Disappearing off the Face of the Earth

by David Cohen

  I knocked at the door.

  ‘Kelvin?’

  No answer. But the door was unlocked.

  I drifted around the house. The rubbish bin in the kitchen smelled rotten and the house was in a mess, but that didn’t mean anything: hygiene wasn’t really Kelvin’s thing.

  I called out, ‘Kelvin! Where the fuck are you, man?’ But even as I said this, I knew he wasn’t there. He’d been removed by a person or persons unknown. I’d felt this as soon as I stepped out of the van. Something told me so – a voice, or a feeling, or a voice-feeling; the house had been emptied of its Kelvin-ness. But it wasn’t just that Kelvin no longer occupied the house. Kelvin, something told me, had disappeared off the face of the earth.

  I walked back towards his office, which was next to the bathroom, which was opposite the back door. The curtains were closed, as always. Usually the only light in Kelvin’s office came from the computer screen, only now the screen was dark, but when I touched a key on the keyboard it came back to life, displaying the latest bids on a Prada handbag, almost new.

  I felt very odd in there. I kept thinking about Bruce’s claim that I’d informed him of Kelvin’s death. I had no recollection of that; I couldn’t even recall visiting Kelvin since I’d delivered the contents of Michael Tan’s unit. Maybe Bruce was right and I was losing my memory – not just my memory: my entire mind.

  ‘Kelvin, you bastard. Where did you go?’

  The words sounded strange, as if this room, long accustomed to Kelvin’s voice, or no voices at all, was flinging mine back at me.

  I went into the bathroom, bending over the sink to wash my face. Straightening up again, I watched the man in the mirror shut off the tap, dry his hands on his pants and then remove his glasses. It was strange: my head was balder than the head I pictured when I pictured my head, and my face was fatter than the face I pictured when I pictured my face.

  ‘Not very impressive at all, are you?’ I said to the mirror.

  I felt pressure building inside my head, as if my brain were slowly expanding, pressing against the walls of my skull. I had to get out of Kelvin’s house.

  I left the bathroom and walked out the back door. But then I remembered that the stairs were broken. I didn’t want to risk leaping to the bottom, so I went back inside the house and walked down the hallway towards the front door, pausing for a moment to peer into the games room. Yahtzee was still set up on the little table, in anticipation of the next round.

  ‘Ah, Christ,’ I said.

  After a few moments’ hesitation, I entered the room and took Test Match from its niche on the shelf. I was pretty sure Kelvin wouldn’t have minded; wherever he was now, he probably had no use for it.

  Twenty-five

  I’d fully expected Rhonda to blame me for the whole sorry business and send me on my way for good. But it wasn’t like that at all. Despite what had happened, she said she appreciated all I’d done for Dennis, and even that I could continue living there if I liked.

  I stayed for another month, doing what I could to help. But I couldn’t remain there forever. I had to get on with my life, and I did, but not before Rhonda informed me that Dennis had left me a chunk of money. At some point, it seemed, he’d amended his will – or maybe Rhonda, since she’d presumably been looking after that kind of thing, had done it on his behalf. I didn’t ask questions. I was genuinely surprised and touched. It wasn’t a fortune but it was pretty generous all the same.

  Shortly after that, I decided, sort of on the spur of the moment, to buy a self-storage facility.

  What happened was, I was driving down the M1 when I noticed a place called Hideaway Self Storage, with a big FOR SALE sign out the front. I took that sign as a sign.

  The storage boom was still in full swing, with Pharaoh’s Tomb leading the way. But there was no Pharaoh’s Tomb in this particular part of Brisbane, not yet. I’d often wondered, while working under Ron Wood’s regime, what things would be like with me at the helm. I was pretty sure I could do a better job than Ron Wood. Pharaoh’s Tomb was just another cookie-cutter facility, with cookie-cutter rules and procedures; all Ron really had to do was not fuck things up too much and business would tick along nicely. I liked the fact that Hideaway Self Storage was a one-off. While it didn’t look anywhere near as impressive as Pharaoh’s Tomb, it had a certain understated charm. Plus, it was going cheap.

