The Life

by Malcolm Knox

  And the waves were empty.

  And the waves were being wasted.

  And you were wasted, wasting the wasted waves.

  Where’d all them blokes went?

  What happened to Coolie?

  Smack!

  Funerals, funerals, funerals.

  Courts, courts, courts.

  Cops, cops, cops.

  And you DK was not in them wasted waves. You was in your room, in Anga, with Roddy and Roddy’s mate. Brotherly love, thicker than water.

  No Roddy, just Roddy’s mate. Your mate now.

  Wasted, wasting the wasted waves.

  The waves never stopped in Coolie.

  Surfing did.

  And the cops never stopped—

  And the cops—

  And the cops at your door—

  The knock you been waiting for.

  Smack!

  Dennis Keith?

  You pushed the aviators up your nose. Four in the morning. You been on the couch, dreaming Pipeline.

  Dennis Keith? Are you Dennis—?

  Shut up, mate, course he’s Dennis Keith.

  It’s the other cop. Strange he’s not wearing a police uniform. He’s wearing plainclothes.

  Mr Keith, we would like to ask you to come down to Coolangatta police station with us for an interview.

  You arresting me?

  No, Mr Keith, we’re not arresting you. We want to talk to you.

  What’s he done, ya pig bastards?

  Screech of Mo at your shoulder. But something about the police pushed her back in her box. She backed away, hand to her mouth like she’s gunna scream.

  We just want to talk to you—

  In connection with—

  In connection with—

  In connection with—

  Dennis?

  Den love?

  The world tour’s somewhere in Brazil, or South Africa, or California—

  And you in Coolie cop shop.

  In connection with—

  A body.

  And but so yeah nah I don’t touch The Thing again after that conversation with Mo.

  I been as far as I can humanly go. Far as a man can go. So it’s back to safety: radio at night, muesli in the morning, pine-lime Splice at Bob’s, hang out Snapper and Greenmount while kids on the dream tour come up and chew the fat and tell stories about Tahiti, Maldives, Chile, all the weird places they go now, all the coin that’s in it, all the gear, all The Life, but most of all talking about waves, and they wanna know about waves from way back; then roast chicken and potatoes with chicken salt for lunch, TV afternoon, chops and chips for tea. Wasn’t for the gnarly lines inside that retirement unit I say I’m living like a king.

  . . . yeah . . .

  Mo getting edgy but.

  Dunno why.

  She won’t move The Thing out of the living room and either will I.

  And so yeah, it’s out of the blue when this mother ship of a fricken people mover pulls up out the front door, for a second I think I’m seeing the Chariot from Lost in Space, it’s like a bus but with surfing logos all over it and out jumps me old mate, she who was formerly known as the BFO. She come across the forecourt with her dish face and her muscly swagger, boy in a chick’s body. In a black singlet and flowery boardies and thongs. I wonder does she got any friends or is she like me and Mo. Don’t believe in friends. None of us do.

  ‘C’mon, DK, we’re outta here.’

  Strides in the door like she owns the joint and picks up The Thing in both hands, walks it out and down the steps like it’s one them corpses they find in this place every few weeks, loads it in the Chariot. There’s other boards in there, a whole quiver. Serious surfer it turns out this bird.

  And Mo sitting with her hands flat down on the kitchen table in her own world, like none of us is even there.

  Mo freaking me:

  The Road.

  And so but yeah, nah, like a zombie I come out, follow the BFO to her Chariot and in the passenger seat.

  ‘You need me to belt you up?’

  She’s standing by the door and I jump, mistook what she said.

  ‘Nah I’m right.’ I pull the seatbelt on.

  And we’re off.

  It’s that easy.

  Didn’t wash me hands before eating today.

  Through the toy roundabouts, up the road out of Coolie, over the causeway to The Other Side, down the highway into New South. Not much said. What there is is one-sided, her asking questions of herself, yapping away typical surfer. Till I drop in:

  ‘Favour?’

