Honeybee

by Craig Silvey;

  It was a private room and it was dark inside. The door was open. My lips trembled as I looked in. I could see Vic on the bed. He had a tube coming out of his arm and there was a monitor next to the bed.

  I stepped in quietly and walked over. Vic was really still. I thought he might be dead, but then his chest slowly filled up and he breathed out.

  I watched him for a few more breaths. Then I reached out and touched his arm and his eyes opened. Vic turned and looked at me.

  ‘You’re here,’ he said. His voice was quiet and raspy.

  ‘Vic, are you okay?’

  ‘Fine fettle,’ he whispered, and he tried to smile.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Your friend came round. The nurse. Found me in a bad way.’

  ‘Did you do something to yourself?’

  Vic shook his head.

  ‘I’m very sick, mate.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Vic took my hand.

  ‘I don’t want to die in here,’ he said.

  ‘You’re going to be okay. You’re in the hospital. You’ve got tubes in you and the doctors are here. You’re going to get better.’

  Vic shook his head again. He looked frightened.

  ‘No. Sam, I don’t want to die here. I want to go home.’

  I realised what he meant and I started to cry.

  ‘But I don’t want you to die.’

  ‘Hey, hey, it’s alright. Sam, listen to me. Listen. I’m tired. And I’m in pain. My body hurts. My heart hurts. I have had my time. I’m not going to get any better.’

  I shook my head and tears dripped off me.

  ‘But they can fix you. They can give you medicine.’

  ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want to kick the can down the road anymore.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Every night I go to bed and I hope that when I fall asleep I’ll just go in peace. That’s all I want. Peace. I don’t want to ache anymore. Don’t be sad, mate. I’ve been lucky. I’ve had a blessed life. But it’s my time. It’s the right thing. I just don’t want to be here anymore. You remember how you asked what I wanted? That’s what I want. To leave. Will you help me? Help me get home. Help me go.’

  I was squeezing his hand hard. I was crying so much I couldn’t say anything. But I looked up and I nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ Vic said, and he closed his eyes.

  I stood beside Vic for a long time while he slept. Every so often I started to cry again, but I tried to hold it in so I wouldn’t wake him. I thought about how I was going to get him home. I remembered sneaking Steve out of the hospital when he hurt his back. I looked around the room for a wheelchair, but there wasn’t one.

  Then I heard somebody say my name. I turned around. There was a nurse standing in the doorway. He was tall and broad with neat brown hair.

  ‘Sam,’ he said softly. He stepped into the room and gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m Peter. Fella Bitzgerald.’

  I looked at him hard and saw it was true.

  ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s let him sleep for a bit.’

  Peter led me out to the corridor and into an empty office. He closed the door. I sat down and he pulled a chair from behind a desk and sat close to me. He looked at the bumpy scar on the back of my head.

  ‘Who took these stitches out?’

  ‘Vic did.’

  ‘What did he use, a hatchet? Why didn’t you call me? I left my number.’

  I shrugged.

  We sat in silence for a while. All I could hear was the clock on the wall.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  I shrugged again.

  ‘Vic told me you found him,’ I said.

  ‘I actually came to check on you. I knocked and knocked, then I tried the front door, and it wasn’t locked. I found Vic on the floor in the garage. I don’t know how long he had been there. He was severely dehydrated.’

  The thought of Vic so alone and helpless made my chest go tight.

  ‘He says he’s really sick.’

  Peter nodded.

  ‘We’re waiting on the results of a couple of tests, then we can make an assessment and look at treatment options.’

  ‘Can he get better?’

  Peter took a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t know, Sam. He’s very ill. The tests will tell the story. For now, our focus is getting his fluids up and keeping him stabilised.’

  ‘But what do you actually think?’

  Peter looked at me. His eyes were sad.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he has very long.’

  ‘He wants to go home.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to get better. He doesn’t want any medicine.’

  Peter looked at me for a long time.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He just wants to go home.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I said I’d help him. I’m going to take him home. I’m going to take him now.’

  ‘No, Sam.’

  ‘But it’s what Vic wants. He doesn’t want to die here.’

  ‘Sweetheart, I understand. But there are protocols. Vic needs to express his intentions to his doctor, and if he wants to act against medical advice he can sign a waiver and then he can leave.’

  ‘You won’t make him stay here?’

  ‘Of course not. Sam, I understand what you’re telling me. Let’s give him tonight to rest and I’ll speak with him in the morning. If it’s still what he wants, and he’s deemed fit to make that choice, then I can have him home by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll speak to him about hospice care, and I’ll arrange Silver Chain to bring him essentials. I’ll visit too. But there is nothing you can do for him tonight.’

  I nodded. Part of me had hoped that Peter was going to tell me Vic had to stay in hospital until he was better. I started to cry again.

  ‘He’s my friend. I only just met him and now he’s going to leave.’

  Peter leaned forwards and rubbed my back. He didn’t say anything, he just let me cry. I was sniffing a lot. I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Peter squeezed my shoulder.

