Too Easy

by J. M. Green

  I heard tapping. Boss was beating time with a finger on the table top, a hint of a smile on the existentialist’s face. ‘Corrupt public servants,’ Boss said. ‘Looks bad.’

  ‘Very bad,’ I agreed.

  Pukus pursed his thin lips. ‘Pre-emptive strike? Yes, that might get through to His Nibs. I’ll have a word to him, see what we can manage.’ He stood, our cue to leave.

  On the stairs, Boss smirked. A stark reversal of his earlier mood. ‘Nice work in there, Hardy.’

  He headed through the vestibule at a trot, as though he feared Pukus would change his mind and come after us.

  I reflected on our success with the minister, albeit limited, and the performance we’d put on to get it. We’d circumvented all the usual channels, the painstaking application processes, the chain of public-servant command, the checks and balances. Our chances of securing funds via the official route were virtually zero. Instead, we’d taken the way of vested interests, a combination of threat and mutual benefit, and it had worked. What would this country look like if community support agencies had the clout of, say, a mining industry association, or a major bank?

  Not that Pukus had actually promised us anything. In fact, the odds were that he’d take the idea, water it down, make an announcement that sounded good but offered nothing, and we’d end up with no fire-safety training money. But he had emerged so buoyant that I chose not to point that out. There was, however, one matter that remained unsettled. ‘What was all that crap about art?’

  ‘Lost its potency, for me at least. It’s futile. Pointless.’

  ‘All art? Even …’ I swallowed. ‘Television?’

  He seemed cross. ‘Be serious. I’m talking about creative works.’

  I was being serious, and now my feelings were hurt.

  We were out in the fresh air, crossing Spring Street. It felt good to be away from the recycled exhalations of exhausted power.

  Cantering down Burke Street, two steps of mine to his lunging stride.

  He stopped suddenly. ‘My car’s up there.’ He pointed down an alley to a multi-level parking complex. ‘When we get back to the office, we can work out the details of the program.’

  ‘Ah, Boss, it’s after five. I thought I’d hang around in the city. Do some early Christmas shopping?’

  He looked at his watch. ‘Monday then.’ His scowl said I had better not get any ideas about taking an unauthorised day off.

  ‘Yep,’ I said cheerily. ‘Bright and early.’

  He hesitated. ‘And I might as well tell you now, I’m thinking of resigning.’

  I waited for a punchline. Surely he was not serious.

  ‘Not thinking of. Doing. I’m leaving WORMS,’ he said.

  Shanninder was right. Again. That woman was Nostradamus. But even so, I felt off-kilter at the news. The earth was off its axis and was free-wheeling around the solar system. ‘But why?’

  Eyes on the ground. ‘I can’t summon the energy.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘This is that crisis of yours. You need to have a break. Take some time off. You can’t seriously think of leaving. I mean who can possibly replace you?’

  ‘Interesting you should say that —’

  ‘You know what I think the problem is? A fear of death. Well, I hate to break it to you. We can’t escape it, death awaits us all.’

  He glared at me; I’d touched a nerve. I continued. ‘Even though those annoying health-policy bossy-pants types are constantly telling us not to die. We will. They don’t like it. I know, neither do we. But humans are, well, human.’

  ‘Nietzsche couldn’t have put it better himself. But about the job —’

  ‘We can’t all die in our sleep. I mean, it’s not that I like the idea of a fireball, or a mincer, or being eaten by some crazed sea lion —’

  ‘I don’t think sea lions eat people.’

  ‘Maybe not eat, but they attack. Remember that girl in WA? A sea lion leapt out of the water and mauled her —’

  He raised a hand, stopped me mid-sentence.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are your career plans?’

  Career plans? Did anyone’s life trajectory match their plans? I reeled from one job to another, taking whatever work I could get.

