Only If You Have To

There is a chasm before me overgrown with shadows, every inch of my body tenses at the thought of falling in. Though thick rope and strapping holds me up it seems like a small, faint tether. For there is so far to fall. Before my eyes are a few precious rivers of coal. So little of it remains that we cannot dislodge a grain of it from the top of the chasm it was found in. So narrow guide tunnels have to be dug, carefully probing the rock until we find the point where it ceases being immovable. I wonder, if I fell in, would I still resemble myself on reaching the bottom? My mind seems to have all the time it needs to wonder what hellish, misshapen thing the journey could turn me into. Shivering despite the heat I turn my mind away. The coal is barely enough to keep a city's lights on for a month, even with the strictest rationing. But that means three months’ work digging guide tunnels, and maybe as many as six months harvesting the coal. But as insurance against the quarry falling in, all workers receive minimum remittance until it is secure, and all guide tunnels dug. It's a way forward, I can do it. All it requires is dangling on the edge for three months. To do so requires a practised alertness. Standing tense on the edge of a twitch. Should the ground move even a little I'll be sent for a long fall, the coal along with me. The safety line might pull me back alive, might not. Maybe the rocks will crush me, maybe the line will break, maybe it will go taught too quickly and snap my spine. Maybe the huge electric winch anchored to the cave floor sixty meters away might fall in with me, the ground beneath it giving way. I wonder what I'd look like at the end of that fall. t might just solve all my problems though, Gina will reviece generous compensation. Not for my death, but for the failure to return the body. Though I've never employed these skills in a mine before, the skill of wrapping myself in alertness is something I am long practised at. A shudder and jitter somewhere in my bones betrays a few nerves. The scars on my back itch and writhe. Tension shoots in and out of my fingers, I want to grab the jackhammer just a little tighter. I want to hold it like a weapon against this ending world. But if I hold it too tight I might upset the balance. I don't fight the knowledge with instinct. If the alarm sounds, stopping work, I shall stop. If I feel the ground move I shall stop. And if all things remain as they are, then I shall burrow like an ant a little further through this chasm wall. Each little splinter I make in the rock shores up the little bits of the world I have left. By God but I'm thirsty. Each second irrevocably ages me a little. Gina was my age when she married me, now I look like her father. But something gives way when I think of Gina, there's a rumble far within me. One so like the tremors of the earth I brace for, but only in my mind. But it might be enough to make me fall. I can't risk it. Under this tension, if anything fractures the required stoicism, everything might go crazy. Temptations of despair ram against the barrier I hold for my concentration. I want to tear my throat loose screaming at the ever-oncoming difficulty. In some places the rams echo of poison in the very ground I am digging into. Some others remind of how long it's been since I was sure whether the water was properly filtered. Some whisper at the choking, cloying scent of blood in the air. The world growing rusty. The air reeks of pain. My stomach growls and there's no way to know if it is hunger or revulsion at the smell. How long has it been since I took Gina out to dinner? The alarm sounds for the end of the day. Nothing feels so good as letting myself go limp over the chasm as the safety line winches me up. A long spiral tunnel of alternately gravel and concrete steps layered in sand and dust leads up to ground level. At the exit to the cave is a long steel shed. There's little to say, but everyone tries to smile on the way out. Rows upon rows of old steel lockers contain the men’s sun clothes. Sheer baggy overclothes that cover every inch of skin from the sun's hostile glare. When fully draped in them you look like a bedraggled ghost. Mine is missing a glove, I need to replace it. Though my dark skin soaks up the sun's hostility better than some, it will still blister and boil. I will hide my right hand inside my jacket until I get a new one. I just have to hold on for three more months. Head and shoulders lean forward to cast the face in maximum shadow. Head forward, nestling my mouth in the face wrapping, keeping it as taut as possible against the dust. Hands clenched inside the jacket around a thick wooden crucifix. It never leaves my neck. The comforting weight in the pocket next to it of an old zippo lighter. I'm holding it for safe keeping. And it keeps me safe. From the oven to the furnace. Inside the mine your head fills with the smell of blood and sweat, you feel them worm inside you, pulsing in your blood like the world's worst headache. And the incessant heat doesn't help. After a while people are made of it, overwhelmed by it. A few men near the exit have already passed out from it. Don't look too close, tuck into sun clothing. Keep walking. They would have passed out staring at the white bus which always stands in the tunnels exit. Black paint daubed on its side reads 'Canyon Booze'. I don't look too closely at it either. The sun is draining me, a warm, fast spinning whirlpool wants to drag me down, to lie at the bottom and let