Hostler carried the carton of glossies to the bus and dropped them inside the door. When he came out again, he paused at the top of the bus steps.
“I just had a thought,” he said. “With all that weird shit we are going to run into, at least we won’t die of boredom.”
Mom, I’m Enlisting!
Stella’s flushed face was a warning sign Storm and his sister knew only too well. Only this time it looked like their mother was about to suffer a fateful turn that would land her in hospital.
“Take it easy, Mom,” Summer told her. “Storm gets it.”
“No, I don’t think he does!” Stella said, staring angrily at her son. “You don’t get it, do you? You have a family so why do you need to replace us? They will put bloody dog tags around your neck, do you know that?”
“You know that because you were in the Army yourself,” Storm replied, indignantly. “Both you and Dad. It’s my turn now!”
“No one tried to stop me,” Stella said, barely able to stop herself from screaming at her son. “But I wish they had. Soldiers serve rich bastards! You’ll be treated as a tool, to be used and abused.”
Stella poked Storm in the chest so hard he took a step backward.
“They sic you on people who defend their own countries. People who don’t look or talk the same as us because they don’t come from the places we do, but they are no different. The military will tell you it’s okay to bomb and shoot them because they’re the enemy and that makes them less human. And it seems the enemy always has something we need. Funny that, don’t you think? It makes me sick to think you would even consider enlisting.”
She strode past him to the kitchen, banging pots into the sink, taking plates off the shelf and placing them on the bench with a clatter. She heard the door shut as Summer ran from the house.
He walked up beside Stella and put his hand on her arm. “I’ll wash them for you.”
“It’s better if you leave me alone for a while,” she said, taking a step away from him.
Storm stayed put. “Mom, you and Dad wouldn’t have if you hadn’t both been in the Army.”
“Pete and I thought we were having one big adventure, but then all we ever saw were the new barracks they built in Darwin,” she said, running the tap, but she wasn’t washing dishes and turned the tap again.
“We cleaned those barracks, drove trucks around them, and cleaned them again. They taught us to shoot and how to take orders.”
She turned to gaze at him.
“Things are different these days, Storm. Now they take us to war. And it’s not about defending our country.”
She took a breath. “Alright then. Tell me why you want to join.”
Storm threw up his hands. “Mom, it’s a full-time paying job, and I can learn to fly helicopters,” he told her. It isn’t like I have much choice, he thought. Why can’t she understand?
She looked at her son’s determined face and hugged him tightly. “Son, you are young, strong, and smart. There are so many ways you can make a living. You can be a civilian pilot if you want it bad enough.”
“How do you know that, Mom?” Storm asked and pulled himself free of her arms. “Anyway, I’m eighteen. I don’t need your signature.”
He walked past her and walked out the kitchen door.
Stella looked around in the middle of the kitchen as she listened to her son kick the motorcycle engine into life. She listened to the bike until it turned the corner at the end of the street, then the only sound she heard was the tap dripping over the sink.
She looked at dishes stacked on the bench. Try as she might, she couldn’t remember why she took all the plates and cups off the shelves in the first place and with a sweep of her hand, she knocked them to the kitchen floor.
Another Setting Sun
Pete was sitting in his saggy chair on the back porch with a can of beer clenched in one hand. He gave Storm a glance and grunted a greeting before turning his attention back to the view he had of his vegetable garden.
Storm jumped up onto the porch and sat down on the bare boards beside his dad.
“I went for a run the other morning,” he said after what seemed like an awful long silence.
“Did you now?” Pete said and took a sip from the can.
“I stopped when I reached the welcome sign and did some stretches while I waited for the big event.”
“Well?” Pete asked, raising his eyebrows in expectation.
“It got so light I thought I’d made a mistake about the time I left the house. The sky brightened up like the Sun was coming up, but sunrise was another hour away.”
“They disks were as bright as that?” Pete asked, turning to stare at his son in surprise.
“There was something lighting up the horizon.”
“The pale orbs...” Pete muttered vaguely. He nodded his head as if his suspicion was confirmed.
Storm tried to repress an urge to giggle. He hadn’t known what to make of Pete’s obsession with strange lights in the sky before he saw them for himself. His dad was observing something strange, and for all Storm knew, something unexplainable. He had seen something strange himself, but perhaps he had been seeing things that weren’t really there, he thought. It was a warm evening but still, he shuddered. He drew a deep breath and dived into his story.
“I saw two that looked big,” he told Pete. He was feeling beginning to think it had been nothing but an illusion, a really bright Moon reflecting through the clouds. “It was probably the Moon.”
“Nope,” Pete said, taking a sip from the can. “It’s been a crescent Moon these past few days.”
“Well, one of them did look bigger than the other. It even looked like one was moving around the other,” Storm said, feeling weird as he described it all to Pete.
Storm felt a chill creep through his gut. It had to have been something to do with the cloud mass, he thought.
“You want a beer?” Pete asked, setting down the empty can beside the dog at his feet. “There’s more on the table.”
