Jasper Jones (6 page)

I tear at the soft grass between my legs. It feels like we’ve weathered a storm and we’re sitting among the wreckage. We sit under that blanket of quiet for a long time.

Jasper keeps pulling at his bottle. I don’t know what to say. It is so
unearthly quiet I can hear the crackle of the paper when he inhales his smoke. The slight puck of his lips. I let my cigarette burn out discreetly between my fingers.

“It feels like I’m dreaming this whole thing,” I say.

Jasper raises his eyebrows. “Yair. I know it. This whole night. This whole crazy night. Fuckin hell, I wish it were a dream, Charlie. I can’t tell you. It’s like somethin’s bin ripped right out of me.”

He grinds his cigarette and pockets it. I take the opportunity to do the same. He lights another and goes on.

“Laura, she were the only person I ever felt like I
knew
. Like I dint even have to ask questions. I just felt comfortable. She was like my girl and my mum and my family all at the same time, you know. Everything was always easy. I mean, she would sometimes get in these moods where she just sat there quiet and never said nothing, but for some reason I understood that too. And I get like that anyway. But most of the time, she was real funny. And smart, Charlie. Like I said.”

Jasper is sucking down that bottle. It’s half gone already. I frown. I worry that should he get too drunk, we may not make it back through the bush.

Jasper reads my mind.

“It’s orright, Charlie. I can hold my licker. Not like my old man, and he’s the whitefella. You want some? Here, garn.”

I reach tentatively for the cold, wet bottle, more to slow him down than to quench my own desires. I sniff the lip and recoil.

“What is it?”

“Bushmills. Tastes like piss and oil.”

I take a small incendiary pull. Of course, it attacks my mouth and burns down the length of my throat. I gag immediately, wiping my lips, trying to keep my lungs at bay. I slant my head and pretend to read a label that isn’t there through my clouding eyes. This shit is poison. And I realize I’ve been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I’d adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a
detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. I can’t trust anything. If sex turns out to be this bad, I’m never reading again. At this rate, it will probably burn my dick and I’ll end up with lesions.

I glance at my sandals and try to play down my disgust. “Yair, shit. I usually drink … what is that … 
single
 … malt?”

“No idea, mate. Dint get much time to read the label. Beggars can’t be choosers, Charlie. You take what you can get.”

“You mean you
stole
this?” I ask, handing it back to his outstretched fingers.

“Well, I dint
pay
for it. Lifted it from my old man. Right out from under him. He was out of it, huggin an empty one, so I helped meself to the full one on the table.”

I nod slowly as Jasper pauses to swallow.

“But you probably already bin told I’m a thief, right? I’m a lifter? I steal stuff.”

I pause. Trying to choose the right words.

“It’s okay, Charlie. You can’t help what you hear. But it
is
what you heard, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, what you don’t know, Charlie, what nobody will ever be tellin you except me, is that outside of my old man’s pocket, I
never
stole a thing I dint need. For certain. I’m talkin about food, matches, clothes sometimes, whatever. Nuthin big, ever. Nuthin people couldn’t go without. And, see, it’s these people who expect three meals a day, who got pressed clothes and a missus and a car and a job, it’s them that look at me like I’m rubbish. Like I’ve got a choice. Like I’m some runt who just needs to lift his game. And they’re the ones tellin their kids that I’m no good. They don’t know shit about what it is to be me. They never ask why. Why would he be stealin? They just reckon it’s my nature. Like I don’t know any better. And you know what else, Charlie? I never once bin caught. Not even close. They all just suspect it. They
expect it.
Of course he’s a thief
, they say.
Of course he burned down the post office. Of course he hanged that poor girl. That poor girl.
”

Jasper’s lips are wet. He is starting to merge his words.

“Your dad doesn’t even buy food?” I ask, and regret my incredulity.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Well, I don’t know. What does he spend his money on?”

“Grog and whores and horses, mostly. But even that’s slowed down since he was laid off. He hasn’t had a job in months. The useless bastard should join the army. Go to bloody Vietnam or whatever and stay there. I’ll sort meself out.”

“So what do you steal off him?” I press.

