by Scot Gardner
I backed off – right off – and Cappo tied the chain in a knot around the tow bar, looping the hooked end onto the length I’d dragged up to the back of Chris Kent’s tractor.
Cappo jogged to his car and I swallowed hard when the red and blue lights cut into the morning grey. He stood with his arms crossed as Chris attached the chain to the towbar of the tractor.
‘Straighten the wheels up, Adam,’ Cappo said.
I pushed the steering wheel and the tyres pulled at the grass.
Chris told me to clear out and I closed the door. He hit the throttle and the car rolled effortlessly up the bank and onto the road. Cappo opened the door of the moving ute and guided it onto the grassy verge.
‘Too easy,’ I said. I thanked Chris as he packed up the chain. He nodded and told me I owed him a beer. He said he’d fix the fence later and not to worry about it. I told him I owed him at least six beers.
I thanked Cappo and he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a pad and pen.
‘So, Adam, what actually happened?’
‘Oh, bloody wombat,’ I said.
‘Wombat?’ Cappo said, and raised one eyebrow.
‘I swerved to miss it and . . . I don’t know . . . maybe there was something wrong with the steering. I lost control. I wasn’t going fast. Maybe sixty or something like that.’
‘What time was it?’
‘Probably three o’clock.’
I explained that I must have been knocked out on impact and that I hadn’t woken until dawn.
‘What happened to your face?’
‘I think my nose hit the steering wheel or something. I’m fine, though, no damage done.’
‘No, the scratch under your eye.’
I felt my cheek. I’d forgotten about the fight I’d had with my brother.
‘Simon,’ I said.
Cappo just nodded and wrote. ‘Had you been drinking?’
‘No. Yeah, I’d had a couple with the boys. That was in Catalpa at about eight o’clock.’
He nodded and moved to the patrol car. He opened the door and took out the breathalyser. I tried to stop the panic that was churning in my guts from leaking onto my face. I smiled and looked into the paddock.
He fitted a new plastic mouthpiece to the machine and held it to my lips. ‘Just blow in there, Adam, until I say stop.’
I sucked a huge breath and blew until the machine beeped and there was no air left in me. He didn’t say stop.
Cappo looked at my eyes and shook his head. ‘It’s positive.’
‘Whaaat?’
He looked up the road and when he glanced at me again, his eyes were as cold and humourless as log yard ice. ‘Bit more than a couple with the boys.’
The panic in my guts burst. It ruptured like a garbage bag and spilled its fucked-up load of emotion into my veins. Rotting lumps of sadness, shards of rage and the smell of something dead inside. My heart pumped and the mess spread through me, turned my limbs to logs and stole the air from my lungs.
Tears.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Bit late for that,’ Cappo said. ‘Bloody idiot.’
He pointed to the four-wheel drive. ‘Let’s go.’
I had to wait for a car to pass before I could open my door. I wiped my face on my sleeve and rubbed my eyes. The car slowed for a gawk. Jai Murray’s old burgundy Commodore. Bully was in the passenger seat. He stared, mouth open, as the car crawled past. He turned and looked some more through the back window. The brake lights flashed, then Jai hit the gas and they lumped towards Splitters Creek.
I washed my face in the sink at the station and Cappo got me to blow into another machine. It buzzed like a compressor. He had his hand over a printer output but the machine grunted and stalled. The paper had jammed.
‘This is a bit of a formality,’ he said. ‘No matter what your official blood alcohol level is, you’ll need to hand in your licence.’
I nodded.
He held out his hand.
I saw a window of opportunity. A chance to crawl out of the shit-pipe ride my life had become.
I shook my head. ‘It’s at home. I can go and get it if you like.’
He lowered his hand. ‘If I’m not here when you get back, put your licence in the letterbox.’
‘Okay.’
‘I just don’t get it, Adam. Two types of people drink and drive: people with a death wish and dickheads. Have you got a death wish?’
I snorted. ‘No.’
He looked right at me and shook his head. ‘Minimum two months’ suspension. Two hundred and fifty buck fine. Could be more. You’ll be back on the school bus next term. Are you working up at the mill on the holidays?’
