Читать книгу Welcome to Ord City - Adrian Deans - Страница 11

Chapter 4

Tim’s Time to Shine

‘So fuckin’ hot,’ muttered Robbie Bennett to no one in particular.

His mate, Chris Majkic, was driving but the air conditioning in the old, blue Mazda hadn’t worked for years. It had only been Robbie’s car for two years but it had been the Old Man’s for at least ten before that and had to be nearly twenty years old.

The lack of air conditioning had never been a problem in Melbourne, but it was now. They should’ve taken the coast road, but no – fuckin’ Chris had wanted to take the direct route through the heart of the desert.

One thing that did still work was the thermometer. At Andamooka it reckoned the outside heat (more or less the same as the inside heat) was 54 degrees. Robbie found it hard to believe that planet Earth could sustain such temperatures but, an hour out from Alice Springs, was grateful that the mercury had plunged to a more temperate 45.

‘Fuckin’ look at that,’ sniggered Chris, and Robbie looked up with mild interest at a couple of hitch hikers looming – a chubby young woman in yellow harem pants and her thin, male companion – plainly melting in the sun and pleading with the boys to pull over.

‘Whattaya reckon?’ asked Robbie, but Chris flashed past as the girl gave them one finger.

‘Fuck ’em,’ said Chris.

Robbie was a little uncomfortable with the idea of abandoning people to the perilous heat of the desert, but Chris was implacable.

‘They would’ve been trouble.’

‘How do you figure that?’ asked Robbie.

‘We haven’t passed any broken down cars,’ said Chris, ‘so clearly they’ve been dumped by whoever picked ’em up before. The fat slag was in yellow so she’s obviously some fuckin’ Habal Tong bitch who wants to convert everyone. That’s why they’ve been left in the middle of nowhere … you wanna put up with HT shit all the way to Ord City?’

‘No,’ said Robbie, who was relieved to see a roadhouse materialise out of the shimmering heat.

‘There you go,’ said Chris. ‘It won’t take ’em long to walk to the roadhouse so they’re not in any danger. Someone’ll give ’em a lift from there.’

‘You wanna stop for a beer?’ asked Robbie.

• • •

‘Fuckin’ cunts!’ shouted Lemon at the silvery blue Mazda as it passed.

Tim was all but ready to despair. He sat on their swag, wilting in the heat and wondering where Lemon got the energy to keep railing at the Mazda as it hurtled into the haze up ahead.

Suddenly she turned on him.

‘Get off the fuckin’ bag!’

Without a word he stood, and Lemon pushed him out of the way. Then she slumped down herself on the bag and pulled out a cigarette.

‘Lemon … ’ began Tim.

‘What?’ she snapped.

‘How many have we got left?’

‘I don’t care … I fuckin’ need one, alright?’

Tim shrugged, helpless. Cigarettes were really expensive now because nearly everyone had given up. Of course, that didn’t bother the tobacco companies. Supply and demand meant that it didn’t matter how much the price rose for those who still wanted to smoke. They’d pay anything.

Or steal.

It was always Tim’s job to do the thieving while Lemon distracted the store people with a disingenuous attempt at evangelism. ‘All is nothing, and nothing is all,’ she would tell them as Tim hovered in the background, and even the most disinterested shop assistant would eventually be forced to engage with Lemon’s irritatingly specious logic. That was Tim’s time to shine, and as he stuffed his pockets he would always be thinking, ‘Maybe this time?’

But it never was.

‘How far to Alice Springs?’ demanded Lemon, her nose and shoulders reddening in the mid-morning heat.

‘Eighty-five ks.’

There was a silence as they contemplated the impossible distance, then Tim took his courage in his hands.

‘Maybe next ride we should lay off the Habal Tong stuff … ’

‘Are you fucking mad?’ asked Lemon.

‘Only as a strategy to stay in the car longer,’ placated Tim. ‘People get pissed off when we start preaching The Way.’

‘It is our duty,’ insisted Lemon as she dragged heavily on her cigarette and glared through the smoke. ‘Our sacred fucking duty … to show people The Way … to share our enlightenment with the world!’

‘I understand all that,’ sighed Tim, ‘but I don’t want you to miss Illumination. If we keep getting kicked out of cars we’re not gonna make Ord City in time.’

