We Call It Monster Read online

  “No way…”

  And then his base needs took over as he realised that he still needed to pee. He looked away from the ribbon of ruin, his bladder aching, and turned back to the barracks-dorm that he had just left. Other people were streaming out, their sleepy eyes set on a half-dozen portable toilets lined up in a row. A queue had already formed. A rank smell was already beginning to build.

  Jimmy joined the queue. He tried to think of something – anything – that would distract him from his need.

  Nothing came, and so he instead fixed his gaze on the person standing in front of him. She was dressed all in black, except for a brightly coloured beanie adorned with flowers and bees and rainbows. Her hair was lank, shiny with sweat. Jimmy wasn’t surprised – summer had ended only a week or so earlier, and only vanity or insecurity could have prompted the girl to wear something so impractical.

  But still, staring at it served as a distraction.

  The line moved slowly, five or six people still in front of the girl. Jimmy started counting the petals of the flowers on the girl’s beanie. He counted aloud, seemingly unaware that he was doing so.

  “Give it a rest, would you?” the girl said, turning to look at him.

  She looked at him squarely, her face set and serious, her chin jutting out. She had her hands on her hips, an almost confrontational and belligerent stance. Instantly embarrassed, Jimmy began to stammer an apology.

  “Hey, I’m just fucking with you,” she said, her lips curving into an easy smile. “We’ve got to beat the boredom somehow.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer. He didn’t really know what to say.

  “I’m Sammy,” the girl said, sticking out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Uh, I’m Jimmy,” he said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “You want to cut in?” Sammy asked him. “You boys are quicker than us girls.”

  “Ah, yeah, that’d be great, if you don’t mind.”

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  Jimmy just stood there. He didn’t see the sense in moving to stand in front of her; it seemed almost rude, and he figured that she would just wave him on ahead. Besides, he was enjoying the chat.

  “Thanks, Sammy. I’m dying here, but I got distracted by all this.” He waved his arm around, trying to encompass the enormity of the ribbon of ruin.

  “You just get in last night?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Melbourne. God, what a long trip – thirteen hours on a bus or something like that.”

  “Did you come from St. Kilda?”

  He looked at her, his face wrinkled with confusion.

  “Never mind, it’s an old song.”

  “Right, okay.”

  For a moment, neither of them said anything.

  “Well, I’ve been here about a week or so,” Sammy said, “thanks for asking.”

  Jimmy shuffled his feet. “Sorry.”

  “You’re right.”

  And then Sammy was next in line. “After you,” she said as the door to one of the portable toilets swung open and a stranger walked out, a fresh wave of stink wafting out behind him.

  “Cheers.”

  ***

  A week or so after the Sydney attack, Jimmy’s girlfriend Marley broke up with him via text message. They had been talking on the phone every day; it was always Jimmy who called her, never the other way around. He didn’t mind that – her world had suddenly been wrenched out from under her, and he wasn’t so pigheaded as to expect her to push aside her grief to make room for him.

  Some days they talked two or three times; some of their conversations had stretched on for hours; some lasted only minutes, with Marley quickly overcome, her voice cracking, her sobs building.

  Their last conversation had been a short one.

  “I can’t talk right now,” she said as she answered, before he could say anything.

  Her voice had been strangely cold and incredibly steady. Jimmy instantly knew that something was wrong.

  “I just found out that they’ve moved,” Marley continued. And then she hung up on him.

  Jimmy stared at the phone for a moment, confused, and then it sunk in – the euphemisms, the code words, the disguises, all the myriad devices used to make true horror manageable.

  They were Marley’s parents. They’ve moved meant that they had moved from the list of the missing to the list of the dead. Jimmy called her back straightaway. She didn’t answer. He called again, and again and again. Nothing. The next day, he received her text.

  “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”

  Two days after that, he got the letter.

