The legacy of life lived, forever, in a small
town…
I was filling up the truck when I saw Billy. It
was late in the afternoon. Three days before Christmas.
Back in my old home town, stopping in for the night on the
twelve-hour drive up to the in-laws. The wife and kids were flying
up to meet me the next day. Somebody had to ferry the presents.
I didn’t mind.
There was the solitude of the drive, plus I’d snuck a board in.
Hopefully I could squeeze some juice from the tropical low spinning
down the coast
First I needed petrol. I hadn’t even made it to my parent’s
place yet. I was due there for dinner by seven. But this was the
only service station in town and I knew it wouldn’t open until six
the next morning, even during the peak holiday period. I’d be long
gone by then.
Billy saw me first, actually. Snuck up behind me and wrapped his
filthy big paws around my eyes as I was at the bowser. The smell of
petrol and nicotine mainlined right up my nose.
“G’day, you supercilious little turd!”
For a small-town bogan, Billy always had a way with words.
Especially when it came to insults. I could pick the nasal twang in
his voice instantly.
It would have been ten years since we’d caught up. At least.
Last I’d heard he was working at the wastewater treatment
facility on the outskirts of our little geographical shitstain of a
town, one of the only big employers around here outside the fishing
boats. The few random times I did stop in to visit the parents he
was always at work. On nightshift.
But here he was now, in oil-stained hi-vis and wraparound Oakley
sunglasses, fresh from servicing some poor bastard’s car.
I pulled away from his grip. Looked him up and down. He was
weathered. Wrinkles showing under the wrap arounds. Lips even
skinnier. Still the same dirty brown dreads he had when I’d seen
him last.
“Billy, how are you, mate? I thought you were still working over
at the shit tanks?”
“Nah they booted me, hey. Didn’t like me being stoned on the
tools it seems. These cunts don’t mind, though.”
He let out his high, twanged laugh, and ran a dirty hand over my
late model Ranger.
“Fuck, not doing bad for yourself ay?”
He was my best mate from ages seven to seventeen. We’d done
everything together, until I punched outta the town’s orbit. Got
the degree. Job. Wife. Kids. Townhouse in the city, with no
backyard and a lifetime’s mortgage.
Billy, well he just stayed being Billy. Forever locked in
synchronicity with the place he was born.
“Yeah nah, we’re doing good,” I said, my old country drawl
quickly shifting into gear to match his. If the boss ever heard me
talking like this she wouldn’t recognise me. Probably fire me, too.
“Got the wife and two kids now. About to pull up ten years at the
consultancy.”
“You poor cunt.” He hacked up a giant ball of phlegm and loosed
it at my feet. “Oi, what are you doing now. Wanna come
surf?”
I checked my watch. It was almost five.
“Ah, I really can’t, I’m only in town for the night and need to
see the olds.”
“Just call a sickie! I’m knocking off now. The waves are
pumping!”
He punched me in the arm, his knuckles drilling into that tender
nook of muscle like a sledgehammer. Dead arm, every time.
I sighed.
“Yeah, fuck it. Let’s go for a quick one.”
***************************
There was a decent-sized crowd out on the point, chasing
the gentle three footers running down the protected side of the
headland. Even for a town that’s resisted gentrification,
one of the last remaining outposts on the east coast, holiday
season could still get busy. Locals mixed in with day trippers from
the city, van life girls on their mid-lengths, parents and their
young kids enjoying the first slice of holiday.
We made our way around to the back of the headland, and came out
through the secret keyhole to put us at the very top of the
point.
I lucked into a set right after the jump-off. Billy took the one
behind me. I watched him race down the line as I kicked out.
His board was about six inches and god knows how many litres too
small, but he still surfed fast. Aggressive. As the wave shut down
he unleashed one particularly lethal gouge, showering a nearby
grommet with spray.
Billy jumped over the back of the wave. Zeroed in on the young
kid. He couldn’t have been more than nine.
“Oi, you little cunt!”
The kid looked around, unsure if Billy was talking to him.
“Yeah you. You were way too close to me just now. You need to
learn to get the fuck out of the way.”
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Yeah you wont be sorry next time, you little fuck. You’ll be
dead.”
