by Steve Toltz
This night Dad had a table by the window and was staring out, his face set on “boredom incarnate.” I was there, but he was eating alone. I was on a hunger strike for some heroic cause I can’t remember now, but this was probably in the period we ate out eighty-seven nights in a row. Dad used to cook in the old days, but they were old, those days.
We both looked out onto the street because it required so much less effort than talking. Our car was out there, parked behind a white van, and beside it a couple were fighting as they walked. She was pulling his black ponytail and he was laughing. They came right up to the window and fought in front of us, as if they were putting on a show. It was a bold performance. The guy was bent over with a big grin on his face, trying to get her to let go of his hair. It looked painful, having your hair pulled like that, but he wouldn’t stop laughing. Of course, now that I’m older, I know why he had to keep laughing like that; I know he’d have kept on laughing even if she’d pulled his whole head off and dropped it in the gutter and pissed on it and set it on fire. Even with the sting of piss in his dying eyes, he’d have kept on chuckling, and I know why.
The lemon chicken arrived.
“Sure you don’t want any?” Dad asked, a taunting lift in his voice.
The smell of hot lemon made my stomach and my head mortal enemies. Dad threw me a look that was smug and victorious and I gave him one back that was conceited and triumphant. After a grueling five seconds, we both turned our heads quickly to the window, as if for air.
On the street, the fight was in intermission. The girl was sitting on the bonnet of a black Valiant; the guy was standing beside her, smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t see her hands because she had them bunched up under her arms, but I imagined they were clutching pieces of his scalp. Then I heard scraping metal. There was a figure in the background, behind the couple, someone in a red parka, hunched over Dad’s car. The red parka moved alongside the car slowly. It was hard to tell exactly what he was doing, but it seemed that he was scratching the paint off with a key.
“Hey, look!” I shouted, and pointed out the scene to Dad, but his lanky body was already up, running for the door. I leapt out of my chair and followed his trail. This was to be my first chase scene through the streets of Sydney. There have been others over the years, and I’m not always the one in pursuit, but this was the first, so it remains special in my memory.
We did not run gracefully, of course; rather we staggered at great speed, down the main strip, almost toppling over, bursting through couples who strolled absently toward us, ricocheting off them. I remember humming a tune while I ran, a spy tune. We sped through the city like men on fire. People looked on as if they’d never seen running before. Maybe they hadn’t. Outside a cinema, businessmen and -women indistinguishable from each other stood their ground as we approached, as if that square meter of pavement had been handed down to them by their ancestors. We pushed them aside as we ran through. Some of them shouted. Maybe they’d never been touched before either.
The man in the red parka had feet like a gust of wind. He blew across a congested street, dodging the steady stream of traffic. I had taken only one step off the pavement when Dad’s hand grabbed my wrist and almost yanked it off.
“Together,” he said.
Beware the father and son in pursuit of the mysterious villain in the red parka. Beware the menacing duo who hold hands as they make chase. We turned a corner and came into an empty street. Our presence somehow deepened the emptiness of it. There was no one in sight. It felt as though we had stumbled upon a remote and forgotten part of the city. We took a moment to catch our breath. My heart pounded on my chest wall like a shoulder trying to break down a wooden door.
“In there,” Dad said.
Halfway down the street was a bar. We walked to the front. There was no sign on the window. Evidently the bar didn’t have a name. The windows were blacked out and you couldn’t see in. It was a place made dangerous by low lighting. You could tell from the outside. It was the kind of place where nefarious characters knife anyone who asks them for the time, where serial killers go to forget their troubles, where whores and drug dealers exchange phone numbers and sociopaths laugh at the times they’ve been confused with naturopaths.
“Do you want to wait outside?”
“I’m coming in.”
“Things might get ugly.”
“I don’t mind.”
“OK, then.”
Only a few steps in and we were at the cloakroom- we could see the red parka swinging on a hanger, swinging like a tune.
There was a band on the stage, the singer’s voice like the feeling of biting tinfoil. Musical instruments were stuck on the wall above the spirit bottles at the bar- a violin, an accordion, a ukulele. It looked like a pawnbroker’s. Two exhausted bartenders paused every now and then to pour themselves tequila shots. Dad ordered a beer for himself, lemonade for me. I wanted a beer too, but I got lemonade. My whole life’s been like that.
Dad and I kept one eye apiece on the cloakroom and spent a couple of hours guessing who might be our man, but you can’t pick a vandal from a room of faces any more than you can pick an adulterer or a pedophile. People carry their secrets in hidden places, not on their faces. They carry suffering on their faces. Also bitterness, if there’s room. We made our guesses anyway, based on what, I don’t know. Dad chose a short nuggety guy with a goatee. He’s our man, Dad insisted. I begged to differ and picked a guy with long brown hair and an ugly purple mouth. Dad thought he looked like a student, not a vandal. What’s he studying, then?