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ Boss went on, sensing my confusion. ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’

  In five years, I expected to be living on an island with Brophy, wearing tropical prints, making coconut cream pie, and getting together with Thurston Howell the Third for the luau on a Saturday night. I raised my shoulders. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Apply for my job. I can’t guarantee you’ll get it, of course. Nothing can be guaranteed. It is a dog’s arse of a job, too. Thankless, tedious, involves copious arse-kissing. Much responsibility, little thanks.’

  ‘You make it sound so attractive.’

  ‘It pays well, and more importantly, I know you’d do a good job.’

  ‘Flattery won’t change my relaxed attitude to working hours,’ I warned him.

  ‘Think it over,’ he said, then he marched down the alley.

  With his departure, a weird sensation overcame me — happiness. Not since Brophy and I had started hanging out together had I felt this kind of joy. My current job was a dead end. Being the new Boss probably had dog hairs on it, but it paid well. For those of us in the community sector, well-paid positions were rare, mythical, exotic.

  I noticed that everyone else in the city seemed cheerful, too. People were chatting into their phones and to each other, and were generally being happy, and it occurred to me that I might just be getting a contact high from the people around me. It was the end of the working week, a four-day weekend was in the offing for most, and the general air of excitement in the city was almost immoderate.

  I caught a passing tram heading west and stepped out near the Docklands Stadium. I did a circuit around the outside of ground, appraising the buildings that surrounded it, some built barely an arm’s length from the arena. One angular glass structure, tinted mauve, was the only one that matched Phuong’s description of a ‘purple tower’. Inside the foyer was a bank of residents’ names with buzzers. I found William Blyton’s name and buzzed.

  Loud sniff. ‘Yes?’

  ‘William Blyton?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Stella Hardy. William, sorry to bother you at home. I was told you might be able to help me. I’m a social worker with WORMS.’

  A blast of nose blowing. ‘You’ve got what?’

  ‘I have a client, a teenage boy.’ Cory was not a client in the strictest sense of the word, but I was not one to get bogged down with semantics. ‘He died yesterday. I believe he was caught up in a fake charity scam, or something, with an outlaw motorcycle gang, and I wondered if —’

  ‘Look, mate, I’d like to help, but I can’t. So you tell whichever of those trainee clowns who gave you my home address that I’d like to strangle them. I’ve got the flu. Going back to bed. Ring the station.’

  I re-entered the high-spirited atmosphere of the emptying city. I squeezed onto a packed tourist tram, and stood amid families checking maps, listening to pre-recorded commentary describing a town I didn’t recognise, and headed back to Swanston Street. As I made my way towards Flinders Street Station, I encountered a human statue coated in gold. She made a grab for me as I passed, but I ducked out of her reach. I didn’t know much about art, but I knew I didn’t want it molesting me. Boss’s crazy claim that art served no purpose was starting to seem like a carefully reasoned maxim.

  The commuters at Melbourne’s main train station swarmed, funnelling onto the escalators, filling out the platforms, and around them, but somehow a multitude of barely visible, lost souls gathered on the steps, or loitered in the concourse, or grazed in the burger franchise. And now they were waiting for HARM to happen.

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sp; 24

  I BOUGHT a falafel from a takeaway joint in the station concourse and sat on a bench. I took a hesitant bite: both dry and soggy, having no doubt languished for a day in its cling wrap. Two more bites and I binned it. I resumed searching among the teenagers congregated here for Alma Dunmore. They wandered in loose gangs, or sat on the floor in groups, or scoured the floor for dropped coins. They saw a loosely held handbag. They followed commuters too rushed to notice they’d dropped a twenty when they pulled their Myki travel card from their wallet.

  Alma was not among them. Maybe she was too aloof for this place. She was not an aimless delinquent looking for any old fun. She considered herself a serious player, or that’s how I read her. But she had no idea what she was getting into with Josie, AKA Philomena Josephine the drug trafficker, AKA a Corpse Flower.

  Half an hour passed. The crowds rushed by, ignoring me. Ignoring the teenagers.

  Another half hour. It sure was depressing watching people running towards trains, families, and fun, the holidays awaiting them. While we sat here, with nothing to do.

