Roadman Read online

  Above Sal’s locket, stuck to the bottom frame of the shed window, were several aged and faded photos. One was of him and his mother back in Serena standing in front of the house. He looked barely older than five. His mother was smiling, as was he, standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders. He figured his old man must have been behind the camera as he was nowhere to be seen in the picture.

  Max took a swig from the bottle of Jack Daniels. He then armed his lips with his flannelette sleeve, glancing at several more photos. Most were of his mother and him as a kid, either on the beach at Serena or picnicking at some spot he no longer recognised. One was of him blindfolded, pinning the tail on the donkey at someone’s birthday party. Maybe it was even his, but he couldn’t recall; the German bastard put a stop to any birthday parties after his mother left. Another photo was of him sitting at a table behind a huge birthday cake. The cake had five candles and he had a grin so big he reckoned the whole fuck’n cake might’ve fit inside it. His mother was behind his right shoulder, leaning forward and smiling, but a jagged line tore the photo down his left side where somebody (his mother?) had ripped somebody from the picture, as if trying to erase them forever. It didn’t take no fuck’n genius to work out who that person was standing behind him, a dirty fucker with a German accent who was probably pissed as a fart at his son’s fifth birthday party. The photo annoyed him. Even in his fuck’n absence, the stench of his old man lingered like vomit on the kitchen floor.

  The zippo lighter beneath the photo had a Harley Davidson motif, and it gave him an idea. He tugged the birthday photo from the window sill and set it alight. The flames were slow to start, but soon were devouring the photo and licking his fingers. He held onto it for as long as he could stand the pain, dropping it to the floor where it burned to a scattering of ashes at the legs of his stool.

  He took another swig from the bottle of Jack Daniels and crushed the dying ashes with his boot, much as he would a smouldering cigarette butt. He figured although his mum might never have been able to rid herself completely of the German filth she’d married, he could go some way to at least expunge his putrid memory. The moment this thought ended, Max felt a chill down the back of his spine, as if a cold wintry draft had wafted beneath the shed door and squirmed under his flannelette collar.

  “You still can’t satisfy a vooman,” Frank said, clearing his throat.

  Max spun on his stool. Frank was standing in a dark pocket near the shelves on which he kept all his handyman tools—saws, wrenches, pliers, paint brushes, hammers—smoking his fuck’n Magic Pudding cigarette and toying with his wedding ring.

  “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up!” Max said, slurring.

  “You can’t even get it up,” Frank continued, sneering. “You’re no son of mine.”

  Still holding the bottle of Jack Daniels, Max gripped his head with both hands. His right hand throbbed as bad as it had when he’d first punched the hallway wall. “I told you to shut the fuck up!”

  Frank took a drag on his cigarette. “She’s got great tits,” he said with a chuckle. “Much bigger zan ze ozzer slut.”

  Max gritted his teeth. “What the hell do you want from me?”

  Frank cleared his throat again and took another drag on his cigarette. “Nuttink. Just a chat wiz me boy, dat’s all.”

  “Fuck off!”

  “Zey need to be taught who’s boss,” Frank said, grinning. “Just like I taught your own muzzer. But you’ve never had ze balls, haff you?”

  “Arrrggh!” Max yelled, and hurled the bottle of Jack Daniels at his old man. It passed straight through the head of the grinning German prick, smashing into the shelves at the side of the shed. Splatters of golden whisky and glass fragments rained to the shed floor.

  Frank threw back his grotesque head and laughed, fading into the semi-darkness. “You’re nuttink! You’ll always be nuttink,” he said and faded completely from view.

  Sunday, 24 August 2008

  Dear Diary,

  What is wrong with me? I feel so stupid. I feel so humiliated. But mostly I feel so frustrated. With me, that is, not Max.

  We were having such a wonderful evening watching the closing ceremony of the Olympics. We were alone. We’d shared a lovely bottle of wine. The fireworks had started on the TV. It all seemed so perfect for us to make love for the first time. But I don’t know what I did wrong. Max just wasn’t interested. Is it me? Is there something he doesn’t like about the way I look? About the way I talk or laugh? Does he think I’m not attractive or smart enough?

  Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps it is just as he said, that he wants to take things easy (i.e. slow), and it isn’t me at all. Perhaps he’s just being a genuinely nice guy, not wanting to put pressure on me to have sex. I hope that’s all it is.

  I know what Georgina would do if she was the one who’d been rejected. She’d put on her lipstick and high heels and head straight to The Grand, pick up a guy at the bar, take him back to her place and screw his brains out. Either that or ring just about any of her ex-boyfriends to come over for a quickie. Just to get back at Max for being jilted.

  But even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t, I’m too tired. And Max doesn’t deserve that. I’m pretty sure he’s just being a gentleman and simply doesn’t want to hurt me in any way. Not that he would. When I’m lying in his arms I feel this is exactly where I want to be. I feel safe. I feel wonderful. I feel happy.

  First time in my life I feel totally and utterly where I’m supposed to be.

  Wednesday, 27 August 2008

  Dear Diary,

  I’m getting a little bit worried about Max. Even though we didn’t say goodbye on good terms, I was hoping he would have come over this week for dinner with me and dad, but I haven’t seen him since last Sunday’s little drama (or should I say, my little tiff?). In fact, I haven’t even seen him moving about the house through his windows. His car is still parked in the driveway, and dad tells me he hasn’t heard Max leave his house at all this week. I hope he’s all right. I hope he isn’t sick.

  Maybe I should pop over and see if he’s OK. But what if he’s really annoyed with me with how I treated him? I shouldn’t have been so annoyed. What if he never wants to see me again?

  Perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps I’ll just wait a few more days. If I haven’t seen him by the weekend, I’ll go over and apologise for being so rude.

  CHAPTER 10

  Max knocked on Lorraine’s door feeling as fuck’n nervous as when he’d asked her out on their first date to Bill O’Driscolll’s barbeque. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing or not, or whether she would want to see him again after the last time they spoke, but he wanted to at least set the record straight with her. He wanted to let her know that it wasn’t her fault, that she shouldn’t feel guilty or bad about what happened. First, though, he wanted to apologise, and he had the perfect present in his pocket to say sorry.

  Neither Lorraine nor her father answered his knock. Perhaps she had figured who was standing outside and was pretending she wasn’t home, hoping he’d go away, like she would if the fuck’n Mormons were paying a visit. But he knew she was in because he’d seen her arrive home from work through his lounge room window. He was about to knock again when Lorraine answered the door. She hadn’t as yet changed into something more comfortable, still in her blue factory uniform and her hair tied into a bun. To his relief, she smiled and pressed into his arms, hugging him tightly and pecking a kiss on his lips. She then stepped back and welcomed him inside.

  “Would you like a coffee?” she asked as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Or is it wine o’clock already?”

  Max figured it was always wine o’clock when he was growing up, according to his father. Sunset, sunrise, noon, hell it didn’t matter what time of the day it was, there was always time to uncap a cheap bottle of plonk and start smacking your wife and kid around.

  “I’m right for now,” he said.

  Lorraine cocked an eyebrow and went to put the ket
tle on for herself. Max could tell there was something on her mind, and he figured he probably knew what, but he wanted to get in first to allay her fears.

  “Lorraine… um, about the other night,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I, I’m sorry…”

  Lorraine shook her head, biting her bottom lip as she often did. For a moment Max thought she was about to cry. “No,” she said, “I shouldn’t have been so selfish.”

  Although he had gone over this scene a hundred times since they last saw each other, Max was suddenly short for words. Forgot ya lines, ya stupid dickhead. Got fuck’n stage fright just when you couldn’t afford to. “See, Lorraine,” he began, “my ex-wife… well she ran off…”

  Lorraine interjected before he could say more. “You have to trust me, Max. Me. I’m not her. I’m not that woman.”

  Max took a deep breath and sighed. “I know.”

