It’ll make a heap of girls notice him.

It’ll make him successful.

It will drag me with him, and all it will take to start it all is one incident. It’s an incident in which he beats the hell out of a guy in school who calls Sarah something pretty ordinary.

For now though, we stand at our gate.

Rube, Miffy and me.

‘We’re wolves,’ is his last piece of conversation. ‘Wolves are up higher on the ladder for sure. They oughta eat Pomeranians, not walk ‘em.’

Yet, we do.

Never agree to walk your neighbour’s midget dog. Take my word for it.

You’ll be sorry.

‘Hey Rube.’

‘What? The light’s off this time.’

‘You reckon it’s true what people are sayin’?’

‘Reckon what’s true?’

‘You know — about Sarah.’

‘I d’know. But if I hear someone sayin’ anything about her, I’m gonna nail ‘em. I’m gonna kill ‘em.’

‘Y’ think so?’

‘I wouldn’t say it otherwise.’

And sure enough, he nearly does.

3

Rube smashes the guy, with bloody fists and trampling eyes, but first, this:

Our dad’s been out of work now for nearly five months. I realise that I’ve mentioned it before, but I should really explain exactly how it came to be. What happened is that he was working on a site out in the suburbs, when some guy turned on the water pressure too early. A pipe busted and my dad caught the shrapnel, flush in the face.

Busted head.

Broken jaw.

Lots of stitches.

Plenty of wires.

Sure, he’s like all fathers, my dad. My old man.

He’s okay.

He’s hard.

He’s sadistic-like. That is, if he’s in the mood. Generally though, he’s just a human guy with a dog’s last name and I feel for him at the moment. He’s half a man, because it seems that when a man can’t work and when his wife and kids earn all the money, a man becomes half a man. It’s just the way it is. Hands grow pale.

Heartbeat gets stale.

One thing I must say again though, is that Dad wouldn’t allow Steve or even Sarah to pay a single bill. Just their usual board. Even as he says his regular ‘No, no, it’s okay,’ you can see where he’s been ripped apart. You can see where the shadow opens the flesh and grabs his spirit by the throat. Often, I remember working with him on Saturdays. He’d tell me off and swear when I screwed something up, but he would tell me if I did something decently as well. It would be short, to the point.

We are working people.

Work.

Whinge.

Laugh about it.

All of us but Steve are not winners.

We’re survivors.