She walked along our street and it was cold and brutal and beautiful. For a few seconds, I hated my brother Rube for what he was doing to her.
Also, watching her walk slowly up our street, I remembered what Rube had said about Octavia and him following me one day when I walked over to Glebe and stood outside Stephanie's house. I could clearly see the image of them looking at me. Looking at me looking. She must have thought I was pathetic. A bit of a lonely bastard, as Rube put it. Maybe now, as she walked up the street, she knew how I felt.
Somehow, though, I understood that it was thoughts of Rube that filled her. Not thoughts of me. Maybe she was thinking of his hands on her, the thrill of it. Maybe it was laughter she remembered, or the words of a conversation. I would never know. I sat down again and Miffy jumped on my lap. As I watched Octavia, Miffy watched me, and when the girl had disappeared completely, the dog was giving me a certain look.
"What?" I asked him, but of course, he didn't answer. The dog looked like he'd genuinely caught me out, but soon enough, he returned to his usual disgusting self, yawning in my face. "Your breath smells like a cesspool," I said, and we waited for Rube.
He came in late for dinner and the old man gave him a good serve for it, as well as for leaving Octavia out to dry. I made sure to keep out of it. All I did was hang around with Miffy until Rube came out.
It was absolutely bloody freezing now and I wasn't in the mood.
The air was cold enough for us to wear our hoods indefinitely, and to watch the smoke pour from our mouths when we breathed.
Smoke came from Miffy's mouth too, especially when he had a bit of a coughing fit. That was when we quickened the pace for home.
Later, we watched TV.
I looked over at my brother. He could sense it. "What?" he said.
I was on the couch and Rube was in the worn-through chair.
"Is Octavia gone?" He looked.
First away. The back at me. Yes.
That was the answer and Rube knew he didn't have to say it.
"There a new one?"
Again, he didn't have to answer.
"What's her name?"
He waited a while, then said it. "Julia ... but relax, Cam -- I haven't done anything yet." I nodded.
I nodded and swallowed and I wished hard that it didn't have to be this way, for Octavia. I couldn't have cared less about Rube at this point. I thought only of the poor girl, and I thought of a time a few years ago when Sarah got dumped by this one particular guy. I remembered how shattered she was, especially when she found out there was another girl.
Rube and I hated the guy who did that.
We wanted to kill him.
Rube especially.
Now that guy was Rube.
For a moment, I nearly mentioned it, but all I did was sit there stupidly and look at Rube's face, side-on. There was no remorse in him. Almost no trace of thought about what he was doing.
Julia.
I could only wonder what she'd be like.
The only problem for Rube was that Octavia wanted to find things out for sure, so she came over again during the week.
They went out to the yard, and after a few minutes, she came back through the house on her own. When she saw me, she said, "I'll see you, Cameron," and again, she gave me that courageous smile -- the one I saw the other night. Only this time, her green eyes were soaked more definitely, the water rising higher, only just managing not to fall out. She gathered herself and we stood in the hall and she said one last time, "I'll see you around."
"No you won't," and I smiled back at her. We both knew that people didn't see Cameron Wolfe -- at least not unless they walked through the streets of the city a lot.
This time, when she left, she told me not to come out, but secretly, I stood on the front porch and watched her disappear.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
I figured that was the last time I'd ever see Rube's girl Octavia.
I was wrong.
WALK ON
At times I've wondered harder than usual about the girl in Glebe, where I constantly wait in the guttered city street. I wonder if she ever sees me.
I wonder if she sees me, knows me, or even likes the fact that I stand outside her house, or waiting in vain. I wonder when I walk away if she might be pulling the curtain just slightly aside to watch me leaving. God, I imagine it so hard. So hard that it claws me. Yet, I never turn around.
I just keep walking on because that's what I do. I never speak or shout or show anyone I'm there. I never allow my hand to form a fist and knock on the wood of her frightening front door. Me?
