Horse

The light buzzed and crackled above his head. He pulled out the white shirt and black pants from his sports bag, got changed and looked at himself in the small bathroom mirror and didn’t like what he saw. A guy that looked older than his years: bad teeth and curly red that hair that simply wouldn’t be tamed. The overall impression more like a horse than anything else, hence his nickname - ‘Hey, horse, can you go and do a stock-check? Hey, horse, can you clean the in the back? Hey, horse…’

He threw his things in his locker and slammed the door and looked at himself in the mirror; told himself that one day he was going to get out of dodge, blow this pop stand and make it out, get to the city and start again, really live…

‘Hey, horse, what’s happening?’

The mere sound of her voice always sent a shiver up his spine. He didn’t bother to look at her, could hardly see the point; three years of unrequited love. Still, he wouldn’t be the only one, if he knew anything, he knew that much.   

‘Carla.’

She turned to look at him, as if she was going to say something, then changed her mind and walked off, hair swinging behind her like a pendulum. The old fluorescent light kept buzzing.

‘Aren’t you meant to be on shift?’

He looked down and saw the familiar bald head of Gary, his boss. Black hair swooped over a bald head; a grin that made him look decidedly sinister.

‘Am on in five minutes.’

‘Well, you’d better move it.’

Horse didn’t bother to look back at the man and retaliate, for he knew that it would be pointless, that Gary would just as easily fire him for insubordination; for Costco was Gary’s life, was all of their lives, and there was something very wrong with that. He sighed and waited for Gary to leave then slammed his locker door, which now had his name on it (his one entitlement) and trudged out of the store-room and made his way onto ‘the floor’.

Ten aisles of check-outs. Ten men and women, dressed in the same stupid uniform, doing the same stupid job, for ten-hour shifts. But it was the best that the town had to offer, aside from all the other minimum wage jobs: ‘Bunnings warehouse’, the local pub, the convenience stores…

Those that didn’t get into Uni, ‘the dumb kids’, hadn’t made it out. People said that he should have taken up a trade, and they were right, he should’ve, except, he had no interest in it, and besides, he was hoping that his year 12 scores would have got him there, but they had not.

And so, he walked the linoleum floor and came to his ‘work bay’ and wondered, for the millionth time, how long he would have to do this - probably until his mother died, but then, that could be ten years away, or longer, and, in any case, his brother and sister were still in school, and his mother was ailing, and, in the event of her death, someone would have to look after them, and, of course, that person would have to be him. He stepped toward the check-out and sighed and tried smiling at George, the guy he was relieving.

George. Another version of himself, but older and fatter, and balder. A moustache that looked out of place. Their eyes met, as they always would, and then, he strode off, as he always did, to God knew where: a one-bedroom apartment, somewhere? Maybe. Most likely, he was still living with his parents.

Horse sighed one last time and accepted his fate, stepped into the booth and was met by the first customer, in the long and endless queue. A woman with dark skin wearing beaded glasses, hair that looked like a wig, standing in the aisle behind her shopping. He scanned each item and put it into a bag, and she paid and he gave her change. A man, looking like a giant potato wearing glasses, waited, was next in line.

And so it went, customer after customer, standing before him, and him, putting item after item through the checkout, until, finally, he looked up at the clock and saw the blessed four-o’clock signal, packed up his things and left the check-out, watched the disdain on the pimply kid’s face who was replacing him as he left, then strode out into the evening, glad that another day was done.

The sky was a giant burnt ochre screen. He started the street, walking passed couples out for an early evening stroll, workers getting their evening meal. He walked the tiny street that was the heart of the town, then came to the bus stop and waited. By time it came, there was a queue. He came to the front of it then got on, looked up at huge man sitting in the seat, who was the bus driver, got on and took his seat by the window.

A brown flat expanse rolling past. Houses that looked derelict, with lights on, inside. The last of gold light dipped on the horizon and the bus groaned on, slowed down and exhaled, let passengers off. After a while, it came to his stop and he stepped out into the night and walked the street that was deserted. Crickets hissing in the night air, loud in his ears. The sound of children’s laughter. Cars pulling into drive-ways. He walked the twenty-minutes back to where he lived and stepped into the driveway as the streetlights came on, opened the rust iron gate and closed it again and walked the path up to the house that sat on the horizon, looking, as always, smaller than it was, from a distance.

A wooden box with lights on inside, silhouettes, appearing and disappearing in the windows. He sighed and stepped the old wooden stairs, heard them creak, made a mental note to get them fixed, then stepped onto the veranda, opened the fly-wire door.

The sound of crockery hitting the table, the hushed conversation of his siblings. He walked the hallway and found them as they always would be: his mother sitting on the couch watching the tv, his brother and sister setting the table. He walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek, from behind her head, could smell her perfume, tried talking to her, but, as always, she barely noticed, remained impassive, watched a game show, as though it were a portal, telling her secret things of great importance.

