Black Glass

by Mundell, Meg;

  He can make out heads twisting upwards, eyes seeking him out. The singer is rousing a chant: ‘Kill the pigs! Kill the pigs!’

  Fuck you too, he thinks, sending out a gentle technicolour splash, harmless as a Disney firework. Milk fights the urge to blind the two kids with his own spotlight, but already the roadies are wrestling them offstage, tilting the light back into position. His fingers dance over the controls, seeking some calming combination of light, scent and sound: toffee, book dust, the womblike heartbeat of a sleeping mother.

  But it’s too late. Milk has been exposed — and worse, miscast. Focus, he orders himself, suppressing a flash of anger. Bring it back. Restore order, channel the band, re-tune the crowd.

  A resolution is forming in his mind: once he gets down from here, that’s it — no more small-fry assignments with dodgy gear, no more amateur jobs entertaining wasted kids. He’s in demand: Frank from the casino keeps calling, and there are hints of other well-paid jobs. This is bullshit. From now on, he will aim for the top.

  [Border: Civic Zone/Interzone: patrol vehicle r364 | cbd officers 66891 + 78439]

  ‘Mate, go easy on those chips.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘We’re driving through and I ask him, You want any chips? He says no. Then he fucking eats all mine.’

  ‘Keep your hair on. Here, have a wing.’

  ‘Fuck the wings — I’m a leg man.’

  ‘Legs all gone.’

  ‘Give us it then.’

  ‘—’

  ‘So this crackdown bullshit. How long’s it meant to run for?’

  ‘Chief said till after the security summit, once all the big-wigs leave town. They’re expecting trouble from the reds and snoops, all those do-gooders. Reckons a couple of months, then back to biz as usual.’

  ‘Easy for him to say, fat bastard. With his fucking shoulder epaulettes and his fucking coffee machine.’

  ‘Beats doing paperwork.’

  ‘Yeah, well, these ghosts, they kill me. Shift ’em out of one place, they just pop up again somewhere else. When they got no papers we can’t do jack but lock ’em up.’

  ‘Long as they out of sight, doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yeah, but what are we s’posed to do? If we take ’em down the lock-up, that lot just whinge. Whole system’s in backlog.’

  ‘You know what we meant to do — ask them nice to move along, stay west of the overpass. And if that doesn’t work, spook ’em.’

  ‘Right, spook ’em. And if that highly fucking technical tactic doesn’t work?’

  ‘—’

  ‘I’m asking, if that doesn’t work?’

  ‘Bit of gentle persuasion.’

  ‘You know I hate that shit. Half of ’em are just kids.’

  ‘Think I like it? Job to do, mate, that’s all I know.’

  ‘And they’re filthy, some of them. Little bastards are full of diseases. Lice and scabies and rabies for Chrissakes.’

  ‘That’s what the gloves are for.’

  ‘All this shit just to make the minister look good. Like to see her down here with the fucking rubber gloves on.’

  ‘At least we’re not out on subzone duty, patrolling family-land for stolen bikes.’

  ‘True. Boring as batshit, rather be using my eyes.’

  ‘You want the rest of those chips?’

  ‘They’re cold now.’

  ‘You want them or not?’

  ‘Help yourself, have a coronary. Ah, Christ, here we go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Back there, those kids.’

  ‘Alright, but I was front man last time. Your turn.’

  ‘We fill the quota then we’re knocking off. There’s a beer at home with my name on it.’

  [Abandoned glass factory, Old Docks, South Interzone: Tally | Blue]

  The air oozed with heat, and Tally’s second-to-last bandaid flapped against her heel. Keeping up with Blue’s long legs meant adding an extra skip every so often, and all that hopping on hot concrete was doing something nasty to the soles of her bare feet. She imagined meat mashed free of the bone, flesh wearing loose of its moorings. ‘Watch out — glass,’ he’d said a while back, skirting a smashed bottle, and she’d shadowed him around the splinters, shamefaced.

  Blue had said almost nothing all morning. The lump above his eye was topped with a slash of dried blood, and his face was set and distant, as if he were straining to hear a far-off sound. She trailed in his wake, her detective coat tied to her back like a makeshift pack. Inside, stowed in pockets and knotted-off sleeves, was everything she owned: her camera, spare batteries, oversize sneakers, notebook and pencils, one remaining bandaid, a roll of stickers to post up, and exactly $28.40 wrapped in a piece of tinfoil. She’d tried to give Blue the last bandaid, but he’d shot it a disgusted look. ‘Better to get some air on it,’ he said. ‘Fucken thing’s pink anyway.’ She’d laughed, but he hadn’t, so she shut her mouth.

