Gristle and bone – by Jade Doyle
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
Here is how Jack’s story begins: once upon a time there suffered a family of four. They lived in an old weatherboard house with floorboards that creaked and a tin roof that sounded like gunfire in the pressing heat. The ever-stretching landscape was doused in red dirt and brown grass, the earth cracked and veined.
And perhaps you’ve heard all of this before, a child’s life turned to darkness before the age of 15, but here it is again in the shape of a father with a failing cattle business, a large man who finds ghosts and fists in the bottom of brown bottles; the shape of a mother turned quiet and rake-like by a bellowing voice; the shape of a baby sister, cause of death undetermined.
The end usually comes quickly. It’s a boy pulled out of school to help with the farm; a stranger made of bones and fake breasts in bed beside the father, the tender skin between their forearms and biceps marked purple and scabbed with blood; it’s a mother rendered to memory, dark hair, bruised face, a silhouette running into the bush with eyes that don’t turn back, a body found several days later, a bullet hole between her eyes.
*
A dense metallic smell becomes putrid in the trapped heat of the shed, where flies are thick as summer thunder clouds and the stench of flesh and shit envelopes the bleach. Sounds of death fill the space; the screaming, kicking and bucking of a beast fed for size soon to be rendered to a mess of skin, muscle and bone.
Jack’s father makes the initial cut, slicing the tender flesh along the neck to reveal bright pink tissue. The cow jerks and fights, eyes wide, straining with the knowledge of what’s to come.
Jack stands to the side, away from the flailing, steel baton in hand. If his father’s blade does not slice deep enough, Jack must hit her in the tender part between the eyes. If she still does not surrender to the deep black of death, he must hit her again and again and again until her head is a crater of pulp and bone. Luckily Jack has good aim.
Today the beasts die quickly, and Jack and his father heave the carcasses into the local butcher’s truck. A jovial shake of the hand, a soft muttering of an apology, a slap on the back, cash in pocket, a van kicking up dust as it drives into the glare.
‘Goddamn bastard!’ Jack’s father throws down his hat, crushes it under a boot.
Jack tries to step away, but his father’s gore-caked fingers press tightly into his flesh, turning his skin white. His father’s breath is hot and rancid, his face red with sun and fury.
Jack is dragged into the hot shed, shoved to the ground, on hands and knees in the coagulating red.
‘Clean this shit up. I need a drink.’
The metal door slams and Jack is alone with the flies.
*
Jack sits in a room cloaked by purple curtains. On a white fold-out table there’s an ashtray and a clear plastic sphere. Glow-in-the-dark moons and stars, their corners beginning to peel away from the ceiling, throw weak, green light. Struggling to move the stale air, a pedestal fan ticks rhythmically, dulling out the ebullient sounds from the fair.
Jack tells himself he’s only here for a laugh; a quick game of What Are the Odds, a quick loss, and a quick dare to have the town’s crackhead reveal a fortune that lies before all country boys: dirt, beer, fights, empty pockets and a failing farm.
The curtains part, revealing a bony woman. Her cheekbones are almost visible through her papery skin, her watery eyes bulge like moons, and there’s a golden star painted on her forehead. She’s pressing a joint between her thin lips. Jack stifles an urge to laugh.
‘Big man Jack Spriggins,’ she says, pinching the tip of her joint and placing it in the ashtray. ‘Never thought I’d find you in my gypsy abode. You up to something, boy?’
‘No ma’am,’ Jack says. ‘Just here to have my future told.’
‘Thattaboy. Put your palms on the crystal and we’ll get this shitshow on the road.’
Jack places his hands on the ball, his nails black with old blood and the thin lines on his fingers creased with dirt. He goes to wipe them off on his jeans, but the woman places her hands firmly on his.
‘Shut your eyes and I’ll tell you a little story, Jacky,’ she says, and she begins to hum a tune that Jack feels nestle deep into his bones, burrowing into the gristle and sinew.
The woman tuts. ‘Dear Jacky, it appears you’ve got yourself a giant at home; a giant that spills blood and grinds up bones to make his bread, and boy, you will be next, a useless piece of meat, you’re a waste of damn space just like your mother and …’ She pauses. ‘But why, there is gold, and it is in the shape of an egg, and contained within, well, what is that? Beans! Oh yes, magic beans that—’
Jack pushes the table backwards. The crystal ball sways on its stand. ‘What the hell was that? You’re spinning some children’s crap.’
‘Hey, I don’t write it, I just read it,’ the woman says. Her fingers wrap another joint. ‘20 cents and you can be on your way, mate.’
*
Here is how the next part of the story goes: a black eye for being home late, an anxiety that starts in the gut and rises up the throat, that takes hold of the brain and tells you that maybe there was something in the woman’s words, and there is a plan and it grows. So here is the boy, a shadow creeping into his father’s bedroom, and there is his mother’s old pill box, egg-shaped and golden, and inside are five little bean-shaped sleeping pills to crush into the water glass on the bedside table.
Next is the waiting: no slam of door, thud of boots, shattering of bottle. Only silence as the morning light seeps in. And the boy is up and he’s fixing the trailer to his dad’s ute and he’s loading their only breeding bull into its crate and he’s at the butchers, cash in hand, slap on the back, goodonyaJackyboy, and before him is a trellis of hope.
*
Jack makes it to the highway, windows all the way down, warm air rustling the map, Brisbane circled in red. But now there is a giant in the form of a bull in the form of his father burning up behind him.
Metal against metal, tires screeching, a sudden jolt, the crashing and spinning and toppling into tree and dirt.
Jack crawls out of the driver’s-side window, reaches back to grab his pack, unzips it and touches smooth, cool metal. Blood pools in the hollow of his collar bones.
The giant is halfway out of the other wreck, gristle and bone poking from his elbow.
Jack raises the gun.
A voice as thin as air. ‘You bastard.’
A neat hole right between his father’s eyes.
*
Here is how the story ends: Jack, walking the road where his mother died, with eyes that don’t look back.
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Image: Jonas Koel - Unsplash
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