Loaded (11 page)

The taxi is hovering above the concrete. As if we are flying. We pass the commission flats and I see giant shadows form mutant shapes. Two Cambodian boys are sitting on the lawn eating pizza. I can smell the food. Vegetarian pizza. Mushrooms, capsicum, I roll my tongue along my bottom lip. On the radio the Beach Boys are replaced by Cher. In the back Johnny squeals in excitement and yells at the driver. Turn it up, turn it up. He belts out the song, a deep baritone. The driver turns up the radio and joins in on the chorus. They are singing about turning back time, finding a way to get back with a lover, and I'm laughing. I hate the song but tonight I don't mind the vapid lyrics, the contemptible conventionality of the music.

We are approaching the club but Johnny asks the driver to drive around the block until the song has finished. The driver parks in a side street, turns off the lights and from somewhere underneath his seat he pulls out a joint. More squeals from the back seat. The song ends and the driver turns the radio off. He lights the joint, takes a drag and passes it to Johnny.

–I thought there was no smoking in this cab. The driver doesn't answer the question. You Greek? he asks instead. Sure are. Johnny arches his head forward, obstructing my view of the driver. Just two Greek girls looking for a good night out. I grimace. I don't like Johnny calling me a girl.

–What are you? I ask the driver.

–Turkish. Johnny passes me the joint. Johnny glares at the driver. Your great-grandfather raped my great-grandmother, he threatens him. For a second there is a silence, then the
driver, myself, Johnny begin a ringing of laughter. I pass the joint back to the man and ask if the customers complain about the smell. Air freshener in the glovebox, he tells me, and as he leans across, his face brushes against Johnny's hair, his hand touches my knee. I shift my leg away, he opens the glovebox. A clutter of cassettes, cigarettes, I notice a photo of a fat-faced baby. You like Greek music? he asks. I have plenty of Greek music.

–Who've you got? I rummage through the cassettes and pull out a tape of Deep Purple, a Black Sabbath, a Lionel Ritchie.

–You like Manos Loizos? He picks up an old, battered tape without a cover. He turns off the radio, puts the cassette in the deck and hissing fills the taxi. The song
The Road
comes on. Johnny looks bored. I hate this song, he whinges, it's so fucking twee. He ignores Johnny and asks me. Do you like this song?

 

I like the song. The night outside glistens, the glow from the street lamps is liquid silk. I mouth the words to the song.
The road has its own story, the story is written by the youth
. I have this song on my favourite tape. I have a specific memory attached to this song. My father drunk, waving his hands in the air and dancing. My mother drunk, clapping along, and Alex, Peter and I watching them, laughing at their drunkenness, enjoying their joy. My father picks me up and drags me to the centre of the lounge, pulls me towards him. In adolescent rebellion I pull away, needing to pull away, not wanting to. He shrugs, and picks up my mother instead and dances with her. He does not struggle for my affection.

I ate up the words of the song that night, feasted on their richness and their promise. His shrug hurt and I consumed the words to the song and made them mine. I looked at his body going to fat, inertia chipping away at his dreams, and the words to the song he was dancing to seemed to be a challenge, a challenge which he had betrayed, maybe he
had always betrayed, likely he would betray forever. Johnny is right about this song, the music lacks guts, soul even, but the words carry fire and passion.
The road has its own story, the story is written by the youth
. I listen to the song on the Walkman and think that it is better to leave, move away, exit, end the story. Better to leave than stay and become fat and inert.

 

–I like the song, I reply to the driver. You should like this song, he turns and tells Johnny. This song is about the students gunned down by fascist tanks. You know about the Polytechnic, don't you? His face, in shadow, seems much too large, his teeth much too bright, his eyes are dark and black and I'm panicked for a moment because I can't see any white in his eyes. A demon's eyes. I relax back in the seat. I'm tripping.

–You Turks are like the Greeks, always on about politics. Johnny turns to me. It's true, Ari, he asks me in Greek, one life and it's all politics, isn't it? One life and it's all politics, the Turk replies in Greek. He sighs and turns the engine on, sprays the cab with air freshener and rolls down his window. Johnny searches through his bag and gives him ten dollars. The driver takes it and doesn't look at him. Johnny taps his shoulder.

–I do know about the Polytechnic, he tells him.

