by Linda Jaivin
‘Speaks for me too,’ Lati said cheerfully.
‘Me too,’ Baby nodded.
Shit! Chicks hadn’t reacted to him that badly since he’d become a rock star. It had to be the hair. He’d get it cut this afternoon. Maybe.
‘The hair’s the least of your worries so far as I’m concerned,’ Doll commented, smiling as the singer’s corpse-like countenance turned an even whiter shade of pale.
‘Look!’ cried Lati, gesturing excitedly. She’d gone to the balcony to check out the harbour view. There she noticed a bas relief on the wall depicting Cherubim at an orgy, filling their cups and cavorting. ‘Guess who’s been here before us?’
‘Cool,’ enthused Baby. ‘We’ve obviously come to the right place. Now where’d Revor go?’
A stream of bubbles broke the surface of the pool, which was further agitated by the thrashing about of the groupies fighting for Revor’s attention. They’d take Revor over some hotshot rock star anyday—rock stars never went down on you.
Not unless you were an alien babe from hell, of course. Baby felt something on her foot. It was Ebola’s lips. She watched, bemused, as the pair of pink slugs slimed up her booted ankle to her knee, followed by a lot of hair and squeaking leather. Gently, she kicked him off. Ebola, on his hands and knees, gazed up at her, a pitiful and questioning look” crinkling his stubbly mug. She shook her head. Funny, she thought to herself, wiping his saliva off her boots with the back of her hand. This Earthling was no less sex, drugs and rock n roll than Jake. Yet she felt no urge whatsoever to perform sexual experiments on him; in fact, the idea rather repulsed her. ‘Keck,’ she said.
‘Use me,’ begged Ebola, senseless with lust. ‘Abuse me.’
Lati approached Ebola from behind and, applying a sneaker to his upraised arse, sent him sprawling on the deck.
‘More,’ sighed Ebola.
Lati placed an obliging foot on the small of his back and shrugged at the others. Earthlings. Strange-o-rama.
Baby signalled to Lati and Doll and whistled for Revor. Revor wriggled out of the groupies’ collective grasp. Energetically shaking himself and spraying water all over the still stunned and supplicant Ebola, he bounded across to where the babes stood waiting for the lift. The doors slid open and the party entered.
Emerging into the lobby, the babes sparked a near riot of erotic confusion. Normally staid matrons squashed their ample, pearl-covered bosoms against the thin, eager chests of green-uniformed porters. Businessmen in Armani suits crazily humped the columns on which hung plaques from Phil Collins and Cliff Richard. A pack of Twisted Mofo fans knocked the enormous floral arrangement off the lobby’s centre table in order to ravish and be ravished there by a pair of well-heeled honeymooners from Taiwan.
The babes noticed all this frenetic activity. Having no other experience of Earthling behaviour, however, they just took it as normal.
On the Sebel roof, meanwhile, Galgal, which had automatically shut down its Glow-matic lighting system after the babes departed, went largely undetected by passersby. Those who looked up and noticed the saucer didn’t think twice about it. If people gave it any thought, they assumed it was just another one of those trendy shampoo advertisements that had nothing to do with the product. What could an advertisement tell you about washing your hair that you didn’t already know anyway? Stepping out of the chaos of the hotel into the sun-soaked street, Baby fished in her bag for the homing device’s Locate-a-Tron. She held it up, and dialled in Jake’s code—SPUNKNIK I.
Over in Newtown, Jake and Tristram were trying to convince Saturna and Skye that the bowl of chilli straddling the halfway line down the fridge was actually part theirs by virtue of location when the homing device in Jake’s arse suddenly emitted a soft, flat beep.
‘Gross,’ commented Skye.
‘Mister Natural,’ Jake sang back, unfazed, scratching his arse.
‘That’s it,’ declared Saturna. ‘No chilli for you boys. It’ll only make you worse.’
‘Why me?’ Tristram complained. ‘I didn’t fart. Unfair as.’
Registering the signal, a light flashed on the Locate-a-Tron. Baby took a reading. From the Sebel Townhouse in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Newtown, in the inner west, represented a major hike-o-rama in Earthling terms. To a pack of intergalactic jetsetting alien babes, it was a mere rocking stroll. ‘Unless you girls have something else you’d like to do,’ Baby said, as casually as possible, ‘I’d actually like to go find Earth Boy again. I feel like we haven’t really finished with him yet.’