The kid froze. An older guy, his dad I guess, paddled over.
“We got a problem here?”
Billy sized him up. The dad, riding a new looking FireWire and
in a top of the range Patagonia vest, must have thirty or forty
pounds on him.
But Billy was undeterred.
“I don’t know, you pencil-necked cock muncher, you bourgeoise
fucking learner cunt. Do we?”
Fucken Billy and his temper. Everybody in town knew about it. I
still had the scars on my knuckles to show for it. But he was
tolerated by the locals, for some reason. Like the shit tanks and
their foul smells. He was part of the overall package.
I jumped in before things got too ugly.
“Billy, c’mon mate, let’s head in. I can probably still sneak in
a schooner before I make it to mum and dads.”
Billy took one more look at the kid, mouthed ‘I’ll remember you’
and followed me in.
***************************
Like the point, the pub was also heaving under a holiday
crowd. The kitchen was run off its feet, the same as every
holiday. But just like the petrol station and its opening hours,
they refused to change or adapt to accommodate it. I always found
that lack of planning infuriating. One of the 4,337 reasons I left
the joint.
Still, I spotted a lot of familiar faces in the crowd. It was
good to be home.
Billy came in behind me. As he headed towards the bar, the
publican., a bald, barrel-chested ex footy player who seemingly
hadn’t aged a day since I last saw him, put his arm out in front of
Billy.
“I hope you’re behaving yourself tonight,” he said in his deep,
booming voice.
“I’ll try,” replied Billy. “I’ll try.”
We found a table in the crowd and posted up. Caught up on old
stories. The trips up the coast to chase secret reefs. The trips
down to the city to chase loose girls. Both usually resulting in
the same type of failure. His energy had been infectious back then.
Like a shot of adrenalin to the heart. The perfect tonic for a
young kid growing up in a small town.
“Times have changed since then but, eh mate?” I said as I
finished my beer.
He looked at me like I was from another planet.
“They have?”
I shrugged, and motioned to the empty schooners.
“Anothery?”
“Ken oath. I’ll come over too, I gotta get some bets on.”
As we headed back to the bar, a patron bumped into Billy. Some
random tourist. He looked to be there with his wife and kid.
Slightly balding. Slightly overweight. Tan lines from his
sunglasses on his beetroot red face. Definitely not local. Well to
do. I might’ve even recognised him from my other life.
The collision, if you could call it that, was a complete
accident. But it was all Billy needed to fire back up.
“What the fuck are you doing, you devon-headed jerk?” he said to
the guy. “Are those eyes painted on?”
“Hey look mate I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Billy slid right up next to him. The whole pub stopped and
turned.
“Like hell you didn’t. I oughtta fucken whoop your arse from
here to Sunday you dumb fucken-”
From behind the bar the publican’s voice boomed.
“BILLY.”
He stopped. Took a deep breath. Looked up to the ceiling.
I jumped between him and the guy. My second bomb diffused in
less than an hour.
“Look Billy,” I said, “I should probably get going anyway. It’s
been great seeing you mate, maybe we can catch up on the drive
home.”
I started to walk towards the door. I loved Billy, but couldn’t
be getting involved in this type of shit anymore. I was an adult.
Married. Kids. Job. Mortgage.
“Wait,” said Billy, grabbing a hold of my shirt. “Wait. You sure
you don’t want to hang around?”
He pulled out a baggy of white powder from his pocket to show
me. It might have been a quarter full, at best. More stomped on
than a spider in a sandpit.
“Let’s get fucked up and stick it to these blow ins,” he said.
“Just like we used to.
For a second I flashed back to the two of us as seventeen year
olds. Surfing. Drinking. Fighting. Running the town like two
derelict princes.
Was that when we were at our peak?
I quickly ran the equations in my head to figure out how I could
stick around. Have one more little taste of what things were like.
But before I could respond one of the old pelicans piped up from
the poker machine room.
“Oi Billy, where’s that tenner you still owe me from last
weekend?
Forgetting his offer to me, Billy turned to face his next
threat.
“What are you saying to me, you stupid bitch? You noodle-headed
toad? You’re a fucken leather bag with tits attached you are, you
silly old bat…”
I slid out the door before he could notice I was gone.
