The Way We Roll

by Scot Gardner

  ‘Sorry about that. I got sick of the trolls.’

  ‘Unfriend them. Delete them. There has to be another way.’

  ‘Not quite that simple. I haven’t got internet at the moment, anyway.’

  ‘Whaaat?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m staying at a friend’s place.’

  ‘Ah, independent living. That’s got to feel liberating after Cedar House. How’s Claire? How’s school?’

  I retreated into my room and closed the door. ‘Claire’s . . . good. School’s fine. Same old, same old. You? How’s Carl?’

  ‘Carl’s as daft as ever. I’ll never need a puppy while that man is part of my life. I have papers and exams pending so it has a bit of an endgame feel about it, but I still have years to go. Sad face.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the old man?’

  ‘The old man? The old man? By that do you mean our father?’

  ‘Yes. Who else would I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. Never heard you call him that before. Is everything okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘No, I haven’t spoken to him. He hasn’t spoken to me, either, if you care to read the subtext. I did see something online about his new bimbo.’

  ‘Ha! Yes. Business as usual.’

  She groaned. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I sighed, ‘but I’m chewing my friend’s phone credit. You can call me on this number if you want.’

  ‘I shall commit it to my contacts presently. Hey, I’m coming home at the end of the month.’

  ‘For good?’

  ‘No, Tahlia’s gone and become engaged to her boyfriend of a hundred years and a few of the old crew are having a party, nay . . . a wake, for her.’

  ‘We should catch up.’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ll ring when I’m in town.’

  ‘I . . . I miss you,’ I blurted.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘That’s so sweet.’

  My ear felt hot against the phone.

  ‘Right,’ she eventually said. ‘Look after yourself, boof.’

  ‘You too, Sofe.’

  ‘Byeee.’

  I tossed the phone on the bed and rubbed my face with both hands. The bed looked . . . alluring.

  I made more noise than I needed to before entering the lounge, but they were still watching the movie. I gave Julian his phone.

  ‘Thanks. For everything. You said I’d thank you later. You were right.’

  He blew air and his lips rattled. ‘Whatever.’

  I brushed my teeth, peed again, closed my door and crawled into bed.

  My bed.

  OVERSHARE

  IT WAS PROBABLY eight o’clock when I woke. For the first time in an age, I had no desire to run to the gym. I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt, snuck out into the morning sunshine and peed on the back fence.

  ‘Morning,’ Julian’s mother sang. She’d claimed a camp chair.

  I peed on my hand in fright. ‘Sorry . . . I—’

  ‘Didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  I discreetly wiped my hand on my pants. ‘The guys were asleep. I didn’t want to disturb them.’

  ‘You’re right, love,’ she said. ‘Be thankful it’s socially unacceptable for me to pee in the yard or I might have joined you.’

  I laughed at that, mostly to try to erase the mental image she’d created. Mandy laughed too, low and husky. I lowered myself into the vacant camp chair.

  She patted the back of my hand and smiled. ‘Settling in okay?’

  ‘Perhaps a little too well,’ I said, nodding at the fence.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Still doesn’t make complete sense to me that you could be homeless.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t really my choice. My father works overseas . . .’

  ‘I thought you said he worked offshore?’

  ‘He does. Both.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean you have to be on the streets.’

  ‘We don’t really get on,’ I said.

  ‘What about your sister? How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-one. She’s living on campus over at Huddington.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘She’s not going to be much help then, is she?’

  I shook my head and silence fell. I missed Sofie. She had her own life and her own friends and she lived 500 kilometres away. I hadn’t really spent any time with her since I was thirteen and yet I wore her like a coat inside. As far as functional family went, she was it. Those thoughts led me back to the moment and the family that had drawn me in. I didn’t deserve their generosity.

  I drew a fifty-dollar note from my pocket and handed it to Mandy.

  ‘What’s this for?’ she asked.

  ‘Rent. Board. Expenses.’

  She handed it back. ‘You keep your money, Will. Save it if you can. Might come in handy down the track.’

