Happy as Larry

by Scot Gardner

  While the war in Iraq had officially been over for months, the fi ghting never stopped. While most of the world had hung up their anti-war placards, Guillermo was still on fire. He was the sort of person who was drawn to action. He wrote letters and collected signatures on petitions, held discussion groups at lunchtime, and his schoolbag was covered with badges that spoke of his dissent. You had to have an opinion to be Guillermo’s friend. Not that you had to agree with him, but you had to hear both sides of the argument and you had to make up your mind. The thing Larry most admired about his friend was his ability to let things go. He could be furious about something – like how he thought investigators would find no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or that sending John Geoghan, the priest defrocked for sex offences, to jail would be a death sentence and he didn’t deserve to die – but the moment the topic shifted, the anger vanished. Larry told him he admired that trait one Saturday. With Jemma, they’d ridden their bikes to the end of the long jetty.

  ‘If you can’t control your thoughts, my friend, who will?’ Guillermo said. ‘Nobody can do it for you. It’s your brain, your heart, they are your emotions. All you need to hold it together is a little self-discipline. It’s like when a song gets stuck in your head and the same three lines go over and over again. Do you go crazy or think of something else?’

  ‘That’s all fine in theory,’ Jemma said. ‘But what about chocolate?’

  Larry and Guillermo laughed.

  ‘What about love?’ she said, and they stopped laughing.

  ‘Ah, yes, I’m sure some things are harder to manage than others.’

  ‘But you can’t say to yourself, “I’m not going to fall in love with this or that person.” ’ ‘Can’t you?’ Guillermo pondered.

  ‘No. Not any more than you can say, “I am going to fall in love with this or that person.” ’ ‘I love you both,’ Larry said.

  They both laughed.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t make yourself fall in love,’ Jemma continued, ‘and you can’t stop it if it’s happening.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Guillermo said. ‘That’s one theory where I’ll have to wait for some firsthand experience before I can speak with any authority.’

  Jemma’s shoulders dropped, almost imperceptibly, but Larry noticed.

  She turned her bike towards town and said she had to go.

  ‘Love you,’ Larry called to her back.

  She took her hand off the bars and wobbled as she waved.

  Guillermo was right.

  An inmate strangled John Geoghan in his Massachusetts jail cell. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It had been one of the main reasons the USA went to war, and they’d got it wrong. Hundreds of soldiers and innocent people had died and the main reason for going to war turned out to be a bad rumour.

  It was only a rumour, too, that Clinton Miller had brought the little bomb to school that blew the side out of one of the toilet bowls. It was only a rumour, but they went through his locker, and the police arrived at his house. They found no evidence to support the claim, and the toilet was duly replaced. Clinton professed his innocence, but when he thought nobody was looking, Larry saw him smile.

  Five days after the bomb went off in the toilet, bombs went off in Spain and one hundred and ninety-one people were killed. Al Qaeda said the bombs were theirs. The Spaniards elected a new government three days later, saying that the terrorist actions on their own soil were a result of the old government’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq. If they were right, as Guillermo suspected they were, other countries involved in the war would also be at risk of terrorist attacks. Other countries like the UK. Other countries like their own.

  ‘It just doesn’t seem fair,’ Jemma said. She and Larry and Guillermo were swerving to miss Gilligan and pedalling towards the weir wall on a Saturday morning. ‘How can the government get us involved in a war I didn’t want, in Iraq . . . a war against terror . . . and then after the war is supposed to be over we’re more at risk of terror than we were before?’

  ‘I don’t think we personally are more at risk. We aren’t the best target. They’ll attack the city. They’ll attack the power station,’ Guillermo said. ‘We’re still safe here. We’re more in danger of being run over by a bus or eaten by a shark.’

  ‘That’s a comforting thought,’ Larry said.

  ‘It was supposed to be. There are more pressing concerns for us, anyway,’ Guillermo said, and nodded along the track.

