by Markus Zusak
Female accomplice cop and I look at each other. Again. She has nice underwear. I imagine it.
Rube: "Well, we were just ..."
Cop, testy: "Just what? What do you want?"
Female cop looks great. Brilliant. She's in a bath. Bubbles. She rises up. She smiles. At me. I shake.
Ruben, grinning loudly: "Well, we were hoping you might put a bet on for us...."
Female cop, from the bath: "Are you kidding?"
Me, smashing my head up through the water: "Are you bloody jokin', Rube?"
Rube, smacking my mouth: "My name's not Rube."
Me, back in reality: "Oh, sorry, James, y' tosser."
Cop, holding scrund-up sausage roll bag with sauce smothered inside it: "What's a tosser?"
Rube, distressed: "Oh God almighty, this can't be happening! How ridiculously stupid can one man be?"
Cop, curious: "What is a tosser?"
Female accomplice cop, who is about five foot nine and uses the police gym I'd say four nights a week: "You look at one every morning in the mirror." She's tall and lean and great. She winks at me.
Me: speechless.
Rube: "That's the way, love."
Female unbelievably sexy cop: "Who you callin' love, lover boy?"
Rube, ignoring her and going back to ignorant don't-even-know-what-a-tosser-is cop: "So will you put a bet on or not?"
Tosser cop: "What?"
Me, to all of them but not loud enough: "This is downright bloody ridiculous." People mill around and past us, to place bets.
Female accomplice cop, to me: "You wanna taste me?"
Me: "Love to." It's my imagination, of course.
Tosser cop: "Okay."
Rube, shocked: "What?"
Tosser cop: "I'll put the bet on for y's."
Rube, floundering: "Really?"
Tosser cop, trying to impress: "Yeah, I do it all the time, don't I, Cassy?"
Hundred percent pure female cop, clearly unimpressed: "Whatever y' reckon."
Me: "Is that ethical?"
Rube, incredulous, to me: "Are you mentally challenged?" (He's recently become tired of the word spastic. He reckons the new way makes him sound more sophisticated. Something like that, anyway.) Me: "No, I'm not. But --"
All three of them, to me: "Shut up." The bastards. Tosser cop: "What's the dog's number?" Rube, happy with himself: "Three." Tosser cop: "Its name?" Rube: "You Bastard." Tosser cop: "Pardon?"
Rube: "I swear it. Here, look at our program."
We all look.
Me: "How'd they get away with a name like that?"
Rube: "It's 'cause t's just a lot of amateur stuff. Anything with four legs'll get a run. It's a wonder there aren't any poodles out there." He glances at me seriously. "Our fella can run but. Take my word for it."
Tosser cop: "Is that the one that looks more like a rat?"
Accomplice gorgeous cop: "But he runs like clappers, they reckon."
In any case, while the tosser cop takes our money, walks away, throws his sausage roll bag in the bin and makes the bet, the following things happen: Rube smiles incessantly to himself, the accomplice cop has her hands on her honey hips, and I, Cameron Wolfe, imagine making love to her in my sister's bed of all places.
It's disagreeable, isn't it?
Yet.
What can you do?
When the cop comes back, he says, "I put ten on 'im myself."
"You won't be disappointed." Rube nods, accepting our ticket. Then he says, "Hey, I think I'm gonna turn you in for this puttin' bets on for minors. It's a disgrace."
(In all the time I've known him, my brother has never said just simple disgrace. He has to say it in two parts. Dis and grace. "Disgrace.") "So what?" the cop says. "And besides ... who y' gonna tell?"
"The cops," Rube answers, and we all smirk a little, and head for the open grandstand.
We all sit down and wait for the race. "This You Bastard better be good," the cop announces, but no one listens. You can cut the air with a knife, as the trainers, gamblers, thieves, bookies, fat guys, fat girls, chain-smokers, alcos, corrupt cops, and juvenile delinquents all wait, with their scattered thoughts scattering onto the track.
"It does look like a rat," I say, when the greyhound we've chosen trots ferret-like and scrawny past us. "And what the hell are clappers, anyway?"
"I don't know," the cop says.
Rube: "We don't know what they are, but we know they're fast." "Yeah."
