Mac Slater Coolhunter 1

by Tristan Bancks

  Paul yelled out: 'Is this stupid to be riding metal bikes in a storm?' I didn't answer. A car swished past and sprayed us. There was an old sign up ahead that pointed one way to the lighthouse and another way to Rainbow Creek. I took the Rainbow turnoff and I felt a lump in my stomach. I hadn't been up to my dad's place in months.

  As we neared the top of the hill the storm was right over us and my calves were on fire. I powered on towards Dad's, wondering if anyone would think his lightning farm was as cool as I did.

  Lightning made massive fractures in the sky and thunder exploded on top of it. The earth shook. Paul and I had dumped our bikes at the fence and we bolted towards the old shearing shed.

  Adrenaline shot through me as we ran the final few metres, making it into the open-sided shed, gulping great lungsfull of air. The rain hammered on the tin above.

  I busted out the camera and dragged an old sawhorse over to use as a tripod. Paul set it up. I looked at the field in front of us. There were four hundred metal rods, about a metre high, sticking out of the ground in an area of one square kilometre.

  My dad reckoned this was his life's great work. His lightning farm. All the energy hitting the poles was sent to a giant aluminium shed a few hundred metres to our right. The problem was that most of the power couldn't be stored. It had to be used right away and they wouldn't let Dad send his energy into the electricity grid. Too high voltage or something. Dad said his alternative energy would save the world. Most people said he was a dreamer. Or worse.

  He'd been travelling in America when he was twenty-something and got inspired by some dude's sculpture in a field in New Mexico. It was called 'Lightning Field' and it looked just like Dad's farm does now. Dad had this dream that if he could harness all the energy in those lightning strikes he could power Kings Bay and the surrounding towns forever. He'd been working on it for twenty years.

  Paul hit the record button on the camera and we watched as massive bolts of electricity slammed into the poles. Paul's glasses glowed. The explosions were almost nuclear.

  'Pretty cool, huh?' I yelled to Paul.

  He just stood there, mouth open, gobsmacked. He'd been up here before in a storm but nothing like this. Usually, we were lucky to see a single rod get struck.

  'Cooler than shooting ferals pashing and butt tattoos on the beach,' I yelled.

  I checked my watch. It was 5:37. We still had time to make the 8 p.m. deadline.

  'We're so gonna win tomorrow,' I said.

  Paul was busy watching the show on the camera flipscreen, but he knew it, too.

  As another bolt of lightning struck I saw a figure dart out of the shed to our right. It was heading towards a houseboat another forty metres away. There was a dim light on inside the boat. The figure wore a Driza-Bone coat and wide-brimmed hat.

  'You see that?' Paul asked.

  He knew I did. 'He's supposed to be away for another two months,' I said. So either someone else was up here or my dad had been released. The knot in my stomach tightened. I hadn't seen him since before he went in. He hadn't wanted me to. But I wanted to see him now.

  A great white crack split the sky in two.

  'Let's go,' I shouted over the sound of the rain. I grabbed the camera and chucked it in my backpack.

  'Where we going?' Paul asked.

  'Dad's,' I screamed back.

  'No. Why? Hang on,' he said.

  I ran out of the shed, Paul following closely behind. We bolted around the edge of the field, staying as far from the poles as we could.

  Huge puddles had formed everywhere and we galloped through them. Up ahead I could see the houseboat. My dad had started building the thing out of used boat parts about ten years ago, just after my mum left him. It had been moored at a marine scrap yard on the edge of town but even they evicted him, saying the thing was an eyesore. So now it sat up here on the hill, half-finished, with my dad camping inside. Lightning above made the boat glow hot white for a second. Paul and I cranked up the speed.

  'Ru-u-u-u-u-u-n!' I screamed, like that was helpful.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bolt zap a nearby pole. Another fifty metres down a gravel path, we hit the boat's rope ladder, climbed it and pounded on the rusty iron door.

  I waited nervously, out of breath, ready to surprise my dad.

  16

  Brian Slater

  The door opened just a little and a heavily bearded face peered through.

  'Dad! It's me. Me and Paul. Can we come in?'

