46. Telstra

67

I only joined the army ‘cause I couldn’t get Centrelink. I told my granddad I wanted to be an artist, but he didn’t take it too good.
“Dole bludging poofter,” he said.
And then he kicked me out.
I slept in the burnt-out car down in the sand dunes for a bit.
During the day, I hung out at the Centrelink. There were good chairs in the waiting room. Green ones with metal legs that rocked when you shook side to side.
I turned to this one guy, and said:
“Check it out.”
And did a little shake.
But he just looked away.
Eventually, they called my number. Number sixty-seven, pretty good.
The woman who called me up was named Cindy. Short for Cinderella, probably. She had grey hair tied in a big bun and it wobbled when she talked. It made me think of the rabbit I found in a burrow down at the creek. The fattest bunny ever. It couldn’t even fit in the hole; its little legs and butt stuck out in the air.
Every morning, I went down and pet it and said things like:
“I gotcha little rabbit. I won’t let nobody hurt your little butt.”
But each day he lost a little weight, and the hole got looser.
One day, I thought, he’s gonna slip inside and I won’t be able to pet his butt anymore. And that made me sad.
But then once I was getting outta the water and something stank really bad like the bins behind the chicken farm.
“Little rabbit, you got some gas or something?” I said.
And when I bent down to pet him, his butt came off in my hands – somebody had eaten the other half of him.
And I thought, damn, I’ve been worrying about the wrong side. It’s hard to think about the part you can’t see, I guess.
Cinderella didn’t like that story too much.
She just kept shaking her head and asking:
“Are you independent?”
“I like to think so,” I said.
“Is it unreasonable for you to live at home?”
Which was a funny thing to ask. So, I said:
“Home’s the only reasonable place a person can live, Cinderella.”
She scratched her head with her pen and the rabbit bobbled.
“You don’t qualify,” she said.
“But I got kicked out. I’ve got nowhere to sleep.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It happens a lot.”

1000

The army wasn’t too bad. There was always somebody to talk to. And the fellas were always playing funny games. My first night in the barracks, Freddo says to me:
“I bet you can do a lot of sit-ups.”
“Sure can,” I said. “I do one thousand every day.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” he said.
And it must’ve been impressive because the other guys started listening. They came out from underneath their green bedsheets, like little frogs with lily pads on their heads. All their eyes started looking over and giggling and the bunk beds squeaked like shopping trolleys. I thought they must be embarrassed ‘cause they can’t do that many sit-ups.
“Can you do an impossible sit-up though?” said Freddo, scratching his bald head.
“I don’t know about that, Freddo,” I said. “But I do know that you should always try your best.”
Freddo looked kind of sad and rubbed the back of his legs.
And all the fellas were chanting:
“Do it. Do it. Do it.”
Kerplang grabbed two cans of deodorant from his duffle bag and started spraying them in the air. Everybody called him Kerplang because he looked like he’d been hit with a shovel.
I laid down on the floor and Kerplang and Outboard held a towel over my face and pinned my head to the ground.
Everybody was calling my name:
“Telstra. Telstra. Telstra.”
I tried to sit up real hard and my stomach was burning, but then the fellas pulled away the towel and Freddo was bending over my chest with his butt cheeks apart. It was like slow motion. I hurtled toward the empty place inside of him and smacked his flesh like a hooked fish.
“Nothing is impossible,” I said.
But Freddo started to cry. He curled up and sobbed right there on the floor. I crawled over to him and touched his hair and said:
“I’m sorry, Freddo. I told you I do one thousand a day.”
But he kept sobbing.
“I have haemorrhoids,” he said.
So, I started crying too.
Then the frogs crept out from under their lily pads and piled together on the floor and we became one big lump just croaking our little croaks.

4

I guess I only remember that because years later I put on an exhibition of paintings in the city. I didn’t have a gallery or nothing, so I just found a wall near the train station and hung them up.
One day, a man showed up dressed in a robe that reached down to his feet. He had a golden sash wrapped around his chest and a big beard hanging down the front. And when I say big, I mean huge. I tried to imagine all the things he could hide in there, but there were just too many things.
He stood in front of this one painting for hours, never saying nothing.
It was a big red painting with purple bruises. The canvas was a bedsheet I made stiff with gesso and stretched into the shape of a snail with some garden hose filled with expanding foam.
“Is it for sale?” he asked.
“You can trade me something for it,” I said.
He just kept looking at the painting.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Give me something from your beard.”
And with that he reached inside his chin and pulled out a rabbit’s foot and pressed it into my hands without looking.
“I knew it,” I said.
“It’s a revelation,” he said.
It’s haemorrhoids, I thought. Haemorrhoids.

