The Last Days of Kali Yuga

by Paul Haines

  Jimbo and Kylie's lovemaking was getting better—she no longer resisted and had stopped biting, even though she kept trying to run away—but looking at the mantelpiece wasn't much fun when she kept passing out. She was a pretty girl and he wanted to see the look in those dark trembling eyes when he came. She didn't talk much, but his mother assured him Kylie was coming out of her shell. At least those two seemed to be getting on okay.

  The siren sounded for smoko, and Jimbo joined Brian outside for a cigarette and a sausage roll. The winter sun warmed Jimbo's face, the cool breeze carrying the stink of fruit away.

  Brian lit the cigarette and sucked in a mouthful of tobacco laced with pot. 'Heard Dave caught Kylie down by the lake. That's the third time.'

  'Yeah.' Jimbo smeared sauce over the warm pastry, wiping his fingers on his overalls. 'Thought the Abos might help.'

  'Have you cut her yet?' Brian passed Jimbo the smoke.

  'Nah, I'm hoping she doesn't do another runner.'

  Brian shook his head. 'That's three warnings, mate. Ya gotta cut her. Rules are rules, mate, and she's broken them.'

  'Yeah, but ...'

  'No fucken buts, Jimbo.'

  Jimbo blew smoke at Brian's face. 'When did you get so fucken hard?'

  Brian stared back, his face impassive. 'I did what had to be done. The watch is over, mate. Now ya need to do what has to be done or she's gunna get away on ya.'

  'Yeah, I know, I been putting it off.' Jimbo took another deep drag, staring into the sky. Clouds hovered near the horizon. 'It's not what I thought it'd be.'

  'It gets better.' Brian smiled, wry and thin. He took a bite of Jimbo's sausage roll, chewing back the sawdust and gristle. 'Ya gotta give her something to make her wanna stay.'

  Jimbo swapped the cigarette for the sausage roll. 'Like what?'

  'Belle's pretty fucken happy these days. It's the best way to keep them here.'

  Jimbo nodded, understanding. 'Yeah, she's getting big. When's she due?'

  'Couple a months. Scary.' Brian ground the cigarette underneath the heel of his boot. 'Aw, fuck, Wazza Wilson was down the pub last night. Driving some fancy new truck called an eVolvo. Said it was AI or something, and it pretty much drove itself.'

  'Yeah? No cunt told me he was in town.'

  'Reckons he seen Fitzy. You ain't gunna fucken believe it.'

  'Fitzy got himself married, too?'

  'Fuck no, listen to this. He's turned into some poofter, working cock in the City. Can ya fucken believe it? Always thought there was something strange about that cunt.'

  'Nah, no way.' Not Fitzy, gentle, flabby Fitzy, big brown eyes. 'He got a job drivin trucks. Wazza set it up.'

  Brian shook his head, in big deliberate arcs. 'Fell through. Wears a dress an all. Guess there just ain't enough pussy to go round, even in the wonderfuckenfull City, eh?'

  Jimbo's mouth sagged. No fucken way. And to think that cunt was ma mate. 'So ya think all those times we were a-holing and shit, he was really into it?'

  'Stranger things have happened.' Brian motioned towards the rest of the sausage roll. 'Ya gunna eat that or let it go cold?'

  #

  Sledge, the foreman, called a general meeting for the shopfloor late afternoon just before clock out. They gathered in the canteen, one hundred and fifty sweaty, tired bodies pressed in and wondering what the fuck was going on.

  Sledge held a piece of paper aloft and called for quiet. Someone in the crowd made a joke about Sledge not being able to read and a few people laughed, but the steel on Sledge's face silenced most of the room. Sledge didn't just look angry, he looked like worms were eating away at his gut and he'd soon be shitting snakes.

  'Shit,' said Brian. 'This ain't good.'

  'What?' Jimbo stared around the room. A dark mood had descended upon the crowd, all heat and blood and dirt. The last of the laughter dried up and Jimbo was left with a slick of reflux at the back of his throat. 'What dya mean, Bri?'

  Sledge cleared his throat with a hack of phlegm. 'Okay, this ain't easy to say. Things ain't too good at the moment, what with the drought kicking on, and fruit production in the orchards this year has hit an all time low. We've all seen the roos coming in, too, taking what the drought hasn't. It's been a tough year, folks, and I'm sorry to say it's gunna get even tougher.'

