by Brown, Honey
‘What is this . . . ?’ he murmured.
‘Bit slow recognisin’?’ Billy said.
‘What is this . . . ?’ Kovac repeated.
‘You lot just don’t get it, do you – we grow up.’
It was perhaps not how Billy had imagined it, because Kovac turned and ran. He tried to climb a pile of crates. Billy pulled him off the stack and tried to make Kovac face him. Kovac wouldn’t; he thrashed about, got free and ran blindly into the wall of books. They toppled and spread everywhere. Billy dragged him into what little empty space there was. Kovac kicked and screamed, twisted and wriggled on the ground. He threw books. Billy swatted them away. He punched Kovac in the face. Billy’s eyes were glazed. His expression wasn’t angry. He didn’t yell like Adam had when he hit Joe. Billy simply punched . . . and punched . . . and punched. The cut on his arm was bleeding. It didn’t slow him down. His fist was bloody from the start. None of the graceful wheeling-around and sparring that he’d shown Adam, this looked like something that couldn’t be taught, or stopped. Billy held Kovac by the shirtfront and with his other hand he hit him.
It made sense, why Billy let some men touch him, why he felt little fear in fearful situations – Billy could stop the men when he wanted, with just his bare hands.
Smoke began seeping out from the front rooms. Adam went across and opened the first animal cage. As it was too frightened to come out on its own, Adam had to reach in and grab the cat. It hissed and spat, clawed him. He ran with it to the door and placed it down. Smoke got thicker and Billy coughed while hitting Kovac. He let the man drop. Billy came to help Adam. The animals would have to be carried out. The fire began to roar. Air got hotter. It burned to breathe. The second cat yowled and fought. Adam ran with it out the shed door and into the open air, released it. Billy was able to carry both the dogs. They weren’t fighting like the cats had. They understood they were being saved.
A churning column of dark smoke lifted from the shed. Adam didn’t go back in. He watched Billy drag the woman out by her ankles. She was weakly coughing. Her bloodied head bounced over the stones as Billy pulled her. Her T-shirt rode up.
Billy and Adam stood back and watched the fire build. In seconds it doubled. Bits of burning material and paper and cardboard lifted, floated back down. Heat radiated out, it pushed Billy and Adam back. Inside the shed, beneath the line of smoke, Kovac was crawling towards the doors, inching forward on his belly, barely managing to move. Blood bubbled from his face. Adam looked at Billy. The sides of Billy’s cheeks were streaked with ash and tears from the smoke. No emotion. Billy wasn’t pleased to have defeated him; he simply wished Kovac had never been in his life in the first place. Adam looked back to the fire. As they watched, the shed roof collapsed on top of Kovac. Sparks shot up high. He was swallowed in the flames.
‘Got that key?’ Billy said.
Adam’s body was getting better at keeping going, pushing on, but his head wasn’t. Thoughts got sluggish while his legs marched on. Sounds carried slow to him. Fire engines wailed in the distance. Billy and Adam kept on down narrow streets and along cracked pavements. There were things to think about, but Adam didn’t think about them yet. If he tried he’d be able to piece together a couple of things, make sense of what he’d heard inside the shed, seen inside his own mind, and what it all meant. But now wasn’t the right time to get his thoughts straight. When faced with the truth, when looking directly into a bright light, into the sun, the glare was blinding. The same way the freed cats had skulked off into the furthest corners of the yard, Adam felt safer hanging back and keeping to the shadows.
They went past the petrol bowsers and into the toilets.
Billy went to the tap and drank.
‘Lock the door.’
His voice was raspy and low. Smoke and heat had scorched his throat, like it had Adam’s. Billy’s hands and knuckles were swollen. He rinsed the blood away. He cleaned the cut on his arm. Adam watched as Billy touched the wound and pushed the slash together. Billy didn’t flinch. Adam got light-headed just seeing the bloodless colour of the flesh and the way the wound gaped and leaked a thick clear substance, as well as bright-red blood.
