Read Cross Country Murder Song Online
Authors: Philip Wilding
Cross Country Murder Song (21 page)
After that first morning, his father started leaving magazines for him to look at. He'd come in from school and find one had been pushed under his bedroom door or thrown on his bed. He felt excited and dismayed, thrilled to be getting the magazines, but wounded that his father was the one providing them. The initial elation tempered by guilt and the thought that his father might have leafed through them first. He kept thinking about the way his father's face had changed when he had been holding the centrefold up to the window, the concentration on his face. He kept them though. He'd soon filled a shoebox that he kept at the back of his cupboard covered in spare bedding. Intermittently, battered magazines would circulate around school and then disappear again just as abruptly and while friends mourned the limited material available, he was cultivating his own private collection.
He was sitting in the kitchen looking out at the garden when his father came in.
How you doing? his dad asked him. You like that stuff I gave you? It doing it for you? he said, opening the fridge door and looking inside.
He could barely bring himself to speak to his father about it, it's okay, he said, you know.
It's okay, his father boomed. Hey, if that's good enough for me and my guys then what do you need to worry about. Hey, he smiled, you ain't kinky, he paused for effect, or queer?
The boy started to remonstrate, panicking, his cheeks flushed and hot, but his father was laughing, he slammed the fridge door shut and walked over to him with slices of ham folded up in his fingers, he rolled them up and mimed smoking the greasy tube with a smile, swallowed it in one gulp and then he patted his son good naturedly on the knee.
Listen, he said, when that stuff comes in, I grab a copy for you and one for me. I'm sure we both get a kick out of it. I was a kid once, I know how it goes.
He blushed furiously as his father spoke, staring determinedly out of the window.
Now keep it down. Here's your mother, his father said. And as his mother entered the kitchen his father stood and told her he was making coffee and then asked if she'd like some.
He had just turned fourteen when his father asked him if he wanted to see where he worked some nights.
Sure, he said, rising quickly from his bed. It was Friday night and papers and books covered the blankets. His father stopped him with a hand on his chest.
That your homework? he asked.
It's done, he said, I swear. His dad raised his hand as if he might strike him and then dropped it slowly with a smile. You'd better, he said, or she'll have my balls.
Ma won't mind, he started to say, but his father placed a finger at his lips. Shush, he said, let's go get the car.
The strip club sat under the highway. It looked like it might have fallen from the sky, its neon façade blinking in the darkness. It was still, the only sound coming from the cars rushing by overhead, though its parking lot looked busy, down the street he could just make out the lights coming from another bar, hear the faint sound of music when the door swung open, and then it looked like wasteland beyond, the kind of place you'd go to dump unwanted furniture or family pets.
You come here? he asked his father as they exited the car, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. He knew he led an unconventional life, but when he thought of his father at work he was seated in a corner office high in the air, the city a grid of streets far below.
His father looked at him squarely. What do you think pays for your fancy school? he said. Then he laughed. One day this will all be yours, he said, gesturing dramatically, and pushed him towards the entrance with a fist at the small of his back. His father looked immaculate in a pressed black suit and tie, his hair glistening and kept in place with a sheen of oil. As they pushed through the tables to the bar a man stopped his father and looking him up and down asked him whose funeral he was going to. Yours, his father said without missing a beat, you got a problem with that? and then they both fell against each other laughing.
You met my kid? his father asked the man and he didn't hear the reply, but the man smiled and shook his hand vigorously. He was slapped on the back a lot after that and even though his father insisted he drink soda, strangers kept buying him beers and he stood at one end of the bar and drank some of them. His father came and stood next to him and brought him a stool.
Sit there, kid, he said. You enjoying the show? He said he was and they both looked towards the girls dancing up on the small stage across from the bar. They watched, heads nodding softly in time with the music and then he noticed the girl looking across the bar at his father and then at him. She waved and his father waved back and as she moved through the tables towards them he hurried forward to meet her halfway and then he took her by the elbow and turned her around and they navigated their way towards the door next to the stage that led through to the back. His father's head was very close to hers as if he were whispering something in her ear and when the light picked them out as a silhouette the driver thought they looked very much like the Siamese twins he'd seen in his schoolbook.
The girls were naked or very nearly, you never had to wait long and when the first one tore her thong off and whirled it around her head he'd felt himself turn red and had to quickly duck down behind his beer, cooling his cheeks against the cold glass. He was sure his father's friends had noticed or guessed at his discomfort and their laughter was aimed at him, but when he caught the attention of the man who had first shaken his hand, he simply toasted him with his drink and then indicated the girls onstage with a nod and winked. He mouthed, you okay? at him and when he motioned that he was, the man touched the barman on the elbow and sent another drink across.
His father was back at his side when the girl the boy had seen across the bar appeared on stage. On her head was a cowboy hat that kept catching the light in broad flashes. As she danced she used it to collect bills from the crowd of men gathered at the front of the stage, inverting it with a shimmy and a smile as it filled up with dollars. His father's friends cheered lustily when she appeared and when he looked at his dad he just grinned and placed a hand on his shoulder. His father had one of his men drive him home that night and when he got back the house was dark and it looked deserted. He lay in bed as the room swirled around him and thought about the girl in the cowboy hat and how he couldn't wait to go back there again.
The driver sat at the side of the road with one door open, his legs propped up on the kerb, he was smoking a cigarette and enjoying the way the sun felt on the back of his neck. He'd put the patrol car's lights on, setting them to a considered revolve, enjoying the dappling light they gave off. He listened to the cars slow as they passed, the oncoming drivers spotting his car and sensing an emergency, then killing their speed accordingly. He stayed out of sight, sat low on the seat and flicked cigarette butts into the field beyond. He wondered where his father was, but didn't think he was coming back anytime soon. He'd disappeared over Christmas one year, suddenly gone from their lives a few days before. He'd been all over the papers, he remembered the detectives at their door, the uniformed men marching through their living room, someone shouting that they had a warrant and that everyone needed to stand back. They went through everything including his presents that sat wrapped under the tree.
