Drawing Dead (6 page)

You keep drinking that stuff and you’re gonna have the bitch of all hangovers in the morning.

That’s in the morning, now though, ‘Made it, Ma! Top of the world!’

She didn’t know what I talking about but she laughed at me anyhow.

It was a real shitty room. An honest to God heap. Shitty paintjob, shitty bed, shitty carpet, shitty curtains, shitty TV, shitty furniture, shitty everything. I loved the place. She was a jewel amidst the dirt and I’d had enough of her. Yeah, the wine was starting to work its magic.

How you feeling Jack?

Mean.

Mean?

Yeah. Take your bra off.

She did it slowly. Me sitting there taking life-size drinks while she was at it. She turned around so her back was to me. Like she was an escape artist performing for the audience, there with the filtered sunlight pouring through the threadbare curtains, showing up the stains on the woeful carpet, both hands behind her back, hips and ass twitching on the spot as she maneuvered in a dancing tranquility. When it dropped to floor in front of her the sound of it was heard across the universe. I told her to turn around. She did. I knew what was gonna happen, awestruck and horrified, the beginning of the end happening all over again. Her plentiful baps sat there on her in ripe fruit magnificence, shot from her body like jabs from a heavyweight contender. She was a perfect fit.

Get over here.

I stood up and met and then kissed her so as to thrill. I ravished those breasts then like a starving man who’d happened across an overabundant orchard. She winced some but never said stop. Then I placed her knees first ass out on that comfy chair I’d been sitting on. I took a long gulp and finished the bottle I was on, tossed it on the bed then ripped the remaining cloth she had on her body right the hell off her. And when I say ripped it off I meant it as said. She was outta breath by then, panting like a dog. I whipped my belt off and formed it back together putting the loop around her pretty little neck and pulling it taut. Little bitch was on a lead now. I stripped off myself and leant over her and spoke softly in her ear.

Loving this ain’t you baby.

Don’t stop Jack, don’t stop.

That was all she said and we had all afternoon and some of the evening and a bunch more wine to go. Yeah, I took to her like a wrecking crew would a house to be demolished. There isn’t really any other way to put it.

I made her get a cab to the airport for a few reasons.

One - I couldn’t be bothered going with her. That wasn’t the best one, but I liked it the most.

Two - I wanted to get some sleep and had paid for the room for that night anyhow.

Three – It was a good guess that I’d try to skip town, so chances are that there’d be a goon squad maybe waiting for my ass already, and I wasn’t some dimwit begging to get nabbed.

So I shipped her off with a backpack and a long kiss and some bullshit about how I’d call her in a couple of days. It was complete twang and I was aware if they were giving out prizes for the World’s Largest Asshole I woulda been getting the award hands down, hell I’d been winning that thing for a few years running now, I was the Roger Federer of that particular circuit, well no I wasn’t Federer, I was more then, 'cause he actually lost a match sometimes. Me, I was peerless. Out on my own. A champion among champions.

Hannah was gone for good. I can tell you that right now. Winging it across this mostly deserted country, about to grow up and fuck her weight in guys. I'd left my stain on her though and I was real happy with that, real happy. Psychologically and physically, girl would never forget my existence. I liked her a tonne too, and there were places we still coulda gone, though none equated to further than the bedroom.

When I'd finished up with her that night she'd said I was goddamned crazy and had hurt her, and she was right baby, she was right. But hey, what the fuck man, what the fuck... my paste was gonna be fizzing like sherbet in her stomach when she landed in Melbourne, was gonna be tingling like golden anticipation in her teenage birth-controlled womb, and the thought of it gave a me one hell of a stinging thrill.

Now where was I?

Oh yeah, my life was completely shot to motherfucking shit.

I drank to it. That last bottle. And then finally passed out, and got some much needed sleep.

Nah I can make this asshole come good. I’m sure of it.

Well good luck with it, you’ll need that shit too. He’s a drinking, gambler, whoring no good beast of a man, I love that bastard.

So it’s a bet then.