  Lorraine walked around the bench top and stood before him. He looked up at her, wondering how on Earth he could ever make amends. She took his hands and asked him to stand, then pressed her cheek into the nook of his neck and hugged him. They stood that way, just hugging, for more than a minute. Max closed his eyes, liking the soft, undulating press of her breasts into his chest as she breathed. He could also feel her heartbeat, as though his and her hearts were banging together through their ribcages like children patting hands on opposite sides of a window. It was an alien feeling to feel so calm and at peace, to feel his teeth stop grinding and his jaw unclench, to feel the knots in his stomach relax and the constant throbbing in his head disappear. She was right on that score: she wasn’t his ex. She was nothing like that fuck’n bitch. Lorraine was the water to douse his flaming tension; Sarah was the wind to fan the flames.

  Max figured now was the time to give Lorraine the present. He gently broke the embrace and retrieved the small jewellery box from his pocket. “This, uh, this is for you,” he said and handed it to her. “To, to kinda say sorry for the other night.”

  Lorraine smiled and her whole body seemed to glow with joy as she eyed the silver box. “For me? Thank you,” she said, gushing, and then said what Max figured every woman said in such circumstances and didn’t mean it one little bit: “You shouldn’t have, really.”

  “I’ll take it back then,” he said, grinning and holding out his hand.

  Lorraine turned in mock jest, retracting her hand. “Not on your life, buster.”

  “Well, go on then, open it before I change my mind.”

  Lorraine opened the jewellery box and stared inside, mouth agape, taking out its contents. “Oh, Max,” she said, “it’s beautiful.” She held the silver locket and chain high to inspect it better in the kitchen light, looping the delicate chain around her index and middle finger and dangling the locket like a hypnotist’s fob watch. “You really shouldn’t have,” she reiterated, now holding one splayed hand against her heart. “It must have cost an absolute fortune.”

  “Nonsense,” said Max. “It’s the least I could do.”

  She unhooked the tiny latch that held the two halves of the locket together and opened it, like she was splaying a miniature book of silver pages. Inside were two slots where she could place two small photos, one of her and, he hoped, one of him. She remained speechless while she delighted in inspecting every aspect of the locket.

  “Here, let me help you put it on,” Max said after a moment.

  Lorraine was about hand it to him when she suddenly stopped. “Oh, look here,” she said, bringing the locket up to her face for closer inspection. “Something’s written inside. It’s etched, actually. The writing’s so small I didn’t notice it at first.”

  Max froze to the spot. Lorraine had discovered an inscription inside that he had completely overlooked. If the etchings were of Sal and Jade’s names, Lorraine would know his involvement in their disappearance. He couldn’t let that happen.

  He just couldn’t.

  When Max was twelve the carnival came to Serena for the Queen’s birthday long weekend and parked itself on the local Serena Dragon’s footy oval. Frank, the tight bastard, refused to give him any cash to go, but that didn’t stop him. He’d managed to hide some of his savings from his newspaper rounds from the fucker and so he went anyway. The bastard had found the previous two hiding spots in his bedroom. The first one, under the mattress, was a little naïve, but hey, he had been only eight and he learned his lesson not to hide his valuables in such a fuck’n obvious spot. The next hiding spot was cleverer and got him through the next couple of years without any of his hard-earned disappearing unexpectedly. He made a false bottom in his sock drawer and hid his savings there, but somehow the fucker eventually found that too. He suspected the German prick had rummaged through his drawer looking for booze money and heard the chinking of coins under the false bottom. Max learned his lesson then too: only hide notes; coins make too much fuck’n noise and give the game away.

  The next thing he did was his fuck’n coup de grâce. He put a merciful end to his own suffering at the hands of his thieving father with an ingenious ploy: he hid the money where he knew the fucker would never look—under his own mattress. By the age of twelve, Max was already doing half the chores around the house, cleaning the dishes, mowing the lawn, putting out the garbage, washing his own clothes and hanging them out to dry. But no ironing; there wasn’t even a fuck’n iron or ironing board in the house. The other chore he also had to perform (or he’d get a backhand across the head and no dinner for the rest of the week) was to wash and change the bed linen. He only did it once a month, but it was the one and only time he was allowed into his father’s room. It was also the perfect opportunity to hide his monthly savings (only notes of course). In the end it was too fuck’n easy.

