Only If You Have To

Road Revisited

“Ok, you first.”

“More and more about this job is seeming weird. Not just the utter coincidence of it all or the fact that a churchy man like you is out working it. And I heard something strange, something crazy, while I was waiting for you at Silver's. One look at you from the table and all I can hear over my shoulder is talk about the phantom. Then there was the way Ally was looking at you. I just need...”

Ricky breathes in hard and rubs his hands over his eyes. He looks deflated sitting like that, bent over the steering wheel. Deflated like a flat tire, but not a punctured one.

“Alan, tell me that this is just about you making things right for your family.”

“Ricky, this is about me making things right for my family. And you squaring your debts.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

You can tell God never intended his children to lie by the fact that it is so difficult to do. At least if you're trying to keep a clear conscience. It's my turn to take a deep breath, thinking of the meal at Aysha's, the card table.

“My turn now.” I continue. “Have you been falling off the wagon every time you come to Melbourne. You were so happy when you made it to eighteen months, was that a lie?”

“No” Ricky says emphatically and starts the truck again. “No, I stayed away from the booze for eighteen months and a bit of change. I fell off when I lost my license and got back on when you helped me get it back. It's another reason this is so important.”

“So, what are you bending on.”

Ricky swallows hard. “Not booze” he says “do you really want to know?”

“Yes, Ricky I want to know about your smack habit and every other addiction you've acquired. Fifty thousand dollars won't go far if you're carrying multiple monkeys on your back.”

“What the hell is a monkey?”

“Language Ricky for Christ's sake!”

That draws out an awkward silence between the two of us and a look of embarrassment on my face. Ok, lost the high ground there but press on.

“I have no idea what a monkey is, it's just a saying I picked up. Now stop ducking the question. Right now, I want to know how many different things you're addicted to, and just how many people you owe money to. Then I want to know why.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me, as a friend.”

That draws a sharp glance from him. I might even be getting somewhere here.

“Are we friends?”

“You threw the bottle at Doyle when he went for the knife. I helped you keep your license. You helped me make this job happen. I drove us out of the marsh, that last one might have been luck but I'd argue we've both saved the other guy's hide twice in the last week. So, if not friends then, I don't know, comrades at the very least. So what's going on comrade?”

Ricky's brows knit down towards his nose. If what I've seen holds up this means he's giving something serious thought. A good sign to be sure.

“I don't know what comrade means.” He says slowly. “But you make a fair point. Alright here it is, and don't stop me from cussing because I won't be able to help myself.”

I take a deep breath.

“Go on.”

“The last year I've f****d my life up in every imaginable way. I drank and gambled all my savings, and when people in town stopped giving me credit I got money from elsewhere so that I could keep f*****g things up. Since you asked the 'marsh bender' Rex referred to isn't smack. It's michal-phadracain. Same synthetic stuff they use for medicine, but without the nastier side effects like melanin drainage, since they use it to make a stimulant for the nervous system instead of the immune. I get a few of them in me and I can get across the marsh without thinking about it. I f*****g hate that place.”

“I hate it too, but I'm not going to drown myself in dope for the ride home.”

“It's not the same for you Alan! This is your first time out of town in, if not your entire life than a good chunk of it right? That place wears you down. There's nothing there but bad memories and stink!”

“Bad memories?”

“Nothing that would interest you.” He says quickly, then turns to face me in his seat, slowing the truck as he does so.

“Listen Alan, I know it's easy to pretend life is still normal when you stay in your little town. You don't notice that everything has gone to s**t. The white moved into the centre, the red moved out to the coasts, all of us are stuck in the middle of it. Where we're all either dying or going mad. Sometimes both! But you are one hell of a driver as well as being one hell of a good man. So, you can handle this but you need to accept that crazy is the new normal, bad things happen everywhere. I can't escape the damage from it but maybe you can. You've got God on your side and everything.”

“God doesn't take my side or anyone else's mate. It's up to us whether or not we're on his side.”

I could continue in such a vein for a lot longer but I've already lost Ricky's attention. He's no longer looking at me but past me, out the window behind me.

