Dead Lemons

by Finn Bell

  “Work something out?” the other brother, Darrell, says in a strange tone, almost like he’s trying to repeat what I was saying in the exact same tone.

  “Yeah,” I continue. “Maybe we could work around each other’s busy times so the power stays on.”

  “All right, mate,” says Sean in front of me then leans in, putting his hands on my wheelchair armrests. “We’re busy most nights, so how about you do what you need to in the day and we have the nights,” he says, his face too close to mine.

  I’m about to ask him to step away when his brother, Darrell, puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze, almost friendly and comforting.

  I reflexively look up at him and see him smiling down at me. I can see little tears in the corners of his eyes and he seems to be shaking.

  Just then Sean says, “It’s okay, he understands, you don’t need to touch him.”

  And that’s when I know, just plain, know-it-in-your-bones know, that there’s something wrong with these brothers. Something sick lives here.

  Sean steps to the side and takes Darrell’s hand, which has started gently massaging me on my shoulder, then looks back at me. His smile is gone now.

  “Thanks for stopping by, mate. You know the way out. We’ve got to get back to work now.”

  Archie comes around to Darrell’s other side and takes his arm, turning him back towards the shed.

  “I want to!” Darrell says in an eager, way too young-sounding voice, looking back over his shoulder at me. But Archie just shakes his head and pulls him along back into the shed.

  “So you live alone out here?” Sean asks.

  “Yeah, it’s just me,” I say.

  “And you’re in the wheelchair, too. You should take care of yourself, mate,” he says, and the smile is back.

  He turns and walks back to the shed, and with every step he takes away from me I feel that much better.

  When he disappears inside, I finally turn the chair and get into the car again. It all takes a few minutes folding up the wheelchair and getting things sorted, and there’s absolutely no noise from the shed. I can feel my skin crawling the whole time.

  As soon as I’m in the car I lock the doors and get going. I look in the rear view mirror the whole way. I’m sure, with irrational certainty, their red truck is going to come speeding up behind me any minute now.

  When I finally get back to the cottage I just keep going, heading back into town. I park on the main road, wanting to be where there are a lot of people. I replay my meeting with the Zoyl brothers in my head and I think my reactions to them don’t make sense. I tell myself they’re just people, they were polite enough, didn’t say anything or do anything wrong. How am I going explain to anyone how I felt, and why? He had a strange look to him? They stood too close? They said things in a weird way? This is just me being crazy. Sometimes we just don’t take to people, I tell myself. Yeah. I’m just spending too much time by myself. Of course. No issue.

  Deciding to put all this silliness behind me, I get out of the car. Maybe I’ll roll by the seashore; take in the view, I think. Then after go to the shops, pick up some things for the cats.

  It’s only as I’m closing the car door and am faced with my reflection in the window that I see the big, bloody finger stains on my shoulder from where Darrell had put his hand on me, and the wrongness of Sean’s words come flowing back to me:

  “It’s okay, he understands, you don’t need to touch him.”

  God, why does that bother me so?

  CHAPTER 6

  JANUARY 5, FIVE MONTHS AGO . . .

  It’s 3:00 a.m., again.

  I’m sitting in the living room. Having just stoked the fire again, I’m looking down by the light of the flames at the kittens sleeping in a pile in the cat basket I got them. I got flea treatments and everything. They seem to be doing well enough. The cat is on my lap.

  At some time during the past few days I had gone from thing-I-will-viciously-attack-when-it-tries-to-touch-me to thing-I-must-now-sleep-on-at-every-opportunity. Cats are strange that way.

  But the cats didn’t wake me up, I did that to myself.

  So I rolled out into the living room to check on them and have been sitting here ever since. My mind wanders in well-worn paths between the things of my life: the past few years, the insomnia, Anna, my legs, moving out here, what I’m going to do now, and so on. I could really use a drink, I think, but only in a detached sort of way. It’s strange, but I think somehow the accident and losing my legs was a kind of cure for the drinking. I’m certain I’m just not going back there. Although I miss Anna, I’m happy that we’re apart now. I hated how I was to her in the end. It was a betrayal of everything we had. At least now I’m not hurting her with how I am.

  It doesn’t mean I know where I’m going to, though.

  I end up thinking about Betty’s homework. Dead lemons. I don’t much like the idea that I may be one, but what if she’s right? What if some heads are just wrong, the wrong mix of things? Never going to be no good to themselves or anyone around them? What did she say again? “And in the end, we are the way we are, there’s no changing us.” I hope that’s not me. I remember me when I was a kid. I didn’t always like my world, but I never once doubted myself in it. Now, I can see beauty and goodness all around me, but can’t find much value in who I’ve become.

  And that’s the thing.

  When something is wrong, you just know it. Explanations and reasons and logic and all that doesn’t matter; that comes after. You don’t know something is wrong only when you can understand and explain it, you know something is wrong because you feel it.

  This makes me think again about meeting the Zoyl brothers. There’s something there. My mind has skipped back to them a few times since we met. I remind myself it’s just a thing that happened, doesn’t mean anything. But I closed my own back gate at sunset, the one that leads to the Zoyl farm, telling myself it’s only because it looks tidier that way.

