Garrett & Sunny: Sometimes Love is Funny

by Peter Butler

  'I tell you what, Joey,' Tim interrupted his thought process. 'If you take us to the special rock place, we'll have a quick look around and then we'll go back to your camp and I'll show you how to kick that football. It takes a lot of practice, but I think I can have you kicking it at least a mile. Maybe two. What do you say?'

  It was inspired of Tim to remind Joey that we had brought gifts with us. It did the trick.

  'C'mon then,' Joey said, as he began walking back to the car. The Lace Monitor hanging over his shoulders looked more like a fat fur collar than a lace necklace. He carried it expertly, with the same nonchalance as a seasoned shopper returning from the supermarket with armfuls of grocery filled plastic bags.

  ***

  Sunny tried to open her eyes but they seemed to be glued together. She moved slightly and her body complained; pain shot through her joints and her muscles went into spasm. She became alarmed. Slowly, she forced her eyes open and blinked repeatedly to clear them. The room was dark and yet there was light, she knew it because an unfocused dull glow persisted just out of reach of her vision.

  She shook her head, slightly. It helped a little, so she shook her head again a little more vigorously. A few more blinks and, slowly, she began to make out her surroundings. She was in Simon's office. She had been sleeping on his couch.

  Why?

  No recollection came to her. She didn't wear a watch and she used her phone to tell the time, but it was nowhere to be seen. That, she knew, was unusual as she rarely left it more than an arms-reach away. She tried to sit and put her feet on the carpet but multiple stabs of pain caused her to stop and regroup. She searched her mind for answers but nothing came. After another minute her eyes had cleared considerably and she tried sitting-up again. This time she fought through the pain and succeeded.

  She was sitting in Simon's office, on his couch, totally confused. Sunny looked out his bank of windows and saw the distant buildings lit-up in multi-colored lights. It was nighttime. But exactly what time? She needed her phone.

  She wiggled forward on the couch until she was propped on its very edge. Slowly she stood. Her head swirled and she blinked trying to focus her eyes again. She began the slow journey to her own desk, groping her way using the furniture and walls for support. As she walked she became aware that her clothes felt wrong on her. Uncomfortable and twisted. She stopped and adjusted her bra that had been pinching the lower portions of her breasts, then she hitched up her skirt and, using her fingers, realigned her panties. She shook her head in wonder at what sort of crazy movements she must have done while she was asleep to cause her underwear to shift so much.

  Her phone was on her desk and her computer was still turned on, the monitor had gone to sleep and she moved the mouse to start it up and see what she had been doing on it before she had miraculously ended up on Simon's couch. The screen showed a spreadsheet that she used to plan the forthcoming shoots in analogue order. Her MP3 player was still playing although she had turned the speakers off. That was strange, usually she would shut them off at the same time. Her phone told her it was 3:24a.m.

  Her mind was starting to clear a little but she still felt quite unwell, overall. She had nausea, and pain in her joints and her bladder was full. She made her way slowly to the ladies room and looked closely at her face in the full-length mirror. She was a mess; her hair looked like a bird had nested in it, her mascara was smudged and had run down her face and her lipstick was smeared well past the edge of her lips. She soaped up her hands and washed her face as best she could and then dried herself with a few handfuls of paper-towels. She made her way to the cubicle and shut the door. Silly, she thought, I'm the only person in the building.

  She lifted her skirt and dropped her panties to the floor, then she sat on the toilet. The change from standing to sitting brought with it a wave of nausea and she bent forward and closed her eyes, trying to relax her body and give the nausea time to dissipate. She began to breathe deeply and slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat until symptoms are relieved. But, she became aware of something unusual as she breathed in for the third deep breath. A smell. It seemed to be coming from her body. She sat back up and sniffed the air in the cubicle and the smell had gone away. She bent forward again and it came back. It was coming from her vaginal area and it was not a normal smell. She knew the smell, but in her groggy state couldn't pinpoint it so she used her fingers to probe the entrance to her vagina. She brought her fingers to her nose and sniffed. Instantly her eyes flashed open wide as realization set in. Her mind finally remembered what the smell was. The unmistakable odor of the lubricant that condom makers use to keep their products moist.