  I pressed the note back into her hand and met her eyes. ‘Please take it. I have money.’

  ‘Then why don’t you get yourself a nice little flat or something? That’d be better than living in a dump like this with the likes of us.’

  ‘I don’t want a flat.’

  ‘Surely you—’

  She squinted at me again, and then her eyes flew wide. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  She sat up. ‘I’m not harbouring a criminal, Will. What have you done?’

  I laughed and showed her my palms. ‘I’m not a criminal. You watch too much TV.’

  She snorted and crossed her arms. ‘You watch your lip.’

  ‘I’ve lived at school since I was five. Mum was sick and my father couldn’t cope. Mum died. I stayed at school. When school was no longer an option, the streets seemed more congenial than the house on the hill.’

  ‘There you go. “Congenial?” You might have left a house and father behind, but you haven’t escaped your upbringing, that’s for sure.’

  She looked at me blankly for a second then shook her head. ‘Five years old? Poor love.’

  I shrugged. ‘Sounds bleaker than it was.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Nishi?’

  I pointed over my shoulder.

  ‘She knows what it’s like to have to fend for yourself. And it makes sense that you and Julian found each other.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She took a breath as if to speak but only a sigh came out. She patted my hand again and groaned as she levered herself out of her chair. ‘Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I followed her into the kitchen and sat on a wooden chair beside the fridge. Magnetic frames held faded photographs of the boys in school uniforms. Booboo as a pup. A bare-chested Sandy at the beach with a grinning boy under each arm. Julian had no front teeth.

  ‘Is Duane older than Julian?’

  ‘Eighteen months.’

  She slid a mug of milky coffee in front of me and sat opposite.

  ‘You wouldn’t pick it now, though, hey? Jules is out there, having a good time, very down on his brother. Duane’s at war with himself, and with Jules. I feel like a floppy bit of lettuce in their sandwich some days.’

  She sipped her coffee, recoiled at the heat of it and rattled her tongue in her mouth. ‘They did everything together when they were little.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She hunched one shoulder. ‘They grew up. The world let them down. Well, I let them down.’

  I noticed the elephant in the room.

  ‘Julian told me why he beat his uncle,’ I said.

  She shifted in her seat. ‘Did he?’

  ‘Said he’d been . . . out of line.’

  ‘Jesus, that’s the understatement of the century. The man’s a monster and the monster got to Duane before he tried it on with Julian. It went on for years before we found out.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘My own bloody brother,’ she growled.

  The back door creaked and Nishi entered wearing a hooded Hello Kitty nightie. ‘Mornin
g,’ she croaked.

  Mandy opened her arms but didn’t get up from her seat. Nishi hugged her from behind.

  ‘Morning, darling,’ Mandy said, kissing her arm. ‘Sleep okay?’

  ‘Jules snored so loud!’

  Mandy laughed.

  ‘He’ll have bruises this morning. I had to karate chop him.’ She cut the air with her hand a few times. ‘Morning, Will.’

  I smiled a greeting.

  ‘What did you think of Jenny?’

  ‘Jenny Wu?’ Mandy asked.

  Nishi nodded.

  ‘Oooh, did you guys have a big date?’

  Nishi snorted. ‘Not sure about that.’

  Then they were both staring at me. ‘I . . . She’s lovely. We didn’t really get to—’

  ‘I’ll text her later and see if she wants to meet up somewhere. You guys look pretty cosy. Where’s my coffee?’

  ‘Help yourself, honey. We’ve been having a good old chat.’

  ‘Oh? What have I missed?’ Nishi said.

  ‘Don’t let Will’s manners fool you. He had a rough start, too.’

  ‘Really?’ Nishi said.

  I shrugged. ‘Mum died when I was little. Dad couldn’t cope.’

  ‘True?’ Nishi said. She raised her eyebrows at Mandy.

  ‘He grew up in boarding school,’ Mandy said.

  ‘That explains a few things,’ Nishi said.

