Flank Street

by A. J. Sendall

  He turned his sallow face towards me. ‘What?’

  ‘Having something to do makes you feel better.’ I didn’t give a rat’s arse how he felt. He continued to look at me for a few seconds, and then walked unsteadily to the side rail where I’d left the rod unattended. ‘Let out more line, then slowly reel it in. Rinse and repeat.’

  He either tried to smile or choked back vomit. Either way, he did as I said. I coiled ropes in the cockpit.

  There was a sound like a coconut splitting when I hit the back of his head with a winch handle. I had to grab the back of his jacket as he almost tumbled forward over the rail. That was where he was going, but first I needed to weight him down. After meeting with Ray and getting my orders, I’d visited a scrap yard and bought a cast iron cylinder head that weighed about fifty pounds. I lay Jimmy Nono face down in the side deck with his bloodied head sticking over the side, then tied that cylinder head to his back, passing the rope through the valve ports so there was no way it would come unattached. When I forced him under the lower lifeline, I didn’t know if he was dead or alive, but knew for certain how he’d be in less than a minute. Seeing the blood in the water made my stomach heave.

  Before he was two fathoms down, I unrolled the headsail and set a course to the west, back to Sydney Harbour. No looking back, no watching the bubbles rise or the sharks glide in.

  Slipping

  The feeling didn’t hit me until I was halfway back, as if I’d been in a trance until I crossed the hundred-fathom line. Then it hit me hard.

  What if Ray told me to do this again? Bile shot to my throat and I spewed over the starboard rail. I could feel the panic rise, my gut tightening, and the need for a drink overwhelming me. There was no alcohol on-board; I’d made sure of that. I regretted it. I needed it.

  Irrational thoughts swirled through my head about sinking the boat and making it to shore in the dinghy, which would free me from the tyranny of having to do this again. Ray could get well and truly fucked.

  There was no moon that night, and as I closed the coast, the condemning finger of light from the South Head lighthouse swept the deck every five seconds. The wind died. I rolled up the sails and motored through the left over swell and cold rain, smoking and wishing I had a bottle.

  What I did when I got into the harbour entrance was lost in a frenzy of panic, mania, and brain-numbing anxiety. First thing I remember after passing South Head was sitting on the beach near Middle Head, the dinghy washing in and out on the swell, the leg of the outboard sticking into the sand, and the yacht burning furiously a mile away.

  After fifteen minutes, the water police were there, circling round the flames, and shining searchlights into the water. Then a tug with a fire control pump arrived. It was too late. I laughed. I actually laughed as it burned and lit up the cold, wet night.

  Eventually I went out to the police boat and told them how she’d just burst into flames. They took a statement as the tug pulled away the smoking hulk of what had been my only asset.

  One of the cops asked if I was okay. He looked concerned, or suspicious. God knows how I looked. My mind was whirring with a mix of victory and fear. I knew I’d beaten Ray. He’d never be able to force me to do that shit again. I kept thinking fuck you, Ray. Fuck you! What I didn’t know was it was me that was fucked. The fear came from feeling trapped. The boat had always been the ultimate means of escape, the passport out of anywhere, any time. That means of escape, that home, was drifting into the night sky, getting further and further away. I wondered, for the first time, what I’d done. Then another thing slammed me from nowhere. Most of my cash had been hidden on her. I’d just set fire to my home and the bulk of my remaining cash.

  DC Suspicious was still probing me with questions. He must have seen the look on my face, because again he asked if I was okay. That time I said no.

  They finished with me an hour after dawn. I walked down the steps to the street and pulled my collar up against the driving rain until I could get a cab.

  When I paid the cab, it reminded me of my financial situation and gross stupidity. I guess I was in some kind of shock. Shocked by what I’d done. Not killing Jimmy Nono—that I could excuse, but killing my boat and burning much of my remaining money was beyond stupid.

