by Carmody, Sam
They wanted to know if we ever saw things. If we noticed anything in his room, or in the Pajero.
Like what?
Unusual things. Different bags. Packages.
Drugs?
Did you ever see cash on him?
They think he was a drug dealer?
Maybe he was just moving it for them.
What the fuck, Mum?
Don’t talk to me like that.
But moving drugs for who, Mum? What do they know?
They can’t tell us much. But it’s not good, Paul. There was trouble in Stark. Bad people.
Bad people?
Something to do with a network, he said. Bikies or something. I don’t really know. The detective said they’ve been watching some blokes transporting drugs across the border into South Australia. They think it’s coming from somewhere up north, maybe Stark.
I don’t understand what this all means.
The line distorted as his mother exhaled. What if Elliot got caught up in it? He might have had to make a run for it, if he had wanted out. But what if they got him . . .? His mother trailed off, then went silent.
Mum, it’s not true. Elliot wouldn’t have got caught up in anything. He’s too smart for that. It’s not like him.
Yeah, she whispered. I’ll call you if I hear anything more.
They’ve got this wrong, Mum. This drug thing. It’s not Elliot.
The living dead
THEY ARRIVED AT THE INLET AROUND three in the afternoon.
Paul left his backpack with Michael and walked straight from the inlet to the main street, all the way to its end where the police station crouched on its island of dead lawn. Fred was out front, wind in her greyish hair, hosing down the boat. She raised her eyebrows when she saw Paul and scanned him, rubber boots to the cap on his head that he had taken from Elliot’s room. It was only then Paul figured the image he must have been standing there in the bright haze of afternoon, his board shorts and white t-shirt browned by fish blood, face ghosted with sunscreen, eyes bloodshot.
If you weren’t on your two feet I would think you were a dead person, Fred said. She turned the water off and dropped the hose. Come through.
Inside her office were three desks. Fred lifted a stack of bulldog-clipped documents from a chair.
Have a seat, she said.
Paul sat down.
Elliot Darling, she said. I read the report.
The police in Perth. They told my parents there was trouble in Stark. Drugs.
Fred nodded. It’s why Gunston left, she said. He was like me, a city cop. From Sydney. Don’t think he suspected how hard it could get. Didn’t have the stomach for it.
For what?
This place is bubbling with junkies. Probably keeping this town going, really. All the glass.
Glass?
Methamphetamine, she said. Ice. Stark is crawling with the stuff, like everywhere else. Probably worse here, though. It feasts on a town like Stark.
Fred lifted another stack of documents from the chair behind the desk.
Tell you what, she said. This office is like quicksand. Bloody drowning in Gunston’s stuff. He’d probably prefer I torched the lot of it.
Fred carried the papers to the furthest of the three desks and dropped it with a theatrical giving way of her hands.
I’m supposed to be getting some help, she said as she moved a cardboard box from in front of him. She placed it near a stack of half a dozen or so other boxes near the door. Stood straight again, arched her back, grimaced. I’ll be getting another copper, they tell me. Some Stark kid. Only twenty-four and he’s a war veteran, if you can believe that. Afghanistan.
The drugs, Paul said. Why Stark?
Fred stepped back behind her desk. Pointed to the framed photograph against the wall nearest to him. A tall man gazed back at Paul. Kind eyes. White-haired.
My husband Robert, Fred said. Rob worked the courts in Sydney. Show him a town in population decline, he would show you a methamphetamine problem.
She sat down.
Rob thought meth was like the bacteria that flushes a corpse, she said. Bloats and colours it and twitches its limbs. Keeps it moving after it’s dead, he’d say. You understand? A corpse isn’t alive but it teems with the barely living. The opportunists. The ceaselessly hungry. Dealers and junkies. Junkie dealers.
Paul nodded.
You know the type, she continued. See them outside the deli or the bakery.
