by Malcolm Knox
Stretch his mind he can see Sunset, Pipe in the ripples he makes when he falls off his board . . .
But DK you’re not even in the sea. The sea would bring real waves, knock him down and for good, drowner waves for a drowner on his drowner fricken board. Should be going out on a learner board in little learner waves on a bright clean sparkly day like all them learners.
Worse than death.
Not even in the sea. He’s in the lagoon. In the dark. In the night. Over The Other Side. Over the causeway. Out of town. Away from the curse, away from the whispers, away from the dead. In the morning.
Tears.
Nobody sees him cept the one he’s trying to kid.
Alone where nobody can see him thrashing and falling and inviting all the bad back in, opening the door, all the bad and the waste, death and the waste, murder and the waste, waste and the waste . . .
He is waste.
Collects itself up like bluebottles on the high-tide line, and the high-tide line is that seventy-five-year-old lady back there, only one who knows, right now lying awake in her bed wondering can she still pretend when he gets back to wake up and not know, pretend they had a normal night sleep and now for breakfast she make his muesli, like she made it since the year dot, he’s hungry as usual, surfers are always hungry and he’s no exception and when the surfing went away the hunger didn’t . . .
She’ll ask has he done his greens and his whites and his blues, same questions every day, her blind eye 20/20, her pretending she isn’t the only one who knows . . .
. . . yeah . . .
She knows.
She’s the high-tide line it collects round:
His Mo.
Do anything for him.
•
Back into town. In the unit, wash hands, creep past Mo’s room. His bed has a deep dent in it like a trench or a burrow. When he climbs back in the salt has dried on him.
Radio’s still on.
This other day three days later:
She’s waiting for us when Mo brings me home from the shops. We been at the mall I sit at the playground eating a pine-lime Splice while Mo done the supermarket. I get to push the trolley back to the Sandman.
Home sweet plastic rails, diagonal grilles. DK wash hands in the kitchen sink and make a burst for the melamine table.
BFO waiting on the doorstep. DK carves straight past her.
BFO lets me Mo fix her a cup of tea, bag this time, then straight into it Surfer or Surfing must be on her case, deadlines and whatnot. Asks me why I give it away.
‘Eh?’
‘Why did you give it away?’
I tell her I haven’t given nothing away.
‘They reckon I’ve give it away but I never did, thing is they’re scared of me, they wanna drive me off the world tour, they know I’d still beat em all but they got agendas . . .’
From behind me face I can see the way she’s looking at me. The size of me. The shape of me. The sweat on me. The cripple shuffle out Mo’s Sandman panel van sprayed purple and orange. The welcoming handshake like laying something dead and boned in her hand: gag toy, silicon turd. She doesn’t know is it polite to laugh, ever, and let me know she’s in on the joke, or more polite to pretend I’m to be took serious.
She doesn’t laugh. She looks at me quiet and solemn.
So I tell her to laugh. About my conspiracy theories she just lapped up.
‘It’s a joke, Joyce.’
She shakes her head.
‘My name’s not Joyce.’
Females! I dunno and never will that’s for sure.
She keeps on searching me like she’s guessed something. Like it isn’t as laughable as everyone, most of all me, the DK I’m giving her at any rate, makes out.
Or maybe I’m thinking wishful.
I tell her straight: ‘No point you talking to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Story’s already written. Old-time legend, burnt out, disappeared, haunts the scene like a ghost, but gets up for one last wave, one last Big Tuesday—’
‘It was Big Wednesday.’
‘Yeah?’ Put two fingers up either side the pads of me aviators, scratch me nose, glasses moving up and down so she nearly gets a glimpse of The Great Man’s eyes. ‘You sure? I thought it was Thursday.’ Tuesday/Wednesday/Turdsday.
Now she smiles. Reckons I’m having her on.
It’s all on the record: greatest surfer on the planet, the pothead, the smackhead, the manic genius, the sick bastard, the schizo, the flame-out, the yeah but it’s
‘You’ve already wrote it,’ I tell her. ‘You already know it. But you don’t know nothing. Jigsaw with too many missing pieces, too many pieces look same as other pieces.’
