by Duff, Alan
‘You want your two ex-mates hurt?’ asked Gerardo.
Shane’s first, spontaneous reaction was to say no, yet he heard himself asking, ‘How, if they’re in another jail?’ Feeling excited, not to say tempted.
‘We know people everywhere, inside and outside. If you’re accepted, we can get it done.’
But then again the damage was already done and nothing could change it. So Shane said, ‘Nah. Let it pass. They’ll get theirs, one day.’
Gerardo just shrugged and left a relieved Shane to enjoy his habit of re-reading letters from his faithful mother. He’d told her that he’d accepted he messed up and was getting on with the consequences, even though it wasn’t true. Just didn’t want to worry her with the truth that he was doing his time hard.
After her one visit — without his father, she said he wasn’t well — he told her the trip from Sydney was way too much trouble and she needn’t bother again. Got that one from Johno: cut the emotional ties to make it easier on everyone.
As he read his mother’s untidy writing, the memories came back. Of Johno as a kid, often as not eating at their house but kind of keeping his distance, like he could love only his dad and grandpa, and Shane of course.
Thought of his brother, Willie, ten years older — the age difference, and maybe Shane being adopted, meant they never connected him. Of him and Johno opting out of their rough, criminal pubs in favour of Shane’s mum’s great home cooking and her good, cheerful company, and Johno teasing Shane for the fuss his mother made of him, of her stern moments worrying about the pair following in the footsteps of their unlawful fathers.
A friend so close he could be one of Johno’s ribs. No, one lousy rib didn’t do justice to the friendship — they definitely were the Siamese Twins.
The invitation to the Italian camp didn’t come without first showing his credentials.
See that guy there, Shane? He needs some serious straightening. Okay? Take him out. Not asking you to kill the bloke, just hurt him so he knows he’s been punished. So that’s what Shane did.
Afterwards, in his cell, shaking as the lock-down bell went off, meaning the badly injured inmate had been found in the storage room. Shane had taken him down with the old favourite: a heavy battery in a sock. The screws were running along, pushing guys into their cells and slamming the doors locked — if any inmates hadn’t already done it themselves. A funny feeling pulling your own cell door shut, like you’re accepting being here, or closing yourself in hell.
What would Johno think of him hooking up with the Italians? And where was he now? What was he doing? Did he ever think of his closest friend? Every day looking at the letters board, hoping Johno might have written. Die of shock if he did, or joy.
Chapter nine
When Danny asked once too often after his mother and sister, Johno knew something was building. And was it any wonder? Their seemingly perfect relationship had been too good to be true; there had to be other inner processes at work, especially in a kid so intelligent and sensitive. Of course he’d think about Evelyn and Leah. Not that Johno had anything to tell the boy. His mother wrote only to Danny, and Johno didn’t like to ask about the letters. Though Danny did show his replies, a mix of prose and drawings which Johno thought astonishing.
He’d recently signed papers sent by Evelyn’s lawyer, granting him custody of Danny. He’d put aside seven hundred dollars a month and intended sending four years of accumulated savings to Evelyn, yet something held him back. And when he felt resentment, even jealousy, at Danny starting to ask about his mother and sister, he realised his supposed act of responsibility assumed custody of Danny till adulthood, and that he probably wasn’t going to give Evelyn the money till he was absolutely certain he wouldn’t lose his son. A form of blackmail, if he was honest. Without a knowing victim.
‘They’ve been gone a while now, Dan.’ He tried to shut the subject down. ‘And Perth is right across the other side of Australia.’
Danny had his easel set up in the living room, which was in the usual mess of paints, brushes and pencils and strewn with big pages of his artwork. ‘Why do you never talk about them?’
Taken off-guard, Johno said, ‘Guess I thought you and I were getting on with our lives. You want to go see them, maybe the next holiday break?’
‘I don’t know. I think about them,’ Danny said, not looking directly at his father. ‘I have dreams about them.’
