Out of the Blue

by JR Carroll

  When they rolled into Avoca it was lunchtime and Teddy was more than ready to eat. He badly wanted a big, well-done steak, with chips and a nice cheese sauce all over the vegetables. A picture of this meal had been sitting tantalisingly in his mind for half an hour, making his mouth water. It was a warm day, not hot but warm, and a few dozen pots would go down well too.

  But first they checked in at the motel on the fringe of town. It was called The Golden Lizard, and it had a picture of one on its neon sign. Graham had already booked a room each for them. The woman handed Graham two keys, and Graham gave Teddy his. The thought had crossed his mind that Graham might have arranged for them to share a room, and that just wasn’t going to happen, no fucking way. At least Graham had the wit to realise that much.

  After establishing themselves, which in Teddy’s case meant throwing an overnight bag on the bed and then taking a leak, they walked the hundred metres into town and soon reached the Pyrenees Hotel, which was on the same side of the road as their motel. It wasn’t a bad-looking little pub, Teddy thought, standing outside it with his hands in his pockets, noticing the sand-blasted bricks and plant-strewn first-floor balcony that overlooked the street. And on the blackboard displaying the counter-lunch menu, he was pleased to see that they had rump steak on offer.

  Graham went in and Teddy followed. The only front entrance to the pub led into a hallway, with the public bar on the left and a bit of a bottle shop on the right. In the bar there were half-a-dozen drinkers, local rednecks, all of whom turned to look at Teddy and Graham with gnarled and sunburnt faces. Graham went for a wander further down the hallway and Teddy headed for the jump. No one was serving.

  ‘G’day mate,’ he said to the nearest redneck, an old wizened guy about seventy-five.

  ‘G’day,’ the redneck said.

  Nuggetty legs spaced apart, Teddy placed both hands on the bar, tapping his fingers. From the corner of his eye he could see that the old redneck had noticed the tattoos on Teddy’s wrists, KILL and MAIM. Teddy smiled to himself. That always gave him a real buzz. People had a habit of giving Teddy lots of room and generally treating him with respect when they clocked his tatts. The old guy was no different—Teddy could feel him having a nervous breakdown on the spot. Teddy kept his hands on the bar, tapping his fingers patiently. The conversations in the bar seemed to have suddenly dried up.

  Presently a young bloke with a baby face and long blond ringlets appeared. Teddy didn’t see where he came from, since he was looking around at the stuff on the wall at that moment. But this character wasn’t Dennis Gatz, that was for sure. Too young, twenty-six or so. Gatz was forty-five, Graham had told him, about six foot tall, average build, fair hair. Looked just like what he was, an ex-cop. Teddy reckoned he’d be able to clock him on that one alone.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ the young barman said. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Pot, mate,’ Teddy said, and just then Graham turned up, hands plunged into the back pockets of his moleskins. The effect of that was to draw attention to the bulge in his crotch. Teddy felt embarrassed. Shit. Getting around with this faggot, a man would probably be tarred with the same fucking brush. People would reckon the two of them were a number. Without looking at Graham he said in a dead voice, ‘What about you?’

  ‘You’ve won me, sport,’ Graham said. ‘I’ll have a pot too.’

  Teddy winced. Why couldn’t he just keep it short and to the point? ‘Pot’ was all he had to say. One word. But no, he has to make a fucking speech.

  Brett Jennings put the beers in front of them. Teddy watched him notice the tatts. The barman didn’t seem to give a reaction, though—just took the five-dollar note from between Teddy’s thumb and forefinger, gave back change and then served the rednecks. Teddy got the distinct feeling that he hadn’t impressed this guy at all, that he’d already forgotten about the tatts. Teddy picked up his glass, strolled to the leadlight window and tipped half the beer down his throat, looking out at the empty street that was divided by a dead-looking plantation with some sort of war memorial in it. Fucking hick towns, he thought. They’re all the same. He drank the other half of his beer and went back for another one, but the barman had disappeared again.

  ‘Where is the cunt?’ Teddy said, loud enough for the rednecks to hear if they wanted. ‘Why can’t he stay in one place for a minute?’ He placed his hands back on the bar and tapped his fingers.