I just walk on and never turn around.
And do you know why?
It's because I'm afraid she won't be there, watching for me.
When I walk on without looking, at least there's still some hope.
CHAPTER 7
Julia was, of course, an absolute scrubber. There's not a whole lot more I can say about her. A scrubber (in case you don't know) is a girl who might be described as kind of slutty or festy, yet still without being a complete prostitute or anything like that. She chews gum a lot. She might drink excessively and smoke for show. She'll call you a faggot, poofter, or wanker with a lovely smirk on her face. She'll wear tight-arse jeans and good cleavage and she won't care too much if her headlights are on. Jewelry: moderate to heavy, maybe with a nose ring or eyebrow ring for rebellious originality. Then there's the makeup. At times it's bucketed on, especially if there's a bit of acne involved on her face, although more often than not, a scrubber isn't too bad-looking at all. She just has a tendency to make herself ugly, by what she says and what she does.
And Julia?
What can I say?
She was beautiful. She w
as blond.
And she was a scrubber and a half.
"So this is Cameron," she said when she first saw me. She was chewing that low-sugar gum that dentists highly recommend.
"Hey," I said, and Rube winked at me. I knew what the wink meant. Something like, Not bad, huh? or, You wouldn't knock her back, would y'? or even simply, Pretty good handfuls, ay? The bastard.
As you can imagine, I got out of there pretty quick smart, because that girl annoyed the crap out of me very bloody fast. My only hope was that Rube wouldn't take her to see me staring at that Stephanie girl's house. Octavia, I could handle, because she at least had a bit of class about her. A bit of niceness. But not this one. She'd most likely call me a bit of a lonely bastard as well. Or maybe she'd say something like, "Get a life," or repeat something Rube had previously said, hoping his charisma would rub off on her. No way. I wouldn't give her a chance. Not this one (even though Christ, I thought at one stage, take a look at her. She had an Inside Sport body if ever I'd seen one).
But no.
I'd made up my mind.
Rather than hang around them like a bad smell, I decided to go to the movies and hang around like a bad smell there instead.
On a cold, windy Saturday, when Dad didn't need me, I saw three movies on the one day, before going over to Glebe a while, and then home. In the night, I went down to our basement and wrote for a while, feeling everything that was me shift and turn inside.
I was in bed for quite a while when Rube came in and slumped down on his own bed across from me. When I got up to turn off the light, he said, "Well Cam?"
"Well what?"
"What are your thoughts?" "On what?" "On Julia."
"Well," I began, but I didn't want to congratulate him on her, and I didn't want to interfere either. The injured darkness of the room swayed and stumbled and I said, "She's okay, I guess."
"Okay!?" He raised his voice excitedly. "She's pretty bloody brilliant if you ask me."
"But I didn't ask you, did I?" I stated. "You asked me and I told you the answer."
"Smart-arse."
I laughed.
"Are you tryin' to start somethin'?" "Of course not."
"Well you better bloody not ..."
Rube's voice trailed off and he fell asleep, letting the night throb around me, alone.
I lay there, not sleeping for hours -- thinking about the cover model on the magazine at the barber, then an exotic supermodel I saw on an ad at the movies. In my mind, I was with them. In them. Alone. For a while I even thought of Julia, but that was too much. I mean, there's perversion and there's perversion. Even for me.
In the morning, the previous night's conversation between Rube and me was forgotten. He ate slabs of bacon in the kitchen before going out again, while I stayed in because I had work due in at school next day.
Of course, I knew Rube was with Julia, and the pattern continued.
About two weeks went by, and everything was normal. Normal routine.
Dad was working hard, plumbing.
Mrs. Wolfe was the same, cleaning people's houses and doing a few cleaning shifts at the hospital.
Sarah did some overtime.
Steve kept winning at football, working in his office job, and living in his apartment with Sal. Rube went out with Julia And I still wrote my words, sometimes in our bedroom, sometimes in the basement. I also went over to Glebe quite a few times, more out of habit now than anything else.