  Ugly murmurs trembled through the crowd. 'Ya just cut the fucken shifts a couple a weeks ago, Sledge!'

  'Our jobs are sposed to be safe, ya cunts.'

  'Ya can't cut any more or the machines won't run.'

  'Unfortunately,' said Sledge, 'the machines won't be running. Not full time anyway. We're shutting down another third of the plant, and only running what's left at half-capacity. We don't have the fruit, people.'

  People started yelling. Brian punched Jimbo lightly in the arm. 'Ten bucks says it's me who loses out here.'

  Jimbo tried to laugh. 'Yeah, sure, yer on.'

  'People! People!' Sledge waved the piece of paper above his head. 'This here is a list of names. If your name is read out, report to the paymaster. You will be paid out a week's pay in advance and any owing. When the drought breaks or the fruit comes back, your names are first up for hiring. We do want you back, never forget that. This factory built this town, and this town built this factory. We are one, people, one!'

  That sounded like patriotic bullshit to Jimbo, but when Sledge read out his own name first, it stunned him and the crowd into submission. Sledge sacked, too?

  A third of the staff went home that day with extra cash in their pocket and an indefinite holiday. Jimbo spent Brian's ten bucks on homemade whisky at Sledge's place, let the anger simmer and brew, slurred to Sledge what a good cunt he was taking a fall with workers, thought about going home to fuck his wife and tell her the bad news, and instead woke up with the sun beating down on his face in Sledge's backyard as the day cranked its furnace and roared into the deep blue sky. Sledge lay passed out on a threadbare sofa up against the fence in the shade. His collie, Sue, lifted her head from Sledge's lap, appraising Jimbo for a second before returning to her slumber. Flies buzzed at the mucus crusting Sledge's chin and his head twitched, then fell still. There were some fights that fists and knives could never hope to win.

  #

  The night was cool enough not to warrant the fan humming in the bedroom, and Jimbo took advantage of the still air to light several candles he had placed there.

  Kylie lay on the bed naked except for a g-string, her back to him. He admired the length of her thighs, the colour soft in the candlelight, as he greased his cock.

  'I know what ya want, Kylie,' he whispered.

  She said nothing, and better, she wasn't sobbing or crying. Jimbo wiped the Vaseline off his hands onto the sheet and knelt on the bed next to her. He reached out and stroked the curve of her hip, where the bone jutted out and curved softly over firm flesh, until his fingers circled the hollow where her bum met her thighs. Even better, she didn't shudder or tremble under his touch, though Jimbo didn't mind the trembling.

  'I know how to make it better.'

  He pulled her thigh over towards him, forcing her gently onto her back. He slipped his fingers inside the front of her g-string, pushing through the short hair and working his finger into the dry groove beneath. She said nothing, her eyes staring at the ceiling, avoiding his face. He pulled her g-string off, slowly at first, sliding it down her thighs, but when she didn't help him he dragged it down, tearing it past her ankles and tossing the garment onto the floor behind him.

  'It's what every woman wants. You want it. I know ya do.'

  Jimbo spat on his fingers and rubbed them around her snatch, becoming impatient. He thrust a finger inside her, and she tensed, a small whine locked in the pit of her throat. He kept shoving his fingers until her muscles relaxed, and her breathing resumed normally, searching for the signs that might precede her fainting—the hitched breathing, the bulging of the eyes before they rolled white—and Jimbo was getting better at this all the time. And when he judged she was g
ood and ready ...

  'We're gunna have a baby.'

  ... he drove his cock awkwardly inside her, struggling to get in, but he pushed as he always did and she would yield as she always would but this time, oh, this time—

  Kylie screamed and bucked, taking Jimbo unawares. Shit, she hasn't screamed for weeks, what the fuck? Jimbo fell awkwardly, clutching the edge of the bed. Kylie lashed out with her foot, catching Jimbo under the rib cage and sending him sprawling to the floor. Pain flared, but it was dwarfed by the anger and humiliation he felt. How dare she? How dare she fucken raise a hand against me? He clambered to his feet, as she launched herself screaming at his face, her hands clawed and tearing at the air. One swiped his cheek, deep, and blood splashed against his shoulder. He caught her other hand with his, and began to crush her wrist, then he kneed her in the stomach to bring her down.

