When I woke on my own mattress at midday, I didn’t want to get up. To tell the truth, I was scared. All right, petrified. It just came over me as I looked through the blinds and onto the daylight world. There were no shadows to hide its rawness. I got up and took forever to have breakfast. Jen asked me something and I snapped. Hadn’t even heard what she said. I took off outside. I looked at the time on my mobile. Less than an hour since I’d got up. Unlike the night before, now every minute had to be lived through. I looked ahead. The days jammed against each other like cars in heavy traffic, with me impatient to overtake. No, I wouldn’t wait. I wouldn’t wait on a half-hope with Arny. Filter could wait all his life, but not me. I’d had the one chance – it could be years before the next if I didn’t make it happen.
Even the cars crusted on the street were too chirpy, too bright. Looking at their polish stealing bits of light, I felt worse. This morning wasn’t like a book at all. I texted Filter.
How does it feel
2 work 9-5? How
does it feel to b
a pedestrian?
How does it feel
2 wake up alone
at night? To
know u could’ve
been a
contender? 2
not matter?
Filter rang.
‘Right there, Samster. That hurt, I must say. It hurt ’cause it’s a bit true, I guess. But tell you what, I’m gonna let it go. Know why? We’ll just put it down to Tragic Tuesday.’
‘But it’s Saturday.
‘Just get over to Zane’s, mate. We’ll ride it out together.’
The slightest movement and some damn car would blink at me.
I got on the train, passing all those sawtooth factories, sitting on the tan seats with their tar patches, mummified chewing gum. I texted Zane for good measure.
If you were a
day, you’d be
Monday. If you
were a flavour,
you’d be plain.
If you were a
position, you’d
be side-saddle.
If you were
dead, you’d be
interesting.
What was happening to me? I hadn’t felt this angry since smashing up Charles Acton-Heath & Co. And the night before I was so peaceful, so inspired.
When I knocked on Zane’s door he told me straight away he’d deleted my message. Then he added that it was a good thing we were getting together. It was too dangerous for any of us to stay alone like this. Dangerous? He invited me in and we took a seat.
‘Drugs can alter your moods sharply, Sammy,’ explained Zane.
Would I feel the low as strongly as I felt the high?
Now I was scared.
Zane’s mobile beeped. Filter had texted him. It was a full-on roundelay.
Went inta
Maccas. Asked 4
chips. “What?”
she says.
“Chips!” I says.
“You mean fries,
sir,” she says.
“Sorry Miss,” I
says. “I forgot
this was FUCKING
AMERICA!”
Zane looked out his window, at the Maccas over the road. He took my hand and led me out. We passed under the golden arches. Filter continued his diatribe, still stuffing a Big Mac between his lips.
‘What size meal? she says? What size meal? Regular or constipated? The latter, love. That’s all you serve up.’
‘Too true, Filter, too true,’ laughed Zane. And we were out of Corporateville and back on the pavement.
We were hopping through the streets, dodging the pedestrians. A guy came up to us dressed in green.
‘Want to support Greenpeace, friend?’ asked the leprechaun. Filter turned on him.
‘What did you fookin’ call me, cunt?
‘What? Er … nothing.’ The leprechaun backed away.
My muscles knotted with nervousness.
‘Friend,’ answered Filter for him. ‘You called me “friend”. You don’t know me to call me friend, fuckstick.’
Zane grabbed Filter’s arm. The pedestrians were passing round us like a stream round a boulder.
‘I’ll smash your fookin’ teeth in with me dick,’ shouted Filter. ‘Yeah, it’s diamond-hard and all, mate.’
Zane went to give the leprechaun a few cigarettes to placate him, and ended up handing across the whole pack.
‘I went down on your mum but I could taste your cum!’ put in Filter as his last word.
I trembled after them till we got to a coffee lounge. The unpredictability, the anger. Filter seemed so nice, and now …? He had a definite dark side, for sure. Was that the drugs? The other side of them? I sipped my cappuccino, shaking. Zane counselled Filter to go easy on the drugs a bit. Maybe that’s what it was for all of us. We’d been overdoing them, he added.
Filter got up, saying he had a shift at the video store. He’d catch up with me and Zane later or maybe sooner than later. Work was so boring, he was in danger of strangling his feller behind the counter and getting fired. Zane took me to the Prahran pool and we sat around, swam and generally did nothing for as long as we could. It whiled away the afternoon and kind of helped.
Zane and I went to The Pit that night, after choofing at his place first. This time when I went in and handed over my ten-buck cover charge, I just stood there. They asked me what was wrong. I told them I gave them a twenty-dollar note. They were pretty suss on me, but reopened the till and gave me ten bucks. In short, I didn’t pay a cent. Zane said I had the makings of a real gangster.
I went to the bar to buy us a drink. Someone pinched my arse. A guy with a hardware facial, rings and bolts in ear, lip and eyebrow. When I did the frill-neck lizard on him, he pointed above. There was a TV with flickering porn stills. ‘What you standing here for then?’ asked the guy. I quickly moved away.
How did you ever meet people? The more edgy I looked, the less attractive I’d be. I found Zane watching the dancers in the bullring. I squeezed in next to him and asked him what he was after in a guy.
‘Sammy darling, there is only the spoon majoris and spoon minoris. He needs to be shorter than me. I’m the spoon majoris in the relationship, honey.’
Zane could see I wasn’t satisfied with that. It wasn’t a real answer. He leant in.
‘Sammy, you want to know what I look for in a man? He has to be physically tough. If he’s physically tough, then he’s probably mentally tough. He needs to be able to stick to a regime of exercise. If he’s not tough, I’ll break him. The bitch needs to stand up to me.’
I looked about. Zane educated me as to all the types: the cubs and bears (‘oh, please’), the barebackers (‘keep away from them, Sammy’), the size queens (‘you’ll do well there’), the vanilla boys (‘not with your deviant nature’).
