Floundering Read online

  Do you have any water? I say. He nods to the floor of the cab, in among all the empty beer cans is a big juice bottle of water.

  Radiator water, he says.

  The plastic looks yellow but I reach down and grab it. The bottle is hot. I take a swig and it pours around my mouth and onto my chest. I pass the water to Jordy who has slipped in beside us.

  Where are you taking us? I say.

  We’ll go check for her, he says. Takes a long swig of beer.

  I look out at the straight line of the horizon and imagine it joining around behind me, round and tight as a belt. I look at Jordy’s hands in his lap and all his fingernails are bitten to nothing. I wonder how I’ve not noticed him ripping them to pieces. My nails are long, ragged and bright with half circles of lobster-red dirt. Nev pushes a cassette into the tape deck and country music warbles out at us. He bangs my leg with the gear stick, reverses and accelerates too fast out of there. I shrink away from him, but Jordy shrugs me back.

  Jordy, I say. He looks at me from beneath his fringe and I shrink back against him, and he lets me. Nev flicks his butt out the window and starts rolling a ciggie, holding the wheel steady with his knee. The air is a hot, heavy wool blanket. Nev leans forward, cups the ciggie in his hands, lights it.

  So, what’s with them tattoos anyways? I say. He turns the black squares of his sunglasses on me again.

  My kids, he says. They’d be all grown up now. I wouldn’t know.

  I shrink away.

  Hell, I’m probably a grandfather. He laughs but the laugh sounds bad and after a while it turns into a deep racking cough. He spits a huge golly out the window. Sucks his cigarette down. He doesn’t say anything more. We all sit there.

  At the turn off to the highway I see the yellow of a beat-up car and I catch my heart in my throat, ‘cos it looks like the yellow of Bert. A yellow, brown and bubbled with rust. I almost laugh to think she’s only made it this far. But as we get closer I can see there are teenage boys standing around the car, and there are surfboards on the roof and there are stickers all over it. As we pass I still expect to see her. I look through the window, but she ain’t there drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. The front seat of their car is empty.

  One of the boys looks at me. He’s got one of them party blowers, like a whistle with a paper tongue, and he blows it at us as we pass. The multicoloured tongue pokes out and curls back. I remember it’s New Year’s. We turn off the gravel onto the black lick of road.

  14

  A rock flicks up at the windscreen. It makes a sharp sound. Nev looks in the rearview mirror for a culprit. The road shimmers with heat. The windscreen has a spiderweb crack.

  The crack’ll travel. It’ll travel, break the window in two by the end, says Nev.

  Up ahead I see the Shell sign of the servo. Nev parks the truck in the shade cast by the building. I can’t see Bert. There’s two girls filling their Kombi at the pumps. They look like overgrown kids, unwashed, with tumbled hair and sleepy eyes. Written in the dust on their back windscreen is wash me.

  I’ll go ask, says Jordy and clicks the car door open. I look over at Nev who’s lighting another ciggie, and I jump out too. But before I go I say, You’re not supposed to smoke at a service station.

  He raises his eyebrows at me and taps his ash out the window.

  I can see Jordy through the glass of the servo door, leaning over the counter, talking to the girl. I don’t follow Jordy in, but instead walk around the side of the building. Near the bins, there’s a huge cage with a cockatoo bobbing its head at me. Hello dicky, hello dicky, it says. Then it makes the clicking sounds just like the pump does when the fuel tank’s full. Click, click, click. I click my tongue back at it.

  Hello dicky, hello dicky, the cockatoo bounces his head. A sign written in Texta says, Look out. He bites. Bounce, bounce, behind the cage. I put my finger through the wire to see. The cocky lunges towards me and I pull my finger out of there quick as. Hello, I say to it. You do bite, eh. It looks at me, then nibbles a hanging seed bell, cracking seeds and dropping them to the littered cage floor.

  Some chickens peck at red dirt outside a dark doorway into the back of the roadhouse. Their bellies must be full of dirt. I rub my eyes hard, try to see as I step into the shade of the doorway. Look inside. There’s a Christmas tree in the corner. Its lights going flicker, flicker, flicker, red, orange, green. There’s tinsel strung around it, and a couple of string baubles. The flickery lights light up framed pictures of a man holding a barramundi, and his own grin. Old wedding photos, black-and-white but coloured-in with faded pastel. There’s a picture of a kid with a footy under his arm. A breeze blows a row of Christmas cards to the ground. I go try to pick them up. I put one back and it blows straight off. I look around behind me to see if anyone is watching. I try stand the card back up but I can’t get it right. It’s got a kangaroo on a surfboard dressed like Santa. I let it drop to the floor.