The house was dimly lit by lamps and mostly lay in shadow. He walked amongst it and sat down with his brother and sister, at the dining table, and his sister took a plate to their mother, and gave it to her, on the couch, to which she hardly seemed to notice, started putting a spoon to her lips, to which some liquid spilled down her mouth. Horse finished the meal, washed up, and walked up the stairs to his bedroom, cleaned his teeth and went to bed, wrecked from the day.

The next morning, the alarm went off as it always would, and he dove into the shower before his siblings, grabbed his workwear, and made it out of the house, on a hot day in summer, in the regional town of Bangalow.  

He walked the dirt track and came to the bus stop, sat and waited. After a while he saw it moving from the horizon. A large silver missile, moving forward, blowing dust from its wheels. It stopped and he got on and took his seat and looked out the window, watched the houses roll past until it made it into town where he got off and started walking to Costco.

He ran into some people on the way.

‘Hey, Horse, how are you?’

‘Horse, what’s happening?’

He greeted them and kept walking, made it into his workplace on time, strode into the back and got changed. The snarling face of Gary, his boss, waiting for him.

‘You’re late,’ said Gary. Horse looked directly at him.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Well, you’d better hurry up, or you’re gonna be.’

They looked each other in the eye and then Gary strode off. Horse opened his locker and got changed, threw his stuff in, stood and looked at himself in the small mirror. Then saw a notice stuck on the notice board next to the mirror. The words ‘Staff Christmas Party’ with a crude drawing of Santa Claus was scribbled across a small lined piece of paper. Horse peered at it, couldn’t decipher who had concocted it, made a mental note of the address, walked out and started his shift, delighted at the prospect.

Now, finally, he would have a chance to talk to Carla. Even though he had had his chances before, at least, here, it was a social setting, and who knew what might happen?

The staff at Costco had held other staff parties before, and some of them had been quite eventful: people getting completely carried away, and sometimes rotten drunk. Horse had always managed to contain himself, but seeing the other workers at a venue, for him, was always such a treat, and to think that Carla might be there!

The rest of the week passed without event, as it always seemed to in Bangalow, until Friday finally came around and Horse was finishing up his shift and getting changed in the store room, into his party gear �" his favourite pair of jeans and t-shirt.

He checked the address again, but already knew how to get there, knew which bus to take, what time it would leave and what time it would arrive. He looked at himself in the mirror, could feel his heart racing a bit, doused himself with aftershave, slammed his locker door, then made his way out of the store, finishing the clean-up, watched the neon sign turn off, then strode out onto the street.

The streets glistened with a recent down-fall of rain. He made his way to the bus-stop and didn’t have to wait long. The bus arrived with the same overweight bus driver sitting in the cabin. Horse got on and paid and it wasn’t long until it came to the street where the party was at. He got off and took a second to console himself, took a deep breath and found the street and then the house.

A two-story place, no different from the others in the cul-de-sac.  One of the worker’s parents would have owned the place; fairy lights hanging from it. And then the front door swung open and a girl burst onto the lawn, carrying a champaign bottle, and then a guy in tow, someone, he vaguely recognised, a youngish guy with slicked back hair. The guy then grabbed her and dragged her off the lawn and they ran back in the house.

Horse took a deep breath, could feel his nerves growing taught at the social situation, and at the thought of seeing Carla, then chastised himself, for he hardly knew her, and recognised that he was being ridiculous.

He opened the door to the house and lit himself in, walked down the darkened hall, the sound of techno coming loud from within the house, came to a room that was full of people: the Costco Christmas party, the event to be at in Bangalow.

Men and women, making out, dancing, talking, yelling at each other, revelling, heads everywhere, with long and short hair. He walked in between them, then came to a sliding door that led out to a patio. Women’s legs in fishnet stockings, looking like small blown-up balloons; naked arms that looked like they belonged to dolls, in dresses, men trying to embrace them.

Horse walked out of the house and stood amongst them, on a brick patio, tried to breath in the night air but only inhaled cigarette smoke. Then caught sight of her. Her blonde bob hanging down the side of her face like a gold helmet, the rest of it, taken up by a man. She pulled away, smiling, looking as though she had claimed some prize, then put a bottle to her mouth and caught sight of him and burst out laughing.   

‘Horse, what the hell are you doing here?’

She started to say something else but the guy was putting his hands down her shirt and then she was kissing the guy again. Horse stood there, alone on the patio, looking at them, waiting for her to acknowledge him, but it wasn’t forthcoming, they just kept pashing, and with that, he turned and made his way back into the house and pushed his way through the couples, in what had become a make-out party, then found his way back through the front hall and outside of the house. He stood on the lawn and looked up the stars, breathed in the night air, liked to have thought that he could make out a constellation but wasn’t sure, a tiny cluster of white dots in the blackened sky.