The nine thirteen from Central was an unhappy journey and the James Bond retro at Paddington Town Hall had gone an hour longer than expected. Bond had dispatched threats of world domination with brutal ballet. John doubted he could handle a vicious crone lashing him with poison-tip boots, a  stocky Chinese with steel-rimmed hat.

He was in a life and death struggle with Jennifer at the peak of her radical feminism. She was the love of his life and they agreed on most things. But never on this:  She saw Bond as a vastly inappropriate mysogenist who used extreme violence as a servant of arrogant patriarchy. Jennifer could turn Bambi into a dissertation on the tragedy of motherhood. Watching Bond would corrupt their ten year old son. 

John wanted Bill to see the double. He liked both movies and told her they couldn’t do harm, that it was basic good versus evil.  She exhausted him with gender and sexual politics that had no place in spy fiction. He liked Bond for his fighting and womanizing. None of the gorgeous and independent creatures he bedded would ever call the super-spy an idiot or turn from his advances or demand a debate. John would be in bliss at the wheel of a bullet-proof Maserati as gentleman assassin and killer, strictly on a casual basis, saving the world. 

Taking Bill to the movies that day was only the beginning of a crisis that would last over a decade. 

Jennifer said his baser instincts were manipulated by ‘this kind of cinema’. She was never in tune with Pussy Galore. 'What do you see in that nonsense?' She wanted to know.

'It makes me feel better,' he grumbled like a small boy.

'Why do you need to feel better?'

'Because I fucking do. Okay?' He snapped.

He was immersed in story and hooked on tensions and thrills and she was draining the fantasy.  She went to the movie out of obligation. A hot summer day gave way to the warm magenta glow of a bushfire evening. The train’s rhythm encouraged him to drift. He preferred to bask in a Bond glow as a kaleidoscope of darkness and light sped through billboards, graffiti, and rooftops. They came and went like a storm of afterthought. Billy was mobile, agitated and with Jenn, his energy fading to snooze. 

John smelt the drunk before he noticed him.  Their carriage was a cocktail of stale beer, sweat, piss and vomit. Two women noisily got up from their seats to move to the back. The source of their distress was a man in his fifties in a suit light years off complimentary. He looked like he’d crawled through a sewer and was keen to cause disturbance. He needed a chorus and would have no trouble finding one.

'Cunts!' He called out and gave a snigger, a joke only he could enjoy.

His shout brought Billy to consciousness. In soiled black suit and with tie over his shoulder, he gave John an insincere grin and surveyed fellow travellers. Billy got a wave. John put a hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed hard to discourage interest.  

Billy cried out and loudly asked: 'Dad! Is that man drunk?'

'What’d he do?' Jennifer demanded to know

'Nothing!' He whispered never taking eyes off the drunk now swaying in time with the carriage. Searching for a target, he had to abuse any evidence he could find of a better life. A businessman opened his newspaper and stared into it; two women shook their heads in disgust, a teenage boy gave a little grin and was deeply interested in his shoes, a girl dressed to party was uncomfortable. 

'Leave him!' Jennifer whispered. 

Did she think he wanted to provoke an angry drunk?  He was smaller and had sinewy arms and grease on his neck. He collapsed into a seat opposite and admonished the air, going quiet, appearing to nod off. He gave a loud snort that snapped him awake. His eyes popped open and he fixed on the girl as she tried melting into her plastic seat. 'Looking for a fuck darling? You can have me. You can do all the work. I’m pissed but my fly opens easy. Give us a blow job!'  Then came his rant against women and how they'd ruined his life: 'You’re all bitches and cunts! Whole fucken pack of you! Think you’re special because you got a cunt and tits?'  The hatred worked up and into a fever pitch. His victim gazed out her window, studying the blur of scenery then searching the carriage for support. Other passengers glared out or stared into books and magazines as if they’d found revelation. The girl's hand went to her halter neck to cover a curve of breast. She used the window as a mirror but tried to ignore her image, pretending she wasn’t there. She used the reflection to survey the rest of the carriage:

Why wasn’t anyone saying anything?

Why wasn’t anyone stopping him?

Why didn’t John intervene?  She looked directly at him, frozen and incapable of moving. Anything she said would trigger a new tirade.  Jennifer gripped her husband’s wrist and whispered: 'Leave him! He’ll calm down.' 

John was on his feet and facing the drunk. Jennifer gave his pants a sharp tug.

Would Mr Bond kindly sit down? Was he really expected to sit out this abuse? His urge was to turn on his wife and ask where her feminism had gone. His ego and conditioning urged him to protect this exposed and vulnerable girl. He was running on instinct not earning brownie points. This prick needed silencing any way he could.

'Think of Billy!' Jennifer insisted tilting her head at their transfixed son. 

He was thinking of Billy, he wanted his son to look after people, to right wrongs and make an angry, greedy world a better place. He wanted his son to be proud of his dad. Jennifer’s face flushed with anger as he told the drunk: 'You’re bothering the lady.'

'She’s a cunt!' Roared the drunk, his leather hands gnarled with dirt; he was a gardener or mechanic and not comfortable in a suit. He’d been to a wedding or to court. His sneering at women suggested divorce. He was witness to the end of marriage and drunk on resentment, an animal to be closed down. Any sympathy or understanding dissolved in the acid of his display. Undoing his fly, he tried to catch balance and slumped to a seat as if exertion had defeated him.

'Leave him John! It’s over!' urged Jennifer. 

The drunk grinned and moved into a slovenly boxer’s pose. His world was tougher; he was rough pubs and hard company. Bond would quietly apply a hold and whisper a gentleman’s demand. The villain would cringe, his neck about to be snapped. He’d be tossed off the speeding train and Bond would resume his seat.

Pity no gentleman super spy was readily available.

'You’ll apologize to the lady and get off this train at the next stop'

'The fuck I will!' spat the drunk and attracted a cheer squad at the back of the carriage.

Two youths urged him to take John on.  Jennifer examined the passing landscape, disowning him.  She hugged Billy tightly and did her best to distract. He wriggled out of her grip, keen to watch his dad. She hushed him and gazed intently at Lego-like houses rushing past.

'You don’t fucken tell me what to do' yelled the drunk and added 'You cunt!' 

John watched, adrenalin pumping, fight or flight flickering like a faulty billboard. He went into a boxing stance like he’d seen on television. It was the display of a man who’d never fought.  He could toss an arm round the drunk’s neck and put him in a chokehold. He caught the forward movement of the train and stepped out of range. The drunk crashed into the aisle cursing him for loss of balance. He launched at John and all hope of peaceful negotiation was gone. This was different to anything he’d faced. It was a pure form of possession beyond any hope of immediate and rational containment, an eruption of spirit seizing him. It was raw fury entirely without expertise, a demand to hurt the drunk badly, a need to damage, to punish this foul mouth quickly and brutally. 

As if she could sense it, Jennifer was in retreat, attempting to cover Bill’s eyes and mouthing her disbelief: ‘Oh! For God sake!'

