Heller (25 page)

I almost
needed a ladder to climb into the driver’s seat. After three
minutes fumbling around adjusting the seat that some giant of a man
had pushed back to its maximum capacity so I couldn’t even reach
the pedals, and another two trying to work out how to turn the
vehicle on, we finally drove cautiously out of the Warehouse. It
was like a tank to drive and I wasn’t comfortable perched so high
above the traffic manoeuvring the blasted thing around. And I felt
guilty about the environment the whole time I was driving, worried
that all the other drivers were judging me as a greedy
petrol-guzzler.

The shopping
centre was surprisingly busy for a week day afternoon and we had to
negotiate our way to the far end of the carpark to find a free
spot. It took me five attempts to get the tank into the narrow car
space, terrified of damaging either it or the neighbouring cars.
Daniel and Niq laughed at me the whole time.

“Get stuffed,
the both of you,” I suggested testily, as I finally was ready to
turn off the ignition.

Niq jumped out
of the car excitedly. Daniel seemed tense. I gripped his hand and
squeezed it, giving him an encouraging smile. He took a deep breath
and opened the door. As we walked to the centre, I noticed that he
didn’t make any eye contact with other people, staring resolutely
at the ground. I was shocked at how rudely some people gawked at
him. Not just him either. Niq, in full Goth regalia, was also the
object of curious looks, but boldly stared down anyone who dared to
look at him. I admired the kid’s spirit.

They were
immediately drawn to a large electrical store. I left them at the
store briefly while I went to deposit Lily’s cheque in my rainy day
savings account that had less than five dollars in it. The cheque
boosted it considerably and I felt almost rich as I walked back to
meet up with the boys. Niq had his arms full of CDs and Xbox games.
Daniel was overdosing on DVDs.

“Who’s paying
for all of that?” I asked, laughing.

“Heller,” they
responded simultaneously.

For myself, I
picked out a purple iPod to help motivate me while I exercised as I
had promised myself, and a new digital camera to replace the one I
had to hock to pay the rent all those months ago when I was
destitute. We paid for our purchases. Daniel insisted I put my
goods in his basket, but I firmly declined, determined to pay for
them myself. I didn’t want to be in Heller’s debt anymore than I
had to.

We visited a
giant bookstore next. Niq loaded up on anime books and I browsed
the cooking section with Daniel. He picked out four cookbooks for
me, demanding that I make something from one of them tonight for
him and Niq. I told him I’d think about it. Next we hit a
jeweller’s where Niq pored over the Gothy earrings and rings,
buying a couple more of each. Then Daniel wanted to browse a
high-end shoe shop, finally emerging with two new pairs, after much
discussion and light-hearted arguments from the three of us.

We’d been in
the centre for over two hours by then and to be frank, I’d had
enough. I never was much of a one for shopping, never having had
much money to spend before. I suggested we stop for refreshments
and we found a quiet coffee shop where I ordered Daniel and myself
lattes and Niq a chocolate milkshake and a plate-sized jam doughnut
that I promised not to tell Heller about.

“This is fun,”
Niq said, slurping happily, in sugar heaven. “We should do this
more often.” I agreed with him. Even Daniel nodded his head
cautiously.

“Seen any cute
girls?” I teased Niq. He poked out his tongue. “What about you,
Daniel? You see any?”

“Who said I’m
interested in girls?” he replied. Niq and I exchanged a surprised
glance. I leant my chin on my hands and stared at him intently.

“Daniel, how
fascinating
! Please tell me more.”

“Mind your own
business, Tilly.” He swatted my arm. “You see any cute boys?”

“For me or for
you?” I teased. Another swat. “Nah, not me. I’m not even looking.
I’ve given up on men forever.”

“Don’t let the
security men hear you say that. They’re all pretty keen on you,”
Daniel said slyly. “I hear they’re even currently running a poll on
your best feature.”

“Are you
kidding me? That’s so demeaning!” I stared at him, outraged. Then I
was overcome with reluctant curiosity. “What’s the front-runner so
far?”

“Your boobs
are ahead by miles, followed by your legs, your butt, your eyes,
your lips and your hair.”

“Unbelievable!
What a bunch of unevolved knuckle-draggers! What does Heller have
to say about all of this?”

