Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

  — Oh, a couple of years now, I guess. Head back in for the footy and the family bit quite often, though.

  — Yeah, me too. Don’t miss the joint at all, but. Things ain’t getting any rosier in there.

  — You’re not bloody wrong. About a hundred more families in the shit as of last week.

  — Oh, yeah: the West Rail restructure. My brother-in-law looks set to get chopped through that. Poor prick. He’d just found his feet again after the Telstra lay-off. He’ll probably have to go back to selling knick-knacks out of his boot, just to keep the kids in school … even though the coppers busted him through security footage a coupla years ago.

  — Yeah? Well, I know lads in there doing worse than that for bread and butter right now. What choice’ve they got with all the factories being shipped off to Slopeville, and the suits in Canberra selling out us fair dinkum trying to stop the flow?

  — Privatisation, mate: the worst thing to happen to Cabramatta.

  — Except for the Wests–Balmain merger, that is.

  — Haha. Too bloody right.

  — Anyway, you’ll find yourself with a fair crack of the whip now, Trav. The Cabra lad made good!

  — Ha. Yeah, well, I’m planning on making the most of it, I assure you of that. Tell ya what, I’ve been looking forward to learning this side of things, though.

  — I bet ya bloody have! All right, I’ll talk ya through your duties as we work. See this screen here?

  — 4E?

  — Yeah. It’s currently showing the arrivals off Flight QA07, Auckland to Sydney, entering the baggage carousel area. Full consignment deplaning from a 747: about 400 punters.

  — Fuck me drunk, more of the bastards. You can’t move in Sydney for Kiwis these days. Everywhere you listen, ‘fush and bloody chups’. What’s the attraction here?

  … — I reckon they’re just looking for something they used to have; something we’re losing more of by the day.

  — Yeah, I s’pose. And I’d sooner live next to ten Kiwis than two Coons. This is where most of our surveillance happens, then, is it? The baggage carousel?

  — No, only part of it. You can learn a fair bit watching someone here, but passport control’s the best place for it. Do you remember how to use the cameras from training school?

  — Certainly do.

  — Good on ya. You’ll wanna skill yourself right up on the system here: it’s state of the art and with CCTV spreading as fast as it is, a good operator can write his own pay cheque. No more food-stamp dinners for you, my son. OK, fire ya board up.

  — Done.

  — Good man. Now, New Zealand’s not a high-risk country, so without special orders our quota is five people in a hundred. From a flight like this, then, it’ll be your job to select about twenty-five passengers. Around the carousel, because they’ve got something to focus on, it’s much easier for a felon to disguise their body language, so what we’re mostly looking for here are those arrivals who avoid the roving dog-handlers. You’ll see we’ve got two beagle teams on the floor at the moment, and if someone’s got something illicit in their luggage or on their person they’ll steer clear of wee Snoopy as if he’s Cujo on a crash diet. Look for that. Once you’ve a little experience it’ll stick out like ’roo balls.

  — OK. So where are most of our selections made, then? In the queue before passport control?

  — That’s right. That way we get a real good look at them while they’ve got nothing to do. We then pass descriptions and queue positions down to the shift co-ordinator and he takes it from there, interacting with us when necessary.

  — This is the zoom key here, right?

  — That’s the one. Strewth, you’ve found a likely piece of crumpet there, digger! Haha. You’re a quick learner. She’d inspire soggy-biscuit in an old-folks’ home! Go in on that cleavage a little, will ya … just for the practice. That’s the beauty of these cameras: on full zoom ya can sit here and watch a sheila blowing fanny-farts through work overalls.

  — Actually, I was more interested in her behaviour. I noticed her leaving the dunnies just as I sat down, and now she’s heading back in again.

  — Well, that’s that, then. A double dunny user goes on the list automatically. She’s sweating like a pig besides.

  — Excuse me, ma’am. Could I see ya passport, please?

  — Sure. Here you go. Why, though? The bloke back there just stamped it.

  — Just routine, ma’am. No need for alarm. You’ve nothing to declare then?

  — That’s right. Nothing at all. Green aisle all the way.

  — Good for you. I’ll just need ya to accompany me for a short while. If ya’d like to head through that door?

  — … Why?

  — Just a routine search, ma’am. Nothing at all to worry about.

