Roadman Page 18
A loud male voice cut through. “C’mon Rhys, you can do it!”
Applause rippled through the crowd as Rhys Fynn began to raise the sledgehammer higher. He didn’t lift it the conventional way, like the other macho men that had tried and failed before him, straight up above his head holding the end of the handle, but in a way that reminded Max of a submarine periscope. Inch-by-inch he worked his hands down the shaft of the sledgehammer, keeping them at the level of his chest. As his hands worked down, the head of the sledgehammer edged higher and higher, inching first at chest level, then neck level, then the level of his face, and before long it was rising above his thinning grey scalp. The crowd remained silent, watching the steady rise of the sledgehammer with a collective holding of breath. Even the wind was as still as the crowd.
Max willed the head of the sledgehammer higher until, a minute later, Rhys Fynn’s hands had almost reached the end of the handle. The silly drunk had already outperformed everyone’s expectation, even the operator, who was still smiling as he had, but now Max could tell it was as forced as one of his father’s compliments. Perhaps he was thinking the silly bastard might just take his ten bucks off him after all.
Now the crowd waited to see if he could actually bring the hammerhead down onto the lever at just the right spot and just the right momentum to send the puck soaring to the top of the tower. He seemed to stand that way for ages, as if he didn’t even have the strength to cock his wrists and allow gravity to do the rest. Max saw Rhys Fynn’s right leg wobble under the strain. If his knee buckled the challenge would be all over; the hammerhead would plunge straight down onto the silly bugger’s head. It might even be the end of Rhys Fynn himself, and the thought of seeing the old fart die right in front of his eyes caused Max to giggle nervously.
The crowd remained silent. Nobody spoke or shouted out. Then, somebody coughed, a throaty, guttural cough that Max had heard a million times. It made him cringe. Max hunkered down, trying to get as low as possible and out of view. He should’ve known. If Rhys Fynn was here, then Frank would be too.
“Ah, hurry up!” the German fucker yelled out to his drinking buddy. “I can’t vait all day.”
For a ghastly moment Max saw Rhys Fynn wobble and his knee threaten to buckle. The sledgehammer swayed so dramatically Max thought his previous visions of it crashing down on top of his head, crushing his skull, would come true. Somehow though, Rhys Fynn managed to control the descent. Like a wrestler using the bulk of his opponent to work against himself, Rhys Fynn pirouetted just at the moment the weight of the sledgehammer seemed to overcome him. Instead of the hammerhead crashing down onto his skull, it thumped down on the lever and rocketed the puck up the bell tower, slamming it into the bell with a deafening DONG!
The crowd roared with delight, like the Dragons had just scored the winning goal to win the flag, and probably the best fuck’n ovation Rhys Fynn ever received in his whole pathetic life. He turned and bowed extravagantly to the crowd, collected his winnings from the operator and disappeared through the appreciative crowd in the direction of The Griffin’s Head.
Thinking back to that day, Max reckoned the puck didn’t just rocket up the bell tower. It lurched. Just like his heart now lurched up his oesophagus into his mouth and slammed a head-piercing DONG! through his skull.
Lorraine kept examining the locket as she had, trying to read the etchings. “Oh, how silly, no wonder I can’t read what it says, I’m reading it upside down.”
She turned the locket so that the inscription was upright. Max’s heart had returned to his chest from its displaced lurch, now thumping his ribs as hard as Rhys Fynn’s sledgehammer had slammed into the lever of the bell tower. He was just about to reach over and snatch it out of her hand when she said, “Oh, Max, that’s so sweet.” She looked up from the locket. “Did you get this done for me? It’s beautiful.” Before Max could answer, she read the locket’s inscription: “Yin and Yang. You and Me. Together as One.”
Max felt a lump in his throat, just about the same spot his heart had been moments before. “I, I’m glad you like it,” he said after a moment. It physically hurt to speak, like he’d just come down with a sudden attack of tonsillitis.
“Like it? I love it!” she said, and stepped forward to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him passionately.
He closed his eyes and put his hands on her hips, thinking that had been too close for comfort. He’d gotten away with it this time. Well, he’d gotten away with a bit more than that, actually.
