Loaded

by Christos Tsiolkas

  Two rings for two grams of speed. Phil is a small-time dealer with a bad case of paranoia. Every time he walks out of his house he scans the street for cops and whenever he hears a helicopter up above he looks out the window to make sure it’s not hovering over his house. I couldn’t live so tense. No drug is worth it. The phone makes him nervous and that’s why I have to ring a few times in a row, so he knows it’s not a bugged phone call. He’s organising getting a beeper so we can communicate in numbered code. It would be a good thing. Relax him a little.

  I walk to the cash machine on Bridge Road and take out one hundred and fifty dollars. I buy a packet of cigarettes, not exchanging a word with the woman at the milk bar, just pointing to the fags I want, and still listening to the music on my machine. I spend fifteen minutes in a newsagent flicking through magazines. I read a couple of music magazines and scan the pictures in Time. I beat time with my shoe to the music.

  The Walkman is my favourite toy. It creates a soundtrack for me and lets me slip into walking through a movie. The tape I’ve got on at the moment I put together the other week at my cousin’s house. A few sad songs, a few fast songs, a few songs I never heard of but I liked the look of the CD covers.

  This is an up tape, it makes me walk faster, keeps me at a distance from the people brushing past me. I like music. More than that, I love music but I’m definite in my tastes. Soul. Hard rock and punk. I listen to heaps. Heavy metal is mostly shit though some thrash metal is okay (on speed or after a few bongs). Rap I like. Of course. Some disco, not high-energy, but house. Jazz means nothing to me because I can’t understand it. I love Greek music but only the old stuff. I’m definite in my tastes.

  On this tape I’m listening to I have the Jackson Five doing ‘I want you back’. This is a supreme moment in music history, even if I’m the only one in the world who knows it. On one of my tapes I have one side of the cassette playing only that song. When things aren’t going so well I play that cassette over and over and just walk around the city or walk around Richmond. I sit on a rock by the river throwing bread to the ducks, letting a young Michael Jackson cheer me up. In the three minutes it takes the song to play I’m caught in a magic world of harmony and joy, a truly ecstatic joy, where the aching longing to be somewhere else, out of this city, out of this country, out of this body and out of this life, is kept at bay. I relive those three minutes again and again till I’m calm enough to walk back into life again. I can’t meditate in silence, I haven’t got the patience. I meditate to music; I need something else going on.

  The old Greek men are playing cards in the coffee shops. A group of rich kids from the eastern suburbs swirl around me, shopping for clothes. I walk down a side street and into the commission estate. An old Vietnamese woman stands on her balcony watching the children play basketball in the car park. I keep walking straight ahead, avoiding looking at anyone. Three Polynesian boys sit around listening to rap on their sound machine, smoking cigarettes, passing a joint around. I cross the car park and walk up Phil’s street.

  I knock twice at Phil’s door and call out for him. Phil, it’s Ari. He won’t open the door if he doesn’t recognise the voice. I walk into his lounge room, sniffing the incense, the nicotine and the dope. A young woman in a black singlet and tight black pants is sitting on a pillow against the wall. She’s out of it. A man has his arm around her and he offers me his hand when I come in. I shake it and sit down on a pillow opposite them. Ari, this is Barbara and Gary. I nod, take out a cigarette and light it. A slow reggae song is coming from the stereo and the walls in the small lounge room are covered in prints from Asia and from the Pacific. Maori prints. Indian prints. Koorie prints. There is also a framed poster of James Dean in Giant. The one in which he is smoking a cigarette, cowboy hat on, his feet on the dashboard. I look back at the couple opposite and the woman has nodded off. I try to start a conversation.

  –Doing anything tonight, Phil? He isn’t. He still hasn’t slept from the night before, and his skin is bursting out in rashes and lines cover his face. I’m still coming down, man. He offers me a joint and I take in a deep drag. It rushes through my body and I sink deeper into my pillow. I hate making small talk during a drug deal but with Phil it is unavoidable. We talk a little more about going out, reggae bands which I know shit about and his upcoming trip to Thailand. I pretend to be interested in all of it. Gary doesn’t help much. After a few attempts at talking, his mouth and lips trying to form intelligible words, he gives up and settles into a sleep next to his girlfriend. Phil gets up and goes out the back to get my deal. I look through the records and the CDs. Mostly reggae, a little bit of Cat Stevens and Led Zeppelin, a couple of twelve-inches, but I can’t find anything I like. I settle for the soundtrack from Altered States and turn the volume up. Good music for the smackheads on the couch.

