by Daniel Mason
The voice at the other end of the line is asking me what I want and I’m muttering, ‘Fuck.’
The voice is asking, ‘Are you there? Hello? What is it you want?’
I say, ‘I’ll call you back.’ I hang up, tearing out the page from the phone book, and then I run, before the pregnant girl can find a cop. I run like a spastic, my wounded ankle dragging behind me.
This street is empty like a ghost town and it gives me the creeps now that I’m alone. The gun is safely in the pocket of my jacket, concealed. I feel like there are eyes on me from the empty warehouse windows looming over the street. Sounds of traffic float in the air from blocks away, and a lone car turns onto the street at the end of this block, heading toward me.
There’s a vacant lot encased in a wire fence, brown weeds growing rampant within. The car passes me without slowing. I pause to catch my breath and finish my cigarette.
On the next block I limp into a phone booth, pushing an elderly woman out of my way. She cries out as she falls to the ground. I’d kick her, if I had the time.
Back at my hotel room a new voice answers the phone. I clear my throat and say, ‘I want safe passage out of the country. No bullshit.’
The voice is saying, ‘Excuse me? Who is this?’
I say, ‘Who the fuck is this?’
The voice tells me, ‘I think you have the wrong number.’
I’m telling the voice the name of the hotel, and my room number.
The voice says, ‘Yes, that’s the right number. But I think you’ve been given the wrong information. Whoever you’re looking for isn’t here, I’m sorry.’ And then the bastard has the audacity to hang up on me.
I redial the same number that I circled on the page and I say, ‘I’ll start shooting people, you bastard.’
Whoever is on the other end of the line, some new voice, some new creep, says to me, ‘You start shooting innocent Cambodian citizens and you’ll never leave a cell in this country when they finally catch up with you.’
I speak very slowly. ‘I want immunity.’
‘Hard luck,’ the voice replies.
‘I let the pregnant girl go.’
‘Good. That’s a start. Now where are you?’
‘I wouldn’t tell you, even if I knew.’ I’m standing in the phone booth and I decide to start loading bullets into the gun with the earpiece pressed against my shoulder.
‘You’re making this unnecessarily difficult, Mr Hayes.’
‘I can make it more difficult, if you like.’ I’m sliding the second bullet into the next chamber and watching passersby on the street; they pay no attention to me. ‘I’m going to hang up and call you back later.’
As they’re telling me on the other end that I should wait and talk this through, I hang up. It’s time to get moving again. I’ve seen enough movies about fugitives to know you never stay in the one place for too long, and you always keep your phone calls short.
On the next block I limp into another phone booth. I flip through the book searching for Pochentong Airport. I can’t find it. It’s not in the English language section of the book. I’m cursing and I lean out of the booth and tap a young man on the shoulder as he walks by. He turns to me. I say, ‘English? You speak English?’
He gives me a vague shrug. I wave him away.
I lift the receiver and put it to my ear. I dial zero and hope I get an operator. Somebody starts jabbering in the earpiece. I say, ‘English, I need somebody who speaks English.’
More jabbering.
I say, ‘Fuck. English. Speak English.’
They don’t understand a word I’m saying. Feebly I ask, ‘Pochentong Airport?’
The operator says something, there’s a click and then the phone is dialling. On the other end, somebody answers in Khmer after two rings. I say, ‘I need somebody who speaks English.’
The girl says, ‘I speak.’
I say, ‘Thank God. I need to know—’ I check my watch, ‘where the flight departing at two o’clock is heading. The two o’clock.’ I figure that two o’clock gives me two hours to get my affairs in order, get to the airport, formulate a plan.
The girl tells me to hold a second. She comes back and says, ‘Bangkok. Two o’clock, Bangkok.’
I say, ‘No, that won’t do. I need to get further. What’s the flight leaving after that?’
I hold again, then she comes back and says, ‘Two fif’een. Syd’ney.’
‘Sydney, Australia?’
‘Ah, yes. Two fif’een.’
