‘Ignore the slime, Des. Hopefully he’ll sliver back into the hole he crawled out of.’
Not even Ricki knows the whole truth behind my break-up with Denny. She knows about the phone sex – I can trust her with that sort of stuff. But the other stuff, well, I haven’t really told her about it all. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I trust her with my life. It’s just that for the first time in my life, I’ve suddenly found myself unable to share the truth with my best friend. Some things are just better left unsaid.
‘You really hate him don’t you?’
Hate is a very strong word and, no, I don’t think I really hate him. I actually feel very little for Denny now, apart from pity. He really is pathetic. Besides, it takes too much time and energy to hate someone.
‘I don’t hate him, Rick. I just don’t want to have anything to do with him. He makes my stomach churn.’ I mean, the thought of him wanking away while sitting on the phone paying for phone sex and then coming to see me … well, it makes me want to throw up. And then the rest.
‘Well, you’re going to have to do something about him then. He’s heading this way.’
God what does he want now? When we first broke up I stopped hanging out at all my usual places so that I wouldn’t have to see him. It only lasted about two weeks and then I was back, on top of the world for everyone to see. I may have felt like crap on the inside but there was no way that I was going to let that bastard see that he had gotten to me. I just wish that when we were at the same place at the same time he would leave me alone. Why won’t he just take a hint and realise that I don’t want to have anything to do with him?
It’s too late to run away or hide, he’s here, standing beside me with a cocky grin on his stupid face. I wonder how long it would take for that smug look to disappear if I revealed that I know all about his extremely expensive habit.
‘Hey Des.’
If he even dares to sit down next to me I’m pouring my coffee down his pants. It will probably be the most natural enjoyment his balls will ever get.
‘Fuck off, Denny.’ I’m not going to beat around the bush and even contemplate small talk with that slime. Why is he still grinning?
‘And how are you this evening, Ricki?’
I can’t believe the malaka is trying to be charming. What a wanker. Good thing that Ricki can see right through him and knows the truth about him.
‘Fuck off, Denny.’ It’s so good to have some one to back you up in your time of need. ‘We’re busy.’ Even though Ricki doesn’t know the extent of Denny’s crimes, all she needs to know is that he hurt me. That’s enough for her.
‘Des, can we talk?’
I’ve said all that I have to say to him. I said as much as I could when I dumped him. It’s all been said over and over again in the last three months when I have had the pleasure of running into him. I don’t want to play this merry-go-round game with him anymore. I don’t want to play with him. Full stop.
‘No.’ It’s so cool that Ricki and I know what the other is going to say and we answer at the same time. Just doubles the effect on the listener I think.
‘Alone?’ Why is he persisting?
‘No.’ Once again in stereo so the whole coffee shop can hear.
‘Well, I may as well talk in front of your sidekick then. Why waste time repeating it to her later, huh?’
Maybe he did learn something in the time we were going out. He has finally realised that Ricki and I share practically everything.
‘Denny, there is nothing to talk about. Nothing to say. It’s finished, over, kaput, finito, history.’ Do I have to say it in any other language for him to understand? I know, Greek might do the trick. ‘Denny, teliosame. So just leave me alone. I am not going to change my mind.’ He actually looks hurt. But after everything that he put me through while we were together, I really don’t care. I spent way too long worrying about his feelings and not mine. Not any more. That’s a habit I broke a long time ago.
‘Des, I’m going to Greece for a few months.’
So his parents decided to send their little disappointment away for a while. They did the same thing when his ex-wife left him, or so I heard, and now they’re doing it again.
‘I’m happy for you, Denny. You’ve obviously given up trying to find a job cause mummy and daddy have come to the rescue yet again.’ They even helped pay off his home loan after his wife left him and he kept the house. Of course, they’d already paid a nice deposit for him to buy the house in the first place. His mum goes there once a week and cleans the place up and his dad does all the garden maintenance. I feel sorry for his parents, I mean, how the hell did two supposedly normal and sane people ever manage to produce that thing that is now standing in front of me?
My coffee is ready, one false move and he will feel it. ‘Would you like me to come to the airport and waive a white hanky.’ Sarcasm is lost on this moron. What an idiot. What did I ever see in him?
‘I just thought that maybe you might feel differently when I got back, and we could try again.’
Okay, it’s time to get nasty. It’s time that I stopped holding back.
‘Look, Denny, if you were the last man on earth and it was up to you to re-populate the earth with the remaining females, I’d become a lesbian. Have a good time in Greece. Perhaps you should bring back a fucking off-the-boater wanting to get a passport or something, because you and I ain’t going to happen ever again.’ My voice is loud and shaky, and I know I’m getting looks from other people in the coffee shop but I don’t care.
‘Can you at least tell me what I did that was so bad?’
Ricki is staring at us in amazement. Although she knows most things about my relationship with Denny, she hasn’t ever seen me hammer him. Well, this is definitely going to be a show to remember. The final encore. After tonight he will never, ever come back for more. This malaka wants to do it the hard way. No more Miss Nice. The time has come to get ugly.