  Phil comes back in and I follow him into his bedroom. I pass him the joint and jump onto his bed. He throws the two bags of white powder onto my stomach and I pick them up and look at them. It looks like a gram in each. I grab my wallet and give him a hundred dollars. The deal done, I’m eager to get out, but it would seem rude. I lie back and let him talk. He talks about India, about opium dens in Kashmir and he lightly brushes his hands across my thighs and under my T-shirt. He rubs my groin and balls but he’s not turning me on. I don’t move away until he tries to pull down my trousers. He doesn’t mind. He moves away as well and searches under the bed for something, pulling out a tin box wrapped in an old T-shirt. Do you want to blast some now?

  –I thought you were going to sleep.

  –There’s a band on this afternoon at the pub down the street. He mentions some Koori band who play awful country and western. Want to come? I refuse and tell him I have to go home soon. The good Greek boy, eh, he laughs and leaves the room. I don’t really want to hit up but the dope is strong and making me lethargic. Something to pull me up would be good. I’ve already refused sex with him, so I figure I might as well share a hit. He brings back a spoon and pulls out two syringes, two swabs and a vial of sterile water. I get a little apprehensive looking at the gear. I don’t blast shit often. It scares my friends.

  He hands me his belt and I tie it around my forearm. From his bedside table I pick up a large Buddha and use it to flex the muscles in my arm until I can see the veins appearing. Phil grabs a packet of powder from the tin box and asks me how much I want. It looks around two grams worth to me and I say a quarter. He nods and prepares the mixture. It’s speed, not smack, and I know it won’t kill me but I can’t help feeling anxious. I see an image of my father coming in to find his son slumped dead over a needle. I wonder what would happen if the nerves linking my brain, my heart and my lungs malfunction and the drug bursts my body apart.

  Phil takes my arm and I watch him feel for a strong vein. He punctures the skin, I don’t feel any pain, and I watch a few drops of blood enter the syringe. He pushes the liquid through the needle and into my vein and I loosen the belt. He hands me a swab and while I’m brushing the antiseptic onto the puncture the drug jumps into my brain. My skin, my hair are charged with electricity and I can feel every cell in my body form myriad patterns. My inner body becomes a kaleidoscope. The rush dissipates, I remove the swab and get to my feet.

  –Feeling good? asks Phil. Feeling good, I answer and stand still for a moment, trying to regain some balance. I grow conscious of the music on the stereo and concentrate on the discordant electronic notes. I walk into the bathroom and look at my eyes, my face in the mirror. The skin seems to be stretched back, following the contours of my skull. I look thin, and I brush my fingers along my stubble. I can feel every hair. In the bedroom Phil is shooting up and I wait for him to finish, then help him clean up the mess. I stick my two grams worth of drugs in my cigarette packet and wave Phil goodbye. He lies on the bed, playing with his cock. He says ciao and asks me to get him a cigarette. I throw him one of mine and get out of the place quick. Outside the sun is white hot, reflecting off the car bonnets and making the street shimm
er. I jump into the sunshine and light a cigarette. I look down at my vein. A clean hit. You can hardly tell.

  Speed is exhilaration. Speed is colours reflecting light with greater intensity. Speed, if it’s good, can take me higher than I can ever go, higher than my natural bodily chemicals can take me. Speed, they say, is cheap shit; putting amphetamines mixed with Ajax up your nose, in your veins. Speed, my friends and the drug handbooks they give you in school say, and the people on heroin say, is cheap, nasty. Good high, terrible low.

  I say speed is exhilaration. I walk up Lennox Street to Bridge Road and the Pelaco factory where Mum used to work shines harsh white against a luminous blue sky. Speed is extra pumps for my heart, the drug grabs me by the throat and reaches down for my balls. On speed I like to stand under the shower for half-an-hour, just after the effect has come on, feel the water belting me.

  On speed I like to fuck. Fucking with lots of touching. Feel every hair on their body, on my body. On speed I want to enclose myself in folds of warm, vibrating skin. On speed I want to penetrate. On speed, when my dick is soft, it is wrinkled and petite. Erect, on speed, all the blood in my body seems to rush and meet at one point, pulsate at one point. I can push it through my clenched fist, a tight sphincter. No pain, just exhilaration. Speed is exhilaration.