Pointing, Johno said, ‘So I’ve noticed.’ An older woman with dark hair and a girl with similar features had featured in Danny’s work over the past several months. Got Johno to wondering how long ago Evelyn had dyed her hair that streaky blonde, yet why their son depicted it only as black.
‘You’re famous again.’ Johno tried to change the subject to his plans for the next new business to be called Danny’s Drawings. But the boy only shrugged.
The name had proved a master stroke, but only because Danny’s artistic output more than lived up to its promise, with his framed works adorning the walls. On its own the name aroused curiosity, but even if the typical customers were no art connoisseurs, not even close, they still appreciated Danny’s pencil drawings, his watercolours and intriguing abstracts in oil. Even Johno, who wouldn’t know good art if he fell over it, found meaning in his son’s work. But then an adoring father would.
Within six months the new place was turning a profit, which kept a steady upward track, and Danny’s art was always the talk of the place. He’d employed Tahu Kanohi initially as a kitchen hand and grown very fond of him — ‘Start at the bottom and work your way up to maybe manager.’
The relationship between father and son had become very close; Danny often as not ended up sleeping in his father’s bed. Their bathing together had become a morning ritual, and Danny liked nothing better than having his back soaped, the sneaked little tickles, their shared laughter. Johno told outrageous stories from his imagination, and Danny matched them with his own far more inventive tales. If this is fatherhood, Johno thought, never let it be taken from me.
If Danny appeared at any hour of the night, Johno was expected to be fully alert and hear out his son’s dream, or some thought troubling him, something he wanted to draw as soon as he woke up. The kid would lie there, his hand tracing in the air the shapes he was seeing. He remembered each bizarre, spectacular, beautiful dream, often in such starkly vivid detail that he could recreate it on paper, a remembered landscape teeming with figures and packed with incident and event. Often featured was the boy’s fear and loathing of violence. He would draw figures suffering at the hands of brutes, with winged creatures swooping down on them in the name of justice, tearing the villain to pieces.
‘Panoramascopes’ Johno dubbed Danny’s dream recreations. Or ‘vistalands’. Ordinary English couldn’t convey how a kid so young could dream so big and remember with such clarity.
‘Dad, there’s this big concrete wall. It’s a dam. I’m standing looking up at it and then I hear a strange sound. I only know I have to get out of there. I turn and run but I trip over. I can hear cracking behind me but I don’t dare look. Then there’s water at my feet. Like a bath filling except it’s the whole world …
‘Next I’m looking at the dam from a hill. It’s being shaken like in an earthquake on television. There’s a huge crack like thunder and there’s water everywhere. People are swept along and broken trees and roofs off houses float in the debris. Others my age are screaming and drowning.’ It was as if he were recalling an actual event. To Danny it was real.
‘I might,’ Danny said to the offer of a holiday with his mother and sister.
‘Would you miss me?’
‘Yes.’ Danny’s eyes blinked rapidly; the expected confusion of a child caught in the middle, even if more than three years had passed. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’ He stormed off to his room.
After several minutes of the bedroom door being opened and slammed shut, Johno had had enough. On his way down the passage, though, he caught a glimpse of his son p
eering out. Just in time, he managed to paste a smile on his face and by the time he got to the door being shut on him, and then pounded, he had better control of himself.
‘Hey, Dan? That noise is getting to me.’ Waited. Sure enough, the door was wrenched open and slammed again.
He said, ‘Dan? If I started tearing up your drawings, knowing it would really hurt you, how would you like it?’
The door opened. Danny stood there in his full eight-year-old defiance. ‘Go ahead. I’ll just draw some more.’ A pause. To convey — couldn’t be anything else — pure hatred. ‘And you can take down all my drawings at your stupid restaurant!’ Bang! The door slammed.
Johno was shaken enough that he had to draw in several deep breaths. More when the gesture got repeated — once, twice, a third time. He wanted to grab hold of the door handle or kick the door in, if it wouldn’t make him feel so much the failed parent.