“Well, mostly the stuff that I want. Smokes, drink, money when it’s there. Whatever’s in his pockets. Trick is to do it when he’s stone-cold gone; that way he can’t be sure if he lost it, drank it, smoked it, or spent it. If he’s really bin cooked, he never even notices anyway. It’s always different. Sometimes, after he’s been layin it on, if he suspects me of clearing him out he might let it slide on account of him feelin guilty, but that’s not often.”

Jasper scratches his chest, offers back the bottle. I scrunch my face.

“Do
you
ever feel guilty? For taking his things?”

“Not even once, mate. See, from him, I just figure I’m owed. He’s not a father’s arsehole. I
got
to take it, Charlie, because it’s never gonna get offered. And all my life so far, shit’s bin taken off me, so I’m evenin the ledger a bit.”

I nod. Jasper continues.

“But you can’t think that way all the time. It’s a poisonous way to think. There’s no point sittin down feeling sorry for yourself because other kids are gettin Christmas presents or their old men give a shit, or they’ve got a mum who’s a top cook or whatever.”

“Yeah, but you’re still entitled to …”

“Nah, bugger that, Charlie. I tole you, I don’t want to think like that. There’s nothing in it. I don’t know. I don’t want to have one of those bum lives where you just always expect your luck to be fucked because that’s the way it’s always bin. No. We always reckoned that
things would be different once we got out of this town, you know? That’s when we reckoned it’d all turn itself around. We’d move to the city, make millions. For certain.”

“We?”

“Yeah. We.” Jasper looks down and thumbs the bottle neck. The heaviness drifts down again. I want to keep it at bay; it’s easier when he’s talking.

“What’s your plan? When you get out, I mean.”

“Well, I haven’t thought it all through as yet, but I’ll think of somethink. I got some irons in the fire. Footy, maybe. Who knows? Oysters up north. There’s good money in them little buggers. Or I could work on a mine, maybe; put some gold in me pockets. Learn a trade. I don’t know. Anything but a shoe-shiner. What about you? Probly the university, right?”

I squirm a bit. Awkward. It suddenly feels disrespectful to be talking about this right now, talking about the future when Laura Wishart has just been robbed of hers. It doesn’t seem like it
matters
. But maybe this is the point. Maybe all this talk is for Jasper. Maybe it’s doing the same thing as that horrible bottle. Trying to slow our minds down, sandbag some of the panic.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve always loved reading and stuff. Books, poems. So maybe a writer. I always thought that would be the thing. To write books. Make up stories.”

I try to couch it with an ambivalent shrug, like it’s a fleeting thought, like it’s not the single thing I’ve had my heart set on since I could first read.

To my surprise, Jasper nods his approval.

“Yeah. I reckon that’s you for sure, Charlie.”

“You think?”

“No doubt. Reckon you’d be great. Move to some big city with a typewriter. Meetin people, tellin their stories. Maybe you could write my story one day. Then we’ll make a film out of it, for certain. Imagine that.”

And I do imagine it. Jasper makes it sound so possible and plausible,
that I might leave Corrigan to be a writer. To tell tall stories for a living. Real, important literature. When the mood strikes me, I sometimes like to imagine myself as a famous author in an austere candelabralit ballroom, where I am bantering with beat poets and novelists like Harper Lee and Truman Capote.

But Jasper Jones interrupts my musing. He’s up and lurching, huddled over like he’s been shot in the stomach. Before I can panic, he starts evicting that noxious liquid in a thick sheet that seems to almost glow. He grips the empty bottle. It smells sour, his sick. It’s bursting out of him. He locks up violently, like he’s being held and punched in the stomach by invisible assailants.

Jasper retches and coughs, breathing heavily on his haunches. He spits and groans softly before retching again. Then he finally stands up straight.

“I thought you said you could hold your liquor?” I ask.

Jasper spits again, wipes his mouth, and smiles. “Yeah, I can. Just not for long.”

He turns and stumble-steps toward the dam. Kneeling, he fills the bottle with water. He looks precarious. And he collapses back against the tree before he can drink any. The bottle spills. He’s out to it. Oblivious and gone. Maybe that’s all he wanted.

I notice that it suddenly seems lighter in this space. First I wonder if I’ve just grown accustomed to the dark, if I’ve adapted. Then I shoot from my feet like a firecracker and shake him awake.

