by Nick Earls
‘Don’t you want the people on the ground to take a look at it first?’
‘No, not really. The main thing is getting it up there. That’s what it’s for.’
She straps on a tool belt and picks up a hammer and some nails. As well as making the bird house she’s made a stand for it that she can fix to the tree, and she finds a way of tucking that into the belt too. She takes the bird house in one hand and climbs with the other, first up the ladder, then onto the branches themselves. I’d worry about her falling, but it never looks dangerous. She climbs to where she wants to, high in the tree canopy, fixes the stand with nails and clips the bird house into place. She’s back on the grass less than a minute later.
‘I reckon they’ll find it,’ she says, looking back up into the tree.
‘That was impressive work up there.’
‘Just climbing. Some people can do it and some can’t.’
‘Well, you’re definitely one of the ones who can, aren’t you? Plus, you didn’t just climb. You actually did something while you were up there. You sorted out the bird house. That’s the kind of thing that takes balance and upper-body work.’
‘Yeah. I’ve been doing those weights, you know. AJ’s weights.’
‘You wouldn’t get a lot of use for some of your talents in the florist shop, would you?’
‘No.’ She passes the hammer handle back through its leather loop on the belt, and she leaves her hand resting on the steel head.
‘If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?’
‘Anything?’
‘Anything.’
‘Okay, I know that one already. Jessie’s girl. I’d be Jessie’s girl, and that way I could dump Jessie and go out with Rick Springfield.’
‘Okay, and second to that?’
‘Second to that. Well . . . Maybe something outside? Involving trees? And machinery . . . Whatever. Whatever comes up. You’ve got to keep an open mind.’
‘I’ve got an idea, and it’s just an idea, but tell me what you think of it. I was talking to the boss from World of Chickens the other day and we were talking about how we needed new signs, and maybe a few other things for getting attention, but he doesn’t have much of a budget for it.’
‘I could do signs.’
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
‘I could do whatever kind of signs, I reckon. I’m best with timber, but I can do other stuff, if you need it. And lights. You should get more lights. They get attention. You do that chicken thing out the front, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, lights for that.’
‘Lights for that? Good.’
‘Hey, what about a strobe? AJ could get a cheap strobe and I could rig it up. And you could have the chicken out there changing signs. Flicking through them.’
‘Like that Bob Dylan film clip? The one where he . . .’
‘The one where he changes the signs, yeah.’ She’s right into it now. ‘But colour. I’ve seen it a couple of times. The clip’s black and white. But yeah.’
‘How about I call Ron later. I think these are great ideas. No promises, okay, but I’ll give him a call. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s just because it’s not in the budget. All right? But I’ll be pushing for it.’
Fonzie the sheep ambles round the side of the house, and Vanessa tells him she might be doing signs—doing a sign job for a company across town. She swings her leg over him and they walk around like a six-legged creature, Fonzie grazing and Vanessa talking away.
Big Artie’s at the door now, wrapped in an old dressing gown. He’s pointing high in the tree, showing Dorothy where Vanessa’s put the bird house.
‘She’s a funny one,’ he says to me when I go back up the stairs and inside. ‘What a piece of work. It looks just like the house. Half that high would have done the job, though.’
‘Maybe, but I think she likes the climbing. I could never do that. Like she said to me just before, some people are climbers and some aren’t. I’d swear she was up and down inside three minutes, and most of that was spent fixing the bird house up there. I don’t know about your balance, but mine wouldn’t be up to that. I think a land-based job suits me pretty well.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah.’ Looking from the bird house, to the ground, to the bird house again. ‘That’d be fifty feet. I hope the birds work out they’ve got to look that high.’ He laughs. ‘Look at her now with the sheep. She’s a funny one, isn’t she? Where did we get her, Mother?’
17
‘We had a queue once,’ Frank says. ‘I remember it well. It was a special time for the World. You got excited and spilled stuff, I kept my nerve.’
‘There were hundreds of them. I went down fighting. Splitting chickens, humping bags of fries. We weren’t all going to make it through to the other side.’
