Suburbia by Jeremy Chambers

Author:Jeremy Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2017-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

IT WAS ONE of those still winter days, heavy with cloud. A Sunday. Roland, Darren and Troy walked to the Quix service station on the highway under a motionless, gunmetal sky. The shops and showrooms were shut, their wares eerie in the dim windows, the rows of bathroom sinks, lounge suites, mattresses, car tyres and kitchen benchtops as though abandoned, left in some apocalyptic rush. Inside the lighting warehouse, chandeliers of amber glass rippled with the passing boys’ reflections. Traffic lights changed for no reason and pigeons nodded on the bitumen. Not a single car dipped over the rise of the road. Everything was deserted. The whole world seemed to have stopped.

‘Look out,’ said Troy, pointing to a group of boys in baseball caps and Nike sneakers as they came out of a side street on the other side of the highway.

They went into the Quix as the boys started to cross the road. Darren and Troy stood on either side of the automatic doors and watched them approach through the bowsers. Troy swung at the first one who came in, hitting him in the jaw. The boy fell against one of the shelves and tipped it over, bottles of tomato sauce and jars of condiments smashing on the hard polyvinyl floor. The others turned and ran. The boy was out for a moment, lying spreadeagle among a cascade of chip packets before he leaped up and bolted out of the closing doors.

The service station fell quiet again. The radio behind the attendant, a flabby, unshaven man, seemed very loud. Roland followed Troy and Darren down the aisle and they looked out the window at the boys gathered on the footpath. Their hurt friend limped towards them across the petrol-stained concrete, his hand against his back. The boys stood about talking, peering back at the Quix, before walking to the intersection and out of sight.

‘So what do you reckon?’ Darren muttered to Troy.

‘Probably going to try to jump us.’

‘But if we stay here, you’re going to get hassled by the cops,’ said Darren. ‘It’s your call.’

Troy thought about it. ‘Wait for the cops,’ he said. ‘They’ve probably got knives or something.’

They paced up and down the aisles, looking out the windows at the grey, desolate day. A small Renault drove in and an elderly man filled it at the bowsers. He wore a sky-blue suit and a trilby hat. A woman with pearly white hair sat in the passenger seat, holding her handbag on her lap. When the man came in to pay, he slipped on the pool of tomato sauce, which had been spreading across the floor by the collapsed shelf.

‘What’s this?’ he asked the attendant, inspecting the soles of his shoes. He glanced at the fallen shelf and the mess in the aisle. The attendant said nothing.

‘You going to clean this up?’ Darren asked the attendant after the man had left.

‘Not my job,’ said the attendant, impassive. He closed the cash register and sat down again, crossing his arms.

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