White Ute Dreaming

by Scot Gardner

  ‘Go him, Jacko,’ someone shouted, and the boxer charged in. The big bloke didn’t look so big walking back-wards but a few of his mates stopped him and he lifted his hands to protect himself. Jacko was taking no prisoners and he hit the big bloke so hard he cried out. The crowd had closed in. Someone yelled that Feldsborough was coming. Den laughed. Mr Feldsborough is the same size as the year sevens he teaches. I looked over my shoulder and saw him running with a few kids towards our huddle. Jacko let loose again and I heard that flesh-on-flesh slap that makes you go ‘Oooh’.

  Feldsborough was on the outside of the huddle trying to push his way through. ‘Let me through please, excuse me.’

  Nobody moved. The big bloke had rallied and a cloud of dust erupted around him and Jacko as they both fell to the deck, kicking and scrabbling, rumbling and humping along the ground like retarded spiders.

  ‘Break it up, now,’ Feldsborough squealed.

  The crowd oohed as the big bloke landed a thumper in Jacko’s breadbox. Jacko let him go and clenched his guts. It was all over.

  The crowd parted and Feldsborough pushed his way through.

  ‘Missed all the action, Feldy,’ Shane Lee said, and we started back towards smokers’ corner. Poor Feldsborough looked like he was going to blow a chip. His face was all red and I could see a vein pulsing in his forehead.

  Cindy Fanshawe knew all about the fight. She said Jacko and Walker were best mates but Jacko had nicked two cans of Walker’s beer at a party on the weekend. All that over two cans of beer? Bizarre.

  Kerry sat on the seat and hung on around my hips as I dinked her that night. I stood up and pedalled. It’s much easier than dinking Den on the handlebars. She was in a blistering hurry.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked me.

  ‘I’m fine. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  I looked at her over my shoulder. She wouldn’t look at my face. With her mouth closed, she stared at the front of an old bus that rocked from side to side as each kid jumped on board. I pedalled hard along Garrison Street and Den’s bus was really working going up the hill. I waited until it had passed before I crossed over but I didn’t realise how slow it was going and I nearly rode into the back of it. Rode into a cloud of black diesel exhaust. Mandy and Carly were having a good look at us through the back window as we blinked and coughed. I’m glad we couldn’t hear them. Kez let go with one hand and I realised it was to stick her middle finger up at Carly who was doing the same at her from the back of the bus. Things got suddenly worse.

  I hopped my front wheel up the gutter like I’d done a thousand times before. It’s so simple, you know, even with one hand and a stump. Just pull hard on the bars at exactly the right moment, the front wheel jumps up neatly onto the nature strip and the back wheel bumps up in its own good time. If I haven’t got Kez on the back I can flick the back wheel up too.

  The front wheel fell off. I dunno, maybe some dick-wank had loosened the nuts. It fell off and the forks ploughed deep into the soft soil of the nature strip, turning the bike into a catapult. Kerry and I took a short flight over the handlebars and crash-landed on the grass in front of four year-seven girls. My helmet slipped forward and covered my eyes. Kez landed on my back and squished the breath out of me. Oh God, don’t look at the bus, don’t look at the . . . Mandy and Carly had disappeared from the back window. At first I thought we’d been spared but they hadn’t resurfaced from a gut-laugh. Just as they got to the top of the hill I saw them. Carly was mopping her eyes. Mandy was shaking and I don’t think it was in sympathy. The year sevens had stopped walking but they didn’t make a sound until Kez rolled off my back and groaned.

  ‘Are you guys all right?’ one of the girls asked.

  I took my helmet off and looked at Kez. She was holding her arm and trying to look at her elbow. It was grass-stained but still in one piece. When she looked at me her face squashed like she was going to cry but laughter came out of her mouth. A crazy machine-gun laugh that got me and a couple of the year sevens going.

  ‘You all right, Kez?’ I asked and dragged myself onto my knees. My left hip had smacked into the handlebar. It was going to be a pearler of a bruise.