  — … Oh… Must I?

  — Fraid so. Pack ya own bags, did ya … Tania?

  — Bugger me! You must have missed the signs!

  — … Signs?

  — At Auckland airport? Telling you it’s illegal to take more than ten grand cash from the country? … Tania?

  — … Yeah, I guess I missed them.

  — Obviously! It’ll have to be counted, of course — as soon as the federal police arrive — but, at a guess, I’d say there’s a heap more than ten gs here! Quite remarkable, really. It isn’t every day you meet a girl carrying readies like this in her luggage! You seem to’ve done outstandingly well for yourself in your … twenty-three years. Over-achiever, are you: the ambitious type?

  Or just plain greedy?

  19

  1 year later, Sunnyside Hospital

  The loons are away eating breakfast when the hack brings Vicki to the dayroom. Neither of them sees me at first. Sprawled on the couch’s rubber upholstery (resistant, ma’am, to Mars Bars, vomit and arterial spurting; a steal at twice the price). Surrounded by books. Though not my books. I don’t read any more; the prose won’t stop grinning. These days walls make a far better read.

  Walls and doors.

  No windows, though. They can keep their fucking windows.

  The hack smells me and points. Vicki sees me and starts across, uncertainty tangible.

  Me, rehearsing my Parole Board grin: ‘It’s OK, Vick; this ain’t a real prison … and I still don’t know how to bite.’

  A smile tickles her lips; her steps firm up: firm with the resolution of one who has done this before.

  More than once.

  ‘Almost didn’t recognise ya there, girl. By Christ, if you don’t look a million big ones!’

  It’s true too. What’s happened to the gangly girl I read Roald Dahl with? The Form One Dux with her mouth too busted for acceptance speeches? The Rabble moll in jeans so tight they winked?

  Frowning shy pleasure: ‘Oh, these are just my work clothes.’

  ‘Yeah? Where are ya working? Diva, Boutique and Beauty?’

  A tight giggle; a warm blush: ‘Shut up, man. I’m just doing secretarial stuff for a mortgage broker.’

  Hearty: ‘Oh, that’s really awesome, eh.’ Were you wanting a large noose or a tighter one, Miss Smith?

  And I’m set to blow more air at her when the sentence’s real words soak through.

  ‘I’m just doing secretarial stuff …’

  ‘… just doing secretarial stuff …’

  … JUST …

  … For fuck’s sake, Vicki, when I last saw you, you were just about to screw a whole pride of urban poison!

  Again, meaning it, surprised I still can: ‘Seriously, Vicki, that’s the best news I’ve had in yonks. When did all this happen?’

  She takes a chair and sits across from me. ‘I moved out to an auntie’s place ’bout a year ago.’ She can’t meet my gaze. ‘Done a few courses up at Tech to help get started. Been at the job for six weeks now.’ Mystified. ‘They all think I’m wonderful.’ The hue of her skin completes the sentence: If only they knew.

  Me, reflexive: ‘That’s because you are wonderful.’ Tentative, fishing:
‘Did Hemi give you any problems?’

  She looks at me now, eyes wide, spellbound. ‘Didn’t you hear? Hemi’s dead, man! Him and some others got hit on a drug deal.’

  ‘No shit?’ (With this finger I free thee.) ‘Fucking hell! That’s the second best news I’ve had in yonks!’

  Then her gaze finds the floor again. A dull mutter: ‘Yeah, I bet it is.’

  I test her will with a long silence. Find it lacking.

  Swallowing boredom: ‘Look, Vick … I hope you don’t think you owe me anything.’

  A scoff to strip paint: ‘Owe you?’ With a single glare she takes in the dayroom: its picture books, its meshed windows, rubber lounge suite. ‘Jesus Christ, Gator …’ I owe you your sanity.

  But I gloss the debt with a headshake. ‘If anything, it’s me who owes you. Let’s just put it behind us, eh? Besides, like I keep telling all the shrinks round this place, I’m as sane as any prisoner in the country. Saner, in fact … I’ve found a way to do easy time.’

  This surprises her. ‘Honestly? What about … what about what your mum told me?’

  Feigning ignorance. Making her spell it.