I got a few looks but didn’t know what to do. Men just stared at you like they wanted to mine you dry. The stares were unrelenting too. Not the bashful glance then sidewise look away.
‘Oh please,’ said Zane, looking at a guy looking at him, ‘you’re not in my demographic. This just-standing-there-staring-thing, Sammy – I mean, you stare long enough and you reach the point of no return. At least he’s genetically correct. But please, edit out the desperation. Oh no, look at his friend smiling at us. He’s a year off gay death.’
‘Gay death?’
‘Gay death at thirty. Seen Logan’s Run, Sammy? Sci-fi. They killed the poor dears at thirty. More humane. We have to live on. Oh God, there’s my ex-fuck buddy, Hans. What’s more depressing than an ex-fuck buddy? He works at Wet & Slippery. A gay sauna, before you ask. Put that in your black book. But I ask you, getting clothes off before sex? Really. Oh no, see that guy staring at you? Concrete complexion? You should go over and tell him: sorry, I’m gay, not desperate. Oh, these young fairies, Sam. Really, I’m embarrassed to be homosexual these days.’
‘But he might offer some companionship,’ I said.
Zane looked at me over his isosceles nose.
‘To quote my favourite poet from his incomparable collection As Nice as you Need to Be: “Add, deduct, fuck & get fucked”. That little gem is entitled Transactions, before you ask.’
I said the poem was the most depressing thing I’d heard.
‘It’s an acknowledgement of how life is; that’s not necessarily depressing.’
It was all so awful, suddenly. Just the night before, I’d felt so alive I might burst into some other state altogether, like a person feeling dead might tip over into actual deadness, on account of his feeling so corpse-like and all. I know that’s pretty convoluted but that’s how I felt. But the dead bit this time.
We dripped into the Chill-out Room, with its bubble wrap lighting, popping each sphere in my head. Zane bought me some water. I’d tried to get some in the bathroom but they had hot water running from the cold taps as well. Just that – that meanness – made me almost tip over altogether. Zane sat back next to me on the carpeted block.
When you’re depressed, air is water, a plastic bottle a dumbbell. And that staring! If they liked me, why didn’t they just come over and say hello. And anyway, what could they see? And why couldn’t I go over to them? I was out of the closet; what was holding me back?
‘We’re so miserable,’ I said to Zane, my eyes wide with wanting him to shut them. Zane simply locked them with his.
‘Never assume anyone feels as you do, Sammy. I’m actually enjoying myself.’
I looked away. So I was still alone, even in my opinions?
There’d been some exciting types come into the vid’ store, and Filter had shown me how to look up their rental histories. A few Head Ons and Private Idahos was a good sign. But they were the ones who came in hardly ever. It was the sadsacks that you saw every day and got to know, and parents with kids to switch off.
There was an alternative soundtrack in my head to the one playing.
Can a dream survive waking?
And it did!
’Cause guess who I saw? That hottie who’d come into the video store. The guy with the shaved head. He looked at me, I at him. This was more like it! He’d made his entrance at just the right moment, like the dashing love interest in a book. Perhaps the drugs were kicking, kicking into life!
Zane gave him one look and told me he was a player. What rot. I went over.
‘Hello, love,’ he said.
Love! That was a hell of an opening line!
He told me his name but I already knew it. Justin. But people called him Jussy.
We got talking next to the bullring as one by one the guys around us took off their shirts. All those sweaty backs. You could make a computer game about trying to dodge your way through them without getting slimed. I told Jussy that one and he liked it.
‘I’ve got a hairy chest, too,’ he said. ‘I mean, I could walk round with my top off, but I’m not going to do that. Want to see my hairy chest? It’s part of the Italian in me.’
Jussy was wearing a really low tanktop, which he pulled down lower for my benefit.
‘I didn’t have any problem with coming out,’ he said. ‘It was just other people. Such a drag. All this fallout. Everyone upset, my relatives, my girlfriend. But it’s all good.’
A few more guys round us disrobed, but they didn’t look at me. No pecs, no sex. Jussy asked if I’d seen the film he’d hired out at the video store, and told me to check it out when he returned it.
‘I’ve got good taste,’ said Jussy.
The beats were raining down hard. It was a trial finding a spot where you didn’t get soaked with their sounds. It wasn’t the greatest stuff either. Doof doof, the musical equivalent of driving across the Nullabor Plain. Jussy kept looking out at the dance floor. Finally he turned to me.
‘You’ve got the gay thing happening, love. Spiked hair, tight tops. I’m not really into fashion. Dorian is.’
Before I could ask who Dorian was, he’d slapped onto another subject.
‘I just know with people. I knew you were this super guy.’
Meanwhile, Zane had moved over to the other side of the dance floor. He was talking to one of his ‘types’, a supreme beefcake.
I told Jussy about the cricket thing.
‘No way, cricket? You serious? That’s the most boring game.’
At first I was offended. Plus I couldn’t understand it. Cricket’s the best game invented. But then, maybe Luke’s interest in me had been solely to do with cricket. In fact, come to think of it, it was a relief Jussy couldn’t give a toss about it.
Zane was looking over from time to time.
‘Is he your boyfriend?’ Jussy asked.
‘No,’ I said, pretty quick. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘You’ve got a gay male friend?’
Turned out Jussy didn’t.
‘Oh, you know, the sexual tension thing.’
The song changed over the speakers. ‘Lamb,’ he yelled.
‘Who?’
‘You don’t know Lamb! I can’t believe I’m standing here with you. You’re such a dag. Oh, look at those dancers. They’re so affected. I hate mincing faggots.’
