Bugs

by Whiti Hereaka

  The Cock takes the money and stands up. He walks across the room, and as he’s about to leave he stops and turns back to us. ‘This is the last time …’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  Jez is all steel, man, Man of Steel, until the Cock leaves the room, and then Jez relaxes a little, and I can tell he’s shaking because the table is.

  ‘Jez?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  And he is – at least on the outside – when the Cock returns with a little baggie. Jez takes the bag from the Cock and I get up and help Jez to his feet. The Cock sits down and picks up his coffee. He watches us shuffle out from between the couch and the coffee table and says, ‘Hey, boy. You know you can’t just walk out like that. You’ve gotta sit down and have a smoke with me.’ Jez stops and looks at the baggie in his hand. The Cock holds out his hand, and Jez passes the bag over. The Cock takes it and pulls out a bud and stuffs it into his pipe. ‘It’s manners.’

  It’s rude – but Jez sits down and nods at me to do the same. ‘It’s what you do, B.’

  ‘That’s right, kid.’ The Cock’s voice strains as he tries to keep the smoke in. ‘It’s etiquette.’

  Which seems a strange word to use in a stink old flat that has sheets tacked up for curtains. ‘Etiquette’ makes me think of beauty queens and debutantes and meeting the Queen. But I guess every part of society has its own rules. If you could call this ‘society’. So the Cock takes a huge drag on the pipe and then hands it to Jez, who takes a puff and hands it to me. I don’t want to take it; I don’t want to put anything near my lips that has been on the Cock’s because I’ll probably get hepatitis, or syphilis, or even just a cold sore, but I can’t wipe it or refuse it because that wouldn’t fit in their ‘etiquette’. So I pull the smoke into my mouth hard – too much – and cough my lungs out. Jez takes the pipe from me and hands it back to the Cock.

  ‘Happy?’ Jez is on his feet, helping me up. The Cock just laughs and takes another drag, another drink, another top-up. He says, ‘As I’ll ever …’ But Jez slams the door behind us as we leave.

  I’m still fighting for breath as we walk back up the hill, back to actual civilisation.

  ‘I’m thirsty.’ My voice is as dry as my throat.

  ‘We’ll get a drink at the dairy.’ Jez stops. ‘B, can you do me a favour?’

  ‘What?’

  He holds the baggie in his hand, hidden in his palm. ‘Can you hold this for me?’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Who do you think the cops would search if we get stopped?’

  He’s paranoid already? This must be good stuff.

  I open my arms and turn around so he can get a good look at me. ‘Hello? Brown-while-walking too.’

  ‘Just stick it in your vagina or something.’

  And we just crack up; partly because of the smoke and partly because he just said vagina. Because we’re that mature.

  ‘Stick it up your arsehole, Jez.’ I pat his face. ‘But you’re so pretty I bet the cops will look there first.’

  ‘Seriously, B. Will you hold it or not?’

  I take the baggie from him. ‘You can stop smiling, because this is going nowhere near my pants.’ I shove the baggie into the side of my shoes.

  ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Now it will taste like toe jam.’

  I’m gonna gross this mo-fo out. ‘Better than fish.’

  He just smiles at me. ‘It tastes like chicken, B.’

  I punch him in the arm and walk off, except the baggie in my shoe makes me kinda hobble a bit. What a fucked-up pair we must make, hobbling down the street. At least our bung legs are different, so we’re not so much Tweedle Dum and Dee but mirrors of each other. And it’s funny, man. We just crack up until our laughter turns to hacks and we remember that we need a drink and some chips and some chocolate – yeah,

  chocolate – from the dairy.

  It’s cool, man. We haven’t been this light, haven’t laughed this much in like, forever. Me and Jez, Jez and me, just cruising the streets on a Saturday afternoon. We ninja our way back to Stone Cold’s – hiding in hedges and sneaking down paths even though the white plastic bags we carry from the dairy give us away in the shadows and rustle in the wind.

  Shelley’s in the garden again, trimming the hedge, because I guess it wasn’t straight enough. She must be keen to keep going; it’s already starting to get dark. We wave as we walk past and she lowers her garden shears.

