He held out a hand and pulled Jimbo to his feet. On the way back to the factory, Brian pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Jimbo.
“For when you’ve got enough ping, mate,” said Brian. “They’re good, they’re the best.”
~ * ~
Jimbo lay in bed that night listening to the Old Man snoring from the bedroom at the other end of the hallway. He wondered if the Old Man had beaten Mum when they’d first got married, and how long it took before Mum had decided she was happy enough to want to stay. Or stopped trying to leave.
He stared at the card Brian had given him. White card, red writing. Bridal Services. No slogan, no address. Just a phone number. A City phone number.
He thought about taking Niki up on her offer of a train trip to the city. Kill two birds with one stone. See her, find a wife. He imagined going to her apartment and knocking on the door. Taking her in his arms when she answered it, carrying her inside and undressing her ...
He grabbed hold of his stiffening cock and began to stroke, trying to imagine his tongue licking her breasts. The Old Man gave a ratcheting croak and the rasping snore took on a louder pitch. Jimbo tried to hold her face in his mind but the snoring tore her away from him. Anyway, he couldn’t take a train ticket off her - they cost too much.
Bridal Services.
“For when you’ve got enough ping,” Brian had said.
That smarmy prick and his inheritance, that was how he got his fucken wife! Enough fucken ping, the cunt!
Jimbo thought about pressing a pillow over the Old Man’s face. It would be so easy, the fat old cancerous cunt snoring away, the stink of stale beer pouring from his gob.
Jimbo worked at his cock again, but it was no good. The snoring beat its way through the walls, pounding into his ears.
Fucken fat old cunt.
He climbed out of bed and crept down the hallway towards his parents’ door. The room stank of body-processed alcohol. He could barely make out the lump in the bed in darkness. He stole closer, pillow in hand, listening to the rising falling buzzsaw that was his father. He stood over the Old Man and raised the pillow.
“Don’t do it, James,” his mother said softly from the chair by the window.
Jimbo stared at her and, after an eternity of seconds, went back to his bed. He lay there sleeplessly dreaming of things that would never come to pass.
~ * ~
Jimbo sat with the Old Man in the waiting room down at the Surgery. It was the first time either of them had been here since the new doctor had arrived in town, a filthy fucken A-rab from the City no less. Not that there weren’t any A-rabs here in Shepp, but they mostly lived on the south side of town in the old council estates, run-down shit holes full of pestilence and ugly women dressed in black sheets. But this cunt, this Doctor Ed Khalid, was getting his dirty fingers high up in the town, and that pissed off the Old Man something big. Jimbo didn’t really give a fuck, he didn’t much like A-rabs or Asians and as long as they kept to themselves it was no skin off his nose.
It was the skin on his Old Man that was the problem though. It was getting worse. Big red sores weeping through the bandages Jimbo’s mum changed daily. The smell of decay had settled into the walls of their house. The cancer had been festering a while now, maybe longer than the two years since Khalid had set up practise, but Mum was worried it was worsening. She also held high hopes that a City doctor, even an A-rab, might have new technology, some new ways, that old alkie Foley hadn’t. Jimbo shuddered, remembering Foley’s whiskey-soaked breath in his ear as he forced a gnarled finger up Jimbo’s arsehole when he was twelve.
“There’s a lot a shit up there,” Foley had said to Jimbo’s mother. “Turning to concrete.” He’d sent them home with a bottle of Swedish Bitters and some suppositories, and after two days Jimbo had shit himself stupid.
Jimbo had avoided doctors ever since, and he sure as hell didn’t want this Ed Khalid sticking his A-rab fingers anywhere near his arsehole. Ed. Fucken MohammEd, more like.
The Old Man had been quiet since they got here, long sleeves drawn down over his bandaged arms, the brim of his hat pulled low trying to disguise the rot in his nose. A sour stench clung to his body.
They waited.
A fat kid on the seat opposite stared sullenly at them, his hair a sump of grease, acne holding his cheeks together. Jimbo didn’t know him, and it struck him as funny. It wasn’t so long ago that he knew almost everybody in town. He guessed things had been getting away from him recently, what with work and shit. The kid stared and Jimbo fought a sudden urge to get up and smack the kid in the mouth.
The door to the doctor’s room opened and a nurse stood there staring at a list of patient names. Her eyes were sunk into a pouchful of bags and dark roots crawled through the platinum highlights in her dry, brittle hair.
“Mr White,” she said, her voice worn with heavy cigarette use.
The Old Man heaved himself to his feet, and they made their way into Doctor Ed Khalid’s private sanctum.
Khalid took Jimbo by surprise - he didn’t appear to be that many years older than Jimbo himself, his skin tanned, dark hair cut short, and blue eyes shining from a strong boned face. The room seemed clean, and it looked like there was a working computer on the desk. Locked cabinets stood in the corner of the room, some fancy looking machinery Jimbo didn’t have a clue about. Khalid’s A-rab origins were evident though. There was a faded prayer rug in one corner, and up on the wall a large photo of a white building surrounded by a swirling mass of people.