‘Whatever,’ said Lati agreeably, licking her lips at a small grey cat. The cat turned into a tiger, growled sexily, and then, cat again, rubbed itself against her legs.
Doll shrugged. Earth boy shmearth boy. But you could never tell who else they might meet along the way.
Revor vaulted into Baby’s shoulder bag and the babes strolled along Elizabeth Bay Road, soaking up the rays of the sun. Amazing star, the Aussie sun. Its daily schedule of arrivals and departures prompted the sky to riot and party. While it hung around, colours sang and danced upon the sparkling beaches, the mirrored towers of the CBD winked at the sandstone edifices glowing softly beside them, and a peculiarly Australian combination of physical vigour and sensual languor coursed through Earthling veins. Its impact on the ayles was even more dramatic. All three were visibly pulsing now with an erotic energy: the sunlight suffused their skin, made sultry their gaze and left a glossy dew upon their lips. It also left them looking less vividly green, which was probably not a bad thing in context.
Crossing through a small park, they found themselves in the heart of the Cross, a magnet for sleazebags and booners of every description. A carful of hoons revved by in a purple Valiant. ‘Oi!’ one shouted out the window. ‘What planet are youse from?’
The girls looked at each other, bemused. Was it that obvious?
‘Nufon,’ answered Lati.
‘I wanna lick your anus,’ shouted another, as the car sped off, the sound of raucous laughter thinning into the air behind them.
‘Did you hear that?’ said Doll. ‘Uranus? I mean, who’d want to lick Uranus? It’s a disgusting planet.’
As they passed by the strip joints and adult bookstores and doorways overhung with signs promising GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS, spruikers whistled, sex workers cheered, bikies revved their engines and all along the street men dropped to their knees. In Alien Planet, the video game arcade, baseball caps spun around on adolescent heads, virtual villains crawled out of their screens and surrendered, and plastic machine guns turned into plastic ploughshares before the dazzled eyes of the players.
Gone, perhaps, were the days when any old alien crew landing on Earth could count on being received as gods or having monumental temples or cave paintings dedicated to them. But rock n roll babes from outer space could still make a fairly big impression.
The babes crossed the Williams Street intersection. There was utter chaos as both drivers and pedestrians forgot where they were going and tried to follow them instead. They were now approaching the King’s Cross fire station. A discreet doorway led upstairs to a needle exchange and STD testing centre. A woman with vacant eyes was putting a dollar coin into a vending machine in the doorway. The babes crowded round her, thoroughly engrossed. What sort of game was this?
‘Oh, baby,’ Baby greeted the woman, grabbing her crotch.
Sadly, it must be reported that there was the occasional Earthling who proved immune to alien charms. ‘Fuck off, ya slags,’ snapped the woman, pressing a button labelled ‘fit’. As the girls watched, oblivious to her annoyance, a thin black plastic container popped out and the machine chirped tinnily, ‘Thank you for your custom.’ The woman, after giving them the finger, slouched off with her prize to the tiny park around the corner. A fireman, who’d been enjoying a smoke in the driveway of the fire station, watched with interest.
‘Cool,’ said Lati, pressing her finger to the same button. Aliens had a way with machines. Something to do with the amount of electri
cal current running through their synapses. That’s why, as is frequently reported by ‘experiencers’, when aliens or their craft are in the ‘hood, cars tend to stall and television screens dissolve in static. With that sort of power over the mechanical world, no money, no worries. Out popped another black container. Lati fished it out of the tray, and unwrapped it. After they’d all examined the hypodermic syringe inside, cooed and clucked over it, she popped the needle into her mouth and ate it.
This sight prompted the fireman to drop his cigarette, which promptly ignited a scrap of litter. This, in turn, blew up the street to the cafe next door and landed on a pile of weekend papers, setting them alight.
By the time a waiter had put out the flames with an eccoccino, the girls were well up the street. They didn’t really understand what the fuss was all about. Earthlings eat animal and vegetable, ayles fang down on mineral. It would be quite ridiculous, not to mention rude, don’t you think, if every time an alien spotted an Earthling troughing out on a bowl of pasta it set the place on fire?
Tristram wandered up King Street in search of his twin. He found Torquil standing with folded arms, gazing into the window of their favourite op shop, The Fifth Scarf. Torquil was wearing the sort of baggy, low-crotched cotton trousers colloquially known as poo-catchers, and a Mambo theology t-shirt depicting the descent to Earth of a three-eyed alien rock god. His olive-complexioned brow was furrowed and his large black eyes half-closed in contemplation of an aqua blue feather boa which happened to match, almost exactly, the colour of his hair.