'You’re getting off this train,' John roared and drove a wild punch into the centre of the man’s face snapping back his head; drawing blood. It stunned the drunk and destroyed any rule of combat.  This was the drunk’s arena, the chaos of a shifting swaying floor in half-light and a theatre of window reflections. He bounced back on his toes with blood streaming from his nose, more threatening and much less drunk.

John was pumped on adrenalin and only vaguely noticed his hand throbbing from impact. Every injustice he’d ever known fed the moment: he was up against the fat kid who stole his lunch at school, the foreman in his first casual job who put him on display with a ‘left-hand screwdriver’, the motorist who left a dent in the Volvo door.  He snatched the drunk by the wrist in a hold he’d seen on telly and yanked it up his back with unreasonable strength, twisting hard and sharp. A bone snapped with a muffled crack and the drunk screamed, begging mercy and pleading with him to ‘lay off!!’ A stream of excuses and name-calling poured from him but John had no mercy; he had a need to kill.

The ‘Emergency’ lever was pulled and the train jerked to an indecisive halt as if struggling to continue with doors opening and closing; ajar and then inward and suddenly out. 

On a concrete platform the drunk scrambled to get away from this madman. He hauled his injured body from John’s grip and tumbled through a gap, splaying over concrete steps. The women applauded as John immersed in a haze and heard nothing.

An officer in uniform and of uncertain authority entered the carriage. He glanced out the window to see the broken figure crashing about on the platform. The official stepped clumsily from the train, nearly tripped over himself and addressed John: 'Alright! Um this is. You shouldn’t um. . Stay mister. . That is uh where you are Mister! Police are on their way. They are really,' He was frightened of John; the look in his eyes was not of a reasonable man. His command was more plea. This wasn’t over.

The savagery in John sent him leaping on the platform to circle the man like a predator ready for the kill. He hit the drunk several more times in ribs and side of his head. He gave him a solid kick in the ribs and then another. Three poorly coordinated men pushed and pulled at him to haul him back. He was now the brutal villain and this drunk was his helpless victim.

'Happy now?' Jennifer asked. 

He swung around as if attacked from the rear and with fist closing. He only glimpsed his wife’s defiant fear. Her face flashed through his memory as someone he would never hurt.  He had just enough sanity to cancel his brain’s command to unleash.

Jennifer was furious: 'Go ahead! Hit me! You know you want to' she screamed. 

He didn’t want to, she was the last person he’d ever hurt; he did this to protect her and Billy. Excuses and apologies swarmed into a consciousness that had surrendered to numb. The redness was faintly orange and all he could say, from deep in his throat was ‘Sorry! Sorry!’    

As a small crowd gathered, he put hands to head and tried shutting off this hostile world. A few patted him on the back as he sat in concrete like all energy was expended.

Billy sat quietly. It was unwise to say anything when mum and dad were at war. The train was stalled for twenty minutes and a supportive mood shifted.  If he hadn’t hit the drunk they’d be home now. Sirens echoed on nearby roads, an ambulance drove along tracks to reach the drunk as if he were moments from death. A man in grey overalls leaned forward and listened to the drunk crying and muttering. He was like a priest conferring final rites.

A cop asked why John assaulted the man. He gulped out a few words about offensive language but nothing fully coherent came out. It was as if he’d stepped outside himself. He only had guilt and regret. Several women gave rushed explanations, mostly in his defence and asked why the train had to be delayed. The girl who faced insults hurried to another cabin unwilling to be part of this circus. The man who hid in his newspaper told a senior policeman he could see it about to happen and regarded John’s action as  ‘inappropriate.’ John heard him say: 'It was awful, pure Jekyll and Hyde, he just went bezerk.' Police conferred and told him they might be in contact. They caught a taxi from the stalled train, without a word spoken until Jennifer told him: 'I don’t know who you are.'

'I lost it!' his whisper was barely audible. They travelled in silence.

She told him: 'I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.'

'What if he’d said those things to you?' John asked.

'What is it with you men? You go to some stupid spy movie and you’re a superhero and strut around looking for a fight and it finds you and you have to play hero. Is that it?' Anger again flowed; this was unjust, he was the hero he’d always wanted to be. Why couldn’t she see that? 

'I’m not sitting there while some drunk hurls abuse.'

'You’d better stay away from all drunks before you kill one. . .or me.'

'I’d never hurt you. That’s not me!'

'I told you! I’m not talking about it!' She insisted.

'Awesome dad!' Billy said.

'See what you’ve done?' Said Jennifer.

Like unspoken infidelity, they shelved it. She went out of her way to avoid trains her husband was on. The thing was humiliating.  He’d been tossed at the drunk; they swung arms and legs like cloth dolls. He won because he wasn’t drunk and had control. Broken bones were never his intention. He’d been denied hero and rescuer status, accused of domestic violence . He couldn’t be certain what words were thrown at the girl but they were foul and he’d never repeat them; his flash rage was justifiable, controlled.  In the absence of Bond a capable man had arisen. In any reality it was a stupid and clumsy fight needing calm, good sense.

But few fights would ever be like that the repetitive dream he couldn't shake. He was in a void at the end of an alley. This was life and death, no fumbling or erratic swinging of arms. He’d splashed a gallon of petrol over a battered shape. His victim squirmed, pressing against a brick wall, pushing into it as if it could absorb him, scrambling to escape, going nowhere. ‘What was his name?’ John demanded. The figure retreated further.  He flicked the lighter and held the tiny flame up.  The other man gestured, blubbering: ‘Please mate! Please! This is no joke. What can I say? I didn’t know! I’m sorry! Honest! I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know, how could I know?’ he squirmed into the wall as if it might shelter him. 

‘You’re scum.’

‘Oh God! No!  Please! I didn’t mean it’

‘Do it dad’ said the son stepping alongside: ‘Burn him! Burn the prick!’

John dropped the lighter and the victim exploded in a flash of hot light.  The body writhed and screamed as flame and black smoke tumbled off the dying figure.

John gasped air and his eyes flickered. He was disoriented for a passing moment. He twitched, his body jerking and realised he was riding through the night. 

The taxi driver had his share of aggressive drunks and assaults. He was robbed three times and sixteen years ago badly bashed and spent three days in hospital. There was no threat from the man in the back seat of his cab. It was a familiar face and he'd been fast asleep having a bad dream. The driver was curious and wanted to settle him. \

'Tough day mate?' he asked loudly.  John was quickly certain who he was and where he was going.  He had nothing to tell the driver, it seemed he’d done nothing but speak for days; all the talk in the world couldn’t lift this burden.

 ‘Crazy dream you’re having back there’ offered the driver.  

