Half Good

South African, Rita Kindervarten is an old lady. She finds herself half way across the road on the central median strip looking at Billy back on the footpath. Billy helped her, but he got distracted and left her halfway across the street, when his mobile phone rang.

“I’ve got to take this.” He retreats back to the first side of the road, when the other side of the road is blocked with oncoming traffic.

Billy repeats back what the person on the other end of the phone is saying, as if he can’t quite believe what he is hearing, the effect was the entire conversation, had a touch of the macabre’s about it, as though Billy was answering himself but without really listening. 

Billy was standing in front of a shop window, Rita can see that he thought he looked pretty good in his three button cream sixties suite, as he looked at his reflection in the glass. He did, in his thin black tie and his pointy black shoes.

“I can’t wait for this nonsense,” Rita mutters to herself.

Rita is trying to cross the other half of the busy street on her own. Cars rush passed, and Rita is shaking, as she tries to judge their speed. Rita's macular degeneration makes it almost impossible for her to see the approaching cars.

Rita is going to be killed.

Billy realises what he has done. “Gotta go.” He flips his phone shut, and he dashes across to the middle of the road and takes Rita's arm. “Steady on old girl.”  Just as Rita is about to step in front of on-coming traffic.

"Rita, I am so sorry," says Billy.

"Eets not the ind of the wurld, Beelly," says Rita.

"I shouldnta done what I done, Rita," says Billy. "It's the voices, Rita, it’s the voices." He holds up his phone.

"Never mynd Beelly, yr ere now," says Rita. "Let's geet across."

"On the count of three, Rita."

"Roytio, Beelly," says Rita. "On zee count of thhree."

Billy takes Rita by the arm and escorts her to the far side of the road. Across three lanes, in between cars flashing passed them on either side. "Immaculate Degenerate, or not, Rita. Immaculate Degenerate, or not."

"Yes, Beelly," says Rita. "Yes, Beelly."

"Run!" says Billy. A truck approaches them in the far lane.

Rita Screams.

Billy drags her to the footpath just in time.

"You're moi 'ero, Beelly. You're moi 'ero."

"That was close, Rita. That was close."

Rita clasps her hands to her forehead. "I felt zee vind, Beelly. Zee Vind from the car passing su cluse."

"You nearly felt more than that." Billy laughs.

Rita laughs. "Don't say eet, Beelly. Don't say eet."

It reminded them of home, the windy back blocks, those tumbleweed streets of where they’d come from, the hills out the back of Bolago. As kids, Billy and his mates used to hide in Rita’s garden. They would scramble about being up to no good, and sometimes Rita would hear them. 

“Is there somebody there,” she would call out. “Or is it ze wind?’

It was long after Rita’s husband had passed and Billy could hear the sadness in Rita’s voice. As his mates scrambled and scattered in fear of being seen, Billy would take one last look at the woman in the single globe lit back door, as if the pool of that single globe was the tapestry that was left of her life. He’d call out as softly as the wind, “It is only ze vind.” Before he’d scatter through the garden as quiet as a mouse.

“Er.” Rita’s voice would herumph. It would be the last thing Billy heard, as he dashed under the second story growth of Rita’s vast garden. The resignation of loneliness. It gave him a chill.

Years later, Carmel, Billy’s mother’, died and it was her funeral. Rita was the tiny figure sitting quietly down the back. Afterwards, Rita plucked up the courage to say something to Billy. Billy’s mum, Carmel, had been the first local to be kind to Rita, after she immigrated to Bolago. She approached Billy and told him what a wonderful woman his mother was.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

 “You’re the woman from the veranda,” Billy says, as though thinking out aloud.

“Your one of the boys who used to call to me from my garden.”

“I thought you were mad.” Billy picked up a sandwich from the plate.

“I thought I was going mad,” says Rita. “We’d been married for 30 years.” She scooped a sausage roll deep down into the tomato sauce that it looked as though it dripped blood as she bought it to her mouth.

“Do you still miss him?” asks Billy.

“Ivery day, Beelly, ivery day.”

