Reluctant Hallelujah

by Gabrielle Williams

  ‘Go!’ Jones shouted. ‘Go go go go go!’

  ‘Gun it, Dodie!’ Taxi yelled. ‘You’ve gotta go through.’

  So I went.

  They came right on through behind us. Through the red light.

  And then we heard it. The siren wail of a police car signalling for them to pull over.

  Because apparently, right up till Christmas, there’s a blitz on.

  It was eight a.m. and we were in the centre of Melbourne, our wheels stuck in trafficky jam near Southern Cross Station. We were going nowhere and we weren’t even going nowhere fast. We were going nowhere very very slowly. Because we’d had to double back and were now headed for Dandenong Road instead of the Hume, we’d hit city peak-hour traffic. And let me tell you something for free: it’s intense. Tens of thousands of cars all on the one road, everyone’s bonnets pointing in the same direction, aiming for those big mirror-ball skyscrapers in the city.

  Every type of driver you can imagine was sitting behind their steering wheel: possessive arseholes not wanting to give an inch of space to anyone; women tilting their rear-view mirrors so they could put on their morning makeup; people singing along to whatever song was coming out their radio; people texting; drivers chatting on their phones, collecting their messages, checking their Facebook.

  Texting, chatting, collecting, checking.

  My Facebook trigger finger was getting itchy.

  I wondered whether people had started noticing yet that Coco and Enron and I were missing. What would Matt say? Not that I cared what Matt had to say anymore, but still, I kind of wondered what he would say. Would Minty and Jools be dropping hints about what they knew? Would people know our folks were missing as well? What was the Facebook world making of our disappearance? Were we listed as disappeared yet or not? I wondered if my phone was safe at the Mover’s house. It was probably bulging fit to explode by now with all the unanswered messages on it. I wondered whether it would have mechanical failure if I didn’t check my messages. Three days. There’s no way I could leave my messages unchecked for three days.

  I faced forwards and looked out the windscreen at the back of the unmoving car in front of me.

  Once we got across the Yarra River and started heading back out of the city, the traffic freed up like someone had loosened the noose.

  We drove around Albert Park Lake, past the swans that’ll attack if you go anywhere near them – I should know, I’d been attacked any number of times when Dad had dragged me around the lake for some, quote, ‘exercise’ – then swung onto Dandenong Road. The anxiety of the past couple of hours melted off my shoulders.

  Dandenong Road is one of my favourite roads, if there’s even such a thing as having a favourite road. It’s a curvy eight-lane boulevard which goes under St Kilda Road, then straight up the guts of Prahran and Armadale, leafy old-fashioned trees cooling their roots along the centre of the road for an entire two or three suburbs.

  If Leonardo di Caprio was travelling along Dandenong Road, he’d fling his arms out to the side and yell ‘I’m King of the Road’.

  Dandenong Road is that kind of tarmac.

  And here I was, in a 1964 Ford Falcon with a cute guy sitting beside me driving to Sydney. Things could be worse. In fact, things had been worse a couple of hours back when the Bad Guys were following us, but for now, motoring down Dandenong Road, I felt pretty chilled.

  The 1964 Ford Falcon, in case you don’t know it, is the type of car you would have cruised down Main Street, USA in, elbows jauntily out the window, hair high and perky in a ponytail (girls) or slicked back with Brylcreem (boys), shirt-sleeves rolled up as far as they’ll go, and a cigarette either hooked over an ear or dangling recklessly from a bottom lip.

  In our case, we were driving with our hair up in a messy bun (me), a half-falling-out ponytail (Coco), neatly trimmed (Enron), and home-butchered (Jones and Taxi). Oh, and shoulder-length but tied back in a ponytail for our guest of honour (Jesus).

  The mood in the car loosened up as we put further mileage between ourselves and the city. Ourselves and the Bad Guys.

  Coco was sharing the headphones with Enron, leaning across Jesus and swiping at Taxi’s iPhone as she and Enron took turns to play Fruit Ninja. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear Jesus was watching the whole thing.

  Taxi was switching between the map of Victoria and the south coast of New South Wales, highlighting certain roads, marking towns with crosses, making notes about something or other. Being the man in charge is a serious business, apparently.