“Architecture,” Dad said. “One day he’ll build a bridge that will collapse.”
“Will people die?” I asked.
“Yes, a thousand.”
While I contemplated the thousand dead, Dad ordered another drink and noticed a woman with peroxide blond hair and lipstick-stained teeth leaning on the bar. He gave her the number-three smile, the one usually reserved for getting out of speeding fines. She looked him over without moving her head.
“Hi,” Dad said.
As a response she lit a cigarette, and Dad scooted over a stool to get closer.
“What do you think of the band?” he asked. “It’s not really my type of music. Can I buy you a drink? What do you think of the band?”
She let out a laugh that was more like gargling in that it never left her throat. After a whole fat minute when nothing happened, Dad got sick of staring at her profile, so he scooted back to his original stool. He drank his beer in one go.
“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” I asked.
“I don’t know, mate.”
“Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure. On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.”
“You’re not alone. I’m here.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, smiling.
“What’s on the other hand?” I asked.
“What?”
“You said, ‘On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.’ ”
“Oh, um. Shit. I can’t remember. It’s gone.”
“Maybe there’s nothing on the other hand.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I watched Dad’s eyes follow the blonde as she moved from the bar to a table of women. She must have said something about us, because they all looked over, and it seemed pretty obvious they were mentally spitting on Dad. He pretended to drink from his empty glass. The whole scene made me sick, so I turned one eye back to the cloakroom and the other to the mean, purple, murderous mouth of the architecture student, and I imagined him high up in an office, looking down on a thousand dead bodies and the silver arms of his broken bridge.
The red parka was still hanging around, killing time. It was getting late. I was tired. My eyelids wanted closure.
“Can we go?”
“What time does this bar close?” Dad asked the bartender.
“About six.”
“Fuck,” Dad said to me, and ordered another drink. Clear
ly he would stay out all night if need be. And why shouldn’t he? There was no one at home waiting up for us. No forehead crinkled with worry. No lips waiting to kiss us goodnight. No one to miss us if we never went back at all.
I laid my head on the bar. There was something wet and sticky under my cheek, but I was too tired to move. Dad sat erect on the bar stool, vigilant, watching the cloakroom. I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of a face floating out of the dark. Nothing more than a face. The face was screaming, except the dream was silent. It was terrifying. I woke with a damp cloth at my nose.
“Move your head, please.”
It was the bartender wiping down the counter.
“What’s happening?”
“I’m closing up.”
I tasted salt. I reached up and wiped my eyes. I’d been crying in my sleep. This confused me. I don’t remember the face being sad, only scary. The bartender gave me a look that said I wouldn’t be a real man as long as I cried in my sleep. I knew he spoke the truth, but what could I do about it?
“What’s the time?”
“Five-thirty.”
“Have you seen my-”
“He’s over there.”
Dad was standing beside the cloakroom, bouncing on his toes. I craned my neck and saw the red parka still hanging around. There was only a handful of people left in the bar: the guy with the purple mouth, a woman with an angry face and a shaved head, a bearded man with a face full of rings, a Chinese girl in a jumpsuit, and a guy with the biggest potbelly I’d ever seen.
“I’m closing up now,” the bartender shouted to them. “Go home to your wives and children.”
That made everyone laugh. I didn’t see what was so funny about it. I went over and waited with Dad.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“I feel sick.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What are you going to do when you find him?”
Dad indicated with his eyebrows that he found my question ignorant. The patrons started leaving one by one. Finally the girl with the shaved head leaned on the cloakroom counter.
“That’s mine,” she said, pointing. “The red one.”
This was our man- or I should say woman. The culprit. The vandal. The clerk handed her the parka. Now what?
“Hello,” Dad said.
She turned her face to him. We got a good look at her. She had bright green eyes set in the boniest face I’d ever seen. I thought she should thank God for those eyes; they were the only beautiful things about her. Her lips were thin, almost nonexistent. Her face was gaunt and pale. She’d be nothing more than white skin stretched over a long skull if it weren’t for those eyes. They were translucent. Dad said hello again. She ignored him, opened the door with her foot, and went into the street.
Outside, a light rain was falling from a metal-yellow sky. I couldn’t see it but I knew the sun was around there somewhere- its yawn had lit the air. I took a deep breath. There’s no doubt about it, the dawn smells different from the rest of the day; there’s a certain freshness about it, like when you take a bite out of a head of lettuce and put it back in the fridge bite side down so no one will notice.
The girl was standing under the awning, doing up her famous red parka.
“Hello there.” Dad’s voice had no impact on her. I thought clearing my throat might help. It did. Her bright green eyes shone a spotlight on Dad and me.
“What do you want?”
“You scratched my car,” Dad said.
“What car?”
“My car.”
“When?”
“Earlier tonight, around a quarter to nine.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” Dad said, then moved a step closer to the red parka with the green headlights. “I know it was you.”
“Get the fuck away from me before I call the police.”