“We've got company.” He says, then turns back to the wheel and starts accelerating gently.

“Keep an eye on them, tell me if you see any sirens.”

There's nothing but solid shadow to be seen through the window. It occurs to me Ricky is trying to get out of a difficult conversation. I clear my throat.

“I know what you're thinking Alan, trust me. I do this for a living and my night eyes are a lot better than yours. Roll the window down, it's useless during the night anyway.”

I do just that and the shadows outside start taking on more solid shapes. Good God but I think I can make out trees flitting past. And further away there is certainly something keeping up with us. I can't see sirens, or lights of any kind. I can't even tell if they're driving overland to shadow us or simply following a road running parallel to ours. If Ricky could see it through the tinted window his eyes must be very good.

“No sirens, I can barely see anything. Are you sure?”

“Just trust me on this one Alan. There's a car driving parallel to us about fifty meters away. His road and ours intersect a little further down. He's going to block it, then the two other cars driving in his shadow will box us in while two more come up from behind. Do you see sirens?”

I grunt a negative, watching intently. Ricky sighs with heavy resignation.

“It'll be the Moloch gang, they control the other route through the marsh. Trust me you do not want to do business with them. Rex might have delusions of grandeur but at heart he's businessman, these guys are f*****g barbarians.”

With that he puts pedal to the metal.

“I am not letting them catch us, not after you pulled us out of the marsh. You know what I think Alan, I think it was a miracle. Like what Jesus did with the wine. I think God is on our side here.”

I look back to see him leaning into the steering wheel. His back is straight, his head high and his arms loose. Something like mania is on his face. I've seen it on my own face in dozens of reflections.

“I know” he adds, seeing me watching him “I know, God doesn't take sides. But even if you don't have him right now, you have me. And this is my truck, no God is going to save these assholes if they come near it.”

He flicks a switch above his head and the truck's floodlights blaze into life. Suddenly the entire world for a hundred metres in front of us blazes white, then the white light forms shapes. There are trees by the side of the road, swaying and whipping in the oncoming storm. Up ahead is an intersection, our company is already there. A large, flat backed ute is blocking the road. A pair of headlights sits to either side of it, just a little way back.

“Sound the horn Alan. We give them one chance to get out of the way, then they are responsible for what happens next.”

Ricky jabs his head towards a lever sticking out of the ceiling. With some hesitation I grasp it. My instincts all say 'stay quiet'. Except of course for the ones saying 'get out of here now!'

I pull down on the lever and Ricky's truck lets loose its battle cry. A long sonorous blast that ripples in the air and raises all the hair on my arms. Those arms are shaking a little, they feel impossibly weak, but the horn is confident, comforting. I give off another blast, this time longer. But the cars ahead stay put.

“Thought so” Ricky smirks “I wonder if they've seen this before.”

With that he taps the brake and flicks the truck into neutral. Suddenly we're slowing down, and I can see a shape in the side mirror. If Ricky was as right as he's been so far then there's another one on his side. Whether we have one follower or two they must have been accelerating hard, so hard that when Ricky cuts speed the shape that I can see appears to almost jump from following us to being flush on our rear.

Ricky moves the wheel with a slight twist of his wrist, a well-practiced move. And the truck's rear slides just a little to the left, catching our pursuer with unnerving force against a sharp steel corner. The car swerves off the road to avoid it and, without even blinking, Ricky twists the wheel again. This time the movement is faster and more violent. A sudden shriek of breaking metal blinks in and out of existence before being lost. Ricky is already speeding up again.

“Oh yeah” he says, seemingly to himself “oh yeah it's a big lumbering truck, easy pickings right. Wrong, dead wrong, especially with Ricky f*****g Fencer driving.”

We're almost at the roadblock now. The headlights behind it are getting a little brighter, they're getting ready to box us in. We can't go straight through them, the wreckage we'd have to drive over would tear the chassis out from under us. But Ricky isn't planning to go through them, I can tell. His hands are sitting low on the steering wheel, like a pair of coiled snakes. He's keeping his body low in his seat but his legs are poised to mash the pedals at a moment's notice. And he's still accelerating.

