But then we hit pay-dirt.
AC/DC.
Sometimes you just don’t get any better than Angus’s hard metal strings reverbed through 1964 speakers.
Da nah nah. (beat) Da nah nah. (beat) Da nah nah, da nah na, da (half-beat) da nah. (beat) Da nah nah. The drum started and the guitar kept rhythm as our heads started banging in time. Windows cranked down to the frame, volume cranked up to the max, the native Australian fauna was rocked out of its stoned daze as we drove past.
Jones and Taxi played air guitar in the back seat, hunching their shoulders and leaning into Jesus, screwing up their faces like the bad-assed air-guitarists they were. Coco, Enron and I sang fit to bust our lungs, and you’d wanna get outta our way pronto, because we were on the highway to Hell (with apologies to JC in the back seat) and there was nothing that we’d ra-ther-er do-ooo.
It felt good. Tough and gritty and so bloody great singing Acca/Dacca as loud as any hardcore lead singer ever did.
I snuck a look at Jesus in the rear-view mirror, wedged between the air-guitarists. He seemed pretty chillaxed in His sunnies, loud music pumping. It occurred to me that maybe Jesus wouldn’t mind, maybe He’d be enjoying Himself even, kicking back in the car with the five of us, music loud, even if the lyrics were sounding a little … ironic.
It didn’t look like a highway to Hell. It looked like a licorice strap of bitumen slicing a curve through gum trees.
‘I spy with my little eye,’ said Jones, ‘something beginning with T.’
‘Tree,’ Taxi said.
‘Correct.’
Pause. And then Taxi said, ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with … T.’
‘Tree,’ I said as a joke.
‘Yep,’ said Taxi. ‘Your go.’
I grinned.
‘I spy. With my little eye. Something beginning with … T.’
‘Tree?’ said Enron.
‘Good guess.’
Pause. And then Enron, a little shyly, said, ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with … um, T.’
‘That’s too hard, do something easier,’ moaned Coco. ‘Oh, hang on, wait, is it … tree?’ she teased.
Enron nodded.
Coco laughed.
‘IspywithmylittleeyesomethingbeginningwithT.’
No one said anything, all of us looking around the landscape, trying to guess what she was spying. Finally Jones said, ‘Tree?’
The roads wound around like hairpins keeping the forest’s hair out of its face. It was a constant metronome of braking and accelerating, braking and accelerating, braking and accelerating. I had to work hard to keep the big, slidey, 1964 Falcon out of the trees and gullies.
A car came up behind us, some impatient driver, keen to get to wherever it was they had to go. They pushed ever so slightly forwards. If I braked now they’d go right through my back window, but I was having to brake all the time because of the curves and twists on the road. I wound my window down and waved for them to go past me. They didn’t. They stuck on my tail, maintaining the pressure. I put my brakes on a little, just enough to show them I was slowing down as we came to a bend.
And they rammed us. And that’s when I knew exactly who they were: the Bad Guys. It was a different car from the day before, and different people, but it was them, which meant there were more than a few people looking for us. And now these guys had found us and were going to ram us off this quiet country road.
If you’ve ever been in a car as it’s being rammed, you’ll know it’s super scary. The car jolts forward and your head goes forward with it, before snagging back into alignment with the rest of your body that is still strapped by a belt to the seat. The screeching noise of metal on metal is jarring.
Jones and Enron both turned around.
‘Fuck off, dickhead!’ Jones shouted.
I was coming up to a sharp bend in the road and they were right up my arse, but if I braked again, they were going to back-end us for the second time.
The road curved in a wildly woolly way and the ’64 Falcon went woozy, as if it had had too much to drink. I spun into the corner too fast and clipped one of those white posts that are on the side of the road for who-knows-what reason. The sound of the impact was immense.
And still they were on our tail.
Another turn. Them banging right up on us. Slam. Into us again.
It was un-friggin’-believable. I didn’t have the skills or the temperament for this, but it’s not the sort of thing you can bail on halfway through. You can’t get someone else to take over. You can’t climb into the back and put your arms over your head and shut your eyes. You have to keep your eyes open, you have to turn the car to the left, right, straight, right again.
