The Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbull

by Barry Jonsberg

  I bathed my foot in antiseptic and put some bandaids on it. I had read somewhere that a dog bite carried all sorts of nasty germs, that you should get a rabies shot, but under the circumstances I decided to trust to luck. My foot wasn’t as badly cut as I had thought at first. It would probably swell and bruise, but apart from one rather nasty puncture mark, I had gotten off lightly.

  The only problem was my shoe. Slasher still had it. A red Converse. Distinctive. Physical evidence linking me to the scene of the crime. But I was too tired to worry unduly about it. I put its mate securely in the bottom of my wardrobe, sank into bed without bothering to shower and was instantly submerged in a dreamless sleep.

  MARCH: Primary school, Year 6.

  You wait for the fist to land but nothing happens. You open your eyes. The boy’s hand is still cocked, but is covered by another. The fat boy’s head is turned to one side, surprise, like a stain, over his plump features. He looks at the other boy – a boy with red hair and cold eyes. They stand for a while, staring, sizing each other up, hands locked together in unlikely intimacy. The red-haired boy is smaller by far, yet he seems big somehow. The silence is like a tight thread.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ says the boy with red hair.

  His voice is so calm it scares you more than the fist poised above you. The heavy boy licks his lips nervously.

  He is weighing his chances. But it’s not the physical threat. The two are hopelessly mismatched in terms of weight and physique. It’s in the eyes. The sense that body size is unimportant compared to strength of will. His eyes slide away as if looking for escape. Finally he shrugs the restraining hand away.

  ‘Ah, she’s not worth it, anyway,’ he says and walks off. He seems smaller somehow. You look at the red-haired boy.

  ‘Thanks,’ you say.

  The boy looks at you and he is difficult to read.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he says, without malice.

  Chapter 11

  Cinderella complex

  In the morning, my foot had swollen to the size of a watermelon. I woke up and the first thing I was aware of was a pulsing pain, as if someone was rhythmically beating the sole of my foot with a large piece of bamboo. I carefully removed the bed sheet. To be honest, I was a bit worried that my whole leg had dropped off in the middle of the night and that I was suffering from those phantom pains that amputees experience. When I saw my foot, I actually wished it had dropped off. Hanging from the end of my ankle was a bruised pulp, like a gigantic and over-ripe plum. It was as if someone had carefully inflated a very large cane toad, spray-painted it inexpertly with the primary colours and then attached it with liquid nails to the end of my leg. It was a mess.

  I tried walking. That was fine until I put weight on it and the bolt of pain threatened to lift my entire brain pan from the cerebral cortex. So I tried favouring my right foot. That was okay for a while. With practice, I developed a shuffling gait that made me look like an extra in a B-grade zombie movie. Or, I could have put a hump on my back and I would have been a dead ringer for Quasimodo.

  Next problem. The obvious thing would have been for me to take the day off school. That would have been easy. I could hear the Fridge downstairs making coffee and coughing over the first cigarette of the day. All it required was a halfway convincing display of stomach pains, the odd heart-rending groan and I would have been home and dry. The trouble was I wanted to go to school. I wanted to talk to Kiffo. We had shared an adventure and there is nothing worse than not being able to replay all the details with someone who had been through it with you. The other thing was I wanted to see the reaction of Miss Payne. I couldn’t swear that she hadn’t seen me and Kiffo, that she couldn’t positively identify us, but somehow I doubted it. I felt convinced things had happened so quickly that she might have had her suspicions about the phantom sneezer and the target of Slasher’s bloodlust, but that she couldn’t be entirely sure. It gave me a curious tingle of anticipation to think she could be teaching me, thinking I was the prime suspect, but being unable to prove it. I wanted to be like one of those movie criminals who sneer derisively at the cops because they know that the evidence won’t stand up in court. I wanted to say to her, ‘Listen, bud, either you charge me or I’m out of here.’ I wanted to see her frustration and hear her say, ‘Okay, Harrison, you’re free to go, but don’t leave town.’

