I offer him the Weet-Bix
as if it’s enough to get him
across the Hay Plain.
He shakes his head.
‘Steel girders, west,
bottles of wine, east,’ he says.
‘And a chance to get drunk
in the middle of nowhere,’ I joke.
Dad smiles, reaching for the pan.
‘Scrambled eggs, buttered toast
and the risk of a heart attack,’ he says.
‘What do you think about out there?’ I ask.
I imagine Dad driving the rig across the plain,
a storm cloud on the horizon,
flocks of cockatoos in the fields,
music on the stereo.
‘Whether the bloke driving towards me
is about to fall asleep,’ Dad replies.
He stirs the egg mixture with a fork
and pours it into the frypan.
‘And how many miles
before I pay off the truck,’ he adds.
‘I could get a job over the holidays,’ I say.
Dad slides the spatula under the mixture,
flipping it before lifting the pan away
from the heat.
He tips the eggs on toast
and pulls back the chair before sitting.
I pass him the salt
and he smiles.
‘Work is forever,’ he says.
‘Enjoy school while it lasts.’
The endless highway
I promise Dad I’ll do the dishes
before Mum wakes.
He returns the egg carton to the fridge,
then leans down
and kisses me on the cheek.
His stubble grazes my skin.
I try to remember
how long it’s been
since he’s done that.
‘Go easy on your mum today,’ he says.
He doesn’t meet my eyes
before walking from the kitchen,
a duffel bag
slung over his shoulder.
I jump up from the table
and, at the window,
watch him wheel his pushbike
out of the shed
into the weak sunlight.
He checks both tyres
before throwing his leg
over the seat
and pedalling down the driveway.
I don’t know why,
but I rush through the house
to watch him
turn onto the road
without checking for cars,
knowing that no-one is stupid enough
to be awake this early.
I imagine the smell of the sea
filling his nostrils
before he rides towards the workshop
to exchange a bicycle
for a lonely truck cabin
on the endless highway.
Balarang Bay
Whenever I miss the bus to school –
like today –
I ride my bike along Lake Road,
around Coraki Lake,
past Tipping Point
and into Morawa National Park.
I ignore the sign that reads:
HORSES AND BICYCLES PROHIBITED
and follow the track
watching for snakes
and swooping magpies.
I make it to school before the bell
if I pedal like a crazy
and forget the brakes
on the long downhill into town
past the billboard of bikini models
trumpeting:
WELCOME TO BALARANG BAY
MILES OF SMILES.
Balarang is Aboriginal for
‘place of the swamp oak’
but the council
didn’t want to put ‘swamp’
on the billboard,
so they chose bikini models instead.
They paid an advertising company
a truckload of cash
to come up with
MILES OF SMILES.
Manx and I would have
accepted much less
and been closer to the truth with:
ACRES OF FAKERS
and the by-line:
WHERE THE UTE MEETS
THE MOBILITY SCOOTER.
Manx told me he’s planning
on getting a spray can from the local hardware
to do some creative dental work
on the models in the billboard
to show his civic pride.
My school
My school is surrounded
by a wire fence
and a stand of stringybark
that the council
is debating whether to rezone
for a new housing estate.
Each morning the buses bring
the hippie kids from the hinterland
and us southerners from Turon
into the main car park,
already filled with four-wheel drives
dropping off the locals
too lazy to walk.
Mr Drake, our Science teacher,
is on uniform duty
at the front gate
telling boys to tuck in their shirts
and girls to remove their lipstick.
The first rubbish bin
in the schoolyard
is decorated with red-lipped tissues.
I whizz past him on the bike
and he tells me to stop
and strap my helmet on properly.
Rachel walks through the gate
wearing a pair of trousers
instead of the tartan skirt.
When Mr Drake stops her,
she says,
‘Girls are the equal of boys
and should wear the same uniform.’
He says, ‘Well, you won’t be allowed to class
wearing trousers.’
Rachel winks at me,
turns to Mr Drake
and, in front of everyone,
drops her trousers
to reveal her skirt underneath.
She hands Mr Drake the trousers
as the bell rings
and we all cheer
as Rachel strolls to class.
