by Tony Birch
Six months back Theo offered me a new deal. There’s a grain store further along the railway line. It’s covered in years and years of pigeon shit and looks like a giant candle slowly melting into the ground. Theo told me that when he was first married and moved out here with his wife he would head down there after work and catch pigeons in a snare he’d made.
‘I break the neck and pluck. My missus, Gloria, she cook straight off. Nice. You like the chicken meat? This is better.’
Theo said he would give me a dollar a bird. He taught me how to catch them, practising in his backyard. He turned a cardboard box upside down and lifted it on one side using a long stick with a line of string tied to it. He put a small pile of rice under the box and made a trail of rice leading away from the box.
‘The bird, she comes,’ he explained, with the end of the line of string twirled around his finger. ‘She takes food from the ground.’ He bobbed his head forward like a bird would peck at the grains of rice. ‘And then she goes under for the food. You wait. Wait. Pull.’
The stick came away from the box and it closed over the pile of rice.
I found catching pigeons easy and would return to his back gate with a pillowcase full of wildly flapping birds, which didn’t please him.
‘You catch. You kill. Quick.’
He showed me how to wring a bird’s neck, which I was supposed to do as soon as I had trapped it.
‘Is better for the bird.’
I found that my blinking stopped when I concentrated on a bird moving towards the box, following the line of rice. One day I spilled more rice than I should have and the bird, a grey, speckled with silver, green and purple, headed for me instead of the box. It was at my feet pecking at the spill when I snatched it from the ground. After that I didn’t use the snare at all but caught the birds in my hands.
I was soon spending most weekends in Theo’s back garden, or at the granary stalking pigeons. When he told me he was going away for a week, to visit one of his daughters for Greek Easter, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had the chooks to look after but no one to talk to and there was no point in catching pigeons, on account of Theo’s strict rule – ‘You catch the bird, you eat the bird, same day.’ If I went out catching birds while he was away they would be on the nose before he got back.
I got the wanders that weekend, roaming wider than usual. I walked the train line in both directions, trailing through empty factories and bombing stones into the oily channel running next to the line. I ended up behind the abandoned bowling alley across from the railway station car park. It had been locked and bolted for years. The windows had been nailed over with sheets of iron and the outside walls were covered in graffiti, mostly tags left by the Islander gang, xxx–rated was the tag they went by.
I walked around the outside of the building and stopped at a window that had a corner of iron sheeting lifted. There was enough room for me to wedge my fingers between the sheet of iron and the window frame. I pulled on the iron. The rusty nails popped and the iron came away in my hands and fell to the ground. I stuck my head through the window. The air smelled of rotten meat and dirty water.
I looked around to be sure nobody had seen me and climbed through the window, landing on some broken glass. The skylights in the roof made it easy to see where I was going. At the end of the bowling lanes the pins, covered in dust and cobwebs, stood to attention. Bowling balls sat in the racks, ready to go, and a huge disco ball hung from the ceiling above the centre lane. Only the shoe rack was empty. Someone must have taken a fancy to them.
I tried one of the bowling balls for size. It was too heavy. I put it back in the rack and picked up another, a red ball. I’d never bowled before and wasn’t sure what to do. I stuck the ball under my chin like I’d seen a bowler do on television one time and concentrated on the pins, in the same way I had done when snatching pigeons. My blinking stopped. I slipped on my run-up and dropped the ball. It crashed to the boards, bounced into the gutter, rolled down the lane and wobbled by the pins. I picked out another ball and stuck it under my chin again. This time I didn’t let go until I reached the bowling line, marked by a row of brass diamonds in the floor.
I slung the ball as hard as I could and listened as it rumbled and echoed, over and over and over, before crashing into the pins. Most of them went down straightaway. One of the back pins wobbled from side to side then fell, hitting another and leaving only two pins standing. I was so happy I whooped out loud.
