pretty miserable on account of having no work. This year he had plenty of work, and when he asked me to help on the odd Saturday or two, I helped him. So did Rube. My father’s a plumber.
Each of us sat at the kitchen table.
Rube.
Octavia.
Me.
And the beer, sitting in the middle of the table, sweating. “Well?” Rube asked it.
“Well what?”
“Well what the hell are we gonna do with this beer, you stupid bastard?” “Settle down, will y’.” We smiled, wryly.
Even Octavia smiled, because she’d grown used to the way Rube and I spoke to each other, or at least, the way Rube spoke to me.
“Do we split it three ways?” Rube continued. “Or just pass it round?”
That was when Octavia had her great idea. “How ‘bout we make it into ice blocks?” “Is that some kind of sick joke?” Rube asked her. “Of course not.”
“Beer ice blocks?” Rube shrugged and considered it. “Well, I s’pose. It’s warm enough, ay. Have we got any of those plastic ice block things? You know, with the stick?”
Octavia was already in the cupboards, and she found what she was after. “Pay dirt,” she grinned (and she had a lovely mouth, with straight, white, sexy teeth).
“Right.”
This was serious now.
Rube opened the beer and was about to pour it out, in equal amounts, of course. Interruption. Me.
“Shouldn’t we wash ‘em out or somethin’?”
“Why?”
“Well they’ve prob’ly been in that cupboard for ten years.” “So what?”
“So they’re probably all moldy and mangy, and —”
“Can I just pour the goddamn beer!?”
We all laughed again, through the tension, and finally, painstakingly, Rube poured three equal portions of beer into the ice block containers. He fixed the stick on each of them so they were straight down.
“Right,” he said. “Thank Christ for that,” and he walked slowly to the fridge.
“In the freezer bit,” I told him.
He stopped, mid-walk, turned slowly and carefully back round, and said, “Do you seriously think I’m pathetic enough to put beer which I just took from the fridge and poured into ice blocks back in just the fridge?”
“Y’ never know.”
He turned away again and kept walking. “Octavia, open the freezer, will y’.” She did it. “Thanks, love.” “No worries.”
Then it was just a matter of waiting for them to set.
We sat around in the kitchen for a while, until Octavia spoke, to Rube.
“You feel like doin’ something?” she asked him. With most girls, that was my cue to leave. Octavia, though, I wasn’t sure. I just cleared out anyway.
“Where y’ goin’?” Rube asked me.
“Not sure.”
I went out of the kitchen, took my jacket for later, and walked onto the front porch. Half out the door, I mentioned, “Maybe down the dog track. Maybe just out wanderin’.”
“Fair enough.”
“See y’ later, Cam.”
With a last look at Rube and a glance at Octavia, I could see desire in each of the eyes I met. Octavia had desire for Rube. Rube just had desire for a girl. Pretty simple, really.
“See y’s later,” I said, and walked out.
The flyscreen door slammed behind me.
My feet dragged.
I reached each arm into the jacket.
Warm sleeves.
Crumpled collar.
Hands in pockets.
Okay.
I walked.
Soon evening worked its way into the sky, and the city hunched itself down. I knew where I was going. Without knowing, without thinking, I knew. I was going to a girl’s place. It was a girl I had met last year at the dog track.
She liked.
She liked.
Not me.
She liked Rube.
She’d even called me a loser once when she was talking to him, and I’d listened in as my brother smacked her down with words and shoved her away.
What I’d been doing lately was standing outside her house, across the road. I stood and stared and hoped. And I left, after the curtains were drawn for a while. Her name was Stephanie.
That night, which I think of now as the beer ice block night, I stood and stared a bit longer than usual. I stood and imagined walking home with her and opening the door for her. I imagined it hard, till a reaching pain pulled me inside out. I stood.
Soul on the outside. Flesh within. “Ah well.”
It was a fair walk because she lived in Glebe and I lived closer to Central, on a small street with ragged gutters and the train line just beyond. I was used to it, though — both the distance and the street. In a way, I’m actually proud of where I come from. The small house. The craggy road. The Wolfe family.
Many minutes shuffled forward as I walked home,