by J. C. Burke
He shoved the gun into the top of my pants, walked towards Bridie and wrapped his arm around her.
It was Andrew Parker who was crowned the hero, his trophy Bridie Tebble while I, Damon Styles, became the flashing light on Strathven’s ‘psycho’ radar. But I never told Bridie’s secret.
Mum’s still talking and waving my expulsion letter around. She’s barely taken a breath. ‘That business at camp broke me heart. Ya ruined it all for me. Where am I goin’ to find that kind of love again, eh? Ya father left, Archie left …’
‘Shut up!’ The envelopes on the table jump as my fist pounds against the timber. ‘Just shut up, woman!’
‘Ya can yell and scream at me, Damon, but there’s nothin’ left to take. You and ya no good father cleaned me out. The larder’s bare – so shout all ya want, it won’t make no difference to meeeeeeee.’ Her last word transforms into a wheezing mess of breath. She takes the puffer from her dressing-gown pocket and sucks it till it looks as though her eyes will pop out of her face. I get up and walk away.
I sign on to see if Mad Bull is online. Last night he killed ten of my allies with single head shots and now I want to do him over the same way he did me. I want to line up one of his boys in the crosshairs and watch him fall.
Sometimes when I need to game hard I wear Archie’s hunting fatigues. It helps put me in the mood and makes me play better. Archie didn’t mean to leave his fatigues here; they were hanging on the clothesline when he left in a rush of screaming and slamming doors.
‘You always told me to choose.’ That’s what Archie had yelled at my mother when he left. ‘But now you’ve gone and done it for me.’
He’d pushed past her but she was quick on her feet and beat him to the back door where she took position, her outstretched arms jammed across the doorframe.
‘Mooove,’ he’d growled. And she did. Just like that, she let him go.
For a minute I put my head in my hands and try to concentrate on big, deep breaths. Tonight I won’t wear Archie’s fatigues because they’re in the wardrobe and I’m too afraid to open it and see the black bag I put in there.
I inhale, five counts in … five – four – … but I can’t even keep count. My mind is playing a slide show of what I saw today. The man’s face, the phone, his face, the phone; it’s like the projector’s stuck.
I get up and start pacing the room. I’m walking around and around in circles but it’s not helping either. What I want to do is pick up my desk and hurl it against the door. But calm is the key.
The old girl’s cough is hacking away like a jackhammer. It’s amazing she hasn’t started banging on my door, ’cause that’s usually what she does when I storm off and she doesn’t get her way. She follows me to my room and I let her knuckles pound and rap against the wood while I sit here not making a sound.
She doesn’t burst in any more. Not since I pushed her and she went flying. Now she just knocks and eventually I hear her nylon stockings rub against her thighs as she walks away.
Mad Bull isn’t online. The rest are all noobs so I hit Campaign. I’m desperate to zone out.
‘Weapon Selection’ flashes on the screen. I look away and watch my finger trace the letters engraved onto my desk. ‘THE PROPHET OF DOOM’. That’s my gaming tag. The curve of the ‘D’ sits deep in the wood.
It’s a while before I can lift my head.
An AK-47 sits proudly in the ‘assault rifle’ category. The graphics make it look so slick. Which is a joke, really. It’s like the way ‘families’ are portrayed on TV shows: all happily living together, yet in the real world they’re a dysfunctional mess.
Today the M16 is my weapon of choice. I’m not ready for the AK-47. It’s too soon.
Straight away I go to mission five: ‘The Clean-Up’. I choose the hardest difficulty as it’ll take the longest to work through. By the end, my mind will have pins and needles. That’s how I want it – numb.
‘The Clean-Up’ is an arduous task. It consists of eradicating the leftovers, the enemy who managed to hide or the civilians too stupid to leave. The latter are easy to deal with; you just line them up and kill them with one burst of fire.
Three beautiful hours slip by. My mouth is dry and my guts, still empty from the morning’s spew, are beginning to groan with neglect. The M16’s been doing most of the work and I’ve almost forgotten about the AK-47. I’ve been awarded three times for sharp shooting and the Russian mercenary I just picked off is convulsing on the ground. The second mercenary is on the floor cowering. I shoot the weapon out of his hands then put him out of his misery. At last, I can think about eating. I haven’t had a mouthful since my birthday breakfast.