‘When I was younger, Danny, you wouldn’t have recognised your dad. If someone threatened me or just made me feel uncomfortable, you know what I’d do …?’
Waited. The door opening just a crack.
‘What?’
‘I’d hit that person …’
‘Oh yeah? You going to hit me?’
‘I don’t want to …’
‘Yes, you do. I can tell.’
‘No, I don’t. You know why …?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it would say I don’t love you. And if I didn’t, then who would?’
‘Mavis.’
‘That’s right. And she doesn’t hit you, doesn’t even raise her voice, does she?’ No response. ‘And we all like living in a house where we love each other. Right?’
He’d never talked like this in his whole life. Wouldn’t like an audience, that’s for sure. ‘And much as you love Mavis, she’s not family and I am.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘I think you do. Do you know what else …? My dad never hit me. Nor did Gramps.’
‘Not ever?’
‘No,’ Johno said. ‘Not ever.’
‘Not even once when you were really naughty?’
‘Not even then. So I’d have to be the same with my own son, wouldn’t I?’
The door was pulled wide open, rather slowly, and yanked violently shut again. The boy laughed. Johno just stood there in silence.
After several minutes the door opened. ‘If you bring my mother and sister then I’ll stop.’
Johno sighed. ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have a permanently opening and slamming door, won’t we? Because I can’t bring them here, I can only send you to them.’ Held back on saying such a visit wasn’t his preference.
And even with the door slammed again in his face, Johno continued. ‘But you can go stay with them, if that’s what you want.’ Silence.
‘Can I talk to them on the phone?’ Muffled but clear enough.
‘Sure you can.’
‘Can I go and live with them?’
‘If you want to,’ Johno said. ‘It would break my heart. But if that’s what you want …’ Aware his head had lifted and his jaw was set and hurt churned in his gut. A tiny trembling had started in his legs, like fear stirring.
‘I could?’
‘Not what I want. But yes.’
‘Honestly and truly?’
‘Yep.’
Silence.
‘You mean it?’
‘Losing you would be like losing the business, my father, Gramps, all at once,’ said Johno. ‘Except worse.’
‘How worse?’ Was the door opening slightly?
‘So worse I can’t say.’
Now Danny was standing where the door had been, and he was saying, ‘I might not want to go and live with them.’
‘Well, that would make me happy. But you can go and see them.’
‘They might not take me for Sunday pancake breakfast,’ said Danny. ‘And if they wanted to see me, why haven’t they written to ask?’
‘What if they did?’
‘But I can’t have a bath with girls.’
‘They wouldn’t mind.’
‘I would. They’d see my diddle.’
‘So what? I see it. You see mine. No big deal.’
‘It is when girls see it. Will you call them?’
‘I’ll call the person who knows how to get in touch. That what you want?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You just let me know.’ Johno ruffled his son’s hair. ‘You must be hungry. Guess what I’ve got in the fridge?’
‘What?’
‘For me to know and you to find out.’
Chapter ten
Protect yourself at all times is right. This one came out of nowhere. Shane had a split second to take in the guy’s intent: it’s all in the face. He’d seen a doco some while back on the rec room TV about the brain, and how face recognition is the way humans identify a friend or a foe, so he was able to block the first blow and come back with a counter, a right cross learned from his friend Johno.
Shane knew he was in for a blue by the guy’s rage. Knew what caused the rage — the P Shane had sold him.
No matter how hard he hit Buzz, the bloke kept coming on. He hit him and hit him, got plenty in return. Though Buzz was podgy from working too long in the kitchen, scoffing out on slices of white bread and no restraints on the butter, too many puddings, the drug made him quite another creature.
He was grunting, yelling and soon he was roaring, no different to a dog with rabies or something. P did this to some people, turned them into super monsters, super everything. Shane never understood what they got out of it, other than the initial rush and, so he heard, a sense that they could do anything.
