Everything Beautiful (19 page)

53
Suckingfish

“I think you should stay here,” I decided. “It’ll be quicker.”

“That’s very chivalrous of you.” Dylan’s voice had some sulk in it.

I sighed. “What are you going to do—drag yourself?”

Dylan’s face went red. He folded his arms and faced me. “I could.”

“Don’t be stupid.” I was trying to pretend the prospect of chafing my way solo through the scrub was the realization of a lifelong dream, but I was generating sweat beads. I kept throwing hopeful glances at Delilah’s tire despite the fact that we couldn’t have changed it if we tried. We had no tools, no jack, no clue.

“I’m hungry,” Dylan announced. He went through the supply bag pulling things out: the empty pack of cookies, the water, my lighter,
Utopia
, my notebook, Neville’s Jesus badge, toilet paper. Dylan held up two apples. He threw one to me and crunched into the other. He chewed noisily. “Someone will come. Bird knows we’re here. Olive knows we’re here.”

I shook my head. “They won’t say anything. They’re weird like that.”

“What about Sarita?”

“I didn’t tell her.”

Dylan pointed his apple at me and recited, “The first thing you do before you go into the wild is tell a friend.”

“So who did you tell?”

“No one.” He sighed and twirled his apple by its stem. “Someone will figure it out . . . won’t they?”

“You want to wait and find out?”

Dylan pushed his hands on his wheels, forward and back, forward and back. “How long do you think it would take to walk to the Nhill road?”

“I don’t know. At least an hour.”

“Do you know which way to go?”

“Well, it’s the fire road . . . there are markers.”

“Is it sandy loam?”

“Not all of it.”

Dylan took a big drink of water. He stretched his arms above his head, then brought them down and swung his elbows left and right. He rolled his shoulders, watching me all the while, and finally said, “Let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” I teased him. “I know how much you like to sit.”

“When I get tired, you can push.”

Dylan started off. “You know, you can get wheelchairs for the beach. They have fatter tires, better traction.”

“If you can walk with the crutches, why do you use the chair?”

“Have you ever had crutches?”

I shook my head. Dylan reached behind the chair for his crutches. I put them under my arms. I swung, landing with both feet on the dirt. “It’s not completely uncomfortable.”

“Okay, next time you do that keep your feet up.”

I tried. I couldn’t. I felt it in my arms, and stomach. “Oof! Ouch!”

Dylan held his arms out. I gave the crutches back.

Sometimes the ground was hard, and Dylan would mad-man it, ramming his hands down on his wheels, whooping as he went. When we faced another wide tract of sand, he’d go on the crutches and I’d push his empty chair. It was like taking one step forward and two steps back, and it was
fun
.

We’d been on the road for about half an hour when Dylan suddenly started laughing.

“What?”

He stopped, and wiped his eyes. “I was just thinking this is like that footprints poem.”

I waited.

“You have to know the footprints poem—it’s on a million hand towels and fridge magnets. It’s an industry in itself.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know it.”

Dylan said, “Okay, it’s like this person has died and he gets to meet God and he looks back over the steps of his life—like footprints on a beach—and there are two sets of footprints to show that God is with him. But then the guy notices that during the worst times of his life, there’s only one set and he’s like, ‘
Oh God, why did you abandon me
?’ “

“No, wait.” I stopped him. “I do know this. God says ‘
I didn’t abandon you—that was when I carried you.
’”

“Right.” Dylan looked at me. “You’re carrying me, Riley. This is pretty special.”

He had a glint in his eye, like he knew he’d said something corny. But I decided this was a defense mechanism. It was like he was giving the truth some padding. The moment
was
special. I knew it, he knew it.

“Here.” I gave him some water. “You’ve got scurvy.”

