Honeybee

by Craig Silvey;

  ‘You stay away from my son! Don’t you come anywhere near him again, you filthy fucking dog!’

  I put myself between them and held her back.

  ‘No! Stop it! Stop! He’s my friend!’

  ‘No he’s not, Sam!’

  The man who had been escorting Vic stepped in to restrain my mum.

  ‘That’s enough,’ he said.

  I felt Vic take my hand and turned to him. He looked so frail and his eyes were watery.

  ‘Go with her, mate. Go on.’

  He squeezed my fingers.

  Then he let me go.

  We took a taxi home. My mum sat with me in the back seat.

  ‘Who is that old man?’ she asked.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Were you living with him?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Did anything happen to you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Were you talking to him on the internet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t want you seeing him again. Ever.’

  I didn’t answer. My mum held my arm and snuggled into me.

  ‘I’ve got you back. You’re not leaving me again. I’m not letting you go. You’re mine. You’re my sweet boy.’

  I just looked out the window at the power lines going past, like I had the first night I met Vic. I knew I probably wouldn’t ever see him again, and I missed him already.

  My mum got the taxi to pull over before it turned into our street. She paid the driver in cash. I got out and heard dogs barking. My mum held my hand as we walked down the street to our house.

  ‘Is he still there?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘He feels bad about what happened. He knows he lost his temper and he’s going to try to be better. But he gets worked up sometimes because he cares about you so much. He’s still learning how to be a parent. He’s doing his best. And you’ve got to try to meet him in the middle. We can work it all out, okay? We’re a family now.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  From the street I saw the house. There was a new orange motorcycle under the carport. Inside, Steve was sitting on a beanbag playing Grand Theft Auto. He stood up and smiled when he saw me.

  ‘Here he is.’

  He walked over and put his hand on my shoulder. I tried not to flinch.

  ‘We were so worried about you, mate. Your mum’s been a complete wreck, do you know that? She’s been up and down the city, day and night, talking to kids and shop owners and homeless people, showing them photos, the whole works. You scared the shit out of her. You get that? Hey?’

  I frowned and looked down.

  Steve pulled me roughly towards him and patted my back.

  ‘But we got you back safe, that’s what matters. And you’re never gonna leave like that again, are you?’

  He said it in a nice way, but it sounded like a threat.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Show you something.’

  I followed him down the hall to my room. The cardboard and towels on the floor were gone and the carpet had been cleaned. There was a set of drawers to put my clothes in, and a small desk with a chair and a lamp. On the desk was a tablet to replace the one he broke.

  ‘It’s all yours,’ he said.

  ‘What do you say?’ my mum asked.

  I looked around the room. He said it was mine, but it felt like someone else lived here. I walked over and opened the drawers. None of my outfits or skirts or dresses were in there. They had thrown them out. The sewing machine was gone too. I went to the desk and picked up the tablet. They had scratched over the lens of the camera. There was a new lock on my bedroom window, and outside they had installed security bars.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Sorta my way of saying sorry,’ Steve said. ‘Let’s put it behind us, hey?’

  He held his hand out. I shook it firmly, like a man. I shook it like the person they wanted me to be. The person who belonged in this room. Because my mum was right. It had to stop. I was sick and I had to get better.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I deserved it.’

  The next day was hot and sunny. Late in the morning I went to the backyard to see if the cats were around, but everything had changed.

  Half the yard was shaded by a khaki tarpaulin and underneath was a bunch of exercise equipment. There was a heavy bag hanging from the tree in the corner and a wooden shelf with a row of dumbbells. There was a rack with a bar set up at chest height, and stacks of rusted plates underneath it. Next to the fence was a big truck tyre and a sledgehammer.

  Right in the middle of it all was a bench press. Steve was lying on it, adjusting his grip on the bar. He had white chalk on his palms. Dane was standing over the back of the bench. He wore a black tank top and rugby shorts.

  Steve arched his back and pushed the bar upwards and then lowered it towards his chest. He grunted and his arms shook. ‘Take it, take it, take it,’ Steve said.

  Dane leaned over and lifted the bar easily and set it back on the rail. I stared at how his muscles flexed as he did it.

  Steve sat up. He shook his head and sweat sprayed off. His face was red. He was wearing a Bintang beer singlet and blue board shorts and thongs.

  ‘Fuck sake,’ he said. ‘I’m not even lifting half of what I was before I did my back.’

  ‘One day at a time, fella,’ said Dane. ‘I told you, just stick to the program I wrote you. Focus on your core work and your mobility, then worry about your compound lifts and rebuilding your strength.’

  Steve was annoyed. He wiped his face with his singlet.

  ‘It’s too fucking hot. I need a drink.’

  He walked past me and went inside. I stood and watched Dane sliding plates onto the bar on the rack. He ducked under and held the bar across his shoulderblades. He took a step back, then he crouched down and straightened up. He did it ten times before he set the bar back in its notch. Then he took a drink bottle out of his bag and shook it up. It looked creamy. He drank half of it, then he did another set with the barbell. As he finished, he noticed me watching. He wiped the sweat off his face and arms with a small towel.