  ‘You know?’ Clearing her throat: ‘… The breakdown? The suicide attempt?’ A dawning beam: ‘Was that all bullshit?’

  Me, winking: ‘You know me, Vicki: I’m insulted you even have to ask.’

  Sitting back in her chair, rocked: ‘Jesus! Rumour round Vegas has you in straight-jackets, dribbling and crapping yourself!’ Her release is so sweet I can taste it from here. ‘Way to go, Gator!’

  Grinning to herself, she says nothing for a while, wallowing in the sight of clear conscience. Eventually: ‘What did you get done for, anyway? Your mum was pretty vague.’

  ‘Trust.’

  ‘… Trust? How do you mean?

  Trust, lust and a C-cup bust.

  … The Juggernaut’s snares are glossy and legion.

  ‘My crime was trusting the wrong person, Vick.’ The wrong gender. The wrong species.

  ‘Who?’

  Slut! Slapper! Harlot! Jezebel …!

  ‘No one special. Thanks a heap for visiting, anyway. How’s everyone out in the real world?’

  ‘Ammm …’ Grimacing: ‘Lefty’s not doing too well. Did you hear what happened to him? Some chick — Rebecca Thomson, the papers called her — she ammm … ahhhh … she … damaged him with some wire-cutters.’

  I merit an Oscar for throttling peals of laughter. Instead, sombre: ‘I heard about it, all right. He lost the plot when he got out of hospital; ended up in here for a while.’ In the cell down from mine … the padded one. ‘He told me all about it himself.’ Along with the rest of the joint, every night, in a wail like Kiri Te Kanawa on steroids.

  Me, changing the subject before my mask can crack: ‘What about Mick? I haven’t heard from him in a while. Any news on that front?’

  Vicki, delighted: ‘Oh, yeah. I ran into him at a cafe the other day. He’s working as a clerk for Sullivan & Sullivan, doing accountancy papers at night school. He reckons he’ll be fully qualified and creaming it within a year or two. Yeah, he’s doing really well!’

  ‘… Pardon?’

  I hear not a single shot as the bitch re-fires her salvo. It’s suddenly colder in here than I can ever remember.

  Onya, Mickey. So glad I spat their deal back at them.

  Vicki’s still gushing. ‘He seems really well suited to it, eh?’

  Hearty: ‘Oh, he’s well suited to it, all right.’ A kike with balls like a bitch.

  Slag! Cunt! Judas!

  Vicki: ‘As for your mate Barry: I heard he’s doing two to four in Paremoremo.’

  Speaking without hearing: ‘And having the time of his life, no doubt.’

  A hesitant giggle: ‘Yeah, maybe.’ Then, like an eclipse, a sudden dread comes over her. It’s cold enough to scare me through the frost she’s already lain.

  I know what’s coming. Can think of no words to stall it.

  Vicki, bleeding: ‘Steve’s still missing. No one’s got a clue where he is.’

  That’s not entirely true, my girl.

  Hiding in my hands. ‘Yeah, I heard he hadn’t been seen yet.’ Wooden, muffled: ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.’

  Cracked: ‘Oh, god, I hope so. He’s one of the best guys I’ve ever known!’

  Two whole days without thinking of Steve … she shows up and flings him from a catapult at me.

  ‘The amount of times, back in the … the bad days … the amount of times he went right out of his way for me.’

  Really? Steve? Out of his way?

  Vicki, a haggard sigh: ‘He’s the best guy in the world. He doesn’t deserve this.’

  Oh, will someone shut this little whore the FUCK UP!

  Feel a hand on my knee.

  Anxious: ‘Gator? Are you OK?’

  Oh, yeah, baby. Tickety boo.

  Gently: ‘You’re not crying, are you? They told me you did that … sometimes.’

  Crying? Crying? Me? G. McPike? Jailed Treasonist and butcher of blood-brothers?

  She tugs my hands from my face. ‘Oh, shit, you are crying!’

  But the look of sympathy she paws me with dries my eyes like wind.

  Bitch! Slag!

  I’m going to tell her to fuck off. To get up and take her gang-moll arse, the Warehouse power-suit I can see straight through, right the hell away from me …

  When one of the flawed cogs crosses the dayroom. I knew his name once. Tongan. Scraggly beard. Indian ink oozing down his forearms. Down his weedy forearms. Too weedy to trouble me, anyway. These days. I’ll sort the cunt right out. Brother, you’ve got no idea what you’re fucking with!

