze, a motor drones in the distance. He puts his hands on the sandstone wall and feels the cool seep into his palms, bends down and tastes the salt in the brick, a granular silt on his tongue.

  Later that night he will put his ear to the soil in the gardens and listen, like he used to as a child, for the goings-on at the other end of the world. For the night-time caving of worms and termites, for the rumble of hot rock in the boiling core of the earth. One day he will go to the mountain where the earth runs over, its juice red and fiery – colours, sounds and smells he can barely imagine. He loves the thought of lava flowing, flames captured within the syrupy thickness of it, flaring and thundering toward the cooling sea.

  The Dream Converter

  Sometimes she gets me to choose: Love or Death? ‘What’ll it be?’ Some days it’s a simple choice. Today it’s not so easy to answer. A day when lifting herself out of bed’s a scene in slow motion. It’s a question about which corner shop to go to for the milk, or the paper. She calls them Love and Death. She goes to Love’s, the owner asks, ‘How are you, love, what’ll it be, sweetheart, can I help you, darlin’ … right, honey, fine, dear.’ The current record is ten of those over-familiars on one short visit. Last week she hands me this note to deliver at night:

  Dear Love,

  Yes the quality of your merchandise is impressive and the range of goods extensive BUT I suggest there are ways to improve your service.

  Sure your friendly approach is appreciated by many customers, BUT your constant use of sickly-sweet words to address the women who shop at your premises can result in extreme irritation. May I suggest that you consider the brief, I know less colourful, but more than adequate ‘hello can I help you?’

  Signed,

  A Concerned Resident

  ‘Are you serious? Haven’t you got better things to do with your time?’

  ‘I’m performing a community service. I bet the neighbours would agree and sign my letters.’

  She starts to grow a new idea. Scrawls a few extra names at the bottom of the page. Makes different kinds of loopy writing, in coloured pens. When I check the names I see they’re all characters from the midday soapies I describe to her in the evenings:

  Ridge Forrester

  Brooke Logan

  Sally Spectra

  someone called Blade

  Lauren Fenmore

  Danny Romalotti

  Only other local place to shop is ‘the food museum’. Display windows full of misshapen melted chocolate bars, wrappers faded in the sun. Run by a woman Rien reckons has risen from the dead. Only way you know she’s alive is the dead can’t make milkshakes and don’t give change, she says. The dead woman’s skin and hair’s pale like it’s covered in ceiling dust. Rien’ll only buy dry goods from that store. Got some phobia about dairy products and who serves them up. Thought of a milkshake made by the hands of the dead woman’ll bring on a fit of nausea. ‘Packaged goods only from Death,’ she warns me when I go to shop. And her ‘better marketing advice’ for this shopowner …

  Dear Dead Woman,

  Get a life.

  Regards,

  Stefano Dimera

  Signed by the evil one from Days of Our Lives. Died but came miraculously back to life four months later.
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br />   Some days she’ll settle for stale toast and milkless coffee. Or wakes me up to ask: ‘Love or Death, Mark, what’s it going to be?’

  This morning it’s Love Bread spread thinly with Vegemite of Death. A cup of steamy Death Tea, whitened with Milk of Love. She scours the paper before work. Cuts something out of it. Wanders over to where I’m standing, blowing smoke rings into the backyard. A piece of paper’s flapping in one hand. A serious look.

  ‘Mark, it’s a job. Your dream job. I found it.’

  I stifle my groan ’cause I know the time is coming. And the word ‘dream’ makes me feel like chucking up. She’s been watching Oprah or Ricki so the world’s gone plastic-rose coloured.

  ‘Listen – it’s perfect, it’s got all the right bits to it …’

  I stub the cigarette on the brick wall of the house. Light another. I’m in for the long haul.

  ‘You like light, right? And you like making people happy but you don’t really want to talk … much. And best of all, you like your camera, right? Am I right?’

  All systems go. Countdown to potential explosion of glee.

  ‘Are you listening? It’s an ushering job, at the cinema.’ She makes a pause, for breath more than effect.

  ‘Well?’