He’d gotten away with fuck’n murder.
Friday, 3rd October 2008
Dear Diary,
I just looked at the date of my last entry and I can’t believe it’s been well over a month since I last wrote something. And what a month it’s been! Whoo, where do I start?
A week after I last wrote something, Max came over and gave me the most beautiful silver locket I’ve ever seen. I hate to think how much it cost him. I don’t know how much he earns, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it cost him a week’s worth of wages. I just love it. I wear it all the time. Max even had an inscription etched into it: Yin and Yang. You and Me. Together as One. It’s beautiful, it really is. I’ve put a photo of him and a photo of me inside so we can always be together, no matter where we are.
Anyhow, well, we made love. Yes, finally! Yay! And of all places in the middle of the bush! After he’d given me the locket he asked if I wanted to go somewhere special. I thought he was going to take me to a restaurant or to the movies or drive up to the hills to see the lights of Adelaide. I had no idea he was going to take me down the Fleurieu Peninsula to his campsite (his “humpy” he called it). It was no five-star hotel, I can tell you. More like a tin shed slapped together with corrugated iron and a few rusty nails. He told me he built the humpy about 2001 when his father passed away, a place for him to get away from the rat race and relax. So, when I first saw it, my immediate thought was, “Where do I have a shower?” Needless to say there was no toilet or bathroom. But we don’t need to visualise that, do we?
Actually, it was kind of romantic. He made a campfire and cooked a rabbit stew (one that he actually caught in a trap!). He even taught me how to shoot a rifle. Me, of all people! I’ve never fired a gun in my life. He set up some beer cans and taught me how to aim and shoot, to “squeeze” the trigger, not pull or jerk or yank it. I must say I really enjoyed shooting. I was a bit scared at first, but after the first few shots I started to like it. I even hit the beer can! I was so thrilled.
So, after we’d had a few wines and the stars started to shine, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let another perfect moment pass us by. So I did what Georgina would’ve done. I told him I wanted him to make love to me. I could see he felt a bit nervous, especially after our last encounter (me too, actually), but I tried my best to put him at ease and, well, without going into too much detail, it worked. We made love next to the campfire. We made love in his humpy (appropriate name, don’t you think?). We made love down by the lake, or billabong, as the locals down there call it, apparently. We made love in his car on the way home. Heavens, over the past three or so weeks we’ve made love everywhere! I’ve had sex more times with Max these past few days than I can remember with all my previous boyfriends combined.
Georgina, of course, wants to know every sordid detail, but I haven’t revealed too much to her other than some of the places where we’ve done it. I’m not the sort to kiss and tell. Plus, I know Max wouldn’t like me talking about it behind his back. He’s a very private guy and he hasn’t even met Georgina yet. Which reminds me. I’m meeting her for some drinks at The Grand tonight and I’m not even ready yet.
When I get home later tonight I’ll let myself into Max’s house and give him a nice surprise. Can’t wait:)
Saturday, 11th October 2008
Dear Diary,
What a difference a day makes. I can’t believe how absolutely terrible I feel. I have never felt so happy and so ashamed in all my life. I’m so to
rn what to do. I’m torn between my future with Max—spending the rest of my life with him, having kids, being grandparents, travelling, discovering ourselves—and with my duties to dad. How can anyone feel so liberated and so trapped at the same time?
I actually feel really bad for saying that. I love my dad. I want him to live and see his grandkids. I want him to walk me down the aisle at my wedding and dance with me at our reception. I hate what’s happening to him. He’s a broken man, all of him. The disease is consuming his body, sometimes now he’s even too weak to cough. He just lies there and gurgles. God, if only the bastards on the board of the company could come to our house and see what they’ve done.
His spirit’s broken too, and I dare say the spirit of every other poor worker who mined their devil dust for them. No, they still haven’t paid out on their promises of compensation. No, we don’t accept their pathetic attempts to apologise. Yes, they keep paying lawyers millions of dollars to keep the lawsuit tied up in the courts, millions they could have paid to their workers instead to make their life a little easier, lives that have been sacrificed for the almighty dollar. I think dad has moved beyond anger now. But I haven’t. He’s probably more accepting of his lot than I am. It’s as if he’s given up, surrendered, to suffer in silence.