I want to yell at him not to try it, this truck is far too heavy. Ricky is going for a devil's cartwheel. It's the only explanation. A high speed, high risk, high reward manoeuvre whereby a driver deliberately flips their car with a sudden hard brake. It has to be timed perfectly, so that the car's balance tips mere inches from the roadblock you're trying to avoid, while still carrying enough momentum to get it airborne. After that comes half a second of vertigo and, if you've timed it right, you should land on all four wheels behind the roadblock.

It has the added bonus of putting the fear of God into anyone manning said roadblock. Though they will laugh themselves stupid if you flunk it and land on your side.

It's a manoeuvre I've pulled off twice in my life. Both times on a flat road in full sunlight, in a car stripped down to weigh less than a third of a tonne. Even without a trailer Ricky's truck must still weigh ten times that. There are loose objects everywhere in the cabin and it doesn't matter how good Ricky's night eyes are, it's still impossible to see past this roadblock. I want to grab the wheel from him, to shout in his ear that I AM THE PHANTOM and even I'm not crazy enough for this.

But I feel the snap and tension inside me, I feel an echo of the focus that filled me driving out of the marsh. Alan isn't crazy enough for this, but Al, the phantom, certainly is. He wants to see what happens.

Besides, he wouldn't tell me his secret and now is not the time to tell him mine. The roadblock is filling the headlights now. Ricky's hands fly on the wheel, left, right, left hand down. Tires squeal as the brakes come on. I brace myself for the tip, for the vertigo, and for the wreck that will surely follow. If God is merciful it will kill me.

The tip doesn't come, the truck doesn't cartwheel. In Ricky's hands it does a pirouette instead. First the nose twitches to the left, then to the right. Then, as a pair of jeeps emerge from either side of the ute to box us in, the truck cuts hard to the left. Its back-end sliding, its entire body spinning around the centre. Ricky's face is all concentration, eyes darting from the road to the wheel. He makes a slight adjustment, the truck's spin becomes tighter, my vision starts to blur.

Then we're out, spinning past the jeep which stopped suddenly as the truck turned towards it. Ricky wrenches the wheel around and we go cannonballing down the road. All the trucks weight is leaning to the right, for a moment I fear we will tip over yet. But the moment passes.

I've forgotten to breathe again. And amidst my own sudden gasp I hear Ricky a low intonation from Ricky.

“Know where to hide. Know where to run. Live free or die. Die while we're young.”

It takes everything I have not to join him.

“YEEEE HA!” Ricky shouts and rolls down the window. I'm sitting beside him speechless. It's been so long since I've had to process the fact that I'm not dead. That was insane, that was nuts. That was the most exciting thing to happen to me in years. I want to grab the wheel and try it for myself, I want to power slide all the way into Melbourne. It's the first side effect of discovering you're still alive despite all evidence that you were about to die. For a few minutes after you feel invincible. Though before you've had a chance to do anything with that feeling you also discover yourself gasping for air. I stuff my hands into my jacket pockets lest Ricky see them shaking from the excitement.

Ricky is rolling down his window, raising a middle finger at the world beyond.

“Eat your heart out phantom!” He shouts with abandon, then adds bitterly “wherever it is you're hiding.”

The irony flicks in and out of my mind. Something else is processing there. With effort I make myself breath normally.

“You were right” I say, and Ricky's head snaps around to look at me.

“You were right before. Crazy is the new normal isn't it?”

“Well yes and no Alan.” Ricky says with the wisdom of confidence and euphoria. “What you just saw was completely crazy, and that's the seventh time I've had to do something like it this year. So, you ask if crazy is the new normal, my honest answer is this; what exactly do you mean by normal?”

I don't have a good answer. Or any answer at all. One falls out of stunned mouth.

“f**k me.”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Ricky bite his lip. Silence enfolds the cab. Eventually my hands are able to stop shaking in my pockets. The smoke I got from Aysha is still there. On instinct I feel inside my jacket, Jane's lighter is still there.

Surely this can be the least of my transgressions.

