Reluctant Hallelujah

by Gabrielle Williams

  We stood there, looking at the cars out the back.

  ‘We’ll have to steal one,’ Taxi said finally. ‘That’s the only answer. If we wait till tomorrow morning there’s no way we’ll make it in time. We’ll barely make it if we leave now. We’ll steal a car and leave a note for them saying we needed it and fuck, what are you doing closed on a Friday anyway?’

  I looked at Taxi. It didn’t even surprise me that he was suggesting we steal a car. But unlicensed, with police looking for us, driving a stolen car with the Messiah in the back and bad guys after us? It didn’t seem such a good solution to me.

  I put my hand on his forearm.

  ‘Ring the guy and say we’re going to be a day behind. We’ll get there Sunday morning. Call me crazy, but I think stealing a car is a really bad idea. It’d just make us so much more noticeable on the road, and I think we’re aiming for the opposite at the moment, aren’t we?’

  ‘This is fucked,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  He shook his head. Kicked at the footpath.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring and see if I can put them off by a day. I don’t know if I can, but I’ll see what they say. Seriously, if anything else goes wrong, I’m bailing.’

  He took out his phone and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello? Yeah, it’s me. Taxi. We spoke yesterday about that delivery. We’ve had a bit of trouble on the road and don’t think we’ll be able to make it till Sunday morning … No, everything’s fine … Car trouble … Yeah, more car trouble … I know …. That’s where we are now. It’s shut … Yeah, totally jinxed. I can always look at catching the bus or … Yeah, no, good point. This place’ll be open tomorrow, so we can leave first thing. Maybe even get there by tomorrow night … So can we shift things? Move things around … Sunday at the absolute latest … Don’t sweat it, we’ll be there … Yeah, I know. Okay, see ya.’

  He pressed ‘end’.

  ‘Done,’ he said.

  ‘Were they okay?’

  ‘No. Pissed off. But he said he’ll ring and put the next meet off.’

  ‘What did he say when you said about catching the bus?’

  ‘He said he thought we’d tend to stand out, six of us with Jesus in a wheelchair on a bus.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Yep.’

  We started heading back.

  ‘So what did your mum and dad say when you told them the Mover wanted you to help with the Move?’ I asked him. Just to take his mind off the rent-a-car disaster.

  Bad idea.

  A harsh laugh came out of his mouth.

  ‘Have you heard of Marco Levitan?’ he asked me, not exactly answering my question.

  ‘Vaguely,’ I said, trying to remember what I’d heard. ‘I know the name.’

  We were going past an op-shop, which reminded me that I needed some new clothes. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘just quickly, can we go and grab some clothes? I’ve been wearing these ones,’ and I pulled my T-shirt away from my stomach to show him, ‘for a couple of days now. I could do with some …’ I didn’t want to say knickers, but I hadn’t changed them for two days now. ‘… stuff.’

  Taxi nodded, jamming his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘We’ve got time?’

  ‘Got till tomorrow morning.’

  I found the cutest little rust-coloured dress, with a shirred back and thin straps, as well as a white dress with an embroidered hem that would look the business on Coco. On a rack out the side was underwear that still had the labels on, donated by Bonds, so I took a couple of pairs of knickers for me and Co. And a cute-as bag made out of an old scarf, with thin leather straps sewn on.

  Taxi stood to the side as I tried clothes on and put things on the counter. These dangly earrings that would go great with my dress, and a collection of black and white bangles for Coco because there’s just something about that girl that screams black and white to me, and a pair of coppery sandals for me, and some black strappy flats for Coco.

  I took out the fifty bucks Mum had left us.

  ‘What about you?’ I said to him. ‘You want something?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nuh.’

  I went down to the men’s section anyway. Taxi had been wearing that Collingwood cap for the whole trip, and those same Adidas tracks, and he needed something new, whether he liked it or not.

  ‘So, tell me about Marco Levitan,’ I said, holding up a retro gas station shirt with the name ‘Jerry’ across the left pocket. It wasn’t authentic, it wasn’t vintage, it was a copy, but it was cute. ‘How about this?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t need anything.’

