Roadman Read online

  But that was then, and this is now. No point getting stuck in the past and wondering what would’ve happened, the choices we made and didn’t make, the events we had no control over. What’s important is what’s happening right in this moment and making the best of what we have, isn’t that what the happiness gurus say? But all the wise sayings in the world don’t make you feel any better, do they? Sometimes your fantasies are the only escape you’ve got. Sometimes the only freedom you have is in the past.

  So, it probably has to be asked, am I sad to be alive?

  No, not really. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I wouldn’t say that I’m the opposite either, happy to be alive, but more like the feeling that I’m kind of in between. What’s the word I’m looking for? (Ah, why didn’t I pay more attention in English class?) Nonchalant? Apathetic? Ambivalent? Anyway, you know what I mean. I’m not sad or happy, just in between, like the colour grey, between white and black, neither here nor there, not committed to any particular thing at all, in a way kind of incomplete. Tepid, if you like. Some days are better than others, but mostly they seem the same, just grey. Maybe that’s why grey is so depressing. When you shine a light in the dark, you immediately see the light—it gives you hope—but when you shine a light in the greyness, it just gets absorbed into its miserable, tepid nothingness.

  Here’s a scary thought: can someone spend a whole lifetime missing the light? I find myself thinking a lot lately whether things will ever get better, thinking that I could spend the next fifty years sitting in this house doing the same thing day after day, just waiting for my turn at the good life, waiting for something that never happens or someone that never arrives. I often catch myself looking outside through the window while I’m sewing and wondering if the neighbours think the same thing. I certainly hope things change, and soon. I’m getting tired of waiting for things to get better, but I can’t see how they will. Especially for dad.

  The company has finally agreed to a compensation payout, but we haven’t seen any of it yet, and I doubt we ever will. They’ve got their lawyers tying the money up in the courts and offshore accounts in some remote island I’ve never even heard of, and now they’re saying we won’t see a cent for at least another five more years. It makes me sick. Do these people actually think about what they’re doing to others? Do they realise how other people are dependent on what they do, how a few thousand dollars could make a huge difference to our lives? Do they actually care about people like me and dad? Anyway, from what I’ve heard the compensation is a pittance. Not that we’ve actually heard a real figure—we can only go on hearsay from the newspapers—but from what I can gather it will hardly cover the medical expenses. What dad really needs is a new set of lungs, not more drugs that can only delay the inevitable, and if he dies…

  There, I guess I said it. Probably not the way I intended to say it, but there it is all the same. I don’t want dad to die. Not like this. Not with so much pain, not with so much helplessness. This man-made disease is evil, pure and simple. He doesn’t deserve to end his life this way. But…

  But am I really being truthful here? Who am I really worried about? This is really about me, isn’t it? Sure, I’m scared for dad. I’m scared for the day when the painkillers no longer work. I’m scared for the day when he turns to me and says he’s giving up, that there’s no point going on like this. I know he’s going to heaven to be with mum when he finally passes away, even if he doesn’t believe in life after death himself. He’s a good man with a good heart. He’s always tried to care for me and mum as best he could, and I know God hasn’t exactly blessed his life with riches and happiness but I know He would never refuse such a good man in his ultimate moment of need. But is that what I’m really worried about? Aren’t I really just a selfish so-and-so who’s more worried about being left alone to grow old and die, barren and skint, than she is about her poor father?

  Maybe the word I’ve been looking for all along is guilt.

  CHAPTER 4

  As he’d pretty much predicted, the cops were treating the missing brats like they were fuck’n royalty. Their disappearance made the six o’clock news on Monday and the front page of the Adelaide Sun on Tuesday. WITHOUT A TRACE, the headline screamed, as if it were bigger fuck’n news than anything else going on in the world. But that’s what sold newspapers, wasn’t it? Local gossip. Who actually gave a fuck about dozens of Iraqis blown up each week by suicide bombers? Too far away to affect anyone here. Anyway, it was old fuck’n news. Like petrol. People were gagging at the price of oil a few months ago, but even they were getting used to it pushing a hundred and fifty bucks a barrel and the fact it cost a fuck’n fortune to fill up the tank (Hell, it was costing him well over a hundred bucks to fill up the Cherokee, absolutely fuck’n ludicrous, but he had to pay it didn’t he?). People weren’t even spooked by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in America, even though they knew the toxic assets of the greedy fuck’n banks would eventually spill Down Under and fuck everything up here as well, if it wasn’t doing so already and we were all fuck’n denying it.

