Pig Boy (12 page)

‘These are good,' I say.

‘You take more,' the Pigman answers. ‘I bake many, many.'

I help myself to a handful. ‘Thanks.'

The dogs are having their tea too. From my seat I can see their heads buried in the food. Their collars clang against the metal bowls in time with each mouthful.

Sara finishes first. He turns to Slatko's bowl. Slatko growls at him but Sara is undeterred. The Pigman opens the window and bangs his fist on the door. ‘Sarajlije!' he calls, shaking his freaky fingers at the dog. Sara immediately falls to his haunches. Slatko goes on eating.

‘How do you do that?'

The Pigman is studying his hand. Again the fingertips splay in the opposite direction. One by one, he begins to push them back into place. ‘What you say?'

‘Nothing,' I mumble.

‘Sarajlije think he better than everyone. He in love with himself. He think always he boss. But he makes danger for us. He always getting injury. Not good.'

‘Have you had him longer than Slatko?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's what it is,' I say. ‘Sara probably thinks he is the boss because he was around first.'

‘Boss is bully. That only thing that make him boss.'

‘Whatever,' I mutter, shoving another
burek
in my mouth. The Pigman has a knack of having the final word. I imagine him being in the same room as my mother. What a circus that'd be.

The Pigman takes a long-necked bottle from under the seat. It's the same brown-coloured glass as the ones stacked into a pyramid at his place. He shakes the bottle and smiles.

‘Is my best, I think,' he says. ‘See bubble, mean is good.'

He takes off the lid, inhales the fumes then passes it to me to sniff. It's sweet yet it also burns the hairs in my nose.

‘I bet that's lethal,' I say. ‘What's the alcohol content?'

The Pigman takes a long sip and his face breaks into a smile. ‘Very good. Very, very good.' He hands me the bottle. I hold it up to my mouth. A few sips will make the trip less painful. It burns my throat but the aftertaste is sweet, warm, almost comforting. ‘Not bad,' I tell him. ‘It's sort of tastes like plums.'

‘In my country
rakija
is for welcome. So welcome, Demon.'

Welcome to what, I want to say. But I don't. I smile and hand the bottle back.

‘In this country you no have thing like this. Welcome with the
rakija
;
slatko
when guest come to house. You Ozzies just drink beer, all time. Not special.'

‘If your country's so good then why are you here?'

He takes a long sip, puts the lid back on and shoves the bottle back under the seat. So that's my punishment, no more brandy for me. My fingers start to tap the steering wheel. The Pigman just sits there staring out the window, so I tap louder and faster.

THE SPOTLIGHT ON TOP OF the ute's cabin throws a harsh white light over the road and surrounding bush. I wish the Pigman would turn it off. I don't want to see what moves between the trees. My fingertips curl around the edges of the seat.

‘You shouldn't have it on,' I say. ‘What if a car comes the other way? You'll blind them.'

‘No car.'

‘You don't know that!'

‘No car,' the Pigman says, hitting the accelerator, veering off the road and onto the dirt.

‘What the hell are you doing, you freak?'

‘Kangaroo.' The ute is swerving around the scrub, missing bushes and rocks by a fingertip. I'm leaning into the dashboard to stop our shoulders from slamming into each other. ‘Get gun behind seat.'

‘What!'

‘Gun, behind seat, Demon.'

‘What gun?'

‘Hurry, boy.' He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. ‘There.'

I turn around but the seatbelt is tight and I can't reach behind. The Pigman's hand pulls at the sash across my chest, while the other steers.

‘I no want to stop,' he is shouting now. ‘Get, get.' His fingers fumble around my side while the ute skids across the dust. ‘Take off …' The Pigman unclips my belt. ‘Get gun.' His arm is flapping behind him. ‘Is back there … I can't get and drive!'

I'm trying to make myself small, hunching my shoulders while I twist around in the seat like a crab that's too big for its shell. A grey rifle like the one I saw on his kitchen table lies snug between the seats and the back window.

My hands cradle it as though it's a newborn. As carefully as I can, I manoeuvre my body back around.

The muzzle is pointing towards the Pigman's side and I'm trying to remember what they told me in the safety awareness course, but my mind is empty.

‘Is loaded, boy?'

‘Huh?'

‘You see bullet?'

‘What?'

‘Bullet? Inside.'

I open the action and there in the chamber is a mother of a bullet.

‘What the!' I hear myself shout. ‘It's fucking loaded!'

‘Good. Good.'

My hands are up in surrender. ‘I'm not fucking touching it!'