That’s where Britain once shipped its convicts. I’m a criminal, so it seems reasonably apt. Get myself as far away from Asia as possible. Fly south for winter. It’ll be summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
I book a seat on that flight and hang up. I leave the phone booth and flag down a cab within a few minutes. I drop myself in the back seat and I tell the driver to take me to the Australian Consulate. I’m hoping they can arrange a visa for me without any fuss.
The next thing I know I’m at the airport with hazy memories of an uncomfortable cab ride. I’m carrying my passport, my visa, my bag full of weapons. I’ve thrown what little testosterone I have left aside; I don’t need it anymore. It’s been a mad rush, to the consular office and then to my safe deposit box to pick up my weapons, and then I’m in a phone booth and the receiver is in my hand and I’ve just finished dialling.
Back at my hotel room the phone doesn’t even ring once before there’s a voice on the line, eagerly telling me they can cut a deal.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I tell the voice.
‘What is it you want now?’
I tell them that Phoebe is a liar and she’s set me up. I think of every dirty secret Phoebe ever told me in bed. She smuggled several ounces of cocaine from San Francisco in an urn, I give them the address of Hayes’ apartment in Vietnam and say they should search the place and they’ll find enough evidence of drug possession to charge Phoebe in conjunction with her blood tests. I think of whatever else I can tell that will land that bitch in hot water, until my tongue goes dry.
Jabbering in Khmer comes over the airport loudspeakers.
The voice on the other end of the line has been listening patiently, taking notes and tracing the phone call. Finally, it says, ‘You’re at the airport.’
I commend them on their detective skills.
The voice says, ‘You’ll never get out of the country, Mr Hayes.’
This is where I play my trump card, triumphant. I tell them, ‘You’re right. Hayes would never have made it out of the country. He never even left Vietnam.’
Then I’m hanging up the phone and the connecting flight to Australia leaves in ten minutes.
ACT THREE
REEL CHANGEOVER
The airport metal detectors in Cambodia are undergoing maintenance for the day. There are men in yellow work suits clambering over the devices, smiling at me like Cambodian worker bees. Until now, I’ve been prepared to dump my weapons, but this is too perfect. I walk onto the plane with my shoulder bag filled with pistols, a gun in the waistband of my pants, and nobody is the wiser. It isn’t until the plane lands in Hong Kong for changeover that I begin reflecting on my luck with the metal detectors, and it’s not something I want to dwell on. It’s best not to read too deeply into signs from above.
I board another plane immediately, no dicking around. This way I don’t have to chance my luck with metal detectors again. No customs officials. Disembark from one flight, transfer immediately to the next on the runway, get out of there. I’m sitting on an empty plane for an hour while everybody else is sitting at the Hong Kong airport bar or in one of the coffee shops waiting until the flight is ready to depart.
Airborne, I can sit in my seat by the window, watching the world slide by below, wondering how I’m going to get this bag full of weapons through customs in Sydney. I can see myself going down in a hail of gunfire, shooting at airport officials as I crash to the floor.
In the cramped bathroom I load another of th
e guns while sitting on the toilet seat.
On the plane, all I want is a hard drink.
On this plane, I’m me. I’m not Hayes. When I get myself into Australia, I’m me. I’m not a wanted criminal. I’m nobody that international authorities know they’re looking for, but it doesn’t stop my paranoia. When the flight attendants pass me, I think they know who I am.
When I leave the plane, I have no luggage to collect. I own the clothes that I wear and the bag that I carry. There are two loaded pistols beneath my jacket, and I keep one hand ready to reach for a weapon the moment that I sense trouble. But the trouble never comes. It has to be another sign.
I’m through International in Kingsford Smith Airport. I’m through the metal detectors like I’m not even carrying a bag of weapons, like I’m not ready to start shooting at anybody who’ll stop me. Every face that I pass is staring at me like I’m a wanted criminal, and I’m thinking that they know, they know. In trying to compose myself I develop a tumour-induced tic in my neck and I cock my head to one side. Nobody notices me, like I’m invisible. I could be carrying these guns in my two hands for all to see, and nobody would notice me.
