by Darren Groth
“Well, it is the highway, mate. Hard gettin’ off until there’s an exit, hey?”
Iggy’s unconvinced. He shakes a finger at the window. “Clever to be a couple of cars back and not be right behind. But not clever enough.”
“How ’bout we play the name game?” Florence starts tagging cars as they pass by. Commodore, Falcon, Astra, Fiesta. Iggy is reluctant to join in—someone has to keep an eye on the green Camry—but then gives over. Pajero, Tarago, Jazz, Tundra. He mentions there’s a North American vehicle called the Dodge Avenger. Florence sniggers.
“Does the Hulk drive one?” she asks.
Iggy doesn’t answer. Instead he demands a thumb-wrestle. Florence tells him he’s a stupid bugger, that he’s been owned every time they’ve battled in the past. Iggy is undaunted. He stays in the contest for a bit, twisting his wrist, using his whole arm for leverage, cheating. At one point he tells Florence to look at the Hulk driving a Dodge Avenger in the next lane. It doesn’t work. Florence fake yawns and pins him, sparking yelps of pain, a tap out and an excuse of “not feeling one hundred percent.”
When the whining subsides, conversation kicks in again. The topic? The self-defense class Florence is hoping to get going.
“I got some things sorted,” she says. “We could do it in the Shed, or maybe the fitness room, if it’s only a few people. I know the moves I wanna teach. The Roo Punch, the Redback Bite, maybe the Noosa Rip. Stuff like that. At the end I’ll give my students a special belt I’m makin’ in the art studio. It’s white, and it’s gonna have jacaranda flowers on it. It’ll be tops.”
“I’d like to do that class,” I say.
Florence looks my way. Her nostrils are flared. What teeth she has left are clenched.
“It’s not for you.”
“Why not?”
She looks me up and down. Her lip curls. “’Cause you have to be disabled. Or a girl.”
“Do you do a class for boys?”
“Why would I do a class for boys?”
“Because everyone needs to learn self-defense.”
Florence looks at Iggy. He nods and rubs his thumb. She turns back to me, looking down the crooked line of her nose.
“Thumb-wrestle,” she says. “You win, you can be in my class.”
“Um, okay.”
I begin “warming up.” Flexing, stretching. As a goalie, your hands have to be strong and quick. I figure I’ve got a shot here. Iggy feels the same, or at least suspects it will be a decent contest. He’s hard up against his seatbelt, straining to get the best view possible. Florence cricks her neck.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Hold out your hand. No, not that one, the other one.”
“My right?”
“Yeah. I always wrestle with my right. Hold it out.”
I don’t comply. I bite the inside of my cheek. My legs bounce.
“I’d like to stick with my left, if that’s okay.”
Florence rears back. “It’s not okay! I always wrestle with my right! Put out your right!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Do it!”
“I’m sorry, Florence. I can’t.”
The self-defense teacher-in-waiting throws up her arms, then drives her elbow into the seat padding.
“I s’pose it’s a draw then,” says Iggy. “Does that mean Munro gets to do the class?”
“It’s not a draw,” cries Florence. “We didn’t even go one round!”
“He didn’t lose.”
“I didn’t win either,” I say. “That was the deal to do the class.” I lean forward, trying to catch Florence’s huffy, turned-away face. “Another time, maybe? When my right hand is okay?”
“Whatever. I’ll still crush you.”
“I’ve got no doubt you will.”
Bernie has selected today’s tour stop—South Bank Parklands. “My favorite place in Brisbane, maybe even the world!” She beams. As we walk through a Triffids setup called the Arbour, she takes hold of my elbow.
“Indigenous people from two different tribes met here for many years. Then the whites came along and took over, setting up Brisbane’s main businesses. But then the river flooded in 1893, and the businesses moved to the north side because the ground was higher. By the way, I should tell you—there were two other big floods here, in 1974 and—”
“In 2011,” I say.
Bernie lifts her sunglasses and squints her eyes. “You know about that?”
