by Markus Zusak
He stopped talking and I waited for more, until I realized that was it, and I nodded to my brother. At the eyes in the mirror.
For a moment, I wondered, Why is he telling me this?
He didn’t look proud or happy. Maybe just that same expression of contentment as before. Or maybe he was just glad he’d told somebody, because it sure didn’t seem like he’d tell a whole load of people what he’d just told me. I couldn’t be sure. As usual.
Finally, when I got out of the car, I wondered if anyone knew my brother. I wondered if Sal knew him.
I just knew that Steve was talking to me that day and it felt all right.
No, it felt good.
When he left, I waved to him but he was already halfway up the street. In the house, Octavia was sitting in our kitchen.
Rube wasn’t.
They were as good as over. She looked beautiful.
ALLEY BOYS
There must be thousands of alleys in this city. Dark alleys everywhere.
In many of them, people have fought, cutting each other down and placing punches and kicks to bodies that have already fallen….
But what about the alleys in a person?
In a boy?
In a human?
How many times have I beaten myself down? I wonder. How many times have I lain there, in one of those alleys, between buildings that shiver and houses who slouch, their hands fixed in their pockets, doing nothing?
Tonight, I run through those alleys.
Past wounded cars.
Down grimly lit stairways.
Till I’m there
I feel it.
Know it.
I see myself, lying there, at the bottom of the deepest, darkest alley. A slight breeze wades across the floor of it. It whispers to the rubbish, then picks it all up and moves it along.
Get up, I tell me.
Get up.
Slowly, I do. I make myself realize that it’s okay to be Cameron Wolfe, and desire reaches through me again.
I realize that there’s no one else in these alleyways, to beat me down or help me up.
There’s only me.
CHAPTER 6
Three words: God damn Miffy.
I wasn’t really in the mood for walking him, especially when I had to wait around quite a while for Rube.
At first, I sat in the kitchen with Octavia.
She didn’t look too impressed with things, considering she and Rube were supposed to be going out that afternoon. It must have slipped Rube’s mind. At least, that was what I told her. Me, though? I knew. Rube was away from her on purpose. I’d seen him do this before.
Come in late.
Argue.
Tell them he doesn’t need this garbage.
It was a pretty good technique for Rube. He didn’t mind being the villain.
There were leftovers on offer, but Octavia didn’t stay for them. I walked out with her and we remained on the front porch a while, talking, and even managing to laugh now and then. Next door, I think Miffy could hear us and was expecting his walk. He sounded agitated at first, then started going off his nut.
“I’ll just go get him,” I said, and quickly went next door to pick up the little bastard.
When we got back, I noticed Octavia was shivering.
As she stroked the dog, I took off my jacket and offered it to her. She accepted it, and soon after she said, “It’s warm, Cam.” She looked just past me. “It’s the warmest I’ve felt for a while….”
In a way, I hoped she wasn’t just talking about the jacket, but it was better not to think that way. When you think like that, you end up standing outside people’s houses, waiting for something that never comes.
She gave it back when we walked down to the gate and I opened it for her.
The moon was stuck to the sky and Octavia said, “The’s no point coming back really, is there?”
“Why?” I replied.
“Don’t why me, Cameron.” She looked away and glanced back. “Don’t worry about it.” Even when she leaned onto the gate with her hands and her voice became unsteady, Octavia looked great, and I don’t mean that in a dirty kind of way. I just mean that I liked her. I felt sorry for her, and for what Rube was doing to her. Her eyes smiled at me, for just a moment. One of those hurt smiles a person gives you to let you know they’re okay, even though they’re far from it.
After that, she left.
When she was just past the gate, I asked, “Octavia?” She turned around. “Y’ gonna come back?” “Maybe,” she smiled. “One day.”
She walked along our street and it was cold and brutal and beautiful. For a few seconds, I hated my brother Rube for what he was doing to her.
Also, watching her walk slowly up our street, I remembered what Rube had said about Octavia and him following me one day when I walked over to Glebe and stood outside Stephanie’s house. I could clearly see the image of them looking at me. Looking at me looking. She must have thought I was pathetic. A bit of a lonely bastard, as Rube put it. Maybe now, as she walked up the street, she knew how I felt.
Somehow, though, I understood that it was thoughts of Rube that filled her. Not thoughts of me. Maybe she was thinking of his hands on her, the thrill of it. Maybe it was laughter she remembered, or the words of a conversation. I would never know. I sat down again and Miffy jumped on my lap. As I watched Octavia, Miffy watched me, and when the girl had disappeared completely, the dog was giving me a certain look.
“What?” I asked him, but of course, he didn’t answer. The dog looked like he’d genuinely caught me out, but soon enough, he returned to his usual disgusting self, yawning in my face. “Your breath smells like a cesspool,” I said, and we waited for Rube.
He came in late for dinner and the old man gave him a good serve for it, as well as for leaving Octavia out to dry. I made sure to keep out of it. All I did was hang around with Miffy until Rube came out.