  Jones and I listened to talkback on the old-timey AM radio – seeing as Triple J wasn’t on the AM dial, we didn’t have a whole lot of choices – and let me tell you a little something about talkback: people get enthusiastic-slash-incensed about a lot of stuff that isn’t worth a piece of crap.

  ‘There should only be one rubbish and one recycle bin per house …’

  ‘These new shower wipes are fantastic, you just …’

  ‘University selection shouldn’t be so heavily weighted towards marks. What about aptitude? What about vocation? What about …’

  I tapped my fingers on my gigantor steering-wheel.

  My chances of getting selected for uni were getting more remote with every kilometre I put between me and my books. I should have been studying right that moment. Well, not right that moment because right that moment I should have been with my buddies hanging out and smoking in front of teachers, but yeah, studying over the next two weeks. I was pretty sure a road trip to Sydney wasn’t recommended for swat-vac. And I couldn’t even study at night because I didn’t have my books with me. I couldn’t even log on to Facebook to study with Minty and Jools. Because the Mover had said so.

  The Mover had said so. Well, la de dah.

  I still couldn’t quite believe that I was the only option – that they’d known about this move for months, and I was the only person who could do it. I mean, seriously.

  ‘Why don’t you have your licence if you’re so into cars?’ I asked Jones.

  Jones slid his eyes over to me a moment, then shrugged.

  ‘Bit hard to get your hours up when you don’t have a supervising driver,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. Right. But what about your mum or dad?’

  ‘What about them?’ he said. Arms folded and conversation closed.

  Here’s the good thing about driving a car: if things become awkward you simply stare out the front wind-screen and pretend you’re concentrating really hard on the bitumen.

  As we drove further from the city the houses started to thin out like my dad’s hair.

  ‘I was just thinking,’ Jones said to the car in general, ‘that maybe we should put Santa in the boot.’

  To stunned silence.

  Santa, of course, meaning Jesus.

  ‘I mean, we’ve got a long drive – Sydney, it’s a fucking long way. Be more comfortable if there was five of us in the car instead of six.’

  He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the seat, stretching his feet right under the dashboard.

  The roll of the road under our car.

  ‘It’s not as if He’s going to complain,’ Jones added. ‘And let’s face it, it can’t be worse than being nailed to the cross.’

  This was too much for Enron. Poor shy Enron.

  ‘Stop that,’ he said quietly. ‘You shouldn’t be talking like that.’

  ‘Like what? I’m just saying He should go in the boot while we’re driving. I’m sure He’d be cool with it.’

  ‘You’re not putting Jesus in the boot,’ Enron said, the words spitting against the back of Jones’s head like chips. ‘It’s sacrilegious.’

  ‘What’s sacrilegious about it?’ Jones asked. ‘He wouldn’t even know.’

  I watched in the mirror as Enron’s face went from red to white in an instant.

  ‘No,’ Enron said sarcastically. ‘He would never know. Apart from the fact that He’s the all-seeing, all-knowing Messiah, He wouldn’t have a clue.’


  Jones shifted around and put his arm on the back of the bench seat so he was square on to Enron.

  ‘Well, if He’s all-seeing and all-knowing, He’ll all-see and all-know that it’s bloody crowded in here, and it’d be a lot more comfortable for the rest of us if He just folded up into the boot.’

  Enron looked like he wanted to punch someone. Jones.

  ‘Not that comfortable for Him, I wouldn’t imagine,’ Enron said through a pin-hole-sized mouth. ‘Folded up in the boot.’

  Jones turned around to face back out the windscreen.

  ‘No, you’re right there.’ He thought a moment. ‘We could always tie Him to the roof.’ He craned his neck forwards and looked at the sky. ‘Doesn’t look like it’s going to rain.’

  And then I couldn’t help it. I started giggling. Giggling at the ridiculousness of it all. The driving to Sydney part, and the sitting in a 1964 Ford with Jesus and Enron and Coco and two guys I’d never met in my life before, and the prospect of putting one of us on the roof. And Coco started, laughter spurting from her mouth, and Jones was cracking up, and Enron was laughing despite himself and Taxi was in fits, and for a short time on the outskirts of Melbourne at nine thirty in the morning, a road trip to Sydney didn’t seem so bad.

