‘I’m getting it removed one day. The guy wasn’t a proper tattoo artist and he’s placed the ink at different levels. I have to wait a while.’
‘So why’d you get it in the first place? Removing it will leave a mess; your neck’s buggered either way.’
‘She got me tattooed when I was drunk. I didn’t want it.’
‘The wisdom of alcohol.’ Arnie put his pipe in the bowl beside his chair and leaned back as if to get comfortable for their chat. ‘Isn’t that assault?’
‘Probably. She held me captive.’
‘So you were tied up?’
‘Of course I wasn’t. It was a mental thing. I argued with my parents when I first went out with her and they were so uptight that I took off to her house. It was hard to come back.’
‘Ahh, pride. That’s about as controlling as the booze. Well, if we argue and you run off, I’ll look around the neighbourhood — there’s a young lady lives in the house three doors up.’ Arnie had a smug smile on his face.
‘You obviously think it’s funny but I hate Lena and I wish I’d never met her.’
‘You don’t want to hate someone.’ Arnie picked up his pipe again and puffed on it, little bursts of lip movement around the stem. ‘Hating is like offering someone poison but drinking it yourself.’ He pushed at the contents of his pipe bowl with a metal stick. ‘How’d you eventually get away?’
‘I walked out the door,’ Elliot said. He stood up and stretched his arms as if he was tired. ‘I might get an early night. See you tomorrow.’
‘Hey?’ Arnie swivelled as much as his old body would allow and Elliot was pleased as he escaped the room to see the disappointment on Arnie’s face.
It was one thing to slip the net on Arnie’s questions, but it was another for Elliot to escape his own memories when he was alone downstairs. He lay in the dark and thought about the night he’d finally escaped Lena’s clutches.
Elliot had been nursing a heavy cold and Lena had been out at a party. She often took off and left him in his single bed at the back of the house, and he remembered how especially lonely he’d felt that night. He must have dozed off, though, because when his cellphone blasted into song he’d damn near freaked. ‘Huh? Hello?’
‘Elliot? It’s Dad.’
‘Dad!’ It’d been weeks since he’d heard his father’s voice and his own voice trembled a bit when he’d asked, ‘Everything alright?’ Elliot’s arm helicoptered above his head as he searched for the light.
‘Elrick’s had an accident.’
In one fluid movement Elliot was up on his feet, the duvet pooled on the floor. ‘What?’ He found the light and shielded his eyes from its brightness. ‘Is he okay?’
‘No, he’s in intensive care.’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Thank you.’
Elliot felt relieved by Dad’s heartfelt response.
It had been a mad scramble to leave Lena’s. None of his clothes would untangle or pull on quickly. ‘Come on, come on.’ He slammed around the room muttering, kicking things aside. He’d raced into Lena’s room thinking she might be home; perhaps he’d been asleep for hours. But her room was exactly as she always left it — a photo gallery — but otherwise immaculate, stark.
‘Katie!’ He ran down the hallway to Lena’s aunt’s room and pleaded outside her door. There was no answer and when he looked in he saw that Katie wasn’t home either. Twenty dollars lay on her bedside cabinet and he’d grabbed it and run to the kitchen to ring for a taxi. At the hospital, Elliot couldn’t find his way through the myriad corridors, and the signs had seemed designed to trick. When he finally found the intensive care unit, Elliot was only allowed into the waiting room. A notice stated that he was to ring the bell and wait for a nurse to come and unlock the door.
Holy shit, how sick is he?
Elliot waited for about ten nervous minutes, working his way around the posters on the wall. He was up to the symptoms of hepatitis when the door opened behind him.
‘Hello. Elliot? I was told you were on your way.’ The nurse smiled in a kind way that made her eyes crinkle up. He figured she wouldn’t be smiling if Rick had died. ‘Come in and wash your hands,’ she said in a chirpy ‘ten in the morning’ way. She led him into a little bathroom near the main door. ‘We have to be so careful in here about bugs.’
‘I’ve got a cold.’
‘Have you? What’s your temperature? Hang on, I’ll get a thermometer.’
