This is How We Change the Ending

by Vikki Wakefield

  He’s dead before he hits the ground, but not before the stunning realisation hits him: Nathaniel McKee is one sick assassin.

  I roll to my feet and prepare to take on Fallon, but Merrick has him in a chokehold with a length of cable tightened around his throat. Fallon’s eyes glaze, then he twitches and stops kicking.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Merrick says.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m here now.’

  It’s obvious my fatal flaws are fear and apathy, but I write them down and underline them, just in case. It’s not bad. Probably a decent pass. But why not shoot for the moon?

  BONUS SCENE:

  I become a leading neuroscientist after a mysterious benefactor offers to pay my full tuition and, on my first day of theatre, I perform a marathon first-of-its-kind operation to rewire O’s brain. Dec is proud of me and we’re all equal favourite sons. Nance is happy.

  Full tuition? A mysterious benefactor? A roll of fake turf from The Man is one thing—the gift of a several-hundred-thousand-dollar tertiary education is something else, and that’s assuming I can get my shit together enough to ace Year Twelve. And I’m struggling to see how I can change my present or future without completely rewriting the past.

  I’d have to change me.

  BONUS BONUS SCENE:

  The biggest goat takes a step forward and paws the dirt.

  ‘Man up,’ Dec hisses, tugging my shorts.

  Brett comes around to the side of the ute. ‘Might be better to let him take a rabbit his first time.’

  ‘I’ve got this,’ I say. ‘Go get me a beer.’

  Dec hands me the gun. I take the weight of it, cup my left hand under the barrel, hook my right forefinger around the trigger. Neither hand shakes.

  ‘I can do it myself. Only way to learn, right?’

  Dec slaps me on the back. ‘That’s yours—the dumb one in the middle. Right between the eyes. Don’t nick him.’

  I line up the sight.

  ‘Shoot,’ Dec says.

  Shoot the goat.

  Shoot the goat.

  Shoot the goat.

  Bang.

  TWENTY-THREE

  We’re sitting on the kerb outside the flats. It’s after ten. Merrick is fidgeting like crazy: plucking weeds from the verge, scraping dirt from the tread of his Yeezys with a stick, checking his phone every ten seconds. He lights a cigarette, puts it out after three puffs, tucks it behind his ear and lights it again ten seconds later. When he’s finished he uses the butt to set fire to the pile of weeds.

  ‘You’d better go. They’ll be here any minute and Tuwy hates you,’ he says.

  One of his front teeth has a fresh chip. It makes him look tougher, except now he has a lisp.

  ‘Mutual.’

  ‘You know why he hates you, right?’ He blows the embers until they burst into flame.

  ‘The question is, why does he like you?’

  ‘FYI, he hates you because you always pull that face.’

  ‘What face?’

  ‘Like everything he says is stupid.’ He points at me. ‘That face! You’re doing it now!’ He stands and gestures for me to put out the fire. He doesn’t want to burn his tread. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t call it like. It’s a business relationship.’

  ‘It’s not business. It’s illegal.’

  ‘Says the guy with a forest of weed in his bedroom. You’re such a hypocrite.’

  ‘It’s not my weed.’

  ‘See, this is the problem. You’re always an accessory.’ His phone pings. ‘Shit. I’ve gotta walk. Catch you later.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ I jump to my feet and stamp out the flame. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Nothing better to do. I could help.’ Not the truth, but the only way I can think to get Merrick out of this is for me to get into it.

  ‘They won’t cut you in.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, you do. I just don’t know why you care now.’

  I fall into step beside him. ‘I always cared, you dick. You might be the freakin’ love of my life.’

  Merrick laughs. ‘You’re shitting your pants.’

  ‘It’s that obvious?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If I come with you, will you tell them you’re out? Will you quit?’

  He seems relieved to accept it as a new short-term goal. ‘Yeah, I might.’

  As we cross the main road we pass a stobie pole sporting one of Tash’s burning houses. It’s visible from the road and, when oncoming headlights hit the flame, it seems to flicker.

