Loaded (2 page)

Riding on a bus always makes me horny, something to do with the sensation of moving while looking down into the world below. I sink behind a seat in the back and shift my tight cock. The music enters my head and I rock back and forth a little to a pulsating, electric beat.

I get off the bus in the city and walk across Russell Street to one of the video arcades. The Chinese boys and girls are checking each other out, dressed up for the Saturday afternoon. Inside the arcade solitary boys are gazing fixedly into video screens and groups are clustered around the
bigger machines. I see my Greek friend Joe and stop the Walkman. Rhythm is replaced by a cacophony of electronic whistles. He nods at me and looks back at the screen. I stand beside the terminal and gaze around the room. Video arcades give me a headache. A balding guy with a beer gut is standing at the counter exchanging notes for coins. His belly button is peering out of his shirt, his remaining hair is greasy and thin. Ugly. He notices my stare and focuses on me. I keep my eye on him for a second then turn back to the screen.

Joe gets done by the video opponent and smashes his hand hard onto the side of the terminal. Let's grab a coffee, he says. I follow him round the corner to Lonsdale Street, swinging my bag behind me. He's got himself a new crew cut and is wearing a dirty black T-shirt. The nice Chinese and Greek couples step out of his way. The men in clean ironed shirts, buttoned up to the collar if they are Asian, unbuttoned to the chest if they are wog. The girls, Asian or wog, are in red and black, all wearing short skirts. I nod to some of the women, seeking some acknowledgment, testing my looks. I don't bother checking out the boys; no use cruising when girls are around. Joe sits at a table outside a Greek coffee shop, lies back in the chair, closes his eyes and takes in the sun. I sit in the shade. It's getting hot. At another table is a middle-aged man talking non-stop to a young woman. She's got on too much lipstick too much perfume. She's got a bad woggy haircut; too much hairspray makes her hair look like a wig.

–Got a job yet? Joe asks me. I hate that question. No, I answer and put the Walkman in my bag. He starts telling me about his job. Working people always think you'll be interested in what they do. None that I know do anything interesting.

–Looking for work? I say yes and get up to ask for coffee. Joe calls out for a milkshake and takes a five-dollar bill from his pocket. My shout, I say. Make it mine, he disagrees,
you're unemployed. The young woman looks up at me. I don't take the money and go into the shop. The cavern in my stomach is still there, in my blood, my whole system calling for food. I order a cake with the drinks.

–How's your folks? Joe asks me. The longer we are friends the less interesting are the questions we ask each other. I give him the usual answers and grab a cigarette from a squashed packet in my bag. How's yours?

–Good.

–Going home to watch the cricket? I don't answer. He knows I hate the game. We going out tonight? I ask.

–Sure. Meet you at my place. I nod and eat the cake quickly. Syrup coats my mouth and I grab a napkin to clean myself up. The dope is wearing off and Joe is busy checking out the girls around him. Some nice birds here, he whispers with a grin. I give them a quick glance. Too woggy, I say. There is one woman I find attractive; a young girl in a black sweater, her hair in a ponytail, a line of soft red lipstick on her lips. I like that one, I say to Joe, and she notices me pointing. I smile at her and she smiles back.

–You're in man, she'll give you a root. Joe is an idiot when it comes to sex. Talks like a cheap Italian movie.

–I don't root, I fuck, I tell him.

–What's the diff? I shrug my shoulders and butt out my cigarette. The way you do it, I say and stand up.

–The guy she's with is one ugly fuck, isn't he? I look at the guy. He's young, wearing a bad floral shirt. Joe's wrong. He's got a good body, a mildly handsome face. It's his clothes that are the problem. I don't saying anything to Joe, he gets uncomfortable when I talk about boys.

–I've got a joint in my pocket, I tell him patting my tracksuit pocket. Want some? He agrees.

We go to smoke in Joe's car in the underground car park. The young security person looks stoned and waves hello to us. He's sitting with his legs up on the counter, reading the paper. The cricket is on the radio and Joe starts a
conversation. I walk off and search for his car. There is a cool breeze in the car park and when I find the car I rest against it and put my bag on its roof. His parents bought it for him for his eighteenth birthday, and over the two years he has washed it religiously every Sunday; he even vacuums the back seat. I don't drive. I don't need to. Everyone I know has a car.

