‘You stole my line.’
She grabs my hand. ‘I’m asking, Nate.’
I feel like crying again, so I change the subject. ‘Mim?
After what happened—are you, like, different?’
She frowns. ‘Different? Do you mean am I afraid?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I was,’ she says. ‘I am. I’m angry, too.’
‘At the guy?’
‘No?’ More firmly, ‘No. It wasn’t personal. I’m angry because I felt helpless.’
‘Maybe he just needed drugs.’
‘He probably needed not to be alone,’ she says. ‘The other stuff came after.’
I can hear the clack of cue balls and the jukebox playing. My heart’s beating so fast—I wonder if Mim can tell. ‘Do you remember what you said about not closing the door behind me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did you mean?’
‘I meant something like it’s fine to escape, but you shouldn’t leave the people you love behind. One day you might want to come back.’ She waves her hand. ‘Look at me.’
‘What if I don’t?’
‘Well, that’s up to you. Advice shouldn’t come one-size-fits-all.’ She flips the lid on the rubbish bin near the entrance and drops the wrapper inside. ‘So, how’s it going?’
‘How’s what going?’
‘The get-out plan.’
I think of Dec and how helpless I feel. It is personal.
‘I have to go.’ I take a few steps towards the road and stop. ‘Tell Macy…’
‘Tell her yourself.’
Macy is standing by the door, fists on hips, scanning the car park for trouble. She’s wearing green army pants, a Slasher hoodie, red Converse, and she looks like nobody’s mother. I want to slick down her cowlick.
Mim catches my eye and jerks her head in Macy’s direction. She says nothing, but sighs and gives me a gentle shove. She goes inside.
‘Tell me what? Did you burn your own bloody house down?’ Macy tries for a grumpy expression, fails, and ends up looking scared.
‘Mace, I just want to say—’ I don’t know what to say.
She blushes. ‘I know.’ She rummages in her pocket for a cigarette and lights it. She pulls a fifty-dollar note from a different pocket and holds it out. ‘Here.’
‘What’s this for?’
She twirls me around by the shoulder and tucks it in my back pocket. ‘I’ve always said the only time I ever want to lose a kid is when they don’t need me anymore. Then I’ll pack their bags and pay for their ticket myself.’
‘But—’
‘It’s for your fucking ticket. Now take it or I’ll be offended.’
I don’t like to hug or be hugged. Seems to me it’s something you have to practise, like learning to cross a busy road: you have to judge the gap or somebody will get hurt. Macy isn’t a hugger either, so we kind of lean in, brush cheeks and pat each other on the back.
‘Thank you,’ I say in her ear.
‘What’s your hurry?’ She pulls away. ‘Come inside—I’ve made your favourite.’
‘I can’t. I have to go.’
‘Right now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, we’ll be here if you need us.’ She doesn’t look convinced. ‘You just call me, okay?’
‘Okay.’
She sniffs hard, wipes her nose on the back of her hand, hitches her pants. ‘Be good.’
‘I will.’
‘Don’t be a dickhead.’
‘I’m trying.’
‘Go on, then.’
She storms inside and immediately breaks three of her own rules: cigarette in hand, yelling profanities and invading people’s space.
Nance asked me what we do at Youth once. I told her we played pool and hung out, but the truth is Youth gives us a place to do normal things: eat regular meals, do homework, access wi-fi, even take a hot shower. There are plenty of kids who don’t go home for dinner, then don’t go home for lights out, and one day they just don’t go home. Youth gives us a place, because if you have nowhere to go you have nothing to lose, and that’s dangerous.
TWENTY-NINE
I forgot to lock the front door.
It’s wide open. Splinters of wood and shards of glass are scattered across the verandah. The bottom half of Dec’s surfboard is jammed in the space where the glass panel used to be.