  I stopped mid-rack and looked over at him.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You do. Because you know what? We’ve been driving for two days, we almost got run off the road this morning, the police want us, or Enron at least, and Jesus Christ Himself,’ I whispered His name, ‘is travelling with us. You’re getting something new.’

  I pressed the shirt and a pair of jeans on him and pushed him into the change room.

  ‘Anyway, so,’ I said, waiting outside the change room for him to model for me. ‘Marco Levitan. Tell me.’

  Taxi came out wearing the shirt and jeans. He looked good. Sometimes clothes can disguise a person so much that you can’t see exactly what they look like. Taxi had been disguised by the Collingwood cap and Adidas trackies. But here, with the cute retro shirt and faded jeans, you could see him. And he was kind of cute. With big arms. Big. Could nearly give Enron a run for his money.

  I wolf-whistled.

  ‘Nice. Very nice.’ I smiled at him. ‘So. Marco.’

  Taxi looked down. ‘He was my brother.’

  He turned away from me, going over to a rack of clothes and rifling through it, the new clothes sitting nicely on his body. I rifled beside him, holding up a shirt or jeans every so often to show him and suggesting, ‘Jones?’ or ‘Enron?’

  ‘He was just over two when he died.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘My stepdad happened to him,’ Taxi said, a clipped edge coming into his voice.

  ‘Oh.’

  Taxi flicked through coathangered clothes without really looking at them, so I kept him company tacking through the racks, figuring maybe he was happier telling the story without having to look at me.

  ‘He was a wicked bastard,’ Taxi continued, tack tack tack, ‘who liked using his fists to shut us up. Marco especially copped it. I was four years old, old enough to know to keep out of his way. But Marco was only a baby. He had no chance.’

  I slid my eyes across to him, then back to the clothes on the hangers.

  ‘Yeah, and my mum did nothing about it. She was piss weak.’ His voice seemed to spit across the shoulders of the shirts. ‘One day, he belted Marco so badly he didn’t ever recover. The mandatory reporting law – you know, it’s where teachers and doctors have to report child abuse if they suspect it – that was brought in partly because of Marco. Marco had a hundred and twelve broken bones, they found out, at the hospital or the post-mortem or whatever. A hundred and twelve. It was like he’d been in a full-on car accident.’

  I could see his jaw working as he chewed on the inside of his mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t really my mum’s fault, but I still kind of … I don’t know. She couldn’t cope with being on her own. That’s how fucking weak she is, she’d rather be with an arsehole like him than on her own. But probably she couldn’t help it.’

  It occurred to me that if I was in charge of the universe I’d have organised for Taxi’s stepdad to be the one who went missing, not my mum and dad. If we were going to be one or two short in the population, better to be short on people who were angry and cruel to children than the ones who weren’t.

  ‘He told me I had to forgive them,’ Taxi said after he’d gathered himself together.

  I frowned at him.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Mover. He sai
d I had to forgive my mum and my stepdad.’

  I rested my hands on the hangers, and looked across at him.

  ‘What? Just like that?’

  ‘Pretty much. I didn’t want to. Didn’t think they deserved it. But he said if I didn’t forgive them it was like I was drinking poison every day and then waiting for them to die. I was only hurting myself.’ Taxi paused. ‘He showed me this thing.’

  ‘Yeah? What was it?’

  Shyness clouded his features as he decided whether or not to tell me, and then I saw him leap. Deciding to trust me.

  ‘He said I had to “set my stones”. Collect different stones – one for me, and one for each person in my family. Each stone representing them. For example, a shit-coloured stone for my stepdad, Tait. And a piss-weak-coloured one for my mum.’

  I felt sorry for him even talking about his mum like that. Saying such a thing about her. But I totally got why he would think that. I couldn’t get my head around a mum who would stay with someone who bashed up her own kids.