Monday’s quiet. Too quiet.
But in an anticlimactic way, a way dominated by the threat of nothing continuing to happen. Sophie’s out there putting in a lot of wing work, and the closest we have to an ominous soundtrack is Frank, with ‘Disco Inferno’ stuck in his head and sometimes making its way out of his mouth. Usually falsetto. Thanks for that, Frank.
‘Hey,’ he says, struck from nowhere by another un-considered idea. ‘Have you read the print on the window?
‘Plenty of times. I get to spend half these shifts on the other side of the glass, remember?’
‘No, from this side. Have you read it? Ron Todd. Ddotnor.’ Then again, with an accent—something deep and guttural, from somewhere intense but nonspecific. ‘Ddotnor. Sounds kind of Lord of the Rings, hey? The Evil Ddotnor.’
‘The Evil Ddotnor. Poor bastard. Give him a break. He’s got one eye and no teeth, he keeps dozens of people in work, he gives your sister a chance to make some signs, and what is he? Evil. The Evil Frank Green more like, whatever that is backwards. What would the rest of the sign be? The World of Chickens bit.’
Frank looks, thinks, goes ‘Snek . . . snek . . . Some of them just don’t make sense at all, do they?’ He picks up a pencil and writes his name on the bench in capitals. Then he writes it in reverse below, and stares at it. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘I think the K’d be silent.’
‘Yeah. Good idea. So that’d be Neergnarf. Neergnarf versus the Evil Ddotnor,’ he says, the last part of it in an ancient terminal groan.
‘And what a titanic struggle that’d be.’
‘Shit, yeah.’
‘You’re a bit bored again, aren’t you?’
‘Baby . . . Bored’s not the word. Sirrah Lihp.’
‘Sirrah Lihp. Why do I score such a loser reverse name?’
‘Neergnarf versus the Evil Ddotnor.’
‘It always has to be versus with you, doesn’t it? It’s like you’re taking on some bad king. A struggle of oedipal proportions, toppling the paternalistic Ddotnor to win the hand of the mother-figure Queen Lez.’
‘Do you have to make it sound like that? Do you have to make it all dirty, when I was thinking it was just sexual?’
‘You and Queen Lez must be really glad all that Freudian stuff’s out of fashion.’
Sophie comes in from the road and we go to change, leaving the nimble gnome-king Neergnarf defending the counter, tongs in hand.
‘I don’t seem to be having a lot of impact out there tonight,’ she says while I’m unzipping her.
‘I don’t think it’s anything to do with you.’ She goes into the toilet to take the costume off. ‘Mondays aren’t our best days. But I was talking to your father yesterday about some ideas—some new signs.’
‘So that’s why you were calling . . .’
‘Yeah. It’s not much, but it’s a start. It’s Frank’s sister who’ll be doing them. I think she’ll be good. And then I thought of something else. If you wanted to do the media stuff, the PR, for this place, how would you go about it?’
‘I’ve actually thought about that already. I’ve got an assignment where you have to plan the med
ia strategy for a local small business.’
‘You should do it. Really do it, I mean. For this place, not just as an assignment.’
‘I don’t know that Dad’d like that.’
‘We should talk to him. He doesn’t have time to come up with a media strategy. I don’t know if he’s got the expertise, either.’
‘But I don’t have the expertise.’
‘You’ve got more than some of us.’
‘At least it’d get one assignment done that way. I can’t believe how much work I’ve got to do. It gets depressing.’
‘This’d be good then. And you’d not only get to plan it, you’d get to do it.’
I’m out at the lights again in a few minutes, and these shifts seemed so different a week or two ago. Were we getting on much better then, or is that just how I recall it? We’d talk about anything, we’d have a good time out the back, and that’s what was saving this job for me. But it’s the twenty-seventh of May. Exams are closing in for the people who work regular semesters, and Sophie’s starting to feel it.
Ron calls when I’m next at the counter with Frank. I’m worried he might have changed his mind about the signs, but he’s calling to invite me to the movies. His convalescence done, he’s ready for the world again and all he missed was the bat cruise.