  Nah, people were only interested in what happened over the fuck’n fence in the neighbour’s backyard. Until they got bored with what was going on and looked over the other neighbour’s fence. Money didn’t make the world go round, fuck’n gossip did. And what better fuck’n gossip than someone else’s misery?

  On Wednesday both sets of parents made appeals to the public for any news on Jade and Sal’s whereabouts. Max had made fuck’n sure he didn’t miss it. Had sat down on the couch with his microwave dinner at ten to six and switched the telly over to Channel Five. He wasn’t disappointed. Right on six o’clock the familiar face of his namesake, Max Cessini, filled the screen. The ageing anchorman introduced himself and then said something about the appeal that had been made earlier today. While he spoke, two smiling photos flashed onto the screen, one of Jade and one of Sal, both seemingly taken at Christmas time. Then the TV cut to the four parents sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at a table in a living room (although whose house they were filming in, Max had no way of knowing). A single microphone had been set up in front of them, which Jade’s dad pulled nervously toward him and started speaking. He turned out to be a bigger limp dick than his son, begging anyone with information to come forward and sobbing like a fuck’n baby into the microphone.

  Jade’s mum looked pale and gaunt, like she wanted to throw up the whole fuck’n time, and said nothing the whole interview, just stared into camera and nodded her head in agreement with whatever her limp dick husband said. Sal’s dad wasn’t much better. Hen-pecked fucker was as silent and useless as Jade’s mum, but Sal’s mum had a bit of fire in her eyes. They were the same fuckme blues that had glared at him across the campfire four days ago. Same chirpy attitude, too, spewing out between her lips. Mouthy bitch couldn’t help butt in and give her fuck’n five-cents worth. Could almost sense she was challenging him through the telly.

  “Jade and Sal are good people,” she said, half-standing and reaching across the table to grab the microphone from Jade’s dad. “Neither of them have done any harm to anybody, and we don’t expect any harm to come to them.”

  While he locked on to her fuck-me blues through the TV, the thought occurred to him that he should contact Sal’s mum and offer to show her what he did to her daughter. But he’d wait, maybe a year or two. Let the bitch slowly die on the inside not knowing what happened to her daughter, then offer her some sort of salvation. A mystery phone call, or someth’n like that. Maybe even a note sent anonymously to her office or home, like the kidnappers do, cut up newspaper words and letters pasted together to make a demand or set of instructions. Something along the lines of: I kNow WHat haPPeneD tO yoUr Kid! They say not knowing what happened to your loved ones is worse than knowing. Some kind of weird fuck’n psychology, there, huh? Would Sal’s mum honestly want to know how her fuck’n kid died?

  Was a tantalising thought, though, something he’d keep in mind, but for now there were a hundred other thin
gs he needed to attend to. The cat’d be hungry for a start, wherever El Stupido was hiding. The gutter was choked with leaves. The Cherokee had started making a rattling noise underneath that needed inspecting. The laundry basket was overflowing with dirty clothes. Wednesday night was bin night.

  So many things, too little fuck’n time.

  He got up from the couch, having heard enough. Jade and Sal’s parents had finally stopped whining about their lost brats and the TV had cut back to the unsmiling face of the anchorman. Max switched the TV off and meandered into the kitchen to put his empty dinner plate in the bin and search for some cat food.

  Just as he opened the fridge and reached for the half-eaten can of Kitty Kat, there was a knock on the front door.

