Night fell, the blues turned golden, the stars arrived but still the seats remained empty.
They did not know what the other was thinking, but were too afraid to commit to what they thought the other may or may not think.
So no words were exchanged, no debate ensued and no conclusions sort. It would remain the same for years to come and with each passing minute the bitterness grew.
What they each thought of each other was only what they had made up in their own heads and each passing thought paralysed the potential for change.
She arrived expecting the worst. Expecting a melee of people surrounding the boat, demands, shouts, orders and offers. But as they neared the pier there was no one.
Something must have happened. Perhaps else where, perhaps downtown. Perhaps, oh, a thought suddenly jumped into Beth’s mind. What day was it? Maybe a holiday. The market day might have changed. Shit she thought to herself.
She cut the engine and drifted toward the docking bay. The fear of the crowds and demands turned into the need for people. How was she to sell if no one was there. The ice was already on the turn. Her stock wouldn’t last. Well at least the sun was shining.
They were breathing heavily as they crossed the motorway. It had been a long walk along the side of the fence until they had found a way up and over. They crossed the lanes quickly as the traffic was thin and now with fatigue setting in they needed somewhere to sleep. Slipping and sliding across the loose earth on the banks below the metal barriers, they slowly forced their way through the thick brambles towards the silhouette of a building in the distance.
After 40 minutes or so they arrived, the windows and doors boarded up but the building looked solid. A concrete masterpiece. After a few minutes they found a gap in the fence and had climbed the sharp edges of the spiral staircase, when they reached the top Billy pushed forcefully against the old door and it caved in.
We arrived late at night, the process was simple, we all knew how to put it together and it was not long until we were out of the sun and the food was on the table.
I looked around at the faces of those that I loved and wondered about what was enough. What was needed or what was wanted. I looked back at my plate the flavour was the same, the same as always, but the smiles were there too, same as always.
The boys hid in the reeds watching through the mist. They were pretty certain the hunters had gone, but there was no guarantee that they would not return.
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘We need to get the shotgun cartridges.’
‘How do we know where they are?’
‘We don’t that’s why we have to go and have a look.’
‘So they might not even be in the hut, they could have taken them with them.’
Joseph and Andrew had been set another task, this time however it wasn’t part of the initiation it was part of what they did, causing chaos. Out on the lake there were a series of huts on stilts for the duck hunters. The lake wasn’t fenced so the boys could get to the hut without ‘trespassing’, but out in the open, on the lake, there was a high possibility of being spotted and perhaps shot at, deliberately or by accident.
‘Why do we need the cartridges anyway?’
‘Look it’s not our job to ask questions, you have to wait a few years before you can ask questions. Robin will have a plan.’
‘You think he has a gun?’ Joseph asked, Andrew paused letting the words bounce around in his head.
‘I don’t know’ he answered honestly, thinking about the repercussions of getting shot gun cartridges for a real gun. ‘That’s not for thinking abut now, we got to get what we have been told to get and then… Well then we think about the next…’ He trailed off.
Joseph frowned unsatisfied by the answer, but wasn’t brave enough to challenge any more. ‘Shall we swim?’
The boys took off their shirts, trousers and lowered themselves into the water. It was August, but the lake was still cold, the cold ran through their bodies as they tiptoed into the water, clay oozing up in-between their toes. Taking one last breath Andrew lowered his chest into the water and started swimming. Quietly Joseph followed.
It didn’t take them long to arrive at the hut, they circled the building weaving in and out of the pillars in the water looking for some steps up. The poles were slippery, coated in green slime, but at the back Joseph found some steps, he beckoned to Andrew and they hauled themselves onto the platform.
Shivering the two boys scanned the lake’s perimeter, the mist was thick and their movements seemed to have gone unnoticed. Andrew knelt down by the entrance, pressing his ear to the door checking for signs of activity inside. Joseph flicked his head toward Andrew as if to ask if he could hear anything. Andrew shook his head in response, stood clasped the handle, paused, twisted and burst into the room.
It was empty, well, uninhabited at least. There was a sigh of relief and the boys set to work looking for shotgun cartridges.
‘Anything?’ Joesph asked
‘It’s all fishing stuff, bait, rods, tins of meat, look at this’ Andrew held up a tin of smoked sardines, ‘this box is full, I think whoever comes here has a bit of an addiction. You?’
‘Nope, petrol cans, blankets and cooking stuff.’
‘Any shot guns?’ The boys laughed. ‘Joe hold on, come here.’ Andrew had pulled back an old tarpaulin revealing a crate. Joseph crossed the room.
‘What you got?’
‘Shot gun cartridges’ Andrew replied looking at his mate and then back to a red box with ammunition written on it and a drawing of shot gun cartridges. Joseph reached down picked it up and opened the lid.