  By eleven thirty we were in full-on farmland. Cows were the paddock ornament of choice.

  The radio had lost all reception. Coco had both headphones back in her ears and was fiddling with Taxi’s iPhone, Enron was looking out his side of the car, Taxi was resting his head against the window, eyes closed, and Jones and I were watching the road. The endless road.

  Apart from the generally helpful travel signs (you know: this is the speed limit; this is the name of the town you’re about to drive through, that type of thing) there were also plenty of signs warning of the dangers of sleeping while you’re driving.

  Tired? Drowsy drivers die.

  Open your eyes. Fatigue kills.

  A microsleep can kill in seconds.

  You’d think it was a no-brainer that sleeping while driving wasn’t the done thing, but maybe there’d been extra money left in the road-sign budget and they couldn’t find anything better to spend it on.

  ‘Victoria,’ Jones said. ‘Land of the powernap. They don’t put that in their tourism advertising, do they? Welcome to Victoria. Where even the drivers can barely keep their eyes open.’

  I grinned.

  ‘So what’s your story anyway?’ I said, keeping my eyes front. ‘You hardly seem the religious type.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Jones said. ‘That hurts.’ He knocked Taxi on the elbow. ‘She’s saying I don’t seem the religious type.’

  ‘He wouldn’t even know how to spell it, much less do it,’ Taxi said.

  ‘Spell it? Easy. B-U-double-L-S-H-I-T.’

  I glanced across at Jones.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘So how do you end up driving to Sydney with You-Know-Who in the back seat?’

  ‘Voldemort?’ Jones said. ‘Voldemort is in the back seat?’

  I laughed.

  ‘You’re not much good at giving a straight answer,’ I said. ‘Would you prefer multiple choice?’

  ‘Multiple choice would be excellent. Shoot.’

  I bit my lip.

  ‘Okay. Hang on a sec.’ Not as easy to ask multiple-choice questions as you might expect; requires a bit of thinking time. ‘All right, so, the Mover chose you to drive to Sydney because: a) you’re good with cars and that’s the only reason; b) you’re secretly into Jesus but you pretend not to be; c) you’re a figment of my imagination or d) all of the above. Or actually, e) none of the above.’

  ‘C. I’m a figment of your imagination.’

  I shook my head and kept my eyes on the road. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy. And then finally he dragged a sigh into his chest before puffing it back out.

  ‘The first thing I heard about this gig was yesterday when the Mover said we had to go get you guys out. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, and I was pretty pissed off because seriously, the one thing I know is “if it rains, no drains”. I don’t know much, but I know that. But the Mover said it was super-important we go get you. He didn’t say why, or what it was about. He just said we’d know when we saw you. Taxi knew – is that right?’ Taxi nodded. ‘And I suppose because Taxi was prepared to risk his life for whatever it was, I thought I should probably go with him.’

  ‘So what did you think when you saw Him?’

  Jones shrugged, not commenting for a while.

  ‘I didn’t know what to think, but one thing’s sure as shit: I don’t think it’s Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because … come on, I’m not even going to answer that question. I don’t know who He is but …’

  ‘But how do you explain it?’

  ‘It’s not up to me to explain it. I’m just along for the ride – keeping my mate company. As for this guy being Jesus, well, I think I’ve got more chance of being right calling Him Santa.’

  I knew what he meant. It was hard to believe. I wasn’t even sure myself. Except that I’d touched Him, I’d put my hand on His forehead, and there was no way to explain the absolute sense of calm and peace that came over me. Even sitting in the car, having Him in the seat behind me made me feel kind of safe. What was that? The power of suggestion? And if it wasn’t Jesus, then who was it?

  ‘So how do you know the Mover?’ I asked. Because all the other questions were too hard to ask.

  ‘Through Taxi,’ Jones said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And I met Taxi through caving.’

  ‘What’s caving?’

  ‘That thing you were doing last night when you nearly got us killed.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Skateboarding first,’ Taxi said from his side. ‘We met first through skateboarding.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Skateboarding. Then caving. Then met the Mover. Thought he was some weirdo creepy paedophile guy until I actually got to know him and saw he was a good bloke. So yeah. Next question.’

