Odessa by Harriet McInerney

April 2, 2015 / mascara / 0 Comments

Harriet McInerney is a writer, editor, bookstore worker and tiny cacti grower. She recently completed Honours in Writing Studies at UTS, where she wrote on the blurring/unblurring of the real/unreal. She has been published in Seizure, Voiceworks, and is forthcoming in the UTS Writers’ Anthology, 2015.

Odessa

When my mother went missing I cleared out the slicky golden muck. It had puddled in her shower, dried up on her sheets. Stuck hard on the stairs. I didn’t know what it was. But it’s sweaty honey stench; I recognise that smell walking into Odessa’s. Somewhere lingering, masked underneath.

Mostly, it all smells of meat in her hallway. Rising up through the building. From the downstairs butcher. Odessa greets me. Towers over me. “Come in. Please. Take a seat with me on the balcony,” she says.

My mother had suggested I go to see Odessa. My mother, had that round-eyed belief in spiritualism. Made my own eyes roll. A healer, she healed me, my mother would repeat. She’d say it so clearly: unimpeded, unstuttered. My mother’s words, sometimes, they’d had a habit of being splashed and smashed apart. I remembered. Her voice in my mind. Smattering about.

Out on the balcony I can’t smell the butcher downstairs any more. Can just see the people walking in, and then out they go with dangling plastic bags. The butcher is one place where no one really says no to a bag. Needing to keep the squelchiness inside.

Odessa is very beautiful. Odessa is considerably obese. Rolling pink cheeks as she leans back into a wicker chair. They say that she has travelled far and wide. Learned the tricks. That she never says no, never says never. But knows when to say when. ‘They say’ is what my mother would say. Way back when.

We talk about the weather for not long. And what I am there for – to be healed. Odessa does not like to hear what needs healing, she stops me from explaining. Instead she asks of my mother, and speaks fondly of past visits. I had not really known they were close.

Odessa’s skin is glowing. Wet. In the heat of the sun. Her balcony is very crowded, covered in big pots, and sprawling shrubs and vines spilling out. Strawberry plants and cacti on the table. Everything is thriving.

There is movement in the house. I had thought we were alone. But a tall man makes his way to the door. He greets us, holds out his hand to me, a little too high. I realise he is blind. He introduces himself as Miles and moves to sit on the balcony. There isn’t really enough room. But room is made and Odessa gets us tea. A quick medley of teaspoons hitting against cups. Miles offers his condolences. He knew my mother too, I discover.

“Such sad news. She was too young, too full of life,” he says.

I learn that my mother had done odd jobs for Odessa, from time to time. I’m not sure why I am surprised, we weren’t the kind of family to tell everything, but it seems a banal thing to keep quiet.

On Odessa’s earlobe is a golden honey-like substance. “Her body weeps. But it does not know what it weeps for,” I remember my mother saying. About this Odessa. In her vague kind of way. Odessa catches me staring and wipes it off.

Miles goes out and Odessa begins business talk, saying that she is not your typical healer. That she has come to healing later in life. The honey is on her ear again and is about to drip down. It distracts us both.

“This is kind of it,” Odessa says. “My body leaks sap.”

“What?”

“Sap, just like from a tree.” Odessa’s voice is calm and gentle.

“It comes out of my body. Through a few different places, sometimes in the creases of my palms, or my fingernails, or the piercings on my ears.”

“Oh.”

“It started a few years ago now. I’ve gotten used to it. But it took some time. It’s the sap that can heal. Just look at how all these plants are growing! I put the tiniest bit of sap on them while they’re young, and they grow up fast and strong.”

Half-drunk tea cups are still cluttering the table. Odessa picks up a teaspoon. Holds it under her ear. Collects the sap as it drips. Her eyes downcast. The sap is thick and it collects on the spoon slowly. When there is enough Odessa motions me to dip my finger in, and smear it on my forehead. Odessa closes her eyes. Then we both sit there, in silence, and I can hear the door of the butcher’s swinging back and forth, but it now seems far away.

Odessa asks, just as I’m getting up to leave, whether I would be interested in doing some odd jobs for her. Just from time to time. Running errands and the sort. Since my mother cannot anymore. It’s a strange request. Odessa says there aren’t many people she would trust.

When I get home I remember I have friends coming round. I keep my visit to Odessa quiet. Just for now, I think. Until I have it worked out. In my tiny apartment there is barely room for company. My friends, with families and children, live the conventional lives we all used to laugh at. They visit to escape their screaming toddlers. Or, sometimes, because they worry about me being alone. These friends have been all support in the time since my mother disappeared. Now, months later, there is little hope left. Her car had been found parked near the beginning of her favourite bush track, which took you deep into the valley, a walk really too difficult for her aging body. She must have fallen, been hurt, maybe, had knocked herself unconscious. No remains had been found though. Search teams had scoured the area, but unearthed nothing. I don’t know what to think.

I start doing odd jobs for Odessa the next week. Odessa doesn’t have a phone or internet so I go to her flat for any instructions. Even then, it is usually Miles who answers the door, and tells me what she needs. Often it’s collecting groceries or posting mail. It seems Odessa does not often leave the apartment. Or not at all. This goes on for several months. I like taking care of her, and thinking that this is what my mother used to do. When I go to the supermarket I wonder how many others collect things for Odessa. She hardly wants any food. She can’t live off the stuff I buy for her.

After a while Miles has gone. When I ask, Odessa says she thinks he’s gone to work in the country somewhere. She’s not too sure, he left pretty quick. People often come and stay to be healed, she mumbles. But sometimes it just doesn’t work.

One day I ask her if she leaves the flat at all. Odessa says hardly ever. That she worries about people seeing her skin with the sap. She doesn’t like the outdoors anyway, she says. Even though the plants on the balcony are thriving. I want to question her further, take the chance while I have it. This is the first time Odessa has mentioned the sap since our first meeting. I ask if she knows what causes it. My burning question. Odessa doesn’t. Sap in trees comes out when pressure builds up inside. The sap spills out any way it can. Odessa guesses it’s the same for her. Trees use the sugars in their sap for new growth, for flowering and fruiting, and after that there isn’t a lot of need for it.

I start spending more time at Odessa’s house. On the weekends. Odessa works from home when she can, but otherwise she has a job at the butcher’s downstairs. She rents the flat from the same family who own it, and they are always happy to have someone extra. Wearing the tight hairnets and long sleeves, it is manageable for her. She no longer believes in the healing, Odessa says, she doesn’t want to do it anymore because she isn’t sure it works. Doesn’t think it works and also doesn’t want it to.
Odessa is moody. Particularly when questioned on something. She gets lonely in that flat of hers, but refuses to venture any further than the occasional a.m. shift at the butcher.
One day one of the butchers notices the sap. Odessa doesn’t think he knew what it was, but he got scared anyway, told the boss that she was unhygienic. Butchers need to be hyper-vigilant about that. So she stopped working there, and stayed home instead. All the time. Just up there sitting on her veranda. Worrying about money. Thinking about being forced out of the apartment. Then Odessa got obsessed with fire risks. Called in building inspectors to assess the place. And then went around and tried to fix things, installing smoke detectors on the staircases and threw out all the rugs in the apartment. Trying to make sure nothing could force her to leave the building.

Odessa got so hard to handle, and so little in want of company. I stopped visiting her. Slowly. It wasn’t just me distancing myself, some days I would knock on the door and get no answer. I knew she was home. But the door was bolted, balcony empty. I tried to contact Miles to ask him why he left. I hadn’t paid attention at the time, but they’d seemed so close, and he’d left so suddenly. There were no details, no traces to be found.

Downstairs, at the butchers, they asked me about her. Said they always heard moaning from upstairs. Said about the different men and women that had come to stay with her over the years. The one’s who never stayed long. Just long enough for the butchers to get to recognise them, but not long enough for the apprentices who only worked weekends. They were just being friendly, neighbourly, but I left pretty quick with nothing much to say.

It’s a year or two later when I first notice sap, not blood, spilling out of a graze on my knee. I am shocked. I keep an eye on it, but it only stays there a little while, hovering and golden, before it drips down my leg. When the wound heals the sap disappears too. But then a few months later there is sap forming around my fingernails, then falling from my eyes. Thick gluggy tears. I think about calling in on Odessa. Then I never do go. I’m no longer interested in an explanation. The idea of being with her, indoors, it feels stifling.