  ‘Hey mate.’

  I walked under the tarpaulin and looked around. I could barely pick up the sledgehammer.

  ‘We found all this shit on the verge for collection,’ Dane said. ‘Even had a rowing machine, but we couldn’t fit it in the tray of the ute.’

  ‘Can you teach me?’

  ‘Teach you what?’

  ‘How to do all this.’

  ‘What do you wanna work on?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Dane drank the rest of his bottle then looked me up and down.

  ‘You want to put some size on? Or do you want better flexibility and lean muscle strength? You want to work on your legs or your chest or your whole body?’

  I thought about it.

  ‘How can I be like you?’ I asked.

  Dane laughed.

  ‘Two words: practice and food. But if you actually want to learn and get stronger, we’ll get you started on light weights and high reps and get your form right. But you gotta eat too. That’s half the battle. We’ll get you on some of this.’

  Dane shook his empty bottle.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Whey protein and creatine. Tastes like shit.’

  ‘Will it make me look like you?’

  ‘Mate, you’re skinny as a rake. Anything you can put in your body is gonna help. Come on, I’ll run you through the basics.’

  Dane took the plates off the bar. He showed me how to do deadlifts and squats and rows and the chest press and weighted bridges. He was patient with me. He made me practise in front of an old wardrobe mirror leaning against the fence so I could see my technique. I liked the way he moved my body around with his hands. He showed me shoulder raises and bicep curls and tricep extensions with the dumbbells, and he taught me body weight exercises, like lunges and chin-ups and pull-ups and planks a
nd push-ups. He was really supportive. When I felt too tired and weak to lift the weight, he encouraged me so much that I could somehow do it.

  Steve came out. He had showered and changed his clothes.

  ‘Come on Dano. We’re heading off.’

  Dane gave me a slap on the back.

  ‘Good job, buddy. Don’t let this bloke here ruin your form, and don’t let him stack on weight you’re not ready for. You’ve already got better fundamentals than him.’

  Then he left with Steve.

  I stayed outside and spent hours doing exercises. I liked the way my muscles burned and ached, I liked the hot stabbing pain when I got so deep into a set that I dropped the weights.

  My mum came outside to smoke a cigarette. She was sleepy and she scratched at her arms a lot. She talked about her plan to start an online clothing store. She said Steve wanted to rent a house near the beach in Rockingham, and I would have to enrol in a school down there. I was too focused on hitting the tyre with the sledgehammer to pay much attention.

  Later, I stood under a cold shower until I started shivering. Then I went to the kitchen and made an omelette with six eggs and an old can of tuna that I had stolen for the cats.

  In my room, I switched on the tablet. The wallpaper image was a photo of a man sitting on the same orange motorcycle that was under the carport. He must have owed Whippy money.

  I reset the tablet then I searched for information about the bank robbery. My heart was beating really fast. There were lots of reports on news sites. They showed the security footage and had video of a bomb squad entering the bank. There were interviews with Gwen and Suzanne and the old lady on the scooter and the tradesman who had followed me.

  There was a police sketch of my face without the sunglasses. It didn’t look anything like me. They included the beauty mark above my top lip like the one I had drawn on for Fella Bitzgerald.

  The police said they were looking for a Caucasian female in her early twenties. They said there was no reason to believe that the explosive device was connected to any terrorist organisation. They didn’t mention anything about Vic or the Black Shadow. There was nothing about Aggie either.

  I wondered how she was doing. I checked her Instagram page and there weren’t any new posts. I scrolled through her pictures. I couldn’t find the photo she took of the brownies I had made.

  When I woke up the next morning I could barely move. My muscles were sore and my whole body ached. I tried to lift my leg and a shot of pain went up my side. I did it again. And again. I squeezed my fist and the same thing happened.

  I crawled out of bed. It hurt to walk and I couldn’t straighten my back. I shuffled to the shower and tried to stretch in the warm water. I dried off and got dressed and I made some coffee and eggs for breakfast and then I went straight to the backyard.

  I spent the whole day outside lifting weights and doing exercises and hitting the tyre with the sledgehammer. In between sets I sat down because I was light-headed and I could feel my pulse beating against my temples.

  In the afternoon, Steve came out with a can of beer and watched me doing squats.

  ‘Arch your back and widen your stance, it’ll give you better balance. You wanna have more kilos on that bar if you actually want to build any muscle.’

  I ignored him. He finished his beer and crushed the can in his hand and went back inside.

  I spent days out there. I had blisters and calluses on my palms. The skin of my shins were scraped away from doing deadlifts. I kept waiting for the police to turn up and arrest me, but they never came. I checked for updates on the internet every day, but there were no new reports.

  After a couple of weeks I felt stronger but I wasn’t getting bigger. Dane brought me a tub of protein powder and some flat gym shoes and a couple of his old tank tops to work out in. He said I was doing well, but I needed rest days to give my body time to recover. I told him I didn’t want to stop, so he wrote me a program for a three-day cycle that focused on different muscle groups.

