Stubbys on the sand, his short fat body squatting on his scabby legs, the surf slipping around

his feet. His hair is in his eyes and he has a hand up to his brow, looking out over the oceans crinkled skin like an exiled Emperor. You got them beers yet? Winstons got two cold tins in his hand. But hes looking for his lighter in the seat crack. Winston, you got them beers? Stubby takes a gulp and sucks on his moustache. Winstons trying to light a Winfield blue but the wind is against him, hes all twisted and clicking the lighter in his cupped hands. Stubby can smell a mix of sweat and fish guts wafting off his brothers lanky frame. Sea gulls are hopping around the car park, and the vans dripping oil. Stubby squats on his knees and checks it out. Jeez we only got this prick serviced a couple uh weeks ago. Seagulls are hanging around the back of the van like uniformed school children waiting for the canteen to open. They can smell the guts still smeared on the big white tubs inside.

Stubby dropped his brother off at the pub, he could have gone a session him self but Jean had a casserole waiting. It was bad enough that he probably smelled like beer as it was. He drove along the main street past the shop, JONES BROTHERS FIN SEAFOODS. The E had fallen off FINE about five years ago. Must get that fixed he thought automatically.

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He could see Markus shaking the chip fryer and a customer leaning against the counter. Bet hes got the radio on too he loud. Markus was a good kid, but Jeez he was noisy. If his life was different Stubby would have considered calling him unreliable, but that was a forbidden word now. It had a power in his life, a capacity to destroy, even if he thought it. So first hed stopped saying it and then hed stopped thinking it. He now had an imaginative variety of substitutes. But the feeling was the same. It rose and ate into the place where that word used to be, ate a cavity for that word to pour back in. And it was rising now. Jean was at the kitchen table, flicking through a tile brochure with a cigarette and a glass of wine. The room was warm and meaty smelling. Stubby put his briefcase on the breakfast bar. His old friend had seen better days. The plastic ribbing hung off the corners like black spaghetti, and the faux leather sides bubbled and sagged, but it still had that reassuring clunk about it, if anything it had improved with age. It issued a soft affirmation whenever he opened it. Harold look at these. He leant over to look at the picture his wife was pointing at, her shakes were getting worse; it was just a bony plum colored nail polish fact. These blue ones. I reckon theyd be OK, look, theyre on special. Some tiles near the door in the shop had cracked. Someone was going to go arse over any day now.

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Hmmm whered yu get this? At the hardwarehave you been at the pub? Yeah, I dropped Winston off. Jean became electrified. Oh we should pop in after dinner, actually we could go now Ill just turn it down. Nah love, not tonight, Im buggered, just fancy a cuppa. Stubby smiled, clicking open his brief case. Jean blew a plume of smoke at the brochure, her electricity wasted. Look at your legs Harold, she muttered, have you been using your cream? Yeah, I mean, it ran out, I gotta get some more. Well see you do. They look disgusting. Stubby sat down with a bundle of invoices and a calculator, his reading glasses slipping down his nose. And weve got no peas, Jean announced sitting down again with the cask from the fridge, so tough luck.

Stubby opened up and Winston arrived shortly after. He sung some old song under his breath as he strapped on a thick plastic apron. Stubby flicked the radio and the kettle on, checking the volume first. I bloody knew it! Markus had this right up! Winston rubbed a knife over a steel. Vera had been gone long enough for Winston not to think of her at work. Its like the fuckin Sahara this place, shed said, Its all fuckin sun and sand. Hed sold the house and moved into a unit near the golf

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course, planning to take it up, even buying some clubs, but never getting round to it. Friday night was pub night. Hed go home and spruce up. Stubby and Jean would often be there too, just for dinner though, and then after theyd left hed see what mischief he could get himself into. Thats how it used to be. Stubby and Jean didnt get out much now, and Winston didnt bother going home first. He was at the bar most nights in his JONES BROTHERS shirt and scale crusted sneakers. In the afternoon Rob came in through the back. Gotta a coupla beauties for yu mate. The good weather had paid off as Stubby predicted, because there, in Robs trailer, with silver spaceman skin, were three big dhufish. Winston got a six-pack out the cold room and the men stood around admiring their luck while Robs offsider carried the less interesting crates of snapper and whiting inside. Nearly snagged a carpet shark but the prick got away. Rob sipped his beer and stepped barefoot over the blood-streaked tiles. Hows yu missus? Yeah shes alright, Stubby said, counting the money. Rob put it in his shirt pocket. You know mu uncle You boys hungry? Stubby interrupted. Oh yeah could go a feed. Markus can you fry up a bit o fish an chips for the boys?

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Rob and Macca waited quietly, and the older fisherman was glad when Winston remembered a joke he wanted to tell.

A black smoke of flies rose from the offal pit as the fish heads slithered in. Farmers used the pit as well, and the fish remains shone pearly clean in a fetid bed of black and brown death. There was some evil protein in kangaroos that stunk the worst when it went off. Stubby passed the empty tubs back to Winston who stacked them in the van. Driving back into town Winston reminded his brother that they were going to need someone to help them out over the holidays. Didnt Markus say he had a mate? No bloody way! Stubby grunted, fighting with the stuck third gear. That lot are all the same, first sign of surf theyre off. Markus has been alright. Only cause hes savin to go to Indo, you watch. Well we should put a sign up or something. Stubby dropped his brother at the pub.