She’d moved off and Elliot listened for sounds of his family behind one of the curtains. His mind kept saying ‘I hate you, Lena, this is your fault’, but he knew it was his own fault too. If only he could wind the clock back. ‘Please, please,’ he said to the basin, ‘let Rick be okay and I’ll sort my life out.’
The nurse came back and took his temperature. It was just within the safe range, but she’d given him a mask anyway. She’d grabbed a plaster as well to cover his eyebrow, which was bleeding, as he’d pulled out a piercing in the taxi.
Elliot liked her and wanted to talk to her, but of course he didn’t.
She led him to Rick’s partition and pulled back the curtain. Rick was propped up on a pillow and there were small cuts all over his face and blood smudges on his hands. Elliot could see tubes, drips, a plastic nose thing and a peg on his finger, which all reeked of pain and hospital. The most chilling sight of all, though, was the way his eyes were swollen shut.
Mum and Dad immediately got up from their seats on either side of Rick. They rushed towards Elliot and hugged him.
‘He’s going to be okay,’ Dad said and then got teary.
‘Yes, he’s going to be absolutely fine.’ The nurse was checking some paper printouts and the electronic screen to the side. ‘He’s got to lie completely still for ten days to give his spleen a chance to heal. It’s lucky he’s so young, because they usually remove damaged spleens from older people.’
‘What happened?’
‘Car accident. He told me he had volleyball and I assumed—’ Dad’s voice got high-pitched as he struggled for control. ‘Why would he make it up?’
‘Not now, dear.’ Mum put her hand on Dad’s arm but Elliot could see he was losing it.
‘What’s happening to our family, Lou?’
‘Ssshhh, Russell. It’s okay.’ She squeezed his hand. Dad looked old. Old as hell.
‘Why don’t you both go and have a break?’ The nurse practically lifted Dad out of the room. ‘I’m sure Elrick would love time with his brother.’
Poor Dad, he took some recovering from the whole saga. He used to say, ‘They’re a handful, those two,’ in a tone that implied he was suffering along with every other parent of teenagers. But he’d known he had it pretty good, and Elliot and Rick had looked set to stay that way until everything turned pear-shaped when Lena came along.
‘Yo, bro,’ Elliot whispered to Rick. ‘We’re all here except for Nana, and I’ve got some of her turd in my pocket.’
He remembered the way Rick had laughed, a big messy splutter, and the machine at his head went ballistic. The nurse came running back, closely followed by Mum and Dad. Elliot leapt back, his skin prickling with fear.
‘Everything alright?’ The nurse looked calm but she was doing her own deft checks with lightning speed.
‘He laughed.’
‘Laughing’s out for a bit.’ She shooed Mum and Dad out again before she turned back and grinned. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? Just give him a couple of days, so his spleen stops bleeding. No jokes, no tears.’ She turned to leave but held up a finger to Elliot. ‘Oh, and no food or water. We’re keeping him nil by mouth in case we need to remove his spleen.’ She patted Rick’s arm. ‘Good boy,’ she said, and then she left, her soft, efficient steps just like the nurses on TV.
‘Heavy stuff, Ricky boy.’
It was still heavy stuff, even these months later as Elliot rehashed the memory. He lay in his bed at Arnie’s and listened to music to help drown out his thoughts but they slipped in, regardless
of the noise in his ears.
He missed being at home with his family, where there was decent stuff in the fridge and more than one TV. He missed Rick and Deeks and all the other guys who’d come around, and he missed Nana, who’d slept at his bedside every night, her sighs and dog-nightmares puncturing his own sleep.
Instead, here he was, parked up with a crazy old dude and two cats that did nothing except skulk around and stare at him.
Elliot counted up the weeks and realised he’d been living at Arnie’s for nearly two months. A four-day weekend loomed and he decided he would go home, have a break from this dump and see his mates again.
‘Hey, Rooster. Everyone’s gunna be surprised to see you,’ Deeks said, when Elliot went over to hang in his room. ‘People think something’s happened.’
‘Like what?’
‘One day you’re living at Lena’s and next thing you’ve disappeared. They say she beat you up — that you’re a cabbage now.’
‘I hope I put up a good fight.’
‘That shit’s never kind. She used a hammer.’
