Contents
Title Page
Copyright (Mobi)
Dedication
Free Story
Square Pegs
Free Story
Post a Review
Other Titles
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Square Pegs
By J.B. Reynolds
Square Pegs published by Tsubaki Press
www.tsubakipress.com
[email protected]
Copyright © J.B. Reynolds 2017
All rights reserved
www.jbreynolds.net
Cover design by J.B. Reynolds
Cover and pirate images courtesy of Fotosearch
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-473-39221-5 (Mobi)
To Jamie and Angela.
Without your friendship, the Sunshine State would’ve been much less sunny.
jbreynolds.net
“Is she the square pe-eg, made just for this square sou-oo-oo…”
Darryl’s raspy voice cracked as he missed the high C. Again. For the eighth time in a row. An octave of bum notes. He swore and searched around his home studio for something to throw but everything within arm’s reach was expensive and rather precious to him. He stepped back from the microphone and slumped on the tattered couch, burying his face in his hands.
“Screw it! I need a break.”
He’d been trying to record the vocal track since ten-thirty. As usual, he’d had a cup of chamomile tea with honey to help warm and lubricate his voice. It hadn’t helped. It was now almost noon and what he really needed was a beer.
Trudging into his bedroom, he kicked through the clothes piled on the floor to find his keys and wallet, discovering them in the pockets of some dirty jeans, and after slipping on a pair of sneakers he stepped back into the lounge and crept to the front door. Through a crack in the curtains, he could see the front door to the adjoining flat was wide open. He detested the gang of troubled young people who lived there. The three wayward neighbours—Josh, Serena and Alex—were an improbable club and Darryl had no idea of the connection that had brought them together, nor how their living arrangements worked in such a confined space, given the unit had the same two-bedroom floorplan as the one Darryl shared with his own flatmate, Evan.
Josh, a pudgy young man with meticulously manicured stubble, was some kind of father figure to his two delinquent companions. He was the only one with a job, a car and—in Darryl’s opinion—the ability to engage in normal conversation. How he managed to get up for work after a sleep-deprived night spent dousing the drunken and emotional fires of his housemates, Darryl couldn’t fathom; nor could he imagine why anyone would volunteer themselves for such a role.
Serena was blonde, curved and sexually charged. Only sixteen years old, she fizzed with carnal energy, lacing her conversations with innuendos, hugs, and caresses. Her breasts were large and she revelled in the flaunting of them, her voice sensual and syrupy, her smell an intoxicating mixture of sweat, cheap perfume and alcohol. Darryl was frightened of the spell she cast and tempted—against his better judgement.
Alex was a tall, skinny youth with a penchant for cross-dressing. He was ghostly pale, his dark hair lank, long and tied back into a greasy ponytail. Like Serena, he had too much time on his hands, and spent much of it drinking.
The relationships between the three, whatever they might be, were loud and volatile. In the early hours of that morning Darryl had woken to the sound of raised voices coming from the courtyard both flats shared. He’d padded to the lounge and parted the curtains at his front door to see Josh and Alex arguing with two police officers.
Darryl slid open the door and stood, pyjama-clad, surveying the scene. One of the officers, a woman, turned and looked him up and down.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m the neighbour,” he replied.
“And you know these men? They live here?”
“Yeah,” he answered, nodding.
The officer approached him. She was much shorter than her burly male colleague, but when she spoke her voice was hard. She was clearly in charge.
“Have you seen or heard anything unusual from your neighbours this evening?”
Darryl shrugged. “I heard screaming and shouting earlier. But I wouldn’t say it was unusual. They’re always screaming and shouting.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do you know what they were arguing about?”
“Nah, I - ”
Alex interrupted their exchange with a loud snort. Darryl turned to see him raise his head and screw up his nose, sniffing loudly. “I smell bacon,” he growled, glaring at Darryl and the policewoman. “Don’t you?”
The policewoman pointed at Alex. “I’d stop right there if I were you.”
“Piss off,” Alex said. In a silver sequined top, heels and hot-pants, he pranced around the courtyard, oinking like a pig.
The policewoman was not amused. “Hey, calm down! You’re acting like an idiot.”
“Don’t you call me a fuckin’ idiot!” he screamed. “You’re the fuckin’ idiots! Useless pigs! Why don’t you fuck off back to the station? We’ve done nothing wrong!” He continued his dance, complementing the actions with more bursts of oinks.
“All right, that’s enough of that,” said the policewoman. “You can come with us.” She gestured to her partner, who grabbed Alex, twisted his arm, and forced him to his knees. Alex yelped. The officer handcuffed him, then hauled him up and led him towards the waiting police car, while Alex spouted curses and insults and Josh pleaded with them to let him go. Darryl followed them to the driveway, where Alex was thrust into the back seat of the car, still swearing.
“What are you going to do with him?” Josh asked the policewoman.
“Depends how he behaves. Putting them in a cell usually shuts them up, but man, he sure does have a mouth on him.” She shook her head, got in the car and shut the door, ending their dialogue.
