by Brown, Honey
Adam sat the plate of toast on the floor and laid the hose beside it. He turned and jogged down the hallway. One morning, very early, while they were outside cleaning cages and topping up bird feeders, his father had collapsed. He’d clutched his chest and staggered to the side, hit the shed wall and slid onto a pile of rope, his face completely white. He’d been unable to speak, and had stared wildly across the yard, mouth open, barely breathing. Monty and Jerry had run under the lemon tree and lain together, watching him, ears flat, heads down on their paws. Adam had felt a cold sweep of white-faced breathlessness too. His feet had rooted to the spot. His head had spun. The thoughts he’d had weren’t right: he’d looked away, not wanting to see or think about his father on the ground, not wanting to help him. Adam had thought instead about how the sun was coming up, he’d looked at the light seeping into the sky. He’d wanted to finish cleaning the cages so he could have his breakfast. He’d hoped this didn’t mean they wouldn’t get takeaway chips for dinner. He’d wondered if he’d be able to spend the whole day watching TV if his father never got up. Gradually the colour had come back into his father’s face and his chest began to rise and fall. His eyes had started focusing. He’d straightened himself on the ropes. Without a word he’d held out his hand. Adam had helped him to his feet. His father had walked unsteadily inside, leaning on Adam. No talk of it. Not ever. It was like every other strange, bad and painful thing – it wasn’t talked about; it lived inside Adam, in his chest, in his head.
The radio had a large battery compartment. There were no batteries in it. Instead there was a brown glass bottle of tablets and a long white box of tablets. There was also a fat brass key with chunky square teeth and a cloverleaf design on the end. Adam left the key there. He ran with the bottle and the box, down through the house.
‘Go over into the shower,’ Adam said when he arrived at the backroom door.
‘I can’t.’
‘I have the hose.’ Adam picked it up. He slid the latch and stepped back, wary that his father would push the door into him. ‘I have the hose,’ he repeated.
Adam opened the door. His father was lying on the floor. He wasn’t about to hurt Adam. It looked as though he was about to die. Adam shook his wrist to free the loop, and he let the hose drop. Behind the bruises, his father’s white face was back, the same face from that day in the yard. His mouth was puffed up and purple and one eye was swollen, half-closed. The crepe-like skin on his arms was battered, dark-red in places. Adam wasn’t sure when his father had got so thin, or when his shoulders had stopped being broad, and his fingers had stopped being thick and strong. The change had been slow. If it had happened overnight, or as quickly as Adam had gone from being a boy to a teen, Adam would have noticed and cottoned on quicker.
‘Give me a tablet, from the box.’
Why was Adam’s vision blurry? Stupid tears. Why was he shaking? He brushed the hot tears away. His father put the tablet under his tongue and closed his eyes, slumped, held his forehead. Spit glistened in the corners of his mouth. Adam crouched. His father hadn’t washed. His shorts and shirt were creased from having been slept in. He had his sandals on. Beneath the grey hair his scalp was pink and shiny. If there was a family likeness it was lost under his father’s wrinkles and folding skin. Adam couldn’t say if their hair was the same colour. His father had been grey all Adam’s life. His father had blue eyes. Adam had blue eyes. A while ago, a man in a green cap had come to buy some chickens. He’d seen Adam and said, Joe, is that your grandson? He’s a handsome lad. After that Adam had looked closely at the boys on TV. He liked to think he looked most like the boy from Skippy. Adam would stare at the boy’s face on the screen, try to memorise it, and then later, in his bedroom, he would look in the mirror. He’d say some lines from the show and strike a pose. Recalling the details of the boy’s face was hard, though. He’d weighed up the idea of asking his father if he looked like the boy on screen. But if his father knew how much Adam wanted to look like other boys, and how much he liked watching Skippy, he’d use it. Adam’s face had changed since then anyway, along with his body. His nose had got longer, his eyebrows thicker. His jaw was wider. There were lumps under his skin across his forehead. His mouth had stretched.
Colour was returning to his father’s face. He was breathing easier.
‘Pass me those.’