–Take your fucking bag off my car. Joe comes over and searches the roof for any scratches. He glares at me as I get into the passenger seat. I take out the joint and offer him the first smoke. He takes it and lets out a long slow exhale of smoke.

 

Joe has got his world worked out, or so he likes to think he has. He's got a job, got a girlfriend, got a car. Soon he wants to get married. I think it's a mistake but I figure that it isn't my business to tell him such things and I don't. He's an adult. But it seems to me that there are two things in this world guaranteed to make you old and flabby. Work and marriage. It is inevitable. The faces of all the workers and all the married people I see carry the strain of living a life of rules and regulations. Joe's face is still young looking, he still has sharp bright eyes. But he's changing. Doing the nine to five on weekdays. No dirty T-shirts but a shirt and tie and a briefcase by his side. He keeps his crew cut because he still wants to dip one foot into the pool of freedom, but even that will change once the wedding ring is slipped on. They won't let him walk up the aisle without at least two inches of hair, not in a Greek church. It's his cop-out.

Unless you're a smart thief everyone has to work, or scrounge around saying yes-sir-no-sir-can-I-have-a-raise-sir-can-I-have-the-day-off-sir-my-grandmother-is-sick-sir-dad-can-you-lend-me-twenty. We all have to sell ourselves. But you don't have to get married, you don't have to sell all of yourself. There is a small part of myself, deep inside of me, which I let no one touch. If I let it out, let someone have a
look at it, brush their hands across that part of my soul, then they would want to have it, buy it, steal it, own it. Joe's put that part of himself up for market and he would be the first to say it's because he can't put up with the demands. Parents, friends, bosses, girlfriends, girlfriends' parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, even the fucking neighbours. They all want to sell, buy, invest in the future. And now he's just waiting for the right bid, and I know what it is. Once his parents and her parents offer a house, or at least a hefty deposit, the deal will be clinched. The marriage will be arranged. Joe will have joined the other side, just another respectable wog on a mortgage. I look at him drawing on the joint and I turn away and make circles in the air with the smoke. Coward, I whisper. But he doesn't hear me.

–What you say? Nothing, I reply and he gives me the joint. We smoke it and he offers me a lift home but I prefer to walk. It is a good half-hour but I want to clear my head from the alcohol last night. I get out and confirm meeting at his place tonight. Joe waves me away and goes off to have a conversation with the security guard. I shuffle around my bag and find my Walkman.

Dad is in the garden watering the plants. The garden is the most important part of his life now. If he's not among the plants, he's asleep, or down at the coffee shop with his friends. That's when he's not working, but I don't know what Dad is like at work. We don't talk about it.

I go up to him and gently touch his shoulder. He pulls away. Go see your mother, he says, she's upset. He yanks the Walkman out of my hand. Where have you been you animal?

–With Panayioti. He walks away and fiddles with some flowers. I hear him muttering about me, about my brother,
about my sister. I expected his anger, I'm used to it, but at the same time the whole of my emotions, all the shit fluttering around my head, feels like it's going to erupt out of me and all over him. My body is immediately tense, waiting for the fight. I yell arsehole at him. He hears and shakes his head. Then he looks sad and I wish I could walk straight past the gate, back down the street and away from him, my family and the world. But I don't. I walk in the front door.

Mum's smoking a cigarette in the kitchen and listening to the radio. I smell tomato and eggs and hope the shouting is over quickly. I'm starving. She begins and I shut off. It's an easy trick I have learned. I focus on her forehead. Peter taught me the trick but we use it to different results. Dad can rave at him for hours and Peter will walk away unaffected. It's Mum who drives him crazy. But I have no patience for my mother. Dad has an excuse, he was born in Greece. A different world. Poverty, war, hardship, no school, no going out, no TV. It's a world he'd prefer to go back to and a world I have no fucking clue about. Singing around coffee tables, sleeping in the afternoon, walks in the evening and celebrations in the night. He should never have left, no matter how bad things were back there. Here, under the Australian sun, he's constantly sniffing the air and looking disappointed. He can't really breathe here, he says.

