Bird North and Other Stories

by Breton Dukes

  Bent in half Bruce sneezed glugs of snot, while when it was his turn Gary was made deaf by the whoosh and bang of his heart.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ ‘Shit fucking hot,’ they cried when they saw the truck, and after swinging the carcass aboard they fell together into the grass.

  Bruce was still breathing too hard to take a drink, but Gary sat up and had a go. It was warm and sweet and he followed his first gulp with another two.

  ‘Good carry,’ said Lee, taking the bottle.

  Bruce sneezed. His big body shot up and then slumped as if touched by resuscitation paddles.

  ‘He’s allergic to exercise,’ said Lee.

  Bruce sneezed again and this time sat up. Still panting, he spat and cleared his nostrils into the grass. He held his hand at the bottle.

  ‘What do you say?’ said Lee.

  Bruce snuffled. ‘C’mon,’ he said.

  Lee kept the bottle just out of his reach. Bruce got to his knees and made a lunge, but Lee whipped it away. ‘You know what?’ he said, as if he’d just had a great idea. ‘I’d love a piece of orange.’

  Bruce still had his hand at the bottle. ‘C’mon,’ he said again.

  With a flourish Lee offered and then removed the bottle. ‘Like at rugby, when the coach’s missus brought out a bag of segments.’

  Bruce sneezed.

  ‘Where are those oranges?’ said Lee.

  Gary lay back so as to get the wallet out of his pants. It had wilted with the sweat.

  ‘Hmm?’ said Lee, as if talking to a child. He unscrewed the lid, drank, and sighed with the joy of it. Glancing at Gary he pointed the bottle at Bruce as if it were a sword. ‘Did you lose them up your fat arse?’

  The folded paper and the acid inside were still intact.

  ‘Hey Gary,’ said Lee, ‘wouldn’t you like an orange?’

  Gary cast his eyes at Bruce and then back to Lee. He put his finger to his lips, raised his eyebrows and showed Lee the square of acid.

  Lee pushed off the truck and went over. He turned his back to Bruce. ‘Acid?’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s a smooth ride,’ said Gary.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Lee. ‘I knew you were on something.’

  ‘Put it on your tongue.’

  Lee wet his finger, dipped it, and put it in his mouth.

  The bank, where Gary and Bruce lay, was in sunshine. The truck was in shade. Lee was still changing tyres. The bottle was mostly empty. Bruce was talking about the time he’d lived in Christchurch. ‘Worked in a chip shop in Woolston,’ he said.

  Gary held the ATM card so that there was just it and the sky. Tania’s name was raised off the plastic. There were three thousand and ninety-eight dollars in the account.

  Bruce’s face was red from the alcohol, but the sneezing had stopped. Blood dried in the creases of his gut. He picked at the hair there. ‘You think it gets busy,’ he waved back across the forests, farm land and subdivisions to the waiting restaurant. ‘Four deep fryers going full bore, orders all the way to Africa, drunks scrapping out the front.’ He counted the challenges on his fingers.

  There was the now familiar sound of lug nuts being tightened and then the sound of the jack. The truck lowered. Lee appeared at the front of the truck holding a tyre iron.

  Gary sipped from the bottle. ‘Your slowest yet,’ he said, putting the card back in his wallet.

  ‘What? Bullshit.’

  Gary shrugged, suggesting time was beyond his control.

  Lee spat drily then went back to the other side of the truck and returned with the jack. ‘Again,’ he said.

  Gary raised his arm. Lee slid the jack under the truck and looked over his shoulder. Gary dropped his arm. Lee pumped furiously. The truck tilted causing the pig to shift gently. Gary settled in the grass. ‘We’ll let him do one more,’ he said.

  ‘On weekends we’d go and give the Wizard a hard time,’ said Bruce.

  A plane moved slowly across the sky. This time tomorrow, thought Gary, I could be in Adelaide.

  Lee rolled a wheel down the side of the truck. He knocked it off its balance and it toiled with gravity while he went back for the jack. The truck sank. Lee pulled out the jack and moved down the truck.

  ‘You couldn’t pay me to stand up in that hat,’ said Bruce.

  Gary lit another joint. He looked over at Bruce who was staring through the last of the amber liquid at the sun. ‘Spent the winter in a boarding house down the road from the shop,’ Bruce said, rolling to expose his broad white side and the symmetrical welt there. ‘I had my bed too close to the radiator.’ He drained the bottle and stood using Gary’s shoulder as a prop. ‘People underestimate the cold in Canterbury.’

  Gary thought about Adelaide again, then the pressure in his bladder and then Tania. Sometimes, when he got home from his shift she’d bring him a beer she’d chilled in the freezer. The can would be ice cold to hold and the beer itself would be on the brink of freezing. ‘A beer blizzard,’ he said, unsure what he meant by it.

  But Bruce hadn’t heard. He was watching Lee who’d come around the truck and was holding his hands out in a question.

  ‘A record,’ said Gary exultantly.

  Lee raised his fists and made a circle so that he was facing the truck.

  Bruce hurled the bottle. It missed Lee, hitting the front tyre with a dead thud. Bruce sat and then lay down quickly so that his feet went up with the momentum. Lee hadn’t noticed. He was leaning on the truck looking at the pig.

  ‘He didn’t see,’ said Gary, taking a deep hit. He started to say something about fresh starts, or at least started to think about saying something about fresh starts.

  Bruce held up his hand and made his all-knowing face. He pointed through the grass at Lee who was still staring at the pig. ‘Picks me up every Sunday – takes me to the supermarket so I can do my shopping. He’s done it ever since I started.’

  Gary exhaled and then straight away took another hit. He noticed that his hand was on the bulge his wallet made in his trousers. He thought hard about what it all meant. ‘Today’s a Sunday,’ he said, after a while.