Soon, though, a day came that changed everything.
It ... I don't know how to explain it.
It all seemed so normal, but slightly off-center at the same time.
I walked the city streets, as usual.
I made my way over to the suburb of Glebe, without even thinking about where I was walking.
I went there, sat there, stood there, waited there, even begged there for something, anything to happen.
It was a Thursday, and in the dying moments of day, when the last rays of light stood up to be killed in the sky, I could feel someone behind me, just to the side. I could feel a presence, a shadow, standing just obscured behind a tree.
I turned around. I looked.
"Rube?" I asked. "That you, Rube?" But it wasn't Rube.
I was sitting down against the small brick fence when I saw the person step into the last remnants of light, and walk slowly toward me. It was Octavia.
It was Octavia and she walked over and sat next to me.
"Hi Cameron," she said.
"Hi Octavia." I was shocked.
Silence bent down then, just for a moment, and whispered to each of us.
My heart threw itself to my throat.
Then, down.
Down.
She looked into the window I'd been staring at. Stephanie's window.
"Nothing?" she asked, and I knew what she meant.
"No, not tonight," I answered.
"Any night?"
I couldn't help it.
I promise you, I couldn't....
A huge stupid tear rose up and fell out of my eye. It stammered down my face to my mouth and I could taste it. I could taste the saltiness of it, on my lips.
"Cameron?"
I looked at her.
"You okay?" she asked.
And all I did from there was tell her said, "She's not comin' out tonight, or any other night, and there's nothing I can do about it." I was even moved to quote Rube. "Y' feel what y' feel, and that girl doesn't feel a thing for me. That's all there is to it...." I looked away, at the dying sky, attempting to pull myself together.
I began wondering exactly why I'd chosen this Glebe girl as the one I wanted to please, to drown in. "Cam?" asked Octavia. "Cam?"
She kept wanting me to look at her, but I still wasn't ready. Instead, I stood up and stared into the house. The lights went on. The curtains were drawn, and the girl, as always, was nowhere to be seen.
Yet, there was a girl next to me, who'd stood up now as well, and we were both beside the brick fence. She looked at me and made me look back. She asked one more time.
"Cam?"
Finally, I answered, quietly, timidly. "Yeah?"
And Octavia's face cried out to me in the silent city night as she asked, "Would you come and stand outside my house instead?"
THE CHARCOAL SKY
Sometimes you go to the wrong place, but the right way comes and finds you. It might make you trip over it or speak to it. Or it might come to you when a day is stripped apart by night and ask you to take its hand and forget this wrong place, this illusion where you stand.
I think of the mess in my mind and the girl who walked through it to stand before me and let her voice come close.
I remember brick walls.
There are moments when you can only stand and stare, watching the world forget you as you remove yourself from it -- when you overcome it and cease to exist as the person you were.
It calls your name, but you're gone.
You hear nothing. See nothing.
You've gone somewhere else. You've gone somewhere to find a different definition of yourself, and it's a place where nothing else can touch you. Nothing else can swing on your thoughts. It's only yourself, flat against the charcoal sky, for one moment.
Then flat on the earth again, where the world doesn't recognize you anymore. Your name is what it always was. You look and sound like you always did, yet you're not the same, and when a city wind begins to call out, its voice doesn't only hit the edges.
It connects.
It blows into you, rather than in spite of you.
Sometimes you feel like it's calling out for you.
CHAPTER 8
She broke into me.
It was that simple.
Her words reached into me, grabbed my spirit by the heart, and reefed it from my body.
It was the words and the voice, and Octavia and me. And my spirit, on the silent, shadow-stricken street. I could only watch her, as slowly, she collected my hand and placed it gently in hers.
I took all of her in.
