‘You’re not remembering right.’
‘These are what I told you made me feel sick and tired.’
‘They’re not the same. They’re for me.’
Adam looked up at the ceiling and over his shoulder at the open door. All morning he’d been feeling different. He’d been feeling lighter somehow, quicker. He’d thought it had been about hitting his father, the change that came with that, but looking now . . . were things closer, clearer? Was he thinking faster? Moving faster?
‘Why have you still got them?’
‘I told you, they’re mine.’
‘Take one,’ Adam said. He shook a tablet onto his palm and held it out for his father. ‘Take it.’
His father closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. He wasn’t going to take it. They weren’t for him. What Adam felt then was pure and bright and it arced inwards, a clean sharp feeling that wrinkled his nose and travelled backwards through his skull, into his brain, down his spine, through his ribs and chest, right down through his hips, down his legs and into his feet. It was a white-hot feeling that emptied him of fear. Pushed all the fear out.
‘You’ve still been giving these to me.’
‘Because you need them.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I do.’
Adam capped the bottle and put it in his pocket. He kept the box of tablets too. He picked up the plate and threw the slices of toast towards the bed, letting them land and fall whatever way they did, buttered side down on the blankets, one piece skating off onto the floor. Adam picked up the hose.
‘Use the shower for the toilet. Do what you made me do.’
He shut the door. Bolted it.
E
very now and then Adam stopped searching for the gun and went out to check if the chickens had left their cages. At last they had. They were huddled by the feed bins. Adam didn’t go down in case he frightened them. He kept Monty and Jerry by his side. One chicken flapped its wings, shook its body and fluffed its feathers. Adam could tell by watching them that they wouldn’t go back inside the cages. Now that they were together, they’d want to stay that way. After collecting the key from the radio, he kept on searching for the gun. The key had to unlock something. The gun would be in whatever it unlocked.
At the bar, Adam looked in the cupboards. He removed the bags of chips and cartons of cigarettes. He pressed the cupboard sides and floors. His father was good at hiding things. Adam had to check for spaces and gaps in walls, he had to move furniture. Once, hiding from his father, Adam had squeezed in behind the wardrobe in the spare room. He’d found a small section of plasterboard was missing from the wall. Through the gap was a space big enough to kneel in. Adam had climbed in and knelt inside the wall, head down over his knees, tense and small, like a mouse hiding from Monty, thinking he couldn’t be sniffed out and found, when, of course, he could be. The longer Adam had stayed there the more his eyes had adjusted to the dark. Beneath his knees had been magazines, stacks of them. They weren’t what were hidden, though. Jammed in behind the stack had been a shoebox filled with photos. He’d held one photo up to the crack of light. The picture had been of a boy, dark-haired, brown-skinned and naked, standing in the billiards room. The boy had been holding a pair of small white puppies. Monty and Jerry. Something had budded in Adam’s mind then, an idea or a memory had seemed about to burst, into full recollection. But he’d heard his father coming and dropped the photograph. The wardrobe had been pulled away from the wall, Adam had been hauled out, kicking, squealing, like a mouse. Later his father had come into the lounge room holding the photo, waving it and snarling.
Did you get a good look? Did you? Did you look at all the pictures? I hope you did.
He’d put the photo in front of Adam’s face, stuck it on Adam’s sweaty forehead, drilled his knuckle against it.
Look
. That close it had been impossible to see.
You’re not looking.
He’d smacked Adam in the head. His father had thrown the photo in the fireplace, and with it any chance of Adam remembering the boy had also seemed to go up in flames. His father had brought out the shoebox and burned all the photographs. His face had grown red doing it. He’d begun to tremble and shout. During moments of hating and blaming, his father often lost all sense. He probably hadn’t wanted to burn the photographs, but his temper made him do it, the craziness had taken over. Adam’s father was worst when he lost control. Not even the rules were in play then. He’d removed his belt.
Think you’re clever finding those? Think you know things, do you? This is what your sneaking gets you. Your snivelling behaviour is why no one can look at your filthy fucking face. I should burn you. I should throw you in the fire.
Adam had to check the hiding spot behind the wardrobe for the gun. Even though to do so brought back memories of that day. There were no magazines, not anymore, and no gun.