But Mum's different. She was born here and is as Australian as me. Shit, with the nasally squawk she speaks in she's more skip than me. She butts out her cigarette and lets fly. Where have I been? Why don't I ring? I stare into her forehead. The questions continue and I don't answer any of them. She starts a rave in Greek, calls me a fucking animal, a pig in the mud she stresses, throws a tea-towel at me and starts crying. I go to her, put my arm around her shoulder and kiss her on the cheek. Hi Mum, I say, I'm hungry. She slaps me lightly on my arse and, grumbling a little more, starts preparing lunch.

I turn on the TV in the lounge room and flick across the stations. A young James Stewart in a cowboy suit. I sit down to watch the movie and Mum brings in a plate of tomato and egg, some fetta, some bread and a salad. Do you want some meatballs? she asks me, and I refuse. Some coke? I nod and she brings me a full glass and sets it down on the table.

–I used to fight with your grandfather all the time, Ari. I scoop the meal in my mouth, wrapping the fetta in bread and swallowing it in large bites. But I always respected him, Ari. Always. She says the last words in Greek.

–I respect you too, Mum. And Dad too. It's a lie and maybe she knows it. I love my parents but I don't think they have much guts. Always complaining about how hard life is and not having much money. And they do shit to change any of it. Dad would like to go back to Greece some day, he thinks that life will change for him then. But Mum wouldn't leave us behind and I don't know if Greece would make her any happier. I don't know what would make her happier; she must dream of blinking her eyes, finding herself sixteen again and making different decisions.

–I'm sorry Mum. I got drunk and forgot to ring. And I didn't get up till late.

–Just like your brother to get you drunk. She looks at me, smiles a little. Is he at the library? she asks. Yes, I lie, he'll be there all day.

–You can tell me, she says, he's gone out with Janet, hasn't he? I just stare at the TV. He's studying, Mum. I finish off the food and she starts clearing away the mess. I never see your brother any more. Not since that bitch took him away from us, I hear her yell loudly from the kitchen.

On screen an ugly bad guy has started a fight with Jimmy Stewart. A blonde woman in tight black suspenders and a white petticoat helps him out by smashing a bottle of spirits over the bad guy's head. She's got great legs and no talent. You can see her eyes wandering towards the camera. I'm
not listening to Mum. She can go on about my brother having left home for ages. She broods, cries about it, holds her head low sometimes, sighing deeply, lamenting her boy's betrayal of her. Yet she nurses the betrayal, cultivates it, makes her pain ecstatic because it adds a sheen of tragedy to a boring life. I let her rave and watch the movie. Soon she gives up on me and weeps silently to herself in the kitchen, doing the dishes.

 

There must be thousands of movies I've seen on television. It could be that the one I'm watching now I've seen years before. The best run early on weekday mornings and I often go to bed setting the alarm for 2.15 am or 3.35 am. I wake up in the middle of the night, grab some biscuits and chips from the pantry, or a glass of whisky, or roll a joint, whatever addiction I need to satisfy at that moment, and watch an old movie. There are fewer ads at that time of night and there is no one else around making noise, asking questions, ruining the film for you. I don't talk much about movies to people. I prefer to watch them on my own, even at the cinema. Everyone around me talks about loving the movies but that's bullshit. They'll go to see a movie because everyone is talking about it, or they need to do something before dinner or clubbing, or because the ads for the movie are good. Most people prefer television. I hate television, only watch it to catch up with old movies. People on television – actors, journalists, entertainers – are all second-rate. Movies are movies. They're an occasion, a night out. Television is a piece of furniture.

An ad comes on the television and I jump to my feet. Mum, I yell, where's Alex? At your aunt's, Mum yells back. She comes in with her packet of cigarettes in her hand. I grab two from her and light them both. I hand one back to her. There you go, Bette, I say. She looks at me with a puzzled expression. Mum is part of the television generation as well, and she knows shit about anything except what the
television and magazines tell her. Brain dead. For her the real world begins every day at seven in the morning with ‘Good Morning Australia'.

–I'm going over. Do you want to come? She shakes her head. I kiss her goodbye, yell something neutral in Greek to my father who ignores me, hitch the Walkman around my track pants and put the headphones on. I press play and walk out the gate.