Behind my shoulder I can see the shadow of Sara's big head; nose pointed, ears alert. The rifle is rolling back and forth on my lap while silver tree trunks fly past the windows with a flash.

I'm going to die, that's all I'm thinking. The words are rushing at me faster than the clearing up ahead. I'm going to die. I'm going to die and suddenly I realise that dying here would be preferable to dying in Strathven.

‘Get ready, boy,' he is shouting.

My head is shaking. ‘What? What!'

‘I need one kangaroo. You cannot miss. Plenty, plenty.'

The Pigman is yelling something about the window and the spotlight.

‘No. No. No …' That's all I'm saying.

We burst through the trees and into the open space. The spotlight haloes a group of kangaroos. They stand there stunned, statues against the night sky.

‘Hurry, boy!'

‘No. No. No. No …'

The ute is jumping. Suddenly I am falling forwards. My palms slap against the glove box, a second later my spine slams back into the seat and the Pigman's arm is reaching over, opening the door and pushing me out of the ute.

‘What? What the fuck …?' I'm stumbling backwards, my feet skidding on the dust. My hands are pressed against my mouth and a bitterness is scalding the back of my throat. Then bang! The Pigman fires the shot. The roo's body drops just like the man's and so do I. I am lying on the ground. I can smell the dirt. I can see the earth turning to crimson. It's just the same.

MY LIMBS HAVE SUNK INTO the vinyl. I cannot move. I wonder if I can just stay in the ute for the next seven days.

The Pigman is securing a peg in the tent. The spotlight silhouettes his body down on one knee, his back making a perfect arch. His hand lets go of the hammer. It rolls to the ground. The Pigman doesn't lift his head. Instead his hand covers his face and there he stays.

I look away. He is wondering what kind of a loser he has brought with him. I begin to count. When I reach fifty, I will open the door and get out.

The swag I'm sleeping in is infested with Gordon's weed-scented sweat. The only reprieve is when I lie on my back, my nose pointed to the tent's ceiling. Outside, the dogs snore in rhythm until the fire snaps, then it takes a moment for them to find their beat again.

The Pigman still hasn't spoken. He's built a fire, made tea and offered me a sip of his brandy – but no words about what I am doing here with him. What am I doing working for a pig shooter when I can't even hold a gun?

I peer out through the gauze window. The Pigman's swag is rolled out by the fire which has me, inside the snug canopy of the tent, feeling like a pussy. I prefer being on my own, but I can't figure out what his reasoning is. Maybe it's simple, maybe he's an insomniac, maybe
Brokeback Mountain
scared the shit out of him. Maybe it's me.

The Pigman's back is to the fire. Suddenly he drops to his knees and bows his head. I roll over onto my side. It's hard to look at someone kneeling; all I see is the man in the bush and my bones turn so cold that I think they will snap. How did he feel, that's what I wonder. Nothing could be worse than knowing you are about to die. That's the moment I'm most afraid of.

THE MUSIC EXPLODES INTO THE air like a car backfiring in a mosque. I'm sitting up, trying to work out where I am and what's happening. The sound of the Pigman's voice breaking into song has me sinking back into the swag.

The dogs bark and the Pigman sings louder. ‘
Ukrevet od ruza
…'

I peer out. The sunrise is burning in the sky like Armageddon is coming. The Pigman is digging, covering the last of the fire's glimmering coals. Slatko dives and yelps at the shovel. Sara is flat on the ground growling at him like a big brother with a headache.

Quietly, I sneak into the bushes and pee, hoping Sara won't notice me.

‘I make coffee,' the Pigman calls. He is stamping on the dirt he's just laid. ‘Or you want tea? They like tea in morning, don't they, Slatko, like English.'

‘I won't have anything,' I answer.

‘Today is big day, Demon. We have more driving and tonight we go for pigs. So you must eat and drink.'

‘I'll have a coffee, then.'

I lean against the bonnet of the ute but there's no point waiting, the Pigman isn't going to say it. He seems content to act like it never happened. I've got to clear the air or it'll psych me out and all this time will have been wasted. In some ways me freaking out with the kangaroos is good. It's forced me back on track. It's tempting to forget why I'm here when I'm so far away from home. But I can't forget because they won't. There's no turning back. The plan must go ahead. So I spit it out. ‘I'm sorry about last night.'

The Pigman starts to unpack a box of food.

‘Did you hear what I said?'

He unscrews a jar, sticks his finger in, sucks it then nods. ‘Mmm.'

‘I said, did you …?'

‘Yes, Demon. I hear. But first we eat.'