  Another half hour. No more. Time to go. What a disheartening waste of time. I put my handbag on my shoulder. As I rose, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. A girl smoothly worked her way through the throngs and perched at the other end of the bench from me.

  Her twig legs, in black leggings, were crossed, thongs flapping nervously on her feet. And her toenails were painted green. This individual might be Sleeps in the Toilet at Macca’s Girl, and possibly a better information source than Alma.

  I had a better look at her. Ash-white hair with green streaks through it. A grey athletic-brand hoodie. These kids with their workout clothes, all label and no fitness.

  I moved closer, nonchalant, as I watched her green chipped fingernails work the screen.

  After sending and receiving some texts, she glanced up at the train schedules on a bank of screens, and let out a profanity. She gathered a couple of shopping bags at her feet and dashed away. I followed her, down the ramp to Platform 5. A train was waiting. She made it on board. An announcement warned passengers to stand clear. The doors started to close. I hit the bottom of the ramp and leapt. The doors juddered shut, but I was in, face pressed against a random shoulder.

  We passengers were sardines and just as smelly. I could see a white-and-green hairdo making its way to the front of the carriage and I squished my way through in pursuit. The girl found a place to stand near the disabled seats at the front. I held a strap in the middle. As the train stopped, more people got on, defying the laws of physics. All the while, I managed to keep my eye on the green streaks of hair.

  As the train approached Footscray, the girl moved to the door. I followed. We alighted and I pursued her up the escalator, two paces behind. She went left, I did likewise. At the doughnut shop, she stopped. I hung around. No surprise to me that Toilet Girl lived on Macca’s and doughnuts.

  She walked away from the kiosk with a hefty bag of doughy-goodness, heading left around the market. I stayed back but glimpsed her heading towards the Hopkins Street Bridge and down an alley behind the old Franco Cozzo furniture shop. It was easier to stay with her now; she was dawdling, singing to herself. The houses around here were small and close together. Patches of concrete in the front, peeling paint, bins full of beer cans. At a house with high weeds and boarded-up windows, she banged a two-handed flam on the door. It was a code no one could remember, let alone repeat. The door opened and she was admitted.

  I hung around for a while, not sure what to do next. There was a rusted letter box hanging off the fence. Weathered envelopes protruded. I took a quick look around, no one was about. I casually pulled the letters out and flipped through them. Junk mail, and To The Owner newsletters from a real estate agent. Three were properly addressed mail — to Mr Richard Peck and Mr Richard Turner. I stuffed those in my bag, and the junk back in the letterbox.

  I tapped lightly on the door and waited. The door opened a crack, dark interior, a pair of eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, hi, I’m looking for Alma. I was told she’d be here.’

  The eyes narrowed. ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Friend of Isaac Mortimer’s.’

  ‘The fuck didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I … I just did.’

  Something heavy was moved from behind the door, it opened and an adolescent boy stood staring at me. Floppy hair, short shorts, a bum bag slung over one shoulder. I’d noticed the kids I worked with wearing the same bags in the same way lately. Usual contents: spray-paint, or a thick Texta, a boxie, for those hard-to-open boxes, and a packet of smokes. He grinned at me, mouth full of doughnut. ‘She’s a pain, isn’t she?’ He turned to the house. ‘Brook, some lady’s here, says she’s a friend of Isaac’s.’

  ‘Who?’ Toilet Girl popped her head into the hall. ‘Who told you about this place?’

  ‘Isaac,’ I said, clearly first names the way to go.

  ‘She wants to know where Alma is, heard from her lately?’ said the boy.

  ‘Get fucked.’

  He turned back to me with a smile. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Truth is, I needed to make sure she wasn’t here. She’s —’

  ‘We know!’ The boy was saying, ‘A big pain in the arse.’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  He stood back and allowed me inside. ‘So Isaac sent you? Cool.’ He led me through the house. At the rear, one step down, was a dodgy extension, aluminium, roof and walls, with a concrete floor covered in worn and blackened sea-grass matting. Graffiti on the walls. Despite it still being daylight outside, the room was dingy. I wondered if the lights worked. Maybe the electricity was off. Tinny music came from a portable speaker on an upturned crate.