He was motioning for the bottle. Adam misunderstood; he unscrewed the lid to pass him one.
‘No, give it here. Give me the box as well.’
The sound of the rattle of the tablets in the glass, the smell of the tin lid, and the powdery coating sticking to it, those things seemed familiar to Adam, but he’d never seen the bottle of tablets before. Had he? He smelled the lid. A chill swept over him. He knew that smell. He knew the rattling sound.
‘What are these?’
‘Just give them here.’
Adam stood up. ‘You gave me these when I was little.’
‘No.’
‘You did.’
‘You’re not remembering right.’
‘These are what I told you made me feel sick and tired.’
‘They’re not the same. They’re for me.’
Adam looked up at the ceiling and over his shoulder at the open door. All morning he’d been feeling different. He’d been feeling lighter somehow, quicker. He’d thought it had been about hitting his father, the change that came with that, but looking now . . . were things closer, clearer? Was he thinking faster? Moving faster?
‘Why have you still got them?’
‘I told you, they’re mine.’
‘Take one,’ Adam said. He shook a tablet onto his palm and held it out for his father. ‘Take it.’
His father closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. He wasn’t going to take it. They weren’t for him. What Adam felt then was pure and bright and it arced inwards, a clean sharp feeling that wrinkled his nose and travelled backwards through his skull, into his brain, down his spine, through his ribs and chest, right down through his hips, down his legs and into his feet. It was a white-hot feeling that emptied him of fear. Pushed all the fear out.
‘You’ve still been giving these to me.’
‘Because you need them.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I do.’
Adam capped the bottle and put it in his pocket. He kept the box of tablets too. He picked up the plate and threw the slices of toast towards the bed, letting them land and fall whatever way they did, buttered side down on the blankets, one piece skating off onto the floor. Adam picked up the hose.
‘Use the shower for the toilet. Do what you made me do.’
He shut the door. Bolted it.
Every now and then Adam stopped searching for the gun and went out to check if the chickens had left their cages. At last they had. They were huddled by the feed bins. Adam didn’t go down in case he frightened them. He kept Monty and Jerry by his side. One chicken flapped its wings, shook its body and fluffed its feathers. Adam could tell by watching them that they wouldn’t go back inside the cages. Now that they were together, they’d want to stay that way. After collecting the key from the radio, he kept on searching for the gun. The key had to unlock something. The gun would be in whatever it unlocked.
At the bar, Adam looked in the cupboards. He removed the bags of chips and cartons of cigarettes. He pressed the cupboard sides and floors. His father was good at hiding things. Adam had to check for spaces and gaps in walls, he had to move furniture. Once, hiding from his father, Adam had squeezed in behind the wardrobe in the spare room. He’d found a small section of plasterboard was missing from the wall. Through the gap was a space big enough to kneel in. Adam had climbed in and knelt inside the wall, head down over his knees, tense and small, like a mouse hiding from Monty, thinking he couldn’t be sniffed out and found, when, of course, he could be. The longer Adam had stayed there the more his eyes had adjusted to the dark. Beneath his knees had been magazines, stacks o
f them. They weren’t what were hidden, though. Jammed in behind the stack had been a shoebox filled with photos. He’d held one photo up to the crack of light. The picture had been of a boy, dark-haired, brown-skinned and naked, standing in the billiards room. The boy had been holding a pair of small white puppies. Monty and Jerry. Something had budded in Adam’s mind then, an idea or a memory had seemed about to burst, into full recollection. But he’d heard his father coming and dropped the photograph. The wardrobe had been pulled away from the wall, Adam had been hauled out, kicking, squealing, like a mouse. Later his father had come into the lounge room holding the photo, waving it and snarling. Did you get a good look? Did you? Did you look at all the pictures? I hope you did. He’d put the photo in front of Adam’s face, stuck it on Adam’s sweaty forehead, drilled his knuckle against it. Look. That close it had been impossible to see. You’re not looking. He’d smacked Adam in the head. His father had thrown the photo in the fireplace, and with it any chance of Adam remembering the boy had also seemed to go up in flames. His father had brought out the shoebox and burned all the photographs. His face had grown red doing it. He’d begun to tremble and shout. During moments of hating and blaming, his father often lost all sense. He probably hadn’t wanted to burn the photographs, but his temper made him do it, the craziness had taken over. Adam’s father was worst when he lost control. Not even the rules were in play then. He’d removed his belt.