  I fall asleep again at some point with bad dreams following me into oblivion.

  They’re the kind you wake up from and can’t remember clearly. I hate that kind. All you have left is the taste of fear in your mouth but no reasons. When I do fully wake up, cold and uncomfortable in the chair, it’s just after seven in the morning and the fire’s died right down, the living room is freezing.

  I get it going again and start the day. I’ve got a Murderball appointment today. Tai Rangi, one of Patricia’s cousins, is picking me up at ten.

  Going to play Murderball, maybe this is me accepting my paralysis—the doctors said for about the first two years everyone thinks they’re going to walk again, that they will somehow be the tabloid exception, you know, “Man Proves Doctors Wrong.” In my case, they also added, while that does sometimes happen, it’s not going to be you, Mr Bell, just not. Maybe it’s my natural pessimism, but even though I didn’t want it, I think I have accepted it.

  Not being able to have sex, now that’s something I’m having trouble with.

  And of course here, the doctor’s weren’t so definite. Some do, some don’t, we’ll know in time. Having an erection in your brain and not your penis is a truly weird experience. Took me a while to figure out what was happening when it did. I don’t really know what to do with it yet. So I try to think of something else.

  I haven’t played any kind of group sports since high school and I wasn’t too serious about it then, so today should be interesting at least. It’s something different, something I wouldn’t have done on my own, so maybe that alone is reason enough. I’m beginning to think me being under my own influence too much is not good for me. Don’t know if I can be trusted.

  I look at the cat and kittens while I’m eating breakfast. I should probably do something about them, take them to the vet. Try to find out if they belong to anyone. I decide to swing by the real estate agent and find out if Emily Cotter still lives close by. As I remember it, the agent said she was getting older, sold the cottage because o
f health problems, so maybe she moved to the local retirement home.

  Promptly at ten, a bright-yellow panel van with the word “Chahoo!” in big red letters on the front pulls up to my porch.

  Chahoo is one of those concepts that are hard to explain if you don’t come from here. It’s basically something that men shout at other men, mostly when they are very happy, or very sad or very angry, or sometimes a mix of the above all at once; alcohol is often involved.

  Tai is the biggest human I’ve ever seen sitting down.

  The sitting down part is unavoidable because he’s also in a wheelchair. But with his setup in the van, he’s out of it quickly and up the ramp to my door before I can even open it fully.

  “Morena, bro!” he greets cheerfully. Up close I see that he’s even bigger; not fat, just built on a larger scale than normal people. He must be related to Patricia.

  He’s got huge arms covered in Māori tattoos, massive shoulders and a thick neck. His hands make the chair’s wheels look small. He’d look scary if it wasn’t for the big, friendly face on top of it all.

  “Hi,” I say, and then notice his frown as he looks down at my wheelchair.

  “Bro that chair . . . that chair is just sad,” he says, slowly shaking his head.

  No one’s ever insulted my wheelchair before. It feels wrong, like using sign language to insult blind kids.

  “Gee, thanks,” I say.

  “Somebody had to tell you, bro. People probably felt too embarrassed to say anything,” he continues.

  “It’s just a wheelchair, right?” I say.

  “Maybe you’re right, bro. I mean, it kind of suits your vagina,” he says, and laughs.

  “I build chairs, like this one, see?” he says as he turns it, and I have to admit it looks a lot sexier than mine. It is matte black and low, doesn’t have any armrests or handles and the wheels are set at an angle. Mine’s the old upright, shiny chrome kind you find in hospitals.

  I suddenly have chair envy.

  “Don’t you worry, I can sort you out with one that has some balls, hah. This one you can drop off at the old age home,” Tai says to me with a smile. “Right, come on, its Murderball time!” he announces.

  When we’re both in the van, me clipped in, actually in my wheelchair to the side of him, I say, “So, I haven’t actually played any kind of sport in years.”

  Tai looks over at me and says, “How long since you lost your legs, bro?”

  “Seven months and three weeks,” I respond immediately and Tai just smiles.

  Then he continues, “Don’t worry, bro, with just seven months you’ll do fine.” Then he adds, “Besides, nobody has been hurt for weeks now, like for real-real hurt, you know?”

  “So where’s the game?” I ask, not wanting to think too much about what “for real-real hurt” might involve.

  “It’s in Balclutha, be there in no time. We’ve got our own court, bro!” Tai states proudly.

  People down south here are like that.

  I think it’s to do with how remote everything is and how few people there are out here. Nobody thinks anything of “popping over for a coffee” involving more than an hour’s drive.

  I kind of like the mentality.

  “You know about the gold rush in Balclutha back in the 1800s? Well, before it all went tits up, people were building themselves mansions, bro. This one fella built himself an indoor tennis court right next to his house. And as luck would have it, his great-grandson got high one night on some mean green and fell under his own compactor while he was flattening the rose garden. Both legs gone at the knee,” Tai says, then makes a quite graphic squashing sound and pounds his hand on the dashboard.

  “He plays centre now and we have our own Murderball court. Cool, huh?” he continues, smiling.

  Tai has a way of looking on the bright side.