  Oh! Fuck! No...!

  ***

  Joey took us in the direction of the red escarpment that we had been heading straight towards when we had first ventured off the main road. When we were close he turned us and we drove parallel to it for a couple of minutes before he gave the signal to stop. We eagerly piled out of the car and looked around keen to see if any mining presence could be detected. The place he had chosen was indented into the line of the low cliff. It was almost as if a large chunk of the earth had been dug out and smashed up. The main material that the cliff was formed in was a type of red or yellow sandstone. Not very strong or stable, but this area receives so little rain it had resisted erosion for millions of years.

  The heat was intense and our shirts quickly became wet again with sweat, but none of us noticed. We were on a mission. Truf opened the back of the Land Cruiser and grabbed the medium-size pick he had purchased in Brisbane. He had bought two smaller ones which he handed to Tim and me.

  Joey left the lizard wedged in between the bull-bar and the front of the car and had already started walking to the indentation in the cliff-face. When we caught up to him he was standing with his bare foot on a rock the size of a watermelon. 'Here's one of the white rocks ya like,' he said as he lifted his foot off the boulder. I could see the sparkle of the thin seam of gold from where I stood. 'But it's no bloody good, ya can't throw one that big.'

  The three of us were speechless. I looked around and saw there were many others like it scattered around. Truf had already walked all the way into the deepest part of the indentation and was examining the rock-surface carefully.

  I joined him and saw the euphoric look on his face. He looked at me and shook his head in disbelief. 'Never seen anything like it,' he said. 'It looks like the sandstone has been covering a layer of quartz for a long, long time. Wind erosion is the main thing that attacks it, but that is reasonably slow and takes a long time to do the job. The small amount of annual rain probably only helps hold the soft soil together, rather than erode it.' He picked up a small lump of the sandstone and crushed it in his hand to show me how soft and crumbly it is.

  'But something has taken this large chunk of sandstone out and exposed the quartz in this one section.' He panned his arm around the mini amphitheater we were standing in. 'Thank God it did. Might have been another million years before the quartz became visible.'

  The quartz he was referring to stood in front of us and it was plain to anyone who looked that it was full of hundreds, maybe thousands of veins of gold. Most were very thin like the veins of a leaf, others were incredibly wide - in places as much as 5 mm.

  'There's no way of telling how far these seams go, is there?' I asked. 'Without doing test drills.'

  'You're right. But I've seen plenty of potential sites for a gold mine in my time, but I've never seen anything as remotely obvious as this.'

  Truf began to climb up the face of the cliff. Every few feet he would stop and chip away at the surface, check the rock he had dislodged and then climb higher.

  'Tim!' Truf called out.

  'What's up, Truf?' Tim answered from about thirty feet away, where he was busy sifting through an assortment of rocks.

  'Would you go back to the car and get that large plastic drink cooler-box we bought and bring it back here, please?'

  'It's full
of ice and water bottles.' Tim said.

  'Take the bottles out and ditch the ice, old boy. I need a strong container and that's the best we've got.'

  'You're the boss,' Tim said and headed off to do as he was asked.

  Joey wandered up to me and said, 'I'm gunna go hunting. Ya take too long to find ya bloody rocks.'

  ***

  Joey and Nine followed the contour of the escarpment. He hoped he'd be able to find a scorpion hiding under a rock, or maybe a small lizard. The sun was fierce and even the ants had the good sense to stay out of it. But not those crazy white blokes. Just find a bloody rock and go back to camp, so I can learn how to kick a football. That was all he wanted them to do, but they seemed to want to find a special rock.

  He stopped every few paces and rolled back any rocks he could manage to move. But the cool earth under each one he shifted was empty. Nine had run a short distance in front and was doing his bit sniffing the ground for any trace of food and peeing on any likely landmark that needed to be claimed as his.