“How long has it been?” asks Billy.

“Fifteen yars, Beelly. Fifteen yars.”

Billy misses his mum. Rita never had any children. They stay close.

One night, a couple of years after Carmel’s death, after a huge batch of eggnog made by Billy’s sister, Amanda, Billy told Rita the story of what he and his mates used to hide in her garden.

“It was late, we were bored,” says Billy.

“Well, eet vas a small town, Beelly, a small town. Not much for kids to do in a small town."

“We used to hang around the arcade, Saturday night playing games, hanging out.”

“Not much goin’ on in a small town on a Saturdee night.”

“We play games until old Joe would kick us out and shut up shop. I think it was 11pm.”

“I’d bee vatching teevee, Beelly, till late, I no longer had any reason to go to bed.”

“We’d walk home down Donaldson’s Road. We’d cut across the creek which ran along the back of your yard.”

Miryveather Creeek,  Beelly, Miryveather Creeek.”

“Your house sat up high…”

“Yeees, it vas a good view in ze day tyme from my veranda.”

“It was a game to us.”

“My husband Elliot had not long died, the greef didn’t leave me for a number of years,” says Rita. “It vas an ard von zat. Greef Beelly, ze greef.”

“I found that out with my mum dying,” says Billy. “It never really fully goes.”

“But vhy my hise, Beelly, vhy me?”

“It was just on the way, Rita. That’s all it was.”

“You’d make those noises, Beelly, those noises you boys made.”

“I know, we thought it was funny,” says Billy. “We were bored and young, a dangerous combination.”

“It vas unkind.”

“You were the lady with the funny way of talking, with the accent…”

“Ze accent, Beelly, get it right.”

“Ze accent, Reeta, ze accent.”

Rita laughs. “Oh Billy you are so funny. Zat is supposed to be me.”

“Zat is you, old gyrl.”

Rita laughs. "Don't say eet, Beelly. Don't say eet."

“It vasn’t just ze vind, Mrs Kindervarten.”

“Oh Beelly.”

“I’m glad I got to know you,” says Billy. “I’m glad you forgave me.”

“Me too Beelly, me too,” says Rita. “A friendship shared in death.”

The cars begin to rush again on the lane they’d just crossed.

“Don’t say it, Beelly, don’t say it.” Rita giggles.

Billy laughs nervously. "It vas zee vind, Mrs Kindervarten? "It vas ze vind?"

"It was zee vind, Beelly," asks Rita. "Ze vind?"

"Yes, Mrs Kindervarten. Ze Vind."

"Er," says Rita. She shrugs.

"Zee vind," says Billy.

"Ve made eet," says Rita. "That is all that matters, Beelly."

BusinessForce

"I don't want to go back to the call centre," said Kevin.

"Nobody wants to go back to the call centre," said Justin. "You should have studied harder in school, Kev. You should have studied harder."

"Fuck off," said Kevin. "You know... you know... I..."

Justin slapped Kevin on the back. "Oh, come on, let's not go back over that," said Justin. "He touched you, we all know he touched you." Justin punched Kevin on the arm. "Come on, come on Chook should be home now, we can get some gunga."

"I sooooo don't want to go back to the call centre."

"Come with me and soon you won't even be thinking about it."

"Call centre hell!"

"Ah, call centre hell," said Justin. "Back to Camp Guantanamo."

Kevin made a noose and rope motion above his head. "I'm not going, you can't make me. I'd rather..."

"Kev, I'm not going to make you do anything," said Justin. He put his arm around Kevin's shoulders and he gave his buddy a squeeze, which felt oddly nice, reassuring. "No one is sending you back to hell, mate."

Kevin could feel himself physically relax with his buddy’s touch. Kevin put his arm around Justin, as if for support as they walked down Droop Street.

Chook's door was once painted red, but at some stage someone had tried to paint it black, but had done a lousy job, the red bled through like it might under a scab, Kevin always thought. The creeper on the front of the house was so over grown that the window was beginning to be lost in amongst the foliage. The womb, Kevin thought, he’d smile to himself when he thought that it needed a Brazilian.