  ‘What are you kids up to?’

  I cross my legs so my guilty foot is behind the innocent one. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I just mean –’ she nods at our munchies – ‘it looks like you’ve got enough for a party.’

  ‘Nah,’ Jez says. ‘Just a movie marathon, in the sleep-out.’

  Shelley lifts up the shears again. ‘Well, Bugs, you are welcome to stay the night. But Jez, I’d prefer it if you went home before it gets too late.’ She squeezes the shears shut and the blades go schick as they cut off a scraggly twig.

  ‘Will do, Shelley.’ Jez gives her a wink and a little salute as we walk around the back of the house. And the welcoming committee continues: here’s Duke, all ruff ruff ruff. God, the dog is a narc as well as a dumb-arse – he keeps sniffing at my shoe. I pick up one of his lemons and do a Stone Cold, pretending to throw it far away, and he zooms off. I hope he doesn’t hate me as much as he hates her when he gets back.

  ‘Where have you guys been?’

  Stone Cold is leaning in the door frame, her arms folded across her chest, and for a second she reminds me of the Cock standing in the doorway of his ‘chalet’, except Stone Cold’s really does look more chalet than dump, with the pretty flowers planted around it and the paintwork that’s not peeling. But it could be the same place; it could be. Is it just nicer because of where it’s ended up? If you took the sleep-out and dropped it in town, would it begin to look grimy and beat-up? If Stone Cold was standing there, with her arms folded and just as pissed, would it be at us rocking up, or at the whole fucking world? Because the view is way different there. She’d look at the world differently.

  And fuck me if that wasn’t a heavy thought, so I look at her again standing there like the Cock and I crack up and nudge Jez and say, ‘Check it out. It’s the Cunt,’ and I fold my arms and act like the Cock. I don’t know if the weed is making him slow or if he can’t get over that word, but Jez just kinda looks at me. But I don’t care, man. I crack up because right now that joke is golden. You know how they say laughter is contagious? So I’m cracking up and Jez cracks up too, and we’re just laughing and laughing until our stomachs hurt so we have to bend over to get the rest of the laughs out.

  ‘You guys started without me.’ Stone Cold’s shoulders drop and she slumps against the frame, the angle of her body saying, Really guys?

  ‘We had to,’ Jez says.

  And I finish his sentence, because we’re back, back on the same wavelength or page or whatever: ‘It’s good manners.’

  Jez mimes smoking a joint with his little finger out and says in a posh accent, ‘It’s etiquette.’

  I follow his lead and say in the same accent, ‘One bud or two, my dear?’

  ‘Shut up you guys, Mum will hear.’

  ‘Shelley’s OK,’ Jez says. ‘We just said hello to her.’

  ‘Fuck, you guys.’

  ‘It’s cool. We were straight as. Eh, B?’

  You know when you’re trying to be serious but your body does everything it can to trip you up? Like the laugh that tickles up from your belly and gets trapped in your mouth that will just fly out if you open your lips just a little bit? So I can’t actually say yes, because then it will all be over and Stone Cold will get all huffy and shit. So I just nod.

  But then Duke comes back with four lemons in his mouth so his lips are pulled back into a weird yellow grin, and I can’t stop it: I just crack up, big time.

  ‘Jeez, just get in here, Bugs.’ She pushes me through the door. ‘You’re a mess.’

  Poor old Duke is left alone
in the garden with his lemons.

  ‘Just skull it, B.’

  We’ve been passing the big bottle of lemonade between us, trying to empty it quickly so that Jez can cut up the bottle to make a bucket bong. He reckons that will catch Stone Cold up to us, but they don’t seem to have thought that if we’re all taking hits then she will always be playing catch-up – ha, ketchup – with us. The cold of the lemonade gives me brain freeze, and the bubbles make me feel sick. I think I’m going to chuck when a massive burp breaks free and my mouth moves around it, distorting and amplifying it so my uuurrrppp! seems to shake the whole bloody sleep-out.

