White Ute Dreaming

by Scot Gardner

  The weeks passed. Kerry phoned less and less as the school term rattled on. She spent most of the time asking me if I was okay. I kept telling her that I was fine but she kept asking. Truth was I’d started thinking about killing myself. Just passing thoughts, but they were there. Nobody picked it. It was my private black hole. I kicked arse at school. Didn’t stuff around, did all my homework and gave up the smokes. I saw Angie a few times and she looked down her nose at me. I overheard Cindy telling Jenny that she was going out with Griz. Mate, Angie must’ve been desperate. That would be like going out with a 356 Chev except the motor would smell better. They could have each other.

  Mum was too wrapped up in her own world to notice that I’d given away all my ‘shits’. You know, couldn’t give a shit even if I wanted to. Ha ha. The better things got with Richo, the harder she tried to be nice to me. Richo went and helped her and Ted clean up Don’s place. I stayed with Dad and Ernie in the van. She bought me back the coolest set of Uncle Don’s pens and textas. Real professional jobs with different-shaped points and that. She and Richo went away for a weekend in June and she brought me back a shoebox full of Feral Pigs bootlegs. Illegal recordings of their concerts in Copenhagen and Montreal and places like that. That was a rung on the ladder out of the dark place.

  Ernie made me smile, too. It’s hard to be depressed when your mad-arsed yellow dog is swinging by his lead from the clothesline. He listened to my bullshit and I actually thought, ‘I can’t kill myself, who would look after Ernie?’ Ted and Ivy probably would. Dad would. The more time I spent with Dad, the more time I wanted to spend with Dad. We didn’t talk that much but it felt like he was as excited to see me as he was to see Ernie. One time when we rocked up he scruffed my head and said, ‘G’day son’ then scruffed Ernie and said, ‘G’day Ern.’ Ernie’s bum nearly wagged off. If I had a tail, mine would have too.

  But all that got shredded like a dog turd under a lawn-mower one Thursday afternoon. Dad was hyped up to the max.

  ‘I’ve got some awesome news,’ he said.

  Don’t tell me, you’re pregnant? No, no, you’ve just won a million bucks.

  ‘I’ve got a job. Dream job. The best job in the world.’

  What, porno star?

  ‘Remember last year I went up to Bermagui and tried out on that deepwater fishing cruiser? Well Terry Fisher had to employ his brother-in-law because he was, you know, family and that. And he didn’t have a job. Terry phoned yesterday and left a message with Bob. When I phoned him back, he said the job is mine if I want it. His brother-in-law left his sister and moved up to Sydney.’

  The idea of him moving out of my life hit me like a shovel in the face.

  ‘Where would you live?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d tow the van up with me.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  He looked at me like I’d just told him the guts of the best joke and he was waiting for the punchline.

  Serious, anything would be better than this.

  ‘Ha! Nah. What about your school and all your mates and that? You’d be better off with your mum.’

  That was the closest I got to topping myself. That Thursday night was the blackest night of my sixteen years. I went into my bedroom and put my chair behind the door. Held the cord for my stereo in my hand. I knew it would hold my weight. The rail in my clothes cupboard was just the right height. I used to do chin-ups on it before the accident. I was fumbling with the cord trying to make a knot with my shaking hand.

  There was a knock at my door.

  ‘Kerry’s on the phone, love,’ Mum shouted.

  Bitch. She has no respect for my need to get out. Thank God for that. I chucked the cord on the floor and scrambled for the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Do you want to come up in the holidays?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘School holidays in three weeks. Do you want to come and stay at our place? Mum said she’d pay half the bus fare if you want. Please say yes, Wayne. Come on.’

  ‘I’ll ask my mum.’

  ‘No. Don’t. Just say yes. Tell me that you love me and say that you’ll come. Please.’

  I chuckled to myself. My eyes started leaking. If only she knew how close I’d been to . . . ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘Mum? Is it okay for me to go up and stay with the Humes in the holidays? Gracie said she would pay half the bus fare.’

