by Scot Gardner
Thunder detonated right over the house. Denise squeaked. Larry giggled nervously and danced on the spot. Big tropical drops were now playing the roof like a snare drum.
Mal stood at the back door in his underwear, wide-eyed and grinning. ‘Ready?’
Larry nodded.
Mal opened the flyscreen and felt the ionised breath of the storm on his face. The rain came down with the force of a waterfall. He shed his underwear and charged naked into the back yard.
With his face and arms raised to the heavens, he whooped and danced in a tight circle. Larry jumped on the spot, exultant, the rain slapping at his head and shoulders and stealing his breath. They were holding hands and stomping in the puddles that had started to form as the deluge filled the gutters and cascaded over the eaves, all the while hooting and screaming like madmen. Larry broke away and ran a lap of the yard, arms pumping, his father growling after him like a dog. The little boy ran and giggled until he had to stop. He lay down in a puddle beside the vegetable beds and his father flopped beside him. They were staring at each other, grinning and panting, when they felt footfalls and heard squealing – Denise with her shoulders hunched around her ears, smiling, her white bra darkening as the dots of rain joined and then ran like tears over her pale skin.
The boys – grass-flecked and muddied – cheered, and the three of them danced in circles until Denise’s orange knickers, waterlogged and loose, began to fall down. She hoicked them up with a squeal and the boys flopped onto the wet ground again.
Larry found a clothes peg and clipped it onto his foreskin. He shrieked and ran another lap of the yard, his ornamented penis flapping about proudly.
Mal and Denise, winded by laughter, clapped and eventually cheered. Mal attached a peg to his own penis and began a tribal dance that involved a lot of stomping, yelping and pelvic thrusting in the general direction of his wife.
In the general direction of the Hammersmiths’ back fence.
Mal spotted the floral dome of a shower cap and the narrowed eyes of Muriel Hammersmith staring at him over the palings.
He froze.
Denise wheeled to see why he looked so aghast, sucked a breath and covered herself with her wet arms.
Muriel Hammersmith stared.
With a primal yawp, Mal rolled his eyes back into his head, punched his fists into the air and pelvic-thrusted his way to the fence, his penis slapping rhythmically against his belly. When his eyes rolled back into place, Muriel Hammersmith had gone.
Mal turned to his wife and shrugged, but Denise was already heading for the back door. He looked to his son, who stood with his arms by his sides, hair shiny with rain, and shrugged again.
Larry punched his little fists into the air, squealed and waggled his penis until the clothes peg let go. The pair of them laughed and laughed, until the laughter had gone and only sighs remained.
Later, as Mal towel-dried his hair in the kitchen and the rain continued to lash the house in waves, he heard Betsy bark once. It was a pleading yelp as if she’d been locked out. Mal looked to the back fence and saw the top of Muriel’s head over the palings. The floral shower cap had gone and her normally curled hair had been rain-plastered to the top of her head like a doily. Muriel’s head appeared to be rotating around the yard. She was waltzing with herself. Waltzing in the rain. The postman smiled.
SATISFYING
BRUISES
LARRY LOVED SCHOOL and school loved Larry. In the beginning, at least.
While the big world continued to tear itself apart in 1996 with suicide bombings in Sri Lanka and Israel, mad cow disease in Britain and a spate of horrific air disasters, Larry’s little world came together. He couldn’t have been happier. He was in class with Jemma Holland every day. His teacher, Mrs Smythe, was like a grandmother to him, and she kept a box of dried fruit in her desk to reward her clever students. Larry ate a lot of dried fruit.
For Denise, it was another story. Weeks passed before she could watch him hang up his schoolbag without sobbing.
‘Sometimes it’s harder on the parents than it is on the children,’ Mrs Smythe counselled Denise. ‘You need to find an outlet, volunteer for Meals on Wheels or do something creative. Fill your days.’
