Brenton
itumeleng kganyago
Shea
Always Eighteen
AhmedGreat: Part 4 (FINAL)
February 19th 2007 02:46
Dutch shakes me to wake me up. I open my eyes.
Myeh hemm, I say.
Hey. Hey, Coby. Wake up.
Mmm, I say. My eyes peel back open. I blink at her.
Um, she says, I’m going to work now. I’d like you come with me to my office and just meet a few people. Then you can do whatever you want for the rest of the day. I’ll give you money enough for a trip home, and you can catch a train. How’s that?
I give a groggy mumbled, right-o.
We have to leave in fifteen minutes, she goes. I don’t have many spare clothes, but there’s a shirt you can borrow. It’s on that chair. I’ve also got you some breakfast set up. Bacon and eggs, on the table.
She points. I nod, and put my head back down, for a few more seconds of peace.
Coby! She yells. I wake again, with a shock to my centre and yell something incoherent.
We have to leave. In six minutes, she says pointing to her watch. Shirt is on the chair. Hurry up.
I pull myself off the couch. I want to know how my sudden escape from monotony has become another trap on the foul smelling flypaper of suburbia. I want to know how my first sexual experience in a hundred years turned into late night French Sex Before Soccer.
I drag myself up to my feet, picking up the blanket and shoving it in a heap back up on the couch, and walk over to the shirt. It’s not bad. White, with the Holden H on the front. I pull off my other shirt. It’s rank with the stench of sweat. My body is laced with the same black perfume. A toxic gas dripping down my greasy chicken skin.
Do you have any Deodorant? I say.
No, she says.
What about perfume?
Yeah, why?
I don’t know, but I think she’s uncomfortable with me standing around bare-chested. There’s not a good deal I can do to remedy it though.
I smell really bad, I say, and I don’t think I’ll have time for a shower.
She walks off for a bit, and I just stand around doing bugger all. It’s not hard. I’ve had a lot of practice. She returns, chucks me a blue spraycan.
Cheers, I say.
Sorry if it’s no good, she goes. It’s the most masculine I could find.
Doesn’t matter, I say, as I spray it on. A foul mandarin peel smell pongs out, but I’d be lying to say it wasn’t an improvement. I chuck on the Holden shirt and hold up the other.
Where should I put this, I ask.
Take it with you. Are you ready to go? She says. We need to move fast.
I’m ready… I have no shoes… just thongs.
Whatever. That’s fine. Jesus… you didn’t eat your breakfast...
I’m sorry…
Take it with you. Grab the plate and knife and fork, and meet me in the car. Fast. I can’t afford to be late. Understand?
It would seem her irritation has grown into
Yeah, I say.
Good. Hurry.
She zooms out the door, and I rush to grab breakfast, shoving the cutlery into my pocket. I feel like crying. This girl I so adored as soon as we met… she’s turned into smoke. I can’t touch her, I can’t be close to her. I can’t live with her – I can go… well, home really. This was all a mistake. A pleasant one, mind, but you have to know when something wasn’t meant to be. This was never a good idea.
I open the car door, bacon and eggs plate in one hand (plus tomato, a cheerful fact previously overlooked) door handle in the other. As I open the door the plate tilts and the egg slips off, hitting the ground with a tiny yellow explosion. I swear, and Dutch gives me a quick unhappy look.
What? she says.
Nothing, I say, sitting into my seat, fork prongs sticking into my leg. I ignore them. She starts the car and begins backing.
I just dropped the egg on the gravel, I say. Sorry.
She shrugs. Your loss, she says.
We pull up onto the road. I use the knife and fork at first, but it’s not much successful. I resort to fingers. I’m disgracing myself, I’m well certain, in front of Dutch, but she seems to be unhappy enough with my presence as is. I’m not worried about losing a few more pages in her good books.
She puts in a CD, ignoring the crap on the radio. Something Good Must Come is the first song. It’s nice. Optimistic. Pleasant.
I’m either grinning because it’s nice, or grimacing because it’s ironic. I’m not certain which.
Look, she says… and pauses, a long pause. She sighs. I… I’m really sorry about saying come live with me, then kicking you out. I’m very impulsive, and that leaves me in trouble sometimes, you know?
OK, I say.
I don’t mean to be a bitch, she says, and looks at my greasy fingers. Do you want a tissue?
Ah yes please, I say. It occurs to me I actually would have rather not been a grub in front of Dutch.
Sorry about being a grot, I say.
Whatever. It can’t be easy using knives and forks in a car.
Yeah.
We turn a corner. There’s a bit of a jam, but Dutch is cool with it. She’s chilling. Must have accounted for travel time already. I pick at a nail.
Who did you want me to meet? I ask.
Oh? Oh, yes. Just some colleagues and that.
Of course, that’s when I get it. She never needed me to meet anyone. All she needed was for me to leave the house. She just didn’t know a better way to say it.
Eventually we pull up at her workplace, a little place called Ice-Kore. It has a huge substandard sign stuck above it in collapsing chipboard. She parks in one of the [Employee Only] spaces, and pulls the door open, stepping out. I do likewise.
