Into the River

by Mark Brandi

  ‘Macchio,’ Ben said.

  Pokey shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

  Ben glared at Fab.

  Jesus Christ. Not again.

  In grade three, Fab had pretended to be a professional break-dancer. Ben – of course – was part of his crew. It had taken two full years to live that down.

  Ben turned back to Pokey. ‘He’s telling the truth. He’s a black belt, all right?’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Pokey crossed his arms. ‘He’s gotta prove it. The greasy shit has to do his kick!’ He spat at Ben’s feet.

  Ben shook his head. ‘He won’t do that kick. He won’t do any kick.’

  Fab looked at Ben, wide-eyed.

  ‘See? I knew it was bullshit!’ Pokey pointed at Fab, right up close in his face. ‘Now you’re a wog and a liar!’

  Everyone fell silent. It suddenly felt like the whole school was watching.

  Ben shook his head. ‘Nah, you’ve got it all wrong. He can do it. He’s just not allowed to. The sensei forbids it.’

  Ben then did his best, and only, impression of a Japanese accent. ‘You must only use karate in the defence of self.’

  Pokey’s face went red and he gave Fab another shove. ‘I’ll give you a reason later!’ He glared at Ben. ‘When your boyfriend isn’t around.’

  * * *

  Ben and Fab headed back toward the classrooms, walking quickly across the hot asphalt, threading their way through skipping girls and the nerds swapping comic books.

  Fab laughed. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘That look on Pokey’s face, when you did the Monkey Magic thing.’

  ‘It wasn’t Monkey Magic. It was Mr Miyagi.’

  ‘Really? It sounded like Monkey. Or Pigsy.’

  ‘It was Miyagi.’

  ‘Same diff.’

  Ben felt his face go hot – he grabbed Fab by his t-shirt. ‘Why do you do shit like that? You’re asking for trouble, y’know? Ya can’t just expect me to jump in all the time.’

  Fab shook his head. ‘I had to get him off my back.’

  ‘And that’s your best idea?’

  ‘Planned it over the holidays.’

  ‘Over the whole holidays?’

  ‘The last day.’

  ‘Why didn’t ya tell me?’

  Fab put his hands together and bowed. ‘Element of surprise, young master. I could have done the kick though.’ He thrust one leg out.

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I’ve been practising. Got the Karate Kid video and everything.’

  ‘Any other moves?’

  ‘Nah, that’s it.’

  ‘Not much for a black belt, is it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Probably didn’t think it through.’

  There was a short queue at the bubble-taps – a few nervous preps and one of the retarded kids, the Down syndrome one. There were two retarded kids at school. They both came every second day on the vegie bus from the Special School.

  Ben leaned over the trough and took a long drink. The water was warm at first, but started to cool after a bit. Fab slurped noisily at the tap next to him. There was only ever enough pressure for one tap to work properly.

  Ben straightened up and wiped his mouth. ‘So, what are you gonna do now?’

  The Down syndrome kid suddenly started crying for no reason, which made one of the preps start too.

  Fab lifted his mouth from the tap. ‘What d’ya mean? Bell’s about to go.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘About Pokey. He’ll be gunning for ya.’

  Fab looked up, the water running down his chin and onto his t-shirt. His hand was still on the tap – he kept it running. His lip quivered just a little, then stopped, but Ben noticed it.

  ‘He’ll pick on me anyway. No matter what I do,’ Fab said. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

  Fab was wearing the same blue t-shirt that he’d been wearing in summer for two years. A lot of his clothes were his cousin’s old stuff. This t-shirt had been too small last year, and was even worse now; tight at the shoulders and riding up over his belly, with a strip of downy brown skin showing above his shorts. He looked like a skinny rabbit dressed up by a little kid, standing there in the sun with big, shiny eyes.

  And for the first time in his life, though he would never admit it to himself or anyone else, Ben felt like hugging him.

  Fab slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Anyway, Pokey might be after you instead.’ He laughed after he said it, but Ben could tell he forced it out. ‘Maybe I teach you my ancient wisdom, young master.’

  He bowed, Jap-style, squinting his eyes.

  ‘Wax-on... Wax-off. Young master. Wax-on... Wax-off.’