  ‘Calm down, Ted,’ Graham said pleasantly. ‘Here comes Mr Gatz.’

  Teddy looked across the bar and into the lounge on the other side. A man who fitted the description of Dennis Gatz came towards them. The man immediately noticed them both. Teddy felt himself tense a little.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Graham. I told you, it’s Teddy,’ he said. He let his hands drop to his sides.

  Graham and Teddy ate their lunch in the lounge. A few touristy types had scattered themselves about, couples with children who wouldn’t sit still and an older group right behind them. The impression Teddy got from overhearing bits of the conversation was that this was a birthday celebration, although you wouldn’t think so from the way they were all whispering to each other. You’d think it was a fucking wake. The old boy looked as if he should be in the ground, too.

  Graham had bought a bottle of white wine for himself while Teddy stuck to his beers. Naturally Graham had made a real production of ordering the wine, wanting to know this and that, where the different bottles on the list came from, what they were like, dry or medium, and the girl had pretended to know all about it. Teddy could tell she didn’t though. She was only about eighteen, good-looking kid, nice body. Teddy gave her the once-over, front and back view. Noticing Teddy’s interest, Graham said, ‘You wouldn’t be entertaining lascivious thoughts by any chance, would you Teddy?’

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Teddy said, eating with his face down over the food.

  ‘Charming lass, I agree. Not my style, though.’

  Teddy looked up and Graham was looking right back at him with a sly grin on his face and that eyebrow cocked. Teddy saw that Graham was waiting for him to ask, Well, come on, what is your style then? and those words had been on Teddy’s tongue, but now he swallowed them. He had no intention of getting sucked into a discussion about Graham’s sexual preferences. Who wanted to know? But Graham continued to look challengingly at Teddy, reading his thoughts every step of the way, making fun of Teddy without even opening his mouth. Teddy knew better than to encourage Graham. They were smooth talkers in their smarmy way, these poofters, and if you gave them half a chance they’d try coming on to you and you wouldn’t even know it was happening because they were always going off at a tangent and asking questions that didn’t have any answers to them except the one they were looking for. They spoke in fucking code. Teddy knew all about that from prison. A guy would sidle up and start saying things that had nothing to do with what was really on his mind, and Teddy would tell the guy to stick it in his ear and walk away.

  Graham sipped his wine and said, ‘You’re a hoot, Ted. Sorry, Teddy.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ Teddy said, face down over his plate again. Graham watched Teddy eat with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. Teddy did not so much cut the steak as maul it, savage it, then he would load the fork with all the food he could fit on it and shove it into his mouth. Even before he’d finished chewing that mouthful he crammed a new one in, so that both his cheeks constantly bulged with food and there was food on his lips too. He hunched over the table and mostly what Graham saw was the top of his head and his fist grasping the fork with his thumb across it.

  ‘Well, Graham,’ Teddy said, swallowing the last mouthful, pushing the plate away and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand even though there was a serviette in front of him, ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse what you think. To each his own, I say. Live and let live. Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ Graham said, then leaned forward and Teddy could just tell he was going to take the piss again. ‘Teddy,’ he s
aid. ‘Relax. Loosen up. Why be so defensive? Did you have a nasty experience as a child?’ That cocked eyebrow again.

  ‘No I didn’t, Graham,’ Teddy said. ‘But you might have one in a minute if you’re not careful.’

  ‘See what I mean? You’re such a tough guy. And those tattoos on your wrist.’

  ‘What about ’em?’

  ‘Well, you see, they tell me something, those tattoos. You’re saying to the world, Hey, back off. You’re projecting an image, right? But that image is not the real you. Not the real Teddy. You’ve thrown up this—this protective wall around yourself.’

  ‘The only walls I know about are in Pentridge, Graham. And believe me, there are guys in there and on the street who’d disagree with you and your fuckin’ theories. Guys that got their skull busted for putting it where it wasn’t wanted. Guys like Pommy Dave, for instance. He’d tell you all about it if he could.’

  Graham had his hands clasped under his chin, paying close attention to Teddy as he might to a strange animal in the zoo. ‘I give in. Enlighten me. Who’s Pommy Dave?’