  Hairs pricked at the back of his neck. Only bad fuck’n news called at this time of the evening, he thought. Chances were, weren’t none of his workmates. None of them had ever come around for a beer or to watch the footy, not that he even fuck’n wanted them to. On the other hand, could be Sarah’s lawyers handing him another fuck’n subpoena. Worse, and here was a thought to send the fuck’n chills up ya, what if the cops were already onto him? Maybe they’d already searched the lake, found where the brats’ Mercedes had been parked and traced it back to the Johnson farm.

  Nah, no fuck’n way. He was just being paranoid. Not even an Aboriginal tracker could be that fuck’n good, could they?

  The Kitty Kat lid was half-peeled back from last night’s feast. As he grabbed the ring-pull and removed the lid completely, he heard the knock again. This time they sounded more impatient: KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! as opposed to the initial polite inquiry just moments before: knock, knock, knock.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the backyard through the glass sliding doors. The sun had set, yet there was still enough of the burnt orange twilight to plan an escape to the shed should he need to. Could sit it out at his workbench with the lights off until the night fell proper. But wouldn’t they look there? If it were coppers, they’d already have a search warrant. Could turn the whole fuck’n place over if they wanted to and there was noth’n he could do to stop them. Then again, if it were coppers the game’d be all fuck’n over anyway.

  He figured he didn’t have much choice in the matter. After flinging the ring-pull into the bin under the sink he went to see who the fuck it was. Maybe it’s the next door neighbour popping in for a chat or to borrow some fuck’n sugar, he thought with a grin, ambling down the corridor, cat food and spoon in hand.

  To his surprise, he opened the door to a vacant door-well. It took a few seconds to register that nobody was there, then, half bemused, he stepped outside onto the welcome mat to check if he could see anybody along Amesbury Road that might’ve been responsible for giving him the fuck’n bejesus. The porch light went off at the neighbour’s house directly across at number thirty-seven, but there were no other signs of humanity. No joggers. No dog walkers. No happy couples meandering arm-in-arm down the road. Just a few parked cars bathing under the orange glow of the street-lights and the gentle sway of council-owned vegetation along the sidewalk. He wandered down the driveway past the Cherokee to the letterbox for a last look for the culprit, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing any fuck’n tricks on him. But no, still no sign of anybody that might’ve paid him the visit.

  Maybe you’re just fuck’n hearing things, he thought. Wouldn’t be for the first time, would it?

  He checked the letterbox while he was there, half-expecting a hand written note from the mystery fucker telling him in ohso-polite terms that they’d paid him a visit but nobody was home when they knocked and would he mind if they called back another time when it suited him? Tomorrow perhaps? But, no, noth’n. The letterbox was empty. Not even a wad of junk mail trying to sell him some useless crap from Dollar Dazzlers or from P&O Ferries trying to coax him on some luxury fuck’n cruise liner to escape the winter chill on a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY!

  Just as he closed the letterbox and turned to go back inside, he heard a giggle coming from the next door neighbour’s front yard at number thirty-four. A girl’s nervous giggle. The kind of giggle that told him the pizza-face brat next door was doing his best to get his hand down his girlfriend’s pants before her parents freaked out she wasn’t home for dinner. Only she was caught between two minds.

  “You’re free to play with my firm titties, Kenny,” her giggle said. “But don’t think you’re gonna get any further. Especially not when every neighbour on Amesbury Road can just look out their window and see what we’re doing.”

  She giggled again. Max glanced over at the entwined couple, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible (he was no fuck’n perv), more in contempt for the bitch’s tease of her boyfriend than in hope of catching a glimpse of her tits. They were going at it on the hood of the Ford Falcon that was rusting away on the front yard beneath the now leafless elm. He was sure the rust bucket had been there since he moved in five years ago, left there by Kenny’s shit-for-brains father as some kind of fuck-off monument to the neighbours. The tyres had long since been removed (or stolen), the chassis jacked up on bricks under the axels where the tyres had once been. Long grass grew up in patches around the eyesore, some almost reaching as high as the door handles, in stark contrast to the bare patch of mud and mouldy leaves at the base of the elm.