nature wash over me. Sometimes you wonder if the sun is out to get you specifically. A computer engineer I once knew said the planet had identified humanity as a deadly virus and was trying to scrub the hard drive. I just think the sun is baking me alive. Five hundred meters from the tunnel, blessed shade. A huddle of cars including mine. It looks clenched together. Sometimes it seems to run on will more than combustion. Still the seat fits like a tailored suit. The same seat has carried me everywhere for thirty years. The mine empties within half an hour. Cars are driven out of the shade, the booze bus leaves and returns twice. Some brave, tired looking men begin walking down the track, trusting themselves to brave the heat until nightfall. Everyone is sunclad in eclectic ponchos, oversized jackets, scarves and hats in dirty shades of white. Men stagger, men fall, men are carried aboard the booze bus. All draped against the sun in dirty white or garish bright colours. To the heavens we must look like little bits of coloured paper blowing before the wind. I sit still in my car. Soon everything I can see will blow away. Under my seat is a magnificent green bottle. Delicately wrapped in black tissue paper dried with age. Just the thinnest layer of dust, which I blow away, cradling the bottle like a priceless relic. A religious artefact. Funny, I used to treat the bottle like my God. “Not today Johnny.” That bottle too, is only being held for safe keeping. Still sometimes I wonder and must always put those wanderings of the mind to bed. It arrived by mail just after I turned thirty-five. Someone hadn't gotten the memo that I'd quit. It would have made a wonderful present when Jane turned eighteen. But my daughter ran for it before I could give it to her. I don't blame her, I know the pain she felt. I know why she ran away. But that doesn't stop the pain from shattering inside me a little each day. Hope is made of glass, and when it breaks the pieces dig in. So much hope I had for Jane. Now the hope that I’ll see her again one day is enough. The welts on my back run down like rivers of angry snakes. Only a small slice of pain. Yet I have not slept well in years. My daughter suffered far worse. I didn't see the rake of those angry welts cutting straight towards her eyes. I didn't even deserve the punishment of hearing her scream. I only arrived in time to save her eyes, and barely that. The thought makes me shake violently. Now, safe within the confines of the car, now I can scream. Now the inside of my dry throat can shred, now I can feel some measure of what is coming my way. So many things to make right, and before I do any of it I have to find my girl. A little break in the dam I held up against a corner of my mind, against a corner where the things that would end my little world were kept at bay. All the despair and frustration, the sense of powerlessness in a pitiless world. The urge to raise an angry fist at God. All of it held back save a tiny trickle running down my face. I'm allowing myself a single self-image of uncorrupted despair. Only here, instilled in fearful quiet can I plead for it all to end. I see myself driving quietly, finding a place nobody will ever find. Then I pump the car full of exhaust and sit back. The bottle under the seat, a perfect last drink. Giving in to the flood of despair, knocking back Scotch like I used to when I felt like my world was saveable if I just fought hard enough for it. Slurring my last prayers for mercy, then the end of the world. It's an image I hold onto just long enough to notice the differences between it and the world I live in. Things are bad, but not so bad just yet. I am not so badly beaten as to resort to that. I need a daily reminder. Even before she was taken Jane was restless. Gina named our daughter for her grandmother, but I should have named her for my wife. They were always so alike. Their mouths so big, their hearts so soft, and their love for comic books all consuming. They always are so alike. Jane is still alive, she will be coming back one day. Or I will find her myself. . The only difference is in how well they channel the restlessness they both seem born with. Gina, my lovely, caring, green eyed Gina, always found new caves to explore, even made money whenever wealthy tourists came off the beaten track. Jane, however, was born with my brown eyes and my ability to pretend, which is to say nil. Even if it hadn't all gone wrong, she might still have left in search of some small escape from her dying town. When she was sixteen I caught her smoking, she was so scared she swore and bolted. I didn't bring it up, I just bought her a zippo stencilled with the bat signal for her next birthday. Then I made her promise to never take the Lord's name in vain or lie to her parents again. Two weeks later she was taken. A couple weeks after that I brought her home. Sometime between then and when I next returned from work she slipped out her bedroom window. The lighter was left on her desk, weighing down a note that read 'I’m sorry, don't look for me'. Perhaps she followed my instructions. Perhaps she is running through the wide world, free from her dying town, and safe in the knowledge that she isn't lying to her parents about where she would rather be. Police told me someone saw her hitching a ride to Melbourne. Sometime around sunset at the truck stop on the edge of town. That's all I've heard of her in a year. I've gone grey, and Gina has started coming to bed later and later at night. Just over a month