John had spent two decades juggling fear and contempt, he'd wasted his best years on empty promises, failed those closest to him, avoided closeness and was out of touch, undeserving of friendship. He cared too much what others thought; he put home and working life on a silent path through straight and narrow.  Every workable solution he presented to Barney Thomas was dismissed by his mad boss. His disconnect nearly sent the woman he’d loved for a quarter century spiralling into madness.  He was in his mid forties and everything he valued and protected was disintegrating.  He had more rage than he could express and persistent outlaw thoughts. It was too easy to cross a fragile line into offence and attack. Telling anything to the driver would launch him into tales of guilt and grief.  Interruption were inevitable and would slash his story with complaints. He'd find out how hard the driver’s day had been, be required to listen and extend the courtesy.  With a current obsession for stories and storytelling everyone had something to tell.  Listening to others was a requirement of travel by taxi. Tonight could be the story of a life that sagged then plunged to chaos and tragedy, a rambling conflict in search of validation. 

He'd never tolerate the driver’s story, didn’t want to know, not now. He’d pretend to be on the phone.  Urged by his need to comply and conform, he'd do his best to shake his dream of sudden and violent attack. Strangling would take too long and be thwarted.  The attack would need to be cruel and deadly, a sharp pencil deep in the eye,   A long prison term would follow and fill him with purpose. He’d never understand or forgive. No story could change that.

'Nothing works!' He was compelled to murmur. There’s an invitation to pay out every woe! 

Yeah! Right before everything does' said the driver.

Where’s your rave about the bloke who cut you off and nearly killed you? Don’t you have a complaint about Sydney traffic or the hours you work or how Uber’s killing business? How about politics and the way the country’s run? Is this some joke, Some trick? You’re not supposed to listen; You talk non-stop. Nobody listens.

They went on in silence past relentless lights and the featureless showrooms of William Street as they ascended to the sacred Coca Cola neon. ‘Chasing relief?' asked the cabbie. Why else would a man in a white shirt visit Kings Cross at one thirty on a Sunday morning?  

'You could say' John told him and clambered from the seat asking  'Ever want to kill someone?'

'That what you’re here for?'

John handed the driver a fifty.  With rear door wide he lingered on the seat and told him to keep the change. 'Don’t worry. I’m not buying your silence. There’ll be a dozen witnesses'  The driver laughed: 'Mate! In your place I’d go right ahead. Got a sixteen-year-old daughter I’d kill for.'

'You know me huh?'

'Seen you on the telly. I’d kill the bastard. I'd do it as a gift to humanity.'  

As John got to his feet, the driver told him: 'Bunch of us blokes get together every fortnight. It helps spill your guts. We take turns. Might be useful.'  John had tried a men’s group back in the nineties. Most of his circle flashed the same psychic wound week after week.  It was laced with anger and bitterness over failed marriages, inability to understand what women wanted, anger and ranting at feminism, confessions of weakness. They stomped through gender conspiracies, found few answers and tried to reclaim elusive control. The world had slipped away from them. They clung to indulgent stories that retreated into mockery, complaint and unachievable solutions.  He loved Jennifer too much to take his rants home. He'd thrived on an inability to act, a fear of consequence. He was nothing like the heroes he loved to watch. He tucked the business card away, thanked the driver, paid the fare and was an immediate alien as he melted into a drift of late night drunks.  Why couldn’t they send the prick to the gallows or electric chair or gas chamber, shove a needle in his arm?  It’d be good to see his tongue turn purple, eyes bulge, veins throb, put him in writhing pain. Where was his right to vengeance? When would he get his hero moment?  Did heroes chat with villains before killing them.

Give him fifteen rounds of a prize-fight and he’d toss killer blows at dust dancing in light.  In a real brawl he’d be out the door as quick as he could.  Nah! Dental implants cost too much; he wasn’t getting them knocked from his face, wouldn’t know how to beat up the other bloke; never did karate or kickboxing; too late to start; never fired a gun, didn’t cut himself shaving, never wished to kill, not till now. Only weeks before he was content to sip beer, watch television and turn up to a job he hated. He kept a firm lid on risk and passion. He’d stand ground in verbal conflict but would never face authority. A man in his mid forties didn’t have the world at his feet.  

John was a middle class, white straight male and a new outsider with a bland name.  His parents compounded the curse of ‘Smyth’  by calling him ‘John’. Did they want to nail him to the floor? Could any name be more bland?  Numbers and patterns were his thing, they measured past and present and manipulated everything. Algorithms assessed and measured every decision. Dedicated to low-risk ordinariness, he was caught in his personal set of numbers.

If the meek were to inherit the earth they’d need more stealth and guile than he’d had. 

John Smyth managed life with neatness, regularity and efficiency. He’d long ago abandoned any vague hope of power or fame and settled into the comfort of ordinariness. He did not need to stand out in a crowd and would prefer not to. His love of numbers would endure the most unreasonable employment. He valued stability and reliability above all.  His greatest life challenge was to meet his mortgage. He coped with loud and unreasonable demands from a bullying employer. He loved his wife and she loved him. He brought security and certainty to their existence. Jennifer gave him a domestic happiness that was almost religious, as if she were acting out a role that mocked beliefs she had once upheld ferociously. Both were fulfilling an illusory design for living, containing urges that could easily bring it undone.

Their  high adventure, intrigue and romance was all on television.  They were content to be passive witness to the excesses of others, consoled in knowing it was fictional, highly unlikely and designed to spark catharsis.  They often avoided the latest news. It made them feel helpless. 

John’s humour could be self-deprecating. Jennifer could lapse into sadness and fear of loss. They accepted that sacrifice accompanied responsibility and demanded moderation. They'd met a quarter century ago at the height of youthful rebellion and were frantic lovers. They quietly put a lid on risk and formed a unity worth sustaining for the sake of their growing son. Guarded about whom they let into their home they had few friends and a trickle of acquaintances.

John preferred to go directly home after work rather than to the pub with colleagues from Accounting and Sales.  He retreated from anyone who was defensively loud and demanding.

He preferred to predict storms and chart plain sailing with minimal crew rather than rock the boat. Many saw him as insignificant, ineffectual and even boring but none of that bothered him. Silence gave him an advantage. John had learned to quietly endure the judgment of others. His favourite aphorism was ‘what you think if me is none of my business.’ It didn’t always spring to mind when he needed it.  

Crisis would inevitably arrive to challenge the neat and smooth path on which chance and fate played out. He would never wish to shake an enduring love of violent fights. Every two-fisted hero was his avatar.  His favourite movies were about brutal acts by wronged heroes and intelligent villains. He enjoyed vicious and bloody vengeance, an eye for an eye, the odd evisceration. He accepted a serial killer with noble purpose was essential to a system of law and order that couldn’t contain evil. He was keen to watch men slice and dice, to see a villain relentlessly pursued and killed, gouged and gutted.  He liked to watch a solid and fatal kick to the head, a knife in the guts.  Violence lingered at the crust of his soul.  It balanced his daily grind at BT Security, the endless journeys back and forth by train.

He had no time for road rage, especially his own but his blood was stirred by the rage of others on a field of sport.  When Bull Stolley cut through the pack for The Marauders, John wished he’d been born with bulk, grit and muscle. But an eagerness to brawl and the body to match could easily turn him into a thug. 