I have a burning sensation between my shoulderblades and a feeling of impending doom. Dizziness, fatigue, nausea—basically all the symptoms of a heart attack. I worry I’ll flop about like a dying fish and stop breathing right here on the verandah, but the panic fades when I realise it can’t be Dec. He wouldn’t leave the door open, not even if he came home to find Nance and the boys were gone.
I step inside and flick the nearest light switch. There’s no power. I turn on my phone torch.
The TV is gone. The Xbox is missing, but I can’t remember if Nance took it with her. The kitchen cupboards have been raided—it’s not like there was much to eat but everything has been pulled out and ripped open. A line of ants march from the kitchen to the lounge, carrying cornflakes. A crazy trail of clay balls leads from my old bedroom and the door hangs from its hinges. Only the pots are left. The flat smells of damp gyprock and rotten floorboards. The back door is open too.
The flat has been looted, but there’s no movement—whoever’s been here has left. It’s as if a natural disaster hit and everyone evacuated in a hurry, taking only what they could carry. Which is kind of true, but it wasn’t like this when I left.
I slam the front door. The frame is bowed and the deadlock won’t catch, so I push the TV cabinet across to use as a barricade. I can see lights from the adjacent windows through the splintered wood. I check the yard and close the back door.
Dec and Nance’s bedroom is trashed: clothes and cornflakes all over the floor, smashed pictures, wet, stinking carpet. The worst part is, when I go into our bedroom, Jake’s drawings have been ripped off the wall. Nance didn’t have time to pack Jake’s Lego or O’s toys and they’re mostly gone too. I find one jar of Lego two-blocks under the bed. When I twist off the lid they smell like pickled onions.
Any sign of weakness and the pack will turn on you—well, to be accurate, wolves don’t do this. Humans do. And ants. Ants are the only species besides humans that pillage and make war and enslave their own kind. Who steals toys? Who steals from children?
I pick up a soggy pack of cigarettes from the floor. Six left. The find would be a bonanza for any other person on any other day, but this day is the opposite of ordinary. I find a Bic in the kitchen, light a cigarette and let it burn.
I don’t inhale but I might as well—loneliness is ranked as high as smoking as a risk factor for mortality. Natural selection favours people who need other people. W.H. Auden said we must love one another, or die. One is science and the other is poetry and neither is fucking helpful in this situation.
Should I wait for Dec to come home? Will he finally hit me?
Do I stay?
Do I have a choice?
The cigarette goes out.
Our bedroom still stinks like O’s piss. The sheets are still on the bed, but my quilt is gone and there’s a fresh crack in the window. I climb the ladder and curl up with my phone on the pillow.
I press the home button and the screen lights up the dark room. Maybe an hour of battery left if I avoid using it.
If you don’t reach out, nobody will take your hand.
I text Mum.
Does the couch offer still stand? I need somewhere to crash.
When there’s no reply, I type Please.
An hour has passed. I must have dozed off, and that scares me. Anything could have happened.
My phone has two new text messages. The first is from Mum.
I’m still getting on my feet. Maybe next year ok?
And a later message, Let’s do lunch.
There is no world but this: walls, ceiling, floor, bed and things left behind.<
br />
Fuck you, I type. And the horse you rode off on. Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou.
Delete.
Twenty minutes later I type and send: No worries. Never mind.
Mr Reid was right: first you fight your allies, then your enemies. But he didn’t warn me about the intersections: allies can be enemies and enemies can be allies, and fighting apathy is like swinging at an enemy who isn’t even in the same room.
When I wake again it’s still quiet. Cold.
I check my phone for the time but it’s dead. I regret shooting the sensor light and telling Clancy next door to shut up so many times. I miss music and light.
‘Oi.’
Merrick is outside the window, his breath misting the glass.
‘Jesus, Merrick.’ My body tingles with adrenaline.
‘I’m Winston Wolf. I solve problems.’ Pulp Fiction again.
‘Good. We got one.’
‘So I heard. May I come in?’
‘Uh, yeah. Please do.’
I climb down from the bunk and twist the catch. As I lift, the crack makes a crunching sound. A triangle of glass pops out.
