A Shot at Freedom (7 page)

But whoever it was inside sat there silent.

The guy dragged a bag out of the car. Leaving the door open and the silent person inside, he turned towards the house, a smile on his face.

The stairs rumbled as he trudged up the stairs
. Brooke looped an arm through the iron, feeling a little more secure.

“Hey
, how’re you doin’?” the guy said as he passed them.

“Fine and dandy,” Tyler replied.

She nodded and shifted as far to the side as she could away from Tyler, unable to stop from smiling.

The guy knocked on the door
. “It’s just me,” he said. The other workers inside let him in. As he walked in the door, she could see him shake his head at them as though the person still in the car had given him an unbelievable story to tell.

“Fine and dandy
?” she whispered to Tyler, leaning against the railing.

“It works to be happy in this place.”

“Cheeky more like it. Who says
fine and dandy
?”

Tyler kicked at her leg playfully.

“Who do you think is in the van?”

“Josie said
last night, someone new might be here today.”

“You remember everything don’t you?”

“I like to keep a tab on things,” Tyler said, startling her as he jumped to his feet and took the stairs four at a time. Long legs and Adidas track pants were good for something.

Down on the footpath, he
glanced up at the mirrored windows of the workers’ office before daring to poke his head inside the open door of the van. One of the office windows opened, Brooke shrank back and slipped up a couple of stairs hoping she wouldn’t be dragged into something she knew nothing about.

“Tyler,” Josie called. “Stay away from the van, and back upstairs mate. Leave him alone, eh?”

Tyler smirked first to whoever was in the van and then up at the worker. He dawdled towards the stairs, stomping up them one at a time. “I was just welcoming him.”

“He’ll come out
. He just needs some space.”

Tyler
sat just down from Brooke this time. “They were just scared I was gonna nick off with their van,” he grinned. His lips were kind of like the
Joker’s
, thin and quirky. “Plenty of opportunities for that. As if I’d be stupid enough to do it in front of witnesses.”

Almost as soon as the office window slid shut,
a kid stepped out of the van onto the footpath. He kicked at the footpath. The window opened again. It was the worker who had driven him. “Just wait on the stairs mate, ‘til they’re ready for you. I’ve just got to talk to them about a few things.”

“They say
‘mate’ a lot here,” Brooke said, keeping her eye on the pouting kid coming up the stairs. He plonked himself down a couple of stairs below them.

Tyler laughed
. “It makes all the instructions sound a little less Hitler-like. Workers spend a lot of time telling us what to do. Haven’t you noticed?” He lit up a cigarette.

“Can I have one?” the kid asked.

“Nope,” Tyler said, blowing smoke into his face.

“I’m Brooke,” she said, extending a hand out to him.

The kid touched her fingers and said, “Tim.”

“This is Tyler,” she said nodding across the steps.

“He knows. He’s been here before. Just last week, wasn’t it?” Tyler said, puffing a more smoke in the air. “I knew you’d be back.”

Brooke waved
away the wisps of smoke, but said nothing.

On the next puff,
Tyler blew the smoke over his shoulder. “They must be ready to kick you out. Back to short term stay and lots of uncertainty for you.”

The window opened again
. “Tyler out the back with the smoke please,” Josie said, “The longer you guys keep disturbing us the longer handover will take.”

“Foley and I need train fare for the course we’re supposed to be going on today.”

“You’ve got plenty of time,” Josie said, looking at her watch. “Unless one of you is on fire, we don’t want to be disturbed, okay?”

“Well, stop opening the window.”

Josie crossed her eyes at him, withdrawing again.

He took one last puff and put out the cigarette.

Natasha appeared at the darkened hallway. “I want to go on that course today with you and Foley.”

“
Josie’ll never let you,” Tyler said.

“I’m going,” Natasha said, and knocked on the door.

“Don’t knock on the door,” Tyler moaned.

“Are any of you o
n fire?” came the muffled words.

Tyler handed Tim his lighter. “Do us all a favour mate.
How about you light yourself up. Get them workers out here for us.”

Tim
hurled it back at him.

As though it didn’t bother him at all,
Tyler gazed out over the streetscape, then lurched forward, grabbing Tim by the throat and hoisting him up the stairs out of view of the office window.

“Treat me with respect,” Tyler spat, pressing Tim’s skull against the corner of the door frame.

“Ah-hah-ah!” Tim yelled.

Tyler dropped him and
strolled down the hall. Tim scooted down the stairs, burying his head in the crook of his elbow. The office door flew open. The worker who’d dropped Tim off stood at the entry way staring down at Brooke. With shaky hands, she took a sip of her coffee, desperately trying to swallow it.

“What’s going on?”

“Just drinking my coffee,” Brooke said, gesturing with her chipped mug to him.

“Tim,” the worker called out to him, “Good to see you out of the car. Can you come into the office for a quick intake?”

“I’m not fucking staying here,” Tim hurled back, lifting his distraught face. “I want to go home.”

“Well, you should have thought about that
yesterday. We had a deal. You broke it more than once. We’re ready when you are,” the worker said, over his shoulder.

Tim inched up the stairs, and disappeared into the office. The door closed.

Brooke’s wrist felt too weak to hold the coffee. She placed it down on the step beside her. She needed a plan to get out of there. 
 