Love jigsaws, do them all the time day and night, or did in the old house.
‘I’m ninety-nine parts urban myth. It’s all there. It’s all here.’
Well yeah . . . but no!
DK’s signature line.
The girl in the fibreglass:
DK’s moment in time.
‘Story’s all wrote,’ I go on. ‘Legend, epic. I’m Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Moon. Done gone died young left a good-looking corpse.’
‘But you didn’t die.’
Yeah nor did Jagger. Jiggery jaggery/Jig jags and zig zags/I done zigs and zags between me zigs and me zags/Yeah! Go DK you rule!
‘Makes you so sure?’ I go.
I’m both rolled into one: the dead legend who gets to watch the rest of the movie.
But from the exit aisle.
‘Remember the sign on that rock,’ I go.
‘DK lives?’
‘Yeah right think about it.’
She thinks about it. Nothing.
Give her a hand.
‘Why’d they write DK LIVES if he’s still alive?’
I don’t give her eye contact. She never catches me. She doesn’t stop trying but it’s just the ruddy don’t know for
keep the aviators pressed down on her.
While she’s interviewing me or whatever it is she’s doing to me I get the panics and up I go, bust out of some sentence—hers or mine doesn’t matter—and go in my bedroom and shut the door on her. Won’t come out till she’s gone.
I know what she’s thinking out there.
One afternoon we go in this pub. She tries to take me out to the beer garden scope the waves but there’s people there and I don’t like those.
Next to the beer garden is this surf shop. Two world champions—two!—young enough to be DK’s grand kids!—at this surf shop one of them owns—owns!—gracing the world signing their gear, but when they clock DK in the beer garden they come over and chat, cool but not so cool they can hide their awe, and DK makes sure the BFO sees it tucked in behind jokes and grins. World champs don’t even see the BFO.
‘Hey DK sizey out there today,’ first world champ goes, nodding at Snapper over DK’s shoulder. DK doesn’t follow his look. DK Today/DK Today/Like that. Idea for new TV show.
Second world champ comes out, gives a general Hawaiian horn hand. ‘Got a few this morning. Fully sick DK.’
BFO looking at me. Me looking anywhere but. Her. Them.
I’ll give them sizey.
I’ll give them fully sick.
World champ asks DK, ‘Ya goin for a paddle this arvo?’ A running gag. Running gag. Keeps on running like these kids run, building up its fitness so one day it can be a real gag.
‘Not this arvo son,’ I go, ‘I wouldn’t want to take all yer waves.’
‘Yeah good onya. Later, DK.’
And the BFO’s not up to this not up to it at all, not one bit. Shaking in her thongs. Not cos she’s a girl. I don’t give a stuff about that. It’s cos I’m her hero. An
d them world champs is her heroes. And I’m their hero. So I’m her hero times two, hero squared.
Them hot new kids don’t have time for no rumours.
For them the DK name can never be bad.
No jail time, no dead birds in fibreglass.
Cos DK is the best there ever was and that rubs everything else out.
When she goes off to buy two schooners I slip off in the scungy TAB. I couldn’t give a fart about racing never have, but it’s empty at least.
She come back. She goes, to make conversation, ‘What’s your tip in this one?’
It’s dogs. Roddy was into dogs. Said when them in the know didn’t want it to win, they give it two litres of milk before the race and it couldn’t run for nuts. No dope test for milk. No jockey to blame. Nice system, dogs.
‘The white one,’ I go.
The BFO squints at the screen. They’re all white or faded. Dodgy TV set. Dodgy doggy. Stop DK.
‘With the tablecloth on,’ I go to help out.
The one with the red and white check jacket or shirt or suit or whatever it is they call that thing the dishlickers wear.
She puts down ten bucks.
It come in.
Next race she goes: ‘Which one this time?’
‘The white one,’ I go. ‘With the tablecloth on.’
She puts down ten bucks.
It come in.