Paul had seen the men who were far too gone even for working a boat. They hovered in town in the mornings, grinning like whaler sharks. Dead-eyed. Despite the ravaging effect on a face, the drugs gave even the oldest of them a child’s twitchiness. They watched everything like they were remaking sense of it.
And Tess? Paul said. She was trouble?
Tess Hopkins? Fred asked, then shrugged. Your brother’s girlfriend. Police spoke to her back when the investigation began. She was known to police, had some history in town. A user. Wasn’t in the mood for talking, but Gunston decided there was nothing there.
What about Elliot? Paul said.
I don’t know everything the police in Perth know but I don’t necessarily see any link. Unlike his girlfriend your brother had no history, no use or possession. There wasn’t much on him at all.
But someone might have hurt him.
I doubt that, she said. I mean, most of them out there, the small operators, they’re more a harm to themselves. It’s not murders that keep me busy. Fred slapped the pile of papers in front of her. She looked up at Paul. Petty theft, she said. It is unbelievable. Stark has, what, eight hundred people? But you can’t leave a door unlocked.
The police told my parents that they think the drugs could be coming from Stark.
Fred shook her head. You don’t get that volume out of someone’s kitchen. It’s coming from somewhere else.
Where? Paul asked.
Fred shrugged. Africa. The Middle East. Asia. Even South America. Could be coming from anywhere; it doesn’t really matter. The question is how.
Paul gazed at the papers. How do you stop it?
She gave a sort of smile. According to my husband there is no stopping it. I told you, it’s just like the bacteria that raids a corpse. Fred laughed wearily. At least you can torch a corpse.
From up on a ridge we see a town. Glints and white dots in the shimmering farness like boats on a red sea. Yulara. And below us a line of vehicles on the highway, not moving, a hundred metres long. Hire vans. Caravans and motorhomes. Two squad cars at the head of it. The President says they’re federal police. They’re looking for us. I lie down on the rock with the .308. The President adjusts the rifle scope for me. Has me glass one of the coppers. Even at four hundred metres I can see the pulse and flex of his throat as he speaks. See him laughing with the lady copper he is talking to. So close in the telescopic sight you can almost hear them.
Spinning over and over, like a plane going down
JAKE TURNED INTO THE STREET EARLY, the headlights travelling through the morning dark at a greater than normal speed. The deckhands gave each other a look before the ute pulled up. Paul jumped into the skiff without daring to utter a word, and when Michael had to run back into the house to get his gloves Jake shook the steering wheel with such a rage that the boat trailer shook. When he was in this mood, every delay was enough to make him scream aloud. Any obstruction, like a stubborn door or stray cray pot, received a full-blown strike with a fist or a boot. On those mornings even Michael would put his grin away. Michael had said before that the more sober Jake was the worse his mood. It was as if he could see all of his problems more clearly, see all the shit in his world in greater detail. And Paul figured Michael was right. Jake was almost better when in the fog of a hangover or even still half drunk; at least then he was some way towards being tranquilised, deadened to things.
They went hard for the first four hours of the morning, propelled by Jake’s fury. They were on their sixth run before lunch. Michael manned the winch and
Paul emptied and baited the pots. They spoke less to each other, worn out by fighting the roll of the deck.
Jake gave a blast of the horn and Michael gaffed the line. He looped the wet rope around the winch head.
The pot slammed into the tipper and Michael swore.
What? Paul said to him. You okay?
You have a guest, Michael said and slid the pot along the tipper to Paul.
Paul noticed in an instant the lifelessness of the trap, the absence of sound or movement. There were no feelers poking through the slats. There wasn’t a single crayfish, just a lone sleek muscular shape that took up the entire pot.
What is it? he said.
That is a Port Jackson, Michael replied.
It looks like a shark.
It is a shark.
What do I do?
Well, it cannot stay in there.
I have to pull it out? Paul asked. With my hands?
I have not heard of any better way.