  ‘I’m going to get you some tissues, okay? Stay here. When I get back, I want to talk about what’s going on with you. Sam?’

  He crouched down and looked at me. I lifted my head. I saw he had tears in his eyes too.

  ‘I’m worried about you, and I care about you. Learning to talk is important. I know it’s hard when we’re not used to having people who listen. I’m here for you, I want you to know that. But I also have a friend called Diane. She’s brilliant and she’s lovely and she’s wise, and listening is what she does for a living. I think you should talk to her too. Would you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not really.’

  Peter left. I turned and watched him go around a corner, then I stood up and walked out of the office and went the opposite way. I took an elevator to the ground floor and I walked out of the hospital.

  It wasn’t raining anymore. I didn’t know where I was or how to get back to the house.

  There was a taxi rank nearby. I got in the back seat of a cab and asked the driver if he could take me to Fremantle. He asked if I could pay, and I said I could. He started driving but he kept looking at me suspiciously in the rear-view mirror. After a few minutes, I heard a click. He had locked all the doors.

  After a while I started to recognise the streets. When the driver stopped for a red light, I quickly wound the window down and I started to climb through it. The driver yelled at me and reached back and grabbed my ankle. I kicked my legs hard. My shoe came off and I felt my heel hit his face and he let me go. I crawled out of the car and got to my feet and ran as fast as I could. I turned down one street and then another and I hid behind a hedge outside a house. I waited there for twenty minutes, then I walked the rest of the way back to my street.

  I went straight to the vacant ho
use and I lit a candle and packed the pipe and smoked until my lungs hurt. I coughed a lot. I put my head against the window and watched the rain start falling again. I didn’t feel any different.

  I walked back home. Steve and my mum were asleep on the couch in front of the television. They didn’t wake up when I came in.

  I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I felt hopeless. I felt so much dread and anxiety that it was hard to breathe. I hated myself. I felt bad about kicking the taxi driver. I wasn’t a good person. I stole things. I betrayed people who were nice to me. I was a burden to my mum. I had been born wrong and I couldn’t be fixed. I was a bad person born in the wrong body and nothing would ever get better. It didn’t matter what I did. I had nothing to look forward to. Every day would be harder and harder. I would suffer more and more as my body changed. The thought of it made me more afraid and panicked, and I rolled onto my side and curled into a ball. I was alone in the dark. I thought about Vic in the hospital, how he wanted to be at peace, how he didn’t want to ache anymore. He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep and never wake up. It’s what I wanted too. I wanted to go with Vic. And I knew how I could do it.

  The Soldier

  I couldn’t sleep.

  I angled my watch so I could see the time in the moonlight. It was three in the morning. I got up and crept into the lounge room.

  Steve and my mum were still asleep on the couch. The television was playing infomercials, and there was just enough light to find Steve’s keys on the coffee table, next to his phone and his leather wallet.

  I kneeled down and picked them up carefully so they wouldn’t make a noise. Then I crept to the storage cupboard in the hallway. It was so dark that I had to put the keys into the padlock by feel. It took me six tries before I got the right one.

  I opened it. I couldn’t see the shelves properly, but I didn’t want to risk turning on a light, so I used my hands to search around. I was rushing because I didn’t want Steve to wake up and catch me. I felt the pistol and the shotgun, and then I found a small cardboard box. I thought it was what I was looking for, but when I picked it up it was heavy. I opened the box and it was full of bullets.

  I put them down and kept searching. I couldn’t find them anywhere. When I reached up to the top shelf, the padlock and the keys slipped out of my hand and hit the carpet. I stopped and listened, then I quickly picked them up and locked the door.

  I crawled down the hallway and peeked around the corner. Steve had woken up and was sitting forwards rubbing his face. He fished the remote out from under his leg and turned the television off. Then he picked up his phone and stood up. He shook my mum awake and lifted her by the arm. She sounded annoyed. He led her to their bedroom. When I heard their door shut, I slipped out and put the keys back on the table.

  The moment I let go, the door opened again and Steve saw me.

  ‘Fuck are you doing?’

  I froze. Then I reached out further and picked up the remote control.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ I said softly. ‘I came out to watch TV.’

  Steve snatched his wallet and keys from the coffee table.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ he said, and he walked away.

  A few hours later, I heard the sound of metal plates clinking together. I opened my eyes. The sun was just coming up. I went out to the backyard and Dane was there training.

  ‘Gym was too crowded,’ he said. ‘Wanna do some sets?’

  I shook my head and sat on the bench and watched him do squats in the rack. In between he stretched. He was wearing a tank top with an Australian Defence Force logo.

  ‘I have a friend who was in the army,’ I told him. ‘He said he was really scared.’

  Dane nodded.

  ‘Anyone who’s been shot at and says different are either lying or dead.’

