White Ute Dreaming (11 page)

I
ATE TWO-MINUTE NOODLES AND WATCHED THE TELLY
. M
UM
went to work so it was comfortable at the flat. Not that there was much to watch but hey, as long as it is flickering I can sit and stare at it. I didn't move until Wednesday night. I took Ernie for a walk and ended up at Game Zone. Lucky I did. When I got home at about eleven o'clock Mum passed on a message.

‘A girl phoned tonight, just after you'd left. Angie someone-or-other,' she said, and waited for my reaction.

I kind of expected she might phone. I nodded like I didn't give a rat's pimple.

‘She wanted to know if you were going to the party tomorrow night. She left her number.'

She looked at me for the longest time. ‘Well, do you want to go? I won't be here so if you want to, and you can promise me there will be no trouble, you can go.'

I shrugged. She was making it all too easy.

‘I'm going out with Gilbert,' she said. ‘He's taking me down to Lygon Street and then into the city to see an opera at the Arts Centre.'

That was more information than I needed. She pushed her hair behind her ear and lit a smoke. I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

I mowed the lawn at the flat on Thursday morning. I should have gone around with the little shovel first. Every other lap around the yard I hit a landmine that Ernie had laid. One number that I shaved the top off got splattered all over the wall of the mower shed. Little spots of brown death. Normally, I like the smell of cut grass.

I took Ernie for a walk down to the path that follows Merrimans Creek, just to give the air time to clear. We jumped down and walked inside one of the huge concrete pipes that lets the creek go under College Road. I've always loved that pipe. Den and I still have our names plastered on the wall about halfway down where the light is strained and blue. It must have been when we were living in Finlayson Street, when Mum and Dad were together. I remember hooking a can of white spray paint from Dad's shed. Den wrote ‘D.S.H.'—the ‘S' is for Stanley—and I wrote ‘Wayne' and for some reason, my phone number. It might have been the year we shifted. I remember putting my hand flat on the cool concrete, fingers outstretched, and spraying the back of my hand with the white paint. I copped an absolute caning when I got home. I couldn't get the paint off the back of my hand and Dad made us show him where we'd sprayed it. I think that was the last time he smacked me on the arse. I had to lie face down on my bed and cry because I could feel my heart beating in my bum. The weirdest thing is that my handprint is still there but the hand that made it has gone.

It's sleazier in there than I remembered and I had to bend down to get inside. The skeleton of a shopping trolley guarded the entrance. There were more than a few Burger Boss cartons and plastic bottles along the side. Halfway down there's a skylight—a drain hole from College Road that would be a cheap shower in the rain. On a ledge under the skylight I found two syringes with needles and a piece of aluminium foil. Some people are sick. Imagine injecting yourself with shit just for fun. I shivered and dragged Ernie back out into the light.

I finished the English assignment. They had a big countdown of the best radio songs in history and I bopped along and wrote at the same time. Sometimes Mum wouldn't believe the shit I get up to when she is not around. I found the note from Kez—the one with ‘I love you. That's for certain' and ‘go out with Mandy if you want'. I didn't realise how big it was that they were shifting away. Huge. With my forehead flat on my desk, I could feel a hole inside me like the tunnel under College Road and my thoughts were echoing around in there like a loud fart. Den and Kez made up the best part of my life. They were gone and the best parts of my life had gone with them. The best parts, but not my whole life. Everything had been breezy and then I'd started feeling like I was dragging myself through life again. It was a huge effort just to get up and get going. I had to make that effort or I'd disappear up my own bum. Like after my accident.

I had a shower after tea and kissed Mum on the hair.

‘See you, love. Take care of yourself,' she said. I nodded, zipped up my Adidas jacket and walked around to Ashburn Street.