Justin knocked on the door. Nothing. Justin knocked again.

"He's not home," said Kevin.

"Chook's home, Chook is always home." Justin knocked again. He knocked again. Then he pounded on the door.

"Police!" yelled Kevin.

Justin reeled around looking alarmed at Kevin. "What are you doing?" Justin raised his hands in the air. "What the fuck?"

"I thought it would get him to open the door quicker."

"You are not a bright fucker, are ya?" said Justin. "You want Chook going over the back fucken fence." 

The door cracked open. "Who is it?" a croaky voice asked.

"Justin."

The door was suddenly flung open. "Jesus, fuck me it's bright.” Standing in front of Kevin and Justin was a tall, lean, pale-skinned streak of a male with his hair standing on end, his eyes half closed, shirtless naked, semi-muscular torso, with dirty crimson track pants, sitting diagonally low on his hips to expose his pubes and the very top of his dick shaft. He put one hand to his face, as the other hand tugged his pants up at the front. The track pants had the left leg torn off below the calf. 

Kevin could only assume that this was Chook.

"Did some cunt say police?"

"Just my boy Kev," said Justin. "He thought it was funny..."

"Fucken retarded," said Chook.

Kevin started to say something, but Justin covered his mouth with his hand. "They are the first words this retarded mute has said since his mother and father were torn to pieces by dogs in front of his very eyes..."

Kevin looked at Justin with wide questioning eyes, still with his hand firmly over his mouth. Justin met his gaze, his eyes widening as if a command.

"Did he get that on his iPhoned," said Chook. "I'd sure fucken love to have seen that."

"Na mate."

Kevin licked Justin's fingers with his tongue. Justin squeezed Kevin's face hard enough to cause Kevin pain and to stop him licking his hand. Kevin stopped licking with a short whimper and a shiver.

Someone had been drawing on Chook's face with red biro, outlining his mouth and his eyes, adding a Hitler tash below his nose. Kevin assumed Chook hadn’t done it himself. Kevin tentatively bought his hand up to his face as though he was trying out drawing on his own face.

"You'd better get the fuck in here before the boy's in blue turn up," said Chook. "I can't afford any more pay offs this week. Um, er, I'm already carrying stock depletion because of the last one."

The hallway was dark when Chook closed the door behind them. There was some light seeping in from the tears in the curtains covering the glass next to the front door, but beyond where they were standing, it was like looking into a cave. There seemed to be multiple layers of carpet covering the floor, just waiting to trip someone up.

"Go on, go through, or do you want a fucking tour?" said Chook. "You've got in here often enough to know the fucken way to fucken go." 

Chook laughed a throaty laugh, like a huge chunk of phlegm had just let go in the back of his throat. He coughed and coughed until he, clearly, hacked it up into his mouth, then he spoke through the liquid veil over his teeth, like his words were wet. 

"Even if you don't remember the way ou..." His vocabulary failed him and he resorted to grunting and pointing, seemingly angrily. Maybe not.

The house stunk of stale smoke and BO. The curtains were closed in the lounge room too, in fact, all of the curtains in the whole house seemed to be closed. There was a huge TV diagonally across one corner of the room, blaring Jerry Springer. There was a thick cloud of smoke hanging in the air. When Kevin looked passed the blue light of the screen, every square centimetre of the wall space was covered in shelves covered in knickknacks, vases, plates, figurines, jugs, statues, clocks, boxes, crystal... in a mind boggling display.

"A lot of shit, hey?" Justin's words broke into Kevin's observations.

"It's not shit," cried Chook. "They are my fucken treasures…"

“Opshop finds,” said Justin, dismissively.

“One day, one of them is going to make me fucken rich, you wait. I’m gunna unearth a Da Vinchy."

There was a brown couch in the middle of the room, a coffee table in front of it and an armchair next to the both of them. There was a bong on the table, a huge porcelain bowl with a huge mix in it. Every square centimetre of floor space was covered with tables, tea trolleys, chests, foot stools, ottomans, poofs, all sorts of small, occasional furniture, in varying sizes and shapes.

