The Glass Kingdom (23 page)

Where am I, dawg? Trees all around, drippin' wet, the sun just peekin' through the clouds up there in the canopy, beams of light coursin' 'tween the branches that're crawlin' with bugs clamberin' over each other to get off the forest floor. Everythin' desperate to cling onto whatever life they gots an' I is too, staggerin' an' stumblin' through this strange place, lookin' for a way out an' sure of only one thing. Somehow, I'm alive. Praise be to Kanye.

Break in the trees up ahead. Looks like a road. No water. Couple of wallabies bounce out ahead, streak across the bitumen. Hear a horn in the distance. Somebody comin'. Keep goin', son. Work that crutch. You're almost there. This time, baby, this time.

Yo, hey, some help over here. Yeah, that's it, hit the brakes, dawg, you gots to watch out for those critters anyhow. Big roo'll come crashin' through your windscreen an' kick you upside the head. Homeboy's got hissel a bitchin' ute though, bullbar an' everythin'. Guess these Queenslanders is used to pile-drivin' their way through the wildlife.

Is he reversin'? Nah, s'all good, dawg, I'll come to you. Just hold up, it ain't easy with this old branch. Damn, I is a mess. Not exactly presentable for strangers, but these is hard times an' ain't nobody gonna refuse me a ride, even if I is bleedin' an' hobblin'.

Brother, am I glad to see you. Roll down that window an' let's get a look-see at yo' clock. Mekong Delta from upriver be back up on the stage, my flow restored now I's out of that cage, help a homeboy out at the very least, your ride is dope maybe yeti some might even say beast, yo all I's hearin' out here is the sounds of silence, y'all better open up or there's gonna be some violence, I be Mekong Delta an' I shouldn't haveta shout, this song is over, that's the end,
c'est fini
and I'm out, out, out.

There's a certain time of the morning that not many people ever see. If you've hit the sack at a reasonable hour, like any normal person, chances are you'll be sleeping deeply, way down in some dream world where no one can touch you. If your house was on fire, you probably wouldn't know until it was too late. The only people who're awake at that time are usually up to no good.

At the height of summer in Uruzgan, you're talking four-thirty, four-forty in the morning. Technically, it's sunrise or dawn, but those words just didn't seem right in that context. They didn't belong there. ‘Sunrise' made it sound like there might be a good day ahead, bringing with it the prospect of laughter and friendship, of a day at the beach with the family, or of some fucken chirpy chat-show host with a face plastered in make-up to cover the bags under their eyes giving you the minor-celebrity lowdown. In the service, you called it o dark hundred.

If you were awake then, you were either going to kill someone or get killed. No two ways about it. You would ghost out of the compound in Humvees or choppers, sometimes on foot, locked into the eerie green world of your night-vision goggles, PlayStation for real. It would be cold but you knew, you could almost sense the heat ready to slosh like a coat of fresh paint over the face of the mountains. You had to go in fast and hit whoever you were told to hit while they were stretching and yawning and wiping the sleep from their eyes.

The crackle of Ludowyk's voice in your ear.
Second
squad, move up. Fan right. Watch your six.
Then someone else, a throaty whisper, maybe yours.
Five hostiles, Ludo. Permission to engage.

Schwack 'em.

Ftt-ftt-ftt.

Bullets passing through the silenced barrel of an M4. Green laser streaks lighting up the night vision. The sound of someone crumpling in a heap, probably thinking they were still dreaming. A flurry of activity as whoever those strangers were, enemy or friend, combatant or civvy, guilty or innocent, realised that devils walked among them. The absolute focus of adrenaline surging through your veins, and maybe, if you and Ludo had time before leaving the operating post, something else in the bloodstream too. A microscopic crystal army, charging across the synapses, lending you an edge those others out there in the darkness did not have. You never feared death with glass in your heart. You were death. You devoured souls, to make up for the ones you'd left behind, somewhere along the way.

A grenade would go off, or a lightning bolt from the underside of a hovering Valkyrie, and the night scope would burn a wall of digital green into your eyeballs. You would flip the goggles down and let them dangle around your neck, blink to adjust to the shadows, and finish the job. Sometimes you would take pictures, just in case you'd stumbled upon one of the Big Bad Wolves.

And then you'd be gone, climbing into a truck or a Black-hawk, Ludo performing a head count, even if someone had lost their head. Wiping blood spatters from your gear, not knowing whose it was. You'd roll or fly on out of there, still buzzing, index finger aching to keep pulling. You'd know what time it was from the glow on the horizon. Sunrise. Dawn. O dark hundred. Soon, you'd be having breakfast. Eggs, maybe. Cereal. Coco Pops, for that glorious sugar hit.

You haven't felt that way in years, but you feel it now. It's dark, but there's a glow, a hum, a stillness. It's peaceful down here. The pain in your legs and in your head and on your neck is nothing but a distant throb, a reminder of something you've already forgotten. You just want to drift, to float. Close your eyes, Corporal. The mission's over. You're Oscar Mike.

Hold on. Just a second. Not yet.

You are standing at the back of the tent, watching your mum onstage. You're not supposed to be there. If Dad finds out, he'll punch you in the ear like he did last time. You don't see what the big deal is. Yeah, she's in the buff, but she's your mum. It's the tattoos and the sword you want to see anyway, not her titties. That's what everyone else, the leering goons who line up dozens deep, pay for.

She's a great dancer. Moves like a snake. And you love that ink on her back. A three-masted sailing ship being pulled under the waves by a kraken. Look at the detail. Seagulls gliding overhead, waiting to scavenge the spoils when the boat sinks, to pluck out eyeballs from floating corpses. Sailors tumbling from the rigging, some of them in the water already, their eyes wide and filled with terror. The tentacles of the beast curl up over her right shoulder as she dances, like it's climbing her body, trying to infiltrate the garden scene on her chest.