Elliot shrugged. ‘No one believes that stuff.’ He looked at all the flash IT gear on Deeks’ desk. ‘There’s no computer at Arnie’s and my phone is rubbish. What else is news apart from me?’
‘How about Lena news?’ Deeks bounced a tennis ball off his bedroom wall and Elliot saw he wore a sly grin. ‘She’s got a new boyfriend, Sonny Warren.’
‘What? Sonny’s a big girl.’
‘We know that,’ Deeks said.
Everyone knew Sonny Warren was a brilliant guitarist. He could play anything, even punk, so he ticked one box correctly. He was built like a tank but they knew he was a big soft baby. ‘What a joke.’
‘She sure picks strange ones.’
‘Shut up, Deeks.’
‘Just joking.’
He wasn’t joking, though, and Elliot knew it. Lena had plucked him out of his safe nest and pushed him off the top of a cliff to fly. Sonny would be her latest.
Deeks’ father banged on his bedroom door. ‘Stop chucking that ball in there or I’ll ram it down your ugly gob.’
Deeks bounced it once more and then let the ball roll away. ‘What’s your mother cooking for dinner?’
‘Butter chicken. Do you wanna come over?’
‘Yeah, I might. Dad’s new girlfriend has put us on a diet.’
‘Like that last one who did a weekly rotation of the same meals?’
‘Ha, I’d forgotten about her. Boarding-school Barb, she was.’ Deeks shook his head. ‘No, this one only lets us eat caveman food.’
‘Where the hell does she buy bison?’
‘It’s berries and seeds and stuff. She’s cleansing us from the inside out.’
‘Yeah? She’d have her work cut out; you’ve got pretty filthy insides.’
‘That’s all changed. Cavemen keep it loose.’
‘Gross. Come and have a feed of butter chicken. I have to go and take Nana for a walk anyway.’
‘Alright, but this diet unleashes our animal instincts and I’m becoming wolf-like. I don’t want Nana getting ideas about me.’
‘You’re safe with Nana; she’s fussy. Anyway, you still look like the same creature you always did — a giant sloth.’
Mum went all out that night, with masses of food, and Elliot, Rick and Deeks ate until they felt sick. Rick was going to a party so Deeks said, ‘I s’pose we could come along; keep you company.’
‘What a treat,’ Elliot said as he stared around at all the pretty girls. ‘It’s ages since I’ve been out.’
‘It shows,’ Rick said. ‘Close your mouth; get a drink.’
Eventually, Elliot slotted back into his old skin. He hung by the door with Deeks and chatted to people he knew as they came and went. A few snide comments came his way but mostly people didn’t care or weren’t interested that he was home.
The party was thinning out when Elliot and Deeks thought they’d wander off. A beautiful girl with long straight hair and long curvy legs was climbing out of a taxi at the gate. She caught Elliot’s eye and they stared at each other. He said, ‘Hi.’
‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m Elliot.’
‘Oh, that’s right, Rick’s brother. The guys call you Rooster.’ She smiled at Elliot and held out her hand. ‘I’m Mackenzie.’
‘Rooster’s an old lad name; I don’t get that anymore,’ Elliot said, holding her hand.
Deeks leaned in and whispered, ‘Once a cock, always a cock.’ Elliot shoved him back and tried to keep holding onto Mackenzie’s hand but she pulled it away.
‘I’m meeting Rick — he’s here, isn’t he?’
‘You don’t want to hang out with him; he’s a baby.’
She smiled. ‘He’s a babe, alright.’
‘No, honestly, he’s so young. We’ve only just managed to toilet train him,’ Elliot said.
She laughed then and touched the back of Elliot’s hand, a fleeting connection. ‘I love a challenge,’ she said. ‘I’ll help him with his jeans.’
Deeks and Elliot repeated her line in various ways all the way home.
‘What’s your little brother got that you haven’t?’ Deeks asked. ‘Same parents, same upbringing, almost the same damn name. What’s wrong with you, Rooster?’
‘Dunno, but it can’t be a family thing. I don’t see hot girls helping you with your jeans.’
Late the next morning the three boys got ready to go to the spring show. It was a small-town annual event to showcase new tools and agricultural equipment for farmers.
Each high school in the district used the show to display its talented teenagers. And each year, teenagers in the district used the show to display a few talents of their own.