  I have to stop my feet from running. Try to forget about the bargain we made ’cause it’s too hard – entering the world. Contracts and responsibilities. Time. Time. Time bearing down. If I run I’ve nowhere to go. If I stay I have to do this. For her. A deal’s a deal.

  ‘I’ll have to think.’ Try to sound open to it. I touch her on the hand where the ad’s a crumpled mess in her fist.

  She opens her mouth, like a fish taking a feed, eyes dull, then shuts it without a word and spins round. Grabs her bag and struts off to work where they shave the male customers the old-fashioned way. Long flat blade and lots of foam. ‘Pampering’ she calls it, a note of pain in her voice.

  Used to watch her through the salon window when I passed by but she said it upset the customers. Middle-aged women who’re after what she calls ‘the Lady Dye’. Bachelor boys who like to treat themselves to a long close shave. Or maybe. Yes maybe the sight of my girl’s legs, her swaying sweeping and slow bends to tidy the floor. Swooning with the scent of shampoo and hair cream. Steaming up the mirrors.

  I imagine her doing a shave. The blade carrying a glow like the sun – her hands fast and deft. Each movement reveals something fresh. The way she lives in her skin. Each intermittent flick of the blade, fleck of foam and stubble flying, is compellingly new. And then I tell myself no worries. The shaving’s just for me. At work she doesn’t get to use a blade, not even scissors though she’s gifted.

  I’d watch for hours if she hadn’t told me to go home. Said I was putting the customers off. But I reckon she understood something about the comfort of my machine world as she disappeared into the mechanics of movement. Sweep, sweep. The world dishevelling about her as she worked, like those dream fragments. A safe cocoon of gesture.

  MY FAMOUS MOMENTS

  July 12, a hot afternoon. My birth in a green Valiant, second-gear and a pressure on the brakes, fast slide onto the back seat. A speed-bump baby. First taste of the world – hot vinyl and stale tobacco stink. Born in gear, the wheels speeding me into a world of movement and machine.

  HOW TO SURVIVE: RITUALS

  • Ritual One: Blood

  Began with a dream of my mouth, sewn tight with a thread made from flesh. Started carrying round a needle and cotton. Got caught in class trying to sew the sleeve of Jenny Ridley’s jumper to the back of her chair. Was she wearing it? Don’t remember. Later, despite the confiscation, found another needle. Bigger, a little blunter. Afternoon of chaos and rain. I sat alone in a dank tree trunk at the end of the Home yard and sewed my sock onto my ankle.

  • Ritual Two: Comfort

  I liked to rock in the one spot. Curled up in a small space. And I liked the silence. Rocking makes a forcefield – you get into a rhythm and the whole world disappears. You do it when the sounds and sights are too much. Make yourself into the smallest size. Unborn, I’m all curled inside the blackness. Touch me, make me talk and I’ll blow you up.

  Machines don’t need speech to function. Safety is a two-way switch and no uncertainty. Speaking makes too many stray meanings. Hold on though, I recall. Trigger the memory. Once I flung a word up high, watched in horror at its departure. Felt the hard slap of a father’s hand. Some kind of sediment on my tongue afterward and a salty taste.

  • Ritual Three: Depth

  I had an obsession with what lay beyond solid things. Hungry to get inside them, find all that emptiness. My tools – a sharp scalpel, a long screw to bore difficult objects and a box of matches, courtesy of Jonas the firestarter.

  One night Rien laid my tools out on her dormitory bed, the ship we sailed on. Touched them lightly. Put them away somewhere saying ‘time for hands and gentleness’. She wore a voice I’d never met before. Milky. And she touched my arm with the flat of her hand. I almost believed she wanted to. That it wasn’t like some robot limb coming at me. Maybe. Just maybe.

  Now I know how I must have seemed to the doctors when I came to the Home. Studied my habits like I was a rare species. Never knowing how to enter my head. But those machine days have almost gone. Yep, that’s FOR SURE. I’m not sad, not one little bit. Not one iota. Not an inch.