Next race she goes: ‘Which one this time?’
‘The white one,’ I go. ‘With the tablecloth on.’
She puts down ten bucks.
It come in.
She thinks I’m some kind of mystic see the future and that and she’s right I am, I was, DK = pure genius. Genius for seeing what’s coming next. I can read the undercurrents start paddling so I’m in the take-off spot before anyone else, I can read the very bloody ocean itself . . .
I’m two hundred up when I put my hand out. First time I’ve seen her fighting with herself. I get a giggle: she isn’t such a brown nose that two hundred bucks don’t mean something to her. She don’t want to give it to me but then she thinks she got to. She’s better off than I am. But reckons if she give it to me that easy I won’t respect her now, never mind tomorrow morning eh.
She looks at me like I’m having her on.
‘Give,’ I nod.
I take it all and my Bi Fricken Ographer is spewing. She tries to force herself to be nice but can’t. Me pissing meself. Here she is sitting on a three-foot offshore day in a dark stinking TAB in a pub when we could be out at least scoping waves, or better still me scoping and her out surfing, and instead I’ve took what thirty bucks? off her, plus one-seventy in profits, insult to injury.
‘You know,’ she goes, ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d like going down past the surf shops and the waves and the guys and everything, I mean, anymore.’
I don’t say nothing.
‘It must make you . . . miserable, I guess I thought. To see guys like that all out there, doing it, living the life that you . . .’
She give up trying to be nice now.
From the pub’s bottle-o I get her to buy the most expensive bottle of wine with my money.
Then I remember I don’t like wine. Never dug alcohol. Haven’t took one sip of the schooner of beer she got me.
Do your research girl. The Great DK never drunk.
I mean drank.
And yeah the look she gives me outside the bottle-o it’s not she’s in a mood it’s it slipped out she couldn’t stop it it’s
yeah she
so what’s she doing here if
hates me guts eh.
Me own BFO hates me fricken guts.
•
We walk out the pub with this forty-buck bottle of plonk and me with one-sixty in my pocket and the BFO she’s eh what’s not to love?
She dumps me without a word at Mo’s, says she has to go for a wave.
Says it to drive in the knife she lined up in my back with that talk about me being miserable seeing surf shops and kids surfing
says it thinkingly.
Gets her money’s worth yeah.
I go in give the wine bottle to Mo. She goes all gooey and soft and give me a kiss on me old noggin, then turns all suspicious, like—‘Where did you get this?’ Then gooey and sweet again. Can’t remember me ever giving her something on her not-birthday, not-Xmas. Ladies like gifts. It means a lot to her.
Even though Mo doesn’t drink ether. I mean either.
A big old lady Mo is, genuine big and genuine old, everyday cotton floral print house dresses balloon out like shrouds/like clouds/like mushroom clouds over the stalks of her legs still fine and slim and not a vein in them, she lets them show, legs like Rod’s, surfer legs, lolly legs . . .
She’s got a stack of different dresses and they’re all the same. House dress floral print in pale blue, in pale pink, in pale green, in pale yellow, in pale grey, in pale blue, in pale pink, in pale green, in pale yellow.
Mo was always the big flower folding me in, called me her little bee hiding in her petals. But before she was big she must of been small and yeah but she doesn’t like to talk about it, ‘hardscrabble’ is her word, dunno what it means but I know what it means, hardscrabble, her lot, sixth of twelve, country town but in one them streets of country towns like streets of the suburbs of the cities, houses butted against each other: chainlink fence, cracked concrete drive, fibro garage, buffalo grass lawn, fibro cladding, lino floors, fibro walls, terry towelling bedspreads, reek of damp and mothballs.
Chainlink, cracked concrete, fibro, buffalo grass, fibro, lino, fibro, terry towelling, damp and mothballs.
They was Catholics and her parents thirsty ones, her dad a driver her mum a womb. The ‘walking womb-dead’ Mo calls her. They guzzled and grizzled. Mo tried to grow up fighting versus eleven other mouths. Parents too thirsty to step in and umpire. Mo grew up fast, or slow, hard to tell she says.