What do I do with the plate and stuff? I say. She shrugs. Leave it in the car, she says. I slam the door, a little too hard, and we move towards the substandard entrance of the substandard little firm.
We enter the room. An Antarctic breeze blows out from the aircon in the corner, rattling away with a throaty mechanical gurgle.
Come this way, she says, and leads me over to a desk.
What do you do here? I ask.
Website design management.
You make sites?
I plan sites. This guy makes them. Andrew! she calls. Andy!
Andrew (presumably) turns and looks at us. He is a scrawny, ugly fellow, with a devils goatee and mo plastered across his bony face. He smiles at me. Teeth like a Colegate ad.
Hey, I’m Andrew, he says, in a deep gurgle, and points his hand out. I shake it and he crushes me, a hard, arrogant masculine grip, designed to intimidate.
Andrew is the Alpha geek around here, says Dutch. No site he can’t make.
I wouldn’t be anywhere without Miss Mary here, he says. Dutch fakes flattery. I have no imagination, he says. I need her mind to cook me up some challenges.
Oh, I say.
A young woman walks in. She’s Japanese. Dutch’s face takes on a new, incomprehensible expression.
Hanako! she says.
Sana turns and looks at Dutch, then at me.
Ah, she says.
This is the gentleman I was telling you about the other night, she says, although this is already blatant to myself and Sana.
Pleased to meet you, she says, with imperfect pronunciation. Coby, am I correct?
Yeah, I say. How’s it going.
I am very well, thank you. Do you like the office?
Yeah… I don’t know… I’m more of an outside person.
Ah, OK, I see.
Dutch turns to me. Are you ready to go home? she asks.
I’m not, of course, by a long shot, but I nod and say yes. She reaches into her wallet and pulled out a twenty, offering to me. I want to decline, but I’ve hardly the cash to eat, let alone find transport home so I accept with a soft thank you. Honor seems a privilege of the wealthy.
I stand around for a few moments.
May I have your number? I say.
No, she says.
No, she says.
Oh, I say, and with that, it seems that everything has been said, and something else inside of me, an emotion that feels like a soft white rabbit curls up and dies. I leave the room, twenty dollars still crunched up in my fist.
I’m not at all certain where I’m going. I don’t care. I walk up to the road, don’t look once let alone twice, just cross it, regardless of cars, striding arrogantly towards the traffic island. Nothing hits me, and I feel almost disappointed. I want to punch somebody, or kill something, or set something on fire or whatever. I’m about to cross the next just as carelessly, but I stop as a car zooms past. Foul swear words drip out from the embittered and gloomy insides of my brain, to hiss out in a venomous pointless muttered rant. I’m in a park, surrounded by people. They all suck. They can all go rack off and die.
Groceries.
A tree is just beside me as I remember, and it cops my wrath, my already damaged shoe kicking it with what weight can muster. I swear loudly. Parents maneuver their kids strategically as far away from me as possible. I turn, storming towards the substandard Ice-Kore, where deteriorating chipboard snows down.
I go up to Dutch’s car, tug violently on the door handle, but it’s locked.
I turn, walking towards the door, and knock. Dutch, and the rest of the room turn, looking at me. Sana touches her arm, saying something and Andrew observes me with seemingly homicidal intent. Slowly, Dutch walks towards me, opens the door.
Hi, she says.
I need my groceries, I say.
Oh. Right. She leaves the room, and walks to the car. I follow. She jams the key into the hole, turning it. The lock clicks open, and she opens the back door for me, where my two bags still sit. I stuff the twenty dollars into a pocket, grab them, turn, barely acknowledging Dutch, and walk off.
Coby, she says. Her eyes are red. She’s been crying. The words – it’s your own bloody fault – come into my head. Of course, she may not have been crying. She may have a fever. And if she is, it’s only narcissism that tells me it’s definitely about me. She may have just heard her cat died, or her mother was stabbed. Whatever.
She struggles for a few moments, holding my attention, but not really certain what to do with it.
She says, have a nice day.
I feel like saying rack off and die.
But of course that would be rude.
I say thank you.
And I go.
It was never my intention here to depress you. This was never meant to be a ‘weepie.’ At any cost, I’d still consider myself far too much an unsympathetic protagonist for anyone to entirely empathize.
Right now, I’m sitting dejected on a hill, aiming imaginary snipers at the City Cats to silence their droning engines. A Korean girl in a Hello Kitty shirt wanders past, and I consider flirting with her, but it’s hardly worth it.
I’m not going back. Not back home. This place is the first shot I’ve had at anything good in a long time, and I’m going to hold on like buggery. Maybe I’ll find a job. Maybe sometime I’ll rock up to Ice-Kore and make amends with Dutch. Maybe I’ll ring Gary and take him doofing, or mum and take her shopping. Or whatever.
Right now though I’m just sitting, just aiming imaginary rifles at boats, bored and bitter in the middle of a new chance called Brisbane.
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