"Take a seat," Chook commanded from the door, talking over the TV, as he entered the room. "On the couch!" He pointed to the chair. "That's my fucken spot!" He stood in front of them, sliding one hand down his track pants and scratching himself and one hand picking at his unkempt hair as though he had nits. "Did you bring that money you owe?"

Kevin thought it looked like a maze, he hesitated and then stepped his way through carefully.

"Yeah," said Justin. He started to pull $100 notes out of his pocket.

"Keep it!" said Chook. "You're a good bloke..." He pushed Justin's hand full of cash back into Justin's chest.

"Customer," said Justin.

"Mate," said Chook. "Money drives me batshit crazy. It destroys people." He sat heavily in the chair. He picked up the remote and muted the TV, suddenly there was silence. "Some bitch has had a baby with her fucken brother, do you believe it?" He reached out for the bong. "Wanna a smoke?"

"Yes," said Kevin, perhaps too quickly.

Justin slapped Kevin. "Yes," he said too.

The bong was already packed, Chook moved it to his mouth. He flicked the lighter and held it to the cone. The water gurgled and hissed. Chook sucked the entire contents of the cone up in one draw, pulling a face of such pain Kevin was sure he was going to expire before his very eyes. Chook's mouth contorted in an ugly way. He seemed to have the circular breathing of a didgeridoo player, he seemed to be leaking smoke from every hole in his head as he finished sucking it in. A cloud of smoke wafted up into the stale air of the house above him. 

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Chook groaned and moaned all at the same time as he exhaled, deep, guttural from deep within him. Then he coughed.

"So," said Chook. There still seemed to be smoke seeping from all of his pores, if smoke had been leaking out of Chook's arse, Kevin wouldn't have been surprised. "What do I owe the pleasure..." Chook was stuffing mull into the bong cone. He handed the bong to Justin. Justin flick, flick, flicked the lighter and then drew in deeply on the bong.

"We just wanted a smoke," said Kevin. He decided to fill in the silence that was created by Justin's turn on the dirty glass vessel. Justin turned to Kevin looking somewhat alarmed with Kevin's honesty.

Justin tried to talk immediately. "Um... er... no... no..." Justin held out his hand to Kevin.

"What? Ah?" Kevin suddenly felt nervous.

Chook laughed out loud. "What? Fuck! No, no, no Justin, I like your boy's honesty." He laughed again and got up on his chair like a crab might sit in a chair. He took the bong from Justin, who lay back in his chair and blew his smoke towards the mud coloured ceiling.

"Thank the fucken Christ for someone fucken honest. Good for you buddy. Good for you. Bra-fucken-vo. I get sick of these piss-ant cunts coming around here sucking my fucken blood dry and trying to call it something else."

Chook handed the bong to Kevin. "You suck cock, Kevin?"

Kevin didn't know what to say to Chook's bluntly honest question.

"We didn't JUST come around for a smoke," said Justin. Kevin noticed Justin's eyes were big.

"Fuck my arse you didn't," said Chook. "I'm allowed to have soooocial calls anyway. It doesn't always have to be running the fucken empire, you know."

"I... I... I..." Kevin stumbled. He was making an attempt at answering Chook's question. He wanted to capitalise on his new found acceptance. "I might..."

"Relax, dick!" Justin slapped Kevin across the chest. "It isn't a proposition, it is a question."

Kevin’s answer was repeating in his head, as he put the bong to his lips and flicked the lighter. He relaxed the back of his throat and sucked on the mouthpiece. The hot smoke burned the back of his throat and he felt like he wanted to cough, but he concentrated all of his efforts on not coughing, relaxing his throat more and more and more until he'd sucked the whole cone into his lungs. His throat was burning and he desperately wanted to cough, but he didn't, he held out. He didn't quite know how he managed it, but he did. He was sure it had something to do with Chook's newly found admiration of him. He wanted Chook to like him.

"You're alright," said Chook. He winked at Kevin. The red biro outline around Chooks eye moved as he winked accentuating the gesture, leaving Kevin to wonder if Chook was really coming on to him.