The country ditches snatched at our tyres whenever we got too close.
And still they kept banging into the rear of us.
And just when I thought it was going to end in unhappiness or worse, Jones leant down to his slab of Coke, took out a can and hurled it at the windscreen of the car behind. It missed, bouncing down the road like a Jaffa at the cinema, but they slowed down a fraction. Until they started driving fast again, slamming violently into the back of us. Jones bent out of view and took out another can, this time leaning further out the window so he could get his aim right.
And threw that glossy red projectile straight into their windscreen. Causing the most magnificent shattering you’ve ever seen, the safety glass staying in its frame but changing in an instant from clear to milky white, making it impossible for the driver to see through.
I’ve always been partial to a can of Coke, but since that moment I’ve been a dead-set convert.
We all cheered, screamed, whooped, jeered, stuck fingers out windows, and hooted with laughter to see the car behind slow down and pull over to the verge of the road, the driver slamming his door open and stepping out to watch us drive off.
‘That was awesome,’ Taxi said, a broad grin opening his face.
‘That was bloody great,’ I said.
‘I’m bloody great, did you say?’ Jones asked, knowing full well that wasn’t what I’d said.
I laughed.
‘You know what?’ I said. ‘You bloody well are.’
And I kept the pedal to the metal as we got the hell out of there.
We stopped in Merimbula.
My hands were shaking so much I could barely grip the wheel.
We needed to debrief. We needed to eat. And Jones needed to have a look at the car, because it didn’t sound all that good. Apparently being bashed into from behind when you’re nearly fifty isn’t that easy to take.
Not that easy when you’re about to turn eighteen, either.
We ate fish and chips in white paper from the pier, watching the fishermen casting their lines as we talked. About the shock. The surprise. The anger. The fury. The determination that those arseholes weren’t going to win.
And Jones. Bloody Jones coming up with that perfect idea. While the metal was screeching and I was yelling (apparently I was yelling, which is not like me to be uncool in a crisis) and Coco was aiming for hear-no-evil-see-no-evil, and Enron was unable to think of anything except keeping Jesus safe, Jones had thought of Coca-Cola.
‘Just goes to show how wrong they are about a misspent youth being a bad thing,’ Jones said. He slotted a chip into his mouth and licked the salt off his fingers.
‘Never thought I’d be so glad to go on a roadtrip with a thug,’ I said.
‘You should never leave home without one,’ Jones said, winking at me.
And then Coco said softy to Jones, ‘You saved us.’
Jones shook his head.
‘Nah,’ he said, ‘it was just pure-arse luck. I could have kept missing. And it was good driving. Your sister did a good job.’
I laughed.
‘Good driving! Are you kidding me? The amount of times I nearly stacked into a tree was ridiculous. But what the hell? How did they find us again? Coco?’
She put her hands u
p.
‘Wasn’t me. I promise. Are you kidding me? After yesterday?’
‘But shoudn’t they be going up the Hume? Isn’t that what we thought they’d do?’
Enron broke a piece of fish into two large pieces, laid one piece back on the paper and licked his fingers.
‘Rosedale,’ he said simply.
None of us said anything for a moment.
‘All those flowers in the front of the church; would have been all over the news,’ he continued. ‘It wouldn’t have been hard for them to put two and two together.’
Jones knocked Jesus with his elbow.
‘That’s where all your showing off’s gotten us,’ he said. ‘A whole lot of attention we didn’t want. You couldn’t have just ascended to heaven? Parted the Red Sea? Gone down a couple of chimneys and delivered toys to the Rosedale kiddies?’
Enron blinked at Jones.
‘Don’t call Him that,’ Enron said quietly.
‘Who? Santa? The old Saint Nick here?’
Enron leant forwards, his hand fisted with his gun-barrel finger pointed, getting right in Jones’s face.
‘The police want to arrest me,’ Enron said slowly. ‘Dodie and Coco’s parents are missing. Someone just tried to ram us off the road because of Him. If you call Him Santa one more time, I swear I’m going to punch the shit out of you.’
