Free His Illegal Self by Peter Carey Page B

with rot.
    Steel pincers pierced his skin.
    He screamed.
    He jumped to the soft ground. He hurt his foot. He dropped the cat. He ripped at his shirt.
    Stay still, said Trevor, who came from nowhere, a nasty-looking groundhog, completely naked, covered in mud and dirt. Stay still.
    The boy shrieked in fear.
    Trevor took the boy’s shirt off over his head. The pain went on and on without reason.
    Got it, Trevor said.
    And held a shining ant, two inches long, a stinking, angry, black, plastic-coated, dying Australian thing.
    Bull ant, he said.
    The boy stayed frozen, vomity, ashamed, his pain still pulsing, while Trevor walked down among the wide tall grass toward Buck, who was drinking something. Trevor found water too, enough to wash some mud from his own body. He shook himself like a dog. Then he grabbed the cat, held it locked inside his arm.
    Did you come looking to see where my stash is hid? He had pale blue eyes, hard as broken bathroom tile.
    The kitten was afraid, his mouth as wide and pink as dentistry.
    No, sir.
    Trevor returned the cat and then put both his hands on the boy’s square bare shoulders. He did not squeeze or hurt, but it was a hard and heavy weight without forgiveness.
    You wouldn’t want to see.
    I want to wash.
    You understand it would be a bad thing to see?
    I threw up, the boy said. I need to wash the stuff off.
    Once, not so long before, he had pooped himself. He had been hosed down in public by a nasty man in boots.
    Come here, said Trevor.
    The boy was relieved to feel his hand held gently.
    See, Trevor said.
    The boy looked down into the ground—it was the damp he had smelled, a smeary rainbow, thick clumps of brown grass.
    Snakes.
    He could see no snakes. All he saw was water.
    There. What do you reckon that is?
    He thought, A bone?
    It’s not a good idea to come looking for my stash. You understand me.
    At that moment the boy saw the actual stash, in the fallen tree. On the underside there was a splintered rotten place where there was blue plastic showing clear as day.
    You understand? Trevor’s eyes were cold enough to hurt.
    Yes, sir.
    Don’t call me sir, Trevor said.
    The boy washed his arms and legs and down his front. He did not stare at where the money was.
    You OK now?
    Yes thank you.
    You don’t come back here without me, OK. The voice was not unkind.
    From the corner of his eye the boy could see the flag of blue plastic. It was so clear, like underpants showing through an unzipped pair of shorts.
    Always look at the ground, Trevor said, as they headed up the saddle.
    The boy did what he was told.
    Where’s your father?
    What?
    Where’s your dad? Trevor mocked the boy’s shrug. What does that mean?
    I don’t know, sir, he said, his heart like a washing machine inside his ears. He thought his dad might be in Sydney but no one knew his name.
    Trevor took the boy’s chin and tilted it so there was no escaping the interrogation.
    The boy’s blood was swooshing and thumping in his ears. He met Trevor’s cold gaze and let himself be seen in all his everything.
    That’s right, Trevor said as he released him. That’s right.
    The boy understood his secret had been touched. There had been a conversation of some sort.

16
    She had gone through Sydney and Brisbane on chocolate bars and Coca-Cola, trusting the force of her will and energy to reach the other side. It was what she was used to doing, and of course there had been more to it than Hershey bars. In the aftermath of Susan Selkirk’s death she had trusted Harvard men to save her. She knew famous people, Dave Rubbo, Bernadine Dohrn, Mike Waltzer, Susan Selkirk obviously. On the run with Che she had trusted the Movement, most particularly that Harvard representative of Students for a Democratic Society whose silky penis she had once loved holding between her lips. It was he, with his large hand resting very lightly on her forearm, who had persuaded her that they would be safe and cared for in Australia.
    We’ve got people