Chapter Eleven

David

The bell clanged and the boom gates lowered, bringing a line of cars to a stop. David walked past all the drivers and stood, patient, his gaze fixed on the sign ahead. 29kms. Sweating like mad in the humidity, he swayed on his feet, and his vision blurred. There was time to cross the tracks but he chose not to.

The cane train trundled past, too many carriages to count
, throwing off a welcome breeze but forcing him back. He didn’t think about his death until then, way too late. It was harder to throw yourself at a train than it would be to stand in front of it with your back to it. It’s all about the eyes, what they see and the messages they send to the brain. Sight was the deadliest of the fear-provoking senses.

He took a swig of the port disguised in a can of
Coke. A couple of boys in a farm ute, far shinier than the old one he’d discarded, started up a chant behind him. Jump….jump…jump…jump…”

It made him want to run.
There would be snakes in the cane field, black and brown. Instead, he made another choice, and raised his can high to them. “Cheers,” he shouted, staggering back. Crouching to the ground, he regained his balance. The metal wheels slid over the tracks, sounding like sharpening knives.

A chorus of cheers erupted from the back
seat of the ute.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

A car door slammed. He looked up to see a girl in a tight pair of jeans swaggering over to him. She bent over him and lifted him up. Her eyes were grey-blue and framed with pale green eye shadow.

“Wow
.” David snorted. “Great eyes.”

The girl took the can from him and sniffed
it. “Where are you from?”

“Where am I going to
, you mean?”

She cocked her head to the side.

He let her check him out. “29 ks.” He nodded his head at the green mileage sign, lifting his top lip in a drunken attempt at a smile.

Hooking one arm under his elbow, the girl
dragged his bag and guided him away from the tracks.

“
Don’t bring him over here. We don’t want him.”

“Be nice, Chas. I’ll put him in the back. We can tell your
dad you did a good deed today.”

S
he dropped the back tray of the ute, and David scrambled in all knees and fists, sliding over picks, shovels and trowels. Among metal and wood, arranged like pick-up- sticks, he flopped down and sighed.

So this is how it’s going to end for me. A
smack to the head with a shovel, hacked at by a pick and dropped into a shallow grave.
“That’s just fucking great.” He smiled up at the single white fluffy cloud whirling high above him.

***

A banging on the soles of his shoes brought David to his senses. The blue sky and piercing sunlight made it difficult to make out the face peering over him.

“Wake up
.”

He groaned.

Hands gripped each ankle, dragging him over metal and wood.

“Don’t hurt him!” the girl shrieked.

He felt her grab at his shirt, but he kept sliding, taking the gardening tools with him. On his way to the ground, his head bounced against the tray back, slamming down on bitumen. “Shit!”

The skinny
-hipped girl crouched down beside him. All he could make out were her boots. She propped one of his eyes open. “You got a place to stay?”

David grinned at her.

A kick in his bruised leg caught his attention. He looked up at what had to be the boyfriend. “Town’s that way. Water that way. Rainforest all the way up this mountain … keep heading down this road and you’ll make it to the jetty.”

The girl was dragged away.

David rolled into the gully, his face ploughing into his bag. He nuzzled into it like it was a pillow. The girl must’ve broken free and found her way back to his side. She pushed something into his back pocket.

He tapped at it, and drew it out.
Money!

“No
, put it back. It’ll blow away.”

“A fifty?”

“Nup. Just a twenty.”

“Thanks.
I gave a truckie everything I had.”

“That was stupid.”

“It was hers. She stole it.”

“Hers?”

“I couldn’t keep it.”

She shook her head and frowned.
“Can you make it up into the forest and sleep it off?”

“Yep.”

He lay there.

The girl walked away. The four doors on the shiny, new ute slammed.

He didn’t hear them drive away.

***

Hot feet with busted blisters feel like third degree burns
. David eased his boots off, and forced himself to stand one more time to slam the last peg of the one man tent into ground. Inside, he unfurled his sleeping bag and dumped his bag in the corner.

White flecks picked through his vision as he trudged uphill in search of the
stream he could hear gurgling through the greenery. Waves of nausea forced him to stop to gather himself. He didn’t vomit and stopped himself from sitting down for fear he wouldn’t stand up again. 

The trickle of the water
grew louder. His senses were off. He nearly stumbled over it. Streaming down the mountain side was a tiny waterfall. It exploded from a hole in the rocks, splattering into a small pond before disappearing into a cavern.

David bent down and allowed the
water to run through his splayed fingers. He cupped his hands and took it to his cracked lips. It ran down his chin, lingering on his tongue a moment before wetting his raspy throat.
Rain water,
he thought.  The rain water in their tank at home ran through rusted pipes to their taps. This rain water tasted like it’d brushed over crystals. There was a difference. He nuzzled his face and hair into the stream, desperate to drink it and feel its coolness all at once.

He wished he had pitched his tent closer. Even though h
e could picture his sleeping bag spread inside his tent with longing, it was difficult tearing himself away from the water. He only had one bottle to fill. Wet and slippery, he cradled it in his arms.

Three big steps down the mountain and he
flopped to the ground. The spray flew up and tickled his skin. With his ear to the earth he swore he could hear the stream tunnelling free to the sea. The damp, mossy ground offered the comfort of a soft mattress and a tall buttressed tree formed a protective canopy.

H
e allowed his eyes to close, and felt the world drop away as he released himself into a deep drunken sleep.