  There was a slight pause before the chain came off the door and my dad, dressed in his usual jeans and checked lumberjack shirt, opened up.

  'What're you doin' here?' he asked.

  'What are you doing here?' I asked him back. 'You didn't escape, did you?'

  He didn't seem to be wearing an orange prison jumpsuit or to have a cannonball around his ankle. He shut the door behind us and grunted. He was a big bear of a man, my dad. Came from a long line of bears. He towered over me and Paul. Grunted a lot, too.

  'What're you doing out in a storm? Get yourself killed running through these poles,' he said.

  'We were shooting. When did you get out? Why didn't you tell me?' I asked.

  He coughed up something thick and headed towards the kitchen.

  'Can I get you something?'

  Paul didn't say anything.

  'Maybe juice,' I said.

  'No juice. Tea. I'll get you tea. Wait here,' he said.

  My eyes darted around the small living area. It was just how I remembered it – lit by a single bare bulb, and one wall of the room was just a tarpaulin. There were books everywhere. Hundreds of them in piles all around the room, piles that had tipped over, covering almost every square inch of floor. There was lots of equipment, too – generator parts, a stack of spare lightning poles in one corner. There were failed electrical gadgets, inventions never completed. One of my dad's big regrets was that he'd never finished anything in his life. He had tons of ideas but he wasn't a big closer. There was a staircase opposite the door leading down to my dad's bedroom in the belly of the boat. I could see piles of paper at the bottom of the stairs, thousands of pages of his unfinished thesis on lightning farming.

  Paul looked a bit freaked by the place. He hadn't been here in years. It was a bit creepy, I guess. We went and sat on the edge of an old daybed with an orange cover – the one I slept on back when I used to stay at Dad's on weekends. His giant dogs, Louis and Edison, took up the rest of the bed. They were Great Danes crossed with something else big. Horses maybe. Getting them off the boat for a walk had always been hell. I wondered who had looked after them while Dad was away. I imagined them in the cell with him. Edison looked scared, eyes flicking around as lightning lit up the room in explosive bursts. Louis was sleeping and snoring so loud it almost drowned the sound of rain on the tin roof.

  It was a bit embarrassing bringing Paul here. His house was weird in its own way, but nothing like this. I started to wonder if we should leave, just as Dad emerged from the kitchen with two cups of tea in dirty mugs. One had 'No Nukes' on the side. The other had 'TCB' and a lightning bolt. Dad was an Elvis fan and 'TCB' was The King's logo. It stood for 'Takin' Care of Business'. I secretly didn't mind a bit of Elvis but it wasn't something I was proud of.

  'No sugar,' said Dad. 'But it's good tea. Organic. Friend of mine grows it down the road. Full of antioxidants.'

  Then he coughed again, nearly barking up a lung into Paul's mug. Not a great ad for antioxidants.

  'You OK?' I asked.

  'Yeah, got this rotten flu,' he said, flopping into his old green velvet armchair, caked in dog hair.

  'Right.' I really wanted to talk to him about prison but what do you ask your old man when he gets out of the Big House? How was the food? Were the people nice? And you never knew with my dad. He'd either talk your ears off for an hour or he'd grunt and get annoyed. I decided to go for it anyway.

  'How was it?' I asked.

  He didn't respond.

  'Dad?'
I said, louder, thinking he mustn't have heard me over the snoring and rain.

  'How was what?'

  'Well, the past month. When'd you get out?' I asked.

  'A week ago.'

  'Why didn't you call?'

  'Because you'd start asking me questions,' he said, grabbing a mug from a pile of books next to his chair.

  'Right,' I said. 'Does that mean you don't want to talk about it?'

  He took a long sip and wiped the tea from his moustache.

  Paul didn't say anything. He looked afraid of the brown marks around the rim of his mug and the big milk lumps floating on top of his tea. Paul's mum cleaned their place like it was a hospital and Paul had serious issues with grime. Neither of us liked hot drinks so we just held them. We were still dripping all over the place.

  'I wanted to talk to you. About the farm,' I said.