“Thank God” Ricky cries, when I look up he's already puffing.

“Always feel awkward lighting up around non-smokers. There aren't many of us left. You shouldn't have held out so long, I've been craving for hours.”

He gives me a knowing smile. But it hasn't time to linger on his face. Rain begins to clatter on the windscreen, a moment later comes a brilliant flash of lightning out at sea.

“Well that's ominous.” I say, raising up Jane's lighter. Ricky's brows furrow at the quip.

“Ominous” I say “it means things seem like they're about to get worse, or something like that.”

Ricky laughs.

“I know what ominous means mate. My question was how you can possibly think things can get worse. We're shipping unknown contraband to a dangerous city gang. It's almost certainly going to go bad, why else did Doyle send someone as expendable as you into it. We've almost drowned, almost been run off the road, and the entire continent is trying to cook us alive to boot. But we've got too much riding on this to back out now. And I can't see this getting any worse.

Despite his sombre words there is still a euphoric smile on his face. I think I'm starting to understand my new friend. This is a man who's had a lot of steep climbs and steep falls in his life. He's spent so much time in hopeless situations that he almost relishes it. He might have even volunteered to help me even without the debt to motivate him. A hopeless crusade is where he feels right at home. I have to stifle a giggle at the thought of Ricky tilting at windmills out the side of his truck. Another flash of lightning blinds me momentarily, and as my vision returns I can see Ricky shuddering a little.

“Only two things worse than the smell of bleach; thunder and lightning. The planet has already got a dozen ways to kill you every day, storms are just nature rubbing it in your face. It just creeps me out. Tell you the truth though” Ricky continues, his face far away, “I haven't felt this good about anything I've done in years. I think that for a change I might have accidentally done the right thing. Isn't that crazy?”

“A wise man told me not too long ago that crazy is the new normal. But I think I agree with you.”

I lay a gentle hand on the young man's shoulder.

“I'll tell you the truth. Some nights, a lot of nights lately, I've thought long and hard about killing myself. Thought about driving off somewhere nice and quiet where nobody will ever find me. Then running a hose from the exhaust pipe and calling it quits. Even kept a bottle in the car for my last drink.”

“That's dark.” Ricky says, taken aback.

“Well let me finish please. I thought about it a lot until the night when I gave up my driver's license for yours. I had the same thought, that I'd just accidentally done the right thing. And yes it's dark but so's life on this damn planet.”

“Well, my headlights are still shining.” Ricky says, picking up the train of thought with a wide smile. It only looks a little bit forced. After a moment he gives up the pretence and silence fills the truck.

An interesting question, what do you talk about at the end of a long road trip when anything that could happen appears to have happened. It's dark, dangerous and stormy. You've escaped death at least twice. What exactly is left to talk about.

After an interminable silence that can't have lasted longer than a minute I reach for the radio.

“Don't you dare.” Ricky says. “Tape deck is all that works on that. And you'd better change tapes before you play anything. Look in the glovebox.”

I tap the 'eject' button and a plastic tape pops into my hand. I don't think I've ever seen one outside a photograph before. Along one side is daubed in white paint 'fall asleep'.

“That's what I was playing before you woke up. Figured it would help. There's a better one in the glovebox.”

I can only see one other tape when I open the glovebox. One well-worn with age and bearing, in the same white paint, the words 'stay awake'. Also, in the glovebox is a pistol the size of my head. I try not to look at it, shut the glovebox quick as I can, and push the tape in. The only sound that escapes the speakers is a harsh rattle.

“Damn it” Ricky groans “hit rewind for a few seconds.”

After my finger has hovered over the tape deck for a few seconds of uncertainty Ricky points me to the double arrows pointed backwards. I press it firmly, holding it down for a bit, and when I let go the speakers come alive with a heavy synthesised fadeout.

“LeBrock” Ricky says wistfully “the twenty first century didn't entirely suck thanks to him. But how are you on your classics Alan, if I remember right there's a good one coming up next.”

