Into the River

by Mark Brandi

  The next day was a Saturday and Fab’s mum told him that Ben’s mum had rung and said he couldn’t come, that he had chores to do or some crap. Fab’s mum looked sad when she said it, but told Fab not to worry, there would be other times.

  Fab thought the chores excuse was bullshit and he wondered if Ben had decided not to be his friend anymore. Maybe he just wanted to hang out at Ronnie’s on weekends and look at porno mags with girls, horses and strange sex. Or maybe he just wanted to stay home and have a wank.

  At first, the thought of all that made him feel a bit like he might cry. He felt sad for himself, and sad for his mum too.

  But after a little while he felt angry. He was angry that Ben would choose to hang out with that weirdo instead of him.

  * * *

  Three weeks later, Ben had everyone’s attention.

  ‘Are you serious?’ Fab said, as the boys gathered around. ‘Air Max?’

  ‘Yeah, got em yesterday. Cool, aren’t they?’ Ben tilted his foot to show off the air pocket near the heel.

  ‘Yeah. Really cool.’ Fab felt a wave of hot jealousy rise in him, and he wanted to stamp on Ben’s feet right there. Jump on them.

  ‘What were they,’ he said, ‘like, two hundred bucks?’

  Johnno, being a first-class dickhead, pushed in front of Fab, knelt down and gave the air pocket a squeeze.

  ‘Yeah, two-twenty,’ Ben said.

  ‘Jesus. You must be working hard.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘I spose.’

  * * *

  Fab waited til lunchtime to ask him. He waited til there was no one else around, when they were pissing in the urinals, just the two of them.

  ‘How’d you pay for em?’

  ‘What?’

  Fab nodded downwards. ‘The shoes, how’d you pay for em?’

  Ben’s face went funny, kind of tight. ‘Y’know. The job.’

  Fab shook his head. ‘Bullshit. There’s no way. That would take you like...’ Fab squinted and tried to do the maths. He guessed instead. ‘Ten weeks? You can’t have been there that much.’

  ‘You jealous or something?’ Ben smirked and looked at Fab’s shoes – Adidas Rome.

  Adidas Romes had been cool in grade five. His mum had bought them without his father finding out, but said they had to last him til high school. He didn’t mind that though, he knew how hard it was for her. So it hurt that Ben would make fun of them.

  ‘Mum got these for me, Ben,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  Ben zipped up his trousers. ‘How is she anyway?’

  It was the first time Ben had asked anything about Fab’s parents like that. ‘Um. She’s good. Why?’

  ‘Nothin. Just asking.’ He pressed the button for the flusher. ‘It’d take twenty-two weeks anyway.’

  ‘What?’ The water from the flush sprayed on Fab’s legs. He finished and zipped up.

  ‘For the shoes. To pay for em. Twenty-two weeks.’

  A couple of grade one kids clattered in through the doorway and Fab and Ben headed back outside.

  Fab shielded his eyes as they stepped into the bright sun.

  ‘Then how’d you pay?’ he said.

  ‘Well...’ Ben stopped, looked at Fab, then let his gaze fall to the ground. ‘It’s kind of an advance. Ronnie reckons he’ll be needing me round more often.’ He paused, scraping the sole of his right shoe across the asphalt. ‘Most weekends.’ Ben’s eyes flashed up. ‘Fixing the inside of his place.’

  ‘Most weekends?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well... we won’t be hanging around so much then, y’know?’

  Ben brushed the dust off the sides of his shoes. ‘I spose not.’

  Fab felt something stir inside him, like a cold weight had been dropped in his belly. The cold moved through his body, making his limbs feel heavy and his guts sick. Time seemed to slow down and he suddenly noticed every detail – the way the sun glistened on those fancy new shoes, the smell of spilled chocolate milk going off on the asphalt, the dark emptiness in Ben’s eyes – all of it burned in his mind in that brief moment.

  It wasn’t until years later that he would realise that the cold, twisting feeling in his guts that day was something like grief.

  Eight

  Ben told Fab the news at the bus stop. It was the last week of primary school and they hadn’t spoken in ages. As he came close, Fab noticed how Ben had a line of dark hair above his lip. His legs looked a bit hairy too, just below the knees. On the shins, mostly.

