Kamikaze Kangaroos!

by Tony James Slater

  My boss wouldn’t back down, because he stood to risk his sizable commission for supplying me to the job, and the Union officials wouldn’t back down, because… well, because not backing down was pretty much their entire purpose.

  It was stalemate, until finally all parties agreed to let me work out the rest of the day – on my own – and recall the rest of the workers tomorrow.

  Without me.

  And to be honest, since I was only there as a carpenter’s labourer, to hold the wood while he cut it, there wasn’t a lot for me to do on a ten-storey office-block building site on my own. So I just sort of stood there, surrounded by tools, trying to look inconspicuous.

  Awkward had just reached a whole new level.

  For the rest of the week I was back on the regular InstallEx jobs, building stands and booths in the gigantic Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Paul, by way of apology, invited me to a little get-together he was having in the pub. The other managers would be there, along with a select few hand-picked workers; it was a free-booze affair, and they weren’t about to throw open their bar tab to the backpackers of all nations (they’d have been bankrupt in about half an hour if they did).

  I went to the party, but my customary excitement for such an event was lacking.

  There was something I had to tell Paul, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do it – but inside, I was dreading it.

  I hate letting people down.

  I’d been there for an hour, chatting with the other four non-management level staff who’d been invited and nursing a pint of ice-cold cider, when Paul stood up to make a speech. He turned to address our little table of workers.

  “Okay, you all know you’re here for something special, so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. As I’ve said, you guys are my A-Team.”

  There were a few cheers, but on the whole the mood was tense and restrained. All the lads were craning forward, as though moving their heads closer to Paul would enable them to hear the news first. Meanwhile, I slouched back on my chair, drink in hand. It didn’t matter what came next; not for me, anyway. My decision had already been made.

  “So,” Paul said, “here it is. We’re going to put you five on permanent contracts. Those of you that need it, we’ll be sponsoring you to become Australian residents.”

  My jaw dropped. Just a little.

  “We’re going to get you all your own set of tools, and we’re talking to a fleet hire firm about company vehicles. We’ll be sending you out, sometimes individually, to our top jobs. You’ll be managing small teams of the regular guys, or doing one-off specials for us. And this means you’ll be on contract rates, too – so more money, more bonuses, paid holidays, health care, the whole shebudle.”

  There was stunned silence around the table. I don’t think any of us could believe it. I had to check my watch to make sure it wasn’t April 1st.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  And then the roaring began. Everyone was on their feet, yelling in triumph, shaking hands and doling out high-fives. I carried on with the rest of them, but I was still shell-shocked from the announcement. I mean, I’d never really wanted a real job – it didn’t really go hand-in-hand with the life of reckless adventure I had planned – but as far as incentives go, this was a biggie. It really was the whole package.

  “Tony?”

  “Oh, yes! Sorry Paul.” He was beckoning me aside. This is it, I thought. This is where I tell him. Somehow he knew – maybe he’d read my body language, could tell my heart wasn’t really in the party that was going on all around me. Paul was a very perceptive bloke, but I guess you didn’t get to manage a successful business relying largely on backpackers without picking up a Jedi mind trick or two.

  I moved across to an alcove, and Paul edged around his celebrating work force to meet me.

  Oh, man. I hated doing this.

  “So, Tony, what do you think mate?”

  “It’s great Paul. Really great, for you to do this—”

  “Listen. What I wanted to talk to you about is this. That building site job? We’re going to send you back until it’s finished. We’ll pay for your Union membership. It’ll be a good hard slog – maybe, five months of work? And lots of overtime. But you’ll do well out of it. You’ve earned it.”

  “I… I…” As anyone who knows me can attest, it’s not often that I’m lost for words.

  But I had to find them sooner or later.

  “Paul, I’m so sorry! I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve decided to leave InstallEx – to leave Australia. I’m going to New Zealand in two weeks time.”

  “Oh?” he was, understandably, a bit surprised.

  “I can’t believe what you’ve just offered me, and I’m really, really grateful. But I can’t take it. I’m sure one of the other lads will be over the moon, though.”

  “Erm, yeah. I guess they will.”

  And that was that. I sculled my drink (an Aussie slang word for pouring the whole thing down my neck without stopping), and left.

  For some reason, I wasn’t in a party mood.

  I thought about nothing else, on the train home to Yarraville. What would I tell Roo? How would she react? After all this time, being so worried about money, finally it was right there for the taking. But then… much as I wanted to experience being well-off for a change – to be able to buy food that was still within its sell-by date, to wear clothes and read books that hadn’t come from an op-shop, to be able to take Roo out on a date and not eat in McDonalds – I still really, really wanted to go to New Zealand.

  Snowboarding…

  It was the pinnacle of my life’s ambition. From when I’d first understood the meaning of a certain word, I’d wanted nothing as much. All through school, through college, through university and my abortive attempt at world-fame as an actor, and ever since, I’d had this desperate urge. And now, somehow, despite all the odds that were against it, in New Zealand I finally had a chance of becoming cool.