Worse, if it could be worse, the morphine is diluting his mind. He drifts in and out of a drug haze. And yes, I’ve upped the dose again, but what choice do I have? If I don’t give it, he’s in agony. If I do give it, at least he has a few hours of comfort (I won’t say pain free, because that just isn’t the case anymore, but at least the morphine dulls the pain sufficiently for him to fall asleep). But I’m beginning to think the end is coming a lot faster than any of us suspected. I’m thinking that’s now what dad wants.
Which is why I’m so annoyed and ashamed with myself. I have just come home from an amazing day driving in the hills with Max. He wouldn’t tell me where he was taking me, just that I would be sure to love it. When we passed through Mt. Lofty, Stirling and Mt. Barker I was seriously worried we were heading all the way to Melbourne. But we didn’t. Of course we didn’t. We turned off the highway and went through Strathalbyn to the wine area between Currency Creek and Langhorne Creek. This time of year the vineyards have come out of their winter slumber. The flowers are blooming. The vines are coming to full leaf. The sun is shining. It’s just beautiful.
And I guess that’s the reason why Max wanted me to see the house he wants to buy. Yes, to buy! Not rent. Not lease. Not house-sit. To buy! My heart nearly stopped when he turned off the main road and pulled up the long driveway to the most exquisite, the most adorable, sandstone cottage I’ve ever seen. It’s an old farmer’s homestead, complete with corrugated iron roofing and a wooden veranda. I’m guessing that it’s at least 100 years old but it’s perfect. Okay, sure, it still needs a little bit of work. Some of the wooden window frames need replacing, and the kitchen and bathroom… well, let’s just say Max’s experience in building and renovating will come in extremely handy. But apart from that, it is perfect. It really is. And it could be ours!
Max said he hadn’t put in an offer yet because he wanted me to see it first, and not just pictures on the internet. With the capital he could get from selling the house in North Plympton (and here I am thinking he’s renting like everybody else in the street, ha!), he’d have enough to buy this cottage with even a little bit extra to pay for the renovations.
I know we’re moving really fast. We’ve only just met each other. We haven’t even lived together yet. But both of us know we want to be with each other for the rest of our lives. When you know, you just know. No questions.
CHAPTER 11
Max and Mr. Jack Daniels were having another get-to-know-you session in his shed not long after work. Lorraine had lucked out and pulled the late shift on a Friday night, and he couldn’t be bothered going for drinks with the work crew, so he clocked off just after five and came home to be by himself and wait for Lorraine to finish up at the factory. He figured he should be in a better fuck’n mood, but he wasn’t. Bill O’Driscoll had finally had enough of Jonesy’s bullshit and given him his DCM ticket—Don’t Come Monday—at lunch time today, which pleased just about everyone on the demolition site no fuck’n end. Except Jonesy and Kev, of course, but who actually gave a rat’s arse what they thought?
The thing that had sent his mood plummeting into his Blund-stones was the news he’d heard on the radio on the drive home from work. The police were now linking the disappearances of the loser German backpacker with the rich brats, Jade and Sal, saying they now had reason to suspect they met with foul play at the hands of a lone assailant, perhaps somebody preying on hitchhikers. All three had gone missing in suspicious circumstances. All three were last seen alive in the same area around Aldinga. They also emphasised that there was no connection of the missing people with several burnt out vehicles that had been found in the same area over the past eighteen months. The police were again appealing for anyone to come forward with any information that might help solve their disappearance.
Max now eyed the trinkets and trophies he’d collected from his victims, slugging a mouthful of whisky as he did. Apart from Sal’s locket, which he’d now given to Lorraine, they mostly belonged (Once belonged, Maxy, once) to the loser backpacker.
“You stupid fucker!” he yelled, swigging the whisky bottle again. “Why’d you have to threaten me? Why?”
