Tigers on the Run

by Sean Kennedy

“Us? I wasn’t aware that we had started up again.”

  “It’s just, all that stuff in there with Jasper—”

  “That was Jasper. Not you.”

  The man himself walked past us, and didn’t look happy to see us in conversation but he walked on to the bus without comment.

  “Some pretty full-on things were said.”

  “Yeah, but they had to, eventually.”

  “I guess.”

  “Why, are you mad at me?”

  Coby shook his head. “Everything you said in there was true. And you guys deserved that apology. Jasper’s done… well, let’s face it, he’s done a lot of shit, and it’s going to take a lot of time for him to get forgiven for it.”

  “Forgiven? Let’s not go too far.”

  Coby gave a wan smile. “And I guess I owe you an apology, too. No, that’s chickenshit. I do owe you an apology. I’m sorry for all the crap I’ve pulled as well the past couple of months.”

  “Okay. Let’s just move on from here, right?”

  But Coby wasn’t finished. “I love him. And let’s face it, nobody else is going to defend Jasper Brunswick. Even if he really is Jon Brown underneath it all.”

  I still had no idea who “Jon Brown” really was. Coby seemed pretty convinced, though.

  “Friends?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Short but sweet.”

  “Isn’t that what you put on your Grindr profile?”

  “Oh, ha-ha! My profile has long been deleted.”

  “I hear the guys on it lit a virtual candle in your memory.”

  Coby whacked me. “Arsehole. But, they probably should have.”

  “Still, who would have thought that Jasper Brunswick would be the one to steal your heart?”

  “Maybe the same one who thought you would be the one to steal Declan Tyler’s.”

  “Touché, my friend, touché.”

  “Hey!” Declan yelled out of the window of the van. “Where’s Micah?”

  There was a sinking feeling in my gut. We had all been distracted—giving Micah the perfect opportunity to escape—

  “I’m here!” Micah said, coming out of the roadhouse with Fran.

  Crisis averted.

  “Did you think I’d run off again?”

  “Of course they did,” Fran said. She and Coby continued on, leaving me with Micah.

  “Look, in the roadhouse—” I started saying.

  Micah grinned, and it wasn’t pleasant. “Oh, you thought that was me trying to be friends in there?”

  “I don’t know what it was.”

  “It was just having some fun, you know? Getting everybody pissed.”

  “But also helping us in some strange way.”

  “Call it whatever you want. I still think most of you are dicks.”

  “Even Fran?”

  “No, she and Declan are okay. The rest of you could be thrown off the Westgate Bridge, however, and nobody would really care.”

  “Charming.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “Yeah, but you know what? You’re not as clever as you think you are. Everyone knows you’re full of shit.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. They all see you as a scared little kid, which is what you are. And you’re going to stay that way if you don’t start letting people help you.”

  I trudged off back to the car, expecting him to hurl abuse at my back. But all he did was follow me, sitting back in his seat without a word as Dec started the engine and we hit the road again.

  AFTER LEAVING the roadhouse, we pretty much rode in silence, and I couldn’t help thinking that was a good thing. If Micah was silent, he wasn’t causing trouble.

  “We’re coming up to the Twelve Apostles,” Dec said again.

  Everybody stretched themselves out of sleep. There was only the faintest of light in the sky, and I could barely make the ocean out, let alone the giant freestanding rocks in it.

  “Are we going to stop?” Fran asked. “Now that we can actually see them?”

  “Do you want to?” Jasper yawned. “They’re just a bunch of bloody rocks.”

  “Limestone, actually,” I pointed out.

  “That makes them more interesting?”

  “Just because you have no appreciation for nature—”

  “I’ve actually never seen them,” Coby said, interrupting us wearily.

  “Then you should see them, darling!” Jasper kissed him on his temple, and Coby grinned happily.

  “I’ve never seen them, either,” Micah admitted. “It’d be cool, I guess.”

  It was the first time he had spoken in hours, and one of the first times I ever heard him speak about something with the slightest positivity. “That’s a yes, then, Captain,” I told Dec.

  There were no other cars in the car park, and nobody on the lookout. We might have been the only people in the world, and the low light made the Twelve Apostles an alien landscape and even more ethereal than normal.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Dec said. “I wish that one hadn’t collapsed, though.”

  There used to be nine stacks, until one had crumbled into the ocean almost a decade ago. The remaining ones were still subject to erosion from the sea. Eventually they would also fall, and the headland that existed in our time would slowly become new stacks as the ocean came further inland.

  And all of us standing here would be long gone.

  I shook off my morbid thoughts. They hadn’t gone unnoticed by Dec, however. He knew me too well.

  “You okay?”

  “It’s overwhelming,” I said.

  That was all I needed to say.

  “I know.” And he did. The guy always understood me.

  I thought back to the last time I had seen the Apostles—when Dec and I had run from our troubles with Greg Heyward and hit the road for a few days away. There had been too many tourists and Dec had felt exposed so we hadn’t spent much time here. Now it seemed there wasn’t anybody else in the world except for our little group.

