Theft: A Love Story

44

Olivier signed the bogus document he was so weak he told me he could not even die. He was crawling back to life, old chum, returning to his previous employment at McCain.

They do not like me, Hughie, but I am the perfect bum boy for their client. Bum boy, he called to the Irish barman who said, That's right sir.

Olivier drank a SIDECAR and swallowed a blue capsule.

Here's to honest labour, he said.

Jeavons was standing by his shoulder and now he DISCREETLY passed his big soft hand across mouth. He had medicine to swallow too.

He said, Thank your mother for the rabbits, sir. This was an AUSTRALIAN JOKE I taught him many days before.

Then I had my capsule. What would happen to me now?

Sitting by the low round table Olivier asked me, Did you ever meet her father, Hughie? He meant Marlene's father.

I said I had never been to Benalla.

He was a bloody truck driver can you imagine that?

Jeavons approved of truck drivers. He drifted away like a man at a ball, his arms out from his sides.

I imagined truck drivers. I saw them all lined up at the Madingley mine.

And that's the thing, you see, that's what I'm up against.

What did that mean? He was sad and silent as he unfolded a map of New York across the little table. With a cheese knife he began to slice it up.

I asked what about the trucks.

She likes big beefy chaps who smell of beer. That's it, really. At the end of it. If you get a redneck who also smells of linseed oil, she's like a cat on heat. Do you follow me?

All I understood was the cheese knife was not the right tool to cut a map and it hurt to watch him botch it. Soon he tore half the map away. The big blue words WEST VILLAGE floated to the floor.

I held my head. I may have made a noise. Who wouldn't?

What's up old chap?

I told him he was making me giddy with Marlene's daddy. I wished he would put the map away.

The map, old chap, will cure the giddiness. So stop lowing.

Lowing, he said, that's exactly what you do.

What about Marlene's father?

Dead of lung cancer, he said, but causing trouble to this day.

He removed a lump of map. I caught it floating down but he snatched it back and crumpled it and threw it across the bar.

THIS DID NOT CALM ME DOWN.

We have no use for Central Park he said.

But what about her father?

All I'm saying is your lumpen brother is a lucky man.

He tapped the map with a swizzle stick. Now! Remember!

Everything is straight up and down except Broadway. Keep an eye on that one, chum. He marked Broadway with his pen. A snake in the grass.

Her father?

Broadway. Also West Broadway. Not to be confused.

To complete my map he ripped across the top at 55th Street.

World ends here, he said. My office. Top right corner of the map.

Now, he said, test drive.

We set off across to Fifth Avenue where we found a Duane Reade a CHEMIST SHOP where I was introduced to his client's products the denture glue also the bubbling tablets the sufferers used to clean their teeth at night, poor Mum, she was what is called the TARGET MARKET.

On Sixth Avenue Olivier bought SUPPLIES including a flask of bourbon which fitted nicely inside his coat. This is your town, old mate. Never let them tell you otherwise. He waited while I checked our map. I saw exactly where I was.

Now, old chum, we're going to walk clean off the map. Don't panic. Watch exactly how it's done.

Soon thereafter, on 24th Street, we found a group of men outside a church. Not all had chairs like mine, but at least four did. Others preferred the fire hydrant, church steps, SIAMESE CONNECTION. A close similarity to a gathering of PUDDING OWNERS with diseases that swelled their ankles and turned their legs all blue and black.

Fellow professionals, he said. Your peers.

I opened my chair. Olivier was wearing his shimmering grey suit and his poofter shoes. He didn't have a chair but when he took out his flask of whisky he soon made friends.

New York is a very friendly town, he said to me.

The first person to take a swig gave us his business card.

Vincent Carollo

Film musician • Chelsea Diner

His black hair was due to boot polish. It made a straight line across his forehead and the hair was all swept back from there.

He said call me Vinnie. He had played a banjo in Chelsea Diner, a famous film apparently. Also, we should never stay in the West 16th Street shelter, and remember, the soup at St. Mark's was better than what they give you at St.