ago, unable to help myself, I got up and found her throwing up in the bathroom, crying on the phone to her sister. No, I am not pregnant.” She said “This is bad, this is really bad, I feel like I've been poisoned.” Water isn't safe to drink, everyone knows that. You drink bottled or filtered. But bottled water is expensive, and filters carry their own risk. The chemical filters used to treat a batch of our drinking water scorched the inside of my wife's throat. There is little she can do, less she can keep down. Treatment is expensive, the only noticeable symptom is slow death. Floods rinsing chemicals into groundwater. Whole industrial centres cleaned out. Toxicity draining into the lifeblood of the land. And yet my family is struck at by the things meant to keep us safe. Perhaps if I find time I'll appreciate the irony. But my reverie has to end. Still, I wonder if there is enough coal in the ground to pay for the powerful immune boosters that Gina needs. If there is, then must I choose between treating Gina or finding Jane? The engine drags me along an empty road. It rings and clatters, the sounds hit my ears like shards of glass. More than a few kilometres and that noise becomes too much to bare. But it is easy to slip roll down the empty road at speed, then it's possible to pick up the radio. The premier is talking about drugs again. The dangers of transporting michal-phadramine and the success of the police in cracking down. It's hard to tell, it might be precisely the same thing he said yesterday. In truth I feel sorry for him. The entire country turns shades of red and white, the water unfit to drink, the air in some places becoming unfit to breathe. And in the midst of all that he has to find something to waffle about. It's strange to think about. Not far away, on the slowly vanishing coast. The city of Melbourne is held back from the rising sea by a giant wall. As engineering goes it's a rudimentary pile of steel and concrete that happens to sit between the city and the sea. It was built in my lifetime and yet it already feels like the work of giants. Here I sit and, on the radio, the premier talks about conviction rates. Canyon bar sits ablaze in artificial light beside the road. Half a kilometre past it is the town's quiet little church. In between coughing fits its aged minister has seen us all baptised, married, or excommunicated. Tonight, he's holding the door as a dozen men troop into the basement. “My name is Alan Flag. It has been one thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five days since my last drink. And I pray that God gives me on thousand nine hundred and twenty-five more.” I'm well as well practised in this little speech as my fellows are at murmuring approvingly every time I give it. These meetings take place every night, a thin life line into the future. All tired faces, but all determined. Not even Ricky, surly though he is, has slipped in months. Still, something drags each of us down. You can see the flesh of their faces and hands giving in to gravity, a millimetre at a time. You can feel the same weight on yourself. It's only in a room where everyone has admitted to being on the same level that you can truly judge the weight on your shoulders. It is always strangely comforting, as the room is shared with others struggling under similar loads. Praise God but it is cool when the meeting breaks up. Heat is wriggling away from the ground like worms in a rare burst of rain. The heat will be back, like those same worms burrowing deep to find the rain contains acid. But at least I can walk around unencumbered by sun clothes. Sweat has soaked me so deeply. All of it mangy with the smell of iron, the bitter taste always finds its way to your mouth. Spasms of disgust strip me to my waist. A momentary sense of freedom in the encroaching chill. Like a chunk of driftwood in a flood, caught for a few seconds in an eddy. Music is playing when I get home. There is reconstituted egg and thin slices of toast on the table. I'll clean up without disturbing the music. Silence can say a lot. It says I know she knows it's been a rough day. She knows I know how sick she is. We both know we haven't given up yet. We're both still here. I leave my filthy clothes locked tight in a cupboard by the door, sealed against the smell. I'll wash them next month if I get lucky. Perhaps if the wind drops I'll air them out at least. There is a moment's unavoidable staring contest between myself and my filthy, naked reflection in the hallway mirror. The only things that follow me into the house are the cross and the lighter. They wait for me atop an old cocktail stand while I scrub with thin soap and a thin stream of searing hot water. Unfiltered, undrinkable. The bloody smell of rust is inescapable. But it's cleaner, newer rust at least. Eric Clapton tugs morosely on an acoustic guitar in the living room. Softly he croons “would you hold my hand if I saw you in heaven?” The sound has me put a robe on quickly. I know what that song is about. Gina doesn't need me to say anything, she's waiting in the living room. Her arms are folded and she watches the slowly spinning black vinyl. I'd been so proud when I bought it. Today the speaker crackles and whines but the essence of the music still streams out. She leans into me just a little when I arrive beside her. Just enough that I can comfortably take her thin frame against mine. As the song goes on I place my arms around her, by the end we grip each other in vices. It took some time for me to figure out why we do this so often. Gina is practising for the real thing. If the news ever comes that our little girl will never make it home, I think she's run through this scenario so often it might feel like routine. Maybe she'll do this for the rest of her life, regardless of whether she gets Jane back? Or maybe it's still possible to fix this. The truth is that most of the time I pretend she's dead. I dare only let the truth of the situation worry me when there's little else needing my attention. So all-consuming does it become. The pain of her loss, the guilt that meant I could never blame her for it. Sometimes they run up and down inside me like the epic tidal pulls of the enlarged Pacific Ocean. I will never ever speak of this to Gina. She might feel the same. I don't want to find out. 