10.
The two Toorak Militia kept
vigil as Helmut left. Xavier was holding his gun at the ready. Forearm veins
and white knuckles visible. They let Helmut pass through. He put a worn Billy
Joel tape in the cassette player. A bottle of red, a bottle of white / It
all depends upon your appetite. He felt at the wad of notes in his pocket.
His finger tapped on the steering wheel. The address for his next job was written
on a piece of parchment the butler handed him on the way out.
The roads were busy, and the Toyota panel van crept
along. People about their own business. Heading into town from the suburbs.
Leaving the city to go home. All kinds of attire and automobiles. That time of
the day when the usual barriers collapsed. Intersections between money and
everyone else. A canary yellow Ford Fiesta alongside a vintage Jaguar. Their
horns not dissimilar. Mimicking the other’s impatience. Ministry official Mercedes
with absent licence plates, behind utility vehicles carting fairy exterminators
to Birrarung Marr for the weekly bloodbath. Motoboys everywhere. Racing to
their dinner service. All navigated the heavy, retro Boyle Melbourne W Class trams
that the Premier had dug out of junkyards to repopulate the transit system. Feats
of jangling, clunking inefficiency. Serviced the east, mostly. A misplaced
cultural icon the populace liked to claim old school Melbourne chic. Manned by
the heavily armed Conductors. Passengers disembarked watching warily. Mostly
middle management types. A few late returning school children.
Helmut
drove the van onward. Things are okay with me these days / Got a new job,
got a good office. He rarely worked after five. He liked to get back to his
Glen Iris flat in time for the news. Feed his three-legged cat, Messer. Drink
pilsner. Cook sausages and packet mash potato. Look to his phone and organize
appointments for the following day. Read a biography on a cutler or a singer.
His life had become quiet. Regimented. He fought to keep it that way. A finely
honed rhythm. Helmut did his one thing – sharpen knives – and he did it
exceptionally. This was all that was required of him. He held onto no need to
comply to the expectations of others. That part of his life he had dismissed.
He did enough.
Near
the garish Hawksburn Bridge with avant-garde renderings of community, apartments,
houses, and fencing shifted to cafes and restaurants. Elevating rental prices. Boutique
bed ware stores. Places specialising in towels made of hypoallergenic yak and
yeti fur. Artful kinetic furniture designed
for human curvature. Wine bars of glittering steel and pizza ovens. Filled with
natural wines, smells of cut grass, distant manure. Thin poseurs in faux fur
huffing cigarillos on the footpath, sipping carafes of Sauvignon Blanc. Helmut
grips a Champion between his teeth. None of it was worth the price of parking. Interspersed
shoeless beggars. Drug addicts and northside remnants, maybe.
He
turned onto Chapel St. The South Yarra end with its for lease signs in cracked
windows and forgotten retail. Squatter homes and evicted Chapel St bums chased by
Ministry police trying to reinvigorate the area. Now, for venders on the street
hawking stolen wares from motorised carts – accessories, clothing, fireworks,
and booze. Lean shopping attendants stalking the next sale. Between them were throwback
burger bars. Mass produced sushi. Ethical vegan and grilled root vegetables. Helmut
saw it as a tourist trap. The South Yarra Chapel St Market was just getting
started. Customers sure that the stalls
sold legit goods pillaged from the backs of the dilapidated store fronts.
Leftovers before the rental blowout. The traffic was heavy, blocked by the 78
tram. People wandered often onto the road.
There
were more bars as Helmut worked his way up Chapel towards Windsor. More of the
seedy dirt, with crushed gum and trash. Revelry split onto the footpath. More
begging. Clouds of cigarette smoke. Parmas and chips. Neon Asian restaurants
with food cold rom photography. Careful selections of clothing. Affected body
positioning. All in orange stackhats to save them from drunken collision. Billy
Joel was singing, I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home.
Helmut saw a blocky man in torn footy shorts and a woollen yellow sweater, stackhat
sitting at the rear of his scalp, leading a band of motoboys in song at a
derelict bar filled with plush couches. A fireplace flicked in the background
behind the choir leader. His shadow spilled out the door onto Chapel.
The
Church of Violentiam Movedur Sidus was in a two-story building. Its few windows
were blacked out. The front door had a small peephole and a doorbell. There was
no sign declaring it a religious institution. It lacked any kind of
spirituality. Windsor Station was across the road. Helmut pulled his van up
just past an alley to the building’s right. He grabbed his tools from the back
and locked the door. A pair of Chapel St bums in stained tracksuits, drinking
from a paper bag and smoking tailored cigarettes watched as Helmut walked past and
rang the doorbell. A Champion burned down to the filter was stuck in his teeth.
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