Peter's. He also taught me never leave my chair unattended and then I sang "ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR". He took back his card as he needed it for later. He said I would be in the next film too but when I invited him to the Bicker Club Olivier said it was time to go.

But he had showed me I could make friends. I didn't need him now. That was his whole point. He was going to abandon me. I could not be permitted to sit with him in his office, nor to visit at any hour. He was hoping he could have this rule changed but don't hold your breath, Hughie.

The thing is, old chum, he said, they are very superficial individuals.

I asked could I stand on the street outside.

He said you have UNIQUE TALENT, old chum. I mean, old chum, you do know how to BE.

He meant my talent for sitting on a chair while Butcher flew around in a mad frenzy, a willy wagtail trying to be a king. He did not know I had a TALENT for drawing. When they sent me home from school I did not burn them down. Instead I began to work peacefully with biro on my sheets and by the time Mum LOOKED IN ON ME I had all the Marsh laid out in pen across it. Blue Bones dealt with that one in his usual style.

The Marsh was my place as no other. Not only the chair, the footpath. I knew the drains and culverts, the length of every street and where they crashed together. From Mason's Lane to the Madingley railway crossing was 6,450 heartbeats. In the whole five thousand pop. who else knew this simple fact? Yes it was a talent but I was allegedly too slow to go to school.

When Olivier left me on Monday morning I took the map and lay it on the carpet in the room. Explosions in my neck but nothing bad. I drew the Main Street of Bacchus Marsh down Broadway, and the Gisborne Road across 34th Street. Lerderderg Street lying like a ghost along Eighth Avenue.

I felt better. I felt worse. Then I could not stand the map. Heft.

Across to Third Avenue and up. That was my plan. Twentysecond Street, 23 rd Street, and so on. There was no doubt I could reach 55th. Heart closer to two hundred, great red lump of muscle in an uproar, never mind. Reaching 55th Street I was denied access to the building by a man in a brown suit.

I walked back Downtown. Followed the map of the Marsh and arrived at the butcher shop next door to Duane Reade where I bought a pack of Band-Aids it was HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

Olivier finally arrived back at the club BETTER LATE THAN NEVER I gave him the Band-Aids and instructed him to stick one on his window so I could see his office from the street.

Old Chum, he said, I will put up the Band-Aid at exactly ten past one.

When we set up in the bar, Olivier told me he was getting his life back.

Here, he said, have one of these.

He would now divorce Marlene.

He downed a big gin and tonic and crunched up the ice. This will totally fuck the bitch, he said. Once she was divorced she would never authenticate another painting or try to make him sign a form.

Here, he said, have one of these as well.

I pointed out the second pill was a different colour from the first pill. He replied that we were desperados not decorators.

He was on his HOBBY HORSE and galloping. She could go back to the typing pool, old mate, the pond from which she rose and then he listed the names of different SCUM that grew on top of ponds for instance SPIROGYRA.

Jeavons came to have a word.

BLOOD ON HER SADDLE he said the words from a song who knows which one. Jeavons made a sign to the bartender and I understood Olivier was going mad.

Next morning I knew I must take a holiday with my brother. It was his job to care for me. On arrival I requested sausages and eggs. He knew his obligation.

Marlene was asleep in the mattress on the floor. She had a bare leg sticking out beneath her quilt and I could see her batty, bless me, it was so pretty I had to look away. For REASONS KNOWN ONLY TO HIMSELF my brother had purchased a sheet of glass and was grinding pigments, gathering and scraping the pigment with a spatula.

I asked him why he did not buy some nice one-pound tubes.

He said I could go and rack myself.

Very nice. I sat and watched him until he asked me would I like a try. So I was needed to be the DOGSBODY.

He had no linseed oil but something else called AMBER-TOL. I was pleased to show how well I produced the buttery texture he required. The colour very soothing before he made it into something angry. Oceans of yellow, colour of God, light without end.

So, said he, how is your mate Dr. Goebbels?

Who?

Olivier.

I told him Olivier was going to divorce Marlene. I intended to make him happy. Perhaps I did. In any case I heard Marlene shift in the bed but she might as well have been asleep because she did not say a word.