Running across the road in front of an archaic, speeding double-decker bus wasn’t an impulse of great genius as his leg still played up, and the boy almost fell beneath the vehicle’s wheels. At any rate, he was further swamped with a wave of muddy water. Dripping, Jacob began to inspect the hundreds of usual suspects in the idI lineup.
John wasn’t there, but on a corner nearby, beneath an awning, he spotted three pre-teen kids he did recognize: Roy, Sal and Barry.
Twelve-year-old Roy wore a t-shirt with ‘Alter-Ego’ splashed on it, and he had a blond, jagged-cut fringe hanging over misshapen glasses. Barry, the youngest at about ten, was the son of English émigrés, clung to his Britishness — even though he was born in Melbourne — and had an obligatory scowl framed by long black hair that’d possibly never been introduced to a brush. While Barry bossed his elders round, Roy was the brains of the outfit. Easier-going Sal, who had slicked-back dark hair and ears that stuck out quite a distance, was John’s younger brother. Bingo.
A girl with a blue ‘do, a banged-up bowler hat and a single set of false eyelashes hanging from her left peeper was busy cajoling the boys, flaunting a disc in her hand.
“—A real kick-starter, y’know? Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy stuff,” she raved on.
While this girl puttered stop-start fashion through a wayward sales pitch, Jacob asked, in one of their ears, “How’s Johnnie?”
“All right,” Sal said “Ain’t seen you in a bit.”
“Been busy treading water.”
“Reckon he’s pissed off with you, J. Says you become a hermit-freak.”
“I’m out of my box now.”
“Still.”
“Sure I’ll live to tell the tale.”
“D’you eat?
Jacob smiled at that. “Better than ever.”
“You look like a scarecrow.”
“Blame the metabolism.”
Some guy walked right up close behind the blue-haired hawker, wearing a frayed-looking Stetson and coat that made Jacob enact a double-take. He couldn’t see the face properly since it was hidden in a dark shadow produced by glaring overhead spotlights.
“What d’you want, Georgie, huh?” the girl asked when she finally noticed him.
“Let’s talk, sweetheart. Scatter boys.” The man grabbed her arm and tugged her away into the rain.
A few seconds’ startled quietude was subsequently broken.
“Girl was some serious spaz,” Roy shouted above the deafening din of an Angus Young guitar solo, coming out of one of those all-powerful speakers above them. This particular box was wrapped in plastic to shield it from the rain, and the material rattled. “Brain-fry stuff. You see her eyes? Glazed as.”
Barry: “What’cha reckon? IdIot, plain and simple.”
Sal: “Who was the old fogie in the hat?”
Roy: “Dunno. Her dad? Wasn’t that old—”
Barry: “Bollocks! More like her idI-pimp.”
Sal: “They have them?”
Roy: “You’re kidding, Sal — what the hell does Baz know?”
Barry: “Well, now, that’s just cracking foxy, innit?”
Roy: “Cracking peanuts, more like it.”
Barry: “Oh, ha-de-hah. IdI-gimp.”
Roy: “IdI-tosser.”
Barry: “I’ll toss you in a minute.”
Roy: “You, and what slackarse army?”
Jacob waited with patience for this pointless stream-of-consciousness to blow over, and then blundered back into the fray.
“Sal, I need to see Johnnie.”
“So, see him.”
“Is he home?”
“Dunno.”
“Yes, or no?”
“Guess he might be. Maybe,” the boy murmured, his attention distracted and held by a nearby screen displaying some kind of idI extreme sport snowboarding romp. “I hate waiting. Boring!”
Jacob left the trio to their suffering and headed for John and Sal’s place two streets away, in another Housing Commission complex. When he arrived, his friend wasn’t home but the mother was. She opened the door, looked a picture of washed-out concern as she invited him in. Their flat was more bare-bones than Jacob remembered. Without saying much beyond a hello, the boy asked if they still had a computer and if he could use it — needed to do a spot of research, he told her.
This mum asked high-pitched, stressed-out questions while he worked online. ‘When’re you returning to school? Who’s looking after you? Are you eating enough? Do the authorities know you live by yourself?’ …That kind of barrage.
Jacob fielded the flak, gave vague answers he hoped would make the busybody happy, and after a couple of hours and a quick bite to eat of bland, thrice-heated leftovers, he set back out into the elements for home.