White Ute Dreaming (12 page)

‘What?' she whispered.

‘Nothing.'

She sat beside me. ‘What is it, Wayne? You okay? Did I do something wrong?'

‘No. It's not you. I don't feel so good.'

‘What? Sick?'

No, not sick. Scared, maybe. I dunno. ‘Yeah, sick,' I lied.

‘You all right?' she asked, and put her hand on my back.

I got up. ‘Yeah. I'm okay. Just need a drink of water,' I said, and bolted for the kitchen. They were sitting around the kitchen table, Griz and Mario, Rod, Tanya and Anna. They each had a glass and one of Griz's yellow pills sitting on the gold-flecked table in front of them.

‘We ready?' Griz asked. His head tilted to one side like he was going to fall off his chair. He grabbed the table.

Rod nodded and picked up the pill. The others did the same. Only Anna hesitated.

Mario elbowed her. ‘Come on.'

She shrugged and put the pill in her mouth. Angie came into the room and put her arm around my back. I walked into the lounge. That wasn't what I wanted. That wasn't where I wanted to be.

Angie stood in front of me and held my hand with her eyes struggling to stay focused on mine. Her brow scrunched and she asked me again if I was okay. I pulled away and bolted for the door.

‘Wayne. Wait! What is it, Wayne?' she shouted after me as I burst into the cold air and stumbled down the darkened front stairs. I stood in the middle of Ashburn Street for a full minute looking left and right, trying to remember which way to go. Nothing looked familiar. I almost shouted.

Angie appeared in the street. ‘Wayne, what is it? You're freaking me out. You're going all weird.'

I spotted the old Torana rusting away on Rod's front lawn and I remembered everything. I started running.

‘Wayne,' she shouted. ‘Where are you going?'

I ran like mad for ages. It was probably only five minutes. I realised I wasn't going home. I was heading for the caravan park. A car pulled alongside me and I thanked the god of Bundy that I could still walk straight. It was the cops.

‘Hey, big fella. Where're you heading? Come over here.'

I slipped my stump into my jacket pocket and walked over to the van. I crouched with my hand on my knee just a few feet from the door. The guy in the driver's seat was fat and his gut nearly touched the steering wheel. The bloke looking out the window was young and looked fit.

‘Been running, mate? What's your name? Where have you run from?' the fit cop asked, and I looked back up the street.

‘Ashburn Street. Wayne Armond.'

‘Yeah? What were you doing up there?'

‘Party,' I panted.

‘Yeah? Whose party?'

‘Rod Ashburn.'

A light like a desk lamp lit up his lap. He was writing down everything I said, his left hand carrying the pen which curled awkwardly over the top of his pad. He stopped writing and looked at me. ‘Rod Ashburn who lives in Ashburn Street?'

‘Rod Holloway, sorry.'

‘What number?'

‘I dunno. It's about halfway along. Rusty old car in the front yard.'

‘What have you been drinking?'

I shrugged. ‘Nothing.' I thought if he breath-tests me, I'm rooted.

‘Show me what's in your pockets.'

‘Pardon?'

‘Empty out your pockets please, Wayne. Where do you live?'

I kept my stump in my jacket pocket and rummaged in my jeans with my hand. I didn't have anything in my pockets. Except the strip of condoms. Shit.

‘Um. I live in Chisholm. Vincent Drive.'

‘Where you going now? What's that you've got?'

I held the strip of condoms with my thumb and forefinger and he laughed and looked at the driver who was smiling.

‘Get lucky tonight Wayne, or are they insurance?'

I shrugged and stuffed the condoms back in my pocket.

‘Where are you going now?'

‘Home.'

‘You're going the wrong way. Vincent Drive is down near Merrimans Creek, isn't it?' He looked across at the driver who nodded.

‘I'm going to my dad's van. Mum's not home.'

‘Oh yeah? Where's that?' the fit cop asked.

‘What's in your jacket pocket?' the fat cop asked.

‘Nothing,' I said, and pulled out my stump. I heard the fat cop catch his breath.

I explained that Dad's van was in the caravan park.

The fit cop just started babbling. ‘Ahh . . . good night for a party. Do you want a lift?'

I said no. Thanks anyway. As he was winding up his window he said ‘good luck' and smiled. The driver pulled away from the curb quickly.

That shits me up the wall. That's happened more than once—they pull you up when you're minding your own business and not doing any illegal shit and ask you a thousand stupid questions and that. I bet if I was in a suit they wouldn't even stop. Must remember to pull my stump out a little earlier next time.

