Pig Boy (21 page)

THROUGH THE REST OF THE day and into the night we hardly exchange a word. Yet this silence between Miro and me is different. It's not the cold, loud, ear-piercing ‘no talkies' that I know so well. It's not like that enormous space between two people, that sucking vacuum that sounds like an echo of nothingness.

There's no space between this silence; instead it feels warm, as if we're standing close together. It's comforting. It speaks. It says, ‘It's okay.' There's been plenty of
rakija
consumed, but it's this silence that I'm drunk on, not Miro's brandy.

We drive off in the ute, heading for a waterhole fifteen kilometres away. Miro tells me that at this place the pigs outnumber the roos, although I find it difficult to believe this.

I wind down the window and peer up at the night sky, which is as perfect as the day was. The moon is full. It's a golden ball, perfectly round, floating in an ocean of black. There'll be no storm tonight.

‘You want shoot pig, Demon?' he asks. ‘Or you want me to use rifle?'

‘Miro, you might as well keep my rifle,' I reply.

‘No! No, it your rifle, Demon. But maybe some days I will use it, yes?'

‘I'll work with the dogs,' I offer. ‘I'm better at that.'

My next question frightens me. Not so much the question but the answer. ‘Miro?'

‘Yes, Demon.'

‘Can I still come on these trips with you?' I ask. ‘I know we've established that I'm hopeless with a gun and don't really have the guts to shoot anything but –'

‘Demon!' he interrupts and I notice his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. ‘It not guts that stop you from doing killing. It your heart,' he tells me, now pressing one hand against his chest. ‘You no have heart to kill. I know this. I know someone like you once.' Now his hand squeezes my shoulder and he says, ‘I would very much, very much like you keep being with me.'

The dirt road disappears and Miro turns the ute into a trampled path, a makeshift road that seems to weave its way through the scrub.

‘Sheeet!'

‘What?'

‘Tyre in dirt. You see?'

‘Not really.'

‘Someone being here.'

‘Who?'

‘I think Glen.'

‘Glen the butcher?'

‘I stupid!' Miro barks, giving the steering wheel a good thump. ‘I tell Glen about pig and now he come here and take all.'

‘Glen doesn't sell the wild pig meat at the butcher, does he?'

‘He sell to Terry. That what chiller doing at his place three days ago. He have pig. I know this now.' Miro slaps the wheel again. ‘But I no want to sell meat! I just want to teach you to make salami with me.'

‘Is that illegal, what you do with Glen? Selling the meat to Terry? Is that why he brings the chiller truck down in the middle of the night?'

‘How I make money?' He's beginning to shout. ‘How do I eat? You tell me? How I make new life here in Australia?'

‘Hey, settle, mate! I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I was just asking.'

I decide it's better not to mention Moe's ‘criminal' theory. Miro's thoughts need to be kept on the trail ahead. The gears of the ute clunk and groan as he reverses out of a ditch he's landed us in.

I am sitting forward. My eyes are glued to the ground, following the headlights. ‘Boulder on the left,' I call.

Miro slams the gear into second and swerves towards the trees to cut a wide corner. The branches smack into the cabin roof then snap away. It sounds like stones hailing from the sky.

‘Whoooaaaa,' I shout and my hands grab onto the dashboard.

I remember the night we were flying towards the kangaroos. Miro's foot down, steering the ute between the trees like a blind kamikaze pilot. But what I really remember is the thought that flashed through my brain – that it was preferable to die there than back in Strathven at the hands of a Marshall brother.

Steven and Billy Marshall didn't see me down by the old schoolhouse. Miro is right. It is just devil whispers in my head. If the Marshalls had spotted me the next bullet would've been through my head. That is a truth.

Steven and Billy Marshall don't know that the black gym bag containing one AK-47 sits down the very back of the wardrobe in my bedroom. A wardrobe that is padlocked on the outside and on the inside has five coathangers spaced exactly fifty-two centimetres apart.

Miro's theory of pigs outnumbering kangaroos is a complete dud. His suspicion that Glen has hunted the land dry is right on the money. For the third night we sit up on the same ridge that gives us a perfect view of the waterhole below.

Miro sits here like he did last night and the one before that too: turning my rifle over in his hands, peering through the chamber, playing with the rifle scope and then taking it apart and starting all over again. He's like a kid who's been given his first ever birthday present. He can't get enough of it.

‘You get very good bargain, Demon,' he whispers. ‘Veeery, very good bargain.'

‘So you've said a million times,' I mutter under my breath.

It's boring waiting up here, eyes peeled on the waterhole watching for a hog to waddle through the scrub in search of a drink and a wallow. Miro won't let us talk. The occasional whisper is acceptable but anything more has him slicing his hand across his neck and pursing his lips in the ‘shhh' position. It's really starting to give me the big-time shits. Doesn't he realise that he's the one making all the noise, taking my rifle apart then clicking it back into place?