‘So you want to be one of us?’ Robin announced after a long hiatus, Joseph nodded in reply. ‘Well it’s not that easy you know…’ Joseph didn’t flinch, kept control of his emotions and looked back into Robin’s eyes, not too fiercely, but enough to show he could stand his ground.
‘We can test him first’ Andrew chimed in.
‘Of course we’re gonna test him, everyone gets tested.’ Andrew looked away sheepishly. ‘You think you are up for that?’ he added talking to the new recruit.
Joseph looked up from the floor and nodded, ‘I am fast, what do I have to do?’
The crew nodded at each other. The boys were all sitting in the attic of the ruin at the top of the village, they had transformed it into a base for their crew and met each weekend to organise their next mission. Today was the induction of a new lad, Joseph, who had just arrived in town.
There was some chatter between the crew and after a few moments Joseph turned to the new boy.
‘Okay listen and listen good, I am only gonna say this once.’ Silence fell around the room. ‘First we gonna blindfold you and take you to the centre of town, you gotta find Mr Finlay’s shop and get into the attic, I’ll give you a clue, there is an old fire escape at the back, it’s not solid but if you are quick you’ll get up it.’ The boys all looked at each other, sly smiles emerging on their faces. ‘Then once you are up there you gotta open one of his old chests, I ain’t gonna tell which one you gotta go for, but you gotta find a skull, the bigger the better.’ Robin paused and signalled around the room with his eyes.
Joseph followed his gaze and saw seven or eight large unidentified skulls hanging on a rope high in the room. He hadn’t noticed them before. Robin continued.
‘Once you got the skull you gotta make you way through the alley ways and back to us, but watch out there maybe a few extra challenges on the way.’
They had been walking through the night and were tired, not only from the lack of sleep, but from the mental fatigue. Hopping from shadow to shadow had taken its toll and the two of them were ready to rest their eyes.
They had followed the gorge for the last few hours and as they rounded the bend they saw the entrance to the cave. James stopped turned to Tom and lowered his hand gently to the floor. Understanding the instruction Tom sank to the ground and crawled on his belly to the rock that James was using for cover.
James pointed at his eyes with a forked fore and middle finger and then pointed at the cave. At the entrance stood a fridge, some chairs stacked on top of each other, what looked like an electricity cable running to the apex of the roof and a beautifully tiled floor.
Tom shook his head and they shrank to the the ground and onto their backs staring up at the stars in the sky.
‘No way’ Tom said
‘I am shattered mate, I can’t keep going and the sun will come up soon, then what?’
‘It’s too dangerous, look at it people live there, it’s not like some abandoned goat shelter, people look like they have made a home there.’
‘Well what do you suggest then? We just keep walking until the sun comes up and we collapse on the road!’
‘James’ Tom said sternly ‘I am not trying to be shitty I am as tired as you are, but you heard what they said about bandits on this road, that, over there looks like bandit territory.’
‘Remember that sign we saw yesterday, with the shot gun holes in it.’ James rocked his head sideways in agreement, ‘well I for one don’t want to be used for target practice.’
James sighed and the pair turned from their eyes from sky back down to the cave.
‘Okay, well I am gonna sleep here then, I can’t go on anymore, you can take first watch.’
There was a loud crack like a stick being broken, then the sound of rocks falling towards them. James and Tom both sat up straight fatigue vanishing in an instance.
‘Were you asleep?’ James blurted out
‘No… yea… I don’t know.’ Tom replied panicking
‘For F*** Sake!’
More stones tumbled towards them and then a deep voice from above. What was shouted they could not comprehend, but they didn’t wait for the translation. The two boys leapt up and bolted down the mountain side. Slipping and sliding, hopping, jumping and falling they scrambled towards the cave. A shot rang out behind them.
‘Which way?’ Tom called out.
‘The cave’ James replied
Crack! another shot rang out
‘No way, the gorge, go downstream. We gotta get to the river. Go go go…’
Darkness was approaching, we had been on the road for 32hours, desperately seeking the sun. The journey had been long and in hindsight not too dramatic, but at that moment the patience levels were low and even the simplest of tasks, which kiosk to buy a celebratory beer from, had sparked conflict. We were tired.
As we took the first sips from the cold cans, a taste that in actual fact neither of us wanted, the smell of a pillow our only desire, the street lamps came on and there, under the yellow light, a child threw a basketball to his father. The ball slipped through his fingers and hit his chin, the child fell backwards laughing and his father raced over to wrestle with him. We were 100m down the road before I could see the outcome, but a smile crept across my face. We had made it.
Life From the Dirt 