Such a dag …? I scoped myself in one of the wall mirrors. Geez, I was a dag, wasn’t I? But God, he was hot. Features with a soapstone smoothness, a goat’s tail of hair under his bottom lip, curling forward and up, and knee-length shorts. No one else was wearing baggy shorts. They were all in their tight jeans; so was I. I saw I was wrong in wanting someone normal like Luke; normal was boring. What I was after was someone with a ‘thing’. You know, a certain something. A guy who stood out. Jussy filled the room, but not in a fat way. He had such ease. The bar staff knew him. Everyone. Come to think of it, Luke was a bit of a dork by comparison. He’d bought that whole grunge image, but had ended up more daggy than grungy. Jussy wasn’t buying anything. I was pretty chuffed with working out my type. I told Zane when I went to the bar for drinks.
‘You’re so shallow, Sam,’ he said.
That pissed me off. What did he know? It shitted me the way he and Filter had taken me on like some Eliza Doolittle.
I went back over to Jussy. I was feeling pretty bold. Like I was flying. I asked for his number. He stopped bopping for a sec.
‘Hey, love, I should tell you, I have a boyfriend.’
I hit the ground. From five kilometres up. Parts of me bounced as much as twenty metres.
‘But it’s all good,’ he added.
The boyfriend, Dorian, was on the way out.
‘Hey, you’re not really alternative enough for me,’ he said. But then he had a change of mind. He’d give me his number anyway. It was ‘all good’.
He said it was easier for him if I texted instead of ringing, so I texted him straightaway to make sure he’d have my number as well.
I found Zane at the bar, sipping a whisky and dry. Zane wasn’t too impressed with Jussy. He seemed to think the boyfriend bit was bad. He told me to delete the number straight away. That way I wouldn’t be tempted. He even tried to take the mobile off me, but I wouldn’t let him. Typical that Zane didn’t want me to be happy. He said Jussy had a fat head in need of liposuction.
I left Zane to walk home from The Pit alone.
Next morning, I got woken by my mobile beeping.
Got home after Pit
and sort of thought
it cool i had this cool
conversation with
a guy that played
cricket. All good.
I texted Jussy back, saying it was pretty exciting for me too. Then I deleted Luke’s number and a text message of his I’d kept. Jussy texted again.
Hey, cum meet me at
work. We can have
cheap beers. Yumm. Fab.
I texted yes, and Jussy texted the details.
We scheduled a lunch date but I was pretty scared what to wear. Jussy was so alternative. He couldn’t be pinned down to any look. I saw he wasn’t standard issue gay, not like Zane. All the tight T-shirts and stuff that Jen had fitted me out for – well, I saw it wouldn’t do the trick.
Jen and Tash stood with me at my cheap aluminium clothes rack.
‘Why not that? Or that with that?’ Jen kept asking. She and Tash sorted out a ‘nice gay-boy look’ for me. Even ironed my clothes and everything. I tried telling them it was all wrong. Eventually I had to throw the clothes at their feet.
‘But I thought you liked your clothes?’ asked Jen.
She didn’t know anything. I put on an old shirt I’d brought from home, a black one, pretty retro – only thing old I had – and tore out.
I met Jussy in this bar down the road from where he worked. It was in the modern style – not that I knew about style, but I was learning. You know, wooden venetians hanging from the ceiling at odd places, not just over windows; plastic bladed plants in iron pots, held up by coloured pebbles rather than dirt; long benches and tables with industrial patterns branded onto them. Jussy was so casual-looking. Just a normal top, trousers, sneakers. He told me how everyone’s suit at work was worth about a zillion bucks. He wasn’t going to pay all that money. The phoneys! A Bonds T-shirt was good enough for him. He asked what I thought of this bar. He told me he knew all the coolest places. But already people were latching onto it so it wouldn’t be cool much longer. I wondered how you found the cool places to begin with. Some people just have the knack for life. Others, like me, have got to work at it. This place was so much better than Settee. I saw that straight away. The bar staff here were hip, happening. The Stopwatch and Mr Arrogance at Settee were dags. And Zane saying, ‘At least there was no pretence with them’ – he could justify anything.
Jussy asked me about my ‘search for love’. I told him I had to find someone special, someone worth the effort. I gave him that cricket spiel. It’s so hard getting somewhere in the game. You really have to love it to put in the effort but the rewards are ten times better than if you’re lukewarm, ’cause then you’re only half-arsed about it as well. If you don’t try hard you’ll never be good. You can then say, well it wasn’t worth it anyway, but you don’t really know that ’cause you were half-arsed about it to begin with.
‘Man, you have this full-on idea about love,’ he said. He and Dorian just kind of met. ‘But there was all this fall-out. People getting upset, our friends, our boyfriends. I must say, he’s not my type sexually. But it’s comfortable.’
Comfortable …? Comfortable! I couldn’t imagine being with someone just because it was comfortable. I told Jussy that. He laughed.
‘You’re such a tortured lesbian.’
I was a tad offended. Jussy tried to defend himself. He said Dorian was a friend – his best friend, really. They lived in the same house but they had separate bedrooms. It was easier that way.
‘How is it easier?’ I asked.
‘Oh, you’re so nice, you’re so nice! I can’t do this,’ he laughed.
‘Do what?’
He stared at me for ten whole seconds. ‘You really are nice.’
We drank heaps. We got to the tram stop. He asked me how far away I lived. I said when he’d broken up completely with … well, with his feller … Truth is, I couldn’t say his name. I got on my tram and went home.
‘They live together?’ asked Jen in the morning. She sat back on the couch with her big mug of coffee warming her hands. Tash snorted. Jen turned to Zane, asking him what he thought (she’d asked Zane over for brunch).
‘Sammy, I don’t date guys with boyfriends. If you meet them behind a bush that’s one thing, but if you start making “arrangements” that’s another. Because at the end of the day, they go home to their man, and you go home alone.’
Zane had to make everything so crass – ‘if you meet them behind a bush’. There wasn’t a touch of romance in him.
‘Well, at least this one’s gay,’ said Tash.