  An old woman is at the door. She’s wrinkly as a prune. Her dress floats around her. She sees me, shuffles forward and smiles a toothless smile. She’s so thin. I say, Hello. She taps her ear with a gnarly finger and shakes her head. She shuffles back out again. She comes back with fruitcake. Her turkey-wattle arms wobble. She smiles at me again.

  She looks at me, and a voice booms out of her little frame, slurred, all the words swarming together into one. I-can’t-hear- love, she says.

  She gives me a plate with roses all linked up around the edges of it. It makes me thirsty just looking at it, it looks so dry. She motions for me to eat it. My hand is shaking when I reach to take a bite. Crumbs fall from me. She leans back, crosses her arms to watch. It takes me a really long time to chew it and swallow. It’s made cement in my mouth. Can I’ve a drink? I say and make a drinking motion. Please. But it’s like she can’t see or hear me now, and she don’t get me nothing. I step back slowly. I trip on a pile of old newspapers and the plate crashes to the ground. Miraculously it don’t break, but I make a run for it. The square of the door shines bright.

  Back outside I can see a long shed, it’s shiny new. There are other sheds past it, each one more crumbled down and rusty than the last. On the horizon I can see the shadowy smudge of a ridge. I kick over a rusty old tin of cigarette butts and it makes a hollow gong. It spills the butts out. I look around, right the tin and leave the butts there. I walk the long way around the buildings back to the front. There is an orange phone booth. It stands out by the road, strange and separate from anything. For a second I think Nev has left me behind, but he’s just moved the ute.

  Down the road, a guy walks out of the mirage. The black snakey line of him forms into a person. He flings the roadhouse door open. I follow him in. He goes to the fridge and gets out a long cold bottle of water and buys it with coins he magics from the pocket of his overalls. Up close his skin is like leather. He pays the girl, who isn’t as pretty as the one that was here last time, but has freckles across her nose and cheeks that look like they’re drawn on with a brown crayon, which I like.

  Hey, I say to him when he turns around. He looks at me, startled, and grunts what I reckon is a hello, and starts walking.

  Hey, I go again, can I ask you a question?

  He stops and looks down at me, scratches the stubble on his face.

  Did you see a yellow car drive past today or yesterday? I say.

  A yellow car? he says and scratches first the side of his face, then behind his ears, then across his chest. It’s as if with the scratch he’s sifting through all the memories. I hold my breath. Goosebumps on my arms from the air-con.

  No, he says. I ain’t seen a yellow car today.

  He sits himself down at one of them plastic tables, and I’m standing stranded there in the middle of the floor. I search around to rest my hands on something. I have to walk to the counter to lean against it.

  What can I get you? says the girl with the freckle nose – and this one has an English accent straight off the ABC. Are you alright? she asks.
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br />   I see Jordy walking towards me from the toilets, and I say to her, Yep, I’m okay. I let go of the counter.

  She reckons she ain’t seen Loretta, he goes. But she only come on at lunch, and the owners have gone into town ‘cos it’s New Year’s. What were you talkin’ to him for? Jordy goes.

  I don’t know. We step back out into the heat.

  Look. Jordy points to the tap sticking out of a cement square. I laugh. He turns it on and I stick my head right the way under there and let the water run into my mouth. It tastes metallic and the first bit is so hot I flinch. But then it’s cool. Jordy pushes me out of the way and I choke, spluttering beside him. I watch his hair go slick and see his eyes closed tight. I look to the ute and pull Jordy from the tap. We walk back.

  Hello dicky, I whisper to myself, Hello dicky, hello dicky, hello dicky. Walking past the phone booth I push open the door and check the change slot for coins. But inside it’s smooth and empty. Hello dicky, I say, hello dicky, wondering who the cocky’s mimicking. The crows are circling us from above.

  I can’t see Nev in the truck. When we come around the side of the tray he’s standing there, looking out towards the desert. He jumps when I say, Hey.