A crashing power chord fills the cabin, dips down in the register then up. I know this song. It's old enough to have become part of the general 'olden days'. If I remember correct it's at least four times as old as I am. Or maybe it's only twice as old. Hard to tell, but Ricky didn't lie. It's a song I used to blast on long drives called 'Stick to Your Guns.' A gentle strumming takes over the chords for a moment, then Jon Bon Jovi starts singing.

“So you wanna be a cowboy

Well you know it's more than just a ride”

“Fifty years since the great man died, rest in peace.” Ricky crosses himself. In the moment another flash of lightning shows his face in perfect clarity. I've never seen a man so solemn. Somewhere in my memory is an old music video, I think it was for a song called 'Living in Sin', where Jon Bon Jovi himself made the same gesture with the same face. I wonder if Ricky learned it from him. But not too much.

Without being called there is a smile on my face so wide it might split my skin. Another flash of lightning, Ricky is smiling too. A genuine grin that looks uncharacteristically old on his face. As his mouth warps around a scattering of sun scars. I've noticed them before, I don't think I've seen Ricky smile like this before. I wonder where he got those scars, but not too much.

I'm singing along. Though I can only recall half the lyrics and my voice cracks on every other line. Ricky's singing too, his voice young, deep and strong. It's a singing voice that belongs to man much less weary than he. But it sounds almost like he's drawing in strength from the song even as he pours in his vigour. With no warning he pumps a fist out the window, throws back his head and sings.

“Stick to your guns!

Ain't nobody gonna hurt you baby

You can pull the trigger, but only if you have to.”

I'm not in Ricky's truck anymore, I'm leaping off the end of my bed somewhere more than thirty years back. There's a picture of James Dean sprawled atop a mustang on one wall. On the opposite stands Steven Tyler in a whirl of wild clothes and wilder hair. The sun is shimmering on his bare, pasty chest. I'm thinking on what a wonderful time it must have been to be alive. I'm still young enough to be stupid, and stupid enough to think that the world is mine for the taking.

“And when you pray for independence

Boy, you’d better stand your ground.”

Suddenly I'm older and feeling the for the first time the weight of a steering wheel in my hands. My steering wheel. I want to find out what it can do. Where can it take me?

“You gotta give it all you got now

Or you might get shot down.

Fight hard until the battle is won.”

I'm a cocky teenager walking illegally into a bar. A young blonde girl is standing shy at one end. Her body is lithe from exploring caves and her face is positively radiant. With the confidence unique to one young, stupid and drunk I am deciding to marry her one day. An electric guitar starts screaming. Years pass in the space of a few notes. Gina is exhilarated and scared all at once as she says that yes, yes she will marry me.

A storming rush of fear and exhilaration curls around in my head, like a wave that will never break, just keep growing until its foam flecks the sky. It's no longer night time, I can see the sun in my rear-view mirror, majestic as it sinks below a white salt pan. I'm coming home from my last ever job. I've gotten out, I've gotten clean. I'm going home to my family and that's all the world I will ever need. For the last time ever, I am stupid enough to think that everything will be alright.

“Well you know that I've been through it!

I've got the scars that prove it!

Fight hard until the battle is won.”

They're all just memories long neglected. But I wonder if that was truly the last time I was so stupid. I am, after all, on this crazy run to Melbourne. I'm working for the people who mutilated me and broke my family apart. Did I really think of this job as a magic bullet? Did I let myself believe that I could fix everything just like this?

There's a sense of despair built into those thoughts and its grasping for me. I tell myself an emphatic NO!

I knew going into this that even if it worked perfectly it was only the start. Now the job is almost finished. Good, bad, and both have been done. It's almost over now. A sense of triumph is swelling in the darkness and why shouldn't I enjoy it?

“Only if you have to.” I croon the final line. Ricky is seated almost lazily in his seat. I am too. A sonic wall has knocked us both on our backs and for a moment we can only marvel at it. Then Ricky turns the music down a little and turns to me with a satisfied grin.

“Look out Melbourne, here we come!”

Lightning flashes, thunder roars. Ricky keeps his eyes on the road while music continues to play. All of it is ancient, optimistic and loud. We can handle this.

We can handle this.