How it feels (6 page)

‘Does everyone have a drink?' Judy Stone asked, sailing out onto the balcony in high-waisted beige shorts and a tight red Esprit top, verdelho curling and tipping against the round cubes of ice in her smudgy wine glass.

‘We're cool, thanks, Mrs Stone', I said, showing her my beer.

Judy was all set to nod and smile and nod and smile when she caught sight of the BB gun on the table, resting up beside the bong.

‘Stuart! Clear your gun away, please!'

As he had done so many times, Gordon politely picked up the BB gun for Stu, and transported it down to its home in the tool shed.

‘Stuey! Bong!'

‘I'm not going to pack the bong up
now
Mum – we're all about to smoke a fucken cone out of it,' Stuart said, chopping grass in a bowl.

‘Alright, alright, don't do your aggressive voice with your mother,' Judy replied, grinning madly at me and Courtney. ‘I'm sure Neil and Courtney don't talk to their mothers that way.'

Stu thumbed dope into the cone and lit it, the mull fizzing, blazing, popping then disappearing into the column shaft with a threading
swoosh
.

Judy had this awesome way of ignoring Stuart's bong work, obliviously flicking away at the ice cubes in her glass. ‘So how did you two go?'

‘Um…' Courtney looked to me for direction, so I ceased rolling my cigarette, the Tally-Ho paper hanging off my lip.

‘I went ok, Mrs Stone, yeah,' I said.

‘Neil got enough to get into where he wants to go,' Courtney added, attempting to quash the topic.

Gordon pulled on the bong too hard and fast, coughing coarsely into the wall.

‘You right, pal?' I asked, privately glaring at Courtney.

‘Yup,' he said, with a burning cough.

‘Fag,' Stuart said, staring down at his nipples.

Gordon and I had left this titanic issue uncovered, but the end was looming. After four and a half years of intense kinship and inseparable day-to-day brothering, it was too much, too much, too too much.

‘And you, Courtney?' Judy asked.

‘She fucken nailed it, eh?' Stu answered. ‘Going to be a lawyer in the city or some shit which will rock when I need someone to get me out of jail.'

‘That's precisely why I am going to study law, Mrs Stone – so I can save Stuart from being anally raped in jail by ten large Samoans,' Courtney said.

‘Why save him?' she said. ‘I'm not asking you to!'

The table fell about in giggles as Gordon recovered, screwing a sweet mix of tobacco and bud into the bronze metal cone, passing it over to Courtney. I could see the indecision on her face. Courtney didn't mind a bong; she went all quiet and funny but she was into it, more than I was. She and Gordon got on well stoned, making toast and laughing at the madness of kitchen appliances. But Courtney had never felt entirely comfortable pulling billies in front of other people, especially grownups. And now, as the sun held off setting, instead shining a garish spotlight on her overdone gothic fashion and thick, morbid black eye make-up, I could see her face shake and burn. I wanted to reach out and take the bong from her grasp, wanted to save her, but at the same time – and look, I know how this will sound – I enjoyed watching her struggle. That feeling of tension and awkwardness was an opiate to me; I didn't need a hit of grass.

‘Um, so yeah – probably just do law, Mrs Stone. Thanks.'

Deafening silence reigned as Courtney took a sharp look up at Judy, then back down to her left hand, which by now was poised on the shotty, her right hand cradling the shaft and lighter. For a second it looked as though she might just do it, lift the lighter to the grass and fire it up, but that moment was gone the instant it appeared, and instead she was frozen still, paralysed by the situation. And everyone just sat there watching, including Judy – eyes fixed on Courtney's left hand, waiting.

‘It's not a fucken microphone!' Stuart yelled, hitting his neck.

‘Or a karaoke machine!' Gordon chimed in. He was ripped, giggling maniacally, eyes like organic cherry tomatoes.

I could almost see her thoughts flitting across her face. If only it had been a joint so she could smoke it. If only Mrs Stone would stop fucking staring at her. If only piss-weak Neil would fucking step in and do something, instead of just sitting there.

‘Neil? Do you want this?' Courtney asked, pushing it over as she took a full and necessary gulp of her Stoli and orange pre-mix. Whether it was the situation, or my lack of assistance with bong-hell, she stood up and faced Mrs Judy Stone, breaking the embargo she and I had so firmly put in place today.

