The 10 P.M. Question (13 page)

Frankie liked reading, though not as much as Gordana. Gordana vacuumed up books; she devoured them. With a book in her hand, Gordana was deaf and dumb to the rest of the world. At the city library she fell into the nearest beanbag and chewed her way through book after book after book. Also — until a year ago — through all the fingernails on both hands. Until a year ago, when Gordana had started going out with Ben, her fingernails had been chewed to oblivion. But now they were fetching white half-moons and Gordana spent much time painting them black or scarlet or fluorescent blue. Gordana’s nails were safe now, Gigs said, because she was too busy chewing Ben’s face.

Frankie also worked his way through many books at the city library, but he did it at a leisurely pace, and he mostly chose picture books. He didn’t care what anyone thought about this, nor did he imagine anyone took the slightest notice. That was the great thing about the library. It was both teeming with people and very private. Everyone was either busy selecting books or returning them. Or they were sprawled in a beanbag, lost in their own reading world.

Frankie missed those library visits with Gordana. She’d been just as bossy back then, of course, just as contrary and unpredictable, but going to the library made her temporarily affable. She played Lady with a Pram and other bus games with Frankie on the way into the city. They shared packets of Pebbles and Spaceman Candies and listened in on other passengers’ conversations. Gordana didn’t seem to mind Frankie bringing his beanbag right up beside hers once they got to the library; she was never scornful about his picture books.

It was always a Saturday when they went to the library, and afterward they lugged their bag of books to Pigeon Park. They sat on a bench there, eating hot chips, and Gordana didn’t mind if Frankie sketched the pigeons. Gordana watched the passing parade and gave a steady commentary on people’s odd behavior. She made Frankie laugh. But now Gordana worked at the Cupcake Café on Saturdays, and if Frankie and Gigs showed their faces, she said they had till the count of three to go to a galaxy far, far away.

Frankie began running gently on the spot. It was 8:45 according to the Victoria Clock Tower. He could go inside and warm up, but Louie had said it’d be strictly a drive-by and that Frankie must be ready and waiting outside. If he had a mobile phone, he could text Louie and say,
whr r u knob-shine?
but he wouldn’t have a mobile until he turned thirteen. Uncle George said that the longer it was delayed, the better; it was sad enough having two children whose phones were extra body parts.

More like internal organs, Frankie thought. Once, when Louie had been suspended from school, Uncle George had confiscated his mobile for three days and it was as if invisible batteries inside Louie had been near failure, or as if Louie were an indoor plant someone had forgotten to water. He’d been quite slowed down, limp and listless and strangely without purpose.

The rain was easing. Across the road Transistor Man and Skirt Man sat beneath the eaves of the old state services building, drinking takeout coffee. Transistor Man was developmentally disabled and listened all day to a large old-fashioned transistor radio held on his shoulder. Skirt Man was DD, too, and Chinese. He wore a little lacy blouse and a kilt that came to just above his tiny brown knees. The two of them lived on the city streets and sometimes at the Night Shelter. They were always together, except when they’d squabbled, which was relatively often. You always knew when they’d fallen out, because they cornered passersby and told them every detail.

Gordana said Transistor Man and Skirt Man were freaks; moreover they were freaks who smelled. But Frankie and Gigs liked the two men. They liked to chat to them; they shared lollies with them sometimes. Once, they’d pooled their money and bought Transistor Man new batteries for his radio. A lot of people did that. From time to time, people gave Skirt Man new blouses, too.

Louie said Transistor Man’s name was really Douglas Golightly and Skirt Man was called Ping Song. Generally, Frankie took Louie at his word — he knew everything around town — but Douglas Golightly and Ping Song sounded suspiciously like the names of characters in a book. Ping
was
a character in a book. He was a duck in Louie’s favorite book,
The Story of Ping
. Uncle George had often called Louie Ping when he was little; he said Louie was just like the yellow duck — a nosy little adventurer who secretly needed his family.

Louie had taken
The Story of Ping
when he moved out, which was fine, but he had also taken
Harold and the Purple Crayon
and that was Frankie’s book,
his
favorite of all time. Louie said his need for
Harold
was greater; Frankie said he didn’t think so. Louie said
Harold
was a necessary inspiration when you were making a new life. Frankie said
Harold
was a necessary inspiration in your old life, too. In the end, because Frankie could never win a negotiation with Louie, they’d agreed on six months each with
Harold.
Frankie was getting him back at Easter.

