by A P Heath
“Get me my fucking Smoke! Get me my fucking Smoke!” She kept screaming as she hit him. Her hands were balled into fists and they hurt as they struck Rigs legs. He dragged himself backwards, not fast enough to get away from her and without enough space in her onslaught to get back to his feet.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry, that he had tried, worked hard but the cart had been broken and he’d had to pay and…and…
She kept coming and he wriggled away further, feeling the pain blossom in his legs where her fists were starting to bruise his skin. The big man behind her bent to the floor to pick something up and chuckled as he stood straight again.
The noise didn’t pierce his mother’s anger but Rig saw that his find, his shiny prize had dropped from his pocket in his attempts to escape his mother’s attack. Now the big man was holding it up and grinning wildly. He reached out casually and put a hand on Rig’s mother’s shoulder. She turned and flung her arm up at his touch and he caught her by the wrist and held her firm.
Rig moved to stand, thoughts of protecting his mother rising in his mind. The big man pinned him with a look and shook his head slowly.
“I wouldn’t try it son.” He muttered.
He let go of Rig’s mother’s wrist and stepped back, tossing Rig’s prize up and catching it with one hand. “Now where did you get this?” He asked.
Rig scrambled to his feet and lunged forward to try to snatch his prize from the air. The man placed a hand on his chest to push him back.
“No, no, no.” He said, “I’ll be taking this.” He reached his other hand into a pocket and pulled out a small packet that he dropped down onto Rig’s mother where she still kneeled on the ground.
With that he turned on his heel and walked away up the road. Rig looked down at his mother as she scrabbled at the packet she’d been given. She was muttering as she pulled at the thin plastic that wrapped the dark little block within. “Need my smoke…need my smoke…”
Rig watched as she climbed to her feet and walked unsteadily back inside their lean-to. He followed, throwing a glance to the departing figure of the big man and thinking about the prize he’d lost. His mother didn’t speak to him or even look at him as he followed her into their little home. She pulled aside her curtain and collapsed onto the bed behind it, all her attention fixed on her Smoke.
Within another minute Rig heard the familiar bubbling noise of her pipe and saw the wisps of smoke as they drifted past the curtain. He heard her sigh and knew before long she would be asleep.
Rig sat down on the floor and tried to get comfortable. He was hungry but they had no food and he didn’t have any credits to buy something. He would be walking behind the garbage loaders on his next shift, just another twelve hours from now, but afterwards at least he would be able to eat.
Rig sat back against the rock that made up one wall of his home and thought about the big man and what would happen to his prize. He wondered if he’d ever see it again. Probably not.
Uncomfortable, tired and with an ache in his stomach, Rig tried to find it in him to sleep.
FIVE
Rig’s legs felt weak as he tried to keep the slow pace with the garbage loader that rolled along the tunneled avenues between the great chutes on the outskirts of Henstown and the incinerators ten kilometres to the east.
His rest had been fitful and interspersed with strange dreams. It was always the way when his mother’s Smoke drifted about their tiny home. He’d seen the tattooed women, cavorting and dancing with the big man that had come to bring his mother her Smoke. He saw her too, weaving between the bodies as they writhed with each other and leering at him, beckoning him to join them, their whispers both of promises and threats, cajoling, tempting and frightening all at the same time.
He’d woken with a start several times, finding the light and noise outside the thin walls of his home to be the same as always. It gave him comfort and dispelled the oddness of his dreams, but before long he would fall asleep again and the strange figures would return. Every now and then their winding movements would reveal a flash of silver – his prize – but before he could reach out to it, it would be gone again.
Even now, following along in the dusty tracks of the loader, he couldn’t entirely shake the feeling the dreams had left him with. His steps were laboured, the pain in his stomach a constant ache to remind him of his hunger.
He would be able to eat today, his mother had her Smoke and he would be paid for his shift when he returned to the depot. His concentration wavered, thinking of the feeling of a full stomach. Groaner had told him she would pay him any credits left over after the cost of repairing his cart; maybe he’d even have enough to buy some blankets or old clothes to make himself a proper bed.
He’d had one before, a collection of odds and ends he’d scrounged after his rounds on the garbage runs or bought from the depot with his credits. It had been so comfortable and he’d managed to get it just right, but then someone had come into their lean-to while he worked and his mother slept off her Smoke and taken it. He’d been sad, very sad when that happened.
Rig didn’t have much, nothing in fact to call his own and his bed had been the total of his worldly possessions. He’d cried when he found it gone, the tears welling up and spilling down his cheeks despite his best attempts to stop them. The snuffling noises he tried to stifle had been enough to wake his mother and without her Smoke her temper had boiled over and she’d smacked him across the face, shouting her shame at having such a weak and useless son.