I am out, having lunch in the sunshine when I realise I feel hungrier for the sun than any food in front of me. I eat because it feels normal, because the others are, not because it makes me full or satisfied. Later I am walking home, taking a short cut through the park, when I notice I want to sink into the grassy earth. My feet pull downwards. I struggle to keep moving.

When I think over these developments they are startling. But I don’t like to think things over so much anymore. I think about my mother trekking down that remote valley. Imagine her dragging apart sprawling undergrowth.

I go out to the scrubby land near the cliffs the next day. The sky is huge. Clear and welcoming. I walk along feeling the rustle through my limbs. Notice myself sinking. And I let myself crust over.

Streetcombing by Flo Bridger

October 11, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

FJ Bridger was born and raised in Mackay on the Central Queensland coast. She studied arts and law at the University of Queensland, then practised as a lawyer in the private and public sectors, and as a government policy advisor. In 2007 she completed a Master of Arts degree from Griffith University. FJ Bridger writes novels, short stories and memoir. Her first novel manuscript won a place in the Queensland Writers Centre/Hachette Publishing manuscript development program in 2012. A short story was published in Idiom 23 in 2013. FJ Bridger lives in Brisbane with her husband and two sons.

Streetcombing

Not much of a haul today. People aren’t throwing away their perfectly good old stuff like they used to.

Still, I had a nice find the other day. Trick is, see, you’ve got to be the first there. Problem is, you don’t know who’s going to put out the good stuff when. But I’ve been studying it. Eight years now I’ve been doing the rounds. Perfecting the art. It’s not just random stumbling on terrific finds like some people think. You’ve got to be smart to make a good haul. ‘Streetcombing’, I call it.

Once a year or so, the council trucks pick up your old washing machines and furniture and mattresses, bulky sort of stuff. Meant to be things you can’t take to the dump in the average family car. But people are taking liberties with their cast offs, putting out everyday stuff, not just the bulkier things. Things like clothes and toasters and little plastic Christmas trees. Stuff the charities could do with. Gets ruined if it rains. A waste, really.

Annoys me a bit, thinking about the years I missed, before I got onto it. It was my wife Marjorie got me started. God, don’t think I’ve said her name in years!  We were only together for about three years. It’s one of the few things I can thank her for. When I was at work at the museum one day she cleaned up the house and put out the old suitcase I stored all my school reports and treasures in. Lucky I got home in time. Found it out on the footpath before someone swiped it or the council truck came. I would have been ropeable if I’d lost it. It was precious. Still is. I gave her a piece of my mind over that, I tell you.

After that, I set her some rules. No throwing my stuff out, for a start. It’s not as if I had much gear in the first place. She was the one who’d inherited all the furniture, and a thousand and one little things that came with the house. All the silverware and paintings on the walls and jewellery and dining suites and wardrobes and lawn mowers. Not that you’d want to throw out good quality stuff like that. But she could have gone through her mother’s old papers and tablecloths and got rid of them. Poor old Brenda had no further use for them. Not like me and my suitcase.

That same night, I had to get out of the house, I was that angry with Marjorie. So, I went for a walk. While I was out I saw stuff on the footpath in front of other houses. The trucks were due to come round the next day, see? Anyway, that near-disaster and seeing those piles of gear got me thinking. I noticed the kinds of things people put out. It was an education, I tell you.

There was the usual old rubbish, like rusted pots and pans, and old garden tools and prams and sports gear. Then there was the big stuff like dryers and couches and cupboards. But when I got up close I came across things I liked the look of. Figurines and vases, and really old bottles. All there for the taking. A blue china bowl that caught my eye. I picked it up and put in under my jacket.

It dawned on me, I could collect this stuff. And it wouldn’t cost a cent. I’d show Marjorie I could have a worthwhile thing or two. I’d do my research and learn all about antiques and collectables. I could take books in to the museum and spend work time studying up on it. My supervisor, Bethany Flangel, she would never know. She’s hardly ever there, and doesn’t take much notice of what I do anyway. I’m the one who keeps the place going. So many museums are closing, or cutting back opening days and hours. Not mine, thank god. I don’t know what I’d do without my job. It’s my vocation, see?

So, that night got me started. I’ve collected a heck of a lot of stuff in those eight years. Not just any old junk – fabulous stuff. And I’ve done my homework, reading up, honing my expertise. But I’m not greedy. I don’t like the idea of venturing far from home. I keep myself to just a few suburbs near me. Luckily, they happen to be some of the better suburbs in town. So, good pickings. You wouldn’t believe what some people turf out.

A few years back, I was tempted to throw out all my rules, be a bit of a rebel. Go out to far-flung suburbs to pick through their throw outs. Or stick to just the best streets of Ascot and Hamilton where I was bound to score well, and where locals wouldn’t be seen dead going through their neighbours’ piles. You never know what you’ll come across. But my conscience wouldn’t have it. That would be too much like scrounging from a dump. Almost like going through rubbish bins. I can’t come at that.

After I’d been in the game a few years, I did expand my territory another suburb, an extra thirty streets. With a bigger area, I could do my streetcombing for more weeks of the year, see? A very nice neighbourhood the new one is. Upmarket. Gives a good yield. Last time I found an ornate bedside lamp, and a lovely pair of china dogs.

I have to be sure to get to the good finds before those scavengers who drive round other people’s neighbourhoods. The council drops the flyers round in letterboxes a week before the pick up day. I’ve got to be vigilant, keep an eye out for people putting their discards out early. Others put them out at the last moment. Then there’s everything in between. You can’t take your eye off the ball, see? The bloke might clean out first and put his throw outs on the footpath, then the wife might have a go. It’s just too bad if one of them wants something that shouldn’t have been put out. If it’s anything remotely desirable, it’s gone.

What I can’t stand is those flea market people and second hand dealers who swipe stuff for profit rather than their own use. Some people say it’s just another way of recycling, so it’s not a bad thing. But I’d rather it was salvaged by someone who needed it themselves, or the charities, or me.

Once, I thought about if I should take time off from my job during kerbside clean up week. My boss Bethany is always on at me to take leave, since I’ve accumulated a lot in 18 years. I can never think what to do on days off. Public holidays are bad enough, but a whole week is almost unbearable. At Christmas, I’m beside myself during the two and a half week closing. When my wife was around she organised holidays, little trips away to the beach or the mountains. Now I’m on my own, it’s more of a problem. She did have her uses.

I decided to take a couple of sickies. Bethany would never notice I was off at around the same time every year. She’s not a details person. God knows what she’s doing working in a museum. Luckily, she lives on the other side of town, so she’d never know when it’s my suburb’s turn for the clean up. I’m always careful not to mention it. It’s cold and flu season anyway, so phoning in saying I’ve got a bad cold, after complaining of a headache and sore throat the day before, is a reasonable ploy. It’s ridiculous that I have to report to Bethany. She doesn’t know half what I know about the exhibits, but I need her approval for everything I do. Perhaps she’ll drop off her perch one of these days.

Some of the neighbours look at me. They think they’re being discreet, but I can sense them, or see them twitching the curtains in their front rooms, when I’m picking through their cast offs. I suspect a couple of them are low enough to deliberately smear disgusting muck on a thing I might want, so I either have to leave it or clean the muck off. A bit of rotting food doesn’t put me off. I always wear gloves, of course.

I don’t mix with the neighbours. I’m not into having friendly drinks, or weekend barbecues, or their noisy brats running through my garden.

My parents are dead now. I’m an only child. Not that I feel like I’ve missed anything, mind, not having a brother or sister. Far as I can see, there’s nothing but fighting and jealousy between siblings. Arguments about one being favoured more than the other, rivalry over who’s smarter or better looking or makes more money. Punch ups even. Accusing each other of neglecting their aged parents, and ripping off their pensions, and contesting wills.

There were a couple of cousins I saw a bit of when I was young. Once Mum and Dad were gone, I told them to stop coming over. I didn’t need them snooping around. I could tell they were looking for handouts, or hoping I’d die, thinking they’d inherit the house and all my precious stuff.