‘I'm not hungry.'

‘Demon, I cook
proja
. I have
kaymak
, I have many things …' The Pigman is using the tray of the ute like a table. He's opening containers and taking out plates. ‘You will like
proja
, is my bread, homemade.' He opens a tea towel. Inside is a mound of saffron-coloured dough. ‘As well I have
slatko
. Remember I tell you is the jum we give to guest at our house.'

I wonder if every meal will include a lecture on Serbian culture. ‘You try
proja
,' he says, passing me a fistful of bread. ‘You taste.'

The bread sure needs the
slatko
. It's salty and feels like a sponge on my tongue.

‘You like, Demon?' I'm chewing and the Pigman's eyes are growing rounder as he awaits my verdict. ‘Yes?'

‘It's okay,' I say. ‘Probably better with jam.'

He breaks off another hunk and smears it with an orange-coloured syrup. ‘Bread and jum. Is what you English like. No?'

‘I'm Australian,' I say through a mouthful. ‘Not English.'

‘But you Ozzie all come here as convict from England, no?'

‘Not all of us. My mum's family were Dutch …'

‘Me, my mother, my father, my grandfathers, my uncles, all family Serbian.'

‘Take a bow,' I mutter.

‘Where your father from, Demon?'

‘Damon,' I say. ‘My name is Damon, not Demon – that's like calling me the devil.'

‘Devil boy!' he splutters. Yellow specks of bread fly between his jagged teeth. ‘Devil boy, where your father from?'

‘I don't remember. My father pissed off when I was a kid.'

The Pigman closes his mouth. ‘Where he go?'

‘Just away.'

‘You have brothers, sisters?'

‘No. It's just my mother and me.'

‘Your mother is alone now? At home?'

I ignore the question. He wouldn't understand. ‘Can I have a cup of coffee, please.'

The Pigman shakes his head and makes the ‘pfff' sound as he pours the black sludge into a cup. ‘Is not good she alone. Is not safe for woman.'

‘That's why I'm here, you dickhead,' I whisper.

‘I no understand you Ozzie,' the Pigman says as he shovels fistfuls of red meat into the dog bowls. It's the flesh of the kangaroo he shot last night.

So here's an opening. I have to jump in, now. I count to three. ‘That's why I was a bit nervous last night with, with the rifle.' My words spill out on top of each other. ‘My father used to get off on pointing one at us. He always said he'd come back and finish us off.'

‘What you mean “get off”?'

I tip half the coffee into the dirt. ‘Like he enjoyed it,' I reply.

‘Your father enjoy pointing rifle at you and your mother?'

‘He was a sick bastard.'

The bitumen road turns to dirt. Soon the ute is lost in a cloud of swirling brown dust. Our windows are up but I can taste the thirsty earth in my mouth. It coats the lie that just slipped off my tongue.

I'm not sure my father even owned a rifle. At least I have no memory of one. The table next to his side of the bed is what I remember. ‘No touching Dad's tablets', that was the rule but I would stand there and study the multicoloured piles of tiny pills. There were the pink ones to stop him from falling asleep; the yellow ones to make him fall asleep; dark brown were for his ‘movements' and the green and white were for back pain.

‘Did you nab my sleepers?' the old man'd shouted at mum. He was just back from four days on the road and he was wild with tiredness. His eyes were swallowed up in his skull and his lips drawn in a straight line. That morning he emptied drawers out onto the floor, wiped shelves clean with a single swipe of his hand and clawed through Mum's handbag until it was empty and inside out. He'd puffed and roared till white balls of spit stuck in the corners of his mouth like cotton wool.

Mum found a new packet of sleepers, so it was back to what we knew. Mum and me obediently whispering and tiptoeing around. Every now and then the bedroom door'd open, his bare feet'd stomp down the hallway and the house would echo with the sound of him taking a leak. I'd hold my breath until the bedroom door closed, then wait to hear Mum's footsteps before I started mine.

A few days later he was back in the truck. ‘See you soon, little man,' he'd said. Like always I stood by the fence, watching him disappear down our street while his Bon Jovi songs pumped through the air.

That was the day I broke the rule. While Mum was in the shower, I took three of Dad's sleeping tablets out of the packet I'd spied in their cupboard. The three yellow balls stuck onto my sweaty palm and for a second I remember being terrified that they would stick there forever, that this would be my punishment for breaking the rule, for touching Dad's tablets. I'd fumbled, almost dropped them, as I pressed a tissue onto my palm and wrapped the pills inside it, then hidden the parcel in a pair of socks that I pushed down the very back of my drawer.