The only one that matters
I refuse to tell anyone –
even Manx –
just how much I like Ella Hurst.
Every period in Science
and English
I alternate between analysing the whiteboard
and Ella’s long dark hair.
If there were a grade
for knowing the curve of her shoulders
and the grace of her hips
I’d get an A plus.
Sometimes I miss the teacher’s question
and I’m sure my furtive glances
betray my thoughts.
Everyone likes Ella,
from the cool girls to the geeks,
yet she spends most of her time alone
reading a book
or watching the lunchtime football.
I’d have as much chance of scoring a goal
on the school oval
as I’d have of working up the courage
to talk to her.
How can it be
that the companion of attraction
is fear?
No matter how many words
there are in the English language for shy,
the only one that matters is
Jonah.
Caveman at the bottle shop
It’s Friday afternoon and
Angelo, who’s in year ten with us,
collects money from
a bunch of his mates.
Rich-boy Patrick
who lives at Tipping Point
doubles the stash.
Angelo presses the bills
into Manx’s oversized hand
and says, ‘As much beer as you can buy
.’
Manx is kitted out in a day-glo workers vest,
school shorts and his father’s spare boots.
I reckon he’s even smudged
some dirt on his forearms
just to complete the picture.
He walks like a draught-horse pulling a load,
his head pushed forward, chin up
and muscular arms hanging by his side.
His voice is a few octaves deeper than bass,
hands the size of boxing gloves,
dark hair sprouting from each of his knuckles.
The boys call Manx a caveman,
but never to his face.
Angelo calls out, ‘The cheapest, okay,’
as Manx turns and strolls into the bottle shop.
I follow him
and walk to where my favourite beer
sits in artfully arranged slabs.
I tap the carton three times and walk out.
Manx sees my choice –
it’s not the cheapest.
Manx takes a cut of two bottles per dozen.
He always shares with me.
The latest model
For a while after we started high school
Angelo and I were friends.
He’d sit beside me and Manx on the bus
and tell us
about the caravan his parents
had set up in his backyard
and how on the weekend
they’d let him sleep out there.
He’d stay up as late as he liked
and watch things he shouldn’t
on the laptop,
the caravan door locked tight.
‘I told them it was quieter in the van,
so I could do my homework.’
He’d lean over and dig me in the ribs.
‘I sure learnt a lot, Jonah.’
He’d invite me to sleep over
and, no matter how many times
I asked Mum, she’d say,
‘I don’t trust that boy.’
One day Angelo came to school
with a black eye
and, when I asked him
what happened,
he mumbled about the caravan door
opening in the wind.
On the way home
he sat next to someone else on the bus
and told them he had a Nintendo –
the latest model.
He asked them if they wanted to visit
and never invited me over again.
Beer on the boardwalk
Angelo and Patrick
wait on the boardwalk
in front of Balarang Bay Surf Club.
Angelo has baskets attached
to his bicycle
to take the beer to the lake
for tonight’s party.
Manx and I dump the cartons
on the bench beside the bike
and Manx grins at Angelo.
‘You can carry my share
back home for me, too …’
he waits a few seconds past friendly
before adding the word, ‘… mate.’
Angelo looks at the beer.
‘But it’s not the cheapest, you idiot.’
He realises what he’s said
and takes an instinctive step away
as Manx clenches his fists.
Patrick holds up his hand
and says in a voice
with vowels in all the right places,
‘It’s okay, Angelo.
Our friend has good taste,
don’t you, Manx?’
Manx looks at me
and, when I don’t say anything,
he says to Angelo,
‘Make sure the beer is cold tonight.’
He turns and walks away.
Patrick sneers at me.
‘Run along, Joany,
after your pet gorilla.’
As I retreat,
they make monkey sounds.
Lucky for them
Manx is too far away to hear.
A turd on the pier
Patrick Lloyd-Davis arrived in Turon
at the start of year ten
with a clipped haircut,
leather schoolbag
and a mother who dropped him at the school gates
in a black BMW.
His dad bought the grocery store,
turned it into a real estate agency
and started knocking on doors
looking for sellers.