This was the beginning of our olde-worlde mini play. It was 1700. Australia hadn’t even been discovered. We were sailing from England on the
Excelsior
when a tempest sent our vessel crashing on the rocks. I was Miranda Biggerbottom, a fine lady; Dylan was Jack Filthy, a common sailor. We were the sole survivors. We couldn’t stand each other and yet . . . we needed each other if we were going to make it in the real world. “Oh,
fiddlesticks
!” I dabbed at my eyes with a dainty handkerchief. “How
odious
it is without my snuff.”

Dylan lurched and growled and spat. “Curses, woman! I’ll give ye snuff!”

After Miranda Biggerbottom and Jack Filthy had reduced us to a state of incoherence and random collapsibility, Dylan used the rest stops to read aloud from
Utopia.
He made Thomas More’s voice camp and reedy, while Raphael’s voice started out ESL and ended stiff-upper-lippy like Winston Churchill.

“
Pride
,” he orated. “
Like a hellish serpent gliding through human hearts—or shall we say like a suckingfish that clings to the ship of state?—is always dragging us back and obstructing our progress . . .
”

He stopped reading and spoke normally. “Actually, that’s pretty cool.” He read some more to himself, then asked me, “Do you think pride is the ‘
beastly root of all evil’
?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I joked. “I don’t have any.”

“You do. Pride is what makes you different. You’re full of it. When I first saw you I thought, she doesn’t give a shit. She’s like a wild girl. Your clothes and your hair . . .”

“At orientation?”

“You were gorgeous in your boredom,” Dylan said.

“I just thought you were weird,” I told him.

“Aye! Blasted wench!” Dylan reverted to Jack Filthy and I collapsed in laughter again.

We were adapting to our landscape. Our clothes became customized. I’d detached Rose’s wedding train and draped it over a grass tree. Maybe a mallee could use it for its mound. Likewise, Dylan had discarded Fraser’s bow tie. He’d unbuttoned the jacket, vest, and shirt so his pale chest was getting some rays. I liked seeing his cross glinting in the sun.

At noon—when the sun was so high we couldn’t stand it and had to take shelter under a tree—Dylan pointed a crutch to the sky. “This is the longest I’ve been outdoors since February second. I have taken more steps today than I have in all the days since February second put together. I have heard the Boobook’s call. And I’ve had sex.”

I laughed. “We did, didn’t we?”

Dylan stopped. “Can you hear that?” It was the sound of wheels on asphalt. The road was visible between the wattle trees. We pushed on. We didn’t speak or look at each other. I felt a rush of excitement. I couldn’t stop smiling—and I think for Dylan it must have been the same. When we reached the road I got down on all fours and kissed it.

“Yes! Saved!”

54
Contact High

Dylan stayed in his chair while I practiced my hitchhiker poses. First I was the psycho hitcher, then the nympho hitcher . . . then I was the psycho hitcher again. We shared a cigarette and dreamed of shade. He ran a finger down my exposed back. “You should use sunscreen,” he told me. Suddenly I saw us how anyone passing (would there be anyone passing?) would see us. Two teenagers. One fat, one crippled, both bleary, in dead people’s clothes.

I started laughing. “We are so fucked.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at us. Would you stop for us?”

“I’d stop for anyone.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

Dylan smiled. I stuck my lip out. “I’d stop for no one.”

I saw the car before I made the connection. I even saw their faces and it still didn’t click. It was a problem of context. The black Monaro slowed and I chased after it. I shouted, “Oh, thank God!” to the head hanging out the passenger window and then I heard the familiar cackle, and the girl pulled up her oversize sunglasses and screamed, “Riley, what the fuck?” I looked past Chloe’s head and saw Ben Sebatini—
the
Ben Sebatini—with his strong hands resting on the steering wheel.

He stopped the car. Chloe opened her door and stumbled clownishly out. She was in her silver party dress—the one that made her look like an amazon from outer space—and her Yeti boots with the four-inch platforms. I was so happy to see her I reeled. I jigged up and down and backward. “What are you doing here? How is this possible?”