–You should care more about it, those people struggled. The driver is insistent, he bangs the wheel with his fist. I open the cab door and say thanks for the joint, thanks for playing the song. You should care, he says one last time. I fumble in my head, trying to think of something nice to say to the man. He's a good guy, shared his joint, we had a laugh. I'm glad they struggled, I tell him. Johnny opens the door and gets out of the cab. He leans through the driver's window and kisses him lightly on the cheek. Thank you, he says, and then adds softly, the Polytechnic is history, you know, happened a long time ago.

–It was not so long ago, he answers and begins to drive off. The sound of Greek music accompanies him. Johnny pulls up his dress and asks me how he looks. Fine, I reply, then noticing his hurt expression, I add, beautiful. He smiles, takes my arm and we walk towards the nightclub, the heavy rhythms of the music inside the disco are shaking the earth; I feel the music vibrate underneath my feet. When was the Polytechnic? Johnny asks me. Sometime in the seventies, I answer, during the junta. Same time as the Vietnam War. Johnny fingers his hair, preparing for his entrance. I was right, he says, it is history.

The Polytechnic is history. Vietnam is history. Auschwitz is history. Hippies are history. Punks are history. God is history. Hollywood is history. The Soviet Union is history. My parents are history. My friend Joe is becoming history. I will become history. This fucking shithole planet will become history. Take more drugs.

The crowd at the door is impatient, much lighting of cigarettes, much shuffling of feet. Johnny and I go to the front of the queue. The bouncer, his black T-shirt pulled tight across his chest, waves us inside. On our way in he pats Johnny on the arse. Once inside my eyes, ears, my skin is assaulted by sensation. The drugs are making me fly. A thick crowd of men surrounds the bar and each of them looks up, surveys me, Johnny, then each one returns to his drink or to his solitary search for a fuck. The music belts me across the face and I cannot decipher a tune, a melody, a rhythm. Bass dominates the club. Johnny lets go of my
hand and wanders to the bar. I follow him and plant myself beside him, lean on the bar, look at the world around me.

Two blond boys in white T-shirts and jeans repeat the same motions behind the bar. They ask for the order, take the money, prepare the drink, hit the till, serve the drink to the customer, hand over the change. Johnny waits to be served. At one end of the bar, close to the cigarette machine, a man keeps shyly looking towards me. I pull my gaze away from his but I find my eyes returning to search for him. I'm seeking an assurance that he finds me sufficiently attractive, so attractive that he will risk my dismissal of him, that he is prepared for my turning away from him. I cannot define his appearance, his age, his style; he is blending into the vibrant mutating mass of the club. He lifts a glass towards me. I nod then turn away and begin talking to Johnny.

–What will you have to drink? he asks me. I ask for a whisky and Johnny yells the order to the barman. The barman smiles at me and I notice, beneath the glare of the bar lights, that his blond hair is thin, that he is balding. We get the drinks and sit at the bar. Johnny wraps an arm around me and whispers in my ear. You tripping yet, sugar? Sure, I reply, I'm tripping man. A group of women in black leather enter the club and the men look at them suspiciously. One of the women, a young girl in a leather bra and tight black shorts, her hair cropped close to the skull, gelled, comes up and gives Johnny a hug. She kisses me and I smell coconut oil in her hair, sweet perfume on her neck. Sasha adjusts her leather bra and asks how we are. Out of our fucking skulls sugar, Johnny replies, and gives her a sip of his drink.

–You still with Georgie? I ask. Sasha ignores the question and talks to Johnny.

–Toula, you got any speed, know anywhere to get some? I want to party and the fucking dykes I'm with aren't in the mood. She winks and points to one of the women. A tall, pale, beautiful woman, the leather wrapped tight around her
large, muscled frame. Except for her, Sasha winks again. I think I can party with her.

–I guess you're not still with Georgie. Sasha doesn't hear.

–I don't do speed, sugar, you know that Only bliss drugs and I'm all out. The beautiful Ari took my last tab. Johnny touches me softly under my chin. His touch makes my skin pulsate. I look around the crowd, turn back to see the man at the end of the bar, still looking at me. What do you say, Ari, Johnny asks me, can you help this sweet young girl in distress?