‘Neil and I are moving in together, Mrs Stone,' she said. ‘Looks like we'll both get accepted into university. We're going to live together in Glebe.'

A southerly buster whipped up off the surface of Burraneer Bay, blowing the tops of the trees this way and that in a no-joke, rainless storm that sent us inside. It was a torrid and boiling summer, 1994/95, but Stuart still chopped up a stack of timber and lit the fireplace, setting up a stoners' paradise in the dead-animal museum living room. Gordon on the left flank cradled a cup of VB, Courtney in the middle (who had quickly hit a half-bong when Judy went to the ladies) whispering in my ear whether she should do a wee now or wait until Stuart was done with the fire, and me on the other side of her considering this massive inquiry while sipping Carlton Cold from the bottle; this was the Couch Collective, stunned and stoned and sated, watching (still bare-chested) Stuart crank up the fireplace, sweating like a pig as he carefully stacked the planks. He was skilled. He had
failed
his HSC, but, in this other way, this ‘way of the world', this possibly crucial way, he was more adept than all of us, and we marvelled as he stacked and sorted, blowing into the fire which rose before us.

This Violent World
was Stuart's favourite film. An Italian-made documentary that filmed people from all over the world who were victims of, privy to or involved in the execution of horrifically violent acts. I'd seen the film a thousand and fifteen million times but still found myself glued to its vivid, way-evil imagery. The first story was about this Nigerian woman who got pregnant to this married guy. This elder tribesman and these younger blokes led her deep into the jungle, stripped her naked and made her climb up a tree and crawl out onto a long branch. First time I saw this I was pissing myself with laughter, I mean it was really funny watching this chick try to climb up this tree in front of everyone. But then it got way dark, the tribesmen bouncing the branch she was perched on, flinging her up into the air. She fell at least twenty feet down, landing gruesomely on the base of her spine and arse. Then the tribesmen made her crawl back up the tree, out onto the branch, where they bounced her off again. Time and time and time again until her vertebrae split, the baby was dead, and she was unconscious, lying in a bed of leaves, leaking blood. Then the tribesmen sang this weird, joyous song which was way fucked up, lit a fire, drank out of a shell, laughed together, and then carried her back into town.

Stuart couldn't believe it; no matter how many times we watched it he'd just sit there with insane eyes, pointing at the screen like it was happening now.

The film went on like this. A family from Hyderabad in India cut ting off their tongues with a hacksaw one by one for the equivalent of eight dollars each. Oh, and the young African virgin being chased through the jungle until she couldn't run any further. Exhausted, she collapsed, and was then raped by a pack of twelve-year-old boys as a way of introducing them to sex and confirming them as men. We did our confirmation at Caringbah church, and as weird as that was, being given a sash with some dude's name on it like ‘Francis of Assisi', I was way more keen on that shit than the jungle system.

At first Courtney would throw biscuits at the screen and scream at Stuart, slapping him with a hybrid onslaught of Marxist, feminist, Courtney-ist doctrine, but Stuart would just turn to her, chewing on the biscuits she threw, and say: ‘This violent world.' And Gordon would nod and grunt into his empty bottle of beer.

The last and most disturbing tale of this VHS was about a Colombian man who, after being caught stealing food for his wife and five children, was sentenced to eat mercury and die in front of his family in a ditch in the town square. A large crowd gathered, including his young wife and these gorgeous kids – like, I don't know if kids become more cute when their dad is about to be slaughtered publicly, but these kids, man, I just wanted to grab them and take them home and tell Mum I'd look after them. The mercury made the guy giggle, which was insane, and Gordon giggled too, which made Courtney scoff, which made Stuart laugh, which made me nervous. The laughter grew as the dude guffawed, barked and screamed his way to death, his face exploding with green foam. His wife did not cry. Seriously, she was way tough. She just watched his body shake and quiver and stop. Then she walked away with the cute children. We had just got up to the bit where the green foam fizzed out of his ears when Ron appeared in the hallway with a sponge and a frown. And then he was gone again.

