There are hoots from the drinking area.
—Nah, seriously though. Anyone drinking their own turps outside the designated area, you’ll be gettin’ a free ride down to the station.
You head to the designated area and find yourself bumping into a familiar-looking bloke. It’s Ash’s mate Mark, the stocky bodyboarder from down south.
—Hey, Mark! What’s happening? Haven’t seen you around Gubinge for a while.
—Yeah, I’ve been working out on Diamond Plains.
—How’s that been?
—Pretty good, but one season’ll probably be enough. Miss the saltwater too much … Need a drink?
The two of you step up to the bar. The barmaid’s an old girl with a wry twist to her orange lips. Mark orders a beer and you ask what wines they’ve got.
—We’ve got sweet, and we’ve got dry.
Shit.
—I’ll have a four-ex, thanks.
She slides the beers over and Mark pays.
—Cheers, you say, taking a sip. So, what’s been the best part of working out this way?
—Definitely the bull riding. It’s fucken intense. Like big wave surfing in the desert.
—You competing tonight?
—Nah, didn’t get my name down in time …
You’re interrupted by a shaggy-haired countryman in a Widawurl t-shirt.
—Mark, bro!
—Ishmael, how are ya?
The MC’s back on the mic and you don’t want to miss a second. You thank Mark again for the beer, excuse yourself, and head back to the ring. The MC’s saying,
—Before we start the last event, the one you all came here for, I’m gunna have to ask all those little kids to get down off the fences around the ring. Yes, youse ones too! And now I’d like to thank our sponsors. Thank you to the Shire of Gubinge, the Land Council, Margy’s Mowing and Willijidee Arts. A special thanks to Gerro Blue—if it weren’t for that mob, we wouldn’t be running a rodeo this year at all.
The crowd claps dutifully.
—Righto, we better get on with the bull ride, rather than all the bullshit. First up, we’ve got Carmencita Garcia on Desert Cheatin’ Light!
There’s a thunderous metallic bang from chute number one. A moment later, the gate swings open and a bull hurtles out. It’s tan-coloured, with lunatic pink eyes and back legs that kick at the stars. Carmencita Garcia, a young woman with long, dark hair and an American-white grimace, is thrown in two seconds. She lands with a spud-like thud in the dust. The bull swings around, levels its gaze at her and lowers its horns. The crowd screams. The clowns leap into the ring—three men in flapping rags, with flapping arms. They run at the bull, trying to distract it, trying to break the bull’s enraged, deranged gaze. But the bull pays no attention. It wants the girl. The girl’s up, running for the fence. The bull’s charging after her. The girl makes the top of the fence. The bull hits the fence so hard it caves toward the crowd.
The MC’s shouting,
—What a bull! What a rank little bull! And what a ride! Everyone, put your hands together for Carmencita Garcia!
Carmencita’s followed by another three riders, men this time. None of them make the full eight seconds required for a win. You get closer to the fence, wedging yourself between a couple of grumbling grey nomads.
The next rider up, a young countryman named Patrick Cox, looks almost relaxed. When the bull goes vertical, he goes with it.
—Four seconds! shouts the MC.
When the bull folds in half, he folds with it.
—Six seconds! shouts the MC.
When the bull shakes its devil horns, he hangs on.
—Eight seconds! Ladies and gentlemen, Patrick Cox from Boab Bluff is the first rider of the night to make the full eight seconds!
The grandstand nearly tips over with the thumping approval of the women and the children. Another three men are up, and once again, no-one makes eight. It looks like Patrick Cox will take out first place. But there’s still one more ride to go. The floodlights throw an apprehensive white-amber over the ring.
The MC shouts,
—For the last ride of the night, we’ve got Noah Ishikawa, from Devil’s Gorge!
The cheer for Noah lasts a good ten seconds; everyone knows him, everyone fills their lungs to shout their support. There are even a few wolf-whistles.
—Now, Noah’s gunna be riding Terminator, one of Graeme De Beer’s savage big hamburgers. Sorry to say, Noah, but you’ve definitely drawn a short straw here …
The crowd falls silent at this. There are gasps, murmurs, fear.
