I'm Dying Here

by Damien Broderick

  Chook locked him in comprehensively, tossed the casket key to me. Culpepper, may he rest in peace, slid neatly into the prepared undertaker coffin-grappling apparatus in the back of the hearse. I thought the synthetic white of the Esky spoiled the line and gravity of the thing, and brought it around to the front with me. It wasn’t very heavy. Culpepper might have drunk his fill already and put the empties inside, in an ecologically responsible way. I hopped in behind the wheel, Esky between my heels. Smoked glass is a won­der of science, it looks perfectly clear from inside. Sharon Lesser took the passenger seat and watched me, waiting for the penny to drop.

  “Fuck. We locked the keys in the vault with the heavies.”

  “I’m sure you have ways and means,” she said. “A career crimi­nal like yourself.”

  “These things get blown out of proportion,” I said. I got out and caught Mauricio and the boys as they backed on to the narrow cemetery road. Dago grumbled, followed me back to the hearse, took something out of his pocket protector and had the machine hotwired and purring in less than thirty seconds.

  “I know how,” I told Sharon, who was laughing quietly. “I do. But why exert oneself when there’s specialist help at hand?”

  Culpepper, awakened in darkness and stench and enjoying it no more than we had, began banging. Given the lavish upholstery of his casket’s lining, I was surprised we could hear anything even with the airholes Culpepper’s cronies had thoughtfully punched to spare Cookie from suffocation.

  “Get some music on the radio,” I said.

  Share found something liturgical on a CD. I drove toward the gate to the Hume. The banging grew louder. A gardener glanced our way.

  “Something noisy,” I said, “Here, Gold FM should do the trick.” I punched the radio through to the Boss howling out the news that he was Born in the USA and feeling a bit betrayed about it, all things considered. That seemed apt enough to me so I turned the stereo up full bore. They had a very nice sound system, full surround boom boxes in the back. Burials by day, shaggin wagon by night? I found myself hemmed in at the roundabout. A cortège was headed for the crematorium, headlights burning. Faces turned, eyes swiveling, at the racket. I didn’t care, I’d lost all sense, the madness of the last days had frizzled my reality principle.

  “Fuck this,” I said after the third car, and cut into the stream of mourners. The vehicle ahead picked up speed, following its colored code line, or perhaps the arse of the car ahead. Culpepper made noises. I turned, reached with a long left arm, banged on the top of the coffin.

  Beyond the gates, the Hume looked chockablock. Sharon punched off the rock station and accidentally hit a race call in­stead. “—Bandersnatch neck and neck at the turn,” the high, frantic, nasal voice was calling, “it’s sensational, Loose Lips has stumbled, the gelding’s taken a tumble, and here comes Brute Force, the long shot is stretching out now, by a nose, Brute Force at fifty to one has—”

  “You little bloody beauty!” I said. “Free lunches at Ivy’s for the rest of the year. Shut the fuck up back there!”

  A discreet toot from the car behind. Distracted, I surged too far, missed the exit, found the hearse carried in a large curve once more around the memorial fountain that ran with water like a pair of flying saucers lifting from the ocean’s bowl. All it needed was Cathy Freeman in her pristine white “We come to your planet in peace” starship suit and it would have been a re-run of the rising Mother Ship from the close of the Sydney Olympics, that time it got stuck. Flicking my own headlights on, I turned right in time, went out the gate, turned left. Sharon doubled up in laughter. She hit the radio button again, went back to Gold. Roy Orbison informed us at the top of his resonant, mournful voice that love hurts, burns you like a stove. Burns you like a crematorium, I thought.

  “What are you braying about?” I said, eyes on the traffic. “Check the mirror,” she said.

  We had a tail, like a comet. Headlights burning, drivers teary with sorrow, the cortège had followed us back into the highway. I saw my chance, accelerated into the passing lane. In the back, the coffin bumped. I thought I heard a throttled scream.

  §

  The urban sprawl began to thin out. Flight paths, car factories and frozen chicken warehouses lay ahead.

  “You do realize we’re pointed north?”

  “Go north, the rush is on,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a line from a song,” I said. “Some ditty of my youth.”