Jones didn’t say anything.
‘And besides,’ Enron said, leaning back and picking up his drink, ‘Moses parted the Red Sea. Not Jesus.’ And he took a punctuating swig of his Coke.
The car was a mess.
‘The cylinder head’s cracked,’ Jones said, ‘and the crankshaft’s bent.’
Whatever that meant.
Jones picked at the cracked laminex tabletop, while the Ford Falcon sat parked down a side street, trying not to broadcast our whereabouts to any bad guys who might happen to swing by. It gave me a jumpy feeling, knowing that there was more than one carload of ‘bad guys’ after us. Even here, sitting in this milkbar – was the lady behind the counter a bad guy? The kid waiting for his milkshake? The girls who kept looking over at our table?
Although they seemed to be doing a whole lot of checking Jones out and not much noticing of the rest of us.
‘It’s gonna take a couple of days to fix,’ Jones said.
‘We don’t have a couple of days,’ Taxi said.
‘I know.’
Eyes off, girls.
‘We’re supposed to be a lot further along than we are,’ Taxi said.
‘Yep.’
Taxi shook his head. ‘Seriously, you’d think this trip was jinxed. No additive first up – I mean, who needs additive these days – and now the crankshaft. Seriously.’
‘Just get us a couple of extra days,’ Jones suggested. ‘Ring the guy in Sydney and tell him we’re stuck in Merimbula for a bit.’
‘I can’t. It’s a domino effect. He’s waiting for us and other people are waiting for him. We’re supposed to be there tomorrow morning at eleven. That’s the meeting time.’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve got to keep moving. This isn’t some daytrip. We’ve got to get –’ And he glanced over at Jesus. ‘We’ve got to get Him to Sydney by tomorrow morning at the latest and we’re still a good eight hours away.’
‘Here’s your chance to weave some miracle magic,’ Jones said to Jesus. ‘Just a sneaky little cylinder-head fix’ll do us nicely. We won’t tell anyone. It’ll be our little secret.’
Enron looked out of the corner of his eye at Jones.
‘The one time your sleigh would have come in handy,’ Jones continued, ‘and you’ve left it back at the North Pole, you wacker.’
Enron grabbed Jones around the neck, and rubbed his fist hard on Jones’s scalp.
‘I told you not to call Him that anymore,’ Enron said, running his knuckles fast like sandpaper over Jones’s head.
‘You said you’d punch me,’ Jones said, pushing Enron off him. ‘Not noogie me.’
The girls looked over, laughing, catching Jones’s eye.
Enron released Jones and put his forearms back on the table.
‘I decided a noogie was better.’ Enron shrugged. ‘If I punched you, I would have felt bad. Noogying means only you feel bad.’
Score Enron.
Taxi tapped at his mouth with his middle finger, planning our next steps, as if the noogying hadn’t even taken place.
‘We’ll have to hire a car,’ he said finally.
‘Except none of us have a licence,’ I pointed out. ‘Or can show our ID to the car place.’
‘No problem.’ He swatted my concern away with his hand. ‘I’ve got fake ID. We’ll go now and that way we can keep moving. We’ll drive a few more hours today, then a few hours tomorrow morning; that should give us enough time.’
‘You’ve got a fake ID,’ I said, stunned. ‘So why was I apparently the only driver option?’
‘I’ve got the ID, but I don’t know how to drive. Not a manual, anyway.’
‘And not one that hasn’t been hot-wired.’ Jones laughed.
‘I’ve never stolen a car in my life,’ Taxi said, shaking his head at Jones. ‘Unlike some people I know. So, you right to keep going?’ he asked me, standing up.
‘Sure,’ I said, pleased we were leaving these girls and their goggle-eyes.
‘We’ll go get the car,’ Taxi said to the others, ‘and meet you back here in halfer.’
‘Oh,’ I said, glancing around, ‘we’re not all going?’
‘Nuh,’ Taxi said. ‘No point. Just you and me.’
I don’t know why I cared about leaving Jones with those other pretty flirty girls in the milkbar. Who might, don’t forget, be bad guys. They were staring an awful lot.
