by Scott Monk
A generator whined underground. It was a sad, dying sound like fading power. Soon, the entire station dimmed and the shadows thickened.
Cl-lick – Cl-lick – Cl-lick –
He jumped.
Cl-lick – Cl-lick – Cl-lick –
What was that?
Cl-lick – Cl-lick – Cl-lick –
Those slow, broken sounds?
He almost called out again but sensed danger. There was definitely another person down here with him, maybe a maintenance man coming to fix the generator.
Cl-lick – Cl-lick – Cl-lick –
No, that didn’t sound like an electrician. There was no torchbeam or rattle of tools. Maybe it was best for him to leave. But the noise was approaching the turnstiles – his only way out!
Cl-lick! Cl –
The lights powered up suddenly and Michael barrelled into a group of teenagers. ‘Hey! Watch out, kid!’ they protested, drawing looks from the other commuters. They gathered their school gear about them and stared as if he was crazy. He looked round the platform, confused to see both old ladies finally walk away, the woman swallow her noodle and the boy pick up and pocket his ticket. People moved freely, as if no longer snared by time.
He stepped away. Maybe he was crazy.
Cl-lick – Cl-lick –
Wait. That noise.
He weaved through the commuters and spotted a homeless man wearing a chequered hat, an olive coat, several layers of ghastly shirts and a pair of green trousers tucked into football socks. His hair was orange, thinning and slicked back, and he limped with the support of a single aluminium crutch. At least that explained the clicking. Michael breathed, watching him beg for money. Maybe it was the man’s appearance or smell, but everyone he asked hurried through the turnstiles with their briefcases, children or parcels held tightly.
The 4.20 approached. Commuters folded their newspapers or collected their shopping bags as a blast of chilly, metallic air preceded the headlights of the train. The shrill of dozens of rolling wheels deafened the platform for a second, before giving way to a ruckus near the turnstiles.
‘Let go of me! That’s my train!’ the homeless man said, blocked by the transit staff from passing through.
‘No ticket – no train.’
‘I don’t need a ticket.’
‘And we don’t need you hanging around here.’
The guards tried herding him towards the stairs as commuters turned away, having seen it all before. A few snorted or laughed into their phones. ‘How disgusting,’ one girl sniffed.
‘You’re hurting me! Let go!’
‘Come on. Crutches or no crutches, you can still walk –’
‘I said I’ll find you an extra lousy dollar if you let me!’
The train came to a rest as a recorded voice listed off the designated stations. People inside and out crowded round the doors, waiting for them to open.
‘Mister,’ Michael said, urgently reaching forward. He stood on the other side of the turnstiles, holding out a dollar in change. ‘Here.’
‘Save your money, son,’ the first guard said. ‘He’ll only waste it on alcohol.’
But Michael offered it again.
The homeless man struggled free then leered down his veiny nose at the twelve-year-old boy and the coins. Without so much as a thank you, he swiped them and teetered off, watched by the guards, who shook their heads.
Michael just squeezed through the closing doors of the train.
Rain fell as he stared out at the grey city. Demolition crews, skyscrapers, peeling billboards and grim-faced police cordoning off a car accident slipped by before the scenery broke into hundreds of dark blotches and became one wet blur. With a sigh, he rested his head against the cold window and dreamt of green fields, tree houses and jumping with his brother and sister into rivers buzzing with dragonflies. Back at the farm, there were no snooty classmates or Thornleigh sisters who made him miserable. And today had been one of his better days.
A passenger prowling between carriages distracted him. He sat upright as, to his amazement, the orange-haired homeless man searched for a seat. But how? He himself had only barely jumped on board – and he already had a ticket. Soon, though, Michael wished he hadn’t. With great theatrics, the homeless man collapsed in the second row, facing the back. He coughed, wheezed, burped and picked his nose, making sure everyone caught the show. Two commuters moved to other seats, while a third clutched her bags, too scared to follow.
