Only If You Have To

Death On The Beach

The old man has fallen straight off the plain of consciousness. Can't blame him. But there's no sleep for me. The sweet lady is busy with Alan.

Might he be right?

Is this the end, the other side?

I don't know. What's the time?

Moloch. Moloch and his money won't wait. But snow afterwards. A reprieve. Maybe Alan's God is trying to find me too?

This stinks to every level of hell. Staying in the dunes five minutes was four minutes too long. More bad luck. So close. The money is right here. I'm holding it. But it's not mine until I'm out of here. Another bad turn. They're right of course. Driving in this storm would be insane. It still stinks. It still sinks. Is that chloroform?

There's a cool steel beam curled around my legs. No, wait, hang on a second. That doesn't make sense. It's my legs that wrap around the beam. Someone has tied me to a chair! I saw this coming. God damnit I saw this coming. There's a knife in my boot. Where's my hand?

I can't feel my hand!

“Hope you don't mind us using the back door to get into your room. It's Ricky, right? Sorry it's been a such a long time.”

she is here. Is it she?

The voice, the voice is wrong. But I know that voice! Now she's sighing, sitting down in front of me like an old friend. The mask leers at me. Her white hands tap light on her knees. That voice is stabbing at me.

“So, where's the rest of my product c**k jockey?”

“What do you mean? I unloaded all the crates.”

A heavier sigh. Is this for show?

“Alright s**t for brains. You've had a long couple of days so I'll speak slowly.”

I can't breathe. She just jabbed me in the throat with her fist!

“I know the f*****g crates are here you stupid cocksucker. Now tell me where the product you TOOK from my crates is.”

There's restraint in her voice but not much. She is one step from screaming and I still can't breathe. She's laughing again. Shrill, it hurts. When did she start laughing?

“I didn't take anything.”Pistol, face. That f*****g hurts. She's shouting.

“Fresh steaming bullshit! You are a moron Ricky. How the f**k do you think we run a successful business if we don’t take precautions? Like for example a spring-loaded camera in every box giving us a picture of the bloody stupid f**k bucket that is trying to steal from me!”

She's holding a picture in her hand. There's a hand reaching into a box. A face in a silver mask. It's the middle of the day, Alan was asleep in the truck.

“The f**k makes you think that's me?” How I'm making myself heard I don't know. I can't feel any air in my lungs. There's only the pain everywhere in my body.

Pistol whip. My face lights up. I'm pretty sure something's broken.

“How many s**t kickers in this economy have a helmet like yours Ricky? Let me see if I can guess the sob story. You were desperate, probably owed somebody money. This is sounding familiar yes? Good. Now you wouldn't be stupid enough to borrow from Doyle again. And it wouldn't be that card sharking w***e you like either, she's not scary enough to make you steal from me. Moloch?

That's it isn't it. You borrowed from Moloch you dumb motherfucker. And judging by the panic on your face you were probably three steps from him stringing your guts across the swamp like grisly f*****g Christmas lights. So, you got tipped off that on the road somewhere between here and fuckery they'd make a play for the cargo. How's the story so far? Not too f*****g bad I don't think. But it needs a good villain.”

A pistol whip and something is definitely broken. I don't feel it. I'm at my threshold of pain. She's laughing again. When did she start laughing?

“So, Ricky, you decided to take a little for yourself. Square your debts? Or maybe just get stoned? It wouldn't matter to them, they wouldn't know any was missing. How much do you owe them?”

She's talking to me. That's right she's talking to me! I can breathe again, no I can cough. Now I can breathe.

“Twenty-five.” That's all I can say.

“Twenty-five” she says slyly “and by a strange fucker of a coincidence there are five shots of drugs missing from the crates. Davis, Davis!” She turns around, snapping at a man standing by the door.

“Davis how much is a stick of michal-fuckramine worth.”

“At least five thousand dollars.”

“At least five thousand dollars!” She turns back to me. “Like I said, strange fucker of a coincidence. So, Moloch knew the cargo was coming out of the white. You tipped him off.”

She stands up.

“Holy f*****g guacamole and cheese on the t**s of Christ. There was no way you could have known what you were shipping until you opened that crate. Even then... There's a spy in my organisation! f*****g great. Ok, who in this room don't I trust?”