Mal had said the same thing. Then one night, watching a lifestyle program, they stumbled on a solution: Sookie Dolls, Peek-a-boo Dolls, Time-out Dolls, Tantrum Dolls, Corner Kids, each made with a simple wood-and-wire frame, padded with cotton wadding and dressed in second-hand children’s clothing. The head was a single white polystyrene ball covered with a stocking, ornamented with artificial hair from the craft shop and topped with a cheap broad-brimmed hat. The dolls didn’t need faces, as they were designed to be propped against furniture or rested in the corner like sulking children.
Denise’s first effort – using a kit from the craft shop and some of Larry’s old clothes – was so lifelike that she caught Larry having a conversation with it.
‘It’s okay. We could go to the park. I’ll ask my mum if it’s okay.’
Denise laughed, but not out loud. When she turned the life-sized doll and revealed its featureless stockinged face, Larry gasped and took a step back in complete horror. She saw him shiver. He ran from the room.
She found him on his bed, his face pressed into the pillow, body shaking. She rubbed his shoulder.
‘Sorry, Larry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I didn’t think . . .’
Larry rolled onto his side. He was laughing. ‘I thought it was real! I thought it was a real kid, not a doll!’
They laughed together, but when she came into the lounge later where Larry was watching an old black-and-white Gilligan’s Island, she found the doll lying down behind the couch.
To Mal, the making of the dolls had a bizarre feel of Frankenstein’s monster about it. He was certain Dr Freud would have had something interesting to say on the topic. But he resisted the urge to push the dolls out of sight. They were disturbing, but they were something. He made enough wood-and-wire frames one Sunday after fishing to keep Denise occupied for a couple of months. She bought clothes from second-hand shops and stumbled upon an elderly volunteer at a Salvation Army thrift shop who offered to sell finished dolls on consignment through her stall at the Villea Sunday market.
And they sold.
One Wednesday night when Denise was at the film club and the lounge was glutted with sulking dolls, the boys found a new and vastly improved use for them.
Mal was bowling his son across the shiny floorboards in the lounge and Larry, spinning uncontrollably, accidentally kicked the legs out from under a doll. It hit the floor with a satisfying crack and brought another down as it fell. Mal then propped the dolls against each other until they resembled the pins in a bowling alley.
With his arms clamped around his head, Larry became the ball and earned a few small but gratifying bruises knocking the dolls down.
The game ended in breathless laughter when a doll lost its head.
Mal made the repairs, but the dolls never looked spooky again.
GILLIGAN
PPRINCE CHARLES AND Princess Diana went public about their plans to divorce the day before Larry’s sixth birthday. The news brought Denise to the point of sniffles, but it was a little outpouring compared to the tears Larry cried on his birthday, the difference being that Larry’s were tears of joy.
Mal made his boy a bike. It was cobbled together from hard-garbage wrecks salvaged in May and de-rusted with black paint from a spray can at a total cost of six dollars. The mongrel bike – with its odd-coloured training wheels and ‘Par Avion’ stickers – made Larry squeal with delight, but it was the mongrel puppy that came with it that reduced him to tears. The dog was the runt from Dominic Evans’s neighbour’s dog’s sixth accidental litter and it had arrived home on that Saturday afternoon in Mal’s jacket pocket.
It was love at first sight, and, for the first time in Larry’s life, there was no doubt that the feelings were mutual.
The dog’s pedigree, had it been tr
aceable, would have read like a canine shopping list. It had a grey, wiry-looking outer coat over rusty puppy fluff that was the softest thing Larry had ever felt; softer than rabbit fur, softer than Denise’s doll stuffing, softer than cotton wool. He couldn’t keep it away from his face.
‘Has it been wormed?’ Denise asked.
‘Well, I . . . no . . . I don’t think so.’
‘Not on your face, then, darling.’
But Larry couldn’t resist. The puppy had a pink tongue that licked at the speed of sound and mopped up his tears of delight before they’d left his cheeks. Its fully turbo-charged tail just didn’t stop ticking.
‘How much was . . . it? He or she?’
‘It’s a he,’ Mal said, his own eyes misting at Larry’s palpable delight. ‘Free to a good home.’
Denise hugged her husband’s elbow. ‘What are you going to call him, Larry?’
Larry looked at the dog’s face. His eyes lit up.