Storm walked into the kitchen and took two beers from the open carton. He gazed around at Pete’s empty shelves and peered into the refrigerator. “You need to buy some food, Dad,” he called out.
“I’ve got potatoes and carrots to pull from the garden for our dinner,” Pete replied from his chair. “I should leave them in the ground a bit longer, but since you’re here, we may as well eat them.”
Storm could never figure why Pet bothered with a veggie garden. The only veggies his dad ever ate was carrots, potatoes, peas, cabbage, and beans. It didn’t make sense why he would want to buy what he could buy cheap enough in town.
“I’ll walk to the supermarket and get some sausages for us,” Pete said looking over his shoulder at Storm. He pointed to the old fruit crate by the door. “Pull that up next to me and take a seat. We can do all that later.”
Storm dragged the crate over next to Champ. He placed one of the cans on Pete’s stomach and sat down, pulling the tab and taking a sip. He was not completely comfortable drinking alcohol with his dad. It was only encouraging his old man. Then again, he was never going to be able to change Pete at this point.
Come on, Dad, Storm said in his head to his father. Let’s talk about things close to home and less about mystery orbs in the sky. Let’s try to pick up the pieces. He wanted to say it to Pete just like that. But then he thought of a better way.
“Mom said you might move back in with us,” Storm said. “You know it’s the happiest I’ve seen her in a long while.”
“Well, that’s good news!” Pete said, smiling at Storm. “So—do you reckon it might work out between the two of us? The second time around?”
“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” Storm said.
Pete sighed. “You know, I’m envious of you. I wish I had work.”
Storm snorted. “I wish I had full-time work and not the on and off again bullshit.”
He wanted to tell Pete about meeting the recruiters but thought better
of it. It might start them arguing again.
“You should go to university,” Pete said, staring at him hard. “If you choose the right course they train you for a profession. I’m buggered if I know which one provides most of the jobs these days, but you’ll find out.”
“If you join the Army, they pay you to go to university,” Storm said.
Pete reached across and thumped the boy’s arm.
“Jeez!” Storm grimaced. “What was that for?”
“I’d try to beat sense into you, if I thought that would do any good,” Pete said, raising his voice. “My old man would’ve taken that route.”
“Yeah?” Storm stood up. “Well, it’s not going to work to well with me.”
“I didn’t think so,” his father said and pointed at the crate. “Sit down.”
Storm sat and rubbed his sore bicep. He sulked a while and thought about getting up and walking back to Stella’s. The old man’s drinking made him uncomfortable, and the punch on the arm was not encouraging.
“Don’t do it,” Pete said suddenly. “It’s not a good idea.”
“I can’t afford to go to uni, Dad,” Storm replied. “I barely get paid enough to save anything at all.”
He turned to his old man and saw with a start Pete’s eyes were tearing up.
“Keep thinking,” Pete told Storm, and he cleared his throat. “Don’t you be like I was at your age. You don’t need the Army. You can ruin your life with one rash decision.”
Then, Pete straightened up and stared fiercely at Storm.
“Don’t you ever give up on yourself!”
Part II
REACTION
Road Trip
When Penny suggested he accompany her to Sydney to see her graduate from the Academy, he was all but frantic to think of a way out. He told her he hated traveling any great distance in a car. If he could doze off and wake up once they arrived that was one thing. Driving all the way there and back—well that was another thing again.
“Oh, come on!” She said with a snort.
“Why can’t you take a bus like most other people who don’t like to drive?” He asked.
Penny was planning to be a sleeping beauty for virtually the entire trip, curled up in the back seat, he thought. Expecting him to do the driving.
“The bus?” She giggled. “You have to be joking. Hey, we could fly there if you had your pilot’s license.”
“And a plane,” he reminded her. “And not to forget money for the fuel!”
“So then accept Mom’s offer,” she said, throwing up her hands. “And I pay for the gas. And all you need do is drive. How hard is that?”
“Aren’t doctors supposed to have a car?”
“She has bought a new one. Oh—c’mon, Storm! Just say yes. We’ll have a good time. I promise! Please!”
“What if I fall asleep on the road?” He asked. “It’s a long trip.”
“You won’t. I’ll keep you awake with endless funny stories. Mom said the hotel room has a view of the Harbor! Doesn’t that sound fantastic?”
“Are you sure she knows I will be with you?”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Of course she does,” she replied. “And—she has booked a room with a double bed,” she whispered loudly and broke into giggles. “Can you imagine my face when she told me she had done that?”
“What about Michael?” He asked her.
“He thinks I’m taking the bus,” she said with a shrug.
“Oh, you think you have it all worked out, don’t you?” Storm said, shaking his head. “What will Michael say when Franchette tells him we went to Sydney together?”
“He probably knows already,” she said. Then she blushed at the thought.
Storm sipped his slushy noisily as he turned the idea over in his head. “You finished with your chips?” He asked her, pointing at the untouched carton of french fries he had ordered for her.