‘Those girls are really checking us out,’ I said in a low voice. ‘You don’t think they might be, you know …’
‘Hot for me?’ Jones suggested.
I scoffed.
‘Hardly. No, I just meant, you know, there’s more than one lot of people out looking for us. I just thought maybe those girls …’
‘I’d rather go back to the pier anyway,’ Coco said.
I could have kissed her.
‘Okay,’ Taxi said. ‘How about we meet you back at the pier in half an hour.’
Score. Me.
Merimbula is big. Much bigger than you’d expect a little seaside village to be. It’s got pubs and bars and cafes and Returned and Services Leagues and oyster farms and mini-golf and an aquarium.
And a rent-a-car joint, of course.
As we were walking down the main drag, just me and Taxi, I started feeling a bit shy. I hadn’t really spent much time with him. Not much dialogue-time. I’d had plenty of I’ll-admit-flirty conversation with Jones, and Enron and I had spent more than enough time in the drains of Melbourne for me to feel like I knew him pretty well.
But Taxi? Not so much.
‘How did you get roped into all this?’ I asked him after a while. ‘You know the Mover through skateboarding, is that right?’
Taxi flexed his hand and cracked one of his knuckles.
‘Nuh. That’s how I know Jones. I know the Mover through boxing.’
‘The Mover did boxing?’
Even as it came out of my mouth I knew it was a stupid question. The Mover couldn’t stand up without leaning on crutches, much less box.
Our footsteps punctuated the silence. I wasn’t sure if Taxi was going to give me much more than that. And then he started talking.
‘Someone said that instead of belting up brick walls and random kids I should do boxing. So I did. And that’s where I met Alex – the Mover’s son.’
‘Oh.’
Taxi kicked at a stone as we walked along the path.
‘He’s a top bloke, you know,’ he said, his feet keeping time with mine. ‘The Mover. I know you think he’s an arsehole, but he’s not.’
I didn’t reply, not trusting myself to answer reasonably.
‘So what’s going on?’ I asked instead.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I don’t have a clue what’s going on. All I know is, I’m getting ready for exams when my parents go missing and Jesus turns up in our basement, and I’m roped in to driving Him to Sydney, and bad guys are trying to run us off the road. But why? Why move Him? Especially if it’s so dangerous. Why not keep Him in our basement and leave Him alone?’
‘You remember the floods in Brisbane earlier this year?’ Taxi asked me.
I nodded.
‘That’s why. These guys called the Soldiers of Arimathea –’
‘Dad wrote about them in his letter.’
‘Yeah. Right. Okay, so they saw about the floods in Brisbane, and they decided it was time to move Him. And during a move is the time there’s the most risk of Him being discovered, apparently. You know, emails, and phone calls, and letters, so it’s always risky. And then, they were building a new place for Him to go to, and people talk there as well. The builders. The technicians. You know what I mean? They’ve built this full-on security room for Him, planning for Him to stay wherever it is for a fair while now. I don’t know where, but yeah, people start talking, and word gets out.’
I looked down at the footpath, irritability rising in my stomach like bile. The floods of Brisbane? All this trouble, because of the floods in Brisbane? Melbourne isn’t even near Brisbane.
‘I only got pulled in cos there was no one else,’ Taxi continued. ‘Because of Alex’s accident. The Mover, you know, he’s been through a shit time.’
We didn’t say much more, each of us inside our own heads, till we got to the rent-a-car place.
A sign in the window read, Gone to Big Kev’s funeral. If you’re returning a car, leave it out back and put the keys through the slot. We’ll work out paperwork tomorrow. If you want to rent one, please come back tomorrow morning. Sorry for the inconvenience.
We looked at the sign, reading it a couple of times over to make sure we had it right. And then Taxi turned away from the shopfront and kicked a bin.
‘You’re fucking kidding me,’ Taxi said. ‘There’s no way.’
He turned back to read the sign again.
‘Shit shit shit shit shit.’
With the emphasis on the final ‘shit’.
Reluctant Hallelujah Page 11