Sorry kid, said one officer as he tore at the paper only to find a board game.
Bet you feel fucking clever now, he said to the cop, trying to use his father's voice, but he was intimidated by all the police in his home and was glad when his mother pulled him back behind her and told him to be quiet. They turned everything over and found nothing and spoke quietly and intently to his mother in the kitchen until the family lawyer pulled up sharply in the driveway and came tearing through the house, his coat making an exaggerated shape behind him. He held his briefcase up high as if to ward off evil.
Excuse me, officer, he said to the detective talking to his mother. My client, he snapped and led her back into the living room and stood silently next to her like a sentinel, his eyes trained on the policemen working methodically through room after room.
It's Christmas, he said at one point and picked up the opened presents. Not the kid's stuff too. Don't you people have families? he asked, but he was calm when he said it. You'd better find something, he said and one of the detectives turned to look at him.
We will, he said and rankled as the lawyer made a snorting sound. They didn't though. His father appeared at his bedroom door one night in the listless week between Christmas and New Year.
Miss your old man? he asked, the familiar grin playing on his lips. Come downstairs and say hello to the guys.
Where were you? he asked.
You know better than not to ask that, his father said. Anyway, I was around, I was watching over you. Sorry I missed Christmas, kid.
That's okay, he said as they descended the stairs and he leant into his father feeling the arm around him, savouring the cigar smoke held in the weave of his clothes. The kitchen was filled with his friends and as they entered the bubble of conversation burst into exaggerated life.
Look who's here, someone said and glasses clinked and chairs were pulled up and he was invited to sit. His mother stood at the window and he smiled at her and waited for her to smile back.
The driver was back behind the wheel of the patrol car, engine idling as he debated staying on the quieter side roads or heading back onto the highway. There was a junction not too far ahead that offered him the option. He lowered his window and listened to the voice on the radio demanding again that he respond with his location. He turned it up, enjoying the dismay and anger as it filled the car and then he pulled out and raced towards the fork in the road up ahead.
The third time his father took him to the strip club, he showed him in to one of the booths at the rear of the building and asked him to wait there.
Your kid? asked the guy who patrolled the back rooms night after night. His father said something that he didn't hear then and they both laughed good-naturedly. He sat there quietly and listened to the music thumping through the walls in insistent bass notes. He had an idea of what was going to happen, but was still startled when the girl appeared through the curtains that sectioned the booth off. She smiled and he noticed the tiny trail of glitter that cascaded down her arms and breasts; as she moved parts of her shimmered.
How are you? she asked and he was suddenly dumb and stupid. Is it your birthday? she asked again, standing very close to him now.
July, he said in a voice that was both reedy and thin and he didn't recognise as his own.
Well, happy birthday for then, she said and started moving over him, her breasts lingering momentarily near his mouth. He felt a lump move in his throat and thought about sitting back, but his head was already pressed up hard against the wall behind him. He could feel the muscles tensing in his skinny legs as his whole body tried to resist the girl's magnetic sway. He was rigid and profoundly scared. The girl seemed oblivious as she grinded herself gently against him. She took his hand and placed it on her breast and he panicked and looked wildly at the No Touching signs pinned up on the walls.
Not for you, silly, she said and sat abruptly on his lap and moved his hand and placed his finger in her mouth and held it there as she looked him straight in the eye. He gasped in spite of himself, all of his energy suddenly stored in his one fingertip as she ran her tongue along its length. She took his other hand and placed that on her other breast and slowed the gyration against his leg. She took her free hand and ran her fingers against his slowly swelling zip.
You like that? she asked conspiratorally, her lips brushing his ear. He felt something come free inside himself as if the contents of his stomach had dropped away and he was suddenly sticky and wet. Before he could even apologise, before he could even speak, the girl was up off his lap and cooing and telling him it was alright. She produced a box of tissues from somewhere and thrust them at him and told him to get himself cleaned up, but not unkindly. Then she kissed him on top of his head like a relative might and left him sitting there feeling wretched and itchy. His father came in moments later as he sat there mopping at his lap. His father pretended not to notice.
I'll be done soon, he said. The car's out front, do you want to go and wait for me there?
He nodded that he would and stood up with his hands covering his crotch as if fearing an attack.
Do your coat up, his dad said before disappearing through the curtains.
He sat in the car and watched the pink neon brighten and dim. He was still pressing hopelessly at the hardening patch that was forming on his trousers when something hit the car, setting the alarm off. He looked around startled and saw a man he thought he recognised go bouncing off his door. Embarrassed, he covered his lap, but the man was scrambling away, he was being kicked and pushed along by his father and his friends. They caught up with him at the corner of the club and in the rearview mirror of his father's car he watched as they beat the man to the floor and then kicked at his squirming body. He saw his father stamp his heel down on the man's shin and the man screaming silently, the sound of his agony never making it beyond the sealed windows of his father's car, so instead he convulsed mutely, his reflection rolling from kick to shuddering kick. He looked away and noticed the girl standing in the doorway under the awning watching impassively. He recognised her from the stage, though now she was holding her silver Stetson in front of her and she had what looked like his dad's coat draped over her shoulders. He thought she might go to the man's aid, or call for the ugliness to stop, but she just stood there until his father and his friends had exhausted themselves over the now limp form on the floor. Then when she was completely sure they had finished she turned to go back inside and as she did so she saw him sitting there in the car and smiled at him. It was a smile full of warmth and completely at odds with what they'd both just seen. In spite of himself he waved to her as she disappeared back inside the building.
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