“Did you get
married
?” Chloe’s eyes were black poker chips. Her skin had that E-sheen to it. She thumped me on the arm, once, twice. “My friend, my friend, this is fate. We were coming to get you! We left the party—” She turned to Ben. “What time did we leave the party?”

Ben lowered his seventies cop sunglasses. “About eight.” He pushed them back up. He was chewing gum.

“He’s
so
Starsky.” Chloe giggled. “We’ve been driving for, like, ever.” She suddenly hugged her stomach. “Oh, my God. I have to take a crap.”

She grabbed a pack of tissues from her purse and ran into the scrub. Ben lowered his sunglasses again. “Nice dress.” He touched his chin, tucked his pinky on his tuft, and I stifled the impulse to laugh out loud. I pictured their five-hour drive,
doof doof
on the stereo, and the pair of them popping pills all the way.

“How was the party?” My voice came out oddly formal.

Ben moved his head up and down, to a beat only he could hear. “Killer.”

I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. Ben Seb, my big crush. But I didn’t know how to talk to him. I wasn’t comfortable with him. I realized I’d never even been sober around him. Damn Chloe and her spontaneous bowel!

“So . . . you came all the way to get me?”

Ben cricked his neck. “You know how it gets. Gotta keep going forward. Like a shark.”

I was so glad Dylan hadn’t heard that—it had sound bite all over it.

Chloe stumbled back. She shielded her eyes against the sun and pointed to Dylan. “Who he?”

“That’s Dylan.”

“Where’d you find the chair?”

“It’s a
wheelchair
.”

“Oh.” Chloe looked again. “
Oh!”
She beamed at me. She touched my cheek. “It’s so good to see you.” They must have been some party pills. I was getting a contact high.

Chloe stroked my hair and stared at me and rambled. “We passed a giant koala on the way. I wanted to get out, but Ben was scared.”

“I wasn’t scared!” Ben shouted from the driver’s seat.

“You were.” She thumped him, then turned back to me. “The koala’s eyes were all yellow.”

I laughed. “How gone are you?”

“Spaz! It’s not a real koala. It’s fiberglass. For tourists. You know, like the Big Banana, or the Giant Earthworm.” Chloe started dancing. She couldn’t stay still. She clapped and wiggled like a wayward children’s entertainer.

“Can you give us a lift back?” I asked.

“To Christian camp? My friend, my friend, I’ve been
dreaming
about it.”

“Okay, I’ll get Dylan. Just . . .”

“What, what?”

“Be nice.”

Chloe was staring up at the sky. She laughed. “I’m always nice. Look.” She pointed. “A daytime moon. I love a daytime moon.” She started doing a moon dance, hailing the moon with her outstretched hands. My mind went back to orientation, to the feverish Mallees and their wave of praise. And Dylan with his head bowed, playing with his silver cross, thinking I was gorgeous.

Dylan!

I ran back to him. He had a cigarette going; he was trying not to look anxious. Before he could say anything I said, “It’s okay, I know them. It’s Chloe . . . and Ben.”

“The tuft?”

“Shhh. Let’s go.”

Chloe’s eyes widened when she saw Dylan at close range—the suit, the hair, the chair—it was a devastating combo. “Oh, wow.” I don’t know why I was worried about her saying something awful. Chloe wasn’t mean-spirited. She wasn’t a starer or an avoider. She was just Chloe—spiky and surreal. She elbowed me. “He’s cute.” Dylan blushed.

Ben was less than subtle. He’d only been driving for two minutes when he looked at Dylan in the rearview mirror. “How’d you get like that?”

Dylan didn’t blink. “Drugs.”

“F-ark.” Ben’s paranoia was a thing to behold. He eased off on the gas. He was doing
forty
.

“Why are you driving like an old person?” Chloe complained.

Dylan’s eyes slid left. He stroked his chin, the tuftal region. We collapsed into giggles. Chloe laughed, too—at a leaf or a line in the sky, something going on in her own mad head. Ben just drove.