by E. M. Reapy
‘Concentrate,’ the kangaroo’s wife said.
‘Why are ye doing this to me?’ Hopper asked. ‘I don’t want to think about them. The fizz will come.’
The moon was so big he could see the dents and potholes in it.
‘Concentrate.’
‘I only want to have a good time here in Australia,’ he said. ‘That’s the only thing I wanted.’
‘Thoughts that you have are generated by you,’ the wife said. ‘It’s not the event but how you interpret the event that’s important.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The way you think about what happened.’
His brain pulsed.
‘You decide,’ she said.
‘I decide?’
‘Yes.’
Hopper saw some movement in her. Inside her. A small kangaroo poked her head out of the belly. She sprung onto the road. A tiny version of them. She nodded at Hopper. She was mad cute. Her mother clicked and purred against her head. The baby Beckham hopped beside them.
Hopper stopped walking and started swallowing real quick. He didn’t want to go with them anymore. He didn’t belong with them.
Once, or more times, he wanted to pretend just once, he had a look on Marie’s Facebook page, just for pictures of the wee fella. Just so he could know he was okay. It was awful hard to turn love off. It wasn’t like a tap. In that way it was the same as the fizz. Hopper couldn’t get much of a power over it but the fizz did go. It came on strong and then died. That was the difference. He was still coming up on love. Only thing he knew for truth, it was the worst drug out there. The most dangerous shit going.
The baby kangaroo jumped back in its mother’s stomach-pouch. Hopper’s face was wet from crying and he dried it with his hands.
The wife kangaroo said, ‘Have you noticed what we do?’
He threw away the bag and the tube. The moon was finishing and the daylight would come soon. He scratched his head. This time he couldn’t get rid of the headache when the fumes wore off. ‘Hop,’ he said and hoped they wouldn’t laugh.
‘Yes, but to where?’
‘I don’t know where. Do ye migrate or one of those things?’
‘Concentrate. Where do we hop?’
‘Ye hop there,’ he said and pointed down the road. ‘Ye hop in front of ye. Forward.’
‘Forward. What does that mean?’
‘Come on, I don’t know,’ he said. His head was beginning to beat. ‘It means ye don’t go backwards?’
They clicked and tutted and purred to each other. They smiled at Hopper.
‘Oh,’ he said and stopped, putting his hand over his chest. He knew what that meant.
The big one said, ‘It’s time for us to go now, Hopper.’
‘Goodbye, my friend,’ the wife said.
Hopper laughed and said, ‘Goodbye,’ and when the words came out, they echoed. They were proper words that made noise on the outside. It was only when he could compare them to the way they were talking that he realised none of them had said a thing out loud the whole time until then.
★
The kangaroos left and it was day again. Or afternoon. Hopper might have passed out somewhere on the road.
It took him ages to take a piss and when he did, it was coming out nearly brown. It hurt so much behind his eyes he screamed to relieve the pain.
He tried to take cover from the sun but there wasn’t anywhere to go. His head started rolling and swelling and he thought it was going to balloon off his body into the sky.
The last thing he remembered was the puke coming before the fade.
★
The kangaroos came back. ‘Hopper, get up. Get up. Follow us. Don’t let go.’
But all he could do was groan and his face was wet with sick. It was puddled around the ground beside him.
‘Hopper, come on. You don’t have much time left.’
‘Am I dying?’
They clicked at each other and turend to him. ‘Yes.’
He struggled to sit. His head was making a drumming sound on the inside and he could feel the side of his face twitching. His hands were all shaking and he couldn’t see properly. Everything was blurry like his eyes were open in the river. He couldn’t get up.
‘Hopper, come on,’ they said.
‘I can’t.’ More sick was rising from his stomach. His legs wouldn’t work.
★
This was the end. He could feel it.
Sun was life.
Sun was fire.
Sun was death.
★
The blue sky was moving. Hopper’s head was bouncing. He was being lifted, arms over two men’s shoulders. They had his back.