If I didn’t love my job so much, I’d think about going into business as an antiques dealer. High end stuff only. I’d have to learn to part with my finds, of course. Become a lot more hard-nosed. But I’d have to get used to dealing with other people. I wouldn’t only be going local with my streetcombing then. The world would be my treasure house. It’d be business, after all.

That good find I was telling you about. 1920s Lalique vase. Gorgeous! Not a scratch or chip on it. Did I look over my shoulder when I saw that sitting there? They must have only just put it out and I was the first to come across it. I hurried straight back home after finding that beauty, though I’d only been out looking for a couple of hours.

I reckoned when I did a bit of research it was worth $4,000. My glassware expert says more like $6,000 in the right auction. Just think! Six grand’s worth, just thrown in the garbage! Didn’t know what they had, of course. Spoilt brats with too much money and no appreciation of works of art. If I hadn’t come along and plucked it out of the pile it could have been smashed, or thrown on the dump like a piece of worthless junk.

Anyway, back to my technique. Soon as the council delivers those flyers in letterboxes about a clean up coming up, I’m out there. But that’s when the punters find out and start putting gear out. I’m onto it much earlier.

Here’s how I do it. I go through the phone book and find the name of a man in a nice street in my patch. Women are no good. I’m not going to go around impersonating females on the phone, am I? A man has his limits. Anyway, I note down the name and address. I phone the council, masquerading as the resident, asking when the kerbside clean up is happening in ‘my’ street. They always tell me, no problem.

So, I plan my attack. Dates, best time of day or night, whether I’ll drive the removalist truck or just the ute, which route to take, which streets I think will have the best haul that I’ll comb at the start of my run, then sweep past again to check if any more treasures have been put out before I head home.

There’s the odd occupational hazard in streetcombing. Once a vicious mongrel dog attacked me. I swear it was part illegal pit bull terrier. Damn fool owner left the gate unlatched. But I was crafty, see? Phoned up the council to complain, using the name and address of one of the blokes I’d found earlier. Then I thought, I’ll make a series of complaints under these names I’ve got. Make it sound real convincing. The dog’s gone, so they must have had to get rid of it, or moved house. Good result.

Occasionally there’s been an argument with one of those flea market scavengers over a find. In my mind, there are unwritten rules, but some people don’t live by them. One of the rules is, don’t go hunting through a pile if someone’s right there going through it before you. You have to wait till they’ve finished. Then it’s your turn. And you don’t stand over them watching either. Common decency.

One time, one of these second hand dealer types pulls up in his truck just when I’d started on a promising spread outside a flash house. Comes right up and starts poking around with a stick. I got in between him and the pile, pushed his stick away. Ended up being a bit of a scuffle. Had to do some quick thinking. I fumbled in my bag and pulled out a black skull and shoved it right in his face, giving a great big roar. Never saw a bloke move so fast in my life! Ha! That taught him. Some mother must have cleaned out her teenage son’s room and tossed it out. Bet she never thought it’d be put to such good use so quick!

I’ve perfected my strategy over time. Refined it. It’s only in the last six years or so I started recording my haul in the back of one of Marjorie’s mother’s old journals. (There, I’ve said her name again!) I could’ve kicked myself that I hadn’t been doing it from day one. Working in the museum, cataloguing is a big part of it.

I’ve just realised, I started recording my finds just after Marjorie disappeared from my life. My mind functioned so much better once she was out of the way. And that made way for me to sort out her and her parents’ things, and make room for my collection.

I guess in a way, the whole house is the jewel in my crown. Those in-laws of mine had some lovely stuff. Moorcroft, Meissen, Fabergé. Mine now.

It’s just a pity after six years I still have to put up with getting letters addressed to Mrs M Walstrum or Marjorie Walstrum, or even occasionally Miss M Parminter, as she was. Lucky Marjorie’s parents died years ago, and she was an only child, like me. She had no job, hardly any friends, and the neighbours kept away, so no-one missed her. Strangely enough, I find myself missing her occasionally. But I’ve got my job at the museum, and my collecting.

Sometimes, at the end of a night of searching, I stand at the end of a street that’s served up a good few treasures over the years, and give the neighbourhood a silent blessing. It’s the middle of the night, see? After one o’clock. No-one’s about but me. I stretch my arms up and do a little chant. For that moment, I’m the High Priest of the Kerbside Clean Up, Sultan of the Streetcomb. I am fulfilled.

Strike by YZ Chin

October 11, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

YZ Chin’s first chapbook of poetry deter was published last year by Chicago’s dancing girl press. Her fiction has previously appeared in Malaysian anthology, Collateral Damage, Hong Kong’s Cha, failbetter.com, and other publications.

Strike

Hunger pinned her to the bunk. Starvation impaled her through the stomach, keeping her down on the thin mattress, resisting the momentum of her feebly raised head. Her neck strained to bring her vision to the requisite level such that she could observe the movement of sun against her prison walls. The sun was her way of telling the time, of estimating the next delivery of food.

Not that it mattered now. It was her third month in maximum security. She did feel secure, as if nothing would ever happen to her again, until death. The days lost their shape, shedding the definition of hours and minutes. Her body, too, lost its shape, pooling downward, lowering her center of gravity, rooting her toward dirt and dust.

They said she was staging a hunger strike. Isa, on her part, felt that the refusal of food was really to make life behind bars more interesting. The meals they brought to her cell were markers of time, and she had looked forward to the packets of rice and gravy as daily celebrations. But then she started feeling like a Pavlovian dog. The nods of the men who handed her sustenance became sinister, laced with degradation. She resented the regular reminders of her weakness and dependency.

After minutes of work, she managed to prop herself up on one elbow. A rolling wave of dizziness lurched her, listing, tipping. She smiled widely. In her teenage years, when she lived a sheltered life, she had tried many times, each attempt lasting days or weeks or months, to go on diet. It didn’t much matter what kind of diets they were, or how much science was behind them. The hope was what she needed, that blindness leading her around each awkward corner of her then-life. She wished, on the other side of each corner, to find a slim, beautiful her, standing still with folded hands, waiting.

And now, she was living the perfect set-up to obtain the thinnest body of her life. She dreamt, still smiling, of her wafer physique gliding effortlessly among obstacles thrown up by invisible enemies. Anything anybody erected against her, she slipped past with a slight sideway turn of her frame, her arms extended ramrod above her head, as if surrendering, but really, evading, winning.

She was disappointed to feel, on being next conscious, that she was again flat on her back, her previous progress negated. Shadows swum before her eyes. She opened them. Men. Men were leaning over her, explaining something, but not to her. To each other, or maybe to an unseen observer. She sighed. Rank air filled her nose. Rolling her eyes upward, she caught the glance of one man, who started talking faster.

Hands pressed down on her shoulders, pinning them. A hand touched her lips. Isa suddenly wondered what clothes she was wearing. Whether she wore any.

Another pair of hands caught hold of her ankles. Her mind, wandering, entertained the absurd vision of a single many-limbed being. It had paused its speech when it extended hands and fists to restrain her, but now it started up again. Isa thought it might be expecting a response from her, but she could not understand it. When she opened her mouth to tell it so, fingers slipped through and stretched her lips. She gagged, and mush rushed in, filling her.

Of course she tried to spit. Of course she thrashed. At first. Then the mush began to acquire flavor, become more than texture. It wasted first like somebody else’s vomit, and then like her own. And then it became her, and she was being force-fed herself.

She re-closed her eyes. A piece of advice from a lifetime ago floated up. It had been given by a man, who based his authority upon his being a loving father with a daughter of his own. He recommended that when losing out to a rapist, a woman should give in and acquiesce. In other words, have sex with him. Do not fight. For survival should be your only focus, and you ran the risk of incurring murderous wrath to no avail by fighting while you are down. Everything other than your continued breathing — be it jewelry, other possessions, body, honor — is expendable. Save your life. Do not fight.

Oatmeal. That was what was in her mouth.

Jerry Stand Up by Mark O’Flynn

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

Mark O’Flynn has published four collections of poetry, most recently Untested Cures, (2011). His poetry and short fiction have appeared in many Australian journals as well as overseas. His novels include Grassdogs (2006), and The Forgotten World, (Harper Collins, 2013). He has also published the comic memoir False Start. He has also written for the theatre, including the popular play Eleanor and Eve. He lives in the Blue Mountains. A collection of short fiction, White Light, was published by Spineless Wonders Publishing, 2013.

