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“No. Like you. Like what you want. Is this what you want?” He jerked his chin up, so the kid turned again to watch as Jonesy tackled Robbo half a car length from the edge of the cliff. The kid hissed as the two men crunched to the flat rock face, both of them anaesthetised from pain or caution. Drum’s whole body tensed as they rolled side to side. Robbo on his back grunting like an ape, trying to flip Jonesy.
“It’s nothing, it’s Wrestlemania. It’s what we do.” But the kid reacted with nervous energy too, taking half a step towards the wrestling then back again.
Drum went to the table, stood over the fixings. He needed their attention. “Hey.” He got it.
Jonesy staggered upright and charged at him. Drum met his force with no resistance, letting the man throw him down, taking his gut punches, but protecting his face. The kid was shouting, kicking anything he could connect with, Drum’s hipbone, his shin. Robbo pulled them apart. It wasn’t going to be enough. There was intention in every twist of Jonesy’s lips. Drum stayed on the ground. He could still see all three of them. All three of them were safe. It didn’t matter that they were miserable pieces of humanity. This was his fault. He would keep them safe from the edge.
Jonesy was grinding his teeth, staring. Not bothered about being held upright by Robbo. “Throw him over. No one’ll miss him.”
Robbo let go. “What? Nah. What?”
“Let’s see if he can fly.”
“No!” The kid shouted. “No. Let’s go. Let’s just go.”
“Pick him up. The both of you, pick him up.”
Robbo hauled Drum upright, giggling like a teenage girl.
“No.” The kid was panicked and Jonesy loved it.
Drum would never know what kind of man Jonesy was sober. Tonight he was as close to a dead man as anyone accidentally need come.
He struck, two quick jabs to Robbo’s head, and the man went down moaning. One was safe. Jonesy laughed and shaped up. If the kid stayed out of it, two would be safe. Drum could spar with Jonesy till he ran out of high and it would be an end to it. But the kid picked this moment to have his own opinion.
He jumped on Jonesy’s back, too slight to bring the man down but surprising enough to make him stagger. Jonesy grappled with him, dragging him towards the edge.
Drum followed, his body so strung tight he could levitate. “Let him go.”
“Fucking little snot. Let’s see if snot can fly.”
The kid’s screams would wake half the suburb. Jonesy held him in a headlock, side on to the edge. All the kid would see was the big black and his own terror.
“Take me instead.”
Jonesy dropped the kid like he was a one-night stand and laughed. The kid scrambled away on his arse, cursing, sobbing. Behind them, Robbo moaned.
Drum said, “Go. Don’t come back,” but didn’t shift his eyes from Jonesy, knowing he’d given the man what he wanted—a confrontation with a more worthy opponent. A moment to prove he was king of shit.
Drum turned from Jonesy and stepped up to the edge, curled his toes over the rough rock edge. He closed his eyes. He’d made his peace with this ledge, this jump off point. He’d done it the night he’d first come here and found the cave. The night he realised it was hopeless, that he’d never be able to stop it, or fix what he’d set in motion; it would go on and on, a crime, a stream of pain and wealth. He made his peace with it that night and he’d done it every night, all the nights that followed.
Going over the edge didn’t scare him. It never had. Staying on it was what scared him. And that’s why he needed to live close to it. To remember, to stay scared.
But he wasn’t scared now. He was doing the scaring. “If I jump I win.”
Jonesy’s breath was ragged with adrenaline. “You won’t jump.” Robbo was moving around, grunting.
“You’re sure of that?” Drum softened his knees, let his body sway. “You lose if I do. You have to push me to win.”
“Maybe I will.”
“No one will know.”
“I’ll know.” Robbo, close, but not too close. “Don’t do it. He’s sick, Neil. Leave him alone.”
“I’d be ridding the world of a useless parasite.”
“You’d be a hero,” Drum whispered.
