by Trent Dalton
Dad standing nervously with his axe handle in his right hand. August standing here with a thin metal bar we normally use as a lock chock on the kitchen window. Me standing with my Gray-Nicolls single scoop – the Excalibur-in-the-stone of cricket bats – that I bought from the Sandgate pawnbrokers for $15. Feeble, potbellied warriors in singlets, thongs and shorts before battle. We’d all die for our queen, locked safely in the book room down the hall that we’re slowly emptying of books. Even Dad would die for her, I reckon. Maybe he can prove his love to her. Maybe this is his road to redemption, a few steps into his front yard and an axe handle into Teddy’s temple, and Mum falls gratefully into his thin arms and tattooed Ned Kelly on his right shoulder gives a hearty thumbs-up to true love.
‘Why the fuck did you say I would break his face?’ Dad asks.
‘I thought it would scare him off,’ I say.
‘You know I can’t fight for shit, don’t ya?’ he says.
‘I thought that was just when you were pissed.’
‘I fight better when I’m pissed.’
We’re fucked. Such is life.
*
Then the yellow Ford Mustang pulls into the street and – lump in my throat, wobble in my knees – pulls into our driveway.
‘It’s him,’ I gasp.
Black hair, black eyes.
‘That Teddy?’ Dad asks.
‘No, it’s the guy I saw outside the train station.’
He cuts the ignition and hops out of the car. He wears a grey coat and slacks, black shirt under the coat. He looks too formally dressed for someone visiting Bracken Ridge. In his left hand he carries a small boxed gift wrapped in red cellophane.
He walks across the front yard towards the living room window where the three of us – the Bell boys – stand with our dumb ogre weapons locked in our sweaty palms.
‘If you’re one of Teddy’s mates you better stop right there, mate,’ Dad says.
The man stops.
‘Who?’ the man replies.
Then a second car pulls up at the kerb by the letterbox. A large blue Nissan van. Teddy climbs out of the passenger seat. The driver of the van climbs out too, and a third man slides the van’s rear passenger door along and slams it shut behind him. All three are as large and lumbering as each other. They look like the Tasmanian woodchoppers who always win first place at the Ekka. They have the unmistakeable knuckle-dragging, plus-plus-sized-arse gait of the Queensland long-haul truck driver. Teddy probably called them on his CB radio, called for back-up like a seven-year-old boy playing with his cops and robbers play set. What a fuckin’ haemorrhoid. Maybe one of them is The Log, the big dickhead with the big dick. I’ll be sure to kick him in the balls. I would laugh out loud at these buffoons if they weren’t all carrying aluminium baseball bats.
Teddy marches to the middle of our front yard and calls through the window, oblivious to the man in the grey coat standing beneath us holding a wrapped gift in his left hand.
‘Get the fuck out ’ere now, Frankie!’ Teddy hollers.
He’s got the bluster of drugs in him again. The mania of long-haul speed.
The man in the grey coat steps casually and calmly to the side of the scene, watches Teddy with a puzzled look on his face, something like a panther, I realise just now, making way for a donkey.
Mum appears behind me at the window.
‘Go back to the room, Fran,’ Dad says quietly.
‘Fran?’ Teddy shouts. ‘Fran? Is that what he used to call ya, Frankie? You think you might shack back up with this loon?’
The man in the grey coat has now moved to the two steps that lead to our small front concrete porch. He sits down and studies the scene, a thoughtful forefinger over his lips.
Mum squeezes between me and August and leans out the window.
‘We’re done, Teddy,’ Mum says. ‘No more. I’m not coming back again. Never again, Teddy. We’re done.’
‘Nup, nup, nup,’ Teddy says. ‘We’re not done till I say we’re fuckin’ done.’
I grip my Gray-Nicolls harder. ‘She said fuck off, Teddy Bear, are you deaf?’
Teddy smiles. ‘Eli Bell, bein’ the big man for his mummy,’ he says. ‘But I know your knees are shaking, you little cunt. I know you’ll piss your pants if you have to stand at that window any longer.’
I have to hand it to him, his insights are spot on. I’ve never wanted to piss so bad and I’ve never wanted more to be wrapped up in a warm blanket slurping Mum’s chicken soup while watching Family Ties.
‘You come near her I’ll stab your fuckin’ eyes out,’ I say through clenched teeth.
Teddy looks at his goons. They nod at him.
‘All right, Frankie,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to come out, I guess we better come get ya.’ Teddy and his thug friends march towards the steps of the front porch.
That’s when the man in the grey coat stands. That’s when I realise how broad the man in the grey coat’s shoulders are, how much the grey coat hugs the muscular arms of the man in the grey coat. His gift stays sitting on the first step to the porch.
‘The lady said you’re done,’ says the man in the grey coat. ‘And the boy said fuck off.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Teddy spits.
The man in the grey coat shrugs.
‘If you don’t know me then you don’t want to know me,’ the man says.
I’m starting to love this man like I love Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider.
The two men stare at each other.
‘Go home, mate,’ the man in the grey coat reasons. ‘The lady said you’re done.’