She spins on her heel, pointing out four human shapes standing in the corners. Counts out four fingers. Her arms snaps out.

The bunker is full of an echoing bang, it's snapping back and forth between the walls like an earthquake in the air. f**k me what have I just walked into?

Davis is lying by the door. I can smell blood.

“What did you learn?”

She is talking. Is she talking to me? No, her lackeys all chime in.

“This is what happens to snitches.”

It sounds like they have to say it a lot.

“Say it f*****g right you sun baked pack of fleas!”

“This is what happens to c**k juggling, s**t bagging snitches.”

They chorus it with equal unison to the last. Almost a harmony. She is waving at them to leave.

“It's so hard to get decent help these days.”

Is she saying that to me. No, she's pistol whipping me. My head is on the floor. Everything hurts. What's that sound?

“We really need to do something about these spies Davis, I mean you would know. If people keep trying to claw around up our asses for secrets to f*****g sell then starting all those rumours was a s**t gagging waste of my time wasn't it!”

She's leaning against the door. She's talking to the dead guy. It almost sounds affectionate. Oh s**t she's seen me watching her. Now her attention's back on me.

FUCK

“I mean” she takes a step forward “all those rumours are true but that just makes them harder to maintain. So, you're only getting one chance to go free. Tell us where you hid those five f*****g drug sticks and you walk. Because I mean, I do owe you. You made me the woman I am today.”Moloch, his money. It won't wait.

I can't give it up. I won't.

I'll get out of this. I have to. I can if I have to.

I'll get out of this. I can if I have to.

Take a deep breath Ricky. Talk.

“We both know I'm a dead man if I just give up the stash.”

That came out too fast, don't show her you're afraid. Breath.

Talk:

“I can give you the stash and all the dirt on Moloch you could possibly want. But I'll need protection from him. Fair trade?”

Not bad, you botched it at the end. Nothing for it. Why is she laughing again?

My hand! I can feel my hand. It's tied to the chair as well, just above the ankle. Reach Ricky! Reach for it, you can handle this.

She's grabbed my arm. The knife is out of the boot but it's in her hand. But she's cutting me free. Does that mean she agrees?

The gun is loose in her other hand. I could get it. There's nobody else here.

“f**k me Ricky you do have a sense of humour. Stand up. Stand the f**k up!”

Stand up, you're almost falling over. You can handle this, just keep your feet.

“You want my protection? Smart move. But what about what I want? I want my goods back and I want to know that you are sorry for everything you've done. So kneel.”

What? It sounds as if she's smiling.

“I said kneel c**k jockey!”

The bunker is full of noise again. Pain, noise and pain. My face is on the floor, how did it get on the floor. Pain, white hot pain in my left knee. The tip of the gun is smoking. She's laughing again. When did she start laughing?

Stand up, stand up Ricky. You're not going to die bleeding on this floor. Get up, at least that way you can go down swinging.

My knee! My f*****g knee is gone. The leg beneath is still attached but not by much.

I've found my hands, push up off the floor. Weight on one leg. Chair. Stand up.

The mask is right in front of me. Hands are free. Swing for it!

The mask is cracked under my fist. I hit it as hard as I could. She's still laughing. I'm falling. Keep a hand on the chair. Fall into the chair.

I'm on the floor. The smell of blood is everywhere. Half of her mask is falling from her face. White skin, green eyes, NO!

Don't look. I can't look.

Don't look. I can't look. Those horrific f*****g scars. I know those scars.

“Motherfucking f**k me sideways. What do you have to do to get an apology out of someone. And you'd think a big guy like you would throw a better punch. Still, I did just blow your kneecap out. It's probably not your best day.”

A door is opening. Misty air. I can hear the sea.

“Boys!” she is shouting “you know what to do.”

The mask is off. One eye has changed colour. Green and brown, perhaps a contact fell out.

Everything f*****g hurts!

What is she doing here? I took her here so she'd be safe from the bad guys, not turn into one. I hoped it was done.

I hoped. I did. I did this to her.

“I deserve this.”

Was that me talking?

Everything hurts.