Jerry Stand Up

Remember that you have chance and possibility

           Paul Dempsey

‘Where’s Jerry?’

Jeanette looks up from her screen to give me a funny kind of look.

‘Who?’

‘Jerry. Jerry Burgoyne. Have you seen him?’

‘I thought I saw him earlier,’ she says.

Jeanette’s heavy-handed eye shadow resembles the lingering bruise of a couple of black eyes, like over-fried eggs. Her ear rings are Christmas decorations, even though it is July.

‘I haven’t seen him,’ I say.

‘Maybe that was yesterday,’ she says, unsure.

Jeanette’s cubicle is decorated with photos of her pets: a tortoise-shell cat and two dogs. The dogs, a Dachshund and a Doberman, have ribbons tied about their ears to make them look like cartoon characters of dogs, perhaps at a rodeo.  They look rather sad and humiliated about it. There are no photos of her children. I do not know if she has any. She turns back to the figures she is poking into the keyboard with bright pink nails.

I take my piece of paper to the next booth where Ken McKendry is doing something similar. His booth, comprised of purple office partitions, is decorated with pictures of his family whom he never talks about. Ken keeps pretty much to himself, for better or worse. In the cubicle sound is muffled, like being in a church made of fibre glass or builders insulation. It makes you want to whisper. His personalised coffee mug stands on the desk, at the moment filled with pencil shavings like the fins of tropical goldfish.

‘Have you seen Jerry?’ I ask, shaking my leaf of foolscap. All it needs is a signature and my work here is done.

‘Not since this morning.’

‘Are you sure it was this morning? I haven’t seen him all day.’

‘Er, no,’ says Ken. ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him at all.’

I glance at the spreadsheet on his computer, but it doesn’t mean much to me.

‘How’s the family Ken?’

‘Fine, thanks Geoff.’

His return to his typing I take as my cue to leave. His fingers, minus the pink, sound like a stampede of miniature horses over the tundra, or perhaps birds in the ceiling.

I take my document and move down the corridor. No one has seen Jerry. Some people think they have but they can’t be sure.

‘Maybe he’s gone for coffee,’ suggests Trudy, in stores, but I find this idea preposterous.

‘Maybe he’s in the dunny with the runs,’ offers Dale, the office clown, from HR.

The security guy doesn’t know who I’m talking about.

‘Maybe he didn’t come in today,’ says Mrs. Hyland, our supervisor, who is preoccupied with getting her accounts ready for an audit. ‘Maybe he has another unexpected funeral?’

There’s some sort of snide tone in her voice, which I don’t respond to. Her face looks red and thwarted, like a wrinkled balloon with half the air leaked out of it.

‘Jerry was very rude to me the other day, which I didn’t appreciate, and you can tell him that from me when you find him.’

I refrain from pursuing this issue. Would the Jerry I know do such a thing? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.

I go to the toilets and thrust my head in the door.

‘Jerry?’

My voice echoes, as in an empty railway station. There is an intense silence, as if someone has taken a sudden breath and is holding it.

‘He’s not here,’ a voice comes from the end stall.

‘Is that you Jerry?’

‘No. It’s Mike.’

‘Sorry. Are you all right?’

‘Of course,’ he says rather indignantly. ‘Why wouldn’t I be all right?’

I leave, wondering what if Jerry is in the Ladies? What if he’s injured somewhere, waiting for the cleaner to find him?

The lady in the cafeteria, Mavis I think her name is, hasn’t seen Jerry either. Maybe he has stepped out for a breath of fresh air? Or is eating his sandwiches in the gardens across the road. I rack my brains to think where Jerry might have got to. I ring his mother. Jerry still lives at home, (or rather has moved back home again after a disastrous dalliance with Sonia from the pay office).

Mrs. Burgoyne says she did see him off this morning bright and early.

‘He looked so smart,’ she says, ‘wearing his nice new suit.’

She expects him home at six. It’s Thursday. She’s cooking rissoles. Jerry is forty three and he is still eating rissoles cooked by his mother. That will certainly show Sonia where she went wrong. I ask if she would mind if I come round to see Jerry this afternoon – evening really, as I have to stay at the office until five. There is something important I need to ask him.

She says, ‘That would be fine dear.’

After work I stop by the pub – The Cricketers Balls – where Jerry and I sometimes meet for a drink, also to disparage the gossip and office politics that somehow surrounds us and infects the culture of the working day. The pub is decorated with deep plum-coloured drapes that absorb the light and muffle the convivial chit chat of two or more friends after work. He isn’t there. The barman hasn’t seen him and, in fact, there is no one here I know apart from Sonia, over in a corner who gives me a glare, and I quickly take my leave

I drive to Jerry’s house in Glenferrie, but he still hasn’t returned. Mrs. Burgoyne lets me in. Her hair is tightly curled like a piece of brain coral. She thinks for a moment that maybe Jerry has gone to bed, he’s been feeling peaky.

‘Let’s look, shall we?’

When we open the door it is pitch dark in the musky room. She turns on the light but the bed is empty. She crosses the minefield of the floor, and opens the curtains, however even with the extra light spilling in the bed is still empty.

‘Is he happy at his work Mrs. Burgoyne?’ I ask. ‘Apparently he was rude to Mrs. Burgoyne.’

‘Do you know Geoff, I don’t know the answer to that. He used to be up bright as a sparrow, singing in the shower. But he hasn’t been doing that so much lately.’

‘What would he sing?’

‘Oh, songs… Come to think of it he hasn’t been running so much either. He used to go for a jog after work every day. He’s terribly fit. And then he bought himself a new suit. I thought it was to impress that Sonia. She’s a piece of work. But I was wrong about that.’

‘Perhaps that’s where he is now? Running.’ I suggest trying to fill the awkward, unexplained absence that occupies Jerry’s room. The air is stale. Private air. She tries to pull the door closed. I notice on his bedside table a book I cannot read the name of, I think it might be Chinese, and a little knotted piece of string. To an unfamiliar eye such as Mrs. Burgoyne’s it might look like nothing more than a sex toy, a garrotte for Jerry’s penis for instance; but I know it is for him to practice his affirmations, a ritual he has enjoyed for many years. I have seen him at it in his office cubicle muttering under his breath:

‘Every day in every way I am getting better and better.

Every day in every way I am getting better and better.’

However I have no time to explain this to Mrs. Burgoyne. She asks if I would like to stay and eat some rissoles but, tempting as this is, I have to get home to my own tea on the other side of the city, a far cry from rissoles let me tell you.

I ask if she can get Jerry to ring me when he gets home. He has my number.

He doesn’t call.

The next morning I phone Mrs. Burgoyne who informs me that Jerry is still asleep. He must have been late in. He’s a grown man, she can’t dictate what time he comes home.

‘Oh no,’ she corrects herself, ‘I think he’s in the shower.’

‘Is he singing?’ I ask.

‘I can’t hear dear. The radio’s on, and I’m a little deaf.’

At the office I visit Jeanette in her cubicle. The air smells of Spring Mist.

‘Have you seen Jerry?’

She gives me a funny look. Her two brown eyes like an astonished owl’s. Christmas in her ears.

‘Not since the last time you asked.’

‘I need him to sign this report.’

‘Sorry, I haven’t seen him.’

The cat and the two dogs look at her from the cubicle wall, framed by the unlikely stage props of a wagon wheel, a hay bale. Am I the only person who cares that Jerry has vanished? Ken McKendry hasn’t seen Jerry either. Someone told me a long time ago, maybe it was Jerry, that in the photo of his family on the wall one of the children had passed away and that is the reason he doesn’t like to talk about them. Well that’s probably a pretty valid reason, I told Jerry, if it was Jerry.

‘How’s the family, Ken?’ I hear myself asking.

‘Fine.’

Trudy in stores hasn’t seen Jerry.

Dale in HR hasn’t seen him either.

Nor has the security guy.