  Talking to Tai is easy and the time passes quickly. He’s like Patricia that way. I always envy people who seem to have a genuine interest in everyone around them. A surplus of happiness they don’t mind sharing around.

  “So why’s it called Murderball?” I ask.

  “That’s what it was called originally back when it all started. Then they made it all professional and legal, added a whole heap of rules and changed the name to Wheelchair Rugby or Quad Rugby so they can play it in the Olympics. But don’t worry, we don’t play that way. We still do Murderball,” he says.

  When we arrive, the old indoor tennis court smells of rust and sweat.

  Faded lines and cracked concrete under uneven, flickering track lights give an industrial feel to the place. As I come in I can hear someone playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Various people are talking loudly over the music while strapping themselves into their wheelchairs. They are using a lot of straps.

  “Oi! You lot, this is Finn! Finn, this is you lot!” Tai shouts over the din, then rolls out ahead of me into the crowd on the floor.

  “You played before?” a guy with a big red beard and matching mass of red curls says from the chair next to me. I see he’s wearing two nose rings and a rainbow-coloured headband with the words “It Happens” on it.

  “No,” I say, looking all around. The wheelchairs are like nothing I have seen before. They’re built low and armoured, reminding me of some kind of modern battering rams. All of them heavily dented.

  “Here, it’ll help when you get knocked over. Newbies always lead with the head,” he says, and tosses something in my lap.

  It’s a mouth guard. I pick it up and when I look back at him smiling uncertainly, he must sense my doubt, then asks, “Have you watched a game before?”

  “No,” I respond.

  “Ah,” he says, then chuckles and reaches into the bag by his side.

  “Here, have this, too,” he says as he tosses something bigger into my lap. This time it’s a hockey helmet.

  “We’ll put you in Mother Teresa, yeah?” he continues, then yells out over my shoulder, “John-John, get Finn here sorted in Mother, okay?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “She’s our beginner wheelchair, Mother Teresa. She never goes down, see,” he says with a grin.

  When the game starts, I recognise the feeling immediately from when I was a boy.

  It’s playing with the bad kids. It’s the kind of thing you got into trouble for. Some games are sport, but this is just street. It’s dirty and mean and ridiculously violent.

  The next hour is, hands down, the best time I’ve had in a wheelchair.

  The game does something to you. Makes you feel a part of something larger than yourself, something big, pissed off and untamed, and happy to be so.

  It creeps up on me slowly, only really surfaces later that day. When I’m back on my porch, waving to Tai as he drives off, I realize that I, for the first time in months, maybe years, actually had a good time.

  My face is tired from smiling, and the unfamiliar, warm and light feeling in my chest I cautiously identify as some form of peace, maybe even happiness. As I sit here on my porch just enjoying the sensation with a kind of generalised gratitude, my mind wanders and I think to myself. Why does being happy make you feel young; or actually, why do I always feel so old?

  After a shower and a late lunch I’m still restless, so I decide to head into town to see if I can track down Emily Cotter and maybe sort out the cats. It’s not really a must-do task, but I feel, unusually, in the mood for company, and this is a good enough excuse. It turns out to be an easy job, as Ben the friendly real estate agent tells me that yes, she’s just up the block in the retirement village. He gives me her contacts.

  Buoyed by my day so far, I decide to just pop over directly.

  And that’s where my good day ends.

  At the retirement village I’m let through to Emily Cotter’s room by a nurse who says I should only stay a short while. Also informing me that Emily is “having a good day” but I shouldn’t get her too excited, with her heart.

  Emily Cotter is grief-grown old.

 
; She is polite and friendly enough when I meet her but there’s a haunted quality to her that’s undeniable. Sadness hangs like fog in her little studio apartment.

  It’s easy to sense, easy to see, although happy people always seem blind to it. The nurse just smiles and nods, then makes her exit. I notice, I think, probably because I am messed-up too.

  When I tell her I bought her old cottage and would like to ask her some questions, she almost looks pained, but still invites me in.

  I’m ushered into her room, where I’m instructed to wait as she makes tea in a kitchen nook. Not wanting to be rude I thank her, and take the chance to look around. The walls are covered with the expected array of pictures and ornaments, souvenirs of a life.

  The pictures show several of Emily and her husband spanning several years, from the black-and-white wedding photo through to one where they are standing arm in arm, looking about middle fifties, taken by the back gate at the cottage. There’s also a range of a little girl, who I assume is her daughter. They go from baby photos to one of a beautiful little blond girl of maybe 12 or 13 holding up a magnifying glass and a big paint brush on either side of a dirt-covered face punctuated with a big smile.

  There’s something odd here but I can’t put my finger on it.

  “So you bought our old cottage,” Emily says with a slight tremble in her voice as she puts the tray down on the coffee table. I turn back to face her.

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s a lovely old place,” I say.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it,” she agrees, but still almost manages to sound defensive; again there’s something in her eyes and voice that doesn’t match her words.

  “I actually wanted to check something with you,” I say, taking a sip of my tea. “You see, a cat showed up at the cottage and I wondered if maybe it was yours. She’s a little tabby cat, house trained,” I continue.