I nodded.
‘And walking to work,’ he said.
I just kept nodding. I felt a steely calm. ‘I’m sorry, Cappo. I should have . . . I should have done a lot of things.’
‘Stop apologising. Save it for your old man. Save it for Simon, for Christ’s sake.’
I nodded some more but now I was staring at the floor. I could handle Dad and his impotent Christian rage. And getting caught made me the lucky drink driver in our family. Unlike Simon, I didn’t write my car off. I didn’t come home from hospital a busted retard.
I didn’t kill my best mate.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and left.
And I was thankful. In some respects I felt deeply indebted to Cappo. As well as saving me from myself, he was my last straw. I looked over my shoulder at the cop shop and felt my wallet in my pocket. The wallet with my driver’s licence in it. I wanted to run but I ignored the adrenaline fizzing in my limbs and breathed deep. Tried to relax. Look sad. Look calm. I’d need the power in reserve. I’d need every drop I could muster for later. Save it all up for my final run at the line. I knew I’d need it to crack through the gravity of Splitters Creek and find a new life.
Three
Bully was in the shower. I chatted to his mum and dad like nothing had happened but I couldn’t stand still. I heard the bathroom door close. I excused myself and barged into Bully’s room. His arse was bare and he span as I closed the door, revealing an angry looking half-fat and a startled look on his face.
‘Adam! What was . . . what did Cappo want?’
‘I stacked the ute. Last night. I had to swerve . . . wallaby or wombat or something. I left the road and landed on a fence post in Chris Kent’s paddock. It knocked me out and Cappo found me this morning. He breathalysed me and I blew positive.’
‘Fuck.’
I nodded. ‘I’ve got to get out of this shit hole. If I don’t leave now then I never will. It’ll kill me.’
Bully scoffed. ‘That’s a bit dramatic, mate. Kill you? What about footy? What about school? What about work? What about Si and your old man? Have you told them?’
I shook my head. ‘No. I will, though. I’ll tell them later. Right now – and I mean right now – I’ve got to get out of here. My car needs a new sump. It’ll take you ten minutes to fix it. I need to borrow the Subaru.’
He shook his head. ‘Fuck, mate. Fuck. You’ve gone mad. You’re a fucken idiot. You can’t just shit in your bed then find a new bed. You’re a fucken wuss. You can’t just run away from all that.’
‘I’m not. I’m not running away.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I’m not. I’m escaping.’
‘Ho! Big difference.’
‘There is. Fucken huge difference. To stay would be wussy. To leave takes guts. It’s the leaving that scares the shit out of me, not the staying.’
He was still shaking his head. When he spoke again, his voice was softer and more measured. ‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. Melbourne. Find Mum.’
He was chuckling then. ‘You’re a mad bastard, I’ll give you that.’
‘Thanks. That’s got to be a compliment coming from you.’
He smiled. ‘The keys are in the ignition.’
‘Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.’
‘What am I supposed to tell my mum and dad? What do I tell your old man? Will you be back before the end of the holidays? What do I say to Mick when you don’t show up for work tomorrow?’
There was a little pile of sand on the garage floor – someone had shored up an oil spill. Bully poked at it with a bare toe.
‘I don’t know. Tell them I’ve gone to Sydney. Tell them I’ve gone to look at another car and when I don’t come back, just act surprised and concerned. I’ll phone Dad in a day or so.’
‘The truth comes out. You’re a shifty bastard, too.’
‘It’s called self-preservation.’
Bully laughed, but there was no humour in him.
With my heart beating in my throat, I drove the Suba past the front of the cop shop. The patrol car had gone but I still couldn’t breathe. I grabbed my swag from the back of the ute, my cap from the seat, and drove. Right through Splitters Creek. I couldn’t look at our house. I didn’t know what it would do to my resolve if I saw Simon or Dad. I didn’t need a test like that. I left with my wallet and the clothes on my back.