  “I wish I’d seen them before the collapse.” Coby jammed his hands in his pockets. “How stupid is it that I’ve never been here?”

  “There are lots of things in this country that we’ve never seen,” I said. “This state, even. We take it for granted.”

  Dec wrapped his arms around my neck.

  “I’m cold,” Fran said.

  With Dec still hanging off me, I draped myself over Fran to warm her up. She laughed, and the three of us huddled together. Jasper and Coby were doing the same, and I looked around to see what Micah was up to, and he was gone.

  “Oh, fuck, that little shit,” I breathed.

  We immediately broke into search parties. We knew he couldn’t have gone far and, one thing to be thankful for, at least he hadn’t stolen the bus. Fran, Jasper and Coby went one way along the sightseeing paths and Dec and I the other.

  “I rang his parents and told them I was bringing him home safe,” Dec said as our trail started leading us down to the beach. “How the fuck can I ring them back and tell them that we lost him? In the ocean!”

  “We don’t know he’s in the ocean. He’s not bloody Virginia Woolf. Even though that was a pond. Okay, he’s not Harold Holt.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  I shook my head. “Look, what I’m just trying to say is that he’s not going to do anything stupid. If he was, it would have been just after he found out his boyfriend was fucking around on him.”

  “That’s really not making me feel any better.”

  “We’re not going to ring his parents. We’ll find him, and you’ll still bring him home safe.”

  But Dec was on a roll. “I don’t know if GetOut is achieving what it was meant to do. I thought I was doing a good thing, but maybe it was just me being self-serving. I’m fucking everything up as I go.”

  “Hey!” I made us stop by grabbing him. “I know you’re stressed, and I know you’re worried, but you’re not going to say shit like that. You ha
d the purest of reasons for wanting to start GetOut. You’re not going to start doubting yourself now.”

  “But it’s not doing any good.”

  “Of course it is! There are more kids you are helping than Micah, you know. You only have to look at Emma. But Micah is dominating your time. Not every kid is going to go through GetOut in the same way or achieve equally. There will be some failures. But there will be a hell of a lot more successes.”

  “I’m not going to give up on Micah.”

  “I never thought you would. But let’s find him first.”

  He took my hand as we walked along. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For understanding.”

  “Hey, I brought Jasper Brunswick into your life; you brought Micah Johnson. We’re even.”

  “I also brought Greg Heyward.”

  “True! You so owe me.”

  “I do.”

  I kissed him with a resounding smack on the lips. “I do, too.”

  There was a funny moment that passed between us—it almost seemed uncomfortable. But we came to a fork in the path—the symbolism of this was not lost on either of us, I don’t think—and stood there, flummoxed.

  “I guess we should split up?” Dec suggested.

  “What? Never!” I gasped, my hands on my heart.

  “Hilarious. Which way do you want to go?”

  “You’re the athlete. You can take the steeper path.”

  “Don’t forget downhill becomes uphill on the way back.”

  “Okay, Mr. Science. I’ll take the steep path for the easier journey back.”

  “That’s my Simon.”

  “You got it.”

  I kissed him again, and as he hugged me, it felt like neither of us wanted to let go. The weird atmosphere had abated somewhat, but it was still there.

  But we had to let go, and I turned back to find him watching me. He waved, and I waved back. Then we were quickly lost to each other due to the scrub between us.

  AND YOU probably guessed this way before I did, but I should have known as the fates always have a laugh at my expense: I was the one to find Micah.

  Sitting on the top of an impressive sand dune, he was staring out onto the ocean. The Apostles were now looking more majestic than ever, silhouetted against a purple sky that was still resisting the morning light.

  “Oh, fuck,” Micah groaned. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

  Part of me wished I could. Why didn’t Dec, the person who had the most experience dealing with Micah, find him? Or Fran, who was actually a social worker and had a natural empathy? Okay, I wouldn’t wish Jasper Brunswick upon anybody, let alone a troubled teen. And Coby… well, seeing as their association started with a threatened sexual harassment, I doubt he would want to be Micah’s angel in a crisis.

  I started my arduous climb up the dune, sinking past my ankles in the sand and feeling my shoes filling up with it. “You see, you keep running away, but you always want us to find you.”

  “Tell me more, Phryne Fisher.”

  It was digs like that convinced me the kid was gay. Also, a lot wittier and smarter than he let on. An obvious choice would have been Sherlock Holmes, not the glamorous and debonair female Australian detective of the 1920s.

  “What, you honestly think that after we followed you all the way to Lorne, we would stop when you were only a few sand dunes away?”

  He shrugged as I reached him.

  I flopped down in a sweaty heap. “See, the thing is, when you run away, you have to stop sometimes. And people will then catch up with you.”

  “Really.” It was more of a snort than a wanting of validation.

  “The ones who want to help you do.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do they want to help you, or why do they keep chasing you?”

  There was a long pause as Micah kept staring out to sea. Then he shrugged. “Both.”

  “Well, some people—like Dec—are gluttons for punishment. They also have a more altruistic outlook on life, which is why they’re said gluttons for punishment, I guess.”

