I Am the Messenger Read online

  We attempt to wipe the glass off the seats and get in. Marv turns the key about eight times. It won't start.

  "Brilliant," he says.

  "Typical," replies Ritchie.

  Audrey and I say nothing.

  Audrey steers and the rest of us push. We take it back to my place since it's closest to town.

  A few days later I'll get the first message.

  It changes everything.

  I'll tell you a bit about my life.

  I play cards at least a few nights a week.

  It's what we do.

  We play a game called Annoyance, which isn't particularly hard and is the only game we all enjoy without arguing too much.

  There's Marv, who never shuts up, sitting there trying to smoke cigars and simultaneously enjoy it.

  There's Ritchie, who's always quiet, sporting his laughable tattoo on his right arm. He sips on his longneck beer from start to finish and touches the whiskers that seem glued in patches on his man-boyish face.

  There's Audrey. Audrey always sits opposite me, no matter where we play. She has yellow hair, wiry legs, the most beautiful crooked smile in the world, and lovely hips, and she watches a lot of movies. She also works as a cabdriver.

  Then there's me.

  Before I even mention me, I should tell you some other facts: 1. At nineteen, Bob Dylan was a seasoned performer in Greenwich Village, New York.

  2. Salvador Dali had already produced several outstanding artworks of paint and rebellion by the time he was nineteen.

  3. Joan of Arc was the most wanted woman in the world at nineteen, having created a revolution.

  Then there's Ed Kennedy, also nineteen....

  Just prior to the bank holdup, I'd been taking stock of my life.

  Cabdriver--and I'd funked my age at that. (You need to be twenty.) No real career.

  No respect in the community.

  Nothing.

  I'd realized there were people everywhere achieving greatness while I was taking directions from balding businessmen called Derek and being wary of Friday-night drunks who might throw up in my cab or do a runner on me. It was actually Audrey's idea to give cab driving a shot. It didn't take much to convince me, mainly because I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey.

  Constantly, I'm asking myself, Well, Ed--what have you really achieved in your nineteen years? The answer's simple.

  Jack shit.

  I mentioned it to a few different people, but all they did was tell me to pull my head in. Marv called me a first-class whinger. Audrey told me I was twenty years too early for a midlife crisis. Ritchie simply looked at me as if I was speaking in a foreign tongue. And when I mentioned it to my ma, she said, "Ohhh, why don't you have a bloody cry, Ed." You're going to love my ma. Trust me.

  I live in a shack that I rent cheaply. Not long after moving in, I found out from the real estate agent that my boss is the owner. My boss is the proud founder and director of the cab company I drive for: Vacant Taxis. It's a dubious company, to say the least. Audrey and I had no trouble convincing them that we were old enough and licensed enough to drive for them. Mix a few numbers up on your birth certificate, show up with what appears to be the appropriate license, and you're set. We were driving within a week because they were short-staffed. No reference checks. No fuss. It's surprising what you can achieve with trickery and deceit. As Raskolnikov once said: "When reason fails, the devil helps!" If nothing else, I can lay claim to the title of Youngest Cabdriver in these parts--a taxi-driving prodigy. That's the kind of anti-achievement that gives structure to my life. Audrey's a few months older than me.

  The shack I live in is pretty close to town, and since I'm not allowed to take the cab home, it's good walking distance to work. Unless Marv gives me a lift. The reason I don't have a car myself is that I drive people around all day or night. In my time off, the last thing I feel like doing is more driving.

