How it feels (7 page)

All that was left was for Gordon to beg, and so he did, and eventually the emotional pleading won out and Gordon could stay on with me and finish his HSC – on one condition: he would somehow bring in four hundred dollars a week. So Gordon got up at quarter past four every morning and started his job as a cleaner, scrubbing phone booths and bus stops until eight thirty, when he would go to school. Then, as soon as the bell rang, he would go to the Franklins' for a few hours, offloading the truck, stacking shelves, cleaning out the fridges and returning the trolleys to their bays. This was the deal and he was cool with it.

‘You and Courtney sound like you've got it all worked out – in the city, eh?' Gordon asked, without looking up from his trainers. My skin went hot.

‘She was just saying…'

‘It's cool, man. You gotta get in there and rock out.'

I pushed shag around in the palm of my hand, sculpting a new cigarette.

‘Why don't you come in too? Work in the city and live with us or whatever?'

‘I'm not part of
Courtney's plan
, dude.'

‘Fuck Courtney's plan.' I flipped the shag into the paper and rolled. ‘And fuck just doing what Carmen tells you, G. You've worked like six thousand hours a day for years and she just…'

‘She just what Nelly?'

I took a Zippo out of my pocket but decided not to light up yet. Talking about another guy's mum was dangerous ground, and even though Gordon often shot off about how much of a nightmare she was, how selfish she was sometimes and how he wished she would lose weight and choose better guys, there was still no licence for anyone else to chime in, and I knew this, but still, I cared more about my mate than my own balls, and knew if Gordon stayed here now he would surely be stuck here forever, slowly dying in the suburbs of the Sutherland Shire.

‘I don't see why we can't all work it out,' I said, flicking my eyes up at him, my chest vibrating, hands shaking like paper.

Gordon kicked the gutter a few times then spat on the lawn. ‘I'm not like you, Cronk, I've got responsibilities 'n' shit.'

‘You can't get stuck here, dude. This place, it's like –'

‘What am I going to do in the city? Eh? I'm not like you and C, I didn't get marks to go anywhere, I'll just be hangin' round like that tall guy from Ferris Bueller.'

‘Who knows, mate?' I said. ‘But how exciting is it? We'll be free! Stop thinking of life as some duty you have to other people. What do you want, Gordon? Have you ever asked yourself that? What the fuck do
you
want?'

Gordon just stared at me. ‘Do you mean this, Cronk?'

‘Of course, man. What the fuck. You're my brother. You fucken… you're fucken… you gotta come with me, mate. We gotta keep the dream alive.'

‘What's Courtney going to say?'

I shrugged. Gordon laughed awkwardly, then pulled a fifty-dollar note out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘Fifty bucks – but only if you spend it on drugs.'

‘Oh, mate, I'll pay you back.'

‘Pay me when we get to the city.'

‘Are you in? Gordon! Are you in?!'

‘If you are.'

We leapt into a hug from quite a distance, meeting with a slap and bang of chests. We held each other hard in that moment, gripping each other's necks and backs with love, meaning and intent. We were a lock of hard promises and there was no turning back.

‘Let's go nail this bottle of Southo!' Stuart called out from the base of the street, an umbrella in one hand covering my girlfriend, and in the other a full bottle of Southern Comfort Bourbon. His hair looked fantastically set; even the rain couldn't shift it.

There's an awful sense of
duty
involved with being a parent I reckon. I want to be a parent, I really do, and I can fully see myself with daughters, playing in the park, being really attentive, tying up their laces and saving them from out-of-control dogs.

The main thing, in my opinion, that freaks parents out is thinking of things to do all the time. My dad struggled (big time) with this. Saturday would come around and every week without fail he would have to think up something for us to do all day. I had no interest in team sports so he literally had to fill the
whole day
with things, and I never got the feeling it excited him too much. My dad's a decent bloke, but ideas? I'm not sure he has ever had any. So it always ended up with him asking me what I wanted to do. And if I told him the truth, it was to maybe
not
hang out with him, as it always felt like such a hassle for Dad on Saturdays, he was always distracted, reading the paper or stuffing the radio plug in his ear, and making weird and questionable excuses not to get involved in whatever I was doing. Often he wouldn't even turn up, citing some heavy chore Mum needed him to do around the house, but I knew this was crap; Mum was the one who'd suggested we spend some time alone together on Saturdays.

