My eyes follow a pack of staggering men, five of them, so drunk they’re holding one another up. They stumble past the barkingkelpie tied to the porch, swearing aggressively at it before disappearing around the corner.
I tap my index finger on the steering wheel, scanning for Luke’s black vehicle, but I can’t find it anywhere. Still, the cars keep pulling in with rowdy men in groups of two or three. All of them bypassing the house, stomping impatiently to the backyard. I watch with interest as a purple Holden glides in, pop music echoing out the car window. A pink-and-white decal on the bumper readsCute but Crazy.And taking up nearly the entire back window are two stick figures, a woman kneeling in front of a man, mouth in his lap, declaring,Nice Girls Suck!
What is it with these people and their car stickers? I watch five women spill out, late twenties, bubble skirts, rose tattoos. One of them carries a box of cask wine, and from the way they’re all walking, it’s clear they’ve been sampling it.
I cram a cap on and follow. We sidle past a drunken teen sitting cross-legged on a car bonnet, chomping hard on an ear of corn. Past the panting kelpie. One of the girls coos at it, thrusts the back of her hand up to its muzzle. It licks the back of her palm, and I hover behind them and freeze. This is the pub dog. The ancient kelpie that hangs around the courtyard. The one that rolled in the magpie carcass when I first arrived in town. I know whose dog this is.
Pulled up to a shattered back window is a black truck. Luke’s. Empty. I keep walking, following their drunken steps, breathing in the peachy tang of the wine. But we don’t get far. Ahead of us is a traffic jam of men, impatient and yelling over one another.
I rise up on my tiptoes, peering over the head of the girl clutching the cask wine, scorpion tattoo on her neck. There’s an angry huddle waiting outside an industrial steel shed.
Someone snarls, “What’s the farken holdup?”
“Hold ya horses, mate!”
I sink back to my feet, uneasy. There’s a weight in the air, something cruel and carnival-like. I inch forward with the drunk girls until we’re sweating outside the open mouth of the shed. A hefty man with a face like porridge waves us through, winking hard at the girl carrying the cask wine, who ignores him.
“Farken slut,” he mutters.
Inside, it’s cave-like and dirty, crowded as hell. There’s a hundred people, at least, packed in tightly, restless and loud and waiting for something. Mostly men except for a handful of women cowering behind them, arms looped nervously through theirs, as if trying to hold them back. Calm them down.
From what?
I squirm through the feral crowd, cheeks filmy with sweat. It’s windowless and humid, smells like body odor and meat. A Yamaha fishing boat is tucked in the corner, dripping. TheTitan.
An elbow clips my shoulder, but I keep inching forward, pulling my cap lower, eyes on the floor. I squeeze through until my chin is inches from a man’s shoulder. I try to step around him, but I’m smushed in. A tall man in a high-vis shirt smeared with oil stains pushes past me, shoulder bumping mine. He shoves his way through, and a beer-clogged voice snarls, “Watch where yer farken going, mate!”
The oil-smeared man gives him the finger. I stand on tiptoes, watching him settle at the far front of the shed. I blink in surprise when I see what he’s standing in front of.
A stage. I narrow my eyes, staring at it. The elevated stage is scuffed plywood, the backdrop, three plastic shower curtains strung together. There’s no special lighting or sound equipment, only five black steps leading up to the silent rectangular stage.
I try to step back but can’t. Behind me, a fight breaks out. Two beer-soaked voices, a crash of fists, and a woman’s pained cry. “He’s drunk,” she pleads.
I can’t see her, but I bet she’s desperate and exhausted, placing herself between the brawling men and her raging husband.
Leave him,I want to tell her.It won’t get better. It’s in his blood.
My ears throb with the noise that’s growing louder and louder like someone turning the radio up. I want to run. Want to stay.
The men shift or sway in their spots, arms crossed or palms flat on their meaty stomachs, irritable. On edge. What are they all waiting for?
I’m stuck behind the man in front, sandwiched between sweatylimbs, the bridge of my nose brushing his black T-shirt. I’m drowning in the air, breathing through a sweaty sheet.
For a moment, I’m twelve years old, back in Heath’s cabin, watching the blood boys slice kangaroo meat into marbled strips while Heath hovers behind, grim-faced and silent. As the blood boys grew, something began to shift. You could feel it. Something knocking inside their skulls, anxious to get out. A power struggle commenced, a bloody tug-of-war. I watched the blood boys battle for control, and Heath battle to keep it. Some days, I felt sandwiched between them all, guns pointed in every direction.
I feel it now. Here.
The man stumbles onto the stage, clutching a beer can in each fist. I rise up on my toes again, watch him trip up the final step, landing hard on his left knee. He raises the cans in the air, victorious and bellowing, “Didn’t spill a drop!”
The blood men reward him with a football-like roar. He remains there kneeling onstage, chugging hard from one can, then the other, draining both before crunching them in his fists. “Showtime’s in ten, fellas!”
The roar intensifies, a wave of sound. I sink to my feet and the crowd buzzes with anticipation. Cheers and chants and slapping backs, elbows shoving bodies forward, itching to get closer to the stage. I slink back, chin tucked to my chest, letting them push forward as I pull away. I peek at my phone, note the time:
1:50a.m.
The porridge-faced man is gone. No one’s guarding the door. No one cares anymore. The cask wine girls are sitting on the boat’s smooth hull, pouring the plastic wine spout directly into their open mouths. The girl with the scorpion tattoo slides into the skipper’s seat, pretends to drive it. No one tells her off. She honks the horn twice, but it’s lost in the swell of noise.
I slink outside, peering up the entire length of the shed. A drunk man leans against a blackwood, using it for support as he fumbles with his belt, unzips his jeans. He mutters to himself as he pees, and I wait until he stumbles back inside, face flushed and laughing to himself.