League was changing, the old ways rapidly fading. Bennie Holland was the new captain and clearly not a man to solve problems with his fists. He had superhuman athleticism but was calm and deliberate, like a young guru. He had a message for players about fairness and treating others as you’d expect to be treated. It would soon end the old blood and guts score-at-any-cost warrior game.

 John regretted that.  Word was Holland and Bull were headed for a face-to-face. Bull the Neanderthal would be keen but the civilized new bloke would shrug him off.  It was a fight John would love to witness.  Long ago he was a thin and muscular youth with hair to his shoulders. He didn’t mind getting physical and would attend a protest to launch his body at police. 

The evil imp of aging cursed him to a serious and conservative face. He regretted abandoning wild protester nights in lockup in a land far away with a rebel princess by his side. Now forty six, his body was loose but he’d never admit to pudgy. He was no Adonis and could easily lose twenty five kilos. He had downward lines mapping sourness in his jaw; empty bags lined his eyes and his hairline obeyed trumpets. He walked with a slouch and endured ringing in his ears.

No longer potent or attractive, his wife had heard his best jokes too many times and was in the habit of sabotaging his punch-lines before he could reach them. Few things aggravated him more than the general category of ‘middle-aged white male.’ He’d never call himself feminist and believed men could pursue equality and oppose the boys’ club without waving the white flag.     A little tension between men and women was essential; struggle and conflict informed evolution; the culture metronome might never settle. 

He had every intention of getting on his exercise bike or doing his daily ten thousand steps but couldn’t seem to make the effort. He was addicted to inertia and took full responsible for surfing the spiral. He’d let a complacent bastard slouch inside him. He’d like to give the prick a merciless beating but it was too much to ask.  Over two decades his daily solace was a single beer and telly with a hard fought footy match or title bout.  He avoided anyone who wanted too much, the politicians and preachers who demanded praise and attention for their ways of seeing.

Bugger them! Bugger them all!  John Smyth kept to himself as a way of life. If he walked down his street no one would notice and he liked it that way.

See that? Smyth walked past like we weren’t here;

Good! I go out of my way to avoid him.

So who’ll win Saturday?

The Marauders if they get Stolley back.

The other mob have that fast kid, the Moslem boy, Bull won’t come close.

Stolley can’t match Jihad Johnie’s speed and ball skills. It’s Bull’s last season f’sure. What is he now? Late thirties?

It was in the news that a farmer was pinned under machinery when his tractor toppled into a dam.  He arched his back to keep his nose out of water for two hours and shouted for help til rescuers came.  John suspected he’d let his head slide under. He wasn’t defeated but he accepted there were circumstances he'd never endure. He and Jennifer had their problems.

'Why do you like to watch them hurting each other?' she'd ask. It was such a womanly question and he'd shrug at her: 'I like it when good guys win and bad guys get beaten. It's better than news. And they're not doing it to me so it's okay.' 

'Don't you have anything better to do?' she'd persist

'Better than what?'  She couldn’t endure violence and was edgy with suspense. She wasn’t interested in football and saw boxing as a brutal and unnecessary sport.  They shared little time in front of television. She was more interested in property improvement and home decorating, documentaries on royalty and soap operas about sunny Australian streets near the beach.

Bill spent  his day swiping heads off zombies and chasing enemy soldiers through abandoned bunkers to obliterate with rapid fire weaponry. He was christened Bill; but Jennifer clung to ‘Billy’. His sixteenth year was a brick through the roof as he turned aggressive and moody, locking himself in his room and immersing in loud and violent games.  

In their quarter century, John and Jennifer weathered storms of renovation and mortgage. He was chief accountant and paymaster at BT Doors. He was good at complex ledgers and tax loopholes. Keeping books for a crook was his proven talent. Soon it might come crashing down but no-one was willing to talk. The bank informed John it had denied an application for a business loan. The news wasn’t official but his contacts respected the difficulty of his position. 

Barney Thomas sought John’s advice and ignored it. He went ahead with a demand to the bank and it fell to John to break the news. The burden gave him nights of sleeplessness.  He didn’t dare imagine what he might say when he rang the death knell. He’d stayed too long with an arrogant and indulgent manufacturer and had to inform him the future (and his own job) was bleak. It was not the way he wanted to resume work after a holiday break. It generated tension in his gut. He had trouble digesting and worried his racing heart might explode.

Only a few months ago they sheltered in their mundane world of family and health. Sharks circled, sharks always did.  Les Crompton was a blowfish with teeth. A big man from up the road, his name in bold bright letters on the side of his ute.  Les was a builder with a crew cut and lofty cynical outlook.  John and Jennifer used his services once but his work was rushed like he didn’t bother. John hated his complacency but they felt obliged to invite him to their regular backyard barbecue. It was never wise to disagree with Les’ bombastic nature or his view on anything. He’d get mad and turn up the volume and the get-together would be ruined.  

John cooked sausages as Les held court:  'So the prick goes round a corner. He’s got two mates waiting. It’s a setup, an ambush. They’re mistaken if they think they’ll take me. One flashes a knife and he’s got this grin like he’s in charge. He tells me this’ll be settled if I hand phone, watch and wallet. Fuck that! Fuck the pack of them! This is where I’m glad I did my basic fight training in the ring.'   John checked the snags to make sure they weren’t burning.  Les’s wife was vegan and his daughter had run off with her boyfriend who they called ‘a druggie’. 'If it takes three pricks to rob me they gotta be weak as piss. I pick the one with the knife. He’ll do most damage even if he doesn’t mean it. So’s I drop him with one punch and he goes down like a sack of cement.'

John had heard the story of Les the unstoppable force at least fifteen times. He told it every time proof of capability came up.  No man could qualify for true bloke-hood without fists trained and deadly:  'So the bloke I’m chasing is next and I go bam, bam!! bam,' Les was hammering his hand with a calloused, sun-dried chunk of fist.  Five other men nodded with respect. They knew about ferocious efficiency.  'So I put the prick’s nose where his ear should be. He hits the bricks and I’m sure I’ve killed him. He slides down the wall and I put a boot in his ribs for luck. Two go crack. I’m thinking I should stomp his skull but leave him be. All I got is some piss-weak kid. I give him the eyeball and tell him if I see him again I’ll rip his tongue out and shove it up his bum. He goes bug eyed and shoots through like a chicken on fire.'

John’s only memorable conflict was when he accidentally scratched another car.. He was reversing at a packed supermarket car-park and underestimated the distance from an iridescent metal beast with bullbar. He dented its rear panel. The other driver was a thick-set Italian with shaven head and thick stubble. He emerged from the cabin slowly and in disbelief; words lodged in his throat; his right hand clenched to a fist, it opened and closed several times.  He had tears of rage and snarled at John: 'You fucken idiot' he snarled and demanded to know how John could do such a thing.  'Sorry Mate! My fault! We'll fix it. You can chill."

'Chill? You scratch my car and tell me to chill? Fuck you to death.'

'It's not nice to say such things to a stranger. It'll get you in trouble'

'You want trouble. I show you trouble.'