In one of the unused rooms, Adam noticed a filmy covering of oil lubricated the door hinges. There was a lock near the handle, but the bolt was on the inside. Adam had been pulling up the blinds in each room as he searched, opening the windows to let the air in. Something made him leave this room’s blind down. There was a worn path in the floor across to the far corner of the room. The carpet edge was frayed and unravelling. Adam peeled the carpet back. The floorboards below it weren’t nailed down. Each plank was resting on the supporting beams. The sides of the boards were smooth and dark from being handled. Monty and Jerry sat outside the room. They wouldn’t come in, not even when Adam called them. He lifted the loose boards, laying them in order in the centre of the room. Dry dirt smells lifted through the open floor. The drop down to the ground wasn’t much. A few rooms on and the backroom concrete pad began. The backroom was built on a slab. The rest of the house was raised on stumps.
Not a lot of light found its way under there. At first he couldn’t make out what he’d found. Even when he could see, he couldn’t make sense of it. Then it became clear.
Lying on the dirt was a big black safe. It was on its back, the door and lock facing up. The safe was as long as a person and twice as wide. Adam took the brass key from his pocket. He climbed down, knelt beside the safe. The key fitted the lock. Adam turned it. And he turned the metal handle. He had to use both hands to lift the heavy door. Green velvet lined the inside of the safe. Adam’s nose flared with the unusual smell of the interior. His eyes were wide and dry. In one corner of the safe was a bundle of money. He ran his fingers over the velvet and picked up the stack of notes. Two elastic bands held the bundle together, one at each end. He smelled the money. It was cold and crisp from being kept in the dark.
The gun wasn’t in the safe.
Adam put the money back and shut the heavy door, relocked it, climbed back up into the room, put the boards in place, and then the carpet.
He finished searching the other rooms.
*
Adam opened a tin of spaghetti and made some toast. He stood in front of the oven, tossing up whether or not to heat his can of food. He’d only ever watched his father cook and use the stove. The small pot used for spaghetti was in the cupboard. Adam decided against it, poured his spaghetti cold over his toast. He sat on the couch to eat. When the Colgate ad came on he got up and brushed his teeth. That night Adam slept in his old bedroom. It was a narrow room beside the laundry. Before getting into bed he cleared away the downy white spider nests from the creases in the pillow and from the crinkles in the sheets. Mouse droppings littered the quilt. Adam found, tucked away between the wall and mattress, the little plastic tiger he’d put there as a child and forgotten about . . . or not forgotten about. Something he’d trained himself not to think of.
He looked at the toy now, warily, with his chin lifted. He rubbed the moulded flank, belly, legs and the pointy ears. The tiger had once been his daring friend, unafraid in every situation. At night, it had come to life, prowled the rooms, stalked the hallway, padded down the steps out into the yard, strong enough to leap the fence and bound back over if he didn’t like what he found on the other side. He’d growled hushed stories to Adam, told of his adventures, of the people he’d scared beyond the fence. The fierceness of the toy had never changed and the whispered message had always stayed the same –
he can’t hurt me, let him try
. Adam put the toy back. By wedging it between the wall and mattress he was returning it to the time when being outside the backroom had been common, a time better suited to toys and make-believe. Adam had put too much effort into not pining for the tiger to let his guard down now. It was too late to love it.
Monty and Jerry were at the open doorway, waiting to be called in. It took some coaxing to make them jump up onto the bed. They curled beside him on the mattress. The safe, its weight and size, played on Adam’s mind. It was such a big and heavy thing to have been there all this time, lying under the house. The smell of money lingered in Adam’s nostrils. The texture of the notes stayed on his fingertips. There was something real about the safe and those notes. All Adam knew was that the money didn’t exist solely inside the yard. It had a place outside as well. The money
could
jump the fence. It held the promise that it could help him jump it too.
A
chicken was squawking. Adam opened his eyes and sat up in bed. The dogs were gone. He scrambled from beneath the blankets. Half awake, he ran through the house. The billiards room door was open. Monty and Jerry were out, down in the yard; they had a chicken pinned to the ground. Adam leapt from the decking. He stumbled, sprinted across the yard.
‘No! No!’