  ‘I found this really cool-looking greenish stone, so I had that one for Marco, and then a small piece of concrete for my real dad, because I didn’t really know him. And then one for me.’ He shrugged his shoulder, evidently not wanting to describe the stone he chose for himself. ‘The Mover gave me this little cloth bag and I had to keep all the stones together, even Tait, which I didn’t want to do, but I had to. And every night, I had to lay the stones out, my stone in the centre, and the other stones around my one in a wheel shape and then – this was really tough – I had to think about one thing I was grateful to each person for.’

  His Adam’s apple raised and lowered as he swallowed, and I could see that even now it was a struggle to think of positive things to say about his family.

  ‘Marco was easy,’ he finally said. ‘I had plenty I was grateful to him for. Being my little brother, playing cars with me, creeping into his cot some nights and just feeling the warmth of his body against mine, making me laugh when things were shit.’

  He pressed his lips together.

  ‘My dad, well, I never really knew him. The Mover suggested maybe I was grateful to him for giving me the gift of life, but I was a little sceptical about whether that was such a great gift or not. But yeah, he did that for me at least.’

  Again, his Adam’s apple rose and fell.

  ‘My mum. I was grateful to her for Marco.’ He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. ‘And I’m good at drawing; I got that from her. And I would never just sit back and watch someone beat the shit out of another person. I learnt that lesson cos of her.’

  I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.

  ‘And then Tait. Big, shit-coloured stone Tait,’ he said. ‘As it turns out, he’s the one I owe the most.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘If I hadn’t met Tait, I wouldn’t have been angry, wouldn’t have gone boxing, wouldn’t have met Alex, wouldn’t have met the Mover, wouldn’t be here right now. This is my chance to do something good for a change, instead of being a fuck-up the whole time. All thanks to Tait.’

  I couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or genuine, but I thought maybe he was being real. His fists weren’t clenched, his voice wasn’t harsh, he smiled to himself as he looked down at the floor.

  Grateful to Tait. I didn’t know if I could do that myself.

  If I set my stones, my mum would be an opal, all swirly colours and clashy statements. I would put her at the north point of my stone compass and be grateful to her for my brains, and the fact that I stand up for myself. I’d be grateful to her for the ease with which I laugh, although I wish she’d rein in her owns guffaws sometimes because really, who needs to be that loud? I was grateful that she didn’t hover over me like some parents who couldn’t seem to let their (nearly adult) children out of their sight without keeping constant telephone contact. Hell, I was even grateful that she had strict house rules that were a pain in the arse, because we both knew it would be so much easier if she said yes, but she said no because she really believed no was the right answer.

  My dad would be the south point of my compass; one of those really smooth river pebbles that are oval and cool but can withstand years and years of water gushing over them. I would be grateful to him for convincing me that I was his favourite, even though I knew Coco thought she was, and Mum was certain she was the hands-down winner out of the three of us. I’d be grateful to him for sometimes still letting me sit on his knee, only for a minute because we’d start feeling a bit creeped out if I sat there too long, but just a sneaky knee-sit every so often to shore me up in times of wobbly chins and little heartbreaks.

  Coco would be something pretty and sparkly. Two stones on the east and west side of me. I’d be grateful for all the secrets we’d shared, the nights spent in motel rooms when Mum and Dad would take us on road trips, both of us laughing hysterically until Mum or Dad would come in and threaten to drive us back to Melbourne if we didn’t go to sleep. For her friends, who I sometimes hung around with. I was grateful that she wasn’t a dork. That she was a sister I was proud of. Not that I’d ever tell her that. And her wardrobe. She had a cracking wardrobe.

  I’d be grateful to Coco for coming with me into the drains of Melbourne, even though I knew it scared the hell out of her and she really, really, really didn’t want to go.

  I wasn’t sure what sort of stone I’d choose for myself. Something kind of normal. A normal stone. Normal colour, nothing too glitzy. Maybe a stone made of wood, because I’d always loved helping Dad in the garden, planting forget-me-nots in my patch, the white and purple baubles against the green leaves thrilling me when they first appeared in the warm spring weather.