  Merrick doesn’t notice.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He throws me a warning look. ‘Don’t start anything.’

  ‘Who’s the hypocrite now?’ I slip into dialogue. ‘Where the hell are they?’

  Merrick catches on. ‘About ten degrees off your starboard bow. You take…’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit! Point!’

  ‘Jaws one is arguably better than Jaws two,’ Merrick says, sighing.

  ‘Are you joking? Man versus beast is one thing, but all those kids looking out for each other—heartwarming as all shit.’

  He stops. ‘Is that what you’re doing? Looking out for me?’

  The worried expression is back. He looks like he’s in pain. His face doesn’t know what to do with itself when it isn’t smiling.

  ‘We’re prey animals. Safety in numbers.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He jerks his head. ‘Come on. This way.’

  He squeezes through a gap in the temporary fencing and cuts between a couple of the warehouses on Smith. I follow. The ground is scattered with shredded boxes, rubbish and syringes. At the rear of the building, fifty metres away, Tuwy and Fallon are squatting next to a large plastic container.

  ‘What’s that?’ I whisper to Merrick.

  ‘Water meter. A big one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s about twenty kilos of brass—a hundred bucks for scrap.’

  ‘Seems like a lot of work for not much.’

  ‘There are four of them.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ Four hundred bucks split three ways—except Merrick said he only gets twenty per cent. ‘I don’t get why they don’t just split it fifty-fifty and leave you out of it.’

  He flips his tool belt to the front. ‘Skillz,’ he says, which I take to mean that his superior mathematical brain has transitioned seamlessly to plumbing.

  It’s cold out but my palms are sweating. Voluntary sacrifice isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I decided to pick up our friendship where it left off. I hang back until Merrick has made his presence known.

  ‘What’s up?’ he says. ‘Is it disconnected?’

  Tuwy and Fallon look up. They’re both wearing canvas overalls.

  ‘They look like Mario Bros,’ I whisper, and Merrick gives me a nudge.

  Fallon’s holding a long black torch shaped like a base-ball bat.

  I say, ‘Hey.’

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Tuwy says.

  Fallon doesn’t speak.

  ‘Couldn’t shake him,’ Merrick says. ‘He can go lookout.’

  Tuwy shrugs. ‘No cut and you’re still ugly.’

  This time I try really hard not to make the face.

  Tuwy kicks the plastic cover until it cracks through the middle. He yanks the two pieces apart and inspects the meter. ‘Can’t be connected. This shit’s about a hundred years old.’

  Merrick squats. He lays a small hacksaw on the ground and pulls a huge adjustable spinner from his tool belt. The thing must weigh more than the meter.

  ‘Where’s the trolley?’ he says.

  Tuwy points to the alley between the warehouses. ‘You passed it.’ He looks at me. ‘The security guard from the car yards buzzes every half-hour or so. If he comes, give us a signal and we’ll kill the torch. Go on.’

  Fallon still hasn’t said a word. It’s freaking me out.

  I do as Tuwy says and wait in th
e alley. I have a clear view of the street. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to tell who’s coming or what kind of signal I’m supposed to give, but I am reassured by the fact I have three possible exits: back the way we came, over the rear fence and into the adjacent paddock, or up a piece of scaffolding and onto the warehouse roof. And I have no idea how covertly carting eighty kilos of stolen brass in a Woolworths shopping trolley is going to work out, but I’ll leave that small detail to the professionals.

  I check my phone: it’s just after eleven. A couple of cars drive by without slowing. It’s so quiet and nothing happens for so long that my heart rate almost returns to normal, but then I hear Merrick swear, followed by a ringing clank and a sound like a thousand thongs slapping pavement.

  I leave my post and peer around the corner.

  Merrick, Tuwy and Fallon are drenched. Fallon has the torch trained on a geyser of water, about the thickness of an elephant’s trunk, shooting ten metres into the air like an illuminated fountain.

  In seconds, the dirt has turned to mud and a flash flood is finding its natural course past my feet, through the alley and out onto the street. I hoist myself onto a window ledge to avoid getting soaked. Boxes float past like boats.