  ‘Hey Fab.’ He had his eyes down.

  ‘Hey.’ Fab followed Ben’s gaze to the ground. He stared at those shoes, still almost pristine, like he’d been extra careful not to get them dirty.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ben said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That.’ Ben pointed at the fading yellow aura of a week-old bruise on Fab’s leg. Fab thought it had completely gone.

  ‘Fell off the fort. Last week.’

  ‘Really? Didn’t hear about that.’

  ‘Hurt like buggery. Um, Pokey tripped me.’

  ‘He’s still givin ya trouble, or...’

  ‘Nah. All good.’

  Ben dragged a line in the dirt with his shoe. ‘So, did ya hear?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not going to high school next year?’

  ‘You’re dropping out?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m still goin, just not at the high school.’

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Sacred Heart,’ he said it so softly that Fab hardly heard.

  ‘In Ararat?’ Fab dropped his bag and crossed his arms. ‘The Catholic school?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum reckons it will be better for me.’

  Better for me? Better for me? What the fuck did that mean?

  They had always been gonna go to Stawell High together. Their plan was that Ben would let Fab copy off him so he might pass. But that plan was when they were best friends. And now everything was fucked up.

  ‘Are you still gonna be doin stuff at Ronnie’s then?’ Fab said.

  Ben pulled his bag tight over his shoulder and his eyes searched up the road for the bus. ‘Most of it’s done, he reckons.’

  The bus turned the corner onto Barnes Street and began its slow, heavy grind up the hill.

  ‘Well,’ Fab said, ‘maybe you’ll have some more time on weekends and that.’

  Ben’s eyes went back to his feet and he kicked at some yellow weeds licking over the gutter from a split in the road.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

  * * *

  At home that night, lying in bed, Fab thought about what Ben had said. He reckoned there might be an upside. Maybe Ben might hang out a bit more from now on, especially seeing he wasn’t at Ronnie’s so much. And they could still be friends if they hung out on weekends. Plus, Ben could help him with some of his homework, especially if he was at a different school. No one would know if he’d copied it.

  It’d be perfect.

  * * *

  Three days later, on the last day of school, Fab sat with some of his grade six classmates on the oval and told stories and shit, even with the girls. It felt a bit weird, but good too. Like they were older. More adult, or something.

  When the bell rang for the last time, Fab went looking for Ben to see if maybe they could walk home together – he figured it would be a good time to talk about his plan. He ran around the yard, but he couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Then, at the front of the school, Fab spotted him. Must have left a bit early. He was already out the gate and near the bus stop with his bag. Maybe his mum was picking him up, seeing it was the last day and everything – maybe they were going to the bakery for a milkshake or something.

  Fab called out, but Ben didn’t hear him.

  There was a beep-beep of a car horn.

  Fab watched Ben jog across the nature strip as a big, shiny car swung into the kerb. But it wasn’t his mum’s car.

  And there was still only one blue Statesman in t
own.

  Nine

  Hey, you don’t look so good today. You look white, you know?’ Afriki patted Fab on the shoulder. ‘You sick?’

  Fab was crudely attempting to dislodge a thick galvanised washer jammed in the coin slot of one of the trolleys. Sweat soaked his t-shirt.

  ‘Self-inflicted,’ he said.

  Afriki slitted his eyes. ‘Self in—’

  ‘Drank too much.’ The pliers slipped out of his hand. ‘Fuck it!’

  ‘Let me do this.’ Afriki picked up the pliers and ushered Fab out of his way. He went to work on the washer, carefully straightening it, then giving it a sharp wiggle. He repeated the process and, within twenty seconds, he had it out.

  He held the washer up to the sunlight like it was silver. ‘Here. I am careful not to bend. So you still use.’

  Fab took the washer and slid the pliers into his pocket. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ he said. He turned and threw the washer across the car park, pinging it against the corrugated iron fence.

  Afriki frowned. ‘Why you waste? It was still good. You still can use.’

  Fab shoved the trolley into the bay. ‘I’ve got enough crap to get rid of.’

  ‘You still have idea then, yes?’

