T, page 11
When T came home at eleven-fifteen, he believed he was very carefully avoiding Lori-Bird discovering he was loaded. He decided on the time, exactly, when she would usually be exhausted or already asleep. But he found her awake. He kissed her on the cheek and suggested bed. He was prepared to lie beside her, sleepless all night, so she didn’t suspect. He needn’t have tried, because it was noticeable from space that he was off on one. If Lori-Bird hadn’t known when he walked through the back door, the extended methrant that followed him kissing her made it impossible to ignore. He felt helpless to stop the words now. He started saying something about her perfume, then about how she didn’t need perfume, then about how perfume was a lie told about the body and how natural smells were better. He abused her for wearing perfume, then what he said became confusing even to himself, but he still couldn’t stop saying it. When he took breaths, Lori-Bird tried to fit words in to get his attention – “Timothy, please … Please stop … Please stop … Please stop … Please stop talking” – until the effort built to frustration, and the frustration broke into anger, and she screamed, “GET OUT!”
T stopped. Something new washed over him, out through his feet and fingertips, away from his body and into the forever hole the words were meant to come from. Lori-Bird was a mile distant, a pinpoint of flaming rage. He closed up to her, the anger rising in his own chest – hot and ready. He turned, went out the back door, and climbed into his car, feeling nothing but the decision.
It was the morning after he had stayed at Blue Bay all night, snatching a two-hour sleep before the dawn with his driver’s seat back and a greasy blanket from the boot, that T realised he had only brought his personal supply of three half-weight zip-locks in his pocket. The rest, ten grams left over for selling, was in his canvas bag at Lori-Bird’s house.
Lori-Bird wasn’t home when T went back, and the house was locked up tight. He used her tool chest on the back veranda as a seat, the way he had countless times before, and waited. He waited hours, but Lori-Bird didn’t show. He went back to his car and moved it up the street, thinking she may not come in if she saw he’d parked in the driveway, then he returned to the tool chest. He texted her once, twice, then started to call. By the time morning shifted to afternoon, he’d made fifteen unanswered calls. Was he trying to talk to her, or just trying to retrieve the meth? It was likely both.
When he’d waited over six hours, a text from Gobbo landed.
Yo, you best get round
to see Cardo. Loop’s
taken off. Took the kids,
nobody knows where.
He’s in a bad way.
T got angry. He had his own problems, and there was exactly fuck-all he could do about Cardo’s. Then he calmed, and self-interest staked a claim. His supply was with Lori-Bird, and she wouldn’t speak to him – she may even have taken it to sell herself, or to smoke out her regrets with friends. He had $3468 on his person that he had never trusted to the canvas bag. More than enough to reset.
Gobbo had contacted T because he and D.V had been with Cardo for thirty-six hours straight and they needed to go home for sleep. By the time T pulled up on the lawn off Greyhound Terrace, they were gone and he was expected to go in and do something. It was the same sort of pressure as making up a song – he would have to find some words to bring Cardo through. He knew he had nothing significant to offer and that he was mostly there to restock. Meat Lunch provided no particular script for this situation, and Cardo would probably be suspicious if he started talking in rhyme anyway.
Cardo was in the shed. Trance was missing, out at work, but there was another strange man who seemed to occupy the psychic space Trance usually filled. Dressed in black jeans and a worn formal shirt, the stranger perched on a stool with his back straight and said nothing; he wore a dopey grin, and his eyes were looking somewhere other than the present. Cardo was busy with a white plastic basket full of phones in front of him on the bar. There were a few of the old type of brick phone, with big number pads and small LCD displays, and many smartphones of various ages and conditions – from one in a shiny virgin state, still in bubble wrap, to battered models with jagged cracks along the screens. Cardo was so involved with sorting through the phones, he only acknowledged T’s presence with a grunt. Lord Jinglemuffins had his nose in an open feedbag in the far corner, his glossy mane now tangled and dank, his cereal and straw-laced turds at random intervals across the concrete. Ashley was there too.