  On speed I feel macho but not aggressive. I’m friendly to everyone. Speed evaporates fear. On speed I dance with my body and my soul. In this white powder they’ve distilled the essence of the Greek word kefi. Kefi is the urge to dance, to be with good friends, to open your arms to life. Straight, I can approximate kefi, but I am always conscious of fighting off boredom. Speed doesn’t let you get bored.

  Coming down off speed requires preparation. You feel the headache beginning, the jaw hurts. And time stands still. Sitting in the lounge room slowly looking through photo albums, it seems it takes an hour for the cigarette to reach the ashtray, an hour for it to come back to your mouth. I drink lots of water, try to piss, try to enjoy what’s happening to my body. Experiencing the body as if it is working in slow-mo. Coming down I masturbate, lying in bed, the sheets and blankets at my feet, watching myself wank. In slow motion. Using lots of spit or Vaseline or baby lotion or Mum’s face cream. Take it slowly, my dick feeling raw, sore, and when I blast, the headache, the sore jaw, the clenched teeth, all the pain of coming down explodes out of my body through my dick. Out in the drops of come falling on my chest, on the sheets. I don’t move for five minutes, ten minutes, half-an-hour, let it dry in white crystal patterns across my naked body. Enjoy the release; then get up, take a piss, snatch one or two or three of Dad’s Valiums and fall slowly asleep.

  I’m walking down Lennox Street, the Pelaco sign burning into my eyes. I feel so high that I feel I can touch that sign. No boredom, just exhilaration.

  My perfect tape, the tape I listen to the most, is two years old. A collection culled from my records, Peter’s records, friends’ records. Side A: I Want You Back, Jackson 5; Lost in Music, Sister Sledge; Little Red Corvette, Prince; I Got You, Split Enz; Everything She Wants, Wham; Broken English, Marianne Faithfull; Gimme Shelter, Rolling Stones; Funkin’ for Jamaica, Tom Brown; Cloudy Sunday, Sotiria Bellou. Side B: Living for the City, Stevie Wonder; Temptation, Heaven 17; Walk Away Renée, Four Tops; Going Back to Cali, L.L. Cool J; Legs, ZZ Top; Man in Uniform, Gang of Four; Walk This Way, Run DMC; Like a Prayer, Madonna; The Road, Manos Loizos. Not necessarily my favourite songs, not a tape I planned. A tape I put together over several days. But it has become my soundtrack to happiness. A soundtrack that goes nicely with speed, with summer.

  Little sister, don’t you do what your big brother done. When I get home Dad has gone to the coffee shop, Mum is talking to her sister on the phone and Alex is dancing to Elvis Presley in the lounge room. I move around her a little, then lift her up high till she can touch the ceiling and give her a big kiss on the cheek. She looks right into my eyes and grins. Brother flying high, is he? I nod and she continues dancing. I wait till the song playing has finished and then put the needle onto ‘Little Egypt’. I sit on the couch and watch Alex dance to the song through half-closed eyes. This is my favourite Presley song.

  Mum comes into the room. I can remember when this song came out, she says, sounding like she is bragging. As if I care. If she had written the song, or performed it, that would be a different matter. She joins my sister in the dance and I start giggling uncontrollably. They both dance well, gyrating their hips and waving their arms, doing a tsiftiteli. I’m going to have a shower, I say, and grab a towel and my radio from my room.

  The hot water on my body gives the speed high a second rush and I sing along to whatever song comes on the radio. When I’m finished washing I brush my teeth in the shower and piss into the drain. My cock is shrivelled. I try to get a hard-on but I’m too high. Instead I do some push-ups and sit-ups in the bathroom. When I’m finished I look at my naked body in the mirror. I’m in alright shape, my legs are good, but I could do with some tightening up around the stomach. I do a few more sit-ups then brush my hair back with some coconut oil. The speed flushes through my body in another wave and in the mirror my eyes shine, my lips tremble.

  I lie on the bed in my room and smoke a cigarette listening to soul on the radio. I put the volume up loud to drown out Alex’s music in the lounge. I can’t lie down for long and jump up and try on two or three T-shirts for the night out. I end up choosing a plain white T-shirt, put on some jeans. I keep putting on and taking off a black vest, looking at myself in the mirror from every angle to see what I look like. Side on I prefer the T-shirt without the vest. Front on the vest looks good on me. I end up taking off the vest and putting a badge over my right tit. Felix the Cat. A seventies disco number by Aretha Franklin comes on the radio and I turn it up as loud as I can without distortion. Mum bangs on the door and tells me to turn it down. I peek out my door and ask her if she feels like a whisky. She shakes her head, then smiles and goes off to the kitchen. I comb my hair into shape and go out into the lounge room.