  “Where are you taking us, Purdue. Sydney?”

  “The romance of the open road,” I said. “The hypnotic drumming of the tires. The world is our oyster bar.”

  “We’re in a stolen hearse and we’ve got a live body in the coffin.”

  “Ah, yes. Midshipman Culpepper. Our messmate on this voyage of discovery.”

  “Shut up, Purdue. What are we going to do with him?”

  “I thought we might have a bit of a chat with him.”

  “What? You want me to shout at him through the air holes? Don’t be absurd.”

  “He’s got a phone, Share. Sooner or later he’s going to tumble to that annoying little fact. Got yours?”

  “No, damn it, it’s in the Cobra’s glove box.”

  “Mine came to grief back at the crypt. We’ll just have to find a public phone. Assuming they haven’t all been recycled.”

  We were approaching the turn-off to Coolaroo. I flicked the indicators and took to the exit ramp at Barry Rd with a fine turn of speed. Broady to our left, Coolers to our right, the road to Bev­eridge and points north abandoned.

  “Ned was born not far from here,” I said. “Another twenty-five klicks or so.”

  “Ned who?”

  “The bushranger. You know, in the armor and interesting iron head dress?”

  “Ned Kelly wasn’t a bushranger, he was a freedom fighter.” “Good god, you have been talking to Animal.”

  “Anyway, look what happened to him, murdered by the law.” “Such is life,” I told her.

  I managed to park the hearse in the main street, directly in front of a telephone booth which was directly in front of an Adults Only shop. A customer bearing a plastic bag emerged from the shop, looked at the hearse, sniggered and scuttled off down the street.

  “Probably thinks we’re sales reps,” I said. “Purveyors of ghoul­ish fetishes.”

  “Get on with it, Purdue.”

  A phone muttered a solemn tune of church bells, heavily muf­fled, and it wasn’t from the one outside.

  “Got Culpepper’s number?” Through the air holes, I could faintly hear him babbling on his cell phone.

  Without a word Share produced a credit card sized address book from her handbag, pulled a minute pencil from the spine of the book, transcribed Culpepper’s mobile number onto the back of an envelope. I had the feeling she was keen that I didn’t get my hands on the book itself. I took the envelope and made my way to the phone booth. Share stayed put.

  Culpepper’s number was engaged. The prick was still having a bit of a yarn with some friendly soul. The Call Waiting beeps kicked in.

  “Culpepper.”

  I couldn’t help it. I disguised my voice a trifle. “Ah, Mr. Culpep­per, this is Roderick from Fit as a Fiddle. Mr. Culpepper, I won’t take up much of your time. You have been chosen to receive a free introductory offer of one week’s yes that’s six days’ free introduc­tory workout at Fit as a Fiddle’s all new anaerobic lifestyle studio. Tone up those pecs!”

  “I have no time for this sort of—”

  “Time is what we offer! In today’s modern world life can be­come pretty stressful. But science proves that just half an hour a day yes that’s thirty minutes a day pumping iron at Fit as a Fiddle can increase your lifespan by eight years and three months. Wouldn’t you like to live an extra eight and one quarter years, Mr. Culpepper, sir?”

  “Purdue!”

  “Pardon?”

  “That’s you, isn’t it, Purdue?”

  “My name is Brian W
illiam Roderick the third.”

  “You listen to me, Purdue. Unless I am released immediately—”

  “Fat chance.”

  “Unless I am released immediately I say—”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “You don’t know what you are playing at, Purdue. Even if some ill were to befall me, even if I were to die as a result of your games, my associates would track you down. You should remain in ab­solutely no doubt about that. You would be very well advised to release me immediately, Purdue. Immediately.”

  I watched the dollars and cents tick over in the pay phone’s little window. Culpepper’s mobile was eating my phone card. And I was less than five meters from the coffin. I reckoned the card would expire in a few moments.

  “Okay, Culpepper. What’s the deal?”

  “Just let me out.”

  “This job you are going to offer me. Rates of pay, Culpepper. Bonuses. Fringe benefits. Perks of office. We need to talk turkey. This is enterprise bargaining.”