Despondent, Josh left Darryl standing alone in the driveway, watching the police car head up the street, Alex’s curses fading into the night. Darryl felt soft hands on his shoulders, the weight of a body leaning against him, and caught the sickly-sweet whiff of alcohol. Serena.
He stepped away and turned to face her.
“Where’ve you been?” he asked.
“Inside. Having a drink. I could hear everything from in there anyway.”
She told him what had happened prior to the arrival of the cops. A drunken Alex, after another row with Josh, had taken off in Josh’s car. A few blocks away, in the neighbouring suburb of Hawthorne, he’d ploughed into a lamppost. Aside from a battered ego, he’d been unharmed. He’d fled the scene, running home to confess his crime to Josh, who was so incensed he’d called the cops. By the time they’d arrived Josh had changed his mind, insisting that everything was fine and he didn’t know who’d called them. The cops didn’t believe him, and the debate had intensified.
“C’mon, let’s have a drink,” said Serena.
She headed back through the now deserted courtyard, turned and stood at her door, eyes glazed and swaying gently, beckoning him in.
Darryl followed her as far as his door, took a deep breath, and tempted though he was, faked a yawn and said, “Nah, sorry, I need to get back to bed. Gotta big day tomorrow.”
Now, Darryl had no wish to see his neighbours. From his vantage point behind the curtains, he peered through their front door, but could detect no movement from within. He carefully slid open his door. Save for the ebb and
flow of cicada song, all was quiet. He stepped outside and locked the door behind him. The day was bright and hot and when he tiptoed out from under the shade of the eaves he had to squint.
The flats were situated at the end of a cul-de-sac. In the curving gutter at the bottom of the driveway was a bent and twisted Coke can. Darryl gave it a swift kick and sent it flying out onto the road. It felt good, and he ran up to give it another boot. As he did so, he caught sight of a dog sniffing towards him along the grass verge on the left side of the street. It was Floyd, a tan-and-white basset hound, long-eared and low-slung, who belonged to the people at number fifty-four, a couple of houses up the street.
In a street that was, for the most part, tidy and well kept, number fifty-four stood out by way of neglect. The small, filthy lot was strewn with the rusting cadavers of old cars. Sections of dead-brown grass had been poisoned by petrochemicals, leaving dimpled patches of bare, brown earth. The house was filthy too, the paint peeling off in great hanging strips, as though suffering from some awful case of dermatitis. It was an old Queenslander, two storeys, the upstairs living area fed by a weathered, rickety staircase. A faded Holden Racing Team flag hung limply from the verandah. The bottom storey was open and formed two large carports, overflowing with car bodies and engine parts. There were seven rusted shells in total on the property, in varying states of disrepair—all Holdens. It was like a museum of Holdens through the ages—FJ, Kingswood, Torana, Commodore—all were represented.
Today, the house seemed unoccupied, but Darryl often saw the family on his travels up and down the street—tinkering with their cars, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and blasting AC-DC. A middle-aged couple and two boys in their late teens or early twenties. They were bogans, and that had been enough to dissuade him from ever making any real effort at conversation, but they had exchanged the occasional greeting and Darryl had overheard them calling the dog Floyd.
Darryl stopped his can-kicking run and bent down on one knee. “Here, Floyd,” he said, patting his thigh.
Floyd strolled up to Darryl and sat down next to him, panting. Darryl stroked the soft fur on his back, then scratched behind his long, drooping ears. Floyd snorted, resting his head on his paws. “Good boy,” said Darryl, scratching vigorously. They were instant friends. Why wasn’t it ever this easy with people?
Darryl looked up and surveyed the sky. It was achingly, painfully blue—lacking even the hint of a cloud. It had been like this for months. There had been a spectacular storm in May—thunder and lightning and hail and a swathe of roiling, bilious green clouds sweeping in from the west—but it had all been over in a couple of hours and there hadn’t been a drop of rain since. Seasons, an already precarious concept in the Sunshine State, had ceased to exist. The street baked in the malevolent glare of a perpetual summer.
To his right, across the street, Darryl caught a glimpse of the old woman at number forty-nine. She was standing at the big bay window in front of her house, curtains ajar, staring at him and Floyd. She would often stand there, or out in her garden, watching him as he walked past. Her gaze was cold, hard, and disapproving. They’d never spoken, not even a hello, but today was as good a day as any to break the ice.
“Take a picture—it’ll last longer!” he shouted, and gave her the finger.
She scowled and drew the curtains.
When Darryl had first moved into the unit on Todwick Street he’d thought it would be perfect—a quiet house on a quiet street, just what he needed for recording his debut album. If he’d known then that he would be surrounded by such a collection of freaks (and he included Evan among these), he would never have signed the lease.
Darryl looked back down at Floyd and gave him a wink, then stood. “Well boy, I’d like to stay here all day but I’ve got things to do.” He cupped a hand around his ear and crooked his neck. “I can hear the beer calling my name.”
He set off up the street, across the tarmac and onto the concrete footpath. Floyd got up and followed him. Darryl stopped and waved him home. “No boy, you can’t come with me. Off you go. Back to the museum.”
Floyd stood and stared at him. As soon as Darryl moved, the dog fell into step behind him.
