by Scot Gardner
The girl squealed when I powered up and we cut across the puddle, but she wasn’t freaking out, she was smiling. A one-way trip over the puddle took about ten seconds. There were wet men waiting to offload my passengers. The boys told me it was cool and the girl thanked me.
‘No worries,’ I said. ‘Come back anytime.’
A line of cars had collected on the higher ground. People were queuing up for the return journey. An older lady had her little rat-dog on her shoulder and her dress tucked into her underwear. The bloke with the tattoos and the mullet helped her and her dog aboard.
‘You right there, love?’ he asked her.
‘Yes, thank you, dear. Thank you,’ she said.
Three other adults climbed aboard and I declared it a load.
I made sixteen trips back and forth in the half hour that followed and the puddle got bigger. Rain pooled in the boat and, after the tenth trip, Kevin, me and two SES blokes lifted it and drained it. One of the SES blokes topped up the fuel from a red can.
On the Christmas Bay side, a bloke was waving. The bloke with the mullet. When I made it over with another boatload of passengers, he shook the water out of his eyes and pointed the way we’d come.
‘Might as well take them back,’ he said. ‘The bridge has gone.’
‘Gone?’
The mullet-tat-man looked over his shoulder at a woman in a white plastic poncho, one of my more recent passengers who’d been heading to Christmas Bay for an appointment at the dentist.
‘Totally washed away,’ she said. ‘The river has broken its banks something shocking.’
‘So we’re stranded?’ one of my passengers asked.
The woman in the poncho nodded, and squinted skyward into the rain. I could hear it, too. The steady wuk wuk wuk of a helicopter. She started waving and shouting. The people on board set the tinny rocking with their own waving and hollering.
Why do people shout at helicopters? That’d be like shouting at Grandad. Unless he can see your lips there’s no amount of volume that’ll make him understand.
The chopper belonged to one of the TV stations. They weren’t on a rescue mission. They came in close enough to chop up the puddle with their draught.
The poncho woman kept shouting, ‘I’m going to miss my appointment!’
I shook my head and pointed the boat back to Mullet Head. I gunned it. The chopper followed us.
‘What’s this?’ Kevin shouted, as I pulled in.
‘Bridge has gone. They can’t get through.’
‘Fair dinkum?’ he said. The chopper banked and headed off over the bay. Kevin just stood there with his beefy hands steadying the boat as people unloaded. A crystal of water hung off the end of his nose.
‘Sandbags!’ the SES woman yelled.
Kevin just stood there.
‘I’ll go over and get this last lot, Kevin. Kevin? Kevin!’
‘Right.’
‘You okay?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Just thinking about the implications.’
‘Of what?’
‘Well, we’re stranded, aren’t we? That means everyone is stranded on the other side, too. Unless they come across the bay. Too rough for this little tinny. We need one of the Seacats but they can’t come ashore. Probably not deep enough for them at the jetty. So, no fresh bread tomorrow, no milk, no ambulance. No police.’
The bloke Kevin had called Gonzo pushed into the water. ‘Have you guys got a phone?’
Kevin gave him his mobile.
‘None of the phones in town are working.’
Kevin’s eyebrows crept up his forehead.
‘I haven’t even got my house keys,’ Gonzo said. ‘Still in my car in Christmas Bay.’
I cranked the boat motor and Gonzo stepped back. Kevin spun me around.
The rain had finally soaked me to the ball bag. My fingers and toes had started to cease. I shivered. Mum and Sharon would be stranded in Christmas Bay. Mario had gone offshore that morning. The school bus hadn’t made it home. Ash and the twins (and everybody else) would have to find places to camp. So would the people on this side.
‘Might as well beach the tinny,’ Kevin said. ‘We’ll give them a hand with the sandbagging. You all right, Gary?’
‘Just a bit cold.’
‘You want me to run you home?’
I almost said yes. Nearly packed it in. All the fun and adventure had drowned. I was running out of steam. I missed Ash. Funny what goes through your head when you’re running out of steam. I missed Ash and I hoped Mario was okay out on the rig, though they’re used to water. I hoped Mum and Sharon were together and I hoped that someone was looking after them.