“I think he
voted for your boobs,” Daniel grinned. Niq sniggered quietly into
his hand.

“You’re just
making all of this up,” I accused.

He laughed.
“No, I’m not. Why else do you think he hired you? We all know it
wasn’t for your work skills.”

And for that
comment he received a well-deserved thumping.

“Ow!” he
complained. “You’re mean.”

“Come on, I’m
sick of you. Let’s go home.”

I paid the
bill and we gathered up all our new possessions and headed back to
the tank. As we approached it I noticed a group of young men, late
teens and early twenties, lounging on the backstairs to an adjacent
office block. They were smoking and drinking, uncouth and idle. You
know the type – losers with no jobs and no prospects, who hang
around in public spaces all day, harassing innocent passers-by.
They started heckling us as we walked past. Niq and I stared back
at them, Daniel kept his eyes on the ground.

As we passed
them, a rough voice yelled obscenities at us, calling out
“Frankenstein” and “Goth shit”. I gave them the finger as we walked
past, which only made them jeer even harder. My blood started to
boil immediately. How dare these scumbags even think to pass
judgemental comment on my two beautiful boys? I stopped briefly,
before deliberately continuing to walk the ten metres to the tank.
I unlocked the back of the 4WD and we threw our purchases inside. I
turned around and walked slowly back to the men.

Have I
mentioned that I have a temper?

Daniel pulled
on my arm. “Don’t bother with them, Tilly. They’re not worth it.
It’s better for us to leave now while everything’s still calm.
Think about Niq.” I shook his hand off. My experience at the bikie
bar had given me unwarranted confidence in my ability to sort
things out, especially as I had a fresh canister of capsicum spray
in my handbag.

“Got something
you want to say to my friends and me, boys?” I asked aggressively,
hands planted on my hips.

“Yeah, we do,”
drawled the dominant one standing up and approaching me, his
unattractive thickset face spotted with erupted pimples, his fair
hair shaved down to his flaky scalp. “We hate freaks. And your
friend’s a freak, aren’t you, Frankenstein? A fucking freak. Look
at you! They didn’t even stitch you up properly. You’d make grown
men cry with that fucking ugly face.”

Geez, I was
angry. “Don’t you call him that again.”

“Or what,
bitch? What’s a choice piece of pussy like you hanging around with
Frankenstein and Goth shit anyway?”

“I said don’t
call him that again.” My hand closed over the capsicum spray in my
bag.

Flaky-Scalp
sneered at me. “Why don’t you let your boyfriend talk for
himself?”

“Why don’t you
let
your
boyfriend talk for himself?” I snapped back,
nodding towards the ugly, chunky man standing next to him. There
was a brief ripple of sniggering among his crew. He turned around
angrily, staring them down.

“The pussy’s
got a pussy for a boyfriend,” he scorned.

“
That
pussy’s got pussy for a boyfriend,” I scorned back, pointing at my
tormentor. More sniggers. I was starting to enjoy myself. This was
too easy. Growing up with two older brothers you learn quickly that
the mindless and irritating parroting of another person’s comments
is the best way to really annoy someone fast.

“Fuck you,
bitch!”

“Fuck
you
, bitch.”

Flaky-Scalp
screwed his face up with hatred and advanced menacingly towards me.
I had momentary regrets for my impetuous behaviour, not realising
before that he was quite so large or had such a low threshold for
teasing – my brothers had always lasted much longer than him before
they started chasing me around the house. But I stood unmoving,
until he was exhaling his horrible breath down into my face.

I had
absolutely no idea what I was going to do next.

“That’s not a
polite way to talk to my friend,” said Daniel quietly, stepping up
beside me.

“Oh,
Frankenstein does have some balls, after all,” Flaky-Scalp said in
the snidest tone.

Daniel turned
to me, a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t understand, Tilly. Why
does he keep calling me that? Is he such a dumb arse that he
doesn’t know that Frankenstein was the
doctor
not the
monster
?”

I nodded
gravely in scholarly agreement. “Oh, definitely a dumb arse,
Daniel. Definitely.”

