Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Frank
Title: The night our lies became truth
They called it a retreat. Like it was meant to be fun. Those kids weren’t there for fun. They were there to sort their shit out. They were kids on first-name terms with the cops, but too young to be charged. Too young to lock up. Too fucked-up to keep around.
So they sent ’em to Koolaroo because distance was cheaper than care.
30 days at a time. Hard work. Long hours. No phones. No parents. No one watchin once the dust settled and the bus disappeared down the track.
I didn’t run the program. My old man did. He called it community service.
I called it slave labor.
That’s how I met Bob and Donny.
Bob arrived like he owned the place. Loud. Confident. Already practicin authority like he’d been born into it. He was only 17, but he was a big bastard, and he liked keepin the brats in line. He liked rules, too, as long as they bent his way.
Donny was different. Quiet. Eager. The kind of lad who worked himself raw just to hear someone say he’d done well. He followed Bob because he wanted to be like him. Thought confidence rubbed off.
Then we met Katherine. She took trouble to a whole new level.
Lookin back, it was strange they sent boys and girls together. Like they was askin for trouble. Testin us. Wantin us to fuck up. Or fuck each other.
She called herself Kat. Said she had 9 lives, like a cat.
She was a chronic runaway. Always fightin with her parents.
Stealin and swearin. Her file was thick as a phone book, full of notes about behavior and her attitude.
They thought Koolaroo would straighten her out.
Somewhere remote. Somewhere she couldn’t bolt to the city the second things got hard.
Kat learned the hard way that she didn’t have 9 lives. She only had 1 like the rest of us.
She was the first girl I ever had sex with. Thought we had somethin. We didn’t. Kat was just stirrin up trouble. Only this time, she stirred the wrong people.
Bob. Donny. And me.
We were strangers before Kat.
We were bound together forever after her.
Funny how a single moment can change everythin. Especially for Kat. She never walked away from Koolaroo. She picked a fight with Donny. Looked genuinely surprised when Bob and I backed him. She’d pegged Donny as the weak link. She wasn’t wrong. But she didn’t understand how that made us dangerous.
Things got messy. Then bloody.
When she was dyin, Donny panicked. Wanted to call an ambulance. The cops. Anyone. Donny cried. I remember that. Hated himself for what he’d done. Hated himself more for not stopping it.
Bob shut him down fast. Told him we’d look like murderers.
And that’s when the 3 of us understood exactly who we were to each other.
Bob never called it murder.
He called it a problem that needed managin.
With her history of runnin away, the solution was already there. That’s where I came in. I knew Koolaroo better than anyone. We buried her in a cave. And Donny helped. Once a man digs a grave, there’s no clean way back.
Bob took care of the rest. Years later, when he had the badge, he closed the case for good. Girl with a history of runaway behavior absconded during placement. No evidence of foul play.
No one questioned it. That’s the thing about kids like her. The system expects ’em to disappear.
That night bound the 3 of us together for good.
Bob, because he controlled our actions.
Donny, because he carried the guilt.
Me, because I knew where to hide the body. Turns out that lesson served me well over the years.
Bob likes to think that what happened with Kat is why he controls me. But he forgets that every favor cuts both ways.
About 10 years ago, Bob started bringin me wads of cash he couldn’t explain, and that’s when the balance shifted. I’ve been launderin that money through Koolaroo and hidin it out here for years. Ever since he started usin his badge to make money that never went on the books.
There are plenty of places on Koolaroo to stash dirty cash.
Bob thinks his badge makes him powerful. But dirty money makes him dependent.
The more he made, the more nervous he got. Callin me too often. Askin questions he ain’t asked before.
And now that the grim reaper’s knockin at my door, I’ve decided I’m done with his bullshit.
I cleaned out his cash. Well, as much as I could carry. Turns out cash is fuckin heavy. Funny thing—havin more money than a man can move. Maybe that’s why Bob hid it instead of spendin it all.
Bob will notice soon enough that I’m gone. Then he’ll notice the cash is gone, too.
I’d give anythin to see his face when it hits him. He’ll be shakin in his boots. Because I’ve got more dirt on him than Koolaroo has on the land.
And I’m done lettin Bob believe he’s the one in charge.
So now you know why Bob saved my ass a few times over the years.
He didn’t do it out of loyalty.
He did it because he had no choice.
That reminds me, there’s another story that shaped the 3 of us.
Another girl. Another cover-up.
Only this time, it’ll be Donny shakin in his boots when I’m dead, and these pages are found.
History’s got a funny way of repeatin itself. Same kind of trouble. Different decade. We were in our twenties that time, but when I finished with the girl, she was still breathin.
As far as I know, that girl’s still missin.
It was Bob and Donny who sorted her out.
Bob had his badge by then and thought he was untouchable. Thought he could bury her missin person case the same way he buried Kat’s. But that case is still out there—because this girl wasn’t a teen runaway like Kat.
She was innocent. And she’s got family who never stopped lookin.
Anyways, I need a beer. I’ll write about that one some other time.
Frank Branson.