They washed as best they could. Adam noticed that along the way, at some point, the bandaid from his forehead had come unstuck and fallen off. His forearms were covered in cat scratches.
Billy crouched and rested against the wall. For a while he was motionless, deep in thought. Adam listened for people walking up to the door, watched for shadows in the crack of sunlight.
They left into the white heat of the day. Two men standing at the back of a ute stopped talking and watched them go.
The cab driver ducked his head as they opened the passenger door. The radio was going. A song was playing. The driver’s seat had a beaded cover. It looked uncomfortable to sit on. A speaker crackled softly on the dash. They climbed into the back seat.
‘Barbary Street.’
Billy lit a cigarette. He coughed and wheezed, checked for Sal’s money. The driver kept looking at them in the rear-view mirror.
‘Got enough there?’
Billy folded the note. ‘Yeah, I got it.’
‘Barbary Street?’
‘Is there a problem?’
The driver didn’t answer. Adam watched the man’s hand slide on the wheel. In silhouette, when the driver turned to check for traffic, his lips were pressed firmly together.
Billy put the money away. The cut ran down the back of his arm, finishing above his elbow. He kept the wound pressed against his side. Blood soaked his tank top.
Traffic crowded in and the taxi slowed. Footpaths were empty. On the radio they were talking about a heatwave, a top that day of forty-four degrees, record heat. Stay out of the sun. Keep indoors. Billy didn’t finish the cigarette. He squashed it into the overflowing ashtray. Bits of tobacco and ash stuck to his sweaty fingers.
Adam was sitting with his knees and feet together. His hands in his lap. He looked at the back of the driver’s head, studied the man’s hair and neck, the collar of his shirt.
‘Kid,’ Billy murmured, ‘cut it out.’
Adam looked out the window. The pocket of his trackpants bulged with the bottle opener, toothpaste and toothbrush. In the other pocket he had the safe key, pushed down deep, beside the tiger. Adam fingered the toy through the fabric. Billy began clenching and wriggling his right hand, as though testing it still worked. He held both hands up, palms facing down, and he compared them. The right hand was paler than the left.
They drove over a bridge, went through a tunnel. Billy checked his watch. A second song started on the radio. Billy scooted forward on the seat and leaned into the front. Joe’s street was ahead.
‘The corner will do.’
Patches of road tar gleamed soft and gooey. Curtains were drawn. Billy and Adam kept to the shady side of the street, crossed over at Joe’s gates. Adam pushed through his hesitation. Billy was in no mood for it: he gave the impression he wouldn’t stop. They went into the yard, got on hands and knees to go beneath the house, between the stumps, around the cages and planters. It was cooler under there. Dry dirt was chilled and powdered.
‘It’s not gonna be there,’ Billy was saying. ‘I know how this shit goes – another kick in the teeth every time. Be ready for that.’
Adam took out the safe key, put it in the lock, turned it, turned the handle. He lifted the heavy door, but could only get it partly open because of the floorboards above it. Adam peered through the gap.
‘Is it there?’
‘I can’t see.’
Adam began to close the door so that they could get the boards up.
Billy lunged forward. ‘Keep the fucking thing open.’ He stuck his hand in the gap. ‘Jesus? After all that? Don’t shut it. I’ll hold it. You get the boards up.’
Adam pushed the floorboards from beneath. It was difficult in the heat. Sweat covered him, dirt stuck to him, it was not unlike the feeling of the tablets – slower, not as strong, an effort to con
centrate.
Billy looked through the gap into the safe. Light was poor under the house. He squinted and strained.
Adam finished. They lifted the safe door all the way open.
The stack of cash was there, where it had been, untouched and unmoved. A single breath fell from Billy. He reached in and picked up the notes, held the bundle, stared at it.
‘Is it a lot?’ Adam asked.
Billy gave him a strange sideways look, was straight-faced for a moment, then he swiped Adam’s head with the cash and grinned. He slapped the money against Adam’s arm. ‘You’re a piece of work, aren’t ya?’
‘It is?’
‘It’ll do.’ Billy tucked it in the waistband of his shorts. ‘We gotta be smart about this.’