Think you’re clever finding those? Think you know things, do you? This is what your sneaking gets you. Your snivelling behaviour is why no one can look at your filthy fucking face. I should burn you. I should throw you in the fire.
Adam had to check the hiding spot behind the wardrobe for the gun. Even though to do so brought back memories of that day. There were no magazines, not anymore, and no gun.
In one of the unused rooms, Adam noticed a filmy covering of oil lubricated the door hinges. There was a lock near the handle, but the bolt was on the inside. Adam had been pulling up the blinds in each room as he searched, opening the windows to let the air in. Something made him leave this room’s blind down. There was a worn path in the floor across to the far corner of the room. The carpet edge was frayed and unravelling. Adam peeled the carpet back. The floorboards below it weren’t nailed down. Each plank was resting on the supporting beams. The sides of the boards were smooth and dark from being handled. Monty and Jerry sat outside the room. They wouldn’t come in, not even when Adam called them. He lifted the loose boards, laying them in order in the centre of the room. Dry dirt smells lifted through the open floor. The drop down to the ground wasn’t much. A few rooms on and the backroom concrete pad began. The backroom was built on a slab. The rest of the house was raised on stumps.
Not a lot of light found its way under there. At first he couldn’t make out what he’d found. Even when he could see, he couldn’t make sense of it. Then it became clear.
Lying on the dirt was a big black safe. It was on its back, the door and lock facing up. The safe was as long as a person and twice as wide. Adam took the brass key from his pocket. He climbed down, knelt beside the safe. The key fitted the lock. Adam turned it. And he turned the metal handle. He had to use both hands to lift the heavy door. Green velvet lined the inside of the safe. Adam’s nose flared with the unusual smell of the interior. His eyes were wide and dry. In one corner of the safe was a bundle of money. He ran his fingers over the velvet and picked up the stack of notes. Two elastic bands held the bundle together, one at each end. He smelled the money. It was cold and crisp from being kept in the dark.
The gun wasn’t in the safe.
Adam put the money back and shut the heavy door, relocked it, climbed back up into the room, put the boards in place, and then the carpet.
He finished searching the other rooms.
*
Adam opened a tin of spaghetti and made some toast. He stood in front of the oven, tossing up whether or not to heat his can of food. He’d only ever watched his father cook and use the stove. The small pot used for spaghetti was in the cupboard. Adam decided against it, poured his spaghetti cold over his toast. He sat on the couch to eat. When the Colgate ad came on he got up and brushed his teeth. That night Adam slept in his old bedroom. It was a narrow room beside the laundry. Before getting into bed he cleared away the downy white spider nests from the creases in the pillow and from the crinkles in the sheets. Mouse droppings littered the quilt. Adam found, tucked away between the wall and mattress, the little plastic tiger he’d put there as a child and forgotten about . . . or not forgotten about. Something he’d trained himself not to think of.
He looked at the toy now, warily, with his chin lifted. He rubbed the moulded flank, belly, legs and the pointy ears. The tiger had once been his daring friend, unafraid in every situation. At night, it had come to life, prowled the rooms, stalked the hallway, padded down the steps out into the yard, strong enough to leap the fence and bound back over if he didn’t like what he found on the other side. He’d growled hushed stories to Adam, told of his adventures, of the people he’d scared beyond the fence. The fierceness of the toy had never changed and the whispered message had always stayed the same – he can’t hurt me, let him try. Adam put the toy back. By wedging it between the wall and mattress he was returning it to the time when being outside the backroom had been common, a time better suited to toys and make-believe. Adam had put too much effort into not pining for the tiger to let his guard down now. It was too late to love it.