  But then he says, Have ya ever hypnotised a chicken? He’s got a beer. He takes a long swig of the can, empties it, crunches the can and pots it into the back of the truck. There is a chicken lying in front of him. Its wings are splayed out, white wings gone orange with dirt. Its little beaky head is turned to the side. It looks dead.

  No, I say.

  When he touches it, it springs back to life. It clucks and flaps its feathers, remembering they’re there. Its eyes are shiny as beads. He pushes the chook’s head back into the dirt. He traces a line back and forth in front of the chook’s beak, drawing a line in the dust. The chicken stills. Everything is still. Nev stands, lights a new cigarette. He blows smoke signals into the sky.

  If you put a hat over a sheep’s head, it’ll lay there forever, terrified of the dark, he says.

  What’s that supposed to mean? says Jordy.

  Nev grins and shrugs. I wonder if the chicken might lie there until it starves to death, or the ants find it. Nev claps his hands and the chicken squawks up alive and screaming. It zigzags away from the roadhouse and into the scrub like it’s being pursued.

  Nev drops his cigarette butt, gets back into the truck and starts it up. The exhaust smells sweet blowing back at us. The stub of his cigarette is the colour and shape of a child’s severed finger. In the dust I can see the flat shape where the chicken was lying dead.

  What should we do, Jordy?

  I don’t know. Get in the car.

  I’m still thirsty.

  Yeah.

  The water has dried on us already. I can smell the gummy. Three crows sit on the edge of the tray. They caw. Show me inside their beaks.

  Get lost, Jordy tells them. They turn their heads and put us in the sights of one of their eyes but don’t move. Jordy opens the door. Nev’s finishing another can of beer. He throws it on the floor. It tinkles like Christmas. I climb up in there. Jordy follows.

  We’ll check in town, he says. Reverses and pulls out onto the highway with a shower of gravel. The crows are in the rearview mirror, still on the back of the tray. When we go fast enough they fly up. I close my eyes. Watch the world go dark rosy red. I look at the inside of my eyelids.

  Loretta leans down to kiss the top of my head. Her hair brushes my face, it tickles and I laugh. I can smell watermelon.

  Boy, you’ve grown tall, she says and laughs. She brushes her hair behind her ears and stands back to look at me. See my dress, it’s new, she says. She holds her dress out for me, and she looks beautiful. She twirls around and around and then stumbles. Dizzy, she says and laughs again. What about you? You good?

  I gasp. Open my eyes. The road is rushing towards me. I try sit up straight, brace myself. My legs are stuck to the seat with sweat. I wake up properly and remember we’re just driving.

  Here, I stole this, says Jordy. He opens my hand and puts a Redskin in it. I tried to get a drink but the girl was watching.

  I look at the lolly. My mouth feels like the bottom of a birdcage. I think of Loretta.

  Thanks, I say. Close my fingers over it.

  It’s cool, says Jordy. I look up at him and his mouth is full of red. I cringe away from him, touch Nev, cringe away. I try to keep in the middle. I want to tell Jordy my dream, but I don’t want Nev to hear. It’s slipping away anyway. I can only remember her face as she stumbled.

  Shit, willy-willy, says Nev. There’s a twisting black curl coming towards us. Burnt earth, rocks, and sticks as high as the sky. It looks strong enough to catch birds. He slows the car.

  What’s a willy-willy? I say.

  It’s a pain, is what it is. Wind your windows up, he says.

  Nev opens a new beer. The can cracks and sprays warm beer on me. He takes a swig then wedges the can between his thighs. The willy-willy heads for us. He swings the truck onto the side of the road. Brush scrapes at the underside of the car. The sound of little branches on metal makes my teeth grind together. The truck stops. There is a beading line of sweat on Nev’s upper lip and beer spilt on his thighs. The willy-willy is pulling all the dust from the earth into a cloud. Jordy does up his window and Nev does too. Rocks clatter against the truck and it’s darker and red outside. The sticks make a bigger bang. The ignition cuts.

  Should we be scared? says Jordy.

  Nev laughs. Swigs his beer.