  The town we all live in is pretty run-of-the-mill. It's past the outskirts of the city and has good and bad parts. I'm sure it won't surprise you that I come from one of the bad parts. My whole family grew up at the far north of town, which is kind of like everyone's dirty secret. There are plenty of teenage pregnancies there, a plethora of shithead fathers who are unemployed, and mothers like mine who smoke, drink, and go out in public wearing Ugg boots. The home I grew up in was an absolute dump, but I stuck around until my brother, Tommy, finished school and got into university. At times I know I could have done the same, but I was too lazy at school. I was always reading books when I should have been doing math and the rest of it. Maybe I could have got a trade, but they don't give apprenticeships out down here, especially to the likes of me. Due to my aforementioned laziness I was no good at school, except at English, because of the reading. Since my father drank all our money away, I just went straight into work when school was done. I started out in a forgettable hamburger chain that I don't mention, due to shame. Next was sorting files in a dusty accountant's office that closed down within weeks of my arrival. And finally, the height, the pinnacle of my employment history so far.

  Cab driving.

  I have one housemate. He's called the Doorman, and he's seventeen years old. He sits at the flyscreen door, with sun painted onto his black fur. His old eyes glow. He smiles. He's called the Doorman because from a very early age he had a strong penchant for sitting by the front door. He did it back home, and he does it now at the shack. He likes to sit where it's nice and warm, and he doesn't let anyone in. This is because he finds it hard to move on account of the fact that he's so old. He's a cross between a Rottweiler and a German shepherd, and he stinks a kind of stink that's impossible to rid him of. In fact, I think that's why no one but my card-playing friends ever enters the shack. The initial stench of the dog slaps them in the face, and it's all over. No one's game enough to lengthen their stay and actually walk all the way in. I've even tried encouraging him to use some kind of deodorant. I've rubbed it under his arms in copious amounts. I've covered him all over with some of that Norsca spray, and all it did was make him smell worse. During that time, he smelled like a Scandinavian toilet.

  He used to be my father's, but when the old man died about six months ago, my ma shifted him onto me. She got sick of him using the patch under her clothesline.

  ("Anywhere in the whole backyard he could use!" she'd say. "But where does he do it?" She'd answer the question. "Right under the bloody clothesline.") So when I left, I took him with me.

  To my shack.

  To his door.

  And he's happy.

  And so am I.

  He's happy when the sun throws warmth on him through the flyscreen door. He's happy to sleep there and move on a forward slant when I try to shut the wooden door at night. At times like that, I love the hell out of that dog. I love the hell out of him anyway. But Christ, he stinks.

  I suppose he'll die soon. I'm expecting it, like you do for a dog that's seventeen. There's no way to know how I'll react. He'll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I'll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I'll wait for him to wake up, but he won't. I'll bury him. I'll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he's okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he's dead.

  I have a TV that needs time to warm up, a phone that almost never rings, and a fridge that buzzes like a radio.

  There's a photo of my family on top of the TV from years ago.

  Since I hardly ever watch the TV, I watch the photo once in a while. A pretty good show, really, although it gets dustier every day. It's a mother, a father, two sisters, me, and a younger brother. Half of us smile on the photo. Half don't. I like it.

  In terms of my family, my ma's one of those tough women you couldn't kill with an ax. She's also developed a bit of a swearing habit, whic
h I'll tell you more about later.

  Like I said, my father died about six months ago. He was a lonely, kind, quiet, hard-drinking deadbeat. I could say that living with my ma wasn't easy and it drove him to drink, but there are no excuses. You can make them, but you don't believe them. He was a furniture deliverer. When he died they found him sitting on an old lounge chair still inside the truck. He was just sitting there, dead and relaxed. There was still so much to unpack, they said. They thought he was sitting in there bludging. His liver gave out.

  My brother, Tommy, has done most things right. He's a year younger than me and goes to university in the city.

  My sisters are Leigh and Katherine.

  When Katherine got pregnant at seventeen, I cried. I was twelve then. She moved out of home soon after. She wasn't booted out or anything like that. She left and got married. It was a big event at the time.

  A year later, when Leigh left, there were no problems.

  She wasn't pregnant.

  I'm the only one left in town these days. The others all left for the city and live there. Tommy's done especially well. He's on his way to becoming a lawyer. Good luck to him. I mean it.

