Hey Brother

by Jarrah Dundler

  ‘And what can I do for you this evening?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Sure. Take a seat.’ Trev motioned to the upside-down milk crate on the other side of the coffee table.

  Along with the seats and the table there was a bed (timber pallets and a foam mattress), a small bookshelf (a couple of old crates) and two gas lanterns that were running. That was all. Still, despite the dodgy furniture, Trev’d done a decent job of cleaning the dairy out and keeping it tidy. There wasn’t a single weed growing in the doorway. All the glass from the windows I’d smashed had been swept up. All the mud and muck that’d been splattered on the walls had been scrubbed away.

  He hadn’t cleaned everything, though. The graffiti, my message for Trev, remained on the wall. Clear as day. Soon as I spotted it I cast my eyes to the concrete floor.

  ‘Yeah…’ Trev leant over and grabbed a fork off the coffee table. ‘That. Thought I’d leave that up, y’know? Like to read it every now and again, have a bit of a think about…’ He trailed off, eyes narrowing.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Think about what?’

  ‘Think about what I’m going to do when I catch the author of that little piece…if I ever catch ’em, that is.’ Trev prodded the palm of his hand with the tines of the fork. ‘Reckon I might be close, though. Real close.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I gulped.

  ‘Yeah.’ Trev pushed the fork harder into his palm. ‘Tell me something, Trysten—you ever heard the scream of a man who’s been stabbed in the gut with one of these?’

  My face tingled as blood drained away. I made a noise that was half yelp, half laugh. ‘Nah, Trev. Nah, I haven’t.’

  ‘Well.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘I have.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I gripped the side of the crate, ready to shift off it and lob it—wham!—straight at Trev’s head and then bolt the fuck out of there.

  ‘Yeah!’ Trev jabbed the fork into his hand, over and over. ‘Yeah, I heard it real good, hey. Real good. Know how?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nah…how?’

  ‘Heard that scream real good, ’cause the fella who screamed that scream—Anthony “Clubber” Lang, the double-crossing cunt—screamed it right in my ear as I got him. YA!’ Trev stabbed the air with the fork again and again. ‘YA! YA! YA!’

  I leant back, my hands still gripping the crate. The front of the crate lifted off the ground. ‘Shit!’ I toppled over. My back thumped onto the concrete.

  Trev stood up, shuffled towards me.

  ‘Ah, fuck!’ I thrashed round on the ground. ‘Get away from me! Get away!’

  Then Trev lost it. ‘Bwaaahahahahaha! Oh, Jesus! Oh, fucken Christ. Oh, should’ve seen yer face. Priceless. Just priceless.’

  I sat the crate up and hopped on it, rubbing my back. ‘Dickhead.’

  ‘Ya right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Y’sure? There’s some dunny paper in that box over there if ya need a wipe!’ Then he began laughing again, so hard tears started streaming down his cheeks.

  ‘So,’ I said after he’d settled. ‘We even now?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He smirked. ‘We’re even. Just so ya know, writing on the wall don’t bother me. Sticks and fucken stones, mate. Just like stirrin, y’know, to see what people are made of.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What do you reckon I’m made of then?’

  ‘Mmm…Ya know the story The Wizard of Oz?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘My thinking is you’ve got bits of what they got in the end when they got to see the big fella. Ya just don’t have the right ratios.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, ya got plenty of courage. Big balls. Maybe too big. You were getting ready to whack me in the head with that crate if I tried to jab ya with the fork, right?’

  ‘Yeah! Sure was.’

  ‘Ready to blue me when Kirsty got into me oxy, too.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Shows ya got a big heart, too, that does—looking out for others. But that brain.’ He rapped his knuckles on his head and made a tock sound with his tongue. ‘Mate, think the old wizard might’ve dished ya out a cricket ball instead of a brain.’

  ‘Ah, piss off!’

  ‘Oi, watch yer tongue. I’m just saying balls and heart is good. Real good. Heart most important of all, but sometimes it might do ya some good to use yer bloody brain. Think things through a little before rushin’ out and doing ’em.’

  ‘Right.’ I scratched my chin, the traces of an idea already forming. ‘Thanks, Trev. I’m off then.’

  ‘Alright, alright. What’d ya come down here for, anyway?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yeah, was gonna ask for your help with something, but I think the advice you just gave me might have been the answer.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Trev, grinning. ‘Yep, I’m good like that. Night then! Hooroo!’

