is just around the corner. But t never ends. It stretches and continues, and Mum drives herself into the ground.
“Thanks.”
The day echoes past and that’s what Sarah says to me in the evening when I finally see her again. She comes into the lounge room just before dinner.
“I mean it,” she tells me softly, and there is something in her eyes that makes me think of The Old Man and the Sea, and how the old man’s patched sail looks like the flag of permanent defeat. That’s what Sarah’s eyes look like. The color of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will just carry on, like all of us.
Smile stubborn.
Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.
At dinner, Rube comes in late, just before Steve.
This is how the Wolfe family looks at the table:
Our mother, eating politely.
Dad, feeding burnt sausage into his mouth but tasting unemployment. His face has healed from the busted pipe that smashed his jaw and ripped open his face. Yes, the injury has healed nicely, at least on the outside of his skin.
Sarah, concentrating on keeping it all down. Me, watching everyone else.
Rube, swallowing more and more and smiling at something, even though we have an extra dirty piece of business to cater for very soon.
It’s Dad who brings it into the foreground.
“Well?” he says when we’re done. He looks at Rube and me.
Well what?
“Well what?” Rube asks, but both of us know what we have to do. It’s just, we’ve got an agreement with one of our neighbors that we’ll walk his dog for him, twice a week. Sundays and Wednesdays. Let’s just say that most of our neighbors think that Rube and me are kind of hoodlums. So to get in the good graces of Keith, the neighbor on our left (who we disturb the most), it was decided that we would walk his dog for him, since he doesn’t get much time to do it himself. It was our mother’s idea, of course, and we complied. We’re many things, Rube and me, but I don’t think we’re difficult or lazy.
So as the ritual goes, Rube and I grab our jackets and walk out.
The catch is, the dog’s a fluffy midget thing called Miffy. Bloody Miffy, for God’s sake. What a name. He’s a Pomeranian and he’s a dead-set embarrassment to walk. So we wait till it gets dark. Then we go next door and Rube hits the highest note in his voice and calls, “Oh Miffy! Miffy!” He grins. “Come to Uncle Rube,” and the fluffy embarrassment machine comes prancing toward us like a damned ballerina. I promise you when we’re walking that dog and see someone we know, we pull our hoods over our heads and look the other way. I mean, there’s only so much guys like us can get away with. Walking a Pomeranian that goes by the name of Miffy is not one of them. Think about it. There’s street. Rubbish. Traffic. People yelling at each other over the top of their TVs. Heavy metallers and gang-looking guys slouching past … and then there are these two juvenile idiots walking a ball of fluff down the road.
It’s out of hand.
That’s what it is.
Disgraceful.
“A dis-grace,” says Rube.
Even tonight, when Miffy’s in a good mood.
Miffy. Miffy.
The more I say it to myself the more it makes me laugh. The Pomeranian from hell. Watch out, or Miffy’ll get you. Well, he’s got us all right.
We go out.
We walk him.
We discuss it.
“Slaves are what we are, mate,” is Rube’s conclusion. We stop. Look at the dog. Carry on. “Look at us. You, me, an’ Miffy here, and …” His voice trails off.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“What?”
He gives in easily, because he wanted to all along.
At our gate upon our return, Rube looks me in the eye and says, “I was talkin’ to my mate Jeff today and he reckons people’re talkin’ about Sarah.”
“Sayin’ what?”
“Sayin’ she’s been gettin’ round. Gettin’ drunk and gettin’ around a bit.”
Did he just say what I thought he said? Getting around? He did.
He did, and soon, it will alter the life of my brother Rube. It will put him in a boxing ring. It’ll make a heap of girls notice him. It’ll make him successful.
It will drag me with him, and all it will take to start it