16

Feet were always popping up like that.
On Saturday nights, the fellas and I used to go into town to try and find chicks. I used to be the best at it. We’d pile into the bus in muddy boots and every time I saw one out the window I’d draw a little line on the back of my hand.
“Sixteen,” I’d say. “And we haven’t even got to town.”
None of the other fellas knew how many they saw.
“The trick is writing it down,” I told them.
But they didn’t listen.
We’d always go to the same pub: The Whistling Cow. Which was funny ‘cause cows don’t have lips.
The carpet stuck to the bottom of our shoes and made me feel like a beetle crawling over flypaper. The TVs were too loud and everywhere; big pink and yellow balls slammed against the screens announcing numbers with no order:
Fifty-two.
Eighty.
Four.
Four.
Four.
Horses were bursting through the glass and running all over the place and the fellas were always dragging me up to groups of girls and saying:
“This is Telstra. This is Telstra.”
And I’d say:
“I already counted those ones.”
And the girls would say:
“Why’s he called Telstra?”
And the fellas would say:
‘‘‘Cause he’s always dropping out.”
And I’d say:
“Be careful of the horses.”
And the fellas would say:
“See what we mean?”

19

One time, Kerplang said to me:
“You and me, we got to have a strategy. I like to tell them I lost my leg in Afghanistan. Makes them feel sorry for me. Works every time.”
“But I’ve still got my legs,” I said.
“No shit, man. Me too,” he said.
The windows were all open in the pub ‘cause it was so hot and there was no air conditioning. Flies kept coming and getting stuck in pints of beer ‘cause their arms weren’t long enough for backstroke. I had to run around fishing them out with a teaspoon.
“Telstra’s cracking up,” the fellas said.
But one of the girls – number nineteen – she came up to me and asked me what I was doing.
“Somebody’s gotta be the lifeguard,” I said.
She was short and heavy, and she was wearing a long skirt that covered her feet. I imagined her holding my hand and keeping me from floating away.
“I want to be a lifeguard too,” she said.
So, we both went around with our spoons and saved twice as many flies.
At the end of the night, she said:
“I want you to come home with me.”
And the fellas started yelling:
“Home installation. Home Installation.”

0

We walked along the side of the road, the grass all crispy with summer, and every now and then a car passed and kicked up light and dust around us. Frogs croaked in the distance somewhere, probably ‘cause they were thirsty.
I told Nineteen this and she laughed.
“I heard they drink through their skin,” she said.
“I wish I could drink through my skin,” I said.
“Me too,” she said, and pulled me into the grass and started kissing me on the arms and neck.
“Would you drink me?” she said.
“But then you’d be gone,” I said.
“Drink me,” she said.
And so, I tried. I took big sips all over, lapping like a horse at a trough, but when I got to her feet, she pushed me away.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She turned away from me, laying in the grass.
“No,” she said. “It’s just that the left one’s fake. I was born without it.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Kerplang lost his in Afghanistan.”
“That’s terrible,” she said. And looked at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were moonlit frog ponds.
“Can I hold it?” I asked.
“My prosthesis?”
“No,” I said. “The one that’s not there.”

1

Everybody in the army did drugs, except for me. I just liked to collect them.
When I was waiting at the careers centre, this guy next to me leant over and said:
“When they ask you if you do drugs, just tell them you tried weed once in high school.”
“But I didn’t,” I said.
“Wow, in that case, you really should tell them,” he said.
When the recruiter called my number, I told him straight away:
“Once in high school, sir.”
“Didn’t we all?” he said.
Then he handed me a form that said: Infantry.

3

Outboard used to get these pills from his cousin in Little Antarctica. They came in all kinds of different colours with little logos pressed in the centre and had names like: Kermits, and Bugs, and Mitsubishi Diamonds.
“Why do they call it Little Antarctica?” asked Kerplang.
‘‘‘Cause of all the ice,” said Freddo.
Kerplang licked the inside of a small plastic bag, swishing his pink meat round and round.
When he was done, he asked:
“In Queensland?”

425

Outboard let me keep the funny-shaped ones.
“Quality control, lad,” he said.
I kept them in a takeaway container under my bunk, and when I had enough I got my Gorilla Glue and started putting them together – it was a creek with a little rock garden and an old tree perfect for burrows. In the middle of the creek, somebody was diving into the water and there was one foot still popping out the water.
“Jesus Christ,” said Freddo. “You’re tapped into the fucking network.”
Kerplang sucked on a tree branch.
“Piss off, Kerplang,” said Freddo, swatting at his head. “He fucking made that.”
“No,” I said. “I want you to taste it.”
And Outboard started licking it too. Then Freddo. Then the other frogs. And their eyes all got really big and everybody was warm.
Freddo kept stroking my hair. “I can see it inside of me, man,” he said.
And I could see it inside him too.