  It was a battle. On the one hand, I could barely walk. On the other, I was rigid with anticipation. I decided on a cold shower. For about ten minutes, I let the spray play over my injured foot, but it didn’t do much good. It still looked like a diseased pig’s stomach. After I dried myself off, I rummaged around in the bottom of my wardrobe until I found them. A pair of my dad’s running shoes. They were unbelievably hideous – all piping and white canvas, the sort of thing that might have been in fashion in the mid eighties but were now a testimony to bad taste. God knows why I had kept them. Perhaps, when I was younger, I had had fond ideas of clutching them to my chest in bed and sobbing over his desertion. I couldn’t remember now. But they were the only items of footwear in the entire house that could cage the swollen bladder of my foot.

  Even after swaddling my injured foot in a few layers of toilet paper, the outsize shoe was still incredibly painful. I couldn’t even do up the shoelaces. In the end, it took me about twenty minutes to get dressed, with the Fridge shouting at annoyingly regular intervals for me to get out of bed and ready for school. Finally, I checked myself out in the mirror.

  I cut a bizarre figure. Pretty standard from the ankles up, but I appeared to be wearing two large Persian cats on my feet. I looked like Minnie Mouse without the ears. I staggered down the stairs as if I had a length of curtain rod up my bum. The Fridge took one look at me and turned pale.

  ‘My God, Calma,’ she said. ‘You look like Minnie Mouse. What on earth are you wearing those things for? And why are you standing like that?’

  ‘They’re fashionable, Mum,’ I said, curling my lip in the manner of someone infuriated by parental ignorance. ‘Everyone’s wearing them.’

  The Fridge nodded, still looking somewhat aghast. I knew I was safe with the old ‘they’re in fashion’ trick. She had seen enough teenage styles to know that nothing, however bizarre and ridiculous, was out of the question. She chewed thoughtfully on a piece of toast and looked me up and down.

  ‘Well, you look like you have a couple of snow drifts on your feet. Still, if you’re happy . . .’

  I could finish the sentence for her: ‘. . . to look like a complete loser and fashion victim.’

  I breakfasted on cornflakes, two Panadols and intermittent conversation. The Fridge kept trying to draw me out. She told me that I was looking like crap [thanks a lot], that I seemed depressed [and why wouldn’t I?] and that I should talk to her about anything that might be bothering me [how? Through notes on her stained exterior?]. Now I know I said earlier that I could really have done with talking things over with her, but to be honest the moment had passed. It seemed to me that a parent is there for emergencies – there’s just no point in them arriving late, oozing empathy. The fire had burnt itself out and here she was offering up a bucket of water to the charred remains.

  Unfair? Is that what you’re thinking? Yeah, well you’re probably right. But I guess I just wasn’t in the mood.

  Anyway, as luck would have it, the Fridge was leaving for work at the same time I had to take off for school, so she gave me a lift. I really hadn’t been looking forward to the walk. In fact, just hobbling from the car to the canteen area, where I normally hung out between lessons, was enough to make me doubt the wisdom of going to school at all. Kiffo was there, smoking a cigarette. It always amazed me how he smoked in full view of the teachers on yard duty and nothing ever happened. Whenever a teacher looked in his direction they’d suffer from some sort of temporary blindness. Too much trouble to do anything about it, I guess. They’d have to write reports and stuff like that. Anyway, most of them smoked, too.

  Kiffo took one look at my shoes and r
aised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Nice footwear, Calma,’ he said. ‘You look like . . .’

  ‘Yes, thanks, Kiffo. I’ve been told already!’

  We quickly talked over the events of the previous evening. It turned out that Slasher, for reasons best known to himself, had ignored Kiffo entirely and homed in on me. Maybe, with his superior canine faculties, he had come to the conclusion that taking a bite out of Kiffo’s leg might constitute a serious health hazard. That he’d have to get a rabies shot. Whatever, Kiffo had seen very quickly that I was the target. He had spotted me leaping onto the fence and had taken a short cut to the other side, hoping to help in some way. I told him about the damage to my foot and the necessity of wearing shoes the size of kayaks. Like me, Kiffo didn’t believe that the Pitbull had got a good sight of us.

