Green

by Nick Earls

  Then she said that was irony and I said, ‘Like coolers? and she said, ‘What’s ironic about coolers?’

  She made up for it with favourite superhero power. Mine was invisibility—useful, but very run-of-the-mill. Hers was the ability to detach both arms before going to bed. She couldn’t name a single superhero with that power, but she said she was sure there must be one. At least one. How many superheroes do you see going to bed anyway?

  ‘Think about it. You’ve got to admit they get in the way,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to admit arms are a big mistake when it comes to sleeping.’

  So I agreed. ‘Very much a daytime body part, the arms,’ I said. ‘You’ve got me with that one.’

  I’ve got to watch this. If I apply the Frank Green Spoiler Checklist:

  Sensitive childhood stories: tick

  Funny voices: tick

  Poetry: big fat tick

  How’s Clinton looking?

  She made me do the poetry. And the Underground was simply a chance to talk without the pressure to jump into or out of a chicken suit, a chance to have a conversation that could run for an hour or so instead of being segmented across an evening. We are friends. So just friends that we talk about Clinton pretty regularly, and Phoebe sometimes too. Phoebe exists specifically so that we can talk, so that there are no doubts. No, Phoebe exists because of a bumbling accident on my part. It’s fine to convince myself I’m not out to white-ant Clinton, but there’s no rationalising Phoebe the imaginary girlfriend.

  And the worst-date stories? It’s taken me twenty-four hours to work it out. Mine was worst because I was such a Bernoulli dweeb. Hers was worst because the guy was psycho. I was the only one of us who ever caused a worst date. What makes me think I could white-ant Clinton if I tried?

  I’ve learned something, though. Sophie’s Sartre comment, her liking for coolers, probably also her liking for Huey Lewis and the News—those are things that could put me off a person (meaning, girl). With Sophie they don’t. There’s too much to like. On the Paradise tomorrow, I’m going to remember that. If the prospect of any interest arises, I won’t be put off in the usual way. I won’t be there with my usual mental checklist and my impulse to judge early comments harshly.

  The more I think about it, the more I realise how indefensible my position is. I’ve been looking for a girl who knows exactly the right amount about exactly the right topics. I’ve been looking for someone very like me but, if I found them, I wouldn’t even know it because they’d be faking something smarter and putting me off. And probably judging me harshly because of one accidental slip: Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Love My Way’? No, that’d be the second-best song of 1983, not the best song. What kind of completely perfect girl do I think I deserve, with this fascinating repertoire of sensitive childhood stories, funny voices and poetry?

  Part of John Donne’s ‘Meditation Seventeen’ is on my wall at home, a very brief quote out of context on an old environmental poster: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were . . .’

  Next to that I have a certificate saying that for five dollars I became the guardian of an endangered Little Bent Wing Bat at the Mount Etna Caves. Maybe I was more involved in my mother’s causes then. Not that it was five dollars of my own money. We didn’t even go halves on that one. I kept pressuring my parents to let me visit my bat, since I felt responsible for its upbringing, but they said that wasn’t how it worked.

  Sensitive childhood story: tick. Rehearsed and ready to go. Realistically, it’s probably not more than two shifts away from coming up in conversation at the World.

  Tomorrow, on board the Paradise, I break this cycle.

  *

  I’m at the front door in my waiterly black-and-white when Frank’s Valiant pulls up outside.

  ‘Are you ready for this?’ he says when I get in.

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Are you carrying?’

  ‘Always.’

  We drive off, men in uniform on a mission. Am I carrying? It sounds like he’s talking about a concealable weapon, but he means condoms. And I always say Yes because that way we avoid the talk about how this might be the night when my luck changes. ‘People have got lots of names for these babies,’ Frank said once in a profound moment, showing me the condom in his wallet, ‘but I call them hope.’

  Tonight he spares me the profundity, and moves straight to, ‘How was Labour Ward?’