  Brook was sprawled on a mattress on the floor, flicking her thumb on her phone with one hand, twirling her green hair with the other. Cans of spray-paint were strewn about. I thought of Phuong’s car. It was possible, but not probable. I doubted they knew who she was, let alone which car she drove.

  Without looking up, she sighed and hit a button on her phone. The speaker became silent. ‘Well, come in then,’ Brook said. ‘Make yourself at home. Have a doughnut.’

  There was nowhere to sit except a couple of filthy mattresses and an esky. I sat on the esky. ‘So this place was Ricky’s?’

  ‘Was. Now it’s mine. Me and me graff crew.’ The boy crossed his arms.

  Brook rolled her eyes. ‘You wish.’

  I helped myself to a doughnut. ‘So you haven’t seen Alma around? What’s she up to, you reckon?’

  ‘Who knows?’ the boy said. ‘Kids these days. Am I right, Angie?’

  The girl was sitting in the shadows, staring at a white card, knees up to her chin, her black hair in a top-knot bun. My guess was South Pacific background, one parent at least. Currently a resident of the streets. I realised the card was a photo, which she folded and left on the floor. Then she sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s cut up about Cory.’

  I knew the feeling.

  Brook stood up, impatient. ‘Come on, Angie, get the gear out.’

  The girl, Angie, moved into the centre of the room and pulled a jumbo pack of chem-brand ParaCode from a paper bag. Now I had a proper look at her, she was the girl we saw with Cory and Razz in the car park waiting for Alma. The night Copeland showed up and sent them scattering.

  ‘What happened to Cory?’ Her version would be good to know.

  Angie shrugged. ‘He died.’

  Brook emptied her bags on the floor: glass measuring jug with lid, and a spoon.

  ‘Gave an old guy near the funeral parlour a twenty,’ Angie said. ‘He got a forty-pack with paracetamol, so we have to CWE it.’

  ‘Um, so, Cory. You think it was an accident?’ I addressed the room generally.
/>   ‘Oh, my God.’ Angie shook her head. ‘I miss him.’ She measured out water from a bottle into the jug. When she was satisfied, she took out the blister packs, started popping out pills, sheet after sheet, dropping them in the water.

  ‘Has to be distilled water,’ the boy said.

  ‘Nah,’ Angie said. ‘I’ve used tap before, works fine. If you’ve had problems, there’s lots of other reasons why yours might not work.’

  ‘Mine works. I don’t have problems.’

  ‘It just seemed really, like, weird, the way Cory died,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe it’s your metabolism,’ Angie said, stirring the mixture. ‘Also, don’t have any Phenergan with it because that inhibits the shit out of codeine.’

  He made a face. ‘I’m the one who told you that.’ He flicked his hair back. ‘Been extracting codeine since before you were born.’

  ‘Calm the farm, sunshine,’ Brook said, picking at a nail.

  ‘You need to filter it three times.’ He sighed. ‘Coffee filters.’

  ‘T-shirt’s fine,’ Angie said.

  ‘Comes out cloudy.’ He groaned, turned to me. ‘They’re going to mess it up.’ He turned to the wall, found a mark like a bullet hole and started scratching at it with a pen.

  I was struggling to think of a way to get the conversation back to Cory.

  ‘He thinks he knows everything because his dad’s a scientist,’ Brook said.

  ‘Was. He mows lawns now,’ he said.

  ‘Did you know Cory?’ Angie asked. She gestured for me to stand.

  ‘Yeah. I knew him,’ I said, getting up from the esky. ‘He was funny.’

  When I moved, she opened the lid of the esky; it was half-full of ice.

  I walked around to where Angie had left the photos. Four small passport-sized portraits. Big cheeky grin. The passport types don’t like smiling. It would have been rejected. I turned to see Angie watching me.