  ‘Eh?’ She looks at me across the cabin.

  ‘Don’t wanna go the same spot.’

  ‘Where you’ve been trying to get back on the board?’

  ‘Nah, that spot isn’t being good to me.’

  ‘I don’t blame it.’ Savage little laugh.

  She knows the spot. Knows I’ve been going there. I look out the window, push the aviators up my nose.

  ‘I saw you one day when you were with Mo,’ she says, not looking at me. ‘Trying to get up on a gun in one-foot onshore slop. It was either the definition of optimism, or . . .’

  Shakes her head, chuckles.

  No humour there.

  ‘Or I didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘Except you were.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘Seen. By me.’

  ‘Right. Yeah. You got nothin better to do?’

  She grins to herself.

  ‘Nice of you to ask me a question for once, DK.’

  I say nothing.

  I tell no-one.

  ‘I like the quiet spots too,’ she goes. ‘If you can’t get inside a barrel, the only place no-one can see you is the place where nobody surfs.’

  Lying.

  Make sure I’m looking out the window and she can’t see my eyes. Not even the aviators. Can’t have her seeing the eyes.

  We drive past the turnoff. Going further south. If anyone sees me in this Chariot, The Thing in the back, I’m deadset gunna die on the spot. Hope she knows that. I will die. Deadset. Promise.

  Maybe she does know. Could be she does want to kill me.

  ‘You haven’t read my letter, have you, Dennis.’

  Don’t say nothing.

  ‘You haven’t even opened it, have you.’

  ‘Yeah nah, I did open it. Thought it might of had some coin for me.’

  She nearly laughs.

  ‘But you wouldn’t read it, would you. Don’t have the hair.’

  She thinks I’m an uneducated man. Rather die than read her writings.

  Wrong again.

  Coolangatta police station, July 19, 1975:

  Pissing down rain, winter on the beach, no sadder place on the night of the earth. Coolie cop shop, they built it in sight of the waves. Used to be a debate in The Pit about did the cops do it on purpose—lock-up was bad enough, but lock-up while you can see hollow six-foot barrels in a winter offshore was sheer hell. If they did it to torment you. You reckoned, from a night or two of experience, the view kept you sane. Can still surf them in your head.

  Interview room out the back, fibro shed rattling in the wind and rain.

  Three coppers: one plainclothes, two Queensland. And you.

  Two uniforms, one plainclothes.

  The uniforms standing, the plainclothes sitting:

  In front of you.

  You know them two uniform ones. Tall one asked for your autograph when he pulled you over the other week. Plainclothes is an old-time regular longboarder from Snapper and Greenmount:

  Butchers, plumbers, schoolteachers, priests, newsagents—

 
And cops.

  Cops among the boardriders. Foxes in the henhouse.

  Always had it in for you, them longboard riders you chased off the points.

  Big fans of FJ and the Graceful Style. The clean-cut pros, the soul surfers, the bearers of the flame.

  So, DK, plainclothes goes, with this smirk like he already knows you. You’re famous. People know you who you don’t know.

  He got a big mo, even bigger than yours, droopier handlebars.

  How’s the dope trade going?

  You push the aviators up your nose. Still there. Thank Christ.

  Doing much dealing still?

  He’s smirking. Like we’re all in on the joke.

  But this isn’t what we’re here for.

  In connection with:

  A body.

  Heard you got Mr Sunset hooked on the hammer when he was out here from Hawaii. Really fucked him up.

  Plainclothes spent too much time in the sun. Heavy freckles. Chasing him off the points, you probably saved him from dying of skin cancer. He should be thanking you.

  Lot of surfers buy gear from DK, that’s what we’ve heard, says the tall uniform. Big-time. They say you smuggle it round the place in hollowed-out surfboards. They say you smuggle it round in the door panels in cars. They say your brother smuggled it inside a fake plaster cast on his leg. They say you bring it in from South America. From Thailand. Stuffed inside hollow surfboards. Stuffed inside the panels of cars. Stuffed inside a so-called broken leg.