  It was her fault. Last night, bellies full of melted Mars Bars from the bins behind the 7-Eleven, they’d returned to their usual sleeping place, a high gap between two vacant buildings on the edge of the expressway. Blue, holding the water bottle, had been climbing the fence first. She was right beneath him, toes hooked into the mesh, when he froze. Tally had shaken the fence and urged him upwards; but he’d turned to shush her, his eyes wide in the streetlights. ‘Get down,’ he’d mouthed, already backtracking, moving fast and silent.

  She’d obeyed, but once they reached the bottom she demanded, loudly, ‘What?’ Blue shushed her again. And then she heard the voices: one flat and rasping, the other a high-pitched whine. Then a head stuck over the concrete lip of their bedroom: thin hair, ghost cheeks and hard eyes, mouth like the slit of an envelope. ‘Fark off, ya black bastard!’ snarled the toothless man, his gaze fixed on Blue. ‘We got this spot now.’

  Blue was already backing away when Tally started shouting. Words flew out of her like hailstones, driven by a fury she did not recognise. This was their place, hers and Blue’s — his name was up there on the wall — and no other arsehole was going to take it. She watched herself as if from afar, a cornered animal screaming threats into the gloom. Later she was ashamed of her outburst: just a kid throwing a tantrum. But this was where they slept. It was their place.

  She didn’t see the bottle coming, just heard the thunk behind her; a yelp, a splash of exploding glass. She sprinted after Blue, who was running half-hunched, hands clamped to his face. When she finally caught up with him near the river, he was slumped against a tree, chest heaving, saying nothing. He would not look at her, but in the semi-darkness she could see the blood all down one side of his face and neck, soaking into his t-shirt.

  ‘What you crying for,’ was all he’d said, washing the wound himself. After a bit he crawled far back into the bushes and lay down. Tally followed him and lay down too, further away than usual. When Blue turned on his side and didn’t reply to her goodnight, she stayed on her back in the dark and listened to the traffic swooping along the expressway, scanning the dirty sky for stars, a bright speck out beyond the satellites.

  He was walking no faster than usual, but seemed further ahead. ‘Gotta find a new place,’ was all he’d said when she asked where they were going. Last week one of Diggy’s sticker kids had warned them that the cops were pushing ghosts and undocs out of the city centre. The pressure was mostly in the wide north–south swathe of the Interzone, a poorly regulated buffer zone dividing the city’s shiny precincts from the lawless patch of the Quarter, out west. Sleeping spots were getting scarce, especially where the Interzone met the city proper. The jacks still steered clear of the Quarter, and the run-down Old Docks had nothing worth protecting, so Tally guessed they were headed in that direction.

  Soon enough she smelled greasy salt and rotting wood. They passed a
n old man poking about in a bin, cursing at the seagulls jabbing around his feet, and ventured into the maze of broken buildings that had once been the city’s industrial belt. Litter drifted in the hot empty streets, and she saw two big rats crouched over a puddle beneath a cracked pipe, sipping at the dirty water. The building they stopped at was a crumbled wreck of brick and vines, like a ruined castle. A faded name arched over the brickwork: Glass Merchants.

  ‘Put your shoes on,’ Blue instructed, pulling a pair of battered brogues from his pack and examining the soles closely. ‘And walk careful. Seen enough blood for now.’

  The floor of the old factory was paved in tiny mirror fragments. It crunched and tinkled beneath their feet, a fine glittery snow-dust puffing up at each step, bright flashes leaping up the walls as sunlight winked off shrapnel. Whitewash and crumbling brick, green vines and the whirr of pigeons in the beams high overhead, and everywhere that reflective glitter, like a cathedral where disco balls were conjured into being. No trace of the red dust she grew up in. Tally saw tiny unidentifiable blips of colour skate beneath her, glimpses of her passing self.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

  At last Blue turned around and looked at her. Smiled. ‘Found it a while ago. No one’s gonna come in here. No one else crazy enough to live in broken glass.’