‘Well maybe if you gave me a bit more support we wouldn’t get kicked out!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You always leave the talking to me. It’s pathetic.’

‘Well, what do you want me to say?’ he pleaded.

‘You could start by agreeing with me occasionally.’

‘I always agree with you.’

‘It’s pathetic agreement,’ she sneered, flicking the butt into a thicket of parched dry grass. ‘If you want to convince others you have to be more passionate. You have to be convinced yourself.’

Tim knew there was no point in pursuing the argument. He considered retrieving the precious butt to snatch a couple of drags, but stood and stared into the haze to the north-west, which suddenly cleared for a moment.

‘Is that a roadhouse up ahead?’

• • •

The beer was cold and tasted like heaven.

There was a bar and bistro attached to the roadhouse and, after filling up on Fifty Fifty, Robbie and Chris found themselves in a cool, dim paradise that smelled like old beer and stale sweat. It was a strangely pleasant smell and Chris breathed deeply as he relaxed into the padded booth seat – cracked and polished by the arses of a million truckies.

‘You know what I like most out here?’

‘What?’

‘The freedom from technology.’

Robbie knew exactly what he meant, but also knew that Chris would need to explain every aspect of his point in case there was some obscure nuance that might have eluded him. Robbie let Chris talk – he was happy in the dim cavern of the bistro and just wanted to relax before braving the heat again. The worst part of the day was yet to come and if he could get Chris into one of his alcohol-fuelled rants then they might spend all afternoon in the bistro and drive on again after the sun set.

‘Computers don’t rule your life out here,’ said Chris, after a long swallow of beer.

Robbie flexed his wrist upon which he wore his OzBrace, which he’d just used to pay for petrol and beer. Chris saw the gesture and shrugged.

‘Well … they do, of course, but it’s not so in your face like it is everywhere else.’

The boys were both twenty-one and could remember back when Australia still used plastic paper and cards for money, but since the Quantum Revolution in the mid twenties, many things had changed. Cash had disappeared so all transactions were electronic. There had been an immediate short-term recession as the economy adjusted to the end of cash, but it soon bounced back and profound societal changes followed – especially in the field of crime. Robbery was pointless if you couldn’t steal cash, or valuables which could be converted to cash. The only point to thieving was if you actually wanted to use what was stolen yourself, or could barter it for something else. As for the legal transactions, every payment for every good or service was auto-analysed in real time and huge dossiers were built up on the actions, movements and criminal potential of every citizen. The end result was that armed robbery and other forms of physical property crime had all but vanished. Electronic transactions and bank accounts were so powerfully encrypted they defied any sort of hacking, and only First World governments and major corporations could afford (or were allowed to have access to) the quantum computers. The only way to steal money was by complex fraud or ID theft, but the penalties for that were so harsh as to make it all but unthinkable.

‘You got nothing to hide, you shouldn’t be worried about it,’ said Robbie, knowing that Chris couldn’t resist taking the bait – which would mean at least another hour in the bar.

‘It’s not about guilty consciences,’ insisted Chris. ‘It’s about the government having too much fuckin’ power. They know what we’re gonna do before we do.’

‘They don’t know why we’re going to Ord City.’

‘No … but they already know we’re headed that way,’ said Chris, glancing over his shoulder. ‘They know everything about our personalities and particular tastes because they know everything we’ve ever bought, read, eaten, done or said. Seriously, I would not be surprised if they were secretly analysing our shit.’

Robbie laughed.

‘What could that tell them?’

Chris paused, staring into his beer for a moment.

‘They’d know you don’t eat chilli, rice, tofu or bok fuckin’ choi.’

‘So?’

‘So you’re heading to Ord City and you don’t eat Asian crap … that means you’re not going up to join Habal Tong. You just got sacked from your job, when jobs are really hard to get … unless you’re a fuckin’ reffo. The shit analysers might think it’s fuckin’ obvious why you’re headed to Ord City.’

Robbie laughed, then found himself confronted with a vision of Kate. Instantly he banished that line of thinking, but at that moment the door to the bar opened and Chris swore under his breath. Robbie glanced over to see the fat chick and her skinny boyfriend they’d passed hitching. The fat chick spotted them and marched over bristling.

‘You own that fuckin’ shitbox Mazda?’

‘So what if we do?’ replied Chris, flatly.

‘Nice pair of cunts youse blokes are! We could’ve fuckin’ died out there.’