  Kylie collapsed with a whoosh. Jimbo dragged her up by the hair and threw her to the bed. She tried to sob, but couldn't inhale properly. He pushed her down onto the mattress, mashing her nose and lips with his palm. Using his knees, he repositioned himself between her thighs.

  'Don't you fucken hit me, bitch!' He slapped her face. Blood sprayed from her lips.

  'No, Jimmy, no,' she managed to stammer, before he brought his hand across her face again.

  'And don't you ever fucken say no to me!'

  'You don't understand, you don't unn unner unn—' Pink froth leaked at the edges of her mouth. The eyes bulged, her back arched and she spasmed.

  Jimbo shoved his cock inside her and rode the waves of her fit. As she passed out, he came, then rolled off and went to sleep.

  #

  The following morning, from the privacy of the kitchen window, Jimbo watched his wife and his mother out on the beaten dirt Mum liked to call a garden. Kylie sank to her knees, her face covered by her hands. Mel knelt quickly beside her, wrapping her arms around Kylie's trembling shoulders, her mouth working at soothing sounds.

  Anger bubbled like acid inside Jimbo's gut, the rage not quite succeeding to mask the inevitable feeling of wrongness that was trying to work its way out of his subconscious into his waking mind.

  He couldn't make out her words, simply a torrent of broken sobs punctuated by guttural noises. Her trembling turned to shuddering, and Kylie fell backwards onto the patchwork grass, her flailing limbs churning the dust into a thin brown cloud that rose up around them like a veil.

  Jimbo unclenched his fists and looked away. Ten fucken grand. And what have I got? Damaged goods. The bitch is an epileptic. Damaged fucken goods!

  He rummaged in the vegetable bin in the fridge, pulled out a beer and popped the top. Jimbo swallowed a mouthful of cool froth and stared around the room, wondering what he was going to do. No job, no money, and when the boys found out he'd been sidled with a dud, he'd be laughed out of town. It was bad enough he hadn't cut her when he should have, he was already copping shit for that.

  The wooden box on the mantelpiece drew his eyes. And soon his fingers followed, rubbing the smooth surface of the box, unadorned teak, over one hundred years old. From father to son.

  I wanted you to be special, not like the others, not like those hobbled, meek fucken cows the rest of them end up with.

  He lifted his fingers from the box, briefly picking at the scabs on his cheek.

  I wanted you to be like ... to be ... and the subconscious broke through and swamped him ... Niki.

  Jimbo stood there unable to breathe, staring at his father's wooden box—his wooden box, his heirloom—and knew that he'd been fucked, that he was fucked, that Niki was gone for good, and he'd spend the rest of his life saddled with this broken bitch he'd wasted his father's miserable inheritance on.

  #

  Jimbo spent the day perched on the crumbling banks of Broken River, polishing off a bottle of Cranky's homestyle whisky while admiring the thick stagnant pools of mud that not so long ago were at least waterholes. Most of the tributaries into the Goulburn River were drying up quicker than cum on a whore's chin.

  Used to be able to get yellow-belly and carp outta here, even cod. What's this world coming to?

  He threw the empty bottle down into the mud, then splashed it with some yellow dehydrating piss, clambered onto his bike and pedalled away from town.

  Maybe go up to the North-South Pipe, smash some more fucken holes in it. City cunts. Stealing our water, stealing our lives, stealing our fucken women.

  A whisky haze had settled in, and a slow sweat dripped into Jimbo's eyes while thoughts of Brian and his fat pregnant cow whore Belle whirled around in his head; of frothing, twitching Kylie; and Mel, his mother, retreating from him, hiding away in her own house; Brian, fucken Brian and that card, that number to ring; of Dave and his Abo fucken ways; Wazza's truck; Keats hooking up with The Cartel; Brian fucken set me up; and Niki, oh, Niki ...

  ... then Jimbo discarding the bike in the driveway. Staggering to the front door—the lights are all off, not that late, why's the—stumbling inside onto his knees. Dry retching into the threadbare carpet.