‘Gilligan!’
Gilligan, unlike Larry’s other pets, survived. Vince taught him to sit during afternoon tea, using biscuit crumbs for rewards. When Jemma came over after school, she and Larry would dress the dog up and walk him in the park. Gilligan rarely barked, except at Clinton Miller, who had picked him up by the ears on one of their first meetings.
Clinton came over every night after school. Denise was wary, but felt sorry for him. She fed him Oreos and apples and spoke to him the same way she spoke to Larry. In her presence, Clinton was well-mannered, but as soon as her back was turned, he changed.
‘Stop it, Clinton.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Stop kicking me. I’ll tell my mum.’
Kick. Kick. Kick.
‘I’ll call the police.’
‘My dad’s a policeman. If he comes, he’ll kick you, too.’
‘I thought your dad was a doctor?’
‘He is. He’s a doctor policeman. He gets paid a million dollars. A million dollars a week.’
‘My dad’s a postman.’
‘I know that, idiot.’
Kick. Kick. Kick.
While Larry was getting his bike from the shed one Thursday, Clinton decided to explore Mal’s piles of salvaged gear.
‘Hey, you’re not allowed in here,’ Larry said.
‘Well, I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘Clinton, stop it.’
But Clinton ignored him. He found a cigarette lighter and, using both hands, managed to produce a flame after three strikes.
‘Muuuum,’ Larry sang.
‘Shh. Shut up,’ Clinton hissed, his eyes scanning for something to burn. He made the paint blister on the edge of the table.
‘Mum!’
Clinton melted the end of a ballpoint pen and made the flame lick against the lacy plastic curtain in the louvre window. The curtain ignited with a pop and quickly became a sheet of flame. Clinton dropped the lighter and ran straight out the side gate, across the road without looking and through his screen door. Larry could only watch as the curtain turned to burning liquid and dropped to the concrete floor. Memories of the Fishburn Street house paralysed him, but the flames died and grey smoke rolled out the door. Larry collected the lighter and pushed on the blackened remains of the curtain with the toe of his shoe.
‘What is it?’ Denise said.
Larry jumped and dropped the lighter.
‘What’s burning? What have you done? What have you done?’
Larry cried and ran to his bed, but Clinton was back the next night.
Gilligan was the only one who saw through Clinton’s façade. He always kept one eye on him and nipped Clinton if he played too roughly with Larry. The dog became the little boy’s older brother, protector and favourite toy. He slept on Larry’s bed, and when Larry was at school he never left Denise’s side.
‘He’s a good dog,’ Vince said. He’d brought over a shopping bag full of plump mandarins from the tree in his back yard and Denise made him a cup of tea.
‘He is,’ she agreed, thankful the dog couldn’t talk. She’d told him things she’d never tell another human. He was a good listener. The best. When life got the better of her, he sat at her feet and stared up with his oakwood eyes.
Vince told the dog to sit, sipped his tea, and then rubbed Gilligan’s ears. The dog leaned into him and closed his eyes blissfully. ‘They take on the personality of their owners.’
Denise looked at the old man. What did Betsy say about him?
‘Betsy’s Muriel’s dog,’ he said, as if he’d read her mind.
Denise chuckled. ‘What would your dog be like?’
‘I had a dog once. A poodle named Rocky. Smartest thing on four legs. He could do all the tricks but we had a sort of telepathic connection, I reckon.’
He looked up, eyes misted. ‘Got me through some pretty rough times, old Rocky. He was a good friend.’
Denise’s throat grew tight. She called Gilligan over and buried her face in his neck. She thought about hugging her neighbour but the thought was as close as she got. Hugging the dog was uncomplicated. She’d never had pets as a kid; never really had friends. They’d moved around too much for that. It was this house, this dog, this neighbour bringing her undone. Sometimes, the light of contentment made the shadows in her past seem darker.
TRYING TO
FLY
THE YEAR 1997 unfolded as the year of cosmological adventures: the space shuttle docked with the Russian Mir space station, the first probe landed on Mars and disappointingly found no Martians, and the comet Hale-Bopp came so close to Earth that the Rainbows could see it from their back yard. In that year, the year he turned seven, Larry became aware of habits that had formed around him.