‘You can borrow my green shirt if you like,’ Rick said. ‘That top is crap. Spend some of your hard-earned Wellington dosh and buy some new gear.’ He was putting the finishing touches to his hair and Elliot had to peer under Rick’s armpit to get a go at the mirror.
‘Cheers. I might take you up on that. Now shove over so I can check I’m perfect.’
Deeks came over and pushed between the two brothers at the mirror. ‘Here I am. A mansion between two barnyards.’
‘More like an estate. You’ve got spare acreage going on around here,’ Elliot said, grabbing at Deeks’ gut.
Mum got sick of the sprays and gels and discarded clothes and kicked them out.
They queued for twenty minutes to get to the ticket booth, only to find Sonny Warren on duty, manning the till. ‘Oh, look who’s here,’ Sonny said. ‘Elliot Barnard, the star freak of the show. Have you come out of hiding to see the exhibition?’
‘Shut up, Warren, you big blouse.’ Deeks leaned on the wooden booth and laughed as it rocked on its unstable base. A security guard yelled at them to move on.
‘The last laugh’s on me, you’ll see,’ Sonny called after them.
‘What’s he on about?’ Elliot asked. ‘He knows something.’ Sonny’s taunts took the shine off Elliot and Deeks’ day for a while, but the Slayer, the fastest, body-spinning ride at the show, put the gloss back again. They lined up time after time and they were just breaking for food when two guys from school rushed up.
‘Rooster, get here man.’ The boys were red-faced from running. ‘Rick’s in trouble. He’s in the security tent ’cause he ruined someone’s exhibition.’
‘Yeah, he busted a photography thing.’
Elliot’s stomach knotted. The last thing Rick’s spleen needed was a security guard roughing him up. He binned the rest of his American Hotdog Special and followed the boys.
Rick sat at the back of the tent on a plastic chair, a defiant expression on his face. He gave Elliot a wry look and rolled his eyes at the burly guard who was on a cellphone.
The broken exhibition lay mangled on the table, the large ‘A’ of the anarchy symbol split in two. A few photos still clung to one arm of the ‘A’ but they hung askew and damaged. Around the ‘O’ of the symbol, Lena had glued nam
es of punk bands and songs she loved. A pile of photos that had fallen off the exhibition lay scattered on the table; photos of Elliot.
Elliot leaned in to look at them and he burned with shame. Lena had captured him puking, sleeping in the tattooist’s chair, dancing like a stick insect, and struggling to lift weights. She’d labelled her project: The rise and fall of a punk rocker.
‘Clear off,’ the guard said to Elliot. ‘We’re dealing with this. No place for vandals around here.’ He glared at Rick.
‘He’s rung the cops,’ Rick said. ‘Go and meet the olds at the gate.’
It was just Mum who got there, but she was more than adequate for the job.
‘Look at this slander, this abuse of my son’s privacy,’ she said to the group who by then included a policeman, Elliot and Deeks, a teacher from Lena’s school, Rick and the security guard.
Elliot cringed but also felt some awe as his mother picked up photo after photo and flapped them under the noses of the authorities. ‘This girl wrecked my boy’s life. She virtually kidnapped him and got him tattooed against his will. He finally escaped and what does she do? This!’
Mum worked up a good head of steam like the kettle in Dad’s workroom and no one could find the off-switch.
‘Mrs Barnard, your son’s relationship is a separate issue. We’re just concerned about this destruction of a student’s exhibition,’ the policeman said.
‘It’s not a separate issue. I don’t believe in destroying people’s work either, but this nasty little girl deserves everything she’s got. I want a meeting with the school authorities because I think it’s a disgrace that they condone this sort of mockery of an innocent boy.’
Elliot couldn’t look at anyone.
‘And as for your school,’ Mum said, turning on the teacher. ‘How could you approve a project like this? No one asked my boy for permission to be used as a spectacle. What sort of a school are you running? What about his rights?’
The teacher was a junior who knew nothing about the photography assignment. The policeman was unsure as well. Mum didn’t look the sort to have delinquent sons, and Elliot and Rick didn’t look like his average crims. He took some names and details and let them go.
Coming Home to Roost Page 2