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  ‘That sounded a bit wrong,’ Nishi said. ‘Sorry.’

  She sat beside Mandy. ‘I mean, it makes sense that Julian and you can be friends. He’s a bit of a wounded bird himself.’

  I stared at my coffee.

  ‘And I find wounded birds irresistible,’ she continued.

  I looked up, straight into her eyes.

  ‘My dad died in a motorbike accident when I was three,’ she said. ‘Mum couldn’t cope. I grew up in foster care, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I got lucky.’

  We drank our coffees, made and ate breakfast together and talked. Nishi painted a picture of her foster parents that made me look at my life from a new angle. They were strict and fair and, above all else, present in her life. My home wasn’t in Garland – it was the St Alphaeus boarding house. There were periods when it felt like I was having a sleepover with my best friends every night. In primary school, that best friend was Levi, a Tongan prince. After he left I found a brother in Markus Baird, the son of a property magnate – but Markus became a dayboy when his parents moved to the city and they relocated to Singapore when we were in year eight. Those guys had been my siblings. Mr Singh and Mr Edwards were my favourite housemasters – Mr Singh for the poker lessons and Mr Edwards for laughing so hard when I split my pants that he ended up on the floor with tears running down the side of his face. They’d been my parents.

  Duane soon emerged from his room with Booboo. They didn’t wake up well. When Julian finally hatched from the bungalow, there wasn’t much left of the morning. He had epic bed hair and a mark on his neck. Nishi sucked a breath when she realised – at the same time I did – that the mark was a lovebite. Her cheeks coloured.

  Mandy shook with a husky laugh. ‘That a karate chop wound? Nishi said you were snoring again.’

  ‘I don’t snore.’

  Later on Nishi gave Julian a lesson on her scooter and he giggled and wobbled around in the long grass until the clothesline leapt out and bent the mirror. After that they went back to bed.

  I couldn’t sit still. I found a bucket and Mandy collected me a sponge and some detergent. I washed the grass and muck off Nishi’s bike. I used my toothbrush for the fiddly bits. There were a lot of fiddly bits.

  ‘Arghhh, put your shirt on, Will,’ Julian groaned when he finally emerged from the bungalow. ‘You’re blinding me.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Nishi said.

  Julian shoved her off the path and she laughed.

  ‘Nice job on the bike,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it was that clean when it was new. Thanks, Will.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ I said.

  Julian put his hands on his hips. ‘My pleasure,’ he mocked.

  I stood and wiped my hands on a rag. ‘Gentleman shit,’ I whispered, and he smiled.

  SECURITY

  JULIAN DIDN’T BOTHER with greetings on Monday morning. He didn’t say a thing until we were inside the shopping centre, cutting through to the brew room.

  ‘Someone should invent a smell watch,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, make coffee smells until ten o’clock then doughnut smells. Midday switch to baked bread. Four o’clock would be popcorn.’

  ‘That’s a really good idea,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised.’

  ‘I’m basking in your brilliance.’

  ‘You’re full of shit.’

  Three paces ahead of me, Julian went through the automated doors to the carpark, but I didn’t follow. A police car was parked beside Joanie’s tractor. I panicked and headed for the men’s. I’d known my cloak of invisibility would wear thin at some point but I hadn’t worked out what I’d do when they finally found me. Staying with Julian was the killer, I reflected – as soon as you settle, they lock the cross-hairs on you and you’re wasted.

  The door to the toilets creaked open and I stopped breathing. Footfalls on the tiles. They stopped outside my cubicle. Hands locked on the rail above the door and the owner of the hands hauled himself into a chin-up and peered over the sill.

  ‘What the . . . ?’ Julian said, and dropped back to the floor again. ‘You can give the homeless dude a bed but it won’t stop him camping in the toilets, hey?’

  I exhaled, flushed the toilet and opened the door.

  ‘Who are you hiding from?’ he asked.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘You’re missing all the action. The cops have Tefari.’

  I washed my hands. ‘Serious?’

  ‘Put him in the van and everything. Apparently he rammed a car with trolleys. They got it on CCTV.’