  ‘Selling the stuff? Yeah. The Centrelink thing was just a setback. I’ll get around to it.’

  ‘Will it take long time you think?’

  ‘Dunno. Gotta take the pictures. Write the listings.’

  Afriki slowly shook his head. ‘So, maybe months then?’

  Fab frowned. ‘Dunno. Maybe. What’s with all the questions anyway?’

  ‘Hey, you two!’ It was Dion, lighting up a smoke at the freight entrance. ‘Stop yakking and do some work.’

  Fab pointed at Afriki. ‘He’s a bad influence, boss. Won’t stop talking. Always on about women.’

  Afriki turned to Fab sharply. ‘What you say?’

  Dion put his hands on hips. ‘Do something useful, will ya? Take the truck and head out to the tip. Just got a call from Cyril Magee. He’s got three out there, which explains why we’ve been short.’

  ‘Mystery solved then,’ Fab said. ‘Have you told the local rag? This is pretty big news. They’ll bump their special investigation on garden-hose theft.’

  Dion shook his head. ‘You’re so fucking funny, aren’t ya, Morressi. Take Afriki with ya, so at least he knows what to do. Just in case you’re not around.’

  Fab raised his eyebrows. ‘Am I getting promoted? You know I always wanted my picture on that board. Like a celebrity.’

  Dion threw him the keys. ‘Don’t dick around and make sure you’re back by lunchtime. I know how you like your junk.’

  * * *

  The tip was on the east side of town, out past Jubilee Road. That was where they built a lot of the new housing commission homes in the 1980s, little brick veneer joints mostly, each with slight variations from the one next door.

  The idea was they would look like normal houses, as though no one would know the difference. To be fair, it was an improvement over the old 1960s jobs out at Stawell West, rows of identically bleak fibro boxes in shades of pastel – boiling in summer and freezing in winter.

  ‘You like these?’ Fab pointed to the houses as they passed.

  Afriki nodded. ‘They are nice, yes.’

  ‘You should ask then. To get moved, I mean. The one you’re in is no good.’

  Afriki turned to him. ‘Who I ask for this?’

  Fab shrugged. ‘The council maybe. I dunno. Centrelink?’

  The truck shuddered loudly as it left the bitumen and hit the deep corrugations of the old track that led to the tip, effectively ending audible conversation. The road was quickly shrouded in dense, scrubby eucalypts – no one lived out this way. In a town with plenty of cheap property, land beside the tip was not the real estate of choice.

  After a few kilometres, the road opened out to an expanse of cleared land. In the early eighties, the old goldmine had helped clear a few acres and dug out a landfill site. It was their way of giving some love back to the local council who had given them free rein to tunnel enormous holes beneath the town.

  As a teenager, Fab would sometimes ride out there at dusk with his air rifle slung across his shoulders. The tip, at least in those days, was riddled with feral cats, some as big as a kelpie. He never managed to kill one, but he’d hit a few at least. Nowadays, you couldn’t do that sort of thing – a tall cyclone fence surrounded the tip, just to make sure everyone paid the fee.

  Near the entrance gate was an old shipping container that Cyril had converted into a site office. Cyril Magee was a middle-aged, grossly overweight council worker with an obsession for pornography and masturbation. The two, as he would say after a few too many at the Criterion, went ‘hand in hand’.

  The gate was open – they were expected. Cyril slid open the small window of his office and stuck his head out, jowly cheeks flushed with exertion.

  ‘Cyril!’ Fab called out from the truck, ‘You busy in there, mate?’

  Cyril pointed to the east side of the tip. ‘Over there.’ He slid the window shut, but Fab still heard him mutter, ‘Smartarse cunt.’

  Fab wound up his window, but the low, dusty stink was already inside the cabin. He laughed as he put the truck back into gear.

  Afriki looked alarmed. ‘Why he call you this?’

  ‘Don’t worry. He meant it with affection.’

  On the east side of the tip was an assortment of car wrecks, rusted steel and general household waste. Cyril, who kept himself occupied inside his office, was less than efficient in making sure stuff got sorted.

  In front of a large pile of rubbish bags were the three trolleys, waiting to be returned to their kin.