‘What you did wrong?’ I’ve exploded. Hurricane Desi is on the loose and watch out for the flying debris. ‘Your disappearing acts, you behaving like you were ashamed to be seen with me. We could only ever go to places where no one would recognise you and no one would see us. The lying. Never could you give me a straight answer. You wanted me sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring just in case you were in the mood to see me. The money I loaned you that I never got back. The times you hit me. Remember that, Denny? Remember when you decided to use me as your personal punching bag? I haven’t forgotten.’ No matter how hard I bloody try to bury it, it’s still there lingering. It didn’t happen that often, but it was often enough. ‘You know I blamed myself for a while but the truth is, it wasn’t my fault. Just because you fucked up your life so much that no one wants to have anything to do with you doesn’t give you the right to bring others down with you. But you really want to know what topped it off for me? What really made me decide that you were beyond help? What made me realise that you weren’t going to change and weren’t worth wasting any more time on? It was your little phone habit, Denny. You thought you could hide it. Word of advice: when you decide that you want to have phone sex, when you want to call Asian women’s lines, when you want to call transsexuals lines and gay lines, too, you really should pay your fucking phone bill so that it doesn’t come to the attention of people like me. Given where I work, did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out? Or did you think I’d pay your debt for you?’
Okay. I’ve shocked everyone in this place. I’ve even shocked myself. I never meant to say so much. Nobody ever knew that Denny hit me. I was so ashamed that I couldn’t tell anyone. Even though I knew deep down that it wasn’t my fault, and even though I knew that he was the one with the problem, I still blamed myself.
I think Ricki is now ready to hit Denny. I can see her about ready to explode. ‘So, Denny, do you now understand why there is no hope whatsoever of you and I trying this again? I don’t like you. If anything, I feel so fucking sorry for you because you really are
pathetic. Just go to Greece, find yourself a bride and you’ll be happy. Maybe it’ll be third time lucky and you’ll find some ignorant little wog girl straight out of a village who will think the way you treat women is normal. Now just fuck off.’
Oh, yeah, he’s hurt. Actually he’s humiliated because I screamed so loud that the whole coffee shop heard it all. I don’t care anymore. I won’t try to protect his feelings. He never gave a shit about mine. And now all these people who are sitting at the tables, all these people that Denny lives for impressing, they all know the truth about him.
God, he’s not even going to say anything in his own defence. He’s walking away without a fight. This is amazing. It’s finally over. Closure.
‘Ricki, calm down will you. It’s all history anyway.’ This is going to be the longest drive of my life. With Ricki in Melbourne for training, she’s staying at home with her parents and now that she knows the whole truth about Denny I seriously wish she was already back in Shepparton. I don’t want to rehash ancient history but she will not let this go.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this, Des?’
She’s hurt and I can understand why. I know that if something like this had happened to her, I would want to kill the bastard. I would want to protect her. I know all this, and it’s not that I couldn’t trust Ricki. I just couldn’t talk about it. I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.
‘I can’t believe it.’ She’s shaking her head at me. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Rick, you know I love you, but please just let it go. I don’t want to talk about it.’ Not while I’m driving, not ever. It happened, I’ve dealt with it, so let’s just lock it up in that vault that will never be opened again. ‘It was a few times. I dealt with it and now it’s over.’ By the way she is shaking her head I can tell that Ricki is not ready to declare that this is over. But this is my call, not hers. Call me selfish, but I just don’t want to do this tonight.
‘If I wasn’t stuck up the fucking bush then I would have seen something, I would have known. Fuck I hate my job right now.’
She does not hate her job, she loves it. She just hates the direction it takes her in at times. And I have never heard the word fuck come out of her mouth so many times in such a short duration.
‘I can’t do anything for anyone living at the other end of the world.’
‘Rick, you could have lived right next door to me and there was still nothing you could’ve done.’ Doesn’t she get it? There was nothing anyone could’ve done, because I kept it so private.
‘What were you thinking, Des? Why did you go back for more after the first time? Why didn’t you come to me?’
Does she want me to tell her that I wasn’t thinking? Because that’s the truth. I wasn’t thinking because I was so shell-shocked that my brain just shut down on me. And it took my brain a while to wake up and realise what was going on. Now it’s all so fresh again, I can even feel the physical pain again. And it hurts so much. Please don’t let me cry now. I never let anyone see me cry over him and I have no intention of starting now.
‘Rick, I know you mean well but please let it go. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want think about it and I don’t want you to mention it ever again. That part of my life is over.’ I think she gets the picture. We are not getting into this.
‘You know where I am when you need me because, honey, one day you are going to need to let this out.’
I don’t think so. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I talk about this one again.
----------5----------
Thank God for shift work. Starting work at seven in the morning means that I manage to avoid a confrontation with my mother over what happened with Thia Maria and Ape Man. I know I can’t avoid it forever but I’ll sure as hell enjoy the reprieve while I can. Now I just have to deal with one more problem that has been thrown my way. Katerina.