Michael’s cheeks burned. He felt the other passengers’ ire. But his mum had taught him to be kind to those less fortunate than himself. ‘Just because somebody’s got dirt on their face doesn’t mean you have to treat them like it,’ she’d always say. Also, deep down, he’d helped the beggar out of silly bravery. He wanted to prove to himself that the cl-lick cl-lick man was nothing more than a harmless fright.
As the beggar quieted to everyone’s relief, Michael cast one last uneasy glance towards him and stiffened. Discreetly this time, the man caught a cockroach crawling beside his seat and held it squirming by its antennae. Rather than squashing it underfoot, though, there was a strange shifting behind his coat buttons. A hairy, white claw shot out, snatched the bug then vanished!
Michael blinked. At first, the stranger ignored him. But then he turned with a cold, festering stare that forced Michael to look away.
Five stops later, he was still stunned as a rush of umbrellas, newspapers and sprinters dashed past him into waiting cars, leaving him soaked at the bottom of the station. He plodded upwards to street level when someone barged past and knocked his shoulder. ‘Hey!’ he protested, until he noticed it was the homeless man striding three steps at a time.
In his haste, the beggar dropped something small, brown and leather. Reaching the top, Michael picked up the wallet. It contained cash. Lots of cash.
‘Wait! Mister!’
But the homeless man was gone. And he no longer used a walking crutch.
3
His sister was under attack. A young man thrust his bamboo sword at her stomach then her face. But Samantha Bowman knocked it aside and retaliated with her own weapon. She slashed, parried and yelled; overwhelming him with speed and precision. She blocked a swinging blow near her wrist, swept away his sword and flung him off balance. The threat of being beaten by a twelve-year-old girl rattled him. However, Samantha grew excited. She could win this fight. She could be the best. With a loud cry, she charged forward and chopped her sword at his skull. But rather than striking his helmet, it thwacked against the floor of the basketball court, allowing him to easily slice at her hip. It hammered her padded blue armour before their sensei ended the match.
Red-faced, Samantha tore off her own helmet and threw away her bamboo sword before marching barefoot towards the change rooms. The other kendo students sniggered until the sensei ordered silence and everyone to kneel. That included her. But she wasn’t going to meditate. She wasn’t going to follow orders. She wasn’t even going to practise stupid kendo anymore. She snatched her school bag and palmed open the exit when a younger sensei grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back.
‘You should have waited for him to attack you,’ he said. ‘You need to learn patience.’
‘I know! But patience doesn’t come quick enough!’
Tossing her armour and gloves into a bin, she slammed the outer door, which swung inwards again and almost hit Michael.
‘I suppose you saw?’ she said, striding into the rain.
‘Don’t give up,’ he said, hopping into his water-logged shoes. ‘You were starting to get good.’
‘Good at looking like a jerk!’
‘You’re not a jerk.’
‘Hello. Twenty people inside are laughing at me!’
He kept quiet and hurried beside her, barely keeping pace with her long legs. He wanted to talk about the homeless man’s wallet, but she was in a foul mood – one he’d grown accustomed to during the past six months.
Her temper worsened when a car spe
d through an amber light and splashed them with a great wing of water. ‘Arghhh!’ she yelled. Double ‘Arghhh!’ when a pair of teenage boys laughed behind her. She grabbed Michael by the wrist and yanked him towards a cluster of high-rise apartments. He struggled free and rubbed away the pain. ‘Fine!’ she said. ‘Walk home by yourself! See if I care!’
His shoulders sank as she disappeared among the black umbrellas. Men and women in suits shunted him out of the way as they fought for taxis or knocked on bus doors. Standing under a thin awning, he added another reason why he hated this city: it was easy for a kid to be forgotten.
He moped in the streets a while longer. He didn’t feel like going home. He stared into the shop windows he passed: internet gamers blasted each other with little emotion; roast ducks hung by their long necks at a Chinese barbecue kitchen. His final stop was accidental. Following his feet, he passed a department store, only to be cornered by a spruiker dressed as a giant baby chicken.
‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!’ the baby chicken said into a scratchy microphone. ‘Twenty-five per cent off. That’s right. Twenty-five per cent off all children’s shoes, clothes, underwear and skateboards.’
Michael was hooked.
He drifted among the rows of sleek rides plastered with logos of skeletons, aliens, Tahitian surfers and roaring flames. They were the brands owned by cool kids at school. He tested one and imagined himself cruising along the streets, sliding down railings and hanging out with the popular boys. He’d be able to find a replacement for his second-hand termite biscuit now in pieces.
Turning over the price tag, he sighed. Even ‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!’ was too expensive. Unless –
He opened the homeless man’s wallet. Twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, two hundred dollars! It contained a fortune! There was enough for a new board – plus shoes!
A light flickered above and a security guard frowned at him. Moving on, Michael closed the wallet. A new skateboard could wait. The money wasn’t his. He’d hand it into the police and give a description of the homeless man. Olive coat, chequered hat, one aluminium crutch –
That crutch. What kind of person faked an injury to sponge spare change from twelve-year-olds? And judging by the thickness of the wallet, he wasn’t the only sucker. Maybe he should buy the skateboard anyway. Yeah, teach the homeless man – if indeed he was homeless – about stealing.
Minutes later, he walked through the sliding doors with a skateboard – the remains of his old one. He couldn’t bring himself to buy a new ride. That would be stealing too. His termite biscuit was only good for firewood now, but he’d earn the money picking blueberries at his dad’s farm.
Angling into the rain, he detoured east. Since moving to the city, his mum had drilled the location of all the city’s police stations into him, his sister and brother. ‘Just in case there’s trouble,’ she said, after asking them to recite the addresses for the fourth time. The closest was near a giant movie complex, flashing with the latest blockbusters. He slowed at the first smell of popcorn. All those films wanting to be seen! All that chocolate waiting to be eaten! Again, he felt the weight of the homeless man’s wallet. It would only be twenty bucks this time – small change compared to the price of a new skateboard. C’mon. Finders keepers, right?
No. He pushed back his wet fringe then walked down the final street.
Passing a TV store, he glanced into its docking bay when he saw, rummaging through flattened cardboard boxes, the homeless man.
‘Where’s your crutch?’ Michael asked, spitting out rain.
The homeless man grabbed the bin and hobbled round to face him. ‘Get away from me. They’re mine!’ He reached for his crutch leaning against the wall and jabbed it into his armpit.
‘Remembered to take it with you this time, eh?’
Ignoring him, the beggar collected three damp boxes then cl-licked, cl-licked, cl-licked into the street.
‘I should report you to the police. It’s not right to rip off people, y’know.’
‘Get lost, kid. I don’t talk to strangers.’ Then, with a change of mind, he turned on Michael and demanded, ‘Unless you know where I could find bigger boxes.’
Michael reeled at the smell. ‘Why would I?’
‘Then stop bothering me. I’ve got houses to build.’
Michael followed him. He wanted answers. But for a man on a crutch, the beggar sure moved fast. He hurried past the cinema, weaved through the crowd, stepped into peak-hour traffic and – ‘Watch out!’ – almost walked slap-bang into a cement mixer! It braked hard and – UUURRRNNNTTT! – missed him by an arm’s length.
‘Are you all right?’ Michael asked, letting go of the homeless man’s greasy jacket, feeling his own pulse race as if he’d just avoided being killed. Further down the wet street, truck tyres smoked as the driver struggled not to jackknife.
‘Of course I’m all right! That was until you yanked me back on the footpath! You’ve probably given me whiplash or a slipped disc. I need a lawyer! Somebody!’
‘But I just saved you. That truck was going to –’
‘They’re my boxes, okay. Find your own.’
Michael stared at him, speechless. The beggar did likewise, bugging out his eyes in disdain.
‘Hey! You!’ a man shouted. He was squat and bulldoggish: all chest and teeth. His cement mixer blocked two lanes of traffic behind him. ‘Pick my truck to walk in front of, hey?’
