Lying in a Straight Line
written by: Peter Farrar
Why are there fewer stars? It could be the southern hemisphere tilting away for winter. Or the climbing light from the Melbourne Cricket Ground hiding them. I pass a waft of petrol fumes as cars queue three deep at a bowser. Two people drag on cigarettes flaring in darkness. I turn off onto the freeway. Smells of a river at low tide, hops from a brewery, and rubber from burnouts on the exit ramps bluster into the car.
Lauren is home. I pause under weak light from a bare bulb outside the front door. There’s an old couch on the porch. Only cats use it now. I clomp inside. Lauren calls from down the hallway, her voice shrilling along walls. I twist boots off, tossing them into the bedroom so they spin and fall like the steps of a dancer.
One hour ago I sat in a bar. Leaned elbows on a line of wet circles where glasses had stood. Our group was quieter than usual. Someone said we shouldn’t be there. We should be going home to break the news. These had better be our last beers for a while. Couldn’t afford them any longer.
It was dark when we left. The cabin of my car burst with the bumping light of cars driving over speed humps.
Lauren says dinner needs to be warmed up as I sit next to her. When I touch her legs, shaved hair prickles my fingertips. Sometimes in the shower, I see her soaping down the length of each leg. She contorts her body to shave so that I’m marvelling at how flexible or double-jointed she is.
“What’s wrong?” Lauren asks. Her voice is soft, almost down to that low moaning I hear during long kisses.
“We’ve being laid off.” I pause, letting it sink in, just as much for me as her. “They paid us out and padlocked the gates.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. We were told something. It took half an hour. I didn’t understand it. They talked about a weak Australian dollar. Economic problems in China. As if something happening in another country means I have to lose my job.” I shook my head. “I probably would’ve understood if I was an economics student. But you know me. I can barely check my change at the shop.”
Lauren swings legs off the sofa and sits up. She hooks an arm around my shoulders. She says we’ll work it out.
What’re the chances? I’m turning that over in my mind as I gaze out the window next morning. What are the chances a job will come up within a reasonable drive of here? People in this suburb don’t even hire someone to have their lawns mowed or roof gutters cleaned. What about driving a courier van? Could I find a job at K-Mart, contemptuous of customers while telling them fly spray is in aisle six? From our window electricity cables are strung into distance between towers like lines on sheet music. I often blame them for our poor television reception. Lauren comes over, looping arms around me. She kisses into the back of my neck, where my skin is quilted and old from too much sun. She tells me not to worry, concentrate on what I’m going to do next.
A laptop lies open on the kitchen table…
“You have to have a horticulture qualification to work in parks,” I say, staring at the screen. Lauren tells me she’s only trying to help. I sit and she looks over my shoulder, reading other jobs with me. There’s positions fixing computers, repairing garage doors, and installing television antennas.
“I can’t do any of these!” I say louder than I need to. She says what about the job at the bottom of the page. I read ‘Kitchen Hand.’
The next morning is cold. I pour a blackberry juice, swirling it in a glass so it sticks to the sides like windscreen tint. For a while I pace around the garden, pulling out runners of grass that zipper along ground before snapping off. Last year we took a brief holiday to Laos, escaping the winter. We sat on matted grass, watching the Mekong River surging, its brown waters rippling and frothing. Sometimes I heard the brittle beat of dragonfly wings as they flew hairpin turns in the humid air. At the end of the day, heavy rain glazed the street, steaming off pavements. For that single week, I couldn’t imagine despairing over hanging onto a job I hated or how I’d keep the lights on.
After lunch, I drive to the cafe with the vacancy. We ate there occasionally before credit card debt. They mostly served passing truck drivers or locals wanting take-a-way on Friday nights. They give me four plates to wash up and I scrub them in oil slick coloured water. Then I rinse each carefully, stacking them in a row. One of the cooks inspects them. He nods to the manager who turns to me.
“Seven-hour shifts, six nights a week. Sunday nights off. You wash up, help with cooking when needed.”
I agree. We shake hands. The cook who checked the plates wipes his hands on an apron and we shake also. When I arrive home Lauren embraces me after telling her I have found work. I stand inside the grip of her arms. Lauren tells me she will keep looking for a job and something is sure to come along.
Days later at the cafe sink my mind wanders. The boredom makes me daydream about being a teenager again. It doesn’t seem that long ago I spent Saturday nights train surfing. I loved the carriages jolting to the left before reaching Caulfield station. I lay chest down on the cold metal roof, the train jerking and clacking over tracks. Now the plates pile up and the cook says to work faster. Occasionally he crankily passes a plate back, still blotched with sauce or the remnant of something half chewed. When I return home I’m exhausted. I shower, scrubbing hands and arms red raw to remove grease. Lauren is in bed. I wedge against her back and she stirs, shoulders rigid under me. For a few minutes I saviour the lifting and falling of her skin before drifting into sleep.
Later I watch television before leaving for my shift. At the cafe, I start by scraping congealed sauces and leftovers off plates into garbage bags. After that, I stack a dishwasher and wash the plates that don’t fit in. Saucepans, burnt on the bottom stack up beside me. I singe my hand in hot water as I wipe around the bottom of a deep fryer. I swear loudly but no one notices. After a couple of hours, I go outside, standing under a light that illuminates walls in dull yellow. A couple of the other kitchen hands smoke, talking in Khmer and remonstrating with their hands. I smoke my first cigarette in years, feeling it burn down my throat. I can’t imagine the rest of my life like this. Some nights at home I’m so bored I place metal forks in the microwave, watching sparks crackling under the greasy light.
The door opens quickly and blows a puff of air over me like the downdraught of a punch I’ve ducked under. The cook calls us back inside. For a moment I’m angry enough to take my few hours of pay and go. I could leave Melbourne and keep going until I am somewhere north of Mackay in Queensland, where breathing the burning sugarcane is like the drawback of a roll-your-own. Lauren would never know. She would wake to my side of the bed being cold and the fridge emptied.
When my shift ends I sit in the car, revving the engine. The demister clears the fogged windscreen. I wait to be able to see through the glass before driving home. Just before I ease the hand brake off, I look down the road. It lies in a straight line until it dog legs sharply at the end, as if whoever built it had no idea where they were going.
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