Grayling Junction - Chapter Seven

29

Tam sits down heavily on the bench as he brings a continent-sized hand to his brow wiping away a film of sweat. Despite the green hour of day the heat of the sun already falls like molten metal. A thin trickle of perspiration attempts to escape along Tam's back. Leaning against the bench he cuts the flow dead as one might crush an insect. His ears catch a familiar sound, a rhythmic, hollow tapping. It is the sound of wooden sticks on pavement.

Turning to look over the back of the bench Tam smiles as he raises a bulky hand to wave. The approaching figure laughs – the first time Tam had waved the man had instinctively returned the gesture and tumbled from his supporting sticks. Ever since then it is a wry joke Tam attempts each morning. What is given in response is a pronounced nod of the head, accompanied by a shout of "Hello there Tam."
As the man judges the remaining distance to the bench he adds, "Be with you in about a week."
Progress by sticks is slow, achieving at best a rate of seven feet every nine minutes or so.
"If I ever have to outrun anything I’m in trouble,” the man announces with a deep chuckle, as he makes it to the bench some thirteen minutes later.
He lowers himself gently onto the bench before stowing the sticks underneath.
"No-Shoes-the-Fish, as I live and breathe!" Tam booms, followed by a smile that opens his face like an overripe melon.
"The very same Mister Flint," the man adds with a sagely nod. "In fact the one and only."
No-Shoes retrieves his tobacco tin. Rolling a cigarette he passes it to Tam without asking whether he would like one or not.
"You know what, I think I will." Tam says.
It is a daily routine that neither man has stopped to question or refine. No-Shoes rolls a further cigarette for himself. Tam's cigarette appears as a microscopic roll of paper lost to the morass of beard that consumes his face like burly brown fire.
A flame passes between them and the friends smoke in silence.
Drifting between them like a shared idea the faraway drone of an aeroplane can be heard. One man is yet to arrive. Despite a faster means of motion than either Tam or No-Shoes, Ron Backwards has never made it to bench before them.

By the time the gentle puckering sound of an ancient engine can be heard both men have smoked another cigarette. A pick-up truck pulls onto the wasteland and rolls to a halt. Seconds later a man of wiry movements bounds over to the bench.
There is no need for him to offer apologies for his lateness.
“Now, we are three.” Ron smiles.
“Hang on, what’s that?” Ron says before anyone can answer.
As he points a scarecrow arm at the ground Tam and No-Shoes follow his lead and the three of them stare at a crack on the ground.
A long, frayed split looks back at them.
It is shaped like a shy smile.
No-Shoes stoops to examine the gap with his fingers.
The edges tumble inside as the smile widens to an open mouth.
“That is the start of a hole.” Tam says.
Ron shakes his head silently.
No-Shoes murmurs to himself.
Neither man takes the conversation any further as their attention turns to their customary beginning to the day.
The hole watches the three men on the bench.
"Ron?" No-Shoes begins, "Tam?” Both men look to No-Shoes with shared expectation.
"Gentlemen, it's time for a salutation!" No-Shoes announces with as a grin as he reaches into his canvas bag and brings out a clear glass bottle without a label. Trapped inside is a riotous bronze liquid, as though the sunset has been tricked inside.
No-Shoes unscrews the metal cap and inhales.
Quite where No-Shoes acquires his rum no one is sure. Rumours steal through the dusky streets, murmurs of a convoluted tangle of homespun distillation that hides in a forgotten corner of a seldom-used dock building. It is a rare drop indeed and one that could put a man on his back – even a man with the stature of Tam – with sudden and disconcerting ease.
No-Shoes rises and holds the bottle aloft as he intones in a serious manner:
"Bless this morning bright,
Bless this drop,
Bless we three a'right,
For that we may never stop!"

"That we may never stop!" Ron and Tam chorus in unison.

