The Crossing

Pink oleander, circus tents and running out of petrol

Today I bring you a short story. I’ve been thinking of adding audio to my posts - just me reading them. What do you think?

Photo by Gabor Barbely on Unsplash

The Big Top pokes its way out of a fog-riddled morning and lights up Ballarat Road for a kilometre on either side – from Bunnings to the shell that was once Masters. But it’s hardly an ordinary morning, what with the flooding of the Dudley Street underpass causing traffic jams all the way to Geelong. Although, with Chandon hot air balloons hovering bloated and low, and the westerly wind blowing the Brooklyn tip clear across the tops of pink oleander, you could say it’s pretty ordinary.

What I do know is that it’s one of those mornings. I know because I ran out of petrol half way down Duke Street and tried to look like less of a loser than I really was with a jerry can in one hand, and a hankie in the other to wipe away the sweat of embarrassment.

“Is that you?” Mr Dickinson wipes his glasses, still foggy from sleep, and squashes them back up the bridge of his nose, a small, proud Aussie nose, dotted with melanomas ready to sprout.

I jiggle the dented can up high. “Yeah. I’ve run out of petrol.”

“Oh, that’s a shame, dear.”

They have a tendency to call you dear or love around here. Guess it beats remembering a name.

Mr Dickinson, he’s too old to be called Dicko these days, fishes a set of keys from a slouchy pocket and reaches into the mailbox. He checks the mail from seven every morning, though the mailman doesn’t start in our area until after nine. He’s got nowhere else to be, so checking for mail passes the time. He’s impatient, and nobody’s got the heart to tell him what time it is. He turns back to his mission-brown diamond-grille security door and looks inside. Nowhere else to be.

Neither do I. I barely brushed my teeth, checking the clock for some arbitrary time that’s supposed to indicate:

1.     I should get out of bed;

2.     I should have a shower;

3.     I should do my hair.

4.     I should eat something that isn’t a McMuffin

I want to hurry, to zip along like those office workers hurry across Flinders Street, only to hurry to the photocopier, to lunch, to that meeting, to check Facebook, and back to Flinders Street.

I never could hurry like that.

I find myself stumbling towards Cornwall Road, avoiding the side streets (after what happened last time), and I tumble onto the grass like I’ve slipped on a banana peel, like in the movies. It’s a sweet thud, too, that lands right on my coccyx like when I used to roller-skate. 

I take an uneasy peek at my mauve skirt and sigh like, like a desperate housewife whose manicurist is running late (but you don’t know why because nobody speaks English). I get up off the contaminated sod that stinks of spilt beer and dog shit. It’s hardly a morning for grass stains or a split skirt. But I just can’t see the ground. I see shades photoshopped together neatly to form a soft glow along the edges.

It’s just so opaque out.

Shirley’s far from home, and I think I should be concerned. I’ve never seen her far from Barkly Street, maybe as far as Central West. There aren’t many public phones now for her to yell into, but she stands on the nature strip and watches for cars. Her skin’s translucent from the pale powder that she rubs into it, and her lips are spotted with pink, not as plump as they once were, I bet. I’ve heard she was a model once, for Revlon. But that’s before her husband and kids and all the trouble.

“A-ha. Hmm. Yes.”

Shirley’s holding a Nokia flip phone. I’m only mildly startled by her high-pitched scream that cuts the butter-thick air, and even more startled that Shirley’s got her own phone.

“YOU BASTARD, GOD-AWFUL, MOTHER OF A PIG-NOSED CHILD, PETAL PEDOPHILE FROM THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. FUCK SHIT HELL BOTHER CRAP BLOODY—”

I approach her quietly and, despite myself, decide she needs a hand. I rest my hand gently on her shoulder, like I’d seen someone do at Sims this one time, and it calms her down.

“Shirley.”

She turns to me and she smiles in recognition, or maybe just from the fear of being touched.

“Here, let me talk to her.”

She holds the phone like it’s a book and passes it to me.

“It’s a man,” she whispers.

I nod. They’re always men. She talks about her nephew a lot.

“I’m sorry,” I say into dead air, “Shirley isn’t available right now. You’ll have to call back later.”

PAUSE

“Yes, later. Okay?”

PAUSE

Shirley nods and smiles. You’re showing him, she’s saying.

“Very well.”

PAUSE

“Okay then.” I put down the receiver.

I’m a soap star. No goodbyes.

Shirley’s once-blonde hair sways as she waves after me. I turn back to look at her, but she’s swallowed by the shadows.

If this is all there is, I’ll hang myself on Monday.