Khalid smiled and offered them a seat. “How can I help you today, Mr White?”
No A-rab accent at all, he sounded much like any of them. The cunt’s probably putting it on. Altered his face to fit in.
The Old Man said nothing for a second, then rolled up his sleeves and put his arms upon Khalid’s desk. Khalid kept his face straight, helped the Old Man onto the examination bed and carefully removed the bandages, exposing the sores beneath.
“How long have you had these?” Khalid asked.
“A while. Dunno. Maybe two, maybe three years. Maybe longer. Getting worse, it’s gunna fucken kill me, I know that much. We all know skin cancer when we see it.”
Khalid nodded, examined the sores again. “This is fairly advanced. You should have come to see me sooner. There are things we can do.”
The Old Man grunted, a short hoot of derisive laughter. “Look, I don’t give a fuck. I’m here because it’s bothering me missus. I don’t want to put her under anymore pressure than she already is. It’s gunna kill me, plain and simple, like it does a quarter of this fucken town.”
“There are options available, Mr White. Still. Have you considered seeing a specialist in the City -”
“Fuck the City.”
Jimbo sat back, watching the Old Man bristle. Looks like the old bastard’s gunna plant one on the A-rab’s nut. Gotta give it to the A-rab though, he’s playing it cool.
“There’s not much I can do from here.” Khalid cleaned the sores with a swab the nurse had prepared. “You know how it is. Trains are limited, supplies even more so. I have colleagues in the City -”
“I’m not wasting any money on that shit. It’d ruin me family.” The Old Man stared around the room, avoiding Jimbo, his eyes fixing on the photo of the arch. “I can’t afford that sort of thing. Painkillers. Medical marijuana. You can do that, can’t you?”
Khalid nodded, handing the swabs back to the nurse, then applying fresh bandages to the Old Man’s arms. “Sure. It’s no different to what you can already get though, and it’s not like there’s a problem getting hold of any.”
“Yeah,” said the Old Man, “but if you prescribe it, it’s free.”
Khalid laughed, and began to write out a script.
“You been there?” The Old Man pointed at the photo on the wall. “You A-rabs all gotta go there once in yer life, don’t ya?”
Khalid looked up at the photo, his face distant. “No. My great-grandfather did thou
gh, back before the Breakdown. I don’t know of anyone in my generation who’s been.”
“Then I guess I’ll be seeing you in hell then, eh, doc?” The Old Man grinned, his teeth a slowly rotting mess between lips already blessed with the onset of cancerous blooms.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Khalid pushed the script across his desk, towards the Old Man’s hands. “Much like your Bible, Mr White, we update our Koran when needs be.”
“Fuck the Bible.”
“Yes, I totally agree.” Khalid stood, and the nurse ushered Jimbo and the Old Man towards the door. “And remember, if there is anything you need, don’t hesitate to come and see me.” He planted his blue eyes on Jimbo’s. “Anything.”
As they were leaving the Surgery, Jimbo patted his pockets. “Ah, fuck, I’ve left me wallet in there.” He pointed to the horse and cart that Uncle Frank had lent them for the day. “You go on, I’ll be with ya in a sec.”
Jimbo walked back inside, past the receptionist and the glaring eyes in the waiting room and pushed open the door to the rooms. The fat kid had his shirt off, lying on the bed, while Khalid leant over him, a stethoscope pressed to the chest.
The nurse began to bluster, “You can’t -”
“It’s okay, Deanna,” Khalid said, straightening.
“If he doesn’t get treatment in the City, how long’s he got?”
“Six months. Maybe more, maybe less.”
Jimbo nodded and left the rooms, snarling at the receptionist as she tried to say something and stalked out into the hot day. The Old Man slumped in the cart, his hat pulled low, his shoulders sagging. Jimbo walked slowly, watching those shoulders, now beaten and slumped, remembering their thick muscle and the beatings doled out regularly over the years.
Six months, eh? Six more fucken months. If we’re lucky, even less.
~ * ~
After the bushfires had burned off summer, and the leaves dropped dead from the trees, the temperature dipped beneath thirty degrees Celsius for the first time in months. Cranky McNabb reckoned rain would come with the end of autumn, and though the town hoped with him that it would, nobody was placing bets.
When Niki’s letters stopped arriving, Jimbo’s first instinct was to burn the ones he had received. Instead, he hid them inside his old footy guernsey, deciding to bury his heart with good memories rather than burning his heart with none. He’d never bothered to reply to her, though if he delved deep enough inside him he knew he couldn’t bring himself to reply - scared he’d say too much, or worse, not enough.
“Nicole’s doing well at work,” his mother would say over breakfast. “Promotion. More money. Responsibility. She’ll be home come Christmas.”
Jimbo would nod disinterestedly, building a wall around where Niki had been, while making a space for his wife, a good wife, the one he would buy with his savings.
When the Old Man took a turn for the worse and the skin cancer bit deep enough to infect the blood, his mother stopped talking about Niki. Jimbo would come home and press a portion of his pay into the cancerous old hands, and think about how Brian got Belle.