'Layla' comes on next. I try to start dancing, so does she. We hold a little two-step as far as the beaten-up sofa. It's all we have the energy for. But those brief dances bring me hope. That little extra effort says “I'm not going anywhere.” There is a beaten-up King James Bible on the coffee table, and a well-thumbed copy of 'Watchmen'. “Do you think they have it better?” I ask her, indicating the purple and yellow pages. My voice sighs a little, I didn't mean to do that. “No contest.” Gina replies “I'd pick the world where somebody did something.” I can feel the atrophy in her voice. The same thing burrows into me. I lose a little sensation everywhere in my body except where it hurts. Gina's eyes leave mine for just a second, flicking to my furrowed brows, then back down again. “Every time I sit down I wonder if I'll have enough energy to stand up again. It takes time sometimes but I still manage it.” She takes my hand. “Do you remember” she says “the photos I told you about after church last week, of the Greater Gulf?” “How could I forget.” The Greater Gulf of Mexico had seen Gina's eyes shine with rare, genuine excitement. I'd never given the place any thought, but my wife's simple reaction on first hearing of its stunning vistas has made it my favourite place in the world. It certainly holds the advantage of being very, very far away from here. A magazine from the rack we couldn't afford had published a string of sweeping photographs. They'd called it Earth's last real piece of paradise. “I made it out to the letter box this morning and someone had slipped us this.” Gina says. Her face traced by a thin smile she pulls a small pile of pages from under the Bible. Towering cliffs, once the great mountain ranges of South America, now islands in a wide, blue sea. Each one gave off the appearance of a sturdy keep, built fast against the encroaching elements. It looked like heaven. “When all this passes, when we” she falters. “When we get up again” I offer. “When we get up again” she says, her smile a little wider. “When we get up again let's go there. Leave this country behind, go somewhere you can swim.” “We'll swim. We'll be happy.” I hold her hand a little tighter. “Happy ever after, we just have to hold on a little longer.” Gina's gaze tracks down, a splash page open on the coffee table saw Dr Manhattan looming over the lifeless surface of Mars. “Did I ever tell you I never understood superheroes. Not one of them should be able to look themselves in the mirror. No matter how good the cause.” “You've told me this hundreds of times.” Gina replies, and yawns her way through explaining why I'm wrong. It's worth hearing the lecture again for when she falls asleep on my shoulder. I never met another person who could literally talk themselves to sleep. Right when I expect her to start the light little puffs of breath that show her as truly asleep she pops open one eye. Poking me with a finger she smiles; “Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon the head; Do not let my hand refuse it.” “Psalm one hundred forty something.” Is the best reply my sleepy brain can mumble. “What's your point?” “That you should not take these important cultural lessons lightly, husband mine. And that I don't feel like getting up again tonight. Would you carry me?” I stand up. Arms are a little less than lead weights on me but my wife is very thin. I smile at her playfully, “Do not let my hand refuse it.” The whole world lies still when she gets her head on the pillow. In some nebulous future everything is alright for us. She's made it another day closer to that point. For the first time in a while she's beaten me there. Perhaps the sickness is abating, I'd heard that happens sometimes, or was that only with the groundwater poisons, not badly filtered water. Even so I do not feel I will be far behind her. We're not even a step closer to something, but the knowledge that these steps might let us do something is enough. So, we go through the steps with diligence each day. Like dancers in the performance of their lives. There's something else too, something that might have been unsaid. The thing neither of us have the courage to say. If things don't change soon Gina will die. I should take her lessons while I still can. My totems are still on the cocktail stand. The lighter is glossy black, the bat symbol splashed over it in yellow. The cross is wooden, sometimes it gives off a splinter. It's nearly eleven pm. The late news is on. Watching it will be a mistake, it will break into this moment's peace with cruel evidence of the real world. But in truth I rarely watch the stories themselves. When I first reported Jane missing it had made a local paper. At first, I thought perhaps the story could