Angrily, he swiped the bench clear. Everything flew across the shed like shrapnel — the zippo lighter, maps, digital camera, lamp—and crashed to the floor at the foot of the didgeridoo leaning against the shed wall.
“No more!” he yelled to the thin air, still holding the whisky bottle by the neck. “Do you hear me you old cunt! No more! It’s over. No more killing. I’ve got Lorraine now…”
He set the whisky bottle on top of the bench and went to the didgeridoo, bending it over his lifted thigh and trying to snap it like a twig. It didn’t do anything except hurt his thigh and piss him off even more than he had been. Next he tried lifting it above his head and slamming it into the cement floor. It just bounced and clattered against the shed wall, coming to rest amongst the rest of the trophies he’d just strewn to the floor. Spying the zippo lighter, he grabbed it and flicked it alight. He put the flame to the middle of the didgeridoo, hoping it would catch fire. But all it did was blacken the aboriginal artwork and burn the skin on his thumb.
He cursed, figuring he’d need a fuck’n bonfire to get this thing to burn. Just then, Frank laughed at him from the dark shadow at the back of the shed. Max spun around.
“You t’ink it’s over?” Frank said, grinning. He sucked on the end of his Magic Pudding cigarette and exhaled. “You’re as stupid as dey come, my piss veak son, but you’re not so stupid to know it vill never end.”
“It has to! It must! I’ve got Lorraine…”
Frank laughed again. “You t’ink that slut can stop you? You can’t change who you are.”
Max advanced on his old man, flicking the zippo lighter alight and holding it forward, threatening to shove it into the bastard’s face. Frank just chuckled again, sucking on his cigarette. “No fuck’n more I said. I’ll burn down the humpy. The whole fuck’n bush. It ends now! D’you hear me?”
Frank threw his bald head back and laughed long and loud. Max lunged at him with the zippo lighter and shoved the flame into the arsehole’s face. But by then Frank had all but faded into the shadows, his mocking laughter fading soon after.
Max capped the zippo lighter, shoving it into his jean’s pocket. “We’ll see who has the last laugh, Frank. I’m gonna fuck’n do it, you hear? Right fuck’n now.”
At just after seven, Max figured he had maybe three hours before Lorraine arrived home after her late shift. That gave him just enough time to head down to Serena, grab his camping stuff, set the humpy alight, and get the fuck out of there and never come back. He wouldn’t even worry himself too much about the smoke. By the time he got down there, say
around eight thirty, it would be dark even with the change to daylight savings. Nobody would even see the fuck’n smoke and alert the fuck’n authorities. Then, once the humpy had burned and he’d made sure he didn’t leave anything behind that might incriminate him should the campsite be found sometime in the future, he’d head back home for the last fuck’n time, hopefully before Lorraine even got off the bus. This was the end of it. Now. Tonight. The past was the past. He’d begin afresh. Start a new life once and for all. He’d sell this shitbox of a house, buy the old farmer’s cottage at Langhorne Creek and settle down to make’n babies with Lorraine. Too fuck’n easy.
Max tossed a couple of empty jerry cans in the back of the Cherokee and reversed onto the street. He hadn’t bothered with the Remy. No fuck’n point. This wasn’t a weekend getaway. This was fuck’n ending it. Forever. In the Remy’s place, Mr. Jack Daniels sat in the passenger seat. He’d decided to come along for the fireworks.
Max chose not to fill the jerry cans at the Aldinga service station, considering the latest reports he’d heard on the radio that evening. Instead, he figured he’d take the longer way to Serena through Myponga and fill up there, even though it might cost him an extra twenty minutes of travel. Thankfully, the Friday evening traffic had calmed and he made good time, more than enough to compensate for taking the longer route. The sun was low in the sky, about to plummet into the ocean, and he was thinking, all going smooth, he’d still get back to Adelaide well ahead of Lorraine. He had just started the climb up Sellick’s Hill when a dark plume of smoke began snaking upward and drifting seaward toward the setting sun. There were no other cars on the road, up ahead or in his rear view mirror, so he put his foot to the floor and accelerated to where he figured the smoke was coming from.