part 9
rumors
Now, at this petrol station, we had what I thought was a poltergeist or some shit. Rooster named it Marvin after Hitchhikers Guide- because he seemed to just be the stroppiest son of a bitch. Now at first I didn't know the place had Marvin, but I found out about him on my first night. Now, it's normal for shit to fall off shelves in the shop, and its normal for the outside light to flicker sometimes, we even had this industrial bug-zapper outside that hummed lowly and then crackled as it killed mosquitos and moths.
Anyway, my first night working there, somewhere after 2am, Rooster's episode of Ren and Stimpy was cut short- the TV turned off. I turned around from cleaning the window and Rooster was just sighing and shaking his head. He pulled out this cassette radio that was under the counter, and he was bitching under his breath.
"Come here. I'll show you how to deal with Marvin."
"Who the fuck is Marvin?" The Ice Box outside clunked and I watched a packet of chips fall off a shelf.
"Marvin is a dick, don't worry about it. But you need to know how to do this so when you work with Amy you can, she will leave the store before she helps out with him." At this point I was getting pretty pissed, because as you know, I don't do ghosts.
"What the fuck. There's a ghost in here?"
"Nah, you never actually see Marvin. He just does shit." Rooster explained that at some point or another during the night, Marvin turns off the TV and starts fussing about, knocking shit off shelves and tripping you over. Exploding bottles of coke, and walking around the store. He gets progressively worse the longer you ignore him.
I sort of believe, but wait with Rooster, when we hear footsteps down the aisle we keep the toiletries, then several tissue boxes fell off the top shelf, like someone hit them on their way past.
The way to stop Marvin is simple. The radio cassette player has a bootleg cassette already sitting inside of it, Matt tried to get rid of it once and brought it back the next day, and Amy won't touch it. But Marvin LOVES Diana Ross and The Supremes, so you bring it out whenever Marvin decides to act out, and play his tape. Someday We'll Be Together seems to be his favourite song.
We've experimented with Marvin a lot since then. If you play the tape earlier in the night he turns it off, he only wants to listen to it when he's ready. If you ignore him for more than an hour the power trips out for a couple of seconds. If you fast forward through the song the leak gets worse and you have to start it again. I now play that song in my car a lot.
So, Marvin is okay. I guess. I think he's lonely or sad, but I was never able to do anything about it. I mean, we don't even know his real name, or if it's even a guy.
I know it wasn't really a scary story, and in fact it makes me a little sad to share it, because playing the song every night/morning and trying not to think about why Marvin makes us play it for him is pretty upsetting. I just wanted to give you guys an idea of what working here was like. I worked both night shift and day shift, depending on the roster that changed over, but normally I'd two weeks night shift then two weeks day shift. If you have any questions about Marvin, feel free to ask away, I don't know that much but I'll answer what I can.
One day I was working the day shift with Amy. It was almost too hot to fucking move, and the air-conditioning in the shop was busted. We had like three fans set up and on, but all you could smell was petrol and rotting mangoes, as somebody had spilled a bunch down the highway. The temperature was approaching 43 degrees Celsius (nearly 110 Fahrenheit).
So these fans were doing fuck all, I could pretty much slick my hair back with my sweat. The fans were doing nothing but push the heavy stank petrol-mango-decay air around. The Northern Territory is so fucking awful. Amy looked like shit that day, I can remember clearly. She'd thrown her back in a ponytail and there were weird strands sticking out, she looked like she hadn't slept in a good long time, and big sweat patches were on her back and underarms.
We had to wear these god awful white polos to work with name badges. And I knew if Amy looked like shit then l, with my red hair and fair complextion, was a hotter mess than Courtney Love.
At around mid-day, I was mopping up the fridge puddle - trying not to gag at that weird ozone-and-rot smell you get when stuff melts in fridges and freezers. Amy was prowling behind the till, back and forth, like a trapped feral cat.
"You're going to wear through the flooring." I said, as a joke. And Amy just bared her teeth at me.
"You gonna tell me what to do, white fella?" She asked, and narrowed her eyes at me. Great, we'd devolved into her calling me "white fella" again.
"My name is Blue." I said. Amy scoffed and continued pacing a hole in the floor.
"That ain't ya name. You and the bush hag you live with use fake names because the bad spirits took your old ones." I put the mop back in the bucket, and wiped my face on the inside of my polo.
"What?"
"You live with the bush hag, ey?"
"l live with my Aunt Vav, yes." Amy let out a peal of ugly laughter, and produced a cigarette.
"Vicious Vav, my uncle calls her. He and my cousin reckon she eats the goodness out of people. That's why she's stuck on her blood land." And that was fucking great, because of course this gossip would catch up to me.
"He calls her Vicious Vav?" Amy nodded.
"Vicious Vau They say at night she turns into a Perentie and attacks people, so she can be a person during the day."
"Amy, that doesn't make any sense. Perentie are reptiles, they're cold-blooded. They need the sun to be active." I know my shit about lizards and snakes here, and listening to Vav tell me dream time stories meant I wasn't about to believe the shit spewing from this third generation scum. She pouted at that. For those of you who don't know, if you see a wild Perentie, it is probably as terrifying as seeing a crocodile, if not more so.
They are the biggest monitor lizards Australia gets, and generally are about two metres long (either side of six foot). They're fucked. They can also stand up on their hind legs, so can be as tall, if not taller, than a man. Also, as we were closer to Katherine and not Alice Springs, it seemed unlikely that we would see any Perentie at this point. Basically, Amy is a dumb bitch.
Now, I have about half a foot of height on Amy, and easily ten kilos. I was made for picking shit up and putting it down. So if we ever came to blows, I think physically, I could do some damage. However, there's something about living in these parts that teaches you to not be prey. Something that makes weakness a shameful thing. After all, strength means little against somebody who will do absolutely anything to win. Another thing about the aboriginals around here is that they will not fight alone. It's fucking annoying, and I've never had to deal with it. It's probably the best part about being "Vicious Vav's Nephew".
I ended up making her put out the cigarette-again. Tension between Amy and I was high for the rest of the day. I got it, she was terrified of me. Terrified I was going to hurt her somehow.
But I needed this job, and I needed to know who the fuck
her uncle was, and why he was spreading shit. So we just
carried on tentatively polite to each other, but not being
overly friendly.
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