The Glass Canoe (22 page)

SHARON?

Next day was Saturday. I woke feeling I'd like to iron myself out. I walked down hill to the Cross. Others came from all directions.

There, at ten, was the Red Bar ready for us to cross. Piles of shiny glasses waited on the nearer shore of this day's Styx. Sharon rose from a kneeling position, ready to help us aboard and ferry us over the river whose further bank we had glimpsed every time we got drunk, but never yet reached.

Alky Jack was nearer than the rest of us. He was already afloat.

A LONELY SORT OF CHAPTER

I guess I was thinking of my darling while I was going along, or the light rain, or the water from the hoses Laurie had put out—mowing the fairways you have to go straight ahead, no curved tracks—trying to keep dry, but I rounded a green and nearly cut a schoolboy golfer's bag to pieces. He was about eleven.

My darling was thinking too. The day before, she told me she was going away to think. Combining the thinking with a business trip to last three weeks.

I wasn't too clear what she was going to think about, but I don't like to ask questions.

It was Christmas Eve and by tradition us workers on the course were allowed in to the clubhouse and given a special table to sit at, and all the dishes the rest had. I'd never seen such big plates full of such elaborate food.
The chef himself came out, wished us merry Christmas, and the nobs of the golf club sat with us.

After that dinner I felt about half as heavy again. I hoed into everything.

It was pretty empty having no darling to call up.

In the Great Lover's paper I saw a photo of one of the accidents that had taken place in the holiday period. The photo was of a couple of men and girls. Two of each. They'd been thrown out and the car caught fire and burnt to the chassis. One of the girls—the photographer sneaked a shot of them as they were being loaded into an ambulance—was pretty much like my darling. It couldn't be her, but the face reminded me of her. I guess I wanted to be reminded of her.

It was a blazing hot Christmas. In the suburbs, in thousands of stores Santa was saying Ho Ho.

And under his breath, ‘This bloody suit itches.'

And, ‘This year I'm Santa. Next year they'll have a robot.'

And little girls said delicately, ‘Mum, he sweats.'

And Mum said, ‘Not now, dear.'

‘I smell him,' the children said. Millions of them.

‘Hmm?' said mother.

‘Like Mister Swartz next door Mum. When he does the garden. With no shirt on.'

‘Yes, dear.' Mum was on automatic.

‘Mum. Say, Swartz sweats six times quick.'

‘Who's sick, dear?'

‘Nothing, Mum.'

I helped this woman with her car which was stopped on the road, and drove it home for her. It was only a short way, but she was grateful, and I could see she wanted to reward me. I didn't mind a reward. My darling seemed a long way away.

‘I live in with Mum,' she told me. ‘We can't go inside.'

The only place was the laundry.

It was small as laundries go and no room for anything but to sit her on top of the washing machine.

That was all right. I kept thinking of my darling, though, which was unusual for me when I'd latched on to a bit of stray stuff, and I couldn't get the sight of my darling out of my head. It was as if she was standing in front of me, just like in the moment or two when she strips and stops a bit as if to say, Do you like what you see?

The result was I got out of control a bit. My darling really turns me on. I mean, just the sight of her. The thought of her. The thought of any bit of her. Fingers, elbows, anything.

I gave this woman heaps.

The upshot was I pushed and pulled—I had both hands round her, with the little fingers on the hips where
they begin to broaden out and both thumbs hooked in front of the sort of pelvic bones on either side of the navel—I pushed and pulled so hard and was just beginning to shoot the works when she overbalanced backwards into the washing machine. Doubled up like a jack-knife into the thing. It was a Malleys.

I couldn't follow her, I wasn't made to bend that way. He came out, firing all the way as she went down, and I was left gasping looking down at her.

I couldn't get her out. She'd gone in so hard and so far I simply couldn't get her out. I tried lifting. No good.

‘Stay there,' I said.

‘Don't leave me,' she whispered.

It was a waste of time her whispering. Mum heard the crash.

‘Where are you Doreen? Are you all right?'

I turned the key in the lock quicksmart and put a towel over the laundry window. Then I pulled my pants up and got tidy.

‘Help me,' she whispered.

‘What's the matter Doreen?' came the voice of Mum.

‘Mechanic,' I whispered to Doreen.

‘The mechanic,' called Doreen to Mum.