But, as he has also said a million times, we must sit up here, patiently waiting like ‘snipers' – all in the name of tender meat to make salami with. The more the pig is frightened and makes flight, the tougher its flesh will be. But that's not the problem for me. My problem is that I can't stomach the idea of making salami at all, let alone with stinking pig meat. It's not the type of sandwich I ever plan to hoe into.

Miro doesn't see it that way. He's cracking a fat over the salami we're going to make. How the mustard seeds and cayenne pepper are the secret ingredients and how he and some other bloke once made it in the war, then traded it for American cigarettes. Wonder who got the better deal there!

Sara turns his head, his ears pricking tall like antennae. Slatko jumps up on all fours until Miro shakes his hand and his haunches fold back to the ground. Miro snaps his dislocated joints back into position and picks up the rifle. Now I can smell him too. The thick stench of a boar heats the hair in my nostrils.

We watch as down below the branches part like a curtain opening on a stage and out lumbers a good-sized boar on his way to the waterhole. Miro lies on his stomach, his shoulders positioned at the edge of the ridge, his elbows supporting the rifle that's aimed and ready. ‘Perfect size,' he whispers. ‘We want big but not so big. Good for salami.'

It's as if the pig hears us because immediately he stops. His stance suddenly stiffens like he's sensed the danger. But he's too slow, for I hear what sounds like the click of a tongue and Miro squeezes the trigger.

It's as if the bullet doesn't touch him. The boar spins around and bolts into the scrub.

‘Did you hit him?' I ask.

Miro doesn't answer. He's up on his feet, shouting and running towards the ute. Slatko and Sara are already charging down the ridge chasing the sound of branches snapping with the flight of an animal.

My arse hasn't even hit the seat and Miro is driving off. Our shoulders slam together as the ute traverses and skids down the escarpment.

‘What happened to you?' Across Miro's eyebrow is a gash, the shape of a half-moon. ‘What'd you do?'

‘Me? I do nothing! Your rifle scope make this,' Miro answers. ‘Your, your rifle scope not tight. Good pig for making salami. Now it gone.'

‘But you hit him.'

‘I miss!' He shouts. ‘No more pig. No more salami.'

‘Will Sara be okay bailing up the hog? His leg's still pretty bad.'

‘Sara has to finish job because your rifle no good.'

Miro is one pissed-off hunter. I'm tempted to point out that perhaps the scope was loose because he'd pulled the rifle apart one too many times. But I refrain because I'm quietly relieved there'll be no salami and more than that I'm worried about the stitches coming apart on Sara's leg.

At last we are back on the trail, driving along the edge of the bush. My eyes scan the openings between the trees where it seems the barks are coming from.

‘There!' I call. I'm out and jogging towards them. The dogs are circling a boar who lies like a lump in the grass, pink froth bubbling from its mouth.

I shout to Miro but he just sits in the ute like a slab of stone. ‘Miro!' I shout again but he still doesn't move. Now foam bubbles out of the hog's snout like a shaken bottle of beer.

‘Miro! Get out here,' I yell, striding back to the ute. ‘You hit him, all right, but he's not dead. He's suffering. For fuck's sake put him out of his misery. That's why we came down here, isn't it? You know – don't let the animal suffer, clean humane kill, all that hunter crap!' I am standing there for what feels like forever. ‘Isn't it?' I shout again.

Finally Miro turns to me. His gaze is out the window towards where the dying pig lies. ‘You do it,' he murmurs. ‘I am tired, Demon.'

‘But, but … why can't, why can't …'

Miro passes the rifle through the window. ‘Here,' he says. He's frowning like his face is caving in, like the sheer weight of his skin is what's squeezing the blood from his eyebrow. ‘Demon, you put him out of misery.'

The rifle feels too big and I feel too small as I walk to the edge of the circle. There's no chance of a comeback but still the dogs keep guard.

The boar's taken a lung shot. I stare at his thick barrel chest heaving up and down, fighting for each breath. I want it to stop; to stop on its own but it could be hours and the beast lies here suffering.

When I pull back on the rifle, the pig's black eyes roll up to look at me. But these eyes don't plead. They're resigned, grateful almost.

‘I'm sorry,' I whisper.

It has to be a head shot, quiet and quick. A clean humane kill. I point the muzzle just below his ear. ‘Breathe in,' I instruct myself. ‘Focus, breathe out, hold.'

Bang.

MIRO ISN'T DISAPPOINTED THAT WE have no pig to make salami with – he's devastated. It's as though he retreats into his shell, hardly speaking, staring at the ground. Now I wish we were driving home to make salami, rolls and rolls of it.