The guy’s hands got through Shane’s punches and he felt an almost unbelievable pain to his larynx, the smell of Buzz’s breath in his face, some mouth disease, his mad screaming and, way in the back of Shane’s mind, the thought that he might have brought this on himself.
He needed help, his Italian mates to come to his assistance or guards to pepper-spray Buzz, belt him over the head with their hardwood clubs, take him out at the ankles — just snap the bones with their weapons — or put one across his dial to bring him down in his drugged-out tracks. Jesus, something had better happen. Shane’s best blows were doing nothing and he was running out of puff. Fear was extracting its share of energy, too. Where were his boys?
No sound more relieving than that of screws’ boots running, yelling, ‘Stop! Stop your fighting! We’re giving you fair warning.’ To cover themselves.
What Shane did was pure instinct. He’d never before had the need or circumstance to drive the fingers of both hands down behind a man’s collar bones and push and dig for all he was worth.
He pushed until it felt like his fingers had gone right through the skin. Then he yanked with all his strength and felt Buzz’s hands release their death grip on his throat.
The guards got there at the same time. They didn’t discriminate between assailant and victim, clubbed both men to the floor, and as Buzz put up resistance — only because he was P-ed up — and Shane didn’t, they kept hitting Buzz with clubs, fists and boots till he fell quiet, like a wild animal subdued, panting, moaning.
Shane had gone into a passive curl in case the prison guards’ blood lust stayed up. He got a kicking, too, but way less serious.
There’s no justice in this world, at least not for maximum security inmates before a judge. He sentenced ‘Buzz’ Michael Ferryman to three years, added to his twelve-year sentence, and to Shane Arthur McNeil he said, ‘You appear to have been attacked first and yet on the other hand Mr Ferryman alleges you supplied him with the amphetamine drug that induced his manic rage, and I have no reason to doubt his word on this, given your guilty plea. You are as bad as each other.’ And he gave Shane the same sentence, three years on top of his fourteen. Might as well have called it a life sentence — the end of his life.
A decent lawyer would have ripped the judge apart for taking one inmate’s word
against another’s, and Shane should have taken up his right to be legally represented, but he just didn’t feel he could be bothered with going back and forth to court, locked in the prison van like an insane citizen removed from society and not seen for a long, long time.
For some time afterwards Shane felt genuinely aggrieved. He wasn’t getting out till 2007 — if he didn’t lose any remission time; would have done thirteen years by then, when he’d found his limit already.
So what was the point of living?
He’d learnt to speak Italian, using up a sweating, often despairing lot of his spare time. So what? Get out and get a job as a fucking translator? Like where? He only did it to get in with the Eyetie boys, and it worked.
Fact was, he’d reached his mid-thirties before the lights went on and he was staring at this … this punk, this immature know-all who actually knew nothing except his own inner despair and his impulsive stupidity. So much of his life spent inside, and now his first foray into selling drugs and it was a disaster. Something felt wrong inside, eroding away, like a part of him was infected, or seriously ill, maybe even dying.
It did occur to him that it might be the company he kept, since the Italians ran most of the money-making activities in the prison. But then how could they be responsible? Not as if they weren’t selling the same drugs, though neither of the main players, Gerardo and Tito, dirtied their hands with the stuff. And as no one attacked the other ‘family’ members it must be something about Shane McNeil, his poor judgement of who to sell to, his flaw of firing before he aimed. The Eyeties were the only friends he had, so it wasn’t as if he could drop them out.
One thought he did seize on in his despair: he would never return to prison. Never. He’d do an apprenticeship course, say a motor mechanic — no, a carpenter. Different jobs over the years in prison, like making leather goods, had proved he was good with his hands. Or maybe a plumber — he’d heard they charged a very high hourly rate. But then again, doing that dirty work, unblocking someone’s toilet, cleaning out drains full of unspeakable objects? And for only a wage. Nope, not him. Could hear his father’s words, the contempt for making an honest living, same as Johno’s father and grandfather. As if nothing was more shameful than being paid.