ALL WEEKEND I STAY INDOORS gaming or trying to sleep. The only time I leave is to wheel the garbage out on Sunday night and then I check either side of the road before I make a move.
The street is quiet. Too quiet. I can’t trust the conspiring silence. Not any more. How do I know they didn’t see me? How do I know they’re not camping on Mrs Fryes’s porch, watching and waiting?
Quickly I walk out the gate and leave the bin at the kerb beside the other wheelie bins lined up along the footpath. As the ‘Welcome to Strathven’ sign tells us, Strathven won the coveted ‘tidy town’ award in 1973. Strathven looks tidy tonight but if you scratched the surface you’d choke in its filth.
Back inside, Mum is microwaving a frozen family lasagne. This is a gesture of peace. For the past two days I’ve lived on toast and instant noodles. The scent of bubbling cheese excites me.
The old girl and I haven’t spoken since my birthday. She’s been lounging by the television watching reruns of Will & Grace. The only time I see her is when I go to the loo or the kitchen. She doesn’t ask what I’m doing. She just clicks her tongue and shakes her head each time I pass.
The microwave door is open. I’m so hungry I want to reach in and shove a fistful of lasagne down my throat. But Mum is standing there looking at me. I know that look. It comes a moment before she’s about to say something that I don’t want to hear.
‘Damon, I’m callin’ Mr Pascoe tomorra. I’m gonna have that meeting with –’
‘No you’re not!’ I snap back. ‘I’m not talking to Pascoe and neither are you. Forget about him. He’s a fucking traitor! He doesn’t give a shit about us.’
Mum turns her back and wrestles the lasagne onto the bench. She’s burnt her fingers on the container. She’s shaking them and blowing on them, muttering words of pity to herself.
I hand her a cup of water. ‘Put them in here, Mum.’
She hesitates, her fingertips poised just above the glass.
‘Come on,’ I say to her. ‘It’s cold water.’
She relents.
We stand there staring at the cup and I can’t help wondering if we’ve always been this clumsy with each other.
‘Ya got to do ya final examinashuns,’ she whispers. ‘Ya got a good brain, son. Wish I’d finished me schoolin’. I had to leave and help support me family. But ya don’t need to do that, son. I got me winnings.’
‘I’ll sit my exams but I’m not going back to school. Okay? Pascoe’s chucked me out, Mum. He doesn’t want me back. We have to forget about him.’
‘Maybe he done a mistake and –’
‘Made a mistake,’ I correct.
‘Well, whateva. But I don’t understand. What did ya –’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ I tell her.
‘Ya didn’t get yourself into some –’
‘I did nothing!’ I shout. ‘Get that into your head, woman. I. Did. Nothing!’
Sleep isn’t a possibility. I’m too afraid that if I close my eyes I’ll see the man’s face staring at me. Staying awake is the only option. So I lean back into the chair and adjust my headphones.
All night I’ve been playing with Falcon and Cleopatra666. Falcon’s a mad douche. He’s a total keyboard warrior, always barking abuse and orders. But he’ll be the first to get owned ’cause he’s so busy minding everyone else’
s business. No one likes him but he’s always online.
Cleopatra666, now she’s a different story. All night she’s been after Falcon. An hour ago she meleed his arse out of town. You should’ve heard him. I thought my headphones would blow.
She likes the cold weapons, Cleopatra666. She’s sexy.
Falcon won’t have a cam-to-cam chat with her, even though she keeps nagging. I bet Falcon’s a puny little runt – most keyboard warriors are. That’d be why Cleopatra666 wants to check him out. So she can humiliate him a bit more. Guys like him ask for it.
I’ve never had a cam-to-cam chat with Cleopatra666. It’s never come up for discussion. No need. We’re already tight. It’s obvious from the way she follows me around the map, always keeping guard.
