Peter Carey - Collected Stories

At the moment Crabs weighs eight stone and four pounds, but he’s increasing his weight all the time.

He is known as Crabs because of the time last year when he claimed to have the Crabs and everyone knew he was bullshitting. And then Frank told Trev that Crabs was still a virgin and so they called him Crabs. He doesn’t mind it so much now. He’s not a virgin now and he’s more comfortable with the name. It gives him a small distinction, character is how he looks at it.

Crabs appears to be very small behind the wheel of this 1956 Dodge. He sits on two cushions so he can see properly. Carmen sits close beside him, a little shorter, because of the cushions, and around them is the vast empty space of the car — leopard skin stretching everywhere, taut and beautiful.

The night is sweet, filled with the red tail lights of other cars, sweeping headlights, flickering neon signs. Crabs drives fast, keeping the needle on the 70 mark, sweating with fear and excitement as he chops in and out of the traffic. He keeps his small dark eyes on the rear-vision mirror, half hoping for the flashing blue lights that will announce the arrival of the cops. Maybe he’ll accelerate, maybe he’ll pull over. He doesn’t know, but he dreams of that sweet moment when he will plant his foot and all the power of this hotted-up Dodge will roar to life and he will leave the cops behind. The papers will say: “An early model American car drew away from police at 100 m.p.h.”

Beside him Carmen is quiet. She keeps using the cigarette lighter because she likes to use it. She thinks he doesn’t see her, the way she throws away her cigarettes after a few drags, so she can use the cigarette lighter again. The cigarette lighter and the leopard skin upholstery make her feel great.

The leopard skin upholstery is why they’re going to a drive-in tonight. Because Carmen whispered in his ear that she’d like to do it on the leopard skin upholstery. She was shy. It pleased him, those small hot words blowing on his ear. She blushed when he looked at her. He liked that.

He didn’t tell Frank about the leopard skin. He didn’t think it was good for Frank to know how Carmen felt about it. Anyway Frank hates the leopard skin. He normally keeps it covered with a couple of old grey blankets. He didn’t tell Frank about the drive-in either because of the Karboys.

The Karboys have come about slowly and become more famous as the times have got worse. With every strike they seem to grow in strength. And now that imports are restricted and most of the car factories are closed down they’ve got worse. A year ago you only had to worry if your car broke down on the highway or in a tough suburb. They’d come and strip down your car and leave you with nothing but the picked bones. Now it’s different. If you buy a used car part (and you try and get a new carbie, say, for a 1956 Dodge) it’s sure to come from some Karboy gang or other and who’s to say they didn’t kill the poor bastard who owned the Dodge it came off. Every time Frank buys a part he crosses himself. It’s a big joke with Frank, crossing himself. Crabs too. They both have this big thing going about crossing themselves. It’s a joke they have. Carmen doesn’t get it, but she never was a Catholic anyway.

The official word is not to resist the Karboys, to give them all your car if you have to, but you don’t see a man giving his car away that easily. So a lot of drivers are carrying guns, mostly sawn-off.22s. And if you’ve got any sense you keep your doors locked and windows up and you keep your car in good nick, so you don’t get stranded anywhere. The insurance companies have altered the wars and civil disturbances clauses to cover themselves, so you take good care of your car because you’ll never get another one if you lose it.

And you don’t go to drive-ins. Drive-ins are bad news. You get the odd killing. The cops are there but they don’t help much. Last week a cop shot another cop who was knocking off a bumper bar. He thought the cop was a Karboy but he was only supplementing his income.

So Crabs hasn’t told Frank what he’s doing tonight. And he’s got some of Frank’s defensive gear out of the truck. This is a sharpened bike chain and a heavy-duty spanner. He’s got them under the front seat and he’s half hoping for a little trouble. He’s scared, but he’s hoping. Carmen hasn’t said anything about the Karboys and Crabs wonders if she even knows about them. There’s so much she doesn’t know about. She spends all day reading papers but she never takes anything in. He wonders what she thinks about when she reads.

There are more cars at the drive-in than he expected and he drives around until he finds the cop car. He plans on parking nearby, just to be on the safe side. But Carmen is very edgy about the police, because she is only just sixteen and her mother is still looking for her, and she makes Crabs park somewhere else. In the harsh lights her small face seems very pale and frightened. So Crabs finds a lonely spot up in the back corner and combs his thick black hair with a tortoiseshell comb while he waits for the lights to go out. Carmen arranges the blankets over the windows. Frank has got this all worked out, from the times when he went to drive-ins. There are little hooks around the tops of all the windows so they can be curtained with towels or blankets. Frank is ingenious. In the old days he used to remove all the inside door handles too, just in case his girl friends wanted to run away.

They put down the lay-back seats and Carmen unpins her long red hair. She only pinned it up because Crabs said how he liked her unpinning it. He sits like a small Italian buddha in the back seat and watches her, watches her hair fall.

She says, you’re neat, you know that, very neat.

When she says that he doesn’t know how to take it. She means that he is almost dainty. She says, you’re sort of … She is going to say “graceful” but she doesn’t.

Crabs says, shut up, and begins to struggle with the buckle of his motor-cycle boots. Crabs never had a motor bike, but he bought the boots off Frank, who was driving one night when there was a bike in a prang. He got them from the ambulance driver for a packet of fags. Crabs bought them for three packets of Marlboro. There was a bit of blood, but he covered it up with raven oil.

Crabs really likes heavy things. Also he dislikes laces. All his shoes have zips, buckles, or slip on. When he was at the tech they used to tie him to the chain-wire fence by his shoelaces, every lunchtime. They tied him to the fence right in front of the Principal’s window and the only way he could ever get out was to break the laces, because he couldn’t bend down — if he bent down they kicked him in the arse. Crabs’s father was always coming up to see the Principal and complaining about the shoelaces but it never did any good. Once Crabs came to school with zip-up boots and they stole them from him so he had to wear the laces, for his own protection.

The first film is crackling through the loud speaker and Carmen sits up near the front window with only her black pants on, her hair down, covered with a heavy sweet perfume she always wears. Crabs shyly eyes her breasts which are small and tight. He would like her to have big boobs, like the girls in Playboy. That is the only way he would like to improve her, for her to have big boobs, but he never says anything about this, even to himself. He says, help me with my boot. He is embarrassed to ask her. He knew this would happen and it was worrying him. He says, just pull. Normally Frank pulls off his boots for him. The boots are one size too small but they don’t hurt too much.

Crabs lies back with his shirt off, his black jeans down, and one sock off while Carmen pulls at the second boot. Crabs is coming on fuzzy as he watches Carmen stretched back, her face screwed up with concentration and effort. He watches the small soft muscle on the inside of her thigh and the small soft hollow it has, just where it disappears into her pants.