  Ahead, two boys stood beside discarded bikes. They were examining something the shorter boy was holding. Gilligan growled and Larry recognised them: Jemma’s older brother, Tim, and Clinton Miller.

  At the sound of the dog, Clinton hurriedly pocketed whatever it was he was holding. Tim grabbed his bike in a panic.

  ‘Morning, gentlemen,’ Guillermo said.

  Clinton nodded a greeting. Tim sat astride his bike but didn’t leave.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ Jemma asked.

  ‘Nothing. What are you doing? Finding a quiet spot for a little threesome with your boyfriends?’

  Clinton laughed. ‘Not much hope of action there, I’m afraid. You boys aren’t really interested in girls, are you?’

  Guillermo chuckled and shook his head dismissively.

  ‘What are you looking at, Rainbow?’ Tim growled. He was almost the same age as Guillermo but a full head taller. ‘I’m taken.’

  Clinton roared with laughter. ‘Yes, he’s mine.’

  Larry swallowed, but didn’t smile. Clinton’s boyfriend? His henchman? His accomplice?

  ‘On that note,’ Guillermo said. ‘I think we’ll bid you good day.’

  He scooted his bike then slung his leg over, pedalling slowly off along the track.

  Jemma sneered at her brother before doing the same. Larry called his dog and heard the boys whispering as he was leaving. He quickly caught up with the others.

  A silver object, the size and rough shape of a tennis ball, flew over their heads. They heard it hissing before they saw it skitter along the track. Gilligan bolted at it and scooped it victoriously into his mouth. He bit it playfully then turned to bring it back to Larry.

  The silver ball exploded.

  It detonated with such force and heat that Larry felt it on his skin and in his stomach before his brain registered the noise. His face and arms were peppered with material from the blast, and something bit at his shin. He stepped off his bike and let it crunch to the track. Jemma was screaming and holding her ears. Guillermo had swerved off the path and fallen heavily onto his side in the bushes.

  A thin veil of smoke hovered between Larry and his dog. His ears were ringing; his lungs wouldn’t fill. His legs seemed to dissolve under him. He slumped to his knees beside Gilligan and felt the horror seep into his bones.

  Gilligan was dead. The explosion had shredded his head. No mouth, no eyes, only a single tattered ear remained. Larry rested his hand on the dog’s flank and felt it twitch and shiver under his fingers. There was no breath, no heartbeat. Blood crawled through the gravel.

  Jemma was still howling. The sound crept into Larry’s consciousness under the ringing in his ears. He still couldn’t make a sound. Breaths came in useless panicked gasps. Guillermo appeared beside him, his hand over his mouth and his eyes glossy with tears. He looked at the dog and then down the track. Larry followed his gaze and saw the backs of Clinton and Tim. They were pedalling hard. They were pedalling for their lives.

  He turned back to his dog and finally found a breath. The shock faded to tears.

  His voice was a choked whisper. ‘Oh, Gilligan. I’m sorry, boy. I’m so sorry.’

  He ran his hand through the dog’s thick coat and its tail patted at the surface of the track. Larry knew it was just a reflex – like a trevally with a severed spinal column flipping in a bucket – but it seemed such a natural response, a normal response to being stroked, that he smiled through his tears. He felt forgiven, and in the same mom
ent remembered his own death off Pincher Point. Remembered the peaceful release, and wanted to die.

  There was no release. He didn’t die with his dog. The pain washed through and the facts remained.

  Jemma had stopped screaming. She was crying quietly into her hand, her whimpering broken by random sobs.

  Guillermo put a hand on Larry’s shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry, Larry,’ he whispered.

  Larry sniffed. He blinked hard to squeeze the tears from his eyes and lifted Gilligan into his arms.

  ‘Can I . . . can I help?’ Guillermo asked.

  ‘No. It’s fine. I’m fine,’ Larry croaked. ‘Can you bring my bike?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The body in his arms was warm and loose with fresh death. Blood soaked through the left elbow of his jacket and felt sticky and strange against his skin. The muscles in his back and shoulders ached.