The cop and Rube are inseparable now. Best mates. One has a uniform and black, close-cropped hair. The other is in rags, stinks of sweat and No-Name cologne, and has wavy brown-blond hair that staggers toward his shoulders. He has eyes of stomped-out fire, a wet nose that sniffs, and he has bitten claws for fingernails. Needless to say, the second one is my brother. A Wolfe, a dog, through and through.
Then there's the female cop.
Then there's me.
Drooling.
"And they're off!"
It's some tosser, dare I say it, over the loudspeaker, and he's rattling off names of the dogs so fast, I can barely understand him. There's Chewy on a Boot, Dictionary, No Loot, Vicious, and Generic Hound, and they're all in front of You Bastard, who scampers around the back like a rodent with a mousetrap stuck to his arse.
The crowd rises.
They shout.
The female cop looks great. People scream.
"Go Pictionary! Go Pictionary!"
People correct. "It's Dictionary!"
"What?"
"Dictionary!"
"Oh ... go Pictionary!"
"Ah, forget it!"
People clap and shout.
Great, I tell you. Great, she looks. Brunette.
Then, finally, the rat gets rid of the mousetrap and makes some ground.
Rube and the cop get happy.
They scream, almost sing with joy. "Go You Bastard! Go You Bastard!"
All of the dogs chase the ludicrous rabbit around the track and the crowd is like an escaped convict.
Running.
Hoping.
Knowing that the world is catching up. Hanging.
Hanging on for dear life to this moment of liberation that is so sad that it can only lurk. It's the deception of something real inside something so obviously empty.
Screaming.
"Go Vicious!"
"Go No Loot!"
Rube and the cop: "Go You Bastard! Go You Bastard!"
We're all watching as the rat comes flying around the outside of the track, clipping first place and losing balance to fall back into fourth.
"Oh, you bastard!" Rube winces, and he isn't calling the dog by its name as he pedals like hell to make it back.
He does.
He runs well, our bastard.
Runs into second, which makes Rube look at our ticket and ask the cop a question. He says, "Did you bet each way or on the nose?"
By the look on his face, we can tell that the cop has bet on the nose. All or nothing.
"Well, you're a bit useless then, aren't y' mate?" Rube laughs, and he slaps the cop on the back.
"Yep," the cop says. He isn't a tosser anymore. He's just a guy who forgot about the world for a few moments when some dogs sprinted around a track. His name is Gary, a bit of a Nancy-boy name, but who cares?
We say our good-byes and I dream one last time about Cassy the cop and compare her with other imagined women in the lecherous soul that is my youth.
I think about her all the way home, where the usual Saturday night awaits us: Our sister going out. Our brother staying in, staying quiet. Dad reading the paper. Mrs. Wolfe, our mother, going to bed early. Rube and me talking briefly across the room before sleep.
"I liked her," I say on our front porch.
"I know." Rube smiles and he opens the door.
"Hey Rube, are you awake?"
"Whatta y' reckon? I've only been in here two lousy minutes."
"It's been longer than that."
"It hasn't."
"It has, y' miserable idiot. And tell me what do you want, ay? Can y' tell me that? Whatta y' want?"
"I want you to switch the light off."
"No way."
"It's only fair -- I was in here first and you're closer to the switch."
"So what? I'm older. You should respect your elders and switch the light off yourself."
"What a load of bloody."
"It stays on then."
It stays on for ten minutes, and then, take a guess. It's me who switches it off.
"You suck," I tell him.
"Thank you."
CHAPTER 2
There's a noise at about three a.m. It's Sarah spewing her hole in the bathroom. I get up to check her out, and there she is, wrapped around the bowl, hugging it, cradling it. Soaking into it.
Her hair s thick, like all of us in the Wolfe family, and as I look at her through my burning, itchy eyes, I notice that there's some vomit caught in one of her tough tufts of flowing hair. I get some toilet paper and fish it ou
t, then wet a towel to get rid of it altogether.
"Dad?"
"Dad?"
She throws her head back, to the toilet rim. "Is that you, Dad?" and my sister begins to cry. She gathers composure and pulls me to my knees and concentrates on me. With her hands on my shoulders, she wails almost silently. Wailing: "I'm sorry, Dad. I'm sorry I --"
"It's me," I tell her. "It's Cameron."