  Round and round it went in my head. Would Roo be disappointed? I felt keenly the need to be her provider, to take responsibility for making enough money to keep our lives comfortable and enjoyable. Because what kind of man would I be, if I couldn’t even look after my woman properly? Roo would still love me, of this I was sure. But would her respect for me be diminished? Even just a little? Maybe I should have taken the job, I thought. Blew off the damn flights. Who’s cooler, the penniless backpacker who can ride a plank of wood down a mountain, or the honest, hard-working bloke who puts the needs of his family first?

  There was no contest, really.

  Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be cool after all.

  But it wasn’t too late. I could still ring Paul. Tell him I’d changed my mind.

  Holy shit! Why is it always so damn difficult?

  I felt like my mind was being pulled apart by the decision. Back and forth, my thoughts flitted, stacking up benefits and bonuses against hopes and dreams – until finally it hit me: this was as much Roo’s decision as it was mine!

  And realising that helped a little – it lifted the burden from me, and allowed me to fling it squarely onto Roo’s shoulders. This did not seem at all cowardly at the time. I was empowering her with control over our future! Well, that was how I justified it.

  I’ll let Roo decide.

  Coward.

  “You’re back early,” said Roo.

  I threw my bag down and scooped her up in the fiercest hug I could muster. I felt like I needed to absorb a bit of her strength, along with the warmth, before I could lay this one out for her.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  And so I told her.

  “Bloody hell!” she said, when I’d finished. “They really did want you to stay!”

  “Yup. I guess so.”

  “But you still told them no, though, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh, thank God for that!”

  And just like that, the decision was made.

  “
So you don’t want us to stay then? Even with the extra money I’d be earning?”

  Roo looked at me like I had three heads.

  “What? Hell no! I wanna go to New Zealand, baby! I wanna see SNOW!”

  And that was yet another reason why I loved Roo so much. Not just because she always knew the right thing to say to make me feel better, or because she valued craziness and adventure over posh shoes and a big pile of cash, or even because she was so content to come with me, on some ridiculous joy-ride into completely unknown territory.

  It was because, just like me, inside she was still only eight years old.

  The End Of An Era

  There was one last millstone around our necks.

  Rusty.

  Like an old friend of the family – hell, he was one of the family – we’d be incredibly sad to be parted from him. But there was no two ways about it; our relationship, with all its ups and downs, trials and tribulations – and almost enough heart-ache to write a book about – was over.

  Rusty had to go.

  But how?

  “Here’s the thing,” said Roo. “We can’t just leave him. He’s still registered to me, and there’s a massive fine for abandoning a vehicle. So we’ve either got to wreck him, or sell him.”

  We both cast a lingering glance through the living room window, at the dishevelled van parked outside. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds; it was almost like an agreed moment of silence for the old car. A mark of respect.

  I loved that van.

  “Me too,” said Roo. I hadn’t even realised I’d spoken aloud.

  “We could at least take him to that garage round the corner. We should be able to make it that far, and we can wait there for him to cool down before… driving on to the wreckers, I guess, if there’s no joy.”

  “Yes, I think that’s it. We’ll ask if there’s anything at all they can do, absolutely anything just to make him saleable. He’s carried us so far… I can’t bear to scrap him.”

  So we climbed back inside for what could potentially be our last ever ride.

  Following the mechanic’s instructions, we parked Rusty outside the garage.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and for once there was no trace of condescension.

  We left feeling upbeat, in spite of the potentially crippling repair bill looming over us. We had less than a week to get Rusty fixed, advertised and sold – or we’d be sending him to the great car graveyard in the sky…

  Via the great car graveyard on Lloyd Street.

  It was a nervous wait. When the call came, the mechanic’s assistant couldn’t even give us a quote. He simply said we’d better come in for a chat…

  It didn’t bode well. Unsurprisingly.

  The mechanic himself was in a jolly mood, though. Expecting to attend an execution, we started clutching at straws of hope as he described the battery of tests he’d put Rusty through.

  “And I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on,” he concluded. “No reason at all why he should be boiling up like that.”

  “Mm.” It was more or less what we’d expected.

  “But then!” the mechanic held up a finger to magnify the suspense, “I thought to look at this. He reached into Rusty’s engine bay and twisted off the radiator cap. “See that?” he held it up for our inspection. “The rubber’s all perished. I’d guess that this is the original radiator cap, so it’ll be, what, twenty-odd years old?”

  “Sounds quite likely.”

  “Well then! There’s your problem. No seal on the cap, so your radiator water is being pushed out by the pressure! So by the time you’ve done a couple of miles, the steam will have been spraying out – but it’s invisible, and the engine’s underneath you anyway – so there’s no water left and you boil up!”

  “What? I don’t… are you trying to tell me that this… this radiator cap, is the problem?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “And if we replace it, the van should be fine?”

  “Tip top. Nothing else wrong with him. Other than being a bit Rusty…”

  “Where can we get one of these things? How much are they?”

  My heart was racing now. I was half expecting to wake up at any moment.