  Afriki pointed at a dozen or so seagulls, circling and squawking above. ‘Why are they here, so far from the sea?’

  Fab shrugged. ‘Dunno. Because it’s such a nice spot? Or maybe they got confused by Bob’s rowboat?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Fab drove the truck up beside the trolleys and pulled on the handbrake, leaving the engine running. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how to load them up.’

  ‘Wait.’ Afriki turned to him. ‘I need to talk about something.’

  Fab unclipped his seatbelt. ‘Tell me on the way back. Much as I like it out here, I don’t want you to get in trouble with Dion. You’re his favourite, I reckon.’

  Afriki grabbed Fab by his wrist. ‘It is important.’

  Fab looked at him. For the first time since he’d known him, he saw a steely seriousness in Afriki’s eyes.

  ‘Please, listen,’ Afriki said.

  ‘Okay.’ He cut the engine and they sat in silence for a moment, with the low drone of blowflies as the engine cooled and ticked.

  Fab was curious. Maybe Afriki had seen something? Maybe the suit had come back.

  ‘Go on then. What is it?’

  Afriki stared straight out the windscreen, watching as the seagulls circled and dived. ‘I have important news.’

  ‘Did someone come? Was someone asking about me?’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘No one.’

  ‘What then?’

  He turned to Fab. ‘I am leaving.’

  ‘Leaving?’ Fab frowned. ‘What, the job? But you’ve only been doing it for—’

  ‘No, Fab. Not just job. I leave the town. I go to Melbourne. To the Broadmeadow.’

  ‘Broadmeadows?’

  He grimaced. ‘Yes, I am sorry, you say it right. The Broad-meadows.’

  ‘But... why? Where will you stay?’

  ‘I have job there. A cousin get for me. A factory, packing the boxes. He say it’s much better money than what I get here. And not out in sun.’

  Fab shook his head. ‘Are you sure? I mean, Melbourne can be pretty tough you know. And Broadmeadows is a rough place.’

  Afriki nodded. ‘But will be good ah... the opportunity. That’s what my cousin say, good opportunity. My cousin, he get m
e room too.’

  Fab stared out to the pile of rubbish bags. Only a few of the gulls remained in the air above, circling slowly, with most having abandoned their grim quarry.

  ‘But, this is not only thing I tell you.’ Afriki put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I have good news for you too, my friend.’

  ‘What?’

  Afriki was smiling, as broadly as Fab had ever seen.

  ‘I get this job for you too.’

  Ten

  Wasn’t expecting you this early.’ Lucy was wiping down spirit bottles on the top shelf. ‘You had a skinful last night.’

  Fab walked to the bar. ‘Paying for it. Just come in for my break. Lunch over then?’

  ‘Yep,’ she reached for a tall, dusty bottle of Galliano, unopened and seemingly untouched for decades. ‘After something to eat?’

  He shook his head. ‘Can’t stomach much today. Where’s Bob?’

  ‘Where do ya think?’

  ‘Back playing up?’

  She shrugged. ‘You know the routine. Hair of the dog then?’

  Fab slid onto his stool. ‘Maybe just one.’

  Lucy fetched a stubby from the fridge and placed it in front of him.

  Fab dropped a five-dollar note on the bar. ‘So,’ he said, ‘Afriki just gave me some news.’

  ‘The African kid?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Lucy crossed her arms and leaned back against the till. ‘He looks like a nice boy. Always smiling. You should bring him in sometime.’

  ‘Doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I think he’s a Muslim or something. Anyway, he’s got a job in Melbourne.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? Good for him.’

  Fab took a sip of his beer. ‘Yeah, in a factory.’ He put the stubby back on the bar and cleared his throat. ‘He’s got me a job too, if I want it.’

  He paused and watched for her reaction. She flinched a little, almost imperceptibly. But he saw it.

  ‘That right?’ She tugged at the side of her apron. ‘You thinking about it then?’

  ‘Well, you know. I’ve got a lot on my plate and I told him that. I’ve gotta sell the stuff and get the house ready. Plus, I couldn’t leave Mum right away. Not so suddenly. But maybe I should... you know... maybe I should think about it, at least.’