Zane chuckled. Jen hit him.
It turned out Tash knew Jussy vaguely. ‘Yeah, he’s hot. And I’ve seen his boyfriend.’
‘What’s he like?’ I blurted out.
‘A real weed. He could do better.’
‘Maybe they’re in love,’ said Jen. ‘You like me.’
‘Yes, but you’re hot.’
My mobile beeped. It was Jussy: Dorian was away and what was I doing that night? Jen told me to text him back that we couldn’t be friends right now. Maybe some time down the track.
‘Do you think that’s too obscure?’ I asked.
‘No, Sammy,’ said Zane. ‘He’ll know exactly what it means: “Not till you’re single”.’
I saw they were right and all. It was the only ‘honourable’ thing to do. But I had to add my own line, right at the end. ‘It’s going to be hard just being friends.’
During our respective work shifts the next day, we texted each other back and forth. I’ll only give you his messages, ’cause mine were pretty sappy and all.
Yeah im thinking
the same. But
Its all good.
Your great fun
to hang out with.
Feel completely
spaced out
though. 6 hours
and counting.
Ha. No comment.
Yes going to Qa.
What does it
Sound like? It
could be cool.
How is the vid
rental market
shaping up this
week? Polymers
sux! Ox
I like bitter and
twisted
personally 🙂 as
long as work gets
me outta bed
before 10 its
always going to
be crap.
I’ll bring lamb
cd and some
happy
happy joy joy.
See you there.
Dance like no
one’s watching.
Dress like your
life depends on
- Lose all
sanity. Is the
day over yet? Got
a flatty on my
Treadly. Not
happy jan.
Wow. What a full
on afternoon.
Dying for some
alcohol. See you
tonight. Fab ox
Ah. I found
myself on the
great express way
of the soul. Nice
view, Ox
What did they mean? What did all these text messages mean? All I knew was, you didn’t text a guy that many times in a day if you weren’t hot for him. It’d only be a matter of time.
Filter dropped by. He took me to a pub. I told him I couldn’t stay long. Had to get ready for Q&A. Jussy would be there. He said to relax.
I leant back and looked round at where he’d dragged me – one of those pubs with the TV going. According to Filter, it’s not staying home, it’s not going out, it’s brain-drain amnesia. Light beer living, he called it. We went into the Tabaret part with its easy-listening music, and carrot-vomit lighting.
Filter went crazy. ‘“Bored by the way you look tonight.” “Fucked by the thought of you.” What are they playing?’ I don’t reckon he got the titles right, but he got their ring. Filter raged about the ‘fogies’ at their poker machines. ‘In the time of Leaks and Stoppages. They aren’t even giving their wanking hands a work-out,’ he said. ‘Everything buttons.’ Filter gave this one long, exhaustive look round the room, then put on a Shooter’s Party voice.
‘Bring back euthanasia, I say. Dying slowly’s too good for ’em.’
‘Filter, shoosh!’
That just made Filter laugh louder.
I wanted to go along with him but it felt pretty mean. You don’t know where people are at, how they got there. I remember Jeanie, our neighbour on the farm, saying how tough it was going to the funerals of all her friends. One day she just stopped going. Outlasting the pack isn’t always a good thing. Besides, just getting out of the house can be a challenge.
They dished out some actual live entertainment. Well, newly thawed. Some cover band.
Filter called them the Wall-of-Noise band, what with their guitar anthems ending in feedback. Pub rock, Aussie rock – it shitted Filter big time. I didn’t mind it so much. I mean, it wasn’t really so bad.
‘Have a fucking opinion, Sam.’
‘What?’
I was taken aback.
‘Get angry, bitch.’
Before I could, my mobile beeped. It was Jussy.
Hey you. Me here.
You coming
tonight. (yes yes
yes yes)?
That was so winning, wasn’t it? I just had to go.
Filter said he’d come. We got to Q&A after nine so there was a bit of a queue, plus it was bloody cold in the wind. Filter went on about the door bitches. The power they have. Girls who can’t do anything to get notoriety so they stand on doors to get it that way.
‘Hey, do you know who I’m not?’ said Filter. ‘That’s right, mate, a fookin’ nobody.’
The blondettes were shocked. I was so angry with Filter. At this rate, I wouldn’t get in either. But the guy was unstoppable.
‘I’m a famous person trapped in the body of an obscure unknown.’
Luckily the muscle head laughed.
‘You know what it’s like to walk down the street and not be recognised, mate?’
The two door bitches and Muscle Head looked at each other. I pulled Filter through the door before he could say more. Being the only fat person there, he beefed all the ‘lightweights’ out of the ring. The last of his spiel he served to me alone, at the spot he’d cleared by the bar.
‘Obscurity in an ordinary person is benign, Sam (so long as you don’t give the fooker the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes), but in a genius it’s fookin’ cancerous. Those star fookers’ (the door staff) ‘will turn twenty-five one day. Then they’ll go back where they belong: yeah, end of the fookin’ queue.’
I saw Jussy and rushed up to him. But before I could say anything, he pointed at this guy standing next to him.
‘Hey, Sam, this is my boyfriend, Dorian.’
That stopped me dead, looking at this Dorian with his short-sleeved shirt and cut-off leather tie. He had this strange fifties office worker look going on. So different to Jussy. Jussy was almost a harlequin tonight, what with his soccer top and bright knee-length shiny shorts. The boyfriend asked me about a million questions of who I was. Someone else had started chatting to Jussy but I could see he was trying to half listen to what the two of us were saying. I have to admit, the whole situation was pretty horrible. I excused myself, grabbed Filter and got out, beating the fuck-rush.
I was so depressed, so unhappy.
‘You’re not the only one hard up finding a hole, Sam,’ said Filter as we hurried for the warmth of a tram.