‘That would’ve been tragic,’ said Chris and Robbie snorted beer though his nose, laughing.

‘Fuck off and leave us alone,’ said Chris.

The girl turned and stared meaningfully at her skinny boyfriend, as though expecting him to come to her defence, but he just shrugged miserably. The girl glanced about the bar – there were maybe half a dozen other people besides the barman and the waitress.

‘Anyone goin’ to Ord City?’ she yelled.

A couple of blokes looked over without much interest but no one responded.

‘Anyone goin’ to Alice Springs?’ she yelled, and the couple who’d looked over turned away.

‘Someone’s gotta be goin’ to Alice,’ she announced. ‘We need a fuckin’ lift … and we’ll pay you back with enlightenment.’

‘Order or get out,’ said the barman, as a few blokes shook their heads.

The girl was furious but allowed herself to be coaxed into one of the booths by her skinny boyfriend who was whispering urgently.

‘What was I saying?’ asked Chris, with a last contemptuous glance at the girl.

‘You were talking shit,’ said Robbie.

• • •

An hour later, Tim finished the last swig of the tepid beer he’d been nursing. Lemon had wolfed down three bourbons and coke but the money needed to be rationed. Tim checked the display on his OzBrace, though he knew the details by heart – $37 to last until the next dole payment, which was four days away – and a schooner was ten bucks.

There was enough there for two bourbons – one of them a double – and Tim weighed the odds of trying to get Lemon tipsy. The only time she ever got amorous these days was when she was a bit pissy. The trouble was, she was just as likely to go the other way and become totally infuriated over nothing – getting her pissed was like tossing a coin, and she already had the shits.

‘You want another bourbon?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she snapped, and Tim’s heart sank, but he rose dutifully and headed for the bar, trying not to notice the scorn on the faces of other blokes as he walked past.

The barman’s lips thinned with impatience as Tim ordered a double bourbon and a tap water, leaving him $15 on his OzBrace – enough for one more single bourbon or two packets of Twisties. Food or sex?

Food or a chance of sex, he corrected himself.

‘Don’t let my mate Chris see you wearing that shirt.’

Tim looked up at the bloke who’d just arrived at the bar, one of the boys from the Mazda who Lemon ’d had a go at. Then he glanced down at his old red and black Wanderers tee shirt.

‘Why’s that?’

‘He hates the fuckin’ A-League. He was an AFL prodigy but since all the money’s gone out of the game he had to get a job as well as play Reserves.’

‘Reserves? Who for?’ asked Tim.

‘St Kilda … till he told ’em to stick it if they weren’t gonna pay him.’

Tim shook his head in admiration, as the other bloke ordered a couple of beers, then turned back.

‘Jeez, your girlfriend’s got a mouth on her,’ he said. ‘How do you put up with that every day?’

‘She’s not always like that,’ lied Tim.

‘She is a root, I suppose … sort of. I’m Robbie.’

‘Tim,’ said Tim, shaking hands.

‘I’d ask yers over to join us, but … ’

Robbie laughed and Tim shrugged.

At that moment, they became aware of some consternation by the door. A few of the truckies had jumped up and gone outside.

‘Fire!’ someone yelled.

Almost immediately, Tim thought he could smell smoke and remembered Lemon’s fag butt in the dry grass.

‘It’s comin’ this way!’ shouted someone else, and suddenly there was panic. The music speakers were interrupted by a booming voice from the Road Station HQ.

‘All persons evacuate. Repeat … all persons evacuate immediately and head towards Alice Springs. There is a grassfire approaching from the south and only emergency personnel are authorised to remain. All persons evacuate … ’

Robbie and Tim walked towards the booth area with the drinks. Robbie handed Chris his beer and they both skulled in unison. Lemon’s eyes widened in anger and Tim was amazed to discover he’d accidentally drunk her bourbon. He handed her the water.

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ she demanded.

‘Throw it on the fire?’ suggested Tim, then before she could explode with her usual fury, he collared Robbie.

‘I don’t suppose you blokes could give us a lift?’

Chris would’ve refused but it was Robbie’s car and what sort of arsehole leaves people to burn in a bushfire?

‘For fuck’s sake!’ swore Chris, as Robbie gave his assent to the couple. Then, grudgingly accepting his humane duty, Chris said: ‘Right … let’s get out of here.’