An engine was running.
‘Get his legs. His legs. Watch him. Open the door of the truck.’
It was cool inside. Cool breeze. Water at his lips.
‘You’re gonna be alright, mate.’
An Australian voice.
★
They brought him to a shack place that looked like a halting site but was full of Australian lads. They had big teeth in their mouths and big black guns resting by their feet but Hopper wasn’t afraid.
They filled him with water. They left him in a bed in one of the caravans. He was asleep a lot. He only knew that when he was awake. They kept water beside the bed. They checked on him.
★
He woke again and felt a lot better. He yawned and touched his head and shoulders and chest, his legs. He played with himself for a minute or two but decided to stop. Bad courtesy to be wanking in someone else’s bed. He looked around the caravan. The lads were outside. Hopper took a breath and went out.
Four of them were sitting around watching the big red sun go down. They looked like brothers with their blondy mullets and teeth. The radio played guitar music.
Hopper didn’t tell them about the kangaroos. ‘I don’t know who found me. But I – you know – I—’
‘No worries,’ one of them said. He had a beard.
‘Thanks, like,’ Hopper said and looked at the ground.
They offered him a green deck chair.
Hopper asked, ‘Which way is it to Perth?’
One proper funny looking brother, his eyes very near together in his head and a big long jaw that didn’t look stuck onto his face said, ‘I’m driving to the city in the morning, mate. You can keep me company if you want?’
Hopper blessed himself. ‘Grand.’
He was shown the inside of the trailer properly to see where things were by a brother with a cracked front tooth. The heat was different to outside. It had nowhere to go in here. Dead heat. Hopper wiped his eyebrows and the tip of his nose. He was shown the bathroom, how to get the shower working and the ‘dunny.’
‘S’alright?’ the cracked tooth asked.
‘It’s fucking beautiful,’ Hopper replied.
The cracked tooth fried a big chunk of meat and the smoke fogged around the trailer. When he added an onion in and turned the meat over, it all noising and cooking and making that smell in the air, Hopper said, ‘That your dinner?’ and was mad jealous.
‘No, mate,’ the cracked tooth said and elbowed him in the arm. ‘It’s your dinner.’
He cooked the meat, got two big slices of white bread, lettuce and put them on a plate. All laid out nice like in a chipper. He gave it to Hopper.
‘Eat outside, mate,’ he said. ‘Too hot here.’
Hopper followed him out and went back to his deck chair. He nearly spilt drool onto the dinner he was that excited. He ate the lot of it quick and put the plate under his legs when he was done, rubbed his belly and grinned.
The beard one handed him a tin, drops of water coming off it from the cooler. ‘You’re a fortunate bloke.’
The beer was sweet.
He nodded at them. ‘I know I am.’
‘How long you out walking, mate?’
‘No clue.’
When Hopper was with the black ones it was maybe a few days or even more than
a week ago or it might have been the day before. Who even gave a shite about time keeping? It wouldn’t change the type of time you had.
The gas blasted onto his tongue, into his belly and he burped good and loud. That set a few of the others off belching.
‘No swag?’ A different one with nothing wrong with his face asked. ‘No mob? No Sheila?’
Hopper shrugged.
The cracked tooth raised his can. ‘No worries.’
He toasted that.
★
Hopper had a few more cans with them and once they got used to him, he told them about Ireland, about the twenty-six counties they definitely had at home and how mad it was that if you took all of Ireland, the north and south, it’d fit at least ninety times over into Australia. That’s how big Australia was. That’s how small Ireland was.
‘We should go to Ireland some day when they forget about me on the books back there,’ he said, inviting the lads to visit. That was only common manners but he didn’t really have a place to bring them to.
He had nowhere anywhere.
His chest seized with the sting of it.
The brother with the beard picked up his gun and shot at a big crow that had landed on the fence. The noise almost broke Hopper’s ears. He screamed and jumped out of his seat.
The others laughed.
Reminded him.