  Teddy gave Graham his dead prison stare and said, ‘That’s the guy I fixed up with a lawn-edger. Split his head open like a fuckin’ watermelon.’ He looked for a reaction and all he got was the cocked eyebrow and a primpy little shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Pommy Dave’s brains fertilised the ground that day.’

  ‘Yes, but that was just drunken madness, wasn’t it? You were off your face and so was he. Doesn’t mean anything. I come back to my original point, which is that you’re hiding the better part of yourself behind all this belligerence and big talk. I understand you better than you think, Teddy.’

  ‘Cut out that psycho crap. Cut it out right now.’

  Graham sighed. ‘You’re such a hard case, Teddy, and it’s so unnecessary. What am I going to do with you?’

  ‘Nothing, Graham,’ Teddy said. ‘Just keep your distance and watch what you say. We’ll get along fine then.’

  Graham made a spontaneous chortling sound in his throat. He still had his hands clasped under his chin, the elbows close together on the table so that he resembled a long-necked seabird of some kind. ‘Aye aye, sir. Can I get you another drink at least?’

  ‘Now you’re speaking my language. Let’s go back to the bar.’ He got up from the mess on their table and followed Graham.

  Teddy examined the back of the hotel. Just past the toilets there was a door with a deadlock on it. The door was open. Teddy went out into the pretty, sunlit yard with flowerbeds bordering a lawn. He noticed the outbuildings—laundry, tool shed, garage against the back fence with a red Magna parked in one of the slots. There was also an external staircase leading up to the first floor. Teddy had a quick glance around and then went up the staircase, opening the screen door at the top of it. The main door was already open. Stepping inside, he could see he was in the guest area. To his right was a door marked PRIVATE—so that was where Gatz lived. Down the other way there were rooms with numbers on them, a bathroom and a ratty little lounge for the guests with an old black-and-white TV in it. Teddy had a good look around, used the bathroom. When he came out a woman appeared from the top of the stairs carrying sheets. She looked at Teddy, not curiously at all, saying, ‘Hello,’ and giving him a pink-cheeked country smile.

  ‘Hi there,’ Teddy said, and kept going. The woman went into one of the rooms and Teddy left the way he’d come in, pausing at the door at the top of the staircase to examine the lock. It was an ordinary, pissy little lock, an antique. Teddy thought, he probably leaves this door open for the guests to get in after their big night on the town. A lot of these old bush pubs are like that. They’re very trusting places. You just had to turn the knob on the outside and the door opened. There was a snib on the lock, a little button that slid up and down. Pathetic, Teddy thought, working the snib. He went back down the staircase and into the sunlight. What a joke, he thought. This joint is begging to get knocked off. It will, too. Enjoying the sun, he paused on the neat green lawn to light a smoke, flicked the dead match away and went inside, shaking his head.

  Afterwards he and Graham crossed the street and walked in the direction of their motel to the town’s other pub, a bigger one with PUBTAB and Sky Channel. It was called, oddly, The Blind Eagle. Teddy had never heard of a pub called that before. With Graham following, he stepped inside, and stood legs apart with his hands on the bar, fingers drumming on the bar towel. There was a lively school of boozers in their early twenties and a few punters, eyes fixed on the TV screen. One of these was a really old geezer with runny eyes and a roll-your-own cigarette hanging off a cancerous lower lip, holding onto a walking frame with twisted, knobby fingers. He looked like a guy who’d missed the last train to the next life. Teddy hoped he’d never live that long. When the race was over the old geezer caught Teddy looking at him as he dropped his tickets on the floor.

  ‘Fuckin’ waste o’ time that was,’ he wheezed, the cigarette going up and down on his lip. Teddy grinned at him but didn’t say anything.

  The younger group, half-pissed and boisterous, playfully pushed and shoved one another around and snatched each other’s change off the bar. They were having a terrific time. In the middle of the action were two women, shriekers who’d had too much. They were drinking something with Coke in it, probably Scotch. Teddy had noticed over the years how women who liked to keep up with men in a drinking school could never handle it. He hated pissed women at any time, but when they were screamers too, he always felt like choking them just to shut them up. One of these saw Teddy’s tatts and checked him out, but instantly looked away when Teddy shot a glance at her. He got two pots, gave one to Graham and studied the form at Sandown before filling out a few cards. It was mid-afternoon and there were still a few races to go.