It hadn’t always been this way, he reflected as his feet shuffled through the dirt. His mother had worked before, they’d shared the bed behind the curtain and he’d loved waking up in the safe embrace of her arms. They hadn’t had much, but their combined efforts had kept food in their bellies most days and even afforded them the very occasional sweet treat that gave him, for just a moment, a taste of the luxuries he was sure people had on the surface.
That was before. Before the Smoke and his mother’s need to sleep so much. Now she couldn’t work; she was always too tired and the Smoke took away the pain she complained of when she couldn’t have it. It seemed strange to Rig; she had always seemed so strong, never ill despite the harshness of their life and then, almost at exactly the same time as she started to use the Smoke, she started to get sick. Rig thought it was lucky she had found the Smoke just in time, he hated to think how badly she might suffer if she didn’t have it to take the pain away.
The Smoke cost them though, it was expensive and she got so little for the credits he earned, now their only income and stretched with the rising cost of water already. It seemed to Rig like everything cost more and more almost every week and the little he earned from the shifts could only cover so much.
He was thinking he would need to ask Groaner for more shifts and wondering whether he would be able to cope with them when a shout caught his attention.
“Hey moron, watch yourself there!” The loader had stopped abruptly, its wide tracks sliding to a halt in the thick dust that carpeted the tunnel floors as the driver hit the brakes suddenly.
Rig had been about to walk into the back of the huge machine when one of the other followers had called out to him. He looked about, the loader blocking his view of the tunnel ahead and saw Jay and another of the followers, a young looking girl he didn’t know, standing to the far side and staring ahead. Rig’s curiosity made him walk over to join them, something he wouldn’t usually do, but he needed a distraction to drive the unsettling images of his dreams from his mind.
He walked with hesitant steps, expecting Jay to shoo him away as he approached, but both Jay and the girl had their attention fixed on something ahead of the loader and weren’t paying him any mind now.
He heard Jay speaking as he approached, “Bloody miners’ rights again!” He was muttering as Rig drew close. “They think they’re making some great big statement but the bastards are just getting in the way. And who gets the blame if the loaders’re late? Us, that’s who
.”
He glanced briefly at Rig, “I ain’t having my pay docked jus’ so these fucker’s can feel like they’re gettin’ enough attention.”
Rig looked up the tunnel, following the eye line of the young girl. Ahead of the loader was a group of men and women. He couldn’t tell how many, counting not being one of his strong points, but it was quite a crowd and enough to block access through the wide tunnel. They were waving banners and a few at the front were brandishing what looked from this distance like weapons.
Rig thought they looked angry, but he didn’t know why they would be upset with the loaders. He’d heard a bit about the Miner’s Movement from some of the other workers he shared his shifts with. Jay talked about them a lot; saying how stupid they were and how their little demonstrations only hurt the people in the tunnels because they didn’t have the balls to go to the surface and upset the people that mattered.
As far as Rig understood, the Miners’ Movement wasn’t just miners. It was a group of people, Rig didn’t know how big but it seemed like a lot; that were unhappy with the way the people on the surface treated the people in the tunnels. They said it was unfair that topside they had water and food, more than they needed, but down below everything was so hard to get. They said that the tunnels were dangerous, that the mining and work on the incinerators and all the other jobs that happened in the tunnels, were too dangerous and it was the people below who died while the ones above got to enjoy the spoils of their labour.
Rig wasn’t exactly sure what ‘the spoils of labour’ were, but he’d learned not to ask too many questions. When he did the other workers called him stupid or worse and laughed at him.
“The Miners’ Movement speaks for all of us.” The young girl said. She hadn’t looked away as she spoke and Rig was struck by the strangely calm way she said the words. “They’re fightin’ to make life better for all o’ us down here. They’re stoppin’ the loaders to send a message to the comp’ny that we can’t jus’ be ignored brother.”
Jay had been staring up the tunnel, Rig’s face not interesting enough to keep his attention, but at her words he turned his gaze on her.
“Don’t give me that ‘brother’ shit.” He sneered, “Jus’ coz we’re in the same place don’t mean we’re the same.” She still didn’t look at him and Jay put a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around to look in her eyes.
“They ain’t doin’ nothing but hurting the people they call ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ so don’t go believin’ the crap they spew!” He was spitting the words, little flecks of spittle hitting the girl in the face and Rig felt his hands move as if to brush them off his own face in sympathy.
She didn’t move or reply, just stared coolly at Jay while ahead the shouts and chants of the protesting crowd echoed back along the tunnel walls.
“I’m not havin’ this!” Jay made to move past her and she placed a hand on his arm to restrain him. Rig thought he might hit her.
“You shou’nt interfere.” She said levelly and Jay huffed in anger as he shook off her arm and pushed past her.
Rig moved closer to the edge of the loader, watching as Jay marched along its length to confront the crowd that was barring its path onwards to the incinerators. He couldn’t make out the words they called or read the slogans on the banners they held, but he could see they were angry. As he walked, Jay was throwing up his arms, his own shouts lost in the overall noise but Rig guessed from his gestures he was telling them to move.