  Padded footsteps, a sudden rush.

  'You don't know anything about me!' Kylie's voice, high-pitched and stretched.

  Jimbo lifted his head and half-raised an arm against the cricket bat swinging towards his face. It smashed into his arm, a flare of pain shooting through his nerves, whiting out, hold on, hold it, don't fucken lose—

  Jimbo sprawled backwards, breath caught in his throat, unable to scream as the pain roared in his arm.

  'Babies! Babies!' Kylie held the bat aloft, high over her shoulder. 'You know nothing!'

  'Don't ya fucken dare—' Jimbo managed to shout, before the bat crashed down on his head.

  Then nothing more ...

  #

  A flurry of torchlight ahead on the banks of the Goulburn River broke the deepening dusk. The horses slowed, reined in by Dave, who sat on the roof of the ute. Jimbo and Keats sat inside the cab. Keats hadn't said much, and Jimbo knew he was more than angry. Keats's half-breed dogs, part dingo and pit bull, whined and slavered out in the back, their claws skittering over the rusting corrugated tray. The smell of drying mud and rotted vegetation rose from the river with the light breeze that ushered in the night.

  'Shit,' Keats hissed between his teeth. 'She's going upriver. You got the knife?'

  Jimbo nodded, patted the thin leather scabbard on his belt.

  The ute ground to a halt and they leapt from the cab. Several of the boys had turned up—Brian, Sledge, Mason and cousin Rhys—wearing daypacks and with torches strapped to foreheads, scenting blood as much as the dogs Keats was rounding up with the leash.

  'Found ya bike up on the side of the river,' said Brian. Torchlight flashed over the nearby ground, settling on the bike frame. The front wheel lay twisted. Brian knelt and sniffed the seat. 'Engine's still warm.'

  The boys chuckled.

  'Cut the shit.' The dogs strained at the leash, and Keats pulled back hard. 'How long ago?'

  'Maybe half an hour. Reckon she's making for the Abo camps. She gets there, she's gone, Jimbo. Ya know how they feel about this sort a thing.'

  'If we know where she's headed, then we can cut her off.'

  'Already sorted. Brownie's gone ahead to the camp, gunna work his way back down the river.'

  Keats shook his head. 'Dave, you get on well with the Abos. Get over there before Brownie fucks it up.'

  The dogs snarled and whined, slowly pulling Keats down towards the water.

  'Once Jimbo and I are in the water, I want the rest of you to follow. Hang back about fifty metres or so in case we miss her and she tries to double back. Keep ya torches off, so she doesn't twig. Sledge and Mason, you take the left bank. Brian, you and Rhys take the right.'

  Jimbo strapped the torch to his forehead and turned it on. 'You not wearing one, Keats?'

  Keats laughed. 'Nah, this should be fun. Haven't had a real good test for ma ultras since I had them put in. Ya got those knickers?'

  Jimbo hand
ed Keats a pair of Kylie's knickers, the black laces ones she liked to wear when they were about to make love. 'The water ain't gunna be a problem?'

  'These are my fucken dogs.' Keats rubbed the knickers in the dogs' noses, then unclipped the leashes. The dogs bounded into the shallows, then raced upstream. 'Come on, let's move.'

  The water was cool on their ankles as Keats and Jimbo waded in. Soon they were in up to their knees, a thick layer of mud squelching over their feet, making it hard to move quickly. Up ahead, the dogs splashed through the shallows near the left bank, growling and yelping. Jimbo surveyed the river banks as they moved, casting the torchlight over the bushes, looking for clues in the mud. He couldn't make out much. Behind him, the rest of the boys followed, but he couldn't see them either.

  'What are ultras, Keats?'

  Keats tapped his temple near the corner of his eyes. 'Had it wired up recently. I'm using infrared at the moment.'

  'But ya don't have metal eyes.'

  'Jesus, Jimbo. The older boys wear them like a badge of honour. Nobody in the last five years has had that done—they're fucken ugly. There's a whole bunch of spectrums I can use. Ultraviolet's good for following blood trails. She wasn't bleeding, was she?'

  'I dunno, don't think so.'

  'The Cartel's where it's at, Jimbo. I tell ya.'