We pull into a petrol station. Miro fills up the ute, then without saying where he's going walks over to the bathroom. He's in there a long time.

It's hot. The air is thick and still like the build-up before a storm. I fill the dog's bowls with water then decide to take a leak myself.

My hand is on the doorknob to the Gents' when I stop. There's a pounding echo, as if someone is thumping their fists against the wall, and the doorframe jumps with each strike.

I scamper back to the ute and am standing by the tray, my arm around Sara's head, when Miro emerges from the bathroom.

‘Okay?' I offer.

‘Give me key,' Miro says. ‘I drive now. I think storm coming.'

In less than an hour we have stopped again.

‘What are we doing here?' I call. But Miro ignores me. He stumbles into the bush, his hands pulling at his belt as though he's not going to make it in time. Slatko obediently follows.

‘I think the old man's got the runs,' I tell Sara, who is sniffing and pissing around the base of every available tree. ‘There's certainly something up with him.'

I sit down with my back against a wheel and edge into the one triangle of shade. How have I upset him, I wonder? Does he blame me for him missing the shot? Is this all to do with salami?

Sara flops down into the shade and curls up next to me. ‘Didn't you want to go with them? Did you want to stay with me?' I say to Sara as he nuzzles my side. ‘You didn't used to like me, did you? But we're mates now, hey.' Sara lifts his sore leg like he wants me to inspect it. I run my fingers around the stitches. The new spikes of hair prickle my skin. ‘It's still sore, isn't it, mate? I can tell you're not happy. I think I'll take you home with me. Give you some special care. Hey? Would you like that?'

Soon the both of us are dozing and it's not until we hear the bark of Slatko that we are up on our feet waiting for the master.

Slatko appears through the scrub. He is busy panting, his thick pink tongue hangs over his jaw and it's as though he's smiling, so pleased with himself.

‘What's he so happy about?' I say to Sara.

At first it's hard to see Miro because the sun glaring in my eyes shadows his path. But as he nears it's clear he's carrying something over his back. It's an animal, pale brown. Its legs dangle over Miro's shoulders. I think it's a calf abandoned by its mother until I notice the stockiness of its legs and I realise it's a pig. A dead pig.

Miro's grinning like a kid. ‘It okay. It good,' he calls. ‘I find pig. We make salami now, Demon.'

He throws out his arms to hug me. I'm not sure what to do as I don't fancy a face full of pig's trotters. But Miro slides the animal off his back like a cloak he's discarding and wraps me up in a hug. Against my ear I hear his knuckles cracking back into position.

‘We make salami now!' He is laughing and squeezing me so tight I can feel his ribs vibrate. ‘It all good now, Demon. All good. Come, we must go. We hurry. Pig need to go to chiller box at my house.'

Miro picks up the pig and throws it in the back of the ute. Its neck's twisted on an odd angle but there's no blood to be seen.

‘Hey, did Slatko bail it up and get him in the neck?' I ask.

‘Slatko help,' Miro tells me. ‘But I kill.'

‘How?'

He holds up his enormous hands. ‘With this,' he says.

Before I get in the ute, I take one last look at the pig's head. It's rotated so far it faces its tail.

Miro starts the engine, pulls at the top of the middle finger that's not quite clicked into place and drives away singing Bon Jovi in his broken English.

‘You okay, Demon? You no scared?' Miro asks as we make the turn into Strathven. ‘You have nothing to worry about. You know this now?'

‘I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. Of course I am,' I answer. ‘I can't unwind just like that. Not when I've been so wound up. So paranoid.'

‘Steeven Marshall no bother you.' Miro begins to chuckle. ‘Ahhhh, I think he too busy wondering where AK-47 gone! He never neeever think it in Demon Styyles's wardrobe!'

Looking at it that way, it is funny. But I only nod and attempt a grin because I'm nowhere near ready for a side-splitting, knee-slapping session. When Miro and I figure out what to do; when the whole thing's over and no one knows that I had anything to do with it, then and only then I'll join him in a laugh. It'll be a good laugh too.

Miro squeezes my shoulder. ‘It will be okay, Demon. I promise. We tell polices. But first we wait.'

The clouds have been sucked up by the sky and now the air is light, carrying the softest breeze with it. It suits my mood. I have no need for the aggro of the storm that was building up before. Calm is still the key and calm is almost how I feel.

Miro turns down the piano accordion and the ute grumbles into the main road. It feels like a peaceful Monday afternoon in Strathven too. A handful of blokes are gathered outside the Clancy Hotel sharing an ale and a chat. I'm certain if it were Thursday or even Wednesday, the customers would be spilling out the door and fists would be flying.

