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In the Company of Fools

D.A. Cairns

    Steve’s breath hung around his face like smoke as he stood and watched Cam position the bolt cutters around the chain.
    ‘Hurry up, man.’
    ‘Relax, there’s no one around.’
    Nervously Steve looked through the wire mesh fence, up and down the lane outside the lot while Cam worked on getting sufficient leverage to break the chain and open the gate. Phil and Milo wandered among the cars carefully examining each one as though they were potential buyers. Only four of the dozen cars in the lot had keys in them and two of those were parked in. Unlike they planned, only two cars would been driven out tonight.
    Crack! The chain snapping sounded like a gunshot and all four boys instinctively ducked into the shadows.
    Cam was first on his feet.
    ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I told you there’s no one around. We’re cool.’

    Steve glanced at his watch and licked his dry lips. It was ten minutes past two in the morning and Cam was right. There weren’t any cars on the roads, no lights in people’s houses and no noise. He would have felt more comfortable with noise because it seemed that even his heart beat was audible to every person in the street.
    ‘Come on Steve,’ said Cam. ‘Get in the Camry and drive it out behind me. I’m taking the Cressida.’
    ‘What about Milo?’
    ‘Two cars. That’s it. Milo and Phil are waiting in the lane.’
    Steve climbed behind the wheel of the Camry and started the engine. So far so good. He watched in the rearview mirror as Cam drove the Cressida slowly up the driveway from the back of the lot, out into the lane and across to a parking space behind a store. It looked easy, Steve told himself as he selected reverse on the shifter and took his foot off the brake. The car moved slowly backwards up the driveway but started to veer towards the wall, and Steve was unable to straighten its course. When it gently nudged the wall he panicked and left the car there with the engine running.
    ‘Forget about it, Steve. Come on,’ said Cam in a harsh whisper.
    Steve fell into the back seat as Phil closed the gate before climbing in beside him, then Cam drove off down the lane and out onto the Kingsway.
    Steve was too embarrassed to speak.
    ‘Shit,’ said Milo from the front passenger seat. ‘What happened?’
    ‘I couldn’t get it.’
    ‘Why what’s up with ya?’
    ‘I’ve never fuckin’ driven a car before, have I?’
    ‘Neither have I,’ said Cam from behind the driver’s wheel.
    ‘Shit,’ said Phil, and the others agreed that about summed up the situation.
    After Cam explained he had lied about his driving experience, he went on to outlay the plan for stealing a set of number plates for the car because being new it didn’t have any, and driving around without any license plates was bound to arouse suspicion. They drove to a used car dealership at Miranda and parked in a side street. Steve and Phil were smoking, and together with Milo they were downing bottles of Victoria Bitter beer which Steve had bought earlier that night. Cam chose not to drink.
    ‘Here are,’ said Cam handing Milo two screwdrivers, ‘go and get us a pair of plates.’
    ‘Why don’t you do it, Cam,’ said Milo.
    ‘You want me to do fucking everything?’
    ‘I’ll go with you, Milo,’ said Steve.
    The two young thieves giggled as they ran through the packed lot until they reached a car parked halfway between the two largest spotlights. With the plates safely in their hands, they sprinted back to the Cressida.
    ‘Put them on,’ said Cam.
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘When you’re fucking finished congratulating each other, you should screw the plates onto this car.’
    With alcohol soaked brains, they laughed as they got out of the car and did as they were told.
    Cam’s idea was for them to take the car back down to Caringbah and find someplace to park until they could come back and take it for a drive again, during the week sometime. By the time they parked the Cressida under a tree in a dead-end street two blocks from Cam’s place, the boys were so drunk they would have said yes to Cam, no matter what he suggested.
    During the week they boasted to their friends at school about their exploits but nobody believed them.
    The following Saturday, Cam suggested they all go for a drive to the beach.
    ‘Isn’t that a bit risky?’ asked Steve.
    ‘Yeah,’ agreed Phil. ‘In the middle of the day. I mean, the car will be reported stolen by now and to drive around in broad daylight seems...’
    ‘A bit risky, like I said.’
    ‘Bullshit! It’s a ten minute drive. We go the back way down Burraneer Bay Drive and no one will bother us.’
    It was the longest ten minutes of Steve’s life. Every time they stopped he shrunk in his seat and as they drove he constantly looked around for any sign of the police. Cam seemed relaxed and increasingly confident behind the wheel, something for which Milo commended him. By the time they returned to the secret parking space, they all felt very proud of themselves and very grown up.
    Phil suggested they take the car to Natalie’s party that night and then drive down to the beach and sleep there in the car. Agreeing unanimously this was a great plan, the boys went their separate ways until they met again at the party.
    Steve was already off his face when he arrived at Natalie’s and spent most of the night trying to impress Nina who he hoped would agree to be his girlfriend. So drunk herself on Jim Beam and cola, Nina was easily impressed, and in the fun, Steve forgot all about Cam and the stolen Cressida.
    As the night wore on, couples formed and disappeared into the shadows or into the house and the occasional fight erupted here and there while intoxicated teenagers empty their stomachs on the lawn. Steve and Nina were getting very close until she said she felt sick and went inside to lie down. Having accepted her invitation to join her, Steve was on his way in when Cam arrived.
