Trucksong

Trucksong by Andrew MacRae Read Free Book Online

Book: Trucksong by Andrew MacRae Read Free Book Online
Authors: Andrew MacRae
trying to process, but I didn’t have no teraflop donk like a truckmind, just a rotten meatbrain rushing with feelings I didn’t understand nor want to know.
    ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’
    It was a bloke came up out of the dark.
    ‘If she’s gone I mays well be dead,’ I said.
    ‘There’s no need for cryin, thers no need for dyin. I can give yer somethin for yer ails,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t think so I don’t think there’s nothin for this,’ I said.
    ‘That’s not true. Take a little snifter of this brew.’
    He held out a flask. I was so sad, I just took it from him and necked it. It burned a river of fire in me throat, it set me eyes a light and me head was scrubbed clean with a wire brush. Me thoughts were suddenly clear and I felt alive and shining.
    ‘That’s a good brew,’ I said.
    He laughed.
    ‘Yeah, it’s made from truckdream haze and cactusflower. Now listen,’ he said, ‘if it’s a woman yer after, I can help. I can sing em.’
    I looked at him. He were old, maybe forty maybe less, thinning hairs on his head, small white eyes too far apart, he stared, blinkless. He wore an old black coat that sucked up the gloomering firelight. He looked to me like there was roos loose in the top paddock.
    ‘You don’t look like you’ve had too much luck with women yerself,’ I said.
    ‘Looks is deceivin. Underneath the face, theres the skin and the bone, the cock and balls. That’s where the juice comes from, mate. Now, what’s yer problem?’
    ‘I can’t tell ya.’
    ‘Lemme guess, there’s someone you want that don’t want you, is that it?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Lissen, I know you is with that showman. I’m guessin it’s his daughter you’ve got the hots for.’
    That was a shock to hear it said, but Smoov’s show was well known in the backroads. This bloke could put the pieces together.
    He said, ‘I seen her with that other bloke just now, meself. So I’m puttin two by two. You’re a young bloke, I’m sure you’re well hung and fulla cum. You just want somethin to ease the chill of the night, somethin to put out the fire that’s took hold of yer brain—’
    ‘Orright, you got me number,’ I said. ‘There’s fuck all I can do about it.’
    ‘You know one way that this could pan out, me old digger,’ he said, ‘is if Smoov was not around. If Smoov was out of the picture. Then she would be showman. That’s what she wants, you can tell just by lookin.’
    ‘Mate I don’t think it’s so simple.’
    ‘Oh it’s simple all right. Nothin could be simpler. That showman’s standin in yer way, he’s houndin every day, keepin you in yer place, and her too, not lettin her know the secrets of the show, the secret rites of the showmans that they incantate under the lights, what is her birth right. I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll give you the word and things’ll work out for you with the girl. You never will be free till that showman’s gone.’
    He dropped something in the dirt and winked at me as he turned to go. The light caught on his coat and I saw that it was made all of shredded trucktyre. I bent and picked up the thing he dropped and walked me way back through the faces to the showing place and all the time I had the knowing growing that it was Crow I’d just been talking to and I was thumbing a razored shiv that I’d picked up from the ground. Back in camp and Smoov was snoring his fucken head off. His white neck where the pulse beats was showing naked and soft in the soft firelight and me mind so full of sadness and anger. I thought I’d just let a bit of the blood out from him to see what would happen but I couldn’t do it.

Chapter 6
    Next day dawned slow and lonely like the churn of a river’s mud. Me head was swollen from Crow’s brew and me eyes caked shut. I rubbed them out and looked around and saw through the dust to the truth of things, how the pieces had fallen. Isa was with anotha bloke, and I was so caught up in me thoughts I couldn’t see

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