  I sat around the apartment all that day and the next, smoking, drinking, and staring morosely through the dirty, rain-streaked windows. The mind chatter was incessant and intense as I played what if. What if I could get access to the boat and the money was still okay? What if the plastic pipe I’d stashed it in didn’t burn, and if it didn’t, what if the cops didn’t find it? It was a long shot, but I chewed on it relentlessly like a dog with a bone. I alternately cursed throwing away the pearls, and then laughed about how smart I’d been.

  I needed to do a job or have one big win at the tables. Carol could have come up with a job, but not now. The Beretta and remaining cash were on the bar in front of me. Each time I counted the cash, there was eight thousand and change. Each time I racked a round into the breech, I flicked it back out again. The cash and the gun; they sort of comforted me, at least that’s how I felt then. Perhaps I saw myself holding up bottle shops or robbing a bank. I have no idea now, but during those two days, I fiddled with them as relentlessly as the bottles emptied and the rain ran down the windows.

  On the third day, I called Sonny. He told me to be in Frankie’s at eleven o’clock that night. It was a Friday, the night they picked up from Meagan.

  I was there twenty minutes early and took a seat at the back table instead of my usual spot at the bar. Sonny and Ray arrived a few minutes later. Ray sat at an empty table; Sonny ordered drinks and spoke with Meagan before sitting with Ray. After a short while, he signalled to me to join them.

  Ray was his usual humourless self. He looked at me coldly and said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s gone, just like you wanted.’

  ‘To the boat; what happened to the boat?’

  I hung my head, rubbed at my chin and grimaced as I said, ‘The fucker caught fire. I’d just rounded South Head, and smoke and flames started pouring out of the cabin. By the time I got in the dinghy, it was well alight.’

  ‘Insurance job?’ Sonny asked.

  ‘I wish. There was no insurance. I lost the lot.’

  ‘What did the jacks say?’

  ‘The usual shit. They just wanted something to write in their report.’

  ‘So you told them what?’ Ray said.

  ‘What could I say? I told them I’d been out to clear my head and she’d just caught fire when I turned into the harbour. Told them it seemed to start in the galley, or maybe the engine box.’

  Ray looked away as if contemplating the matter, Sonny stayed quiet. After a minute, he turned his malevolent stare back on me. ‘And the other thing?’

  ‘All good, Ray: in eight thousand feet, and not going anywhere.’

  ‘So he wasn’t on that burning boat?’

  That question caught me by surprise. I looked at him sceptically. ‘Shit, no. He’s out there with the crabs, Ray: scout’s honour.’

  He held my gaze for a five-beat. ‘Okay, be here again next Friday.’

  I knew I’d just been told to leave, so I did.

  During the following week, I managed to spend most of the eight grand. The salvage tug that towed away the burning boat took nearly five thousand, and the slipway it was taken to wanted another fifteen hundred. I paid the tug, paid the slipway, and gave them what was left of her to defray future costs of breaking her up. They’d sell stuff such as winches and rigging. The rest was cactus. I took one look inside her before walking away. The area where I was hoping to find my stash was obliterated: just a mass of charred wood and a burned out toilet.

  Knowing I was getting another ten from Ray probably contributed to my continuing recklessness. By the time I sat in the bar the following Friday, I was all but broke again. Back where I’d been eight months earlier when I first arrived, but now I didn’t have my boat and rent was du
e on the apartment. I thought about asking Ray if I could run the bar again, but knew what his answer would be. There was no point in trying the other bars in the area either; he’d have a finger in all of them.

  Ray didn’t show that night. Sonny came in with Scarface. He spoke with Meagan, sat beside me at the bar, took an envelope from his pocket, and laid it between us.

  ‘Ray’s not happy about you burning your boat. Ray said to tell you to stay local.’ He slid the envelope towards me, but kept his fingers on it. ‘Understand?’

  ‘Sure, Sonny. Look, I’m more pissed than anyone else about losing my boat. It’s all I had.’

  ‘Ray finds it a bit suss that it happened that way.’

  ‘I find it very inconvenient myself, Sonny.’

  He moved his fingers away and I took the envelope and jammed it in my pocket.

  He stood and gave me a quick slap on the shoulder. ‘Stay local, Micky; Ray doesn’t like a surprise, that’s all. This’ll blow over.’

