Just Another Week in Suburbia

by Les Zig

  I put the sledgehammer away, then look at the emptiness of the garage.

  I grab the remote for the garage’s roller door, jump back in my car, start it, and pull it into the garage. Then I get out and use the remote to close the roller door.

  The first thing I see when I get inside is all the scrunched up sheets from the sketchpad, scattered across the floor like errant snowballs. Then it’s the shattered phone. Above it, there’s a dent in the wall, and black scuff marks from the phone’s plastic. There’s nothing I can do about that for now—if I can do anything at all. It’s a job where I’d usually call a handyman.

  I scrounge around for the pieces of shattered phone and lay them on the coffee table. I try to piece them back together, and when it looks like it might be possible, I get myself a screwdriver and a beer.

  The phone’s housing is cracked, although I’m able to manipulate it back into place. I fumble with the circuit, trying for ten minutes to fit it back in before realising I have it upside down. The keypad comes next as I work out how it fits in before I close the housing. I work with the patience and optimism of somebody who’s drunk too much, and it distracts me like nothing else has—although the constant drinking is probably doing the bulk of the work.

  When I fit the housing together, I put the screws back in. The two at the bottom end screw in but don’t tighten, so I grab some tape and wrap it around the bottom of the phone. I experiment and try to fit it in the base, but the bulkiness of the tape makes this impossible, so I tear it off and tape it again, this time being mindful of the bottom of the phone.

  I fit it into the handset, the phone beeps, and the charge light comes on. Perfect! I pick up the phone and hit a few numbers on the keypad. For several numbers, the wrong number appears on the display screen; others don’t appear at all. Only the seven works. I hit TALK but there’s no dial tone.

  The poor phone is dead.

  I throw it in the bin.

  I stand in the kitchen, yet again unsure what to do with myself. My beer remains on the coffee table. I’ve barely touched it. The allure’s gone out of the drinking. I should stop—that’s what I need to do. I have non-specific memories of Dad drinking—non-specific because what was going on became omnipresent. There was always a Scotch, sometimes a beer. Mostly, I’m struck by how bland a drunk he was—he wasn’t demonstrative, wasn’t abusive, wasn’t anything but a cocoon of the man he was while on the inside he was metamorphosing into his eventual death. It’s not the first time I’ve told myself, but I can’t keep drinking. I decide to order a pizza and reach automatically for the landline, which is no longer there, so I use my mobile.

  They tell me there’ll be over an hour’s wait—if not more—on account of it’s being Saturday night. I mumble indifference, although it makes me think about how the world’s moving on while I’m trapped in purgatory. Nobody’s waiting for me to get myself in order.

  The doorbell rings. I should worry about who it is given the events of the last two days. It could be Kai, maybe with a gun—although that’s a bit dramatic. Still, weird things happen when people are driven to extremes, especially when passion’s involved. I should’ve kept the sledgehammer with me.

  As I shuffle down the hallway, I decide I don’t care. Not anymore. Where do I go from here? It can be Kai with a shotgun. It can be the police come to arrest me over Bianca. It can be Vic on a tirade. It can be Chloe here to seduce me. It can be Jane come to collect her things. It can be anybody, and it doesn’t matter.

  I open the door.

  It’s none of them.

  Maya stands there in a pink blouse, a modest denim skirt, and sandals. Her frame is athletic—not something I’ve ever been able to tell in her school uniform. Her legs are long and slender. Under her left arm, she holds a big sketchpad.

  ‘Hi, Mr Gray!’ she says. ‘I hope you don’t mind—I looked up where you live. There were lots of Grays, but when I saw “C Gray” right here in Meadow, I knew it had to be you!’

  ‘You … looked … me … up?’

  ‘You said you’d like to see my other sketches one day. So I thought I’d bring them over. Is that okay?’

  She has the enthusiasm of a puppy. I hate to crush it—although yesterday she was too embarrassed to look at me. There’s something to be said for the innocence of schoolgirl crushes, but Principal Hetrick’s warning—about responsibility—resounds in my mind, not to mention I’m already in enough trouble over Bianca.

  I must concern Maya, the way I’m standing here wordlessly. She sniffs, takes a small step back.

  ‘Have you been drinking, Mr Gray?’

  ‘I was working outside. In the yard. I’ve been cooling off with a beer.’

  Maya smiles. Just like that, she trusts me. No wonder both Principal Hetrick and Stuart are so concerned about the way I handle kids. It would be so easy to lead them astray, and to do so unthinkingly. Perhaps that’s what I don’t understand about Stuart, that every step he takes is measured against possible risk, regardless of how unwitting it might be.

  ‘May I come in?’ Maya says. She advances, expecting me to stand aside, but I remain unmoved. She stops.

  ‘Maya, that’s probably not a great idea at the best of times, but all things considered …’

  ‘All things considered?’ Maya blinks, not understanding. I hope then that when Maya starts getting involved in relationships, she avoids any and every sleaze who might take advantage of her, because take advantage of her they will.

  ‘Because of what happened with Bianca,’ I say.

  ‘That was Anthony.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘No.’

