library room now there are no more books in it. August got rid of them all in the Bracken Ridge Book Bonanza, which ended up running for six consecutive Saturdays, with August making a disappointing $550 from the whole endeavour. He shifted almost 10,000 books through Bracken Ridge’s Housing Commission sector, but, amid disappointing sales, eventually reached the philosophical plateau that suggested giving the majority of books away for free. It wouldn’t help Mum get back on her feet any quicker but it would increase the chances of Bracken Ridge teens being exposed to Hermann Hesse, John le Carré and The Three Reproductive Phases of Silverfish. Because of my brother, August, there are men down at the Bracken Ridge Tavern on Saturday afternoons now drinking beers over Superforms and betting cards while they discuss the psychological resonance of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
I walk down the hall, still in my boxer shorts and an old black Adidas T-shirt that I’ve been wearing to bed, thin and comfortable and full of holes eaten away by what I believe might be silverfish, who survive on diets of Adidas T-shirts and books by Joseph Conrad.
I pull the fading cream curtain back on our wide front living room window. Open the window right up. Lean out and breathe the night air in deep. Look up at that full moon. Look out at the empty street. I see Lyle back in Darra. He’s standing in that suburban night in his roo-shooting coat smoking a Winfield Red. I miss him. I gave up on him because I was scared. Because I was gutless. Because I was angry at him. Fuck him, right. His fault for hopping in bed with Tytus Broz. Not my fault. Cut him out of my mind along with the Lord of Limbs. Cut them off like the ibis cut its own leg off because the fishing line was killing it.
It’s the moon that pulls my legs outside. My legs are moving and my mind follows. Then my mind follows my hands to the green garden hose looped around the tap fixed to the front of the house. I turn the hose on and kink the hose in my right hand so the water won’t spill through the orange nozzle. I drag the hose to the gutter by the letterbox. I sit and stare up at the moon. The full moon and me and the geometry between us. I release the kink and the water rushes onto the bitumen, pooling quickly in a flat pan in the street. The water runs and the silver moon wobbles in the forming puddle.
‘Can’t sleep?’
I forgot how much he sounds like me. It’s like he’s me and I’m standing behind myself. I look behind me to see August. His face lit by the moon, rubbing his eyes.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
We look into the moon pool.
‘I think I’ve got Dad’s worry gene,’ I say.
‘You don’t have his worry gene,’ he says.
‘I’m going to have to live my life as a recluse,’ I say. ‘I’m never gonna go outside. I’m gonna rent a Housing Commission home just like this one and fill two of the rooms with tinned Black and Gold spaghetti and I’ll eat spaghetti and read books until I die choking in my sleep on a ball of lint from my belly button.’
‘What is for you will not pass you by,’ August says.
I smile at him.
‘You know, I think you might have a baritone in that voice you never use,’ I say.
He laughs.
‘You should try singing some time,’ I say.
‘I think talking’s enough for now,’ he says.
‘I like talking to you, Gus.’
‘I like talking to you, Eli.’
He sits down in the gutter beside me, studies the hose water rushing into the moon pool.
‘What are you worrying about?’ he asks.
‘Everything,’ I say. ‘Everything that’s been and everything that’s about to be.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘It all gets—’
I cut him off. ‘Yeah, it all gets good, Gus, I know. Thanks for reminding me,’ I say.
Our reflections morph and disfigure like monsters in the moon pool.
‘Why do I have this feeling that tomorrow is going to be the most significant day of my life?’ I ponder.
‘Your feelings are well founded,’ August says. ‘It is going to be the most significant day of your life. Every day of your life has been leading up to tomorrow. But of course every day of your life led up to today.’
I look deeper into the moon pool, leaning over my hairy and thin legs.