How it feels (28 page)

‘Remember Shoes?' Gordon bellowed, plonking down on my lap. ‘He's workin' in IT! Making a killing, mate. Tell Cronk how much you make, Shoesy!'

Shoes went all shy and I felt for him under this twist of light.

‘He doesn't have to say,' I told Gordon.

‘Yes he does! You would too if you earnt this kind of coin!'

‘I'm doing ok,' Shoes said, cackling into his chest again.

Gordon slotted down between me and Shoes, swinging his arms around both of us. He was fried and he wanted to tell us how much love he had for us.

‘Shoes makes like a hundred and eighty an hour. That's like… fucken brain surgeon wages,' Gordon stated, spilling bourbon and coke on his shirt.

‘I don't know about that,' Shoes said.

‘Congratulations, Michael, that's really impressive,' I said, clinking his beer.

‘Hookers are on Shoes!' Gordon yelled, looking sunburnt and mad.

‘I know a few I can recommend!' Shoes perked up, laughing insanely.

Albert and his friend Graham were outside smoking a joint and it looked nice, when Gordon opened my mouth and threw another pill into me.

‘Sluts!' Gordon said, hauling me up off the couch.

Up three sets of rickety stairs we came to a door with a sign that said
French Massage Parlour
.

‘That's what's commonly known as a euphemism,' Graham joked.

‘A what-emism?' Gordon asked, falling into a wall.

In the waiting room there was a long tank with a Mexican walking fish in it and a Tonka truck. There was an excess of wine-red curtains and a glass counter with a large gold bell on it and a sign beneath saying
Ring Bell if no lady at desk. Thank you please!

Shoes and Albert had a long conversation with the lady at the desk and pretty soon a succession of younger and older women were lined up in front of us in the reception room. There were six women, and six of us remaining.

‘Six brides for six brothers!' Albert yelled.

The manager was a small Asian woman with fake tits and, even in the demure lighting of the ‘parlour', it was clear she'd seen some late-night activities.

‘There are only three rooms availabullllll, so please one at a time for half an hour or you can take two men and two girrrrrl into room at one time, this very cheaper for you, two men two girrrrrrl, yes?'

‘Me and you, Cronk!' Gordon decided, ‘and you and her.' He pointed to one Amazonian-type bird with terrible posture, and another shorter girl with brown hair and silver eyelashes, who was almost cute in a damaged kind of a way. The smaller one smiled up at me as she stepped forward out of the line.

‘She's bookish!' Gordon said, laughing madly once more. ‘Look, Cronk, even found a hooker to suit your type! Hahahaha!'

Inside the room the women inspected our penises and then led us to the shower. Gordon went quieter now, as I felt the second ecstasy tablet rise up and take control in the front of my spirit and brain. We showered together in silence, handing over the cake of soap with jailbird efficiency, this is washing, this is nothing else but washing. The faucet turned off by itself and we grabbed a towel each. I wanted to go home now, but instead I would see this through. This was friendship, this was what we were here for, this was standing by your mate.

‘I'm getting married, Neil,' he said to me.
‘Married.'

‘I know,' I said. ‘I'm going to be there.'

‘One woman, for the rest of my life.'

‘That's the idea'.

‘Just ONE!' He held a single finger up to my nose.

‘I get it, man. I get it.'

‘Then let's do this thing. Before I sign off for good.'

‘Whatever you want, mate,' I said. ‘It's your night.'

‘Doesn't mean I don't love her!'

‘No?' I asked, trying desperately not to provoke the lion.

‘You don't know how much I love that girl.'

My bookish friend's name was Kayla, or Kyla, or Kanye, or something. She told me she went to beauty school in Penshurst and just
loved
living near the beach, having originally hailed from Wagga Wagga – it was such a nice change. She stroked my cock as she told me a bit more about her travels, then, as I firmed up in her hand, she rolled a condom onto my penis and asked me what I would like her to do for me in the remaining eighteen minutes.

Across from me Gordon was already pumping away at his big blonde Spiderwoman. He was fucking her from behind when he turned to me and smiled.

‘Wonder if Shoes is having trouble? After you shot up his dick!'

