Truck Stop (4 page)

AISHA:
Then. Saturday night, just getting dark.

Mum and I walk down our street, Mum asks who Kelly is and why a girl I hardly know would invite me to a slumber party, there's this dog. From nowhere this dog. Teeth and barking and it jumps at us, Mum reaches for my hand, grips it, stands between me and the dog. Mum protects me even though she is scared. She stares at the dog like it's some demon. Then this old man appears, grabs it by the collar.

We get to Kelly's door. Me with a bottle of creaming soda.

Mum behind me. Music inside and shrieking.

KELLY:
Oh my fucking god!

AISHA:
The door flies open /

KELLY:
We found a picture of Justin Beiber nude online

SAM:
He hasn't got pubes.

AISHA:
Then them both looking at me and my mum.

KELLY:
Hello.

AISHA:
This is my mum. Mum, this is Sam and Kelly.

SAM/KELLY:
The skanks.

AISHA:
Mum shuffles her feet, pokes me in the back as a prompt. My mum wants to meet yours. She says she needs to meet her or I can't…

KELLY:
MUM!

MUM!

She's with Bruce.

AISHA:
Hear the TV get turned down, then footsteps. Kelly's mum comes to the door, wears a porn star t-shirt, I hope Mum doesn't read it, what it says.

CHARMAINE:
I'm Charmaine.

AISHA:
She's younger than my mum but looks tired. Dark rings under her eyes.

She doesn't invite mum in.

Leads her out the front.

They're next to one of the cars that sits like a big fish in the long grass.

Whose cars are those?

KELLY:
They were Dad's.

SAM:
Look at your mum, what's she saying?

SAM
and
KELLY
laugh,
AISHA
cringes.

AISHA:
She's shaking her head a little and looking down at her feet.

CHARMAINE:
Go on girls, inside.

AISHA:
Mum calls me over and kisses me, whispers to call her if…doesn't matter what time. Then Kelly and Sam pull me inside, slam the door.

Why'd you say the skanks thing?

KELLY:
Joke.

SAM:
Irony.

KELLY:
Yeah.

SAM:
Like when wogs call themselves wogs.

KELLY:
Or fags.

SAM:
Jocks.

KELLY:
Geeks.

AISHA:
Mum doesn't get irony.

We watch youtube. Some prank film with school boys and snakes.

SAM/KELLY/AISHA:
Look at the snake!

KELLY:
Bruce at the door tells us /

BRUCE:
Keep it down.

KELLY:
[
under her breath
]
Fuck off.

BRUCE:
What did you just say?

KELLY:
Nothing.

SAM:
He live here now?

KELLY:
He's such a loser.

SAM:
And ugly as.

KELLY:
Mum doesn't even like him he's just a rebound fuck. She still calls Love Song Dedications about Dad.

AISHA:
On youtube, some girl who didn't know she was pregnant gives birth to twins in a mall in America.

SAM:
I'm gonna be a film star.

KELLY:
Like her?

SAM:
As if!

KELLY:
You don't even do Drama.

SAM:
So? We should have done a skank film. With Nat. In that abandoned motel. Uploaded it. Could have been a slasher film, all the ugly girls die first then the hot killer dude comes after me.

KELLY:
Why are you last?

SAM:
I wonder.

AISHA:
Why is it always about being hot for a guy?

SAM:
You serious?

AISHA:
Yeah.

SAM
and
KELLY
pass a look.

KELLY:
Want a Cruiser Aisha?

SAM:
Have one it's okay.

AISHA:
No. I'm alright.

KELLY:
Mum got them for us. Go on.

AISHA
takes one.

AISHA:
And we're back online hunting Justin Beiber's penis but it isn't him at all, hair all wrong.

SAM:
What's your favourite movie Aisha?

KELLY:
Ours is
Pretty Woman
. It's totally retro but /

SAM:
Let's watch it.

KELLY:
Let's get pizza.

AISHA:
In the slow bits of the film we talk about / prostitutes.

SAM/KELLY:
Prostitutes.

KELLY:
You tell the story of your brother's mate, Dario. The ugly one. How he was still a virgin and everyone knew 'cause he was fat and ugly and how on his eighteenth they took him up to the industrial and told him they'd all put in. Pay for him to lose it that night, so he could be happy.

SAM:
They cruise along, all of them in a car and let him pick whatever one he wants.

And he picks one that looks okay outside the car but once they get her inside she stinks and when she speaks she sounds rough as and she makes a joke that isn't even funny and smiles and she's missing a tooth right in the front but it's too late then 'cause Dario's picked and he's agreed—that was the deal. Once he's chosen no piking. He has to go through with it.

So they drive him to the park. All his mates get out of the car and leave him in the back with / the hooker.

KELLY/AISHA:
The hooker.

SAM:
His mates sit at a picnic table drinking beer but they can see he's just sitting in the car next to the hooker not doing nothing but talking.

And so they go back and tell him they didn't pay for him to talk to her, to get a move on and fuck her. They make him start while they watch. They tell her
go down on him
. They get him to grab her head and push it down on his cock,
fuck her face
they yell and they film it, his hands pushing down her head, him pushing her legs up, her high heels tapping the back of the window near the bulldogs sticker. Then they open the back door and film him doing it to her.

KELLY:
Poor chick.

SAM:
You reckon?

KELLY:
Yeah.

SAM:
She got paid. So what?

KELLY:
But…

Pause.

