The Rest is Weight (UQP Short Fiction) (3 page)

Mia puts the crucifix on her dresser. Her fingers dance across the surface of the pink satin jewellery box. Its colour has faded and she brushes at the dust. She reaches around to wind the knob at the back. She opens the box and it plays its little song, tink-tink-tink, and the ballerina inside turns in a circle with her tiny plastic arms raised over her head. The music and turning slow down until the dancer is frozen with her face towards the window. Mia picks up the crucifix. The ballerina’s raised arms are like the raised arms of Christ. She drops the crucifix inside the box and closes the lid.

Mama
, she says over her porridge in the morning.

Yes?
Mia sees the wrinkles form at her mother’s mouth.

Nothing.

Her mother comes around the table to stand beside her. She tucks the hair behind Mia’s ears.
The tall man is my friend
, her mother says.
You know that. He comes to help us.
Without the tall man, I lose all my customers.

But Mama
, she says.

Sh, baby
, her mother says, circling her head from behind so Mia feels a breast pressed into her hair. Her mother’s body is cool and her heart beats very fast.
He’s gone now. Go to school.

Mia slides her schoolbag off the kitchen table and walks into the morning light. Behind her, the shop opens and soon it will be full of laughing, joking truck drivers. Already the trucks fill the highway and the air around it. By the time she arrives at school, Mia’s hair has been blown from behind her ears. By the time she enters the gate, Mia has decided she will tell her mother about the extra money. By the time she hangs her bag on the hook, she has decided she will sell fruit and drinks on the highway every afternoon for two hours before she does her homework.

When she walks into the classroom she is certain she will not talk to the crazy boy any more. When she sits down she has decided she will take the cheap crucifix into the jungle and throw it where no one will find it. She opens her book. The jungle will swallow anything.

Roadhouse

Harry pulls into the flat yard, sending wide arcs of dust off the front axles, the red clouds shrinking beside the solid bulk of the semi. Hisses down the brakes, clicks off the engine’s rumble. In the fresh-killed quiet he pulls back his arms to feel a stretch in his thick brown shoulders and glances at the other trucks standing like cattle in the sparse lot. No one he knows.

The roadhouse is dwarfed, machines the only shapes worthy of the flat, dry landscape. Get a job so you can see a bit of country, end up looking at highways and the backs of cars and motor homes slipping into nothing in your mirror. Anyway, thinks Harry, it beats sitting still.

Another pneumatic hiss and he lets his seat down, climbs out of the cab, and strides stiffly for the pisser. Learning to force out the yellow stream when you can and not when you have to is like keeping awake; your body changes to fit the road. He splashes a little water on his face and walks round to the shop.

The place has been recommended, though not to him exactly; he’s picked it up on the
cb
as a spot where the girls have a laugh with you and the grub’s all right. A few plastic tables, red chairs, big-wheeler posters fading on the fake pine walls. Four others, all older than him, each sitting alone. One of them, a grey, narrow fella, is reading a book, claw-hand automatic. No one he knows.

Pie and chips
, Harry tells the girl, who doesn’t seem any friendlier than the rest of her kind.

Sauce?

Yair. Ta.

He guesses they get to know you after a while.

Harry takes his plate to the table closest to the door. He stares out at the lifeless scrub, picks at his chips. He hasn’t got the hang of wolfing his food yet. Looks over at the fridges. Thinks about an iced coffee. Notices the book man looking at him, cautious as a bird. Harry nods and the fella smiles, close-mouthed but genuine enough, before shutting himself off again behind the pages.

Harry picks up his knife and fork with the wrong hands, has a go at the pie. He decides he will get that iced coffee and, when he’s up, ask the bird man what he’s reading. He pushes some warm chips around in the puddle of sauce, his fingers taking in grease, and hears the door swing behind him.

Arrgh, ya bludger, this a fucken lib’ry?

The six-footer has a voice that fills the room. He seats himself opposite the old bird.

Gotta log it
, bird replies, closing the book with a dog-ear.

The big one swivels in his seat.

Deb! Burger with the lot, ay? No salad extra chips.

Harry sets his fork down, wipes the crumbs off the table
with one hand, and steps into the heat. It’s a couple hundred k
before he wants the coffee he’s forgotten.

Two, three weeks later and he’s back on the same run, bad country radio fizzling in and out and the tiresome earth stretched out on all sides.

He pulls into the roadhouse, faded today under a washed-out sky, and switches the machine off in noisy steps. A few other trucks, but he can’t tell if he recognises any.

He thinks about a burger, no salad extra chips, but gets the pie again. Debbie pushes the sauce bottle at him without asking, but does nothing else that shows she recognises him.

He carries his plate to the same table, making a mental note: iced coffee. Picturing the carton even as he sets about eating.

A quick glance. No familiar faces. Two gruff-looking fellas, one with an armful of messy ink. Harry doesn’t have any tatts. He’s never been to prison or to sea. Doesn’t know what he’d get anyway. Decisions aren’t his strong point. Half-arsed, says a voice in his head. Can’t you just stick with a thing? Pulling his eyes off the blue-dark arm he spies a book beside an empty plate a table over. Maybe he’s forgot it, he thinks with a sudden brightness, but he knows the Debbies of this world take care of that kind of thing.