It’s like he’s just turning the corner in the street ahead of me, disappearing from the tangent of my eye. It’s like he has vanished into the ether

Mrs. Hyland, who is getting her accounts ready for an audit, can’t remember if she’s seen Jerry or not. She puts down her pen. Her red face looks like a – like a – I can’t remember what it is it looks like.

‘What’s on the piece of paper Geoff?’ she asks.

‘What piece of paper?’

‘That piece of paper you’re carrying around.’

‘I need Jerry’s signature. In order to finalise this report.’

‘What’s on it? Show me.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Show me.’

‘I don’t want to bother you.’

‘I insist.’

Reluctantly I hand it over. I can sense the others have been talking behind my back again.

‘Geoff, there’s nothing on it.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s blank.’

‘It must still be on the printer.’

‘Why do you need Jerry so badly?’

‘I need him to sign it. To finalise things. He’s missing. Aren’t you concerned?’

‘Well Geoff,’ she looks at me strangely over the top of her glasses, ‘yes I am concerned. You keep looking for him, and when I finish here I’ll come and help you. We’ll get to the bottom of this once and for all.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

I back out the door. She doesn’t know where Jerry is. She hasn’t got a clue. She says:

‘You just keep looking.’

I don’t know which way to turn.

Winding the Land by Ben Walter

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

Ben Walter is a Tasmanian writer whose fiction has appeared in Overland, Island, Griffith Review and The Lifted Brow. His debut poetry manuscript, Lurching, was shortlisted in the 2013 Tasmanian Literary Prizes.

Winding the Land

I had felt a skin of regret at being compelled by party policy and the tidal whims of my constituency to vote against the private member’s bill tabled by David Beveridge, stemming as it did from the now-infamous arguments attributed to my former son-in-law, Ian Davey. Ian’s motives in marrying Sally had always been cloudy to me, forced as I was to acknowledge her lack of charm or beauty, but until the revelations I’d always felt a margin of gratefulness to him, tempered by concerns for his dynastic ambitions.

While Ian never sought the endorsement of the Tasmanian people, nor made inroads into my own convictions, Beveridge, the youngest member for Denison, so came under his sway as to table the bill that was to founder so spectacularly. I have searched my memories of dinner parties and summer barbecues, and I can’t recall facilitating the introduction; what’s important is that they crossed paths, and Beveridge was in the mood to make a difference.

The essence of Davey’s arguments centred on the economic and social benefits that had flowed from the Tasmanian innovation of daylight saving. Allowing for an extra hour of evening sunlight had minimised electricity usage and widening the evenings, bringing a little of the Mediterranean to our idiosyncratic local summers. Could this revolution, which had gone on to fiddle global clock faces, be applied to space as it had been to time?

How was the land to be moved? So scoffed a Braddon sinecure from my own side. Did Beveridge propose to up the ante on continental drift? Did he imagine the land would up and beg, roll over like a dachshund? Davey was quick to explain through his elected mouthpiece that just as daylight saving had not altered the movement of the Earth around the Sun or the planet’s rotation on its axis –   merely our conventions relating to it – the same could be attempted with respect to our experience of space. Was the entire population of the state to be moved to the east, the west, the south or the north over the first weekend in October, the first weekend in April? Would this lead to seaboard populations sleeping in dinghies and those nestled in the mountain valleys breakfasting on the peaks of the Wellington Range? Yes, Beveridge intoned triumphantly in parliament, that’s exactly what he was proposing – he was delighted that the honourable members had understood.

Ian was insistent, that far from attempting to dry the southern winds or cool sweaty shoulders through the brief, unexpected heat of summer days – this was popular whimsy, incidental to his goals – he was advancing the proposal as a spur to the development and innovation. Imagine, he would say, a whole second layer of infrastructure. Consider the policy revolutions for zoning and land ownership, the redistribution of wealth, energy flexibility, housing design and material efficiencies. Think of the growth of the construction industry, of the community blending and growth in social capital, of the tourism branding. Who wouldn’t want to spend and invest in the new, overwritten Tasmania?

“Just think,” he would insist, “an entirely fresh start, but one that would co-exist with all that belongs to us today. It would be a model for us. An exemplar. If anyone can sway opinion on this, you can. Support David’s bill.”

The relationship we shared rendered any help I could have offered implicitly nepotistic; it certainly wouldn’t have done me any favours in the party room. Beveridge’s own side were unwilling to support the bill; it was obvious to insiders that he had fought and lost a series of unbalanced debates. When it came to the vote the proposal was predictably defeated. Beveridge resigned his membership of the party and was bundled out of parliament at the next election; the people of Tasmania taking its revenge on the wrong sort of independent.

But it was only when the national papers picked up the story that the matter took the turn that it did. Naturally, the analysis was as critical of the policy framework as the local tabloids, but their aptitude for digging led to the scandal that was to bring the family apart, and for which I am willing to share little responsibility. It had nothing to do with Beveridge, who had relocated to Melbourne to work in light consulting; it was my son-in-law who became the object of the nation’s ghoulish fascination.

It wasn’t that he had decided to embody his principles, moving five kilometres to the east at the beginning of every October, pacing out the exact distance and making a nuisance and object lesson of himself. Sleeping on the roof of an unfortunate retiree’s house, developing his status as an idiotic cause célèbre. Features on the more idle current affair shows, updates buried in the inner rings of newspapers. Nor did he radicalise an allied cause, swivelling day and night and altering the clocks by twelve hours. I was expecting something like this, a strident spectacle swiftly forgotten, a depressed, insomniac tendency justified after the fact by adaptations of his theory.

He simply seemed to disappear. Surprise gave way to genuine concern when we also lost contact with Sally; after several weeks with no response to our phone calls, no answer to our knocking at their West Hobart home, I made a call to an acquaintance in the force who uncovered the scandal just as the major newspapers began to pick up the story.

What really caught the national interest was the tattoos, tattoos that voluntarily or otherwise had been inflicted on Sally’s body. The maps overlying graphs, plans engraved against diagrams, casinos in Cremorne and brick flats jutting from the Organ Pipes. And images of Ian and Sally’s own possessions, their wedding gifts, displaced into forests and other people’s homes, crudely drawn and redrawn, carved with needles and ball-point pens, layers and layers repeated. When they finally found her, emblazoned in blue and white like dense china, she was unable to stop quivering at the thought of further redirection and displacement. What had steered Ian’s ideas in this gruesome direction? Why had he decided to map and remap his wife, my daughter?

The images left a wake of speculation and fascinated outrage; even now I am burdened by memories that set me searching of fresh appalled responses, the casting of blame and the passing of moods to the friend across the road, the stranger in Buenos Aires. I stay awake well into the night, the outline of my wife waiting at the study door, mopping myself in the outrage and confusion of others, as Sally sleeps quietly in the spare room. She has finally settled calmly in our home, quite content remaining where she is.

***

A Tail’s Length by June Glasgow

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

June Glasgow is an Australian poet and writer of short stories. She is also the co-editor of a sporadically circulated zine, Bir & June (see http://www.birandjune.com for her unprinted works). In her spare time, she paints and enjoys studying animal behaviours. She is currently residing in Adelaide with her cat.

A Tail’s Length

He sees her in her bed.

She sleeps with her legs parted slightly, her belly voluptuous and full, her nipples placed daintily round and stiff as flower pods on the icing of a cupcake.

Fat pigeons fly in flocks next door, cooing, grooming, shitting on the tiles.

His head is held high as he peers over the bed. He stands behind the door half ajar, careful not to wake her. If he could touch her, he would.

In his head, he often wonders what she would look like fur-less. Or if her fur takes on a different color. Black gives her lips a mystic sheen, which he desires in the female sex. He thinks of the soft underside of her arms when he humps the fleece blankets at night. He humps it until the image of her, an antique Egyptian Queen, tall, agile, majestically black, fades into cold clouds on a clear autumn evening.

But here she is, open, sweet, so unlike her when she is awake. He wants to be just slightly closer so he could catch the scent off her tail that dangles off the edge of the bed. He tries to place his paws as lightly as feathers as he treads the floor of wood.

When she is awake, she never allows him so close. She knows even eunuchs can rape. The dark alleys in the Eastern suburbs where she strayed as a kitten taught her that. Gender is a disadvantage.