No sooner had he said that, than he became distracted. He backed up from the safe and looked at it from a distance.
‘Can you see that? This thing should be deeper.’
The inside and outside of the safe didn’t match. The interior was shallow, while the safe itself was deep. Billy shuffled forward and pushed the safe’s back wall. He knocked on it.
‘Pass me your bottle opener.’
Adam held out the tool. Billy took it with his good hand, pushed the blade between the velvet back wall and the side of the safe. He levered the blade, got his fingers under the board and pulled it out.
The false back wall hid a space that ran the length and width of the safe. It had been built in with velvet-lined partitions and compartments. It looked to Adam as though you could choose to use the false wall, or take it out if you preferred open access to the shelving. There was evidence that the shelves had been used in the past – worn lining and small scraps of paper, snipped-off ends of negatives, bits of fluff. What was not yet disposed of, the thing still being stored there, was the handgun. It was sitting in one of the compartments, bulky and black. Beside it was a see-through box of small silver bullets.
The smell of the gun filled Adam’s nostrils. His scalp shrank with the scent. Billy glanced at him.
‘You knew that was here?’
‘Not here; I knew it was somewhere.’
‘I’m not much into guns. We’ll leave it, hey?’
Billy then noticed the wet brown smear on the safe lining near his elbow. He jerked his arm higher. He’d put bloodied marks everywhere – on the safe door, inside the safe, drops of blood on the steel. There were sweaty fingerprints on the removed board. He backed away.
‘Not real smart . . .’ he muttered.
The panic that entered Billy’s face made Adam’s heart rate soar. They stopped moving and listened. There was a creak inside the house, soft scampering and pattering not far from where they were. Billy looked up at the floor above his head. Adam reached for the gun.
‘What are you doing?’ Billy whispered.
Adam opened the chamber and checked to see if the gun was loaded. It wasn’t. He opened the ammunition box, took out some bullets, pushed two in.
‘What are you doing? Put it back.’
‘I’m going to take it.’
‘No, you’re not.’
‘I am.’
Adam put the gun in his trackpants pocket. It didn’t fit. He turned it around, put the stock in the pocket first, with the barrel pointing up. It felt less likely to fall out that way. The band of Adam’s T-shirt covered the majority of the thick cylinder sticking out. It didn’t hide the swell of the weapon, or conceal the telling weight. Adam folded the waistband of his trackpants to stop them slipping down. He put a few spare bullets in his other pocket. To lighten his load, he took out the toothpaste and toothbrush. Adam threw them away under the house.
He couldn’t help but look back at the scattered tube and brush as they left. His tongue probed his teeth. Everything was changing. There’d been a switch. The ash in Adam’s hair, the soot on his skin, the smell of fire in his clothes, blood and sky, earth and the soles of his sneakers, footpaths, gutters, houses, cars, light poles, letterboxes, . . . all of it was real. He wasn’t looking at it, it wasn’t happening on the TV, or taking place beyond a fence, he wasn’t watching it from a place inside himself. He was in it. Adam was real. Belonged.
They bolted out of the yard, out the gate, away from Wade Park. As Adam ran he kept the gun pressed to his hip, one hand clamped to it. Billy tucked his bleeding arm into his side and put his other arm across his waist, holding the wad of money firm.
‘You know what this is, don’t you,’ Billy said, ‘it’s a fuck ’n’ run. Leave whatever lame bastard you’ve been with, take their wallet, don’t look back, and just fucken run.’
Blood was thick between Billy’s fingers. It was slick down his arm. Sun sizzled Adam’s nose and cheekbones. A persistant fly kept landing on his uncovered stitches. They crouched beside a paling fence and caught their breath. With his good hand, Billy counted the money. Adam waved flies from both their faces. The air was so hot it made Adam breathless.
‘It’s eight thousand.’
Billy tucked the wad of money away again.
‘We’ve gotta do this right. They’re gonna put that fire together with Joe’s. We gotta get out of these clothes. One thing at a time. Clothes first. We’ll get that sorted and then we’ll think of the next thing.’