—So, kids, get away from the bloody sides of the fence, or you’ll know about it!
Terminator explodes from the gate, a brute of a bull, twice as big as the others, a mass of unlikely, ungainly muscle.
The bull spins once at lightning speed and Noah hangs on, a dark bloom of blood in both his cheeks; it spins again and you read the acute concentration in the frown line between Noah’s eyes; it spins a third time and the MC screams,
—Five seconds!
Then the bull swaps spins for an athletic lunge; it’s tipping sideways, it’s heaving Noah toward the dirt. The angles are impossible. But Noah hangs on.
—Six seconds!
Then finally, furiously, Terminator plants his front hooves in the dirt and corkscrews his back legs and torso in the air.
Noah slips.
You watch, horrified, as a hoof crushes down on his neck.
There’s a man-sized rat-trap, steel jaws open, hanging above the Hotel’s bar. Lucia comments drily,
—Guess we’ve got it pretty good these days.
You hadn’t noticed the trap before and can barely take it in now. Your head is still at the rodeo. It’s impossible to scrub the illusion of hoof on throat. The hoof missed. It missed by an inch.
Next to the trap there’s a series of sepia photos. A countryman holds out a monstrous barramundi thicker than it is long; seven countrymen tower over a dead salty bristling with spears; two kartiya are sitting at the bar in a flood, drinks held high, river water tickling their bellybuttons.
The beers arrive in frostbitten glass. The two of you join Noah at a table on the balcony. You pass Noah his beer, your fingers graze. His lower lip’s split. Down below, the river water folds and flips. Noah carefully sips, says,
—Lucia and I had a cousin who nearly died in a bull ride.
—Oh?
—Crushed windpipe. Now he breathes through a tube.
—I’m so sorry.
Noah shrugs. A fine grit of dust plates his forearms; his sweat has dried in the shape of sandhills around his collar.
—Why do you do it, something so dangerous?
He shares a dark look with Lucia. She turns away.
—Why do we do anything? he replies.
You have this desire to console. This gut-fucked longing. For love? you want to suggest, but he’s already answering his own question,
—For the money, of course.
There’s an uncomfortable silence. In the garden, a sprinkler turns on, and the pub’s lights transform the water into a pale Japanese fan. Lucia changes the subject.
—You staying here tonight? she asks Noah.
—Nah, I was planning on camping at the rodeo ground with the boys. Got my swag.
Your heart sinks.
—Can I get you guys another beer? you offer.
—Sure, says Lucia.
You head to the bathroom first, where you clean the smudge of eyeliner that’s slipped below your left eye and freshen your armpits with a perfumed face wipe. Back at the bar, a bloke slides his arm around your waist and says in your ear,
—Remember me?
It’s Mark. His face is still boyishly soft and those lines that will eventually be seared by sun and sadness barely spook the skin. He’s a little short. A little drunk. And so very young. You unhook his arm, keen to get back to Lucia and Noah.
—Hey, I’m just with a couple of friends. I might see you a b
it later …
—I’d wait all night for you, sweetheart.
Lucia’s still outside, with the straight posture of a netball player. There’s no sign of Noah. He must be in the loo. The beers make an instant puddle on the table. You slide back into your seat.
—Guess we’ll split that one, Lucia says.
—What?
—Noah had to take off. Some drama in town with his exmissus.
You nosedive your beer and hope Lucia can’t see you choking with disappointment. But she can. Or she guesses.
—You like him, don’t you? My brother.
—Too much, you admit.
—God, I wish he’d fuck off that crazy manga Katherine for good. He deserves to be happy and I can tell that you really see him for what he is. You don’t look at him and think about what you can take from him, or how you can use him …
—How did they end up together?
She says when they were kids, when the creeks were running fast and fresh, they used to shoot the drains, used to hold their breaths and swim through the cement tunnels that wormed under the roads. One time, Katherine got stuck. She was skinny, pretty, clever, popular. She was ten. When she didn’t resurface on the other side of the road, the kids thought she was tricking, gammon, but not Noah. He was serious even then, cautious, he weighed things up. Noah dived in and swam upstream to find her snagged on a branch. He snapped it. It started.