And the rain kept coming down.
‘I’ll warm up with a shovel,’ I said. We took the boat back to the caravan park and went to bag sand.
It took ages to get dark. The horizon glowed orange through the rain as the sun plunged into the ocean.
‘Shepherd’s delight,’ Kevin said.
After the sun had set, the clouds seemed to glow. They were grey and heavy and looked like a humungous fluorescent tube lit them from behind.
Someone brought pizzas at half past ten. We stood dripping under the verandah in front of the chemist. I’d gone past hungry but, like the SES crew and Kevin, I stuffed my face. They were joking and carrying on and between the laughter, I noticed the silence.
‘It’s stopped raining.’
There was a feeble cheer and one of the SES blokes reported that the water over the road had started to go down. We could see a tide line on the sandbag wall.
‘You right to go home, Gary?’ Kevin asked.
I nodded and we squelched to the van in a weary silence. From falling off ladders for a perve to flood rescue. Big day.
Kevin navigated through the town towards my place. There were lights on at the church and a dozen cars parked out front. Someone was carrying an armload of blankets inside.
Kevin slowed the van to a crawl along Aquarius Boulevard, craning his head to look at a house in the darkness. Number thirty-seven. There were no lights on and the driveway seemed empty.
‘My place,’ Kevin said. ‘Hasn’t washed away.’
‘Did you want to go in?’
‘No, I’ll drop you off first.’
We only lived three blocks apart. No wonder it was no hassle for him to pick me up. He bumped into the gutter in front of my place.
‘I’ll come and get you in the morning,’ he said. ‘Probably won’t be early. Say eight o’clock?’
‘Cool. Fanks.’
‘You handled yourself well today. Get some sleep.’
I did as I was told. Not that I really had much choice. The house had locked in the heat of the day. I opened a heap of windows and left the front and back doors open but kept the flyscreens closed. The phone was dead. I had a shower and the house was so quiet afterwards that I started imagining shit. I heard footsteps on the concrete path outside my bedroom window. I heard the flywire back door open. A floorboard in the kitchen creaked. With skin prickling on my back and neck, I grabbed a weapon — well, my bike helmet — and crept into the hallway. Nothing. I’d left every light in the house blazing. Nobody in the kitchen. I slapped open the flywire door and it banged against something. There was a yelp. A little doggy yelp, and I was so glad to see the night football that I scooped her smelly wetness into my clean arms.
‘Trixie! You poor little bugger. Sorry, girl, are you all right?’
She was shaking. I towelled her dry and plopped her on my bed. She scrambled around on the doona, wiping her face and shaking, then propped, staring at me, with her tongue flagging from the side of her mouth.
‘You sleeping with me tonight? Baby?’
I fell asleep with Metallica booming in my headphones and one hand on the little dog.
Seventeen
Kevin didn’t show. At ten past eight I stood on the front doorstep, watched steam rising from the tar and wondered if I’d got the time wrong. At half past nine, I turned
the TV off and thought about walking around to Kevin’s place. At five to ten, when I left, a hot panic erupted in me and I ran the whole way.
The van was in the driveway at number thirty-seven Aquarius Boulevard. I kidded myself that he’d slept in and I was about to get a rare kind of joy out of waking him up. I banged on the wall beside the door.
‘Oi! Kevin, wake up!’
Nothing. I rapped on the window beside the door but didn’t wait for a response. I ran along the drive to the back door. A flyscreen had blown off one of the back windows and see-through curtains stroked the side of the house.
I stuck my head in the window.
‘Kevin!’
I could hear breathing.
‘Kevin?’
A sob. Just a weak, wordless groan. A man in pain. I rattled on the back door and, to my surprise, it opened. Surprise or horror? I stood there with the door open, my fingers still wrapped around the handle. Frozen. I couldn’t see Kevin but I could hear his stuttery breaths. I didn’t want to see Kevin. I didn’t want to hear.
