Hey Brother

by Jarrah Dundler

  Trev’d been up here all along.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I growled.

  Trev ignored my question and moved towards Mum. ‘Leave him, Kirsty. Leave him till he snaps out of it.’

  He spun, pointed at me with his crooked finger. ‘And you! Put the fucken bat down, you idiot! If Shaun thinks either of youse are the enemy while he’s stuck in it, yer fucken gone.’

  I lowered the bat. Mum’s feet stayed firmly planted on the ground, but her upper body seemed to disobey Trev, leaning forward as if Shaun was a magnet pulling her closer.

  Shaun continued to breathe fast—aah-foo, aah-foo, aah-foo—then raised his head, which glistened with sweat. His jaw was clenched. His neck veins bulged. He was just like he’d been before the prang—ready to explode. His eyes traced the room and settled on me.

  I shivered—it was like just after the prang. He was looking at me as if I wasn’t even there.

  Shaun turned his gaze to Mum, and for a couple of seconds his eyes narrowed. Then they lit up, like he actually saw her and knew who she was.

  ‘Shaun!’ Mum’s tone was soft and pleading.

  ‘Kirsty,’ Trev said warily.

  Mum shooshed Trev and crept towards Shaun, dangling her hand in front of her, showing him the back of it. Same way you’d approach a dog you’d never met before and were a bit suss of. Shaun’s eyes looked clearer. He was coming out of it. Back to us.

  Mum glanced at Trev, brows raised. Keep going?

  Trev nodded. Yeah, go on.

  ‘Shaunie. Shaunie.’ It was a voice I hadn’t heard for years. Her singsong lullaby voice, butter-soft, honey-sweet—the voice she used when comforting us when we were little and we’d scraped a knee, or donked our noggins, or got stung by nettles. ‘Shaunie, it’s me. It’s Mumma. I’m coming over to you now, okay?’

  Mum took another step forward. Trev squatted and aimed his outspread arms at Shaun like a footy player ready to make a tackle.

  ‘Shaunie,’ said Mum. ‘Is it okay? Can I come to you?’

  Shaun closed his eyes, nodded. ‘Yeah.’ His voice was strained, croaky. ‘Yeah, Mum. It’s okay.’

  Mum dashed the remaining couple of metres forward, knelt and bundled him into her arms. She ran her long fingers up and down the back of his head.

  Trev stood, straightened and exhaled. Then he shoved his hand into his pocket and fished out a pouch of rollies.

  Cradled against Mum’s chest, Shaun’s breathing changed from huffy and puffy to deep and desperate, like he’d just been pulled out of the surf and coughed up a lungful of water. Aaaahhh—huuuu—aaaaahhhh—huuuuuu. It was more than just breathing, though; it was groaning, moaning. It was familiar. I’d heard him make that sound before. But I couldn’t remember when.

  As Trev rolled his durry he angled his body away from Shaun as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Then I realised what the sound was and why I hadn’t recognised it straight away—it had been years since I’d heard Shaun bawl.

  ‘C’mon, Trysten,’ said Trev. ‘Yer mum’s got it now. Nothing we can do.’

  I followed him outside. Shaun’s gut-wrenching sobs and Mum’s lullaby voice followed us into the rain.

  ‘There, there, Shaunie. You’re right now, my boy. You’re right.’

  Trev drank his tea the same as Mum—blowing into the cup to cool it, raising it slowly to his pursed lips and taking dainty little bird-sips. Then, when it was cool enough, he gulped it down noisily.

  I hadn’t taken a single sip from my cup. Couldn’t. As soon as Trev’d wordlessly placed it on the kitchen table in front of me I’d wrapped my shaking hands round it and kept them there. I dunno if it was the warmth, or just clutching onto something, but having them wrapped round the cup settled the shaking.

  After another sip of tea Trev prised the lid off the container of gingerbread men. He carefully selected one, snapped its head off and tossed it into his mouth. He woofed it down with just two chews, like a dog greedily eating a biscuit, then took another gulp of tea.

  ‘Ahhh!’ And with that, Trev broke the silence that had fallen when we’d entered the kitchen and had been getting tenser with every tick of the clock on the wall above the fridge.

  Trev held my gaze, waving the headless gingerbread man in front of my face. ‘So. Looks like your big brother’s losing his head.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean, what? You fucken heard me. Shaun’s goin’ mental. Or has already. Not too sure. I mean, I ain’t no fucken expert.’