"Don't lie," she responds. "Don't lie, Dad," and saliva falls to the skin above her red top, hitting her through the heart. Her jeans cut into her hips, slicing them up. It surprises me that they don't draw blood. Same with her heels. Her shoes leave bite marks in her ankles. My sister.
"Don't lie," she says one more time, so I stop.
I stop lying and say, "Okay Sarah, it's me, Dad. We're puttin' you into bed." And to my surprise, Sarah manages to stand up and limp to her room. I get her shoes off, just in time before they sever her feet.
She mumbles.
Words tumble from her mouth as I sit down on the floor, against her bed.
"I'm sick," she says, "of gettin' shattered." She goes on and on, until slowly, she falls.
Asleep.
A sleep, I think. It'll do her good.
Her last words are, "Thanks Dad ... I mean, thanks, Cam." Then her hand trips onto my shoulder. It stays. I smile as slightly as a person can smile when they sit, cold, cramped, and crumpled in his sister's room when she's just come home with alcoholic veins, bones, and breath.
Sitting next to Sarah's bed, I think about what's happening with her. I wonder why she's doing this to herself. Is she lonely? I ask. Unhappy? Afraid? It would be nice if I could say I understand, but that would not be right. No, it wouldn't be, because I just don't know. It would be like asking why Rube and I go down to the dog track. It's not because we're ill-adjusted or we don't fit in or anything like that. It just is. We go to the track. Sarah's getting drunk. She did have a boyfriend once, but he went.
Stop, I tell myself. Stop thinking about that. But somehow I can't. Even when I try to think of other things, I just get on to thinking about the other members of my family.
Dad the plumber, who had an accident at work a few months ago and lost all of his jobs. Sure, insurance paid for his injuries, but now he's just plain out of wor from it.
Mrs. Wolfe -- working hard cleaning people's houses and just got a new job at the hospital.
Steve -- working and waiting and dying to leave home.
Then Rube and me -- the juveniles. "Cam?"
Sarah's voice swims to me on a stream of bourbon, Coke, and some other cocktail that drowns the room. "Cam."
"Cam'ron." Then sleep. Then Rube.
He arrives and mutters out a "Huh."
"Can y' flush the toilet?" I ask him. He does it. I hear it, rising and falling like the blowhole down south.
At six, I get up and return to Rube's and my room.
I could kiss Sarah's cheek as I leave, but I don't. Instead, I trounce my hair with my hand, giving up on it in the end -- it's bound to stick up. In all directions.
When I get up for real, around seven o'clock, I check on Sarah one last time, just to make sure she hasn't made herself a superstar and choked on her own vomit. She hasn't, but her room's a shocker. The smell is of: Juice.
Smoke.
Hangover.
And Sarah lying there, caked in it.
Daylight shoots through her window.
I walk.
Out.
Sunday.
I get breakfast, wearing trackies and a T-shirt. I'm barefoot. I watch the end of Rage with the volume turned completely down. Then there's a business show that wears a suit and tie and a fake hankie in its pocket.
"Cam."
It's Steve.
"Steve," I nod, and that's about all we'll say to each other for the entire day. Saying each other's name is the way he and I say hello. He always leaves the house early, including on Sundays. He's here but he's not. He'll go to see his friends or go fishing or just disappear. He'll leave the city if he wants. Go down south, where the water's clean and a person passing by will acknowledge you. Not that Steve cares about being acknowledged. He works, he waits. That's all. That's Steve. He offers Mum and Dad to pay more than his board so they can stay ahead, but they won't take it.
Too proud.
Too stubborn.
Dad says we'll manage and that some work is just around the corner. But t never ends. It stretches and continues, and Mum drives herself into the ground.
"Thanks."
The day echoes past and that's what Sarah says to me in the evening when I finally see her again. She comes into the lounge room just before dinner.
"I mean it," she tells me softly, and there is something in her eyes that makes me think of The Old Man and the Sea, and how the old man's patched sail looks like the flag of permanent defeat. That's what Sarah's eyes look like. The color of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will just carry on, like all of us.
Smile stubborn.
Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.
At dinner, Rube comes in late, just before Steve.