  “Should sell ‘em right there.” He pointed behind us. Opposite his garage was a branch of Super Cheap Auto. “Should cost about ten bucks.”

  “No. Freaking. Way.”

  “What do we owe you?” Roo asked him.

  “Ah, that’s alright. Just feels good, to have found the problem. Bit of a puzzle, I can tell you!”

  “Really? You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, no worries. Just bring him back here if you have any more problems.”

  So we hustled into the shop. I don’t think anyone has ever been breathless with excitement over buying a radiator cap before – they staff treated us warily, as though we might have just escaped from a mental asylum.

  “YES!” I shrieked, when the register clocked up $12.75.

  “Bloody car bills,” Roo quipped. “They’re ALWAYS more than the original quote.”

  We fitted the cap to Rusty, and went for an exploratory drive.

  And we drove. And we drove.

  And Rusty, bless his little petrol-powered heart, was as good as new.

  That night, Roo advertised him on The Gumtree for $1500. We had five calls in the first three minutes – on the Skype phone which Roo had also advertised for $80. It was still new, but the Skype function wouldn’t work in New Zealand. The cash from selling it would go towards buying a lesser phone for each of us, so we could stay in touch if we were working different shifts in the ski fields.

  Everyone who called about Rusty agreed to buy him before they put the phone down. I’d actually got to choose who to call back, as we wanted to be sure he would go to a good home.

  We settled on a young surfer-dude called Sam, who said he’d let us know when his mechanic friend was available to come and check him out.

  We waited for them to call with baited breath. We didn’t move without the phone. We took it to the shop with us when we went to buy dinner.

  We took it to the kitchen with us while we cooked dinner.

  For two nights, we slept with it between our pillows, though Roo had made me promise that when the time came, I would answer it.

  So I was sitting in the lounge, watching TV after my last shift with InstallEx, when I heard a loud “SHIT!” from the direction of the bathroom.

  Roo came running in, shaking something in her hand.

  “Shit! It’s the phone!”

  “What? Is it ringing?”

  “NO! Oh my God, Tony – I dropped it down the toilet!”

  “What? How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know! It was in my back pocket, and when I pulled my pants down…”

  She held the phone out to me. It had a certain… moistness to it.

  “EEeew! It’s still dripping! Did you pee on it?”

  “I HAD NO CHOICE.”

  “Oh crap. So, that’s knackered then.”

  “But we need that phone! Shit! It’s been bought for eighty dollars!”

  “Well, I doubt they’ll want it now. Unless, you know, some people pay extra for that sort of thing…”

  “NOOOOO! What about the guys who want to buy Rusty! How are they going to call us now?”

  “Ah. Um… I don’t know.”

  “I can’t believe it! All we had to do was look after that phone, and I dropped it down the frigging toilet!”

  “And peed on it.”

  “AND PEED ON IT!”

  “Okay. Let’s think about this. Give me the phone. How did you get it out of the toilet?”

  She glared at me.

  “Oh. Okay, well, you go and wash your hands.”

  I took the phone very gingerly, and carried it into the kitchen, where I laid it to rest on a tea towel. The display was blank, and there was a bit of liquid behind it. No response to my pushing the power button. I cracke
d open the back of the phone, and unleashed a mini tsunami along with the battery.

  Roo came up behind me to look over my shoulder. “Is it dead then?”

  “Well, it’s definitely off the market.”

  Roo felt terrible, so I tried not to take the piss out of her too much. After all, the phone had already done that. It possessed remarkably sponge-like qualities, for a phone.

  She blurted out solutions as fast as I could shoot them down.

  “Can’t you borrow Kat’s phone?”

  “And do what?”

  “Call them!”

  “Nope.”

  “What not?”

  “Because their phone number is in that phone.”

  “SHIT!”

  We passed a nervous evening, until Roo heard something jingling from my work bag. “Oh my God! Your old phone! I must have put both numbers on the advert!”

  In a mad scrabble, we got to it and answered it before it rung off.

  It was Sam, exactly the bloke we’d been waiting for.

  And he still wanted Rusty.

  “I can’t interest you in a phone that my girlfriend has pissed all over, can I?” I asked.

  “Nooo!” Roo hissed.

  But I’d already hung up. It was just a bit of toilet humour.

  I’d arranged to meet Sam and his mate the following afternoon, which happened to be our last full day in Australia.

  This was cutting it a bit finer that I’d intended. If they decided they didn’t want to buy the van…

  Well, we were screwed.

  I had one more job to do that evening.

  I had to contact our buyer and explain that our Skype phone had been withdrawn from sale.

  Due to water damage.

  To say we were nervous about meeting Rusty’s future owners, is an understatement akin to saying the Bible caused some controversy.

  They both seemed keen though, and stood in awe of the van’s fading paint job.

  “It’s AWESOME!” Sam exclaimed.

  They jumped straight in for a test drive, and looped the block several times, while Roo and I took turns in apologising for each of Rusty’s idiosyncrasies.

  Character traits, we called them.