He took me back to his joint, where he played me some of his music. He’d watch movies with the sound down. That’s how he got his ideas mostly. The images would trigger sounds in his head. You should hear the soundtrack he did for You’ve Got Mail. Tom Hanks was never so creepy.
Filter had to play the right music for the occasion. It just had to fit the mood. He owned about a million CDs plus as many vinyls. Never got the vinyl thing myself. I was born too late to really get into vinyl. CDs were coming in the same time as I was getting into music. They’re so much better. You can skip to any track. The best moments. The best music for this occasion was ragtime piano variations on the Star Wars soundtracks.
Again, I asked Filter why he wasn’t on the prowl like me. Didn’t he want to be with someone? I had to push him a bit, then he said he wanted to be happy with himself first. You find someone more easily if you’re happy with yourself. Seemed cack-handed to me. You can’t help some people.
Zane dropped by. He’d done this complicated knock on Filter’s door before Filter smiled and let him in. But when he was about to sit, Filter stopped him.
‘Wait.’
Zane raised an eyebrow.
‘The other day, I visited my brother and niece in the ’Nong. Well, we couldn’t make it an ordinary picnic now, could we? What you two clowns say to this?’
Filter opened his cupboard and pulled out a brown paper bag. Inside were magic mushrooms. Needless to say, we ingested them. Next thing we know, the ceiling started coming down on us like the trash compactor in Star Wars. We were stacking cupboards on cupboards to prop it up.
‘Ye-e-es! Yeees! Yeees!’ screamed Filter.
‘The door, Sammy, the door,’ screamed Zane.
Could I reach it? Just. The ceiling hadn’t yet knocked off the handle. A quick shove and we were outside. Saved. It was team stuff, all right.
We went down Johnston Street and got to the lights at Hoddle. ‘Are they green, are they red?’ the traffic flooding past.
‘Pink,’ laughed Zane, and we belted across. Beeps and curses abounded and one tiny crash. Down by the Yarra, the trees dancing. I looked at the waterfall. Biggest waterfall I’d ever seen.
‘I didn’t know there was a waterfall in Melbourne,’ I said. ‘I thought Melbourne was flat.’
I was seeing the Yarra as vertical, the ground as upside down. Any way was up.
Next we were in a car park surrounded by trees. There were couples making out. Filter cocked his hand like a gun; Zane and I did the same.
‘Get out of the car,’ yelled Filter. Every headlight switched to high beam. Under attack! We used a park bench for cover, firing our finger-guns over the top in sequence. The war was on. One by one the cars roared off. But I think I shot a few.
We caught another couple coming over the suspension bridge.
‘It’s okay, it’s not loaded.’ I giggled and then couldn’t stop. They ran back the other way.
It was fun all right, but also disappointing. Nothing like the first two times with Zane and Filter. Those drug dashes were first-rate literature. This time it was more your airport thriller. Entertaining but no subtext. Plus it wasn’t fully kicking in. I asked Filter if he had more on him but he was listening to something else.
We heard sirens and made our way up into the houses again. Filter pulled out some starter caps and we set several off. Gunshot blasted. A guy came out of his house in his jocks. Zane started making yelping noises.
‘Oi, what’s going on?’ asked a shaky voice.
‘Right, get back into the house,’ screamed Filter through the guy’s fence. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’ And he set off another cap. Zane kicked over a bin. The guy screamed. Soon the streets were a patchwork of sirens, with helicopters overhead. One shone its light down on us.
Filter stepped in its spotlight. ‘Take me,’ he cried. ‘Take me!’
Filter in the spotlight. Filter, the famed musician. It was all a dream.
Zane coming to his senses, rushing Filter from the light. The three of us making our way onto the main street. ‘Just watch the cop cars go by,’ said Zane.
We watched. We watched like we didn’t know what was happening, as the cop cars and helicopters criss-crossed back and forth. It was exciting, I guess, in a renegade kind of way, but none too poetic. I tried to sink into the moment. When would the magic fully kick in?
Another helicopter light shone down on us.
‘Okay, don’t run,’ said Filter.
And we all three stared up like we were mystified. The helicopter flew on. Suddenly I was up there with it. Yes, engaged!
‘I see … from so high … I see …’
Above men …
‘What’s that, Samster?’ asked Filter.
‘Above men, at this altitude, seeing them as ants, it is easier to step on them.’
‘This one’s a card,’ laughed Filter.
He might as well have fired an RPG into the helicopter, the way it brought me down. With the tripping over, Filter pushed me and Zane to his place. He and Zane lowered the spare bed resting against the window. I thought of Jussy.
If you could fall in love with me
t’would be
you see
so good for me
and maybe also good for you
I hope that’s true
be good for you.
If I could hear what you have seen
what you have seen
and heard
could smell a thought, could taste a word
t’would recompense,
for every sense,
deprived of thee
T’would be, you see
So good for me.
So good for me.
So good.
Zane saw my disappointment. ‘The more drugs you take, Sam, the more you have to take to get the same effect.’
He left. Filter locked the door behind him and crashed. Without a pillow, I scrunched up one of Filter’s hoodies and used that. Not even Filter’s hacksaw snore could keep me from sleeping.
Jussy texted me in the morning. A pattern was emerging: he’d only text me when he was at work, not on weekends or nights. And he never ever called. I woke Filter. In a sleepwalk, he let me out. It was raining, with wet jumper clouds wrung out overhead. I read Jussy’s message.
Forgot to give
you the CD. Hope
last night was
cool and I Wasn’t
to much of an
arse. Its all
good. Fab
It was all good for him. Plus ‘to’ should have been ‘too.’ That’s what happens when you read too much: you become a pedant. I didn’t text back. He texted me the next Wednesday while I was in the bath. My joints were sore from dancing too much on speed with Zane at The Pit.
Hey. Just wanted
to know if you
felt like
catching up it
would be really
cool. My beer
coaster misses
you 🙂 fab ox.
