Meatloaf in Manhattan

by Robert Power

  ‘Perfect. There’s the bait,’ says Jake. ‘Let’s see if John bites.’

  ‘Let’s just put one more shrimp on the hook,’ says his brother, taking over on the keyboard.

  I MAY BE ONLY 15, JOHN, BUT I REALLY WANT TO MEET UP WITH YOU. I HAVE SEEN MUCH OF LIFE IN MY SHORT TIME. I FEEL I KNOW YOU AND I THINK WE WILL GET ON REALLY WELL(!) CAN I SEE YOU THIS WEEK?

  In the room next door, the twins’ father, Adam, web-designer and entrepreneur, looks out of the window at the wintry rain as it bounces off the tarmac of their suburban street. Adam is not in the habit of speaking to himself, but on this occasion he needs to hear his own voice.

  ‘It’s research. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  On the screen are pictures of young girls. They are all dressed, scantily maybe, but nothing that could be deemed pornographic. All part of his commission to design a new website to attract young business leaders of the digital future. He won the job by convincing the client he would make it edgy by looking for the best in contemporary websites, especially those on the fringe. The night before the interview the twins had prepped him on what was new and raw and the selection panel was duly impressed.

  Downstairs, Jean Butler, child psychologist, the twins’ mother and Adam’s wife, is checking through court reports ahead of tomorrow’s assessments. She’s thinking about a cigarette and the chance to sneak one on the verandah while her teenage boys and husband are upstairs and the pasta’s still bubbling.

  ‘Dinner in ten,’ she yells upwards, then quietly opens the french windows, coughing to smother the sound of the latch.

  Adam has a list of web addresses on a sheet of paper next to his keyboard. Over the last few weeks, since winning the job, he’s studied them all, looking for a point of difference, seeking out an angle. All fresh and new to him. He’s more used to YouTube of old rock stars and sports webpages. But he finds himself being drawn back to the same site, mesmerised by the faces of the young women who fade in and out of the screen.

  It’s then that another message pops up on the site from the young Somalian girl he’s been chatting with for a couple of weeks. His head tells him he’s doing nothing wrong, but also knows that he’s used a false name and has told no one about her. The current message has a photo attached. He all but holds his breath as he opens up the link. She looks so regal in the photo. So tall, so elegant; so desirable. His mind begins to wander in spite of himself, wondering how far he could go, fantasising meeting her, maybe even taking her in his arms. The suddenness and depth of his thoughts surprise him. So does the arousal.

  ‘Dinner’s on the table,’ he hears Jean shout and then the sound of the boys’ door opening and them scuttling down the stairs, whooping with laughter. Adam looks back at the screen. There’s another posting from the exotic stranger.

  I’M ONLY IN MELBOURNE FOR A WEEK. JOHN, LET’S TAKE A CHANCE AND MEET UP. I THINK WE’VE REALLY CONNECTED. I’M KEEN TO SEE YOU IN THE FLESH. WHO KNOWS WHERE IT MIGHT LEAD!

  Adam reads and rereads the message, stares at the photo and taps his fingers on the table, as if rehearsing a response. He feels the adrenaline rise through his body, daring him to take a risk. Then he does something he has never done before in his life, never even thought of doing. A heady mix of spontaneity and wantonness overtakes him. Intoxicates him. As he types his fingers seem to take on a life of their own.

  MEET ME UNDER THE CLOCKS AT FLINDERS STREET STATION AT 7PM THURSDAY. I’LL BE WEARING A BLACK AND WHITE CHECKED SHIRT AND COWBOY BOOTS.

  The email account he is using is secure and untraceable. But an intuition tells him to send a message to his client to cover himself, just in case.

  HI SAM, I’VE FOUND A GREAT SOCIAL NETWORK SITE (NO NOT F’BOOK ETC) THAT I’LL EXPLORE FURTHER. REGARDS ADAM.

  Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at his wife and sons sitting at the dining table, he feels guilty, the betrayer. The loyal husband, the exemplary father, who’s just acted totally against what he deems to be his nature. On a whim. In a heightened state of excitement he walks down the steps and takes his place at the head of the table. His wife looks up, glad she’s had a mouthful of garlic from the pasta sauce to hide the smell of the cigarette. The twins glance at each other and smile, complicit in their secret ruse. Adam reaches over for the salad bowl, thinking hard for something to say. The four eat in silence. The boys sit on one side of the table, their parents on the other. The silence, as always when they sit together, is overlaid by a low level of tension.