  My grip on the cup tightened. Under the table my leg jiggled. I shook my head. ‘Nah! Nah way.’

  ‘Nah way? Fucken yes way!’ Trev spat the words out angrily, then stared into his cup. When he continued it was more like he was talking to himself than to me. ‘He invited me up to the shed the other night for a few drinks. I knew something was up straight away. Fucken knew it. Knew he wanted to talk about something but just couldn’t quite get there. Even after all the piss—fucken drinking like a fish he was. Never seen him go that hard before. Not Shaun. When I asked when his leave was up, he wouldn’t say. Kept talking about extending it. So then I thought, fuck it. Asked if there was anything he wanted to talk about. Asked how he was coping. FINE! He fucken yelled it! FINE! After that he was real cagey. All wound up. Like a bomb about t—’

  ‘Nah!’ I shook my head furiously. ‘Nah. Not Shaun. He’s not mental. You don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Oi! Ex-fucken-scuse me!’ Trev slammed his fist on the table. A wave swelled in my teacup and crashed over the edge, drenching my fingers. ‘Would you not fucken interrupt me while I’m speaking? Could ya just fucken listen for once?

  ‘Now.’ Trev swigged his tea, angrily. ‘That’s why I went up there tonight, y’see? ’Cause of the way he was carrying on the other night. Was on my mind all day. Wanted to check on him. So I went up, watched him for a few minutes while he slept. Could hardly call it sleep, though. Tossing and turning like he was wrestling a fucken croc. Then that screaming started and I thought, fucken hell, here we go again.’

  ‘What do you mean, again?’

  ‘Well, ah…’ Trev sighed, ran his hand over his face. ‘I’ve seen this stuff before. Ten years back I lived for a while in a share house over in Big Town. Wild fucken place. Cheap rent ’cause it was a ramshackle old timber joint down by the river that got flooded every two years or so. People blowin’ in and out all the time. Some’d stay for weeks, some for months, never much longer than that. All kinds of misfits—crims laying low, pill-popping ravers, dope-dealers, trippy hippies dialling off their skulls on acid for days on end, some punk lesbo-chicks, lovely lassies they were. I tell ya, it was a wild place. A regular fucken mongrel pit…’

  Trev gulped the rest of his tea, walked over to the bench and put the kettle back on.

  ‘So what about this dump? What’s it got to do with Shaun?’ ‘So? I’m gonna get to the so if ya let me! So, while I was there this fella came and stayed for a couple of months. Big Johnny was his name, on account of him being just over five foot two but strong as a fucken ox. Mate of Mick’s—y’know, yer dad’s mate Mick. Had a good ten years on me, Johnny did. Closer to yer old man’s age, I reckon. Ripe age to have been shipped off to fight the commies in ’Nam.’

  Trev poured another tea and opened the kitchen window. The rain had softened. I could just hear Mum and Shaun’s voices drifting from the shed. They were talking. Not yelling. Just talking.

  ‘Anyway,’ Trev continued, coming back to the table, ‘Big Johnny’d battled for a year in Vietnam then kept on battling from the moment he set foot on home turf. Some nights in that house I’d wake to a fucken mother of a scream, just like the one we all heard tonight—sound of someone being butchered with a rusty blade. Well, tell ya what, only took me one time of racing in there to try and help poor Johnny to be wary about doing it again. He was pacing round his room in some kind of trance, stuck in a nightmare back there, and must’ve thought I was one of those Vietcong basta
rds. Fucken lifted me up and tossed me across the room like a rag doll. Cracked two of me ribs! After that when he’d scream at night I’d just stand in his doorway, watching as he screamed and shook and raged around. Johnny’d be messy for days after. Sometimes he’d bawl—grown man, Big Johnny, tough as fucken steel, howling like a baby. Other times he’d pace round the house smoking like a chimney and muttering to himself, eyes glazed over like there was a movie playing in his mind. Not a fucken good one, either.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Yeah, fuck alright. One night, when he was in an okay way, he told me some of the shit that he saw on tour. Made me think, no wonder he’s screwed up. Enemies’ heads exploding. Kids with limbs torn off. Mates dying beside him.’

  ‘Wolfy!’ I yelled. ‘Shaun’s mate, Wolfy!’

  ‘Huh? What are you talkin’ about?’