I played every lane until the last pin had dropped and my bowling arm was worn out. I was thirsty and hungry and headed for the vending machines in the foyer. The potato chips, lollies and chocolate machine were covered in rat shit. Empty packets lay in the bottom, chewed to confetti. The soft-drink machine looked a better bet but I couldn’t get to the cans without smashing the front of the machine. I picked up a bowling ball, spun around in a circle like a discus thrower and hurled it at the machine. The glass front shattered into bits.
I emptied the machine of drinks, careful not to cut my arm on the jagged glass, and sat the cans on the floor. I counted them up. I had twenty-two cans. I picked up a can of lemonade and wiped the dirt from the top on my T-shirt. I opened it and took a sniff. It smelt okay and there were bubbles. I put my lips to the can and tipped it back, just a little. It was sweet and sticky and warm. I finished the can off and fiddled with the money slot on the side of the machine. I could hear coins rattling around inside but had no idea how to get it open. I whacked the machine with the bowling ball a couple of times. Nothing happened. I bowled the ball across the foyer. It ran down the stairs into one of the lanes and stopped in the gutter.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry all the cans of drink home, so I lined ten up in a bowling-pin formation and was about to bowl them over when a pin whizzed by my head, bounced off the wall and ricocheted into the side of the lolly machine. I turned to see where it had come from. It was the Islander boys, six or seven of them, standing in the shadows of lane ten. The biggest boy, Israel, was a year in front of me at school and was feared by everyone, even the boys in years above him. He had an older brother in gaol. Everybody knew that one day he would follow him. He had a wild Mohawk hairdo that he’d done himself and an ugly scar below one eye; some said from a knife fight.
The other boys formed a V-shape behind him as he walked towards me. He pushed me in the chest with one of his paws and bent forward, staring me in the eye. My blinking went off the radar. The more I tried to stop it the worse it got, like window wipers at double speed.
‘What you doing here, in our place? You skinny freckle-faced motherfucka skip. And stop your winking at me like some fucked-up spastic.’
When I didn’t answer he pushed me again.
‘Fuck you, nut boy. This belongs to us. xxx crew. Say something before I show you some kick.’
‘He can’t talk, Issie. He’s retarded.’
It was Moses. Israel’s younger brother. He was in my year. Israel spat at my feet.
‘Can’t fucken read either. Our brand is swarming this place. You fuck off home, runt.’
He pushed me again. I slipped and fell onto my arse. I cut my elbow on a broken piece of glass. I only cried when I saw the blood pouring out. The boys laughed at me until Moses spotted the blood.
‘Hey, come on, man. He’s hurt.’
Israel looked a little worried himself. ‘Get up, retard. You being a bitch.’
The blood ran down my arm onto the floor.
‘Look at the cut.’ Moses pointed to it. ‘We’re fucked if he reports us.’
Israel whacked him across the face. ‘Shut it. Giving him ideas.’
He lifted me off the ground and put his arm around me, like he was my best friend. ‘You say anything about this and I’ll skin you. Got it?’
All I could do was nod my head.
‘Now fuck off home like a cry-baby and come up with a good story.
’
I told my mum I fell on the railway tracks. She banned me from going further than Theo’s place for a month, which wouldn’t stop me getting around as she was always working and had no idea where I got to during the day. As she washed and bandaged the wound she asked me if there was something wrong.
‘I’m worried about you, Tom. You spend more time over at Theo’s than you do here. I don’t mind. He’s a nice old man, but … are you unhappy? With Sam being here?’
I shook my head, ‘No.’
‘Would you like to talk to him? Maybe there’s something you’d rather talk over with him? You know, man to man?’
I shook my head again. Sam was okay, but I didn’t want to talk to him about anything.
Mum let me miss the final two days of term. I had a little over two weeks before I would have to face Israel again. When Theo came home from Greek Easter and I told him I’d fallen on the railway tracks he knew I was lying.
‘Bullshit story. You sit. You speak. Slow. You tell Theo. I will fix.’