  Nobody said a thing. The bike hubs ticked as they rolled home. Jemma opened the side gate and Larry lowered Gilligan gently onto the back lawn.

  ‘Larry?’ Denise called from inside. ‘Oh my heavens, Larry. Are you okay? What happened?’

  ‘I’m fine. There was an accident. Gilligan’s dead.’

  Jemma and Guillermo helped bury the dog deep beside the vegetable beds. Larry wondered if parts of his dog would make their way underground via worms and end up in the vegetables. He wondered if Guillermo would think twice about eating the vegetables if he knew they’d been fertilised by dead dog. The thoughts tumbled to their natural conclusion when he realised that everything that is living is made up of the dead.

  Mal’s breath was sour with beer when he arrived later that afternoon. He was drunk enough for his guard to come down and the anger to take hold. The more he heard of the story, the more his rage peaked. It was the shard of metal he pulled from his son’s shin that finally drove him to action. ‘Mal?’ Denise called, as he strode out the front door.

  ‘Mal? Where are you going? Don’t be stupid. It’s done. It’s over.’

  He crossed the road and banged a fist on the window beside Clinton’s front door. He could hear the television inside but nobody answered. With his anger pumped up another notch, he donned his motorbike helmet and rode his bike to the Hollands’ house as the sun was going down.

  ‘Evening,’ Mal said when Christopher Holland answered the door.

  Chris looked at the helmet Mal had placed at his feet and the little red bike parked on the nature strip. He nodded a greeting.

  ‘Your son, Tim, and the kid who lives across the road from us, Clinton Miller, they had some sort of bomb. They set it off this morning and killed my son’s dog.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Mal nodded.

  ‘Tim? Tim? Where are you? Get here, now,’ Chris thundered.

  ‘What?’ came the boy’s voice from the back of the house. It was only one word, but to Mal it reeked of defiance.

  The boy was almost as tall as his father. Coltish and arrogant, he crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe.

  ‘This man reckons you had some sort of bomb. Reckons you killed his kid’s dog.’

  Tim snorted. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘This morning. Along the track that goes up by the river,’ Mal said. ‘You and Clinton Miller.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t me. Clinton’s an idiot.’

  Mal stiffened. ‘Your sister was there. Is Jemma here?’

  ‘No. She’s in town with her mother,’ Chris said.

  ‘When will she be back?’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ Chris asked.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Well, Tim’s been with me in the shed most of the day and I’m wondering if you’re all there.’

  Tim chuckled.

  The laugh spurred Mal. His anger bit at the bars of its cage and started a vicious barking frenzy inside his head. His nostrils flared and he almost surrendered to his burning desire to hurt the boy; almost submitted to the part of him that wanted to grab the kid by the throat, drag him down the stairs and kick him until he bled from the ears.

  A father’s rage.

  Tim had no remorse. Maybe it was a joke gone wrong, but it could easily have been Larry and not his dog who had been killed. Tim had no regrets and a smugness about him that combined to make the most punchable face Mal had ever seen.

  Chris Holland, sensing the postman’s rage, took a deep breath, crossed his arms over his barrel chest and repositioned himself in front of his son.

  For a second, Mal’s fury was bigger than Chris Holland, and the man knew it. His pupils dilated, and he flinched as Mal reached for his helmet.

  Mal took his wrath down the path and used it to push his motorbike. Gripping the handlebars stopped his hands shaking. He shoved it all the way home, not trusting himself to ride with the need to kill someone so thick in his veins.

  Jemma burst into tears the moment her father mentioned the visit from Mal.

  Tim had waited beside the house for her. He’d grabbed her arm the way her father did and threatened to make her life hell if she said a word.

  She didn’t tell. She never usually told, and she would have held the tears in too, but Gilligan’s death was too cruel and too big and it leaked through the seams.

  Jemma’s tears were all the evidence Christopher needed, and he, too, was driven to action.

  It ended with a hole in the plaster, a hank of his son’s hair curled in his fist, and a constellation of blood spots on the carpet in the hall.