  I told Trev what Shaun’d told me—the full version of his patrol’s contact.

  ‘Jesus…Oh fuck! Well, something like that could do it alright. Doesn’t happen to everyone, though. Or it can come later. Months. Even years. Sometimes something triggers it. Like an incident that takes ’em back there.’

  When Trev said incident, I was overcome by a wave of dread. I tried to hold back the tears but they burst forth, welling in my eyes, streaming down my cheeks. ‘Ah shit, Trev…I really fucked up…Oh god.’

  ‘What? Oi! Settle down. What are ya fucken talking about? What’d ya do?’

  In between sobs I told him about the prang, how it’d made Shaun snap. ‘See, Trev. An incident, like you said. I did it. It’s my fault!’

  ‘Calm down!’ Trev slapped the table and then shot air through his lips like a braying horse. He stood and paced round the kitchen, scratching his chin. ‘Ah, Jesus. Trysten, sorry, I didn’t mean to snap like that. Look, I’m not really good at this…’ He sighed and walked over to the fridge.

  I wiped the tears from my cheek.

  Trev returned, opening a beer. ‘Had enough of that fucken tea. Tastes like arse-juice.’

  I managed a small laugh.

  Trev smiled, sat in his chair and pegged me with his eyes. ‘Now, you listen to me, Trysten. Ya can’t go blaming yerself about what’s happening to Shaun. And don’t get too worked up—I’m just thinking out loud here, trying to make sense of it all myself. Don’t know anything for certain. Point is this—if he is messed up, then it’s what he’s seen that’s messed him. Not some prang in that old fucken shitbox. And, hey, listen. If something is up with him, well, it’s good we’re onto it early. Means we can get help. Get him to a doc.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I sniffled. ‘They got medicine for it or something, do they? Did Big Johnny get some?’

  ‘Ah…well.’ Trev chugged his beer with four big glugs, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Then he removed his pouch from his pocket, and as he rolled up I saw his eyes become moist. A single tear started rolling down his cheek, but by the time he’d slotted the rollie between his lips and raised his head to look at me, his eyes were dry again and that tear had vanished like a lone raindrop falling in a desert.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Trev lit the durry, took a long drag. He blew the smoke up and to the right so it shot out over his shoulder and drifted out the window. ‘Big Johnny got medicine. But not from a doctor. Found his own, y’see?’

  ‘Oh great! What was it?’

  Trev closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Haitch.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Hammer. Smack. The white horse. Fucken heroin, Trysten. Big Johnny was a junky. Proper one, too—not just a dabbler. Stuck a fucken needle in his arm every chance he could get.’

  ‘Ah, fuck. Well, what happened to him?’ All the crying I’d done had left me feeling like a half-flat football. And as Trev kept talking about Johnny and making me more worried about Shaun, it felt as if someone was treading on that football, trying to squeeze the rest of the air out.

  ‘Johnny got better in the end, right? He stopped doing it? He did, didn’t he, Trev?’

  Trev shuffled over to the kitchen sink, placed his hands on its edges and stood with his head over it. Then, as he answered my question, he stayed like that. It was like he wanted the words to go straight down the plughole after he’d uttered them. ‘Nah. Johnny didn’t stop. He didn’t get better. Far from it. He OD’d, Trysten. Know what that is? Huh? Overdosed. Big Johnny cooked up a hit so fucken big he knew that it’d take him over the edge of that precipice he’d been peeking over for years.’

  ‘Ah shit, Trev. Shit!’ The tears burst forth again. I clutched the teacup tighter than ever.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Trev rushed back to the table. ‘Don’t stress. It’s different now, Trysten. Different times. They know more about the insides of people’s heads. Heaps more. Know how to take care of people better, too.’

  ‘Okay, let’s take him to the doctor’s in the morning then. Or even now. Can’t we?’

  ‘Whoa! Steady on. An A-plus for yer enthusiasm, but listen, mate, we’ve got to tread lightly.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Cause ya can’t make someone do something they mightn’t want to do.’

  ‘What? Why wouldn’t he want to do it?’