“Bits and pieces.”
She stares, perhaps trying to figure out which bits and pieces. After ten seconds or so she finishes her sentence. “In 2011, where we are now, the water would have been up to our waists. But they fixed the damage.”
For half an hour, the team and Kelvin and I laze about on South Bank’s artificial beach. Bernie’s focus shifts from history to engineering. She delivers a stack of trivia: the amount of water, where the sand comes from, something about dredge pumps and sifting machines.
“It’s actually called Streets Beach,” she adds. “Streets is a company that makes ice cream. My favorite Streets ice cream is the Golden Gaytime.”
“I wish they’d called it Golden Gaytime Beach,” says Blake.
“I wish they had too,” I reply.
Bernie’s history class resumes over lunch at a place called Cosmos. “The World Expo was held here in 1988, and after it was over they didn’t want to leave a big hole in the ground, like what happened in your home city. In Vancouver, they didn’t have a plan for what would happen after the Expo 86. Did you go to the Expo 86?”
“I wasn’t born then, Bernie.”
She blinks several times, gives me a look that says, What a lame excuse. She continues. “Here, they got lots of ideas for what should be built after the Expo, and in the end the Parklands was the winner. A good thing—nothing beats this place.”
Tour guide Bernie finally goes on break at the Nepal Peace Pagoda. Prompted by a girl wearing a Game Grumps T-shirt, she tells me about the clothing line she’s working on at Fair Go. “I want to make shirts that say something I like, that have a good message.”
“You got any ideas?”
“I thought about SNAP. But there’s heaps of that on clothes already. I don’t think it has the same meaning as our SNAP.”
I’m about to suggest R-Word crossed out in a red circle when a small boy wearing his chocolate snack as a beard appears between us.
“Your back has a big hump like a camel! Does it have water in it?”
Bernie immediately responds, “S is for STOP!” and shoots out her hand. The boy thinks for a few seconds, picks his nose and smiles.
“G is for GO!”
He shouts and jump-slaps a high five. Before Bernie can progress to N (a name for this behavior doesn’t instantly spring to mind), the boy’s mom arrives on the scene, gasping apologies and threatening to take something called “Dorothy the dinosaur” away when they get home. They scurry away. Bernie watches the retreat, then pushes her sunglasses farther up her nose.
“I think I will make hats as well as shirts.”
Quality time for Iggy and me happens two hundred feet up, looking out over the city.
“I like the Wheel of Brisbane,” he says. It’s the first time today I’ve heard him speak without a wheeze or a groan or a sniffle. “No one can follow you up here. And I think the chances of being killed are probably a lot less than on the ground.”
“Okaaay. You’re, uh, probably right.”
“Do you like heights, Munro?”
“I don’t mind them. I’ve been on the Sea to Sky Gondola back home. Peak 2 Peak up in Whistler.”
“Has anyone died on those?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m not surprised.”
As we arc toward the highest point, Iggy takes a sketchbook and a pencil out of his backpack.
“Drawing the city?” I ask.
“No. I’m drawing Infecto flying over the city.”
/> “Infecto?”
“My superhero. He has the ability of germs, so he can go airborne. He can drink poison or get a virus in his blood or get a disease in his body, and he won’t die. He won’t even get sick. And when he’s got the toxic stuff inside him, if he touches a bad guy, the bad guy gets really sick straight away and dies.”
“Am I allowed to have a look?”
Iggy pulls the pad in close against his chest. “I don’t let anyone see Infecto. I’m keeping him a secret until I’ve finished the story.”
“No problem—that’s totally cool. Would you mind then if I guessed what Infecto looks like? You don’t have to tell me if I’m right or wrong. It’d just be for fun.”
Iggy first looks left, then right. “Righto,” he says warily.
“Awesome!” I clap my hands as the Wheel carries us over the top. “Okay, let’s see, I guess if he flies, he’d have a cape, and I figure that cape would be made out of…sanitary wipes, maybe? Or prescriptions for antibiotics? Now the suit. It would have to be one of those hazmat deals, only skintight, and on the chest would be, like, the outbreak symbol or the skull and crossbones. Oh, I know! A petri dish with stuff growing in it!”