  Six

  Apart from the karate incident, school had been okay for the first two weeks; grade six was mostly like grade five and Ben was happy that Fab was in his class. Pokey had been yelling shit out in the yard, but he hadn’t done anything. Not yet anyway.

  The best bit of school so far was that Mr Burke had been sick the second week, so they had a substitute teacher – Miss Feely from Ballarat. She was much nicer than Burke. She used coloured chalk and wore very thin summer dresses with flowers on them. Fab reckoned she had really nice boobs. ‘Banana tits,’ he said. He reckoned he’d seen her at the pool on the weekend in a bikini. Ben thought Fab was probably lying about that, but he didn’t say so. But he really hoped Burke might be properly sick. Like cancer or maybe AIDS.

  On the Saturday of the second week, Ben spent the morning watching cartoons. His dad was at work and his mum had gone shopping. Halfway through The Jetsons he went for a piss while the ads were on.

  Then, from the bathroom, he heard a loud knock on the door.

  He finished his piss against the bowl, avoiding the splash of the water, and decided not to flush the toilet. He’d just wait, stay quiet and pretend no one was home. The car wasn’t there, so there’s no way they would know. And he wasn’t that worried about missing the rest of The Jetsons – it was usually pretty crap.

  Ben never liked it when his parents had visitors. He liked it when it was just him and them; when other people came around he wasn’t sure how to act anymore. Sometimes he tried to be like an adult, asking questions and that, but it made him feel weird. Mostly, he tried to stay in his room.

  The worst bit was the knock on the door. The door had a wooden frame and yellow patterned glass and when people knocked it was really loud – you could hear it anywhere in the house, even the backyard. Through the yellow glass, he could make out their body shape and would try to guess who it was before he answered.

  The ones that came the most were the Chappels, a couple from down the street. Des had fought in the war and looked much older than Ben’s parents, with grey hair and thick black eyebrows. He smelled like gum trees sometimes, then other times like rubber. His wife, Roma, smoked non-stop and had short white hair, wiry like a fox terrier. She wore soft woolly jumpers. Ben’s mum said they were mohair, or maybe cashmere, but he didn’t know what either of those was.

  Sometimes they went to the Chappels’ place, which was a neat, white weatherboard his mum told him to be ‘careful’ in. Ben hated going there – he’d be stuck for hours while they talked about politics and it was so boring. They had a telly but it was about a hundred years old and was never turned on. He wasn’t allowed to do anything because everything was really clean and his mum said the Chappels would notice if anything was out of place.

  There was also the Jacks. They didn’t come as much as the Chappels because they lived on a farm. Barry Jack was a big farmer with a really loud laugh. He used to be married to Dolly Jack, who Ben never met, but he heard his mum say that she left him because of his drinking. Once he gave up booze she said he was too boring, so she moved to Mildura to live with some bloke called Fred. Ben had never seen Fred, but he had a moustache that Ben’s mum said was ‘disgusting’.

  Barry Jack looked like he could be in the Wild West, a tall cowboy with long, bushy sideburns. After Dolly left,
he got a Filipina bride from one of the classified ads in the Aussie Post and they had three boys together.

  Ben liked the Aussie Post because it had the Ettamogah Pub and pictures of girls in bikinis. He also liked when the Jack boys came around because they’d play cricket and he got to bat for nearly the whole time. They were pretty hopeless.

  Then there was Alan Bulger, or ‘Bulger’ as his dad called him. He lived over the road with his parents in a big old brick house with no fences. He was a bit fat and he had thick glasses that made his eyes look big. He seemed much younger than Mum and Dad and he always stayed too long and drank a lot of beer. Mum would always end up telling him how he should try to find a wife. Ben didn’t like him much because he looked at him kind of funny, but Mum reckoned it was because he had a lazy eye.

  Then there was Uncle Ray, his dad’s brother. He ran a pool hall in Melbourne, had a thick beard like Brutus and drove a black Celica. It was the coolest car Ben had ever seen, with a sunroof and everything – like Kitt from Knight Rider. Ray didn’t come much though and Ben’s mum said he would only ever come ‘if he wants something’.