Rod Halloway's house looked exactly the same as it had last time I'd visited—about five years before. That rusty red Torana still sitting like a sculpture on the front lawn. The trees around it had grown and been cut back so you could get to the letterbox if you needed to. I don't think the grass around the car had been cut in those five years—some of the long stalks reached over the bonnet. The front verandah had been converted to a motorcycle workshop and the dim light filtering through the lounge window made the bits lying around look like pointy teeth and blackened bones in a horror flick. I twisted the ringer in the middle of the front door and Rod's sister, Tanya, opened it. Light and some lethal music flooded out from the hallway. Tanya's older than Rod and when we'd hung out in primary school, she had fussed over me worse than my mum. Her face lit up and she grabbed my hand.

‘He's here!' she shouted, and dragged me through to the kitchen. She bounced off the doorframe and giggled. ‘Look who I found!'

Griz smiled and nodded hello.

Rod was pouring a drink and he nearly lost it when he saw it was me. ‘It's my old mate, Wayne. How are you, brother?'

‘Going good, Rod. How are you?'

‘A little bit pissed and a tiny bit happy, I reckon,' he said.

Tanya still had my hand and she dragged me towards the lounge. ‘Angie!' she shouted, and waved her over. I reckon it was about half past eight and by the way Angie staggered over, she'd been drinking since three. Maybe she just had a low tolerance. Maybe she was stacking it on. She smiled and slapped Tanya's hand off mine. She grabbed
me. It would have been a hug but she lost her balance, I think, and she hung on for dear life. When she got her legs again she led me to the couch, threw me into the seat and sat on my lap. The heat from her bum passed straight through the thin material of her tracksuit pants and warmed my thighs. Got a bit of heat going nearby, too. I couldn't look at her face. She was staring at me with her arm over my shoulder but I watched Rod bringing some drinks through from the kitchen. He got Angie's attention by kneeing her in the arm and he handed one to her. The other one was for me.

‘What is it, Rod?' I shouted over the music.

‘Bundy.'

I raised my glass to him and he gave me the thumbs up. He walked back through to the kitchen then spun around digging in his pocket.

‘I think you might need these, too,' he said, and held out his closed hand. I put my glass down and took some crinkly plastic wrapping from him. A string of three condoms. He smiled. Angie saw what they were and jumped off my lap to pound him. I hid them in my pocket.

There was a battle raging in my head. I had the makings of a huge hard-on in my jeans and a woman on me that thought I was God's gift. What more could I want? I dunno but there was something missing. The drink Rod had made me must have been fifty-fifty. That's almost too much rum for my first drink of the night. Almost. It rolled around in my guts and made them ache. Made them rumble. Made them glow. He'd bought me another before my first was finished. I threw the dregs down, burped under my breath and handed him the empty glass.

Anna Tulesco arrived with Mario hanging onto her
hand. I wouldn't have guessed that those two were a couple. No way. They fought like ferals at school. Bizarre.

Angie sat beside me and shouted in my ear about what was going on. It was all stuff she'd told me at the library but that didn't matter. The Bundy was kicking in and my brain was sliding into party mode. I put my arm over her shoulder. Just then, a war cry rattled out of the stereo and Tanya raced into the lounge with her mouth open and hands outstretched to Angie. It was the Black Glass song ‘Angels In Heat' and they started dancing with each other like the girls on the film clip. Running their hands over each other's body and shaking their hair. Mate, the video clip is hot but those two were scorching. At one stage, Tanya had pushed Angie's jacket and shirt off her shoulder so I could see her black bra strap. Angie kicked her foot up and Tanya caught it and started biting on her toes. I heard Griz whoop from the kitchen and could see that his eyes were boggling out of his head. They would break for a breather and laugh at each other then slam back into it again.

 

‘The devil goes all weak with defeat,

All the burning fires of Hell can't compete,

With angels in heat.'

Anna was sitting with Mario at the other end of the couch shouting ‘Gross' and ‘You two are totally off'. Mario had his tongue hanging out. At the end of the solo, Tanya had her head right back so her hair was nearly touching the grubby carpet and Angie was holding her at the waist. Tanya threw her head forward so her hair fell over Angie's head. They couldn't see it in the kitchen but I watched
them kiss and I saw Tanya's hand squeeze Angie's breast as the song finished. Griz started clapping and I joined in. What a show. They bowed, giggled and Angie flopped down next to me.