Jean didnt help out during the holidays anymore. It was a mad time. The counter was three or four deep most of the day. Markus, twenty minutes late, jumped on the deep fryer while Jean took orders and wrapped. Stubby lugged chip bags from the cool room and Winston filleted like a man possessed.

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Jean was drunk. She was slurring and dropping the tongs. She picked them off the floor and wiped them on her side. Some of the customers thought she was funny, others walked out. And then she started on Markus. Think yu pretty hot dont yu? He was seventeen, with short blonde dreads and a nose ring. His dad ran a spray-painting businesswhich is what hed rather be doing any day, if he werent allergic to the paint. He was a popular boy in the town, and Winston particularly enjoyed when his friends, pro-dominantly female, dropped by to see him when he was working. Yu fuckin think yu somethin else. The customers were quiet now in their role as wrapped audience. Jean stood back with her arms folded. Cmon then, lets see it, whip it out. Markus loaded up the fryer, the oil roared. Cmon! I wanna see that big fuckin dick o yours!

It was dark when Stubby got there and dark when he left. Holidaymakers clogged the main drag, and took over the pub. And they had a mania for shellfish, like they woke up convinced that Christ commanded the only way to honor his birth was by tearing exoskeletons apart down by the coast. He couldnt see the appeal himself, the smell reminded him of sex in a tent.

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They boiled yabbies and sold them by the platter. Stubby stayed back to finish a batch. He picked up a foam box like hed done hundreds of times, feeling the usual commotion inside. He set it by the boiler and tore off the lid. The yabbies clicked over each other and squeaked against the foam, and he was hypnotized. His eyes swam over their panicked city, it was the end of the line, and the powerlessness writhing before him held him still. It was dreadful in a way that seemed to double each second. The wet crunchy rasp ate into his numb guts, until he rubbed his eyes and poured the yabbies into the boiler. This was around the time of the banished word. He was driving back with a load of lobsters from down South, already red and packed on ice. Jeans emaciation was on his mind, triggered by a rotting roo hed seen next to the highway. His stomach rested on knives when he saw her wrists stiff under the sun on the dead animal, saw her hip joints peeking through the fur. It was as though his life had been her idea, and shed lost interest and wasnt telling him what was next anymore. The you beaut new house she assured him would fix everything was just a bigger space for her anger to ricochet and his sadness to huddle in. He used to drink with her, to stay one step ahead before the black beast came out, and that worked for awhile, falling into bed with her poisonous tongue lashing after him from the big new kitchen, then waking

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up in a merciful fog. But the tar got too thick for him to wash away, and now he left her to it. And it was eating her alive. Stubby pulled over, and the sky looked empty. The knives in his stomach had eviscerated everything, and the coast stretched onwards, meaningless and terrifying. His balls retreated when the water lapped through his shorts, he thought about breathing and the scuba lessons hed had. He should breath out as he went under, thats what the diver suggested. It made it less stressful. The moon was touching the sea near the point when he started the van again. Jean was snoring on the couch when he got in, her wine glass sill hanging miraculously in her fingers. Stubby gently released it and set it on the table, wiping the cigarette ash onto the carpet with the back of his hand while it was in the neighborhood. Jean came to with a groggy smile, Yu teas in the thing yull need to microwave it, she yawned, and rolled over taking his arm with her. Stubby could feel her hot breath on his cradled wrist. He stroked her hair behind her ear and wiped his eyes.

A big sun browned bag of giggles called Danielle had started working for the holidays. Not Trevs kid! Stubby couldnt believe it, he could remember her following her dad into the shop in nothing but sandals, and garbling to the slit bellied fish in the window. When Markus sauntered in to start his shift she asked to see his new tattoo, and hollered hysterically when he lifted his shirt to reveal the sharks circling a sun on his back.

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Stubby shook his head and left them to it, And watch the bloody volume on that radio. A few new four-wheel drives were already in the car park, the start of the onslaught, a scouting party waiting for their comrades. Winston had a schooner waiting for him in the front bar. The fourwheel drive owners were cackling at a couple of tables in the courtyard, Stubby looked at his brother and shook his head. Winston had had a haircut, and he didnt stink. So whats your story? Winston played dumb and Stubby cracked up, You sly old bugger! Winston grinned like he knew it. Its that whats her name isnt it? From the bloodymental physical shop. Metaphysical bookshop. Yeah! Her! Winston grinned like he knew it.

Stubby opened his briefcase. The gold coating had flecked off the brackets and the combination lock had seized. He took out his calculator and a pad and pen and some in voices and sat at the kitchen table. During the ad break Jean came in to refill her glass, it was still early and the demon was yet to awake. She leant on his shoulder. Hey Winstons seeing that bird I was telling you about. What bird? She asked.

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You know. The one I was telling you about. Jean smiled and re-balanced her weight towards the fridge. I think were going to be OK this year, Stubby nodded towards the paperwork. Well I think I know what youre getting for Chrissy. Jean nodded at the briefcase. A panic, as slight and silly as a feather tickle, grazed his chest. It had all started in this knackered case, the business, the house, everything. This is where it all lived, where it all got taken care of: It was reliable. Jean closed the fridge and Stubby had swung out far enough from the table for her to have to look at him to get around. He tapped his lap and felt her bones sink into his leg. He rubbed her bones through her satin nightdress. She put her glass down and put her arms around his neck. We should find out if Winston and this bird wanna go out one night, he smiled. Ill take yu dancin.

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