  Last time, he brought a girlfriend with long blonde hair and a really short skirt. Her name was Lisa. Mum went all stiff around her and talked like she was a school teacher.

  That night, Ben wanked quietly in his bed, thinking about Lisa’s short skirt and what might be underneath, while she sat in the kitchen with Mum and Dad and Ray, talking about why Bob Hawke had started crying.

  He couldn’t look her or Uncle Ray in the eyes after that.

  * * *

  After a minute, the knocking stopped. He stuck his head out from the bathroom and looked down the hallway to the front door, but there was no shadow behind the glass. The quiet piss technique had worked – they were gone.

  He was in the hallway when he heard the knock again, louder this time. He glanced at the front but there was still no one there.

  Then, he realised – it was the side door. Shit.

  Only family used the side door, which opened straight into the lounge from the driveway, so it was weird that someone would be knocking there. It was a sliding door, but it had the same yellow glass as the front and was right next to the telly. Whoever was there would know it was turned on, because Ben liked it loud, especially when his parents weren’t home.

  He stepped quietly into the lounge and saw a tall, dark figure shimmer through the glass. It was Barry Jack for sure. Maybe he was knocking on the side because he thought they were out back.

  Ben unclipped the latch and slid the door open with a metal squeal. But he could tell right away that it wasn’t Barry Jack, because he was wearing shorts. Barry Jack never wore shorts. Neither did cowboys, come to think of it.

  A tall, muscular man in a white singlet and bright blue stubbie shorts stood outside, with one hand on his hip and his other arm angled above the door. It was Ronnie, the new neighbour from up the road, and he had a big smile on his face.

  ‘G’day, mate. Ben, wasn’t it? Ya dad home?’

  Ben shielded his eyes from the sun. Ronnie seemed bigger up close, his shoulders wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Stronger than his dad. Stronger than Barry Jack. Maybe even stronger than Fab’s dad.

  ‘Nah, he’s at work.’

  ‘Ya mum?’

  ‘Shopping.’

  ‘Ah, no worries. I’ll come back a bit later then.’ He was wearing the same singlet as the other day and Ben noticed some stains on it, down near his belly. Even though he said he’d come back later, he kept standing there. He kept smiling too and Ben saw how his teeth were kind of brown and sharp looking. Funny angles. Crooked. It felt a bit weird, standing there in the doorway, with Ronnie smiling at him.

  After what seemed like forever, Ronnie asked him how school was going. Ben said it was good and Ronnie got out a pack of smokes from his back pocket. The pack was soft, like it was made from paper, not cardboard – Ben had never seen one like it. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke high in the air above him.

  ‘Have you seen anyone blow smoke rings before?’ he said.

  ‘Nah, not for real or anything,’ Ben said.

  Ben had only ever seen it in cartoons. Popeye did it sometimes with his pipe. Roma Chappel smoked all the time but never blew rings; she was always just clouded in blue smoke that smelled kind of minty. ‘Bloody menthol,’ Mum would say, and after she double-checked their car was gone, she would open all the windows.

  Ronnie took a deep drag, then made his lips go kind of weird like a fish as three rings of smoke popped out, like they came from down his throat. He coughed a little, then laughed. Ben smiled and nodded, ‘Cool.’ He wasn’t sure what else to say. He really just wanted to shut the door and go back inside before Scooby-Doo started. He was hungry and had planned to make a cheese and tomato toastie.

  Ronnie reached into his pocket. ‘Wanna see my lighter?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Ronnie showed it to him. It was a white one, but with a girl in a red bikini on one side, just like the girls from the Aussie Post.

  Ronnie smiled. ‘You like it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’

  Ben nodded.

  Ronnie started asking more questions, like if he had many friends. Ben told him about Fab, but it didn’t seem like Ronnie listened, because he asked him the same question again not long after. Then he asked him if he had a girlfriend. Ben’s face went hot.

  ‘Nah.’ He shook his head.

  ‘You like girls, though?’

  Ben looked down at Ronnie’s feet. He had black rubber thongs on. And his feet were really long.

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, course I do.’

  Ronnie laughed a bit. ‘That’s good then. So have you got a job, like a paper round or anything?’

  ‘Nah, Mum reckons I’m too young.’