With that the bottle passes between them like a shared lover before each of the men lets out a contented sigh.
"To Freyja!" Ron adds moments later without warning, the words jumping out involuntarily.
"Freyja!"
"Freyja!"
"What have you brought for her?" Ron asks.
"Soil." Tam answers. "A layer for each year of her life."
"Freyja is one beautiful woman," Ron enthuses. "An antidote to life if ever there was one."
"What have you got for her Ron?" Tam bellows with a wink.
Ron takes a moment to answer. "I tell you gentl'men, if I could take out these gritty old eyes, I'd roll them under her door…and have a right good gander, up where I shouldn’t!”
As he finishes he releases a reedy, musical laughter and Tam, loudly throwing his laughing hat into the ring, lets fly with a grin that crinkles his face like a wince. No-Shoes gazes into the distance with a smile as he takes a long swig from his bottle.

"Sorry about that..." Ron says, beginning again:
"I was in Randall City last week...gone to fetch something for Amon, now what was it..." Ron wavers for a moment but unable to pin down the memory he continues, "That’s right I went past a window and there they were, the most fantastic eggs I've ever seen. No hen made these...smooth and lovely they were, made of precious stone...I stood there looking and all I could think of was Freyja!”
"All you ever think of is Freyja!" Tam thunders.
"Anyway…" Ron says ignoring Tam, "I went inside..."
"Malachite." interrupts No-Shoes. "I think Freyja is the kind of girl who would like malachite."
Ron smiles proudly. "No-Shoes, that's why I like you!”
With a wink he rattles the package he brought from his pick-up. "Mal-a-chite!" he chuckles.
Before the conversation can continue all three men look across the road, as it seems that they are not the only souls awake at such an ungodly hour.
The good ship Davina Crosby can be seen passing by, fuchsia sails unfurled through a combination of light breeze and rapid forward motion. The word lollop seems to hang over her momentarily – spelled out by a mayfly aerial display team – before dispersing into the air. No truer word exists to describe the ungainly bobbing that seems to power the woman, thrusting bosom for a prow, followed by the round red tip of her nose. Clutched to her body beneath an outcrop of breast, is a large cardboard box, which had the town a bakery, might contain a selection of fresh cream pastries.
Miss Crosby is mummified within layers of pink chiffon and a brash red, billowing cotton skirt. Flat black pumps slap against the pavement with each footfall. Miss Crosby has hidden her eyes behind large, black sunglasses and her flabby cheeks, chins and forehead are caked in a medley of cosmetic products that compete with, rather than compliment one another. Excessive skin from her gizzard spills over her blouse like a badly tied cravat. Rinsed pink hair, piled high like a coil of candyfloss teeters as she motors along the street in the direction of the Morrow building.
"Now that is all woman." Ron announces with a wistful sigh. From the way his words drift free like smoke it is obvious he hadn't intended to give his thoughts voice.
Tam and No-Shoes turn toward him with eyebrows raised.
"Well," Ron shrugs, "Why the hell not!"
He licks his lips as he smoothes back his creeping white hair with both hands. He leans forward from the bench, eyes narrowed as he watches the glide of woman pass by with her rocking horse up-and-down-and-up-again shift.
"Too heavy for my digestion." No-Shoes adds with an air of finality before spitting onto the floor by way of punctuation.

Tam nods in agreement before sniffing the air. His attempts to decipher the riddle of woman ceased the day his wife left:
It had been a Tuesday and she had taken the best plates; black china with an angel white fern motif. She had packed them with great care, wrapping each in newspaper before putting them into a cardboard box.
To watch her it was as though she had all the time in the world.
She had filled another box with an armful of books and a stuffed crocodile soft toy.
Somewhere amongst all these items she had taken his heart.
After she had gone the door had hung open like an unanswered question. Later it banged in a hot, dry storm wind.
Cherry now made love to his wife.
He no longer imagined them, though for the first few months his mind had been dragged along in a sludgy current of hopelessness, bumping against drifting images of musky, sweat-slicked lovers writhing together like a Siamese-twin contortionist act.

Since that day the clock inside of Tam had seized and he never got any further than the early summer of 1973.