  Maya shrugs, then looks left and right—as if to check we’re not being overheard—before she whispers to me, ‘I think he tried to rape her.’ Maya’s face is stoic, like this is everyday fodder in the schoolyard. ‘He didn’t. Bianca told police Anthony—’

  ‘Bianca told police?’

  Maya nods. ‘Yesterday afternoon. She started talking and told them everything; said Anthony pawed her. Her parents took her home last night.’

  ‘Maya, how do you know all this?’

  ‘This morning, Bianca called Justine, Justine told Dom, who told—’

  ‘That’s okay, that’s okay.’ I should’ve guessed the school grapevine would be the first with the information. But Anthony? Of course, there has always been something unnerving about him: lingering glances, lewd grins, inappropriate comments. He seems to have a casual disregard for women. He’ll grow up to fuck women the way Kai fucked Jane. I wonder if that’s the way Kai feels about Jane. And if she likes being treated that way.

  ‘I knew you couldn’t have done anything, Mr Gray!’

  ‘No …’ I want Maya gone now so I can … I can … I don’t know.

  Something tight and burning has ignited in my midriff, something growing hotter by the moment. Maybe it’s reflux. Maybe I’ll vomit. Or maybe this is what true rage feels like. I’ve carried this fear about Bianca all last night and today, and it could’ve been resolved yesterday afternoon. Of course, if it had, I never would’ve tried to catch Jane earlier at work.

  ‘Have I come at a bad time?’ Maya asks.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ I say, leaning on the door jamb and holding my hands out for her sketchpad. If nothing else, Maya deserves some respect.

  Maya looks past me, her gaze landing on the line of anniversary pictures going up the stairwell. ‘You’re married, Mr Gray?’ she says.

  ‘Sorta.’ I try to be flippant.

  ‘Sorta?’

  I open my hands for her sketchpad. Disappointment marks her face. She still expects to come inside and I almost relent. It’s Maya, after all. And this is going to be awkward, standing on the front doorstep. Across the road, Josh hauls out his hose to water the lawn. He holds up his hand. I wave back and my decision is made. Life’s complicated enough.

  ‘Maya?’ I say.

  She hands me her sketchpad, and I flip
it open to the first page, which shows a picture of an Asian man in profile. He’s seen from a low angle—from the floor, maybe. No. From a child’s view. Maya’s drawn him in charcoal and captured the details meticulously—not just physical details, like his little oval glasses and thin moustache, but the hardness of his features, and the furrowing of his brow, as if in disapproval.

  ‘My father,’ Maya says.

  There is a scattering of other portraits—Maya’s mother, a younger brother, and younger twin sisters—but her father is dominant throughout, always caught stern, from low, and in an iris. Maya’s attention to detail is flawless.

  ‘These are wonderful, Maya. I told you when you showed me the other pad: you have a gift.’

  ‘Teachers have to say things like that.’

  ‘No they don’t. You told me last time you didn’t like drawing.’

  ‘You remembered.’

  ‘Of course. Why don’t you like it?’

  Maya shrugs.

  ‘Can you perhaps go a little deeper than that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Maybe it’s what you’re drawing. Your other pad had your neighbourhood, seen from windows. This is of your family. Maybe you should get out, go to the beach one day, draw a horizon.’

  Maya laughs.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I don’t know. The idea, I guess.’

  ‘Funny in a bad way?’

  ‘No.’ Maya shrugs again. ‘I think it’s funny because it’s never something I’ve considered—to go out and draw.’

  ‘There’s a whole world out there.’

  ‘When I was younger, my dad would sit me in front of a vase or some flowers and tell me to draw them. He’d always point me to something in the house. I guess I didn’t think there could be anything else.’

  ‘How do you feel about drawing a beach or a sunset or a city building?’

  Maya purses her lips. ‘That actually sounds nice. Like something I could do for me.’

  ‘Maya, I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but it’s something I wish I pushed myself to do more when I was your age—or I wish somebody had pushed me to do. Don’t let this go—at least not until you’re old enough to understand whether it’s something you don’t want for yourself. You’ll never have this time again.’

  I smile at her. Maya blushes, a crimson that rises up in her cheeks until she lowers her face and her eyes close—initially, I think it’s embarrassment, or even because she’s overwhelmed. She shifts from side to side, pivoting at her ankles—a lot like the way Jane did that first night we kissed. And that’s when I get the sense that’s what Maya’s building to—she’s going to try and push her crush.

  I step back, fold my hands behind my back. All the hopefulness seeps from her face. Her lower lip quivers. Something passes between us—acknowledgement: she’s nurtured this crush, and I’ve just made sure she knows that’s all it’ll ever be.

  Maya sniffles, trying to stop herself from breaking down entirely. I should comfort her, but it’s another line I don’t want to risk crossing. I don’t know when such simple actions became minefields, or maybe they have been for a while and I’m only now becoming aware of them. Josh waters his rose garden, but casts curious glances in our direction.

  ‘Maya, come on, it’s okay.’ I hold my hand adjacent to her arm.

  She lifts her hands to her face, then peeks at me through her fingers. Smiles. She’s got a gorgeous smile that radiates from her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I knew I shouldn’t do this, but …’

  I wait for her to elaborate. She doesn’t. I decide not to push it.

