Jerry Sonder Goes For a Wander

‘Good evening passengers, and welcome to Sydney airport,’ announced the avatar on the seatback screen.

Jerry stood in the aisle, stretched and lifted his bag down from the overhead compartment. Just one bag, its contents deliberately minimal: three crew-neck t-shirts, one shirt and one sweater (both blue), two pairs of shorts, socks and underwear, essential toiletries, a small towel, a phone charger, flip flops. Everything else he carried in his pockets or the pouch tucked into his jeans. He flicked the hair tie off his wrist and pulled a handful of blonded curls back off his face. He knew the air outside would be hot and bone dry, and he had learned to look presentable for customs.

           ‘Gerald!’

His mother bustled through the waiting crowd in Arrivals to squeeze her boy for the first time in almost two years.

‘Hey, mum’ he said with a chuckle as she withdrew and wiped away tears before they could fully form.

‘How are you? How was the flight? Are you hungry? Come on, plenty of Chrissy leftovers waiting at home.’

‘Leftovers? You did Christmas early?’

‘Oh, just the work girls. I’ve saved the special ham for you and me on the day.’

‘Damn right you have. Actually I am hungry – they never feed you on these budget airlines. You still hiding choccies in the car?’

She smiled knowingly and led Jerry by the hand out of the terminal and into the car park. On the drive home they talked about his school friends, the neighbours, his father – did you tell Dad you were coming home? How is he? They tallied up the pregnancies, boob jobs, weddings and divorces of the people they knew.

Jetlag heavied his legs and brain, so he ate little and let his mother kiss him goodnight. In his old bed, he dug through his mind but could unearth no strong feelings one way or another about being back. Being home, his mother would say. Not that he expected epiphanic fanfare or an earth-shuddering perspective shift, but he wasn’t sure he had the confidence to call this place home anymore. He fell into a restless sleep before eventually going deep, deep into the dreamless void that promised to turn him out feeling lighter. He woke a little after 9am to the sound of the radio in the living room. An enticing smell pulled him to the kitchen where he discovered an unhealthy serving of pancakes and bacon warming in the oven. His mother appeared from the laundry, wiping suds off her arms and wearing a wide grin.

‘Hungry? I waited for you. Coffee? Juice?’

‘What, that’s not all for me?’

‘Oh psh, boy, you couldn’t eat all of that. And I made fruitcake if you do.’

After breakfast, Jerry dug his old laptop out of a drawer in the spare bedroom. He was surprised when it came alive without complaint. In his emails he found a two-line reply to the CV he sent from the public computers in Doha airport: Gerald, thanks for shooting this through. Be happy to give you a go behind the bar. Jackie said you’re a gun on cocktails and we need a few more hands to get the place open again. See you Wednesday 2pm Daz.

Shit! He had less than four hours to get sorted with new shoes and work clothes. He asked his mother for the car keys but she insisted on coming, said she had to run errands. They went together to the shopping centre, his mother sitting too close to the steering wheel and jerking through the gears.

‘You like it? Got it with the leftovers from the divorce,’ she said.

‘Very nice. Be better if you could actually drive manual though.’

She slapped his arm and tried, in vain, to change smoothly for the rest of the drive. An hour later he had spent forty of his last two hundred dollars on black sneakers, hardy if ugly, and a pair of black jeans. He followed his mother around under fluorescent lights for another hour, past endless windows of fake snow and smiling Santas. Why always snow? The closest snowfall was six months and three hundred kilometres away up a mountain. Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé played on repeat somewhere far away, interrupted only by bossa nova covers of Christmas classics. Midday came and went. Jerry started to give his mother the hurry-up, to no avail. Eventually, after coffee and a stale sandwich (both hideously overpriced), she waved off his protests and said she would drive him to the hotel.

It had none of the tacky opulence he remembered. Stained wood and velvet had been replaced by bright teal-and-grey tiles, accented by an overabundance of brass. Like a Newport Beach café that got lost and wandered into a 1920s theme party, he thought. After paperwork and orientation, he and the other new staff spent the better part of six hours unboxing and washing glassware. A few minutes before sunset he slipped away to the upper-level balcony, where he could watch the last rays dip below the river. Daz reappeared for the first time in hours and Jerry made a face like he was going to apologise for being caught out. But Daz only smiled.

‘Good view, hey Jer?’

‘Spectacular. I’ve missed these sunsets.’

‘Right, Jackie mentioned you’d been travelling for a while. The States, right?’

‘Mostly, yeah. And a bit of Canada and Mexico. I went over for a summer camp job and just kept it going until I ran out of money. Great part of the world. You been?’

‘Nah mate, not yet. It’s on the list though. Hey, we’ve got tucker downstairs. Chef chucked together hamburgers and wedges for the crew. If you’re hungry?’

‘Definitely! Jet lag is really messing with my rhythm. Should be gone in another day or two though.’

