Sure Fire
Yvonne Sanders
Copyright 2013 Yvonne Sanders
Dedicated to my sister,
Sharon,
Who died suddenly and way too young during 2011.
Her spirit of endurance has urged me to continue the pursuit of my dreams, so that I can look back without regret and sorrow for missed opportunities.
“Angels are the friends who pick you up and set you back on your feet when your wings have forgotten how to fly.”
Sure Fire
Colleen draws sharply on the cigarette held tight between her nicotine stained fingers. She leans over the flaking verandah railing, surveying the bush beyond the ragged fence line. She looks out keenly, her stare searching the distant hills. She breathes out hard and long, the smoky flurry of her rancid breath delivering palpable relief. She steps back, lets herself fall into the moulded cradle of the wicker armchair.
Old comfort.
The morning is still young but the air is heavy, full. It’s already 29 degrees. The day is calm enough, for now. There is only the faintest breath of the promised northerly. She folds the cigarette butt over, pushing it firmly into the ash-filled terracotta dish, grinding the red cinders into oblivion. She gives a final forceful puff, her chin pointed high into the air, so that the stream of smoke drifts out and away. Her hand slides into the pocket of her shorts. She pulls out the phone and scrolls down the contacts, stopping at Guy. She hits voice call on the menu and puts the device to her ear. And waits.
He doesn’t answer.
Again.
*****
Stretching out her leg, she hooks the wooden crate with her toes, pulling it closer. She folds one outstretched leg over the other, resting both on top of the makeshift foot-stool. She leans back, head inclined to one side and resting it against her free hand. Now relaxing just a little, the tension begins to drain away.
She checks her watch. She hasn’t seen her son this morning. But she heard him all right. She’d woken early to the reverberating shriek of his trail bike revving in the driveway. By the time she made it to the back door she could hardly see him for the dust cloud left in his wake.
Almost two hours.
Where is he? What’s he doing?
She doesn’t want to think about it. But as always, thoughts of Guy are out of her control—never leave her alone for long.
*
What is it about her son that things don’t seem to quite work out for him? She could never settle on the reason, the causes. As early as kindergarten there seemed to be problems. But even then, she could see that his isolation was not of his own doing. He liked the other kids and tried to be their friend. But they pushed him out, excluded him—en masse, it seemed. He’d come home in tears, not understanding why he wasn’t allowed to play.
Of course, it made sense then, that he would push them down, hit them, fight them. It was only human nature that he should battle for his own survival, for his place in the scheme of things. That the other kids didn’t want to play with him had been the cause of immeasurable sadness for Guy, and by default, a great deal of anxiety for her. The first time he’d been in a fight Mrs.Gardiner had called her into the office to discuss his inappropriate behaviour.
She’d been surprised then. Guy had always been a loving and accepting child at home. He was very close to Colleen. They’d shared a special bond of understanding and mutual comfort, especially since Eric had left. Guy never stopped asking for his father and Colleen never stopped trying to fill the void of the missing father figure in her son’s life.
Not that Eric was the model husband and father. In truth Colleen was relieved he’d gone. She didn’t want him to ever come back—not for her sake, anyway. And she didn’t trust him with Guy. Even at the best of times Eric wasn’t easy to live with. When he was sober he was rough and self-centred, a product of his own stereotypical upbringing in Swan Hill, where his father worked as a shearer during daylight hours and drank during the rest of his waking day. His mother stayed home, kept house, raised the children and did his bidding, whatever and whenever it happened to be.
Looking back, Colleen could see the pattern repeating itself for Eric, her own life a reflection of Eric’s mother. She’d learned to keep her mouth shut, not to argue, to keep out of his way, to keep Guy out of his way. When Eric had been drinking, which was a habit that began as soon as he knocked off work, he’d arrive home with one or two stubbies already under his belt. Then he’d continue through the late afternoon and evening. On good days he was impatient and demanding. On bad days he was abusive, both verbally and physically.
Guy was too young to know that his mother was being assaulted. He didn’t understand what the black and purple patches that formed ugly mosaics over his mother’s body really meant. But Colleen worried for him just the same. She was sick at the thought that her baby was exposed to their arguments and fights. She learned to stop, not to engage with him in this. But her silence only served to agitate Eric more and the shouting would escalate. It always ended in the same way—a physical violence with which she could not compete.
