Crown

Page 184

Money.

What was it about money that allured him so? If only he found a rational way of earning it.

Was it the flashing lights, the expedience in the air, the taboo… which now drove a young Kyle Harrison, out from his school, down the street, and into the local bistro… the pokies.

To his luck, no guards were there to stop him.

Coins sputtered out of one machine to his right. Metal on metal. The ding ding ding of an ascending diminished chord. There, an old haggard woman collected her prize like a vulture to its prey.

He had a hundred in his pocket which he’d swiped from his fathers cabinet earlier that morning. Once he won, which he would, he would replace the existing money and keep the profits.

At the roulette table, his hundred was returned in 20 red chips.

Not knowing what to do, he split his little fortune into 5 towers of 4.

The numbers were arbitrary. 1 tower on unlucky 13. 17, his age. Another on number 5… 10.

The giddiness he felt was purely the deliciousness of being there alone, beyond his years; winning was not even a consideration.

When the ball finally stopped on black 17, and the man in the white shirt, vest and tie passed him $700 worth in green chips, all he could do was stare catatonically at the mass before him.

“Congratulations sir.”

A force beyond his understanding or control compelled him to stay… compelled him to bet further.

If it was that easy, he could make $20,000, a Million!

But not today. Not when they could discover his youth.

Against all compulsion, he took his chips and cashed it in.

$700 in dollar bills and the birth of an addict.

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I meandered through the heart of the city, my cold feet shuffling against the concrete as strangers passed everywhere.

I had really nowhere to go, so I decided to step into Victoria’s state library, an ancient almost Athenian structure.

Rain pelted against the windows as I entered.

It was warmer in there. I could read, use a computer, and waste my hours, while I decided what to do next, outside the cold and wet.

Dear Mr. Harrison.

Your personal belongings have been relocated to a bonded storage unit. See link attached. If accrued property fees are not paid in under six months, the property will be sold and the proceeds retained in order to cover the storage fees. You can opt to postpone the sale by up to three months by paying half of…

Page 1048:

Kyle turned off the computer, closed his eyes and sighed.

He ran an agitated hand through his hair, tensely clutching the dark strands through his fingers.

A wooden desk. The Buddhist hum of air conditioning.

“I’m sorry, are you using this computer?”

A slender Chinese girl enquired, timidly placing her backpack down on the carpet beside his chair. She looked like a young university student, her entire future painted out nicely before her, no doubt.

“No, no. It’s yours.” He muttered, and he stood up and left.

I began wandering the many shelves of books. I just wanted to be away from people, from all those lives that seemed so perfectly in order.

Mild chatter. Whispers. The occasional laugh.

I was also conscious of my odour, which people may have noticed as I passed the narrow isles. I hadn’t showered in a week, nor had I shaven.

I was embarrassed, lonely, miserable, confused, frustrated, unkempt. I could list the adjectives indefinitely.

I picked up a book, any book, and began reading. In the depths of the library, far from the people, I figured I was safer from the minute glances, the scrutinising eyes.

It seemed obvious why I chose the book that I did.

It was so out of place from the rest, without a title, an author. It was dusty, with no appeal to passing strangers beside a single dogged black cover. Why would anyone pick up such a book as this, with all the colour and grandness of the famous surnames permeating all the other thousands of paperbacks. This book was alone and as disparaged as I was.

As I opened the book, it seemed as though the rain was growing harsher, more threatening against the tinted windows outside.

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Page 588

“Whats this dad?”

Kyle held what seemed to be a formal document up for his dad to see.

It pained Andrew to read the letter. With a defeated sigh, he waved his son into his bedroom.

“Come here, Kyle.”

Kyle sat on his fathers knee. He could feel the warmth of his father’s body pervading his back and through his chest.

Andrew wrapped an arm around his sons belly.

“I’ve been receiving letters like these for years.”

Kyle stared up into his fathers eyes inquisitively. For a while, he struggled to find the words. He had never seen his father so broken.

“Dad, what does it mean? What does Lease Termination mean?”

Kyle could feel his fathers grip grow tighter. He couldn’t understand why his fathers features seemed to grow so cold, why he’s face seemed suddenly so white. His breaths were rapid, choked. He blinked a lot, avoiding his sons gaze.

“Usually, I can work it out.”

It seemed an eternity before he spoke again.

Finally when he did speak, he only had four words to offer. Words that Kyle already knew so well.

“I love you son.”

Page 4

Kyle Harrison, born of Andrew and Monica Harrison. 1st of July 1996. Mordialloc, Victoria.

Caucasian male, eye colour: brown. hair: black. height: 175.4 cm tall.

Kyle Harrison wasn’t a unique name. Any resemblance to him at all could have been narrowed down to a very strange coincidence.

But the photo of him, printed on the 3rd page of the novel, solemn and colourless like the photographs required of a passport, convinced him undeniably that this was no coincidence. A prank at best.

Kyle lived alone with his father in the Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. A rather subdued child, while not introverted, he envied the other boys in his class.