‘Are you shouting at me?’ the homeless man answered.
‘So you’re deaf and blind?’
‘Only when listening to rude little men like you.’
‘Why you!’ The crowd of onlookers restrained the driver before he swung a punch. ‘You were in the middle of my lane!’
‘And you are in my face!’ The homeless man jabbed his nose at the driver, whose face couldn’t get any redder, then slicked back his orange hair. With a huff, he switched his crutch to the other armpit, turned on his heels and cl-licked away. This infuriated the driver more, who kept yelling until his insults were washed away.
‘And why are you still following me?’ the homeless man asked as Michael pushed through the pedestrians.
‘I –’
‘Go on then. Take one. Take a box if you must.’
He handed over the flattened cardboard, only for a brown tail to pop from his sleeve. It whipped back inside his coat instantly. Michael gawped. There was that creature again. Was it a rat?
The homeless man snatched back his box. ‘Well? Oxygen’s everywhere, y’know. Find another corner to breathe.’
Remembering why he was even chasing this man, Michael strode after him and fished out his wallet. ‘I came to return this.’
Without even knowing what Michael held out, the homeless man suddenly paused, craned his neck then slowly turned round, ignoring his money to lock his gaze on the boy. For a long moment, all they shared was the rain. The homeless man’s right eye tightened with suspicion while his left curled with curiosity. Readjusting his aluminium crutch, he dropped the boxes against his legs, scanned the streets then snatched away the wallet with the same force he’d shown at the turnstiles. He flicked through the notes, counted them twice then secreted them among his several pockets.
Michael wanted to ask the beggar how he had so much money but was suddenly dismissed with a sniff. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I need to find a foreman to build my house, thank you very much.’
He hobbled into traffic once again, forcing cars to swerve or brake. Drenched, Michael watched him scare people out of his path until he vanished among the crowd.
4
Wrapping a jacket around his pyjama top, Michael dashed across the roof of his apartment building as the high, wet winds frightened his long hair into ghastly shapes. He dropped a handful of turkey meat into a nest then returned to the doorway. The mother hawk shrieked and he half-smiled. This was his favourite hiding place in the city too. There were no Thornleigh sisters to dodge or school kids calling him a murderer after learning that ‘country boy’ once be
headed a chicken for a Christmas dinner. It also proved to be the perfect escape from his parents’ arguments, which were becoming more blistering on the phone closer to the divorce.
It was his square of freedom. Here, he could read books, sketch superheroes or launch toy paratroopers into the thermals blown upwards by the loud air vents. Sure, he heard the saxophonist in the next building honk like a walrus and Mr Duncan’s own tooting on the toilet below, but it beat being crushed among the faceless pedestrians far beneath him. Once he’d thought only rich people lived in high-rise apartments, but now he realised it was just one human box stacked on another, on another, on another –
Boxes. He never wanted to hear that word again.
‘Where are you, you creep!’ His sister’s screaming echoed up the stairwell from their apartment, which again was a war zone. ‘Luke! I’m talking to you!’
Michael entered without anyone noticing.
Samantha charged into the living room, where the third of the Bowman triplets sat wriggling on the threadbare carpet, avoiding missiles and cluster bombs. He was too busy blasting aliens to listen. Bad luck. She pulled the power cord from the game console.
‘Hey! I’m saving the universe here!’ Luke said.
‘What did I warn you about if I found you reading my diary again?’
‘Who says it was me? It could’ve been Mikey.’
‘There are biscuit crumbs all the way through it. And tomorrow’s entry says: “I’m an ugly, skinny freak who’s in love with Rajan Sudhakar!”’
‘You didn’t write that?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you. You were too busy screeching into my ear!’
‘Mum! Luke’s been reading my diary again!’
‘Then you should hide it in a better place,’ she answered, walking down the hallway and zipping up her paramedic’s jacket.
‘I want my own room!’
SLAM!
‘And stop banging that door.’
‘You tell her, Mum.’