‘Just on a work matter . . .’ I try to jump in before the movie momentum gets too great . . . ‘I’ve had an idea. To do with the new signs. I thought it might be a good chance to rethink the approach to the rest of the publicity. Media even. Nothing major, just get some fresh ideas.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we’ll have to look at that. We don’t want to just slap the signs up there. We do want a plan. Yeah . . . But you’ve got one, haven’t you? You’ve got a plan already. I can tell.’
‘Not a plan as such. It’s not my area. But I know whose area it is. And I thought it could be a good time to have a media strategy meeting. Maybe you, me and the third-year media studies student on the team.’
‘Really, we’ve got one of . . .? Oh, Sophie? Do you think she’d want to?’
‘Yeah, I do. And she can use it for an assignment as well, so it won’t get in the way of uni.’
‘Right. Even better. We should do this soon. We should definitely do this soon.’ He’s gone from movie talk to motivated in under a minute, but that’s Ron. ‘We should do this tomorrow. How’s tomorrow? Dinner tomorrow?’
‘Dinner tomorrow?’
‘Make sure you catch a cab here and I’ll fix you up. We’ll be marking down the hours too, of course. I’d like to pay you a more executive rate for this kind of thing . . .’
‘That’s okay. Let’s just get the customers in the door for now.’
‘I’m tracking your time. This’ll figure in your pay packet, even if it’s only at counter rates. Now, do you want to brief Sophie? And I’ll make sure I’ve got the Courier-Mail handy so we can pick a movie for Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon usually suits your schedule, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
So, I’m off again to the Dale, and throwing myself into the web of the Todds without a fight.
*
I explain the plan to Frank in the car on the way home, and he takes it entirely the wrong way. ‘An assignment topic?’ he says. ‘You’re getting my sister to do the signs and you’re letting Sophie turn this place into an assignment topic? What is this? Bloody amateur hour? Some kind of experiment? What do you think you’re doing?’
‘What do you mean? It’s a way of building up customer numbers without spending a lot.’
‘It’s marginal here already.’
‘Exactly. What have we got to lose?’
‘What have we got to lose? You don’t know what I’m up against. This is camera money for you. Big Artie can’t go up trees any more and he won’t admit it. So Green Loppers is going to shit. This place has to keep working. I can’t lose this job, and that includes the box of burgers you’ve got on your lap. Your family has always had money, right? Well, I pretty much come from a long line of tong jockeys, broom pushers and the occasional self-made man. It’s a much more tenuous hold on things, okay? So we’ve got to make this place work.’
‘I know, dickhead. That’s what this is about. It’s about someone doing something to make this place work. As opposed to standing there all evening with your mouth open catching flies, for example. It’s about trying new ideas, and I don’t mean pronouncing names backwards. It’s about everyone getting involved. That’s what I’m doing, and I don’t notice everyone doing it. And it’s about not sleeping with people we shouldn’t, and being on the same team instead.’
From that point, things deteriorate.
*
Frank starts in Labour Ward at eight-thirty in the morning, as far as I know. Perhaps it’s busier than usual. We don’t see him all day. The way I recall the night before, he’s the one who owes me the apology, not the other way round. So I don’t go looking for him.
I hang around at the Mater after the last tute, still shitted off with him and with the turn of events, and I try to get some study done. This year was supposed to be better than it’s been so far. No one seems happy right now, not even Frank. He’s plunged himself deep into a big mistake, he refuses to accept that and he doesn’t even seem to be enjoying it. Not that I’m letting him any time I’m around. But he shouldn’t push me. He shouldn’t be the laziest bastard possible at work, and then criticise me when I try to improve things. It’s for him, too, that I’m doing it, to keep him in a job.
It’s not that I was expecting a glorious year, but I was hoping for better than this. The video camera, the trip to America maybe. I haven’t given that a thought for weeks. The paperwork is sitting there at home and it still seems like an issue too big to deal with. I’ve got enough to deal with. I need to clear some space in my head some time, and work out what I’m going to do about UCLA. After this term, maybe, if the offer hasn’t expired by then.