    Apparently not interested in hanging around at Natalie’s, Cam tried to get the boys together so they could leave. He became annoyed when they seemed to not want to go.
    ‘It’s just a shitty party. There’s one every weekend. Come on, let’s split.’
    ‘What the fuck?’ said Phil. ‘Good party, Cam.’
    ‘Fuck the party.’
    ‘Fuck you!’ said Milo. ‘I’m having a good time.’
    Steve left them to argue and followed Nina into Natalie’s bedroom. Unfortunately the bed was occupied but Nina climbed in anyway, mumbling something about needing to stand still for a while.
    The other person was Natalie herself who agreed to leave if Nina and Steve wanted to use the bed. The horny teenagers looked at each other through half closed eyes and could think of no better way to spend the rest of the night.
    ‘Steve,’ called Cam from the lounge. ‘You coming man? We’re leaving. You fucking coming or what?’
    Steve hesitated half way down onto Nina’s warm body.
    ‘Stay with me,’ she whispered.
    ‘We’re leaving without you man. Where are you? Where is he?’
    ‘Stay with me Steve.’
    Her bourbon flavored lips were sweet when she kissed him, but he had already decided to go with his mates. Standing up just as Cam poked his head through the doorway, Steve heard himself say goodnight to Nina, explaining that he had to go and she would be better off getting some sleep anyway.
    Cam slapped him on the back. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Mates come first, right?’
    The Cressida was again on its way to the beach with a cargo of teenage car thieves. Some hangers-on had hitched a ride with them but once at the beach they were informed they would be sleeping on the beach not in the car. The car park at Greenhills was a favorite place for late night revelers, so the boys were not surprised to find a half a dozen other cars parked there, even though it was half past two in the morning.
    Milo, Cam, Phil and Steve sat in the car facing the pounding surf and drank a little, smoked a little and told jokes. Steve was hailed a hero for turning his back on a girl already in bed for him.
    One of the other blokes outside ran up to them and yelled, ‘Cops!’, before running away to the dark beach again.
    Steve looked around to see a patrol car entering the carpark.
    ‘Pretend your asleep,’ said Cam.
    ‘That’s fucked,’ said Phil. ‘We’re fucked now.’
    ‘We’re not. Just shut up. Wind the windows up and pretend you’re sleeping. They’ll ignore us.’
    ‘Bullshit,’ said Steve. ‘We’re fucked now!’
    Before they knew it, two police officers were shining torches in through the windows of the Cressida. Steve’s heart was banging like a hammer in his chest when the police started tapping on the windows. The car stank of bourbon and stale tobacco..
    Finally they could stand it no longer, the persistence of the police wore them down and they almost simultaneously sat up.
    ‘Don’t say anything,’ whispered Cam. ‘Let me talk.’
    A policeman gestured for him to wind down the window.
    ‘This your car?’
    ‘We found it here unlocked, and needed a place to sleep.’
    Steve wanted to kick Cam for lying and digging a deeper hole for them all.
    ‘You boys been drinking?’
    ‘A little.’
    ‘Get out of the car.’
    If any one of the boys thought this was a joke or that the police might let them off with a warning, the tone of the officer’s voice quickly squashed any such hope.
    ‘You got your license and registration papers there?’
    Steve noticed that Milo and Phil were staring at the floor and had not moved an inch since Cam began talking to the cops. He desperately wanted to tell Cam to shut up and confess and plead for mercy, but he was too afraid to speak. Far from amused, the officer sounded angry.
    ‘I told you we found it here unlocked and-’ said Cam.
    ‘Cut the bullshit before you get in worse trouble than you’re already in. All of you, get out of the fucking car.’
    Doing as they were told they remained silent while herded into the back of a police paddy wagon. Milo started to say something but Steve told him to shut up.
    He had never felt so bad. Scared and ashamed and sick from too much alcohol. The short ride to the police station sobered him up faster than he thought possible.
    Inside a gray walled room, Steve sat at a desk and wrote a confession while a detective watched him from across the room. The lump in his throat was choking him, and with tears burning his eyes and waves of nausea washing over him, Steve felt he would vomit at any moment, but he kept writing. Everything they had done in exact detail. He wrote the truth, and when he lay down his pen, he asked the detective if he could go to the toilet because he felt sick.
    ‘How old are you?’
    ‘Fifteen.’
    ‘Bloody stupid kid. Off you go. It’s down the hall to the left.’
    Two hours later, Steve’s dad arrived at the police station to pick him up. He didn’t say anything to Steve and he could not tell if his Dad was angry or disappointed or both. Probably both. Steve didn’t say anything either, but he would never forget his Father’s silent rebuke. There was no need to ask where his mum was, as he could picture her sitting at home tearfully shaking her head, disappointment and shame burned into her face.
    ‘You are free to go. You will receive a summons to...’
    Steve heard the sound of the desk sergeant’s voice but he may as well have been talking to a door for all Steve comprehended. All he knew was he had done something incredibly stupid, and the consequences would be severe.

    Although the four boys saw each other at school, their friendship effectively ended the night they were arrested in the stolen Cressida. Each was grounded by his parents, Cam most harshly for two years. Each received a seven hundred and fifty dollar fine, were ordered to pay for damage done to the car and placed on a twelve month good behaviour bond. None of the boys ever stole again.
    Steve found a new company of fools to hang around with, and for a while he stayed out of trouble.

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