Darryl stopped again. “I’m serious. Go home Floyd!” He gesticulated wildly. “Surely you’d rather lie in the shade of one of those rusty cars than wander about out here in this heat? Besides, Wynnum Road isn’t safe.” He pointed up the street. Although hidden around a bend, the noisy rush of traffic speeding along four-laned Wynnum was loud and clear. “Those cars are not up on blocks.”
Floyd continued up the path, then stopped beside a wiry shrub growing at its edge and turned back to look at Darryl. The dog gave a dismissive snort, raised his leg, and pissed on the shrub. Once finished, he sniffed around in the dirt before taking the initiative and heading further up the street.
Darryl shrugged. “Okay Floyd. Have it your way,” he said and followed.
Floyd was a bundle of energy, crisscrossing over the path to sniff trees, flowerbeds, letterboxes and the tyres of parked cars, and Darryl struggled to keep up with him. By the time they reached the traffic lights at the intersection of Todwick Street and Wynnum Road, and the line of shops running eastwards along Wynnum from there, he was puffing.
The third shop in the line was a bakery, and Darryl stopped in front of it. “Wait a second Floyd. I wanna get a pie.”
Floyd seemed to understand and dropped to his haunches beside a rubbish bin on the footpath outside the entrance. Darryl shrugged again. Smart dog.
The woman who ran the bakery was Filipino, but had mastered the cooking of traditional Australian fare. The food was delicious, as were the smells. Sweet, spicy, and savoury—they mixed and wove in the air, caressing his nostrils. He found it almost impossible to walk past the open doors without buying something, and some days, when he was really skint, he would just stand outside, close his eyes, and sniff. It was torture, of course, but of the most exquisite kind.
The bakery was busy—it was always busy—and Darryl was amazed by how hard the Filipino woman worked. He was sure she’d been there, either serving or out the back baking, every time he’d ever set foot in the place. Today she was at the counter. As he waited in line to order, he perused the blackboard menu even though he knew what he wanted.
When it was his turn to be served, the Filipino woman asked, “What can I get you today, sir?”
Her accent was thick and her voice deep, belying her small stature.
Darryl scratched his chin and pretended to deliberate before saying, “Do you have any beef and Guinness pies left?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I’ll have one of those. Hmmm… and a sausage roll too, while you’re at it.”
She picked up a pair of gleaming silver tongs and extracted a pie and sausage roll from within the cluttered depths of the pie warmer, dropping them into two white paper bags. “Anything else, sir?”
Darryl shook his head.
“Then that will be four-sixty, thank you.”
Darryl fished about in his wallet and withdrew a five- dollar note, which was all the cash he had left. He hoped he had enough money left in his account for beer. He handed her the note. While she was ringing up the transaction he blurted, “You work too hard.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Every time I come here you’re working. Do you ever have a day off?”
She smiled and handed him his change. “Perhaps you are right. But you, sir—I think that you do not work hard enough.”
“What makes you say that?” said Darryl.
“Because you have the time to be always up here buying sausage rolls and Guinness pies.”
Darryl was taken aback. He might have been unemployed and collecting a benefit, but he had a plan, and that plan was music. He worked hard at that, and it was only a matter of time. “So?” he said.
She didn’t answer, instead turning to address the next customer in line, dismissing Darryl with a smile. He stood there,
glaring, but she took no notice of him, and that offended him even more.
He stomped back out into the street, shaking his head and muttering. “Stupid woman. What does she know?” That’s the problem with this country. Too many bloody foreigners.
Floyd was waiting beside the bin. Darryl peeled off a chunk from his sausage roll and bent down and gave it to him, scratching behind the dog’s ears again. Then he licked his finger and drew a line in the air. “One more strike against humanity.” He gave Floyd another hunk of pastry and meat and stood up. “Come on boy. Let’s get beer.”
They walked along together, Darryl still muttering, Floyd’s tail wagging. The bottle store was on the other side of the road and they stopped at the pedestrian crossing, Darryl stooping to give Floyd the remainder of his sausage roll. He stood, pie in hand, and pressed the cross button with a pastry-flecked finger. Moments later the lights changed and they made their way across the road, accompanied by the piercing chirp of the cross signal. In the second westbound lane a man in a grey pinstriped suit and lilac tie, driving a pristine BMW station wagon, had been too late on his brakes, and the shiny blue nose of his vehicle protruded into delineated pedestrian space.
“Nice braking, mate,” sneered Darryl through a mouthful of pie. He slapped his greasy palm down on the bonnet of the BMW and dragged it along as he walked. Streaks of gravy and flakes of yellow pastry speckled the spotless paintwork.
As Darryl and Floyd continued crossing, the man wound down his window and shouted, “Come back here and try that again! I’ll knock your bloody block off!”
Darryl stopped at the opposite footpath and turned on his heel. For the second time that day he stuck out his right hand and raised the middle finger. The BMW-driver shook his fist out the window and swore. For a moment Darryl thought he might abandon his car, right there at the lights, and come after him. He was relieved when the lights changed to green and the man was forced to drive off as the cars behind him began honking their annoyance. The car blasted away up Wynnum Road, tyres squealing.
Square Pegs Page 1