There's no storm outside. I can't hear a stir out of Ricky. I can only hear the pounding of waves. There's a rhythm scattered across it. Perhaps only one wave in twenty is keeping time but it's there. I'm listening for it. One steady beat among an orchestra of aquatic chaos. It's all that's needed. I can listen to it for hours, I think I might have been. What I'd give for the sound of seabirds to chorus over that relentless base. But there are no birds, and no thunder for a few hours.

No there is something. Somebody's voice, faint and frantic, fighting for space between the crashes of the waves. I know that voice.

My clothes on the floor are still wet, but they'll dry. The money is there. So's the gun. It's time to go.

My feet splash in a few inches of water outside. Out into the trench and the morning sunlight. It's still faint enough that I can stand it without my sun clothes, but I'm in the minority and even I have to shield my eyes. Ricky is shouting nearer the surf. What trouble has he made now?

No, he's not shouting. I can't see what's going on through the glare but if anything, it sounds like he's crying. I can hear short grabs of sentences set around sobs.

“...didn't ask.... I couldn't ask... Doyle...money in town.... way in...”

The dunes all end in a straight line twenty metres from shore. I'm guessing that's low tide if they flood during the night. Like a row of neatly planted trees. Just beyond I can see two poles driven into the sand. Nine figures stand around them, sun clothes flicking on the sand as a fresh breeze comes in from the east. Eight of them have guns.

Ricky kneels between the two poles wearing nothing but his jeans. Each hand is tied to the top of a pole and one foot is splayed oddly behind him. I'm closer now, the gun held as ready as I can make it. My face twitches in revulsion as I catch a whiff of blood among the salt and sand. Someone's noticed me. Fast as the lightning flashes last night a face locks on mine. From deep within the hood of his sun-suit a flat and narrow face looks at me in shock. Like he's never seen a black guy on the beach before now.

At a word eight of them turn to face me but the ninth, Demona I assume, raises a hand to stop them. She stands directly between the sun and Ricky, her billowing white sun clothes falling to the sand like a robe. I can't tell if it is her for the folds of that robe hide every available inch of her white skin. Which would blister and burn within minutes even in this gentle early light. Her shadow is the only reason Ricky hasn't burned already. She beckons me a little closer.

“You'll want to hear this” she says.

I freeze, not for fear, nor for the horror of the scene in front of me. I know that voice. It haunts me in dreams, the same scene repeating over and over. The last words she said to me as she walked away from my anger and her discarded cigarette. “Whatever, you’re right I guess.” After everything. After all these years, and what felt like years of searching. She was right in front of me, chuckling at the defeated form of Ricky, who was crying as blood flowed freely from what used to be his kneecaps. I don’t think he even noticed me approach, nor Jane call to me, behind the pain in his eyes was the look of a man trapped in a memory that he desperately wanted to forget. It was too much, so caught somewhere between joy and horror, I listened.

“Doyle told me to leave my truck at home, the truck I’d be driving would be waiting for me midnight at the warehouse. I was to get in, drive, don’t ask questions, and I wasn’t to look in the trailer. That was it. Drive the cargo to the location, get out, get in a different car, drive back to the warehouse, someone would be waiting to collect the keys at the warehouse, then go home.” He half sobbed the words like every word harmed him as they passed his lips. A sense of fierce calm draped itself languidly over my shoulders as cold realisation slowly settled itself in the pit of my stomach. I felt sick, and more aware of the gun pressed softly into my chest. “I caught a glimpse of them unloading you as Doyle lead me away. I wasn’t supposed to. When I asked Doyle why I’d been transporting human cargo, he plies me with booze and told me that they were going to smuggle you overseas for an offshore client, he said they were your father.”

He choked on the last word as tears rolled down his face. He trembled with shame, unable to look at the girl in front of him.

“I was so stupid. I was drunk and tired and could barely string two words together. If I had been sober I might have been smart enough to realise it for a lie. I should’ve realised that Doyle only shares his booze when he wants something from you, you service, or your silence. I woke up when you started screaming. I ran the stretch of open sun wearing barely anything but my skin. It was only a couple of seconds but I still have the contact burns. When I saw what they were doing to you I... I ran. I got my stuff and drove away, I put as much distance between me and that place as I could.”

I went cold as he explained this his part in this horrid story. He had done it. It was Ricky who had driven my baby girl to her captivity, to her scars. Deep down I knew that even if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. But for some reason I couldn’t care less. Cold rage surged through my body, every hair standing on end. My body was shivering as Ricky continued.