  ‘Of course, love,’ she said a bit quickly. No think-time. No think-music. ‘Gracie won’t have to pay the fare though. Tell her thanks very much but I’ll pay.’

  I put the phone back to my ear to tell her it was okay but she was already squealing. I could picture her jumping up and down and I smiled. And sighed. I wanted to hug her so bad. We talked for half an hour and when I hung up I hugged Mum instead. She froze.

  ‘Thanks, Mum. You’re a legend.’

  She laughed and hugged me back. ‘I don’t know about that.’

  I could have counted to five. We were still hugging and she smelt different. No stale smoke. I pulled back, sniffing the air.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a miracle!’ I shouted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two miracles!’

  ‘What?’ she shouted, and shook me.

  ‘You don’t smell like smoke.’

  ‘You’ve noticed? Took you long enough. I haven’t smoked since Gilbert and I went up to Bright in June.’

  ‘Yeah, great, but I CAN SMELL.’

  There was a vase of yellow roses on the kitchen bench. Mum’d got them from Richo last time they’d gone out. I sniffed at them. They smelt like lollies and my nose wrinkled in delight. I went back to my room and plugged the stereo in, switched it on, cranked it up and packed my bag. Three weeks isn’t long.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I WAS WRONG. THREE WEEKS IS FOREVER. LIKE, I COULDN’T hold my breath for three weeks. I got away with doing no homework for the whole time. I told Hendo and he told me he hadn’t done homework since year five. That fits. He came out of uniform on Friday—a full week before the last day of term—with his shoulder-length hair in spikes. He had to duck to get through the door.

  ‘Don’t sit next to me,’ I pleaded.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Something’s happened to your head. You look like one of those medieval fighting things. A mace. You look like a mace and I might have to pick you up by the feet and smash you through the window.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. Just thought I’d get a bit nasty for the last day of term.’

  ‘Ah. That’s next week.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  I nodded and he asked Jenny. His face flushed and he dropped into his seat like a big bag of dry dog food.

  ‘What a winner . . . oh well. You got a brush?’

  ‘Nah, leave it. Looks wicked . . . How did you do it?’

  ‘With Mum’s vacuum cleaner. I gelled it and sucked it into spikes.’

  My mind was cranking and I suddenly thought, what about Ernie? It’s funny how trains of thought go sometimes. Hendo said ‘Mum’s vacuum cleaner’ and I thought about his mum and the hard lines on her face from a life of frowning. I thought about his dad who he hasn’t seen since he was five and I thought about my dad and his ute which had a yellow dog in the back. I didn’t think I’d be allowed to take Ernie on the bus to Fishwood. I wouldn’t want to leave him at home. He was my best mate, and besides he’d go spastic and get out or something. I stuck my hand up like a primary-school kid and Mrs Jenkins looked at me like I had my hair spiked.

  She shushed the class with her hand. ‘I think Wayne has something to ask,’ she said, and I realised my arm was too straight for someone who is nearly seventeen.

  ‘Yes, Wayne, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Could I go to the office please, Miss? I have to use the phone. I have to check something with my mum.’

  My straight arm and my classy year-five style won her ov
er. She nodded and told me to make it quick. Quick? It takes me ages to use the phone book. Most normal people can open up the White Pages and in a minute or so dial with one finger on the page to keep their place. Me and the alphabet don’t get on and it took ten minutes to find the number for Chisholm Hospital Administration. Fay asked me if she could help but I told her I was fine.

  ‘Chisholm Hospital, this is Sylvia,’ said the receptionist who answered. It didn’t sound like Mum.

  ‘Hello, could I speak with Sylvia Armond, please?’

  ‘Speaking. Who is this?’

  ‘It’s me,’ I said, and my voice broke into a squeal.

  ‘Oh, is everything okay, love?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I just wondered if I could take Ernie on the bus with me.’

  I could hear her head clicking and whirring. ‘I don’t think so, love. He’ll be okay with me though.’

  ‘Yeah, but I want to take him.’

  Click, whir. ‘Okay, I’ll phone the bus company and see what they reckon. You’re supposed to be at school.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What are you doing ringing me?’