Maybe these Australians were going to reject him too? Like everyone. Pretend to be his friend, abandon him when he trusted them.
‘Why don’t ye do it so?’ Hopper said.
‘What?’
‘Ye’re fucking planning. Trying to trick me, aren’t ye?’
‘You need to calm down, mate,’ the one with the jaw said.
‘Ye going to fool me, yeah? Let me think I’m safe is it?’
‘What?’
‘Going to trick me into something. Make a joke of me after?’
Hopper raised his fist. Fizz was speeding through his blood.
‘I said, calm down, mate. Don’t be a fucking cunt.’
The others loomed around him on their seats. Hopper checked their faces. They’d do it to him. They would. That’s what all this show was for. Make him think they were friends then piss off on him and laugh their heads off about it forever.
‘Sit the fuck down, mate,’ the beard said. His voice was deeper.
Hopper sat down for a moment before jumping up and going for him. ‘Fuck ye,’ he said as he decked him into the head. It cut his knuckles he hit him so hard.
The others jumped out of their seats.
‘Come on,’ Hopper said, motioned them on, deafening with fizz.
He tried to fight the lot of them. He shouted the worst abuse he could think of. He insulted their mothers, their heads, their caravans.
He wrestled and scratched. The noise was far off. Shouts. Skids. Feet and boots and sandals against his skin. Flesh banging.
‘Come on,’ Hopper said.
He wanted them to beat the fizz out of him. He was pure weak but he wanted it.
He got a good tidy puck into the nose and it toppled him backwards onto the ground. He lay down. The blood trickled back his throat. Metal taste. He closed his eyes.
The kangaroos – they hopped forward.
They moved on.
The fizz faded thinking about that.
The Australians stopped fighting him. He stopped asking them to.
‘You alright, mate?’ the lad with the cracked tooth asked eventually. He’d his hand out to pick Hopper up. He hauled him onto his feet.
‘No,’ Hopper said and walked away from them, bleeding. ‘No, I’m not.’
★
Hopper stumbled down the road. His eyes were hot with the threat of tears. He walked on, not having a fucking clue where he was going, half-drunk, bloodied, busted up, alone. His chest was trying to shatter on him. His lower back had a dull throb that made him feel sick when he remembered it.
His skin was blistering. His lungs were dry. He was lost.
He heard an engine get louder in the distance. Some honks. He turned around. The mosquitos were bastards as dusk set in. The truck was behind him. It slowed.
‘Mate, she’ll be right,’ the one with the jaw that was driving to Perth in the morning said out the window.
‘What?’
‘You don’t know where you’re going, bro. Get in.’
Hopper looked at him. The jaw’s face was blank.
‘You sure?’ Hopper asked.
‘Sure as shit.’
Hopper smiled and went to the passenger side. He climbed in slowly. His body was in bad shape.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as the jaw did a U-turn.
‘It’s over now. The past is gone.’
‘It was the noise. After what I’d just been thinking about, being nowhere, when the noise happened – I don’t know how to explain it. Except, d’ya know when you’d lose the run of yourself with anger?’
The jaw looked at him. ‘Rage blackout?’
‘Yeah. Maybe one of them. I call it the fizz.’
The jaw nodded. He knew. ‘Mate, you’re fucking hard for a small fella.’
Hopper nodded. ‘Have to be.’
‘You want a stubby? Grab one from the esky,’ the jaw said and pointed at the cooler on the seat between them.
Hopper opened the lid. Some bottles of beer were bobbing around in the watery ice. He plunged his hand in, grabbed one.
But he let it go.
He took his empty hand out, wiped it on his jersey and drew in a long breath.
★
Kangaroos hop forward.
Kangaroos hop forward.
Hopper hops forward.
★
In Perth, Hopper worked for his accommodation. Easy. Hoovered the floor and stripped some bunks in the morning. Sprayed the showers with blue stuff. Emptied the dishwasher. Wiped counters. Got free breakfast and internet too. The weeks flew by with this new routine.
