This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  Peros hesitates. Then he says, ‘I can’t win.’

  Reid leans over, studying my board. He scratches his head. He tugs on his beard. ‘Mr Peros, how many times did you play the game?’

  ‘I’m still playing. I haven’t won yet,’ Peros says.

  ‘Where are the ladders?’

  Peros looks at me for help.

  ‘My game is called “Snakes”,’ I say.

  ‘So it’s not possible to win?’

  ‘It’s not impossible—you can win if you avoid all the snakes.’

  ‘And what are the chances of that?’

  I think. ‘Probably around one in a hundred.’

  ‘So Mr Peros has to play your game around a hundred times to reach the objective, which is—?’

  ‘To get a job.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘Any job,’ I repeat.

  ‘Why those odds?’

  ‘Because I’ve applied for over a hundred positions in a year. I think that’s a realistic probability.’

  His eyes narrow. ‘Perhaps you could share a self-evaluation with the class?’

  I hate it when he makes us to do this. It’s not possible that nobody has noticed how red my face is, or how shaky my hands are, or how I have to keep swallowing in case the burn in my throat turns into a pile of vomit on the carpet. This is exactly why it’s always better to keep my mouth shut.

  Peros says, ‘Breathe, before you pass out.’

  I’m embarrassed, but I’m pissed off too. I completed the task. I nominated a goal, counteracted the element of luck and chance, included realistic setbacks, and I focused on an aspect of Australian contemporary society. I achieved the objectives he set—just not my own.

  I take a deep breath. ‘I killed it. Sir.’

  Mr Reid walks slowly to the front of the class. I’ve challenged him. He’ll have to put me in my place, otherwise there’ll be anarchy.

  But Mr Reid says, ‘Okay.’

  Okay? That’s it? Is that a fail?

  ‘Start packing up. If you can do that quietly you can all leave a few minutes early.’

  Peros is just about in stitches.

  Who needs good looks, talent or ambition when you can open a can of instant popularity by uttering four dumb words?

  ‘I killed it. Sir.’

  Ruby Ames says she’s going to have T-shirts made. Will Farnsworth coaches me through a complicated bro handshake. Lee Fortescu tells me I’m a legend. Gurmeet Chambal offers to partner up for the next exercise, and Zadie Zhang says she wishes she was quick enough to take a photo of the expression on Kobe Slater’s face.

  It turns out Benjamin Peros lives with his older sister Amelia just a couple of streets away from our flat. We end up walking halfway home together along the main road. He says he needs to catch the 3.30 to his afternoon shift at four.

  ‘How come we never run into each other on the way home?’ he says.

  ‘I usually walk behind the tracks.’

  ‘That must take three times longer.’

  It’s true. Normally I wouldn’t be home until after four, but coming this way means I’ll be there half an hour sooner.

  ‘I try to put off getting there for as long as I can,’ I say.

  It’s possible Peros was never the kind of kid who had to take the long way home.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘Hey, you know how you said you’ve applied for over a hundred jobs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ve stopped looking?’

  ‘I guess. Why?’

  ‘Technically you gave up just before your luck turned. If you apply your own logic,’ he says.

  ‘I said luck has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Probability, then. Because I could put in a word for you at the plant. I’m not sure if they need any juniors at the moment, but I could ask.’

  ‘Hey, thanks.’

  ‘That’s how it works—who you know and all that.’ He takes his bus pass out of his bag. ‘Reid went easy on you. I was waiting for him to blow his stack.’

  ‘Me too.’

  He stops at the bus shelter and slings his bag on the bench.

  ‘You made some fans, that’s for sure.’

  ‘They hardly ever said a word to me before today.’

  He frowns. ‘Did you ever talk to them?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Man is no island,’ he says mysteriously. ‘Except me. I’m an island.’

  I sit next to him on the bench. ‘What happened with the ninja star?’

  ‘Confiscated.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Don’t know. Never got to try it.’

