he’s my friend,’ I say.
Darren seems shocked by the admission. He smiles.
Bich studies my eyes. Nods her head.
‘Who taught you to be so loyal to your friends?’ Bich asks.
I throw my thumb immediately to Lyle.
‘He did.’
Bich smiles. She’s still staring into my eyes when she says, ‘Lyle, if I might be so bold . . .’
‘Yes,’ Lyle says.
‘You bring young Eli back again some time, you hear, and maybe we talk about a few opportunities that have emerged. Let’s see if we can’t consider doing business between ourselves.’
Lyle says nothing. ‘Let’s go Eli,’ he says. We walk out the door, but Bich Dang still has one more question. ‘You still want your answer, Eli?’ she asks.
I stop and turn around.
‘Yes.’
She leans back into the lounge, dragging on her long white cigarette.
She nods, blowing out so much smoke from her mouth that a cloud of grey masks her gaze. The cloud and the serpent and the dragon and the bad guys.
‘It’s all for you.’
Boy Receives Letter
Dear Eli,
Greetings from B16. Thanks, as ever, for your correspondence. Your letter was the best thing about a month I was glad to see the back of. Worse than Northern Ireland in here lately. Few blokes have gone on hunger strike, protesting about cramped conditions, overpopulation in the cells, not enough activities for rec days. Yesterday, Billy Pedon got his head dumped in the 4 Yard shit bucket for giving a bit too much lip to Guigsy, who was bitching about the cold outside. Now they’ve put a little rim inside all of the shit buckets so they’re too small to fit a human head inside. I guess that’s what ya call progress? Big scrap broke out in the caf on Sunday. Old Harry Smallcombe drove a fork into Jason Hardy’s left cheek because Hardy took the last of the rice pudding. All hell broke loose and, as a result, the screws took away the television from 1 Yard. No more Days of Our Lives. Take a Boggo con’s freedom, take his rights, take his humanity, take his will to live, but for God’s sake, please don’t take his Days of Our Lives! As you can imagine, the boys went apeshit over that and started dropping shits throughout the prison like they were apes. I wonder if that’s where apeshit comes from? Anyway, all the boys are keen on hearing any updates outworlders might have on Days, so any insights would be greatly appreciated. Last we saw, Liz looked like doing a lag for shooting Marie – dumb slut she is – even though it was an accident. She still hadn’t found the silk ‘C’ scarf that I reckon will be her undoing. My shitter broke on Tuesday because Dennis had the runs from a bad batch of lentils they fixed us. Dennis used up his toilet paper ration and he had to start using pages from an old copy of Sophie’s Choice we had lying around. Of course the pages didn’t break down and just choked the shitter so the whole of One Division could smell Dennis’s inner demons. Did I tell you about Tripod in the last letter? Fritz found a cat creeping through the yard a while back. Fritz has been behaving well lately so the screws let him look after the cat during day rec. We all started keeping a bit of food from lunch to feed the cat and now it skips on through our cells at its leisure during day rec. Then one of the screws accidentally closed a cell door on the cat and the poor blighter had to be taken to a vet who gave Fritz’s little kitty a troubling ultimatum: expensive surgery to have a leg removed or it was a bullet between the eyes (not quite what the surgeon said, but you get the picture). Word spread round about the crippled cat and we passed a hat around and we all put our month’s wages into surgery for Fritz’s bloody kitty. It had the op and came right back to us walking around on three legs. Then we had a lengthy discussion about what we were gonna name the cat whose life we all saved and we all settled on the name of Tripod. That cat’s become bigger than The Beatles in here. Glad to hear you and August are doing so well at school. Don’t slack off on your studies. You don’t want to end up in a shithole like this because you don’t want to find yourself all souped up on chloral hydrate and butt-fucked through the laundry fence by the Black Stallion because that’s what can happen to kids who don’t keep on top of their studies. I’ve told Slim to keep me posted on yours and August’s report cards, good and bad. In answer to your question, I guess the best way to know if a bloke is wanting to knife you is by the speed of their steps. A man with a killin’ on his mind starts to show it in his eyes, there’s an intent to them. If they’re carrying, you’ll see them approach their victim slowly, eyeballing them like a hawk from afar, then, when they get closer, they’ll quicken their steps. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. You want to be coming at the victim from behind, shove the shiv in as close as you can to the kidneys. They’ll drop like a bag of spuds. The key is to shove the shiv in hard enough to get your point across, but soft enough to avoid a murder charge. A fine balance indeed.
Tell Slim his garden has never looked better. The azaleas are so pink and fluffy it looks like we’re growing fairy floss for the Royal Show.
Thanks for the picture of Miss Haverty. She’s even prettier than you described. Nothing sexier than a young schoolteacher in spectacles. You’re right about that face, like a dawn sunrise. I guess you won’t tell her if you know what’s good for you, but the boys from D wing send their regards. Well, gotta go, matey. Grub’s up and I better get my share of bolognese before it goes the way of the dodo. Climb high, kid, tread lightly.
Alex
P.S. Have you phoned your dad yet? I’m not the best man to judge father–son relationships but I reckon if you’ve been thinking about him so much, there’s a fair chance he’s been thinking about you.
*
Saturday morning letter writing with Slim. Mum and Lyle are out at the movies again, keen film buffs that they are. They’re going to see Octopussy. August and I asked to go. They said no again. Funny that. Fucking amateurs.
‘What’s Octopussy about?’ Slim asks, his right hand furiously crafting his letter in a remarkably neat longhand cursive.
I pause from my letter to respond.
‘James Bond fights a sea monster with eight vaginas.’
We’re at the kitchen table with glasses of Milo and sliced oranges. Slim’s got the Eagle Farm horse races playing through a wireless by the kitchen sink. August has an orange quarter skin stuck across his teeth like Ray Price’s mouth guard. Hot and sticky outside because it’s summer and it’s Queensland. Slim’s got his shirt off and I can see his POW-chic ribcage, like he’s slowly dying in front of me from his diet of cigarettes and sorrow.
‘You been eatin’ Slim?’
‘Don’t get started,’ he says, a rolled cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
‘You look like a ghost.’
‘A friendly ghost?’ he asks.
‘Well, not unfriendly.’
‘Well, you’re no bronze statue yourself, ya little runt. How’s your letter going?’
‘Almost done.’
*
Slim
