The camera whirs and he snuggles into her, kissing her on the cheek. A kiss for each flash.
When the photos grind out of the slot, they are blurry and pale. Her face serious.
She puts them in the pocket of her bag before he can see them but he pulls them out and blows on them.
Hey, let them dry! You forgot to smile. Let’s try again.
This time, inside the photo booth, he sits down and pulls her into him.
She rides sideways on his knee and his finger touches her leg, tracing the dots on her tights.
You have a hole, you know.
She looks down and sees it, a small round tear in the black fabric, above her knee. Her skin glows through it like the moon.
It’s the first thing I noticed when I saw you sitting on my car.
He tickles his finger underneath and he leans in a little and she leans in more.
His mouth is soft like hers and he takes his time.
Kiss a nonsmoker. Taste the difference. A sticker on Kaz’s fridge.
His breath is smoky. It lights her body up.
The sticker is wrong.
His fingers seem to know the pressure, the right way to go hard and soft.
One finger, two fingers.
Both hands.
He unhooks her coat and looks at her neck and laughs, kisses each mark in turn, tasting her skin. She wonders if she still smells like Colgate.
He holds her head and pushes her so she is kneeling between his knees.
She undoes his studded belt and pulls his jeans down and then his boxers.
The wind whips the black curtain around and he reaches out and holds the corner of it so no one can see in. The belt scrapes the side of her cheek.
Then he moans and that’s all.
She feels his pulse and pulls her head back just in time.
When she looks down, his hard-on is bright purple from her lipstick, glitter forming grooves as he starts to go soft.
His belt is still hanging as he swaps places, swivelling her on the seat.
I want to make you really smile, Mona Lisa.
He puts his head up under her skirt and pulls her tights down to her knees, holding both thighs and drifting her undies to the side, angling up beneath.
His fingers work like ants.
As she holds his mouth close to her, hands in his hair, squashing his nose, she rocks forward and puts more coins in the slot.
He pulls out and teases her, and she’s off balance, on edge.
He pushes a finger and alternates. A tongue. A finger. A tongue.
More.
He looks at her.
She nods.
She kicks his baseball cap off.
There’s too much going on.
She doesn’t want him to move.
She wraps her legs around his neck with her knees over his ears and wrestles him back in.
Now.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
She breathes out and rests her head back. All she can hear is the sound of her heart as if she’s raced up the stairs.
Looking down, she remembers that he’s still there.
The photos, when they come, show her face, wide open and lifted to the night. With a glimpse, a small glimpse, of the back of his head.
He grabs the strip of photos and tears it in half. He takes the first two, she takes the last, and he kisses her off as she runs to the first carriage and gets on board.
She doesn’t have a ticket.
She sits as far away from the other passengers as she can so she can look at the photos and dream him up again.
So she can resurrect him from the smells on her dress.
The dirty coins and his fingers.
The taste of the cigarettes he bought on the platform.
So she can start again to strip him down.
(I’M) STRANDED
Melbourne, 1980
After Guy leaves home, Beñat meets him at a halfway point, at a cafe in the city where strange shapes hang from the ceiling like bad papier-mâché school projects and there’s alcohol under the counter.
Guy looks like some filthy creature who dwells in a cave. But in here they don’t stare at him like they do on the street.
Tables of junkies, tables of wogs, tables of Ballroom punters, washed up in the city. But Beñat doesn’t like the city at night. It means trying to avoid the police. The skinheads and yobbos.
He pretends he’s going to a movie. Otherwise, his mum asks him lots of questions about Guy. Questions that he doesn’t know how to answer.
Just before he left home, Guy lined his arms with tattoos. An eagle. Radio Birdman.
He met this bloke who lived around the corner near the overpass who sold speed and dope cheap. The dealer was fat and gentle and his favourite book was The Dice Man. Guy talked about it all the time.
Now Guy rolls the dice for anything. To hitchhike to St Kilda. To take heroin. To start a band.
To change his name.
To leave Beñat behind.
Guy doesn’t want to be called Guillaume anymore. Too hard to pronounce.
Guy pretty much lives in St Kilda now, in a room above the Ballroom.
The parties go for days and no one seems to crash.
All the bands end up there.
It’s hard to see his brother’s floor beneath bottles and butts and ash flicked. Needles sit on the sink in the toilet. Spots of blood. No one ever cleans up or flushes. Broken glass in the bath. Mattresses pulled around. Rubbish hanging off the walls.
No one has any money for food. Going to the gigs and waiting for supper is the only time they get to eat.
Once Beñat watched a long line snaking through Guy’s room. His brother was going along injecting them one by one because no one knew how to use a needle. Guy laughed as he went down the line, cleaning out the fit with one squirt of water from the toilet.
He stopped when he came to Beñat though. Beñat wasn’t really in the line.
In Guy’s dark room there are no windows, no line between night and day. Everyone comes and goes.