  Joey used his stick to probe any crevices he came upon and he finally got lucky when he stuck it into a deep crack in the red earth that ran all the way from the ground up to his head height. His stick had gone in at chest height and plunged into something soft. The end of the spear suddenly became alive with an animal that he'd managed to spear. A loud hiss came from deep inside the crevice and he fought to hold on to the spear as it danced in his hands.

  Nine had heard the sound that told him Joey had found something and he ran back and stood at his masters feet, mouth open, teeth ready, waiting for a chance to be involved in the kill.

  Joey was pretty sure it was a snake, probably not a goanna because he didn't hear any violent scratching sounds. But it was definitely strong and most likely big, and was giving him a good fight. He pulled the spear back, intending to plunge it in again but when he did the spear just hit solid rock at the back of the crevice. He plunged it in again with a similar result.

  Suddenly all hell broke loose at his feet and he realized what had happened. The animal had been on a hidden ridge deep inside the crevice when he had speared it. When he had pulled the spear out, it had fallen down the crack to ground level, where it had decided to come out of the crack and face its tormentor.

  And it was as mad as hell.

  He looked down just in time to see the snake lunge at his leg. It happened too fast for him to jump out of the way and his spear was uselessly stuck inside the crevice. He watched as if in slow-motion, both fascinated and horrified at the same time as the snakes head sped towards him. Its fangs were clearly visible; he could even make out a tiny drop of venom that formed on the point of one of them as it caught the light. In his adrenaline charged state he even identified the snake as an Eastern Brown. Not the deadliest snake in Australia - just the second deadliest.

  Nine darted into the fight, snarling fiercely and moving equally as quickly as the snake. Instinctively he went for its head, but his timing was slightly out and the snake's head punched into his face with such force that Nine's head crashed into Joey's leg and caused him to tumble over backwards and land on his backside.

  The snake's fangs embedded deeply into Nine's cheek and delivered a load of venom into the side of his snout, then, just as quickly it recoiled and readied itself for another lunge.

  As Joey fell backwards his spear came out of the hole with him. He kept hold of it, even though his eyes were fixed on Nine who had also hit the ground, but the dog's fall had ended on top of Joey's legs, pinning the small boy down. Nine lay there on Joey, his body trembling, slowly beginning to convulse. Behind him the snake knew it had won one battle, but it was badly injured from Joey's stabbing and hell-bent on destruction. And Joey was the only one left to punish.

  It was a huge snake, maybe fifteen feet long and it reared up, towering over Nine's body. It formed the familiar S shape that usually was only used as a bluff to any potential threat. But Joey knew this was not a bluff and it was about to deliver a deadly strike at him. It was all happening too quickly. Joey still held the spear but it was harmlessly pointing at the sky. He looked into the deep black, completely round eyes of the beast. They were the eyes of death and they were focused on him. The snake seemed to peel back its upper lip in a type of macabre grin, or snarl, and hissed - its forked tongue flicked excitedly, tasting the air for hidden dangers. Either side of its tongue its long, thin white fangs protruded threateningly, glinting in the bright sunlight like steel daggers.

  It began its lunge at Joey.

  Once again he watched what was unfolding in slow motion. Everything that was happening between the two combatants was now being controlled by instinct, there was no time to think or plan. The deadly fangs raced down towards his legs that lay prone and pinned. Joey had no awareness that his hand was propelling the spear down. The stick crashed, side-on into the back of the snakes head and Joey watched as the head appeared to snap up and go backwards. It wasn't of course, it was an optical illusion brought on by the spear driving the snake's body down faster than its head. The spear had snapped the beasts spine just behind its head, effectively rendering the top of its body paralyzed, but not removing the deadly threat of the venom filled fangs.

