Into the River (24 page)

“Well, go on up, man. Hold the fort. Tell the troops we’ll be on deck presently.”

At this Briggs seemed appeased, and disappeared. Devon swung down into the vacant space.

“God, Steph, he’s sure changed his tune. I was certain he’d be radioing the police this morning.”

“He’s a happy camper really; you just have to know where his buttons are.”

When they reached the kitchen area everyone seemed to be sniggering and exchanging guilty looks. Everyone that is, except for DD, who was eating her breakfast by herself in the corner. She seemed to be acting out a role. Beyond the “aloof” and the “disapproving” there was also the “hurt and disappointed”.

One of the girls told Devon that DD had already made a speech about certain “unscripted activities” that had happened after she had gone to bed last night, and how she had been let down badly by everyone.

“I guess that includes Willie?” Devon asked.

“You bet,” she said. “He’s crazy. Completely mad.”

Devon laughed. “He’s a ‘no limits’ sort of dude all right.”

Because the ferry was expected at midday, their main aim for the morning was to return the camp to its pristine condition. Devon was assigned kitchen clean-up and Steph was in charge
of mucking out the toilets. Sina was in Devon’s group but she seemed unwilling to even look at him, let alone talk to him. Devon polished the stainless steel surfaces and Sina attempted to mop the floor around him. He sensed the growing tension between them. As they were finishing off, when he was leaning right over to get a difficult spot on the bench, she jabbed him up the arse with a mop handle.

“Yeow!” he yelped, turning, “What was that for?”

“For being a wanker.” Her voice was cold.

“Sina …”

She frowned and said nothing, then dropped the mop and flounced off. He wanted to go after her … talk it through, but he knew it was no good. He had done something last night that wasn’t going to be mended with a “chat”. He thought of chess again. There were rules to this game all right, and he had violated them.

Once the camp was clean and tidy and all their gear had been stacked on the pier ready for pick-up, they were all called to assemble in the main area. There was to be a meeting. Something to sum up the camp. They were all given pieces of paper and told to write on these the best and worst things that had happened on the weekend.

For twenty minutes or so there was almost perfect silence as everyone tried to find the language to describe their chosen incidents.

The only ones not writing were DD and Willie.

DD prowled back and forth restlessly in front of the window that looked out onto the bay. Willie ran his fingers silently over the keys of his electronic keyboard which sat unplugged on a table near the door. Devon watched him closely, realising that Willie could hear all the sounds in his head, and felt envious of his self-sufficiency. The only sounds he could hear were voices telling him he had fucked up. For a moment, even amongst this crowd in the room, he felt completely alone.

“Stop now. The boat is coming!”

They all looked up and sure enough the cabin of the ferry came into view, a kilometre or so beyond the point. DD plucked the lid off a galvanised rubbish tin and wandered around the writers, collecting their papers like votive offerings. She placed the lid on the floor in the centre of them all and they watched intently, wondering what was going to happen next.

“These are your collected thoughts, recollections, experiences. You have shaped these and committed them to paper. When we do this, we externalise experience, we strive to create a record, a permanent reminder of something fleeting. But these are personal things. They have no business outside yourself, outside your circle of friends nor, most particularly, away from the island. They are marks on the sand and need to be washed away by the incoming tide.”

She produced a box of matches from her bag, and with due ceremony set fire to the nest of jottings. There were a few gasps and strangled cries as though something loved was being destroyed. Looks were exchanged. There were calls to mutiny. Quickly the flames grew and a few fragile ashes rose towards the ceiling. Behind the pyre, DD stood guarding, witch-like and waiting for the conflagration to complete itself. Soon all that was left were a few embers, as light and nebulous as the clouds out the window populating the blue expanse over the sea.

A hooter sounded as the ferry slowed for its approach to the pier. Everyone waited for DD’s last words.

“If there is one thing I care about above all else, it is the power of drama. Staging a piece like
Original Sin
carries with it a series of responsibilities which far outweigh the hunger for acclaim by individual egos.”

She glanced around the room, trying to envelop everyone in her accusation. Devon noted that Willie kept his head low as he played the silent keys of his piano.

“We have two weeks now until first night. We have made
enormous progress since that first scruffy audition at Barwell’s a month ago, but we still have a long way to go. What is required now is discipline and dedication … in equal measure. No one is so important that they cannot be replaced, even at this late stage. I will allow no one to jeopardise the success of this show: unlike you people, I have a reputation to maintain.”

Her mouth pursed as if she was daring anyone to challenge the statement. “I’m going to make no further reference to what happened last night and I expect you all to follow suit. Now let’s go to the boat.”