  “I’m striking no bargains until I’m released.”

  “You’re not in a position to talk tough, Culpepper.”

  But Culpepper was in no position to talk to me at all, or me to him. The phone had gone dead. I went back to the hearse limo and sat in the driver’s seat.

  “Well?” Share said.

  “Culpepper has a fine appreciation of his current predicament,” I said. “But I think he will behave like a gentleman if allowed a little exercise.”

  “You’re thinking of letting him out?”

  “What else do you suggest? We could dump the coffin some­where, but—”

  “Yeah, okay,” Share said. “Let’s go somewhere a bit more se­cluded....”

  “I think not,” I said. “I’d be happier if there were people around. The sod might be armed.”

  I dug into my pocket for the casket key, climbed into the back of the hearse and beat a hearty little drum riff on the lid with the handle. Culpepper cursed and kicked. He seemed to be in good spirits. After I had turned the lock at the top end I looked up. Night was falling and the Coolaroo street lights were coming on. Three kids stood on the pavement looking with undisguised delight at the scene inside the hearse. I ignored them. They ap­proached and pressed their faces against the glass. From the front seat Share shouted at them, “Go on, bugger off! Have some re­spect for the dead.”

  The kids ignored her, pushing against each other and giggling. Two were girls with bare midriffs and dyed hair. The other was a young lout eating a hot dog. The girl with the purple hair knocked on the window. “Hey, Mister,” she yelled. “Got the wrong body in the coffin?”

  I ignored her. Her friend said something about bodysnatchers. The first one knocked on the window again and yelled. “Are you a medical student?”

  Share opened the passenger door and climbed out. She started to remonstrate with the kids—a mistake, they were keen for a bit of argy bargy. I unlocked the lid on the other side, then one near the foot, only fitfully listening to the sounds off. More people had arrived: when I looked up half a dozen faces were pressed to the glass, a couple of them adult: habitués of the Adults Only store if their poxy skin and leery grins were anything to go by. A car with blue and white checkerboard on the side and red and blue lights on the roof either side of the siren ground to a halt on the other side of the hearse. I heard a door snick open and shut, then the driver’s door of the hearse was flung wide. Cool air blew in. Just behind the back of my neck a gruff cop’s voice said, “What are you playing at?” The remaining lock was torn from the coffin with a screech and a splintering of wood as Culpepper loosened the top near his face, managed to get his knees up and applied his brogues to the underside of the lid. The stench was immediate.

  “Get out of there!” the cop yelled. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Ah, officer, good evening to you,” Culpepper said, climbing out of the coffin. Three or four of the watching kids cheered and screamed like fans at a grunge concert.

  “Step outside the car, the pair of youse,” the cop said.

  “Certainly officer,” Culpepper said in his immaculate tones. “Everything can be explained.”

  “It had better be,” the cop said. “Where are the flowers? There should be wreathes.”

  “The crypt,” I said in a clear, carrying voice, catching Culpepper’s eye. He paused, tightened his lips. We had each other over separate barrels. If he fingered us for meat wagon theft and body snatching (his), we pinned abduction, kidnapping (hers), false imprisonment and reckless endangerment on him. I dug out my wallet and found a card, pressed it on the cop.

  “R. D. Thomas Purdue at your service, constable,” I said. My mind slipped into free-wheeling scam merchant mode, and words flowed from some strange dark inner crypt and out through my lips without any intervening effort. “Of Feng Shui Multi-Media, a division of Hector Crawford Productions.”

  “Hector Crawford’s dead,” the cop said, looking at the card, turning it over. “That was years ago. The whole D-24 squad went to the funeral.”

  “His spirit lives on.”

  “Detective Sergeant Smigrodzki sang ‘Danny Boy’.”

  “We’ll be using that very moving and appropriate song in our sound track.”

  Culpepper had been wiping traces of human feces from his jacket with a monogrammed handkerchief. Shuddering, he flung it into the back of the hearse, and held out his hand to the cop.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, officer. I’m—”

  “Count Dracula,” Share said. She’s quick, that girl.

  The cop stared in bafflement from one to the other, back to me. “Don’t try to take the fucking piss, Mac.”