‘Yo, bro,’ Tristram greeted him. ‘Am I my brother’s beeper, or what? Time for our jam.’
‘What d’ya reckon?’ Torquil replied. ‘Do I absolutely need this feather boa or what?’
‘What.’”
‘What?’
‘You said “or what” and I’m answering. What. Like, you don’t need this feather boa.’
‘Right. That settles it.’ Torquil spun on his heel and entered the shop, emerging less than a minute later with the boa coiled around his neck. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What are you hanging around here for? We’ve got to get home and rehearse.’
Tristram agreeably turned in the direction of home.
‘Whoa! Whoa,’ Torquil called out. ‘No need to rush. Besides, dunno ‘bout you, but I need a nosebag. Got any moolah? I spent all mine on this.’ He flapped the end of the boa at Tristram. A feather escaped, and they watched it float away. It landed on the street, where it was promptly run over by a ute. Torquil laughed. ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘I thought it came with too many feathers. Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Got any dosh?’
Tristram shook his head. ‘Zilch. I just checked. And my next dole cheque doesn’t come till tomorrow.’
‘Spewin’.’ Torquil was outraged. ‘How does the government expect us to budget our money when they give us so little to begin with, hey? Tell me that.’
‘I tell you nothing,’ said Tristram, fishing a bag of Maltesers from the pocket of his leather jacket and handing them to his brother. They were walking in the direction of home now. They copped a fair amount of staring. Identical twins usually did, even those who didn’t go to the additional trouble of dyeing their hair bright purple and blue and tying it up in rows of tiny rosebud-like knots, à la Björk circa ‘Violently Happy’. Then there was the matter of Tristram’s frock and Torquil’s feather boa, of course.
A boy stepped out in front of them and pointed. ‘Are you guys twins?’
They each looked around in confusion. ‘Sorry?’ said Tristram. ‘Do you see someone else here?’
Torquil, meanwhile, began contorting his face and slapping it while tapping his feet on the pavement. Without taking his eyes off the kid, Tristram joined in, snapping his fingers, knuckling his head and making popping noises with his mouth. The twins were nothing if not percussive. They were Bosnia’s rhythm section. Tristram played bass and Torquil played drums. Sometimes Torquil played bass and Tristram played drums. In fact, they could play anything. Their bodies, plate-glass windows, the lids of garbage bins, lamp posts, the top of twelve-year-old heads. And they did. By the time they finished, passersby, including the boy’s mother, had thrown $6.35 in change at their feet. ‘Easy as,’ remarked Tristram as they advanced on their favourite Leb-roll shop with a bouncing gait, counting the coins as they went.
Soon, Torquil was wiping chilli sauce from his mouth with the back of his hand and Tristram was munching down the last of a felafel roll. ‘What’s the time?’ asked Torquil.
Tristram glanced at his watch. It was twenty past three. ‘Late as,’ he accused.
‘Well get a move on then, you slacker bastard.’ Torquil flicked the boa at Tristram. ‘So what did Jake have to say for himself, disappearing like that last night? What happened to him? Or should I say, who happened to him?’
‘It was aliens, apparently.’ Tristram raised an eyebrow.
‘You mean aliens as in foreigners?’ Torquil was confused.
‘No. Aliens as in doodoodoodoo doodoodoodoo.’ Tristram sang the Twilight Zone theme.
‘Aliens as in doodoodoodoo doodoodoodoo?’
‘Aliens as in doodoodoodoo doodoodoodoo. He says they performed sexual experiments on him.’ Tristram drew a circle around his ear with a finger, the yoonal sign for loopy as.
‘Yeah, right,’ Torquil laughed. ‘That’s one thing I don’t get about aliens,’ he said. ‘Why would they come all the way to Earth for that? Don’t they get enough sex in outer space? Oh, g’day George.’ They came to a halt in front of where George stood belly-bent over his treasure trove. ‘Watcha got there?’
‘Tummy toners. Which one are you?’
‘Torq. Torquil.’
‘Right,’ George pointed a fat finger at each in turn. ‘Torquil. Blue. Tristram. Purple. When you’re not colour coded anybody tell you apart?’
‘Nup. Not even us,’ conceded Torquil cheerfully.
‘Every time I begin to develop a bit of individual personality,’ complained Tristram, ‘he just turns to me, inhales hard and whoop there it goes. Sucked right up through his nostrils and into the bloodstream. Then it’s, like, his too. Spooky.’