So she disassociates herself from others, lives the life of a celibate god, and dreams of a paradise of birds. A door shaped as a sesame seed will open unto such a world. Only in death could she experience true solitude, in which no gender, no sex will disturb the spiritual, the intellect, allowing full and thorough meditation and understanding of the self and the universe that surrounds. Sleep, to her, is as close as it gets. She is only nine but she feels that she has seen too much.

And he, one of the many that come into her life, leer salivating at her in a distance, stands in the doorway like a fool. Seven years younger and almost reaching his prime, he does not know her philosophy of life. He dwells rather simply between his leopard print, proud and a little reserved. He is never comfortable with how high-pitched his voice is when he doesn’t consciously lower the tone. He sees her, yet he does not see her fully. A part of what he sees is a mirror of himself.

He knows if he gets any closer, he will try to rape her again. But a part of him does not know yet, so he slouches his back, lowers his tail, crouches on his fore and back paws, spinning towards her light-headedly.

If he is too close, he will risk losing an eye, or a corner of his ear. Another grey, long-haired female who was much bigger than him and more experienced than his had taught him that last summer in a herb garden. Now, he still has not learned.

Driven by the same dreams: her whiskers, her strong tail that throws her scent of musk upon his wet nose, her gait ever so seductive even though she tries so deliberately hard to be as disinteresting and unattractive as possible, he still comes prowling in her siesta. She is targeted whenever her guards are down. But her guards are never down.

The sun that blinds him is a bonus to him. Fat pigeons cheer. He seizes her in dreams and gives her what he thinks is his love, while she plucks out something sticky— an eyeball of his.

***

Names by Navid Sabet

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

Navid Sabet is a writer of fiction, poetry, and essays. He teaches creative writing at the University of Canberra, where he is also undertaking a PhD in cultural studies.

Names

I remember the really bad day. It was Monday and I hate Mondays and Mum asked me why I hate Mondays but I don’t know why. Dad prays on Mondays but he’s meant to pray every day I think that’s what Mum says but he doesn’t pray every day since we moved here. He doesn’t let me pray with him anymore because he says people don’t understand what praying is here and before I started school he said I could choose any name to call myself and I said I already have a name but he said I need a new one. He got me a dog from the RSPCA well he got it for my sister her name is Afareen but at school they call her Annie because that’s the name she called herself when Dad asked her and me to choose a new name. Dad doesn’t like dogs but he said Australian kids like to play with animals and we should also play with animals.

At recess Lucy said her dad’s country hated my dad’s country because they lost at soccer but I didn’t get it because her dad’s country and my dad’s country are the same things. I don’t know what she’s talking about but I think she doesn’t like me and that makes me really sad. I don’t know what soccer is but I won’t ask because I don’t think she likes me and she will think I am stupid and I think she is really pretty she has yellow hair and freckles and really shiny eyes. Sometimes I think if I had yellow hair and freckles then she would like me more. I like freckles I think they are pretty and cool they are like stars and I think Lucy should show her freckles at show and tell time. My hands get all sweaty before show and tell when I don’t have anything to show and tell or even when I do have something to show and tell they still get sweaty. If I had something cool to show and tell something cool like freckles then Lucy could not hate me so much and think I’m stupid but sometimes I think I’m stupid too. Sometimes I think I’m stupid because Mum says things to me in Persian like on the really bad day and she told me the dog died but she said it in Persian and I didn’t know what she was saying.

Dad got the dog from the RSCPA for Afareen but Afareen doesn’t like dogs because the dog bit her on the leg and now she’s scared of dogs so then the dog was mine after that. I think if I didn’t have a dog at all then the really bad day wouldn’t be really bad because if I didn’t have him then he couldn’t go away but then I get sad because I love him but when I think about him I get really really sad. Mum said dogs live for many years but my dog was only less than three years but it got sick I know that because Mum told me on the really bad day. He had big black eyes and they were shiny and I could see my face in them because they were so shiny. They were as shiny as a photo and then I remember on the really bad day in a second or less than a second they weren’t shiny anymore and they were like a poster that isn’t shiny like a photo. I couldn’t see myself in them when they were like a poster. When they were shiny like a photo I could see myself in them I was looking at someone through a window at night and then they closed up the curtains and then they were not shiny and they were really dry like a poster and I couldn’t see myself anymore because they were too dry. I don’t like that word.

Recess was over and we were on the floor and I was in the corner and there was a stapler on the floor in the corner and I picked it up and played with it behind my back even though I knew that Mrs. Drew would be angry if I was playing with the stapler when show and tell is on. I knew she would be angry and say go and see the principal but I wouldn’t care because then I wouldn’t have to do show and tell when I didn’t have anything to show and tell. She would be more angry because we’re not allowed to use the stapler even if it’s not show and tell time and even if we are doing arts and crafts. It’s a big kid stapler and most of the time it’s not on the floor it’s on her desk. Jeremy is doing show and tell and that means I’m next because he sits next to where I sit and he’s showing his Pokémon. My hands are really sweaty and the stapler is slipping around in my hands and I want to go home and ask Dad what soccer is and also ask him if his country is different to Lucy’s Dad’s country and if they are different then I want to ask him to stop beating Lucy’s Dad’s country in the soccer and then maybe she won’t hate me anymore. She’s really pretty I think the prettiest person I’ve ever seen except Mum and I think I want to marry her. She showed a doll and a necklace for show and tell. The doll was pretty it was like her but it was really small and plastic and the necklace was pretty too she got it from her grandpa.

One time last term I had a sore finger because Mum said the skin was too dry and it peeled off and it hurt but I thought I could bring it for show and tell because I never have anything to show and tell but I thought I could show my hurt dry skin. But when I got in front of the class to show and tell I saw my skin was all better and Luke said that I was lying and he said I never had any hurt dry skin and I cried in front of the whole class. That’s the only time I had dry skin like that and I still hate that word and I still hate Mondays. That word makes me thirsty and I always think about that word when I’m in bed and I have to get up and walk to the bathroom and get water from the tap that’s in there. The water tastes different from the tap in the bathroom than from the kitchen and I think that water is good for dogs because he liked that water better than his water from the bowl. His water from the bowl had biscuits in it and maybe that’s why he didn’t like it but then why did he put the biscuits in there all the time? His bowl was yellow and a bit green and it said XYLO on it but you don’t say it like that you say it like ZILO because X is a funny letter. It’s funny too because XYLO isn’t his real name his real name is XYLOPHONE but we called him XYLO because it’s shorter than XYLOPHONE and XYLOPHONE isn’t a name for a dog it’s a thing and dogs aren’t things dogs are dogs that’s why we don’t eat them. But we eat chickens and cows does that mean they are things? Dad eats bacon on his sandwich even though he’s not supposed to because it’s dirty but he says it’s good for him but I hate it and so does Mum but I don’t hate it because it’s dirty I hate it because I love pigs and I don’t think we should hurt them because pigs are not things. XYLO isn’t a thing he is a dog but I called him XYLOPHONE when I was only three and I didn’t know that dogs and things are different things. When we were finding a name for XYLO Mum says that we were looking at a book for names but it was just a normal book with words and pictures and no names and Mum said I pointed to XYLOPHONE in the book but then she said XYLOPHONE is a thing and we need a name for the dog and not a thing but then I cried and so she said yes. Now I know what things are I know that things are things like shoes and toys and keys. Dad bought me a keyring when he went back to Iran but I didn’t have any keys to put on the keyring and I lost it and I missed it for a while. Keyrings are things too and I hate Mondays and I don’t have anything for show and tell and I miss XYLO.

Jeremy is nearly finished his show and tell and that means I’m next because Jeremy sits next to me and now my hands are really sweating all over and the stapler is slippery in my hands because of the sweat. I closed the stapler on my finger and it hurt so much more than when I fell off my bike but I didn’t move because then I knew I’d be in so much trouble even though I didn’t care because I had nothing to show and tell but then I saw my finger and it was bleeding right next to the fingernail and there was a staple inside my finger and it was bleeding down into my hand. Mrs. Drew said my name and she said it was my turn and my heart was beating really fast and there was lots of blood on my finger and on my hand lots of blood and lots of sweat. I went up to the front to do my show and tell and Mrs. Drew looked at my finger and all the blood and all the sweat and she fell over onto the floor.