I sprayed and stuttered but got the story out in the end. I started crying when I told him I was afraid to go back to school and face the gang. He patted me on the shoulder and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the same way that he spoke to the hens.
‘You must go to school.’
I shook my head, furiously, from side to side.
He put a hand under my chin and made me look at him. ‘I make you present for them boys. You feed chooks and I go in shed. We work together.’
I sat in the pen with the chooks until Theo called me.
‘Come.’ He was holding a length of pipe in his hand. He handed me a lead marble. ‘Take.’
He pulled a large firecracker and a cigarette lighter from his pocket. He handed me the firecracker. The layers of paper were flaking away and the firecracker was falling apart. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it went off in my hand as soon as I lit it. He clicked his fingers.
‘Give me marble.’ He dropped the marble into the pipe. He pointed at the cracker. ‘You light. Push in hole. Here.’
He showed me the open end of the pipe. I lit the cracker and shoved it into the end of the pipe.
He rested the pipe gun on his shoulder like a miniature rocket launcher and aimed it in the general direction of his tin shed. I heard a loud bang and a ringing sound. Smoke poured from both ends of the pipe. Theo dropped the pipe to the ground and walked over to the shed. He stuck a finger in the neat round hole in the tin.
‘See? Good job.’
He went back into the shed and came out with a leather bag with more lead marbles and firecrackers inside. ‘You practise, practise. Then boys come and give trouble, you shoot. Send them away.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You no kill any. But you hurt, you frighten, and you free then.’
Theo had gone crazy. Maybe I couldn’t kill Israel with the pipe gun but I could take his eye out. And I would be in big trouble. He could see that I was worried.
‘You have choice. Number one, you do nothing. They bully. Any time they see you. Bully. Bully. Again. Fuck again.’ He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me, just a little. ‘Number two,’ he rested one hand on my heart, ‘you say, “Fucken no more,” and you fight. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
I took the bag home and hid it under my bed. I didn’t want to hurt anyone with it but I was excited about trying out the marble gun. The next morning I tucked the bag in the front of my jacket and left home by the back gate as soon as my mother had gone to work. I walked the line to the granary.
I practised loading the pipe with the marble and sticking the cracker in the hole, without lighting it, until I could do it all quickly. I balanced a battered old paint tin on a fence post, took a deep breath, lit the cracker on the ground, shoved the marble in, followed by the cracker and aimed the gun at the tin. The blast popped my right ear. I didn’t know I’d hit the tin until it started weeping red paint from a hole near the bottom.
I fired off a couple more shots. I had plenty of marbles left but only two firecrackers. I put everything back in the bag then crossed the tracks and headed home. As I rounded a bend across from our fence, I spotted a boy and girl up ahead on the tracks. He was much bigger than the girl and looked older. He dragged her by the arm. She screamed at him to leave her alone.
‘Stop it, will you? Please.’
She fell on the ground and wouldn’t move. He wrapped her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her side.
‘I’ll stop when we’re finished.’
He lifted her off the ground and struggled with her, dragging her into a line of trees and scrub. I fell to my knees and crept along behind them. When he reached the trees he threw the girl onto the ground and stood over her.
‘You move, you say a word, make a sound, and I’ll kill you.’
I hadn’t seen either of them before. He had a shaved head and tattoos on his neck. She was Islander.
He undid his fly, put his hand in his pants and rubbed at his cock. I crept a little closer, as quietly as I could. I tucked the length of pipe under my arm and put a lead marble in my mouth. I stood up and held a firecracker in one hand and the cigarette lighter in the other. The girl saw me and looked up from the ground. He turned around. He was giving his cock a good tug.
‘Hey. Fuck off. Before you cop a kicking.’
When I didn’t say anything he laughed.
‘Please yourself, cunt. Watch and learn. What the fuck’s that?’ He screwed his face at me, seeing me light the cracker.
‘You come near me with that and I’ll cave your arse in. And then hers.’