“Jasper,
shit
! It’s almost dawn! We have to go back. Now! If my parents know I’ve been out, I am right in it!”

Jasper Jones squints and slowly glances up.

“What?” He seems to ponder it. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, Charlie. Juss a second.”

His words are slurred. Now I really fear getting lost on our return. But not nearly as much as I fear my parents finding my bed empty. I can’t even imagine.

“No, we’ve got to go now!”

Jasper stands unsteadily and treads heavily. He slaps a hand on my shoulder. Looks at me, intent yet vacant. Full of sorrow. His breath is like acid.

“Orright. Less go.”

He pauses. And, swaying slightly, he lingers and looks up at the ghostly eucalypt. In spite of my worried hurry, I don’t rush him. He takes it in one last time before we turn to go.

The walk back feels much faster than when we first set out. Perhaps it’s because I’m aware of where we’re headed, or because I am almost treading on Jasper’s Achilles in my haste.

His shoulders have fallen forward slightly. He doesn’t walk with that straight-backed poise or intensity he had earlier. He shakes his pack of cigarettes. Empty. So he shoves his hands into his pockets. We walk silently and quickly. Overhead, magpies stir and warble their morning song. The sun is coming, like a harbinger of doom. Strangely, the easier it is to see and navigate, the more afraid and apprehensive I am. But at the least the night is over. There’s some relief in that. I don’t have to bury anybody else. I can sleep soon. Maybe. For a couple of hours at least.

We track back onto the narrow path. And when we walk along it, I feel a weird sense of kinship, like we’re old friends. It’s not without its share of comfort. I know where we are. There is nothing but familiarity in front of me. It’s the same when we push through the bush and onto the road. It’s as though I’ve been away a long time and I’ve finally arrived home. With a horrible secret that I’ve got to cauterize and keep down.

The light is gray and grim, but strengthening quickly. We might make it before the world wakes. We just might.

Now I walk side by side with Jasper Jones. I ponder whether or not we should split up, whether it’s dangerous to be seen together. Or, more to the point, I understand that if I’m seen with Jasper Jones, it might arouse suspicion. I breathe in quick, about to broach it, but I check myself. I suddenly don’t wish to. And it’s not a question of bravery.
I don’t know. It seems that because we’ve ridden through something serious and substantial, I feel a real sense of loyalty. I feel as though if we were to separate here, it would sully some kind of tacit pact. We’re comrades in some private war. Suddenly it feels important to stay together, side by side.

And so, as we reach the sepia center of Corrigan—the Miners’ Hall, the Sovereign Hotel, the newly refurbished post office; then the crouching loom of the police station—I realize I am in this. Right in it. To whatever end. Of course, I’m afraid. But walking in his shadow, I’m also buffeted by a sort of anticipation. Me and Jasper Jones, sleuths and partners. Thick as thieves. In spite of everything, it excites me a little to know I’ll certainly be seeing him again. That he needs my help. I don’t feel so ridiculous walking next to him anymore. I don’t feel like an incongruous sidekick. While the rest of this town looks at Jasper Jones like he’s no good, it thrills me that he treats me like I’m equal.

As we turn, finally, into my street and we stride quickly before broad front yards, skirting the side of my house, I’m afforded some slim relief. It seems my parents are yet to stir. I haven’t been caught by anybody. Yet. I don’t imagine I’ll hold this sense of fortune for long. Tonight’s events still lurk in me, cold and uneasy. Anchored in and stuck, like that poor girl we tethered to a stone. When I’m less stunned and tired, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to bubble up and burst in me, I know it.

It is dawn. It is light. But it still feels like the night.

I turn to Jasper. He looks exhausted. And it occurs to me that there is no break in this for him: there’s no comfort, nowhere he can go and lie down and be looked after. Not anymore. If he had anywhere in this world, it’s the place we’ve just come from, the place that has just broken his heart and put him at risk. He’s right: shit has been taken from him his whole life.

He looks done in and drunk, but he arches his back with a jolt, projecting that toughness again.

I wonder where he’s going to go now. If he’s going to go sit someplace
quiet and wait for the riot or if he’s going to go home, if that’s what you would call it.