UCLA. I can’t believe they said they’d take me. UCLA is like a place on TV—glamorous, gifted students all working hard, noise and guns and drugs on the streets, every bit of it several levels of intensity more than I can handle. Too big, too wild, too fast. And even if it’s not like that, every frame of every movie, every minute of every TV show, every word of every article I’ve ever come across that has anything to do with LA tells me it is like that. So some of it must be true, and how do I take my place in it all, just me?
But I should stop thinking about UCLA for now. It’s pay day on Wednesday. I’d forgotten that. And my maths tells me this might be the Wednesday that gets me there, takes me to the grand total I need for half a video camera.
I could walk away from it all then. It’s a real possibility. I’m gazing at chapter twenty-four, ‘Foetal-Placental Dysfunction’. I’m there for the money, I could take the money now. I could spend time learning to use my video camera, instead of working at World of Chickens and dealing with Ron, and the unhappy Sophie who used to like me more (or fake better), and Frank who shits me, and the disastrous revelations that may not be far off.
That’s what I could do.
I finish the chapter and, just after six, I walk down to the cab rank outside the hospital, I get into the first cab in line and I tell the driver ‘Carindale’.
I pull out the World of Chickens notes I made at lunchtime and read through them. I could stay a couple more weeks, see how things go. That’d buy me some blank tapes.
Sophie answers the door when I get to the Todds, and she goes to pay the cabbie. Ron leads me to the sunken lounge, where three new pads of paper and three pens are waiting for us on the coffee table.
‘Let’s get some Diet Cokes happening,’ he says, and goes to the kitchen, coming back with a large bowl of peanuts and three Diet Cokes on a tray. ‘Thinking food. Grab yourself a handful.’
Sophie fetches a couple of old assignments from her room and joins us.
‘All right then,’ Ron says, realising it’s up to him to start it
. ‘Philip’s called this meeting.’ He turns to me. ‘So how do you think we should proceed?’
‘Well, I’ve got some ideas but they’re mainly about how the place works, and things that might be selling points, so maybe we could go to Sophie first and get her thoughts on the prospects of media interest.’
‘Soph?’
‘No worries. Okay, it’s a tough one, I’ve got to tell you that. If it was, like, U2 arriving in the country for a concert tour, it’d be a lot easier. But it’s not. So don’t expect miracles from me. Sure, it’s good—it’s a good place—but it’s a chicken shop in the suburbs.’ She’s looking my way, as if there might be high expectations—three pads and three pens in front of us—and it’s all because of me.
‘So what you’re saying is that we have to be realistic.’
‘Realistic, and start small, but I think there are things we can try. Suburban newspapers first. They’re not bad with local businesses, and maybe they’ll go for something involving the chicken. Or maybe Dad—local guy making a go of it in the face of the multinationals. They hate multinationals. Also student papers. We’re near the uni campus and there are lots of students in the area. Plus, they’d be a big part of our market. So maybe even sponsoring some student things at uni.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Ron says, his eyes almost closed he’s giving it such thought. ‘Would that be financial sponsorship, or in-kind?’
‘Depends on the event, and on what you’re looking for in return. Also special offers. Handbills out at the uni campus, mailbox drops. Special student discounts on Mondays, since they’re pretty flat.’ She flips the first page over and runs her pen down the next one. She stops and clears her throat. ‘Is this okay?’
‘It’s great. It’s great, isn’t it, Ron? If we’re being quiet it’s only because we’re waiting for what’s next.’
‘Yeah, that’s right, mate. Didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘Oh, okay. Moving right along then, it’d be good to look at radio station promotions. We could at least give them a call. I don’t know if they’d take us. We’d have to offer some free stuff to listeners—probably food for people who turn up—but it’d give us a good plug if it worked. And then the dream’d be coming up with a feature angle or news angle for the Courier-Mail—I don’t know what that’d be yet—or a quirky look at it all for a filler story at the end of the TV news.’