  ‘A good bloke?’ I said. ‘He kind of didn’t seem that good a bloke when I met him.’

  Jones didn’t answer for a moment.

  ‘He lost his son last week. You caught him on an off day.’

  ‘Off day? I’ll say.’

  Jones laughed. ‘You’re a poet and you don’t know it.’

  ‘Oh, I know it all right. I know it very well. “Roses are blue, violets are purple, I’m sloshing around in these drains like a turtle,”’ I said, remembering the poem graffitied on the wall.

  Jones laughed again.

  ‘That’s one of mine.’

  ‘You wrote that?’ I said.

  He nodded beside me. ‘One of my many talents.’

  ‘Except “turtle” doesn’t rhyme with “purple”,’ I teased.

  ‘Not a lot of words do.’

  ‘There’s plenty.’

  ‘Name one.’

  ‘Burple? Curple. Durple. Furple?’

  ‘Whirlpool?’ Jones suggested.

  ‘Car pool?’ I batted back. ‘Roses are red, violets are purple, we’re safe on the road, cos JC’s in our car pool.’

  Jones looked at me and laughed.

  ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘I like it. Except “car pool” doesn’t exactly rhyme with “purple”.”

  ‘No a lot of words do,’ I said.

  He laughed.

  And then he folded his arms back across his chest and pushed his legs as far as he could reach under the dashboard.

  In Traralgon a sandwich-board out the front of a venue advertised that Johnny Elvis was performing his on-stage show, ‘Viva Las Vegas’.

  I thought it might be funny to suggest we take Jesus along to watch Elvis sing – ‘Hey, dead guy, meet other dead guy’ – but I didn’t want to hurt our Dead Guy’s feelings.

  Trouble concentrating? Powernap now.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock. My arms had been gripping the steering wheel since six this morning.
My right leg had been pressing down on the accelerator for the better part of the day. In the rear-view mirror Coco was asleep, her head against the window; Enron was on the other side, book-ending Jesus; hard to tell what Jesus was thinking behind those sunglasses of His – Bible stories maybe; Taxi was possibly asleep but I couldn’t see him properly; and Jones had his feet up on the dashboard, his head facing away from me.

  Don’t sleep and drive.

  Better late than dead on time.

  And then a town sign: Rosedale.

  Rosedale has a baker, a church, a couple of motels and a petrol station.

  But no petrol additive.

  You probably don’t know what this means; I didn’t either.

  While I filled up the car, Jones went into the station, but came back a couple of minutes later with empty hands.

  ‘Got a problem,’ he said. ‘No additive.’

  Taxi was wiping all the bugs off the windscreen with the squeegee thing.

  ‘So what does that mean?’ he asked, stopping mid-squidge.

  ‘The guy’s rung a mate from one of the other towns, and he’s going to drop some in later tonight, but we can’t go anywhere till the car’s got the additive put in. If we do, the engine could seize up.’

  Taxi frowned, resting his arms on the roof of the Ford.

  ‘But we can’t stop here,’ he said. ‘It’s only eleven. We’ll miss a whole day’s driving.’

  ‘We can keep going if you like, it might be fine, but this is the first outing this car’s had in a while, so we could blow a gasket if we don’t put the additive in. And then we’d really be up shit creek.’

  I was going to put in a joke about the dooverlackie and flux capacitor, but from the look on Taxi’s face I figured the timing wasn’t right.

  ‘It’s your call, mate,’ Jones continued. ‘I wouldn’t, but it’s up to you.’

  Taxi clicked his tongue.

  ‘Shit.’

  He put his head on his folded arms on the roof of the car. Thinking thinking.

  ‘Okay’ he said, lifting his head back up. ‘Fine. We’ll have to stay. I’ll make a call to our contact in Sydney and let them know we’ve been held up. Bad enough that we’ve had to come the Pacific Highway. Now we’ve gotta stop when we’re not even close to where I wanted us to stop the first night.’ He clicked his tongue again. ‘I’ll go and see if this joint’s got a couple of rooms.’