His voice wasn’t strong. It had been broken and husky since screaming at his father. The dogs were tearing at the bird. Adam grabbed Jerry by the scruff of the neck and threw him. The little dog yelped and landed off in the grass. Monty slunk back and cowered. The chicken was alive, flapping, but it couldn’t stand up. There were feathers scattered all around it and spots of blood on the dirt. It stopped flapping and lay there, blinking, one wing tucked under it. Monty and Jerry skulked off, up the steps and inside. Adam saw that the dogs had attacked another chicken. He walked over to it. Then he saw the next injured bird, and the next. Monty and Jerry had attacked all the chickens. Half were dead, half were mauled. Not one chicken had been left standing. Had Adam been wrong to let the birds out? Was it wrong to set a thing free?
See what happens when you think too hard. It hurts.
He turned and saw Monty and Jerry with their noses poking out from behind the billiards room curtain.
‘Filthy fucking dirty dogs!’ Adam screamed.
The words sprung from him, unexpected. They boiled up from a place Adam didn’t like. The dogs ducked back inside. Adam was silent, recovering from what he’d said and the way he’d said it.
With a shovel he stood over the line of injured birds. He willed the courage to do what he knew he had to. He lifted the spade, over the neck of the rooster. He braced, squeezed his eyes shut, told his arms to stab down, to do it quick. He couldn’t. He lowered the shovel, rested it in the grass, slumped his shoulders and fought the tears.
Adam walked around to the front of the house and stood on the concrete, listening to the sounds beyond the gate, cars passing in the street. The gate remained chained and padlocked. Adam remembered shutting the billiards room door the night before. He clearly remembered doing that. Monty and Jerry wouldn’t have run around killing chickens if his father were out of the backroom. His father wouldn’t have let the dogs kill the chickens, not even to hurt Adam or teach him a lesson. Someone had been. Someone had climbed the fence into the yard, been in the house.
Monty and Jerry scurried over the tiles. They disappeared into the front rooms. Adam turned and walked down the hallway towards the backroom.
He went into the closed-in verandah, got the length of hose. He pulled his arm back, ready, and unlocked the backroom door.
His father didn’t have the light on, not like Adam would have had. Blackness rushed at Adam. It halted him a moment. He rocked with a wave of fear. Springs on the bed creaked. Adam reached in and turned on the light. His father was in the bed. He was pale and blinking, his legs under the blankets.
‘You have to come out and kill the chickens.’
Adam hardly recognised his own voice. It was like someone else had spoken, a new person in the house, with a hoarse, deep way of talking.
‘Monty and Jerry have attacked the chickens.’
‘Stay there, wait, don’t close the door.’
Adam turned and walked down the hallway. He left the backroom door open behind him. He kept the hose. The backroom smell had been enough to take Adam’s air. The bed, a glimpse of the shower, had been enough to lighten his head. If his father found a way to put him back in there, Adam would fight this time, he wouldn’t drink the drinks and he wouldn’t eat the food, he’d dismantle the bed, tear apart the drawers, do whatever it took to smash the door to pieces, he’d arm himself with whatever sharp or heavy thing that he could get his hands on, and if his father touched him, Adam would kill him.
But Adam couldn’t kill the chickens.
He stood on the deck as his father came out, bruised and stooped. Monty and Jerry were down on their bellies near the door, wagging their tails and gazing up at Adam’s father. They rolled onto their backs when he looked down at them. For a few moments Adam’s father stood there taking in the changes – the empty cages, the dead chickens scattered around the yard, and then he looked at Adam, down Adam’s body, at the clothes, the socks. Adam stared back. He was holding the hose, ready, almost hoping for a bad reaction.
‘Where’s the spade?’
His father was unsteady going down the steps. He took a deep breath before raising the spade. He wasn’t steeling himself for the job of killing. He was steeling himself for the effort in it. Adam felt relief with each dull chop. He wasn’t sad, not anymore, he just wished the chickens had more time out of the cages, more time being chickens.
Done killing them, his father let the spade drop and walked back towards the house. His eyes were glassy. His lips were white. Adam let him pass. He let his father return to the front rooms.