‘You don’t have to hang around if you’re crook mate. Happy to have you here, but it’s not like this is essential stuff.’

‘Oh, no, thanks though. I’m good. Need the money too, you know how it is.’

‘For sure mate, for sure. We’ll get you sorted with plenty of shifts, don’t stress. You remember all your cocktails?’

‘Most of them. I spent a few weeks working cashies in Florida last summer, so I brushed up a bit.’

‘Great, well, we’ll sort you out.’

Daz was good to his word; Jerry worked twenty-six of the next thirty days as word of the hotel’s renovations spread. Once his mind was clear of the swampy jetlag, he managed to remember all the staff names in time for the first few to quit or be fired. He enjoyed the work and got along with most of them. A small group would gather in the beer garden after every shift and help themselves to one or two beers on the manager’s tab. Jerry would take the late bus home or get a lift from someone driving the same way. There was one girl, Bel, he found tiptoeing into his thoughts after especially exhausting shifts. She teased his long hair, said she liked the highlights he put in to coax a protest – it’s all sun and seawater, I swear – and one night she let him kiss her in the cool room. Then just before Christmas, she decided she didn’t like the job anymore, and Jerry discovered that two years of rushed goodbyes to fleeting travel friends had galvanised him against any deep sense of loss.

The bar was closed on Christmas Day, but he volunteered for the Boxing Day shift to take advantage of extra holiday pay. Christmas meant breakfast and dinner with his mother, and in between he rode his old bike through the sweltering midday sun to his father’s house – the same one Jerry had spent his first twenty years. He met his father’s new girlfriend and her three kids whose names he forgot. He worked long hours, agreed to see old friends when he had time, and found two months passed by with a wink. Then one Saturday in early March a group of young men – Jerry still thought of them as boys – came jostling into the main bar where Jerry was finishing the morning setup. He glanced at his watch; 10.30am and clearly not their first drink of the day. One of them, a dark-featured face Jerry didn’t know, swaggered over while the others wandered into the beer garden.

‘Hey, mate, y’open yet?’ he asked, not bothering to take off his sunglasses as he wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

‘Yep, open at 10. What can I get you?’

‘Bloody beautiful,’ then over his shoulder, ‘hey, boys! We’re on here!’ which roused a cheer from the group outside. ‘Just a pint of Tulley’s, thanks mate.’

Jerry watched the glass frost as he took the money. Suddenly he was achingly thirsty for a cold beer. It was a hot, dry day and a fresh breeze was drifting in over the river through the wide-open front of the hotel bar, carrying the unmistakable smell of a summer that refused to accept its time was done. A third of the pint was spilled or drank off before his first customer joined his friends. Then three of them stood together, taking orders and leaving the others at the table. Jerry wished, not for the last time that morning, that he wasn’t the only one on shift. He busied himself filling ice trays. As they neared the bar, one of the men, middling height and athletic with well-groomed dark ginger hair, pulled down his sunglasses with a flourish.

‘Holy shit, is that Jerry Somer?’ he called out. ‘It is! Jez mate, how are ya?’

‘Thommo!’ said Jerry, ‘I’m good mate. Long time.’

He shook hands over the bar; first Wayne “Thommo” Thompson, then Dave Lacy, with his vacant eyes and mouth that always hung slightly open in an expression that did nothing to quash his reputation as a halfwit. Jerry didn’t know the third, tall skinny Mike O’Leary with acne scars, though he remembered meeting Jerry at a party years ago. They all peppered Jerry with questions, genuinely interested in his trip and comparing notes on trips to Quintana Roo. Dave, predictably, hinted at getting the drinks for free but Jerry deflected – sorry mate, boss is on our asses – ringing up their total and taking split payment – not a problem, whatever’s easy for you. One of the group called inside for the others to hurry up.

‘Oi, it’s Jez Somer!’ Thommo called back.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Luke Aitken as he scrambled up from his seat and crossed the empty bar at a jog. Luke and Jerry had been good friends through high school before drifting apart some time into their first year at different universities. Now they reconnected with an easy familiarity, Jerry running back over the same questions he had answered for Luke’s friends and countless others.

‘You still living with your parents at that place near school?’ asked Luke, his intelligent eyes dancing with emotion (or maybe too many espresso martinis with breakfast, thought Jerry).

‘Nah, my parents split before I left. I’m with mum for now. It’s not far from there, and closer to the train station.’

‘Ah bummer, sorry to hear. And Jackie?’

‘You would ask that, you old dog,’ said Jerry, sending a blush up Luke’s boyish hairless cheeks and drawing a laugh from the others. ‘Sorry to say she moved down to Melbourne, mate. You’ll have to chase someone else’s sister I guess.’

Luke waved away jeers with one hand and took his pint with the other. ‘Are you back for good? We should catch up properly. I work in the city, if you’re around for lunch or a beer or something,’ he said.