  Me, aged five, sitting at the table with the whacked-out kids. Rocking back and forth. Dribbling, slicing our arms instead of the food. Yep, even with the plastic knives. And there I was. Look at me. I’m an early take from a cheap sci-fi. Using cardboard and string instead of real machine parts. Gonna split myself laughing thinking back on it. HA HA HA. Each limb’s wired with string and plugged into the wall. Power to eat. Fuel and grease to make me go.

  Time for bed. Control panel’s above my head – made from egg cartons, an old wheel, a shoebox. And here’s the Communicator. It tells God about the dark things coming after me. For extra protection there’s Destructa. A plastic bottle jammed with six pen lids. It makes an instant forcefield round the bed. The field is red and only I can see it. It’s in case God’s not listening when I call. There are lots of machine boys who need him at night. And flying girls like Rien.

  The bed takes me secret places. So I don’t have to sleep. NO ONE can make me. It doesn’t fly. It drives but goes on water too. When it takes me out it’s safe like a car. All locked up and nobody can get in. Only I can make it go ’cause there’s a special switch and no one else knows where and it’s called the Rocketcar.

  The problem with sleep is the bad dreams. So it’s best to avoid sleep altogether. But just in case there’s the Dream Converter, made with Lego and Meccano bits I took from the playroom. I hide it under the bed. The mechanics are secret. What you do is connect it up to your head, extract the dream and capture it. Dreams can’t escape then – they shapeshift and create a ruckus in this box but they can’t hurt you.

  In the day I carry these round with me. Explosias. They look like plastic eggs but they’re not. I’ve painted them black. Which is the colour that will blow up everyone. You can throw them to explode the Home. But sometimes they have babies in them. Then you must carry them gently and you MUST keep them warm. The babies hatch. But can go back inside whenever they want.

  Now, a new way to touch. What Rien does to me with her hands, with words all connected. Her letters, a note. Hidden inside the peel of an orange and passed to me by Dog Boy in maths class. I’ve kept it. Yellow-stained and smelling like citrus:

  Maybe dreams protect your sleep?

  Everything will be okay, I think.

  I give you my word.

  She knew then. About my Dream Converter and how it had stopped working. I was given shots to sleep because I’d given up entirely. One morning I woke screaming inside myself after the dream of drowning. Father No. 3 standing on the shore of a lake making the noise of an engine and watching me splutter. Fish were jumping in the air around me and my head was
slipping slowly under.

  I crawled under the bed and hooked up my wires but something was different. I knew before I flicked the plastic switch that it wasn’t going to work. So I did the only thing that was left to do. Refused to go to sleep.

  When I got her note I had some hard thinking. Protect? Was she asking if it was true? Or true for me? People have to sleep and dreams help, she said. They do the night thinking for you. The best thing about her note was the bit about the word. And her giving it to me. I’d stopped believing in my Converter. And all I had then was fear.

  Our disasters lie strewn in the wake of time’s passing. That’s what she says. Spends her days trying not to look back. But I’m wading, not sailing beyond my eighteen years. She likes to think she’s way ahead, but I watch the razor when she shaves me, twitching in her hand. There’s a swerve in her eye as she makes my throat change. From dark to flesh-coloured. Security’s conditional. It’s the vulnerable skin of the neck. The pulsing vein there and the fact she’s holding the blade that makes everything calm and manageable.

  When she comes home I jump from behind the door and grab her. Kiss her on the mouth for half a minute.

  ‘What’s this for … have you decided about the job?’

  ‘It’s just a kiss.’

  ‘If you really loved me you’d go for the job so we could move to the country or out of this ratdump at least.’

  ‘I thought you liked it here. And I’m kind of busy.’

  ‘Liked? It’s a squat in case you haven’t noticed. Busy doing what?’

  ‘What’s a ratdump?’

  ‘Do you think I want to work at Delilah’s all my life? Pouring fucking glasses of port for leering men and sweeping up disgusting bits of purple rinsed hair? Busy doing what?’

  ‘Okay, you had a bad day. Just doing stuff, a couple of projects. They take up quite a bit of time. Daylight hours. By the way my passionate kiss had nothing to do with Love at all.’ Try not to smile but my mouth cracks open.