The Italian lashed out with a wild swung intended for the side of John's head. The punch was telegraphed and John leaned back to evade. His opponent was swung off balance and teetered, stumbling to his left.  John's elbow descended hard into the kidney. The Italian grunted and fell to his knees; his hand raised to plead mercy.  'Be polite next time' said John as a small crowd gathered.  John waited and helped the Italian to his feet; he let him drain the rage. They shook hands and the Italian drove off. Insurance worked out detail.

It was his bedtime fantasy of what he should've done rather than struggle to digest the garlic meat in his plate. What really happened was the Italian's rant humiliated him in bad English in front of a small crowd for twenty minutes.   

'Got anything Johnno?' Les asked; he always would.

'Chicken and pine nuts or pork and fig,' said John.

'Bloke like you must’ve been frontline a few times.'  Les nudged him.

'Remind me if we ever fall out Les. I like my brain.' He was weary of Les and wouldn't invite him to the next barbecue.  Greg from two doors up was no better. He was keen to tell an unknown woman how much trouble he had getting out of bed every morning and why he stopped watching news: ‘World’s falling apart and run by idiots and there’s nothing anyone can do.'      The woman’s eyes searched the back yard but Greg didn’t notice:  'I once lived near a maternity ward where sirens went off all night. My little banshees eh! Went on a weekend trip, got in my sleeping bag with a clear night sky and frogs croaking. Couldn’t sleep! No way!'  The woman needed rescuing but Greg was in full flight:  'Would I make a running tackle at a terrorist? How smart is some kid who wants to romp with virgins by blowing up a shopping mall? If paradise was that easy I’d strap on a vest m’self.'  The woman gave John a quick glance and vanished   Greg didn’t notice she was gone.

 ‘I’m never going shopping with you,' John told him. Greg liked to wave the flag of Dystopia: 'Stephen Hawking reckons the human species has a hundred years left,' he said.  Les was passing:.'Little bloody wonder!' he said. 'Fetch you a beer mate?' John asked Greg. 'Not allowed to drink. I told you that weeks ago. Don’t you remember? Don’t you know how hard it is watching all of you standing round drinking? It’s bloody hard!! Really bloody hard.'

'Lemonade then?'

'Where’d she go? She was nice; I liked her. We was talking. Where’d she go?'

Face hot, hair wet and gym bag over shoulder, Bill was sneaking into the house. The slap of a fly-wire door gave him away. It was family ritual for John to call him over. Bill had grown in the company of adults and was permanently in avoidance. He stayed away when his parents had a barbecue.

'Off somewhere?' John called. 'Shower!' Said Bill. Several neighbours shouted greetings. 'Come say hello‚' insisted his father. 'Nah1 I smell!' He announced lifting an arm. 'We’ll smoke you out‚' John laughed unhappily. 'Meeting Gina,'  Bill said and hurried inside. 'Be nice to meet her too.' John said.

'Kids eh!' Said Nick Laughton: 'Can’t put pressure on them. It’s bloody difficult when they can’t afford to move out.'  As always Nick elaborated: 'Bill came past the other day on that bloody skateboard of his. Big noise on roads like ours, woke the baby; Camera on his helmet eh. What’s he filming anyway??'   How about a documentary on brats that won’t sleep? When will you shut up that dog? Thing barked all night! It’s jealous of the kid. You need to get rid of it!. .or get rid of the baby!  

'I’m just his old man,' John went back to cooking sausages. 

'Not keen to see our girls reach their teens.' said Nick. 

John had once asked his son how long he was staying at home without contribution.  Jennifer’s answer leapt at both of them: ‘He stays as long as he likes. Its his home as much as ours,' she insisted. They simmered through that week-long dispute. Bloody kid uses the place as a crash-pad, locks himself in his room with his games, never gives more than a grunt, uses his mother mercilessly, has some mystery girlfriend he won’t bring home, doesn’t offer a cent to the household budget, wouldn’t come and say hello.  Where’s the value?

'A penny for your thoughts' said Jennifer nuzzling in. 'Going well this time isn’t it? Everyone gets on nicely.'  She said it again hours later.

'You don’t want to know my thoughts.' he grumbled. 'Are we having a fight?'  She wanted to know. 'You’re too good at dodging my punches‚' he said and realized how unfunny it was.

Too many beers had loosened his tongue.  Shut the fuck up you idiot!   She changed the subject 'Did Billy come home?'  He nodded and couldn’t look at her.

'Such a nice afternoon‚' she said in conciliatory tones.  He’d spent most of it worried Barney Thomas would turn up.  Inviting BT was always a mistake.  Barney would get drunk and throw his weight around, grope any woman in reach and alienate neighbours. He’d glorify himself and embarrass John with tales from work. The greater humiliation was a Superman costume he wore in his cringe-making, late-night television advertisements.‘You really work for that idiot?' John was often asked.  

For a few precious weeks of annual leave he could clean gutters and splash paint, assemble jigsaws and read books that lingered on the shelf for years. He and Jennifer were so relaxed they went close to making love.  As the holiday came to its end, he bellowed at uncooperative objects, a bolt that maliciously refused to turn, a switch that failed to respond, a glass that slipped from his grip and smashed on the floor. Jennifer worried he might unleash. He vowed it would never happen again. It was fifteen bloody years ago.  'I’d never hit you,' he told her.

'You nearly did,' she insisted without looking up. 'But I didn’t!' His voice had a whine.

At the door she called out: 'By the way, they’ve sold number sixteen.'

On the last afternoon of his annual leave, their ancient air-conditioning ran at maximum rattle. They watched ten major threats to destroy the planet. Perched at the edge of doom, their only hope was a superior alien with redemptive powers who’d forgive everything.  John couldn’t shake an aching hollowness that oblivion was coming. If it happened soon it might be tolerable.

Holiday afternoons were spent in the hammock with dreams of falling through clouds. He’d snap awake before hitting ground. 'That’s your insecurity ' Jennifer was reading a book about dreams and their meaning. 'I’m insecure' he admitted. 'I haven’t done enough with my life; maybe never will.' 'You’re fine' she dismissed his self-pity with practiced ease. 'Be kind to yourself, everything will turn out. You’ll find a way.'   No I won't. You don't know half if it and I cannot tell you. Barney’s an idiot who won’t listen, the company’s terminal and no-one wants a forty something refugee paymaster.  

'S’pose it will' he said.  He’d get back to work only to have his worst fears realised. The application for a business loan was inadequate. When told the bank had rejected it, BT would blame everyone but himself.  He’d call John to the executive suite and tell him he was out of a job.  ‘Shit happens! Suck it up’ the same line BT used on twenty other employees.

Once the leading security solution for Australian garages, the company’s had a rapid fall from grace.. Barney Thomas could see no reason to end his lease on a luxury car; he shared his beach-house with no-one and had a waterfront apartment in Mosman.  He holidayed at undisclosed Asian destinations every eighteen months and told the tax office it was for research and development. Their doors were made in China by cheap labour and the failure rate had increased in a single year from twenty three percent to thirty four.