  Upstairs the floors were mostly clear, the fragments bigger, jagged shards piled up around the walls. Leaning down, Tally was startled to see a pinched-looking face.

  ‘Why didn’t ya tell me I had dirt all on me?’ she said.

  ‘You always got dirt on your dial, Sherlock.’ His voice was back to normal now.

  They chose a small room up the top with an empty window overlooking the city, found an old broom and swept the floor until nothing glittered underfoot. Blue laid down newspapers, retrieved an old doormat and bashed the glass dust out of it, and placed it at the entrance to their room.

  ‘Right?’ he said, pointing at it.

  ‘Gotcha,’ she answered and wiped her sneakered feet, making a little dance of it.

  Blue fell asleep quickly, before the sun was properly down. Tally listened to him breathe, a faint rhythmic loop beneath the distant honk and buzz of the city. She stood at the window watching the last sunrays glance off the towers, their surfaces morphing into a pinprick pattern of office lights under the creeping advance of night. It was the same skyline she’d encountered that first day; only now, seen from the other side, it wasn’t so inviting. It looked indifferent, cut off. All those high-up rooms, like the cells of a beehive: what did people do up there? Talk on their phones, tap at their boxes, give and take orders; make plans, make promises, make money. For what?

  She hummed a few bars of ‘Summertime’, but the notes sounded wrong. She shot one photo, mapped their new location in her notebook, and when the muggy air outside the window offered no other clues, joined Blue on the floor and waited for sleep.

  [Bloodhound TV, Flinders Lane, Civic Zone: Damon | journotainment unit | senior editorial staff]

  ‘Nice work, Alice. That cling-wrap freaks story should go down a treat. What a bunch of weirdos. Must have been a doozy to research?’

  ‘Thanks, George. I managed to stay out of the line of fire.’

  ‘Some weird stuff out there in the subzones, eh? Not as tame as the brochures would have us believe?’

  ‘Yes, those gated communities … Anyway, it’ll be ready to run tonight.’

  ‘Excellent. Right, now, Damon — what have you got?’

  ‘Two stories wrapped, three more on the roll — still working on that casino suicide, the gambling cripple guy, should be ready Thursday. Can you see alright from over there, Diana?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Damon. Go ahead.’

  ‘Okay, these two are both crime-themed. This first one is the meth story. Shall I just play the cut?’

  ‘Yep. Shoot.’

  [—]

  ‘What do you think, Brian?’

  ‘Not bad. Good pace, nice mix of nasties and mums. Sharp analysis too. Love that exploded-house shot. And the grab from the minister — well done.’

  ‘She’s pushing that Crimbust and ID-Net stuff pretty hard lately. You don’t think it’s too much?’

  ‘No, it’s just a few seconds. We’ve got to build some steam — we’ll have all the summit unrest, the protests, and then later on the election hoo-ha, right?’

  ‘I liked her uniform.’

  ‘You always like their uniforms.’

  ‘What did you think, George?’

  ‘I’m happy enough. Welcome to the team, Damon.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s a privilege.’

  ‘Seems like your state liaison agent is looking after you okay?’

  ‘Oh, Luella — absolutely. She’s been a mine of info. Thanks for that connection, Rochelle.’

  ‘My pleasure. This can run tomorrow, prime slot — all agreed?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Yeah. So let’s see your second piece.’

  ‘This one’s about that street-kid porn guy. My working title is Who’s Your Daddy? but you’re welcome to change it, of course.’

  ‘I don’t mind that title. Catchy.’

  ‘Luella got me the shrink for this one. Keep an eye out, guy with the frizzy hair. Great talent. And wait till you see the little kid. One of my fixers found her. Breaks your heart.’

  ‘Let’s have a look, it’s almost ten.’

  ‘Okay. Arr-hem. Bloodhound TV advises that the following footage maaaaayyyy distress some viewerrrrrs.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  ‘Good stuff.’

  ‘Alright, Damon, just play it, please.’

  [Main Tent, Carnie District, The Quarter: Grace | Merlin | Peep | Esmeralda | audience members]

  Out beyond the footlights the audience was settling into place, all murmur and rustle. Parents fussed over seats; sly kids threw popcorn; old couples waited, hands folded in laps. Grace watched through a gap in the curtains. Her breath was coming light and fast, like some mammal scanning the desert heat, alert to everything. Merlin was nowhere to be seen, and the tent was almost full.