Sweat trickled down Billy’s temples. His lips were grey.
Adam had to help him to his feet.
At the first full clothesline they came to, with an empty driveway, Billy went into the yard and yanked the clothes from the pegs. They crouched between two parked cars in the street. Billy went through the clothes he’d taken, tossed away the small shorts and the blouse, held up the pair of jeans, passed them to Adam, held up the T-shirt, passed it to Adam too; he kept the long-sleeved top for himself.
Further along, inside a bus shelter, they got changed. It was Adam’s first pair of jeans. They were tight. Wranglers, Billy said. Adam slipped his sneakers back on, having not untied the laces. He pulled off his sweaty T-shirt and pulled on the clean one. It had a collar and a pocket. Adam had never before felt so dressed. He was holding the gun, not sure what to do with it. Billy turned him around and pulled out the waistband of the jeans.
‘Room in there?’
Adam tucked the gun in against the small of his back. Billy shook his head.
‘Stupid. We’re getting rid of that thing, first chance.’
Adam put the spare bullets, the bottle opener, into his jeans pockets, squeezed in the tiger. He pressed his fingers to his cheeks. The skin was burning. When he blinked his eyelids stung and stuck together. Billy sat down on the wooden seat and borrowed Adam’s bottle opener. Bare-chested, he used the blade to cut and tear up Adam’s old T-shirt. He made strips out of the fabric and bandaged his arm with them.
The money was under the waistband of Billy’s shorts. His cigarettes were on the other hip, across from the cash. Adam leaned back against the tin of the shelter, let his eyelids droop a moment.
‘Heaps better,’ Billy said.
He stepped out of the bus shelter and looked around.
‘Not sure where we are. I’ll see something that makes sense soon.’
Billy put on the long-sleeved top.
At a garden tap they washed their faces, had a drink, washed their hands and wet their hair. Billy pulled out his cigarettes and flipped open the top of the packet. The sight of that, the sound of the lighter flicking, soothed Adam. The smell of smoke relaxed him. Billy coughed, persevered with the cigarette. You could hear how tight his chest was. He didn’t drag the smoke deep. He kept it high and light inside him.
Each lick of Adam’s lips tasted of salt. There were shooting pains in his legs, tingling in his pelvis, pinpricks of light appeared in his vision. Blood had soaked through Billy’s sleeve. He was silent. His shoulders were rounded. His head was low. They walked on, down quiet streets, across parks and through empty sports fields. Their steps were trudging. Billy went to a streetlight and leaned against it. He stayed like that, head down, breathing.
‘Are we lost?’
‘I’ll work it out.’
He didn’t, though. Billy squatted on a footpath in a street lined with green lawns and brick houses. He turned and looked back the way they’d come. He tried to stand, swayed, squatted again. He looked like a sprinter at the start of a race, the fingers of his good hand steadying him, sucking in air through his teeth and peering ahead. Blood dripped from his elbow and hit the pavement.
‘Can’t you walk anymore?’
‘I’ll be okay.’
They’d stopped in front of a house with big windows that faced onto the street. The curtains were lace. The blinds weren’t drawn. The air conditioner on the roof was silent. There were no cars in the driveway or under the carport. Billy looked at the house from beneath his lowered brow.
It was as though he knew exactly how many steps he had left in him – he made it around to the back of the house and no further, sank down the moment he stepped onto the concrete path, and he sat there in the thin strip of shade. Adam crouched beside him. He wouldn’t have thought that a brown face could lose its colour, but it had. Billy was breathing open-mouthed, panting. The strip of shade wasn’t much. The concrete was hot beneath them. The backyard had plenty of green plants, but they were all small and low to the ground. There was a big dug-out hole in the middle of the lawn, where a pool had either been taken out or was going in. A bike was lying in the short grass, glinting in the sun. Down the back of the yard there was a shed – small and windowless. The hum of the neighbour’s air conditioner and the occasional warble of a magpie were the only sounds. Hardly any cars came down the street. No breeze.