For Guy, he can see, it feels like home.
When the Boys Next Door are all there, it’s like the land of the giants.
Beñat likes to sit and watch them light up in the dark.
They are so sure of what they are saying, as if what they are saying is real because they believe it.
They are like the rulers of the world.
They sit in the middle surrounded by the courtesans who talk in cute voices and wear baby-doll dresses.
Shimmery skin and pretty things in their long hair.
Connie in torn lace. Too fragile to touch.
And the men on the fringes looking for a way in, leaning forward to hold on to the conversation.
When Nick Cave’s talking, his face doesn’t move much. His brows rise every now and then but there’s no expression in his eyes or his mouth.
Beñat can’t tell what he’s thinking or if he’s joking. All delivery is the same.
That’s why he doesn’t talk to him.
At one point Nick crawls up to Beñat and sniffs him suspiciously, like he’s asking, what kind of animal are you?
Is there any more beer?
Two girls lean into Beñat. They are wearing short Nazi uniforms and fishnet stockings. They are handcuffed together.
Dennis laughs. He’s always in the shadows, hanging around the bands. He’s giving the twins a pat-down, trying to find the key to the handcuffs.
We’ll give you the key if you give us what’s in your back pocket, one of the girls says.
Dennis ferrets out a small aluminium foil packet.
Why do you wear those swastikas, anyway? Guy asks.
Oh, we’re not Nazis. We just like the way they look.
And the handcuffs?
We’re a unit. There’s everybody else, and then there’s us.
It’s not meant to be taken seriously.
; Dennis looks at them.
There are some old men living next door who take it pretty fucking seriously, Guy says.
A reporter takes notes. She sits at Nick’s feet.
Do you think you have something to say to society?
Nick puts his finger in the corner of his eye and scratches.
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
I said, do you think you have something to say to society?
Yes … but don’t ask me what.
Nick gets up and puts on a cassette.
At first Beñat thinks it’s a bird, a galah.
Raucous screams raw and edged with pain.
A sound that starts to build down rather than up. A growling moan burrowing into earth.
Nick tells the reporter it’s a woman being murdered and she laughs.
Beñat likes it best when the Boys take turns putting on records. The Stooges. Velvet Underground. Television. Guy stole all the records from Missing Link.
The conversation comes around to Kraftwerk.
Everyone wants to move to London. Or New York. Or Berlin.
Sometimes when Rowland talks about music, Beñat feels like he’s part of a secret group discovering new things no one else knows about. Buried treasure.
Beñat sits on a mattress and prepares for the day when someone will ask him a question about what music he likes.
Beñat sits and knows that if someone asks him he won’t know what to answer.
There are so many wrong answers.
Guy says that everyone pretends to have read War and Peace but they have really only read Crime and Punishment.
Beñat hasn’t read any Russian novels. There aren’t any in the school library.
Beñat sits and everywhere he looks someone has taken smack.
It’s like takeaway and that’s where they score it, heading up the street to get a souvlaki when they have a few bucks.
Sharpening their fits on the side of matchboxes.
And Dennis is always downstairs. There’s a little shelf under the bar that he can pull out displaying his wares. Guy gets all his drugs there so he doesn’t even have to walk outside.
When there’s no heroin there’s speed then coke then pills. Advil and Serepax. Sixpacks of Tusselix cough medicine bought at the chemist. Breaking open Codral tablets to get pseudoephedrine out of the middle.
Guy’s favourite game is rolling the dice for injecting ingredients. Anything that gets his brain bursting.
The only drug Beñat has tried is dope but no one smokes it. Like flares and beards and long hair it’s only for hippies and they all hate hippies.
Hey, Nick!
Guy walks over to him.
Did you see the interview with James Freud?
James who?
He said you guys were shit.
Guy rolls the mag into a missile and throws it at Nick, who picks it up and starts ripping up the article into small pieces.
He dips each bit into his glass of beer, soaking it, before flicking the wads at Connie’s white lace dress. A Jackson Pollock of lager stain.
Later, Beñat helps her clean it in the bathroom. He finds one of Guy’s T-shirts for her to wear.
Sometimes at Guy’s place he feels like a tourist even though he’s lived in Melbourne his whole life. Guy’s friends in St Kilda are exotic like those photos in National Geographic.
It’s like he becomes a camera as he sits watching them. One of those super 8s that his mum has. It’s all being recorded inside him so he knows what to do and what to wear and how to feel.
Before Guy left, his mum would put up a sheet and they’d watch the movies of his dad. The movies were always out of focus and too dark and would leave him with a sense of wanting more.
Guy would always want to play video games instead.
But now it’s not fuzzy and nothing is wasted or lost. He can recall it all later when he needs to.
Jenny’s the only one who ever sits near him though. She has bright red hair and a black velvet dress and fishnets that are all ripped. Her lipstick and mascara are always smudged but he likes it.