  ‘I should leave you alone.’

  ‘Maya, if you ever want to talk about drawing or want to show me your drawings, feel free to—any time at school. It’s nice to know a fellow artist.’

  ‘I will.’

  But she probably won’t. She may never get over her pass today. She’ll be polite, smile, say the right things, but she may never recover from the embarrassment.

  ‘I should be going,’ Maya says, taking her sketchpad from me. ‘Thanks, Mr Gray.’

  ‘I’m serious about your talent, Maya. You have a gift. I hope you nurture it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Gray. Goodbye, Mr Gray.’

  ‘Bye, Maya.’

  She walks down the path from my front door.

  41

  I close the door, trying to work out what to do next.

  Stuart. I want to call him. After the way he and Principal Hetrick interrogated me, I thought I was—or would become—the prime suspect. They should’ve told me I wasn’t.

  I return to the kitchen, finish my beer, grab another.

  Stuart can pull me out of class to tell me my kids are noisy, he can stand at the school entrance and censure me for being late, but when he should be telling me, hey, everything’s okay, he says nothing.

  I sit on the couch, working through my thoughts, telling myself I need to calm down. The last thing I need is to be impulsive. But all I do is work through several more beers, and then begin to question whether I actually want to work through my thoughts, or whether I’m trying to find reasons—or mellowness in drinking—to avoid a confrontation.

  No, dammit. That’s it. I want to talk to him. Need to talk to him.

  I grab my phone. It buzzes in my hand. A text from Beth:

  Hey, you haven’t answered. Everything all right?

  I think about what I should tell her. But the doorbell rings.

  It’s my pizza. I pay for it, leave the change from the twenty as a tip, then sit on the couch. The pizza’s lukewarm and soggy, and ham spills all over my T-shirt and the couch. If Wallace were here, he’d vacuum it up for me. And if Jane were here, she’d complain about Wallace vacuuming it up and get a sponge to clean up before the grease stained. I pick up the ham, throw it into an unused corner of the pizza box.

  While I eat, I think about what I’m going to say to Stuart. I’ll be diplomatic. Express the same moral superiority he does.

  Hello, Stuart.

  Hello, Casper. Is there something I can do for you?

  I just learned something interesting.

  Yes?

  As of yesterday afternoon, Bianca identified Anthony Tselikas as her assailant.

  Yes, that’s right.

  Didn’t it occur to you to tell me that?

  Well—

  You and Principal Hetrick had, after all, all but convicted me.

  We did no such—

  Yes you did, Stuart. And it would’ve been decent of you to let me know I was clear, instead of letting me go on with this completely unwarranted fear hanging over my head.

  You really are—

  Look, Stuart, why don’t you call me back when you’re prepared to apologise, okay?

  Then I’ll hang up. I won’t have my apology, but I’ll have my moral victory.

  In situations like mine, sometimes that’s all you can ask for.

  I close the pizza box. I’ve eaten about half, although it’s been tasteless and the process of eating mechanical. Then I pick up my phone, lean against the kitchen counter—right against Jane’s white paper bag—and rehearse everything in my mind once more. I know it won’t go down exactly like that. I just need the framework. I can improvise from there.

  I hear my heart pounding in my ears. It should be fast, but it’s not. It’s slow. Deep. It convinces me I’m doing the right thing. I don’t know why my mind makes that connection, but it does.

  I dial Stuart’s number. He answers almost immediately.

  ‘Hello?’ he says. ‘Stuart speaking.’

  I take a drink of beer.

  ‘Hello?’ Stuart says again.

  ‘You cunt!’

  ‘What? Who is this?’

  ‘It’s me, fuck you. Me! Thor!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Thor! Thor!’

  ‘Casper, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, it’s fucking me!’

  ‘Have you been drink—’ />
  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Mr Gr—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘B—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’

  Silence. I think he’s hung up.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here,’ he says carefully.

  ‘After the way you and Principal Fucktrick talked to me yesterday, did either of you consider calling me and telling me that I was in the clear?’

  More silence.

  ‘Well?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Well?’

  Nothing. He’s hung up.

  I ring back. Stuart answers straight away.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘WHY DID YOU FUCKING HANG UP ON ME?’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t. The phone cut out. I think it was yours.’

  It’s possible. I check my phone. The battery’s down to nine per cent, but there are three bars of reception.

  ‘I apologise, Casper. You’re right. Principal Hetrick or I should’ve called you. In all honesty, I didn’t because I believed the detectives were going to talk to you on Friday afternoon about your kids. I’m sorry. It was an oversight—a serious oversight. But it still doesn’t mean that it should’ve happened.’

  I don’t know what to say. This isn’t the way Stuart’s meant to behave. I want to shout at him. Want to batter him down with profanity and anger the way I tried to batter down the wall with the sledgehammer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Casper.’

  I go sit on the couch. Put my head in one hand.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  I’m unsure where this goes from here. Okay, fine, don’t let it happen again? That’s what I’d say to one of the kids. Or I could accept his apology, although I don’t know how to do that after everything that has prefaced it. I run my hand through my hair.