What would it feel like to make money from sex?

SAM:
It'd be ok.

KELLY/AISHA:
No.

SAM:
It would. You could be in control of it.

KELLY:
How? Like Dario with that chick?

SAM:
Not like that. If I did it I'd be classy.

AISHA:
Like Julia Roberts?

SAM:
Guys are just gagging for it and you can hold back or you can make them cum in three minutes flat for what…

KELLY:
The money. We could afford to buy whatever shit we wanted, clothes, sunglasses

SAM:
Cocktails, concert tickets…

KELLY:
Go into the city on weekends.

SAM:
How much would you charge?

KELLY:
Twenty bucks?

SAM/AISHA:
Twenty bucks?

KELLY:
I don't know… forty?

SAM:
Better than selling donuts.

KELLY:
I guess.

SAM:
Easier.

KELLY:
What would you call yourself?

SAM:
I'd be Princess.

KELLY:
Princess who?

SAM:
Just Princess… what about you?

KELLY:
Chilli. Hot Chilli.

SAM:
Sick! What about you Aish?

AISHA:
I don't know.

SAM:
Oh come on.

AISHA:
I don't know.

SAM:
Jai hoe.

Knock at the door.

ALL:
Pizza!

SAM:
Hope the pizza dude's hot.

KELLY:
He's not. He's all pimpled. Looks worried.

SAM:
I play a trick on him.

Sorry but we didn't order pizza.

AISHA:
He looks at the docket over and over again until Sam bursts out laughing.

SAM:
Got ya!

KELLY:
Pay him./

SAM:
Slam the door in his face.

AISHA:
That was mean.

SAM:
He's a pizza guy. So what?

AISHA:
And later, watching Channel V, Katy Perry licking ice creams and popsicles Sam says:

SAM:
Aisha.

AISHA:
What?

SAM:
Your last name is / Nadu right?

AISHA:
Nadu right.

SAM:
You have the same initials as Nat did. Nat Archer. Aisha Nadu. Just reverse.

AISHA:
Kelly rolls off the couch and jumps up on the coffee table says:

KELLY:
Oh my fucking god!

AISHA:
And we all look at each other, cold pizza sweats, music blares, heater full blast and Sam says it.

SAM:
S-K-A-N-K-S. We can be the skanks again.

We see a movie made that night made by
AISHA
.
KELLY
and
SAM
scull Cruisers. They dance and scream on top of a rusty car.

AISHA
alone.

AISHA:
Then.

Dad in a taxi. His other job.

I say to him that's not why we came here, Mum puts a box of tissues out for the passengers says /

INDHU:
It's just for a little while. Until…

AISHA:
Dad's tying Ganesh to the mirror.

INDHU:
For protection.

AISHA:
Protection for who? And Mum says /

INDHU:
Everyone needs protection.

AISHA:
Dad waves to us as he drives off, wet stains in the armpits of his blue uniform.

How will Ganesh protect Dad, Mum? If some guy gets in the car and threatens Dad with a knife what's Ganesh going to do? Wave a rat at him?

INDHU
shakes her head.

INDHU:
You are not to say those things.

AISHA:
You mean things that are / true?

SAM:
Truth.

INDHU:
Things that show no respect.

KELLY:
Dare.

INDHU:
Things that make you sound like…

SAM/KELLY:
Double dog dick dare.

INDHU:
Go inside and study.

AISHA
goes.

We hear flies.

SAM:
Then.

KELLY:
Us.

SAM/KELLY:
Tuesday. Recess.

KELLY:
People saying Trent got with Brittany.

SAM:
Which Brittany?

KELLY:
The slutty faced one who works at Boost.

SAM:
That dog. Who'd touch her?

KELLY:
Um, Trent. And I heard Trent emailed Darren pictures of your tits.

SAM:
Darren?

KELLY:
Yeah.

SAM:
Hot Darren or rat-tail Darren.

KELLY:
Rat-tail.

SAM:
Yuck.

KELLY:
Stop sending Trent shit.

You can trace it you know. Phone companies keep records.

SAM:
They do not.

KELLY:
They do.

SAM:
So what? Like have you seen how many tits are online? Who's gonna be trawling through all of them to find mine Kelly? Some old pedo at Vodafone?

KELLY:
Dump him.

SAM:
I will. But… I like him. He's in Year Ten and…

KELLY:
He treats you like a whore.

SAM:
He's alright.

KELLY:
It's my job. Like as your best friend and all to watch out for you.

SAM:
Yeah yeah.

KELLY:
We made that deal like what they said in class. Look out for your mates. Protect them. Talk. And if something's going wrong /

SAM:
Don't tell me what to do. I can make my own decisions.

KELLY:
Then…

SAM:
Don't want to be single.

KELLY:
There's other guys.

SAM:
I love him.

KELLY:
Does he love you?

Does he?

SAM:
He says he does.

KELLY:
When?

SAM:
Kel…

KELLY:
What? When you and Trent /

SAM:
What?

KELLY:
Fuck.

SAM:
We do not fuck.

KELLY:
What do you do then? Make love?

They laugh.

Do you use rubbers?

SAM:
Yes.

KELLY:
Do you?

SAM:
Gonna go on the pill.

Don't look at me like that. Hey how's this? Trent reckons we should have a threesome.

KELLY:
That's bullshit.

SAM:
You jealous?

KELLY:
A threesome? What you want to do that for?