  I goggled with delight. “He recognizes you, Mack!” I clapped Culpepper on the back. “You said nobody would, but I assured you your fans are legion!”

  “What?”

  “As you guessed, this is the great movie idol of the 1950s, Mack Truck, here in our sunburnt country to make a major motion pic­ture about Count Dracula, The Count Down-Under. You must be a fan of his masterpiece, Love at First Bite.”

  “That was George Hamilton,” Share said. “Mr. Truck starred in Going Down for the Count.”

  “What kinda fuckin bullshit name is ‘Mack Truck’?” the cop asked in outrage.

  I leaned in confidence toward him. “A screen name, but please don’t let it go any further. His birth name was Brian William Rod­erick III, but the mavens of Hollywood deemed it inappropriate for the marquee.”

  “Well maybe so, I’ve never heard of the bugger, but what the fuck is he doing covered in shit in a coffin in the back of a fuckin’ hearse in the main street of Coolaroo?”

  “Not real shit, officer.” I drew back, offended at the implied lack of professionalism. “That’s a substance known to the wizards in the special effects trade as Shit-Hot. Same consistency and odor as real feces, comes in a can.”

  “I saw the prick climbing out of a coffin!”

  “Our rehearsal,” Share said. Culpepper’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket, I took it from his hand.

  “Now, now, Mack, this is exactly what brought you undone the last time.” I told the cop, “His attention span isn’t what it was in the glory days. He lost his role in support of Russell Crowe when he answered his cell phone during the gladiator scene.” I tucked the phone in my own pocket. Culpepper stared in apoplexy. “You never get over it, though,” I said. “It calls you back. The raw grease, the smell of the crowd.”

  “But what’s the bugger doing rehearsing on the public thor­oughfare at this hour of the day?”

  Share gave him a seductive giggle. “Re-hearsing, eh? That’s very clever, constable.”

  It went right over his head. I coughed, and added: “Mack is starring in a remake of The Cat and the Crypt. Based on the be­loved poem by Edgar Allen Poe. You might recall it from Sesame Street.”

  “Yeah,” said Share. “Who could forget those opening lines: ‘The cat crept into the crypt, c
rapped, and crept out’.”

  “Are you saying we’re on TV right now? Where are the lights and cameras?”

  “Concealed.” I gestured thrice, swinging my arm wide like a real estate auctioneer plucking bids off the wall, an illegal practice these days but still not unknown to the profession. “Not TV, con­stable, digital motion picture cameras. Marvelous what they can do these days with miniaturization.”

  The cop squared his shoulders. You could tell he wanted to fa­vor his best side, but didn’t know which camera to address. “You should have a permit.”

  “The office has done all that, let me provide you with the documenta—”

  “Well, I’m going to have to ask you to move along. Sorry if that interrupts your filming, but a thing like this could cause an acci­dent. Look at all these children here. One of them runs on to the busy street—”

  Coolaroo was not looking terribly busy to me, aside from our own commotion.

  “Absolutely, I see what you mean. Thoughtless of us.” I took out Culpepper’s phone, pressed a random button, murmured, “Camera teams Two and Five, pull out, break down the set. We’ll meet in the Green Room at twenty hundred hours for a full de­briefing.”

  The cop went back to his patrol Ford Falcon Forté, revved his engine a couple of times, watching us. A young mother in a veil was calling an inquisitive child who had clambered into the open back of the hearse: “Car mee yuh.”

  “Agile enough of you both,” Culpepper muttered. He looked sideways as the woman repeated her call. “What on earth lan­guage is that creature speaking?”

  “Australian,” Share said. She got back inside the hearse, shut her door. I opened it again, ushered Culpepper in beside her. Share drew away from the stink.

  “An Aboriginal tongue, eh? She doesn’t look dark enough.”

  “Australian English, you eastern suburbs prat. She said ‘Come here’.” I slammed the door hard, but he withdraw his hand in time to save his fingers. “Cheerio, kids,” I called, and gave the as­sembled company a big wave. “Watch for us on Channel 10.”

  A few of them cheered, one smart aleck jeered. We drew away,