When he was eleven he saw a movie about a Christian soldier who sacrificed his life to save comrades in a fortress under siege. The moment the soldier went through that gate he’d be staked and buried in fire ants. It would mean days of agony before death blessed him.  His heart would be offered to pagan gods and devoured by an Inca high priest.

'You can thank Christ you’re not in a pickle like that eh?' his dad chuckled.  John felt intense gratitude for growing up with a passive mum and angry dad in a house in the burbs.  Giant meteors might fall from the sky and bring epic tsunamis but his purpose was to endure the fire-ants. He’d slip into work and hope no-one noticed. He’d enter his prison cell with its view across oceans of corrugated rust and be back in the clutches of ‘Good Ol! Barn Door’. He’d avoid and defer, stay silent through interrogation; he’d tolerate BT’s rants against refugees and migration and gay marriage and abortion and Australia’s need to relax gun controls. The boss would stick his oversized head in his office to make sure he was working; he hated employees having a good time; they were only working if miserable. BT resented annual leave and especially John’s. He called twice a day in the first week: What had John done with the staff coffee jar? Where did he hide the paper clips? A stream of e-mail requests followed, some from clients. They dwindled after several days. When contact ceased John was deeply worried.  

'Isn’t that a car like your boss drives?' Jennifer was first to notice. How could the prick cheat him of twelve precious hours of freedom?  'Tell him I’m not home' he urged and resisted a compulsion to shed t-shirt and throw on collar and tie.

The likeliest scenario was BT had heard from the bank.   'You want me to lie?' 'Yes! Do that! Lie!' ‘Our car’s in the driveway! He’ll see it.' 'This is unfair. He doesn’t own me.' 'Don’t be silly. 'Course he does! He’s getting out of his car with a bottle of wine.'

When they met John and Jennifer couldn't keep their hands off each other. Now his hands did their awkward best to fix anything broken. It was a pity relationships couldn’t be repaired like leaky roofs. Familiarity kept them glued. They touched and were affectionate but avoided sex. It was easy for things to go wrong. They couldn’t afford to go on holiday, living costs overwhelmed their budget and money was volatile. Any talk of finance plunged them into tension and argument.  She spent money on clothing and hid bills. On her forty second birthday he gave her an expensive gym pass:  'So I’ve put on weight?' She asked and avoided him for hours. He was de-sensitised, out of touch. He once did vigorous walking on a pathway along the beach. He'd abandoned that as a waste of time. They kept an exercise bike but ignored that too. There were days when they expected to be the only dark house in a well-lit street.  The cost of repairs doubled. Their roofing contractor stayed away for weeks and refused to answer calls. They heard he went bankrupt after they paid two thirds of his bill. He disappeared with half the roof covered in industrial plastic and they had to find a replacement:

'Mate! How’d you get in bed with a moron like him?'

'He gave a good quote' John shrugged. 'It’ll cost you. I’m not sure how big till I get in and find out how seriously fucked you are. It looks serious. You still with me?' 'You sure you’re available?' 'Why would I be here? Best thing you did was pick me.' 'He reckoned that too. 'Found out the hard way din’ you eh?' 'Poor choice?' 'Yep!' 'Now I’ve chosen you.' 'Sure it wasn’t you?'  Doesn’t look like anyone qualified came in pissing distance.'  

It never paid to question a tradie:  Hey! I'm paying the bills fella! Ive got every right to check your credentials. Youll be coming into my house and I need to know you're the real thing? You got that? Good! Now cut the superior crap and do your job.   That was the last they saw of him. He sent a keen and muscled subbie; a carpenter who harangued them about idiots who did the work of professionals. John was paying some blow-in to call him an idiot. Jennifer took the worker tea and cakes in a low-cut dress she hadn’t worn in years. He worried about being at work twelve hours a day. Men gazed at his wife and she liked attention. He’d ring home several times a day to say hello, something he’d never done. 

Son! You got nice muscles and you show them off and I don't blame you. I would to! But you be careful who you show them to. My wife is off limit. You do your work or you and me might do more than talk.   'So how was your day?' he asked Jennifer without glancing up from the magazine he wasn't reading.  

'Good!'

'Anything happen?'

'Not much.'

'You look different, fresher, brighter'

'Do I?'

'You doing exercise?'

'No more than usual.'

'Right!'

'And you?'

'Usual shit! How’s work on the house?'

'Leaving that to Bob.'

'Bob The Builder huh?'

'I’m not fucking him John and he’s not fucking me.'

'Whoa! Where’d that come from?'  She knew exactly when to walk away.  He couldn't go after her, the issue was too provocative.

They hadn't fully resolved the expensive accident she had with their uninsured vehicle. It drained their bank account but she refused to accept blame. She wasn't injured but the damage took their holiday savings. They were deprived of their annual retreat from judgmental neighbours, petrol-driven devices and barking dogs.

They married in the late eighties. She gave up her tiny Balmain apartment with its view of harbor and bridge. They scraped a deposit and went in over their heads in Superbia. Their piece of paradise was a three-bedroom, two-storey mansion. Persistence and sacrifice nailed them.

'You well rested Johnno?' Asked Barney Thomas as he sipped a fourth glass of red from a bottle he was keeping to himself..

'Had a good break.' nodded John.

'You were missed'

'Really?'

'No-one’s indispensable in the world of business but you come close.'

'Glad to hear that Barney.'

'We’ve been through plenty these last twenty years eh?'

'Twenty five!'

'That long?'

'Are you showing me the door?'

'Are you crazy?'

'No! Fine! I’m fine! I’m good!' What the fuck do you want? You’re always searching for praise, never giving it.

'So why’re you here Barney?'

'I can’t make a casual visit to a top employee? We share a lot you and I. Cheers!'

'Cheers!'

'You’ve done well to pay off a quality place.'

'Yeah! We’re proud of it.'

'And the pleasure is knowing how ready you are to face the ups and downs.'  

'I guess so!'

'It’s what every responsible business does eh?'

'Yeah!'

'You are responsible and reliable with an extensive track record. That's why I’ve decided to bring you on board and make you an offer John, a very lucrative offer. '

The house and moving to Anzac Avenue was a mistake. It took the edge off their love affair. They didn’t get on with neighbours. The street was a sanctuary for the dull and nasty. They lived among machinery freaks who filled their weekends revving hot rods and blowing muck from gutters. 'So it was you who bought the place?' said Albie Cronshaw when he wandered across the road from Number Thirteen.  John had a sudden urge to confess he was a visiting housebreaker. Albie filled them with tales of triple murder and satanic rituals. He said the place was cursed. Jennifer spent several hundred dollars getting it spiritually cleansed by a thin woman with a sharp nose who moved through with smoking herbs.  The fire brigade was called and threatened to charge them but didn’t.  They saw no satanic activity unless their son kept the devil in his bedroom. His selection of music was cause for doubt. They endured a smouldering mix of lavender and baby powder for weeks. It was like a maternity ward burning down. They lived for the first year in a big, empty space until they could buy a couch. Permission was required to live in Anzac Avenue. 'I noticed you only after you got settled or I would’ve come over. Can’t expect a bloke like me to be much help eh?' Albie told them.  No! Now piss off. I want to make love to this beautiful woman in our new and empty house before evil spirits realise we’re here.  Albie wasn’t big on socializing ‘not since my good lady passed’. 