  ‘I wish, sometimes, we would speak to each other,’ says Jean. ‘Like a normal family.’

  ‘Please. Don’t start that normal family stuff again, mum,’ says Alec.

  ‘I talk to Alec all the time,’ says Jake.

  ‘Precisely,’ says Jean. ‘But I want us all to talk. Together. Like normal people.’

  The twins look at each other; the parents do the same.

  ‘So what happened at school today?’ asks Adam, lightening his voice to take the edge of things.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Alec.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Jake.

  ‘Something must’ve,’ pleads Adam. ‘… oh, forget it.’

  Jean glances at Adam. They both look down at the food on their plates.

  ‘I might have to go to Sydney on Thursday.’

  ‘That’s sudden,’ says Jean.

  ‘A sniff of a new commission. Meeting first thing Friday morning.’

  ‘Then you must go.’

  ‘Probably leave Thursday evening and stay over.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can’t chance the early morning flights.’

  ‘What with the fog.’

  ‘Exactly. And the strikes.’

  ‘And the strikes.’

  ‘You’ll miss our basketball game,’ says Alec.

  ‘You’re down to be scorer,’ adds Jake.

  ‘Sorry, boys, but work is work. Coach’ll find someone to step in,’ says Adam.

  ‘Sure he will,’ says Jean. ‘Balsamic?’

  ‘Please,’ replies Adam, barely believing the ease in which he slips into subterfuge.

  ‘Bingo!’ exclaims Alec, clapping his hands. ‘What a sleazebag.’

  ‘Show me,’ says his brother, closing the bedroom door behind him, blocking out the silence from their parents downstairs.

  ‘Look,’ says Alec, pointing to the screen. ‘This paedo’s arranged a meeting for Thursday.’

  ‘Press reply again, see if we can get his email address,’ says Jake.

  ‘I’ve tried that. It’s blocked.’

  ‘Ok, move aside.’

  Jake takes over on the keyboard, licking his lips in excitement.

  ‘Urban warriors we are,’ he says to his twin, as he types in the message, ‘protecting the innocent from the paws of the avaricious.’

  ‘From claws of the pernicious.’

  ‘How I adore the delicious,’ says Alec, pressing the send button with an emphatic strike.

  SEE YOU THERE ON THURSDAY, LOVE FROM YOUR SOMALIAN PRINCESS.

  Next day Jean waits in the antechamber of court for proceedings to begin. Her intern sits beside her, lapping up every second. This young girl reminds Jean of herself when she too was fresh from college, keen to put the world to rights and fight for the dispossessed, the downtrodden, those who stumble and fall in this business of meeting life. Some thirty years of courts and tragedy, misjustice and bureaucratic incompetence have taken the shine off Jean’s armour. The door opens and a young man enters the room. Jean looks up and smiles, recognising him from a case they both covered last year concerning young illegal refugees caught up in a vice ring.

  ‘Hello, Jean,’ he says, ‘how are you?’

  ‘Ah, look, I’m fine,’ she says, ‘nothing a private income wouldn’t put right. And yourself?’

  ‘All good,’ he replies, ‘and your friend?’

  ‘This is no friend,’ says Jean with a laugh. ‘This is Grace, my intern.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,
Grace. I’m Steve, Detective Sergeant Steve Dickens.’

  ‘Not Charles?’ says Grace with a grin.

  ‘No, and believe me you’re not the first to ask,’ he replies, momentarily considering a Grace Kelly response, but thinks better of it.

  The door opens again and the bald head of the court usher appears like a jack-in-the-box.

  ‘Ten minutes and you’re on, Mrs Butler.’

  She nods and shuffles her papers together.

  ‘Jean, I want to know if you can help me with something,’ says Steve.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’ she replies, stuffing folders into her battered old briefcase, the one Adam bought her on the eve of her graduation ceremony.

  ‘You’ve got good contacts in the African community,’ he says, looking at Grace and then back to Jean. ‘Well, we’ve had a tip-off about a groomer. All part of Operation Comb-over,’ he continues, barely masking the smirk. ‘A couple of boys called from a phone box and gave us details of an Internet stalker. This one’s arranged to meet an underaged African girl at Flinders Street station. We can’t track the email trail, it’s secured. To complicate matters the girl’s not real. These kid’s made her up to see what would happen.’