I ran onto the street. My voice was a squeal. ‘Help!’ I cupped my hands around my mouth and called again and again. The street was dead. Leaves lay in damp rafts across the road where they’d been left by the storm. Passing cars had started to break up the big lumps. I ran towards town.
I almost knocked a guy flat at the end of Venus Parade. He was pushing a stroller with a redheaded kid in it. The stroller rocked when I hit him and I grabbed it.
‘Watch where you’re going, dickhead.’
‘Help, I need help,’ I panted. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I need help. Kevin . . . something’s happened. He’s . . . I need help.’
The man took a mobile phone from his pocket and dialled. ‘Police, please.’
‘No. Not police. Ambulance!’
‘Hello? Yes. I’ve just come across someone in distress. Could be drugs. He says his friend needs an ambulance.’
‘It’s not fucken drugs! It’s got nothing to do with drugs. Kevin needs an ambulance. A doctor. Something.’
‘Address? Somewhere in Mullet Head.’
‘Thirty-seven Aquarius Boulevard.’
‘I think you’d better talk to him,’ the man said, and handed me the phone.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘What address was that?’ came a man’s voice.
I shouted the address again.
‘And what seems to be the problem?’
‘Kevin. He needs help, right away. Urgent. He’s dying or something.’
‘Has there been an accident?’
‘No. I don’t know. He’s not breathing properly. He can’t talk.’
‘And your name is?’
‘Gary Sleep.’
‘We’ll have an ambulance there as soon as possible, Mr Sleep. Okay? I’d like you to keep the victim calm and let him know we’re on our way. Okay?’
I gave the phone back to the guy with the pram and bolted. I froze at the back door again, and then pushed inside.
‘Kevin?’
I found him on the floor in the darkened hallway. He was lying on his side, curled into a ball. He stunk like fresh shit. He was still in the wet coveralls he’d been wearing the night before. His whole body shook and the skin on his arms and neck was pale and shiny with sweat.
‘Kevin?’
He had his hands between his legs like someone had kicked him in the nuts. His eyes were shut, scrunched so tight with pain that they seemed to be sucked back into his skull. He panted.
I touched the heel of his boot with the toe of my own.
‘Kevin?’ My own hands were shaking at my side.
‘Gary?’
I squatted beside his knees. I put my hand on his boot. ‘Yep, it’s me. The ambulance is coming. What happened? You all right?’
The big bloke barely shook his head. A string of saliva hung from the side of his mouth. There was a puddle of spit beneath his cheek.
I patted his knee. ‘The ambulance is coming.’
I ran through the back door and onto the street. It was deserted and there was no ambulance.
I filled my lungs with shit-free air and ran back up the drive. They wouldn’t have fixed the bridge, I thought. Not in one morning. If it had been washed away like the poncho lady reckoned, they’d have to come in by . . .
Wuk wuk wuk wuk wuk.
I ran back onto the street and waved as the helicopter flew in off the beach.
‘Over here!’ I shouted, and started jumping. ‘Heyyy!’
The leaves on the road were blown in all directions as the red and white chopper lowered itself onto the grass on the roundabout. It landed five doors up from Kevin’s place at the intersection with Marlin Avenue. There were no powerlines. Two men stepped through the big sliding door on the side. One carried a kit and they ran low to where I was still waving and jumping.
‘Are you Gary Sleep?’
I nodded and ran ahead.
They followed me to the back door. I pointed inside and they thanked me.
I could hear them talking calmly to Kevin. Ten minutes later, when I dared to poke my head inside, they had him sitting up with his back against the wall. His mouth hung open and he still seemed to be grabbing his balls.
One of the ambulance officers stepped past me and onto the driveway. He came back two minutes later, pushing an aluminum stretcher with wheels. He smiled at me as he shoved the stretcher over the doorstep.
‘Your dad’s going to be okay. We got here in time.’