T hadn’t expected to see Ashley ever again, least of all in Cardo’s shed. He had put the former dealer out of his mind, thinking that the long gap in anyone seeing him meant Ashley had stayed true to his word and rejected the life that, he’d said, cost him the things he wanted most. It really was him, though, in white tracksuit pants, loose around his rangy body, a well-preserved pair of Air Jordan basketball boots that must have been twenty-five years old, and, in his style, no shirt. He looked happy and relaxed in the way someone who is used to a drug looks when they return to it. He greeted T with a committed hug, lifting him off the ground for a second.
“Ashley, fuck – loving the shoes.”
“T, ya wanker. Yeah, got them at Vinnies – thirty bucks – classics.”
“Bargain, that’d be two hundred off eBay.”
“Yeah – bargain.”
“Thought you’d snatched it.”
“Well, I did. Stayed up in Baldivis, Shaun Elgin’s place. Just having a little toot with Cardo, y’know, sneaky smoke of chunk, then I’m off down south. Maybe look for work. Fuck it, might live in a tent.”
“Shaun Elgin, I heard about this. Is he running some kind of cult up there?”
“Haha, fuck off. Nah, it’s —”
Cardo cut Ashley off, his attention roused. “Elgin, I know Elgin.” He seemed about to say something else but lost the thought in the brain-haze and returned to the basket of phones.
He was switching sim cards, or batteries where they fitted, from one handset to another – shuffling them about as though looking for something. Every few minutes he momentarily seemed to have found it. A phone would fire up with a few tinny notes, and he would furiously work through its functions, sending messages, making calls that weren’t answered, opening and closing apps. Cardo was well off-centre, which was unusual: he was the poster child for holding it together on meth. For him to have lost control, the quantity that had gone through his pipe and the number of days he had been awake must have been significant.
T decided to see if he could start off by consoling Cardo, then try to slip a deal through just before he left, as if he’d only thought of it at the last minute and the whole purpose of him coming over was to be there for a friend.
“Cardo, mate, Gobbo told me all about it. Is there something I can do to help?”
Cardo looked up and made a sharp gesture towards the phones. “You can fucken help with THIS!”
T didn’t know what he was supposed to be helping with, but he switched batteries and sims in imitation of whatever was going on.
Cardo muttered as he worked, “Get this one … She doesn’t know I’m fucken looking here, hah … What’s the number here? What’s the fucken number? Who thinks of this shit?” And it became clear that he was attempting to stalk Loop. The different phones represented different numbers he could call on. She didn’t answer any of the calls. She had blocked Cardo from her social media accounts, so he was inventing various fake profiles to try and get information out of her friends. None of that worked either.
When a profile with no identifying pictures or information asked Loop’s friends questions about her with no preamble, they spotted it was Cardo straight away. He would cajole, reel out self-pitying meth-rants, and finally threaten. No one gave up Loop. He made the suggestion that she was as bad on the shard as he was – and T had seen her indulge freely, but looking at Cardo then, T didn’t think he would want his own kids there if he had any. Conscience will get to one party or another eventually.
T wanted to plant a suggestion, gently, that Cardo should calm down and stop. He started by melting some of his own meth – conscious of how low he was running – and getting Cardo’s attention by offering the pipe. Ashley took a hit too. The stranger in Trance’s place said he was on diazepam for a sore back, and that he felt quite good already. Finally, T thought it safe to say a word.
“You sure this is the right way to do things? I mean, there’s family services and —”
“IT’S MY KIDS, FUCKER! IT’S MY FUCKEN KIDS!”
Cardo returned to his confused scramble through the phones, sometimes firing up a handset he had already used and trying it without realising. Whenever it rang through, he left an angry message on Loop’s voicemail – she would have marked every number he was using by now.