Frankie had first read
Harold
at this very city library when he was four. He could remember it quite clearly. Alma had plucked
Harold
from the shelf and Frankie had fallen instantly in love. It was Harold’s genius with his purple crayon that thrilled him. Harold made things happen simply by drawing them. He solved problems with that crayon. He
drew
himself out of tight spots. The crayon took him out into the world and it brought him safely back home. It was magnificent. It was magical. Every time Frankie got to the end of the book and Harold drew — first his bedroom window with the little half-moon framed, and then his bed — Frankie would let out a long sigh of satisfaction. Then he would make Alma read the book all over again.

The Aunties had finally ordered him his own copy of
Harold and the Purple Crayon,
but Frankie insisted on borrowing the book from the library still. He liked having two Harolds sitting on the table beside his bed.

Frankie dated his own interest in drawing from around that time. Alma had bought him a sketchbook and his own packet of crayons — with several shades of purple — and he’d filled every corner of every page in the sketchbook with pictures. These days he drew in black and white. He could only dimly remember that madly colored world, the parade of figures and furniture and flowers, animals and birds and cars and buildings. The Aunties still had that sketchbook, along with others he’d filled. They were stacked on the bookcase in the spare bedroom, which was also known as Frankie’s Room. One of these days he might get them down and have a look through them.

Now 8:53. The rain had stopped completely and the clouds were dispersing. The crowds of worker bees had thinned, too, just the late ones now, running, recklessly dodging traffic.

Frankie wondered how Sydney was doing with the grating and chopping. She didn’t seem to him like someone who would be good in the kitchen. She was too wired; she was perpetually on tiptoe, as if ready any moment to run the one-hundred-meter dash.

“Your Ma’s so
calm,
” Sydney had said to Frankie. “She seems so in charge. She seems so
fine
.”

“She
is
so fine,” Frankie had said, ungrammatically and rather coldly, as if there could be no question at all about this. “She just doesn’t leave the house. So what? That’s her choice. It’s the way she likes it.”

“It’s the way she likes it,” he had repeated very firmly, to put an end to the conversation. He really did not want to talk about it.

Nor did he want to think about it now.

But, at last, here was the De Souza truck. Frankie waved and Louie flashed his lights. He veered sharply out of the traffic as he approached the library and came to a flourishing halt. Frankie jumped into the passenger seat and submitted himself to Ray Davies’s boisterous welcome. Then he sat back and breathed out gustily. His heart was pounding, as if he’d run some distance to catch the truck. Somehow Louie made the simple act of picking you up seem as though you were participating in the getaway from a bank heist.

“How’re you doing, little bro?” said Louie, punching Frankie gently on the shoulder. “Nice hoodie.”

“Got it yesterday,” said Frankie. “Got these, too.” He pointed to his jeans. “Uncle George’s card. Okay, enough now!” Ray Davies was practically giving him a face wash. Frankie put his hands gently around Ray Davies’s muzzle and held them there until the dog settled down on his lap.

“Uncle G’s credit card!” said Louie. He banged the steering wheel. “Those were the days. Why can’t I have Uncle G’s card anymore?”

“You
have
money,” said Frankie. “You have heaps of money.”

“Never enough,” said Louie. “
C r e a m,
Frankie,
cream
. You know what the song says.”

Cream,
Frankie knew, stood for “cash runs everything around me.” It was a song by Wu-Tang Clan, Louie’s truck band. Louie’s taste in music was mostly retro, but in the truck he played exclusively rap. He said it kept him pulsing and alert in the city traffic, which was, apparently, pure psycho territory.

Riding in the De Souza truck was certainly an experience. Frankie felt as if the truck drove according to interior rap rhythms. It was like sitting inside a pumping artery with accompanying breakouts from the horn; Louie was very fond of tooting. And if Louie played Dangermouse, Ray Davies started up, too. There was something about Dangermouse that drove Ray Davies crazy. He stood on the seat and barked frenziedly at the stereo. Louie said Dangermouse was way too intellectual for Ray Davies, who was a simple dog, possibly even a philistine. He preferred Wu-Tang Clan; he liked their piano samples.