Merrick’s teeth glow in the dark; his Yeezys, however, do not.
‘Are you all right?’ He sticks his head through the opening and looks around. ‘This is all kinds of messed up.’
‘Yeah. Did you see? Do you know who did it?’
He climbs inside. ‘It could have been anyone. Everyone hates your old man.’
He’s not telling. I don’t blame him. He has to live here too.
‘What are you going to do?’ he says.
‘Wait here until he turns up, I guess.’
‘I’ll wait with you.’
‘I don’t know what will happen when he gets back. Nance has taken the boys. It could be bad.’ I try to close the window but it jams. ‘Everything is broken.’
He cocks his head. ‘What’s that from?’
‘I don’t know. Original, I think.’
Merrick goes into the lounge room and lets out a low whistle. ‘This is what our flat looks like all the time.’ He glances at the open door to the third bedroom. He doesn’t seem surprised.
‘I stole Dec’s cash stash and I gave it to Nance.’
I’ve broken a law—not the kind you’ll find written in any rule book, but just as binding.
Merrick jams his hands in his pockets and kicks at the clay balls on the carpet. ‘You’re dead.’
Two cats are wailing at each other outside. Someone yells and throws a bottle to scare them off. The sound of breaking glass makes us jump.
‘This is bad. This is the worst thing to ever happen to us.’
‘It’s not happening to you.’
Merrick backs up against a wall and slides down to a squat.
‘Not sure I can offer any protection,’ he says.
‘I’m not asking—’
‘But you’ll need a witness.’ He pulls his slingshot out of his pocket and picks up a clay ball. He loads it. He aims the slingshot at the wall opposite and fires. The ball punches a neat bullet-sized hole. ‘Did you see that?’
I laugh. ‘Straight through.’
‘I reckon you’ve got one shot.’
‘I’ll aim between the eyes.’
‘Drug kingpin murdered with clay ball. Huh. Ironic.’
‘Now he gets it,’ I say.
‘I always got it. I was just messing with you.’ He grins. ‘Anyway, it won’t go through. It’ll probably just bounce off his pecs.’
‘I know that. But it would be symbolic.’
‘I’m not convinced a symbolic death will save you,’ he says.
I look around. The flat is borderline uninhabitable. This is Page Three, poisonous comments stuff. We’ll be another example of a family of ungrateful, feral slackers who shat in their own nest, except that’s not our whole story.
‘Give me that thing.’ I hold out my hand.
‘I was joking,’ he says.
‘You’re the one who said you’d rather swing and miss than duck and run.’
He laughs shakily and stands. He hands me the slingshot.
I pick up a handful of balls. I aim, fire and the ball punctures another clean hole next to the one Merrick made. I shoot again. This one ricochets off the ceiling and lands on the carpet.
‘Incoming. I can see lights.’ Merrick peeks through the broken blinds. ‘I don’t recognise the car.’
‘One of Dec’s mates?’ My mouth has no spit. ‘Is it Jarrod?’
‘I don’t know. Wait. Oh, it’s nothing.’
I breathe out, pull back the sling and aim at a greasy head-height stain on the wall.
‘You can crash at mine,’ Merrick offers.
‘I’d rather face my old man than see yours on the couch with his hand down his pants any day.’
‘Fair call.’
The next two shots are wild.
Merrick picks up the cigarette packet and shakes it. ‘Can I have these?’
‘Knock yourself out.’
‘Why don’t you call your old man? Give him the heads-up?’
‘We have no power. My phone’s dead.’
‘Here.’ He offers his.
I shake my head. ‘I’ll wait.’
‘And then what? Turn up to a gunfight with a slingshot?’
I have an idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
‘You’d better go.’ I hand him the slingshot. ‘Take this.’
Merrick snatches it away and tucks it in his waistband. ‘You had me for a minute.’
