Free The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey Page B

up and pour water over his face until he said he was sorry. He felt like a snail with its shell taken off. He was pink and slimy and glistening. Even the air hurt him. He felt like dying. It was not just his father. It was everything. He could feel depression come down on him like mould, like bad milk, like the damp twisted dirty sheets in the cellar. He wanted to go to the cellar and lock the door.
    ‘If anyone’s a poof,’ he said to Jesse, ‘it’s him.’
    But Jesse was so dumb. He looked at Benny and grinned. ‘That’ll be the day,’ he said.
    ‘You’re a fucking baby,’ Benny said.
    ‘You got mousse on your hair?’
    ‘No I haven’t.’
    Jesse considered this a moment. ‘You look pretty weird, you know that? You looked better before. How do you get it to stand up like that if you don’t use mousse?’
    ‘Gel.’
    ‘You’re going to do that every day now? It must take you an hour to get ready to come to work to sell petrol.’
    ‘Listen, little bubby,’ Benny said, ‘you’re going to remember me, I’m going to be famous and you’re going to remember that all you could do was worry about my fucking hair.’ He knew already he would be sorry he had said that. Jesse would tell the others and they’d fart and hee-haw like about Bozzer and his bullshit story of his father who was meant to be a yuppy with a 7 Series BMW.
    But if he had to be sorry, he was fucked anyway. I cannot be what I am . In the corner of his eye he saw something. He turned. It was Maria Takis, walking slowly back to her car. She waved at him. Benny liked her face. He liked her wide, soft mouth particularly. He waved back, smiling.
    ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘that’s all woman.’
    ‘That’s all woman,’ Jesse mimicked. ‘You’re a poof, Benny, admit you’re a poof.’
    Benny heard himself say: ‘She’s mine.’ He meant it too. He committed himself to it as he said it.
    He watched the Tax Inspector getting into her car. He had a very nice feeling about her. He had had a nice feeling about her this morning, the way she spoke, the way she looked at him. He took an Aloe-Vera facelette and wiped his cheeks.
    Jesse said: ‘You want to fuck a whale?’
    Benny looked at Jesse and saw that he was very young, and very short. He had soft, fair, fluffy hair in a line from his ears down to his chin. Benny felt his power come back. He felt it itch inside his skin.
    He said, ‘When you’re grown up you’ll like their bellies like that.’
    ‘You don’t like girls, Benny.’
    ‘Their tits get big,’ Benny said. ‘Their nipples too. They like you to drink their milk while you fuck them.’ He was smiling while he spoke. He felt his skin stretch. His face was full of teeth.
    Jesse frowned.
    Benny thought: you dwarf. He thought: I am going to rise up from the cellar and stand in the fucking sky.
    ‘She’s from the Tax Department,’ Jesse said. ‘I had to carry all the ledgers and that up to your Granny’s flat for her. She’s going to go through your old man like a dose of salts.’
    This was the first time that Benny had heard about the Tax Department. He was travelling too fast to notice it. ‘I don’t care where she’s from.’ He looked down at Jesse and smiled as he checked his tie. ‘I am going to fuck her.’
    Jesse was going to say something. He opened his mouth but then he just made a little breathy laugh through his nose and teeth.
    Finally he said, ‘You?’
    ‘Yes.’ Benny’s chest and shoulders felt good inside his suit. His posture was good. He was suffused with a feeling of warmth.
    ‘We can realize our dreams,’ he told Jesse.
    Jesse blushed bright red.
    ‘Also,’ Benny said. He held up a single, pink-nailed forefinger and waited.
    ‘Also what?’
    ‘Also I am selling five vehicles a week, starting now.’
    Benny smiled. Then he picked up the ‘Petrol Sales’ invoice book and went to read the meters on the pumps.

10
    Mrs Catchprice sat in her apartment above the car yard in Franklin, and was