  Even if it had been the middle of the day in broad daylight, Max wouldn’t have been able to see the bitch’s face. Her back was toward him and she was shoving her tongue somewhere down Kenny’s throat in a twilight game of tonsil hockey. Eyes closed, Kenny was resting against the Ford rust bucket. His right hand was out of sight under his bitch’s polo-neck jumper and groping her breasts. His left hand had a firm grasp on her right butt cheek, every so often slipping beneath the top of her Levi’s and under her G-string (which Max could actually see, “Whale tale,” he’d heard the younger lads at work call it) to grab its bare flesh.

  Cat food and spoon still in hand, Max continued to watch their writhing, teenage pre-sex for another few seconds or so. Their skin was orange under the glow of the streetlight, reminding him of Jade and Sal lying slumped over one another next to the campfire at Johnson’s farm.

  “What you look’n at, ya fuck’n perv?” said a voice from the porch.

  The guttural expletives belonged to Kenny’s dickhead father. Like Kenny (from what he could gather from the screams and abuse that filtered into his own house on a nightly occurrence), he himself had been on the end of more than one onslaught from the fat prick over the years. “Ya fuck’n cunt!” “Shut ya fuck’n mouth!” “Get off ma’ fuck’n lawn, ya fuck’n cocksucker!” Often ambushed when he least expected it — mowing the grass, checking the letterbox (like now), putting out the bins, usually the times when he was minding his own business and keeping to himself like the good fuck’n neighbour he was.

  He weren’t worried, though. The insults were like bullets off an army tank. He’d copped it far worse, even as a kid, like when he told his father he’d smashed up his dragster on the A131 just outside the Johnson farm. The old crout (just back from The Griffin’s Head and pissed again) had taken the leather belt to his arse so hard it had made the grazes on his knees and hands and forehead look like paper cuts. He only stopped the whipping because Lipstick Lips walked in to the kitchen by accident and shrieked so fuck’n loud the old man thought the cops would be called again. That was only one time. There were at least a hundred more he could recall off the top of his head, and probably another hundred more on top of that if he really pushed hard to remember. But those were the times he’d copped a beating so bad he’d been knocked out cold, as the boxing commentators would’ve said. Got what he bloody deserved, his old man would’ve added.

  “I said, ‘What you fuck’n look’n at, perv?’”

  At first Max couldn’t see the fat prick in the darkness of the porch shadow. Soon his eyes adapted and he started to make out the blubbery outline of Warren Shepherd slumped on the tattered couch that doubled as Shepherd
’s Evening Lounge Bar. It was also the daytime perch for their mongrel dog to bark and growl at every pedestrian that walked past their front yard, and the vantage point from which to launch its daily attack on the postman. From memory, the flea-infested couch had been dumped on the porch for as long as the Ford had taken a long-term parking ticket under the elm, each year becoming tattier and more faded until it resembled more a cat’s scratching pole than a piece of furniture. Looking at it, Max wondered how it hadn’t collapsed as yet under Warren Shepherd’s humungous lard arse.

  Can of West End Draught in hand, the fat prick prised himself up out of the tattered couch and heaved his hefty frame to the porch railing, emerging out of the shadows into the dull orangeness of the streetlight like the thing from The Blob. Even in the chill night air, he was dressed only in a blue singlet, shorts and Blund-stone boots. He rested the can of West End on his protruding belly and belched. The dog, some kind of scrawny flea-bitten mongrel that had wandered off the street and made itself at home (Max reckoned the psychotic mutt had mistaken the Shepherd’s house for the junkyard it had been raised in), got up from its resting place next to the couch and joined its adopted owner, sticking its ugly head through the broken railings and emitting low growl, as if to say, “Keep off ma’ fuck’n lawn, ya fuck’n cocksucker!”

  Max was probably more wary of the mongrel crossbreed than the fat, beer swilling blob. He would’ve gladly put a bullet through its ears (and Warren’s too, if it came to that) and put it out of its miserable fuck’n life. By now, the teenage porn stars had ceased their game of tonsil hockey and were staring back at him. Embarrassed, Kenny’s bitch was re-cupping her bra back over her sizeable breasts through her polo-neck, whilst at the same time trying to pull it back down and readjust her Levi’s.