Adam felt that he didn’t need a weapon. He could stop his father with his bare hands if he wanted. A kick would send him sprawling. A push would topple him. His father didn’t sit in the armchair. He sat on the couch. He didn’t turn on the TV; Adam did. His father went, without speaking, into the kitchen and ate while standing at the fridge. His hands were trembling. He chewed weakly.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘What do you think – you hardly brought me anything to eat.’
‘No, what’s wrong with you?’
‘I told you, I’m sick.’
‘What have you got?’
He didn’t answer. The smell of him had changed. It was old sweat. He went back into the lounge room and sank down on the couch, breathed shallow and short. Adam left him and went out to pick up the dead chickens. He held them by the feet, bundled them in his hands. They weren’t as heavy as they looked. Beneath the feathers they were bony. Sun seared hot. The chopped-off heads of the chickens, the ones his father had killed, Adam left in the grass. He took the bodies and threw them in the rubbish trailer. Monty and Jerry hung around the decking steps, sniffing the air, not coming any closer.
‘Where’s the key from the radio?’ his father said when Adam went back inside. He was standing in the hallway outside his bedroom door.
‘I’ve got it. I’m keeping it.’
‘Where are my tablets?’
‘I’m keeping them too.’
For a few moments his father stood there, the same place Adam had crouched with the carving knife. His father swayed on his feet. He went past Adam, into the lounge room, staggered the last few steps and collapsed onto the couch. He lay there, silent.
Adam made his father breakfast. Vegemite toast. He made him a cup of tea. Into the drink Adam dropped a tablet from the brown bottle. He stirred. One tablet didn’t seem much, so Adam dropped in two more and stirred again. He was careful not to let the teaspoon hit the sides or bottom. He capped the bottle soundlessly. His father didn’t eat all the toast. But he did drink all the tea. Adam ate five pieces of toast and drank milk from the carton. They watched
The Midday Show
,
Days of Our Lives
and
The
Young and the Restless
. Monty and Jerry started following Adam around. His father stayed lying on the couch. His lips were parted and his eyes half-closed. He wasn’t sleeping, though. Whenever Adam went in or out of the room, or whenever something sudden happened on TV, his father’s eyes would open wider and stare, unseeing but looking. He tried to move but it was as though it was too much effort and he would lie back down. The white-hot feeling returned as Adam stood, watching the effect the tablets had on his father.
D
r Who
was on that night. Adam sat on the footstool, close to the TV. When the show was over, hungry again, he went into the kitchen and stood by the table thinking of what to eat. The ability to choose was new. He wanted meat. He turned the dial on the stove. The pan was on the draining rack from when he’d washed it. He waited until the black rings of the hotplate turned red.
‘Does the meat go straight in the pan?’ he called.
His father didn’t answer.
Adam put the pan on the element. He opened the fridge. There was no meat. He turned the stove off and made a bowl of cornflakes instead.
Adam brushed his teeth. It was unsettling to be at the basin, head over the sink, scrubbing, rinsing well, using dental floss, opening his mouth and checking his back molars in the mirror. Everything else had changed, but this hadn’t. All Adam knew was that he didn’t want a cavity. Of all the rules, this one stuck. Each loose tooth he’d had as a child his father had removed with pliers. Before the tooth was properly loose. He’d used the heavy tool and ripped the tooth out, explaining, as he did it, that it was what he’d do to Adam’s adult teeth if he ever got a cavity or didn’t brush enough. Adult teeth weren’t meant to come out. He’d said he’d strap Adam down, tie his hands, tie his head back, jam open his mouth. If Adam thought it hurt to have his baby teeth removed, wait until he felt the pain of adult teeth, rooted down into his jaw, being ripped out. Adam had never felt that pain. He brushed enough and flossed enough to stop it happening. To make sure Adam understood, his father had dropped each baby tooth he’d pulled into a glass of Coke and left it on the kitchen windowsill until it had turned black and began to rot. He’d then made Adam drink the Coke, tooth still in it.
Sweet things will rot your teeth
. Fizzy drinks still made Adam gag.
He went to bed. He heard his father get up and go into the bathroom. Adam listened to him stumble into things, try to wash. He listened to him stagger into his bedroom. It sounded like he changed into pyjamas. Monty and Jerry didn’t sleep with Adam. He could hear one of them yipping softly in its sleep in the lounge room. Probably dreaming of killing chickens.