As quick as I could I tipped the machine over on its side a bit and eased Doreen out. She put on her pants when she'd straightened up, then wiped down the wet on the front of her. I made noises with the washing machine.

‘What mechanic?'

She opened the door to Mum and I busied myself down with the power point, stood up and said, ‘She's OK now, Lady,' and barged out the door.

‘What did you have the mechanic for?' said Mum.

‘Free service,' I called back, then off down the road.

I didn't start laughing till I got the keys in the car.

Later I remembered the shot in the Great Lover's paper, and got lonely again. I never felt lonely for anyone before.

A storm blew up at eight. Wind got up on its hind legs and beat the walls and called in rain to batter the roof. Rain swept in under the doors, the floor for once was more awash than the red bar. Water even came in at the big crack in the end wall.

The day was all wrong.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE TRIBE

They never did and never would make history: they endured it. Sheltered under the kind Cross of the South.

They were lords of the earth, and gods. But they did not know. They were gods and rulers of the world and the heritage of the ages was in their bones, but their shaving mirrors did not tell them.

They would age, and one day never come again. No one would remember their faces, or write their story.

TWO WOOLLEN PULLOVERS

The days passed as if they dragged a ball and chain. A new publican took over the Cross.

I got hold of Sharon in her lunch break and got her to knit me two little woollen things, just the size to go over the end joint of your little finger.

‘What's it for, Meat?' she said.

I wouldn't tell her. She said OK just the same and next day brought them in. They were in red wool.

How could I tell anyone they were for my darling's two bent toes? I thought she might see the joke of having special pullovers for the two disadvantaged toes.

She'd accept them, anyway, whether she used them or not. She always seemed to brim over when you gave her something.

NONE OF THEM WERE DEAD YET

Alky Jack still hadn't died. You expect a man to die that's drinking himself to death.

I didn't want him to die. I didn't want any of them to die, but specially I didn't want Alky Jack to die in the same way I hated the thought that footballers of genius had to get old and retire from the game or that great men—men who did something no one else could do—had to die. I wished you could dig them all up again. All the old fighters too.

When I walked in, he looked round at me, lips wet, eyes strong and bright. But his hand shook, reaching for his glass. Before the words got going, his tongue writhed in his mouth like a gnarled root.

‘It's the cost, mate. Think of the cost. Nothing's as important as the cost.' Continuing aloud what he'd been saying in his head.

‘The cost can put shutters over men's eyes so they see nothing of what happens outside their doors. Why does the whole thing have to be built on the cost? Why does the whole thing have to totter along on cut-throat competition? Where's the place for generosity and sharing and honesty and laughing and enjoyment without harm? And love?'

I couldn't answer. He looked forward again, over the rim of his glass. I watched the leather of his face with the white stubble poking out. Somehow it seemed there was less stubble than last time I saw him, but that was impossible.

‘Instead, they turn their backs on men and put their trust in machines. Before you know it, machines replace man's soul. Machines take away hope and meaning from men, take away the simple pleasure of making little things with their hands.

‘You know what I think, Meat?'

And went on before I answered.

‘I think they'll have to get to the place where they say the world owes everyone a living. Or wipe out most of the world.'

His hand waved about in the air. ‘A man's got to do some little thing. There's got to be something for his hands to do and his brain to work on. Some little thing.'

He made as if to say more, but hesitated, his arm stretched to pull words out of the air. As if he heard the sound of wings beating in his mind.

I thought Alky Jack would have been content to lean there and drink all day every day, but maybe that came within having some little thing to do. That or his thinking.

He said nothing. I began to feel that the wavering, the hesitation, were Alky Jack's whole message for me.

Long after I'd been turfed out of the pub that night, his arm in my mind was still extended in that unfinished gesture. Perhaps he had reached the point where the alp in his brain was not the future but the past.

After all, what had he ever done but talk? He must have thought of what he might have done.

It was around eight and several of the boys had been pretending to fight up the other end of the bar. They'd been drinking too long past the time when they could think of anything more to say to each other, and when some clueless young kid new to the district said the wrong thing, one of them straightened him with an uppercut and three of them took him outside. Not out the back to belt shit out of him, but out the front. That was unusual.

Out they went, past the far glass door which had been broken three times in the past month and at that time was boarded up with a sheet of hardboard. I remember I was thinking at the time what would happen if the sun blew up. It lives by explosions; who says they can't get out of balance? It wouldn't be so tragic if we all went together.

