How it feels (20 page)

‘What's that, Neil? What's my gift? I can bash up tools and bend blondes over the kitchen table, eat eccies and fucken dance in a cage, like, what the fuck is that? Where is the
gift
in that, mate?'

I had helped Stuart study for the HSC, night after night wandering over to read up on Islam, maths in society,
The Taming of the Shrew
. I put serious hours into getting the big unit up to speed, and it helped me, helping someone else. But still he left the exams as soon as the fifteen-minute buzzer went, exclaiming ‘Fuck this for a joke' and throwing his HB pencils at the examiners on the way out of the auditorium.

‘You're the gift, Stu. Stuart Stone is the gift. That's why sales –'

‘I dunno, man,' Stu interrupted. ‘I dunno about that. You're the special one. Everyone knows that. Me, G, Courtney – every cunt. I'm fucken… I'm
bored
already, Neil. I've fucked the sweetest pussy. Asians, blondes, models, Austrian whores, thirteen-year-olds, whatever. I've been to Spain. I've taken pure MDMA, been to the sickest parties, driven a Ferrari two hundred clicks. I've done it, mate.'

I'd never known Stuart to be a whinger and here he was making that god-awful sound. ‘So just give up then, right? You've got this great opportunity with L.J. Hooker and you're just going to throw it in their face and stay on this stupid path to nowhere. Well that's pathetic, Stone.'

Then his voice dipped, went all hollow, and he said, ‘You're my real mate, Cronk. You are a
real
mate, you know that?'

‘I know mate,' I said, and now
I
felt awkward.

‘I could do with a
real
mate right now.'

‘I'm seeing you on the weekend – you're coming up, right?'

‘Yeah, but I need a mate now eh…' he said, without a hint of colour or shape in his voice, just this sullen flat line.

‘You got mates,' I said, suddenly so sleepy and distracted.

‘I've got a million mates, in the green lights and the corners of the bar. But you're my only real mate. I could do with a real mate now eh. Do you know what I mean, Nelly? Sorry, man, had a large one and just took some Rohypnol to get to sleep, but I close my eyes and all I see are faces. I see all these faces but they are not my friends. You don't make friends in the clubs. Just acquaintances with sliding faces.'

‘What are you talking about mate?' I asked, peering in to see if Chandra had been woken by the call.

‘Nothing, nothing mate,' he said. ‘I'm just so fucking bored.'

‘Stu…'

‘Sorry man…'

‘Stu listen to me…'

‘I'm being gay; I'm being a faggot…'

‘Hey…'

‘You got to get ready for your show…'

‘Will you listen to me please?' I asked him.

‘It's cool man, you got your life going on…'

‘Stone!'

‘You're amazing Cronky, you're an amazing kid.'

‘Will you shut the fuck up please?'

‘Ok… I'm just sayin'…'

‘You're up here in two days pal, then I'm finished in a week and back in Cronulla – stay with Mum until I sort the next move. I'm going to be just down the road again Stoner!'

‘That's wicked…' Stu said, his voice getting slower and lower.

‘I'll be back in town – the dream-team – just like old times, chase pussy and play golf on the computer at mine. Get wasted and go to Carmen's, eat kebabs or just fucken chill on the beanbags watching
This Violent World.
Whatever man, summer with the boys again!'

‘Yeah…' he said, with the most cantankerous lethargy.

‘Stone? Are you hearing me?'

‘Yeaahhhh…' he said, nearly gone from here.

‘What about L.J. Hooker?' I asked. ‘That sounds exciting, Stu. Like an excellent prospect for you.'

Through his nose then from his throat he laughed darkly, kept saying how funny I was, and
real mate real mate real mate
, over and over again and I should have known, but it was all about
ME
.