  But what of my property-investment goals? With the Dennis inheritance and my own small savings, I could have put down a deposit on an apartment, got the portfolio underway. But the truth was, over the period I’d spent at Dennis and Rhonda’s place, my enthusiasm for all that had waned. Ironically, the more I settled in to my routine with Dennis, the less I thought about it. And when I did think about it, I felt that the whole investment process seemed too slow; it would take too long before I’d start seeing much of a return. When I saw that FOR SALE sign, I decided that it would be much smarter simply to buy an existing business, improve it, and then perhaps even start up another somewhere else, and so on – maybe one day give Pharaoh’s Tomb a run for its money.

  No more fucking around, I thought.

  I bought Hideaway Self Storage a week later.

  The facility’s occupancy rate was fairly good from the outset, with plenty of folks looking for a place to park their exercise machines and recliners and outdoor furniture settings and other crap that seemed like a good idea at the time but was now cluttering up the house. It was still, as they say, a steep learning curve, and not an easy one to navigate alone, so before too long I hired an assistant named Fergus to help me with front-desk work, cleaning, data entry and, most importantly, replacing fluoro tubes that were on the way out.

  I’d intended, once things were under control, to give the place a bit of a face lift, paint the exterior, update the security system, replace the doors on the units – maybe even add some more units. But I was so flat out just dealing with the rental demand over the next year and half, I never got around to those other things. There were days when I didn’t think I could handle the stress. Fergus, as it turned out, suffered from what I call Who Gives a Fuck Syndrome, and seemed to think he was doing me a big favour just by showing up.

  And then one day he didn’t show up.

  I called his mobile. ‘Fergus? You were meant to be here at ten today. Did you forget?’

  ‘Actually, no,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I meant to call you earlier. I can’t come in today.’

  ‘Why not?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’ve just been offered this other job.’

  ‘What – for the day?’

  ‘No, it’s pretty much a permanent position.’

  ‘So when you say you’re not coming in today, you mean you’re not coming in for the rest of your life.’

  After a silence, he replied, ‘Basically, yeah.’

  Well, thanks for letting me know, dickbrain.

  So there I was, left in the lurch by Fergus just as things were really heating up. For the time being I’d have to handle it all alone: deal with new rentals, manage the existing rentals, keep an eye on the CCTV cameras, find a new pest-control service because the last one had screwed me over, and, worst of all, change the fucking fluoro tube that was flickering in the corridor just near the front office.

  I could have put it off but the flickering light was too close by to ignore. I couldn’t quite see it from the front desk, but I could hear it going click … click … click. I felt like a metal hook was tinkering with pin tumblers in my brain, unleashing skull pain the likes of which I hadn’t experienced before.

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ I put my hand over my eyes, recalling the blinding headaches that had afflicted my father. They became more intense with the passing months – not unlike his conviction that I was robbing him of his money and his rightful place in the Test Match Hall of Fame. And the next imaginary crime on the list was levelled not at me, but at my mother. According to him, she’d been conducting a secret affair with Dr Nguyen from the local dental clinic. And th
at wasn’t all: Dr Nguyen was just the first in a series of men she was having it off with behind my father’s back. You wondered where she found the time.

  Now, as insane as these accusations may have been, they were a bit more serious than Test Match or alleged petty theft, because he started talking about revenge: revenge on Mum, Dr Nguyen and the other men. What form would the revenge take? Well, he wouldn’t disclose that part, except to point out that it would be ‘unpleasant’.

  Who knows what would have happened if my father hadn’t gone to the doctor to ask why he’d been suffering severe headaches on a fairly regular basis for some time now. That was when they identified the tumour. The problem was, even though they’d identified the tumour, removing it was another matter. It was essentially a case of ‘Well, we know why he’s been acting like a cunt, but unfortunately we can’t do anything about it – well, we can but it’ll kill him.’ Not much of a choice, really; we just had to wait for nature to take its course, which happened quicker than expected – kind of sad, but also kind of a relief.

