Brenton
itumeleng kganyago
Shea
Always Eighteen
AhmedGreat: Part Three
February 17th 2007 07:29
She opens the door and steps inside I follow. She has a small room, with cupboards and a bed. To one side is a kitchen. To the other is a bathroom and toilet, along with a washing machine. That’s all.
Clothes lie on the ground. A bra sticks out from under the bed. A small pile of plates lean beside the sink. There are cracks in the ceiling. Her tiny dinner table has scratches down the side.
She walks over to her bed and sits on it.
I feel so rooted. I hate driving, she says.
I can understand that.
At least you got a sleep.
Mmm.
She looks at me, quizzically, and almost embarrassed.
I’m sorry, she says. I never asked. What’s your name?
Coby, I say. Rhymes with Obi Wan Kenobi. I pause for a second.
I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten, I add. What’s yours?
Mine?
Yeah.
What do you want it to be?
I dunno.
Come on. Give us a name. Name me. Something good.
Like what?
I don’t know. Use some imagination.
I give the matter a few moments of consideration. I play with words and sounds. I look at her. Her hair is a charcoal black, halfway to her shoulders. Her face is gently tanned. Her earlobes are disconnected, and cute. Her nose is kind of Chinese. And then there’s the eyes – those big beautiful brown eyes. You can’t miss them.
I’ve got a name, I say. But I don’t imagine you’ll like it.
Try me.
Dutch.
Dutch?
Yeah.
Why?
I dunno. The word just seemed to suit you. I guess.
Hmm.
She pats the bed beside her.
Come down here. Sit.
I sit down beside her. She gives a tiny grin.
Nervous?
A little, I admit.
Don’t be.
She takes a hold of my hand, and we run our fingers through each others. She leans up, and kisses my cheek.
I put my hand on her leg, and feel the shock of sudden human contact. I close my eyes as she pushes her fingers into my hair, pulls my face close and kisses me. Our lips mesh together, and I move my hands up over her leg across her stomach. One of her hands remains entwined in my hair, gripping our mouths together, the other sliding down my back. My hand slides up her ribs, towards…
The phone rings.
Uh huh. She pulls herself from my embrace, and looks at me apologetically.
Sorry, she says. I wave a dismissive hand, pretending like I don’t care. She picks up the phone.
Hello, she says, then closes her eyes in a pained expression as the person on the other end replies. She covers the end for a moment.
It’s my mother she says, then returns to the conversation. Yes, mum, I do have someone here… Coby… no, he’s white…I don’t know mum, I didn’t ask… hang on, let’s see… She looks directly at me. Are you a rapist? she asks.
What?
Are you a serial rapist or murderer?
No.
Thank you. She returns to the phone conversation.
I stare at her wall. There’s a single poster of some half naked Indian, coated with a gentle film of dust. I turn to the other wall, which is empty. On the ground lies an empty bottle of rum, which is a promising sign. Dutch leans over me, to a table, and grabs a notebook and pen.
Yes, she says. I know. Christmas time. No. No. Mum, you don’t need to know that. No, I’m sorry I’m serious. No. No mum, that was like, Switzerland or something. Australian condoms don’t cause cancer. Yes. Yes I will. Mum, I don’t… no, mum, I really don’t need to know that. Yes. In the fridge, yes. No, not near seafood.
She makes a face signaling desperation, and flashes the notebook at me.
Sorry I might be a while, it says. Feel free 2 go exploring the house or the street or whatever.
Is she crazy? It’s almost pitch dark outside.
Yes mum, she’s saying. No. Who? He’s gay. Who? Him? He’s not the gay one. Is he? Jesus. I never would have guessed it.
I walk slowly through the house, dusty, stale, mouldy. I look in her cupboard, beside the TV. A Six Feet Under DVD, but no DVD player. Four videos called ‘Mary and Tom/Pete/Andrew/Sana.
I walk into her bathroom. Messy. A used tampon lies in a corner, but I ignore it. There’s antidepressants in the cupboard.
I walk through the kitchen. Messy, again. Spots of bacon splattered across the grill. The fridge is empty. I look behind me and see her cleaning up in her room, as she talks. Nearby is the door outside. I open it.
The night is cold, and discomforting, and suddenly I’m reminded of home. I wonder what’s going to happen to my house. Bills to be paid. Rates. Electricity maybe, if I’ve left a light on or something. Maybe I could ring my mum, get her to help. Or Gary. He’d be overjoyed with the opportunity to feel useful.