It's a good walk to Dad's from Ashburn Street and about halfway there my head had cleared enough for me to think about what had happened. Angie wanted me something fierce and I should have been thinking that all my Christmases had come at once. Instead, it felt like Christmas always does. Fake. It was like I already knew what I was getting. No surprises. Too easy.

I always thought that the first root I had would be something special. I would have wasted that with Angie. But by the time I made it to the van I'd decided that I should have done it anyway. What the heck. I'd waited long enough. It's a battle for me sometimes—my dick wants one thing and my head has its doubts. What about Kez?

Dad and Ernie got a bit of a surprise. They were just watching telly but it was nearly eleven o'clock.

‘What are you doing here?' Dad asked, and invited me in. Yellow dog sniffed my crotch and wagged his tail.

‘Nothing much. Just been up to a mate's place. Thought I'd call in on my way home.'

He flicked the telly off and offered to drive me home.

‘Would it be okay if I camped here tonight?' I asked. The words just came out of my mouth.

‘Yeah. No worries. That would be great. We'll ring your mum?'

‘She's gone out.'

His eyebrows climbed halfway up his forehead and hung there for a second.

Yeah, I guess it was hard to believe. Mum was falling in something with Richo. I wanted to tell Dad about it but my head wouldn't co-operate. They say ‘He's got his head on straight' when someone can think clearly about their life. Yeah, mine was on crooked.

‘We'll leave a message for her then,' he said, and we started walking up to the payphone.

Whatever. She won't miss me till the morning.

N
ORMALLY
, I'
D GO TO BED WITH A BENT HEAD AND WAKE UP
okay. Not this time. The Friday morning after the party I felt like shit. And it didn't get any better. Not a hangover or anything. Well, not a normal sort of bourbon brain ache anyway. I think my soul was aching. Dad had to be at social security by half past eight so Ernie and I went to the flat. It was nine o'clock when we got there. Mum's car was backed in the driveway. She should have left for work half an hour before. She wasn't inside. She would have gone in Richo's BMW on the big date. Didn't look like she'd made it home. I started to spin out. Where would she be? I went to the phone. I couldn't decide who to ring first. Richo? The cops? Dad? Steady Wayne, think.

The phone rang as I reached for the handset and I nearly head-butted the ceiling.

‘Hello?' I squeaked.

‘G'day love.' It was Mum. ‘How'd the party go? Got your dad's message, thank you.'

The air hissed through my teeth. A crazy mix of anger and relief. ‘Where are you?'

‘I'm at work. What's the matter? Wayne, are you okay?'

‘Yeah, I'm . . . I'm okay. Saw your car in the driveway and I got . . .'

‘Yeah, bloody thing. Battery's dead. Richo picked me up and dropped me at work.'

‘That was good . . . that was good of him.'

She started talking fast. ‘I've got another call, love. There's a bloke coming round from the RACV to change the battery. Give him the keys when he gets there. Bye.'

‘Okay. See ya,' I said, and she was gone.

Her keys were on the kitchen bench. I didn't feel right. It was like I'd woken from a nightmare and I couldn't remember what it had been about. Edgy. Scared. I dunno. That feeling stuck. It hung around with me all day, off and on. It got to eleven o'clock and there was a knock at the door. My bum clenched and I grabbed a breath. The feeling was there again. It repeated like a Boss Cocky Burger. It was the bloke from the RACV and I hoped he couldn't see my heart racing in my temples. Took him a total of seven minutes to fix Mum's car and he knocked on the door again all cheery and calling me mate. He had a mouthful of teeth that looked like they were trying to escape. Poking out everywhere. He dangled the keys and I caught them, then he was gone. I stood in the doorway with the keys warming in my hand and it seemed like the most sensible thing in the world for me to get into Mum's car and go for a spin. As if Mum would find out. I stuffed Ernie in the passenger seat and started the car. The engine ticked along and got excited when I pushed the go pedal. I rested my stump on the gear stick and slipped it into first. That was the easy part. I stalled it getting out of the driveway. The thing bucked and shuddered. Ernie
dropped off the seat and into the passenger's side footwell with a grunt. I stalled it again before I rolled onto Vincent Drive and down to the corner of Merrimans Creek Road. Ernie jumped back onto the seat. My take-off from the give-way sign into Howard Avenue was superb. Smooth. No harsh revving. Well, not much harsh revving. I decided to cut a lap of the block. I couldn't get the gear-changing thing happening so the engine bawled along in first the whole trip. I stalled it and swore at each intersection. I was on the home stretch—the steering wheel slippery with sweat—when I bumped into a wheelie bin. It jumped onto the nature strip like it had a mind of its own then toppled across the footpath.