  ‘Then what are we doing in here?’

  ‘I’m . . . I was looking for you.’

  ‘Found me. Let’s go or we’ll be late.’

  Joanie tutted at both of us. It was three minutes past eight.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  She scowled at her feet. ‘Don’t make a habit of it or youse’ll get your pay docked. Jelat, you’re with Will and Julian today please, until we can work out what’s going on with Tefari.’

  ‘What’s going on with Tefari?’ Doug asked.

  ‘Mind your own beeswax, Doug,’ Ricky said, and checked both his watches. ‘Yeah, what’s going on with Tefari?’

  Joanie looked at Jelat, her lips tight. ‘Tefari deliberately damaged someone else’s property while at work. I’m not paying for his stupidity. He’s not coming back to work until he pays for the damage he did.’

  Jelat’s eyes didn’t leave his phone, but he shrugged, and then stood. He grabbed my shirt and marched me into the sunshine. Julian followed us.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘We got into a scrap last night,’ Jelat said. ‘It was those same idiots. They were too scared to get out of their car but they followed Tefari around the carpark. Called him a black bastard. Told him to go back to Africa. Nothing original, but it got to Tef.’

  ‘I would have snapped them,’ Julian said.

  ‘Tef wanted to. I should have let him. I should not have talked him out of it. Sometimes the little things turn into big things. He rammed the guy’s car. Now he’ll lose his job. He’ll go to jail.’

  He stuffed his earphones in, cranked up the dub-step and stalked off in search of trolleys.

  The idea of little things turning into big things hung with me all morning. One sideways glance at an Our Lady of Hope debutante ball, one tiny smile changed the entire course of my life. Claire was a big thing. Cosmic. Six months of being in her orbit and we were fused as binary stars and any astronomer watching us through their
telescope would know we were together for eternity. They’d chart our progress in millennia, quantify our stable orbit and predict the likelihood of us having satellite planets by the way the light escaped from our gravity.

  Who’d have predicted a black hole big enough to consume our everything was waiting for us? Who’d have foretold the end of our—

  ‘Have you ever noticed,’ Julian whispered, ‘that the mole on Joanie’s cheek looks like a lump of something from morning tea? Kind of like a choc chip from a muffin?’

  That was a connection I didn’t want to give brain space to. Thankfully, among the food wrappers and plastic bags in a trolley that people had used as a rubbish bin, I found a shopping list. The perfect distraction.

  Toothpaste

  Tortilla Crisps

  T’s and PL’s

  Fruit bars

  Paracetamol

  Tissues

  Chocolate (milk)

  ‘Is that chocolate milk or milk chocolate?’ I asked.

  Julian stopped his chain to give the list the attention it deserved.

  ‘Milk chocolate. That’s a no-brainer.’

  He balled the list and threw it at my head. I caught it and pressed it flat between my fingers.

  ‘Okay, so what are Ts and PLs? Tomatoes and pickled lettuce?’

  ‘Pickled lettuce? That the sort of shit they serve you in the Alfie canteen?’ He snatched up the list, balled it again and jammed it in a rubbish bin.

  We were on our final shop run before lunch, a convoy of three blokes and about fifty trolleys in a single line inside the centre. Jelat took point, Julian had the flank halfway along and I kept the momentum up from the rear.

  Enter the running man, pursued by security guys.

  In his early twenties, with shaggy hair and clothes, he threaded his way through the herd of lunchtime shoppers in front of us like a football star, until our string of trolleys slewed across his path. He shouldered Jelat and sent him sprawling. Julian kicked at his legs and he leapt over. I had no momentum for a tackle, but he was off balance and my outstretched arm hit the top of his chest like a bat. Dropped him. The milkshake he’d been carrying sprayed the shop window, the trolleys and me. My elbow locked around his throat. It wasn’t a strictly legal tackle and he bellowed and thrashed until the security guys grabbed his shirt and jacket. I released my grip and they hauled him, dripping, to his feet.