My bedroom window faces the street. I rock back and forth on the chair, watching the dawn sky break into mottled shades of purple and orange, and hoping that no one’s watching me. The tip of my tongue massages what feels like fur stuck to my teeth and gums. I’m so tired. I want to sleep. But I’m afraid.
All day Mum stays out of my way. It’s a miracle really. It’s not till the afternoon, when I’m in the kitchen making a sandwich, that I finally clap eyes on her.
She’s wearing her green jumper with the orange bear. That means she’s been out on a mission. The old girl likes the smiling teddy; she says it makes people smile back at her. I reckon the bear’s grin is evil. It makes me claustrophobic.
‘Put the kettle on, son.’ Her handbag makes a thud as she drops it onto the table. Thankfully she starts to wrestle herself out of the jumper. Today that bear is enough to push me over the edge.
Mum asks if I saw the note she left.
‘What note?’
‘That note on the fridge.’
‘No.’
Mum’s leans over and rips it off. The ‘WORLD’S BEST MUM’ magnet I made in Year 4 slips to the ground. She kicks it under the table and screws the bit of paper into a ball.
‘Guess I don’t need to read it now,’ I say.
Mum sucks on her Ventolin, lights a cigarette and, as she’s blowing a perfect chain of smoke rings, tells me she’s just had a meeting with Pascoe.
My mouthful ejects onto the plate. ‘Tell me you’re joking!’
‘I have every right to go an’ speak to him so don’t start on me, Damon.’
I frisbee my sandwich crusts across the counter. They hit the window and fall into the sink. ‘Ohhh, I haven’t started yet.’
‘It’s ya educashun I’m worried about.’ She always pronounces it ‘educashun’ because she’s had none. But at this moment correcting her is the furthest thing from my mind.
‘It’s none of your bloody business, woman! Don’t you get that? I’m an adult, now, eighteen. Remember I had a birthday last Friday? Remember that real good slap-up meal you put on, almost as good as last year’s?’
Mum is staring at the wall and tapping her foot. She doesn’t realise I’m not a kid any more. Her lame attempts to ignore me are as lame as the idea that I would go back to school because she wants me to. ‘I told you last night I’m not going back there!’ I hiss. ‘Get it? Never ever …’
‘But ya don’t have to. Mr Pascoe, he says he’s made arrangements with –’
‘Pascoe!’ My fist slams the drawers. The cutlery jumps. ‘Why would you believe a thing that comes out of that arsehole’s mouth! Pascoe’s a fraud, a traitor! I tried to tell you that. I mean nothing to him. Forget your teddy bear jumper and its magic charms. If he was smiling it was because you’re so pathetic. You’re a joke, woman. Look at you. You’re stuck, stuck in your daytime soapies and those cryptic crosswords you can never get out. Why the fuck would Pascoe take us seriously?’
The vision of her waddling into the school grounds, all sweaty and puffing and blue in the face while the teddy bear’s grin sits tight across her gut is too much. I pull out the cutlery drawer and hurl it across the room.
I lean across the table and into her face I spit the words, carefully pronouncing each one. ‘Get. Out. Of. My. Life. Woman.’
The road is beginning to blur, I’m breathing so hard. The long white line is swirling and contracting like a kaleidoscope but I keep driving.
I had to fight hard to keep you out of the system. What’s best for you concerns me just as much, Damon. Balls of spit hit the windscreen as I recall the insincerity of Pascoe’s words. Mr Tebble wanted charges laid but I have given him my word that I will work through this with you. Your wellbeing counts just as much as any of my other students. ‘You liar, you fucking liar,’ I hiss. ‘I want you to feel protected! I want you to feel …’ The road in front of me is disappearing and I realise I’m crying, sobbing. I pull onto the side of the road and wrap my arms around the steering wheel.
‘Pascoe, you fraud. You prick. You prick. You prick!’ It’s all I can say. The pain is soaring through me. It’s ripping my chest in two. It has my heart in its hands and it’s squeezing it so tight that my roar fills up every tiny space in the car.
‘AAARGH! YOU PRIIICK!’
The sobs are coming from so far down in my guts that it’s scaring me. I don’t want to feel like this but there’s no way to make it stop. In my head I see Pascoe’s face smirking at me. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and shake him until I feel his weight collapse.