  'What do you want to know?' he asked, leaning forward into the light. He didn't look any different to how he did before he went away. No number tattooed on his arm. He had dark rings under his eyes and his hair and beard were wild, but that was nothing new. I looked at my watch. 6:31 p.m.

  'See, we're doing this thing called Coolhunters,' I said, 'where we film stuff and put it on the web and if we win this trial we'll go to New York and they'll pay us and ...' I knew he wasn't following any of it so I cut to the chase.

  'Anyway, we filmed the farm and I want to interview you. Is that OK?'

  'Why?'

  'Well, it'd just really help for people to know a bit about lightning farming and all that,' I said.

  Dad stood up and patted his hair down.

  'How do I look?'

  'Good, Dad, you look fine. You can sit down. We'll do it in your chair.'

  Paul gave me a sideways 'Is he for real?' look. I ignored it.

  Dad sat down and Paul grabbed the camera from my bag, propping it on a pile of books on the desk next to us. He grabbed a teatowel to wipe rain off the camera, then stabbed the record button with his thumb.

  'OK,' I said, 'can you just tell us how you came up with the idea of the lightning farm in the first place?'

  'Well,' he said, adjusting himself in his chair, 'I was travelling in the south-west of the States twenty or so years ago ...'

  Dad spat out the whole history of his idea, the challenges, the wildest storms, the fires from blown-up transformers and the nay-sayers who still believe it'll never work. Once he got started there was no stopping him.

  'It'll change the world, you see. A simple matter of, of drawing on one of nature's most powerful renewable resources and directing that energy into the power grid. In twenty years' time they'll be everywhere, lightning farms. Trouble is trying to get your snout in the tiny trough of, of money to develop this stuff, of course.'

  I looked at my watch. 6:47. I had to wind him up.

  'So, what's the secret to getting alternative ideas like this out there?' I asked him.

  He sat there for a moment, combing his beard with his fingers.

  'Follow your bliss,' he said. 'Do what you love. No matter what they say. Other people will want you to go on their trip but you got to do what's in your gut. "No" and "Impossible" have to be wiped from your vocabulary. Stick-to-it-iveness they call it.' He sat there for a long moment like he was going to say something else, and then he said: 'Is that enough? I'm all talked out. Rain's eased. How 'bout you boys get goin'.'

  17

  Juiced

  7:13 p.m. Paul and I charged down Lighthouse Hill. Juiced. Storm over but strong winds were coming in off the water, blowing us all over the road. The occasional car whipped by on the dark, wet roadway. Lightning made clouds glow on the horizon. The lighthouse swept round over our heads.

  Fifty-three minutes to cut and upload. I had a pretty good idea of the best bits of Dad's interview and I was replaying the blasts of lightning from the farm over and over in my head, imagining Dad's words with lightning pictures. But another idea was niggling away at the back of my mind.

  'You know what would be really cool?' I called out to Paul, dropping back to ride side-by-side with him.

  'What?'

  'If we could get the bike back in the air by the end of the week.'

  Paul grinned. 'You kidding me?'

  'No. For Friday's vlog. Go out with a bang.'

  'That's only three days away,' Paul said.

  'I know,' I said as we turned away from the beach and started charging down Messenger Street towards the Arts Estate.

  'That's the best thing I've ever heard,' Paul said.

  18

  Cat Tells All

  We'd uploaded our lightning piece by five to eight. I didn't even watch it back once we'd cut it. I knew how good it was. The lightning looked awesome and my dad said some pretty cool stuff. As soon as it was up, we watched Cat's vlog. It was a video fashion piece. She'd got Kara to interview her on the beachfront and Cat wore a different outfit for each question. It was pretty pathetic. But I still watched it twice. Here's some of it:

  Kara's voice off-screen: Cat DeVrees, describe your personal style.

  Cat: Right now I'd say it's, like, lollipop princess. Other times it's been, like, a hot rodeo-trailer trash thing. And then I've been through the whole punk look but I gave my punk a kind of Paris café twist, y'know, rather than a skanky seventies feel.

  (Cat changes outfit)

  Kara: How many pairs of shoes do you have?