He was back the next day with snags in polystyrene and a lecture on how ‘you bloody youngsters’ should ‘go off and see the world and not get yourselves stuck in a street full of geriatrics.’  The street teetered at the edge of the mortal coil. Albie drank fifty bucks worth of grog like it was on tap and was back with fresh advice the next day.

John and Jennifer were his new best friends so they hid from him for half an hour. He shrugged and walked away never to return. 

They awakened one morning to vile curses from a nearby tennis court the real estate team had neglected to mention. Language streamed through the morning sun; flying yellow balls exorcised true demons. 

The street changed in the next decade. Ghosts lingered behind lawns never trodden. Contractors arrived to reduce bushes to withering neatness. They were under siege from leaf blowers, roaring lawn mowers and hissing sprinkler systems. Repetitive water ballets performed to schedule. They got polite smiles and brief greetings but were resident outsiders.

Jennifer was isolated among trickle-down, born-to-rule-but-not-quite-there aspirants. None wanted anything to do with her. John went off to work every day leaving her to endure a friendless urban silence. He suggested she knock on  doors. She told him it would reduce her to an emotional beggar. Lacking a comeback he turned to the sports pages.  They talked of selling and moving to an apartment in the inner West but clung to their house near the ocean as prices went crazy. A miscalculation over mortgage took them close to bankruptcy. Their promise to meet bank deadlines was met with nods, smiles and threatening letters. One politely nasty call from a solicitor assured John he’d be on the street that night. He had rarely known such terror and they withdrew to a draconian budget. Jennifer found work as a doctor’s receptionist but lacked the temperament for a daily parade of hypochondriacs. The doctor concurred and they parted company. John's salary got them across the line on potatoes and frozen peas.

It was not a good time to have a child.

No-one told Billy.

Pregnancy shifted her focus; the child claimed her spirit. She’d never aspired to motherhood but now demanded space upstairs and down for a home worthy of her newborn. Their builder put them through months of stress with threats and court action. He claimed they demanded expensive changes. It was a lie laden with technical proof they couldn’t unravel. They settled out of court for forty thousand.

After a lifetime berating his daughter for her poor choice of partner, Jenn’s dad dropped dead of a heart attack and left them with half a million. She liked to think her father’s spirit transferred to her womb.  John dreaded any reappearance of the old fart.

Jennifer’s silver jewellery blossomed and died. Her jangling bracelets were flavor of the month for two months. She refused to promote herself in the belief the world would come rushing to her door. John was close to leaving his job to market her product. The future was loaded with hope, until it wasn’t. The online deal of a lifetime collapsed like wishful thinking and he dreamt of snorting a mountain of coke while blasting fellow gangsters with a machine gun.  Al Pacino had plenty to answer for.

Jennifer struggled to keep a sense of self. Pregnancy was never her ideal state. Her glow came after intense sickness. The baby filled strange breakfast menus in the motel of her womb. Trial by delivery gave them Billy and she vowed never to go there again. They cherished their baby boy but the thought of siblings was beyond her. In the birthing room she writhed in antiseptic smells as he offered limp encouragement. She later told him he made her want to scream. She gave birth by fixing on shiny objects and a faded painting of a pale blue beach.  She slammed the door on a fussing midwife while other infants easily beat Billy into the world. 

By the time he was born she could barely tolerate John’s pacing. He put her in a world of pain and was demonstrating naïve belief that he was entitled to share her torment.  She begged them to ‘get this thing out of her’ and wanted all men to go to Hell for never experiencing childbirth. The epidural lifted her to heaven where she eagerly did as the midwife urged. She concentrated and pushed and, after thirty-six hours, a wet scalp appeared with strands of black hair plastered on white and pink. She fell helplessly in love with this wrinkled miniature human. She nurtured him against her breast with intimacy that seemed impossible.  It was a connection like nothing she’d known. He changed her, this sample of existence in a basket on a coffee table; this jumble of jerking legs and arms with a hair trigger to tears, this life dependent.

Billy glowed with radical knowing as if on a mission in life. He’d surfaced from some unknown pool to breath air once more. He blinked and looked around as if to tell them they had it all wrong; that this was a glitch in the record; he’d organized to spend another million years away from the human disaster.

She’d visit the local park and watch older women fussing over disobedient dogs called Charlie and Ralph.  She nursed Bill and did nothing to hide her satisfaction. She recalled every injury, every injustice, every joke no matter how silly, every birthday in his sprint from infant to child to boy to youth. 

He climbed in the kitchen cupboard and hurled pots and pans across the floor with enough clatter to summons disaster. His call to action was loud as he bashed metal pots and saucepans with a wooden spoon. A drummer on television inspired his rhythms.  Her favourite story was his declaration at six: 'What’s the little idiot doing now?' He wanted to know as he marched into the room with John Howard pronouncing how ‘boat people’ were dropping babies overboard. John’s best tale was when he read aloud from Doctor Zeus.  With his finger on the light-switch, Billy asked ‘You turning on the dark?’

Jennifer was there for her little boy and her too-big house, dusting and vacuuming and stacking the dishwasher, hanging clothes on the line and keeping a hawk eye on the child.  The isolation and impact of motherhood and household put her feminism on low simmer.  She worried too much and refused all risk; she was overprotective at the playground when Billy aspired to the top of a rope pyramid. He screamed at her when she dragged him off. His payback was to lodge high in their backyard tree chanting ‘Mum!’ over and over.  She put on headphones and played seventies rock. John got home and borrowed a neighbour’s ladder to clasp their weary and hoarse son in a fireman’s hold.  It made Bill giggle and bonded them. She wanted to smack him and tell him to never go near that tree. She insisted John cut it down. It was among their worst arguments. She called him a negative influence and said he didn’t care about their child’s welfare.  She made him so angry he did a route march on the beach for hours.

Disillusion gripped Bill in his late teens. His name annoyed him. 'Where did Smyth come from?' He demanded to know. 'Its so fucking generic and so is Billy. I’m not Bill or Billy or Willy, its bland and ordinary, all of it. Why can’t I be Sebastian or Reynaldo?'

Around sixteen he was labelled a criminal mastermind while wandering through an expensive clothes shop. A security guard stopped him and asked if he was buying.  The store seemed a good place to check out clothes he’d purchase when he made his first billion. It would surely happen without effort. He shuffled through the store and the guard persisted and asked if Bill planned a purchase. Bill told him he’d make up his mind in the next hour. The guard insisted he leave the store. Bill wanted to know why: 'Think I’ll steal something?'

'It’s on the cards.'

'Because I’m a teen?'

'Buy it or leave.'