Iggy pushes his tongue into his cheek. He peeks at his drawing and snorts.
“Okay, last but not least—the mask. What sort of mask would Infecto wear? Gas mask, maybe? Probably not—that’s more a villain thing. How about just the small plastic deal over the nose and mouth? You see people wearing those all the time in winter. Of course, Infecto’s mask would be a lot better than those—it would probably be made out of really thin gold or silver or platinum. Yeah, platinum. And for sure it would be really decorative with lots of different germs painted on it, you know? The way you’d see them under a microscope.” The Wheel starts bringing us back down to earth. “That’s all I got. Did I nail Infecto?”
Iggy wipes his eyes and tut-tuts. There is serious color in his face. He’s grinning like he just saw Stan Lee.
“You said I don’t have to tell if you’re right or wrong.”
“Correct.”
“Then I’m not telling.”
“Probably a good idea. Let’s shake on it.”
I lean and extend my elbow. Iggy meets me halfway.
At the start of the day, Blake had me constantly double-taking. The briefest glimpse could convince me, just for a second, that Evie was here. The longer the day has gone on, though, the more I’m seeing differences rather than similarities. Dale being on hand is a big help. Evie never had a boyfriend (unless you count Chris Hemsworth), so the sight of this tall, skinny, silent sidekick wasn’t ever going to hit home. And maybe his behavior—holding her bag, looping his arm through hers, the occasional butterfly kiss—emphasized the “Blake-ness” I’d previously been blind to. She has dimples. She flicks her hair a lot. She’s quite light on her feet. Her lips are not in the least bit blue.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she says.
“Sorry, Blake?”
“The question I asked at your interview.”
“You asked a lot of questions at the interview.”
“You didn’t answer the last one: are you going to marry your girlfriend, Caro?”
I take off my Canucks lid, pour some water in it from my bottle, jam it back on my head. “First off—she’s not my girlfriend.”
Not yet.
“Thanks for that, Dale.”
No problem.
“Caro is very cool. I like her a lot.”
“So she will be your girlfriend,” says Blake.
“We’ll see. ”
“You want to make her your girlfriend.”
“Maybe.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Soon?”
I whisper in Dale’s ear. He types.
I DON’T KNOW! shouts the iPad, volume to the max.
“Blake, if it happens, I promise you and Dale and the iPad will be first to know.”
The clunk of bike gears and the clap of flip-flops fills the space in our conversation. Below us, a big paddle-boat churns the river, the white wake like a bandage on the water. A herd of people lean out over the rail of the Goodwill Bridge, waving and shouting and holding out their phones. Their reward is a horn blast.
“Do you want to marry someone one day?” asks Blake as the echoes die away.
I laugh and point at the markings on the pavement—a yellow bike and a 10 km/h speed-limit sign. “You’re going way too fast here! Slow down, eh?”
She gives me a look that says, What are you talking about? I’m walking!
I shrug. “I’m sixteen, Blake. I’d like to live a little.”
“So you will get married one day.”
“If I’ve lived a little.”
“And when you fall in love.” Her head leans to the side, suddenly heavy. She takes hold of Dale’s hand and swings it high, back and forth. “We can’t get married.”
“No?”
“We’re not allowed.”
“Oh.”
“My dad said so. He thinks if we get married, we will want to live in the same house at Fair Go and sleep in the same bed and have sex and have children. He thinks we want to be the same as everyone else. Doesn’t he?”
Dale allows a grunt to speak for him instead of the iPad.
“Do you want that?” I ask.
Blake halts the hand swinging. “We don’t want to be like everyone else. We just want to get married. That way we’ll be together forever.”
If Shah was supposed to be anything more than a passenger on the trip, he never got the memo. Or he got the memo, tore it up and burned it. For the entire time at South Bank he was distant, hands in pockets, uttering a grand total of maybe ten words. His only real moment of life? A Champions League match on the big TVs at the Piazza.