The oldest house overlooking
the lake at Tipping Point
had a preservation order by the council,
but it only took a few meetings
for Mr Lloyd-Davis to change that.
In January the bulldozers arrived
and ripped the place down in a single day.
After two months of intense building
with six men on site every day,
a two-storey glass-and-concrete nightmare
rendered in ochre
dwarfed every house on the point.
Manx’s dad reckons Mrs Lloyd-Davis spends
her days sunbathing on the verandah.
They have parties
and no-one from Turon
on the other side of the lake
is ever invited.
When Angelo saw Patrick’s house
he made friends quickly,
probably hoping for an invite
and expecting pool party afternoons and free alcohol.
Manx’s dad said the dirty feet of Turon
would never scuff the carpet
in the Lloyd-Davis palace.
Patrick is good at football,
always has a stash of pot
and talks about getting a Subaru WRX
for his seventeenth birthday –
a promise from his dad.
But no matter what he does
Manx has a new name
for him each week.
A speck.
A fly.
A well-dressed pigeon.
A turd on the pier.
Vodka Cruisers
Friday night,
the girls drink guava Vodka Cruisers
straight from the bottle
passing them round
in a circle beside the fire.
Rachel laughs louder than anyone
and spends almost as much time
tossing her hair back
as she does looking towards Manx.
Rachel’s mum works nights at the supermarket
stacking shelves and trying to stay awake.
Rachel cooks dinner for her brother
who’s nine years old,
tells him to do his homework
and ignores her own,
washing the dishes instead.
If there were a bet
on who was going to leave school for good
Rachel and Manx
would be neck and neck.
Patrick and Angelo are shirtless,
silver chains around their necks,
and the louder Rachel laughs,
the quicker the boys drink.
Manx and I sit on the tufts of grass
further up the slope
sharing our beers.
Manx watches every move Rachel makes.
Year after year,
they’re still friends,
still waiting
for the other to make a move.
Broken glass and bravado
The night always ends
with broken bottles
piled up on the sand
and all of year ten
wondering who’ll vomit first.
Most of the boys
spend their time
trying to impress the girls
by dive-bombing off the pier
or sculling stubbies in one gulp.
Ella sits on the grass above the sand
and avoids the gaze of the foot
ball boys.
Everyone cheers
when Harriet, a new girl at school,
runs the length of the pier
before leaping into the lake.
A bunch of boys race to join her.
I take a cautious sip of beer
and wonder how long
I should sit here
before walking across to Ella.
Another empty is thrown on the pile.
One of the crowd
Ella leaves the party early
before I work up the courage
to talk to her.
By the light of the fire
Patrick passes a joint to Rachel
and Angelo invites Harriet
to share in the spoils.
Manx and I
open another bottle
and watch the moonlight,
pretending we enjoy counting stars.
‘Why didn’t Patrick go to the private school?’ I ask.
‘Maybe his dad thought it was good for business
being one of the crowd,’ Manx says.
He spits between his teeth.
Patrick puts a carefree arm
around Rachel
and she looks quickly towards Manx.
Rach used to sit between Manx and me
in the back row at primary school.
She read books about horses
and told us
her dad was mining out west
and coming home any day.
That was five years ago.
Now she removes Patrick’s arm
from around her shoulder,
sucks deeply on the joint
and tries hard not to cough.
Exercise
The next morning,
I sleep in and wake to find the house
echoing with emptiness.
In the garden,
Mum is on her knees
weeding around the concrete edges
and carefully turning the soil
near the spinach and broccoli.
She stands and massages her lower back.
She wears black tights,
a loose sweater and running shoes.
When she bought the shoes
I told her they looked good
whereas Dad asked what she was planning.
Mum shrugged
and said she might run around the lake
in the evening.
In the end, eight hours standing on the filleting line
was more than enough exercise for one day,
so she paid $125
for shoes to wear while gardening.
Mum washes her hands under the hose
and looks up at the heavy clouds.
She sees me at the open window.
‘I love the rain,’ she says.
‘It washes everything clean.’
She attempts a smile.
‘A chance to start over,’ I reply.
She turns off the tap
and picks a bunch of spinach.
Shaking the dirt from the stalks,