It was absolutely bloody freezing now and I wasn’t in the mood.
The air was cold enough for us to wear our hoods indefinitely, and to watch the smoke pour from our mouths when we breathed.
Smoke came from Miffy’s mouth too, especially when he had a bit of a coughing fit. That was when we quickened the pace for home.
Later, we watched TV.
I looked over at my brother. He could sense it. “What?” he said.
I was on the couch and Rube was in the worn-through chair.
“Is Octavia gone?” He looked.
First away. The back at me. Yes.
That was the answer and Rube knew he didn’t have to say it.
“There a new one?”
Again, he didn’t have to answer.
“What’s her name?”
He waited a while, then said it. “Julia … but relax, Cam — I haven’t done anything yet.” I nodded.
I nodded and swallowed and I wished hard that it didn’t have to be this way, for Octavia. I couldn’t have cared less about Rube at this point. I thought only of the poor girl, and I thought of a time a few years ago when Sarah got dumped by this one particular guy. I remembered how shattered she was, especially when she found out there was another girl.
Rube and I hated the guy who did that.
We wanted to kill him.
Rube especially.
Now that guy was Rube.
For a moment, I nearly mentioned it, but all I did was sit there stupidly and look at Rube’s face, side-on. There was no remorse in him. Almost no trace of thought about what he was doing.
Julia.
I could only wonder what she’d be like.
The only problem for Rube was that Octavia wanted to find things out for sure, so she came over again during the week.
They went out to the yard, and after a few minutes, she came back through the house on her own. When she saw me, she said, “I’ll see you, Cameron,” and again, she gave me that courageous smile — the one I saw the other night. Only this time, her green eyes were soaked more definitely, the
water rising higher, only just managing not to fall out. She gathered herself and we stood in the hall and she said one last time, “I’ll see you around.”
“No you won’t,” and I smiled back at her. We both knew that people didn’t see Cameron Wolfe — at least not unless they walked through the streets of the city a lot.
This time, when she left, she told me not to come out, but secretly, I stood on the front porch and watched her disappear.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
I figured that was the last time I’d ever see Rube’s girl Octavia.
I was wrong.
WALK ON
At times I’ve wondered harder than usual about the girl in Glebe, where I constantly wait in the guttered city street. I wonder if she ever sees me.
I wonder if she sees me, knows me, or even likes the fact that I stand outside her house, or waiting in vain. I wonder when I walk away if she might be pulling the curtain just slightly aside to watch me leaving. God, I imagine it so hard. So hard that it claws me. Yet, I never turn around.
I just keep walking on because that’s what I do. I never speak or shout or show anyone I’m there. I never allow my hand to form a fist and knock on the wood of her frightening front door. Me?
I just walk on and never turn around.
And do you know why?
It’s because I’m afraid she won’t be there, watching for me.
When I walk on without looking, at least there’s still some hope.
CHAPTER 7
Julia was, of course, an absolute scrubber. There’s not a whole lot more I can say about her. A scrubber (in case you don’t know) is a girl who might be described as kind of slutty or festy, yet still without being a complete prostitute or anything like that. She chews gum a lot. She might drink excessively and smoke for show. She’ll call you a faggot, poofter, or wanker with a lovely smirk on her face. She’ll wear tight-arse jeans and good cleavage and she won’t care too much if her headlights are on. Jewelry: moderate to heavy, maybe with a nose ring or eyebrow ring for rebellious originality. Then there’s the makeup. At times it’s bucketed on, especially if there’s a bit of acne involved on her face, although more often than not, a scrubber isn’t too bad-looking at all. She just has a tendency to make herself ugly, by what she says and what she does.
And Julia?
What can I say?
She was beautiful. She w
as blond.
And she was a scrubber and a half.
“So this is Cameron,” she said when she first saw me. She was chewing that low-sugar gum that dentists highly recommend.
“Hey,” I said, and Rube winked at me. I knew what the wink meant. Something like, Not bad, huh? or, You wouldn’t knock her back, would y’? or even simply, Pretty good handfuls, ay? The bastard.
As you can imagine, I got out of there pretty quick smart, because that girl annoyed the crap out of me very bloody fast. My only hope was that Rube wouldn’t take her to see me staring at that Stephanie girl’s house. Octavia, I could handle, because she at least had a bit of class about her. A bit of niceness. But not this one. She’d most likely call me a bit of a lonely bastard as well. Or maybe she’d say something like, “Get a life,” or repeat something Rube had previously said, hoping his charisma would rub off on her. No way. I wouldn’t give her a chance. Not this one (even though Christ, I thought at one stage, take a look at her. She had an Inside Sport body if ever I’d seen one).
But no.
I’d made up my mind.
Rather than hang around them like a bad smell, I decided to go to the movies and hang around like a bad smell there instead.
On a cold, windy Saturday, when Dad didn’t need me, I saw three movies on the one day, before going over to Glebe a while, and then home. In the night, I went down to our basement and wrote for a while, feeling everything that was me shift and turn inside.
