Miles Walker, You're Dead

by Linda Jaivin

  ‘What are you going on about?’ ZakDot shook his head. ‘Or did you not realise you were talking to yourself.’ He circled his finger around his ear and tried to catch Maddie’s eye.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied morosely. I’d read somewhere that talking to yourself was the first sign of madness. Bacon, sympathetic as always, or maybe just hungry, sloped over and rubbed himself against my legs. I wondered if either ZakDot or Maddie could sense my agitation. Their eyes were riveted to the tube.

  The woman with the flawless skin was talking about the Troubles. ‘Multiculturalism,’ she was saying, popping out the syllables with difficulty, ‘is a threat to national surety?’

  Trixie Tinkles widened her eyes in a facsimile of shock.

  ‘In fact,’ the odalisque continued, ‘culturalism of all sorts is a threat to national surety? We see that in the Troubles?’ For all her physical allure, she had one of those inflections where every sentence ended in a question. ‘And this government can’t seem to do nothing about it?’

  That much was true. The government was hopeless. Our leaders, small men with reptilian tongues, paid lip-service to art, but you could tell they didn’t know what the word meant. They were a pack of bean counters incapable of grasping any concept that didn’t contain a decimal point. The Troubles were way beyond their grasp. Asked for his analysis of the situation, the prime minister, who’d been elected only because voters mistook him for an actor in a respected television drama, thought for a moment and bleated, ‘Two point six.’ When queried what he intended to do about it, he waggled his finger and shouted, ‘One point eight!’ His aspirations for the future: ‘Ten per cent.’

  ‘There’s a lot wrong with the world?’ the woman with the long nose was saying. ‘Now I can’t do much about, you know, Innonesia? Or the Russians? Or that Albaranian thing? But I do know that this country’s down on its stumps? And I can get it back up again?’

  Trixie glanced down at her notes. ‘And how exactly,’ she asked, resting one finger against her chin, ‘would you do that?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked that, Miss Tinkles?’ the woman with the small mouth said.

  Trixie Tinkles realised the camera was on her and nodded.

  ‘Get rid of culture? And you get rid of the Troubles?’

  This was stupid and offensive. I reached for the remote, thinking to switch channels.

  Maddie pinned my hand to the sofa with her palm. A thrill of electricity shot up my arm, into my brain and did a U-turn heading straight for my groin.

  The gesture did not escape ZakDot’s notice. With Maddie still staring straight ahead at the TV, I smirked at him. She removed her hand. He smirked back.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Doppler,’ Trixie said blankly into the camera. ‘We’ll be back with Destiny Doppler, leader of Clean Slate, the independent party that everyone’s talking about, after this commercial break.’ A shampoo ad featuring the country’s only artist with clean hair came on.

  Maddie turned to me. ‘I’ve actually been into your studio,’ she proclaimed, sucking on her tongue piercing. Nervously, I waited for her to go on. She turned back to the TV. The shampoo ad finished and another ad came on in which a well-known composer explained why she preferred a certain brand of tampons. ‘First-rate, Miles,’ Maddie finally drawled. ‘Really like it.’

  My heart filled and my head swelled. I wanted the moment to last forever. I wanted to ask her what she liked, to wring out every drop of flattery and appreciation. Destiny’s face filled the screen again. ZakDot turned up the sound.

  ‘For all our festivals and exhibitions and—’ Destiny paused ‘—bean-alleys and theatre sports and what have you, in our heart of hearts, the people of Strayer aren’t comfortable with the concept? Of culture?’

  ‘How do you mean that?’ chirped Trixie. Having accidentally put on her talking-to-happy-mother-of-quintuplets-voice, she struggled towards appropriateness.

  A male voice cut in. The camera swung round to frame the speaker, who, it was apparent, had been just off-screen all this time. My first impression of him was that he was handsome, but in a creepy sort of way.

  ‘Think about it, Twixie.’ He spat out her name as though it were a plug of tobacco. ‘Look awound you. Don’t you think we’re all twying a tad too hard? Let’s face it, when a citizen of this cuntwee dwags himself off to some wanky little exhibition in which the artist displays his total contempt for his audience by bottling his piss, or sticking plastic bags to the wall, he’s in denial. He’s in denial of the fact that he’s feeling insulted, bored, and angwee. Look what’s happened to pubs—you can’t go out for a beer or hit of the pokies without finding yourself in the middle of some comedy festival or poetwee weading. It’s outwageous. A twavesty.’