  ‘Uneventful. The gravid uterus takes no encouragement from my presence. I close cervixes. I don’t think obstetrics is my future. It and pro Scrabble probably got struck off my list of possible careers last night. Particularly the Scrabble. I thought I knew a lot of words, you know? But that charge sister . . .’

  ‘Yeah, she’s good.’

  ‘Hey, she said something about you and older women.’

  ‘What do you mean? You’re talking about the one who’s thirty-ish, bottle-blonde?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Wants me, obviously, and she’s sounding you out.’

  ‘It’s not that you were sounding her out?’

  ‘Not intentionally. But am I supposed to stop it when it happens?’ He shrugs, as though it’s a gift he can’t control. ‘Don’t forget it’s you we’re chick-spotting for tonight. Remember the plan—cash for both of us, a chick for Philby?’

  ‘There’ll be none of that on the Paradise. None of that Philby talk. And we’ve got to be subtle. Remember that booking agent and the row you got into with him about using DJing as a way of meeting girls at parties?’

  ‘I was pretty much over it, anyway. The main issue when that went wrong was to make sure it didn’t stop AJ getting work. Remember, I only ever got into it through him, and I used his records and he took them when he moved out, so I couldn’t have kept it up. No more “Tainted Love”, no more Plastique Bertrand, no more Bronski Beat, no more Wham, no more Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Where’s the act? I would’ve had to recapitalise if I’d wanted to strike out on my own. But I was over it. Vanessa reckoned she could have helped me rig a few lights but, mate, if I hear that fucking “Nutbush City Limits” one more time . . .’

  ‘Come on, it’s one of the classic school-dance songs.’

  ‘You private school boys and your school dances . . .’

  School dances were all we had. A sanctioned opportunity to meet girls and be continually monitored in their company by teachers and parents with strong torches. I’m sure some of the girls’ schools were only ever one wrong turn at a P&C meeting away from bringing in pheromone-sniffing dogs and putting up guard towers.

  How could it ever prepare us for Queensland Uni, where the socialists ran the student union, the Hare Krishnas chanted for peace, there were always battles to be won and rights under threat and every cartoon in the campus newspaper was about the fascist state government or marijuana, or both? Even the ones in which every human character was a circumcised penis (now, there was a cartoonist with no secrets).

  Imagine trying to raise a rights argument at school. The right not to be tracked by searchlight when outside at school dances, for instance. Try it and you’d be told what you were always told—school dances were a privilege, not a right. And the next one would always be hanging on a thread, waiting for ‘one person to spoil it for everyone’. That was something that happened often at school. I think we lost the privilege of inviting St Margaret’s girls for a while, because one person had spoiled it for everyone by getting the DJ to play the Dead Kennedys’ ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ when parents were turning up to take their daughters home.

  It was referred to at the following school assembly as ‘that song’ and, no, it wasn’t anything to laugh about. We were told that, too.

  Frank is humming as we drive through town, and it’s only when he starts thumping the wheel and nodding his head in time that I work out it’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’. Like a punch-drunk pri
ze fighter, he can’t help psyching himself up.

  ‘Remember, it’s me who’s scoring tonight,’ I tell him. ‘So you can put that fuck song of yours away.’

  ‘Yeah, righto. Don’t be afraid to borrow it if you need it.’

  ‘Thanks. I think I’ll be okay.’

  Okay? I’ve got forty-five minutes of Heart’s ‘Magic Man’ waiting at home, but that’s best kept to myself for now. Its day will come, and maybe it’ll come sooner after tonight. Here, in a better world, is how it might be:

  It’s night again. You’re over this scene already, but Frank keeps it coming. A man has needs, he tells you. He rolls his finger round in the powder, but that’s not the need he means. There’ll be girls, he says. Girls whacked on green drinks, and Spanish, for one night only. But you’ve had enough of that talk. For once, you would like not to see dawn or you would like to see it from your own bed and by accident, the noise of a garbage truck stealing just a minute of your long deep sleep. But in this town, the girls are relentless. It’s as if they don’t sleep at all. It’s as if every last one of them knows about your ‘Magic Man’ tape and is lining up for her turn. Don’t worry, you tell Frank, whose lean streak has strung along a while. Tonight, luck will change. Tonight, my friend, the music might be playing for you.

