Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

A mounting hunger is gnawing at my stomach. I turn around in my seat and look in the back of the cabin for a bag of chips I bought at the last stop. When I turn back I see a small dark shape move out of the shadow landscape and into the path of the truck. The driver shouts out a warning, I hold my breath and there is a loud bang which seems to explode right inside my head. In that moment the desert evaporates and only the shock of the collision is real. Then the moment passes and the wind howls back through my open window; there is only the cocoon of the black desert earth and sky, and Bonnie Raitt.

The driver turns to me and gives a sheepish laugh. ‘Sorry, mate, I think I might’ve just hit some pissed coon.’

•

I wasn’t the only white person at his funeral, but I was the only one who looked like he didn’t belong there. I spent the whole day in a stoned haze, a wall of opiates protecting me from the harsh outside world. I may even have pretended that my exclusion was of my own choosing. I chain-smoked cigarettes on the porch and watched a procession of men carry in slabs of beer from the pub down the road. The women sat in groups drinking beer or cask wine, telling each other stories or holding each other’s hands. No one was rude to me but nor did anyone welcome me. I assumed I was an uncomfortable presence, a reminder of the way their son, nephew, brother, cousin or friend had lived and died.

I was struck by the very Australianness of their mourning. Here there was no Mediterranean lamentation or hushed silences. No women in black forming a shrill fresco of despair. Instead everyone was getting pissed.

An old woman sat in the backyard, surrounded by a circle of other women. She sat there not moving and it seemed she was looking past the timber fence, past the suburb and into another world altogether. I managed to find some courage and stepped off the porch. As I walked towards her the group surrounding her looked suspiciously at me.

I ignored everyone else and walked straight up to the old woman. ‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t seem to hear me. But I was determined to proceed with my confession. ‘I wish I could tell you something about him.’

She did not avoid my eyes but I felt that she was looking through me, ignoring me with all her senses.

‘He told me about your place up north. I think he missed it very much.’ Was I making this up? He had never spoken those words to me, we had never been so intimate that he revealed emotional desire, but I do remember one conversation in which sex and drugs did not figure but instead he told me about swimming with crocodiles while an old woman chanted a song that kept the beasts tame.

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated lamely.

This time she turned to me and started a low quiet laugh. Tears filled her eyes. She said something to me but I did not understand her. A young woman sitting beside her started to laugh with her and soon the circle of women were all laughing and crying together. I stood there, humiliated.

The young woman tugged at my shirt sleeve and whispered to me, ‘It’s okay. She just called him a silly young poof. Maybe he wanted to come back home but he was too busy running around after you white guys in the city.’ She shook her head at my obvious dismay. ‘Hey, boy, don’t worry. We’re not upset at you. His spirit be happier now.’ She looked into my eyes and gave a soft whistle. ‘You look after yourself, boy.’ She offered me a beer.

I refused the beer and instead pointed to the old woman. ‘Tell her I wanted to say I’m sorry.’

The young woman whispered my apologies to the grandmother, who turned her head to me one last time and nodded. With that I was dismissed. The circle fell back into conversation and drinking.

I turned away, walked back through the house and out onto an ugly suburban street. My anger finally conquered the chemicals in my blood and I spat a large glob of venom onto the dry pavement.

And what about you, you bastards? I was thinking. What about you lot? You were family. You should have done something. And now you insult him. You were too busy drinking and getting out of it in your own way. You fucking good-for-nothing lazy black bastards.

I’m ashamed even as I write these words. But it would be more shameful to pretend I did not think them.

•

The truck keeps thundering through the night and I am stunned and frozen. As the driver’s words sink in I mutter a pathetic, ‘Are you serious?’

He laughs at my unease. ‘If I’ve put one of those black arse-holes out of their misery, I’m happy.’

‘Stop the fucking truck.’ I grab for my knapsack and clutch it to my chest. ‘I said stop the fucking truck.’

He says nothing for a moment, he does not slow down. Then he points a finger out into the dark. ‘Look out there. It is real easy, dead easy, to lose someone in this place. You could lose a body here and no one would ever find it.’

I am pierced by his menace and I am shivering with hate and fear. I cannot stand the stench of him, the poison of his amphetamine sweat.

The truck slows down with a loud scream. I open my door and prepare to lower myself down. As I am about to jump, he slams a fist into the back of my head. I sprawl onto the hard road and I let go of my pack. He revs the truck and I am scared he will run me over. Though my body and face are hurting I roll off the road and he roars away, the lights of the truck carving up the thick black night.

The first thing I do is fumble for my pack in the pitch dark. After a few minutes of fruitless searching I sit exhausted on the ground, massaging my aching jaw. I look up to the sky. The astonishing celestial dance pacifies me and I begin to grow accustomed to the dark. I watch the stars, let myself breathe, then attempt another search. I find the pack close to where I fell. My relief is quashed when I remember the reason I am here alone in the middle of an empty world. Shivering from the cold and the thought that somewhere close is a dead human body, I make my way back down the road. The asphalt shimmers in the night light and I have little difficulty keeping along it. But I have no concept of how much distance we had travelled between the accident and my undignified fall from the truck. As I walk along I keep looking up to the sky, asking the stars for warmth and light.

There are sounds out here. Alien sounds. Of course there is the wind but underneath its whistle there seems to be a soft pounding booming coming from the very depths of the earth I’m walking on. Time too has no concrete shape in this terrain and I have no idea how long I have been walking. The black night is now forming faces and bodies which change shape with every breath I take, as if they are breathing along with me.

Somewhere in the distance I hear a rustle and I am scared. The cold night air digs through the wool of my jumper, runs up and down my legs and reaches far into the core of me. The shapes are now forming lizards and snakes writhing in front of me. The road itself seems to pulsate, as if keeping a beat to the disconcerting pounding of the earth. I’m beginning to feel foolish and almost regret leaving the truck. But then I remember the driver’s malevolent laugh and I keep walking.

I first smell the body. The scent is very much animal. Nervously I kneel to touch it. It does not move. I run my hand along a thick hide which still feels warm. Excited and relieved I trace the curves of its body and feel thick liquid. The blood has not dried yet. ‘It was a roo,’ I scream into the night, ‘it was only a fucking roo.’

I find my cigarettes squashed in my shirt pocket and put a battered one in my mouth. I smell the blood on my hand. Appalled, I spit out the cigarette and wipe my hand in the scrub. I light myself another cigarette and lie back in the dirt.