  They say, they say.

  Well, longboard kook plainclothes goes, man’s gotta make a living somehow. Not like surfing’s gunna do it for him. Even if he’s the ‘world champ’ he’s only making about ten grand a year max. Just a professional deadbeat.

  This isn’t what they called me in for. So I keep me trap shut. Just like Rod done in that American airport.

  Don’t say nothing.

  Say nothing.

  Don’t tell no-one.

  Tell no-one.

  So, Dennis, cat got your tongue? goes cheap suit.

  Ar, DK never has much to say, goes uniform. Do ya, Dennis? Well yeah . . . but nar!

  They’re all cacking themselves at how he’s drawled it out, like he’s some zonked-out banana-bender drongo.

  By the time they’ve finished wiping their eyes and appreciating a good joke in these tough times, good medicine laughter is, the mean cheap suit looks at you and goes:

  So when did you last see Lisa Exmire, Dennis?

  In connection with—

  In connection with—

  In connection with—

  In connection with—

  No.

  Nah. Definitely no way.

  You push the aviators up your nose. Still there.

  When did you last see Lisa Marie Exmire, Dennis?

  What I don’t get is what they’re on about. Aside from that I’m doing fine.

  Dunno. Few months ago. Last year.

  It speaks! Cheap suit gives a clap.

  (What she said once—that Greenmount—inside you—is she still?—how would they know what she said?)

  Am I under arrest? I say.

  Dunno. Should you be?

  I shrug and fold my arms and lean back. Not gunna crap on with this crap no longer. I’ll answer their questions if there’s a question to answer and that’s that.

  So when did you last see her?

  Weren’t you her boyfriend? They smirk at each other, like the joke’s going on.

  Spose so. Gotta answer that. Matter of record.

  So why don’t you know where you last saw her? Funny way of breaking up, eh Dennis? Nah, you were with her on New Year’s Eve, weren’t you, like all good boyfriends are with their girlfriends, eh Dennis?

  Shrug. Push the aviators up the nose. Still there.

  I go:

  She more or less did her own thing. I wasn’t gunna stand in her way. She had her band and stuff. She went off and did her own thing, then come back, then went off again.

  They both nod, like they know all this already.

  An independent woman, eh Dennis? What they’re all like these days, goes the longboarder in the shiny elbows. He’s taking over now. His freckles are getting big on me.

  Had her own trip going, I shrug.

  Do you like that in women, Dennis? Independence?

  I dunno what he’s getting at so I keep my lip buttoned.

  She had a few other boyfriends as well, didn’t she? Did her own thing there too?

  I don’t say nothing.

  Which you didn’t really like? She sort of humiliated you, didn’t she?

  Nothing.

  Put it out here, there and everywhere, eh Dennis? Wasn’t really edifying for a big-time he-man like you, was it? Not very nice to have a girlfriend like that? Eh Den?

  I say nothing.

  I mean, it’s okay for a bloke, but when it comes to chicks it’s not really the done thing, eh Den?

  I say nothing.

  She made your blood race, didn’t she, Dennis?

  I say nothing.

  She made your blood boil, didn’t she, Dennis?

  They all just let that hang there, grinning at me stone-cold. I push the aviators up me nose and keep me arms crossed. Don’t tell them nothing. Like Rod in the airport.

  She’s got your blood right through her, eh Den?

  Got your muck in her.

  Right through her.

  Doesn’t look good, Den.

  Doesn’t look good.

  What I don’t get, I say, to break the silence, is why I’m here.

  And what I don’t get, the narky cheap suit pushes his mo right in my face, and now it’s no joke, now he’s mighty pissed off, is why you haven’t asked us any questions.

  Now they’re trying to get me talking more. I say nothing.

  Like, we’re telling you that your ex-girlfriend has been found dead—

  You hadn’t told me that.