  ‘I dunno. It’s important.’

  She chuckled. ‘Right-o then. See you tonight.’

  ‘Yep.’

  I rode up to Dad’s in the rain after school with Ernie running alongside. He wasn’t in his van but the ute was there and I could hear him speaking loudly and laughing. He was at the neighbours’. There was a recycle bin out the front of their van with ‘16 Clarence Street’ on the side in white. It was full to the brim with empty green cans. A lady with red eyes opened the door and a faint cloud of smoke followed her out.

  ‘Oh. Hello? What are you up to, mate?’ she said, and looked down on me from the step.

  ‘I’m looking for . . . umm . . . my dad, Mick. Is he here?’

  ‘Wayne!’ Dad shouted from inside. He poked his head around the corner and fluffed his hair. ‘Come in.’

  I held Ernie’s lead up and the red-eyed lady told me to tie him to the front of the van.

  Dad stubbed out a cigarette and introduced me to Eve and Graham. I sat down but they stopped talking. Dad nodded and I could feel the van moving and imagine his leg jiggling under the table. Smoking again, I thought. Now who’s fucked in the head?

  ‘Right. Better be off then,’ he said, and stood up. He shook a can that had been on the table in front of him, downed the dregs, crushed it in his hand and chucked it with the others in the recycle bin out the front. He held the doorframe and lowered himself down the single step.

  He grabbed Ernie’s lead and wobbled a couple of times getting to his van. Not serious wobbles like he was going to fall over, just the sort that made me want to ask him, ‘You all right?’ He towelled Ernie down and let him jump on his bed. He roughed my hair, all beer and smokes on his breath, and flopped down next to Ernie. Ernie’s tongue was hanging out and he wiped his face on the bedspread like he was going to roll. Dad scruffed at his ears and he snuffled.

  ‘You’d never believe how quick it’s all happening,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m supposed to be going out on the boat next Friday.’

  Everything fell into place in my mind.

  I got that feeling like when I’d pulled my stereo apart just to see what it looked like inside. I was thirteen. I had all these bits on my desk—screws and wires, green circuit board spotted with shiny silver solder and pieces of card-board that would keep the dust out. I couldn’t work out how it all went back together. I thought I’d stuffed it. Mum would have been rapt. And then I held my mouth the right way or something and it slotted back together and ‘click’. I heaved big sighs and prayed the thing still worked.

  ‘Got room for me and a yellow dog?’ I asked.

  And I plugged the stereo in and scrunched my eyes shut just in case it exploded when I turned it on.

  ‘Might have. Why?’

  ‘We need a lift up to Fishwood. It’s half an hour from Bermagui. I’m going to stay with the Humes for the holidays.’

  ‘Sounds like a great adventure. I could use the company.’

  What do you know, it worked! That was music to my ears.

  When I told Mum she looked in her handbag and on the kitchen bench. She was hunting for her smokes and then she remembered that she’d given up. She pretended she was looking for a pen but you don’t get frantic looking for a pen unless you’ve got the phone on your ear.

  ‘I’ve booked your ticket,’ she said.

  ‘What, paid for it?’

  ‘No, not yet but . . .’

  ‘Then cancel it. It’s no hassle if I miss the last few days of term. I’m all up to date and everything.’ Except for that research project for SOSE that I hadn’t started.

  ‘All right, all right. I’ll cancel the ticket.’

  I don’t think she saw me punch the air on the way to my bedroom. She might have heard the hissing ‘yes’ that went with it though.

  Five minutes later she thundered into my room with the strip of condoms from Rod pinched in her fingers. I wondered where they had gone.

  ‘What the bloody hell are these?’

  I shrugged and my face filled with blood. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Bullshit, Wayne. Who are you screwing?’

  I shrugged. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘What, you wear them in the shower to keep your dick dry?’

  That would have been bloody funny but Mum had a look on her face like she was going to throw up. Throw up or blow up.

  She chucked the crinkly plastic at me and missed but I ducked anyway.