‘That was hot,' I shouted in her ear.

‘Yeah, me and Tan are lezzos.'

‘Really?'

Her eyes couldn't hold focus on me and she bowed her head. I looked under her hair and she was smiling. ‘You dork. Why would I want to hang out with you if I was a lezzo?'

Good point. Still, I wasn't going to stand up for a few minutes and I prayed she wouldn't sit on my lap. As it was, she rested her head on my thighs. She said she was feeling a bit tired. She kept squeezing my knee, gently so I wouldn't notice unless I wanted to. I wanted to.

Rod and Tanya started having a shouting match in the kitchen and Griz came out to sit in the armchair next to me and Angie.

‘She giving you head or what?' he asked, and smiled.

Angie sat up and poked her tongue out at him.

He pulled a plastic bag out of his shirt pocket with a grubby hand. He waved it in front of my face. ‘Want one?'

There were four or five little yellow tablets in the bag. I held my hand up. ‘No thanks, mate. What are they?'

‘Ekkies. You'd love them, you know. It's not addictive and that. Just a good rush,' he said, and grabbed one out. ‘Twenty-five bucks each. I'll give you one if you want.'

‘No thanks, Griz.'

He shrugged and put the bag back into his pocket.

For one reason or another, that shocked me. Griz is pretty wild but I thought he had enough going on in his
life not to bother with that shit. I dunno. It just looked too easy. I needed to pee.

‘Where are you going?' Angie asked as I got up.

‘For a leak.'

‘Can I watch?' she asked, and her eyes lit up. I rolled my eyes and walked into the hall and down to the toilet. Tanya was already in there.

‘I won't be long,' she slurred.

I wasn't in a position to hang on so I went out the back door. There were no lemon trees but there was a stack of old paint cans covered in grass so I peed on them. It went on and on. The back door opened and Angie came down the back steps holding her stomach. She looked back up towards the house and, convinced that no-one was watching, dropped her tracksuit pants and squatted on the path.

I could see her back and her head looking at her feet. I couldn't smell anything, thank God, that would have been off. I could hear a hiss like a tap was running. I wanted to look but I didn't want to look. If she caught me, she'd be embarrassed and I'd die but I'd never seen a girl pee before. I'd spent a whole summer with Kerry, some of it naked in the surf and I hadn't seen her pee.

Then it was over. She held her pants out of the way, jiggled and wriggled then pulled them up. I'm glad she didn't see me as she turned to go back inside. I shook the last drops off and tucked myself away, only to feel more pee dribble into my undies. God, I hate that. I looked down and in the light falling into the backyard from the kitchen I could see a wet patch on the front of my jeans the size of a twenty-cent piece. I pulled my jacket down but it was too short to cover it up. I rubbed it with the palm of my hand
but that didn't work. One time when it had happened at the Pizza House, I'd dried the spot out with the automatic hand drier. Not a chance of that here. It was so bloody obvious. Bugger it, it happens to everyone. Every bloke, anyway.

Angie wasn't in the lounge. Or the kitchen.

‘Where's Angie?' I asked Tanya.

‘I think she went to the toilet.'

She wasn't in the toilet either.

‘Psssst.'

I spun around and Angie grabbed my hand and dragged me into a darkened bedroom. It smelt clean like a flower. She kissed me. Stuck her tongue right into my mouth. She rolled me onto the bed and pressed her hot body onto me.

I knew what was supposed to happen next. I was supposed to get a hard-on and after a bit of fumbling around, we'd do it, you know. Hard and hot and wet. That's where we were going but something happened. My head got all tangled. I didn't get a hard-on and my guts weren't sick but I felt like I was going to spew. I could feel my heart beating in my neck and there was nothing sexy about it. I knew what was supposed to happen. I knew how I was supposed to smile after the act. I knew what my mates were supposed to say and everything but in the broken blue light coming from the street, Angie looked like a zombie. I freaked. She kissed me again and it felt like I was kissing a dead thing. Not that I have kissed a dead thing, but it didn't feel right. I rolled her off me and sat up.