It was cold and her smoky breath flowed from her mouth. She smiled and her hair kept falling over her face, so beautiful and true. She suddenly had the most human eyes I'd ever seen, and the slight movements of her mouth whispered without the words. I could feel her pulse in my hand, beating gently onto my skin. Her shoulders were slight, and she stood with me on the city street that was slowly flooding with darkness. Her hand was holding on to me. She was waiting.
Silent howls howled through me.
The streetlights flickered on.
I remained still. Completely still, looking at her. Looking at the truth of her, standing before me.
I wanted to pour myself out and let my words spill onto the footpath, but I said nothing. This girl had just asked me the most brilliant question in the world and I was completely speechless.
"Yes," I wanted to say. I wanted to shout it and pick her up and hold her and say, "Yes. Yes. I'll come and stand outside your house anytime," but I didn't say anything. My voice found its way into my mouth but it never made it out. It always stumbled somewhere, then became lost, or was swallowed again.
The moment was cut open. It fell in pieces all around me, and I had no idea what would happen next, whether it would come from Octavia or me. I wanted to crouch down and pick up every piece of it and put it in my pockets. In a way, somewhere close to me, I could hear the voice of my spirit, telling me what to say, or what to do, but I couldn't understand it. The silence around me was too strong. It overwhelmed me, until I noticed her fingers wrapping tighter in mine for just a moment.
Then gone.
Slowly, she let her hand come loose, and it was over.
My hand fell back and gently slapped my side from the impact of her letting go.
She looked into me and then away.
Was she hurt? Did she expect me to speak? Did she want me to hold her hand again? Did she want me to pull her into me?
Questions lunged at me, but still I didn't get close enough to doing anything. I simply stood there like a hapless, hopeless fool, waiting for something to change.
In the end it was Octavia's voice that stamped out the burning silence of the night. A quiet, courageous voice.
; She said, "Just ..." She hesitated. "Just think about it, Cam," and after a moment of thought and a last glance into me, she turned and walked away.
I watched.
Her legs.
Her feet, walking.
Her hair, echoing down her back in the dark.
I also remembered her voice, and the question, and the feeling I felt rising up through me. It shouted in me and warmed me and chilled me and threw itself down inside me. Why didn't I say anything?
Why didn't you say anything? I abused myself.
I could hear her footsteps now.
They lifted and scratched just slightly as she walked away in the direction of the train station.
"Cameron."
A voice called to me.
"Cameron!"
I remember clearly that my hands were in my pockets, and when I looked over to my right, I swear I could make out the figure of my spirit, also standing against the brick fence, also with its hands in its pockets. It looked at me. It stared. It said more words.
"What the hell are you doing?" it asked me.
"What?"
"What do you mean what? Aren't you going after her?"
"I can't." I looked down, at my old shoes and the jaded bottom sleeves of my jeans. I just looked and spoke. "It's too late now anyway."
My spirit came closer. "Bloody hell, boy!" The words were brutal. They made me look up and stare, to find the face connected to the voice. "You stand and wait outside some girl's place who couldn't care less, and when something real arrives, you fall apart! What kind of person are you?"
It shut up then.
The voice ended abruptly.
What it wanted to say was said, and we resumed standing against the fence, with our hands in our pockets, and silence feeding on our mouths.
A minute passed, and another. Time scratched itself through my thoughts, like the sound of Octavia's feet.
Finally, I moved.
It was after about fifteen minutes.
I took a final stare at the house, knowing it was probably the last time I would ever see it, and I began walking toward Redfern Station, under the electric wires, and through the cold of the street. The leaded windows of houses glimmered when the streetlights rushed at them, and I could hear my feet lifting and then clawto the road as I started running. Behind me somewhere, I could hear the footsteps and breathing of my spirit. I wanted to beat it to the station. I had to. I ran.
I let the cold air splash into my lungs as I thought the name Octavia, over and over. I ran till my arms ached as hard as my legs and my head throbbed with the blood rushing into it.