  Especially if he doesn’t stop leering at Vicki like that.

  Throwback! Cast-off! Reject!

  He’s got three more seconds — drink her in, buddy, top up the wank-bank, could be months before another passes through — two more seconds before I leap up and yell: Take your fucking eyes off my Vicki!

  But I look to her first. I want her permission; ever the gentleman, me. Or do I want to ask her why she’s letting the loon ogle her like this? Is she staring back at him? Is that what’s going on here?

  But Vicki’s doing no such thing. In fact, she has her back as squarely to the nutter as it could possibly be. Brow knitted. Shoulders hunched as though his gaze is a layer of leeches.

  Unknotting like clairvoyance as he silently leaves the room.

  She hands me a weak smile, draws a breath, groping for words to hide behind.

  So that I’m looking right at her when the slipped-disc slams a door down the hallway … as she flinches on cursed cue — a war-baby near a building site.

  Then swallows the start quicker than it happened.

  And this stings me like the flinch itself — like the old terror in her that can never die — her instant recovery stings me like these did not.

  She doesn’t even realise she did it.

  I know then that I should take her to me (no sudden movements), sit with her close, stroke her hair, teach her a mantra: It’s not my fault: god’s just a cunt sometimes.

  A year ago I might have done exactly that …

  … but that was before I learned.

  I know better now. Oh, yes. No more fooling this former cuckold! All hollow horses to be torched at the walls. Nice try, though.

  Slut! Whore! Delilah!

  … angel, dove, Madonna …

  … Vicki.

  Just Vicki, man.

  She balks for only a second as I take her by the wrists, guide her to my side. Wrap an arm round her shoulder.

  Her cheek against my chest.

  Me, softly: ‘It’s not your fault, you know. God’s just a cunt sometimes.’

  I feel her tears through my shirt, but she makes not a sound: years of practice. My own eyes start to bleed, but I don’t realise until I’m wetting her hair. It’s not crying for me. I don’t cry any more. I shed sap like a tired pine.

  Hardly h
earing her. ‘It’s not your fault either, Gator.’

  Yeah. Whatever.

  Later, in dim background, the loons file across the dayroom en masse, off to appointments at the dispensary (feeding in earnest; fog and haze in a capsule; out of Eye out of Mind) but we pay them no heed. Even the catcalls aren’t important. No, It won’t find us if we stay still, stay close … like when we were nine.

  How I wish we still were.

  She looks up at last, spares me a damp smile. ‘I feel like I’m nine again.’

  I’ll see you canonised, girl, if it’s with my dying breath.

  Vicki, firming: ‘You can do it, you know, Gator. You can get out of here and get your life back on track.’ Wiping at her eyes: ‘God, I’m doing it — a step at a time — and if I can do it, anybody can! You can still go as far as you like, man. You’ve got gifts. Don’t waste them. Don’t waste your talents another day, please.’

  Well, that’s right. I’ve got more talent in my trigger-finger than the rest of me has in my whole body.

  But I believe what she’s telling me. I have to believe it. Everyone used to say this to me once: teachers; relatives; friends; coaches; milkmen. I heard versions of this speech so often I stopped hearing it.

  But no one says it to me now. No one has in years.

  No one except Vicki.

  Kissing her forehead reverently: ‘I’ll give it a shot, then, Vick. Just for you.’

  ‘OK, Mr McPike. Well, you’ve certainly given me — and my colleagues — a hectic week: Parole Board hearings, health reviews, etc, etc. I’m in a position now, though, to report to you that the conclusions we’ve drawn to this point have been …’ a shuffle of papers, the crossing of a ‘t’, ‘… favourable.’

  Of course they’ve been. I’m ready for You.

  Gator has his arms on his knees, leaning toward the desk: eager obsequity personified.

  Ready for Your needs. And Your wants.

  Even Your expectations.

  ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear that, Ruth.’

  She looks up sharply. ‘Dr Saunders, thank you.’

  Cringing: ‘Of course, Dr Saunders. Excuse my impropriety.’ A sheepish chuckle: ‘Good news has that effect on me.’