  ‘We’ll be back with Destiny Doppler and Mister, uh, Verbero from Clean Slate after this break.’ Trixie looked into the camera, looked down, shuffled her notes and looked up again. An ad for a cheese snack using the characters from a popular novel came on the tube.

  ‘It’s a joke,’ I posited. ‘Surely.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’d still feel ripped off if I were the author,’ ZakDot argued.

  ‘I’m talking about Clean Slate. And Destiny Doppler.’

  ‘Of course it’s a joke. I’m sure we’ll find out in a moment that she’s actually Barry Humphries’ latest character.’

  ‘No JOKE!’ boomed Maddie. ‘Dead fucken serious.’

  We were discovering that it was hard to argue with Maddie. We went silent, sitting through an advert for Doomsday-proof bush shelters and then another in which a classical pianist explained how a certain brand of toothpaste had whitened and brightened his smile.

  Destiny reappeared. ‘Let’s look at the economics? The statatistics?’

  Trixie nodded cheerfully.

  ‘Well…’ Destiny glanced down at the pile of papers in front of her with a panicked expression. A smooth male hand reached over, extricated one sheet and placed it on top of the pile. ‘Yes, well, according to these statatistics? The arts and culture of this country is valued at nineteen billion dollars annually, rivalling the road transport and house building sectors? Now this seems like a crime to me? We need road transport? We need houses? While some people still don’t own their own houses, why is so much money going into the arts?’

  ‘Uh, Ms Doppler—’ Trixie interrupted, frowning with concentration.

  ‘Destiny?’

  ‘Destiny. I believe, now I could be wrong, I’m no economist, but I do believe that those stata-, uh, statistics indicate how much money the arts are contributing to the economy.’ Trixie tried to raise one eyebrow, failed, worked on the other one.

  Destiny knit her brows. ‘Let’s look at another statatistic then? Foreign visitors spend sixty-five million dollars on Aboriginal arts and crafts? Now, I ask you, couldn’t they be spending it on something else while they’re here? I mean, shouldn’t they be buying things made by our citizens?’

  Trixie gulped. ‘Uh, I believe that the Aborigines are citizens,’ she said uncertainly. She turned to the side. ‘Polly? Polly? Can you check that for me?’

  ‘Can you believe this?’ said Maddie through gritted teeth.

  Verbero whispered something in Destiny’s ear.

  ‘Well, Trixie,’ she began again, ‘if the market doesn’t have enough demand for artists, if most of them have to survive on something like ten thousand dollars a year, many requiring welfare benefits, then isn’t that a sign that we have too many artists? Too much supply? Too little demand?’

  Trixie, who looked stunned, shook herself. She grinned at the camera, her head to one side. ‘Uh, well, that’s all we have time for tonight.’

  ‘Wait?’ Destiny cut in as the credits started to roll. ‘I just want to say,’ she trilled, ‘that if Clean Slate gets into power, I will consider it a mandate to cut off all government funding to the arts?’ She made a small fist and thumped the table with it, startling Trixie, who was stressing over wind-up signals from her producer. ‘I’ll impose a cr
eativity tax? I’ll cut off the dole for any unemployed person caught using their time to create art or literature or music? I can promise you this—we will wean artists off the public teat if we have to pull the little suckers off one by one? Culture,’ she concluded, ‘is simply un-Strayun, and that’s that?’

  The three of us looked at each other. It felt like one of those moments, a JFK-assassination or Neil-Armstrong-moon-landing or Princess-Di-car-crash moment, a future where-were-you-when snapshot in time.

  ‘Damn.’ ZakDot was the first to regain his voice. ‘I haven’t even had a chance to wrap me cakehole round the public teat and she’s already weaning me off. So unfair.’

  Maddie said nothing. She stood up and went to her room. When she came back, she was carrying a gun.

  ‘Holy shit, Maddie. What’re you…’ She was going to kill me, I knew it.