  After he left, Meagan came over and asked, ‘Mate of yours?’

  I gave her a cigarette and a sardonic grin. ‘Sure, like two ticks under a dog’s collar.’

  ‘Sorry about your boat, Micky. I wish I’d got to have a sail on it.’

  I didn’t know how much she knew, if anything, other than my boat burned, so I stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘Lucky you’ve got the apartment now, eh?’

  ‘I guess it is. I’m just not feeling lucky lately.’

  It was close to midnight. I didn’t want to answer questions or tell her lies. She moved away to serve and I used the opportunity to leave. I took a cab to Crown Street where I lay beneath the masseuse’s soft hands and forgot all about Ray’s warnings and my good intentions.

  The following week I sold the Falcon. I hardly used it anyway, preferring to take cabs, which left me free to get falling-down pissed. It had cost me a poultice with all the mods I’d done. I let it go for about half what it owed me to some Neanderthal with prison tats on the backs of his hands. I guessed they’d both have a short, hard life.

  With the cash from Sonny, and selling the Falcon, I had nearly twenty grand again. After spending the next four nights at the tables, I was down to five.

  September 1st the rent was due. I parted with another fifteen hundred.

  After another brief visit to Ronnie’s gaming room, where I knew I could win enough to float me for another month, I sought solace on Crown Street with just a few hundred left in my pocket.

  I should have found any kind of work, stacking shelves or pumping gas, but I didn’t want to be around people or face questions about what I’d been doing, where I lived. Other than destructive nightly gambling, reclusiveness was setting in. The only place I felt okay was where the lights were dim and lies were expected.

  The Street

  I strung out the apartment until mid-October, sold my last few possessions, and was on the street. The only things I kept were the Beretta and my tools. I could have supported staying at the apartment with a few low-risk burglaries, enough to pay rent and food, but I didn’t. Looking back at that time, I realise it was what I wanted, perhaps what I needed. It was self-punishment, but it also set me free to move around, answerable to no one, living on the edge where I felt I needed to be.

  Overnight accommodation was easy to find. The tell-tale signs of an unoccupied house are easy to spot, especially those with a real-estate sign out front and an overgrown garden. I’d let myself in after dark, stay until dawn. Sometimes I’d stay for a couple of days, just to get a break from street life. The days were hard, filling endless hours walking the streets or sitting around in cafés or parks. Always carrying the bag with tools and gun was a risk. If the jacks ever searched me, I’d be doing serious time, but I felt I had no option. The gun was linked to Hedges’ suspicious death. I hung onto it despite knowing better. I sensed I would need it, perhaps even to end my own wandering. That thought occupied my head as I walked or lay on some faceless stranger’s bed or carpet. There were times when I felt almost euphoric: I was in control; I could end the anguish any time. There were other times when the barrel pressed my temple, my finger trembled, and I feared the retribution of a god I’d never believed in.

  Despite breaking into houses, I seldom stole valuables. It would have raised the interest of the local cops. The only things I stole were clothing and cash, and then not all of it.

  Most homeless end up looking like bums, unkempt and begging for change in doorways and subways, lining up for social welfare handouts, or soup at the shelter. From the outset, I was determined not to do that. All I wanted was total isolation and solitude.

  Christmas and New Year passed unnoticed. It was summer, over a year since I’d arrived in Australia. I was used to the daily routine of walking and hanging out where nobody would notice me, where I could blend in with the shoppers, strollers and other transients.

  I was still letting myself into empty houses most nights, only occasionally sleeping out when I couldn’t find anything that looked safe. I moved from suburb to suburb, not caring where I was, only that it could provide what I needed. Since I took to the streets, I hadn’t felt the need for alcohol. It was as if I’d left the craving in that apartment, left the nightmares and addiction within those peeling walls.

  If I hadn’t run into Meagan one day, I might still be there. She seemed as shocked as I was when we literally bumped into one another.

  ‘Hi, Micky. What are you doing in these parts?’