  There’s a break in traffic, and Peros leaves a long enough silence that I blurt the first thing that comes into my head.

  ‘Do you ever think it doesn’t matter who you want to be—that other people decide for you? Like, there’s a whole lot of shit you have to carry and it’s part of you even if you don’t want it, and there’s nothing you can do to change that?’

  ‘Fuck, no. You have to offload the shit. Nobody can make you carry it,’ he says.

  ‘Okay. Thanks, I think.’

  He gives me a two-finger salute and waves down a bus.

  ‘This is me. See ya tomorrow.’

  ‘Later.’

  Once the bus pulls away, I turn down a side street and cut through the alleyways. Being on the main road makes me feel exposed, like any minute someone could chuck a can at the back of my head.

  When I get home, a removalist’s pod is sitting in the middle of the residents’ driveway. A guy and a girl, probably in their early twenties, are shifting furniture into the empty unit at the far end of the block.

  I hope they don’t turn their backs or half their stuff will go missing.

  I’m still replaying the scene in the classroom and it feels off, like it was staged. Mr Reid let me get away with something he wouldn’t ordinarily excuse. Peros knew it too. It reminds me of the night Nance cut her hand—as if things were going bad and suddenly turned, but it was nothing I did to turn it around.

  I try to shrug it off, but the feeling won’t go away. Nance says I care too much what people think of me, and half the time they’re probably not—thinking of me, that is. But it’s my modus operandi—blurt something, regret it, overanalyse and obsess about it for the next hundred years.

  EIGHTEEN

  The young couple who moved into the empty unit are having a housewarming party. Their guests have spilled out onto the residents’ driveway, and they’re cooking a whole pig on a spit under the visitors’ carport.

  Dec has been pacing and whining for hours. He says if he hears fifty smashed idiots singing ‘Copperhead Road’ one more time, he’s going to get punchy. I can tell he’s torn between calling the cops (too risky), breaking it up himself (riskier) or going out until it’s all over (too paranoid).

  Nance is sitting on the couch. Otis is fast asleep with his head in her lap.

  ‘They’re young,’ she says. ‘It’s not even midnight. Let them have fun.’

  Dec’s pacing and whining has been winding me up, too, but Nance always sounds so reasonable. She calms me down.

  She has the opposite effect on Dec.

  ‘They only put the pig on three hours ago. Use your brain, Nance.’ He taps his head.

  ‘What?’ she says. ‘Does it take longer than that?’

  ‘Does it take longer than that?’ he mimics. ‘They’ll be lucky if it’s cooked by fucken breakfast.’ He stands.

  ‘Dec, no,’ Nance says. ‘Don’t start anything.’ She tries to get up, then remembers O. ‘Don’t wake him up. Please.’

  I know what she means. O could sleep through a hurricane, but when Dec raises his voice it cuts through his coma like an adrenaline shot.

  The noise can’t go on forever. O and Jake are sleeping through it—I decide to just go to bed.

  ‘Me wake him?’ Dec thumbs his chest. ‘Not them with their raw pig and crap music?’
/>
  I wonder if he knows his pectorals twitch when he’s having a tantrum.

  I can tell Nance wants me to do something. I hate confrontation, but the alternative is to let Dec loose and that’s a no-win situation for everybody.

  ‘All right, I’ll go. I’ll ask them to turn it down a bit.’

  Dec laughs. ‘Right.’

  ‘He can handle it,’ Nance says. ‘Hopefully without punching anyone.’

  I pull on a T-shirt and slip my feet into a pair of Dec’s slides. On second thought, I pull on a pair of jeans so I don’t look as scrawny as I do in boxers.

  Dec’s standing by the door, ready to let me through. ‘Don’t be soft.’

  ‘Yeah. I got this.’

  I squeeze through the gap.

  There’s no wind and a layer of smoke hangs like a dirty blanket. The pig smells good. I can hear the smooth tones of Elvis coming from Clancy’s, but Eminem soon drowns him out. It’s impossible to spot the hosts in this crowd after seeing them only once, so I push past a group of people and head for the side gate leading to their yard.