  When I opened my eyes, my ears were ringing and an acrid smell filled my nostrils. Bacon was in my arms. I tried to stand up, but my knees knocked and I sat back down again.

  ‘Have a little fright there, Mi?’ ZakDot grinned. I could see, however, that he’d just got up off the floor himself.

  The sorry mess of glass and metal and plastic that spread itself over the lounge-room floor, from cha cha to fox trot, was all that remained of ZakDot’s television set. Maddie put down her weapon and rubbed her palms together. ‘Anyone for a couple of pots down the local?’ I imagined she was going to take the gun down for a few pot shots at drinkers before remembering she was from Melbourne. She was talking about beer. You see, right from the start, I believed her capable of anything. And that was before I knew that she was into making bombs. I can see now that my fright at the sight of her with her gun, like the start Thurston gave me with his broadaxe, was the result of my own neuroses.

  I wish I could say the same of my terror at the device she and Zak are setting up on this boat right now.

  ‘Well? Any takers?’

  ‘I never say no to a beer,’ said ZakDot, picking a shard of screen off his jacket. ‘No telling how it would react to rejection.’

  I was too shaken to go anywhere. Staying back with a transparent excuse about having to get up early the next day for class, I swept up. No one had swept the floor for a long time. I found some more ball bearings.

  By the time they returned I was in bed nodding off over Robert Hughes.

  When I heard the rap on my door, I had a nanosecond of fantasy that it was Maddie.

  ‘Miles?’ It was ZakDot. ‘You’re not sleeping already, are you? It’s only eleven-thirty.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ I instructed. ‘I need my beauty sleep.’

  ‘But Mi. That’s what daytime is for.’ He pushed open the door.

  ‘Did I say come in?’ I rolled over, drawing the pillow over my head.

  ‘What a gal, hey?’ ZakDot plonked himself down on the end of my bed. ‘What about that gun? Scared you, huh? You thought I’d recruited her to the “plan”. I could see it in your eyes.’

  I pulled the pillow down more tightly around my ears. ZakDot wrestled it off.

  ‘It’s only a pellet gun, you know,’ he informed me with a smirk.

  ‘Only a pellet gun,’ I repeated, trying vainly to hide my mortification. ‘You would go telling everyone I want to die young,’ I griped, lifting my head to glare at him. ‘And while we’re on the subject of bullshit, what was that “painting is dead as Elvis” crap?’

  ZakDot slipped his hand into my hair and mussed it. ‘I was just stirring you.’

  ‘What am I, soup?’

  ‘I love you, Miles,’ he said, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me tight.

  ‘Get off me, you fucking pisshead,’ I growled and pushed him off. Bastard gave me a stiffy.

  A terrible idea has just occurred to me. Thinking about Verbero’s movements at the bathroom cabinet earlier, I wonder if perhaps his men went back to the warehouse this afternoon. The gang would have all been there at the time. They’d have been no match for… Here I am, assuming that ZakDot and Maddie are on board, planting a bomb, when they could be, I dunno, already dead. I feel sick.

  The ship’s whistle has blown. We’re moving out into the middle of the harbour again. Verbero dashes in, and snaps the curtain closed. Pointing two fingers at me like a pistol, he dashes out again.

  The last art hero

  Somewhere in the third world, the top of a mountain came off like a champagne cork, inundating eight villages with lava. Elsewhere around the globe, tsunamis, hurricanes, and landslides wreaked their havoc. Terrorists terrorised, economies collapsed, children fought whole wars without adult supervision. Democracy protesters died, dictators didn’t. Refugees streamed across borders, the borders shifted and they streamed across them again. Scientists cloned themselves, rich people froze themselves, poor people drugged themselves. Cannibalism was making a comeback. There was too much acid in the rain, electromagnetism in the air and poison in the ground.

  In other words, nothing had changed in the month or two it took us to get a replacement for the TV. The world scared the shit out of me. I didn’t understand it; I didn’t want to. Art was the only thing that made sense to me, even when it made me suffer.