Teddy shakes his head, laughing, turns back to his two goons, who are gripping their baseball bats, spoiling for action, speed-thirsting for water and blood. As Teddy turns back he sucker swings his aluminium baseball bat hard and fast at the head of the stranger on our porch steps and the stranger ducks like a boxer, not taking his eyes off the threat, and he drives his clenched left fist hard into Teddy’s fatty right ribcage and he pushes up from his feet beneath Teddy, transferring the power in his calves and his thighs and his pelvis into the fury of his right fist that uppercuts the bottom of Teddy’s chin. Teddy wobbles on his feet in a bash haze and he finds his focus just in time to see the stranger’s forehead butting into the tip of his nose, making his nose bones snap, crackle and pop in an abstract splatter painting of human blood. I know this man now for what he is. A prison animal. A freed prison animal. The panther. The lion. I cry tears of madman happiness when I see Teddy’s mangled face lying unconscious on the ground and a name reaches my dry lips.
‘Alex,’ I whisper.
Teddy’s goons reluctantly move closer but they’re stopped immediately in their tracks by the black handgun the stranger whips from behind his waist belt.
‘Back up,’ the stranger says. He points his gun at the head of the closest goon.
‘You,’ he says. ‘Driver. I got your licence plate number so I got you now, do you understand?’
The van driver nods, dumbstruck and frightened.
‘You drag this fat piece of shit back to the hole he crawled out of,’ the stranger says. ‘When he wakes up you be sure to tell him Alexander Bermudez and two hundred and thirty-five Queensland chapter members of the Rebels say he’s done with Frankie Bell. You follow?’
The van driver nods. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bermudez,’ he stutters. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Alex looks across at Mum, watching the surreal scene from the window.
‘You still got some things of yours at his place that you need?’ he asks Mum.
Mum nods. Alex nods knowingly, looks back at the driver as he belts his gun back behind his waist. ‘Driver, before sundown tomorrow you will have the lady’s belongings sitting on this porch by the front door, you follow?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ the van driver says, already dragging Teddy along the grass of the front yard. The two goons heave Teddy inside the blue van and start off up Lancelot Street. The driver nods respectfully at Alex o
ne last time and Alex nods back. He turns to us at the window. ‘I always told my mum that’s the worst part about this country,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘All the fuckin’ bullies.’
*
Alex sips a tea at the kitchen table.
‘That’s a nice cuppa, Mr Bell,’ he says.
‘Call me Rob,’ Dad says.
Alex smiles at Mum. ‘You raised two fine boys Mrs Bell,’ he says.
‘Call me Frankie,’ she says. ‘Yeah, ummm, they’re all right, Alex.’
Alex turns to me.
‘I had some dark periods inside,’ he says. ‘Everybody just assumes the head of an organisation like mine would be flooded with letters from friends on the outside. But the reality is, in fact, the complete opposite. No bastard writes to ya because they think every other bastard is writin’ to ya. But no man is an island, ya know, not the Prime Minister of Australia, not fuckin’ Michael Jackson, and not the Queensland sergeant-at-arms of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang.’
He looks back at Mum.
‘Young Eli’s letters were probably the best thing about my lag,’ he says. ‘This bloke made me happy. He taught me a bit about what’s important in bein’ human, ya know. He didn’t judge. He didn’t know me from a bar of soap but he gave a shit.’
He looks at Mum and Dad.
‘I guess you guys taught him that?’ he says.
Mum and Dad shrug their shoulders awkwardly. I fill the silent space.
‘I’m sorry I suddenly stopped writing,’ I say. ‘I’ve been in a bit of a hole myself.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry about Slim. You get to say goodbye?’
‘Sort of.’
He pushes the gift he’s been carrying across the table.
‘That’s for you,’ he says. ‘Sorry about the wrapping. Us bikies aren’t known for our gift-wrapping skills.’
I pull back the roughly taped and folded red cellophane at each end, slide the box out. It’s an ExecTalk Dictaphone, colour black.
‘It’s for your journalising,’ he says.
And I cry. I cry like a seventeen-year-old baby in front of the formerly imprisoned, highly influential senior member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang.
‘What’s wrong, mate?’ he asks.
I don’t know. It’s my loose knee-jerk tear ducts. I’ve no control over them.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘It’s perfect, Alex. Thanks.’
I take the dictaphone out of its box.
‘You’re still gonna be a journalist, aren’t ya?’ he asks.
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Maybe,’ I say.
‘What, but that’s your dream, isn’t it?’ he asks.
‘Yeah, it is,’ I say, suddenly glum. It’s the faith he has in me. I liked it more when nobody believed in me. It was easier that way. Having nothing expected of you. Having no bar set to reach or fail to reach.
‘So what’s the problem, Scoop?’ he asks, chipper.
There are batteries in the box. I slip the batteries in the dictaphone. I test the buttons.
‘Breaking into journalism hasn’t been as easy as I thought it would be,’ I say.
Alex nods.
‘Can I help?’ he asks. ‘I know a thing or two about breaking into things.’
Dad laughs nervously.