  ***

  Sammy wasn’t there when Jimmy stepped out of the cramped portable toilet. For a moment, he thought about waiting for her or looking for her – a friend is a good thing to have, especially when you’re alone and far from home.

  He shook the thought away, realising how childish it made him feel.

  Once again, he looked over the ribbon of ruin and the barracks-dorm that was his new home. There were people everywhere; a lot of them were standing around looking at the wreckage that surrounded them, just as Jimmy was, while the queue for the toilets was still growing. A large group had gathered at a khaki tent open to the air, erected beside the barracks-dorm, a tent that just screamed ex-military.

  Jimmy saw someone walk away from the tent carrying a plastic tray laden with a plastic plate and a plastic cup. His stomach rumbled; he hadn’t eaten anything since getting off the bus the previous night.

  His stomach rumbled again. He felt a hunger that almost hurt.

  He headed for the tent, walking fast. The steadily growing smell of coffee and toast made his hunger swell. There was no real queue, just a dense knot of people all pushing and shoving and jostling each other. Jimmy looked at them and decided to wait patiently. He cursed his good manners, and yet didn’t want to be free of them.

  He kept waiting, slowly drawing closer to a makeshift bench at the back of the tent. A surly cook in a dirty apron finally passed him a plastic tray.

  On a plastic plate sat two slices of unbuttered toast – white bread, almost as thin as newspaper. Next to them were a tiny portion of margarine in a plastic tub, a single-serve sachet of peanut butter and a single-serve sachet of jam. A plastic cup was filled with boiling water; next to it were a vacuum-sealed pot of long-life milk, a teabag, one paper tube of instant coffee, two paper tubes of sugar, and a plastic teaspoon.

  It was pitiful. Even so, Jimmy could barely contain himself. By the time he was back at his cot, his cup was empty and his plate had literally been licked clean.

  He sat there for a moment and wondered what would happen next. He looked around the barracks-dorm. He saw Sammy sitting on the edge of her cot, about ten rows over. She had her head down, her eyes fixed on her phone. Jimmy stood up, intending to say hello – anything else seemed rude. And then a loud voice distracted him.

  “Right, you lot, listen up.”

  Jimmy turned and saw the woman in the cheap suit standing in the doorway, bright sunlight streaming around her.

  “I said listen up!” she yelled through cupped hands.

  That got everyone’s attention.

  “Good, good. Now, come on – it’s time to get to work.” She turned and strode outside. No one else moved. She turned back, her eyes dark. “I said now!”

  Jimmy hurried after the woman in the suit, but not before taking a look at Sammy and checking to see if she was doing the same.

  She was still bent over her phone and Jimmy decided to leave her be. He knew how to play the game, knew which hoops to jump through, knew that when those smug desk-jockeys said ‘Stop’ he was supposed to say ‘Hammer-time’ even if he didn’t know what that actually meant. And he knew that if he wanted the free money to keep rolling in, he had to keep his head down and do what they said.

  But he yelled out to Sammy nonetheless, considering it another act of poli
teness, an attempt to stop those pompous seat-warmers from potentially breaching her.

  “Hey, Sammy, you coming?”

  She didn’t move and didn’t look at him.

  “Can’t say I didn’t try,” Jimmy muttered.

  Outside, there were people everywhere. But this time, they were all facing the man and the woman in the cheap suits, who were standing on milk-crates and looking over the assembled crowd.

  “Is everyone here?” the woman in the cheap suit asked.

  People mumbled and grunted. Jimmy couldn’t work out whether her question was meant literally or rhetorically.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m Jenny, that’s Scott.” She pointed at the man in the cheap suit. He smiled shyly, obviously uncomfortable at being singled out. “When I call your name,” Jenny continued, “gather next to the supervisor you’re assigned to. Right, so…” She consulted the clipboard in her hand. “Robert Adams?”

  “Yep,” someone said.

  “You’re with Scott.” Jenny looked at the clipboard again. “Kelly Biggs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re with me. Omar Bakla?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Me.”