Gordon led my gaze down to the bookish girl before me, nodding at her arse as if to say, ‘Go on,' nodding harder and faster as he slammed and slapped himself against the Amazonian buttock, which popped up before him like a balloon. He started slapping the woman's thighs, nodding at me and then my girl again, and somehow, under his spell, I flipped my friend from Wagga Wagga around and entered her with ease from the rear. You want me to fuck this chick in the arse, you cunt, then fucken see me do this here on this day.

I was fucking her from behind and I was slapping her thighs now. I built as she reached around and grabbed my arse, pulling me closer to her; she liked it like this it would seem. The drugs were roaring now, I could eat this chick's anus, I could kill her, I could fuck her and then I could kill her after.

‘Fucking fuck her,' Gordon said, staring at the space between my cock and the girl's tight, cushion-like arse. ‘Fuck her harder, Cronksman!'

‘I fucking am fucking her!' I screamed.

‘I am watching you! I'm
always
watching you!'

Gordon was literally belting the blonde now when he reached out for me. I took his right hand in my left hand as we continued to fuck the girls from behind over the one bed. He smiled at me as he came in explosive distress, and then he said, ‘Yeaaaahhhh,' and fell on top of the blonde, releasing my hand and laughing into her long red back. I would never cum, so I just kept fucking, dragging my nails along her spine until blood emerged in a line.

With a touch of her, and just like that, a change came across North Caringbah. How falling in love can turn things upside down in a flash, and make all the dank corners of one's basement burst with gerberas and hope. The heat wore off and a sweet southern breeze swept across the Camellia Gardens the moment she arrived, the moment of The Bride.

I had never seen her stand so tall, as she floated perfectly across the clumsy wooden bridge towards us, connected to her father, who looked frailer than ever, like an industrial-strength straw had sucked the man right out of the man. Her hair was glued to her skull at the front with a complex tapestry of clips and tiny flowers, gratefully releasing itself beneath the ears in a glorious flutter and wave of soft, brown curls which swung in the breeze. Never before, and I mean this, never before had beauty brought with it such an ache inside. I wanted to make like a crane and lift her out of here, but instead I turned to my friend Gordon and smiled like a groomsman.

They had written their own vows, and the crowd delighted in such insubordination. Their modern, gender-balanced declarations were radically new, and they owned the controversy with a simple, confident delivery. She spoke first, whipping the train of her dress behind her and taking the silver microphone in her little hands. The crowd rumbled with adoration for this complete girl, as she repeated after the celebrant her own manifesto of love.

‘I, Courtney Gonzales, take you, Gordon Braithwaite, to be my lawful wedded husband. I will do my best to please you, not necessarily honour
or
obey you –' the crowd giggled but for the old folk, who detested the noncompliance ‘– but always defend and love you with body, heart and soul. Together let us seek peace and tasty, nutritious meals every day, learning from each other and our friends. Thank you for marrying me.'

Gordon repeated these same vows as the majority of the crowd fell about laughing. They had busted open the very notion of marriage vows, but they had done it in the spirit of love, and so no one could prattle for long.

I imagined myself in front of Courtney, saying these things to her, and meaning them. I wondered if I would laugh or cry, but mostly I wondered if she would believe me when I said those things, and a wave of deep sadness passed over me as I wondered if I would ever be in a position where I could say such things to a woman and actually mean them, and for this I envied my friend Gordon, because even in his rough diction and flushed public face there was no doubting the enormity of his love; this was not acting, this was it. All my life I had thought about what on earth ‘it' was, and how to get it, and here it was in front of me, the big and beautiful ‘it', and I knew right then that it was all there is.

It was at this point in proceedings that Rocky stepped up onto the small vine-wrapped podium, hugged and kissed his brother, hugged and kissed Courtney with an officer's deference, and turned to that beast that was the audience. They were struck quiet, murmurs and quacks all but muted, and I knew it well. This happened a bit in my life, the weird pause that hung dangerous and pregnant the moment before something ‘different' or ‘unplanned' was about to take place, something that challenged the beige normal we fed on so greedily in the no-alarms and no-surprises white bread status quo.