So I suggested we get into fishing. I have no idea why; I'd never fished in my life. The idea came to me when I was cruising round the local area one afternoon and stumbled upon a trail that led down to a little spot called Dolans Bay. The bay was tiny and enclosed and there was this awesome cave that you could sit in and take in the estuary, a place to go and really feel like you were alone. I figured if Dad and I were going to hang out together and he was going to be relatively absent even when he was there, I would find a place I liked and at least get something out of it.

Dad and I spent a lot of time at Dolans Bay, me fishing, him pacing about wishing he was anywhere else. Then one day I told him I was happy to fish on my own on Saturdays if he had other, more
pressing
things to do, and he looked at me, so grateful, then took off up the trail and back to his car where I heard Radio National come on, followed by the engine.

I'm not that into looking at idyllic views, they kind of shit me, like a perfect view makes me feel so broken. Like postcards just make me want to die. I preferred looking at the cracked sides of rocks or some smashed bit of coast or a dead crab in the gloomy water, and Dolans Bay was like that – it really wasn't that spectacular, kind of underwhelming really, which suited me fine, and it reminded me of my dad and me.

One by one I introduced Gordon, then Stuart, then finally Courtney to my secret, excellent spot, and now it was a group meeting place, a sacred place for all of us, which I liked but it kind of shat me too because they always knew where I was. I could always get a new spot, but nowhere else felt like this. Like the perfect pair of jeans, Dolans Bay just sat well. And my cave was our headquarters.

Despite the light rain, I felt like dipping my feet in the water. Courtney was all embarrassed and cute carrying her heels down to where I sat with my jeans rolled up and my shoes off. I had a cigarette going already, the water swirling about my feet, little fish darting psychotically about in the shallows. This would be the last time we all gathered here and it hurt to think this, I couldn't go to the cave just yet.

‘Are you ok?' Courtney asked me.

‘Yeah, I'm cool, babe – just dipping my feet.'

‘Let's get smaaaashed!' Stuart called out, climbing back up the steps to the cave. Gordon followed, waving.

Courtney sat down on the rock beside me, but she didn't dip her feet in, I guess because she was wearing stockings. Instead she sat in a very yoga-ish position, legs folded over one another; she held my face in her hands. ‘I love you, Neil,' she said. Clearly the marijuana had won out; she was paranoid I had taken offence to her announcing the Glebe plan, plus she had also spotted Gordon and me in an embrace at the top of Grandview Parade. No doubt her already active little head was buzzing with conspiracy and doubt, and telling me she loved me was a way of restoring order and evacuating all the mess inside. What a drug pot was.

‘Awww,' I said, inhaling sweet chemicals into my skull and throat.

‘Do you love me too, Neil?' Courtney asked, kissing my nose.

I dumped my dart in a puddle.

‘Babe. It's all going to be cool. But are
you
ok?'

She placed her hand on my zipper and squeezed a bit of my cock through the denim.

‘Let's go round the bend,' she said, biting my bottom lip.

My heart started beating fast, but I did what I was told. We had to clear a few gaps between rocks but we made it. It wasn't too mossy at this time of year and soon we were on a private jetty just out of sight of the cave. I could hear the boys setting up camp, pouring lids of Southern Comfort and discussing whether there were any dorky, ugly, annoying chicks at school that may just be the most surprising, untold ‘fucks of the century', and they had passed them up because they were a bit ugly or annoying but maybe tonight they should give them the stick because they may surprise the fuck out of them with their cock-mastery and technique. This was their main topic of conversation – seriously, they didn't talk about much else – and as I moved around the shoulder of the bay this is what I heard:

Gordon came boldly forward, admitting he had always fancied Sarah Kirkwood. In a ‘filthy, doggy style behind the tuckshop kind of way'.

‘Kirkwood is a stuck-up land mullet, mate!'

‘I dig her,' Gordon claimed.

‘Kirkwood? You are a unit, Braithwaite.'

