mean to drive us into that dam that night. But maybe he did. Maybe you didn’t kill that taxi driver. But maybe you did.
You did your time for it. You did your time and then some. Maybe Dad has too.
Maybe Mum needed him to do his time and then she could come back to him. Maybe she might give him a second chance. She’s good for him, Slim. She’s made him human. They’re not lovers or nothin’, but they’re friends and that’s good because he chased all his other friends away with all the drink and all the damage.
Maybe all men are bad sometimes and all men are good sometimes. It’s just a matter of timing. You were right about August. He did have all the answers. He keeps telling me he told me so. He keeps telling me he saw this coming because he’s been here before. He keeps telling me he’s come back from somewhere. We both have. And he means the moon pool. We’ve come back from the moon pool.
He keeps scribbling his finger in the air. I told you, Eli. I told you, Eli.
It gets better, he said. It gets real good.
Dear Mr August Bell,
On 6 June the people of Queensland will unite as one and rejoice in ‘Queensland Day’, an unprecedented celebration of our great State’s official separation from New South Wales on 6 June 1859. As part of our celebrations, we are recognising five hundred ‘Queensland Champions’ who have contributed to the State through outstanding endeavour. We are delighted to invite you to attend the inaugural Queensland Champions ceremony on 7 June 1991 in Brisbane City Hall where you will be recognised in the COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS section for your tireless efforts to raise funds for the SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY ASSOCIATION.
*
Alex Bermudez spent four hours in our kitchen telling me his life story. When we finished he turned to August.
‘What about you, Gus?’ he asked.
What?, August scribbled in the air.
‘He says, “What?”,’ I translated.
‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ Alex asked.
It was in this moment, as August scratched his chin on the couch with Neighbours playing on the television, that he was struck with the idea for Criminal Enterprises, Australia’s first underground charity organisation funded by a network of leading south-east Queensland crime figures. He asked Alex for a donation to his muscular dystrophy bucket. Alex dropped $200 into the bucket and then August went one step further. With me laboriously translating his air scribbles, August pitched Alex an idea he had for an ongoing charity commitment from the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang and, moreover, any other wealthy criminals in Alex’s friendship circle who had perhaps always wanted to give back to the communities they so readily plundered and destroyed. The State of Queensland’s vast criminal underworld, August said, represented an untapped charity resource just begging to be capitalised on. Even in a festering and dark underworld populated by murderous thugs and men who’d stab their own grandmothers for an in-ground swimming pool in summer could be found a few big-hearted men who wanted to give back to those less fortunate than themselves. August saw a whole range of special needs and education services that might be better serviced by the goodwill of local crooks. They might, for example, support young women and men from the wrong sides of the tracks through university medicine courses. They might, for example, care to fund a scholarship program for the children of retired or down-at-heel criminals with special needs. There was a Robin Hood element to it, August said. What the crims lost in the pocket they would gain in their souls; it would give them some small ribbon of meaning to wave at the great judge in the sky when they rang the doorbell at the pearly gates.
I saw where August was going and I put my own existential spin on his point.
‘I think what Gus is tryin’ to say is, don’t you ever wonder what it’s all for, Alex?’ I said. ‘Imagine when it comes time to hang up your pistol and your knuckle-duster and on your last day of work you look back on all that crooked business and all you have to show for it is a mountain of cash and a collection of tombstones.’
Alex smiled. ‘Lemme sleep on it,’ he said.
One week later an Australia Post courier van dropped off a box parcel at our house, addressed to August. The box was filled with $10,000 in random twenties, tens, fives,