They were a very different crowd on the trip back to the city wharves. Most of the girls sat together in the main cabin, braiding each other’s hair, or with head buried in a book, or just gazing blank-eyed across the choppy seas to the rising skyline. Devon thought Steph looked washed out and exhausted. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his face was drained of colour. Willie sat up in the bow with a guitar he had borrowed from one of the girls. He was strumming it Spanish style and the flourishes caught on the wind and bathed them like clouds of spray. Was it the music, or the seemingly unswimmable distance to land, or just his sense of isolation? He couldn’t be sure, but something cast Devon’s mind back to Diego. He sensed a change coming.

The following week there were murmurings “that something happened” at the camp. Devon expected another inquisition like the one resulting from the theft of the money box, but strangely, the events of the island disappeared into their own wake, and everyone did as DD suggested and put all their energies into pulling the show together. The rehearsal schedule was stepped up, meaning that there was something on every night after school. Willie would call for them after dinner and take them across to SLAGS for the scenes they were working on. After that he would return to
Barwell’s
, where he rehearsed the band and the orchestra.

By Wednesday it was clear that there was something wrong with Steph. He was flat and listless on the first two days and soon growing sicker by the hour. On Thursday night he lost his voice and was kept back in the dorms. On Friday the school doctor recommended a couple of days in the Ascot Clinic for tests.

It was odd for Devon, being at school without Steph. He had taken over every corner of his life so completely that there had been no room for his other friends: Mitch hadn’t come back to school after the last holidays and he hardly spoke to Wade Royle these days.

He returned gloomily to his pen at the end of school on Friday afternoon, staring into the vacuum of a four-day mid-term break. Devon had been given clearance to visit Steph at the clinic but he had no taste for it. He’d had enough of drama, in all its forms, for the time being. Marsden House was almost deserted; the last of the boarders were down in the showers sprucing up before their escape. He was able to wander around its various forbidden zones without any challenge from a territorial senior. It was like being in a dead zone. Even the duty room was deserted. He stood for a
moment processing the softly distant sounds, then, on an impulse, he picked up the phone and dialled.

“So what’ve ya got in mind?” Devon asked Mitch, as Big John edged out into the traffic.

“I plan on groovin’ to the chug of four hundred and twenty-seven inches of De-troit muscle.” He had this fake tough stress to his voice. Did it quite well too.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! Mate of mine. You don’t know him: Billy Revell. He’s shoe-horned this massive mill into an F100.”

“That a fact?”

“Yep, got a Hurst shifter and four on the floor, mags up front, chromes down rear. Grunty mother of a beast …”

“Okay, okay, Mitch, don’t turn poet on me, I get the picture.”

When they reached the Stock Cars they were waved straight through into the pits. Everyone knew Big John. Nearly all the cars were battered and sprayed canary yellow or fire engine red. Some had cartoon characters stencilled on the door: Pistol Pete. Beagle Boyz. Mighty Mouse. It was the only way of telling them apart.

Mitch spotted someone and they headed over to where three guys were all sticking out of different openings of an old Ford Popular.

“Rebel!” Mitch called to a jeans-clad bum hanging out of the engine bay.

“Who dat?”

“It’s Mitch, man. I thought you had eyes in your bum.”

The guy emerged slowly and the other two also disentangled themselves.

Rebel was a few years older than Mitch and Devon, and he looked like he’d been in a few fights. He had a scar taking off from his top lip that gave him an ironic sneer. What looked like a mole turned out to be a borstal spot, tattooed just below his left eye. The other two looked like dirty photocopies of each other.
They were twins.

There was a round of intros where Devon got to shake grease-stained hands. Gaz and Snake. Snake because some punch had turned one tooth into just a sharp fang-like sliver in the front of his mouth. Now he was into snakes; snake rings and bracelet, snakes tattooed around his biceps.

Rebel turned to Gaz. “Look at him, I reckon he’s on steroids.”

It was true, Devon noted: Mitch was unnaturally muscular for someone his age, but then he always had been. Mitch put his fists up and closed in on Rebel with a few perfectly judged jabs. For a moment they looked like they might exchange real blows, then Rebel backed off.

“Okay, okay, I’m throwing in the towel.”

Rebel whipped a dirty rag off the engine block and threw it at Mitch’s face.

It was plucked out of the air and immediately flicked on, straight into the unguarded face of Snake.

“So what’s up?”

“Throttle linkage snapped on the first lap and we can’t fix it so we’re stuffed.”

“Where’s Ray?”

“He’s a bit pissed off with me so he’s gone off to the beer tent to join the other losers. Might just go cruisin’.” Then Rebel added, “You guys wanna come?”