  I couldn’t come up with an answer. My mouth opened and closed. I didn’t even know what ‘parts’ I was in. I looked away, groping for words.

  ‘You look lost,’ she said, looking at me curiously. ‘Have you got time for coffee; I hate drinking alone.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, wanting to bolt. It was the first time I’d spoken with anyone in weeks, maybe months. I walked beside her, looking around, waiting for a trap to spring. She seemed to sense my unease and hooked her arm through mine as we walked the two hundred metres to a café.

  We went in and I headed straight for a table at the back of the room. She sat opposite me and smiled awkwardly.

  ‘I haven’t seen you in the bar for ... ages: must be months now.’ She smiled to fill the silence. ‘You’re looking a bit stressed, Micky. Is everything all right?’ When I still didn’t answer, she said, ‘Do you want to talk? We can go to my place if you want.’

  Those words and the look of concern in her eyes told me I didn’t look as good as I thought I did. The rigours of the past few months were visible to everyone who looked. Before I needed to answer, the waitress arrived to take our order. As she left, I got up and went to the bathroom. I stood in front of a sink and looked at myself in a mirror, trying to see myself as she did. To begin with, I thought I looked okay. As I continued to look, I saw the haunted eyes, the pinched, lean cheeks, and creased brow. I tried to smile and found I couldn’t. I heard the door open, so I ran water and rinsed my hands, dried them and went back out.

  When I sat down, Meagan handed me a lit cigarette and pushed a coffee towards me. She looked at me for a long time, a deep penetrating look that made me anxious. I pulled hard on the cigarette, gulped some coffee, and still her eyes burned into me.

  ‘You’re not doing well, are you?’

  It wasn’t a question. When I didn’t answer, she went on. ‘Ever since you lost your boat: perhaps before that too. I noticed.’

  I smoked and avoided her eyes.

  ‘Where are you living now, Micky?’

  She knew, or I thought she did. I shrugged and mumbled something about moving around a bit.

  She looked back at me. ‘Well, just in case you’re looking for somewhere, I’ve got a spare room at my place. Cathy moved out last week.’

  A lump formed in my throat, and I wanted to tell that plain-faced girl how I was coming undone, how I was trying to stay away from everyone, and how her gentle words and look of concern had melted the ice I’d deliberately layered around
my heart, but I’d never spilled my guts to anyone. There was a warm sympathy or empathy in her face. It was both disarming and inviting.

  Eventually I found my voice. ‘Cathy?’

  ‘She moved in about six or seven months ago, then got pregnant and went home. I think I told you about her last time you were in the bar.’ The pity was back in her eyes. ‘Why don’t you come round and take a look, just in case you need somewhere to crash for a while. It’s just round the corner.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She paid for the coffees and we walked for two minutes until we were in front of a tired, three-storey terrace. She smiled warmly, almost proudly, unlocked, and led me inside.

  It would be three weeks before I stepped outside again.

  Reality & Revenge

  That uncomfortable chance meeting with Meagan changed my life. She seemed to know what state I was in. I sometimes wondered if the meeting was purely chance or not. I’d thought I was being discreet and invisible. It was all self-illusion, or some form of psychotic depression.

  After three or four days, I looked in the bathroom mirror shocked by what stared back at me. Until then, I’d thought I was doing okay, that I was just living a different life, keeping myself looking and feeling normal. It was more illusion. An unkempt beard, weeks old, not days: hair that hadn’t seen a comb since god knows when. My face was drawn and grey, with cracked lips, bloodshot eyes and pinched cheeks. I was a bum.

  Meagan hadn’t said anything direct. She’d just let me find my way to the surface again. I’ll always love her for that. I slept a lot the first week, then slowly rediscovered reading. We hadn’t discussed books during work or after-hours drinking, but I found Meagan was an avid reader. There were stacks of books throughout the small, cluttered flat.

  Life slipped into a pattern. Meagan would get home from the bar at around two-thirty and go straight to bed, waking again around midday. We’d scratch together a late lunch, then just hangout until she left for work at seven. I slept most of the time she wasn’t there.