Yessir. It surely is, but you’ll see, it won’t matter what you put in front of him, no matter the chances you throw the boy, he’s mine and was born it and it’ll stay so till he’s dust.

But it’s a bet.

Its money in the bank you dimwitted so and so.

I dozed until the cleaning woman bashed on the door. When I rushed up this time my weightless head had settled into the drifted vagrancy of a subtle soaring hum with only the intermittent zing of dormant soreness. She let herself in as they do and I just sat there naked atop the bed and asked her to give me twenty minutes to clean myself up. I showered for the third time that morning and dressed for the second. Hit the street and the sun was flexing her muscles already. The bitch musta been on steroids. Scrapping my retinas like fucking sandpaper. When I got to my car I had a parking ticket. Like clockwork baby. I crunched it my weary fist and threw it into the wind. Worked as well as pissing into it. I’d already decided what I was going to do that morning. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t go to the office. Both were the first place they’d be looking. In fact after what I’d pulled yesterday nobody would be stupid enough to go back to the office. Nobody.

I ate some breakfast before I made for it. At the University in Nedlands. I parked in the staff lot and hoped for the best. Coffee, scrambled eggs, hash, sausages and beans. It all sat pretty well inside me and the price was right. The third coffee made me gag some but I figured the extra caffeine in my bloodstream was very necessary.

When I got back I didn’t have a ticket but that’s how it is isn’t it, you win some, you lose some. Even with the level of shittiness I was feeling I still noticed the girls. Sweet hell did I notice them. All variety of’em. Tall, small, fat, skinny, black, white, yellow and brown. Pretty, not so pretty, asses, breasts, hips and lips. Hair shining and voices singing and all on God’s green earth.

The sun accentuated their form as it lifted the remains of the dew from all things rested and I just sat back watching'em live and die and not ever notice. I wondered had any of’em read old Nietzsche. Or old Fyodor. Or even old Jean-Paul.

Then I wondered did it matter, and if not then what did, or if so, then why? You could get into this current of shit with yourself for all time. You could and did. But they should at least check out Hesse, Siddhartha right, that badass told Buddha to go and fuck himself. My kinda asshole friend. And there it goes again, on and on and on, the bedlam of the annulled, the invariable buttfuck. It was best just to watch their asses as they walked. And hope for some liberation to come on rapid.

I pushed on toward Fremantle. It was a double bluff. No asshole would be stupid enough to go there. There was too much heat. So it was where I’d go. I’m smarter than they’ll ever be. I parked about half a kilometre away and walked it in. The office is very much out in the open so I spied awhile before making the last walk out and across the parking lot. The coast seemed clear. I made for it. I was expecting the place to busted up but it wasn’t. I guess those three were too busy licking an array of wounds to worry about it. Maybe they bought that camera bullshit I spun.

I covered the bloodstains on the carpet with a rug from the anteroom. The faint smell of spilt bourbon was covered up when I made some more coffee and smoked a cigar. I wasn’t supposed to smoke inside but the way things were I was having trouble giving anything of a shit. So I got on the table and removed the batteries from the smoke alarm and went for it. I tried calling Chenko from the office phone while I smoked. He didn’t answer and I swore out loud and then paced the floor for a time. I decided what I needed was a drink. Then decided I wasn’t dumb enough to be doing booze runs from my office into the nearby surrounds with this much fire on my ass. That bottle of vodka in my car was calling my name but I’d have to save that sweetness for later. So I sat and smoked and swore some more and watched the immeasurable ocean uninterrupted out my dirty salt-pocked window.

She walked in and it just wasn’t fair. A dynamite petite package with rock’n’roll in all the right places. She lit the joint up, obviously always had and would. Every part of her was stacked so that she was unavoidable. A vixen, a kitten, a demon. With a body that made it impossible and a smile that men would murder for. That damn smile. I’d never seen anything like it. Not in my lifetime. Not until she came in and let me have it. Didn’t matter what was happening or when, that smile could flatten you, knock you out and then revive you. She could be all there was when she wanted to. I can’t put it any better than that. Like the air you breathe boy-o, you needed her that bad. Worse even.