As a toddler, Guy would sit in his high chair or on the floor, watching in horror and bewilderment. The shouting frightened him. The louder Eric yelled, the more Guy cried, until eventually he would be screaming in terror. The child's loud and inconsolable protestations only served to irritate Eric more.
But he never touched Guy. And for this Colleen was grateful. Still, she feared for Guy’s safety. She felt sure that it would be only a matter of time before he paid out on the child. The pattern was clear to her. She had not seen any violence when they were dating. True, they both drank then, and often copiously. But there were no real responsibilities in those days. No babies. The stresses were different—fewer and less significant. Neither of them had to make allowances then. Not for anything or anyone. It was a self-indulgent life-style with few constraints.
That’s what had changed. She could see it now.
The first pieces of this picture began to emerge when she was carrying Guy. If she wasn’t up to his amorous advances, even in the latest stages of her pregnancy, he would be put out, disgruntled, critical—and eventually forceful. She learned to submit.
But she’d already begun to hate him.
*
Guy was barely three when Eric left. He’d been drinking again, of course. She tried to keep out of his way, to keep Guy out of his way. But the child had been sick and so had she. She’d hardly slept the night before—either she’d been up attending to Guy, cleaning up the vomit and the diarrhoea, changing his sheets and sponging his fever away or she’d been retching over the toilet bowl herself.
When Eric had returned home from work, already half drunk, his stormy mood escalated. He was furious that there was no meal already prepared for him. He often used his mother as a reference point to criticise Colleen, her house-keeping skills, her cooking, her parenting, her conjugal duty. That the house was rife with the sour smell of vomit, that it was in an even greater state of decay than usual, further enraged him. With his rising anger came arousal. This was the last straw. Colleen was simply too weak to comply. When she shrugged him away the violence of his assault left her unconscious, wedged between the wall and the wooden frame of the sofa.
When she came to Guy was sitting next to her, babbling something sorrowful, his tiny fingers stroking the tangle of her blood-stained hair.
Eric was gone.
*
Life was never easy for the two of them after that. But it was much happier, more peaceful now that Eric had removed himself from the picture of their lives. She didn’t care that he never paid child support. She never followed up on this, fearful that any advances she made to find him would simply see the return of their for
mer lives. But she ached for her son, who would grow up wanting for so many things—including a father. How would she explain it to him?
He’d left for greener pastures.
He didn’t want us anymore.
He threw us away.
We weren’t good enough.
How do you explain this to a child so that they understand it’s not their fault.
In her own way she tried to compensate for her son’s many losses. With Eric out of the picture and with Guy still so young, she opted for a pension instead of going out to work. It meant that she could stay home and be a full-time parent. But it also meant there was much less money. Instead of going into town for an occasional meal, she would splurge any change she had on ice-cream to treat him after dinner. She made sure there were other treats too—chips and biscuits and lemonade. Now instead of buying new clothes at the Best’n’Less, she frequented the local opp shop. Even his new clothes were somebody else’s old cast-offs.
Then to salve her own guilt and sorrow for her son, and to ease his fear, she'd let him sleep in her bed. At first this yielded comfort for them both, but it became a habit that continued for too long, creating a neediness in the boy for his mother that added to his increasing oddness.
*
By the time Guy began school he was already a little pudgy compared to the other kids. Colleen couldn’t see the problem—puppy fat, she called it. But that’s not how the other kids saw it. They would point at him, laughing and calling names. He couldn’t weather it. Instead, he would cry and go straight to the teachers, looking to have his persecutors punished.
At first his teachers were sympathetic, and tried to mediate. But even they became secretly annoyed with his precious sensitivities and neediness. When it became too hard to manage him, they would simply hand the responsibility back to Colleen, advising her to talk to her son about how to get along with the other kids, how to share, how to play, not to tell tales.
Colleen felt her son’s pain, was stung by the unfairness of it. She would compensate for it by making disparaging remarks about the other kids. She’d spoil him even more with sweet treats—anything to make it up to him.
The older Guy got, the worse things seemed to be. Kids found more and more to tease him about—his weight, his clothes, his shoes, his failing grades, his fatherless condition.