The bird man steps out of the pisser, wipes his hands on his jeans, checks his watch, and moves towards the door. Harry stands to grab the book, but the bird’s already there and they’re left standing foolish over the empty plate.

Bird takes the book up, knocks it against his forehead like he’s testing a nut.
Forget me head
, he says.
You headin south?

North
, says Harry.
All the way.

There are only two directions. In and out again. Harry can’t describe the secret of it, heading across the heart and back, his tracks weaving a map of maps.

New to the run?
asks bird, eyebrows raised, open.

Few months
, says Harry, and almost explains but doesn’t.

Name’s Don.
Harry mouths it, Don, putting the shape of it in his chin. The man’s waiting, Harry. He says his own name.

All right, Harry
. Don nods with another closed grin.
See you next time, ay
.

Harry leaves a decent interval, remembers the iced coffee, and steps out to see which truck is leaving. Makes a mental note of it.

Another time, a bit later, Debbie brings his plate to his table, which Don’s now taken up. He still brings his book but doesn’t open it.

Them road works finished
, Harry offers.
Clean run down now.

Don chews this, digests it, making Harry wonder what kind of bird. Crow? Too mean.

What are you reading?
Harry asks instead.

What, this?
Don asks like he’s just noticed the book in front of him.
S’bout Mexico. You ever been to Mexico?

Harry shakes his ragged head.
Been to New Zealand once. Doesn’t count but.

He means it’s not a different country. Not like this place. But he doesn’t say it.

Harry and Don are listing off their bosses’ shortcomings when the big, curly man comes in again, all waving arms.

Bludger
, he throws out, slapping at Don’s bony back. Harry flinches for him, but Don’s not fazed.

Ay, Stan-the-man
, Don says.
You know Harry here?

Six-foot Stan sizes him, making his face set like in a strong wind.

This one’s on a good gig
, Don continues like the conversation wasn’t broken.
Owner–driver. No idiots tellin him how to do his job
.

Nah mate
, rejoins Stan,
just the fucken road cops. I’m switchin to WA, no more fucken log books
. He claps his big hand on Don’s frame again.

They carry on talking to Harry but really to each other, just through him cause he happens to be there. It’s a relief when he gets back in his cab with the familiar rattles he has come to think of as its character. His hands, big and easy like his father’s used to be, curl around the hot vinyl of the wheel. Yesterday they soaked blood from the sheets, wiped at a corner of his eye. Oh, be a man for chrissakes. It’s the bleach, he’d mumbled, but the lie got lost in a rack of coughing.

Months clock like kilometres. Debbie says,
Hot today
, or
Not too hot today
. The books change.

You read?

Harry shakes his head. Picks up the book in one hand, fingers all sausagey on its skin. Doesn’t mention the bad ear he got from a blue. Stopped showing up at school after that. You deaf as well as stupid? They fixed him up now anyway. Don’s looking at him funny. Galah? Nah, too simple.

Russian bloke
, Don says, nodding at the book.
Bout a crazy woman. Good but
. He takes it out of Harry’s hand, sets it down as if it’s made of glass.
You gotta keep your mind busy
.

Thirty-two
, Harry says to the dash as he passes another carcass. The grey roo has a cluster of crows going at it like sharpened shadows. He reaches for the esky and his iced coffee, opens the carton with one hand and takes a deep swig.
Thirty-three
, he adds, a few ks down the track. You gotta keep your mind busy.

Thinkin of retiring
, Don says one day, pushing his plate off to the side.
Maybe got enough for a bit of land. The ex-wife’s in Queensland. Easier on the girls
. He leans back on the red chair.
You got a family?

Nah
, says Harry, and then,
Oh, me old man
.

Young bloke like you
, says Don,
oughta be fightin em off. Whatcha do on your days off then?

Sleep
, says Harry.

He thinks of the cot bed in his father’s house, the coughing that keeps him awake at night. The old man’s hoarse
calling all hours, sometimes for water, sometimes in his sleep.
Of changing the bloody pillows, and of standing over
the hollow body in the dark, hearing the ragged breath
struggle, out . . . in. Marking the time between. The time he’s got left.

Still, plenty of time
, Don says, with his lopsided smile. Harry looks so startled Don presses a claw against his forearm.
To muck around I mean.

The hand, surprisingly gentle, lifts away, leaving the shape of kindness in its wake.

He’s crook
, Harry says, hearing the voice cross the table like it’s someone else’s.
Got the emphysema.

Don’s clear eye watches, calm, his head on a tilt.

Magpie. That’s it. He almost says it aloud. Instead his hand goes to the spot behind his ear where he cracked his head on the step, forgotten to turn the water on again, but Jesus, he was just a kid. There’s not really a scar any more.

He’s dying
, he says.

Shit
, says Don, and breathes in through his teeth.
You lookin after him?