Paul looked at the shark curled up at the base of the pot, on its side. It was no longer than his arm, but its diamond head looked almost reptilian, like the head of a giant snake. It was marked almost like a snake too, the cream skin patterned into triangles of different shades. He could see its strange mouth, unlike any shark he had seen before. Rows of pointed teeth were clustered together in a ball. The shark’s gills pulsed.
Grab the tail. Go on.
Paul put his gloved hand through the entrance of the trap, half expecting the shark to twist on itself and tear his fingers clean off.
We cannot take so long, Michael said. You have to get its tail.
Paul hooked his arm to the top corner of the pot where the shark’s tail fin was caught between the slats. He held his breath and clamped his hand down on it.
Hold it right there, Michael said. At the base.
Paul could feel the wrenching muscle against his grip. The shark rolled itself upright.
It will bite me.
Not if you keep away from the teeth.
The shark kicked and its head butted the wooden slats of the pot.
It will fucking bite me, Paul said again.
It does not think you are dinner, Michael reassured him. It just thinks you are an arsehole.
Shit, Paul muttered as he began to draw the fish back through the entrance of the trap, tail first.
Look at you, Michael chuckled. Shark man.
Do I just throw it?
But you are friends now, Michael said.
What do I do?
Put it in the sea, Michael said, and laughed. It is best to do it slow.
Paul held the shark out over the water. He leant as far over the side as he could, arm extended, lowering it until its head and most of the trunk were submerged, only its tail free of the water. The animal arched its head back toward the surface. Paul weakened his grip and the shark seemed to sense it, freeing itself with a strong kick of its tail. It darted down into the green sea and they watched until it disappeared into the clouds of silt and sand.
I shall call you the shark man, Michael said. He lifted the pot from the tipper and carried it to the back of the deck.
It was only then that Paul noticed he had been shaking. He felt the throb of his heart.
That shark was lucky it found this boat, Michael said, reaching for the bag of tobacco and pack of rollies in his shorts pocket. I tell you what. All the others, they would kill it. Michael stepped near the cabin doors and out of the wind to roll the cigarette. Except for Jake, maybe, he said.
He wouldn’t kill it?
No, I do not think so. Maybe our Jake knows what it is like.
To be a shark?
Michael laughed and shook his head. To be despised, he said. Hated. Even a little feared. Maybe he knows that.
Why does everyone hate Jake? Paul asked, realising it was true. I’ve heard the way people talk about him. Say he’s scum.
Michael shrugged, put the cigarette to his mouth, lit it. That is not my point. My point is that men always hate the shark, even more than they hate octopus or stingrays, or any other scavenger that finds its way into the pot of a fisherman. I am telling you, they would always kill the shark.
Michael blew a stream of smoke that disintegrated in the sea breeze beyond the cover of the cabin.
I once saw Noddy cut bits from a shark while it was still alive, the pectoral and dorsal fin, the end of the tail. That is how he sent it back into the water off the jetty, very much still a living shark. I watched it spiralling down into the depths, spinning over and over, like a plane going down. Michael shook his head, the smile gone. Do you know what it is? he said. Why they hate the sharks?
Paul shook his head.
Because they have convinced themselves that a shark might be the cause of all the trouble for them. It is the reason why there is no lobster, they think. The reason there is no fish. It is responsible for everything. The shark is their shit luck. The shark has made them poor. It has made their wives not want to fuck them. So when they get hold of a shark, they finally have all of the shit things in life right there in their hands, in their control.
Michael drew on his cigarette then exhaled.
And you know, he said, there is nothing more hereditary than fear. Nothing. A man passes it on like the colour of his hair. You have seen the boys at the jetty? They are worse than their old men. It has been handed down. They throw those little sharks alive on to fires. Stab their eyes. They will saw the heads off them. Not to eat—just to extinguish it, the fear.
It was true. Paul had seen the severed heads on the beach near the jetty, the coarse skin sun-wrinkled.
That is why we are all doomed. And there is no use worrying. Nothing can be done. Fear is in our design, a virus planted in every one of us. And we cannot rid ourselves of it.