  ‘Hello, hello.’ ZakDot waved his hand in front of my face. ‘You’re talking to yourself again, Miles.’ I looked over at him, startled, just as Maddie plopped down between us on the sofa.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She helped herself to the bag of crisps in ZakDot’s lap.

  ‘Miles here,’ ZakDot explained, ‘is the Last Art Hero. He wants to suffer for his art.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Maddie nodded.

  At that point, Thurston emerged from his room, wearing his tunic, breeches, and the helmet from a suit of armour. With a sidelong glance at us through the visor and a little wave, he walked across the lounge and out the door.

  ‘There goes Ned Kelly,’ ZakDot said after he’d gone. ‘Off to model for Sidney Nolan.’

  ‘Does something strike you as strange about Thurston lately?’ I asked. I had a reason for asking.

  ‘Does something strike you as Catholic about the Pope lately?’

  Maddie giggled. ‘Oh, here’s the news again.’ She reached for the remote and clicked on the sound. When ZakDot bought the TV, he made Maddie promise, as a condition for being allowed to watch it, that she wouldn’t harm it no matter what came on the screen. Curling her legs under her, she rested her head on my shoulder. Her big sexy feet in their thermal socks were flush against ZakDot’s thigh. It was April, and the evenings were growing cool. ZakDot’s arm rested on the back of the couch, his hand in my hair. We were one happy family.

  I suppose that the fact I was going slowly insane didn’t really detract from the general joie de vivre of the household. Like Thurston’s increasing eccentricity and the slow build-up of sexual tension, it contributed something special to the atmosphere.

  ‘Eccentricity’ was ZakDot’s word for Thurston’s behaviour, by the way. I perceived something more insidious, even diabolical at work. After my alarmed reaction to his formula, Thurston never mentioned it again. His silence perturbed me.

  Adding to my apprehension was the way in which his arsenal of medieval weaponry continued to grow. Every other day, it seemed, I opened the door to couriers delivering poleaxes or rapiers from Knights-R-Us. Once, I found him assembling a full-scale catapult in the lounge. I worried about what was behind those long, meditative looks he threw my way when he thought I didn’t notice. He took to locking his door when he went out, which struck me as further proof that he was up to something. I began to wonder if the real reason he wore ug boots was to get about in silence, the better to carry out his murderous plans.

  ‘Sh,’ ZakDot admonished, ruffling my hair with his hand. I clenched my jaw and tried to focus on the screen. I really had to get a grip.

  The local news was on now. ZakDot turned up the sound. The Troubles were getting worse and were spreading throughout the country. Police had arrested a film director in Darwi
n on shooting charges. There’d been an ugly pub brawl in Townsville over whether Cloudstreet should have had a happy ending. The prime minister, licking his lips, appealed for calm. ‘Just four point five,’ he urged, pulling on his ears for emphasis, ‘four point six if possible.’ The leader of the opposition failed to come up with a better solution. Somewhere in the backwoods of Tasmania, Destiny Doppler delivered her anti-culture message to a crowd of several dozen cheering supporters. The crowd was small but the cheering loud as many of the people had two heads.

  Since that time we first saw her talking to Trixie Tinkles, Destiny had been popping up everywhere.

  ‘You know what Destiny Doppler’s problem is?’ My voice took on an edge of melodrama. ‘She’s never been exposed to great art.’ The others looked at me, incredulous. ‘Seriously. I don’t think she even knows what culture is. I bet that if I had just a week with her, I could bring her round.’ If I’d only known what a week with her would really lead to. Bringing her round was the least of it.

  ‘I think,’ Maddie drawled, her eyes on my face and one finger on her tattooed chin, ‘that if you keep saying things like that, Miles, we really are going to have to kill you.’

  The following afternoon, she brought home a chainsaw.

  I couldn’t paint. The noise of the chainsaw was setting my teeth on edge. I was hungry. I’d have gone out to eat if I’d had any money, which I didn’t, so I headed into the kitchen.

  Where were the pots and pans? I frowned. Then I remembered that Thurston had rigged up a rack and pulley for the pots and pans that morning. It was a device based, he said, on fourteenth century technology. He’d demonstrated it for us earlier in the day. I tugged on the rope that was supposed to lower the rack from its position near the ceiling. I couldn’t seem to get it to work.