Harry nods once, dry, at the table. Can he remember a time he’s said this before? It never mattered much. Everyone’s story. Maybe it’s the space out here lets you unwrap yourself.

Bastard drove Mum away
, Harry says.
Hit us.

With the driving, he’s half run as well. But only half. Half-arsed.

Ah well
, Harry says finally, cracking a rare smile.
Choose ya friends, ay.

Don nods, tipping the chair back, and the two men sit for a while looking out at the country, at the scrub struggling up out of rocks, at the grass spreading silently over the plain. In a corner of which, their trucks lean side by side like cattle, facing into the land.

Crow season

One for sorrow, two for mirth
, she says.

Sorry?

It’s an old rhyme. Three for a death and four for a birth. Any more than that, and it’s road kill.

It’s the second thing she’s said to me after
Whereya headed?
and a nod. Superstitious, but we all are. Me, I prayed to Ned up in heaven that I’d make it out, and I’m all right so far.

She drives past the carcasses of long-dead vehicles, the scrub and spinifex, kicking up a dust I see change from red
to white in the passenger-side mirror. I’ve never met this
woman before, but she seems like she can take a joke.

You a witch or something?

Maybe.
She grins and there are holes where teeth should be.
My mother used to say it
,
she explains.
Back in the day.
You see so many this time of year, it goes round in my head.

There are worse things to circle your brain, I think, than crows.

The upturned cars that litter the track have all been stripped down to their bones; they’re pretty, in the way of skeletons. There are no more hills. There are only these relics of old accidents to look at.

What possessed you to come this road
, she asks, by way of conversation.
Quicker by the highway.

I tug my sleeve down over the warm steel bracelet and tell her I’ve always wanted to see this country.

Not much to it
, she says.
Like this for another ten hours
. Her hand waves at the termite mounds that stand up out of the grass like tombstones. My eyes shake with the road’s corrugations. I wonder when I last had a decent sleep. She glances at me then, and her look takes me in. I shed the greens days ago but you can still see the shadow of prison bars against my skin.

So what do you do out here anyway
, I ask her.

Oh, this and that. I ran away from a bad marriage. Bastard broke my arm twice. Would’ve killed me if I’d stayed. Been back there working on the mine but I’m over it. Headed for the coast for a bit. See what happens.

She looks about fifty, and I wonder about her, cruising around like this. I can see the hint of an old tattoo on her forearm, disappearing into the sleeve. Looks like a home job.

Me, I’ve been running for years
, she says.
You look like you just started.

I stare straight ahead, try to fix my eyes on the horizon. It disappears into a heat haze, you can’t see where it goes.

The outside is like this. It has no edges.

You come far?

I shrug and drop my cuffed wrist beside the seat.

Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to.

We drive in silence for a while. The road gets worse, whole sections of it dropping into banks of red sand. At one point there’s even a tree in the middle.

No radio out here is all
, she says.
S’why I always pick you guys up. Get jack of talking to myself.

Four states
, I say.
Four states in a week.

Shit, you’re caning it. Must be some trouble.

I nod and stare and pray quietly to the Kelly gang. It doesn’t work, because I feel her foot lift. The vehicle slows to a stop. She gets out of the car and I grab my plastic bag, ready for the kick, but she’s only going for a piss.

I get out and walk a way up the road to relieve myself. A tiny trickle, I’m dehydrated again. Yesterday I walked so far in the heat I nearly shat myself. I glance up at the horizon ahead.

There on the road is a fetid carcass, an old cow bursting its skin. A cluster of crows – a murder – going at the guts. I feel nauseous as I button my fly and return to the car. Sitting there strapped with jerry cans and spare tyres, it looks ready for the end of the world.

When I open the door I do it with the wrong hand. As we drive past, the crows leap into the air and swim around in the dust.

You gonna tell me what you were in for
, she asks quietly. I tug at my sleeve, but it’s too late. She’s already seen. I rack my brain for an explanation. The satellite phone’s sitting on the dash, the coppers waiting at the other end. I should roll myself out of the car and onto the roadside, but those dark birds are waiting. There’s no way out.

Murder
, I want to say. I want to scare her into driving me all the way. If I had a knife I could, but something tells me she’d fight back. Stuff it, I think. You gotta trust someone sometime.

Armed robbery
, I say.
Three years for aggravated.

She raises an eyebrow.
What with?

Kebab skewer.

The woman laughs then. Her laugh is harsh and dry like the country and it fills the car. She bangs her wrist on the wheel and reaches for the dash. My hand creeps up towards the door handle, ready to roll. She fumbles under the sat phone for something. I press the seatbelt open. She hands me a bobby pin.

Can you manage with that?

Maybe. I’m not much of a burglar.

Obviously. Hands up, this is a barbecue!

I almost smile then. I almost inhale. I remember that somewhere at the end of this road is the ocean, waiting there, cool and blue; and on the other side, who knows? Another country maybe. Another shot. I’m not gonna stuff it up this time, I think, as the cuffs slide open in my hand.

A little later, I toss them out the window. As they fly through the air, a couple of crows snap at them. Two for mirth.