There was a chemical spill on Ashley Street yesterday, and traffic is still being diverted down smaller streets. The road, normally charcoal, is smeared with oily pink and purple bruises. I step over the lumps of sawdust with barely a glance and turn onto the busy road. The service station is in sight now, and the jerry can feels heavier at the thought of carrying five litres back to the car.

Mum always warned me I would run out of petrol one day, what with the way I always left it to the last minute to fill up. I never told her when it did. Thing is, that one day came so often that you would have thought I’d learned my lesson. I would watch the orange warning light, but I could still see a glimmer between the line and the E of the gauge. Toyotas will go for more than 20km after the orange warning comes on. Isn’t that what they said? I pushed every time; ten, fifteen, eighteen kilometres. You’ll run out of petrol one day. Twenty-one klicks!

I hate dealing with the service station attendants. I would rather stand in the rain watching the litres tick by than dig though my wallet while they pretend to care and asked me if I wanted a 3-for-1 Mars Bar deal.

The fish and chip shop is already open and a few men in King Gees shove breakfast burgers into their mouths surrounded by greasy lips. And there’s queue half a block away from the BP. Must be cheap petrol day. There used to be a tonne of petrol stations around here. Three on Ashley Street just on that short run from Churchill to Totty Station. And there were a few more on Barkly Street before you hit Footscray. Now it’s just these few on Ballarat Road and everyone from Braybrook, Footscray and Sunshine lines up to save four cents a litre.

I walk to the front of the cars and hold up the jerry can to the driver who’s just pulled up to the bowser and is trying not to notice me.

I just need five litres, mate, I wanted to scream. It’ll only take a few secs. I pretend not to notice that he hasn’t noticed me and take the hose off the pump, turning my back to him. I imagine his hands gesturing and swearing words that mean nothing to me. But it’ll take a few secs, and he’ll get over it after he tells his mates about some psycho bitch who took the pump right out of his hands.

See, I’ve given him a story.

Click, click, click. I replace the lid on the can and go in pay. But as I walk towards the row of lawn mowers next to the door, a flutter catches my eye. A bird? Colourful like a Rosella.

There it is again.

A quick flick.

I stumble through the automatic doors and tap the machine with my card, praying I won’t hear the beeeep that tells me it’s been declined. But I’m golden, and I keep thinking of the bright flutter out the corner of my eye.

I wander around the back of the servo, behind a row of blue Portaloos, and there it is, a set of flags flapping madly, blue and yellow pulling me forward. The can weighs a tonne more than five litres, so I carry it against my chest with the fumes tickling my nose hairs.

A kid, maybe nine or ten, climbs barefoot up a wooden tent pole that props up a gold circus tent.

A circus tent.

Other than the kid, the place is deserted, strangely devoid of human or even animal life. Even the ticket booth is empty, but a poster on the glass announces: Circus Sunrise Spectacular: a very special show.

I look back at the servo, the queue of cars is getting tighter. Kids in graffiti stencilled baseball caps are hopping out of back seats like it was a rest stop on the freeway out of town; big brothers push little brothers, little sisters scream teary-eyed for a packet of salt and vinegar chips, mums in boot-cut jeans and muffin tops run out after the kids before they reach the automatic doors.

I should call work, and tell them I’ll be late or something. Or maybe they’ll work it out. They don’t expect much from me since the thing that time.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes before turning back, expecting to find the golden mirage has disappeared, but it’s still there, and so’s the kid. He’s hanging off the top of the pole, holding on only by the one leg that’s wrapped around it.

He’s suspicious. Carny folk are suspicious of the rest of us, I think. They wonder why the hell we’re rushing across Flinders Street twice a day.

I set down the jerry can and step into the tent, the outer area where the concession and souvenir stands languish without a wallet in sight. I can feel the kid’s eyes follow me in and I hear a thud from his direction.

If he takes my petrol, after all I’ve been through to get it…

I check out the fairy floss machine, silent and forlorn, waiting for sugar and food colouring to be turned magically into a pink haze. I remember a photo, from when I was four or five, wearing white jeans and a blue skivvy, carrying showbags up one arm while I planted my face into a fist of fairy floss. It was one of our first colour photos that dad took with the Casio camera. Only one posed photo, one posed angle.

A broad wooden door leads into the main arena, or so I imagine, and I step toward it, tentative steps, on tippy toe, not like the way I rush across Flinders Street.

If I have to cross that road one more time, I think, I’ll do myself in on Monday.

The door’s a little sticky, perhaps from fairy floss and ice-cream. It gives and I step inside, into darkness, and forget about the jerry can. I step through.

Fuck Monday.