“Ho-ho, you want to call the police, do you?”
“Yeah, maybe I do, moneybags.”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you moneybags, moneybags.”
“Every time you open your mouth, you’re incriminating yourself. Why do you think I’m a moneybags unless you’ve seen my car?”
Good one, Dad, I thought. She’s on the run now.
“Your suit looks like something a fat rich bastard would wear.”
Good one, Green Eyes. She got you there, Dad.
“For your information, I’m not a moneybags,” Dad said.
“I don’t care what you are.”
This ludicrous evening seemed to be reaching a dead end. Dad had crossed his arms and was trying to stare down Green Eyes, but she had crossed her arms and was glaring right back at him with eyes so wide they were positively lidless. Was that it? Could we go home now?
“How old are you?”
“Fuck off.”
“I only want two things from you.”
“Well, you aren’t getting them.”
“I want a confession and an explanation. That’s all.”
This is exactly the kind of thing a single man can do at five-thirty in the morning, I thought- this is exactly why people have wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends, so they don’t allow themselves to get too creepy. But leave a man alone for long enough and there is nothing odd he won’t do. A life lived alone weakens the mind’s immune system, and your brain becomes susceptible to an attack of strange ideas. “I want a confession and an explanation,” Dad repeated, and placed his hand on her shoulder as if he were a security guard surprising a shoplifter. She started screaming, “Help! Police! Rape!”
Then Dad had yet another dubious idea: he started shouting for the police too. He nudged me. He wanted me to join in. I shouted along with the other two, calling out rape, calling for the cops. But I didn’t stop there. I called for a SWAT team too. I called for helicopters. I called for Satan. I called for the ground to swallow the sky. That quieted her down. She stepped off the pavement into the rain. Dad and I walked into the street beside her without talking. Every now and then Green Eyes took a peek at me.
“What are you doing with this fuckwit?” she asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he your father?”
“He says he is.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Hey, vandal. Don’t you talk to him. You have some confessing to do.”
“You can’t prove anything, moneybags.”
“Can’t I? Can’t I? Well, vandal, you have in your pocket a key of some description, don’t you? Wouldn’t take more than a couple of seconds for a forensic scientist to match the specks of paint on your key to the missing paint from the side of my car.”
Green Eyes pulled a key from her pocket and dropped it in a puddle of water.
“Oops, clumsy me,” she said, kneeling down beside the puddle, scrubbing the key, then wiping it on the sleeve of her parka. She put the key back in her pocket. “Sorry, moneybags,” she sang.
We crossed Hyde Park as it went through a transformation of light and color. Dawn was melting into the shadows of the trees. As Green Eyes strode briskly, Dad took my hand and urged me to keep up the pace. At the time I couldn’t comprehend what was going on. Now, looking back at his determination to follow this strange woman, it seems as if he somehow understood the mess she was going to make of our future, and he was not going to let her wriggle out of it.
When we reached the top of the park, guess who we saw hanging over Taylor ’s Square? The huge deep orange blazing sun, that’s who. Green Eyes lit a cigarette. The three of us watched the sunrise in silence, and I thought: One day the earth is going to get sucked into that lurid sun, and all the Chinese restaurants and all the peroxide blond women and all the seedy bars and all the single men and all the vandals and all the sports cars will be obliterated in a brilliant white flash and that will be that. Suffice it to say, it was a hell of a sunrise. I felt like a naked eyeball standing there, an eyeball the size of a boy, an eyeball with ea
rs and a nose and a tongue and a thousand nerves sticking out like uncut hairs touching everything. I was all the senses at once, and it felt good.
Suddenly I was glad there was no one at home waiting up for us. Normal fathers and sons can’t stay out all night to watch the sun rise if there’s a wife and mother fretting by an open window, her long bony finger hovering over the button that speed-dials the police. I turned to Dad and said, “It’s good that you’re alone.”
Without looking at me he said, “I’m not alone. You’re here.”
I felt Green Eyes staring at me, before she fixed her stare on Dad. Then she walked on. We followed her up Oxford Street and into Riley. We followed her to a terrace house in Surry Hills. “Thanks for walking me home, moneybags. Now you know where I live. Now you know where my boyfriend lives too. He’ll be home soon and he’ll make a meal out of you. So fuck off!” she screamed. Dad sat on the front porch and lit a cigarette.
“Can we please go home now?” I begged.
“Not yet.”
About twenty minutes later, Green Eyes came back out in tracksuit pants and a yellow undershirt. She was holding a jug of water with something floating in it. On closer look, it was a tampon. A used tampon floating in the jug. A thin trail of blood wove through the water, dissolving into layers of misty red.
“What are you going to do with that?” Dad asked, horrified.
“Calm down, moneybags. I’m just watering my plants.”
She stirred the tampon in the jug and then poured the red water over what looked like marijuana plants sitting on the railing.
“That’s sick,” Dad said.