“We just got here bro, hardly even seen a race,” said Mitch, who turned to Devon.

“What about you, Devon?”

“I’m a starter.”

“Youse?” he asked the Taylors.

“We better stay. He’s paid us.”

“Your call,” said Rebel. “Let’s go.”

Devon wasn’t ready for the violence of Rebel’s driving. The truck roared and lurched and swung like a bull released from a rodeo pen. It was as though he wanted to kill someone; charging at
other cars innocently waiting at the lights only to screech to a halt, inches from their rear bumper. He would pass where there was no room or need to pass, and then cut in sharply. His whole demeanor changed. He was sucking his lips, swinging on the wheel and ramming the gear lever up and down as each red light tormented him into a reluctant halt. The further they went, the more wired he became. Mitch, as if sensing the call, pulled a joint out of his top pocket and lit up. It was a shock to Devon, Mitch carrying weed, a sort of sin against his athleticism. Mitch took two or three quick pulls just to get it going then he passed it on to Rebel. By Devon’s turn, all that was left was a tiny, lip-burning roach. Devon, a bit rattled, took it without hesitation. It was one of those times where he’d take anything.

“Where are we going?” Devon whispered to Mitch.

“Thunder Road, I reckon.”

This was something that all the boys back at school talked about. The after-hours street racing scene that constantly moved as the police shut it down. A few of the older boys claimed to have been there.

“Yeah, Thunder Road,” Rebel said quietly, almost to himself. “Hey, Mitch, pass us that bottle, huh.”

Mitch fished the bourbon out of the glove box and Rebel had a drawn out chug. Then another. Then he threw the bottle out the window. It smashed against the door of a parked car on the far side of the street.

“Yee ha!” he yelled then looked back at Devon and Mitch. “Direct hit. Skills.”

They headed out to the ’burbs where flimsy houses gave way to chain link fences, huge metal sheds, and streets with no cars. Then they came to a section of new roads and half-built factories. There were cars all over the road and groups of guys parked in clusters, waiting for something to happen. Rebel slowed right to a crawl, looking for someone he knew. Near the intersection there was a maroon Holden Maloo with three people in the tray. It had a
chrome roll bar above the cab with six square spotlights mounted on it. When they saw Rebel’s F100 approaching, someone yelled and a moment later Devon was dazzled by a soup of white light.

“Fuck!” said Mitch. “Blind us, why don’t cha.”

As they slid in to the curb, Rebel mumbled, “Two cheers for Baldy Brown.”

They all piled out and it was some time before Devon’s eyes recovered sufficiently from the lights to be able to see who was in and around the ute.

Mitch and Devon stood off a bit while Rebel went in to connect with the others. There was a huge guy wearing a Holden T-shirt and a leather hat. He clambered off the tray and locked Rebel in the bro handshake. Rebel had a boxer physique — big chest and arms — but still the other guy was several sizes bigger. While their hands were locked together there was a short sharp assessment of each other, as if they could break and start swinging at that point. Rebel, though smaller, seemed fiercer, more fired up.

After a moment he turned to them and said, “This is Breaker, Breaker Brown.” And then to Breaker he said, “Mitch and Devon. My little buddies. My apprentices.”

Breaker, for his part, flicked them a bored nod and then turned away, hanging over the tray of the ute and staring into the distance. The other two declined to climb down.

Rebel continued. “These two, Martin and Gail, give us the grunt and the glitter.” He pointed to the scrolled paint work on the front. “See this: ‘Mother truckers’. That’s Gail’s work. She’s doin’ a Midnight Autos one for me, eh Gail?”

Gail looked at him for a while. “Maybe.” And then she said, “When you come through with some stuff.”

“Ah yeah. You know I’m working on it.”

Gail looked at Devon. “That’s what he always says.”

“This is Martin. He’s a poet, and he sings a bit.” Mitch grinned.

“Specially after he’s been tokin’. Hard part is to get him to
stop singin’ but what he’s really good at, like he’s da bomb around these parts, is makin’ a motor sing.”

Martin was a bit more gallant and shook both the boys’ hands.

“You boys at school?” It was Gail.

“Was,” said Mitch, proudly. “He’s trying to escape.” Then he turned to Breaker. “What’s happenin’ on the strip? Looks dead to it.”

“You’re right with that one. We was hoping to do some business but so far it’s just DCs and chinks.”

“Business … shee-it!” Rebel spat out the words. “I wanted to race someone. You’re the only ute here, Breaker, and I know I can whip your arse. No sweat.”