  The direction Joey had brought the spear down had pushed the snake to his left and it hit the ground only inches from his thigh. Its body was as thick as a man's forearm and lay like a fat pale-brown hose, draped over Nine's still twitching body. Joey kicked out at the dogs body to free himself as quickly as possible. The snake's head was incapable of controlled movement, but the rest of its body was still thrashing around in a spasmodic frenzy, which was making the head flick from side-to-side. Joey knew that even the slightest scratch from those deadly, needle-sharp fangs would mean death to him and he pushed away from it as quickly as he could.

  Joey stood at a safe distance and plunged the spear repeatedly into the snake's body. He kept stabbing even after the beast was completely still. Then he dragged its body off Nine's and threw it to the side. He sat beside Nine and gently lifted his head onto his lap and gently stroked his ears. The dog's mouth had begun to froth and the edges were coated in a white creamy foam. His breathing began to crackle and slow, until it finally faded to nothing... and stopped.

  Joey continued to gently caress and pat his head, watching vacantly, as his tears silently splashed on Nine's lifeless body.

  ***

  We lugged the rock filled cooler back to the car and the three of us managed to get it into the rear of the Land Cruiser. It weighed a lot and presumably was worth a considerable amount. But that was to be determined. It was, in fact the very reason Truf had collected the samples.

  We did have one small problem: You can't just turn up at a laboratory with some rocks and have them analyzed. There are laws governing the ownership of minerals and metals contained in the earth and you need a lease to mine or even explore for these things. I'd heard stories of how an eccentric person had buried his wealth in the backyard of the house he owned. Sadly, the lease to the mineral rights of the area he lived in were owned by a mining company. How they found out about his buried wealth is a mystery, but find out they did. A court later ruled in the favor of the leaseholder as the items were buried deeper than nine inches. Leases are important legal rights and clearly, we did not have one. Technically we could argue we had 20% of one, but the last thing I wanted to do at this stage was share the news of this discovery. A idea was beginning to hatch in my brain.

  'The boy's been gone a while,' Tim said, 'I think I'll take a walk and see if I can find him.'

  He was correct so I offered to join him. In the end all three of us went in search of Joey.

  We found the little guy almost immediately and I could only begin to imagine what he had just gone through. Tough little bloke that he is, the sight of his tears tore me up.

  I could hardly believe the size of the snake and it reinforced in my brain that I was correct about how many things could kill me out here. Its head was only
partially attached to its body as Joey's stabbing had been thorough. We left the carcass lying there. Joey had no interest in it as food.

  The little guy insisted that he would carry Nine back to the car. I walked beside him, ready to help him if he needed it. He didn't. The only thing he could have used was a box of tissues and I didn't have one of those, either.

  Truf drove and Tim sat beside him. I shared the backseat with Joey, a dead lizard, and a dead dog. Joey gave Truf rough directions that eventually got us back to the camp.

  Bully wasn't impressed that the dog had died. 'Stupid bloody animal,' he said when he saw the boy carrying his lifeless body towards him.

  Joey stood in front of Bully and glared at him. 'He is a stupid bloody dog. The silly bugger stuck his head in the way of a brown snake and got bit - instead of me.' The tears flowed down his face.

  Bully dropped his head in shame and said gently, 'Sorry boy. The dog's a bloody hero. We'll give him a Chief's burial.'

  I left Bully and his son to discuss the arrangements and went to talk with Warra, who had stayed in the shelter of a gum-tree.

  'I don't want to get your hopes up too much, but we found out some pretty useful things today,' I said to him and he smiled at the news.

  'Did you see what they did to our billabong? They shit, those people,' he spat on the ground in disgust.

  'You're right, Warra. They're shit,' I agreed. 'The poisoning problem with the billabong is way out of my league. I'll make some calls tonight and see if there are people able to clean up places like that.'

  'Thanks, Gary. You're like your grandma. You're a good person.'

  I grinned at him, appreciative of the compliment, but worried that I wouldn't be able to live up to the praise.

  'No promises, Warra. But we're going to give it everything we can. We'll be back tomorrow. We need to check out some more sites around here. Is that okay?'