  I walked back up to the house, mulling over Trev’s words.

  The night was clear. The moon tucked behind the ranges. Thousands of stars swarmed the sky above the valley like fireflies.

  That evening, the night before New Year’s Eve, I lay in my bed and looked at Jessica’s picture, lit by the pale glow of the moon, which had emerged from the ranges like a giant cricket ball floating out of a stadium. A warm breeze crept through my window, carrying with it the faint scent of lantana. Then, in a flash, it all came to me. How I’d get there.

  ‘Cricket ball for a brain,’ I said, smiling at the moon. ‘Don’t fucken think so, Uncle Trevor.’

  20

  I reefed the door open and hopped inside the Tank.

  Pwoar! What a stink! Shaun’d left the passenger door open when we’d fled and even after the few clear days we’d had the seat was still damp. I pulled both doors closed and wound down the windows.

  I turned the ignition key Chhh…Chhh…Chhhhh.

  ‘Ah, c’mon, c’mon!’

  Brooohm!

  ‘Shit yeah!’

  I reversed her out slowly, lantana branches screeching against the sides, and crawled along Findle Creek Road, lights off. Till I made it past our front gates and round that first bend, I’d be travelling like I had when I slipped out of the house, with all the stealth and silence of Shaun and his crew on night patrol.

  I’d left Mum and Dad in the lounge room, sitting next to each other—not exactly snuggled up, but closer than I’d seen ’em in years—watching one of their favourite movies: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When it got to the mine cart scene, after which it was all action-packed, I’d feigned a mighty big yawn and told them I was just too tired to watch the rest. I went off to my room, got changed and stuffed a pile of clothes under my sheet in a body-like lump. Then, to the sound of Indy being chased onto that wooden footbridge by all those evil temple fellas, I climbed out my window, crept along the verandah, leapt off, raced across to the big fig tree, scampered down past the dairy—not worried about Trev, he was in town catching a covers band at the pub with his mate Vern—and through the bottom paddock. Mum and Dad were planning on watching The Last Crusade after Temple of Doom, so they’d be busy for ages. If Mum got up at all it’d be to check on Shaun in the shed. And if, on the off-chance, she stopped to check on me, I doubted she’d get close enough to find it wasn’t me under those sheets but a lump of my clothes.

  After a few hundred metres I was nearing our front gate, body tense, waiting for a yell from up at the house—Kirsty, quick! It’s Trysten! The cheeky bugger’s stealing the Tank and driving himself to that friggen party!—when the cluster of camphor laurels in the middle of the paddock lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Another car was coming round the bend.

  I slowed the Tank, pulled her off the side of the road, and ducked low under the steering wheel, waiting for it to rumble past.

  But instead it slowed, like it was preparing to stop. Shit, I thought. Busted. Then I heard a clunk clunk dunk of tyres going over our cattle grid.

  I peered over the wheel.

  Straight away I recognis
ed the back of the car. Two exhausts, round as cannons. Chrome spoiler. Personalised plates. ADZY79.

  ‘Adam!’

  When I’d come up with my plan of springing free, I’d toyed with the idea of ignoring Mum’s command and sneaking up to see Shaun and try and spring him out too. Thinking of him alone in that shed on New Year’s Eve didn’t sit well with me at all. Didn’t have to worry about that now, but. Adam’d ignored Mum’s advice. He was going up to see Shaun anyway. No way Mum would stop him from seeing Shaun after he’d driven all the way from town. Once Adam found out the truth about Shaun, he might even convince Mum to let him take Shaun to the party. Cheer him up.

  ‘Good one, Adz,’ I said, flicking the lights on and shifting the Tank up a gear. And once I’d rounded that first bend the guilt I’d felt about Shaun slipped out my open window and vanished into the starry sky.

  Baarrrrboooooo!

  The Tank’s horn sounded like a note from a bagpipe, but it did the trick. Jessica, who was walking across Jade’s huge flat backyard towards the house, turned. She squinted, holding her hand over her eyes.

  I flicked the lights off high beam. Her face lit up and she tore across the yard. When she reached my car, I climbed out and for a good few seconds just took her in.