  ‘And it did?’ asks Jean. ‘Happen?’

  ‘Yep, This guy’s expecting to meet an underaged beauty. You get the scenario?’

  ‘Yes,’ say Grace and Jean together, swapping glances, sharing sentiments.

  ‘So we need someone to stand in for the fictitious siren. She says she was a Somalian Princess.’

  Grace stands up, tall and proud.

  ‘I am Somalian,’ she says, ‘and all Somalian girls are princesses.’

  Steve looks at Jean and shrugs his shoulders. Grace smiles.

  ‘The job description for an intern does have the “and whatever duties are required” clause,’ says Jean.

  ‘Ah, the insanity clause,’ says Steve, with a grin as wide as his job is sad.

  Adam stands in front of the bathroom mirror, with the door uncharacteristically locked. He takes extra care shaving, then combs his unruly hair into a semblance of order. He stretches his neck then looks at his reflection from side to side. He opens his eyes wide, looking close into their depths, trying to get a sense of what is going on with him. ‘Just a harmless meeting, just a chance to meet someone interesting,’ he whispers to himself. Downstairs, Jean is waiting for him to go so she can have a cigarette and a glass of whisky before the boys get back from their basketball game.

  ‘Cab’ll be here in a minute,’ she shouts up the stairs.

  Adam dresses in his new Calvin Klein underpants and a shirt he bought in the sales, but has yet to wear.

  ‘You look great,’ says his wife, as she watches him bounding down the stairs. ‘Got everything?’

  ‘Yep,’ he says, ‘only an overnighter.’

  He picks up the holdall as the doorbell rings.

  ‘Cab!’ they say in unison, and then laugh.

  ‘Bye, then,’ he says, kissing his wife on the cheek. ‘Take care.’

  ‘You too,’ she says, opening the door, ‘have fun.’

  Adam hardly ever goes into town these days. In fact, when he thinks of it, except for work, he hardly goes anywhere. And even then, most of his work takes place in front of his computer screen. He tries to remember the last time he and Jean came to town for dinner or a show and he can’t. And the last time they made love? He can’t recall that either. When the cab driver drops him at the station he is amazed at how busy it all seems. People walking in all directions, cars and bikes and trams at the intersection and the neon advertising flashing on and off at the tops of all the buildings. He walks up the steps to the station clocks. Each shows the arrival or departure of a train, but none seem to tell the hour. He turns on his phone, ignores the messages, and realises he is ten minutes early.

  Waiting, alone, he feels an uncomfortableness that is unusual to him: his life is so ordered, so predictable. His stability unsettled, standing at a train station to see a strange young girl he has never met, never even talked to. He has booked a table at a restaurant in Brunswick under a false name and he knows there are hotels in town where he can hire a room, pay by the night, no credit card, no record. He feels his heart pounding as if he’s on his first ever date. Looking around at the sea of faces moving up and down the steps, he feels a bit dizzy, a bit overwhelmed; unsure of himself and what he’s doing. And then he sees her, getting off the tram and crossing the road from Federation Square. So like her photo. So elegant, so tall, so majestic, so young.

  Adam watches her walk towards him. Grace stares straight ahead. She looks far younger than her twenty years, betraying no signs of the sights she witnessed as a child of war and worse. When their eyes meet Adam gets a sudden notion of what has been driving these events. That all he really wants is to sit with her, to feel refreshed and new, to be invigorated. Maybe even to make sense of the peculiarity of their coming together. She puts out her hand and says ‘Hello’. He moves towards her, puts out his own hand. Then, in a baffling instant, she stands aside. Two police officers appear from behind and take him firmly by his arm. Adam gulps in shock. This is not happening to him. ‘This is a mistake,’ he hears himself saying, ‘a terrible mistake.’