By the time Guy reached early secondary school it seemed to Colleen that things had become more settled for him. But in truth it had only become worse. Guy had learned how not to react. He'd become skilled at internalising his anger and his grief. The bullying had become more subtle, but it had also become more cruel.
By middle school Guy had earned himself the reputation of a loner. He hardly spoke to other kids and only participated in his classes by his attendance. His grades had slipped from average to failing in most subjects. Only when he began skipping classes did he come to the attention of the principal. Now the school started to take notice, to explore his lack of motivation, his social unwillingness, his self-imposed isolation, his truancy. The school counsellor became involved and before she knew what was happening, her son was being treated for depression. This meant regular counselling sessions with Mrs. Costa, and this of course meant even more jibes and judgments by his peers.
*
Colleen could only watch despairingly as her son morphed into an outcast before her eyes. He made up for the deficit in his own perceived unworthiness by saving his meagre allowance to purchase affordable luxuries like an extra piercing to complement the growing number he now sported in various parts of his head—his lip, his nose, an eyebrow and several defining the contour of one ear.
She could see what Guy could not see. That his need to build himself up in this way added to the scorn directed towards him by other kids’ parents. And this by default, would leave him even more isolated.
She watched him become more and more introverted, spending most of his time at home either in front of the television or confined to his room and glued to his computer. She worried about his increasing fixation on firearms, hunting sports and disasters broadcast on the news. She checked his room with increasing frequency when he was at school, looking for patterns she didn’t want to find. Only last week she’d found a stash of newspaper clippings at the bottom of his wardrobe—stories and photographs of disasters—car accidents that had ended in explosions, house and factory fires. On checking his computer for recent searches, she could see that her son had been following the Sporting Shooters Association and the Country Fire Authority.
She wondered whatever for.
*****
As always, Colleen’s instincts leave her unsettled and uncomfortable about the direction her son’s life is taking, his interests and choices. But she wants to believe in him, to convince herself that he is a good kid. She would have to talk to him, but that wouldn’t be easy. These days he shuts her out as well. Still, she’d try—when he gets home from his ride.
She begins planning the rest of their day. Maybe she could manage a movie and pizza in town together. He'd like that. That’d bring him out of himself. Besides, it’s too hot to cook. Yes, some time out with her son.
This is probably just what he needs right now.
Just what she needs too.
Time together.
Quality time.
That’ll bring him ‘round.
*
She settles back into the safe thoughts. He’s a good boy really. Just a little misunderstood. But he has a good heart, and others would see this too if they would only give him a chance.
She gets up from her reverie, steps back inside through the ragged screen door to grab more cigs and a beer. She’s feeling good now.
Positive.
Happy.
“Come on, Rufus,” she calls to the old dog prostrate on the kitchen floor. “Come on, boy.” She dips her hand into the open cracker box sitting on the kitchen counter and grabs a handful of treats. “Come on, then,” she beckons, waving them in the air in front of his greying snout.
His whiskers twitch and he opens his eyes. In a flash he is at her heels, following her outside onto the decking. She reclines into her seat and lets her arm down over the side of her armchair to drop the crackers. The old dog takes up his usual place at her side. Eats the treats, falls asleep.
She takes a long, refreshing swig straight from the bottle and sets it down on the table next to her. The cool elixir sends a calming wave through her core. She withdraws the last cigarette from its collapsed packet, then tosses the empty container across the verandah, missing the overflowing bin. She lights up, draws hard on the cancer stick, closing her eyes to enjoy the incoming relief.
The distant rumble of a motor cycle's speedy acceleration startles her.
Guy.
Her eyes split open, focus sharply on the direction of the noise.
That’s when she sees it.
In an instant she is out of her cradle, leaning out over the railing. She strains to see, probes the horizon for sure evidence that it is not what it appears.
A distinct and rising plume of smoke.
Notes from the author
I hope you’ve enjoyed this small reading journey as much as I’ve enjoyed bringing it to you. The story is inspired by the Black Saturday bushfires in February of 2009, which wreaked so much loss and grief for so many Victorians. I live in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, where the threat of bushfires is an ever-present summer menace.
You can connect with me at:
Website: https://www.yvonnesanders.com.au
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