It was Wu-Tang Clan playing now. Ray Davies had settled into his patch between the seats, dozing on Louie’s old blue baby blanket.

“What’s the first stop?” asked Frankie.

Despite Mr. A’s theory, Frankie actually knew a good deal about Louie’s work, mostly because Louie liked to talk about it in exhaustive detail. He had told Frankie about the various characters he worked with at De Souza’s. There was Gregor, who had big gaps between his teeth and carried toothpicks in his pocket; Munro, who was Irish and probably ex-IRA; Darius Littlejohn whose middle name was
Mary,
for heaven’s sake. Louie liked to tell Frankie about his circuit around the city, about his favorite cafés and shops, and especially about the cute girls he met at all the offices he called on. Frankie knew, for instance, that Louie’s favorite cute girl was called Rosie Reed, that she was part Vietnamese, and that she was the receptionist at Benson Galloway, the big law firm, and that unfortunately Benson Galloway only needed their secure bins changed fortnightly.

Somehow, he doubted any of this was the kind of thing Mr. A was looking for in his report.

“Done two already,” said Louie. “Why I was late. Some idiot parked me in at Hatchets.” Hatchets was a printing company that produced vast truckloads of wastepaper. Louie picked up bins from Hatchets at least twice a week, but there were no cute girls at Hatchets, apparently, just a hatchet-faced woman — ha! — called Beverley Surridge.

“Teals, Farmers, College of Ed, Postal Services Center, something else”— Louie scrabbled for the clipboard on the door of the truck and shoved it at Frankie —“that’ll probably be the morning, then back to the depot. Might be time for you to see some shredding.”

Frankie smiled. It was really Louie who loved the shredders. Frankie had seen shredding in action and it was fun enough, but Louie became quite starry-eyed when he watched those machines, the paper worms pouring forth. He was like a little kid watching planes take off and land.

A kid with muscles, though. Louie had muscled up big-time since he’d started at De Souza’s. Hefting the bins was as good as a workout at the gym, he said. But he did weights after work, too. He and his roommates had a mini gym in their living room. They bench-pressed and cycled and watched the sports channel. Even the female roommate, Mishana, worked out; she was a prop for the St. Colomba girls’ senior rugby team.

“How’s the apartment?” said Frankie. He’d heard Louie updating Uncle George just two nights ago, but plenty could happen in Louie’s life in forty-eight hours.

“Humming along,” said Louie. “But DJ’s leaving in a month — Perth — and Mishana might go to Japan with the team.”

“To play?” said Frankie.

“Nah, to eat sushi,” said Louie witheringly. “Of course, to play.”

“To play women?” said Frankie.

“Who else?” said Louie.

Frankie thought of Mishana. She was six foot three with shoulders like a butterfly champion; she had broad forearms and a killer instinct and she annihilated everyone in arm wrestling. He thought of the Japanese women he saw around town in tourist groups.

“But they’ll be so . . .
small
.”

“Yeah,” said Louie, “they’ll be pulverized. Imagine packing down against Mishana. Anyway, she might be going, and Elvis might have an offshore job, so Eddie and I’ll have to find new people.” Louie gave a sudden blast on the horn and yelled out the window at a guy leaning against a lamppost, smoking. “Nichols! Wake up, you turkey! Tomorrow’s already here!”

The guy turned his head slowly and waved a sleepy hand. Frankie saw he was Hunter Nichols, Louie’s oldest friend. Louie had practically lived at Hunter’s house in his last year of school.

“Dozy bastard,” said Louie fondly. “He’s started at the university, but he’s morning barista at Havana. He’s good, too. I might poach him when I start up my coffee cart.”

Louie turned down Rimmer Street, then reversed into the back entrance of Teals Department Store. Frankie climbed down from the truck and followed Louie into the store, wishing for about the millionth time that he had just a tenth of Louie’s swaggering assurance.

It was interesting to watch Louie at work. Frankie had been in the De Souza truck plenty of times, but only ever after work was finished; he’d never done a day’s route with Louie, seen him in action. Nor had any of the family. Uncle George had demanded a full Technicolor report over dinner.