  Your ex-girlfriend has been found dead in a place that looks very, very bad for you, Dennis, very bad indeed, and not only dead, my friend, she’s been absolutely slaughtered, and you know what they thought they had when they found her body? They thought they’d found a very fat, huge black man. That’s what it looked like. So decomposed and bloated, Dennis, that’s what became of your girlfriend, and it’s sickening, you know, sickening, turns the stomach of any decent human being it does, and this is your ex-girlfriend, yours Dennis, someone you’re supposed to have cared for, ‘loved’ even, and she’s been savagely and brutally murdered and dumped at this spot that, well, only a few people know about, don’t they, and you’d be one of them, and you’re her ex-boyfriend, mate, and here we are, this is why you’re here, mate, and, mate, you were her ex-boyfriend and join the dots, right, and what’s more, what’s more, my friend, her body has been tested and her skin’s full of fibreglass, pickled in it, and it’s pretty obvious she’s been done in in a place where there’s a lot of fibreglass, right, get it, itchy stuff, drives you mad if you get it in your clothes and in your skin, would’ve driven her mad if she hadn’t had other problems to deal with, eh Dennis, fibreglass fibres, fibres of glass, mate, like you get in a shaping bay, and she disappeared last New Year’s Eve, mate, and who do you think she’d be with on New Year’s Eve but her boyfriend, right, so we’ve brought you in here to ask you a few basic questions and you haven’t shown a glimmer, not the barest glimmer of surprise or curiosity about why we’ve brought you here, and now I’m telling you this, you’re not showing me anything either, you’re just sitting there like a department-store dummy, mate, and that to be honest fills me with suspicion it does, it makes me ask a few questions myself as to why you are sitting there so cool and calm whe
n we’re telling you this, and not the least bit surprised, well that’s a red flag to me, mate, that’s a red fucking flag, and I don’t know about you but I want to ask you a lot more questions because you’ve got me very interested now, and I suggest, and I don’t suggest this very often but I think it’s the responsible thing to do, and it goes against my better instincts but I’m going to make the suggestion, Dennis, I’m going to suggest that you get straight on the phone and call your solicitor if you have one, or if you don’t have one you should call someone who does know a good solicitor for you, because you might find yourself in a lot of trouble by the end of tonight and I don’t want anybody to be able to say that you were not given a fair go, because before too long you’re going to find yourself in such hot water that being beaten to a pulp by Barry Kalahu and a three-wave hold down at Pipeline is gunna seem like a picnic in the park, eh Dennis, a picnic in the park, right, so I’d get on the blower quick bloody smart if I were you, eh Dennis?

  That was below the belt.

  That was real mean.

  How they knew about Barry Kalahu and Pipe.

  That riled me up.

  But I say nothing.

  You gunna call a lawyer? goes shiny elbows.

  I say nothing.

  You gunna make a statement?

  He’s like this all the time, goes the tall uniform. That bit he said before, about his girl doing her own thing, that was the biggest speech anyone’s ever heard him make.

  Quiet achiever, eh? goes shiny suit.

  Might need to go Plan B.

  He nods to the tall uniform who goes outside. That leaves plainclothes and the other uniform, short, dark, no-neck, head like a thumb. I ain’t seen him before. He ain’t said a word.

  Sitting in a fibro shed—the ‘interview room’. It has diagonal metal security grilles on the windows, and fly screens. I got my feet up in the air. All the lines in this room are way too confused, way wrong for me.

  You know she had a kid, don’t you.

  Cheap suit says it as a statement.

  Little girl. Year old now. Living with her grandparents. How does that make you feel, Dennis? Orphaned girl? No mum for her? Or dad? How does that make you feel? She yours? Course she isn’t. Course she bloody well isn’t. How did that make you feel when you found out about it? Eh Den?

  Always had it in for me. I burnt him off the points. Longboard kook. Trimmer. Wasted too many waves. I only had to bring some order to the place, some hierarchy, some respect. These blokes never forgive me for that.