I Am the Messenger (18 page)

part three:
Trying Times for Ed Kennedy

A mosquito sings in my ear, and I almost feel grateful for the company. I’m even tempted to sing along.

It’s dark, there’s blood on my face, and the mosquito could easily sit and drink without injecting. It could kneel down and sip the blood from my right cheek and my lips.

When I get out of bed and stand up, the floor is cool and my feet enjoy the relief. My sheets felt woven together with sweat, and now I lean on the wall in the hallway. Some sweat reaches my ankle and rolls under the arch of my foot.

I don’t feel bad.

Laughter escapes my mouth as I check the clock, go to the bathroom, and have a cold shower. The icy water sets fire to my cuts and bruises, but everything feels good. It’s close to four in the morning now, and I’m no longer afraid. After putting on a pair of old jeans and nothing else, I walk back to bed in search of the two aces. I open the drawer and lift the cards in my fingers. The yellow light of the room stands next to me as I happily look down at the stories of those cards. I’m gripped by feeling when I think of Milla and Edgar Street, and I hope for a brilliant life for Sophie. I laugh about Father O’Reilly, Henry Street, and Meet a Priest Day. Then Angie Carusso, whom I wish I could have done more for. And those bastard Rose boys.

What will the next card be?
I wonder.

I expect it to be hearts.

I wait.

For daylight and the next ace.

This time I want it to be fast.

I want the card right now. No obscurity. No riddles. Just give me the addresses. Give me the names and send me there. That’s what I want.

My only worry is that every time I’ve wanted something to go a certain way in all of this, it’s gone the other, designed perfectly to challenge me with the unknown. I
want
Keith and Daryl to come walking through the door again. I want them to deliver the next card and criticize the Doorman for his smell and for having fleas. I’ve even left the door unlocked so they can enter my house in a civilized manner.

But I know they’re not coming.

I find my book and head to the lounge room. I take the aces with me and hold them as I read.

When I wake up again, I’m on the floor with the two cards next to my left hand. It’s about ten already and it’s hot, and someone’s banging at the door.

It’s them,
I think.

“Keith?” I call out, getting to my knees. “Daryl? That you?”

“Who the hell’s Keith?”

I look up and see Marv standing over me. I rub my eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

“Is that any way to speak to friends?” He sees my face properly now and the black and yellow rods that are my ribs.
God,
I see him think, but he doesn’t say it. He answers my question with an answer to a
different
question. This is typically frustrating of Marv. Instead of saying what he’s doing here, he tells me how he got in. “The door was unlocked, and the Doorman let me past for a change.”

“See? I told you he’s okay.”

I walk through to the kitchen with Marv behind me. He asks about the state of me.

“How’d you end up like that, Ed?”

I switch the kettle on. “Coffee?”

Yes, please
.

Of course, the Doorman’s just walked in.

“Thanks,” Marv answers.

As we drink, I tell Marv what happened. “Just some young fellas. They had a look at me and took me from behind.”

“You get any shots in of your own?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“There were six of them, Marv.”

He shakes his head. “Christ, the world’s going crazy.” He decides to get back to something sane. “Do you think you’ll be right to play this afternoon?”

Of course.

The Sledge Game.

Today’s the day.

“Yes, Marv.” I make the answer very clear. “I’m playing.” I’m suddenly very in the mood for this year’s game. Despite being a physical disaster, I feel stronger than ever, and I’m actually relishing the idea of being hurt some more. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand it myself.

“Come on.” Marv stands up and begins for the door. “I’ll buy you some breakfast.”

“Really?” This isn’t like Marv at all.

As we leave I ask him for the truth.

“Would you be doing this if I pulled out of the game?”

Marv opens his car and gets in. “No way.”

At least he’s honest.

His car doesn’t start.

“Not one word.” He eyes me.

We both snigger slightly.

This is a good day. I can feel it.

We walk to a crappy café at the bottom of Main Street. They serve eggs and salami and some sort of flat-looking bread. The waitress is a big woman with a wide mouth and a hankie in her hand. For some reason, to me, she looks like a Margaret.

“Whata you two bores want?”

We’re shocked.

“Bores?” asks Marv.

She gives us an I-don’t-have-time-for-this kind of look. She’s bored shitless. “Of course. You both bores, ain’t you?” It’s then I realize she’s saying
boys
.

“Hey,” I say to Marv. “Boys.”

“What?”

“Boys.”

Marv peruses the menu.

Margaret clears her throat.

Not wanting to annoy her further, I order fast. “I’ll have a banana milk shake if that’s okay.”

She frowns. “We’re out of milk.”

“Out of milk? How in the hell can a café run out of milk?”

“Look, I don’t buy the milk. I don’t have anything to do with the milk. I only know we don’t have any. Why don’t you order something to eat?” She loves her job, this lady. I can sense it.

“Have you got bread?” I ask.

“Now don’t get smart, bore.”

I scout the rest of the café, checking out what everyone else is eating. “I’ll have what that bloke over there’s having.” All three of us look over.

“You sure?” Marv warns. “That looks pretty borderline, Ed.”