  They’d spent three days rehearsing in the hotel basement amongst hissing pipes and filthy mops before he’d pronounced her ready. Merlin was patient but exacting, correcting her miscues and mix-ups, nodding when she began to get the routine right. Her role would remain simple until she gained experience, he said — and unlike the dummy, she would not speak.

  ‘No lines?’ she’d asked politely, as if it didn’t really matter.

  The dummy had answered her: ‘You can say so much without using your voice.’ It hunched its shoulders and stared down at the basement floor. Its gaze drifted over broken buckets, jars of nails, a cemetery of cleaning chemicals, surveying the junkscape with an air of defeat. Then its eyes snagged on something: her own face. At once its whole being lit up. The shoulders lifted a fraction, the limbs took on a jaunty tilt; its hands flew over its heart and its head tipped back in delight, as if breathing her in like oxygen. The thing had shifted from despair to joy in mere seconds, without uttering a word.

  ‘Now you try,’ Merlin had instructed solemnly.

  Grace had mimicked the act without thinking, like a reflex. Like pretending was what she was born to do. As a child she’d always been wary of masks and puppets, not trusting the mismatch between surface and depth, but the gaze she now shone onto Peep did not feel false. Merlin had nodded as the dummy applauded.

  ‘She’s a natural, boss,’ it had announced in its high voice. ‘Just don’t let her cut my lunch.’

  They had set up in a smallish tent near the front entrance. A chalkboard outside plugged their act. Midway between Zigzag the contortionist and Esmeralda the snake lady, there they were: The Extraordinary Magic of MER
LIN and PEEP. And squeezed just below in green chalk, in smaller letters: + the Enchanting Violet! She’d always wanted a stage name. She hadn’t picked it, but she knew it was a good fit.

  Where was Merlin? The soundman was glancing at his watch, the ice-cream sellers hawking their last cones. Onstage his props waited: the old-fashioned mic, the wheeled black box with its compartments for magic cups, sticks, ropes and balls, card decks and silk scarves, a long-stemmed rose and a watch — all the innocent paraphernalia of magic. The briefcase on top, with the puppet folded into its foam contours like a foetus. And somewhere, in the lightless depths of the box, the white bird.

  Then Merlin was at her elbow, soundlessly, accompanied by a floating smell she knew too well: rum. (An image of Max ghosted up from the past: him slumped low in front of the TV, rattling ice-cubes in a plastic tumbler; she felt a brief sting, then nothing.)

  ‘Ready, my dear?’ asked the old man beside her, glancing up sharply from beneath white brows. However much he’d swallowed, he clearly wasn’t drunk. Grace nodded. Merlin gave the signal, music began to whirl overhead and a recorded spruiker’s voice boomed from all corners of the room.

  Laaaadiesandgentlemenbooooysandgirls … Hang on to your hats and watch your watches! … Prepare to be astonished, bedazzled and flabbergasted! Please give a thunderous welcome for Merlin the spectacular and his cheeky sidekick Peep!

  (If she stuck around for a fortnight, Merlin had promised, he’d consider her formally hired and commission a new intro.)

  Grace ducked out of sight as Merlin swept the curtains aside with great drama and commenced a series of gallant bows that took in every corner of the room. Applause sputtered out. Through the gap she watched him hush the crowd with one finger, all eyes turned to the tiny figure in the oversized top hat. Onstage, he was another man.

  Listening carefully as he introduced his first trick, Violet smoothed her blue velvet dress and waited for her cue.

  Later, it was the applause she remembered: a sound like rain, but quicker to fade away. Merlin had summoned her out from behind the curtain, bowed low and presented her to the audience like a fancy cake. Down in the dank basement he’d taught her the theatrics of bowing, an alternating high–low movement, half summons and half surrender; now Violet improvised, adding her own touch, a showgirlish twirl of the wrist. A kid in the front row waved the soggy remnants of her fairy floss; a young guy with glasses propped against a tent-pole, holding a tiny spotted puppy slung over one shoulder, clapped an open palm against one leg. Even Esmeralda, the lady who did the next show with the beautiful green-and-gold python, had appeared near the side of the stage, minus her snake, to watch their act. She was clapping too, and she looked like she meant it.