‘Whoopsie,' I sang, and hoped like hell that the plastic hadn't dented the car.

It took nine goes to get the bastard of a car backed into the position I'd found it on the driveway and when I finally turned the engine off, I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and panted. Ernie looked out the window and panted. It'd been a bit of a buzz and the creepy nightmare feeling had vanished. I could smell something burning. Reckon I'll buy myself an auto.

I jumped out and inspected the bumper where I'd bounced the bin. Couldn't see a mark. I rubbed the plastic like a sore knee and tried to work out where the burning smell was coming from. It had already faded and I decided that it wasn't anything to worry about. It wasn't until I was heading for the door that I saw Ted in his front garden. He was watching me. When he saw me looking, he waved and started pulling dead flowers off the rose in front of him. I waved to him and smiled but the nightmare feeling rolled back into my guts and put down roots. How
much had he seen? Would he tell Mum? Dunno. Just dunno.

Mum was cackling like a little kid that night. She'd had a good time at the opera. Said that she felt like the queen. She made dumb jokes and interrupted the Friday night movie (
Moulin Rouge
with Nicole Kidman. Mate, that red dress . . . grrr) with a long and mumbled phone conversation with Richo. I watched the last of it in my bedroom. Yellow dog snored at me and gradually spread out and took over the bed.

I left my curtains open and the moonlight painted my bedroom a dull blue. The moon wasn't quite full but it was brighter than a streetlight. I sighed and that feeling was there again. It had a face in the moonlight—loneliness. I missed my friends and I missed the way things were and I missed summer and I missed just hanging out. On their own, the things that I missed weren't really that huge but all rolled into one, they oozed sadness. Ernie snuffled and I rested my hand on his head. Good dog.

Mum nearly broke the door when she came in the following morning.

‘Get up, Wayne. Now.'

The sun barged in my window and didn't stop until it crashed into the back of my brain.

‘What? What's the matter?'

‘Get up!' she barked. Ernie dropped off my bed and trotted into the lounge.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. ‘What?'

‘Did you drive my car?'

‘What?'

‘Did you drive my bloody car?'

‘What . . . what do you mean?'

‘Answer the fucking question, Wayne,' she whispered. Sometimes her whisper is scarier than her scream. ‘Did you drive my car?'

My head wouldn't co-operate. I wasn't awake enough to bullshit. ‘Why?'

‘Did you drive the fucking car?' She was screaming and I wanted her to stop.

‘Yes,' I mumbled. ‘Took it around the block after the bloke came to fix it just to see that everything was . . .'

‘You're not licensed to drive! You haven't even got your fucking learner's permit!'

‘Yeah? So? I can drive.'

She scoffed. ‘Ted heard you going out and he thought someone was stealing the car. It
still
smells like burning clutch pedal. He watched you smash into a bin for Chrissake!'

I shrugged. ‘No damage.'

‘Yeah, no damage. You're a bloody idiot sometimes, Wayne. You don't think. You're so much like your father it makes me sick.'

I shrugged again.

She clicked her tongue and put her fists on her hips. Her head went red and started to shake like it was going to explode, then it did.

‘If you think you're ever going to learn to drive in my car, let me just smash that idea for you. You are never,
ever
going to sit behind the wheel of my car again. For anything. Anything, you hear? Licence or no licence. I cannot trust you.'

Then she left and slammed the bedroom door. I had a
shower and grabbed my bike. Had to get out of that hole. Richo arrived as I was leaving. He smiled and wanted to shake my hand. I shook it. It wasn't his fault that my mum was a total bitch.

Mum gave me the silent treatment for a week. When school went back she started being nice as pie to me but it was too late. That feeling of loneliness had well and truly taken over my days and nights. It had taken root and sent up new shoots and was thriving in the hopelessness. It started to flower. A dark and spidery bloom that smelt like sadness.

The weeks passed. Kerry phoned less and less as the school term rattled on. She spent most of the time asking me if I was okay. I kept telling her that I was fine but she kept asking. Truth was I'd started thinking about killing myself. Just passing thoughts, but they were there. Nobody picked it. It was my private black hole. I kicked arse at school. Didn't stuff around, did all my homework and gave up the smokes. I saw Angie a few times and she looked down her nose at me. I overheard Cindy telling Jenny that she was going out with Griz. Mate, Angie must've been desperate. That would be like going out with a 356 Chev except the motor would smell better. They could have each other.