  I could feel tears in my eyes, but I refused to let them spill onto my cheeks.

  Taxi was the one with the tragic family history, and I was the one who wanted to cry.

  I held up a particularly lairy shirt.

  ‘Jones, you reckon?’

  Taxi grinned.

  ‘Definitely.’

  Taxi booked us into a motel called ‘Happy Campers’. Which was ironic, because we weren’t.

  We couldn’t hire a car till the next morning. I was going to have to drive for hours and hours and hours and hours without a break to get us to Sydney by Sunday morning, and if the guys who were after us started searching Merimbula motel car parks, they’d find a 1964 Ford Falcon parked bonnet-forwards towards our room like a neon arrow saying, ‘Here they are.’

  Plus, we all had a case of cabin fever so severe it could only be treated with some pretty hardcore antibiotics or a trip to the pub.

  We opted for the pub. There was a band playing called the Wedding Canners and we figured we’d be relatively safe, holed up in a dark room watching a band.

  We were all in our new op-shop best, even JC was wearing new clothes for the occasion: the knock-off Wayfarers I’d bought Him, and a very cool black-and-white checked shirt which suited Him way more than those long-flowing robes you traditionally associate with Him. We toyed vaguely with the idea of cutting His hair to make Him look less Jesus-ish, but decided against it seeing there was a definite chance of being struck by lightning if we hacked into His locks.

  Enron, Coco and I disguised ourselves to look as little like our photos as possible. I had my hair out and unruly – the opposite of the uptight pigtails I wore in my school photo; Coco had her hair plaited and long with flowers threaded into the ends, and Enron was wearing a cap I’d bought him, pushed low over his face to cover his eyes.

  Taxi opted to sit in the public bar instead of watching the band, so he could go through his multiple maps and figure out alternative routes to Sydney, see if there were any quicker paths, hoping to shake those guys off our bumper.

  The Wedding Canners were a local band, three guys who were vibed up and crazy hyped, which was exactly how I felt after the day we’d had. Their music was loud and fast and cartoonish, and Jones kept leaning in to me, yelling in my ear, but I could barely hear him because t
he music was so amped up. It felt delicious having his body leaning in to mine and I wondered if maybe he was touching my ear with his mouth because he had lots of stuff he wanted to say, or if it was one of those touch-because-I-want-to-touch-you type things.

  I pushed JC’s wheelchair in time to the music, letting the wheels carry the vibe right through His body.

  ‘First gig?’ I yelled to Him, cupping my hands around my mouth. ‘You having a good time?’

  Of course He was having an awesome time. He was only human (although I might have to check with someone on the technicality of that statement) – it wasn’t possible to be at a gig like the Wedding Canners and not be totally into it. The crowd moved in sync, doof doof doof, each person part of the dot-to-dot that makes up a perfect night where the music is sweet-as and the guy leaning in to you is more so.

  My English exam was seven days away. A week after that I had Lit, maths on the fifth, classical studies on the eighth and French on the seventeenth. And I couldn’t care less. The cops were looking for us but I’d worry about them after we arrived in Sydney. My parents were missing but I couldn’t think about them because it was too scary to confront what that might actually mean. Enron was being blamed but we’d sort it all out later.

  Instead, I celebrated my dot-existence in the crowd.

  I didn’t matter. None of us mattered. But together we all mattered. We were all an essential part of the night. And the Wedding Canners canned the room with their up-vibe and high-voltage sound.

  The waters of Merimbula sparkled that night. I’m not talking romantic, poetic, hot-for-this-guy sparkling. I’m talking people-standing-on-the-beach-gobsmacked sparkling.

  The waters were phosphorescent, glow-in-the-dark green.

  People were taking photos and video as their friends and kids jumped and splashed in the nighttime water. News crews and photographers had come down to the marina to capture the green-tinged brilliance. Local fishermen had microphones thrust in their faces so they could explain the phosphorescence was ‘due to thousands of plankton’, and ‘the more correct term is bioluminescence’, and ‘it usually streaks but this is quite incredible’.