And, late at night, when the booze seeped through the cracks and bought Jimbo’s heart floating towards the surface, he’d unfold his old guernsey and read through Niki’s letters. And, if the room didn’t spin, sometimes he’d find himself crying and not know why.
~ * ~
A good crowd had turned up at the Oval for the pre-season footy game between Shepp City and the Aboriginals who’d come in from the Edge for fruit picking money. Last year the Abos had won by two goals, but the cops had kept the fighting to a minimum, which had been disappointing. They’d segregated the crowd again this year, with the townsfolk in the makeshift western stand, fenced off from the Abos camped on the eastern slope. Still, there was always a chance for a fight after the game around the bottleshop - Cranky wouldn’t let the Abos into The Aussie.
“Gunna be a corker, this one.” Dave handed Jimbo a plastic cup of coolish beer. “Cockatoo Collins III is playing. Keats has ten bucks on him scoring the first goal for the Abos, and fifteen bucks on him being the first to be taken out.”
“Just got a fiver on the game,” said Jimbo. “Abos’ll win. Hate to say it, but they’re better ‘n us at this game.”
“Fuck off!” Dave gulped down a mouthful of bitter. “Next you’ll be saying ya won’t bash ‘em. Shit, next thing you’ll be bringing one home for a wife!”
“Too right, mate,” said Jimbo, before punching Dave on the arm. “Heard they were good in the sack, eh?”
Dave laughed. “They are, mate, they are! I’m telling ya, ya missing out.”
A cry went up from the crowd, as Shepp City cleared the ball, with Plugger punting the ball to Bulldog who took a clean mark thirty metres from the goal.
“Piece of piss from here,” said Dave.
“Yeah,” said Jimbo. He wasn’t watching the game though. Frank was moving through the crowd towards him.
“How’s it going, Jimmy?” Frank tried to smile.
“Yeah, good, Uncle Frank. You?”
Frank stared out over the field, as Bulldog lined up the goal and prepared to kick. “Big game today. Thought Phil would be down to watch.”
“Too crook to come.”
The crowd “awwwed” in disappointment as Bulldog missed the goal, the field umpire signalling with one hand only a point had been scored. The Abos shouted from the far side of the field, jeering and laughing.
Frank nodded slowly. “Yeah, ya mum said he was bad.” Frank turned to face Jimbo for the first time during the conversation, his hard face as stern and cracked as the dry fields he ploughed. “Wasn’t always like this between me and ya father. Used to be real close when we was kids.” Frank stared back at the field. “Used to idolize the bastard when I was young. He’d keep the older kids off me at school until I could win me own. Yeah, ma brother was tough back then.”
“He’s not so tough now.” Jimbo downed his beer. “You want one, Uncle Frank?”
“Yeah,” said Frank, distractedly.
As Jimbo left to go to the drinks caravan, Frank put his hand on Jimbo’s arm.
“You haven’t heard from Nicole lately, have you, Jimmy?”
“Nah, not for a while.”
“Right.” Frank looked like he was about to say something more, then stared back at the game.
When Jimbo came back with the beers, Cockatoo had scored two goals for the Abos, Plugger had been knocked unconscious, Dave was screaming obscenities, and Frank had disappeared.
~ * ~
Towards the end, Jimbo would dread the rattling call from his father’s throat, summoning him to the shadowed lounge where the Old Man had had his deathbed set up. He wished the bastard would hurry up and get all this shit over with. Jimbo would be able to save more money for his bride if the Old Man no longer had his hand out.
The big screen was on, cycling through family photographs, where Jimbo had yet to grow hair and sported fat nappies, his father had a fit and strong footballer’s body, with skin tanned deep while working the fields, and his mother - younger, beautiful - wore a smile for her newborn instead of the blank face she wore for her husband.
Now, his mother sat in the armchair, her face expressionless. The Old Man lay in his bed, the skin on his face pulled tight and yellow across his skull. The weight had eaten itself from his belly. He reached out a papyrus hand and clasped Jimbo’s arm, the cancerous heat of his father’s skin burning into his own.
“I know what ya trying to do,” the Old Man croaked.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I know ya wanna do it ya own way, and that’s the way a real man would do it. I understand, son. I appreciate that.”
“Right.” Jimbo didn’t have a fucken clue what the old bastard was on about. He wished the Old Man would let go of his arm though - the sickly heat felt infectious. Jimbo noticed his mother was smiling. Smiling like in the photos cycling on the screen. Smiling with a mother’s love for her son.
“I don’t have much time left.” The Old Man paused, searching Jimbo’s eyes, waiting for something.
Jimbo said nothing.
“I want a wedding before I die.”
“What?”
The Old Man hacked a phlegmy laugh. “That got a reaction.” He coughed again; brown drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. “I wanna see me only son get married. God knows there’s fuck all weddings these days, what with the cost of them’n all.”
“You bullshitting me? Unless you’re gunna last another five to ten years coughing your guts up on that bed, it ain’t gunna happen. I ain’t got the cash.”
“James,” his mother said softly from the chair. “Listen.”
The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy - vol 05 Page 18