—And when did it finish?
—He divorced her three years ago. But she’s still trying to drag him down. The old crabs in the bucket story, she’s always got a claw around an ankle, is always pulling him back down to her level. To everyone else’s level. Noah’s always been a cut above the rest, and when we were at school …
Lucia counts off Noah’s accolades.
—School dux, state AFL, national cross-country, topped the state in year twelve geography. Could’ve done anything, my brother. At least he managed to get away for uni.
—So what happened with her tonight?
—She would have heard about the ride. But it’s more likely someone told her they saw Noah having a drink with a pretty white manga at the pub. She would’ve created a drama to get him home—sick kid, lost keys …
It’s messy. And so is the crowd, throwing a stench of beer and dust and piss and hopelessness, throwing a sound like caged camp dogs, a sound that’s turned sour, that’s tipped toward violence.
It’s much later. Mark gestures to a mate and asks if you want a spit roast. You spin to go, but he grabs your fingers,
—Nah, nah, it’s cool. Don’t like spit roast, that’s cool, just me. Just me.
You must be drunker or sadder than you realise because he’s following you upstairs to the room and you’re letting him; he’s unzipping your shorts and you’re letting him; he’s surfing your pussy with his tongue and you’re letting him …
Afterwards, you go quietly to a scalding shower and clean your teeth so hard the toothpaste drops into the sink in a pink mousse.
Under the frigid air-con, next to this snoring man, it’s impossible to sleep. So when there’s a soft rapping at the door, you’re wide awake. The bedside clock reads two in the morning. Maybe it’s Lucia. Maybe something’s wrong. You pad over to the door in your underwear and click it open with an arm roughly covering your breasts.
It’s Noah.
You let your arm drop.
And for a moment, he simply breathes you in. In the poise of his whole body, there’s this thirsty, electric hunger, there’s troubling depth. He wants you, he wants you for you, completely.
Then his gaze trips to the bodyboarder passed out on your bed.
You step forward, clumsily try to loop your arms around his neck, block the view, but he’s stumbling backwards, and the skin of his face, worn by intense and relentless thought, is twisted in an expression worse than grief.
In the last week, you’ve ripped out a doorknob by accident. You’ve blown fifty dollars on a Sphinx Head pokie. You’ve been hitting the spirits hard. Not zapoi bender–hard, but enough to hurl you into dreamless sleeps at night, to fuck your concentration during the day.
Jeff notices and he rides you for it. He rewrites the horoscopes, makes heavy edits on your story about the heroes at the local surf club and sends you an email that says You owe me another five stories. Then he looks at you across the desk to make sure you’ve read it.
In comparison, Watanabe seems supremely superior. At the Bluff, the two of you went riesling for riesling and when you grilled him on the equipment near the massacre site, he reiterated Gerro’s public statement about the exploration, added that he thought a public apology might be in order as well, if a site had in fact been disturbed. Then he went on to flatter and woo you some more …
But enough of that. It’s been a slow news week and the pressure’s on to get creative. Prowling Twitter and Facebook for anything that can possibly be spun into a story, you see a post from Pastor Sedget on the Gubinge First Noticeboard about a new church initiative to feed Gubinge’s homeless countrymen this coming weekend. It’s marginally better than nothing.
Cyclone Ministries is in the industrial area, a huge shed on a concrete block under a cindering sun. It’s a long way from where the homeless hang and you’re not sure how they’d get out here for a free feed. There are a couple of dozen cars parked on the pindan outside the gates. Feeling dwarfed by the shed and unsettled by the silence, you follow the tin around the side until you reach a door with a sign on it that reads, Choose the bread of life or you are toast.
On the other side of the door, there’s a small room that reminds you of the backstage spaces at school halls, sectioned off by a heavy curtain. You get the feeling you shouldn’t be here. Perhaps you should’ve called Pastor Sedget first. The curtain smothers someone’s voice. You draw it aside, the tiniest bit.
—Can I get an amen!