  For the rest of the time before the bell we talked over the implications of what we had seen the previous night. For once Kiffo didn’t have to convince me of anything. I mean you didn’t have to be a genius to work out what was in that bag.

  For one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. What was in the bag that the Ferret handed over to the Pitbull?

  A. Bread-making flour.

  B. Sugar for a cake stall at the local school fete.

  C. The entire dandruff output of Melbourne residents in one calendar year.

  D. Pure heroin.

  Phone a friend? Ask the audience? Nah. Lock it in, Eddie.

  We compared notes on the mystery man and agreed he had to be a drug lord. He looked like one of those characters who says, ‘Well, Meester Bond, you have proved a worthy adversary but now I’m afraid that I will have to lower you headfirst into this tank of piranhas. Then, of course, I will find a reason to wander off aimlessly before your head touches the water, allowing you to perform a miraculous escape without spoiling your hairdo.’ Hell, this guy looked as if he might have been thrown out of the Mafia for cruelty. In my admittedly fertile imagination I was already beginning to think that I had spotted a black patch over one eye and a thin, pale scar along his jawline.

  In the end, though, no matter how much we thought we knew about the whole business with the Pitbull, we didn’t have any hard evidence and without that we’d be struggling to nail her.

  ‘We should tap her phone,’ Kiffo said.

  ‘Genius, Kiffo,’ I replied. ‘And just how are we going to go about that?’

  ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘In the movies, guys just go up telephone poles. Maybe we could wire up her phone line to a phone we’ve got and then listen in.’

  ‘The fact that you haven’t a clue how to go about this doesn’t dampen your spirits in any way?’ I remembered all too well that in the last Science unit we had done Kiffo had scored four per cent. He’d answered the first question and then fallen asleep. Kiffo had always believed that letting teachers know what was in your head was akin to passing information to the enemy. ‘Knowing your luck,’ I continued, ‘you’d pick the power line and barbecue yourself.’

  ‘What about Tandy?’ asked Kiffo, after a bit of back-of-the-head scratching. ‘Maybe they’ll have a kit.’

  ‘A How-To-Tap-A-Phone Kit? Next to Build-Your-Own-Submachine-Gun and Devise-Your-Own-Thermonuclear-Device? Ah, yes. I think they’ve got them on special.’

  ‘Yeah. All right, smart-arse.’

  Kiffo screwed his face up further in concentration.

  ‘Perhaps we could plant a bug on the dog.’

  ‘Listen,’ I replied. ‘Firstly, I think Slasher has already got a full complement of bugs. Secondly,we haven’t got a bug to put on him and thirdly, put a hand anywhere near that hound and you’d be minus at least three fingers. Get real, Kiffo. No, I think the only realistic option is to do what we’ve been doing already. Keep trailing her, wait for something else to happen. Something that we could go to the police with.’

  By this time the bell had gone and we had wandered over to Home Group. Miss Blakey, our teacher, was waiting at the door. She looked me up and down as I approached and then took me discreetly to one side. Kiffo sidled into the room.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’

  ‘Fine, Miss. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It’s just that you are walking a little funny. Are you sure you’re all right . . .’ She looked around once or twice and lowered her voice conspiratorially, ‘. . . down there?’

  ‘Certain, Miss. Down there has never been in better shape, thanks for asking.’

  ‘Good. Well, anyway, Mr Di Matteo wants to see you in his office. Immediately.’

  I could tell that this was going to be one of those days.

  Let me give you a little bit of information about Mr Di Matteo, our respected Principal. I once asked Kiffo to break into the personnel files at the school and get the dirt on the Prinny. He turned up with the original letter of application:

  Dear Sir,

  I wish to apply for the position of Principal, as advertised in your Education Bulletin of 3 March. I am 50 years old and have looked this way since I was 20. For a period of three years, in my early teens, I possessed a rudimentary sense of humour though I have long since misplaced it. I do not like or understand children, who appear to me to be somewhat distasteful in their personal and social habits. I once had a creative thought, but have unfortunately forgotten what it was. Throughout my teaching career, I have relied on networking and unashamed arse-licking for the promotions I have received. In turn, I have promoted people like myself. As a consequence, every school I have taught at has been dominated in the upper echelons of management by grey and unimaginative minds.