At length, Nerve and Tongue pulled up. T often had trouble telling them apart: two skinny, shaky boys with sparse facial hair, wearing tracksuits and trucker caps through all seasons. They talked about little except football and cars, and the football talk seemed mostly to please Cardo, whose affections they consistently tried to find a way into. The car talk was a genuine interest for them, and it was comprehensive. They could go through engine parts, bodywork, speeds and tolerances, none of which T understood except that they had brought an alternator into the shed, once, to argue about what was wrong with it, so he was tenuously aware of which part an alternator was but still fuzzy on what it did. Cardo had given them tasks that day, and they were very happy with themselves to be helping. The tasks were, purportedly, to assist in the stalking of Loop, but the conversations about what they were doing were so confused that T had doubts either of them, or Cardo, could keep track of the original purpose.
Nerve started. “Headed up Summer Waters, cruising up Adare Circle. Cruised round it five times. No signs up there. Saw Camel, though. Saw Camel coming out of Drago’s place. Fucken Camel, ay. He knows Loop, or fucken used to … maybe. Didn’t catch him to talk. Stopped and talked to Drago, but he don’t know Loop. Smoked a coupla glassies with Drago, ay. Good-cunt, Drago. Funny-cunt. Best kind of cunt, that cunt. Drago’s solid.”
Cardo nodded, possibly understanding what Nerve had said, though that seemed a stretch. “Right, you gotta go up Falcon way. You checked there yesterday. Go again, want you driving up Spinaway Parade. Keep driving that bastard. Don’t stop till you know something. Don’t ask anyone about Loop, though. Don’t ask or the fuckers will know we’re looking. Don’t talk to anyone. Just drive Spinaway.”
Now Tongue, “She’d be up there?”
“Nah, don’t think so … yeah, maybe … dunno. We took the kids to the beach there one time. Take some photos of Falcon Bay and bring’m back. On your bike, boys, keep it moving.” Cardo handed them a fresh zip-lock, and they were out of the shed and back in their car – prompt as the trains.
Watching the fiasco, Ashley ran his palms over the top of his head and sighed. “Cardo, I don’t fucken understand any of this. You’re peaking and, I’ll say it again, you ain’t looking after that tiny horse right. I need some air,” and he went out of the shed into the little courtyard that was still scattered with Texas and Petro’s toys.
“His name is Lord Jinglemuffins, use his fucken name. Fucken holiday-makers,” Cardo mumbled and continued sorting through the phones. Lord Jinglemuffins raised his nose from the feedbag and snorted as though recognising he was being discussed.
T couldn’t wait any longer – the situation was spinning further and further from where he wanted it. He offered Cardo $2000. “Hey, I need to load up again. Help us out, bro?”
Cardo took the money and put it in his pocket without exchanging any meth. “Little short of funds at the moment, haven’t been able to see the guy who looks after the cook. I’m taking orders right now, sort of crowdfunding the next deal. You understand, yeah? Won’t be more than a couple of days.”
T didn’t like the proposal at all, but he didn’t think Cardo was about to hand his money back. “Yeah, sure, bud. Trust you with my life.”
Cardo had barely taken his attention off the phones. “Good lad, solid as a rock. Just like Drago.”
“Who actually is Drago?”
“Fucked if I know. Must be a friend of Nerve’s.”
T was suddenly gripped with an inspired idea. Cardo usually only came out of the shed, or stopped on the pipe, for Loop and the kids. Now there was a big four-bedroom rental next to the shed that was empty of them. “Hey, can I stay here a few days? Having trouble with Lori-Bird myself. Booted me out. I’m sure it’ll be OK, just need a place out of the rain until it cools down at home.”
Cardo looked directly at T. “What the actual fuck, T? Can’t you see I’m going through some stuff here? Why do you always want stuff from me? CAN’T YOU LOOK AFTER YOURSELF JUST THIS ONE FUCKEN TIME? I’VE GOT THINGS TO DO AND A SHETLAND PONY TO FEED! CAN’T YOU SEE THIS?”
“Fuck, sorry, Cardo … I didn’t mean …” T backed out slowly. Cardo watched him for a second then picked up another phone and started fiddling it apart. The back of T’s calf hit Lord Jigglemuffins, and the pony gave him a hard nip that made him yelp and turn. When he did, he saw Ashley’s Air Jordans rising past the line of the shed door and disappearing. T stopped, not knowing if he might be peaking as hard as Cardo.