  She looked and smelt better than ever. As well as her vanilla deodorant she was wearing some kind of perfume. Her hair was bunched up in wild stormy waves. She wore a darker lipstick than normal, and her eyelashes looked thicker and longer and blacker. She wore one of those boob-tube things that made her tits look even bigger, and a tight-fitting pair of jeans that made those little legs of hers look just perfect.

  ‘Ah, jeez, Jessica. You look gorgeous!’

  She smiled and winked. ‘Don’t look too bad yourself, cowboy!’ I looked down and took myself in. My best pair of jeans and my boots, spit polished before, were covered in streaks of dirt and mud. My shirt, my favourite t-shirt, one with a picture of Slayer’s ‘Reign in Blood’ album on the front that Shaun’d given me, had a rip on the sleeve from the lantana. I fucken stank too, ’cause of the damp car interior.

  Jessica stepped towards me and I leant down and we kissed, but after only a second, before we could really get going, she stopped and looked past me through the car window.

  ‘Where’s Shaun? I thought he was driving you?’

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Change of plans.’

  ‘So who drove you then?’

  I pointed both my thumbs at my chest. ‘Snuck out, I did. I just had to see you, Jessica. I just bloody had to.’

  She closed her eyes and tilted her head back and we kissed again. Longer this time. Tongue and everything.

  ‘So.’ She stopped, grinned, and looked through the Tank’s window again, ‘You gonna give me a look inside?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘She’s a bit stinky, but.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Jessica said, opening the back door and climbing in. ‘Come here.’

  We’d been pashing for half a minute or so when she pulled away. ‘Wait! Jade said Ricky said something about Shaun. Why isn’t he here? Is he okay?’

  I was tempted to just say yeah and get back to the kissing, but before I knew it I was rattling off the whole shit-storm of a saga that’d been the last week at Lot 247 Findle Creek Road. And once I’d finished, Jessica touched my face, wiping away tears that I hadn’t even realised I’d been shedding.

  ‘Come here, baby.’ She cradled my head against the top of her chest and ran her fingernails up and down my spine. It was heavenly—the magic finger thing—and so was the softness of her boob under my chin. I opened my eyes and—bam—there, right under my nose, through her bra and shiny top I could see the outline of her nipple.

  I considered my next move, but before I even worked out what I was doing I was lifting my head and kissing her neck. Then I started doing all these things that I didn’t even know people were supposed to do. Things I hadn’t seen in any sex scenes in movies, not even the ones on the foreign channel late at night. I just started doing them because, strange as they were, they felt like the right thing to do. And I kept doing them because of the soft moans coming from Jessica that sent shivers from the crown of my head to my tailbone.

  I nibbled the side of her neck, moving up and down, taking teeny bites—no more than a pinch of skin between my teeth—holding it for a sec, then letting go. I kissed her—little pecks—under her jaw. On her cheekbones. Her forehead. Her eyelids. All over the top of her head, pushing my lips through that puffy hair, sticky with hairspray. I took her bottom lip and sucked on it gently. I sucked on her earlobe, too. I even sucked on the hard part at the top of her ear. Her index finger was near my mouth, so I sucked on that. Fuck, it all felt so good that if she’d stuck her big toe near my mouth I reckon I’d have given that a good sucking too.

  After about ten minutes of all that kissing and flesh-sucking and biting and licking I moved my hand along her spine and—zhoom—slipped it down the back of her jeans. My fingertips brushed the top of her silky underpants. Then, quick as, before I could do anything more—whack. She smacked my hand and reefed it out of there.

  ‘Oh, sorry, hey.’ I pulled away from her. ‘Too much, too soon?’

  ‘No! It’s not that. Not that at all…It’s…’

  As she pointed over my shoulder to the window I heard the tap tap tap on the glass.

  Ricky stuck his head against the glass, grinning like a monkey. Next to him, Jade swayed like a tree in a storm.

  I wound down the window. ‘What?’

  ‘Got room in there for three more, brother?’

  ‘Ah, yeah, I s’pose. But what do you mean, three? I only see two of youse.’

  ‘Nah, there’s three! Jade, me and me brother.’ Ricky held up a bottle. ‘Johnnie’s his name. Johnnie Walker.’

  Before I could say anything Ricky prised open the front door and climbed in. Jade followed, carrying a two-litre bottle of Coke and some plastic cups.