He stares at me as if there’s something different, but he can’t put his finger on it. I’ve changed, but change on the inside is just a bunch of neurons firing in a different pattern. You can’t see that.
He looks back once before leaving the way he came. ‘You know where I am.’
Yeah. I do.
I close the window behind him and check the catch is tight. To make sure, I drag the dresser over—it’s not high enough, but it’ll make entry more difficult—and I go back to the lounge room. This is ground zero. Things can’t get any worse. But the more time goes by without Dec showing up, the less scared I feel. I’m not worried—I’m numb. You can’t worry about shit that’s already happened.
I dreamed a dream.
I had a goal.
I made a plan.
I put my plan into action—and this is my reality. There is no alternative. You can only take control of the reality you’re in, and maybe it’s okay to close the door behind you. Like, forever.
THIRTY
Waiting for Dec is like waiting for a snake to come out from beneath the woodpile.
I’ve moved the TV cabinet back to its original position, and I’m sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, a direct line of sight to the front door. That’s where he’ll come in. That’s the way he always comes in.
The gun isn’t as heavy as I remember it. I hauled it down from the roof space, unwrapped it, checked its parts. I cleaned it as best I could, but I’m worried about the quality and quantity of ammo: only two bullets left in the box, both of them corroded and pitted with rust.
They could jam. Or they’ll fire but they won’t fly true.
Both ends can hurt, loaded or not.
A police car siren blares nearby. I will it to come closer, to keep coming until the flash of red and blue is right outside the flat, but it eventually fades.
I listen for the sound of footsteps on broken glass. My hands are steady enough, but my index finger is twitchy on the trigger; every tiny noise sets off a fresh adrenaline shot. Fighting it leaves my muscles with a dead ache. I keep bawling, on and off; it sneaks up on me, like a wave I don’t see coming.
I shift my weight to stretch out a cramp in my calf.
The lights in the block are turned off except for one: Merrick’s bedroom, across the way. I’d like to think he’s keeping watch but sometimes he still sleeps w
ith the light on. It’s been about forty-five minutes since he went home. The rest is guesswork—maybe eight hours since Dec went to the pub and around five since Nance left with the boys. They could be halfway across the state by now.
My eyes droop. My chin bounces off my chest. I clear my throat to wake myself up and pinch the skin on my wrists. I taste blood where my bottom lip has cracked; I’m itchy with dried sweat. I wonder if there’s any water left in the pipes, enough to rinse my mouth at least, but I’m wary of leaving my post in case I don’t have time to reset.
I lift the gun to feel its weight, line up the sight, recalibrate. Let it fall. Too much time has passed; the certainty I felt when I loaded the gun is starting to waver. I could put it back in the roof space. Dec would never know.
Pussy.
Another wave approaches—my heart swells in my chest and it feels like if I don’t let it out it’ll split clear through the middle—and when it passes, I’m left with rage and a clear head.
Toughen up. I can’t put the gun back. I’ll be defenceless.
Salt and sweat make my eyes burn. I blink it away. My muscles burn from strain and my back is stuck in a hunch, as if the vertebrae have fused together.
Tough it out.
I flex my fingers, stand, stretch. I take a cushion from the couch, jam it behind my back and resume the position.
More long minutes pass. I doze again, only struggling to pull myself back when a dog barks, and the room is illuminated by a moving beam of light. I listen without breathing.
It’s a car, pulled up out on the street. The engine idles, and I strain to hear the thunk of a door. Then it comes: a footfall on broken glass. The beat of silence when someone freezes, then takes another step.
Crunch.
I tense and lean forward.
Crunch.
I stand and steady myself with my left heel wedged against the wall. Raise the gun. I’m a statue—no move, no fear. The only way to change the world is to destroy it.
Never aim if you don’t mean to shoot.
I aim.
Back straight, chin up, steady, aim, breathe out—
A tentative knock. A flat-handed shove, then a dull thud as a shoulder hits the door, once, twice. On the third, the front door flies open.
This is How We Change the Ending Page 23