Paul waited for a smile but there was none.
The dam’s broken
PAUL WATCHED THE GERMAN’S EMPTY pint glass dry on the counter. Michael had sculled it when his phone rang and in minutes the mist had cleared and thin rings of froth were streaked around the inside. He studied its changing atmosphere and thought of Kasia, waiting for her to return. He heard Roo Dog’s screeching laughter at the other end of the bar, Arthur’s coughing, and ignored it.
Kasia appeared to collect the glass and Paul looked down at himself and inhaled as if he might just say the line he’d been putting together in his head, a question about Christmas, if it snowed where she was from, but he didn’t say a word, and by the time he raised his head she had already disappeared into the kitchen.
Michael stood outside the bar doors with his phone to his ear. He looked almost divine, facing the darkness, straight-backed, with the sea breeze in his hair and his silhouette lit orange under the veranda lights. Shivani sat on the brick wall in front of him and cupped his arse with her hands.
A stunning reek grew around the bar.
Ha! Roo Dog laughed. Merry Christmas, you fucks.
Kasia returned from the kitchen balancing three plates of lamb shanks. The men down the bar from Paul shifted in their chairs and Arthur lifted his eyes from the counter. Someone made a sound of delight as she placed the meals in front of them and there was no question that it wasn’t because of the food.
Order? she said to Paul as she neared him.
Steak sandwich, he said after a pause.
Kasia gave him a curt nod then returned to the kitchen.
Fuck! shouted a deckhand they called Tea Cup, the curse directed at Arthur but summoning the attention of every ear in the building. The entire tavern turned towards him, the locals and the dozens of tourists seated in the tavern restaurant.
You see all those arseholes today? Tea Cup continued, volume elevated once more, buoyed by the attention. Town’s blocked up like a shitter.
What? Arthur said from the side of his mouth, the word sounding like a curse.
In town, Tea Cup replied. Fucking circus. You seen it?
No, the older man grumbled.
Oh Jesu
s, Arthur. You’ve never seen so many useless cunts in one place. Can’t drive or park for shit.
Arthur muttered something, the words inaudible. His red eyes were locked on Kasia’s arse.
Saw a four-by so bright yellow it could have been radioactive. Some Toyota piece of shit. Gutless as all fuck but dressed up with kit like it was a bloody Hummer. Fuck me. What a waste of plastic. I mean, why would you make a car that big? No shit, it’s like they’re planning on hitting a roadside bomb.
Arthur rolled his food over in his mouth, no longer listening.
Swear to God, Tea Cup said. It’s like a fucking dam has broken.
You’ve been asleep, Roo Dog muttered. The dam busted years ago.
Good thing too, Jules said, squaring her body up with Roo Dog’s. Wash all of you out of here.
Come on, Jules, Roo Dog said, unsmiling. I know you want it. I can smell your pussy from here.
Arthur grunted in amusement, eyes pointed gleefully into the trench of the bar where Kasia was refilling a fridge. Paul wanted to ditch his glass at him.
It was after ten when Paul sat in front of Michael and Shivani’s place and called home, buttocks warm against the street kerb, the concrete still hot from the day’s sun.
Dad.
Yes, his father answered.
Were you asleep?
No. Working.
Can I talk to Mum?
She’s looking after your gran.
Okay, Paul said.
There was a pause.
How’s the dog? Paul asked.
The dog is still a dog.
Paul managed a polite laugh at the old line.
Ringo is good, his father said. Think he misses you kids. Doesn’t get enough of a run with just me around, poor bastard.
How long have you been on your own, Dad?
There was a pause. Your gran, Paul. She’s not well. Your mum is good to go look after her. She’s staying with her for a while.
Then why aren’t you staying there, too?
She’s not my mum, Paul, he said with something like a laugh. And who is going to look after Ringo? You’re up in the middle of nowhere.
Gran could stay with you guys. My room’s free.