  ‘What happened?’ I shout, but the noise drowns me out.

  The water gushes, carving a channel through the alley to pool and swirl in the middle of the road. Another car passes. Arcs of water spray up on both sides.

  Holy shit. That’s an insane amount of H2O, down the drain, wasted.

  Worry, worry, worry.

  ‘What do we do now? Can’t you turn it off?’

  Merrick shakes his head. He’s trying to retrieve his tools without getting swept away. He manages to find the hacksaw, but the spanner is a lost cause—the water is already up to his ankles.

  Fallon has picked his way carefully through the mud and out of range. He shakes himself like a wet dog. ‘Let’s go!’

  The torch flickers out.

  I feel a stab in my ankle and try to scramble higher on the window ledge. I lift my leg. In the dim light I can see a syringe, dangling, its needle caught in my sock.

  ‘Oh, Jesus fuck!’

  I snatch it out and flick it away just as Merrick and Fallon run past, skidding and laughing. I hop down and wade through the river. My jeans are soaked, and without Fallon’s torchlight I can hardly see where I’m going. The sound of the water is deafening, but luckily there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

  Merrick and Fallon are long gone.

  Wait. Where’s Tuwy?

  I wade upstream, back to the source. I can just make out the figure of Brock Tuwy on his hands and knees, thrashing around in the mud. Is he hurt? Stuck?

  ‘Hey!’

  Tuwy looks up.

  ‘We have to go! What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the spanner,’ he yells.

  ‘What for? Leave it!’

  Tuwy raises a muddy middle finger.

  The water pressure has eased off, but the area behind the warehouses is turning into a lake. Lights are starting to come on in the estate.

  I move closer, picking my way carefully through the water across uneven ground. ‘Come on! The others have gone.’

  ‘So go.’

  ‘We’ll get caught.’

  ‘I have to try to shut it off!’

  It’s all I can do to drag a hundred kilos of soaked Brock Tuwy away from the broken pipe, through the river, between the warehouses and out into the street. We leave a trail of footprints along the path until we reach the spot where we go our separate ways.

  Tuwy shakes his head. He says, ‘It’s such a fucken waste.’

  In another life, when I’m looking back on this and not cursing Merrick’s rapidly disappearing shadow, obsessing about millions of litres of wasted water and wondering if I’ll die young after contracting a blood-borne disease from a dirty syringe, I might be able to laugh about it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m gonna have nightmares about this for years.’

  Back at the flats, Merrick is hanging around under the visitors’ carport, swinging his wet Yeezys in one hand.

  I give him a filthy look and sit down on the kerb. ‘Skillz.’

  His ears turn red. ‘The pipe broke.’

  ‘No more whining about loyalty.’ I kick off my own squelchy shoes. ‘We’re even.’

  ‘Jack Berry offered me a part-time job at Tunza. My six weeks is up.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He shrugs. ‘Never a good time.’

  ‘You get busted for scamming and he offers you a job? How does that even work?’

  Typical. A hundred applications and I get nothing; Merrick lands the best part-time job on earth without trying.

  He chuckles. ‘It’s probably like when they hire hackers to catch hackers.’

  ‘So you’re one of the good guys now? Do we get a discount?’

  ‘Yeah, but we can’t scam the hoops anymore. I have to think of my reputation.’

  It was just unlucky Merrick got caught. We both did it: double-team on the hoops game and you can go to triple or quadruple overtime which can pay out hundreds of tickets, and ‘Whack-a-Shark’ is lucrative if you dump the hammer and use four fists. We could make five bucks stretch to over a thousand tickets—as a result, Merrick has six lava lamps and three plasma balls in his bedroom.

  ‘How’s your mum?’ I ask.

  ‘Dunno. I haven’t been over there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  His mouth twists. ‘She’s busy with the baby and stuff.’

  ‘Mine’s back,’ I say. ‘She has an apartment near the beach. I’m thinking I’ll go and live there for a while.’