On the bus back to Fair Go, I park myself in the seat beside him.
“Hey, I’m really looking forward to your turn on this tour business, Shah. You want to give me a hint where you’re going to take us? Maybe a soccer game in the—”
“Football.”
“Sorry?”
“Not soccer. Football.”
“Ah, right. Of course. In Canada, football is a different—”
“I would like to sleep, thank you.”
“You want to sleep?”
“Yes. I do not want talking now. I want to sleep, thank you.”
“Okay. Sure, no probs.”
Shah cozies up to the window. He makes a fist and presses it to his mouth. It kind of looks like he’s sucking his thumb. Then he closes his eyes. I don’t know when or even if he goes to sleep, but he doesn’t move. Through the wail of an ambulance siren, through the jolts of speed humps, through an impromptu sing-along of Adele’s “Someone Like You” initiated by Bernie, he is a corpse.
I squirm in my seat. A part of me wants to wake him. Come on, Shah! We haven’t spent any time together! With the others—even Florence—I took a step forward. We made progress. I listened and hung out and began building relationships. If I’m to keep the Coyote at bay, I need you too, bud!
The silver lining? I’m talking to myself, and it’s still just me.
I’ve taken zero photos to mark my first Fair Go adventure, and here at my shoulder is a beauty. I can see the image on Instagram and its accompanying caption: One of my team, Shah, demonstrating the effect of chillin’ with yours truly #Sleeper #TheSleepening #YouSnoozeILose #NoSleepTillBrisbane #FairGo #LivingPartner. I leave the phone in my pocket though. This moment can be put away in the place that suddenly seems inviting.
My memory.
Kelvin gives me a fist bump. “Congrats, Munro. You did great for your first stint as a Living Partner.”
“Thanks. Best time I’ve had so far in the exchange.”
“Awesome. I take it you’re feeling a bit better now about this tour caper?”
“I am. The Fair Go vibe travels.”
“It does. Recorded some beaut footage today,
by the way. You and the crew keepin’ it real. Top stuff.”
I nod, although I’m surprised. I don’t recall seeing Kelvin with the camera in hand at any point during the day. Either he was very sneaky or I was very comfortable. Probably a combination of the two.
“It was a good start with the team,” I say. “Florence, she’s tolerating me. Shah though. I’m still at the starting line with him.”
Kelvin shrugs. “Don’t take the sleeping thing personally. He does it on all our community-access trips. He’s got a pretty good reason.”
Sounds specific. Maybe chronic fatigue syndrome, like Mr. Twan at DSS? That thing where you have sleeping fits—what’s it called? Narcolepsy? Or maybe he has heart issues. Evie often fell asleep after school.
“Is it something I should know about?” I ask, trying not to be too nosy.
“No, it’s fine.” Kelvin finds a spare Fruit Tingle in his chest pocket. “He’ll tell you if he wants to.” He tucks the candy between teeth and cheek so he can keep talking. “You’ve got plenty of time.”
You were gone again.
I was. Are you going to put another smackdown on me?
Is that what you want?
No.
Do you want to be punished?
No.
You deserve to be punished.
No, I don’t. I deserve to be better. And it’s starting to happen, Coyote. Fair Go is making it happen.
You’re just hiding, Munro. Do you remember what you did after the ambulance took Evie away? You stumbled around the school, past rooms and through doors. Along the side of the theater, around the tennis courts. Didn’t stop until you reached the storage shed. You went in and you sat between the lawn mower and the spare recycling bins, and then you lay down on the concrete. And you stayed there so that all those people who wanted to say how sorry they were, and how it wasn’t your fault, and that you did your best, and you should go home… you stayed there so they couldn’t find you.
You hid, Munro. And now you’re doing it again. You think this is hide-and-seek and Fair Go is where you can’t be found. But I will find you. And when I do, you’ll know we’re together.
Forever.
I jerk awake.