“Well they’ve at least
got it,
haven’t they?”

And now Margaret’s really unhappy. She says, “Now listen.” She scratches her scalp with her pen. I’m almost waiting for her to clean her ears out with it. “If this place isn’t good enough for you bores, you can bloody well piss off and find somewhere else to eat.” She’s very testy, to say the least.

“All right.” I hold my hand up, almost backing away. “Give me what that guy’s got and just a banana, okay?”

“Good thinking,” Marv approves. “Potassium for the game.”

Potassium?

I don’t think that’s really going to help.

“And you?” Margaret’s transferred her attention now to Marv.

He shifts in his seat. “How about that flat bread you’ve got with your finest selection of cheeses?” He had to do it. Marv can’t resist being a smart arse to a person like this. It’s in his nature.

But Margaret’s good. She puts up with complete shitheads like us all the time. “The only cheese around here is you,” she responds, and I must say, we both laugh and give her some encouragement. She chooses not to notice. “Anything else for you bores?”

“No, thanks.”

“Right. That’s twenty-two fifty.”

“Twenty-two fifty?”
We can’t hide our exasperation.

“Well, yeah—this is a classy joint, you know.”

“That’s obvious—the service is incredible.”

And now we sit in the boiling-hot outdoor section of the café, sweating and waiting for this breakfast. Margaret takes great pleasure in passing us while she delivers other people’s food. We’re close to asking her a few times just where ours has vanished to, but we know that will only serve to make us wait longer. People are actually eating lunch before we eat our breakfast, and when it finally comes, Margaret slops it down on our table like she’s serving us compost.

“Cheers, love,” Marv says. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

Margaret blows her nose and walks off. Savage indifference.

“How’s yours?” inquires Marv soon after. “Or more to the point,
what
is it?”

“Eggs and cheese and something.”

“Do you even
like
eggs?”

“No.”

“Then why’d you get it?”

“Well, it didn’t look like eggs when it was on that other guy’s plate.”

“Fair enough. You want some of mine?”

I take up the offer and eat some of his flat bread. Not bad, really, and I finally ask Marv exactly why he’s chosen today of all days to take me out to breakfast. It’s never happened before. I’ve never gone out for breakfast in my life. That, and Marv would never even consider paying for me. That simply wouldn’t be on. Under normal circumstances, he’d rather die.

“Marv,” I say, looking straight at him, “why are we here?”

He shakes his head. “I—”

“You’re making sure I turn up to the game this afternoon, aren’t you? You’re sweetening me up.”

Marv can’t lie to me on this, and he knows it. “That would about cover it.”

“I’ll be there,” I tell him. “Four o’clock sharp.”

“Good.”

The rest of the day glides by. Thankfully, Marv gives me the next few hours off, so I go home and sleep some more.

When the time comes around, I walk to the Grounds with the Doorman, who has picked up on my recent happiness, despite the mess I appear to be.

We stop off at Audrey’s.

No one home.

Maybe she’s already at the Grounds. She does hate the soccer, but she’s always there, every year.

It’s nearly quarter to four when we walk into the valley where the Grounds are, and I remember Sophie and me here, over at the athletic track. It makes this game look pitiful—which it is. A crowd is already gathering at the soccer field, while the athletic track is empty but for barefoot images of the girl.

I watch the beauty for as long as I can, then turn and face the rest of it.

The closer I get, the stronger the smell of beer. It’s hot. About thirty-two.

The two teams are in different corners of the field, and a crowd of a few hundred is slowly growing bigger. It’s always a bit of an event, the Sledge Game. It’s held the first Saturday of December every year, and I think this is the fifth time it’s been put on. As for me, this is my third year.

I leave the Doorman in the shade of a tree, and when I approach the team, the ones who notice me take a second look at my face. Their interest, however, leaves them pretty fast. They’re the type of people who see bruises and blood quite a lot.

Within five minutes, I’m thrown a blue jersey with red and yellow stripes on it. Number 12. I change from my jeans into a pair of black shorts. There are no socks and no boots—they’re the rules of the Sledge Game. No boots and no protective gear. Just a jersey, shorts, and a foul mouth. That’s all you need.

Our team is known as the Colts. The opposition is the Falcons. They wear a green and white jersey with the same color shorts, though no one cares about that. We’re lucky to have the jerseys at all, considering each side just flogged them one year from one of the real local clubs or took the discarded ones.

There are forty-year-old men in the Sledge Game. Big, ugly firemen or coal miners. Then there are some midrange players; some young ones, like Marv, Ritchie, and me; and some that can actually play well.

Ritchie’s our last guy to show up.

“Well, look what the bloody dog brought along,” says one of our fat guys. One of his mates tells him it’s supposed to be
what the cat dragged in,
but, frankly, big fatso’s too thick to understand. He’s got what we’d call a Merv Hughes mustache. If you don’t understand that, all you really need to know is that it’s big, it’s bushy, and it’s downright reprehensible. The saddest comment on all of this is that he also happens to be our captain. I think his real name’s Henry Dickens. No relation to Charles.