“How’s business?” asked Justin.

“Sweet,” said Chook. “I’ve almost got me nothing to do, ever since I put the call centre to work.”

“The call centre?” asked Justin.

“Yeah, 1300 MRS HLP.” Justin looked confused. “I sell baby clothes.” Justin looked even more confused. He glanced over at Kevin momentarily and then he looked back at Chook. “Home fucken delivery,” said Chook.

“What?” asked Justin. “You sell what?” He sounded confused, but more than that he sounded disappointed, disappointed that Chook had gone legit. “Baby clothes?”

Chook had kept a deadpan face, but then his, what would have been a handsome face under the wild hair and the red colouring in, broke into a broad smile. “Yeah, fuck head, I sell baby clothes.” Chook roared with laughed. He looked at Kevin. “I sell fucken baby clothes, do you fucken believe it.” Kevin didn’t know what to believe.

“What?” said Justin.

“I’m getting into the baby care business.” Chook laughed some more. He picked up the repacked bong and flicked the lighter. He sucked hard on the glass mouthpiece. He coughed and smoked chugged out his mouth with each chug. “You crack me up, fucker.” He took the cone out of its slot and banged it into the ashtray.

“What the fuck?” said Justin.

“I sell baby clothes,” said Chook. He put the cone back into the bong. He picked up some mix from the mull bowl and put it into the cone. He handed it to Kevin.

“Don’t give me the shits,” said Justin. He was clearly getting sick of being made a fool of.

“I’m still in business. I’m putting my calls through BusinessForce, so my phone doesn’t ring off the hook.” Chook paused for effect, letting the fact sink in. “I had to get some legit cover, to get my phone answered for me. I can’t exactly have the punters calling up and asking for a quarter and 5 points, now can I.”

“Through BusinessForce?”

“Yep…”

“You sly fucker,” said Justin.

“Frank Positano, the owner, buys coke from me.” Chook shrugged.

The smoke burned the back of Kevin’s throat, as much as he didn’t want to cough in front of Chook he couldn’t help it.

“You don’t cough, you don’t get off,” said Chook sympathetically.

“You got other people taking your orders for you?”

“That’s right. And I’ve got a couple of illegals making the deliveries…”

“Illegals?” asked Justin.

“A couple of Viets who’ve over staid their welcome, shall was say.”

“Deliveries?” asked Kevin.

“We do home delivery,” said Chook. “You got a licence?”

“Sure,” said Kevin.

“Do you want a job?”

“Oh… um?” said Kevin.

“You got a car?” asked Chook.

“Yeah.”

Chook looked at Justin. “So I am now in the coordination business,” Do they call that analytics?" he said. “Arm’s length, man.”

“Arm’s length,” said Justin.

“Like we always said,” said Chook.

“Like we always said,” said Justin.

Like who always said to who, thought Kevin.

“I organise A to collect B from C and to deliver it to D in exchange for E,” said Chook. “A then delivers E to F and I transfer F to G. I then transfer H to A. At the end of every month I transfer J to C. And life is fucken sweet.”

“Sweet,” said Justin.

“And the king sits in his counting house, counting his fucking money.”

“I told you all those years ago it would work,” said Justin, clearly in awe. And you did it.”

“Getting the punters to say the right thing on the phone to sweet little Kylie doing her part time job on her one of her two days off from uni is the weak link. That will need a contingency plan, but other than that…”

“Arm’s length.”

“As the Bishop said to the actress, as long as you don’t, actually, get caught with your hands in their knickers, everything else can be handled by a good lawyer,” said Chook. He and Justin laughed. “I had no idea officer that they were delivering gunger.” Chook pulled a clueless face and looked around the room like a halfwit. “He just came here to give me a massage, if you know what I fucken mean. Nudge, nudge, fucken wink!”

“Is it a crime to like them hairless,” said Justin.

Justin and Chook roared with laughter.

“They could be shaved,” said Justin. “Don’t get me wrong.”

Kevin suddenly had no idea what they were talking about.