  –Why are you wearing that stupid badge? I ignore Alex and go grab my whisky and sit down in the kitchen with Mum. What are you going to do tonight? I ask her.

  –Depends if your dad comes home early from the kafenio. Maybe we’ll visit your aunt. I cradle the glass in my hand. It bothers me that Mum has to wait for Dad before she goes out, as if she’s not an adult and can’t make a decision on her own. But she won’t listen to me so I decide not to push the issue. I think you should go on your own, is all I can say. She touches my hand and takes a hit of whisky from her glass. What are you up to tonight?

  Dumb question. She knows I’m only going to sketch in a few details for her. I’ll go out with Joe, meet some people. I change the conversation.

  –Mum, I want to go to Greece.

  –With what money? Hers and Dad’s, of course. I don’t have any. But I don’t say that.

  –With whatever I can scrounge up. Don’t you want me to go? Dad would want me to go.

  –Your father would want to go with you. She pours herself another drink and lights a cigarette. I grab one from her pack. Mum, I’ve been thinking about it. I’d really like to go, don’t you want me to go?

  –Of course I’d like you to go. But when, how, where you going to get your money, manoula mou? You have to get a job first. I’m not put off by her mentioning work. I’m enjoying our chat. When I’m speeding, when Mum’s drinking, we can converse like normal people, without getting heated and uptight with each other.

  –Mum, there’s no work here. Maybe I can get work in Greece. My mother looks sad. Please, Ari mou, don’t say that. I don’t want the family to split up. I couldn’t stop worrying if you were in Greece forever. It wouldn’t be forever, I answer. I cannot envisage forever, I’m thinking more a couple of years living in a different country, meeting new people, getting excited about unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells. Also a couple of years away from the family and all their hang-ups and expectations. I can’t say that of course. It
wouldn’t be forever, I answer. Just a year or so.

  –Ari, why don’t you go back to school. You are going to be twenty next year. An adult and you still don’t have a plan for your life.

  I butt out my cigarette and sit back in the kitchen chair looking at my mother. I don’t know what to answer her. I could go back to school, I could try and get some shit job cleaning toilets in a hospital somewhere, or disappear in some office labyrinth in the city somewhere, doing a job that a computer could do faster and better than me anyway. A computer wouldn’t have an attitude problem. I try to put some words together, and though I know what I want to say, I can’t make my lips move. I don’t want a life like she has. And I don’t want the life she wants for me. I hear Alex in the next room trying to find a song on an old record. She lands the needle on the vinyl with a small scratch. If you’re going to play my records, take care of them, I yell at her. She ignores me and turns up the volume. Mum finishes her glass and gets up, humming to the song. Tom Waits. I sing along with her. I sit on the kitchen bench and take up the telephone, dialling and listening to my mother sing in her deep tone, and Alex’s voice, shrill in the background.

  –Australeza, I tease my mum. She hits me lightly across my legs. Wog, she calls me.

  It is night outside the kitchen window and with the warm whisky in my stomach, the speed in my veins, I’m keen to move from the house and into the big world outside. Joe sounds half-asleep on the phone so I keep the conversation short and simple. What time should I come over? I ask. Ten, he says. There is a pause. Dina is coming as well. Fine, I say. I don’t feel fine about it. It means that she’ll bring along some dumb cousin and we’ll have to end up going somewhere woggy. Where do you want to go? he asks me.

  –Hold on. Alex, I yell. My sister comes into the kitchen. Where are you going tonight? She mentions some club in Brunswick. We’ll drive you, I tell her, and get back to the phone. How about the Retreat? I say. Joe’s voice picks up. Yeah, good idea, he says. He’s scared I’m going to introduce Dina to faggot joints in the inner city and open her mind. I’m not interested in expanding Dina’s mind at all, but I’m concerned that Joe is closing off his. A distant laugh comes from the receiver. Who’s there? No one, Joe replies, Mum and Dad are watching a Greek movie. Some shit comedy. Okay, I say, see you at ten. I start dialling immediately. Mum, I say, watching her prepare a salad, there’s a Greek movie on TV. I’ve seen it, she says, looking a little unsteady on her feet. Watch the knife, I say to her. She’s cutting thin slices of tomato and she’s on her third whisky.