  I did all three cycles every day. I liked feeling exhausted and I liked punishing my body. I imagined my muscles tearing apart. I wanted to rip myself up from the inside. I liked the feeling I got when I was so tired that my body wanted to shut down. My vision would get blurry and dark, and I would get taken over by an anger that I hadn’t known I had in me. And it made me stronger.

  The hair on my head was now long enough that you couldn’t see how patchy it was. One night I got Steve’s electric clippers from the cupboard in the bathroom and I shaved my head. I turned my head to the side. I could see the pink scar from my stitches.

  I put on one of Dane’s training tops, and I practised walking like him in front of the mirror. He had a way of rolling his shoulders back, and his feet were far apart. He always seemed to take up more space than he needed to. It was hard for me, because I had always tried to be small and invisible.

  I tried my best to forget about Vic and the Meemedumas and Fella Bitzgerald and Edie and Julia Child and everything that had happened. If they came up in my thoughts I would shake my head quickly and pinch my skin. Sometimes I caved and checked Aggie’s Instagram to see if she had posted anything new. I wanted to message her to tell her how sorry I was, but I knew it was best that I stayed away.

  Mark showed me how to hit the heavy bag properly.

  He taught me how to stand and how to rotate my hips to give my punches more power. He held up his hands and I did combinations of jabs and uppercuts and hooks. Then we did drills on how to dodge and weave and defend and how to counterpunch and read your opponent. After a few days of that, we started to spar. I felt awkward about trying to hit Mark, but he insisted.

  ‘Come on, put your weight into it. It’s okay.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You won’t hurt me. It’s all good.’

  ‘How many fights have you been in?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Lost count.’

  ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What’s it like to beat someone up?’

  ‘Feels better than the alternative.’

  ‘Have you lost many fights?’

  ‘Had my arse kicked enough to know I don’t ever want it to happen again. Now come on. Hit me.’

  I was always tentative when we started sparring, but Mark had a way of riling me up. He wouldn’t ever swing at me, but he would push me back with jabs which made me feel small and frustrated. When I threw nervous punches he would bat them away with his gloves and taunt me. And it worked. I got angry really easily. It was like a new part of me that sat under my skin all the time. When it took over I felt strong. I swung wild hooks at Mark. He never got upset or annoyed, even when my punches connected. He just spurred me on and reminded me about my footwork and my hips. I didn’t listen, I just thrashed. Once I hit him in the face and he backed away. All my rage disappeared and I felt guilty and afraid, but Mark just blinked hard a couple of times, then he smiled.

  ‘Nice cross matey!’

  Sometimes we sat in the lounge room with my tablet and he pulled up famous boxing bouts and mixed martial arts title fights on YouTube. Then he showed me bar fights and street fights that people had recorded on their phones. Dane and Steve watched them too, and some of the fights made them laugh. Mark would pause the videos to tell me where the winner of the fight got their advantage and what the loser did wrong. He said I would learn more about real fighting by watching amateurs.

  ‘Boxing and cage fighting are sports, but when people fight for real, there’s no rules or refs. If you’re in a pub or a cell block and it kicks off, you’re not thinking about your footwork. You’re trying to survive. You gotta be a fuckin’ savage. Fight dirty. Scratch their eyes, snap their fingers, stomp on their ankles, punch them in the dick. If there’s anything around you, pick it up and swing it hard as you can. It’s you or them. Keep fighting until they can’t get back up. But if you’re out in the open and you’re in a situation where you’re outnum
bered or you’re outsized or they’ve got a weapon, it doesn’t matter if you’re a middleweight champion or a fuckin’ black belt in jujitsu, my advice is always the same.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Run.’

  One night it was too hot to be inside the house, so I went out to the carport. Dane and Mark and Whippy were sitting on plastic chairs drinking cans of bourbon and cola. Steve was crouched down working on the orange motorcycle. He was covered in sweat and grease.

  I slumped down on a chair and spread my legs the same as Dane. Steve dropped a socket and swore. He complained about having to sell his good set of tools when we left Scarborough, then he blamed Rosso for betraying him again and said he was going to get even one day.

  ‘So do it,’ said Mark. ‘Stop fucking talking about it and let’s go tax the cunt.’

  ‘We should,’ said Steve.

  ‘I’m always up for a caper,’ said Dane.

  ‘What’s wrong with the bike?’ I asked.

  ‘If I knew that I’d be sitting in that chair with a can in my hand,’ Steve said.

  ‘Won’t start,’ said Dane.

  I nodded.

  ‘How did you get it here?’

  ‘Rode it,’ said Steve. ‘But it’s decided to shit itself now that I’ve got someone coming to buy the fucking thing tomorrow.’

  He wiped his forehead and spat on the driveway.

  ‘Maybe the battery is flat,’ I said.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Have you checked the spark plugs or the connectors?’

  ‘Listen to this one!’ said Whippy.

  ‘Yes, I’ve checked the spark plugs.’

  Steve sounded annoyed.

  ‘Can I have a try?’ I asked.

  ‘Try what?’

  ‘Fixing it.’

  Steve laughed without smiling.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not touching this bike.’

  ‘But I might be able to get it running.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘The fuck do you know about motorbikes?’

  Steve turned and stared at me. Everybody went quiet.