‘But he’s not . . . ’
Moaning. I stuck my fingers in my ears. I could still hear it. Whatever they were doing hurt like hell. I backed into the yard and started singing the Fractured Pearl song ‘Brand New Death’. Maybe not the best song to be singing but I remembered it first and the melody was strong. I remembered all the words. Well, most of the words, and when I took a breath and I heard Kevin moaning again it sounded like he was having an orgasm. He was moaning with relief. The sound went on and on. Maybe a minute, maybe more, then he sighed and fell silent. Maybe they’d injected him with some good shit? I wondered if they had any to spare. They wheeled him through the door and onto the drive. His eyes were open. They darted around in his head then fixed on me. He was covered in a blanket from the toes of his boots to his hairy chin.
‘Thanks, Gary,’ he said. His voice was thin and crackly like an old man. He was flat on his back and not clutching his balls. A bag hung on the side of the trolley. It looked like a wine bladder full of . . . It was yellowy, but it wasn’t wine. A thin tube from the bag disappeared under the blanket and I guessed where they’d stuck it. I grabbed my own dick at the thought of it. The poor bastard’s piss valve must have completely blocked.
‘Quick trip to Christmas Bay,’ one of the ambulance officers said. ‘You’ll have to find your own way over, mate. We can’t take passengers. Sorry.’
‘I . . . I’ll lock up the house then.’
Kevin shook his head. ‘Just close the door.’
‘Right.’
A crowd had gathered around the helicopter. I wondered where all the bastards had been hiding when I needed help. One of the ambo guys cleared a path through the mob and told everyone to back off. The engines whirred into life. They loaded Kevin then strapped him to the trolley. The door slid closed and they were airborne, tracking across town and over the bay.
‘Fuck,’ I said, and the people around me walked off.
I grabbed my bike and headed for Christmas Bay. I got axle-deep through a couple of puddles and my legs got satched. I made it to the bridge, only there was no bridge. The shitty-foam surge of the Kellep River had sheared it off at the tar. The SES had strung chequered plastic tape across the road on both sides. The river still heaved against its banks and the thunder and all the little swirls on the surface kind of hypnotised me. I stared at the power of it for ages, until a lump bobbed past and I realised it was the belly of a drowned sheep. Gross.
A tired-looking bloke sat on a stool in
the middle of the road, a steaming foam cup in his paw. I said hello and he nodded.
‘How do we get across?’ I asked.
‘Well, you can swim if you like.’
I laughed at him.
‘I’m serious. Here, give us your bike, I’ll chuck it in.’
‘Get stuffed.’
It was his turn to laugh.
‘Try down at the jetty. They’ve been using one of the surf club’s Seacats as a ferry. They probably won’t let you take your bike.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
‘No worries.’
I turned my bike towards Mullet Head and hopped aboard.
‘Oi!’ the bloke said. ‘Where’s your helmet?’
I patted my head and drew a breath. ‘It’s at home.’
‘Not much good there, is it?’
‘No,’ I mumbled, and rode off.
The bloke at the bridge was right; they wouldn’t let me take my bike on the orange Seacat. Took about five minutes to cross the bay and I jogged through the crowd and up to the hospital.
The helicopter was stationary on the helipad beside the car park. The woman at the front desk gave me directions to casualty. I asked the nurse at casualty if she’d seen Kevin and she told me that they thought he was going to be fine. He was in with the doctor at the moment but he’d be staying in room 227. She asked me if I wanted to wait and she showed me to a waiting room. She had a nice big bum. I watched her butt as she walked up the corridor, then sat down.
I like big bums, I thought. I mean, I like little bums, too, of course, but big bums look hot on some women. The right-sized bum for the body. I wondered if Ash had made it home and wondered what the hell I was doing in a waiting room wondering. I walked.
Mum and Sharon were at the salon. Sharon was still in her school uniform. She was sweeping the floor when I pushed through the door. The broom clattered on the tiles and she hugged me and kissed both of my cheeks. I hugged her back. I patted her shoulder and for a full minute she wouldn’t let go.
Mum smiled. She had a customer in the chair and two kids and their mum waiting.