'You can’t make me.' He snatched a coat off its rack and put it on. The guard followed to the mirror where Bill told him: 'I’m stealing it, Okay? Touch me and you’ll be up for assault.'

'Keep your voice down please sir,' said the guard.

John got a call at work in the middle of the day.  Bill had been found ‘idly wandering with intent’ in a clothing store. They accused him of causing disturbance and abusive language. John had to tell Barney Thomas he had personal business and would work late. His boss bellowed and ranted and said he wasn’t paying him to manage his family.  John ignored him and hurried to redeem their son before a life in crime began. Bill was parked on a stool in a tiny room with a giant in uniform hovering over. He refused to give them a story they could accept. Store management banned him for life and insisted the coat would need repairs. No charges would be laid if he purchased the item.

'Only way you sell any of your crap is with bullshit. How many teens do you lock up in an average week? I’m coming back to bomb you' Bill told them.  John went ballistic on their way home: 'You want to end up in maximum security for thirty fucking years?'  Bill had never seen his passive dad like that. Their fragile bond was changed. Thrusting the coat at him was futile and provocative. 'What made you say such an idiotic thing?'

'I will! I’ll bomb the pricks, they don’t deserve to exist' he said and snatched up the neatly wrapped coat planting it in the bin.

'Whoa! You’ll take that coat and put it on. That coat cost me a hundred and seventy bucks. It’d better fit.' John demanded.  Bill turned on his father at their front door and yelled: 'Fuck you and fuck your coat!'   

Father and son were ready for a coming-of-age battle. Bill stormed into his room and jammed the door shut. Their only option was to break it down but they couldn’t afford repair bills.  The siege of Bill lasted the next few days. He was in his room wandering through post apocalyptic landscapes and blasting monsters with high-powered weapons while living off protein bars.  Jennifer stopped John leaping downstairs when they heard him creep into the kitchen at two in the morning. She’d made ham sandwiches and put a note under his door. 

Barney regarded himself a man’s man. John got the job when he was interviewed at the pub. They got drunk and BT was keen to test his fighting skills. John assured him he had no such skill but was good with books. He was told he lacked balls.  He needed the job, took a swing and missed. Thomas knocked him out with a single punch and they never mentioned the incident, nor did they drink together again unless absolutely necessary. 'You’ve got a job for life here Johnno,' BT announced when the annual report showed soaring value. It was difficult for John who was proud of the praise but had contempt for its source. A week later, he was delegated to dismiss five senior staff, all of them colleagues and two of them casual friends.

'I can’t do it!' He told Jennifer.

'Tell him you can’t,' she offered.

'He’ll call me weak!'

'Its him who’s weak for getting you to do it.'

'I can’t tell him that'

'Then do it! You have to,' she said. He thought she lacked empathy and could no longer advise him. He handled the dismissals with clumsy guilt:

'How would you feel if it all fell through?' He asked Lorna Middleton, a single mother of three who coordinated the regional sales teams as they shared sandwiches during a lunch break.

'All what fell through?' Asked Lorna.

'This' said John.

'Having lunch out here?'

'That too!'

'I’m getting fired aren’t I?' Lorna was casual.

'What makes you think that?' He was keen to know.

'Rumors!' Was all Lorna could tell him. Barney Thomas solved every difficulty by passing it down his chain of command, releasing truth like a box of cockroaches. 'You’re a sad little man John' Lorna told him and walked off.  She put her belongings in a cardboard box and was never heard from again. The humiliation burned in him. She was right! He was a sad and nasty little man, a frightened man, side-kick to a bully.

In his first forty years he was better at making money for others. He spent most of his time on a fiscal tightrope. Real estate prices in Sydney exploded in the new century, especially property near water. Their house was soon worth three times what they paid. Glossy brochures urged them to put it on the market. Jennifer took every one to the bin.

She was tuned to body language and knew when something was brewing. Her husband had changed from a risk taker to a burdened and quiet man. His job absorbed all his spirit and energy. His competitive industry was discarding old technology at a blinding rate.  Failure to comprehend was a path to obsolescence. He was called on to achieve better results that would only come from innovative engineering. He cherished the notion of playing fixer but knew little about designing security doors. ‘I count money and handle wages, it’s what I do,' He explained. 

Barney Thomas was an emperor on a paper throne. Jennifer had never liked the predatory alpha male who could only address her breasts.  A rat with a sack of traps, his nature was imposing and controlling. At their staff Christmas party a sly smile and wink telegraphed his availability. He insisted every wink was a reflex brought on by fluorescent lighting. He took John aside to mention she was ‘a snappy little bitch’ and that he should ‘fuck her more often and keep her happy’.  John easily restrained an instinct to punch him. He couldn’t forget their pub brawl. 

BT told him Jennifer was deluded. What she thought was a wink was a facial tic. He demanded to know why she was so rude to his boss. 

'You want me to sleep with him?'

'What? Where do you get these crazy ideas?'

'I’m crazy and he’s the world’s most decent man?'

'He’s my boss. You’re my wife. You put me between a rock and a hard place.'

'Check out his hard place' she told him: 'I felt it every time he squeezed past.'

'You sure?'  John drove them home that night staring into the road.

Dark bruises appeared on her milky-white bum where BT’s hand gripped her like a vice. They had several days of silence until the bruising went away.  She threatened to file assault charges and wanted to know what her husband would do. He restored peace with a heartfelt apology.

'I need the job. He denies everything.'

'So that’s it? Nothing?'

'What can I do? He’s the boss.' Jennifer didn’t pursue it but vigorously scrubbed mould like she was exorcising demons. A clean and tidy house kept her well-suppressed madwoman at bay.

John and Bill took pleasure in irritating her. Their untidiness was intended for discomfort. They were hunters dropping a dead stag at the feet of a fusspot.  In her student days she was keen to confront any man who strutted machismo.  She marched for women’s rights and briefly saw men as the enemy.  

'You never make a stand about anything these days' she muffled in her pillow.

'What’s happened to us?'

'I’ll turn him down,' he said.

'What? And miss the offer of a lifetime?' She gave him her most vicious chuckle.

'It tells him I’ve got no faith in the company.'

'Do you?'

'The last person he needs to hear it from is his accountant.'

'It’s perfect! Accept it John! I’ve searched for an investment like this all my life: Sell up our house and put the money with a misogynist predator bully who sells obsolete garage doors! What the hell we waiting for?'  A snorting gasp erupted from his nose and mouth.  He struggled to get air as every lie and justification fused into a gigantic joke that made him fall from bed. 'I’ve worked at that bloody dead-end job twenty five years.'

'And each year made you more miserable than the last.

'I have to find a way through!'

The laughter was gone: 'By selling our home?'

It wasn’t worthy of an answer.

'Tell the dickhead to find another way to finance his brothel visits.'  He was weary and wanted to sleep but couldn’t. He watched shadows slide across the ceiling. They failed to provide the escape he needed. He went downstairs, put on headphones and watched ‘Gladiator’ from start to finish.

He loathed the Emperor.