  ‘Let’s just put it this way—I’ve had plenty of people push me to get some help for me drinking and drugging, and you know what I told them to do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To piss right off. But this one time I got in there—y’know, to rehab—I got there myself. Made my own mind up. I may not’ve lasted two weeks, but I gave it a go, didn’t I? My fuck-ups are not the point, though. The point’s this, Trysten: Shaun needs to make that decision himself. Half his fucken problem at the moment is probably him stressin’ out, worrying what all his army mates’ll think of him. ’S a big fall for someone like him. We need to wait till he’s ready, Trysten. Need to take it slow. Go on his terms. Unless he gets—’

  BANG!

  A noise came from the shed; something slamming into the wall.

  Then came another.

  BANG!

  And another.

  BANG!

  My hands were stinging, suddenly warm and wet.

  I looked down.

  I don’t know when it happened—on the first bang, the second or the third—but my grip on the teacup had tightened so much I’d crushed it. All I gripped now were chunks of rose-patterned porcelain. Tea spread out over the table, with a river of red running through it.

  Trev flung me a tea-towel and made for the door, finishing what he’d started saying.

  ‘Unless he gets a lot worse. Then we’ll have no choice but to try and drag him.’

  An angry gust blew up the hill, slanting the rain diagonally like incoming arrows. Mum stood on the concrete slab out the front of the shed, hugging herself. Behind her, Shaun’s curtain flapped wildly—whoop whoop, in and out, in and out—through the open doorway.

  Crouching and guarding his face with his forearm, Trev crept up the steps.

  The curtain flapped out. Inside I saw the dark shape of Shaun’s body—one arm pulled back, the other pointing forward. Throwing position.

  BANG!

  ‘Shit!’ I leapt at the verandah post and clung to it like it was the mast of a sinking ship.

  Mum screamed and pattered down the steps. Trev moved to her and scooped her into his chest.

  I scanned the outside wall of the shed. Even from down on the verandah and in the low light I could see the dents. Three bubbles in the metal.

  Another angry gust blew. The curtain flapped in and out, capturing Shaun’s movements like a camera shutter opening and closing.

  Click.

  Shaun lunging towards the pool table.

  Click.

  Shaun picking up a snooker ball.

  Click.

  Spinning.

  Click.

  Bringing his arm right back.

  Click.

  BANG!

  Mum clung to Trev’s singlet, pulled it to her face and sobbed.

  Trev took her shoulder
s and gently prised her off, then in one swift movement he lifted her and plopped her on the step behind him.

  ‘Trysten,’ he said. ‘Ya got her?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I pushed off the post and splashed through the muddy earth. Digging my toes in, I clawed my way across the yard and up to the steps. I wrapped my arm round Mum’s waist and helped her back to the house.

  Just as we were walking inside, another BANG exploded, the loudest one yet. Like Shaun was trying to knock the whole fucken shed down.

  I was on lookout. Mum couldn’t do anything but sit—her trembling was even fiercer than mine had been. Leaning over the sink and tilting my head to the right, I could see through the window up to the middle of the shed steps. My view ended where Trev’s feet were, on the middle step. I watched, waiting for them to move, but for the five minutes or so while Mum cradled the cup of tea I’d brewed for her, Trev’s feet stayed put.

  BANG!

  Trev shouted something but another gust blew in, snatched his words away and flung them into the sky.

  I could hear Trev’s voice, low and gruff. Authoritative, almost like Principal Carroll’s. But I couldn’t make out a word of what he was saying. I reckoned they were the right words, though, because for the next couple of minutes Shaun didn’t yell, or scream, or throw another pool ball.

  The break in the ball-throwing must’ve calmed Mum, because for the first time since coming down from the shed, she spoke. ‘He was fine, Trysten. Said he’d had a bad dream and got worked up about it and started crying ’cause of all the stress and he didn’t know what to do, whether he wanted to go back or not. Then he lay back down and I stroked his head. Y’know, just like I did for the both of youse when youse were littluns. And it worked. He calmed. Drifted off. Least, I thought he had.’ Mum sipped her tea. ‘Oh, Trysten. He was so still. So still I swear he was asleep. If I’d known he was awake I wouldn’t have babbled on as much as I did.’

  I left my post at the window and pulled up a chair beside her. ‘What, Mum? What’d you say to him?’

  ‘I just babbled. Trying to make sense of it, y’know? Kind of talking to myself as much as him. Saying not to worry, we’d call Defence. See if they could send someone to help. And as soon as I said that he leapt off the sofa and tore round the shed like I’d poked him with a stick. Screaming about not being no fucken malingerer!’