  ‘The man in the checked shirt and cowboy boots,’ says one, ‘But they’ll be no rodeoing for this little cowboy tonight,’ adds the other as he handcuffs Adam’s wrists. He winces as his shoulders are twisted backwards. He hears them say something about questioning and accompanying them to the police station. The crowd, at once anonymous, forms to become a circled audience, as if Adam was a street performer about to exhibit some extraordinary feat. Grace looks him in the eye: no warmth from her; nothing to be discovered now. Then he is led to the waiting police car, his head pushed forward and down by one the officers as he is guided into the back seat. They turn on the engine and siren and then speed off. Grace stands in the midst of the crowd watching the car disappear into the traffic of St Kilda Road. As she turns to leave she is jostled by a group of young men.

  ‘Hey,’ says one with a bottle of beer in his hand, ‘look where you’re going.’

  ‘And while you’re at it,’ says another with a sneer, ‘go back to the jungle where you came from.’

  The boys, in a pack, run off across the road, throwing empty bottles as they go, glass crashing and shattering in their wake.

  It is well after midnight, but Jean is sitting up in bed. She is reading through the case of a heroin addicted couple from the western suburbs. They’d left their baby strapped to a cot in their boarding room while they went to the pub to score. She sighs and sips from her cup of tea as the quiet of the street is disturbed by a car that brakes and then draws up outside her house. Looking out the window she sees the flashing blue and red lights of a police car and watches a policewoman step from the vehicle and walk down the drive. A dozen thoughts flash through her mind as she pulls on her dressing gown and heads down the stairs. Adam in a plane crash? Her elderly father? Bad news from overseas? At least the boys are asleep in their bedroom, she thinks. The bell rings, ding-dong. She can see the outline of two police officers through the frosted glass. She unbolts the locks and opens the door. The night air is cold on her bare legs. The policewoman has a scar above her lip. It seems to grow longer as she opens her mouth to speak. Jean listens to the words this younger woman has to say. At first she shakes her head in disbelief. The policewoman says more.

  ‘We have a warrant to search the house. We are particularly interested in your husband’s computer.’

  Jean’s hands begin to shake as she realises what has taken place this night. No tragic news from afar. No deaths in the family. No plane crash even, but surely a far greater falling off. Her mind tumbles. She looks at the policewoman, dumbfounded now, not quite sure where this may lead. The officers move into the hallway. The policewoman holds Jean’s elbow to steady her.

  ‘I’ll make sure you’re okay,’ she says gently. Her expression seems
to be that of concern, of sympathy. But all Jean can focus on is the scar above the woman’s lip and the cold air that wraps around her legs.

  Then she hears a sound on the landing. Turning around she sees Jake and Alec looking over the bannisters.

  ‘Mum,’ says Jake.

  ‘My sons,’ she says to the policewoman, as if an explanation was needed.

  ‘Of course,’ says the policewoman, glancing up, surprised as people always are at seeing twins.

  BUFFALO BILL AND THE PSYCHIATRIST

  The wedding bells pealed. The archway was formed: hockey sticks from the hockey club. Hockey was where they met. Joanne and Micky. They’d first talked to each other on the coach back from the District Play-Offs. A night at the pictures, the best Italian in town, three days in bed, a long weekend in a top hotel by the bay, and they were well on course.

  Everyone agreed that it was a cracking wedding, one of the very best. The DJ got it spot on for the demographic: Indie meets soul meets new age. Music to remember. To be remembered. Indeed, it was towards the end of a Birds of Tokyo track that it all began to unravel. Much, much quicker than even the most doomed of marriages. The DJ was promising to slow things down. Most of the wedding guests had eaten too much, drunk too much; a good few had said too much. Micky was drinking a beer with his old pal Big Steve up at the bar. They were talking about Buffalo Bill and the Wild West. He took his travelling show to Paris and Rome, so Steve said, even performed in front of Queen Victoria in London. The Rolling Stones of his day, Micky said. And then Big Steve asked where was the beautiful bride? They scanned the dance floor, plenty of moves, but no Joanne. Probably taking some air, said Micky, I’ll go and have a look outside.

  The disco was in the hockey clubhouse and ‘outside’ was the pitch, freshly manicured with the sweet smell of newly cut grass. Big moon, big sky, low horizon on account of the building regulations. Micky took a deep breath, sucking up his future, happy with what he foresaw. No sign of Joanne or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps she was powdering her nose, chatting to the bridesmaids about frocks and honeymoons. At that thought he felt for the plane tickets, the big surprise, snuggled away in his suit jacket pocket.