That was so winsome, wasn’t it? Drying my hands on my towel, I texted something about Q&A the next day and back came a reply:
Never
underestimate the
power of the
coaster Ill just
say its rad
having people
like you in my
life. Go the
mirror ball! Ox
I went to Q&A with Zane, Jen and Tash. Jussy was there with his mob, but no boyfriend. He walked over to Jen and Tash.
‘Man, this guy is the coolest,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘He’s got to be the most down-to-earth gay guy I’ve met.’
He then gave me a present. I unwrapped it: a tiny kangaroo with a bat. I smiled and winced at the same time. Cricket. It was spring and training for summer had started. Not that I’d turned up for any sessions with the fellers yet.
The other three gave me some room.
‘Hey, I have to say, I didn’t really find you attractive that night we met,’ said Jussy. ‘Oh! But that lunch we had, with you in that tatty black top, yeah I did. Hey, would you have slept with me?’
I think my tongue nearly dropped out.
‘Oh yes! I knew it!’
Jussy was wearing black shin-high boots and a tartan kilt. Talk about brave. He had to buy the kilt to show off his boots, he explained. Anything else and they’d be half-covered over. That was his justification. Jussy looked over my shoulder at some guy.
‘Hey, love, that guy’s been looking at you. Looks like his are hard to come by. Ha. I kill myself. This could get interesting. It’s shaping up to be the year of love. Must be those planets again.’
Jussy went to say something to Zane but Zane gave him the dirtiest look imaginable. One of Jussy’s friends called out.
‘Hey, Thrustin’, over here!’ And Jussy was gone.
I was so annoyed with Zane for snubbing Jussy. Zane said he didn’t like the guy. If you don’t like someone you should let them know.
‘Believe me, Sam, it’s easier than pretending.’
I turned my back on him and showed Jen and Tash the gift of the kangaroo. It was so romantic.
‘Probably to make up for being bad in bed,’ said Tash. She and Zane squealed.
‘Jen …?’ I asked.
‘He’s got a certain mojo,’ was all she could say.
‘ “Thrustin” has no honour, Sammy,’ piped in Zane. ‘Remember, life isn’t any less pointless if you’ve got a boyfriend. It’s just pointless with a boyfriend.’
‘But it’s that with part, Zane.’
Zane nodded over my shoulder at that guy staring at me. I went over.
We had sex at my place. I was sucking his cock. Then he sort of leaned over and adjusted the mirror on my light-stand so he could see me side on.
When he left, I turned on my mobile. Zane had texted.
In hindsight, I
may have been
harsh about your
needs as a woman.
I hope this
malaise passes
soon!! Wash that
man right out of
your hair, ’coz
u’r so much bettr!
I deleted it straight away. Jussy texted me in the morning while I was doing a shift at the video store. On the dot of nine again. Work had started, for both of us. I texted him back that I wanted him to leave me alone for a while. For the first time, there was a delay with the response. But of course it came.
Im cool with what
you want but I
can say that it
sucks. There are
few people this
place that I get
on with, and i
hate losing them.
Dont lose my
number! Ox fab
Filter came in at three to replace me for the afternoon shift. I hung around a bit, while he went on about how no one could win in this situation – me, Jussy, the boyfriend. A customer dropped off videos then walked out the door. Filter opened their cases. He quickly rang the guy’s mobile.
‘None of these videos are rewound. That’s all right. I do the same, mate. Use someone else’s toilet – I don’t flush it. Why should I, man? Next feller uses it can flush it before he goes, can’t he? Courtesy. Never heard the word, mate? Never … Not in your dictionary either? Thought not.’
And he hung up on him.
‘How does the boss feel about that?’
‘Used to like it. Shook the difficult customers up a bit. But had some complaints.’
Complaints? Complaining …
What was I doing? That stuffed toy with the cricket bat had got me thinking on a number of things. Cricket, mostly: I had a bit of talent. I should be practising whenever I could with Tubby and the others. Cricket was about the only thing I was good at, but here I was ringing customers about their late fees. I confided this to Filter.
‘What you mean, Sam? You got a good life. Out with us one night, seeing opera with Jen the next. Somethink new every day. You look at these chumps through their office windows – what you think’s going on there, mate? With us, every day it’s somethink different. But them? They’re on a fookin’ learning plateau.’
But I could tell Filter didn’t quite think that way about his life. He’d just clocked up his five-year anniversary at the video store. According to his own calendar, he was a multi-millionaire musician living in LA right now, commuting between his villas by limo, a bevy of bra-strapped babes doing some buxom living in each abode.
Filter said to join him and Zane that night for drug-free entertainment. It would be good for us all. I left him with the queuing customers.
Turned out the ‘entertainment’ was a drag queen that Zane and Filter knew. ‘She’ was performing at a straight bar so she wanted some queer friendly support.
We waltzed in. It was pretty packed. I’d forgotten what straight bars looked like. It was all pine-stained blonde with sporting memorabilia in glass frames.
‘Going to a gay bar and looking for love is no different to guys and girls coming to straight bars like this and looking for love,’ said Zane, reading my thoughts. ‘There’s just a lot less aggro at queer venues.’
He was right. I’d never noticed a bouncer at The Pit. Ever. But every straight joint, they stand out. We found a booth up close to the stage. The MC introduced the talent, Daphne, who straightaway rolled into a number, all mimed.
Christ, what an act, I thought. That lipstick stuck on with lollypop finesse, and powder-puff cheeks. The way he’d tried to pluck his mono brow down to something approaching femininity. Christ, and that prissiness. What a fairy. I was fairly sick.
During the songs, he would banter with Zane and Filter. He was saying to Filter he’d iron his shirts, cook him meals, if ever he wanted someplace to come home to. Filter was lapping it up.
‘Look at the legs on this sheila, Samster,’ cried Filter. ‘Best bloody legs you ever saw, mate.’