  Next to that picture on the TV, there's also a photo of Audrey, Marv, Ritchie, and me. We set the timer on Audrey's camera last Christmas, and there we are. Marv with cigar. Ritchie half smiling. Audrey laughing. And me holding my cards, still looking at the most shit hand in Christmas history.

  I cook.

  I eat.

  I wash but I rarely iron.

  I live in the past and believe that Cindy Crawford is by far the best supermodel.

  That's my life.

  I have dark hair, half-tanned skin, coffee brown eyes. My muscles are hugely normal. I should stand straighter, but I don't. I stand with my hands in my pockets. My boots are falling apart, but I still wear them because I love and cherish them.

  Quite often, I pull my boots on and go out. Sometimes I go to the river that runs through town, or I go for a walk to the cemetery to see my father. The Doorman comes with me, of course, if he's awake.

  What I like best is walking with my hands in my pockets, having the Doorman next to me, and imagining that Audrey's on my other side.

  I always picture us from behind.

  There's glow turning to darkness.

  There's Audrey.

  There's the Doorman.

  There's me.

  And I'm holding Audrey's fingers in mine.

  I haven't written a song of Dylan proportions yet, or started painting my first attempt at surrealism, and I doubt I could start a revolution if I tried--because apart from everything else, I'm a bit of an unfit bastard, though I'm lanky and lean. Just weak, too.

  Mainly, I think the best times I have are playing cards or when I've dropped someone off and I'm heading back to town, maybe from the city or even further north. The window's down, the wind runs its fingers through my hair, and I smile at the horizon.

  Then I pull into town and the Vacant Taxis lot.

  Sometimes I hate the sound of a car door slamming.

  Like I've said, I love Audrey something terrible.

  Audrey, who's had plenty of sex with plenty of people but never with me. She's always said she likes me too much to do it with me, and, personally, I've never tried to get her naked and new and all shivery in front of me. I'm too afraid. I've told you already that I'm quite pathetic when it comes to sex. I've had a girlfriend or two, and they didn't exactly rave about me in the sexual encounter department. One of them told me I was the clumsiest guy she'd ever met. The other one always laughed when I tried something on her. It didn't really work wonders on me, and she quit me soon after.

  Personally, I think sex should be like math.

  At school.

  No one really cares if they're crap at math. They even proclaim it. They'll say to anyone, "Yeah, I don't mind science and English, but I'm absolutely shithouse at math." And other people will laugh and say, "Yeah, me, too. I wouldn't have a clue about all that logarithm shit."

  You should be able to say that about sex, too.

  You should be able to proudly say, "Yeah, I wouldn't have a clue about all that orgasm shit, ay. I'm okay at everything else, but when it comes to that part I wouldn't have a clue."

  No one says that, though.

  You can't.

  Especially men.

  We men think we have to be good at it, so I'm here to tell you I'm not. I should also explain that I honestly think my kissing leaves a lot to be desired as well. One of those girlfriends tried to teach me once, but I think she gave up in the end. My tongue work is particularly bad, I feel, but what can I do?

  It's only sex.

  That's what I tell myself, anyway.

  I lie a lot.

  Getting back to Audrey, though, I should really feel complimented that she won't even touch me because she likes me more than anyone else. It makes perfect sense, really, doesn't it?

  If she ever gets down or depressed, I can make out the figure of her shadow through the front window of the shack. She comes in and we drink cheap beer or wine or watch a movie or all three. Something old and long like Ben-Hur that stretches into the night. She'll be next to me on the couch in her flannel shirt and jeans that have been cut into shorts, and eventually, when she's asleep, I'll bring a blanket out and cover her up.

  I kiss her cheek.

  I stroke her hair.

  I think of how she lives alone, just like me, and how she never had any real family, and how she only has sex with people. She never lets any love get in the way. I think she had a family once, but it was one of those beat-the-crap-out-of-each-other situations. There's no shortage of them around here. I think she loved them, and all they ever did was hurt her.

  That's why she refuses to love.

  Anybody.