Without any
warning, Daniel lashed forward, grabbing the man by his arm,
twisting it up over his head and behind his back. He then kicked
the back of the man’s knees, buckling them, and forcing him to
kneel on the ground. His gang was real angry about that and crowded
in on us. I held up the capsicum spray, pointing it in their
direction.

“Want some
instant pain, bitches?” I asked nastily. Not being good law-abiding
citizens, they recognised what it was straight away and held their
ground.

“I think this
man would like to apologise to you for his dirty mouth, Tilly,”
Daniel said.

“Fuck off,
freak!” Then a scream of pain as Daniel twisted his arm back
further.

“What do you
say?”

Another twist.
Another scream.

“Sorry!”
Flaky-Scalp spluttered, tears springing to his eyes. Daniel twisted
harder. “I’m very sorry for my dirty mouth, miss!” the man cried
again.

The other gang
members weren’t happy with this humiliation of their leader, one of
them becoming particularly agitated. He was tall and thin with
curly black hair, wearing a muscle shirt with no muscles to show in
it. He was either braver or dumber than his comrades and it was
hard to distinguish which, because he rushed me without any
warning, knocking me to the ground. My breath flew out of my lungs
as the capsicum spray canister flew out of my hands. It rolled
inconveniently under a nearby car.

I spun myself
over immediately and scrabbled over to the car on my hands and
knees to retrieve it. My attacker grabbed hold of my feet and
roughly pulled me backwards to keep me away from the car as a
couple of other members of the gang quickly ran past me to dive
down towards it, in hopes of capturing the prized weapon.
This
wasn’t going very well at all
, I thought desperately. I dug my
fingers into the rough, tarred surface of the carpark to prevent
him pulling me any further, completely ruining my manicure in the
process. I kicked out wildly and blindly with my right foot,
collecting him with a mean crack to the jaw. He let go of me
straight away, moaning in pain, his turn to fall backwards on his
butt.

One of the
gang members gave a triumphant cry as his hand closed around the
canister, scrambling off his knees and to his feet, brandishing the
canister at me as I stood up.

“Want some
instant pain, bitch?” he asked spitefully, throwing my own words
back in my face. I guess I deserved that.

I decided to
ram him, planning to knock him off balance and bring the canister
back into fair play again. I put my head down and bent my arm at
the elbow to give me a bit of extra force and ran towards him.
Panicked, he held up the canister and sprayed enthusiastically.

God smiled
down on me at that moment because the idiot had the canister
pointing in the wrong direction and ended up liberally spraying
himself in the face. He dropped the capsicum spray as he dropped to
the ground, whimpering in pain. The other guy and I lunged for it
simultaneously, cracking heads in the most painful way before I
elbowed him in the face to gain the advantage and the precious
canister. I jumped up, ignoring my instant headache, held out the
spray at arm’s length and sprayed everyone in the vicinity,
including the guy who had already sprayed himself, just to be on
the safe side.

“Scram!” I
shouted at Daniel and Niq, and we bolted for the tank. Without even
waiting for anyone to fasten their seatbelts, I threw it in reverse
and screeched out of the carpark, driving dangerously up and over a
garden bed in my haste, flattening a beautiful azalea shrub in full
bloom. At the entrance to the shopping centre I didn’t slow down to
turn right. Tyres squealing, I cut off a ute-driving tradie who let
me know with a creative display of angry finger gestures just how
little he appreciated my bad driving. Our last vision was of the
men writhing on the ground in the carpark, rubbing their eyes.

I drove fast
and recklessly and Niq babbled excitedly all the way home, still on
his sugar-high. I was taking deep breaths trying to calm down,
adrenaline pumping through my body, but Daniel was strangely quiet.
I threw him a sideways glance. I had severely underestimated
him.

“Daniel, that
was amazing! I had no idea that you knew moves like that,” I gushed
with admiration.

His voice was
flat. “Do you really think I could live with Heller for so long and
not be able to look after myself? It was the first thing he taught
me. I don’t like violence though. I’d prefer not to use it in any
circumstances. I’ve seen enough of it in my life. But I couldn’t
let that man get away with being so rude to you.”

“Forget about
me! He was unbelievably obnoxious to you. I’m sorry, Daniel. I
badgered you to join us and you were hassled, just as you’d
feared.”