This is how the Wolfe family looks at the table: Our mother, eating politely.
Dad, feeding burnt sausage into his mouth but tasting unemployment. His face has healed from the busted pipe that smashed his jaw and ripped open his face. Yes, the injury has healed nicely, at least on the outside of his skin.
Sarah, concentrating on keeping it all down. Me, watching everyone else.
Rube, swallowing more and more and smiling at something, even though we have an extra dirty piece of business to cater for very soon.
It's Dad who brings it into the foreground.
"Well?" he says when we're done. He looks at Rube and me.
Well what?
"Well what?" Rube asks, but both of us know what we have to do. It's just, we've got an agreement with one of our neighbors that we'll walk his dog for him, twice a week. Sundays and Wednesdays. Let's just say that most of our neighbors think that Rube and me are kind of hoodlums. So to get in the good graces of Keith, the neighbor on our left (who we disturb the most), it was decided that we would walk his dog for him, since he doesn't get much time to do it himself. It was our mother's idea, of course, and we complied. We're many things, Rube and me, but I don't think we're difficult or lazy.
So as the ritual goes, Rube and I grab our jackets and walk out.
The catch is, the dog's a fluffy midget thing called Miffy. Bloody Miffy, for God's sake. What a name. He's a Pomeranian and he's a dead-set embarrassment to walk. So we wait till it gets dark. Then we go next door and Rube hits the highest note in his voice and calls, "Oh Miffy! Miffy!" He grins. "Come to Uncle Rube," and the fluffy embarrassment machine comes prancing toward us like a damned bal
lerina. I promise you when we're walking that dog and see someone we know, we pull our hoods over our heads and look the other way. I mean, there's only so much guys like us can get away with. Walking a Pomeranian that goes by the name of Miffy is not one of them. Think about it. There's street. Rubbish. Traffic. People yelling at each other over the top of their TVs. Heavy metallers and gang-looking guys slouching past ... and then there are these two juvenile idiots walking a ball of fluff down the road.
It's out of hand.
That's what it is.
Disgraceful.
"A dis-grace," says Rube.
Even tonight, when Miffy's in a good mood.
Miffy. Miffy.
The more I say it to myself the more it makes me laugh. The Pomeranian from hell. Watch out, or Miffy'll get you. Well, he's got us all right.
We go out.
We walk him.
We discuss it.
"Slaves are what we are, mate," is Rube's conclusion. We stop. Look at the dog. Carry on. "Look at us. You, me, an' Miffy here, and ..." His voice trails off.
"What?"
"Nothin'."
"What?"
He gives in easily, because he wanted to all along.
At our gate upon our return, Rube looks me in the eye and says, "I was talkin' to my mate Jeff today and he reckons people're talkin' about Sarah."
"Sayin' what?"
"Sayin' she's been gettin' round. Gettin' drunk and gettin' around a bit."
Did he just say what I thought he said? Getting around? He did.
He did, and soon, it will alter the life of my brother Rube. It will put him in a boxing ring. It'll make a heap of girls notice him. It'll make him successful.
It will drag me with him, and all it will take to start it all is one incident. It's an incident in which he beats the hell out of a guy in school who calls Sarah something pretty ordinary.
For now, though, we stand at our gate.
Rube, Miffy, and me.
"We're wolves," is the last piece of conversation. "Wolves are up higher on the ladder for sure. They oughta eat Pomeranians, not walk 'em."
Yet, we
Never agree to walk your neighbor's midget dog. Take my word for it.
You'll be sorry.
"Hey Rube."
"What? The light's off this time."
"You reckon it's true what people are sayin'?"
"Reckon what's true?"
"You know -- about Sarah."
"I d'know. But if I hear someone sayin' anything about her, I'm gonna nail 'em. I'm gonna kill 'em."
"Y' think so?"
"I wouldn't say it otherwise."
And sure enough, he nearly does.
CHAPTER 3
Rube smashes the guy, with bloody fists and trampling eyes, but first, this: Our dad's been out of work now for nearly five months. I realize that I've mentioned it before, but I should really explain exactly how it came to be. What happened is that he was working on a site out in the suburbs, when some guy turned on the water pressure too early. A pipe busted and my dad caught the shrapnel, flush in the face.