Lavie Tidhar - The Apex Book of World SF 2

It was a long way to look up and see the face staring down at him, half-covered in black stubble. The man’s wide mouth hung open, eyes just peering down with no way of telling if it was anger or total blankness in them. Lex sensed something else there, too, a threat he didn’t understand at all, which made something inside him scream run but at the same time paralysed him so he couldn’t.

“Hey, Alex, let’s go for a swim,” Phil called innocently across to him from the news-agency counter. “Before it gets dark. Over at the nature strip. C’mon.” Phil’s voice seemed to break Lex out of a trance. He walked through the magazine rows, not daring to look sideways at the girl behind the counter, whose gaze he felt following him. The magazines down his pants were surely sticking out a mile.

At long last, blessedly, they were outside in the afternoon light. Cars whizzed by on Anzac Avenue. Their bikes leant against the shop wall. “Don’t pull ‘em out yet, you dink,” Phil hissed, as Lex adjusted the magazines’ position. “Oh shit. Quick, get on your bike and go.”

“What, why…?”

The pervert guy, like a horror movie zombie, shuffled slowly out of the shop and headed their way. His mouth still hung open, his eyes as dead as pebbles. “Catching flies, fuck head?” Phil said to him. “Shut your mouth, you look like a spastic.” The man didn’t say a word, just stared and shuffled closer. “I think he likes you, Alex. Frigging weirdo.”

They rode away, wheeling through traffic and many pissed off drivers, car horns blaring. Lex was so filled with sweet relief to be out of the news agency he hardly noticed how close he was to getting run over.

Rumour had it that if you could get to the waterhole at night, you’d sometimes see the bogan kids who got drunk in the Kallangur shop car parks doing it with their girlfriends, actually doing it right here in the long grass. They’d been out here one sleepover to test the theory but had seen no such thing.

It had rained last night and now the quite frequent cars that swung down the nearby road’s dip sloshed up water as they went. On the wide grassy platform a few metres above the water, Phil took out the Mars bar he’d slipped into his pocket right in front of the counter girl while he’d joked with her about the pervert guy. He peeled back its wrapping, which took much of the squished melted thing off with it, then stuffed the rest into his mouth. “Yeah, I saw that retard before,” said Phil, examining the Penthouse centrefold. “Lives on Sheehan Street. He just walks around at night, right down the middle of the road sometimes. Drivers have to go around him. Lives with these really old people, maybe his parents. Not right in the head. You can throw rocks at him or whatever and he just looks at you, doesn’t even care. So, are you going to jump or not?”

Last time they’d come, Phil had ridden his bike off the ledge and into the water. It was now Lex’s turn. From the seat of his black BMX, the water was just a brown wedge visible over the sloping rise before the drop. Phil said, “You won’t break your legs or anything. It’s deep right down there.”

Lex said, “Not worried about my legs, I’m worried about the bike.”

“It’s water, man, jeez come on.”

“I didn’t get this bike for my birthday like you got yours. I delivered pamphlets on Saturdays in the heat and paid for it myself.”

“Then you went and stole from the shops. What a good boy.” Phil took the Playboy out of Lex’s schoolbag. “If you don’t jump I’m keeping this.”

“Okay, okay.” Lex took off his shoes, put his glasses in their case, took a deep breath then pushed off, pumping hard on the pedals, the tyres bumping over the grassy ground. The water opened up into view three metres below, then he was airborne, letting go so the bike flung itself out ahead of him while he landed feet first in the water.

It was cold and not as deep as Phil had claimed, for his feet touched the hideously soft mud at its bottom. He came up and used his first gasp of air to whoop in triumph. He swam forwards to get the bike. “See that?” he laughed, spitting out a coppery mouthful.

“You didn’t stay on your bike, doesn’t count. Do it again.”

“I’ll do it again, no problem. That was sweet!”

Nearing the top of the path, Lex heard other voices up on the grassy platform: someone laughing. “Oh shit,” he heard Phil say. “Lex, get up here, okay?”

Still elated, Lex wheeled the bike up the curving path, starting to feel a chill from the late afternoon air. There was, at most, an hour of daylight left.

When he got up there he saw why Phil had been worried. Craig Randall and Keith Hume, that was why. There was, Lex was quite aware, a chance for him to get back on the bike and ride it down the path and out of there. And he knew he would have if his schoolbag and shoes hadn’t been up there with Phil, along with the precious magazines. Both these guys had been kicked out of school for beating people up. The last guy, Keith had rammed his head into a pole and put him in hospital and into a neck brace. Keith’s messy blond hair hung down over his shoulders, muscled arms exposed in a singlet. His friend Craig was tall, fat, redheaded, with squinting eyes and skin entirely covered in freckles. They were both three years and many growth spurts older.

Craig casually took Lex’s bike from him and sat on it in a way somehow devoid of aggression—just borrowing a seat. “Your friend’s fucked,” he said in his oddly high pitched voice. Going to be a pretty good show, hey? Craig smiled with no malice at all and produced a little bag of cask wine, which he put to his lips and sucked on. The wine’s cheap stink filled the place.

Phil didn’t move as Keith Hume stepped closer to him.

“Why do you have to hit him, Keith?” Lex said. “We got no problem with you.”

“Shut the fuck up, Alex,” Phil snapped at him.

Lex remembered what Phil had said about guys like this. They would beat you up now and then, face it. Just let them. Don’t be a pussy about it and they’d mostly leave you alone from then on. “Get it over with,” said Phil.

“What’d you say, cunt?” Shove to the shoulder, fists up, here it came. Jab, jab, crack went knuckles on Phil’s nose and cheek. They were fast, economical punches. Long fast arms, punching machines made just for this. Phil’s head rocked back. Lex almost felt it, almost saw the explosions of white stars. Craig chortled and slurped his wine. “Come on, Keith, that’s enough, hey,” said Lex.

But it wasn’t. Phil staggered and nearly fell but fought to keep on his feet. The “bully will respect you” theory, but Lex knew it wouldn’t work. “Stay down, Phil, for fuck’s sake,” he yelled, tears welling up in his eyes, a lump in his throat.

Craig got off the bike and with the same lack of malice, gave it a shove towards the drop and the water below. It rolled most of the way there, balanced on its wheels as though it had an invisible rider, then clattered onto its side and slid over the edge.

Lex forgot about Phil and the crack crack of punches still rocking his friend’s head back. There was just a long dark angry tunnel with Craig at the end of it. It was the casual way he’d done it, absolutely nothing personal in it. All those mornings in the hot sun, barked at by dogs, chased by one, riding up that hill on Gyp Court, swooped by magpies, wasp nests in letter boxes, folding fucking Coles and Food-Store pamphlets together all Friday night till his fingers were dark with ink. It had all been for Craig, to provide him five seconds or so of entertainment.

Lex’s hand picked up the flat rectangular stone all by itself. He moved automatically as he drew it back and shoved it into that utterly-hated, squinting, freckled face.