You know when you just can't stop? Driving, smoking, wailing. The Great Western Highway held no cars but mine and the odd trucker on trucker's dust and AC/DC. But, strapped to the sides of the (great) highway were clumps and clusters of walkers, seemingly headed in to town. Where were they all going? Where were any of us fucking going? To hell? To the shops? To prayer? To pasture. I flicked on the windscreen wipers but they did very little. Mainly because the fog of water blocking my vision was not outside the car in the form of rain. It was in my eyes in the form of salted tears. I could not stop screaming because if I stopped screaming that meant it was true. My friend was gone. And my friend was
not
gone. If I continued to drive fast and if I continued to scream and if I continued to smoke, then he was still here. On this planet and approachable. Roaring wagon, my roaring heart. My foot on its throat – distance and bitumen in pain. Past the Kelso Hotel. Past the crumbling silo where the teenagers go to hide. Past the turn off to Sofala. Past Steggles Chicken Industry Headquarters.

Features and creatures of Bathurst whipped by my window undisclosed and wax-figured. Nothing mattered and nothing existed and nothing would. I could twist this wheel and GO towards that wall. I could swing this thing into a truck (HEAD ON). you were everything to me. Come back and I will tell you. Come back and I will teach you. This Violent World – don't leave me here. If you only waited one more day, I was yours again you fucking cunt you fucking impatient scene-stealer – had to do a pre-show before my show. Suicide, you selfish cunt!

And yet here I am without you on this spinning planet of yes and no and maybe. What fuck matter now? What fuck mark indelible? What fuck spent or earnt? What fuck concern?

There was a field approaching. A dark purple field I had never bothered with, the trillion times I'd passed it since 1994, I had never shown it much – I barely remembered it being there, in its sprawling dank. But today, today it reached out and asked of me. Rows of vines and were they wine? Vines dark and expansive and I saw a deer.

‘Mummy!' I saw a deer. Deers' heads. Venison – a doe, a deer popped its antlers over the fence and scanned my disposition as I passed. A deer. A female deer? I hauled us over and down the embankment to a skidding stop. I got out on an angle. ‘Stuart!' The deer saw me. The deer had had a wagon coming towards it, spinning out of control right at it – careering one could say – and all its deer friends had fucked off and bolted. But this one deer, this special deer – well it had not moved. Special deer remained, its wise old noggin resting on the cut in the fence. Its antlers like sticks reaching out to God, it all looked so make-believe. I said, ‘Deer', and it let me touch it. I said, ‘Oh dear' and it let me kiss its nose. I never understood why Stuart and I were friends. I never understood why he took such care of me. Ask the deer. There was love in an animal and there were no computers. I said, ‘Deer, my friend is gone,' but then a townie yelled out to me, ‘Better be good – your fucken show!' and I realised all the people walking in to town were on their way to see
ME
. I had wet myself down the side of my blue jeans and I was smoking four cigarettes and I was still screaming and, yes, I kissed that Brave Deer on the nose in the gap in the fence and you tell me, grief, where do we go from here?

Standing at the edge of the Steel Mill forecourt with an open mouth, the smell of piss reminding me of the piss I had pissed on myself.

‘Nelly!' Dick yelled, his pink, alcohol-wrenched face beaming hard confusion as he approached me. He had a suit and tie on now, he looked dapper. ‘It's five-minute call! Where the hell have you been? Swanna is in tears.'

‘Dick…' I couldn't put the sentence together it was… not arriving. ‘Dick…?'

‘It's alright, son. We all get it. Just take some deep breaths and remind yourself of who you are and what you have achieved over the past few years. You are
meant
to be here, my son.' He patted my back warily, like I might unleash fangs or a cleaver.

‘Dick…' I could not finish the sentence. Tears in my eyes again and yes, I wanted to fucking scream until the roof came off. ‘My friend just killed himself,' I said, staring up into his bloodshot eyes.

I could see him lying on his bedroom floor with his brains blown out. I could see his skull in pieces and his brains, his brilliant, neglected and taken-for-granted-by-everyone brains dripping out and I knew right then, before this great man, that I would follow one day soon or sooner.

‘Julien? He's inside.' Dick said.

‘No, my friend Stu. He was coming to see the show, but he… he sh-sh-… shot himself in the head. With a rifle. Just after I spoke to him. I was the last person he spoke to, he spoke to me, and then he…'

Dick took me in his arms and soft-bashed my back with his fists, like he was trying to get me to hawk something up – the boy.

‘You get a bit of that down your way, don't you, son?' Dick said, now circling my back with the curve of his palm.