My girlfriend Katerina is gorgeous. I love her and I can always count on her for a good deep and meaningful. Except for one thing. Ever since she got married and popped out a couple of kids her main mission in life has been to see me settled, too. Luckily, she’s not as brutal about it as Thia Maria. And Katerina is actually quite selective about who she wants to see me settled with. She only has one target. Her koumbaro. The best man from her wedding. Katerina is convinced that we are perfect for each other and the thought of getting the two of us together seems to consume her every waking moment. I keep telling her that she really needs to get a hobby. Unfortunately for me, she apparently already has one – professional matchmaker. Got to love her though. The way she schemes to get me and her koumbaro in the same place at the same time is quite impressive. Almost up to my standard. Almost, but not quite. And this is why I am always one step ahead of her and catch onto her schemes. She’s a relentless cupid but she really needs to sharpen her aim.
So I’m sitting at work contemplating all the staff assessments that I have to get through, when Katerina calls, trying to convince me that I simply have to go to a barbecue at her place this Saturday night.
‘Come on, Des. You have to come. I need your help.’
This is a sure fire way to get me there. A guilt trip. I know that Katerina’s family is not the sort to help her out with anything like this. Usually when us wogs get together there’s a brawl between the women over who gets to do the dishes and who gets to clean the place up so that the hostess won’t have too much to do the next day. Someone always brings something to add to the table, usually a dessert. Not Katerina’s family. They get there just as food is about to be served and expect to be waited on hand and foot while they lounge about. And that’s just the women. The men do their bit by actually cooking the barbecue and consuming copious amounts of beer. So yeah, with Katerina I am a sucker for a guilt trip and the bitch knows it. After all, she has two kids under the age of five and she’s almost seven months pregnant with her next, praying that she’ll have a boy after two girls, otherwise she’ll keep popping them out until she finally has one.
‘Kati, don’t do this to me. I’ve got plans.’
‘Bullshit, you’ll lounge around till about nine at night and then start getting ready to hit some bars. Be original, Des.’
She’s not going to give up on this. She’s going to push and push until I say yes, just so she’ll shut up.
‘Who’s going to be there?’ I ask cautiously.
‘The usual.’
Oh, yeah, that answer tells me all I need to know. The fact that she won’t give me a straight answer is confirmation that the illustrious koumbaro will be there.
‘My folks, George’s folks, brothers, sisters, partners, kids and sidekicks … koumbari.’
Bingo. ‘Kati, I know what you’re up to.’
‘Okay, okay, Des, Chris is going to be there, too. It’s not like you’re strangers anyway. You were at the same table at Stella’s christening. I saw you chatting away.’
Yeah, sure, chatting away – him asking me if I wanted something to drink, me fighting the urge to throw up as I was still recovering from the mother of all hangovers caused by my break-up with Denny the night before. Real riveting conversation was had that night.
‘Kati, he is not my type.’ How many times do I have to tell her this? I constantly repeat this same line to her but, as usual, it falls on deaf ears. I’m starting to sound like a broken record. She is convinced that she knows what is best for me. Just how many people other than me know what is best for me? I must be the only one who doesn’t know what is best for me.
‘Look, I need you Saturday night. Make a big tub of rice, too.’
Not only does she demand that I show up, she also expects me to be domestic. Her kids are screaming in the background and I feel this conversation about to come to a sudden end.
‘ Aspasia, Stella, shut up before I lock you both in the laundry. Des, I have to go. Be here by four so that you can help me set up, okay.’
Click. Dial tone.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’ I don’t k
now what’s causing my headache, the thought of Saturday night or the fact that I am repeatedly banging my head on my desk. ‘Shit shit shit. Fuck me dead!’
‘Now that would be no fun.’ Standing behind me enjoying my moment of insanity is my manager, Adrian. He’s okay. He can take a joke and is a sucker for a sob story if you need or want to take some unexpected leave.
‘I’d rather do you alive and kicking, darling.’
‘Yeah, yeah I know, if any woman can make you hetero, it’s me.’ Adrian has made no secret of the fact that he is gay, but at the same time he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s an alright boss. He’s the one that pushed me to take on a team leader role when responsibility wasn’t in my vocabulary. And he’ll always buy the first round at Friday night drinks.
‘Sorry, Adrian, you’re the wrong nationality. My mother would kill me if I took a non-Greek non-hairy-chested man home.’
It clicks that he’s here for something more than to laugh at my sorry state. ‘What’s up, Adrian?’
‘I need the incoming call stats for the week so far.’
Thank God he has asked for something that I have actually done. Productivity today is practically nil. I flick him the folder and aimlessly stare at the assessments that I have to tackle. Out of fifteen, only four are done and I can guarantee that no more will be done today. I can’t focus on anything other than trying to figure out just what Katerina plans on doing Saturday because I know, whether I like it or not, I will be there. Her guilt trip worked and she’s got me right where she wants me. Bitch bitch bitch, she’s getting better at the manipulation thing. She’s been hanging around me for way too long.
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