“Thought you were leaving,” Cardo said without looking up.
T went out through the courtyard, where there was no sign of Ashley. He looked up, feeling stupid for doing so, but Ashley wasn’t above him either. He went through the gates and into his car. The groaning of the engine was an offense to his psyche, and he thought, for the hundredth time, that he should get it looked at. For the hundredth time, he forgot about it by the time he pulled out onto Greyhound Terrace and set off. He didn’t drive further than five houses down the street before he saw Ashley falling.
At first it was impossible to confirm that this was Ashley; he was higher than Henry had been when T had first spotted him above Yunderup Drive. T had time to get out of his car and stand watching before the shape in the clear sky came close enough to confirm it was a human body. Ashley wasn’t struggling – he held his arms out, fingers stretched in the rushing air, and when he was near enough for T to make out his face, his eyes were closed and he was smiling as if in a good sleep. He thumped, face first, into a lawn, breaking the surface and pushing a little way into the soil so the back of his body peeked up over the edge of the grass like a cake rising out of its tin in the oven. T took a step closer and saw blood welling around the still form in the Ashley-shaped hole. The fingers on the hand closest to T were twisted back the wrong way from the impact.
T bent over in pain. His body was trying to vomit, but there was no food in it. He managed to choke out some stomach acid, then the feeling passed and he was able to get back to the driver’s seat. His hands were shaking on the wheel as he engaged the accelerator and set out south.
PART TWO
THE MYTH OF ICARUS
NINE VISITATIONS
There was no clear reason to drive south, only that Ashley had been headed that way. T stopped in at Peel Caravan Park first and attempted to rent a site trailer, but the park manager took in his seedy demeanour and apparently remembered his previous stay. He said there was nothing available. Just ahead there had been another caravan park, The Aqua, but T pulled up to the gate and saw it was closed. All that was left were empty trailer bays and sections of yellow sand where bulldozers were pulling the ground back to build a brick-and-tile formula suburb. T sat still for a full minute, resting a palm on the warming dashboard, then backed out onto Pinjarra Road and kept his vague direction. He thought about filling the tank and pushing it all the way through to Albany, a day’s space away from everyone. But as he approached the corner of Yunderup Drive, he recalled one last caravan park, a few streets back from Gulp’s house, so he turned in and followed the road beside the Murray.
At the tiny fish-and-chip deli in front of the Yunderup park, a small woman with thick glasses told him there were no caravans to rent: he could only rent ground out for camping, and all the caravan sites were owned by pensioners who lived on site permanently. Evening was coming. He was conscious of not wanting to make a choice. The choice that he had made, to stay at a caravan park until he could contact Lori-Bird, had been stepped on three times. Making a new choice was too heavy a weight to lift.
As he stood in front of the fish-and-chip deli with his back up against his car and no obvious way forward, Ashley’s falling body ticked through his scattered-glass visions. Ashley morphed into Henry – his blood on the bitumen was the shape of a mandala. T rubbed his closed eyes with his knuckles until all he could see were fuzzy bursts of grey static. It was impossible to stop what came next: Lori-Bird; Cardo; selling; smoking; snorting; songs; the tinfoil sound of the Baleno radio; pumpkin soup. There was no order – the memories were photos thrown out randomly on a table, so that a later episode could be before an earlier one, or one was turned over so that T knew there was something there, but he couldn’t close his hand on what it was. One of the memories was Gulp’s house. T could see the turn-off into Rivergum Esplanade from where he stood.
He drove past the half-silo shack, heading for the Peel Inlet to try and find a quiet place to smoke and think, or do something near to thinking. The shack looked abandoned – houses have a vibration about them when they’re unused. The grass, never neat when Gulp had lived there, was chest high. It was hardly a shock that no one would move in after Gulp – it was the kind of half liveable place Lori-Bird hooked up for her friends, but far outside her beat.