‘I can't go in there, Dick,' I announced, pushing out of the clinch.

‘Ok, ok. Right, then.'

‘I can't do the show. I mean, I just… even if I could, Dick, even if I
could
do it, I don't know
why
I would do it.'

‘Alright. Alright. I'll go tell Swanna to make the announcement. Fuck there's about four hundred people in there. Fuck. Alright. Is there anyone else who can do your parts? Can little Luke do it?'

‘Luke doesn't know anything beyond room 2: adolescence.'

‘Of course he doesn't.' He sighed. ‘I'll go tell them. Fuck.' Dick patted my shoulder and waddled off towards the
ME
sign.

‘Am I doing the right thing?' I wondered aloud.

‘You want to know what I really think?' Dick said, turning back like he had expected the question. ‘I think those who take their lives are selfish little buggers whose one act of theatre ruins everyone else's. Little prick just lacked the balls to get on with the job like we all gotta, so instead of sucking in the deep ones and getting on with it he had to take the darkness out on everyone else!' Dick was dribbling now, enraged. ‘You want to look back on this night when you are older and know that your mate with the coward's balls cost you this dream? Then fine, but you're bigger than that. I know you loved him; I am sure you did, son. But this is your dream, not his. Claim it back!'

I slapped Dick in the hair and flesh of his face and then I went to slap him again, harder, but he held my wrist. My eyes were boiling with hot oil and all I wanted to do was run and jump down into the water behind Courtney's house and never come up again. And so, I thought, why not go inside? For in seeking death, I fear no more.

I said this to them: ‘I'm sorry, I know I had you all worried.'

The entire cast (minus the dwarves and the unicyclists, who were in the foyer greeting the masses and performing) sat before me on the cold cement floor of room 2: adolescence.

‘The past few weeks and months have been so special to me,' I said. ‘I've learnt so much from working with you people, and I hope to God you've learnt something from working with me.' I looked up. Luke was nodding, the gaps in his pyjama shorts flailing open. ‘I know I scared you all, not turning up till one minute before the lights go up, but I want you to know something…' I turned to face the foyer where, through a gap in the wall, I saw Chandra arrive in a pitch black dress only to be greeted by Swanna in a long white dress. Angels and devils. Swanna looked beautiful, her hair swept up off her face allowing her cheekbones to be all that they were; gloriously symmetrical. She looked poised and true in the presence of her adversary. Chandra appeared distracted, forlorn, as if she was attending a funeral. Ours, for instance.

‘Why are your pants wet?' one of the second-year dancer girls asked me, wrenching me back into the
reality
of the space.

‘It's just sunlight,' I said. Then my stage manager called, ‘Beginners,
Me
Company!'

‘Come on!' Luke grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the room just as the white squall of audience murdered into the space.

Such kindness lives in the hands of the young and free. Luke lifted my shirt up and over my lifeless upper body, dragged my piss-stained pants down, undid my shoes, socks off, then, with the cool and ‘done it a million times, love' aplomb of a seamstress, dressed me in my neutral mask and trunks.

We huddled together like kids about to be caught stealing. My breathing was loud and fast – I could not subdue it. Luke, the poor kid, was trying not to look at me like I was in danger, which made me realise I was in danger. I had a ninety-minute show to do, and I was only offstage for the first part, which was rapidly concluding. I could hear the applause of the audience as the unicyclists formed tableaux with the dwarves, and the Tibetan peace flags were set alight – ta-daaaaaah –
voom
!

I was resting against the back of the set flats staring into the caverns of the steel mill walls when Luke appeared in front of me on his haunches. He held my face in his hands and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me.

‘You can tell me,' he said, beaming through the softest skin. TV would love him one day.

‘Tell you what, Luke?' I managed.

‘What's wrong.' This was afternoon television. Luke, the friendly teenager, concerned by the dark demeanour of the heroic older neighbour whom he looked up to, despite the community's belief that I was ‘trouble'.

‘My best friend took his life three days ago. I just heard about it.'

‘How?' Luke asked, without flinching.

‘He shot himself in the head.'

‘Yeah,' Luke said, as if he had read about it earlier.