  ‘Hey.’

  Merrick is sitting at the top of the fire escape on the side of the building, smoking. His Yeezys are fading.

  I climb the stairs and sit next to him. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘So you haven’t quit yet?’

  He clicks his jaw and sends a smoke ring my way. ‘I’m trying to make my body an inhospitable environment. I strongly suspect I have a parasite in my brain. What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?’

  Years of riffing off Merrick’s prompts means I’m perfectly aware he’s quoting Inception. But I don’t feel like playing.

  ‘Definitely the worm.’

  ‘The worm?’

  ‘Yeah. The Guinea worm. Up to eighty centimetres long, and her only job is to burrow through your subcutaneous flesh until she causes a blister on your foot. It’s so painful you have to cool your foot in water, but that’s what she wants because she’s carrying three million embryos and—’

  ‘Wrong,’ he cuts in. ‘It’s an idea. Resilient. Highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re off your game.’

  ‘I’m trying to be more original.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ He flicks his cigarette onto his butt graveyard on the roof outside his bedroom window.

  The gutter is full of them. I worry about the fire hazard.

  ‘I’m working on my own material. So should you.’

  ‘I meant about the worm.’

  ‘It’s real. It can take weeks to extract this thing, and we’re talking a millimetre at a time, otherwise it can break off and start decomposing inside your body, causing a massive infection.’

  ‘Shit,’ he says.

  ‘I know. And you think Pokémon designers are creative—they’ve got nothing on the animal kingdom.’

  He grabs my shoulder and points. ‘Your old man’s looking for someone.’

  Dec’s out on the verandah.

  ‘I’m supposed to be asking the new neighbours to turn the music down.’

  ‘Me too,’ he says.

  We watch as Dec paces a few times and goes back inside.

  Merrick lights another cigarette. ‘I’m not staying at Mum’s anymore.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s pretty crowded with the new baby. At least Senior doesn’t freak out if I roll in at 2 am.’

  Things must be bad if he’s willing to stay with his old man full-time. But where does he go? Youth isn’t open that late. We were always home soon after twelve because there was nowhere else to go.

  ‘What baby? You mean, like, a brother? I didn’t know there was a new baby.’

  ‘Sister. I told you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sure I did,’ he says. ‘I tell you everything.’ He looks cagey, and more than a bit upset.

  I take his cigarette away and butt it out on the step.

  ‘Hey! That’s worth a buck.’

  ‘Seriously, your lungs must be like popcorn by now. Anyway, you’re loaded, aren’t you? You can afford it.’ I point to his feet.

  He sighs.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says eventually. ‘I’ve decided it’s really, really hard to be good. Like, being a decent person is hard work. Do you know what I’m saying?’

  I know exactly what he means.

  ‘Do you mean going to work and stuff? Being responsible? Cos I don’t think that’s what you should be doing just yet. I think our job is to be kids for as long as we can before the law says we’re not anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’ He gets up.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Look, if I say anything you’ll just tell me I sold out.’

  ‘Did you?’

  He holds out his hands. His palms are covered in tiny scratches and cuts. I notice a ridge of calluses and a couple of raw blisters inside the thumb on his right hand.

  ‘Extreme wanking injury? I thought you were a leftie.’

  He snorts. ‘I wish.’

  ‘What’s it from?’

  ‘Cable stripper. For cleaning copper wire.’

  ‘Your new job?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  I’m beginning to get the picture. ‘Merrick? Where does the copper come from?’

  He shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s not just copper, it’s brass, stainless steel, aluminium. You get it from pipe, offcuts, swarf—’

  ‘Specifically, where does it come from?’

  He won’t look at me. ‘Houses, factories, warehouses. Swarf bins. Air-conditioning units and water meters. Clean copper gets about five or six bucks a kilo, sometimes a bit less, and there’s about two hundred kilos of pipe and wiring in a house. There’s twenty kilos of brass in a meter.’

