dressing it for the funeral of a King or Queen.’
It sounded easy. It sounded inspiring, until you tried it and all of your old self kept soaking out of you, crumpling the paper, tangling the ribbon. When it was done, and wrapped, he saw the parcel had no ‘Integrity’. It was a lumpy shitty thing. This was why the transformation could not be complete.
Slowly he unwrapped the shoes on the table and then he tried to flatten the paper with his hands. The paper would not go flat. It was Benny-ised.
‘Shut up,’ he told the tape. ‘I’m going to fucking
He dressed in his suit again. He took his time dressing properly, and when he remembered that he had not cleaned the smudge on his foot, he unlaced his shoes, took off his trousers, rubbed off the smudge with a wet washer, and dressed once more. Then he walked up the stairs.
He knew Granny Catchprice was out walking and he knew that Vish was up there in her apartment, skulking, waiting like some kind of missionary. He had been up there all day long, hiding. If you asked him why he was hiding he would deny it, but Benny knew he was hiding, from Mort, from Benny, from the cars themselves. He had been cooking curry and now he was standing in front of the bride doll cabinet doing stuff in front of the picture of his guru. There was a bowl of yellow food beside the picture and there was a sprig of jasmine in a Vegemite jar. Vish believed the picture could taste the food with its eyes.
Benny said: ‘Whatcher doing?’
Vish turned and saw him.
‘Hi,’ he said. He looked wide awake, alert, without that dumb, blissed-out look he normally got from chanting.
‘You should have come and seen me,’ said Benny, and patted the wings of his platinum hair flat on the side of his head. ‘History is being made round here.’
‘I’m pleased you came,’ Vish said. He was pleased too. He walked towards Benny as if he was going to hug him, but then he stopped, a foot in front of him, grinning. He made no acknowledgement that his brother had undergone a total transformation.
‘You should have come down.’ Benny said. ‘I was expecting you.’
‘I didn’t want to hassle you.’ Vish smiled. It was impossible to know what he was thinking.
‘You shoulda dropped in, you know.’ Benny said. He was standing in front of his brother in a $300 suit and his brother was saying nothing about it. He had never owned a suit before, neither of them had. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day. About all that stuff we talked about …’
‘Now we can talk,’ Vish nodded to the dining-table and pulled out a chair.
‘I was just hanging out down in the cellar after work,’ Benny said. ‘You should have come down.’
Vish sat down and patted the chair beside him.
‘I’ve
Vish looked up and squinted his eyes at Benny. ‘Your appearance?’
‘Oh Vish,’ Benny said, grabbing his brother by his meaty upper arm. ‘Don’t be a pain in the arse. Come on, come and help me iron some stuff. Will you do that? Remember when you used to iron my school shirts? Come down to the cellar and help me iron my shirts.’
‘You want me to come to your cellar?’
Benny sighed.
‘It’s just that you never wanted me to be there before.’
‘There’s stuff I want you to see,’ Benny said, patting his brother softly on the cheek. ‘You’ll never understand if you don’t come.’
20
‘Welcome to the Bunker,’ Benny said.
It was worse than anything Vish could have imagined. The air was as thick as a laundry. The concrete floor was half an inch deep in water. It was criss-crossed with planks supported by broken housebricks. A brown-striped couch stood against one end, its legs on bricks. The bricks were wrapped in green plastic garbage bags. Electric flex was everywhere, wrapped in Glad Wrap and bits of plastic bag with torn ends like rag; it crossed the planks and ran through the water. Two electric radiators stood on a chipped green chest of drawers, facing not into the room but towards the walls where you could see the red glow of two bars reflected in what Vish, at first, thought was wet floral wallpaper. It was not wallpaper. It was handwriting, red, blue, green, black, webs of it, layer on layer. In the corner to the left of the door was a white fibreglass object, like a melted surfboard in the shape of a shallow ‘n’.
‘What’s that?’
‘Wigwam for a goose’s bridle.’ Benny pushed him towards the striped couch which stood against the end wall.
The melted surfboard had straps on it like safety belts.
‘Sit down, come on.’
Vish looked at the couch he was being offered. ‘I came to iron for you,’ he said, stepping gingerly away from the couch and looking for a clean flat surface to place the iron on.
‘What’s the matter?’ Pride and blame jostled each other in Benny’s voice. He jutted his round smooth chin a little and checked his tie. ‘You don’t want to look at me? Am I ugly?’
‘Benny, you can’t stay here. You deserve better than this.’
‘You’re my brother, right? You’re the guy who came up on the train to see me because I was in the shit? That’s you?’
‘I won’t let you stay here.’
‘We’re family, right?’
‘Yes, we’re family. That’s what we’re going to talk about.’
‘Then don’t patronize me, O.K.? I know I deserve better than this. I’m not going to live here for ever. I’m going to buy a double block at Franklin Heights. There’s some great places up there now. They got tennis courts and everything. Vish, we could do so fucking
Vish put the steam-iron down on the work bench. ‘I won’t let you live like this …’
‘You’re scared of money. I understand. Don’t worry. I’ll look after the money.’ Benny smoothed a green garbage bag on the regency couch and sat on it. ‘I’ve changed, just like you changed once. I’ve made a tranformation.’
Vish looked up at Benny and was about to say something before he changed his mind.
‘What?’ Benny prompted.
‘It’s not the time.’
‘Say it – it’s O.K. You think I can’t handle money?’
‘No one can change.’
‘You can fucking
‘You dyed your hair.’
‘Is that all you can fucking see …’
‘You cleaned your face. You got a suit. You know what that makes me feel? It just makes me feel depressed. Even if you had plastic surgery, you couldn’t change. I couldn’t either. We’re both going to be the same thing for all eternity. Even when we die and get born again, even if we get reborn a dog … we’re the same thing. Everything has a Sanatana Dharma,’ Vish said. ‘It means Eternal Occupation. It doesn’t matter what form we take, this is like our essence – it stays the same.’
Benny sighed and crossed his legs. ‘The way I see it,’ he said at last, ‘is that there are white ants breeding underneath their feet, but they can’t see it.’
Vish nodded, waiting to see how this connected.
‘They think they’re on a rock,’ Benny said. ‘Howie, Cathy, Mort. They think they’re on a rock, but they’re on ice. They don’t know what’s beneath them. Down here,’ he gestured at the walls – blue, red, green, words written over each other so they looked like ancient blotting paper. ‘Down here I make the future, our future. I’ve prepared myself for a completely new life. For you too. We can do this thing together.’