Chainlink, cracked concrete, fibro, buffalo grass, fibro, lino, fibro, terry towelling, damp and mothballs.
They fought for something to eat something to wear, was always someone fighting you and someone pally with you but never the same one, so she said, a crew of twelve but not a crew or a team at all, every man jack for themself, and mother and father too thirsty for words and off to the races Saturday and home drunk to drink some more. Thirsty work, being Mo’s parents.
Amazing bit was, she said, her mum and dad loved each other and enjoyed each other’s company, preferred each other over the twelve. She wondered why they had nippers at all. They had a true romance. When they shot through on the spree they shot through together left the eldest nippers to look after the rest. To fight and fight and gang up and backstab and lie and it was nasty and brutal, Mo always says, nasty and brutal, shaking her head, not the time to go into the details, not now it’s so long ago, not even back when it wasn’t so long ago
yeah nasty and brutal.
Chainlink, cracked concrete, fibro, buffalo grass, fibro, lino, fibro, terry towelling, damp and mothballs.
They bring her up to not know nothing about nothing except how to fight to get to the end of the day, get food in her tum and a corner to sleep in. She had this sister who didn’t like mash potato, snuck it in scrapes under the edge of the table when no one’s looking. After the meal’s over Mo creeps back in the kitchen and under the table and picks off potato dried hard as clay. Chips! Hard days eh.
She sure didn’t know nothing about boys and what boys done with girls, and this from a girl with four brothers, but four brothers meant seven sisters and when there’s seven sisters it’s the sisters rule, the brothers aren’t boys, they’re just terrors and fighters like rats. Not boys.
So she didn’t know what boys done. With girls. To.
She won’t talk no more. M
aybe the BFO’ll crack her open on the details. The girls home, the nuns, the running away. The rest of it.
Chainlink, cracked concrete, fibro, buffalo grass, fibro, lino, fibro, terry towelling, damp and mothballs.
And screaming. Someone always screaming at the top of their voice.
Keep your voice down to a scream, Mo used to scream at me and Rod. We thought it was funny. She was funny.
How’d she get to stay funny after all that? That hardscrabble? But she was. She tease us and kid us and pull off our bedspreads in the morning sing out, Hands off cocks and put on socks! Wakey wakey, hands off snakey!
How’d she do that?
She never took a drop of alcohol that’s for sure. Or I never saw her. Said she had an allergy.
She never did no exercise neither. Said she had a bone in her leg.
I tried alcohol but it didn’t agree with me neither. It disagreed with me. I disagreed with it. We agreed to disagree, drink and DK, kept each other at arms length.
What Mo said about drink: We agree to disagree.
She stayed funny among all that cracked concrete, fibro and buffalo grass. And the stink of tinned meat cooking in a saucepan of boiling water. How they knew it was dinner time.
Or at least, she made me and Rod laugh.
The BFO’ll ask me about them rumours went round and round in my heyday: DK a foundling. How he been living on the beach, the rocks eh, till Mo picked him up—tough, yeah. Rumours. How DK’s real dad, this rumour Rod himself started up as a joke when we was trying to raise coin to send me to Hawaii, was Duke Kahanamoku (yeah, the resemblance is amazing if you take away the colour of me skin and eyes and hair . . . ).
I’ll tell the BFO she better ask Mo, and this is a good answer to protect me and protect Mo, cos if there’s one person the BFO is more scared of than me it’s my Mo, and the nicer Mo is to the girl the scareder the girl is of Mo, so if there’s anything I don’t want to talk about I’ll say to the BFO, ‘Girl, you’re gunna have to ask Mrs Keith on that one.’ It’s as good as Well yeah . . . but no!
Better. Cos she’s not gunna ask.
I nick out in the dead of night the dead of morning, the hour when the cops come raiding. They raid me now they won’t find me there. But they haven’t raided me since me thirties, the eighties, so fat load of good it’s doing me. I wish they could raid me now, wish I could of said back then, Come back in twenty-five years boys.