  “I don’t even know what you said there, but was it something about Dec being a nicer person than most?”

  “See, you’re smart as well as pretty.”

  He scowled. “And what about people like you?”

  “Well, I guess people like me love those gluttons for punishment, so they get dragged along for the ride.”

  “There must be more to it. Why would you waste your time with me?”

  “The way I see it? I got a fun road trip with my friends.”

  “Jasper Brunswick is not your friend.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know. But Coby is, and Jasper is Coby’s boyfriend. So I have to put up with the shithead.”

  “Like you have to put up with me?”

  I laughed. “Micah, you can annoy me, you can frustrate me, but believe me, you’re no fucking Jasper Brunswick. Give it time; he has almost twenty years on you. If you want to become him you have plenty of time to achieve that goal.”

  Things turned quickly as anger welled up in Micah. “Like you’re so good. I mean, you just follow Dec around like he’s your master. It’s pathetic.”

  It feels stupid being in your thirties and getting stung by the rant of a teenager, even if you know what they’re saying isn’t true. “That’s a really warped perspective you have on relationships. But you’re young.”

  “Stop saying that! Just because I’m seventeen doesn’t mean I don’t know how to feel about things!”

  “I never said you did. Just that you can’t judge an adult relationship just because you see one partner trying to help the other with their problems.”

  “I’m a problem now, am I?”

  I howled derisively. “Since the day I fucking met you! It feels like ever since then I’ve had to help Declan run around and sort your messes. Which are fuck-ups that you initiate time and time again!”

  “I’ve heard all this before. You sound like my bloody parents. Next you’ll tell me I’m selfish.”

  “I doubt it’s a surprise to you, but you are bloody selfish! I don’t know what you do to your parents, but Declan is trying his best to help you and you continually throw it back at him like you think he doesn’t give a shit. That man is stressed out of his fucking gourd, thinking he’s failed you, thinking he’s failed all the other kids at GetOut, and just about ready to chuck the whole bloody thing in because he thinks he’s making things worse for queer teens rather than better. And I really don’t think much of you for making him feel that.”

  “Just say it. You hate me.”

  “No, I actually don’t.”

  “Why not? Everybody else does.”

  My patience, which was already digging below the ground, was wearing thin. “If they do, it’s because you make it so bloody hard for them to try and like you! You’re your own worst enemy. If people give up on you, it’s because you’ve drove them to it!”

  “It’s easier that way.”

  It was scary that I was starting to see so many similarities between the two of us. Wasn’t that what I had always done? Roger had snuck into my heart at eleven before I had time to start putting up walls; even though I had been the one to meet Fran first, we only really became close when she and Roger got serious; Nyssa had forced her way into my life and refused to leave it (until she moved to New Zealand). It wasn’t until Dec chased after me at that party that I started opening myself up properly to people, even my own family.

  Oh crap, was that why Dec was so intent on helping him? Did he see me in Micah, as well as himself?

  Maybe he did.

  “It’s actually not easier,” I said, finally. “Believe me, I know. I do it all the fucking time. It’s only been recently that I’ve started trying to rebel against those natural instincts.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me how much you understand me?”

  Even though I did, unnervingly so, it would only inflame the situatio
n. “Are you kidding? The Dalai Lama wouldn’t understand you. In fact, he’d want nothing to do with you, you’d do his head in.”

  Thankfully, he laughed.

  “I know it might be really uncool to say it, but your parents care about you too. I’m not saying it excuses whatever problems you may be having with them, but when I saw them yesterday, they were devastated.”

  “No, it’s uncool that you still say ‘uncool’. I’m pretty sure you were born after the sixties.” He looked away. “They were worried?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”

  “I know they do, I guess. It was just that when I felt totally fucked, and I felt like I couldn’t take it, all I wanted to do was see Jeff, you know? I thought he would be the one to make it all better. That’s what he used to do before, when all the shit went down at school. And after what happened yesterday… but here I am, instead.”

  “What happened yesterday?” I asked.

  He reddened; it was an obvious slip of the tongue. “Nothing.”

  “Come on.”

  “Just, it’s started all up again, hasn’t it? I thought with a new school, I could start over. But they’ve found out I’m the fag again. They don’t want me to shower with them. They think I’ll suck them off, too. I only sucked… that guy off because he wanted me and I wanted him. It was the first time that had ever happened, that it wasn’t one-sided.” He wiped at his eyes hurriedly, and I pretended not to notice. “And all those guys, they’re all a bunch of ugly fuckers, nobody would want those dicks in their mouths.”

  His bravado was flaring up again. Shields at full strength!

  “You have Dec this time. He’ll help you.”

  “What, he’s going to come to school and be my bodyguard?”

  “I don’t think anything that drastic. But he has some really good people helping with GetOut. They’ll come up with something.”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll just be alone, as usual.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not alone.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “You know what I mean. I was standing at that bloody lookout, and Jasper and Coby were kissing, and you and Dec were hugging, and then you both were hugging Fran, and I know she’s got some guy back in Melbourne—”

  Some guy. Roger would be thrilled with that casual reduction.