Roses. Hundreds of tiny roses in bloom covering her breasts, and below is a wrought-iron gate, open just a fraction to suggest there might be a way to climb right inside her belly, to discover her secrets, to see what's in there.

Yours is weak by comparison. A slobbering hound, the symbol of the Bluedog. It hurt like fuck. Made you feel soft. Gave you a newfound respect for your old mum, though. She could handle pain. She had to, putting up with Francis all those years. You wonder what they're doing now, right this minute. The old man's probably dozing in the chair, a half-drunk tinnie spilled on the rug next to his trailing arm. Evalisse will be watching some reality cooking show.
Masterchef
.
My Kitchen Rules
. She loves that shit. Has a thing for George Calombaris. Never understood her taste in men.

You suppose Steph will be the one who has to tell them. Better her than Huw. Too much bad blood between him and Francis.

Shit, now look where you are. The Channel Ten studio, stood behind a stove and a sink and a bunch of expensive chopping boards. You're wearing an orange jumpsuit and your ankles are chained together. There's a hard-looking con at the bench in front of you, and another glowering behind. It's year five of a forty stretch and you've picked up a few skills in the kitchen at Barwon. All you have to do is make it to the end of the season and you're home free—pardoned, the chance to write your own cookbook and maybe host a show on SBS.
Carny Food
with Benjamin Wallace, winner of
Cook for Your Life!

Mikey's grinning from ear to fucken ear. He loves that you're on his show, that you can see how well he's done, that he was right all along. He's a star now, a genuine media phenomenon. You're in his shadow. It's embarrassing. But if that's what it takes to get out of there, you'll play along.

It gets worse. You're in the audience at the Grammys. He's just won album of the year.
The Kingdom of the Blind
has gone platinum. Fifty Cent hands him the trophy. They embrace like old friends. Mikey slaps him on the back and they share a private joke. The crowd is on its feet. They want to hear the new single, the duet with Pharrell. Miley Cyrus is weeping in the corner, a broken woman, her career in ruins. She is pregnant with Mikey's child. No one pays her much attention.

He thanks you in his speech.

If it weren't for my homeboy Corporal Wallace, I
wouldn't be here today, and that's the triple truth, dawg. Peace out.

He raises two fingers in a victory salute. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Steph is waiting for you when you get out of prison and the publicity tour for the show is over. Being inside her is like pulling on the jeans you've owned for the better part of a decade. You know exactly where to go and how much wiggle room there will be. After all those years, sex between you isn't thrilling or romantic or weird anymore—it's intense catch-up fucking, throughout which you are bemused by the madness and strangeness of it all.

All that time you spent waiting for your life to begin. The years of expectation, of yearning for your real friends to arrive, the ones who would take your hand and lead you away to a better life, the one you were
supposed
to have, they just slipped away somehow. And now you're older, you're working in a restaurant, quietly serving up dishes to customers who remember you from that crazy cooking show where everyone died but you. They know you used to be a meth dealer, and a carny, and a soldier, and a boy who watched his mother swallow swords—but it's a past that is so dim and distant it feels like someone else's, or a tall tale you once heard whispered on sideshow alley.

Bad habits, casual opinions, your reluctance to engage with the world—it's a human fire sale at your place. Everything must go. You decide to spend whatever precious time you have left in this world bidding farewell to a man who, in truth, you never liked very much anyway. His departure will not be lamented.

You and Steph rent a little place on the Sunshine Coast, in Mooloolaba maybe. You have an old Holden in the garage that needs some work. A legion of bottle tops is scattered around the floor. Every time you have to untangle the Gordian knot of extension cords, you promise yourself that you will replace them with a single, brightly coloured ten-metre one from Kmart. You collect snow domes from op shops. You have ones from Denver, Helsinki, Aberdeen.

Steph tolerates your fondness for vintage
Playboy
. Your favourite centrefold is Michele, playmate of the month, April 1978. She looks down on you from above the workbench, keeping watch as you work on the engine of the Holden. You know her body about as well as you do Steph's. She wears knee-length white stockings. A silk robe is swept back behind her hips. She is holding a parasol. Her eyelashes are heavy with mascara and if you look closely, and you have, there is a hint of make-up on her abdomen just above the thick blonde bush.

Michele was born in 1957 and enjoys making love on the beach, but only if it's warm out. She likes to hear the rhythm of the waves breaking against the shore and claims roller rinks are the best places to meet guys. She purports to be a direct descendant of Sir Francis Bacon. You wonder if he too was a prude in high school and loved to have his breasts kissed.

You imagine standing on the beach, watching as Michele strides out into the morning surf. She is in her sixties now, but still looks strong. Her skin is weathered and tough. The tendons in her neck strain with the chill of the waves. Her hands come up to the sun and she is momentarily framed on the horizon before thrusting beneath the water, stroking her way out effortlessly into the cobalt sea. If she gets into difficulties, there is no one to save her but you, and you are hardly qualified. You never were much of a swimmer. You always preferred the mountains. Getting up above everything. Looking down. Taking the high ground.

You wonder if there are answers to your questions out there at the bottom of the ocean, or in that former playmate's life, between the creases of her mottled skin. You want to ask Michele how she raised her children, if she taught them to swim and deejay and abseil, if their father showed them how to roller skate. Did they ever see the photos? Did they roll their eyes and say, ‘Nice umbrella, Mum'?

The buttons of your jeans come open easily, though as you hop from one foot to the other awkwardly pulling them over your ankles, you see Steph waiting impatiently for you in bed, shaking her head at your clumsy antics. Be right with you, baby.