  I dig my fingers into the fraying holes in the seat. I feel an inner spring. It’s too hot with the windows up. I try breathe slowly. Bits of the door are rusted through. Little whirls of dust spiral into the truck. I see outside, the shine of rubbish – the inside of a chip packet or chocolate bar wrapper. All the hairs on my arms are standing on their ends. Nev winces as sticks hit the truck. He doesn’t notice the beer can drop from in between his legs to the floor where it pools around our feet. I hold my breath. I start counting. If I get to one hundred and it still hasn’t stopped I’m getting out. Nev sits back and puts his arm up and around mine and Jordy’s shoulders. I feel the pressure of his arm at the back of my head. I can smell his underarms, cigarettes and booze. I lean over Jordy and open the door. The wind catches it, pulls it open. Sucks out rubbish and empty beer cans from the car floor. Pulls all my hair in the one direction.

  Tom, screams Jordy and tries to close the door, but his hands come up with nothing.

  I climb over him and fall out. I sprawl on the ground. I keep my eyes closed tight. Little rocks pepper my skin. Nev is hollering from the truck but it sounds far away. I hear the car door slam shut with me left outside. Beneath it all I feel a strangeness in my stomach. I shouldn’t leave them alone. But I can’t do anything except make myself into a ball. The wind comes at me from all directions.

  Then it’s quiet. I open my eyes and unclench my hands. On the ground there’s no leaves or nothing. It’s all been sucked up. The ground is smooth. Looking at my arms I see little nicks all over my skin, dots of blood. I rub my eyes, get up. My legs are jelly and it feels funny to be standing. I run my hand over the little silver dints in the paintwork. Jordy looks out at me through the glass. I look away, scratch at my scabbing arms. I hear a door slam and Nev is out of his side. He comes around to look at me.

  You stupid or something? he says to me.

  No, I say.

  He runs his hands through what’s left of his hair. Leans on the truck.

  Leave him alone, says Jordy, and he’s out of the truck now too.

  I’m tired, Nev says. He shake his head at us.

  Light glares between us all. Nev goes for the spade in the tray. I smell something rotten and for a moment I can’t think what it could be.

  What’s this then? he says.

  Nothing, says Jordy.

  Jordy looks in the back too and from his face I see we’re in trouble. I curl my neck over the edge of the tray. The rotten towel is gone. The gummy lo
oks hard but it smells soft. There are flies all over it.

  I said, what’s this then, eh?

  We didn’t want to leave it, says Jordy.

  Leave it where?

  On the beach, Jordy says quietly, like he knows it sounds dumb.

  The gummy looks at me with its eye. I can see the wound where the hook went in, puckered and full of fly.

  You didn’t even gut it or nothin? says Nev. He reaches in to grab the tail, but his hand slips with the sliminess. Fuck, he says.

  No, I say.

  Jordy says it too, No.

  Nev goes to grab it again.

  We’re carryin’ it with us, I say. We can’t leave it out here.

  Bullshit, says Nev. Get in there. You’re pullin’ it out.

  We can’t leave it here, says Jordy.

  We leave it here, or I leave you here with it.

  I don’t believe you.

  Nev shrugs, wipes his hands on his shorts. Try me, he says.

  He takes his tobacco out and rolls a cigarette. I look at the sky. The crows have followed us. Black scraps of them against the blue. Nev makes his tongue pointy and licks along the line of his paper. I shudder. He rolls it, lights it, goes to the back of the tray and pulls out the rusty metal bits that hold the back flap up. He folds down the back flap. The spade and the gummy are all that’s in there. Nev gets the spade, drags it out of there.

  Go on, says Nev. Get it out.

  Jordy looks at me, then says, Okay.

  Whatever, I don’t care, I say.

  Jordy climbs up. He looks tall. I hook my fingers over the edge and lean in. He hugs the gummy. He tries to lift it but it slips from his hands. Jordy looks at me like it’s my fault and reaches down again. He gets it. It looks liquid. Its head hangs over his arms. It’s about as big as a child. He walks with it to the edge of the tray and pauses. The crows fly lower.

  Tom, he says.

  What.

  Help me.

  I stand beneath him.

  Hold your arms out, he says. I put my arms out, palms up. The gummy half slips, half drops from his hands. It thuds into me and its belly splits open. But I hold it. There is mess smeared all over Jordy’s singlet. Jordy jumps down beside me. Guts drip from my arms. They’re coloured bright purple and orange. If they didn’t smell so bad, they’d be pretty. I gag.