As Rig watched he felt a pressure on his own arm and turned to look down on the girl next to him. Her face was dirty and her hair was matted, just like his. Her clothes were as soiled and tattered as his own, but her eyes were bright blue and piercing in the way they stared. Her look made him feel uncomfortable.
“This is for all of us.” She said quietly, “We should let them do what they need to.”
Rig didn’t know what to do, but her look was unsettling him so he gave a slow nod. “They do it to make things better for all of us.” She finished before looking back up the tunnel.
Rig followed her gaze and saw where Jay had reached the mob and was still waving his arms high and wide. Jay was good at talking; he talked to all the workers on the garbage shifts and everyone knew him. He was mean to Rig, but to everyone else he seemed like the man who knew things, knew what was going on and always had a little crowd of his own when their shifts finished and he told everyone of his finds and what he’d seen walking the tunnels.
Rig thought he was a good story teller, although as he often walked with Jay he wondered at some of the things he spoke about that Rig hadn’t seen or heard at the time. Clearly they had happened, because Jay gave a lot of detail about them, but Rig never saw a great deal of the things that Jay mentioned.
Rig thought Jay would get the crowd moving, get them to let the loader through so they could get to the incinerators on time and get paid without late penalties. Rig really hoped he could, he needed every credit they would give him.
Jay was good at talking. Jay would get things sorted. The people up there would like him and listen to him. Everyone listened to him. Even Groaner.
Rig watched him now, the details of his conversation lost in the distance between them, but sure whatever he was saying would be helping the situation. Without warning, at least to Rig, one of the nearest men in the crowd jumped forwards and knocked Jay to the ground. He raised something in his hand, something Rig couldn’t quite make out. The tunnel echoed with loud bangs as the man pointed his hand at Jay and Rig saw the flashes as the weapon he carried fired. Jay’s body spasmed on the floor like he was being hit incredibly hard and Rig heard more booms as the guards at the front of the loader opened fire on the crowd with their own guns.
The tunnel ahead was suddenly in chaos, the crowd breaking up and scattering as the noises continued. Some of the crowd ran away along the tunnel, some dived to the sides, but there were a lot running directly at the loader. Rig saw more flashes, heard more of the terrifying sounds and jumped back as something pinged off the loader’s thick metal side, just along from where he and the girl stood.
Rig fell back, hitting the ground hard. The girl still stood where she was, staring straight ahead as if nothing was happening.
“Get down!” Rig shouted to her.
She turned to fix him with her gaze again. “He should have just let em do what they needed to.” She said.
Rig could hear more shots being fired, shouts and screams. There was another set of pings as the loader received more impacts and the girl shot backwards as her body was hit. She folded up on the ground, motionless and silent. Rig saw the red pool of her blood as it ran into the dust beneath her.
Rig panicked, all thought of hunger and credits gone. He struggled to his feet and without looking back, he ran.
SIX
Henstown was almost silent as Rig walked through it to get home. He’d walked for an hour after his dash from the loader had left him breathless and vomiting onto the floor.
The noises of the violence had followed him as he fled in panic. Every step he took he was waiting for the pain of a shot hitting his retreating back. Waiting for the shouts of the angry protesters to catch up with him. He still didn’t know why what had happened had happened.
The loaders had security, two guards on each vehicle, to keep the locals from trying to plunder the hoppers on top. He guessed they had been the ones shooting back at the miners, but he couldn’t see and he hadn’t stayed to find out for sure.
His legs were aching as he walked, his feet burning and one of his frayed shoes lost in his flight. He limped his way around the outskirts of Henstown, seeing the emptiness of the streets and guessing the news of the trouble in the tunnel had reached the people before he had.
The silence was unsettling and Rig tried to pick up his pace to get home and away from it as quickly as he could. He was worried about seeing his mother again. The Smoke she had might have been enough to see her through today, but he hadn’t finished his shift and
he couldn’t face going to the depot. He had no credits to bring, nothing to buy food or water with and neither of them had eaten in two days now.
His throat was dry as he rounded the last bend and his lean-to came into sight. Outside, almost blocking his view of his little home, was the big man that had come yesterday. Rig stopped in his tracks, immediately worried at the reason for this second visit.
Maybe his prize the man had taken had not been enough payment for the Smoke. Maybe he was here for more credits; credits Rig didn’t have. He didn’t know what would happen, what his mother would say. If this man wanted credits and Rig had none to give he might hurt him, or worse, hurt his mother. She was already so weak Rig didn’t know if she could take it.
He thought about running away; if the man didn’t see him and thought he wasn’t coming back then maybe he’d just go away. Maybe he’d get bored of waiting and just leave Rig and his mother alone. Or maybe he would take his anger at Rig’s absence out on the only person around.
Rig couldn’t bear to think of that happening. Just the idea filled him with guilt and fear. He took a deep breath, trying to draw himself into a straighter pose and resumed his slow, limping walk.