  But why I am thinking about that? I wondered. This is hardly the time for a trip down Memory Lane – I’ve got things to do. So I put on sunglasses and stuffed tissues in my ears and tried to get on with my work. The pain subsided a bit but I couldn’t continue: no further business could be conducted until I’d changed that bastard light. Since Fergus had seen fit to piss off like that, there was nobody to do it but me.

  I went out to the front office, eyes covered, ears still full of tissues, and switched off the corridor lights. The daylight coming through the front windows would be enough light for the moment. I dragged out the ladder, unfolded it, climbed up.

  ‘Not so tough now, are you?’ I said twisting the tube to free it from its moorings. But it refused to give up without a fight; that tube clung on for dear life.

  As I struggled with it, I heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Need a hand?’

  I hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. He’d appeared out of nowhere.

  ‘Bruce!’ I said. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  Bruce looked at the tube in my hand. ‘Well, for starters I’ve come to help you put that light out of its misery.’

  Twenty-six

  I remained standing on the ladder, looking at Bruce. I was stunned; Bruce, on the other hand, looked as if he’d just returned after stepping out for an unusually long tea break.

  ‘How’d you know I was here?’ I said.

  ‘Psychic powers,’ Bruce replied. ‘Something led me here.’

  I climbed down off the ladder; that fucker of a fluoro tube remained where it was for the time being.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I said.

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve been travelling around a lot, but I ended up in Queensland by a series of random connections – that is, I thought they were random, but clearly the whole time my psychic self was leading me towards a particular destination. Do you want to hear the whole story?’

  ‘Not right now, no.’

  ‘Well, at least let me get that light for you.’

  Before I knew it, Bruce had ascended the ladder and, with little fuss, unpinned the tube from its holders. He climbed back down, handing me the disabled light.

  ‘So this is your place?’ he said. ‘I’m impressed, Ken.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s doing pretty well,’ I said, studying Bruce’s face. It was a bit fatter, his head a bit balder. Apart from that he didn’t look much different.

  ‘You know,’ Bruce said, ‘I feel like I belong here in the so-called Sunshine State. Weather’s not as nice as I expected, and I can never quite get used to the smell of ibis shit. But otherwise the lifestyle agrees with me, and I agree with it. How about you? How’d you end up here?’

  I found myself telling Bruce the story of Uncle Dennis, how he’d gone walkabout and how I still felt responsible.

  Bruce replied, ‘In Germany, they have fake bus stops outside nursing homes so the Alzheimer’s patients don’t wander off. They just sit at the bus stop and wait until the bus shows up to take them wherever it is they urgently need to go. But of course there is no bus. But that doesn’t matter: patient just waits there until he forgets where it is he’s going and why, then he heads back inside for a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘That’s a fun fact,’ I said, ‘but Dennis wasn’t in a nursing home – he was in his house.’

  ‘Still, it’s a simple but clever solution to a difficult problem. You can’t adjust the patient’s mind to match up with reality, so what do you do? You adjust reality to match up with the patient’s mind. They have fake timetables, everything. You’ve got to hand it to those Germans.’

  ‘Is that where you’ve been – Germany?’

  ‘No. It’s just something I read about. I’ve been doing a lot of reading.’

  ‘So where have you been, then?’ I pointed the dead fluoro tube at him, as if casting a spell. ‘I’d thought you’d gone for good.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’ He sounded almost like he meant it.

  ‘You got me sacked from my job,’ I said. ‘I could have gone to jail.’

  Bruce pressed the palm of his left hand into his forehead, rubbing hard up and down – some sort of compulsive gesture he’d picked up since the Pharaoh’s Tomb days.

  ‘With all respect, Ken, did I force you to help me break into those units?’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t have thought of doing it if you hadn’t been around.’