On Tuesday I was late to school because Mum said she wanted me to sleep in and that I would go in to school late even though she had to go to work. I missed assembly but I don’t care that I missed it because assembly is boring and the school hall is really cold in the morning. Mum dropped me off out the front because she was in a hurry but she said that I could call her from the office if my finger hurt too much but I said it was okay. The staple came out on the way home and Mum put some cold stuff on my finger that made it hurt more and then less after a little while. Then she put a bandage around it and kissed it because she does that when I hurt myself. Dad told me that Lucy’s dad went for the Australian team who isn’t the best team and he said that Lucy’s Dad needs to know that they’re not the best team but I’m not going to say that to Lucy. I walked past the office lady on my way to the classroom but she didn’t see me because I’m really short. When I got to the classroom the door was open and I could hear everyone being really loud and I knew Mrs. Drew was going to say quiet down everyone or something like that but she didn’t say anything. When I got to the classroom everyone was doing arts and crafts and I saw that Mrs. Drew wasn’t even there which is funny because she’s always in the classroom even at recess I think maybe she sleeps there too but that’s funny because there’s no toilet there. Luke saw me he was playing lego and he ran over to me and he wanted to see my finger and I showed him my finger and my bandage and he said WOW and put his arm on my shoulder like he was my friend. I sat down at my desk and then something fell over my shoulder onto the desk and I saw that it was a card and it was pink and it said I HOPE YOUR FINGER GETS BETTER SOON and then it said FROM LUCY. At recess Lucy asked me to play soccer because she wants to make a really good team and she thinks I might be really good at soccer because I’m Iranian. I told her that I didn’t know how to play soccer but she said it’s okay we can play any game I like. She told me that Lucy isn’t her real name and her real name is Lacramioara and it’s from Romania and she asked me if I could call her that instead of Lucy and I said yes.

A Small Dead Thing by Luke Johnson

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

Luke Johnson lectures in Creative Writing and Literary Theory at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the University of Wollongong. His stories have appeared in numerous journals, and in 2014 he was shortlisted for the Josephine Ulrick Prize. He has a PhD in Lacanian Psychoanalytic Theory and Creative Writing from UTS.

A Small Dead Thing

The Jazz Band by Daniel Young

October 8, 2014 / mascara / 0 Comments

Daniel Young is a Sydney-based software developer, reader, writer and editor who was born and raised in Brisbane. He has had short fiction published in Issue Two of Hello Mr. Magazine and flash fiction in Seizure and Cuttings Journal. He is struggling to write a novel while remotely studying an MA (Writing) through Swinburne University. He is the founder and editor of Tincture Journal.

The Jazz Band

The jazz band walked onto the stage, quiet and unassuming, dressed in jeans and plain black t-shirts, and began to shift things around without looking at the audience. The shuffling and scraping of their chairs, the tuning of their instruments, the precise placement of their glasses of water and bottles of beer; it may have been part of the performance—they were known for including such things at the beginning of their albums—so the crowd began to hush, their conversations dispersing into the auditorium, hanging wastefully in the air before being forgotten, lost for all time.

When Billy suggested the jazz band, Alex baulked at the idea but went along with it just the same. After exchanging messages and flirting online for what seemed like an eternity, they finally decided it was time to meet. Billy was attractive: a cute Aussie guy in his mid-twenties with a stable job. He didn’t have a gym-built body, but Alex didn’t care about that and he tried more than once to arrange a date. He’d been nearly ready to give up, coming to the conclusion that Billy was either intractable, disinterested or already taken. A few times he’d met guys online only to later find out they already had a boyfriend; it seemed to come with the territory, although Billy didn’t seem the type to play around. He had a quiet understated sincerity that Alex liked. When Billy suggested an improvised jazz concert, Alex wasn’t going to say no, although he did wonder exactly what he’d agreed to.

For what felt like a few minutes already, the drummer had been scraping something metallic across the top of one of his drums. Alex had never been to anything like this back in Singapore. He closed his eyes and ignored the percussionist’s noises, wishing they’d just gone for a drink instead.

Alex’s mother had phoned last night, berating him for not buying a new phone card, for not calling home more often. She wanted to know everything, and each tidbit of news was relayed in a shouting voice to his dad before the conversation could continue. They both wanted to visit him in spring, but he told her that Australia was too boring, especially Brisbane; he would go home instead. Somehow he didn’t seem ready to share his Aussie life with them. He’d begun to make this town his own, although he did miss home sometimes. He thought about the hawker food stalls back home and started dreaming of claypot chicken rice with delicious lap cheong sausage; a hardened rice crust formed on the base of the claypot, and he savoured the change in texture as he reached the end of the dish. The thick wet humidity of the Singaporean air embraced him tightly as his head tilted forwards, waking him up. He glanced at Billy, hoping his daydream had gone unnoticed. Imperceptibly, the percussionist’s scrapings had been joined by the pianist’s hypnotic light touch; his fingers danced across a wide range of keys and the gentle tapping somehow resulted in a deep and complex reverberation that gradually magnified as it spread throughout the performance space.

The double bass joined in, striking just three notes slowly in a short melody, repeating it again and again. Alex began to dream about his mother’s famous Nonya Laksa.

Billy drew his attention from the stage and looked at Alex, sitting there, eyes closed. Absorbing the music to its full effect, or falling asleep? It didn’t matter. He’d agreed on the date because he hated coming to these things alone, but he had no expectation that Alex would enjoy it. The double bass player was plucking at the thick strings more fiercely now; each bass-laden thwap was a punch in Billy’s side. One of them fractured his rib, recalling that day, three years ago now. The others landed in a dull thud that he knew would emerge in the morning as a beautiful deep-purple bruise. He somehow enjoyed reliving the past, letting the music beat him senseless. It replaced all traces of the present.

The drummer was still scraping something across the top of his drums, tracing it in a slow circular motion. A set of house keys? Billy realised with a start that Qiang still had a spare key to his apartment. He hadn’t bothered to change the locks after Qiang left Australia. The scraping continued, now joined by the occasional sharp tapping of hi-hat cymbals. Tap-tap-tap, an insistent woodpecker keen to crack open his skull and burrow into his brain. He tried to keep each of the band’s instruments distinct in his head, tracking the almost imperceptible ways they were changing over time, wondering how the music had somehow made its way from Point A to Point B. The initially disparate parts had merged to become a single swirling mess.

The doctor had been friendly today. A GP in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, just across the road from where he was sitting now. The clinic, being in a so-called “gay area”, administered lots of sexual health check-ups, and the staff were good at asking the necessary questions without getting too nosy or raising an eyebrow.

“I see it’s your first time here. Is there anything else I can help you with today?” The doctor was tall and handsome, but not Billy’s type.

“Oh, no thanks. My normal GP is close to home but I came here because it’s close to work. Just the tests today.”

The doctor smiled, not skipping a beat. “No worries, just a few questions first. When were you last tested?”

Billy answered. Yes, it had been a while. And yes, he was sexually active. Though not so much lately. No, he had no real reason to be worried, but… you know how it is. He didn’t add that he rarely met new people these days because he couldn’t trust anybody and preferred to stay home alone and drink. Last night he’d received a message online from an anonymous person, advising him to get tested. It could be a prank—the person’s dating profile didn’t even have a photo—but it was scary stuff nonetheless. Enough to convince Billy that it was time to be tested again. No need to tell all that to the doctor.

As the blood left his veins and filled the nurse’s syringe, he sat there and blinked, wondering what his future might hold and whether or not he even cared. The nurse taped a cotton bud gently over his arm and he left the clinic. The results would come and could not be changed. His boss was out of town so he extended his lunch break and walked along Brisbane’s murky brown riverfront, trying to get as far from the office as possible. The sun beat down, even on this winter day, and people jogged past with confident strides. He thought of his small high-rise apartment in the leafy green inner west, clinging as it was to its own bend in the river, looking across to the towering heights of Highgate Hill. He could go home—nobody at work would care—and he could spend the afternoon with a bottle of Shiraz, some music and maybe a warm bath. But he was meeting Alex tonight for the jazz concert and the theatre was close to his office; if he went home, he’d never find the motivation to go out again. He thought about cancelling as he walked back to the office. It wouldn’t be hard to find some excuse.