‘What about you? What second-rate gear would you stuff?'

‘I'd ram that epileptic from Year 11 – what's her name?”

‘Kyla Druid? Get fucked!'

‘That chick, aside from all the epileptic carry-on, is gagging for pole!'

‘Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' Gordon said.

‘Remember that fit she had at the swimming carnival?'

‘What fit? Which fit? She has a fit every hour!'

‘She'll be having a fit on my cock when I take her into the bushes tonight!'

Since I saw Ethan Hawke and Winona Rider at the end of
Reality Bites
I had started kissing really slow and with not that much tongue. It was working well and I could sense Courtney enjoying it more; she never wanted to stop and she moaned louder and from a lower, more woman place. There was no rush in the kiss now, and no need to repeat that scooping motion, our lips were speaking with each other and it hurt, it ached, how true and beautiful it was. She put my hand in between her legs and I feared she was pushing the deed once more.

‘We can't do this here,' I said, looking up at the property which the jetty belonged to.

‘No one's home,' Courtney said, breathing loud in my ear.

‘How can you know that?'

‘They would have kicked us off by now.'

‘Can we just go back, please? I kind of feel weird… and it's raining.' Courtney held my nose between her fingers and peered into me, utter disappointment colliding with rage across her face and eyes.

I stood up, pushing my erection into the seam of my jeans so no one would know. ‘I don't want to fuck in front of Dolans Bay anyway.'

Courtney led the way back round the rocks where we met with quite a startling image. There stood the Adonis Stuart Stone, arms and legs akimbo in the mouth of the cave, wielding a half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort, his jeans down by his ankles, underpants around his hips, six-inch tanned penis swinging in the cool evening air.

I went back to the jetty to get my tobacco, and when I returned I noticed Courtney in a state I had never witnessed before. Her body was completely still, though seemingly being propelled forward at the same time, her big green eyes focused on the piece of science up above.

I followed her eyes to where Stuart Stone's marvellous cock swung back and forth like a wrecking ball. Then I returned my gaze to my girlfriend, who was still transfixed. Had she never seen a large penis before? Was she wondering what it would be like to put her little hands around it? Would they fit? If they did fit, would Stuart be happy with them? Would he be happy with what she did to him? Stuart had taken hand jobs from a thousand women aged between thirteen and forty-three; he'd surely laugh in her face at her hopeless technique. The way she clenched and dragged her little ring of fingers up the shaft. And what if she did put her mouth around it? How much would it grow in her face? On her tongue, how would it taste? Would it jab the back of her throat and if so could she take it? And what if she lay down in the cave right now and spread her thighs apart – would it fit? Would she scream?

The cock stopped swinging and Courtney snapped out of her trance, realising that she had been staring at the beast for almost a minute. She dragged her eyes up Stuart's torso, past his t-shirt and up to his neck, chin and eyes. Stuart looked down at her from the cave, no longer in a macho stance, but merely standing there, vulnerable, aware of where she'd been looking, and for how long. Was it curiosity or self-destruction that led her to this moment? She couldn't work it out herself. But as their eyes met for that millisecond, there was the strongest, most foreign, yet palpable attraction ever written in Cronulla history. I read every word of it, and, really, I should have known then.

‘Let's get drunk,' I said, lighting a smoke and walking towards my cave.

‘Where are you going?' Courtney asked, looking for her shoes and hiding her red face in her hair.

Resting back on the cave walls, Stuart tried to tear his eyes away from Courtney but he couldn't help himself; he was clearly imagining her long pale legs wrapped around his throat as he buried his face in her like she was a laksa. Gordon was propped up on his jacket, watching me hammer into the bottle of brown alcohol.

‘Here, babe.' I passed the bottle to my girlfriend, looking down into the orange dust of the cave floor, making sure I held on to the burning pool of booze still hanging at the top of my throat. So many times I'd employed this method, right here in this cave. Staring down into the floor and counting to twenty, finding the right gaps in my breathing to suck the fluid down and stop it rising back up. I was shit-terrible at drinking hard liquor, I preferred red wine sipped over many hours, to taste the stuff and let it ride into my system, not this whole ‘get piss into ya' attitude.