  He wondered if he should ask him something back, like he saw his parents do. His mum told him he should talk to adults – ‘Be a polite young man’ – she said. But Ronnie just kept talking and asking questions. Ben noticed sweat forming in small drops on his forehead as he stood there in the sun with his dark skin. He wasn’t black like an Abo or anything, but more a deep brown like the surfers Ben saw on Wide World of Sports. Like Tom Curren, or even Sunny Garcia, but more Aussie looking.

  He told Ben that he didn’t have a girlfriend either, and then the smile kind of dropped from his face. ‘They’re mostly trouble, mate,’ he said. ‘Only good for one thing.’

  Ben could hear the music start for Scooby-Doo. Ronnie finally finished his smoke and crushed it against the brick wall. ‘Good talkin to ya, Ben,’ he said, and he winked. ‘Tell ya folks I’ll be back later, all right?’

  Ben nodded. Ronnie walked back down the driveway, his big feet and thongs slapping the concrete as he went. Ben went back inside and got the jaffle maker out from the cupboard, but decided to wait til the ads came on.

  * * *

  Ronnie came back late in the afternoon, an hour or so after Ben’s dad got home from work. He wasn’t wearing his singlet, but a green short-sleeved shirt with the yellow logo of the goldmine – a man swinging a pick. Mum got beers and they sat in the kitchen, so Ben went to his bedroom to read comics. He’d just got the latest 2000 AD from the newsagent.

  It took ages for Ronnie to leave. A couple of times it sounded like he was about to go, but then Ben’s dad got him another beer. Ben quietly cursed his dad for making him stay. In the end, he heard his mum invite him for dinner, but Ronnie said he had to go.

  ‘Got an early start,’ he said. His voice was loud and a bit rough and Ben was happy he was finally leaving.

  * * *

  At dinnertime, his dad told him the news – Ronnie had a job for him.

  ‘Just mow the lawns once a fortnight and a few odd chores.’ Ben’s dad kept his eyes on the telly as he spoke. It was highlights of the West Indies tour of Australia – a
day-nighter at the MCG. Dean Jones was in.

  ‘Ten bucks if you do it right.’ His dad had this way of asking and telling at the same time.

  Dean Jones made it to forty, so Viv Richards put Curtly Ambrose back on to bowl. Then Ben’s mum got the ice-cream from the freezer and said what a nice man Ronnie was.

  ‘So charming,’ she said.

  Ben didn’t really feel like he could say no after that.

  Seven

  Ben wasn’t sure whether to knock. He tried the doorbell first, but he couldn’t hear it ring. Maybe it wasn’t working. Or maybe they’d gone out. It was Sunday, so maybe they all did something together that he didn’t know about. Maybe he should just go home.

  He decided to wait for another ten seconds. He counted them quickly under his breath, five... six... seven... eight... nine and—

  He heard footsteps coming fast down the hallway.

  ‘Ben!’

  It was Fab’s mum. Ben’s thoughts went right away to her pantyhose and the dark patch in the middle.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, holding the door open, ‘I had the fan on and couldn’t hear a thing!’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Morressi.’ He said it in a sing-song way, like a prep saying good morning to the teacher. It made him cringe inside.

  ‘Please, Ben. Call me Eva.’

  Ben felt his cheeks go hot. Eva.

  She stepped to one side of the doorway, ‘Come in, come in.’

  She wasn’t wearing the pantyhose, her legs were bare, but she had a green skirt that swooshed as he passed. She smelled like flowers and the air was somehow cooler by her side. She didn’t have any shoes on and her toenails were painted dark and shiny. She had bright red lipstick and big eyes. Ben’s heart was jumping all over the place.

  ‘Fab, he is out back. He’s been waiting for you.’

  The house was gloomy and almost cold inside. It was a big place, a weatherboard. ‘A rambling old joint,’ his dad had said. It was on Seaby Street, which Mum said was the nicest street in town, running from Main Street all the way to the highway. His mum said the mayor, the surgeon and both the lawyers lived in Seaby Street. All the big, old houses were there. Dad reckoned that Fab’s dad could only buy a place on Seaby Street because of the insurance job. Ben didn’t ask again what that meant. He decided it probably wasn’t important.