  ‘Sweet.’ He pokes a thumb at our flat. ‘What about your old man?’

  As usual, the flat is in darkness. It doesn’t look like anyone’s home, but I know they’re in there.

  ‘He probably won’t notice. He has Nance and the boys.’

  Merrick nods. He inspects his bare feet and turns over his hands, cataloguing his cuts and scrapes. ‘What took you so long anyway? You were fifteen minutes behind us.’

  ‘Tuwy was trying to fix the pipe. I went back for him.’

  Merrick gives an incredulous snort. ‘Your sense of loyalty is fucked up. Whose side are you on?’ He holds up a finger. ‘Wait. Tuwy was doing what?’

  ‘Trying. To. Fix. The. Pipe.’

  Merrick knows about the wasting-water thing. He cracks up. When he catches his breath, he wipes his eyes and says, ‘Life is weird sometimes. People are weird.’

  Things haven’t exactly gone to plan. Instead of murder-ing Brock Tuwy with a hook, I seem to have upgraded him from a plain old dickhead to a dickhead with a conscience.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I get home from school to find the flat in a mess and Nance in a panic. Jake is tearing around outside with the hose, squirting people’s windows and tracking mud everywhere; Otis is running a temp of thirty-nine point five and lying starkers on the couch while Nance sponges him with a wet towel.

  ‘His breathing’s not right,’ she says.

  ‘Did you call the doctor?’

  There’s only one clinic within walking distance of our place. Guaranteed, if you weren’t sick with something when you walked in you would be by the time you walked out again. Nance hates taking the boys there. The doctors are on such high rotation she has to go through O’s history every time.

  She wets the towel in a bucket of water and squeezes it. ‘They’re fully booked. They said prepare to wait for hours or take him to Emergency if it’s urgent.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I think I’ve given him too much Panadol already.’

  ‘Is that why he’s like this?’ He’s pale and clammy and his eyes are glassy. His expression reminds me of the stray dog that sometimes hangs around the Rage Cage: humans aren’t to be trusted.

  ‘No, no. I don’t think that’s it.’

  ‘Should we call an ambulance?’ It would mean b
reaking Dec’s rules: no police, no ambulance. Not ever. No one outside of family or Dec’s friends is ever to come through the front door. ‘Has he got a rash?’

  I ask this every time O’s sick. I’ve seen those kids who look like they’re plain old sick, but they develop a rash that spreads faster than you can connect the dots, and the next thing you know they have to amputate their arms and legs. There’s a vaccine you can get for it. Nance has asked Dec for the money before, but he says Jake is tough, I’m too old to catch childhood diseases, and vaccines make kids like O worse.

  ‘No rash,’ she says.

  ‘We should call a locum.’

  ‘We can’t. Is Jake still outside?’

  ‘He’s okay.’

  She wipes O’s red cheeks and checks his temperature again.

  ‘I need someone to tell me what to do.’

  Helpless is about the worst thing you can be.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s like he’s looking straight through me,’ she says.

  Until now I’ve felt relatively calm. Otis is sick, like, every two weeks; something is always coming out of one end or the other. We adapt. We clean him up. We sleep through it most of the time and the next day, or the one after, he wakes up and he’s fine. But now Nance is staring at me and I know whatever I say, that’s what she’ll do, because she’s not thinking straight. And what if I’m wrong and O dies, or they have to cut off his arms?

  ‘We have to call Dec.’

  ‘I did already. God!’

  ‘I’ll find him.’

  Nance breathes out. She nods once. She knows it’s never the easy option to find Dec when he doesn’t want to be found.

  I jog to the pub. The sign out front says ‘The Queen’s Head’ but mostly everyone calls it The Job Centre. Not having a car means Dec will be within walking distance, unless he’s gone somewhere with Jarrod, but Jarrod lost his licence for DUI so it’s not likely.

  I check the front bar first. There are a couple of faces I recognise, but Dec’s not here.

  Jimmy Black is. I ask him, ‘Have you seen Dec?’ and he jabs his thumb in the direction of the pokies room.