go nation-wide, we'd find her within hours with some good Samaritan’s help. It didn't happen, my lost little girl is among thousands. But I watch the news anyway. They still ran the studio in Melbourne, still filmed reporters on the streets. I let myself hope I might catch sight of her. I might not recognise her; the world has a habit of changing people. But I watch for her anyway, the background of a quick shot of the street might be all I need. “The newly appointed police minister has labelled his department's efforts to curtail illicit smuggling between major Australian cities a resounding success. Mr Smith, who was sworn in last week after the government's latest reshuffle, claimed his people had successfully sealed up every main road between Australia's capital cities.” I always find the monotonous voice of a news announcer more than a little hypnotic. A young man in a dark suit, quite obviously not his size, appears onscreen. His eyes keep darting nervously to the left of the camera. He looks like a kid at his first school play. “No unlicensed or unregistered pharmaceuticals of any kind will be making it to the cities any time soon.” The young man says carefully. “Michal-phadramine is desperately necessary to many members of our community, but dangerous and addictive if improperly administered, we must continue to be vigilant against those who would try to supply it without the proper oversight. I would like to remind anybody in need of treatment with Michal-phadramine that the only place they can be assured of getting the real thing is at a government certified pharmacy.” Press mute, he'll keep going like this for a while. My eyes flitter around the background of the shot. He is on a street corner in New Melbourne, the shadows cast by tall skyscrapers make everything look a little ghostly. In the background, placed prominently enough to definitely not be an accident, the Melbourne seawall looms. A giant shadow, staring down at him, surveying him. Grimly holding back the violently rising and falling seas that drowned old Melbourne. A new story begins, I turn the sound back on. “Union leaders have issued warnings to any seeking travel through areas taken over by marshland. With winter approaching, storm systems will likely be more frequent and more violent, anyone seeking to travel through these areas and make use of ferry services across the marshland will need to plan their trip carefully.” Stories like this keep going. I stop listening all together, letting my eyes scan every shot for a familiar face. Not until the broadcast ends do I feel the pressure of my clasped hands. I must have done it all while the news was on. Deep red marks sink into both of my calloused hands, in the shape of a cross and a zippo. Something small thuds onto the floor in the bedroom, and I can hear Gina vomiting again. I always make a point of remembering that every nerve in the human body has a set tolerance limit. That is the point where pain starts to blur away from the senses, seeping infinitesimally into numbness. The same applies to passing days. The strain and sapping of spirit blends between hours of waking and sleeping. Alarm clock before sunrise, wrapping up in clothes to protect even my melanin-soaked skin from the blistering sun. Sheltering, working in the caves, tense and twitching for even the barest hint that everything is about to come apart. When all else fails I hone my focus on my cross and the lighter in my pocket. A break during the news advertises a law firm acting on behalf of those poisoned from faulty filters in the water reserves. The number rings dead. My back crackles and stings, my face feels like it's shrinking. The days smell of blood and the wind blasts my face with dust. The nights stay quiet save for short speeches at AA. It always smells of coffee in there. I felt like a distant planet occasionally brought into orbit with that one, safe room. I tell myself it isn't even about the drink, that I'm long past even needing one. But there is company there, all professed sinners. All degrees and inches from the end of their ropes, but still there. The AA group grows to twenty. A man was discovered scorched alive where he had passed out walking home from the bar. I guess it gave a few people a wakeup call. Ricky stops glowering. A few weeks ago, he started sitting forward in his chair, looking up. For almost all his time in the group Ricky only ever said four words, his name and the time since his last drink. He has never engaged with the group; never said anything he didn't have to. But the numbers he gives keep climbing. Passing through the white door the smell of coffee is overpowering and rich. Underneath it is something warm savoury. Ricky's face has started glowing, all at once, like a hot coal. A little clumsily but fast as a flash of light his beefy arms wrap around my shoulders. “Fresh coffee” he beams, pulling away “and cake.” In the time it takes to acquire a plastic mug and a yellow, flaky slice, dusted in sugar, I manage to get so far as forming a question about the room. Something besides the food is different. A low, gentle babble fills it as tired old men grin and murmur like old comrades. Though never spoken of before, a vision of ourselves as intrepid survivors bubbles to the surface. Perhaps by tomorrow we will all be tired and mute again, but even my cheeks draw back in an unfamiliar smile. Even the sterile lights seem brighter for the moment as the group takes their accustomed seats. Maybe the power is surging and in a moment it