  Cat: Do I have to be honest? Well, if I do, I would have to say about two, no, maybe three hundred. It's kind of embarrassing but I just never know what to wear. Shoes and bags are my life. I would be dead without shoes.

  (Cat changes again.)

  Kara: What perfume do you use?

  Cat: I'm totally D & G right now.

  (And again.)

  Kara: What hair do you want that you can't have?

  Cat: Um. Red. Like, carroty orange. Redheads are so cool. And freckles and glasses, too. God, freckles are divine. I'm so jealous of red hair and freckles. I mean, not if you were born with them. But for a party or something. I would totally love that.

  (Change.)

  Kara: Who would you dress like if you could dress like anyone?

  Cat: Anyone? I would say like Cat DeVrees. Because I've got a hot look and I'm very photogenic.

  (Changes again.)

  Kara: Who would you like to spend a week on a desert island with?

  Cat: Again, I would say Cat DeVrees. You have no idea how funny I can be when I want to be.

  (Yep. And again.)

  Kara: Yeah, but who would you tell the jokes to?

  Cat: Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know, I guess I'd have to ask someone else along. But I'd prefer it was just me.

  (Change.)

  Kara: What's your fave style site right now?

  Cat: TheSartorialist.com and video.style.com.

  (Change.)

  Kara: How are you dressing for the party of the year, Friday night?

  Cat: Zen. With a rock edge.

  19

  Real Inventors

  8:12 p.m. I reefed open the double doors of our workshop and jumped on the bike to crank up our light. A few years back we'd built a bike that powered a light globe. The paper did a story on it. The coolest thing was that you only had to ride for a couple of minutes to charge a battery that gave you nearly an hour's light.

  Tonight I was psyched and I pedalled fast. The light was glowing bright. I had to hold myself back so I didn't generate too much wattage and blow the globe. Again.

  Paul climbed up the old wooden ladder with the missing rungs that led to the loft. He started pulling down the bike frame that I had totalled two days earlier.

  'Listen to your gut. Stick-to-it-iveness,' Paul mumbled to no one in particular as he climbed down, lowering the frame to the ground. 'That was so cool. Even though your dad's so old he kind of knows stuff. I mean, what if he really does bring lightning to the masses? They'll give him the Nobel, man. Sincerely. When people see our vlog, maybe someone'll give him mo
ney. I mean, if he doesn't end up back in prison.'

  Paul looked at me. He knew he'd said a stupid thing as soon as it came out. I still felt weird about the whole thing.

  'I'm sorry, ma–'

  'Naaaah, forget about it,' I said, pretending I was really hurt, putting my head down as I pedalled.

  'No, really, I–'

  'Naaah, man, it's good,' I said. 'I hope your old man stays out of the hole, too. Although I don't think they put you in prison for being the most boring dude ever born,' I said.

  'Oh, right,' said Paul. 'Well, do they imprison mothers for never holding down a real job and spending their whole lives making fire sticks that no one buys?'

  The idea of this game was to really cut as close to the bone as possible. Cruel but funny.

  'I don't know,' I replied. 'Do they put mothers away for covering the couch and all the walkways in the house in plastic in case someone actually enjoys themselves for once?' Paul rushed me, gave me a crow-peck on the head and retreated fast, so I jumped off the bike and tackled him to the dirt floor of the workshop.

  'Get off, idiot. Owwwww,' he whined.

  'Take it back,' I said, digging my fingers into his ribs.

  'Take what back?' he said. He was in the kind of pain that made you laugh.

  I pushed him down and sat on his chest. He tried shoving me off but I had him now. I kept digging him in the ribs.

  'OK, OK, your dad's not going back,' he said.

  'And?' I said.

  'And I like your mum,' he whimpered.

  'What?' I said, letting him have my full weight.

  'Aaaaaaargh. She's got a real job. She has the stall. And, and she has heaps of customers. And she's a great, great woman. And beautiful. With strong principles and high –'

  I jumped off. That was good enough for me.

  'Thanks, mate,' I said. 'I didn't know you felt that way. I'll let her know.'

  Paul was still rolling around on the floor clutching his chest and groaning.