“Take them away from me,” she said pushing the tray across the table. “Quick!”
“You would prefer a muffin and a coffee made by some poncy barista, right?” He asked as he opened a sachet of tomato sauce and squeezed the contents out over the greasy fingers of potato.
“Barista? Mm. I’ve not heard you use that word before.”
“I do read, you know?” He told her and scowled when he saw the smug smile on her face. “Yeah, and I do mean books.”
“I’m going to buy you an awesome espresso when we are in Sydney,” she said cheerfully.
“Fantastic,” he sighed.
Penny was full of pretensions that Storm found annoying. He suspected she was totally aware her world was usually closed to the likes of him. He was also aware the novelty value he held for her would surely wear off before very much longer.
He decided it was best to avoid Stella for a few days until she got used to the idea that he was going to enlist. He was not quite sure why, but he decided to leave off telling Penny for a bit.
It was Summer who became the mediator between her brother and her mother, and she soon found the role of a go-between to be largely thankless.
Things worked out more or less fine at first, but Stella’s house was small. By the time he arrived at Franchette’s front gate on the day he and Penny were to leave, he was only too happy to be hitting the road. So much so, he barely blinked as Franchette handed the car keys to him.
Taut
The Manly ferry cut through the chop on the harbor. The robust wooden boat almost graceful as it glided past the restaurant directly below the window of their hotel room. Gas burners positioned on poles glowed over the diners huddling at their tables below umbrellas that barely sheltered them from the constant drizzle that never seemed to stop falling on Sydney.
Their journey had taken ages, and he was feeling very tired, but he was not ready to take a rest. He could not take his eyes off the harbor. When the wooden-hulled vessel passed by the pointy white shells of the Opera House, he turned back to her.
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Was there any girlfriends while I was away at school?”
“What?” He asked in genuine surprise.
Penny lay on her stomach on the king sized bed making sultry, seductive eyes at him. She was doing her best to entice him away from the window, but he was stubborn and she was beginning to feel a little irritated because of it. Penny didn’t like to be ignored.
“I said—did you see other girls while I was away from Coona?”
He turned back to the window. “Of course not,” he muttered.
Well, there was the one-night spent with Macey, a British tourist spending her holidays exploring the outback. He wondered whether a one night stand would count. He thought it did not, but Penny might think otherwise.
She promised to keep in touch. She sent him a postcard without a return address. He remembered how relieved he was that he didn’t have to reply. After all, it wasn’t like he would be traveling the world anytime soon.
There was Katie, but she definitely did not count. He met her when he worked for her father on the family farm, cropping the shitty butts of sheep. He was thankful the mulesing didn’t last long because cleaning up flystrike was horrible work. Then the farmer asked him to repair his sheds damaged by a season of high winds. Fixing farm sheds was positively fun in comparison to chopping the rear end of dusty sheep. At least the extra two weeks of work might have been fun if it were not for Katie.
There was no easy way for him to avoid her. She constantly attempted to corner him, then it was all kisses and urgent fumbles wedged between bridles and tractor tires. He shuddered when he remembered Katie’s plaintive hopefulness on the last day on the job. She hung around the entire day with puppy dog eyes. She had told him she was looking for the right man and she could see it wasn’t going to be him.
He sat down on the dark brown quilt beside Penny and kissed her on the lips.
“You did see someone, didn’t you?” She said pulling away with a frown.
He rolled off the bed and sat in a
chair.
“No, I didn’t!” He told her, without a lot of conviction.
He turned his head to the side so she wouldn’t catch the truth in his eyes, but that only made things worse. Now she knew for sure, he thought.
“Alright,” he said, turning to face her. “So, I kissed Katie Howard when I was working for her old man. That’s it!”
“Oh, kissing is nothing,” Penny said with a roll of her eyes, but she was disappointed with the answer. “Are you sure that was it?”
“Jeez, Pen,” he mumbled. “You and me—we are only ever together when you are home for your holiday. It’s not like I’m a machine with an on and off switch.”
“I guess you can do whatever you like when I’m not there,” she snorted. “I don’t know what competition I have in Coona, and I don’t care. I just wanted an honest answer.”
“You don’t have any competition,” he told her.
“Well—of course not,” she replied with an uncertain smile, no longer sure where she was going with her questions. She stared at him a long moment. Then she sat up and pulled off her top, throwing it over to him.
“Come here and get your reward for saying the right things,” she said.
He dropped her top over the back of the chair and launched himself at the bed.
She shrieked with delight. “Is that how you kiss those poor girls? No wonder you never got any further.”
He studied her face for a moment. “What if I wasn’t telling the truth when I said that girl and me only kissed?”
She giggled. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah! And—what if she was really crazy about me?” he asked. He saw her eyes widen then, and something else in them, the hint of hurt, and he laughed. “Nah, come to think of it, she was just plain crazy.”
She blew a lock of hair off her forehead. “You are a bastard,” she said quietly. “I was beginning to believe you. Well, too bad for me, because I’m crazy about you.”
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