will all go dark, or maybe it's a little reminder of what real hope looks like. Ricky stops and turns around in-front of his chair, the last one unoccupied in the room. “My name is Ricky Fencer. I am an alcoholic, and today it has been eighteen months since my last drink!” The clatter of hands and the roar of assent which greets him as he toasts the room with his mug overfills the tiny room. For a moment Ricky is the master orator receiving a standing ovation on stage. His clothes tonight are clean, his beard trimmed back and hair had obviously cleaned with something. All the places where a face in this room might be expected to sag with weariness stands taught and proud on Ricky Fencer's face. Though he still stands when the applause dies and fear crosses his eyes. Everyone is still looking at him. They applauded me. Did they actually mean it? I’ve lost at poker enough times to know I’m no good at calling a bluff. Besides, they’ve seen the real me. This getup won’t hide a thing from these guys. I’ve been standing here too long. I just want to go home. I want a drink. I NEED a drink. f**k me, why do I even try?! I still can’t get that thought out of my head. That I need something else to make me whole. That I alone will never be enough. They say that a thought can be more addictive than any drug. They’re wrong. To call it an addiction implies that there is a way to get rid of it. After a moment he cries “Here’s to eighteen more, for each of us at least!” and sits down to more applause. Though he sits heavily. At the end of the meeting he clasps my hand. “Thank you, Alan. I've been listening to your little speech for so long, I couldn't wait to give one of my own.” He lets me go that night with two extra slices of cake. “For your girls” he says, his smile is genuine. When even was the last time I spoke about Gina or Jane at these meetings? The thought stays with me all the way home, an echo in the back of my mind. When even was the last time I took Gina out to dinner? Too long. It's too much. I live in a collapsing world, civilisation tamed nature like a dam against an enormous river. But the river flooded, and now the dam is falling to pieces. I think people are the same, we each have a little dam built up against our entire world collapsing. Each of us some totem or idea so important to us we'd hold it above our heads as the world flooded. We each shore up our lives so that those things are protected above all else. I've seen movies where those things give people hope. It must be nice. Because for the dam I'd built to hold off the end of my world, the things I most wanted to protect kept shaking the ground. One day the dam would break. Jane has to be alive, out somewhere in the world but somewhere I could find her. With time I could go looking for her. With money I could hire somebody, maybe. With money Gina could get treatment, maybe a water processor for the house. But there would never be enough coal in the ground to fill every need. And the dam cracked and tore, those tears became shots of sudden pain through my scarred back. The sensation turns suddenly electric and the full force of the moment roars in. The safety line has gone taught, before me a clatter of stones rolls into the void below. Shadows like liquid swallow them up. Blood is surging into my head, turning all the shadows white. My body spasms and twists, it takes a moment to realise that those movements belong to my limbs. Within the same second, I am falling so long it feels like floating. So far that I lose all light. I die somewhere in that darkness, perhaps I'll strike hard rock, perhaps I'll reach terminal velocity and speed will finally kill me. At the same time, I'm arriving home, later after AA. A police officer from the city is there asking me to identify the body of a scar faced girl. Gina collapses, grief driving her heart past breaking point. Her world ending, drowning in shock. It isn’t Jane, but it only reminds us that she could have been. Then I stop falling. The safety line holds and begins to winch me up, limp and ragged in the harness. One thing you should know about this coal mining job is that if you want your co-workers to leave you alone you'd better make sure that when you're winched back up from the chasm you land on your feet. Everyone at this dig site knows each other, everyone grew up in everyone else's backyards. And if anyone sees one of their fellows crumple to the ground, legs limp and eyes glazed with the shock of almost dying in the chasm, then it is abundantly clear to all and sundry that you need a good stiff drink. So, as I emerge from the chasm, streams of sweat falling away from my fingertips, I try my best to put strength back in my legs. But there is none to be had. My every extremity is an empty sack blowing in the wind. I myself have been compressed. I have been crushed down to a little stack of worries and nothing else. I hate it. I hate this mine, I hate the rushing headache and the constant thirst. I hate the sun, I hate the heat. I hate the well-intentioned co-workers, fellow miners, friends, who are picking me up and carrying me towards the booze bus. I hate them for having the best intentions, I hate their intentions. Intentions mean nothing in the face of results. The only result of this course is going to be me being sent straight back to step one. Most of all I hate the thought that even a mite more strength and willpower would have set me on my feet and safe from their good intentions. I might be able to shrug off their helpful hands, forcefully