And the crowd laughed.
‘Give us a lap dance, will you, love,’ roared Filter to more whoops from the breeders.
‘Oh, you’re a devil, Filter,’ said Daphne, giving him a whip with ‘her’ stole.
I looked at the guy’s pushed-up puppies. Double-D dungarees (socks basically). I looked round – at the steps, at the thing.
‘She’s a hotty!’ cried Filter.
She? Christ, the guy’s tight latex mini had a bulge in it.
The guy saw where I was looking.
‘Oh, you’re so cruel!’
The cockatoo dipped his eyes at Zane. ‘Where’d you find him, honey? On the docks?’
More titters from the breeders, but not so loud now.
‘Sam’s my wuff twade,’ smiled Zane. ‘We’re educating him.’
‘You’re not educating me,’ I said. The audience hushed. What cheek. Zane nodded to the door. Telling me to leave now? I wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Uh oh, someone’s having a bad life day.’
I looked up at him, Daphne.
‘Oh man, I is all chubbed up and blue for you,’ said the drag queen. ‘I can see you’re pinballing bad, honey. You need a place to rust.’
‘I don’t need anything,’ I said.
The drag queen tilted his head at me.
‘You’re right,’ he said after a long pause, ‘your arse ain’t worth cock.’
Zane and Filter squealed. After a pause, the rest of the crowd joined in, half with hands over their mouths. The drag act finally fagged off (half-time), going over to the bar and throwing his boa round the neck of some red-faced guy. I leant over to Zane. I was pretty angry with him. ‘Why do you call him her?’
‘For the same reason I call you he.’
‘Fuck that. And Filter, all this shit about him being beautiful – fuck, he makes a fucking ugly woman.’
Zane looked at me.
‘Why do you hang round us, Sam?’
This fairly shut my trap. Airtight. Had to breathe through my nose for a bit. Again he nodded at the door. Again I couldn’t leave.
‘See if Astrid and Luke and Dizzy and that lot want you.’
Filter gave Zane a look to say he’d gone too far but Zane turned away. I couldn’t help but keep staring at the drag queen. He was still drying the beetroot’s neck with his boa. The geezer was wheezing with laughter. Then a girl called out from the other side of the bar.
‘Thing.’
I didn’t look. None of us did. No one answers to that.
‘Thing! In the dead bird.’
The drag queen’s eyebrows flapped up. He turned round.
‘Yes, you!’ screamed the blonde. ‘Thing, keep away from my man!’
‘Excuse me. Ex-cuuuse me! What did you call me?’ asked the cockatoo, hand placed extravagantly on chest.
‘I don’t know what to call you, thing,’ shouted back the blonde, her hand on her bust. ‘You’re nothing.’
‘I’m a woman.’
‘I’m the woman, bitch. Feel these.’
Filter pulled a long, half-rusted screwdriver out of his pocket. I stepped back in fright. The husband was trying to get his wife to shoosh. Zane stood up as well, urging Filter to pocket his screwdriver before the bouncers saw.
‘Why the screwdriver?’ I asked.
‘Can always say I’m a fookin’ carpenter if the fuzz frisk me,’ he whispered. ‘Now screw you, lady,’ he shouted at the woman.
The blonde backed off, dragging her husband who was still wheezing with laughter. Zane nearly spat in their direction while Filter went over and put an arm round Daphne.
‘She had a point,’ I said.
Zane turned on me. ‘You’re a homophobe.’
‘What … I …’
Christ, what a thing to say. I nearly hit him. How could he call me a homophobe? I was a bloody homo, for Christ’s sake. How could I hate them? I mean, us?
Daphne, or whatever his name was, pulled away from Filter, and went to the stage. The show must go on and all that. He started warbling away.
It got all big-time. Filter was up dancing, doing his breaks, Zane his girl moves. Then out rolled that fag standard. You know the one – about ‘surviving’. Finally, the bloody tune ended and the two sat either side of me again. Not before a lot of clapping. They nudged me to clap too, but suddenly I was so depressed, so lonesome. That song he’d been singing – well, I thought about the meaning of it.
‘Why is the gay anthem about accepting living on your own?’ I asked.
‘You’ve missed the point, Sammy,’ said Zane. ‘It’s not about accepting living on your own. It’s about deciding not to take any shit.’
I thought about that for a long time.
‘I’m sorry,’ I told Daphne as we were rolling out. He – she – wasn’t too gracious about it, but that was understandable.
‘I’m not a good person,’ I said and then, because I thought I was going to cry, hurried away. Zane and Filter let me be.
I ran into Jussy the next Q&A night. He asked me about the guy I’d walked out with the week before. I smiled more out of reflex than with the memory.
‘Oh, yes, yes!’ yelled Jussy. ‘Man, I knew that’s all you needed.’
‘All I needed?’ I just about shouted. ‘How’s your love life?’
‘What?’
‘You and your man?’
‘Well, it’s cool as. It’s always been cool.’
His boyfriend, Dorian, quickly walked over and joined us. Jussy put an arm round him. Dorian was wearing a pink-striped, white-sleeved T-shirt and black leather tie, hair coiffed.
‘Hey, you still got that cricketing kangaroo?’ asked Jussy.
I looked at the boyfriend. The boyfriend smiled back. I couldn’t say a word.
‘Knew you’d keep it,’ said Jussy. ‘You’re such a tortured lesbian.’
With that, I left before I hit him.
Christ, what was cool about Jussy? Nothing. So, he was good-looking. So what? All men look the same from … behind. Who said that? Zane. Was I starting to sound like him already? Or think like him? But he was right about Jussy. The guy had no honour. And I thought about the boyfriend. He obviously took a lot of shit from Jussy. I wasn’t going to be part of that.
‘About time you got angry,’ said Filter.