But Monday is the start of the week. It's always a Monday when good intentions abound. Monday used to be the day I'd start a diet or the day I'd pledge to control my temper. As far as I can recall, I never made it past Wednesday. The smell of hot chips would be too tempting and Mum would always do something to make me mad. In the end, I failed to see the point of Monday promises and gave them up. Or maybe it was because Archie left. I can't remember.

But I could go back to them now. Give them a second try.

‘Can you stop at the mini-mart?' I ask Miro. ‘I want to buy something for my mother.'

‘You good boy, Demon.'

My hands slide across my thighs. ‘I haven't been a good son.' I tell a truth because I feel I owe it to Miro. ‘I've been a real moody bastard. But I'm going to be better. At least, I'm going to give it a go.'

‘Of course you will, Demon. Of course you will.'

Miro watches me take a conscious few seconds to breathe and reassure myself that everything is fine. When I reach the count of three, I look back to the ute and Miro gives me the thumbs up. Gently I open the door to the mini-mart.

So what if Steven Marshall is in here doing some shopping, I say to myself. What's the worst than can happen? He calls me Damoink and squeals like a pig. But I know this confidence is really fuelled by Moe's announcement that Steven and Billy Marshall are out of town.

I haven't mentioned it to Miro because every time I say ‘Marshall' he yells at me about devil whispers. But now I wonder if they've gone away because of the body found in the river.

Moe's elbows rest on the counter as he reads a book. I can't see what it is but it looks thick, like only a super-brain could handle it. ‘That's a big read! What is it?' I call to him.

He sees it's me, closes the book and walks around the counter. I think he's coming towards me to say hi but instead he gives a limp wave and walks towards the back of the shop. ‘Miranda?' Moe's call is almost a bark. ‘Customer.'

‘Hey?' I call. ‘Moe? Where're you going?'

‘Too busy,' he answers, clapping his hands together.

‘Moe?' Miranda appears from behind the shelves. She wedges herself behind the cash register. ‘Moe!' she calls. I put a few packets of Tim Tams on the counter. ‘Probably time to call a truce,' I say to her with a wink. But her eyes have popped as though I'm a headless man waving a machete in her face. ‘Maybe not, then,' I mutter.

‘Ten ninety-five. Would you like a bag?' She's speaking so softly I can hardly hear her.

‘No.'

But she's snapping one off the holder anyway.

‘A packet of the Ships tobacco too,' I say. ‘The large one.'

‘Eighteen-fifty.'

‘Aren't you going to talk to me?'

Miranda shakes her head.

I pull out a twenty-dollar note and flick it towards her. ‘Keep the change,' I say, expecting a ‘thanks' or at least a smile. But she looks as though she's about to burst into tears.

‘See, no problem,' Miro says, as I climb back into the ute. ‘I tell you everything is good. It all in imagination.'

‘That bitch is so rude. She can't even manage a thank you,' I say, tugging at the seatbelt.

‘Aah, you talk of fat girl with long nose,' Miro replies. ‘I know her. She rude to me every time I go there. She pretend she no understand my English.'

‘She's not really fat,' I say. ‘Just a bit cuddly.'

‘Nooo. She fat!' Miro blows out his cheeks to show how fat he really thinks she is. ‘And boy, Moslem boy.'

‘You mean Moe?'

‘Yes.'

‘Moe's a good bloke. He's a mate of mine,' I tell Miro. ‘Turn left, not this street but the next one.'

Miro doesn't know where I live. He's never picked me up or dropped me home before. This is a first and I almost feel like we're a clandestine couple finally ending the secrecy. In a way we have been. But tonight I'm telling the old girl the truth. Not everything. She doesn't need to know everything yet. Obviously she will by the time we get the police involved. For now, I'll start with my job, what I've really been doing these past few weeks. I'll see how that goes and then I'll take it from there. Timing is everything with my mother.

We stop outside the house. Miro doesn't cut the engine. Instead it rumbles and spits away while he discusses arrangements one more time.

‘So we make salami tomorrow,' Miro says.

‘Yes, yes.' I keep checking the front door.

‘And you take Sara? That would be nice for him, like holiday.'

I'm opening the door and getting out. ‘Yes, thanks. It'll be good for his leg to have a few quiet days.'

‘And your mother happy for this? To have dog?'

‘All good.'

‘I know, maybe I come in to meet your mother and …' Miro's hands are unclipping the seatbelt.

‘No,' I tell him. ‘She sleeps in the afternoon. Believe me, she won't want to be disturbed.'

The half-truth or half-lie seems to satisfy Miro. So, trying not to rush, trying to look as casual as possible, I unlock the tailgate to let Sara down, get my bag and call, ‘See you tomorrow.'

I watch Miro drive away but my thoughts are on the front door.