the Brisbane Exhibition. Lyle and Mum bought the tickets from a guy in a concrete hole in the wall. We walked through horse stables and cow shit and a hundred goats and a barn full of chickens and chicken shit. Then we walked down a hill and we came to Sideshow Alley and August and I begged Lyle to take us on the Ghost Train and then into the Maze of Mirrors where I turned and turned and turned through doors but only ever found myself. Keep walking up this street. Find someone, anyone. Like this man.
‘Excuse me,’ I say.
He’s wearing a large army-green coat and a beanie and he’s nursing a large glass bottle of Coke between his crossed legs as he leans against the concrete wall bordering the showgrounds. The Coke bottle is the kind August and I collect and return sometimes to the corner store in Oxley and the old lady who runs the store gives us twenty cents for our efforts and we spend that twenty cents on twenty one-cent caramel buds. There’s a clear liquid in the man’s Coke bottle and I can smell that it’s methylated spirits. He looks up at me, his lips twitching, eyes adjusting to the sun over my shoulders.
‘Could you point me to the train station?’ I ask.
‘Batman,’ the man says, his head wobbling.
‘Sorry?’
‘Batman,’ he barks.
‘Batman?’
He sings the television theme tune. ‘Nananananananana . . . Batman!’ he hollers.
He’s tanned from the sun and he’s sweating in the large green coat.
‘Yeah, Batman,’ I say.
He points to his neck. The side of his neck is covered in blood. ‘Fuckin’ bat bit me,’ he says. His head wobbles from one side to the other like the pirate-ship swings we ride on every autumn at the Brisbane Exhibition. I see now that his left eye is heavily bruised, blood-clotted.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘Do you need some help?’
‘I don’t need help,’ he gargles. ‘I’m Batman.’
Adult men. Fucking adult men. Nutters, all of them. Can’t be trusted. Fucking sickos. Freaks. Killers. What was this man’s road to becoming Batman on a side street of inner-city Brisbane? How much good was in him? How much bad? Who was his father? What did his father do? What did his father not do? In what ways did other adult men fuck his life up?
‘Which way to the train station?’ I ask.
‘Wazzat?’ he says.
‘The train station?’ I say, louder.
He points the way, an unsteady right arm and a limp forefinger pointing to an intersection left of here.
‘Just keep walking, Robin,’ he says.
Just keep walking.
‘Thanks, Batman,’ I say.
He holds out his hand.
‘Shake me ’and,’ he demands.
I instinctively go to shake his hand with my right but remember the dressing over my missing finger and tentatively offer my left hand instead.
‘Good, good,’ he says, giving a firm handshake.
‘Thanks again,’ I say.
Then he pulls my hand to his mouth and bites it like a rabid dog.
‘Nnnngrrrrr,’ he spits, his mouth slobbering over my hand. He’s biting my hand but it’s all skin in his mouth, jelly gums. I reef my hand away and he falls back laughing, his mouth open wide and deranged. Not a single tooth in his smile.
Run.
Sprinting now. Sprinting now like I’m Eric Grothe, powerhouse winger for the mighty Parramatta Eels, and there’s a sideline beside me and a try line eighty metres in front of me. Sprint like my life depended on it. Sprint like there’s jet boots on my feet and fire in my heart that never goes out. Across the intersection. My Dunlop KT-26s will guide my way. Just trust in the sleek cushioned design of the KT-26, cheapest, most effective runner in all of Kmart. Sprint like I’m the last warm-blooded boy on earth and the world is overrun by vampires. Vampire bats.
Run. Past a car dealership to my right and a hedgerow to my left. Run. Past an orange brick building to my left that takes up a whole block of land. A name fixed in fancy letters to the building. The Courier-Mail.
Stop.
This is where they make it. This is where they build the newspaper. Slim told me about this place. All the writers come here and they type their stories out and typesetters put their stories on metal down in the printing presses at the back of the building. Slim said he spoke to a journalist once who told him he could smell his stories being pressed in ink in the evening. There was no greater smell, the journo told Slim, than tomorrow’s