Mum was too wrapped up in her own world to notice that I'd given away all my ‘shits'. You know, couldn't give a shit even if I wanted to. Ha ha. The better things got with Richo, the harder she tried to be nice to me. Richo went and helped her and Ted clean up Don's place. I stayed with Dad and Ernie in the van. She bought me back the coolest
set of Uncle Don's pens and textas. Real professional jobs with different-shaped points and that. She and Richo went away for a weekend in June and she brought me back a shoebox full of Feral Pigs bootlegs. Illegal recordings of their concerts in Copenhagen and Montreal and places like that. That was a rung on the ladder out of the dark place.

Ernie made me smile, too. It's hard to be depressed when your mad-arsed yellow dog is swinging by his lead from the clothesline. He listened to my bullshit and I actually thought, ‘I can't kill myself, who would look after Ernie?' Ted and Ivy probably would. Dad would. The more time I spent with Dad, the more time I
wanted
to spend with Dad. We didn't talk that much but it felt like he was as excited to see me as he was to see Ernie. One time when we rocked up he scruffed my head and said, ‘G'day son' then scruffed Ernie and said, ‘G'day Ern.' Ernie's bum nearly wagged off. If I had a tail, mine would have too.

But all that got shredded like a dog turd under a lawn-mower one Thursday afternoon. Dad was hyped up to the max.

‘I've got some awesome news,' he said.

Don't tell me, you're pregnant? No, no, you've just won a million bucks.

‘I've got a job. Dream job. The best job in the world.'

What, porno star?

‘Remember last year I went up to Bermagui and tried out on that deepwater fishing cruiser? Well Terry Fisher had to employ his brother-in-law because he was, you know, family and that. And he didn't have a job. Terry phoned yesterday and left a message with Bob. When I
phoned him back, he said the job is mine if I want it. His brother-in-law left his sister and moved up to Sydney.'

The idea of him moving out of my life hit me like a shovel in the face.

‘Where would you live?' I asked.

‘I'd tow the van up with me.'

‘Can I come with you?'

He looked at me like I'd just told him the guts of the best joke and he was waiting for the punchline.

Serious, anything would be better than this.

‘Ha! Nah. What about your school and all your mates and that? You'd be better off with your mum.'

That was the closest I got to topping myself. That Thursday night was the blackest night of my sixteen years. I went into my bedroom and put my chair behind the door. Held the cord for my stereo in my hand. I knew it would hold my weight. The rail in my clothes cupboard was just the right height. I used to do chin-ups on it before the accident. I was fumbling with the cord trying to make a knot with my shaking hand.

There was a knock at my door.

‘Kerry's on the phone, love,' Mum shouted.

Bitch. She has no respect for my need to get out. Thank God for that. I chucked the cord on the floor and scrambled for the phone. ‘Hello?'

‘Do you want to come up in the holidays?'

‘Pardon?'

‘School holidays in three weeks. Do you want to come and stay at our place? Mum said she'd pay half the bus fare if you want. Please say yes, Wayne. Come on.'

‘I'll ask my mum.'

‘No. Don't. Just say yes. Tell me that you love me and say that you'll come. Please.'

I chuckled to myself. My eyes started leaking. If only she knew how close I'd been to . . . ‘I'll come.'

‘You bastard!'

‘Mum? Is it okay for me to go up and stay with the Humes in the holidays? Gracie said she would pay half the bus fare.'

‘Of course, love,' she said a bit quickly. No think-time. No think-music. ‘Gracie won't have to pay the fare though. Tell her thanks very much but I'll pay.'

I put the phone back to my ear to tell her it was okay but she was already squealing. I could picture her jumping up and down and I smiled. And sighed. I wanted to hug her so bad. We talked for half an hour and when I hung up I hugged Mum instead. She froze.

‘Thanks, Mum. You're a legend.'

She laughed and hugged me back. ‘I don't know about that.'

I could have counted to five. We were still hugging and she smelt different. No stale smoke. I pulled back, sniffing the air.

‘What?'

‘It's a miracle!' I shouted.

‘What?'

‘Two miracles!'

‘What?' she shouted, and shook me.

‘You don't smell like smoke.'

‘You've noticed? Took you long enough. I haven't smoked since Gilbert and I went up to Bright in June.'

‘Yeah, great, but I CAN SMELL.'

There was a vase of yellow roses on the kitchen bench. Mum'd got them from Richo last time they'd gone out. I sniffed at them. They smelt like lollies and my nose wrinkled in delight. I went back to my room and plugged the stereo in, switched it on, cranked it up and packed my bag. Three weeks isn't long.