  I guess she feels better off that way, and who can blame her?

  When she sleeps on my couch, I think about all that. Every time. I cover her up, then go to bed and dream.

  With my eyes open.

  There have been a few articles about the bank robbery in the local papers. They talk about how I wrestled the gun from the thief after chasing him down. Quite typical, really. I knew they'd make more out of it.

  I go through some of them at my kitchen table, and the Doorman just looks at me like always. He couldn't give a shit if I'm a hero. As long as he gets his dinner on time, he doesn't have a care in the world.

  My ma comes over, and I give her a beer. She's proud, she tells me. According to her, all her kids have done quite well except me, but now she at least has a glimmer of pride in me to glimmer in her eye, if only for a day or two.

  "That was my son," I can imagine her explaining to people she meets on the street. "I told you he'd amount to something one day."

  Marv comes over, of course, and Ritchie.

  Even Audrey pays me a visit with a newspaper tucked under her arm.

  In each article, I'm known as twenty-year-old cabdriver Ed Kennedy, as I lied to every single reporter about my age. When you lie once, you have to make it uniform. We all know that.

  My bewildered face is plastered all over the front pages, and even a guy from a radio show shows up and tapes a conversation with me in my lounge room. I have coffee with him, but we have to drink it without milk. He'd stopped me on my way out to get some.

  It's a Tuesday evening when I get home from work and pull the mail out of the letter box. As well as my electricity and gas bills and some junk mail, there's a small envelope. I throw it down on the table with everything else and forget about it. My name's written in scrawl, and I wonder what it could possibly be. Even when I'm making my steak-and-salad sandwich, I tell myself to go into the lounge room soon to open it. Constantly, I forget.

  It's fairly late when I finally get around to it.

  I feel it.

  Feel something.

  There's something flowing between my fingers as I hold the envelope in my hands and begin tearing it open. Th
e night's a cool one, typical of spring.

  I shiver.

  I see my reflection in the TV screen and in the photo of my family.

  The Doorman snores.

  The breeze outside steps closer.

  The fridge buzzes.

  For a moment, it feels like everything stops to watch as I reach in and pull out an old playing card.

  It's the Ace of Diamonds.

  In the echoes of light in my lounge room, I let my fingers hold the card gently, as if it might break or crease in my hands. Three addresses are written on it in the same writing as on the envelope. I read them slowly, watchfully. There's an eeriness slipping over my hands. It makes its way inside me and travels, quietly gnawing at my thoughts. I read:

  45 Edgar Street, midnight

  13 Harrison Avenue, 6 p.m.

  6 Macedoni Street, 5:30 a.m.

  I open the curtain to look outside.

  Nothing.

  I get past the Doorman and stand on the front porch.

  "Hello?" I call out.

  But again, there's nothing.

  The breeze looks away--almost embarrassed at having watched--and I'm left there, standing. Alone. The card's still in my hand. I don't know the addresses I hold, or at least not exactly. I know the roads but not the actual houses.

  It's without doubt the strangest thing that's ever happened to me.

  Who would send me something like this? I ask myself. What have I done to get an old playing card in my letter box with strange addresses scrawled on it? I go back in and sit at the kitchen table. I try to work out what's happening and who has sent me what could be a piece of destiny in the mail. The visions of many faces reach me.

  Could it be Audrey? I ask. Marv? Ritchie? Ma? I have no idea.

  There's something in me that advises me to throw it out--to throw it in the bin and forget about it. Yet, I also feel pangs of guilt even for thinking of discarding it like that.

  Maybe it's meant to be, I think.

  The Doorman wanders over and sniffs the card.

  Damn it, I can see him thinking. I thought it might be something to eat. After sniffing one last time, he pauses a moment and reflects on what he'd like to do next. As always, he shuffles back to the door, turns half a circle, and lies down. He gets comfortable in his suit of black and gold fur. His big eyes glow, but they also fall deep with darkness. His paws stretch out on the crusty old carpet.