  And on it went.

  “Rebecca Laws?”

  “Yo.”

  “Don’t ‘yo’ me. And you’re with Scott.”

  “Ali Mushran?”

  “Here.”

  “Nerd,” Jenny said with a smile. “You’re with me.”

  And on and on and on, dozens of names, until they were just so much white noise. Jimmy zoned out, until one name in particular caught his attention.

  “Samantha Grunner?”

  “That’s me. It’s Sammy, though.”

  “Right. Well, you’re with Scott.”

  Jimmy looked over at Sammy, and she winked at him. And then he turned back to Jenny of the cheap suit, waiting for the moment to come.

  “James Zubrowski?”

  He wearily raised his hand. He was used to being last on the list.

  “Scott.”

  “Huh,” Jimmy said to himself, and looked at Sammy again. Once more, she was bent over her phone. But Jimmy was still glad to be working alongside someone he almost-knew.

  “And that’s that,” Jenny said. “Those of you who are with me, we’ve got rubble to move. Those who are with Scott…” She looked Jimmy in the eye as she said this, and smiled wide, “…you guys are this week’s shovelers.”

  ***

  Jimmy had opened the letter without a second thought. After all, it looked like just another Centrelink missive. He knew their letters well and figured that it would be a reminder to keep looking for work, to keep attending his appointments, to keep filling in his forms, to keep on sending out his resumé. He opened the letter. It told him nothing unusual, just to report to his local branch for an interview. It might as well have said: the economy is still in the toilet and you’re still unemployed.

  When he reported for his interview, it seemed like just another morning at the dole office. Stressed housewives and harried stay-at-home mums queued next to each other, wrangling their kids and swapping gossip; preening gym-bunnies and fake-tan floozies waited sullenly, their eyes fixed on their phones; scruffy tradies with sleeves of tattoos flirted with the staff who were registering them for the rebuilding scheme.

  Jimmy took a seat, settling in a cheap and uncomfortable plastic chair. An hour later, a middle-aged guy in a cheap suit finally called Jimmy’s name. He shook Jimmy’s hand, and led him to a desk on the far-side of the room.

  “Right, James. I’m John.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Jimmy said. “And, um, sorry – it’s Jimmy.”

  “Yeah, okay.” John looked back at the computer. “So, it says here that you’ve been on Newstart for seven months now. Is that right?”

  “Yep.”

  “You haven’t been working? And you’ve been looking for work?”

  “Yep and yep,” Jimmy said, only lying a little. He’d been working a cash job, but couldn’t really tell them that. And he sometimes looked for full-time work, work that would get John’s kind off his back.

  “You’ve really been looking?” John asked.

  “Well, yeah, I have. It’s just hard at the moment...” He decided to try for some sympathy. “My girl lost her folks up in Sydney, and I’ve been taking care of her,” he said, trying to make this new half-lie sincere.

  John looked him in the eye, and then smiled. “That’s good of you, kid. But, unfortunately, I’ve got some bad news. Because of what happened up there, the government has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that anyone who’s been unemployed for more than six months now has to work on the rebuilding scheme to access their benefits, if they’re fit enough to do so.”

  “No way.” Jimmy really didn’t know what else to say. He finally asked the only actually important question. “When?”

  John looked at the computer again. “Well, if you pass the physical, which you look like you will, probably in a fortnight or so. Maybe three weeks at the most. Long enough for you to wrap up everything down here.”

  ***

  After everyone assigned to Scott had gathered around him, he introduced himself before leading them to a dirty minivan that looked like it had been requisitioned from a high-school. Four more identically dirty minivans were parked next to it; behind the wheel of each sat another Centrelink supervisor, the men dressed in cheap suits, the women in cheap skirts and blouses.

  “Everyone, take a seat,” Scott said with a smile. “They’re all going to the same place.”

  Sammy caught Jimmy’s eye and waved him over. “Hey, Jimmy, hello again.”