You can’t, mum, says Dutch, walking past. Not from a swimming pool. No. But that’s different mum…
I walk down the short flight of stairs. The slick air of the Summer night warms my head. Headlights fly by on the roads outside, on a noisy journey down a river of darkness. Above an Adult Store, a kitsch neon swirl entices flying creatures to an early death..
The road is a living thing. Everyone has somewhere to go. People to see. Wives to take for granted. Kids to ignore.
I reach my hand out, and wave it in the sweaty silk of the night heat. Right now I feel suspended, like I’m held up in a massive liquid sphere, stuck gently to the end of the universe, rotating on a chameleon’s eye. This is surreal. I smile.
Yes. I smile. For the first time since the world froze over, I crack a smile, a real, honest smile. It’s only for a moment, just until I step in something that’s either vomit or sewerage, but nevertheless it’s a spark of joy in an otherwise dark vortex. I began this day in a bed surrounded by rubbish, with no hope pining for someone who was never mine in the first place. Right now, it’s cold, I’m almost lost, I can’t see properly, and whatever I stepped it smells pretty bad. But you know what? Being here now, like this - it isn’t perfect, or even necessarily good. In fact, it still kinda sucks. But it’s still better than what I had before.
And for now, that’s enough.
My legs begin to ache. Time, I decide, to return. I look across the road. Far off in the distance, like a sacrilegious star of Bethlehem, I can see the glittering pink of the Adult Shop’s swirl.
It’s easy to get mixed up on the way back. I walk past Dutch’s house two or three times before arriving, banging my knee on her car. I look up, into her window.
I see her put the phone down and sit on her bed. She slumps her head in her hands, then looks up. I see her mouth shape a swear word, and she punches a pillow.
It’s not right for me to see this, I decide. I walk up her small concrete stairs, nearly tripping on a smirking garden gnome. I knock. Dutch opens. She has wiped the stress off her face and returned to her happy self, like some kind of emotional chameleon.
You’re back a bit late, she says.
Got lost.
Come in.
I follow her in. She’s set up the couch like a bed, pillow, sheets and quilts. Not great, but I’ve slept on worse.
This is where you can sleep, she says.
Oh. I say. And it’s a stark ‘oh’ a very stark and surprised one, because I’d been under the impression I’d be sleeping quite a bit closer to her. Romantic visions of waking up together fizzle into oblivion.
I’m going to bed now, she says motioning to her room. I want you to say out of it. It’s my private space in there OK?
Um, OK, I say.
This was never on the cards. This loneliness and isolation was never what this was all about. Alienation. We were never meant to feel like the strangers that we are.
I’m serious, she says. I’m sorry, I hope I haven’t led you on or anything, but I’m really… I’ve had some time to think about it all, and it just… I’m not as comfortable with this whole arrangement as I was at first. I’m sorry. I can’t go and… Jesus. I feel like an idiot. I don’t know. I can’t ask you to leave after coming here but… would you be able to go back home… sometime quite soon? I mean, it’s all my fault and that but… I wou… I need you to move out very soon. OK?
OK, I say, (though of course it isn’t) My heart has melted into a puddle of sap and tar.
The TV is OK if you want to watch it, she says. I’m going to bed so… you can put it quietly. There’s not a real lot to do here. Kind of… you know how it is. I’m… I’ll see you in the morning.
She goes into her bedroom, closes the door. I slump into the couch. Things are grey again. After a while she’s talking. The telephone cord winds into her room.
I watch TV, quietly for a while. Big Brother. Soaps. God-in-the-Box. Something sexual and French on SBS.
I can’t stay, of course. That has been made painfully clear. Even more painfully clear is that I can’t leave. I can’t go back home, no way on Earth. This has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t leave this all behind. I don’t feel dead anymore.
If I had actually gotten around to cutting my wrists, as had been ambiguously placed in my mental things to do list, it would have been like the final death of many would be complete. My body withering away and dying like my soul had done so long ago. The body, the chuck of crappy flesh, my ‘mortal coil’ so to speak would be the last thing to go. A shell, a hollowed out shell, to revert to the kitsch of a cliché.
I stare into the TV. The buzz of sound, the flashes of coloured light. This brain numb. Back to SBS. French talking. Subtitles. Move to ABC. A man shot in the head. It’s the news. We see the Prime Minister. Big Brother is over. Ads. Phones. Crazy Frog.
I lie back and turn off the telly. It’s dark. A light and a mumble flow out from under Dutch’s door. I try not to think at all but I end up just staring into the blackness that has no end.
IMAGE by Chiwalou.
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