I looked around at all the frames and faces, women painted in garish blush and rouge, men all hunkered over their booklets waving away flies that were not there, kids clutching high hands dreaming of a pine-lime Splice, all of their mouths agape with threat and ever-ready contempt. Threatened by what this always curious young sailor called Rocky was about to unleash in the vulnerable forum of this day, a day where nothing should go against the order. My heart chugged with warm empathy, for someone else had taken my place, someone else was the devil outsider.

But the crowd had nothing to worry about when Rocky emitted a single, glorious note – his voice had never broken – letting out the most angelic rendition of ‘Amazing Grace', which drew tears from every chubby aunty, and hard welling from good and big men with arthritis, jaundice and bowel issues.

The celebrant, a peacock-headed woman with an ice-bitch lilt in her principal's voice, broke the silence that remained long after Rocky's final note, taking the microphone and banging applause into its shaft. She patted the angel-star on the shoulder and led him off the stage. I could kiss him, I thought, later I will tell him this, ‘I could kiss you'. The celebrant then ushered Gordon and Courtney towards each other, and spoke gently.

‘Gordon and Courtney, on that beautiful note of that beautiful song, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride…'

Gordon moved forward and took Courtney's ears in his hands. I waited for her to make her own move, but instead her neck twisted and her eyes drilled right in to mine. There was no crowd in her vision, just me and a message to be sent:

 

I am getting married now.

I am officially turning away.

I am turning now, and I will never turn back.

You have allowed this.

 

Gordon stood still and immovable in his place on the podium, smug as Popeye with a mouthful of spinach. He was strong and gloating in it. He had won. Tricked me out and won the only real thing in this town, on this earth, this black-hearted beach. I wanted to scream and say fuck, I wanted to take back all the nights and redraft them with a brighter, braver pen. She was mine and I had let her go. So caught up in the light, so caught up in the fight, so caught up buying tickets for my soul. You fucking fool, Cronk. With your misconstrued dream life and your macheted baby, your stupid, ridiculous house on a leaf. Gordon's house sat firmly on the ground and massive, looming with head room for his mother and her man, for progress and barbecues, love and Courtney, and a stack of kids and poorly behaved poodles splashing about in the temperature-controlled water of the in-ground Blue Haven pool. These were but images and concepts I could only peer at through a long lens, or conjure and mock through theatre. Family and friends, as a notion, were a warped insinuation of a living death, and believing this had led me here, to face a life without it.

And then she moved towards him and up to his level and I was gone forever and the lights were off inside her for me. She took his hair and ears and soul and complications and shortcomings in her hands and said ok, let us go now. Her lips fell open with epic invitation, and I could swear a million hummingbirds flew out of them in curved formation, lusting for pollen and passion and peace, and for the first time in my life I believed. I truly believed she loved him, she had so much love for Gordon, and I realised then, in that moment before they joined their lips in the name of forever, how things were built and bettered with the dance of the everyday. All the tiny things made this mammoth union up, all the times he had picked her up from Sutherland station, made her chicken salad rolls and brought her a Lipton's iced tea, called her about Sunday and fixed Nina's shed door hinge, held her and not fucked her when she was dying with period pain, thought of what she said last night and made something of it the following afternoon, all these unspectacular deposits of love he had made and they were the currency, earning enough to have her see that he was nothing but the right one.

Gordon kissed his bride with unappealing repetitive scoops of the bottom lip and mouth. He kissed like a duck would if powered by Duracell, and I could sense Courtney trying to slow the whole thing down, but to no avail. They stopped kissing as the crowd's holler and high fell away, but then Gordon grabbed her chin and scooped away at it again, which she allowed, with one foot stepping back inside its train to anchor her against the force of her groom. She would take his thin, monotone kisses for all the years to come, for he was her choice, he was the gallant victor, the good option. He would carry her through the night, he would make her happy and safe, and he would love her more than he loved anyone, and this, in the end, was all she wanted, and all that she had asked of me between her legs on a pile of cushions on the living room floor of her parents' house, naked and spent with tawny port and conversation, on the night of their engagement party barely a year before.