At last Breaker turned and looked back at the group. “Like, sure thing Rebel. My arse would be the only thing you’d be see-in’.”

Just then an old Falcon rounded the corner and all their heads turned simultaneously.

“Here’s the man!” It was Gail, her voice taking on a sparky energy that had been absent earlier. The four older people sauntered across the road to where the car had pulled up, leaving Mitch and Devon by the two utes.

“What’s that all about?” asked Devon.

“What do you think? Santa’s arrived,” said Mitch, and then added, “It’s their friggin’ dealer, man. That’s what they’re into. Well, the other three anyway. I reckon Rebel’s still your true car man.”

Devon and Mitch stood aside, watching the others doing the “try before you buy” tokes. It was impossible to see who was in the car, other than the fact that there were two of them. At one stage Gail broke into a sustained coughing fit but this didn’t stop her; it seemed to make her determined to score as much smoke as she could.

When it was over they staggered back to their car, clearly wasted. Rebel was wobbly, and sort of excited, but the other three were
all in their own little spaces.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Rebel to Mitch. “We’ll head back to Martin’s.” It was clear he was fired up and wanted to go somewhere — anywhere.

He turned and yelled, “Hey, Baldy!”

“Fuck you, Rebel.”

“Sorry, I meant Breaker. It’s just the dope talkin’. You okay behind the wheel?”

“I can’t see the wheel.”

“Same. That’s some wicked weed. These two are still straight as. They can steer us back to Parnell.”

“You’re on.” No more than a mutter. Breaker was out of it.

Rebel tossed his keys to Devon, and Mitch climbed into the Maloo. Devon had only driven on the empty Coast highway, not here in the city full of cops and lanes and rules. He wanted to wriggle out of it, make some excuse. But he knew he couldn’t. It was never an option. Rebel just assumed he could drive. Rebel rated him. It was a chance to prove himself. Show that he was man enough.

Devon slid in behind the wheel. The seat was lower than he was used to. Pike’s van made you sit up high and kind of lean forward. He fired up the motor which released a throaty roar that made the others’ heads turn.

“Taste it! Taste my bum chuckle, Breaker?” Rebel yelled out the window, taunting. “It’s the Ford song.”

In the Maloo, Mitch did the same, and for a minute or so they exchanged engine roars.

“Cut it, Devon,” said Rebel, and then added, “Revving’s just a wank when you do it too much.”

Devon eased the T-bar into drive with a slight jerking clunk, and then the beast crept forward. The power made him sit up and take notice. He could feel every cell in his body coming alive. Becoming attuned to the task at hand. Then he knew this was what he had been waiting for.

Mitch nosed in front with the devil horn salute and Devon was content to follow along behind. They hadn’t gone a hundred metres when Mitch planted the accelerator and the Maloo began to shrink in the distance.

“What are you doing, Devon?”

“Huh?”

“You gonna let him do that to ya?”

“No fucking way, man,” he said, and floored the gas pedal.

Before long they were bumper to bumper again.

“Take him man. It’s just Baldy Brown’s heap.”

Rebel wound up AC/DC on the system. Devon felt the bass drivers punching out
Highway to Hell
in the small of his back.

There was a long straight ahead where the roads went across open country to the next link to the motorway. Devon pulled out and drew level. For a moment they stuck there, mirror to mirror, no more than a foot apart. Devon glanced across to see Mitch low in the seat, eyes glued to the road ahead.

A car loomed up in front, heading towards them. Devon knew he had to hold his ground and prayed that Mitch would back off. But there was no sign of that happening. The other car began flashing its lights, but a moment later took off into the long grass on the side of the road, horn blaring.

By this stage Devon had passed the one hundred and sixty k mark and he could feel the power in the motor begin to flatten out. There was not much left to pass with. Up ahead, a big sign signalled an intersection. He flicked a glance at Rebel. Slumped in his seat, feet up on the dash, his eyes were tight shut as he grooved on the music. The decision was all Devon’s. Ahead was certain humiliation. A back down. He was the “boy”. Worse than that. “Chicken”.

His hands clenched and he pushed down with his foot as hard as he could. Up ahead car lights swished across the intersection. He was committed: nothing could stop him now. Out the passenger window, Devon sensed more than saw Mitch brake hard
— then rapidly fall behind in the rearview mirror. He was backing off while he still could. Off to the right, Devon could see an eighteen-wheel tanker coming to meet him. Every sinew in his body was taut as a guitar string. All he could see was the safety of the far side, the empty road leading away, filling his vision like something viewed through a glass tunnel. His hands tightened still more, his eyes screwed up to slits as he hunched, ready for the massive impact.