THE RESCUE
When next he looked at his hands they were crusted with congealing blood and gripping the handlebars of the dragster. He was speeding back down the A131 toward the sea and home with no recollection of how he had got here. Time had somehow been removed from his memory, but he didn’t care. He had a lump in his shorts the size of Ayer’s Rock and a smile on his face as wide as the billabong. But the A131 had ripples in its surface that were just as solid as the Rock, and potholes just as big as the billabong, and he realised too late he was going too fast. The front wheel plunged into the gaping mouth of a large pothole and he lost control. The front wheel was swallowed and the rear wheel kicked up like a bucking brumby, flinging him over the handlebars in a crumpled heap onto the side of the road where a grader had long ago piled a rubble of gravel and dirt.
Dazed, he spat out a mouthful of dust and blood and propped himself up to inspect the damage. At least all his teeth were where they should be, but he was in a right fuck’n mess. He was covered in gravel and dirt, his shirt was ripped almost all the way from his right armpit to the lower seam, and his skin was peeled raw from both knees and palms. He touched a newly formed lump on his right brow and flinched at the sting.
“Stupid dickhead,” he muttered, then gingerly picked himself off the ground and staggered over to his bike. Like the broken neck of a roadkill, its front wheel was buckled out of shape. His shoulders slumped. If he walked back home he was going to be late for supper—way fuck’n late—and that meant getting the leather strap across his arse, which was sore enough as it was. He rubbed it semi-consciously, and winced. Hitching, he figured, was the only way he would make it in time. Gently, he sat by the crippled dragster and waited. The rock in his pants, he noted, was now a limp rabbit.
Luck was not too long in coming, though. His dad’s mate, Mr. Fynn, pulled up half an hour later in his VW Beetle and asked if he needed a lift. “Looks like you’ve just been attacked by a potato peeler, son,” he said. Max could smell scotch on his breath, even from outside the car. “Want me to take you to Dr. Joseph?”
Max shook his head, glancing down at his injuries. “Just need a lift home, if that’s all right,” he said. “Have to make supper before dad gets home.”
Mr. Fynn nodded. “Was on my way to meet him now at The Griff. I’ll keep him busy for a while if ya like.” He gave him a wink.
Max tried to smile his thanks, but the painful grazes on his face meant all he could manage was a half-twisted wince. The dragster was too big to fit in the car, even with the front wheel bent at right angles, so they left it by the side of the road. This was the countryside, where the yokels knew every bloody other yokel and no-one bothered to lock their doors when they went to work or on holidays, so he wasn’t worried about it being gone when he returned to pick it up, whenever that would be.
“What you doin’ all the way out here on your own, anyway?” asked Mr. Fynn.
Max climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. He said nothing, preferring to just stare ahead through the windshield at the dusty road and grit his teeth.
Mr. Fynn started the engine. “Does your father know you’re ‘ere?” He gave a long, sly wink, waited for a few seconds, then said, “Don’t worry ‘bout me, son. Your secret’s safe. Been keep’n secrets since way b’fore you came kick’n and scream’n into this world.”
Max looked over at him, not liking for one second the look from the man’s bloodshot eyes. “Trapp’n rabbits,” he said, which was true. What he didn’t say was that he had poked out its eyes with his army knife, flayed, gutted and buried it up to its neck to be eaten alive by the ants or crows. The thing in his pants stirred at the memory.
“Trapp’n rabbits, eh?” Mr. Fynn threw his head back and laughed, accelerating toward the township. “Good on ya. Now, I’m gonna let you in on one of my li’l secrets.”