  ‘Did you ever have to kill anyone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you feel bad about it?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t feel anything.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because they kill that part of you first.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s what training is about. It’s not about making you stronger; it’s about breaking you down.’

  ‘But you’re so big.’

  ‘I don’t mean your body. I mean who you are. I’m talking about the twenty-two-year-old dickhead who knocked up his girlfriend out of high school, got married too young and couldn’t support his wife and kid because he got fired from the last four jobs for fighting or drinking. That is the person they kill. The angry little smart-arse who thinks he knows better than everyone. And they replace that kid with a grunt who knows his place and does what he’s told.’

  Dane sat next to me on the bench.

  ‘And then you head off and serve your tours. You do the right thing, pay off a chunk of the house, pay for your son’s braces, and when you come back your wife complains that you’re never there. But when you are home, she says you’re a different bloke to the one she married. So you react badly and do some shit you regret, and she divorces you and shows the judge at the family court some stupid text messages and a video she secretly took of you punching a hole through a door, and just like that you can’t see your kid anymore, and none of it meant anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Dane shrugged.

  ‘Thing is, in one respect, she’s right. I’m not the same person she married. That person’s gone. I can’t fit back in here.’

  ‘Maybe you should quit the army.’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s the best thing I ever did. I needed the discipline. I never had any before. If I hadn’t joined when I did, I would have been sharing a cell with Mark or I’d be a fat bitter cunt like Steve. You know he’s planning to run through the place of that old mate of his next week? The one he keeps talking about.’

  ‘Rosso?’

  ‘Got it all worked out apparently. Christmas Eve him and his missus are out at some Sailing Club function. Gonna do his dog in too. Some Godfather shit. Thinks he’s a fucking mob boss these days.’

  ‘Why would he hurt Rosso’s dog?’

  ‘Because he’s a cruel prick. I had to talk him out of setting the place on fire.’

  ‘Why are you still friends with him?’

  ‘Steve? Mate, him and Mark and Whippy, they’re more family to me than my own flesh and blood. Nobody gave a shit about any of us when we were growing up, so we had each other’s backs. I’d still take a bullet for any of them. We’re brothers. Back here, they’re all I’ve got. When I’m on tour, I’ve got a clear purpose. Even when there’s nothing to do, there’s honour to it. I feel like I’m part of something out there. Closest I got to that back home was raising my son, but now that’s gone.’

  ‘Maybe when he’s older you’ll get to see him.’

  Dane nodded, but he seemed lost in his thoughts.

  ‘You know what? You’re the only one who has ever asked me about any of this. You’re a sensitive kid. You think your own thoughts. Don’t ever lose that. Don’t ever become a soldier. Don’t go hard inside. Don’t change who you are. I know you’ve been trying. But you don’t fit in here either, and you never will, mate. That’s a good thing. I know it seems like a long way off, but you’re going to make it out of this shithole, and you’re going to do better than any of us ever have.’

  Dane slapped my back, then he got up and did another set.

  I sent a text message to Whippy but I didn’t hear anything back. I waited half an hour, then I texted again. He didn’t respond to that either. After twenty minutes I called, but it went to his voicemail.

  Steve left the house late in the morning. My mum was still in bed. I knocked on her door and said I needed to speak with her. She called out that she was sick and she needed to sleep.

  I tried calling Whippy again, then I waited in my room. I was restless and anxious, so I made my bed and folded all my clothes and got ev
erything neat and tidy. Then I deleted my search history from the tablet.

  Finally I got a text from Whippy. He was in the city doing deliveries. I asked if I could meet him. He sent me the address of an apartment complex in East Perth and told me to be there within an hour.

  I looked over my room one last time then I knocked on my mum’s door again. She didn’t answer, so I opened it and stepped in quietly. The room was a mess. There were clothes and towels and shoes and cigarette butts and cans and bottles all over the floor. It smelled awful.

  I kneeled next to my mum. She was sweating, but her skin felt cold and she had goosebumps.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  She pulled her pillow over her face. She was lying at an awkward angle, but I gave her a hug.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, then she groaned and rolled over.

  ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘Goodbye.’

  She didn’t say anything back.

  I caught the bus to the station and took the train to the city. Then I walked as fast as I could to the address Whippy had given me, checking the time on my watch. I was worried that he might have left already, but I found his van parked in a visitor bay. He was sitting inside it. I got in the passenger side.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ he said. He finished typing a message on his phone, then he looked at me. ‘Okay, what’s so urgent?’

  ‘I need something off you. It’s really important.’

  ‘I got that impression. What do you need?’

  It was hard to say it. I took a deep breath.

  ‘I need Fentanyl. A box of it.’

  Whippy raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘It’s not for me,’ I said quickly.

  ‘I know it’s not for you. I’m not a fucking idiot.’

  He shook his head and looked out the window with a strange smile. He seemed angry.

  ‘You know, I thought this might happen,’ he said. ‘But I still can’t fucking believe it.’

  ‘Could you do it for me? I promise I’ll never ask again.’