  About an hour later when he’d won and then lost some change Graham sort of floated up alongside him and said, ‘Think I’ll take a walk. See you back at the Lizard. Then we must talk.’

  ‘Right,’ Teddy said, not looking at him. There was a race being run and he was in with a big chance at the turn. His horse grabbed the lead and hung on, beating off the challengers. Teddy punched the air and slopped some beer out of his glass. ‘You fucking bottler!’ he yelled, as the horses crossed the line. A few heads looked at him, but Teddy didn’t care. Now he was eighty bucks to the good.

  After collecting, Teddy perched himself on a barstool for one more quiet one to celebrate. Having a smoke and a bit of a think, his mind returned to the exchange with Graham back at the Pyrenees. When Teddy had told him about Pommy Dave, Graham had just said, ‘Oh, that’, and then said something about Teddy being pissed at the time, so it didn’t count, words to that effect. What got Teddy now, on reflection—though it hadn’t occurred to him at the time—was that Graham obviously knew all about it. Teddy had killed Pommy Dave in ’74, but Graham behaved as if he’d just read about it in the papers last week. He’d apparently done his homework on Teddy, and what brought a frown to Teddy’s brow right now was that he wasn’t really sure what he thought about that. Certainly his ego felt flattered—of all the crims in the place, he had been picked out. But in another way it gave Graham and whoever else was in the picture with him an advantage, leaving Teddy in the dark. So how much did these people really know about him? A lot, probably. But all Teddy knew about Graham was that his second name was Thornburn—which he’d got from an envelope in Graham’s car—and that he worked for a travel agency in Blackburn, called Swingalong Tours. He wasn’t in the phone book, so Teddy had no idea where he lived. Graham had been cagey about that, always in a pub or park. How had he got his information, anyhow? How had they got onto him? And why was Graham completely at ease around Teddy, not scared at all and even enjoying himself? It didn’t make much sense, Graham being a fag and all. What was a guy like that doing mixed up in heavy shit in the first place? What was it all about exactly?

  Walking back to the Golden Lizard with a six-pack under hi
s arm Teddy pondered these and other questions. He felt as if he had been invited into this big house, but had to stay in one room. It wouldn’t do any good to front Graham, he’d just put on that know-all faggy face and say something back that would just give Teddy the shits, not answering the question at all but going off at a tangent as usual. This was one weird set-up. But the five large was there, in advance. Couldn’t argue with that.

  He put his six-pack in the fridge and then watched TV for five minutes. Restless, he snapped it off and went outside in the golden late afternoon light to check on the VK. There was a light film of red dust over it that no one except Teddy would have noticed. He ran his finger through it. If there’d been a hose lying around Teddy would have given it a quick wash, but there wasn’t. Instead he lifted the bonnet, checked oil, water and battery. The chromed rocker cover gleamed magnificently while he fiddled with the plug and distributor leads and checked that the hose connections were sound. While his head was under the bonnet the manageress came out of her office down the end and came by, picking flowers along the path. Teddy lowered the bonnet, then pressed it gently home.

  ‘Nice car,’ the manageress said. She had noticed the four-hundred-dollar-a-pop spoked wheels, the chrome twin exhausts, the fifty-nine dollar chrome petrol cap, the tinted windows, the perfect white duco with the glittering red-and-gold decal going down the side.

  ‘I try to look after it,’ Teddy said.

  The manageress nodded. ‘You’ve got to these days. It’s all money, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure is,’ Teddy said.

  The woman went back inside with her flowers. Teddy got his six-pack, ripped one free and started drinking it. Then on impulse he decided to ring Elaine, give her a thrill. No answer. Teddy put down the phone and checked the time. Nearly five. Where could she be? Elaine was always home at this time, feet on the coffee table, watching ‘Wheel of Fortune’. He’d try again later. In the meantime Graham wanted to talk turkey. Teddy grabbed his cans, walked to the door next to his, and tapped on it. Graham opened it and Teddy went in, immediately overpowered by Graham’s aftershave. Graham’s hair was wet, he’d changed his shirt and wore no shoes or socks. Steam wafted from the bathroom. And maps were spread out on his bed.