“Then you dad brought you some time after I got home. I saw you every now and then those next couple of weeks. After a while you started watching my truck. I thought maybe you’d figured out who had taken you there. Then you came to me asking for a lift to Brisbane. That you didn’t feel safe anymore. I felt like I was obligated to do it. Some small way to make it up to you, so I did. I hoped you’d be safe from all this bullshit here. That you’d be able to move on with your life.” He snorted in disgust at himself, “guess I was f*****g stupid for thinking that too.”

“Language Ricky.”

Oh. Alan’s here. Alan heard everything. I've made up my mind. Though I don't remember doing so. Alan deserves to know. He deserves a lot better than I've given him. Better than what the whole world gave him. If he looks at me like he's scraped me off his shoes for it. So be it. And to think, unless he's figured out who she is he's probably still worried about the stolen drugs.

“Hey Alan. I found your daughter.”

He’s not saying anything. Probably wondering how I can be a cynical piece of s**t even at a time like this. He’s holding my gun. Ok. I can do this. I always thought I might die looking at the barrel of that gun. Always pictured it being me pulling the trigger, but hey, you can't all have the fun job.

“Good news is she’s happy although probably not healthy considering.”

“I hope you know how much your dad cares about you. He never stopped looking for you. He never said as much but could see him double take every now and then. He’d seen someone similar maybe, or just a trick of the light. He’s a good man. Better than I deserved, but he helped me, even though he didn’t need to. That kind of man is near gone these days, when you hear about that kind of man you think it’s fake, that maybe they’re trying to get something in return. Your father told me about this job and asked me for a favour. A favour. In a world infested with scum that will blackmail you for borrowing a cigarette, your dad, who had already done so much for me, gave me a choice. I didn’t help him because of guilt, or because I owed him, I helped him out because in that moment it was like I’d seen him walk out of the pages of a fairy-tale, a man who still gave a damn. I don’t know why you thought Melbourne was worth more than the family you left behind, but your dad didn’t deserve to be left wondering if his little girl was ever going to come home. He didn’t deserve to have to care for his wife alone as she got more and more sick from the chemicals.”

I look him in the eyes and see the emotion warring inside him, but I already knew the result. He could’ve fight his daughter for my sake. Poor bastard’s been through enough on my part.

“It doesn’t much matter now Alan but I never meant for things to turn out like this. I was going to help you find her if she was still in Melbourne. Things didn’t exactly go to plan though. Those cars that tried to block us off, I knew they were coming. I was supposed to let them box us in and feign being captured and taken away. They would’ve taken the cargo, they would’ve roughed you up a bit, but they would’ve let you go. They would’ve cleared my debt then pay me for the extra cargo. I was going to explain it to you after we got home, and given you the money, you would need it more than I would’ve. But you got us out of that marsh. You drove us through the red marsh for five f*****g minutes. It was a bloody miracle. I needed to show you that I could be just as crazy as you. It was more fun than I’ve had in years. I figured it out you know, who you must be. To think that all that time I was going to AA meeting with the f*****g Phantom. Crazy… I’m sorry Alan. I’m sorry for everything. You deserved a better friend than me.”

“HE’S NOT YOUR FRIEND”

Jane shrieked as she stepped out of the way letting the sun wash over my face. My skin writhing under the heat of the unfiltered rays of the sun, I scream. I’m on fire. I have to be. I’m bubbling, everything BURNS. OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME. NO YOU KNOW WHAT f**k THAT VICIOUS CUNT HE’S NEVER DONE ANY GOOD BY ME. I know who can help me. The one good man left on the planet for all I know. Far more holy than any god I’ve ever heard of, and just as unlikely. My eyeballs burst open, blood boiling as it runs down my face, I turn towards him seeking blindly for my last hope for a quick end.

“ALAN PLEASE!”

I feel the gun up against my forehead before I’d even finished. It feels so cool against my burns.

“Goodbye Ricky.”

That’s it Alan. You know that this is best. Do it for me and for you. I know you need this. Don’t worry buddy, this isn’t a sin. It’s the right side of wrong. That’s it. The right side of wrong. I hear the trigger click, and it all goes black.