She carries a stack of canvases that she props at his feet. She shows Beñat the first one. It’s all white with a black square and it has words on it.
an original oil painting
Beñat doesn’t really get it.
Jenny hands the other paintings to him one by one. A girl with long red hair. She wears a black dress and a bow and has her hands to her face as if she’s crying.
The girl looks like her.
Jenny gets a small dog-eared paperback out of her bag and hands it to him.
Take it, I’ve finished. Something tells me you’ll relate to it, the way you always sit there, in the same spot.
He holds it, resting it in his lap. Goodbye to Berlin. He has no idea where to put it.
When I show people my paintings, people say, that’s not art. I like that. That’s when I know I’m getting somewhere.
Dennis looks at Beñat and beckons him over.
Why don’t we all play a game of Russian roulette? It’ll be just like in The Deer Hunter.
The Nazi girls laugh.
So you think you’re Robert De Niro now?
Dennis gets a revolver out of his briefcase and points it at Beñat’s head.
Beñat tries to back out of the room but the girls put their linked arms over him like they’re playing ‘Oranges and Lemons’.
If you try to move, we’re gonna handcuff you to Dennis. Let’s spin.
Dennis puts the gun on the floor and gives it a flick with his foot. It points at Beñat.
You first!
Put the gun to your head! the girl cries.
Beñat reaches out to touch the gun.
The revolver is small and silver, with Wyatt Earp engraved under the barrel.
Beñat picks it up and holds it to his head.
He’s never held a gun before. It feels lighter than he expected.
The muzzle of the gun is dull against his temple.
He looks around for Guy.
Dennis slaps him and laughs.
He prays.
Empty chamber. Empty chamber. Empty chamber.
Now! the girl cries.
Beñat pulls the trigger and the explosive force punches him to the floor.
The girls start screaming.
He feels like his body is underwater as he tries to swim to the surface, covering his head with his hands.
The sirens start to sound, piercing his skin.
It’s worse than a needle.
Than slicing your knee to the bone.
It’s beyond his body to deal with it.
He lies in wait.
The girls have stopped crying.
When he opens his eyes, Guy is standing over him, trying to make him sit up.
As Beñat lifts his head, blood drips onto his collar.
He can’t understand why Dennis and the girls are laughing now.
Guy is speaking but the world is dull. His brother squats down and opens the revolving cylinder to show him.
It’s only a cap gun.
His brother hands him a bottle of beer.
You’ve got some blood coming out.
Connie takes him to the bathroom and holds the cold bottle against his ear.
She kisses him on the forehead and whispers something.
The only word he can make out is Benny.
TEMPTATION
Castlemaine, 1987
Mona watches Jimmy do it first, sees the way the music makes him swoon.
This is the best song!
As each song starts his smile widens.
Each song the best song.
As he moves, it’s like the music is no longer coming out of the speakers but sourced from him, pulsed by his heart.
She’s not ready to dance, not yet.
She waits for a song she knows as Jimmy swirls around her.
The club is crowded tonight and she doesn’t know what to order at the b
ar.
Her English teacher is dancing near her. They pretend not to see each other. Mona moves away.
Jimmy keeps touching Michelle and Danny. Their words and fingers linger on each other’s bodies as they move in time.
Compared to the other drugs, this one makes Jimmy softer, makes her want to be part of the warmth of him, her friends.
The club is too packed and the dance floor snakes in and out of tables piled with stubbies.
Mona heads to the ladies’ toilets and Jimmy waits outside.
She’s taken one but it’s not working.
The pill in her hand looks like ordinary paracetamol.
Jimmy said that if the first one didn’t work, he’d take the second as a top-up.
She gives the tablet a squeeze. It’s hard to imagine it opening up a brave new world.
She downs the second one.
When she comes back out, ‘Take On Me’ starts up and she can’t stop herself.
As she dances the melody sings her and Jimmy touches her and her arms and legs are light as if she’s never really danced before.
She’s becoming.
She’s becoming the music.
But then it hits her.
Speeding train.
She’s on the tracks.
In headlights.
Kangaroos at night.
Their eyes glinting.
She feels pinned.
And in that instant, she knows.
There is nothing she can do.
She’s stuck with it.
The thought burrows down.
There’s that effect.
Like in the movies.
When the camera zooms in on the person.
And the camera zooms out on the background.
And it makes you–
Jimmy, I don’t feel right.
He looks at her face up close.
He smiles.
You’re okay.
His eyes are forever.
He puts his hand on her heart.
You’re just coming up. Stick with it.
She hadn’t expected this.
Her body starts to burn.
There’s something wrong.
She sees herself meeting the floor.
Nah, there’s nothing wrong. In a few minutes you’ll be fine.
He stands close behind her.
Puts his hand on her back.
Positioning his body to keep her upright.
Tight so she can feel his heart beating through her.
Like an echo of hers.
Her heart beating so hard.
Almost a Mirror Page 4