The job was done. If Dad lost his sleepers again it would be okay. There'd be no need for his yelling at us, no need for him to trash the house and make Mum cry. Instead I'd present him with my open hand, three pills sitting there like on a silver platter and I'd say, ‘They were under your bed, Dad.' But my plan came too late. I didn't see him ‘soon'. We got a letter or three but we never saw my father again.

That's how I learnt the importance of being one step ahead. Planning until every detail has been considered. Those lessons are tough, the unexpected stings. But the pain is necessary because it makes you never forget.

When the red sand gets too thick I swerve the ute towards the edge of the scrub. Up ahead I watch for tyre marks, looking for someone's track to follow. Sometimes crisscross markings appear on the ground like a car's just rolled through. But they haven't. There's no one and nothing here.

We're surrounded by emptiness, smack bang in the middle of ‘serial killer' land. Below this red earth are probably shallow graves filled with the ‘missing people' whose mottled photos appear on our TV. The ‘crime stoppers' number flashes into my head. Maybe I'll need to call that number soon.

My palms drum against the steering wheel and I search for happy thoughts.

‘Manager live up here,' the Pigman tells me.

‘What? Someone actually lives out here?'

The Pigman points ahead. I watch his fingers, wondering if they'll do their dislocation trick. ‘Up here. You will see.'

Soon we're approaching a set of gates. A cabin with nothing surrounding it but rocks is perched on a hill as if it rose from the earth just minutes ago.

‘So the serial killer has a home,' I mumble.

‘Stop here,' the Pigman says. He opens the glove box and pulls out a wallet. His thick fingers take a few goes to slide out a card. I see it's his hunter's licence. ‘I go to manager,' he says, slipping it into his pocket. ‘Not long.'

Slatko's already jumped out of the back tray. He's waiting by the Pigman's door, his thick pink tongue hanging out of his mouth like a slice of Christmas ham.

‘Sara?'

The tray creaks and rattles but Sara doesn't appear. ‘Okay, Sara. Slatko do work instead. Pfff!' The Pigman opens the gate and starts the journey up the hill while Slatko trots behind.

It wasn't in there last night but it is now, so I take it out of the glove box. The Pigman's wallet is light. I bounce it in my palm a few times, amazed that what he needs can add up to just this.

Miroslav Jovic
is the name on his driver's licence.
Date of birth 3 April 1971
. Crumpled cigarette papers sit among hundred-and fifty-dollar bills. Behind the licence are two faded business cards in upside down letters, like the writing on his hat. There's also a card that reads
Australian Government, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Barbara Stilton, Lawyer.

I look under the flap, behind where the cards sit. A creased corner of a photo peeks out. I have to really dig my thumb and index finger in to get a grip. I check ahead; the Pigman and Slatko are almost dots at the top of the hill. So I pull the photo free and hold it to the light.

The edges of the picture have yellowed, but the middle, which shows a group of guys hanging off a truck, is untarnished. In front is the Pigman. He's much younger but his jagged teeth grinning from inside a beard make him unmistakable. His arm's around a fat guy who looks about the same age as me. The guy's wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt and their cheeks are touching as if their faces are stuck together.

A grumbling – deep, like you can barely hear it – rumbles behind me. For a second I wonder if it's someone driving up the track. But when I glance into the side mirror I see Sara's square head, his ears pricked and his dark lips like rubber tyres as he snarls at me.

‘So what're you going to do about it, Sara?' I say, one hand winding up the window, the other tilting the photo at different angles. ‘I'm just looking.'

Some of the guys standing behind the happy couple are wearing copies of the Pigman's black hat. All of them are scruffy looking. No one's been in a hurry to find running water or a razor.

There's a man sitting on the roof of the truck's cabin. Beyond that the image blurs but it looks like there might be people in the back of the truck too. I hold the snapshot up close then gradually move it towards the light. It's only then that I notice some of them have something slung over their shoulder.

I'm trying to really study the photo but my hands have begun to shake so much that I have to lie it flat along the dashboard and lean over it. The Pigman has one too. His sits more towards the front of his body.

‘Holy fuck.'

I sit back into the seat. I can feel my lungs pushing into the vinyl, each breath nearly lifting me into space. ‘Holy – fuck.'

Carefully my fingers lift the picture off the dashboard. How did I miss it?

I stare at the image till my eyes water, but I understand why. It's the way the Pigman's hugging the fat guy, it's because of the way they're smiling into the lens; it's their togetherness, something about the energy between them that overtakes the whole scene as though nothing else in the photo matters.