3 boxes in the corner of a room, adjacent to the front door, contained most of Kyle’s toys, clothes and belongings.

Andrew would read to Kyle before bed, just like his mother had.

What was this?

Money.

What was it about money that allured him so? If only he found a rational way of earning it.

But the majority of the book was unfinished.

Hundreds and hundreds of blank paper white.

But there… the last entry… page 1056.

Words were being physically written onto the page, inscribed by an invisible hand.

Kyle gasped at the discovery.

Kyle lifted his left hand, transferring the book to his right. He wove his fingers through the air experimentally.

It was hard to believe what he was reading as it was formed in real time beneath him.

Was this some kind of trick?

The novel was difficult to fool. If he twisted his head to the left… captured.

If he began left and then shifted right in the last milli-second; again, perfectly articulated.

Perhaps there was a camera watching him. Kyle spun around, searching his environment…

What about thoughts?

Fuck. Coffee Beans. Slut. Kyle thought experimentally.

What was this? How could it know?

Kyle folded the book closed, his thumb a bookmark on the current page, and concealed it within his Parker jacket. There was no bar code on this book, no nothing, so he passed unnoticed through the front security gates.

Outside, the street buzzed with action. Although it had stopped raining, the pavement remained wet, the atmosphere enriched with the smell of Earth.

Tika-tika-tika-tika. The blare of a crossing signal, loud and fading in a diminuendo as Kyle drifted before it and across Swanston Street.

Faces. Faces everywhere, completely oblivious of Kyle and his discovery.

A screech of rubber on asphalt. A polypropylene crunch and the sprinkle of glass.

A car door opens and agitated voices can be heard bickering in the distance.

“Then I’ll have to call the police…”

But where is this? Kyle thought.

Has this happened yet? Or did I miss something?

Shards of red and white glass from the black Toyota Jazz’s headlights litter the bitumen. The crumpled bonnet of the Jazz is no match for the blue Subaru Forester which hit it.

Crunch.

I whipped my head around immediately.

A small black Toyota Jazz, and a Subaru Forester. Perfect accuracy.

The man in the Forester was middle aged. Grey hair. He walked toward the woman who looked roughly in her thirties. Tanned brown skin. Denim skirt.

Instantly the woman was shouting at the man.

“Look, all I need is your licence and your phone number. The insurance companies will deal with it.”

“I’m not letting you photograph my licence.”

“Then I’ll have to call the police.”

The precision was startling. The soup-like trance that encased him then was that of a lucid dream, an absurd fantasy.

Kyle closes his eyes, breathes momentarily, and then opens them.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was walking to Crown Towers.

Why Crown, he couldn’t know… whether it was habitual or instinctual… all he knew, as he entered through the electric roller doors and passed into the luminescence of the Casino, was that he had to be there.

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I stood before the roulette table, the very game that had placed me out on the street; the very heart of my solitude, my hope and my despair.

I had $20 in my wallet, and in my car, on Clarendon Street, parked outside what was my apartment, another $80, the last of my savings.

$20 in 2 blue chips were passed to me.

Page 1050

Kyle placed the 2 chips vertically stacked on red 28. The ivory ball rolled, rolled rolled, and gradually, ceased to move. $700 in chips were returned.

I placed my 2 chips on red 28.

Kyle placed 1 purple and 2 army green chips, vertically stacked onto red 17. Over $20,000 worth in chips were returned.

“Congratulations sir.”

I placed my newfound collection of chips onto red 17.

Gasps from the woman in red beside me. From my periphery, I could just make out her blonde hair and rouge lips. Perfume. High heeled shoes.

Kyle placed an assortment of 1 purple, 2 brown and 4 yellow chips onto black 28.

Over 800 thousand dollars worth in chips were returned.

I did as it said.

The dealer faltered.

“Thank you players. There will be no more games on this table.”

I looked down to the book in my left palm. It offered nothing further, in terms of numbers anyway.

2 guards in black suits, the crown logo on their jacket pockets, were approaching the table.

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“You consider yourself lucky? How’d you do it?”

The black book sat closed on a plastic table before me, alongside my wallet and my ID.

“I don’t know. Dumb luck I guess.”

Another guard walked into the room.

“We checked the table Sid. It operates perfectly.”

Sid, dark skin with woollen grey hair, a burgundy shirt and tie of a higher calibre to the guards, leaned toward, his forearms on the table.

“1 in 50,000 chance you had of pulling off what you did today.”

He looked into my eyes, gauging my reaction.

Finding nothing, Sid elevated himself, picked the black book off the table and began reading its contents.

I don’t understand what he saw, just that his face seemed to oscillate between a smirk and disorientation.

He flicked through the pages with an increased momentum.

Flick Flick Flick.

His face growing whiter with every page turned.

The guards watched him in silence.

Finally, he looked at me with one evaluating sideways glance and spoke these last words before leaving completely, the book in his hand.

“Send him to the cashier. Pay him his cheque.”