  ROPE

  THE DEATH OF his dog tainted Larry’s fourteenth year. The police visited Clinton Miller’s house again after Mal’s fifth phone call about the incident, but again found no bomb-making materials. Clinton moved in the shadows at school and Larry hardly saw him at home. Once, walking back from church, he saw the scarred boy dart into a stranger’s driveway to avoid crossing paths with him and his mother. Vince Hammersmith offered to buy Larry another dog, but Larry said no. He packed up Gilligan’s lead and bowl and stuffed them behind a box in the back of the garage.

  The topic of the dog never came up in the Rainbow household. Not directly. For more than a week, when his father asked him how he was, Larry thought the question was loaded. Denise felt the loss, too, but she didn’t have time to grieve. She called from the doorway to wake him in the mornings and gave him odd jobs if she saw him at night. She had him load the last of her sookie dolls – eleven in total – into Anita Ward’s car for distribution to local opportunity shops. The lounge seemed brighter with them gone.

  For a while, Gilligan’s death was a kind of glue for Larry and Jemma and Guillermo. It was a horror they’d shared and it had changed each of their lives. It gave them permission to talk about the other horrors in their worlds.

  Larry sat between them on the end of the jetty one Saturday, legs dangling over the estuary waters below. He told Jemma the story of how Gilligan had dug his face free at the beach, and she hung her head. She had a smile on her lips but she sniffed and the tears fell from her eyes and into the sea below.

  ‘I’ve never told anybody outside my family this,’ Guillermo said. ‘But when we were living in El Alto and I was ten years old, I saw a man kill another man.’

  Jemma gasped. ‘Really?’

  ‘My neighbours. I heard them shouting in the yard. They were always shouting. I ran to my hiding place where I could see through a hole in the metal fence. They were shouting and one man was crying and the other man pulled out a pistol. Shot my neighbour straight through his head. It was the middle of the day and I saw all his blood spray onto the back door of the house.’

  A seagull started a noisy territorial display behind them. Larry threw half a pipi shell at it and it stopped.

  ‘That is why I no longer eat meat,’ Guillermo said.

  ‘You told my mother that you lived near an abattoir.’

  ‘True. Adults love to know why I am vegetarian. I did live near an abattoir and the smell was revolting. It’s just easi
er to explain that way.’

  They were silent again and the seagull began a new bout of posturing and squawking. They turned as one to shoo it away.

  Jemma looked at Guillermo quizzically. ‘How does that turn you into a vegetarian?’

  ‘You cut down a beautiful tree, it becomes wood. You shoot a man in the head, he becomes meat.’

  Jemma shivered.

  Another seagull landed nearby. Larry barked at it and it flew away.

  ‘I . . .’ Jemma began. The boys looked at her and she shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Guillermo flicked a pipi shell into the grey-green water.

  ‘Every hell is different,’ he said. ‘It’s what we do with our hell that defines us. Do we take drugs and pretend that hell doesn’t exist? Do we wear hell like a badge? Do we curl up and sulk in the corner somewhere? Do we swallow it and die slowly as it eats us from the inside? Do we build a fortress and make it a private hell? Do we paint smiles on our faces and pretend hell doesn’t exist? Do we drag everyone down with us?’

  Guillermo’s words sounded like a poem to Larry. His thoughts were drawn to Vince and Muriel. Muriel may have seemed like an ogre in stockings and flat shoes, but what was her hell like? Was she born with an armour-plated heart or had it evolved to protect her from the loss in her life? And if her own mother or father were the reason she’d turned out the way she had, what of their personal hells? Suddenly hell stretched further than his mind could reach, and the fact that any family existed at all seemed like a miracle.

  He stood.

  ‘What is it?’ Guillermo asked.

  ‘Where are you going, Larry?’

  ‘I . . . I need to run. I’ll see you later.’

  He looked back as he stepped onto the breakwater wall and the gap he’d left between his friends had disappeared. He collected his length of rope and set the Hammersmiths’ dog yapping by knocking on their door.