Courtney could never truly and fully comprehend why it took Stuart Stone so long to get ready. One thing was for certain: it was a lot longer than she ever took. Even tonight she had completed the gothic-chic fashion, hair and make-up package within forty-five minutes. Stuart, meanwhile, had been upstairs for God knows how long, showering, drying and crafting his hair with three different products: mousse, gel and Hold Factor 4 shaping licorice. In his absence and with all the TV and stereo options outlawed by Ron's mute act of political activism in the doorway, none of us had spoken a word for half an hour or so, sinking deep into the mesmerising cinema of the fireplace. Gordon couldn't look at me, and Courtney was too stoned to proffer anything either. So I just sat there, squashed between the two loves of my life, wondering how I could keep this dream alive. Wondering how not to hurt everyone with my future.

At 6 pm on Grandview Parade the rain fell light-heartedly on the conifer trees, licking the soft wood and shining up the tilted little road with the help of last light. A man parked his car in the double garage and walked up the stairs to greet his wife, who stood waiting for him with their baby son. A young boy across the road hit a cricket ball which hung from a tree by a thin rope, no doubt dreaming of a big innings tomorrow for the Cronulla–Caringbah Under-12 B team. A girl of no more than thirteen swanned about beneath a sprinkler in her shorts and bikini top, distracting two flabby men allegedly fixing an alternator. A busy housewife darted across the lawn of her brick-veneer home carrying a basket of washing. And two Year 12 graduates climbed the hill, dazed and confused, picking conifer nuts off the pines and flinging them at each other's heads. A rainbow appeared over the top of the trees, capturing the heart of the man, the wife, their baby, the cricketer, the girl, the men, the housewife and the wobbling graduates.

‘You got any money?' I asked.

‘Not for you,' Gordon replied, flicking a nut at me.

‘Mum gave me twenty bucks for the whole night.'

‘Your mum's a tight bitch then.'

‘Just give us like fifty on tick.'

‘Only got fifty on me, dude.'

‘Bullshit “only got fifty on me”. C'mon!'

‘S'all that's on me!'

‘What about your cheque account?'

‘What about
your
cheque account, bitch?'

‘I got $6.28 in my cheque account, bitch, that's why I'm trying to get into yours.'

‘What do you want to buy?'

I shrugged, reaching for my Tally-Ho papers.

‘You going to pop a pill or you going to pussy out?'

We walked for a bit then stopped walking, waiting at the crest of the hill for Courtney and Stuart. We were all together a while ago, halfway up the hill when the sun shower opened up and Courtney realised she had forgotten her coat and then Stuart, patting at his pockets, realised he had left the Es in his undies drawer.

‘You gunna tell me your results?' I asked him.

Gordon kicked at the grass and scrunched his piggish nose, spitting high and flicking his attention to some noise somewhere else in the Shire.

‘Just tell me, Gord – what do I care what you got?'

‘Why are you asking then, if you don't care?' Gordon snapped back.

‘Because you're a dumb cunt,' I joked, reaching for my pouch of tobacco even though I was already puffing on one.

Gordon mock snap-kicked me in the face, stopping his foot just inches away from where the Tally-Ho paper now hung on my big bottom lip – if it was anyone else I would have flinched but this happened so often I could paint the soles of G's shoes from memory.

‘Did you talk to Carmen again?'

Gordon shook his head. Carmen would have had him out of school and working three years ago, when he was in Year 9, but Gordon and I had just found each other and there was no way he was doing that. But Carmen needed the money as Peter's disappearance had left her with more debt than compensation, and for a while there Gordon was all set to pull out and go work full-time for someone at something, somewhere in Sutherland.

Gordon's last resort had been to visit the local priest, Father Todd McNealy. Father Todd loved being on the ‘students' level', and right away took control of the situation, explaining to Carmen that Gordon was at a
crucial
and
impressionable
age, and therefore needed to stay in school for his own personal development, for his future prosperity in the workplace, his social skills and confidence levels, and also to strengthen his relationship with the one and only Jesus Christ the Lord.

I loved that bit! Gordon thought Jesus was a faggot. ‘Why else would a guy wear a dress and spend all this time with twelve men in the woods?' he would say, snorting to himself. But Carmen was not buying a dollar of it. She'd had a bad time with priests and nuns at her boarding school in Melbourne in 1963 and wasn't about to take advice from a man of the cloth.