  Kez nodded, stood up and limped to where the front wheel had come to rest. The year sevens walked off cackling to themselves. Kez rubbed her elbow the whole time it took me to reassemble my bike. I dusted imaginary dirt off the seat and offered it to her.

  With a strained smile she said, ‘Nah. Thanks. I’ll walk.’

  I shrugged and jumped on the bike, caught up with her and picked up her hand.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I said.

  ‘It was nothing, Wayne. Good laugh,’ she said, and something must have caught her eye. She nearly screwed her head off to look at the garden we’d just passed. She sniffed and my guts went all soft.

  ‘Kez? What is it? You okay?’

  She wiped her face and looked at me. Her eyes were red and a tear hung on the side of her chin. I hadn’t seen her cry since she was little and it would be no big loss if I didn’t see her cry again. Almost burst into tears myself.

  ‘What’s the matter, Kez? You did get hurt! Where?’

  She shrugged and pointed to her heart. ‘Mum and Dad want to shift to New South Wales.’

  I don’t know if I’m particularly thick or what but until Kerry said that, the stuff that Den had said hadn’t made any sense. My girlfriend was shifting interstate. I chucked my bike and held her. She shook and sniffed. I held her hair and shushed in her ear.

  ‘Den told me that it wasn’t for definite certain.’

  She wiped her nose on my shoulder, apologised and smiled. ‘Yeah, it’s not. We haven’t found a house.’

  ‘Why New South Wales?’

  ‘Dad’s got a job with my uncle if he wants it. Dad says it’s his dream job. Uncle Al’s got a fish farm and he wants Dad to do the accounts and work with him on the farm as well,’ she said through a blocked nose.

  ‘A fish farm?’

  ‘Yeah. He grows koi. Big goldfish that he sends to Japan.’

  ‘What, they eat goldfish?’

  ‘No. Ornamental fish like our pet goldfish, only huge,’ she said and held her hands about a foot apart.

  ‘Massive! Sounds awesome.’

  ‘Yeah. Great. He gets his dream job and I get a nightmare.’

  ‘Nightmare?’

  ‘That’s what it feels like. Means I’ll have to shift schools, move away from all my friends. And leave you.’

  ‘Nah. Bugger that. I’ll stow away in your handbag.’

  ‘I haven’t got a handbag.’

  ‘Well, your sock drawer then.’

  She giggled.

  ‘Nah, make that your jock drawer.’

  ‘I haven’t got any jocks,’ she laughed.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  She punched me in the chest and started walking. I grabbed my bike and jogged to catch up with her. We held hands a lot on the way home but we didn’t talk much.

  Chapter Three

  ERNIE WENT A BIT FERAL THAT WEEK. I THINK HE MISSED US. HE managed to drag a couple of Mum’s work dresses off the line and trash them. Didn’t just make them dirty—tore great holes in them. Mum was pissed. She told me I had to get him a toy, so that Thursday after school Kez and I went to the pet shop at the plaza and bought a hard foam frisbee and a new lead of colourful fat rope. He trashed the frisbee in three minutes but the rope turned out to be a classic. Quite by accident.

  We took him for a walk. He peed on a few lampposts and sniffed out a few treasures that other dogs had left on the nature strip. When we got back he was still hyper. I took his lead off and hung it on the clothesline then roughed with him until he started growling and getting nasty with his diamond-tipped teeth. Kerry had gone inside and was looking out through the flywire door so I rolled him on his back to slow him down and bolted for the door myself. Kez let me in and almost slammed the
door on his nose. In disgust, Ernie started bolting around the yard growling and biting at the grass. He spotted the rope hanging from the clothesline and ran straight for it. He leapt at it like he was going for my kneecap, latched on with his teeth and was suddenly airborne. The clothesline spun like one of those playground wizzy-dizzy things, with Ernie shaking like a blowfly on the end of the lead. He spun for ages. Looked like he was too frightened to let go and Kez and I pissed ourselves laughing. When he eventually slowed down and banged into the ground he got up and shook himself with a stupid smile on his face. The dog was smiling. I wish I had a photo of it.