‘For sure, mate, that sounds good. I’ll shoot you a message next time I’m in town.’

Daz had been watching through the silent grid of security cameras on his computer screen. He came through from the office to check on Jerry as the group retreated outside with their drinks.

A few weeks later, Jerry had arranged to meet University friends for drinks in Newtown after they finished work. With little else to do for the afternoon, he sent Luke a message and his phone buzzed with a reply almost immediately. They met for coffee around the corner from Luke’s office in Ultimo. Jerry felt out of place among the homogeneity of black business pants and blue business shirts, like he had turned up to school in the wrong uniform. But he relaxed into the conversation and discovered Luke had matured, was living with his girlfriend in the apartment they owned together, was saving for the American road trip he had long dreamed about. They hardly talked about school, and Jerry left feeling refreshed and optimistic. It was so strange, he thought, that of all the people from a past that was dense and not at all distant, Luke Aitken would be the one he felt most comfortable talking with. A pang of insecurity – annoyance? he wasn’t sure – crept into his mind as he recalled recent conversations. They would all fire the same torrent of questions; where? Favourite? Any girls? Money? And your hair! then find a way to steer the talk back around to themselves. With Luke he could speak tangentially, chasing ineffable experiences through the Ecuadorian rainforest or recounting his brush with police in Playa Del Carmen. Luke understood, and could add his own stories without a competitive edge creeping in.

Jerry turned his back to Darling Harbour and walked through the city with rising disinterest. It all felt the same, but looked drab and much smaller than he remembered. Skyscrapers gave way to café strips, café strips cheapened to takeaway joints as he followed the rail lines. The afternoon sun still had plenty of heat, so he found a patch of shade under a tree in Sydney Park and sat to watch young parents chase grass-stained children. A breeze sprang up as the sun began to sink over the railway line, cooling the back of Jerry’s neck where he had tied his hair up. He thought he might cut it shorter if autumn refused to show up.

At drinks, the conversation started predictably - where? Favourite? Any girls? Money? And your hair! But he was not the only one who had been absent from the city, and one of the girls was getting married soon. Jerry was happy to fall into the background until, one by one, the group made their excuses and went home. He took the Eastern Hills line to the stop nearest his house and walked the rest of the way in the cool evening air. He crossed a football oval close to home, where a kid had forgotten his ball. Jerry scooped it up and practised a few short kicks in the dark. A memory of his own voice came back to him: summer camp, teaching a group of boys to kick a football in the sticky Miami heat. Two or three caught on, but they were back to baseball the next day. His hair was shorter then and fully brown. Maria had liked it that first summer; she would run her hands through it as they sat hidden behind the dining hall, talking or more. She liked it less the next year when it had grown past his ears. Like ramen noodles, she said, giggling. She rolled her r’s in English, too.

At home, Jerry’s mother was sitting on the red 3-seater sofa she had rescued from the divorce. The TV was on and she was knitting under the light of a floor lamp.

‘Dinner for you in the fridge, Gerald. If you’re hungry. How was your day, love? How’s that Luke boy, is he still trying to become a pilot?’

‘Jesus, no, I’d forgotten all about that. He’s good. Day was good. I’m tired, mum, so I’m just going to eat and crash if that’s ok.’

‘Of course, love. Why don’t you bring your dinner in here and watch Housebreakers? Keep your old mum company.’ When Jerry had been silent for several minutes she asked, ‘anything on your mind?’

He forced a smile and said, ‘no, just tired, I think. Been a weird day.’ She nodded, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence until she fell asleep, woke suddenly and announced she was going to bed. Jerry reached for his laptop and checked if his pay had processed. He settled back on the sofa, browsing idly with the flickering light of the muted TV for company. Before he closed his laptop, he sent a two-line reply to the email Daz has sent with next week’s roster: Daz, I’m sorry to say I won’t be coming in next week. Really appreciate all you’ve done for me and best of luck Jer. Then he collected his washing from the laundry and went to his room. Three hours later he came back to the kitchen, scrawled a note on the pad attached to the fridge and signed it Love, G, slung his backpack over one shoulder and slid the door closed quietly behind him. A car idled on the street with its headlights illuminating nothing in particular.

‘Just one bag sir?’ asked the driver. Jerry flicked the hair tie off his wrist and pulled a handful of blonded curls back from his face.

‘Just one bag.’ Its contents deliberately minimal: three crew-neck t-shirts, one shirt and one sweater (both blue), two pairs of shorts, socks and underwear, essential toiletries, a small towel, a phone charger, flip flops. Everything else he carried in his pockets or the pouch tucked into his jeans.

Jerry lifted his bag into the overhead compartment, stretched, and sat in the aisle seat.

‘Good evening passengers, and welcome aboard your flight to Athens,’ announced the man wearing too much make-up on the seatback screen.