Crawling down the hill to Orbost, I could smell the cool, rotting undergrowth. I could see the trees and the road and the patches of snow but my thoughts were elsewhere. My thoughts hadn’t left Splitters Creek. They spooled behind me like cotton off the reel and every so often I’d reach the end of a thought and feel it pull tight, but I just kept driving.
Dad would be okay. He’d be blown away when he realised I’d gone, but he’d cope. He’d find ways of looking after Simon, even get a bit of a kick out of it. The martyr. I wouldn’t miss his expressionless face or the sombre monotone of his daily life. Sometimes, at the pub, he’d pretend to smile and laugh but it never seemed sincere to me. Never seemed real. He loved the grief in his life. It sustained him and had done since he was a kid. Since his old man drowned, the week before his seventh birthday. His life was powered by calamity and tempered by the good Lord. My leaving town would come as a shock, and then his prayers would find a new theme and vigour, like when Mum had left a few months before. There was no ranting or steam or tears, just more silent prayer. The casseroles had just started appearing in the fridge – the people of Splitters Creek watching our world falling apart and trying to prop it up with offerings of food. I wouldn’t miss the fact that they knew everything about us. I wouldn’t miss the fact that there was nowhere to hide.
As I travelled down the hill to freedom, I thought about my brother, too. I remembered when Simon drove me to Catalpa just after his eighteenth birthday. I was fifteen and he thought it would be fun to get me pissed. We rattled over in the Cortina with his girlfriend, Tori, and best mate, Patchy. And it was fun. For a while.
That night, Simon told me that you see the real person when they’re pissed. He said that the mask falls away and you get the truth of their soul. They might be polite and funny when they’re a little bit ripped but when they get shit-faced they turn violent or tell their mates that they love them or get melancholy or start crying. Or want to kill themselves. Or kill someone else. Or all of the above.
I took Tori’s advice and stopped drinking after three beers. I was feeling unsteady and fragile around Simon. He may have been my brother, but I didn’t trust him. I watched him as he went from happy to jovial and on through to untidy. He was right though: the drunker he got, the nastier he turned, until my brother was standing there before me, stripped bare of the mask of kindness he’d worn every day of our lives. His ‘golden child’ mask. Sometimes it seemed I was the only person on earth who knew he was wearing it. It was so complete, so thoroughly convincing to Mum and Dad and the kids and teachers at school and everybody in Splitters Creek, that saying anything negative about him proclaimed me as a heretic. His demeanour of innocence was so good that I began to wonder if I was the one with the problem. Don’t be ridiculous, Mum would say. Simon wouldn’t steal your toy car-boat-plane-gun. You must have left it somewhere. You’re always losing things.
But the truth was – as Simon revealed that night he got wasted – he buried my things. Dug them into the soft loam in the backyard. He laughed when he told me but it was a hollow laugh, brittle with jealousy. Simon couldn’t stand me being happy.
And the teachers who compared me to my brother were treading on very thin ice.
It’s unsettling how different two brothers can be, they’d say.
As well as being school captain, Simon was also the mystery man who emptied the litre of vodka into the punch at his year nine social. And the bag of prawns under the dash of Mrs Corcoran’s VW? Yeah, that was the captain of the school footy team – regional champions four years in a row. Hadn’t they ever wondered why so many kids that played against our school went home bloodied and broken? Simon told me that he wouldn’t bother standing on the grass if there was a perfectly good hand or face he could use. Not particularly creative, but Simon was never the creative type. Just hard and nasty to sly perfection.
He developed his underhanded skills on the field playing all-terrain footy. Mum hated us playing near the road when we were little so we played footy with the other kids on the only flat piece of ground available to us – Nigel Fenton Reserve. The tiny park was peppered with saplings, bisected by the creek and had a timber picnic table concreted in the centre of the grassiest patch. With discarded jumpers for goal posts on either side of the creek, we played a hybrid of Rugby League and Australian Rules. Handpass forwards, throw backwards. Kick in either direction. Scrum and ruck. Pay a mark. Try or goal for six points and the rules were negotiable as long as Simon had the final word.