—Amen! roars a rabble, wild and hopeful.
Pastor Sedget and a woman, who you recognise from Whipsnake Creek the day of the croc attack, are facing the congregation. The woman’s holding up a toddler-sized bundle bound tight in a white sheet. A tiny limestone face peeps above the sheet.
—Jesus said, Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out the demons. I repeat, he said, raise the dead!
There are pillows, blankets and empty styrofoam containers; the air’s sticky with sweat and anticipation. The women furthest from the air-conditioning cool themselves with braided cane fans, murmuring amens and prodding each other. One of the women senses she’s being watched and glances over her shoulder. She’s got ten years on you, and the haughty arrogance of a former model. But she’s let herself run to fat and there’s a mean, sarcastic quality to her mouth. You slink back into the curtains.
The pastor, oblivious, continues his hex.
—God, we ask that your spirit speak to us! We ask that your spirit speak to us by bringing this child back to her mother!
The mother holds the bundle aloft, brows arched in hope.
Lucia’s fuming, shaking a two-hundred-plus page report into your face. You’re still reeling from the visit to Cyclone Ministries and it takes a beat to understand what she’s saying.
—Do you know one of them is even a countryman? From over East? Some city blackfella … What the fuck would he know about country, or connection to country?
—Hang on, what?
—The tribunal. Gerro Blue will get their exploration licence.
Lucia’s pacing the office, in fluoro pink shorts and a gym top. Her ponytail swings like a whip.
—Unbelievable, isn’t it?
You nod.
—I mean, what was the point? Of our old people telling their stories, all that time with the lawyers …
—Can I?
Lucia’s highlighted a section at the end of the report that reads,
I find the granting of the proposed licence may be likely to have a marginally beneficial effect on the development of the social, cultural and econom
ic structures of the native title party. However, it is likely to be of considerable economic significance for the local and national economy. There is thus a public interest in the granting of the proposed licence.
The late afternoon sun hits your keyboard. It’s time to tell her.
—So they say bad news comes in threes …
—Oh fuck, Lucia says. What else?
—Gerro’s offered me a job as their Aboriginal liaison officer. And I’m gunna take it. I’ll be working for them, with Burrika.
Lucia opens her mouth and you brace for vinegar.
—That’s bloody fantastic, Ava! God knows those arseholes need someone like you working for them, someone with a bit of heart. Especially now the exploration licence will be approved. It’s not like you can make much of a difference here, anyway, not with dickhead around.
Lucia’s enthusiasm’s unexpected, infectious. You loosen up.
—You really think so? I’ve been umming and ahing for ages.
—Yeah, I do. Good money, good job. And you’ll be working with Noah!
Yeah … Anyway, you’re getting out of this chickenshit outfit in a few weeks, and that’s cause to celebrate.
[ interlude ]
Someone’s on the piano, banging a honky-tonk earworm that’s got the mob at the bar tapping their coins and an old girl up dancing, beer held high. Keith, Emmet and Ash have secured their usual spot on the fishing club’s balcony. As you place the beers on the table, there’s a sudden racket of fruit bats in the trees above.
—Emmet wouldn’t start his story until you got back, Ash says, ducking a falling seed pod.
Emmet locks onto you with a bleary gaze.
—So, I was working one of the pearling leases. Long time ago, when Gubinge was still a blackfella town. A handful of kartiya, no grey nomads. Bit like Stockmen’s is today, the real Wild West. None of this OH&S shit that means you gotta wear a shirt at the pub.
Way below, bayside, the evening’s gathered blue under the white knuckles of the mangroves. Emmet glances at Ash and Keith to make sure they’re listening too.
—There were two blokes. A red-bearded skipper and a Japanese pearler. Always at each other. Always blueing. One day, the pearler did a shit in the skipper’s cupboard. The skipper said nothing … but the next evening when the Jap was on the loo, he got a hold of the Jap’s diving regulator. And in front of a crowd of grinning onlookers, including myself, he flopped out his balls and rubbed them all over the glass and the mouthpiece, said, ‘Tomorrow, that pussy’s gunna be sucking on my balls all day!’
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