  ‘They’re going to want you tonight,’ Frank says. ‘That’s what I’m thinking. You? You should be bracing yourself.’

  ‘I’m braced. They’re going to want me.’

  When we park, I step out of the car with a demeanour that’s as braced as I get. A kind of seafaring, drink-mixing, girl-talking demeanour that holds together until the food and beverage manager says, ‘I’m assuming you’ve both got a lot of experience with cocktails.’

  ‘Sure,’ Frank tells him. ‘Lennon’s Hibiscus Room, but we’re free agents now.’ This is the kind of lie that I think is called a bald-faced lie. It’s utterly confident, and it couldn’t be less true. Unless he’s leading a double life, neither of us has ever been to Lennon’s Hibiscus Room. ‘Plus, we put in a few nights at the Underground with the easy stuff, of course. So, have you got anything special on for tonight? Anything Spanish we should know?’

  ‘Well, there’s margaritas, so that’ll be no problem for you. There’s sangria, obviously, but we won’t be needing you guys to mix that. That can be done behind the scenes and we’ll put it out there in some big punch bowls.’ The food and beverage manager has droopy eyelids to match his droopy roll-your-own cigarette, a long-ago-broken nose and a quiet sense that he’s done this a million times and he’s not to be messed with. ‘There’s another cocktail we got from somewhere, mojitos they’re called. They’re Spanish or Cuban, one of those.’

  ‘Don’t know it.’ Frank again, coming straight out and saying it.

  ‘Yeah, it’s not one of your big ones. The recipe’s behind the bar. It’s mint and Bacardi and lime. Just make sure you use the lime cordial for most of it, and only juice the actual lime as a finishing touch. Other than those two, it’s in your hands.’

  ‘No worries,’ Frank says, not even trying to disguise the smugness on his face as we walk on board, leaving the food and beverage manager to put the cocktail question to the next new black-and-white arrival. ‘Well, I reckon we’re set.’

  ‘What were you doing with that Lennon’s Hibiscus Room remark?’

  ‘I had to say something. It was the best I could think of. Can I help it if we aren’t part of the cocktail crowd? Dad took Mum there for their twenty-fifth anniversary in seventy-eight and she had a fluffy duck.’

  ‘That’s what you were relying on?’

  ‘It’s a cocktail. Apparently lots of people were having them. It’s that kind of joint. They’ve got a piano up there, you know. But don’t worry about it. We’re in. We look the part.’

  ‘Look the part? We aren’t the part. We couldn’t be less the part . . .’

  ‘How hard can it be? After the first few they won’t care how they’re put together, anyway.’

  ‘After the first few I might actually be able to do them. It’s the first few I’m worried about. This is just like when you lied to get us those ice-cream stall jobs and I had no idea which way to coil a soft-serve.’

  ‘And it worked out fine. It’s like uni. It’s like suturing, or delivering a baby. See one, do one, teach one. And hold the lid on good and tight.’

  ‘I’m assuming the last part’s cocktail-specific. You know, I thought we’d just be picking up glasses, or something. Something I can do. Me buying a round of drinks at the Underground the other night doesn’t exactly qualify us to make cocktails.’

  ‘Do you talk about every dollar that gets out of your wallet?’

  We meet the rest of the bar team, and only one person’s made mojitos before, so he shows all of us how to do it. It’s not hard then to ask if the Paradise has a particular way it likes its margaritas made, as though the two of us have made them everywhere and all that island-to-island variation in the Caribbean, for example, means it’s always better to check which way a venue prefers. This time, since I’m the detail man and we’ve had a chance to think it through, it’s me who does the asking and Frank stands back with his ‘that’s my boy’ look on his face.

  ‘Why is it only me,’ he says afterwards, ‘who has every confidence in you?’