  Dad came over that night just before Mum got home. He flirts flat out with Kez and she loves it. Gives me the shits in some ways and in other ways it’s good. It’s good they get on okay and have fun and that, but sometimes he’s a bit too cheeky. Tells her too much stuff about when I was little. Like the time when we were waiting for Mum to bring over some spoons so we could eat our ice cream and I couldn’t wait. I was licking at the balls in my bowl and he slammed my face into it. One got stuck to my cheek and when I pulled back it dropped into my lap. Arsehole. Trust him to remember that. Kez told him about Ernie the flying wonder dog and Dad was impressed. More impressed than if I’d have told him the story, for sure. Still, it was probably because Kez was there that he made the offer to take Ernie with him during the days. He said they could keep each other company and it would stop Ernie from dying early if he trashed another one of Mum’s dresses.

  I thought it was a good idea but when Dad came around to pick him up before school, I felt like a mum.

  ‘He doesn’t like pastry of any sort but he’ll eat the meat out of a pie. I’ve got an ice-cream container here to put some water in and another one—the one with the lid—has got some dog biscuits in it. Don’t give him all of them at once or he won’t eat them. He just leaves them if they’re not fresh.’

  Dad smiled and stuffed him in the front of his rusty old ute. Chucked all the supplies in the back. I watched them until they’d driven around the corner and then zipped off to school. Early for once.

  There was a note in my locker. Someone had poked it through the side of the door and it had landed on the top of my maths book with the envelope all sort of scrunched.

  Dear Wayne,

  I’ve written a poem for you. Hope you like it.

  Wayne, Wayne you’re so cool.

  When you walk by I feel like a fool.

  My stomach gets tied up in knots,

  Cos Wayne, you babe, you’re hot to trot.

  Love Anonymous

  Wasn’t Kez’s handwriting. Nothing like her flowing scrawl. Each letter had been painstakingly crafted and the ‘i’s had little love hearts instead of dots. Bit of a laugh really. Cool poem. I was reading it for the ninth time when someone said good morning to me. It was Richo, the principal. I nearly shat my pants. I stuffed the note into the locker and slammed the door shut.

  ‘Good morning, sir. How are you?’

  ‘To be honest, Wayne, on top of the world. Everything is working out well.’

  That was good news. Last time we spoke, Richo was as sick as a dog. I think it was cancer or something. He had a heap of time off school. He told me it was the stress. I’d noticed that he was back but our paths hadn’t really crossed until now. He looked different. His eyes were sort of glowing and he had a wild tie on. A colourful stripy number that looked as out of place on him as it would have on me. There was a kind of stunned silence then he rattled the keys in his pocket and shifted feet.

  ‘I was wondering if you could pass on a message for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Whatever.’

  ‘I’ve asked your mum if she would do me the honour of coming with me to the theatre on Thursday and she has gracefully accepted. I wonder if you could let her know that I’ll be around to pick her up at 7 pm.’

  Whoah! Richo you sly dog. He and Mum have been friends for ages. They were at the same school and they went out a couple of times before I was born. I’ve got to say that it has made my school life easy having the principal on my side. My side? He could have been my dad and I don’t think there’d be another kid in the school he could talk to like he talks to me. I kept a straight face.

  ‘Seven o’clock? Yeah, no worries. This Thursday?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. How are things going for you?’

  ‘Yeah. Good.’

  There was another one of those dorky pauses like we were both waiting for the other to say something then Fay called him over the PA. He raised his eyebrows at me, waved towards the office and left. Sly dog.

  I told Den about it at recess. He had a bit of a chuckle and told me that the thought of Richo and my mum together was a bit off. I had to agree.

  ‘The thought of my mum with anybody is a bit off.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I got instantly angry when Den said ‘yeah’. I know that sounds stupid but he said it like a put-down. He said it as though he really didn’t like my mum. Not just stuffing around but like he meant it. The stupid part is that I put her down all the time. If I’m honest, she shits me up the wall. Sometimes. And I pay out on her at every opportunity but Den had no right. What had she ever done to him? I looked at him and a cloud settled over my head. He was puffing on the last of a PJ 12, holding it with his thumb and first two fingers and taking little drags so he didn’t burn the shit out of his mouth. I thought he was a wuss. From where I stood he looked like someone I’d never met before. The shape of his hair was different or something.