“A Scotch and dry and a Corona with lime thanks,” said Alex, smiling at the bartender and admiring his rounded butt as he turned to fetch a clean glass. Alex didn’t drink often, but Billy wanted one and it might help the rest of the concert pass by more quickly. The first half had been interesting in a way and it surprised him that traditional instruments could be used to create such sounds, but it had felt like it might never end. When he wasn’t nodding off, Alex tried to make a connection between the musicians’ actions and what he was hearing, but the link seemed so tenuous that he wondered if the whole thing was just a pre-recorded charade. No, it couldn’t be that—he just didn’t understand this stuff. At least Billy was something different; something he hadn’t yet experienced since coming to Brisbane to study business and hospitality management. He represented something other than the usual late nights out in tiny gay bars, with the same people every week dancing the night away. Nights that would often end with him waking up next a stranger in a cloud of awkwardness and sour morning breath. It never felt good afterwards, but it was a change from life back home.

The bartender returned with the drinks and Alex paid, resolving to just try and enjoy the second half of the show. Maybe they could grab a quick bite to eat later on.

“Thanks,” said Billy as Alex passed him the Scotch. “What did you think so far?”

“It was… interesting. Different,” replied Alex.

Billy rolled his eyes but still smiled that cheeky little boy smile that had attracted Alex so much in the first place.

“What music do you like? Kylie? Gaga? The usual shit?” he asked.

“That stuff’s all OK, but I prefer Chinese pop stars. Do you know Faye Wong?”

“Hah! I’m not a huge fan, but I saw her in Chungking Express. She’s kind of old now, right? It’s all about K-Pop these days. But I loved that movie. You know, I randomly saw it on the world movie channel about five years ago and I think I’ve been a rice queen ever since…”

“So you only like Asian guys? Here in Brisbane it’s mostly just the really old white guys chasing me. Lots of young people put ‘no Asians’ in their dating profile.”

Billy shrugged and said nothing.

“Don’t be shy, it’s fine. You’ll like me then, since I’m a potato queen,” grinned Alex, poking him in the belly in a teasing way. His belly was soft. “I love Wong Kar-Wai’s films too. To be honest, I’m more interested in film than music. I’d study that if my parents would let me…”

“The film festival starts soon, maybe we can check some stuff out? I love Korean films, and they also have a British and Irish showcase that looks interesting. And lots more.”

Alex watched as Billy drank his Scotch, finishing it with one last gulp. He seemed excited now. When they’d met before the concert he’d been shy, maybe even aloof. On the internet Billy was a tough nut to crack, but Alex was now thinking that his persistence might have been worthwhile.

A buzzer rang and Alex placed his arm in the small of Billy’s back, guiding him from the foyer back into the theatre space. The room was cool and the warmth emanating from Billy’s body seemed like a generous offering. They took their seats.

Billy didn’t know why he preferred Asian guys and the inevitable question always embarrassed him. It felt wrong to choose partners based on their race, and he wasn’t proud of it, but he also couldn’t deny his preference. It was best not to think about it too deeply. His friends had suggested he dated international students because he was afraid of commitment. They all leave Brisbane after a few years, maybe that suits you? There could be some truth in that. He was lucky that Qiang had left when he did, before the situation escalated further. He should have called the police, but had been unable to. On a logical level, Qiang’s departure was a blessing, and yet it was still in the forefront of Billy’s mind every day, both the good and the bad.

The band didn’t mess around this time. They came onto the stage and the pianist placed a metronome on the piano’s glossy black frame. It seemed to be hooked up to an amp. An electric metronome? He set it ticking and the sound filled the theatre, setting a fairly rapid pace for the music to come. And then he began, playing not music exactly, or at least not melody. No, he tapped at just one or two keys, repetitively, in time with the constant ticking, creating a fluid wall of sound. Billy relaxed, closing his eyes for a moment to savour the effect, listening carefully for the slightest change.

The metronome’s amplified ticking drew Billy’s attention to the inexorable onward march of time. It counted down the number of seconds since he had laid peacefully in Qiang’s arms; the number of days since Qiang had been inside him; the number of months since their brutal last few weeks together. The tapping of individual piano keys created a single reverberating mass and still the metronome ticked on, oblivious. Every tick brought each audience member one moment closer to their own end.

But the drummer had other ideas. He was using the full kit now and refused to keep the same beat as the metronome. The tangential rhythms became disorienting and Billy felt a rush in his arteries as his pulse quickened. The bass player began thwapping away at his strings again, but it was hard to discern the effect of his efforts on top of the now screeching cacophony of manic piano. It was the drummer who was really shaking things up, hitting his kit hard, completely freed from the restrictive bounds of the metronome’s tick. Goosebumps formed on Billy’s arms and the fine blonde hairs stood to attention like enchanted snakes. He felt tears in his eyes and, thankful for the dark theatre, let them flow without wiping them away. A crash of cymbals took over and it was no longer a beat but a wall of sound, joining the piano and bass with destructive force. Billy looked sideways and was surprised to find Alex leaning forward in his seat, simultaneously riveted and shocked by the jazz band’s climax.

The drummer broke away, regaining his individuality as a discernible beat returned, and Billy tried his best to follow it. The pace kept shifting, battling against the metronome. Occasionally the two beats would coincide and they’d seem to be keeping the same rhythm, but they would always fall out of step again. At other moments, the drummer went manic again and lost himself among the roar of the piano and bass. The incessant ticking became redundant, reminding Billy that boundaries were meaningless.

Yet as he smiled at Alex and looked back towards the stage, despite the cacophonous roar, all he could see was the thin pendulum, still swinging joyfully from side-to-side. Silenced, perhaps, but not stopped. And gradually, as each musician slowed and their sounds danced over the top of each other, Billy finally heard them again as three distinct elements. The metronome continued to tick, even after the musicians stopped, out of place and obnoxious. Finally, the pianist raised his hand and stopped the pendulum’s movement. The audience broke out in stunned applause.

They sat on the ferry, navigating their way home on the river’s lazy bends as they cut through the city and into the inner west. Alex, being slightly taller, allowed Billy’s head to rest on his shoulder. The ferry master looked at them a few times but Alex returned his gaze, feeling boldly protective of this strange Brisbane boy. The ferry master shrugged and gave up, walking outside into the bracing wind as the vessel skimmed over the black water. The window was dirty, a water-saving measure of the city council, who had decided to stop washing the ferries. Alex looked outside but saw only a scratchy dark mess, overlaid with the bright reflected interior of the ferry’s cabin.

Billy was sleeping by the time they reached their stop and a small wet patch of drool had soaked into the shoulder of Alex’s jumper. Alex smiled and tapped him gently on the head to wake him up, which he did with a confused, almost frightened look.

“We’re here. Let’s go.”

On a quiet dark street in a quiet dark suburb, watched only by the possums as they scurried over the power lines above, they kissed goodnight. In another time, they each would have asked the other to stay the night, but tonight it seemed that only silence and solitude could follow what they’d experienced.

“Thanks for taking me. It wasn’t my kind of thing, but I’m glad we met. Let’s have dinner soon.”

“OK. Goodnight Alex. See you soon.” Alex watched as Billy turned and walked away, trekking uphill to where his apartment building waited. He stood for a moment and thought about giving up his business degree to study film. Finally, hands in his pockets to ward off the cold night air, he walked in the other direction towards his own place.

In bed, happy to be alone, Billy didn’t think about Alex. He didn’t think about Qiang, or the dent in his bedroom wall where Qiang had thrown his phone that time. He didn’t think about the doctor or the blood tests. The sheets were smooth and soft against his tender, naked skin. He felt like he’d gone a few rounds in a boxing ring and shook his head to clear the fuzz, wondering if any of it was real. His ears were ringing with the silence, so he plugged his mp3 player into the speakers beside his bed and chose the “repeat album” option. The music started with the sound of chairs and equipment being arranged on-stage. This time the bass player began, striking a short wistful melody and repeating it again and again. The still and empty night, unlike so many before and after, passed by quickly, so that it wasn’t long before he awoke. The sun had risen, shimmering golden foil on the river’s surface, concealing the muddy brown reality beneath.