Next thing I knew the new kid returned to the Cross.

He came in backwards through one side of the glass door near where we were talking. The door had been shut, he took out most of the glass. We looked him over.

Aside from alterations they made to his face, he had miraculously survived having his kidneys torn out or his neck severed on the thick jagged glass. All he had was a few dozen points of blood scattered over the back of him. Minor cuts. The three didn't come back in. I finished my schooner as if it tasted of blood.

I was at the Cross next afternoon when Bob arrived. He nearly bowled me over when he said he was following Shorty up Coffs Harbour way. Getting right away from the city.

‘To a commune?' I said.

‘Shit no. I'll get a job easy. One brother's up there already'—all his brothers were in the building game—‘and he says there's a mile of work.'

I knew lots of guys down from the country to find work, but this was getting to be a habit, getting out of the city.

As I was thinking about it—he went over to drink with his father—two very old men tottered into the pub and waited for Sharon to serve them. Both had cold weather in their bones and eyes full of rain.

One was so old the other man had to order for him: he couldn't talk.

‘Whisky and a brandy,' croaked the talker.

The non-talker shook his head, getting pale purple in the face. It was a while before the one beside him knew there was anything the matter. When he became aware of the head shaking, his own head turned unevenly on creaky vertebrae and he said, ‘What?'

The man started nodding and shaking his head, his mouth moved jerkily, his hands waving about and shaking. Much more than Alky Jack's. Finally he got his fingers out in front of him and gestured a more or less fixed distance with his two forefingers.

The light dawned.

‘Oh,' said the man giving the order. Sharon looked round.

‘He wants a double.'

A double, and he couldn't even speak. I finished the rest of my schooner in one swallow. It tasted like a woman's mouth.

THE SICK PUB

The next week was a repeat of the glass-breaking episode and the new publican decided to do something.

There had been talk for months that the old barn was coming down and a big new pub built on the spot, with proper parking for cars and carpet on the floor. All sorts of stories.

What he did was enforce the law. It was simple, yet no one thought to do it before.

When someone didn't leave promptly on closing time he told him to get out. Naturally the guy said up ya, he'd never had to do such a thing before. The police were called, the guy appeared in court, copped a forty dollar fine and was barred from the pub.

Plenty were barred before and always got back, but this was different. The publican was to report to the cops if he came near the place and it was for life.
No repentance, no getting back. The publican was really going to clean up the place. He even cleared out the kids with their air-rifles and BB guns.

Going out at night at ten I'd look up at the stars and see the Milky Way like lights on a distant shore across an unlit silent sea.

A week later, there were fourteen guys barred. Fined and barred for life. And the rumours about a new pub getting stronger. And the crack bigger, reaching up past the clock nearly to the roof.

Some of the guys got themselves barred just so they'd be in it; their mates had to drink elsewhere, they made sure
they
had to.

You see, it wasn't done to drink at another pub when you had a pub to call your own.

Being forced to drink at another pub was cruel. Like black men forced to leave their sacred places and water holes and become strangers in another tribe.

Fourteen.

On top of this, young Bobbie Gill, who played centre in the under eighteens, had his throat cut over the pool tables. There were only two local kids in the Cross at the time, early in the day, and the three strangers ran and were never seen again. He didn't exactly have his throat cut, they broke a glass and jabbed it at him and he had a cut throat. Eleven stitches. It wasn't even a fight. But there was no way for the Cross to hit back, they were gone.

They must have thought we were a weak old tribe.

On Saturdays the place was dead. There was no SP bookie, no fights, just people drinking to get drunk. Not even the friendly shouting and yelling. As for singing—if anyone sang, they called the police. And when they were drunk, what then? A bit of biff? Not on your life. Tamely home to bed.

The idea was sick, atmosphere sick: the pub was sick. The only people that thrived were butterflies.

What were they trying to push us to, with their comfort and nice behaviour? If everything was going to go on like this, all paved and carpeted and no biff, and no danger, and anyone—even idiots—walking free and safe all the time, then the sooner there was some sort of outlet the better.

There had to be
some
risk to living. If there wasn't, you'd have to create it.

Overhead, the sky looked silent and calm, but I knew it was full of earsplitting noise and unceasing explosions.