We were at work again. Some customer had just told us he’d bought his pass to the ‘underground shelter’ for when the ‘bomb was dropped’. All this conspiracy stuff. Filter asked the guy how much he’d paid for his bunker. The fee was astronomical. Filter got the email address off him, saying he wanted to check it out for himself. He waited for the guy to leave then rang the police (dialling 1831 first to hide the call), then passed on the email address to them. He hadn’t made fun of the guy. For a minute, I had thought Filter would whack his nonce. The cop must’ve asked for a name, ’cause Filter answered ‘Anonymous’ then killed the call. He then turned to me, quite as if there’d never been that interruption.
I could see that he and Zane had something I was pretty sure I didn’t.
But wanted.
Honour.
‘Stop looking so hard, Sam. You won’t find everything in the one person, mate. People don’t stop their lives for you. You’d end up hating them if they did. That’s why you have a few friends. You get somethink different out of each of ’em.’
‘What do people get out of me, Filter?’
‘You’re trying, mate. People can see that.’
Mate? Everyone back home overdid the ‘mate’ thing. I didn’t want to be reminded of it.
‘Well, why aren’t you trying?’ I asked. ‘You’re not even on the lookout.’
Filter sat down. ‘Mate, I wish people would stop asking when I’m gonna get a root.’
He looked up at me sheepishly, then around at the store to make sure it was empty. ‘It’s been five years, mate, five. I’ve … I’ve gotta get me fuck-legs back.’
He got up painfully, holding his belly.
‘I gotta abort this baby, Sam. I can feel it doing me damage. Ripping muscles when I walk.’
He walked over to the DVDs (DVDs were just starting to take over the shelves) and picked up one that a customer had put back in the wrong spot. He put it in its place, then turned to me.
‘Stop asking me about finding a girl, mate.’
Filter sat back down again.
‘Hey,’ he asked, ‘will you go to the gym with me?’
‘Sure … mate.’
Before we parted outside his Fort Knox door that night, I turned to Filter and asked him the question I kept meaning to get to.
‘Filter, what’s rule number ten for dealing with the customer?’
It took Filter a few seconds to work out what I was referring to. Then it clicked.
‘Rule number 10? We’re all fookin’ customers.’
It wasn’t funny like the others.
Zane asked me about going to the gym with Filter. It was the end of another Pit night. This time I hadn’t cheated the door staff, but paid my fee.
‘It will be good for you, Sammy, getting a workout. Physical toughness can lead to mental toughness. If you’re going to let the cricket go …’
‘Hey, I’m just taking a break.’
Did I ever plan to go back? Maybe he was right. I was letting the cricket go. Season nearly ready to start, and I still wasn’t turning up for training.
But we hadn’t had too bad a night at The Pit. Going in, we’d resolved to actually talk to people, not sit back and despise them. Really, they were all just trying, like us. I saw it was just a whole lotta people, some of them scared, like in a straight pub, wanting to reach out, to connect, to find people who could find them.
So then, because we were laughing and having fun, we were a bit of a magnet. People aren’t so bad. Before at The Pit, I’d been so uptight, judgemental, never allowing myself to get into it.
Afterwards, when we walked out, we even made small talk with the door staff.
‘Mission successful,’ said Zane, shaking my hand.
We were about to separate when Zane asked me to walk with him along Smith Street. That surprised me. I couldn’t work out why. Eventually, I got it out of him. Zane was scared, scared of being beaten up. I hadn’t ever pictured him scared before.
‘Now make sure you want to, Sammy. You look straight, but you might not walking alongside me.’
‘Well, if you’re so worried,’ I told him, ‘why dress like a … well, like that?’
Zane looked himself up and down.
‘This is how I am, Sammy.’
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out. He handed it over. Surprisingly, it was his passport. I remembered Filter showing me his, and telling me to ask to see Zane’s.
Carrying your passport out with you to clubs! ID, I guess, since he didn’t have a driver’s licence.
‘Look at the photo.’
I opened it up. At first I didn’t recognise the guy in it, but it couldn’t have been anyone else. Yes, it was Zane, but Zane looking like a regular guy, looking so … so ‘normal’. For the first time, that word was no longer attractive to me. He had his hair parted to one side, sensible glasses, fawn turtleneck jumper.
I looked at him now: spiked black hair, eyeliner accentuated eyes, tight fitting shirt. Zane pointed at the photo.
‘I’m not going back to that,’ he said, and took the passport off me. He turned and walked up Hawk to Smith Street. He and Filter weren’t the fake ones. In a way, Jussy wasn’t pretending to be what he wasn’t either. Or his boyfriend. Obviously it was an open relationship and that was the consensus they had come to. No, none of them was fake. I was. I was the phoney. And he was right, I was homophobic. The homophobic homosexual. I thought fancying the same sex was hard, but imagine if I was female in a guy’s body or vice versa. That Daphne, well … she said to that blonde that she was the real woman … Pretty brave, that, and true. Normal was what was normal to you. And no one can be truer than that.
And why had I liked Jussy in the first place? Because he was less ‘ladylike’ than Luke. Why had I liked Luke? Because he wasn’t as ‘prissy’ as Zane. Then the most awful question of all. Why had I – did I still – like Arny?
‘We’re neighbours,’ said Arny when we first spoke at the lockers. He shook my hand. It wasn’t too firm a grip, I told myself at the time, and it wasn’t ‘too limp’.
Ha! There it was again, that Neanderthal obsession with clichéd masculinity.
But I couldn’t be phoney right through, could I? My Arny crush was genuine, wasn’t it?
It’s hard to know what you know. I nearly cried with my stupidity. Maybe one day I would get it, hopefully before I was dead.
I could see Zane disappearing round the corner onto Smith Street.
After a sec, I raced up next to him and walked him all the way to his door. We didn’t say anything to each other and no one said anything to us. It wasn’t their right to.
Toco Productions 