2

Later, when I wasn’t in the army no more, I saw Outboard in the window of a gym. He was really big and his muscles were really swollen, rocks filled with water. I’d just got out the hospital and I wanted people to look at my paintings. So I made these two big sticks that went over my shoulders like wings and hung my paintings on there with fishing line and walked around so people could see. But they just looked at their shoes. Sometimes they took pictures.
I’d say:
“It’s okay. You can take it home with you.”
Outboard saw me and came outside. He didn’t smile. Just said:
“You still got communication issues, eh?”

90

Outboard let me watch him train and if anybody asked what I was doing I just said I was making a painting. He would pick up big weights and move them around and his body would grow in every direction.
“How do they know how to do that?” I asked.
“I’m in total control, lad,” he said.
He spent hours looking in the mirror and doing his little dance. Arms up. Arms down. Turn to side. Spread your back. It was beautiful.
He got me a job installing benchtops in people’s houses. Big swirly pieces of stone that made lots of dust when he cut them.
“It’s ten percent lifting and ninety percent driving,” he said.
I did most of the driving. He would sleep in the back. He said he needed the sleep so he could grow. And it was true. I used to watch him in the mirror. He took big breaths and his chest would go up and down, and every time it came back up it was even bigger.

30

Whenever I pissed in a cup for him it always came out brown, like a whole pond you can carry in your hand.
“Don’t you drink any fucking water?” Outboard said.
I always asked him:
“What’s it for?”
And he would say:
“A competition.”
But I never found out if I won.
He invited me to watch him dance on stage. There were other men there too. They were all brown and slimy and they had real strong legs and I bet they could jump through the roof, if they really tried. They had on little undies and they were all different colours and Outboard’s were green. After they danced, the judges held up numbers on white cardboard signs.
When it was Outboard’s turn, they introduced him by the wrong name; the man with the microphone kept calling him. Rowan. He was the biggest and oiliest of all. He did his little dance. Arms up. Arms down. Turn to side. Spread your back. But he kept making croaking sounds.
And when he was done the judges held up their cards and they all said:
Ten.
Ten.
Ten.
But then Outboard fell down and they had to call an ambulance.
And when the paramedics rolled him over, they said he was smiling.
And I kept shouting:
“His name’s Outboard. His name’s Outboard. It’s better than Rowan.”

34

I think there’s something inside of you that’s always trying to get out. And I think if you can do it, if you can get it out, it goes inside of other people and you can disappear. I told this to Freddo once, but he didn’t get what I mean. This was when he was living inside the railway bridge, where the girders made a cave      and it was always dark. He had a little headlamp but said he couldn’t waste the batteries.
When the trains went over, they’d kick up all the rubbish, and a gush of wind would carry it all inside. I liked the ciggie packets best. I called them Old Mate Bryan ‘cause of the man on the front. I wanted to build a home for Freddo, and I tried to build a couch, but everything kept coming out as rabbits.
“Rabbits in my burrow,” Freddo said. But he was always tripping over them, so he used to smash them up.
That was after Kerplang got killed. Green on blue in Afghanistan. One of theirs shot one of ours.
I used to ask Freddo:
“Did they ever find his leg?”
And he used to always laugh.
So, I guess they never did.

556

One time we were training in the field and we hadn’t slept for days. We were pack-marching down this road and the enemy were in the bushes. Kerplang had just been shot and he was being carried on a stretcher. I was meant to be taking point to scout for any danger. But at the end of the road there was a little creek that opened through a field. And everything was gold and green and the sun shone off the water. On the other side, a rabbit, and beside it was a frog; they were both jumping, just straight up and down. One would jump and then the other. And they were looking at each other.
Jump.
Jump.
Jump.
So I put down my rifle and turned around, and when the fellas came up the road, I put a finger to my lips and told them to be quiet. They started to get angry, but Freddo told them: shush. And on the other side of the water, we stood and watched them jumping. And I was jumping too.
Kerplang started laughing, but he was supposed to be shot, so the fellas dropped him on the ground.
Then Outboard was beside me, and he was jumping too. The frog, and then the rabbit, then me, then Outboard. Everybody started jumping. We all had our turn.
And I couldn’t help but think, if I could hold this space between us and put that on my canvas, maybe I could become something outside of my body.
The rabbit lifted his arms, and the frog did the same. Then the sun fell between them, and it was like they were holding it up. We kept on jumping. We were part of something. And for a moment in the water something rippled, then was gone.

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Joshua Lee Shimmen is a reader, writer, and general ratbag. He has published fiction in the Big Issue Fiction Edition, Overland, Meniscus, and elsewhere.