No Place For Heroes

Chapter 2 - The Hole

The day was humid, the kind of heat that settles on your skin like a blanket.  As always, the streets were quiet and deserted as I walked to the bottle shop.  Only the sound of the Shilling’s dog, Pork, could be heard at this hour.  Like clockwork, the dog always started barking around seven in the morning, bored and lonely.

The houses that lined the streets of Bimbimbie were not big, nor were they elegant.  Nobody in this town cared too much about keeping a nice home, which was a shame, really; the neighbourhood looked rundown, the timber houses peeling and fading as they baked under the blistering sun.  Some houses even sagged to one side, the wooden planks no longer running parallel to each other.  People’s lawns were never green and gardens were non-existent, except for Claire Wallace’s.  The bitumen roads were aging with cracks and potholes, some looking as though they’d recently suffered an earthquake.  Even the Internet was slower than the National Post. 

And yet people kept living here, kept having babies and raising families in this isolated, self-contained microscopic corner of the country.  People died in their beds having never set foot beyond the bridge.  It didn’t seem to bother anyone that there was literally nothing to do in this town; most people spent their Sunday afternoons chatting on their veranda with neighbours over coffee or drinking at the local pub. 

People here were satisfied with the simple things.  It was a simple town for simple people. 

I thought the town was a hole. 

Bimbimbie was located six hundred kilometres south of the city, roughly in the centre of the giant orange state.  Only one road led in and out and the highway continued north without so much as a bend.  The few people who owned a vehicle required a permit to use the highway because it was unsealed and unfit for the average car.  Twenty years ago, a train line was built alongside the highway to transport goods and supplies once a month.  At the time, a few people raised the idea of a passenger train, but it was quickly abandoned; a trip to the city was not something most people wanted.  The city was a place of high crime, a society dominated by technology and youths.  It was a place of liberal beliefs that harvested unordered living, feeding the evils of multiculturalism and the so-called ‘gay’ generation.  People there thrived off money and greed … that’s what I’d been told, anyway.

What I knew for certain, however, was that life outside this town was everything Bimbimbie was not.  And that, as far as I was concerned, was something I longed to experience.   

To be fair, ambition was not something that was frowned upon in Bimbimbie.  It just never happened in the first place.  What was there to be ambitious about?  Children knew exactly what their future held beyond school.  The girls got a job either in retail or the school, no degree required.  Boys went to work in the nickel mine just ten minutes up the road, most dropping out of school after grade ten.  That’s what Mum had wanted me to do when I turned sixteen.  Her decision had also miraculously coincided with Dad leaving; he’d been one of the few people to actually leave Bimbimbie, taking most of our family’s income with him.  But working underground for the rest of my life wasn’t something that interested me.  

That’s when I got my job at the bottle shop.  Mum reminded me once a week without fail what she thought about it.  The conversation had happened so many times I could now predict it down to the last word.

“You realise you could be earning the same as what your good-for-nothing father was, don’t you, Adam?”

“Why would I want to work in a mine if I can score cheap booze at the bottle shop?”

“Because you’d be earning twice as much money, you cheeky little bastard.  Money that we need, Adam.”

“Then you go work in the mine.”

“I have a job, Adam,” Mum would say tartly.  “Remember that doctor’s office I skip off to every morning to slave away in front of a computer?  That’s my job.  And I work bloody hard at it, too.”

“Yeah, and it brings home piss.”

Then she’d either chuck me out for the night or refuse to cook me dinner. 

But I didn’t choose the bottle shop to score cheap booze, of course.  I didn’t even like drinking.  The truth was I hated working there, had no interest in chatting with customers even if they happened to be my neighbours.  The job was just something to pass the time while I figured out my next move.  I’d been working there for over a year.

I turned into Fern street, which looked identical to every other street.  A young woman sitting on her veranda in a fluffy pink dressing gown waved at me, and I returned the gesture, forcing a friendly smile.  Everyone knew the woman owned at least ten cats and was probably lonelier than a homeless person.  I didn’t know her name.

Just a few houses up the road was Claire Wallace’s.  Sure enough, the woman was busy watering her precious flowerbed, her long red hair tied neatly in a bun.  The flowers looked as vibrant as ever.  She must’ve owned the healthiest patch of soil in the entire town, and yet it was no bigger than the size of my dinner table.

For a moment, I watched Claire as she tilted the watering can, listening to the sound of water trickling onto the soil.  Something about it seemed strange.  Then I realised what it was.

“Morning,” I called to her from across the street.  Claire looked up, startled.  Then she smiled at me.  It was the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

“Oh, hello Adam, dear.  How’s your brother?”

She always asked after Tyler whenever I spoke to her.  Which wasn’t very often, mind you.

“He’s good.  It’s his birthday today.”

“Oh,” she said, looking genuinely pleasant now.  I waited a moment for her to realise what this meant, and when it clicked, her expression became hard and glassy.  “Oh.”

“I was just noticing you watering your garden.  Does that mean you’ve got water, then?”

“No,” Claire said, her face brightening somewhat as the conversation turned to her flowerbed.  “I went to turn on the hose just before and realised the water’s been cut.  So I filled up the can with the water from the fridge.”

It would be days before Claire realised just how precious that water had been. 

“Wish your brother a happy birthday from me, won’t you?”

I began to walk off, deciding not to respond.  I also decided that if Claire wanted to wish Tyler a happy birthday, she’d need to tell him herself.