In the five or so years we played all-terrain footy, I was never on the same side as Simon. He was always captain and I was always on the opposing side, even if it meant the numbers were skewed in favour of our team. Just so he could kick my legs out from underneath me in the creek or tackle me to the ground by my hair. In the five years or so we played, Simon’s team never lost a game. Even if we were ahead on points, there’d be some technicality that would render them victorious. I learned not to fight back. I learned to take it and play on. Like me, the other kids would drag themselves home tearful and sometimes bloodied but when their parents confronted Simon, the golden child would be all concerned and plead innocence. It was an accident or he didn’t know what had happened and, with a hand on the child’s back, he’d say sorry with flawless sincerity.
But it was all an act. Nothing much changed as he got older, except he got better at concealing his viciousness. Then he stacked his car and all my hopes of retribution died.
You can’t punch a retard.
His golden child mask was shattered in the accident. My brother didn’t come back from the hospital. The old Simon’s body – all muscle and power – began to fade under the weight of a thousand hot chip dinners in front of the telly. His libido went crazy and he started wanking in the lounge and in public sometimes, like a dog. His gut bloated and his neck began to shrink so that his head, once lofted and defiant, seemed to be sinking into his shoulders. He spoke in grunts and moans. The doctor said his injury shouldn’t have affected his speech but it had. Maybe Simon had decided there was nothing worth talking about.
Mum did her best to look after him for almost three years. She did it by herself. I’d watched the life go out of her and her hair grey. The laughter vanished. Her smile had been swallowed by the relentless effort of looking after her broken son.
Dad didn’t help. I didn’t help. I watched my family falling apart until it was a mess best avoided. I found plenty of reasons to be elsewhere. There was always footy and Hargate was only fifteen minutes away. I could dig in the garden at Tori’s place for the best part of a Sunday but I wouldn’t pick up Simon’s towel from the bathroom floor at home. I could wipe my nephew’s pooey bottom but sometimes I couldn’t handle eating at the same table as my brother.
And then Mum left.
I got home from school one
night and she told me she needed a rest. One look at her grey face, her wrinkled dark eyes and her dishevelled hair and I could only agree. I thought she’d have a lie down and I’d have to make dinner. The homework would have to wait. I owed her at least that.
But she climbed in her Corolla and drove off before Dad got home.
When his log truck did eventually hiss to a stop in the driveway, Dad sat in the cab and stared at the spot where Mum’s car had been parked.
‘I’ll make us some food,’ I offered.
He nodded. ‘She’ll be back. Just needs a rest.’
Later, at the sink, as we cleaned the last of the beans off the dinner plates, Dad spoke to the soap suds.
‘It’s my fault. She wanted to take Si to Eden for assessment. She was going to get him some respite care, you know, somebody to look after him just so she could have a rest.’
He was silent for a while, though the dishes clunked in the sink. I looked at the side of his head and almost polished the chrome off the fork I had folded in the tea towel.
‘I told her we could handle it.’
As if on cue, Simon let out a Cro-Magnon howl from the lounge room. Dad and I looked at each other, his stubbled jaw reflecting the guilt I was feeling.
We should have done more.
Simon changed. Well, maybe he didn’t change; maybe Dad and I noticed for the first time how much work it was looking after a two-year-old locked in the body of a man.
He wouldn’t let Dad or me wash him. It was his protest. The first two days, when Dad and I tried everything to wrangle his twenty-two year old body – with its manky armpits and crusty arse – into the flow of water, Simon would trip out. He’d punch and flail and kick and scream. He cracked the shower glass and sheared the cold tap off the wall. Dad gave up after Simon laid him out on the bathroom floor with an uppercut. We resigned ourselves to living with the smell.
Mum phoned in the early evening of the Friday after she left. I answered it. It was just normal old Mum, sombre and terse, like she was ringing from Catalpa to let us know it’d be a late dinner. It was normal old Mum but I felt as awkward as hell and my brain just wouldn’t work. The phone fell silent and Dad stared expectantly at me. In the end, I just handed the phone to him and as soon as I did, all the words I’d wanted to say came flooding into my mind.