  ‘The entrapment argument. You still had a choice.’

  ‘Didn’t feel that way at the time. Anyway, even if we accept that, why did you just bugger off without a word?’

  Bruce vigorously massaged his forehead again. ‘Issues with my meds, if you must know – like in my hospitality days. I went off the rails a bit and had to retreat, hide myself away and get back on the rails.’

  ‘What about after that? What did you do?’

  ‘Travelled about. I spent a lot of time in the bush, actually. Have you ever been to the Red Centre? Alice Springs? I was there nearly a year, working on a station for a while, helping fix roads and fences – that sort of thing.’

  ‘Whereabouts was this?’ I said.

  ‘Middle of nowhere.’

  ‘That narrows it down.’

  ‘Well, everything’s in the middle of nowhere out there. Anyway, the boss – his name was Tom but I privately referred to him as Fuckface – was a real Nazi. We didn’t hit it off at all. And no matter how hard I worked, it was never hard enough. The guy was on my back from morning to night – I swear he had it in for me, Ken. So I quit.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘No idea – I just took off in the middle of the night. He deserved no better.’ Bruce paused to rub his forehead. ‘So then I got a job at the No Worries Caravan Park – nice place out in Woop Woop.’

  ‘Is that near the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘Close. I worked as a handyman, basically in exchange for free accommodation. Roy and June, who managed the place, were decent types – the polar opposite of Fuckface. As long as I did my work, they left me to my own devices. I spent the next however many months living in a caravan, alone with my thoughts.’

  ‘Sounds pretty boring.’ I carried the tube out to the wheelie bin in the central loading bay. Bruce walked right alongside.

  ‘Actually, I think it did me the world of good. Back to basics. It was one of those old, simple caravans; not a lot to do in there. I spent a lot of time reading, meditating. I went on long bush-walks, alone. You wouldn’t believe the sky there, Ken – incredible. I returned to civilisation eventually, but Roy said, “Bruce, there’s a caravan waiting for you if you ever feel like coming back.” And if ever things get too much, that’s where I’ll go – get my head together, as they say.’

  Bruce pressed his hand to his forehead, this time sweeping the palm back over the top of the head, as if checking to see if his hair had magically grown back. His gestures, the way he held himself, even the way he spoke, seeme
d less self-assured than in the Pharaoh’s Tomb days. Maybe the bush had taught him some humility.

  I dumped the tube in the bin. ‘So are you really looking for a job?’

  ‘Yes, Ken. I need work. Is there anything I could do here? I can start any time.’

  The fact was, Bruce’s remark about being led here by destiny wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounded. I needed help keeping Hideaway Self Storage on the rails, to use Bruce’s phrase, and here was an experienced person, keen to begin work straightaway.

  ‘Well, it’s true you’re in the right place at the right time. But in light of what happened at Pharaoh’s Tomb, well …’

  ‘That was different, Ken. It’s not as if I’m a habitual thief. The main purpose was always to augment our income. Actually, no – the main purpose was to stick it to Ron Wood and the whole franchise. Gen Y wankers who think they know it all. You know what I’m talking about. And Pharaoh’s Tomb’s taking over the world, Ken – you can hardly walk down the street these days without seeing a fucking pyramid.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m ranting. Sorry.’

  ‘In retrospect,’ I said, ‘it probably wasn’t that bad a workplace.’

  ‘You always had a more charitable take on things than me, Ken. But I probably wasn’t seeing things in the most objective light at the time. The point is: I’ve never stolen anything since then.’

  I said nothing. Bruce rubbed his head.

  ‘Can I just reiterate, Ken,’ he said, ‘you seemed pretty happy to go along for the ride. I recall that you had a natural talent for picking locks.’

  I smiled. ‘True. But it’s a different situation now – I’m not just an employee; this is my business, my responsibility. I have to be careful.’

  ‘I can appreciate that. But if you give me a chance, I’ll prove myself. My time in the wilderness, Ken – it changed me.’