–Sweet my arse, Sasha says, and she turns to me. Have you got something, Ari? I shake my head but tell her I'll scout and see if I can find anything. She blows me a kiss, takes my hand and slips me a fifty-dollar note. I get up from the bar and ask them to wait for me. I begin to wander around the labyrinth of the club.

At the edge of the dance floor a line of men watch the gymnastics of the dancers. The fast furious dance music propels me closer to the first circle of dancers and I watch mesmerised as a young short dancer weaves his elastic hips to the music. Drugs mould the club, drugs initiate the dancing, the search for sex. The smell of amyl, the boys with clenched jaws on speed, the girl in the middle of the dance floor waving her long arms towards the disco ball, lost in an acid dream, the alcohol that lubricates our movements around each other, the joints rolled in dark corners. Without the drugs the music would be numbing, monotonous. Without the drugs the faces would be less attractive; wrinkles, bad teeth, double chins. I sniff the smell of marijuana and I'm happy.

I leave the edges of the dancing and move to the back of the club. Faces stare at me and I ignore them, content to be an object of admiration, feeling a surge of power. A hand brushes across my crotch and I glare at the man who touches me. He offers a short, insipid laugh. I want to smash his face in but I move on, searching for a connection, wanting to
find some drugs for Sasha so she will admire me. Her beauty is tantalising; her admiration I would treasure. A young boy wearing a football beanie and an Indian cotton jacket is sitting cross-legged on a table. I walk up, offer him my hand and he takes it, punches me lightly on the shoulder and asks how I am.

–Cool, I reply, doing fine. Rat is beautiful, handsome, child of a wild, hard-drinking Italian whore. His father was a Maori who Rat has never met; two more adult fuckups but their brief union produced a glorious boy whom I always ache to touch. But we hesitate in our physical communions. Testing each other, not wanting to be the first to admit desire. The first to be the faggot.

–I'm looking for quick, Rat, got any? He nods and I sit beside him on the table. Look at that queen, he says, pointing to a bald old man in a tuxedo, sweating from the manic dancing. He begins to drum his fists on the table. I hate this fucking music, he tells me. It's shit.

–That queen with the Dali moustache is DJ tonight, he continues. Go up and request something, he'll play it for you. He snickers. He likes you, likes the Greek boys. I laugh and put my arm around Rat. He lifts his arm, takes my hand and I slip him the money. What do you want to hear? I ask him. I'll request something for you but the prick probably won't play it.

–Ask for some rap, acid-metal, hardcore techno. Anything with fucking guts. Rat spits out the words. I'm tired of this faggoty high-energy shit. He leans over and whispers to me, the shit is in my jacket pocket. I put my hand in the pocket closest to me and I touch the warm sleeping body of a large mouse. Dewey, Rat's pet, is taken everywhere. I put my arm around him again and search his other pocket. My fingers touch a plastic packet and I pull it out the pocket and slip it into my jeans. Thanks mate, I say and get up to leave.

–I'll request something for you but they aren't going to play any hardcore nigger shit here. Just pansy nigger shit.
Rat smiles and punches me lightly again on the shoulder. Black and proud, he says. I walk away, and he yells after me: Sister Sledge,
Lost in Music
. I give him the thumbs up and walk through the dancers, brushing against bodies, pushing myself against young Asian boys lost in a frenzy of dancing; singing along to the trite pop lyrics. I throw my head back and give off a number of loud screams. Add my voice to the music.

The door to the DJ's booth is closed but I open it and walk in. A middle-aged lesbian is smoking a joint and frowns at me. Get out, she warns. It's alright, I say to her, I know him. The DJ winks at me and the woman relaxes and offers me the joint. The DJ is mixing in a new song and ignores me for a moment. I sit back and enjoy the cocoon of peace inside the booth. He finishes, takes off the headphones and sits down with us, taking the joint.

–What you want? he asks. Thrash, rap, something loud I ask him. He shakes his head. Not on a Saturday night, Ari, he tells me, the queens are not going to get off on that straight shit. The woman starts to argue with him.

–Why is it straight? She points at me. This wog here is right, play something tough you fucking old poof. The DJ ignores her and asks me if I want to hear anything else.

–
Lost in Music
. Sure, he shrugs, we'll play that. But later, stick around. Fine, I say, and get up, thanking the dyke for the joint. And play
Temptation
if you've got it. Heaven 17. He nods again. Sure, later.