  This is like pulling teeth. ‘Whose houses, Merrick?’

  ‘The new ones they’re building at Hedge Grove Estate, mostly. It’s too hard to get to once the interior walls go up.’

  ‘You steal it,’ I say.

  Now the party is cranking ‘In Da Club’. Dec must be climbing out of his skin. He hates that track.

  ‘I don’t do the stealing. I just strip the wire for them.’

  ‘Who? Tuwy and Fallon?’

  He nods.

  ‘Dude, you sold out for a pair of Yeezys.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that.’ He looks miserable. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘You have to stop.’

  ‘Maybe I can’t.’

  ‘Yeah, you can. Drop them. Come back to school.’

  ‘Okay, so maybe I don’t want to.’

  He seems very small and young, sitting next to me. It’s like he hasn’t changed in six years, except instead of chewing my ear off about Pokémon, he’s casually talking about organised crime.

  ‘How did you even get mixed up with them?’

  ‘Brock said I owed him for jacking his phone.’ He shrugs. ‘Anyway, he’s not that bad. Fallon’s weird but he’s actually an okay guy.’

  ‘You’re dead to me.’ I smile to show I’m joking, but he jumps up and bounds down the steps three at a time. ‘I’m kidding!’

  ‘Maybe you can do this on your own, but I can’t.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Life!’ He starts ticking off his fingers. ‘I’ve got money in my pocket. I’ve got ambition. And maybe those two don’t really count as friends, but do you have any idea how good it feels to stop looking over my shoulder?’

  ‘You’re delusional. Your glow-in-the-dark shoes must be leaching toxins into your blood.’

  ‘They think I’m funny!’

  ‘You’re not that funny.’

  He throws his hands in the air and starts pacing along the path with an exaggerated swagger. ‘Welcome to Bairstal! What’s your dream? Some dreams come true, some don’t; but k
eep on dreamin’—this is Bairstal.’

  I give him a blank look. ‘Original?’

  ‘Pretty Woman,’ he says. ‘The whacked dude at the end.’

  ‘We were only up to L.’

  He shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ve moved on. I’m getting out of this shithole, with or without you. Why don’t you try hanging out with us sometime instead of judging.’

  ‘This is a tragic development.’ I get up and slide down the railing. ‘You can do ridiculous sums in your head. You have a superpower.’

  ‘Well, fuck living in a place where your superpower is considered a defect.’ He clears his throat and spits on the ground. ‘I hate this song. It’s like the soundtrack to a disaster movie.’

  I assume he’s going back to his place, but he disappears down the driveway. I look across at our flat—in darkness, as usual—to see the silhouette of a couple standing right near our verandah. I’d better go. Dec’ll be losing it and Nance will be worried.

  As I get closer, the couple break apart. They mutter an apology and stumble back to the party, leaving two empty plastic cups on our step. I pick them up, toss them into Nance’s hydrangea and knock lightly on the door.

  No answer.

  I knock again until my knuckles burn, but nobody comes.

  I go to let myself in at the window—but at the last second, I stop. Dec has locked me out. Every instinct is warning me that, even if the door was open, I’d be crazy to walk through it.

  I can picture Nance, lying awake, listening, Dec’s arm slung over her body like a steel band. I hate that she has to choose between standing up to him and leaving me outside. She has fewer options than I do.

  I walk along the driveway to the street. Cold sweat has left a damp ring around my neckline. So many streetlights are out along Whittlesea Road, it’s almost completely dark. Dogs bark and curtains twitch, and I can’t get the soundtrack to a disaster movie out of my head. Dec’s slides slap a beat on the pavement: help-less-ness, hope-less-ness, home-less-ness. Gut-less-ness.

  Less is never more. Only a person who has enough could say that and mean it.

  My mind is so busy calculating risks and working through possible solutions, it feels as if there was a logjam in my brain and now that one thought has worked its way loose, the rest are tumbling after it.