At a desk a woman stamps my passport and checks my visa, and she smiles and asks me questions like, how much money did I carry with me into the country, if I was smuggling drugs, how long I intend to stay here, and so on, and so on. I answer the questions and scratch the tip of my nose. And then she tells me to have a nice stay, see you later. Just like that.
I’m frowning, and I ask her, ‘I’m sorry, but do your metal detectors here work?’ I’m leaning over the desk, my palms flat on its surface. I can see my reflection in her bug eyes.
And I’m pushing my boundaries, I know I am. But this can’t be right. It can’t be possible to carry these kinds of things through an airport, that’s just insane.
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Of course they do. Why?’
I lift my shirt at the front and show her my belt buckle. I tell her, ‘I thought that this would probably set them off, but nothing happened.’
The woman shrugs, and she tells me they don’t usually worry about those kinds of things. She calls to the next person in line, and just like that I’m free to go, with a bag full of weapons on my back, tucking my shirt back into my belt.
I can’t shake the sensation of paranoia, and for the next several minutes I’m looking back over my shoulder, bumping into the people that I pass.
When I get out of the airport and into a taxi, I don’t even know where I want to go. I’m smoking feverishly in the back seat and the driver, a Middle Eastern man, is asking me where I want to go, telling me that I can’t smoke in here. I’m sweating and slumped low in the seat, ignoring the throbbing behind my closed eyes. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ I tell him. ‘Just shut up and get me out of here, take me away. Fast.’
Patiently, he asks me, ‘Where?’
I shrug. ‘The city. Somewhere. I don’t care. Just go.’
I don’t want to know if my hands are shaking from fear or excitement.
Establishing shot: Sydney from the air, panning over the city and the harbour and the suburbs on a bright blue day. Note the highlights: the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House. Promotional shots to boost tourism.
The taxi driver dumped me at a classy hotel where I felt nothing. I’m on Clarence Street in Sydney and there’s a young man sitting in the gutter of a crowded street. The city pays him little heed. His beard is knotted, teeth unclean. Bony knees show through ragged holes in his jeans. At first, he ignores me as I stand by his side watching oblivious cars pass, listening to a thousand footfalls. He puffs on a cigarette and eventually flicks it to the road. He turns to me, looking up, and asks if I have any change for a loaf of bread. I don’t give him that look of pitied disgust that he’s so used to.
I fumble in my pocket for some change and drop a couple of dollars into his outstretched palm and he beams gratefully, and then frowns. He says to me, ‘These aren’t coins, man. They’re bullets.’
He holds his open palm up for me to see, like I don’t know what a bullet is.
I shrug and tell him that I guess I don’t have any change. I’m no better than the city surrounding us.
He rises unsteadily and wanders away, muttering beneath his breath, ‘Fuckin’ starvin’, maan.’ I listen to the rumble of his stomach and then the city swallows him. I hail a taxi, and I want to get out of the city, I want to feel something that’s real.
My first week in the country, I find myself in the doorway of a plane at three thousand feet. I’ve been staying at a hostel in Glebe and some of the other backpackers said they’d go skydiving the next morning if the conditions were right. An eager American asked me, ‘You in?’
When you’re standing in a plane you have the illusion of standing on solid ground. Gravity fools your body against thinking that you’re a long fall from the earth itself, because your feet are flat on the floor of the plane. It’s okay if you don’t look out.
In the open doorway the wind pulls at you like a thousand groping hands.
Below me are the shapes of the jumpers who’ve gone before me, tumbling through space. The backpackers are young and easily excited. One of them even leaps from the plane with a ‘Yaaahoooo.’
There is another man, the final jumper, standing near the doorway with me. He has not come with the backpackers; this man is Australian, a local jumper who’s tagged along for the ride. Long blond streaks of hair are flapping around the edges of his helmet. He’s grinning with enthusiasm, showing a row of white teeth, chewing gum.