  Max scampered under the temporary fence erected around the travelling carnival to avoid paying the entry costs (more popcorn and show bags for yours truly). The smell of cinnamon donuts thickened the air, even at the periphery. Nearing the centre of the carnival, he walked into a wall of noise. Squeals of delighted terror and loud music blared from the sideshow rides, most of which he went on. He also watched a crappy magician’s show and even won a couple of prizes shooting metal ducks and shoving ping pong balls into the mouth of a swivelling clown head, but the challenge he was most drawn to was the Strongman Bell.

  “Step right up!” the operator yelled through his megaphone over and over again. “Test your strength! C’mon, where are the men out there?”

  Max wormed his way to the front of the crowd with several other kids. He laughed with the rest of them as several macho guys tried their best to slam the puck into the bell atop the tower by hammering the lever with a rubber sledgehammer. Even Mr. Hand-on-Cock, the science teacher with a liking for young titties had a go. None of them could do it, most only sending the puck little more than two thirds of the way up. Except for one. Thin, gaunt, skin and bones, Rhys Fynn looked as though he could barely lift the sledgehammer off the ground let alone raise it above his head and bring it down with enough force to send the puck all the way to the top. When the caretaker of the bankrupt Prince Albert’s School for boys stepped forward to take his turn, Max heard many spectators chuckle in gleeful expectation, perhaps hoping to witness something comical, or even a major self-inflicted injury.

  “He can’t even lift himself off a bar stool,” said one guy to his mate behind Max.

  “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if ya can do it Rhys!” his mate then yelled, to which the crowd laughed.

  “Make it two hundred!” yelled the first guy, again to more laughter.

  Max hated the skinny prick as much as he hated his fucker of a father, but he was kinda hoping his old man’s drinking partner would manage to send the stupid puck rocketing to the bell at the top of the tower for no other reason than he’d never seen it done. Plus, he wanted to see what two hundred bucks looked like. That kind of cash was also something he’d never seen.

  The crowd swelled as onlookers came to see what all the fuss was about, attracted t
o the spectacle like flies to a sheep’s arsehole. Max reckoned there were more people watching Rhys Fynn accepting the challenge of the Strongman Bell than came out to watch the Serena Dragons on a Saturday afternoon. He figured they knew what was more entertaining: a lousy drunk making yet another fool of himself in public, or the Dragons losing another footy game?

  Rhys Fynn took the mockery in his stride. He’d probably heard it all before. In fact, it was a fuck’n certainty he’d heard it all before. He paid the operator his due, who pocketed the dollar note as fast as the carnival magician made a rabbit disappear, and reached for the sledgehammer.

  “Tell you what, ladies and gentlemen,” the operator said through his megaphone. “Because I’m such a generous guy, whaddya say I DOUBLE the prize money to TEN DOLLARS!”

  “YEAHHHH!” the crowd roared and laughed.

  Even Max yelled his approval, but he suspected it was all a waste of everyone’s fuck’n time; the operator would undoubtedly keep his money and spend it later tonight on one of the local whores loitering on the corner of Beach Road and The Esplanade. As the crowd laughed, Rhys Fynn dragged the sledgehammer to the bell tower in both hands, not even bothering to lift it off the ground, if he actually could. Max heard more sniggers and snide remarks from behind, surely loud enough for Rhys Fynn to hear too. But the skinny prick just positioned himself in front of the bell tower, propped the handle of the sledgehammer against his hip, licked his lips, spat in his hands and then rubbed them together. Max reckoned he was rubbing his hands in anticipation of what ten bucks could buy at The Griffin’s Head. The guy behind mumbled to his friend that he thought Rhys Fynn looked like he was rubbing his skinny cock between the palms of his hands.

  Rhys Fynn then took three deep breaths, bent down and grabbed the sledgehammer where the handle inserted through the rubber head. The crowd hushed in expectation. Even the two detractors behind Max said nothing. All Max could hear was the distant music of the sideshow rides and the occasional squeal of a rider. Like a weightlifter keeping his back straight, Rhys Fynn then hoisted the sledgehammer head up to his chest and stood tall. The weight of the sledgehammer caused him to unbalance slightly, forcing a wobbled step backward to regain his balance and composure. The crowd “Oohed” collectively, half expecting him to topple off the stage, and then fell silent once again.