  ‘Dad and I went to the library last night,’ he said.

  Yeah. Big deal.

  ‘We went surfing on the Net. It’s free and Dad wanted to check out the real estate around Fishwood. Mate, there were some cool houses. Dad said it was pretty cheap.’

  Good. Go.

  I was glad when Dad got home that night. Ernie rode home in the back of the ute. Had a crazy windblown grin on his face. Kez went home in the bus so I had Ernie to myself for an hour or so before Mum got home. Dad told me he’d been perfect and that he’d take him again tomorrow if that was okay. Yeah. Whatever. I tried to rough and tumble with him after Dad left but I couldn’t really be bothered and he nipped at the side of my hand and made it bleed. I felt like bashing the shit out of him but I couldn’t catch him. It turned into another game and I gave up after I’d let off some steam.

  I stuck my head inside the mower shed. It smelt like cat piss and rotten grass clippings. I realised I hadn’t been inside for ages—since I’d given up smoking at the end of last year. I thought I could go a smoke, even if God did strike me down for starting up again. I stepped inside and felt above the door. My lighter was still there and a tin cigar box that I remembered as soon as I felt it. My dope stash. I popped the lid and it took me on a journey. There was a bit of head mixed with tobacco and a packet of rollie papers still in good nick. I got the weed at Hendo’s sixteenth in March last year. We had a sleepover and he had a huge stash in his bungalow. I borrowed some when everyone was asleep. Hid it in the mower shed the next day and promptly forgot it was there.

  I rolled myself a joint. It was bloody awkward with one hand and it ended up looking like a little trumpet. I closed the door of the shed—well, scraped it across the concrete until it covered most of the entry—and lit up. Harsh on my throat but heaven on my head. Ernie was scratching at the door. I told him to piss off and the door scraped open. Mum was standing there. Caught green-handed. Fire alarms went off in my head. Emergency.

  ‘What the bloody hell are you up to?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just having a smoke.’

  ‘Doesn’t smell like “just having a smoke”.’

  I shrugged again.

  ‘Give it to me. Where the hell did you get that?’

  I shrugged. ‘From a mate.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I dunno. It was ages ago.’

  ‘Bullshit, Wayne,’ she shouted. ‘Who did you get it from?’

  ‘Hendo . . . I think.
Last year.’

  ‘Get to your bloody room. You’re grounded for a month.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get to your room,’ she shouted.

  Ernie followed me inside and cowered as I slammed every door. I flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I would have been angry but my head was too fuzzy. I scratched Ernie and he rolled onto his back beside me. Sometimes I can’t stand her. Sometimes I can’t stand her guts.

  She called me out for dinner. We sat on the couch, chewing our chops and potato and peas in silence. The telly was prattling on but you could have cut the air with a knife. Well, maybe an axe. Looked like Derrick was going to win the lot on Sale of the Century. It was his fifth night and his score was one hundred and twenty-five and the next closest contestant was on thirty. What a whipping. Terri, the chick that does the business on the show—the one with the cleavage—said that if he kept going like he had been he’d be playing for all the prizes on Thursday night. I remembered the message.

  ‘You’ll probably miss that,’ I said to Mum.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thursday. Richo said to pass on the message that he’ll pick you up on Thursday at 7 pm.’

  I watched her face and her eyes flashed.

  Heh, heh. Got you there.

  She nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said, almost to herself, and all the monsters had crept out of her head. When the music started and the credits rolled, she hit the mute button and got up with her plate of bones and grease.

  ‘I’m disappointed, Wayne.’

  If that’s not the beginning of a lecture I don’t know what is.

  ‘What is it with dope?’

  I thought it was one of those questions she was going to answer for me then I realised that she was waiting for me to respond.

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘How long have you been addicted?’

  ‘Addicted? I’m not addicted.’

  ‘Why were you cowering in the shed then?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘How much do you smoke?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘How much?’ she asked.