I stood perfectly still for a second and remembered what Theo had said to me. I rammed the lit cracker in the back of the pipe, took the marble out of my mouth, dropped it in the front of the pipe and aimed at his head. I shut my eyes and turned my head away from the blast. He cried out like a dog booted in the guts with a steel-cap. When I looked he was rolling around on the ground, screaming out and holding his hands to his face.
‘Jesus. Fuck. You shot me.’
I hurled the pipe gun at him. The girl jumped up and stopped next to him. She stomped on his back with the heel of her shoe.
‘Dirty bastard.’ She kicked him again and ran after me.
I led her to the laneway behind my street. We ran until we reached the back gate. ‘In here.’
I kicked the gate open and bolted it behind me. We were both puffing like mad. She had a deep scratch on her neck and blood on her white skirt. She had chocolate-coloured skin and an Afro hairdo.
‘Who are you?’ she barked, like I’d been the one who’d attacked her.
I tried getting my name out – Tom – but couldn’t. When we’d both got our breath back she told me her name was Angeline and thanked me for saving her. She said she’d seen the older boy at the station when she got off the train and didn’t know he was following her until she heard him behind her when she was taking a short cut across the tracks.
‘What a fucking creep. Wow. You shot him. He fucking deserved it. Where do you go to school, anyway?’
‘Hu … Hu … High.’
‘I bet you know my older cousin then. Israel. Everyone knows Issie.’
The first day back at school for the new term I stayed away from Israel and his boys, until lunchtime, when I noticed them walking towards me, across the school ground to the losers’ patch of dirt. Israel sat down next to me, cocked his baseball cap back on his head and put his arm over my shoulder, just like he had the day at the bowling alley. I waited for him to snap my neck.
‘I never thought you’d have the balls to be a shooter, retard. You saved my cuz, Angel, from that motherfucka pedo. You a soldier, man.’
He slapped me on the back. ‘You done well. Moses and me, and the boys, we giving you the green light for that one. You know what that is? The green light?’
I shook my head.
‘You don’t worry about that, Bro. You don’t say nothing much. But you a shooter. Fucken ice cool shooter. The green light is simple. It’s like what the big boys do. All them hoods on the TV. It means you get no more trouble from any motherfucka at this school.’
He hugged even tighter.
‘Your shit is Issie’s shit.’
He stood up and waddled away, his troops in single-file behind him.
When I got home from school that night old Theo was hanging over his front gate, waiting for me. He looked worried.
‘How you go, little bird? You have trouble from bully?’
‘No,’ I smiled.
‘Good.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Bang. Is best.’
KEEPING GOOD COMPANY
A good night’s sleep was hard to come by. I’d get into bed around nine-thirty or ten o’clock and read for a few minutes before nodding off. The problem was that I’d wake a few hours later, around one in the morning. I’d toss and turn for half an hour or so before giving up on sleep and would turn the reading lamp or the radio on to ease my anxiety. That activity would take me through to around four in the morning, when I would abandon the bed altogether and head to the kitchen, make myself a cup of tea and collapse on the battered couch alongside my ageing Staffordshire terrier, Ella, and the stray one-eyed black and white cat I’d recently inherited. I’d rest an arm on the snoring dog, nurse my mug of tea on my lap and wait for the sun to come up.
On the morning of the accident I’d managed to sleep in, if you could call it that. I’d got through most of the night and was woken by a noise in the bedroom around five in the morning. I flipped onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillow. A little while later I heard the noise again; tap-tap, tap-tap. It was similar to a sound from a few weeks earlier, when I’d heard a knock at the bedroom window in the middle of the night. I’d hopped out of bed and drawn the curtains to one side, to see a scrawny cat sitting on the window ledge. When I growled at it to piss off it meowed and stuck a paw against the glass. I then knocked on my side of the glass with a knuckle to shoo it away. Eventually the cat jumped from the ledge and vanished behind a bush in the front garden.