  “Hey, Sammy.”

  “Looks like we drew the same straws. How about that?”

  “It’s great, I guess we’re lucky,” Jimmy said. He blushed. “But don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s ‘great,’ is it?” Sammy asked, cutting him off with a knowing smile.

  “You, uh, you know what I mean,” he stammered. “It’s great to know someone else here.”

  She let him hang, gesturing at the nearest minivan. “After you.”

  “Will the gentlemen escort me aboard?” she asked, teasing him some more.

  They stepped inside. It was cramped and stuffy and reeked of teenagers: stale-sweat, dirty socks, fruity perfume.

  “Is this where you take all your dates?” Sammy asked as they sat down.

  Jimmy smiled. He was enjoying himself, and enjoying her sharp tongue. But before he could reply, the driver started the minivan, its engine turning over loudly.

  “And here we go,” Scott shouted happily.

  He was sitting across the row from Jimmy and Sammy. Jimmy hoped that he wasn’t the talkative type, but it wasn’t to be.

  “So, I guess you all know why you’re here,” Scott said, getting out of his seat. He shuffled along until he was facing everyone. He braced himself, swaying with the motion, a little awkward and stiff, and waited for someone to answer.

  No one did.

  “Well, I guess the best way to put it is to say that you’re all here to serve your country.” He adopted an accent for this last part, his voice pompous and proper and almost comically British. It was a feeble attempt at humour, and nobody laughed. “Okay, to be serious then, you’re all here because we need the help. That’s the truth – hand on my heart, pray to God, pinky-swear, whatever you guys want. With the economy the way it is, the government just can’t afford to keep paying you guys and all the removalists and demolitionists and builders and architects and everyone else who’s helping get this place back on its feet.”

  “So we’re basically slaves?” someone asked. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “Now, hang on a minute, don’t get overexcited. You’re not slaves, far from it – you’ll all be getting your usual benefits, plus room and board and fifty-dollars a day as compensation for the inconvenience. That’s not such a bad deal, is it?”

&n
bsp; “It still sounds like a rip-off,” someone else said.

  “Okay, okay – normally, I’d agree with you. I’ve been unemployed before, and I know how you guys normally get treated. But this time, this time, I reckon it’s the right call.”

  “It’s not like we got a choice, though,” yet another person said. “That’s the problem.”

  “Well, yeah, but life is what it is.”

  Both Jimmy and Sammy had remained silent the whole time. He was looking out the window, as if deep in thought; she was looking at Scott without really looking at him, her eyes fixed just above his right shoulder. They hadn’t complained, hadn’t interrupted, hadn’t put themselves on his radar. His gaze flickered over them and he instantly dismissed them when he asked if anyone had any questions. He didn’t even look their way when no one answered, just sat back down in his seat.

  “What you thinking?” Sammy asked Jimmy, breaking him from his reverie.

  “Uh, not much.”

  “Really? Sounds fascinating.”

  “Alright, alright,” he said. He let out a deep sigh, as if he was deflating. “I was thinking about how horrible it is out there.”

  He gestured out the window, at the collapsing buildings and broken streets, at the crushed cars and endless piles of rubble, the blankets of ash and the great drifts of charred wood, the wreckage and carnage that seemed to have become the whole world. He tried to pretend that the bodies he saw weren’t actually bodies but mannequins set free when the department stores that were once their homes had crumbled and turned to dust.

  “It’s… It’s… It’s just fucked,” he said, a little overwhelmed, the sight reducing his vocabulary to its bones. But still, he couldn’t stop staring out the window.

  Sammy decided to leave him alone. Without looking, Jimmy reached out and squeezed her hand as a way of saying ‘thanks.’

  They fell silent once again.

  The drive continued, the minivan rocking and bumping on the broken streets. A faint odour began seeping in, the same sour and rotting smell that had hung over the barracks-dorm. They kept on through a sprawl that seemed never-ending.