‘What’s so hard about it?’ Alex asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘You gotta find a way to stand out from everybody else.’
‘Well, whaddya need to stand out from everybody else?’
I ponder this for a moment.
‘A page-one story.’
Alex laughs. He leans over the kitchen table and hits the red record button on my new ExecTalk Dictaphone. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what about an exclusive sit-down with the Queensland sergeant-at-arms of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang? Gotta be a yarn in that.’
Such is life.
Boy Drowns Sea
Can you see us, Slim? August smiling like this. Mum smiling like this. Me slowing time like this in my nineteenth year on earth. Pull it up, thanks, Slim. Let me stay here in this year. Let me stay in this moment by Dad’s couch, with August’s eyes bright and wondrous as we stand around him reading a typed letter from the Office of the Premier of Queensland.
I know, Slim. I know I haven’t asked Dad about the moon pool. I know this happiness depends on me and August and Mum forgetting the bad old days. We lie to ourselves, I know, but isn’t there a little white lie in all acts of forgiveness?
Maybe he didn’t mean to drive us into that dam that night. But maybe he did. Maybe you didn’t kill that taxi driver. But maybe you did.
You did your time for it. You did your time and then some. Maybe Dad has too.
Maybe Mum needed him to do his time and then she could come back to him. Maybe she might give him a second chance. She’s good for him, Slim. She’s made him human. They’re not lovers or nothin’, but they’re friends and that’s good because he chased all his other friends away with all the drink and all the damage.
Maybe all men are bad sometimes and all men are good sometimes. It’s just a matter of timing. You were right about August. He did have all the answers. He keeps telling me he told me so. He keeps telling me he saw this coming because he’s been here before. He keeps telling me he’s come back from somewhere. We both have. And he means the moon pool. We’ve come back from the moon pool.
He keeps scribbling his finger in the air. I told you, Eli. I told you, Eli.
It gets better, he said. It gets real good.
Dear Mr August Bell,
On 6 June the people of Queensland will unite as one and rejoice in ‘Queensland Day’, an unprecedented celebration of our great State’s official separation from New South Wales on 6 June 1859. As part of our celebrations, we are recognising five hundred ‘Queensland Champions’ who have contributed to the State through outstanding endeavour. We are delighted to invite you to attend the inaugural Queensland Champions ceremony on 7 June 1991 in Brisbane City Hall where you will be recognised in the COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS section for your tireless efforts to raise funds for the SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY ASSOCIATION.
*
Alex Bermudez spent four hours in our kitchen telling me his life story. When we finished he turned to August.
‘What about you, Gus?’ he asked.
What?, August scribbled in the air.
‘He says, “What?”,’ I translated.
‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ Alex asked.
It was in this moment, as August scratched his chin on the couch with Neighbours playing on the television, that he was struck with the idea for Criminal Enterprises, Australia’s first underground charity organisation funded by a network of leading south-east Queensland crime figures. He asked Alex for a donation to his muscular dystrophy bucket. Alex dropped $200 into the bucket and then August went one step further. With me laboriously translating his air scribbles, August pitched Alex an idea he had for an ongoing charity commitment from the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang and, moreover, any other wealthy criminals in Alex’s friendship circle who had perhaps always wanted to give back to the communities they so readily plundered and destroyed. The State of Queensland’s vast criminal underworld, August said, represented an untapped charity resource just begging to be capitalised on. Even in a festering and dark underworld populated by murderous thugs and men who’d stab their own grandmothers for an in-ground swimming pool in summer could be found a few big-hearted men who wanted to give back to those less fortunate than themselves. August saw a whole range of special needs and education services that might be better serviced by the goodwill of local crooks. They might, for example, support young women and men from the wrong sides of the tracks through university medicine courses. They might, for example, care to fund a scholarship program for the children of retired or down-at-heel criminals with special needs. There was a Robin Hood element to it, August said. What the crims lost in the pocket they would gain i
n their souls; it would give them some small ribbon of meaning to wave at the great judge in the sky when they rang the doorbell at the pearly gates.
I saw where August was going and I put my own existential spin on his point.
‘I think what Gus is tryin’ to say is, don’t you ever wonder what it’s all for, Alex?’ I said. ‘Imagine when it comes time to hang up your pistol and your knuckle-duster and on your last day of work you look back on all that crooked business and all you have to show for it is a mountain of cash and a collection of tombstones.’
Alex smiled. ‘Lemme sleep on it,’ he said.
One week later an Australia Post courier van dropped off a box parcel at our house, addressed to August. The box was filled with $10,000 in random twenties, tens, fives, twos and ones. The box’s sender details read: R. Hood, 24 Montague Road, West End.
*
Can you see us, Slim? Mum messing up August’s hair.
‘I’m so proud of you, August,’ Mum says.
August smiling. Mum crying.
‘What is it, Mum?’ I ask.
She wipes her eyes.
‘My boy’s a Queensland Champion,’ she sobs. ‘They’re gonna ask my boy to get up on stage in that hall and they’re gonna thank him for bein’ . . . for bein’ . . . for bein’ him.’