He’s saying, ‘The reaction of your body is not to make the jump. Your brain sees the distance to fall, makes the calculation, and then tells you it’s suicide to jump. Every part of you resists out of fear.’
He is standing close enough so that I can smell the salt and wax on his body. He pokes his head through the doorway, watching the other jumpers spiral out of view.
He chews the gum with his mouth open. It’s spearmint green. He nods in the general direction of the world outside and says, ‘Those guys, they don’t have a clue.’
After a moment he looks at me and decides, ‘Neither do you.’
This is the part where he tells me that throwing yourself from a plane is like sacrificing yourself to the gods. ‘This isn’t just about the rush. Those guys who already jumped, they’ll tell you that this is the way of conquering their fear. That’s bullshit, man.’
I turn from him and throw myself into uncertainty.
It’s goodbye. Blue sky.
In space, dropping from the plane, the wind cups your underside like an open palm. Every movement you make is capable of altering your speed and direction. This is a sensation like no other, touching nothing but space. Your heart is beating somewhere up around your throat.
So far above the earth, the wind whipping at your face, you feel as if you’re being pulled upward at the same time as you plummet. When the earth breaks through the cloud you can see the lay of the land, the intersecting colours of greys and greens and blues and yellows and browns. One moment the world is filled with swirling whites on blue, and the next you’re assaulted by the sight rushing up to you.
I pull my chute. There comes the slick rustle of fabric before I’m yanked back up through the air to a sudden decrease in speed. The wind disappears from my ears, and the only sounds seem to be those of my heaving breath, and the flapping of the parachute over my head.
Somewhere above me there has to be the final jumper, still streaking through the air. I crane my neck but can’t see him against the backdrop of blue.
This is the sensation of utter serenity, alone in the sky. I’m not sure if I like it that way.
Somewhere out to the left, the final jumper drops into view. He shoots below me, cutting through the sky, streaking forward, his arms pressed still at his sides to streamline his flight. I watch as he rolls and pulls his chute, leaving it very late in the fall. As the fabric unfurls at his back he is sucked through the air toward
me, lifting.
His laughter sounds out across the space. ‘You only live once,’ he calls across the gap, laughing the whole time. ‘Gets your blood pumping, doesn’t it?’
The sudden rush of the world comes within a few seconds.
We drop into a field of short grass, and I roll on impact. My ankle has mostly recovered from the sprain in Cambodia, but there is still a stab of pain. Then I’m perfectly still, kneeling in the grass and sucking great lungfuls of air, a sensation of vertigo settling in my head. While my body has stopped moving and the fall is over, my brain is slow in adjusting. I have no energy to stand.
Across the field the other jumpers are already repacking their chutes, hollering and hooting to one another. There is a hand patting me on the back, and the blond jumper says, ‘First time fucks with your brain, you’re too excited and scared to appreciate the sensation. Second time is like some new kind of trip.’
I’m still collapsed on the ground as he shakes my hand. I stare at the sky from which I have fallen, back flat on the grass. He says, ‘My name’s Spencer.’
I light a cigarette and Spencer says, ‘Those things’ll kill you.’
I ask him if that’s something he’s afraid of.
Spencer tells me, ‘It’s not death that I’m afraid of. It’s the thought of the last thirty seconds before death that wakes me sweating in the night.’
Skydiving doesn’t do it for me. There’s a certain thrill, but it just doesn’t grab me. It’s too safe, too certain. There’s nothing about it that really grips me like when I play roulette.
I’ve decided that Russian roulette isn’t really a spectator sport. It’s a personal moment between two contestants. The way they played it in Vietnam wasn’t right, with all of the onlookers placing bets. It’s something you have to share with somebody else, alone. Arenas are out. Place no bets. Two people, one moment.
Choosing a victim is very difficult. At first I’ve just been using fellow travellers, because they’re open to trying new things and seem so easily persuaded when they’re stoned. The problem is motivation, because somebody really needs a good reason before they put a gun to their head. That’s why the first few games are messy.