  I have continued to keep abreast of educational developments, recently completing my Advanced Diploma in Senior High School Information Technology. I am proud to be able to write Dip. Shit after my name. Given my background of mediocrity and managerial incompetence, I feel I am overqualified for the position described. I also feel that your remuneration package of $120,000 per annum, plus company car, would allow me to comfortably see out my time to retirement.

  Yours faithfully,

  Liam J. Di Matteo

  Actually, that’s not true at all. I made it up. Sorry.

  A summons to see Mr Di Matteo was a rare event. It could mean that something good had happened to you, like you had won a major competition and he wanted a picture of you with him so that he could send it out to the papers. Preferably a very large picture of him, with you peering in the background, like one of those people standing behind the reporter, trying to get their face on TV. Or it could mean you’d been caught doing something wrong. Seriously wrong. And the trouble was, I hadn’t entered any competitions recently.

  Sure enough, when I knocked on the door and was told to enter, I saw him sitting at his desk. The expression on his face was not the kind that inspires confidence. Not the kind that makes you think he is about to kiss you on both cheeks and say, ‘My wonderful child, I am so proud of you!’ Particularly since the Pitbull was standing next to him. And, dangling from her outstretched right hand, she held a familiar and somewhat torn and battered red Converse shoe.

  I felt a bit like Cinderella being confronted by Prince Charmless.

  Chapter 12

  The Prinny, the Pitbull and Pictionary

  ‘Is this your shoe, Miss Harrison?’

  I toyed with the idea of just giving my name, rank and serial number, but thought that this might make the situation worse. I decided to play for time.

  ‘What shoe’s that, Mr Di Matteo?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, child. This shoe, the one that Miss Payne is holding up. Is it your shoe?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Di Matteo. I normally buy mine in twos.’

  Miss Payne slammed the shoe down on the edge of the Principal’s desk, causing a flake of red canvas to flutter to the floor. If I had been hoping for the good cop, bad cop routine I was out of luck. This was going to be purely bad cop, bad cop. The Pitbull glowered. (A good word, ‘glowered’. A sort of a cross between ‘gloomy’ and ‘lowered’.) Her features crowded in on
each other, her shoulders tensed, and her eyes shot me a glance of pure hatred. Baleful. (Another good word.) Her face was positively overflowing with bale. You couldn’t have fitted in another smidgeon of bale if your life depended on it.

  ‘Don’t get smart with me, Miss Harrison. You know perfectly well what the Principal is talking about. This shoe. Unless I am much mistaken, you often wear a pair of shoes identical to this. I also have reason to believe that you lost one of them last night. Now what do you have to say for yourself?’ It seemed to me that she was right in one regard. Smart-arse comments were probably not going to help me out in this situation. I decided to play the helpful student, solving a minor mystery.

  ‘May I look at it more closely? I do own a pair of shoes similar to this.’

  Mr Di Matteo waved me forward graciously, as if he was the judge in a murder trial and I had requested permission to approach the bench. I picked up the shoe and pretended to examine it carefully. I nodded once or twice in what I hoped was an intelligent fashion.

  ‘Ah yes, I can see the confusion,’ I said. ‘I do have a pair similar to this. Or should I say, I did have a pair. But mine weren’t Converse. I wish, mind. Very expensive and good quality. You see this star, here?’

  The Pitbull and the Prinny both leaned forward. I was starting to enjoy this. I felt like a forensic scientist pointing out fascinating and specialist facts on a murder weapon.

  ‘This is a trademark of the Converse company. There are a number of other companies that, quite illegally, attempt to copy a popular brand, including the trademark. I have to confess that I did own a bootleg version of a pair of Converse shoes, but the star was nothing like this. As you can see, this star is neatly and tightly stitched.’

  The Pitbull and the Prinny both nodded. I think I had them hooked, like on the Antiques Roadshow – that pay TV program where people bring in their antiques for expert evaluation. Pretty soon I was going to ask them how much they had paid for it and then tell them to insure it for two thousand dollars.