He got talking to a load of new people. Ones from Scotland, United States, Bolivia, Finland, Israel, Ghana, Turkey, Vietnam, Taiwan, Austria, Mexico, Indonesia, Algeria, Tonga, Brazil, Canada, Uganda, Japan, France, Guatemala, Slovakia, South Africa, Greece, China, Poland, Italy, India.
He fucking knew loads of people now. He had loads of friends. He was learning so much off them and he was getting them whatever they were looking for. He wasn’t a fucking saint, like.
He got in touch with Ruby after a week of being back. He explained jobs and the countryside hadn’t worked out for him. Doing deliveries was what he was good at. Skilled at.
He wasn’t trying product anymore though.
He kept his relationship professional with Ruby. They shook on that. He did want to ride her again but he’d wait until she was on for it. There were loads of other sexy women in the hostel anyway. There were loads of them that were sound too.
Ruby was dead on to work for. She paid Hopper fairly, gave him freebies which he sold and she praised him for his work. He was a valued employee. And she’d never beat him up or get someone to beat him up if she had a problem. She called him over to her apartment to discuss it.
When he passed things on to the travellers, he gave them a warning. ‘Too much of this stuff and you’ll be the same in the head as me.’
They’d laugh. He’d laugh. But he totally fucking meant it.
★
He was in the kitchen when he saw a girl. Irish. Definitely. Her eyes were bluer than the Castletown River on a fine day. He didn’t talk. Just watched her. She concentrated on cooking her bolognese. The flame massaged the frying pan.
One of Hopper’s dorm mates, a cowboy from Alabama, said hello. ‘We’re going to have a few beers, will you join us?’
‘I’ll get a cup of tea and hang out.’
‘What are you staring at?’ the Alabaman asked.
‘The fire,’ Hopper said, pointing at the pan, getting entranced again by it.
‘Hey? Hey man?’ the Alabaman said.
Hopper
got a jump and was back in the steamy kitchen.
‘You joining us?’
‘Yeah,’ Hopper said and tapped his skull a few times.
He followed the Alabaman to the common room and forgot about the girl until she was frozen on the stairs, holding two empty plates, gawping at him. He gave her a small wave. She gave him a slight nod of the head and went downstairs before rushing back empty-handed a few minutes later.
The Alabaman tried for a second time to convince Hopper to be a jackaroo on a cattle station in the Wheatbelt.
Hopper took a sup of his tea. ‘I can’t, I said this to you already. The countryside and me, well we’re not meant for each other.’
‘I don’t know why you won’t just come along. It sure will be an adventure.’
Hopper gave a chuckle.
‘Why you hooting? Why not join me?’
‘I got some things going here,’ Hopper said and it was no lie. Ruby’s next ambition was to get introductions to the new Irish, especially to the boys off their swings from the mines. Them loolahs were mad for buzzing and they had all the cash in the world for spending.
Besides, he liked Perth. It was tiny and isolated but at the same time, it had it everything even if it shut down early as fuck.
He got a shiver through his whole body.
‘You okay, Hopper?’ the Alabaman asked.
‘It’s like someone’s just crossed over me grave,’ Hopper said and shuddered again. He felt like he had to turn around.
Murph.
Murph was racing down the stairs, his bag on his back. The girl chased after him. Them. Hopper had a big sensation across his chest that it was something to do with him. Why they were running away. The fizz stirred at seeing Murph. Hopper inhaled and exhaled deep until it passed.
★
He went outside for a ciggy and a coffee later. Black swans flew overhead in a v-formation. They were long necked with slow beating wings. Hopper smiled as they trumpeted to each other in the air. He tried to take a photo of them on his phone but he wasn’t quick enough. Black swans. Who’d have believed him?
He sucked on the cigarette and blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. A car pulled in. Hopper watched as the girl from earlier got out. Murph was in the driver’s seat. She gathered her stuff.
She walked towards the entrance gate of the hostel. A solemn look on her face.