if need be. I don't know if I have it, there's a little twitch in the tips of my worn-out fingers. There's a little spark of life deep down in my core. It might be enough, but I don't want to find out. And I hate that too. I'm going to be honest, I really really really want a drink. I hate the fact that still do after so many years but it's true. I feel I have more than a wealth of excuses for one, just one drink. How bad can it be? Except I don't just want one drink, I want ten to start with. I want all the things that crush me down to a dense, dark core of desperation to just go away. And since they won't, why not pretend they have for a while? Everyone else does. I stay the tension in my hands and slump against the window. There is, of course, a very easy way out of it all. One or two phone calls and I'll find myself with a much better paying job. One where I'm one from amongst dozens of desperate men. One where my own skills are uniquely valued. It would take a few months but after that Gina would stop vomiting. I'd have tuned the motor in the car, maybe moved us away from this dying town, towards the coast where it's still cool during the day sometimes. Or else further south, I hear there are still trees on the south coast. The men whose good intentions piled me on to the booze bus didn't let me stop for any sun protection. All the bus's windows have expensive tinting against the glare. The sun reaches out to burn us all for our transgressions and it gets soaked up by half an inch of treated glass. After a few minutes driving, exposed in the blazing heat, the windows start to feel like the surface of the sun itself. My dark skin shrinks away from it, but I hold my position. A whisper in my mind tells me a little pain is good. It will make me pay for even thinking of going back to my old life. When Gina took me back it was the only thing she asked of me. I think of her, I think of how happy she'll be when we find a way to get up again. “We'll find Jane, we'll leave for the greater gulf. We'll swim, we'll be happy. And we'll do it without breaking a single law.” Perhaps if I mutter those words to myself long enough I'll believe them. But I can't repeat them more than a dozen times before my head strikes the seat in front of me. We've arrived in the bus shelter next to the canyon bar. I have something resembling a plan. As soon as I'm out the door I'll shrug away from the well intention hands that prop me up. “I'm fine lads, got somewhere to be. You boys have fun.” I'll say that, or something like it. Then they'll all go inside, I'll ride the bus back to the mine, get my sun clothes, get my car. All will be well. It's been so long since I visited the canyon bar I've forgotten how hot the shelter is. Any echo of strength I felt before slips away like a well-practised thief. It melts and they carry me inside, my mouth hanging open like an i***t. I'm sure I'd be drooling if I had enough spit. The door opens, it's cool inside, the entire ceiling and one wall of the square room is covered with fans of every size. All of them are working at their limit, but the fruits of their labour show as the blessed cool washes over me like water. I find there is a little strength in me, enough at least to put my own feet on the floor and walk, rather than be carried, to a table. I'll sit there for a minute, I'll ask someone for water, I'll drink the water, then I'll leave. How hard can it be? Someone sets a square tumbler in front of me. I can smell scotch, good scotch. Another breath, it has to be from the top shelf, or near enough to make no difference. Thompson, who kept the bar, even claimed he had a few bottles from the last century, when things were good and good scotch was everywhere. This smells delicious enough it might just be from one of them. Damn but it smells good. There's a smile on my face when I look up. Before I drink I should thank my benefactor. The smile lasts just long enough to get a look at said benefactor's face. It's long and narrow, like it was squeezed a little too tightly on the way out of the womb and never quite reset. The eye sockets are narrow, the eyes themselves dark and set far too far above the nose to ever get a good sense of them. They're either beady, blind or dumb, I've never been able to tell. It's been a long time since I saw that face. It's gained a few lines of age, and three silver piercings in the shape of arrows through the nose. I seem to remember breaking that nose last time I saw Peter Doyle. “G'day Al” he says, brightly “been far too long. How are the girls?” “You know perfectly well.” I try to keep my tone level. “You also know the meaning of the phrase 'stay away from me and my family'. Which if I recall is the last thing I said to you.” “Yes, I know, but that's in the past now mate.” Doyle raises his eyebrows as if that's all it takes to wash the past away. In truth, washing it away would take more clean water than there is left in the country. Doyle grins at me, all his teeth are yellow and brown. As he keeps talking I wonder, as I often did, how a man with such a high strung, north Queensland accent ever made himself understood. He managed to make every vowel sound like an 'a'. Every sentence he spoke sounded like the solo from 'Thunderstruck' as played by a meth addict on a badly tuned guitar. “Listen,” he says, “I'm glad I ran into you, a friend of a friend needs a favour.” Those are all the words I let him get out. Those words meant some organisation or another needed my skills. Those were the words I'd