Monty and Jerry were at the open doorway, waiting to be called in. It took some coaxing to make them jump up onto the bed. They curled beside him on the mattress. The safe, its weight and size, played on Adam’s mind. It was such a big and heavy thing to have been there all this time, lying under the house. The smell of money lingered in Adam’s nostrils. The texture of the notes stayed on his fingertips. There was something real about the safe and those notes. All Adam knew was that the money didn’t exist solely inside the yard. It had a place outside as well. The money could jump the fence. It held the promise that it could help him jump it too.
A chicken was squawking. Adam opened his eyes and sat up in bed. The dogs were gone. He scrambled from beneath the blankets. Half awake, he ran through the house. The billiards room door was open. Monty and Jerry were out, down in the yard; they had a chicken pinned to the ground. Adam leapt from the decking. He stumbled, sprinted across the yard.
‘No! No!’
His voice wasn’t strong. It had been broken and husky since screaming at his father. The dogs were tearing at the bird. Adam grabbed Jerry by the scruff of the neck and threw him. The little dog yelped and landed off in the grass. Monty slunk back and cowered. The chicken was alive, flapping, but it couldn’t stand up. There were feathers scattered all around it and spots of blood on the dirt. It stopped flapping and lay there, blinking, one wing tucked under it. Monty and Jerry skulked off, up the steps and inside. Adam saw that the dogs had attacked another chicken. He walked over to it. Then he saw the next injured bird, and the next. Monty and Jerry had attacked all the chickens. Half were dead, half were mauled. Not one chicken had been left standing. Had Adam been wrong to let the birds out? Was it wrong to set a thing free? See what happens when you think too hard. It hurts. He turned and saw Monty and Jerry with their noses poking out from behind the billiards room curtain.
‘Filthy fucking dirty dogs!’ Adam screamed.
The words sprung from him, unexpected. They boiled up from a place Adam didn’t like. The dogs ducked back inside. Adam was silent, recovering from what he’d said and the way he’d said it.
With a shovel he stood over the line of injured birds. He willed the courage to do what he knew he had to. He lifted the spade, over the neck of the rooster. He braced, squeezed his eyes shut, told his arms to stab down, to do it quick. He couldn’t. He lowered the shovel, rested it in the grass, slumped his shoulders and fought the tears.
Adam walked around to the front of the house and stood on the concrete, listenin
g to the sounds beyond the gate, cars passing in the street. The gate remained chained and padlocked. Adam remembered shutting the billiards room door the night before. He clearly remembered doing that. Monty and Jerry wouldn’t have run around killing chickens if his father were out of the backroom. His father wouldn’t have let the dogs kill the chickens, not even to hurt Adam or teach him a lesson. Someone had been. Someone had climbed the fence into the yard, been in the house.
Monty and Jerry scurried over the tiles. They disappeared into the front rooms. Adam turned and walked down the hallway towards the backroom.
He went into the closed-in verandah, got the length of hose. He pulled his arm back, ready, and unlocked the backroom door.
His father didn’t have the light on, not like Adam would have had. Blackness rushed at Adam. It halted him a moment. He rocked with a wave of fear. Springs on the bed creaked. Adam reached in and turned on the light. His father was in the bed. He was pale and blinking, his legs under the blankets.
‘You have to come out and kill the chickens.’
Adam hardly recognised his own voice. It was like someone else had spoken, a new person in the house, with a hoarse, deep way of talking.
‘Monty and Jerry have attacked the chickens.’
‘Stay there, wait, don’t close the door.’
Adam turned and walked down the hallway. He left the backroom door open behind him. He kept the hose. The backroom smell had been enough to take Adam’s air. The bed, a glimpse of the shower, had been enough to lighten his head. If his father found a way to put him back in there, Adam would fight this time, he wouldn’t drink the drinks and he wouldn’t eat the food, he’d dismantle the bed, tear apart the drawers, do whatever it took to smash the door to pieces, he’d arm himself with whatever sharp or heavy thing that he could get his hands on, and if his father touched him, Adam would kill him.
But Adam couldn’t kill the chickens.