  ‘Because it’s better that way. Because, if I had your level of confidence, I’d take it just that one step too far and I’d say something like, Ah, Aruba style, and we’d be gone.’

  As if to show how right I am, that’s when Frank pulls the big bag of powder out of his pocket and says, ‘I’ve got a couple of these. It’s time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Brizgarita time.’

  ‘You idiot. Can’t you show any judgement at all? What are our priorities here tonight? One: money. Two: get me a girl. Where is three: launch brizgarita on unsuspecting public?’

  ‘You should have brought a change of underpants. As if you’re ready for a girl to come your way. We should get a bag for you to breathe into, I reckon. You’re looking dizzy.’

  ‘If they catch you, you’re on your own.’

  So, we started with a plan and before we leave North Quay we already have discord. I decide, if pushed by anyone who matters, to describe Frank as ‘a guy who got here at the same time as me’. I don’t care if it’s only a kilo of Staminade that Frank’s carrying. I can do without looking like an idiot. The DJ tests the sound system using ‘Nutbush City Limits’, and I’m glad. Frank’ll hate that.

  Tina Turner’s voice screeches across the empty deck and the beats ricochet heavily around. It’s going to be a dark cruise out here tonight, with everything painted black and illumination limited to the swirls of soft pink and blue light swinging across the scuffed dancefloor from two mountings high on the walls. Other than that and the strings of coloured fairy lights draped among the web of streamers, there’s only the fluoro spilling from beer fridges, and signs marking the toilets and emergency exits. Those Spanish, I figure, must like their anonymity. How could you have any idea who you’re bumping into on the dance floor?

  The first people on board, naturally, rush the bar. They’ve worked out that that might let them drink forty-two cocktails tonight instead of only forty-one. My early margaritas are crap, but I work out it’s easy to compensate by offering an extra shot of tequila. There’s plenty of repeat business, and no complaints.

  ‘Nutbush City Limits’ starts up properly, the serious noise begins and the Paradise shrugs away from the wharf.

  They keep us busy, demanding cocktails by the handful and slopping them across the deck. I can’t believe I was worried that even one of these people might be picky. They’re not here for drink-mixing precision. Those kinds of people have probably all gone to Lennon’s Hibiscus Room to drink fluffy ducks with tiny paper parasols in them, while they listen to some guy croon ‘Strangers in the Night’. The Paradise crowd is jumping up and down to the B-52s’ ‘Rock Lobster’ and getting w
hatever they can for their twenty-five dollars all-inclusive. They’re here for the drinks, the dance floor, the dark, an incidental river, and all we have to do is keep it coming.

  I can hear Frank next to me talking to his latest (female) customer and telling her, in a sly way, ‘It’s more Bolivian than Spanish, if you get what I mean.’

  But he’s almost got to shout for her to hear him over the music and that does the slyness no good. She’s looking intrigued—intrigued or confused. He says something about adding ‘a bit of crystal’ to the mixture and she asks if it’d be safe to have two.

  ‘Get back to me on that one, babe,’ he says, even louder than before. ‘Have one, get out there, have a bit of a jiggle and work up a bit of a sweat and see how you go, hey?’

  She dances off into the crowd with her glass. He’s telling girls to sweat and they seem to be going along with it. He catches me watching. I try to look bored.

  I start mixing the drinks in beer jugs, lining up half-a-dozen glasses along the bar and pouring them in a row. ‘Nice touch,’ the food and beverage manager says, taking it for theatre. ‘Just don’t pour it directly into their mouths. They’ll ask you for it, but they can pass bugs around that way and that only causes trouble.’

  Carnage takes hold in forty-five minutes. In the distance, against the railing, I can just make out the outlines of people who may be engaged in acts that involve passing bugs around. Paper streamers are pulverised, paper plates are pulverised. This is last year’s Med Ball revisited. That was the night we learned that if you blend a wide range of expensive and pulverised things together and spill a lot of alcohol, you can’t tell it from any other kind of mud. But it is great for bedpan races. Most of us went home looking like we’d rolled with pigs. Maybe we had.