  ‘Speaking of brothers,’ said Ricky, ‘where’s yours? Yer mum let youse out, hey? He drive ya in?’

  ‘Nah. Drove myself!’

  ‘Holy shit! Really? Fucken wild one, brother!’

  ‘Woowoo,’ Jade cheered. ‘Go Trysten!’

  Ricky poured some scotch into a plastic cup and Jade topped it up with Coke and passed the cup to Jessica, who, without even blinking, gulped a quarter of it down.

  ‘Nice one, Jess. You’ve had practice, hey. Well, here’s yours, brother.’

  ‘Ah, I don’t know, hey, Ricky. Grand theft auto’s one thing, but I can’t drink. I was planning on heading back straight after the countdown. Just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Ah, c’mon, brother! Have one. You deserve a break. We’ll all have a few together. You and Jessica can sleep in the car, y’know, till the drink wears off. Jade and I will see the night through in her room, then we’ll wake you before sun-up. Give you enough time to get back before the old folks are up.’

  ‘Sheeeee the night through?’ Jade smiled at Ricky, hiccupping. ‘Whatcha mean, shee the night…’ hee…yup ‘…through? You got intentions with me or somethin’?’

  ‘Fucken oath, I do!’ Ricky thrust the cup in front of my face. ‘What you say, brother? Staying?’

  I looked to Jessica, who had a look on her face like she wanted to eat me alive.

  ‘Fuck yeah,’ I said, grabbed the cup, cheersed the three of them and took a mighty big gulp. And when the sweet bubbly burning liquid stayed down without too much of a fuss, I took another gulp.

  And then another.

  ‘Yee-fucken-ha! This shit’s alright, hey?’

  21

  I walked backwards from the bonfire, almost falling on my arse a few times, which only made me laugh harder. Well, fuck, I finally got why they—Mum, Trev, the boys, Ricky’s old man—liked hitting it so hard: drinking makes funny shit funnier, and makes you feel like you could take on the whole world with one hand tied behind your back.

  ‘Youse ready for another one?’ I yelle
d.

  Woohooo, and the crowd goes wild. ‘Twisty, Twisty, Twisty!’

  All fucken right then! Ready, steady, GO GO GO. I charged towards the bonfire. ‘Watch out, ya fucken prick of a thing, here I come!’

  At the edge of the fire I launched myself off a smouldering log. ‘Hiya!’ As I flew I fly-kicked and karate-chopped the flames.

  ‘Yeah, Twisty!’

  Thump. I was back to earth. I rolled for a bit, then took a bow so low that I almost stuck my nose in a big fresh cow shit.

  ‘Yeah! Woohoo!’

  And the crowd went fucken wild again. From out of it, Jessica came stumbling towards me.

  ‘Hey, darlin’!’

  ‘Hey!’ She slapped my arm. ‘Don’t call me darlin’! Enough rolling round in shit. Let’s go inside.’

  ‘Yeah, sweet. I’m tonguing for a drink!’

  She leant forward and we pashed for a bit, then she took my hand and led me through the open paddock gate and across the back lawn towards the house. The next thing I knew—it was like time and space just disappeared, went black for a while—we were in the middle of Jade’s living room.

  Two older girls, one with long legs in bright pink tights and the other wearing a zebra-striped shirt, stood by the stereo arguing over the music.

  ‘Fuckkk off, Vanessa—it’s my turn to choose the tunes.’

  ‘Piss off, you dirty slut! All you’ve been choosing is R and blah blah bloody B.’

  ‘Yeah!’ I chimed in. ‘Play some fucken metal! Pantera! Slayer!’

  The girl with the pink flamingo legs turned and looked me up and down, snarling, ‘And who the fuck are you then?’

  ‘Indy,’ I said, swaying, burping. ‘And this here’s Short Stuff.’

  ‘Hey!’ Jessica pinched my arm.

  While Flamingo Girl was looking me up and down and frowning, the girl dressed like a zebra slipped a CD into the stereo.

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I’m not really Indy. I’m Trysten. Black. Shaun’s me brother. Talibani-killer war hero and everything. Sick tonight, though. Flu. It’s going round, I hear.’

  I would have kept rambling on, but the CD started and some boom-boom hip-hoppy rap music blared through the speakers and those safari girls started singing and dancing, shaking their hips and arses.