Mal had a beer habit. It involved cleaning, mixing, bottling, tasting, sharing, laughing.
Denise had developed an Oreo habit which included buying, opening, splitting, scraping, crunching, sighing.
And they shared a news habit that made him feel alone. If he opened his mouth from five-thirty onwards, he’d be shushed into submission unless he timed his words to coincide with the ad breaks. When the TV died, Mal couldn’t fix it, so he went out late on Friday night and bought a new set, a bigger set, with a remote control. The ad breaks seemed to disappear altogether. Larry realised his dad surfed three channels’ news bulletins to avoid them.
At that point, Larry developed a habit. When the news started, he’d stand in front of the TV until somebody got mad. When they growled at him, he’d step to the side and then slowly inch back in front of the screen.
‘Laaaaarry. How many times have I told you to stay away from the TV? Move. Now. Please.’
That was his cue to step to the side again and begin his creep anew.
‘Larry!’ Denise would shout, and Mal would get up from his chair.
Larry would run into the yard and indulge his best friend.
Gilligan had a stick habit. A habit they could share. Find, drop, (throw), find, drop, (throw), find, drop, (throw), find, drop, (throw), find, drop . . . drop . . . drop . . . bark, (throw). He preferred sticks tossed by Larry but would chase anything thrown by anybody: flying toys, balls, sand, shells, toadies.
Gilligan became so obsessive about his stick habit that it almost cost him his life.
Mal had taken to fishing the deeper part of the channel with an old bamboo surf rod. Larry loved the whipping sound it made as his father cast a heavy sinker into the blackest part of the inlet.
On the Sunday in question, Larry noticed the sinker – poised behind Mal ready to be flung into the deep – bounce against Gilligan’s left ear.
The dog spun around and spotted the lump of grey metal dangling near his snout. It jiggled enticingly and as he stepped up to sniff it, it took off.
So did Gilligan.
He careened into Mal’s leg before launching himself under the handrail and off the edge of the jetty.
Larry, Mal and the Crew had time to suck a collective breath as Gilligan vanished. They held that breath.
&
nbsp; There was no little doggy-bomb into the water three metres below: instead, there was a dull metallic thud. A solid wave of bodies surged to the handrail and began laughing.
The dog had landed in a boat, an aluminium dinghy moored fore and aft to the pylons of the jetty. It nodded on the swell and Gilligan stood in the bow, tail wagging slowly, stunned but apparently unhurt; a living canine figurehead.
It took ten minutes to rescue him. Mal climbed back up the ladder with one hand and Gilligan squirming and licking at his face, wedged under his arm.
‘Maybe we should leave him at home next Sunday,’ Mal said. His eyes had narrowed the way they did when Larry stood in front of the TV.
Larry nodded, but he was torn. How could he choose between Gilligan and Mal? He was surrounded by a thick cloud of confusion. For one reason or another, he thought of the dead Japanese boy on the stretcher and shivered.
Sundays were Larry’s favourite day of all, but every Sunday was different, too. Sometimes, when the fish were biting, the men were happy and full of mischief, but other times, even when the fish were biting, the men grew serious and so few words were spoken that it would be easy to think they were grumpy.
Somewhere on the way home, usually as they turned into Condon Street, Larry’s father would sigh and sum up the day.
‘What a fantastic day to be alive, hey Larry, my boy?’
‘Well, that was a good day, hey Larry?’
‘Not a bad day today, Larry?’
‘We’ve had better days, haven’t we Larry?’
‘Some days I think we’d be better off staying in bed, my son.’
And some days he’d just sigh. The sigh meant nothing without the accompanying expression. With his chin up and eyes bright, the sigh was a song of contentment. He was probably thinking about the garden or work on Monday. If he had his head forward and his jaw muscles twitching, a nose sigh meant something else altogether. He was probably thinking about the nanna Larry had never met or, more likely, Denise. Larry knew that something wasn’t right with his mother. She was a cloudy day.