  ‘Why don’t you go and live with your fucking father? You make a great pair,’ she spat, and slammed the door.

  I fanned my face with my outstretched fingers. That would be great. Yeah, fine except he’ll be living in the next state.

  When I came out later she was talking quietly into the phone. She turned her back to me as I went through to raid the fridge. I grabbed an aluminium tray with some leftover lasagna in it and glanced over my shoulder before I slugged half a litre of milk straight from the bottle. I grabbed a fork and tried not to let the tray crackle as I took it through to my room. I sat on my bed and watched Sale of the Century. Ate the whole bloody lot. I was sure Mum would hate me for it and I think that made it taste better.

  She was watching telly when I decided to take Ernie for a walk and the steam had stopped coming out of her ears.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she grumbled.

  ‘For a walk.’

  She looked at me and huffed. Turned the volume up with the remote like she was going to poke the button through it.

  Whatever.

  We jogged a bit to Game Zone for something different and I wished we had jogged to the plaza or the library, anywhere. Griz was there. And Angie. Hand in hand for Chrissake. She saw me and let go of his hand. She looked at her palm then waved to me. Griz leant back on the bench and nodded hello. I walked over and thought about spewing up. I thought about that kid in year seven, Benson. He could spew on command. Just sort of pull his guts in and start spray-painting the grass. I hadn’t believed it until he did it for a Mars Bar one lunchtime. That would come in handy. I wished I could do it now, all over them and then piss myself laughing. How off.

  ‘You two are an item?’ I said, and grunted.

  Griz nodded. Angie blushed. He put his arm over her shoulder. She looked like a stray cat that had been caught. I laughed mostly to myself and jingled the change in my pocket.

  Angie sat forward and Griz’s arm fell down behind her back. Rested on her bum. I shook my sleeve down to cover my stump and Griz laughed.

  My leg started jiggling and I scoffed. ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a bit of a woman, Wayne, you know,’ he said, and Angie’s head spun like an owl’s to look at him.

  ‘Bit of a dickless wonder, hey Angie?’

  Angie looked at him with her mouth open.

  I laughed it off and rattled my coins again. ‘Leave you to it.’

  Griz sn
orted. ‘Yep.’

  I acted dumb. It isn’t hard sometimes. I put a coin into Terminator and saw Griz’s name on the top of the high score list. Griz and Angie came to watch over my shoulder and I lost it. It was all over in five minutes.

  ‘Ha! What a winner,’ Griz said, and coughed.

  Don’t push it, arsehole. I nodded to Maru on the way out. I looked along the footpath. Ernie was wagging his bum end. Some bastard had stolen my bike.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘What?’ Griz asked. Angie had followed me out. Griz had followed her. She scruffed Ernie’s ears and called him by name. The steam was rising in me. Somehow, Griz must have slipped out and hidden my bike. I had my mouth open ready to can him.

  ‘What?’ he asked again.

  The clip on Ernie’s lead clanked against the bike rack and I remembered that we’d jogged down. ‘Nothing.’

  I rooted around with Ernie’s lead for a full minute. He’d pulled it tight and I couldn’t get it undone. Griz laughed under his breath and Angie offered to help.

  ‘What a loser,’ Griz said, and lit a smoke.

  ‘Leave him alone, Griz,’ Angie said.

  He looked at her with ice in his eyes.

  ‘Give him a break.’

  He jammed his hands in his pockets and looked up the street. Angie got the knot undone and handed me the coloured rope. I nodded thanks and started walking home. Angie watched me go. Griz watched her. When I was almost out of earshot, Griz said something to her. I couldn’t hear the words but his voice was a low growl. I could hear Angie’s response though. She told him to fuck off.

  I froze and Ernie gagged against his lead. Angie was running along the footpath towards me. Griz was flicking his hands and shouting. He called her a cheap slut and said she was better off with a retard anyway.

  She stopped on the nature strip beside me, wringing her hands. ‘Is it okay to walk with you for a bit?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  She was sniffing and wiping her face on her sleeve and when we got to the corner of Hildegarde Avenue she told me she was going home.