‘Bullshit,’ argued Torquil, punching his brother lightly on the arm. ‘That’s you. The human hoover.’
Slowly polishing a machine part with a greasy rag, George studied the twins. Tristram was wearing a frock again. Interesting. They’d once told him their father was Egyptian. Later, in one of his books, George read that Egyptians traditionally believed that twins were connected somehow to the star Sirius.
‘Do you two ever think about aliens?’ George ventured.
Torquil glanced at Tristram. What was this? International Alien Week? ‘All the time, George,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘As a matter of fact, we’re right into aliens at the moment. Jake was apparently kidnapped by some last night.’
If George had had any hair left on his head, it would have stood on end.
‘What?’
‘Torq! Trist! Get your fucken arses over here!’ Jake’s voice thundered across the yard from next door. ‘Chop chop.’
That tattoo. George was about to say something when Tristram cut him short.
‘Gotta go,’ Tristram shrugged. ‘Catch ya next time, George.’
‘Yeah,’ said Torquil. ‘Dad’s calling.’ Taking his brother’s hand, they turned and skipped off home.
George sat down on the ground with a thump. It was all happening. He was sure of it.
The babes were now approaching the eternally popular Cafe Da Vida, its latte-laden tables spilling out onto the pavement, its customers jargling and laughing, plotting and scheming. At this particular cafe, nearly everyone was an aspiring, has-been or even occasionally practising filmmaker, writer, or actor. This contributed to the theatrical levels of the conversation—a relationship drama here, a career tragedy there, a raucous farce in the middle.
‘I’ve got this idea for a movie.’ An earnest young man with a ponytai
l and black rectangular glasses leaned across the small table towards his friend. Like everyone else at the cafe, they were dressed entirely in black.
‘Yeah?’ said his friend, turning to exhale smoke and catching sight of the girls. ‘Whoa. Marty, hold on for a sec. Babe alert.’
Marty frowned. ‘You listening, Bret, or what?’
‘Yeah I’m listening,’ he sighed. ‘Can’t I listen and look at the same time?’
‘Can you?’
Bret sighed and angled his head so he could at least keep the girls in his peripheral vision. ‘Lay it on me.’ Were they green or was it just the light?
‘It’s about this guy in his mid-twenties, inner city type, who strives to overcome his alienation and ennui through drugs, alcohol and sex.’
Bret winced. ‘It’s been done before. Besides, that’s not art. That’s life.’
‘Aw thanks,’ said Marty, a little hurt. ‘But before you dismiss it out of hand, there’s a subplot.’ He paused for effect.
‘Well?’
‘It’s about how, like, blonde guys, I mean, natural blondes, not bottle blondes, can have a really hard time cultivating proper goatees, particularly those little caterpillar or triangular numbers underneath the bottom lip. Even if they’ve got enough facial hair to pull it off, the results hardly show and they can suffer unbelievable trend-angst as a result.’
Bret considered this a moment. ‘Now you’re talking,’ he nodded. He snuck a look over his shoulder. ‘Oh, man,’ he said. ‘You gotta check ‘em out.’
Marty did. ‘I think they’re green, Bret.’
‘Hey,’ Bret shrugged. ‘This is a multicultural society.’
‘Hi there,’ he saluted them.
‘Oi!’ Lati declared, cheerfully grabbing the crotch of her jeans and tonguing a bit of needle from between her teeth. Her wide grey eyes sparkled from beneath her tousled hair. ‘And what planet are youse from?’
‘Mars,’ gulped Bret. ‘And you?’ Did she just grab her crotch?
‘Mars?’ Baby shook her colourful head and wagged a finger at him. ‘Fuck off, ya slags,’ she laughed. ‘You’re nothing like a Martian. Martians are just dumb microbes. Prehistoricville. Cold and rocky.’ She reached out and stroked the skin of his arm. He felt like he’d just been dunked naked in a bath of warm milk and licked all over by a cat. ‘You’re not cold and rocky. No, you’re no Martian.’ She touched a finger playfully to Marty’s nose. ‘And neither are you,’ she said. Marty had the distinct impression that she’d taken his entire face in her mouth and sucked on it. He shivered. ‘You’re just an Earthling,’ Baby continued, coquettishly smoothing the teeny circle of pink fur down over the tops of her extraordinary thighs. ‘Not that I have anything against Earthlings. We love Earthlings, don’t we girls?’