heard before the last job I'd taken, where I'd returned late, and find my daughter mutilated. I throw the expensive scotch in Peter Doyle's face. “I walked away five years ago. I'm walking away again now. Don't follow me.” With that I get up. This place is making me sick. Unfortunately, Doyle doesn't take the hint, he stands up too. He stands far too close to me for my liking. The odour of scotch melds with dry sweat, and something I can't identify. Something caustic and foul. “Good money in this one Al” he whispers “very rich friend, very high value cargo. Kinda cargo that you'd only trust to the Blacktop Phantom.” He smiles, and on his misshapen face it looks like the snarl of a predator. “I know you've still got it. Very good money” he says “I'll bet your wife would love to hear about it, what was her name again?” I've had all I can take. I decide not to care whether there's strength left in my arms, I can find enough to break this creep's nose again. So, I deal him a straight upper cut with my right hand, then shove him away with my left. My knuckles are bleeding, his face is bleeding. Three silver arrows are scattered on the floor between us. Doyle's face is dripping blood like a faucet. The stench infuriates me so I make a kick for his gut. It doesn't really connect but Doyle slips in his own blood and lands on the floor anyway. “Jesus!” he shouts and tries to pick himself up. Before he has regained his feet, I've seized his shirt front and shoved him into the table we both just sat at, sending him, that table, the table next to it and everyone sitting at it tumbling to the floor. “Mind your language!” I shout to his crumpled form then make for the door. Maybe it's the indignity of being sent flying by a man ten years his senior, maybe it's the pain having three nose piercings torn out by the same man's fist, or maybe it's the galling fact that said man told him not to take the Lord's name in vain as a parting word. Maybe it's the half dozen angry miners who get to their feet around him, or the dozen of his friends who come to encircle them, or maybe it's something else, how should I know? But in that moment Peter Doyle decides that this bar fight is happening whether he likes it or not, stands up and lunges for my back. I can sense him coming, and old danger instinct pricks up just before he gets within striking range. The pub is starting to fill with shouts, I can hear the crash of glass and furniture. I'm so very tired, I don't want a drink any more, I just want to go home. My attempt to sidestep Doyle comes half a second too late, then my vision goes white as my face is slammed into the door. I haven't been in a fight for years, I'm probably going to be very bad at this. Doyle's spidery hands are still on the back of my head and I feel a lurch of vertigo, he's pulling me back for another blow. A memory about him clicks, he always stands with his feet splayed apart, if I just keep up the backwards momentum he so helpfully started for me. I'm honestly not sure what I expected to get out of that manoeuvre, but my face doesn't slam into the wall again. Instead we both land on the pub's sticky floor. I roll away as fast as I can, there are entire galaxies swimming in my vision. From the little I can see; total chaos has broken loose in the Canyon Bar. A dozen men dressed in black, friends of Doyle no doubt, are jostling and wrestling with a crowd of dusty miners. Curses and glasses fly through the air. It's doubtful anyone's really sure what the fight is about. Strip everything away and it's about stress relief, even for me. Ok now this is fun. I’m going to be having sweet dreams about this night for a looooong time. Good, it’ll give me something else to dream about. Something else to THINK about. I won’t have to think about my debts. I won’t have to think about the fact I just got drunk after 18 months being sober. I won’t have to think about how I screw up everything I lay my hands. Or everyone I lay my hands on. Nope, I’ll get to think about this guy’s jaw dislocating as I deck him, and while I guess I’m still screwing up somebody, at least I’ll know I did it right this time. Fan-f*****g-tastic. It takes a few seconds but I regain my feet and my vision. Leaning heavy on a bar stool I see Doyle climb to his ungainly feet. “That it?” He spits on the floor and lumbers towards me. My hands still rest on the stool's thin cushion, a little more grip is all I need. There's enough strength left to make a wildly swinging club out of it. All that's needed is a few more seconds for Doyle to get close enough. Two things happen at about the same time. A sudden gunshot sets every ear to ringing, and Doyle steps inside my range. This of course means that everyone has stopped what they were doing by the time the stool connects with Doyle's chest. It's a good hit too, he's sent sideways, coughing fiercely. But now everyone is looking at me. The fans on the ceiling buffet upon every piece of hair and clothing in the room. Nothing else moves for a second or two. Anything goes in Canyon Bar until Thompson's gun goes off. Everybody knows this. But what happens if somebody has forgotten? It takes the length of a breath, in and out, for somebody to find an answer. A bottle smacks the side of Peter Doyle's face. “Come and get some!” roars the voice in drunken anger, and I see Ricky Fencer amidst a crowd of old and dusty men around the corner of the bar. None look favourably on Doyle, who rounds on them. Noise and chaos sweeps back into the room. Something hits me pretty hard.