I was in bed for quite a while when Rube came in and slumped down on his own bed across from me. When I got up to turn off the light, he said, “Well Cam?”
“Well what?”
“What are your thoughts?” “On what?” “On Julia.”
“Well,” I began, but I didn’t want to congratulate him on her, and I didn’t want to interfere either. The injured darkness of the room swayed and stumbled and I said, “She’s okay, I guess.”
“Okay!?” He raised his voice excitedly. “She’s pretty bloody brilliant if you ask me.”
“But I didn’t ask you, did I?” I stated. “You asked me and I told you the answer.”
“Smart-arse.”
I laughed.
“Are you tryin’ to start somethin’?” “Of course not.”
“Well you better bloody not …”
Rube’s voice trailed off and he fell asleep, letting the night throb around me, alone.
I lay there, not sleeping for hours — thinking about the cover model on the magazine at the barber, then an exotic supermodel I saw on an ad at the movies. In my mind, I was with them. In them. Alone. For a while I even thought of Julia, but that was too much. I mean, there’s perversion and there’s perversion. Even for me.
In the morning, the previous night’s conversation between Rube and me was forgotten. He ate slabs of bacon in the kitchen before going out again, while I stayed in because I had work due in at school next day.
Of course, I knew Rube was with Julia, and the pattern continued.
About two weeks went by, and everything was normal. Normal routine.
Dad was working hard, plumbing.
Mrs. Wolfe was the same, cleaning people’s houses and doing a few cleaning shifts at the hospital.
Sarah did some overtime.
Steve kept winning at football, working in his office job, and living in his apartment with Sal. Rube went out with Julia
And I still wrote my words, sometimes in our bedroom, sometimes in the basement. I also went over to Glebe quite a few times, more out of habit now than anything else.
Soon, though, a day came that changed everything.
It … I don’t know how to explain it.
It all seemed so normal, but slightly off-center at the same time.
I walked the city streets, as usual.
I made my way over to the suburb of Glebe, without even thinking about where I was walking.
I went there, sat there, stood there, waited there, even begged there for something, anything to happen.
It was a Thursday, and in the dying moments of day, when the last rays of light stood up to be killed in the sky, I could feel someone behind me, just to the side. I could feel a presence, a shadow, standing just obscured behind a tree.
I turned around. I looked.
“Rube?” I asked. “That you, Rube?” But it wasn’t Rube.
I was sitting down against the small brick fence when I saw the person step into the last remnants of light, and walk slowly toward me. It was Octavia.
It was Octavia and she walked over and sat next to me.
“Hi Cameron,” she said.
“Hi Octavia.” I was shocked.
Silence bent down then, just for a moment, and whispered to each of us.
My heart threw itself to my throat.
Then, down.
Down.
She looked into the window I’d been staring at. Stephanie’s window.
“Nothing?” she asked, and I knew what she meant.
“No, not tonight,” I answered.
“Any night?”
I couldn’t help it.
I promise you, I couldn’t….
A huge stupid tear rose up and fell out of my eye. It stammered down my face to my mouth and I could taste it. I could taste the saltiness of it, on my lips.
“Cameron?”
I looked at her.
“You okay?” she asked.
And all I did from there was tell her said, “She’s not comin’ out tonight, or any other night, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” I was even moved to quote Rub
e. “Y’ feel what y’ feel, and that girl doesn’t feel a thing for me. That’s all there is to it….” I looked away, at the dying sky, attempting to pull myself together.
I began wondering exactly why I’d chosen this Glebe girl as the one I wanted to please, to drown in. “Cam?” asked Octavia. “Cam?”
She kept wanting me to look at her, but I still wasn’t ready. Instead, I stood up and stared into the house. The lights went on. The curtains were drawn, and the girl, as always, was nowhere to be seen.
Yet, there was a girl next to me, who’d stood up now as well, and we were both beside the brick fence. She looked at me and made me look back. She asked one more time.
“Cam?”
Finally, I answered, quietly, timidly. “Yeah?”
And Octavia’s face cried out to me in the silent city night as she asked, “Would you come and stand outside my house instead?”
THE CHARCOAL SKY
Sometimes you go to the wrong place, but the right way comes and finds you. It might make you trip over it or speak to it. Or it might come to you when a day is stripped apart by night and ask you to take its hand and forget this wrong place, this illusion where you stand.
I think of the mess in my mind and the girl who walked through it to stand before me and let her voice come close.
I remember brick walls.
There are moments when you can only stand and stare, watching the world forget you as you remove yourself from it — when you overcome it and cease to exist as the person you were.
It calls your name, but you’re gone.
You hear nothing. See nothing.
You’ve gone somewhere else. You’ve gone somewhere to find a different definition of yourself, and it’s a place where nothing else can touch you. Nothing else can swing on your thoughts. It’s only yourself, flat against the charcoal sky, for one moment.