I realise now that Pascoe had been slowly washing his hands of me. To him I was like the dirty water trickling down the drain. It was only a matter of time before I’d disappear altogether. But I’d missed it. I totally missed it and now look at what’s happened.
Pascoe thinks he just threw me out of school. But did he think about where I’d land? What I could walk into before I’d even made it home and taken off my uniform? If he knew, would he have let me go like that?
Last Friday, 6 September – my eighteenth birthday – I collided with adulthood and witnessed firsthand how deep the filth can go. It was a sure way to lose my innocence but not like the soppy love songs say. It was more like a slap across the face with a wet hand. I can still feel the sting.
The sun is sliding down the evening sky when I arrive at the mini-mart. I’m so anaesthetised from my tears that I haven’t even considered the risks of where I’m going or who could be there. When I push the mini-mart’s door open and step in, Steven Marshall peers over his shoulder and looks straight at me. But it’s too late to run.
I’m telling myself to keep it together when I hear the maimed steps of Billy and he appears from behind the newspaper stand. He stands there in his brown boots, the toes of his left shoe scuffed and scratched from dragging behind the other foot. He licks his finger and begins to flick through a newspaper at an almighty speed. I know why.
I feel like I’m going to collapse.
‘So ya gettin’ it?’ Steven says to him.
‘Nah. Nothing here.’ I’m sure I hear Billy swallow. He’s got an Adam’s apple the size of a tennis ball. But I’m not looking at him. I’m trying real hard, taking small steps towards the back freezer with my head hung low so the fresh beads of sweat won’t glisten in the fluorescent lights.
The door swings open and in the reflection in the fridge cabinet I see them leave. My knees feel weak but it’s my guts that are a second from collapsing.
‘Moe?’ I call. ‘Is the dunny unlocked?’
I’ve burst through the door and taken a seat before Moe has a chance to answer.
My hand grabs the toilet roll holder while my twisted and knotted insides burst in one almighty explosion. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. I still have to walk out the door. I still have to go home. There’s no end. No end.
It’s a while before I trust my legs to hold me up. I stand at the sink, watching the water pool into my palms and trickle over the tips of my fingers. The water is cool and light. I splash my face but every centimetre of skin still burns.
‘Damon?’ Moe’s tapping on the door. ‘You all right, mate?’
The shop must be empty. There’s no way Moe’d leave t
he till unattended.
I come out of the bathroom rubbing my wet hands on my trackie daks, trying to look like I’ve just finished a regular dump.
‘Must’ve been something I ate,’ I tell Moe.
‘Well, you can’t blame my mum’s gozlemes,’ he laughs.
Sometimes Moe is like some distant relative who thinks he has a connection with me. But he doesn’t.
‘You didn’t come to the game,’ Moe says, elbowing me in the ribs like we’re a comedy routine. I follow him through the aisle and back to the counter.
‘We got hammered,’ he says. ‘We played like shit. If we just –’
‘Moe! You didn’t play.’
Moe goes quiet. He puts the key back in the cash register and begins to slide his fingers back and forth along the buttons. For a while neither of us speaks. A hangdog look pulls down his face. So the truth hurts, Moe. Get over it.
Eventually he mumbles something like, ‘I heard what happened. Did Pascoe give a reason?’
‘Does he ever need one?’
‘What are you going to do, Damon? You got your finals in a couple of months.’ I keep checking out the window. It looks safe to leave but then how do I know? They could just walk back in. ‘You’re smart,’ he’s saying. ‘I’m sure you’ll be okay.’
I turn back. Moe is staring at me.
‘What?’ I spit.
‘You look freaked out, man.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I heard they’re going to let you sit the exams in the library. The public one, I mean, not … not the school one …’ His words trail off into a mumble.
There’s no silver ute in sight. The only car apart from mine is Mrs Pascoe’s red Corolla pulling up outside the bottle shop. I can see their kid strapped into the baby seat. My fingers start to twitch.
‘Damon? You’re going to do them, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, I’m going to do them, okay,’ I whisper.