  Stone Cold takes the bottle from me and wipes the top with her sleeve. ‘Nice, Bugs.’ She just looks at me as she chugs, chugs, chugs like it doesn’t burn her nose, or swell her stomach, or give her a headache.

  ‘Cool.’ Jez takes the empty bottle from her. ‘Have you got a craft knife?’ And he sets to, cutting and crafting. And Stone Cold hangs over him mmm-ing and ahh-ing like it’s some knitting lesson.

  I just sit on the floor holding my stomach as burp begets burp, but they’re getting smaller, like an echo petering out or the sound of a car as it speeds away. They taught us the word for that in physics, but fuck me if my brain hasn’t checked out for the day. It doesn’t care about words, just sensations – like how my face feels numb, and how my heart feels like it will burst out of my chest like the Alien, and how the chips that I’m eating feel on my tongue: kind of like each taste bud is being sucked up into it. It’s all weird and cool and all-consuming, and I’m an all-consumer; I keep eating the chips even though I’m full because I like how it feels …

  And then the bucket is on the floor in front of us, and Jez is explaining to Stone Cold how you light the cone and pull the bottle up, and how it gets filled with smoke.

  ‘When you’re ready, take the lid off and just push it back down into the water.’

  Stone Cold kneels in front of the bucket and takes off the lid … but she can’t take all the smoke in, and she doesn’t put the lid back on, so it’s all wasted. She’s coughing and hacking, and then she says, ‘Am I meant to feel something yet?’

  And me and Jez realise that she’s a noob. Which is cool or whatever, but they like to talk about everything that’s happening to them and ask am I meant to? Is it normal? Do you feel it too? They just want to talk, while the rest of us just want to be.

  ‘Should I do it again?’ She’s still spluttering like a two-stroke.

  Jez takes the lid from her and stokes the cone again. ‘Wait a couple of minutes, eh?’ He pulls up the bottle and forces it down again, and then it’s my turn. I think about just passing, but I don’t think I can handle Stone Cold talking and talking, so I take my hit and pass the lighter to Stone Cold.

  She’s even more useless when she’s stoned. So me and Jez prop her on the couch between us and cue up some movies. I don’t care what we watch; I just need colours and movement and sound, because there’s nothing but now in my head: no past, no future, just now.

  The computer must have turned itself off ages ago. The TV is still on; the no signal box bounces around the screen. My mouth is dry and my eyes are gritty. I don’t know what time it is – there’s some light and the birds are singing, but I can’t figure out if it is twilight or dawn … Did we watch that stink movie? Miss Shaw would be so stoked to know that I did. See, she’d say, You do relate to it, Bugs. Only if I’m brain-dead and can’t be fucked, Miss; only then.

  Stone Cold and Jez are leaning against each other, asleep. I stand up and try to stretch the crick out of my neck. We must have been here for hours.

  Is this what Sleeping Beauty did after she woke? Stretched and yawned and smacked her lips together? I open the door to the sleep-out and half expect it to be grown over with thorny rose bushes. Although if it was I expect Shelley would have already tidied it up, with the schick schick schick of her garden shears. I sit on the step. The lawn glistens with dew, so at least now I know which way the world has turned. It’s still cold in the mornings, so I sit there watching my breath mist. When I was a little kid I would imagine that I was a dragon breathing fire when I did this. Later I would pretend that I was smoking like a grown-up. The cold makes me cough. It feels like last night’s smoke is still sitting on my lungs. God, I probably reek. I’m taking a sneaky whiff of my armpits when I hear Duke ruff-ruff-ing and his nails clicking on the deck of the house. I look up and he’s straining on his leash – trying to get down to me for a game of lemon ball.

  I see a man on the deck. I guess that’s him, the elusive Mr Fox, who I’ve heard about but haven’t seen because he’s away on business or something. I didn’t really think he existed. I thought maybe he was just a pair of gumboots on the step so that people would think that Shelley wasn’t alone. But here he is, in trackpants and a too-new hoodie, and I’m waving at him as he opens the back door and disappears inside.

  ‘Bugs. Close the door, it’s freezing.’ Stone Cold stands behind me, arms crossed.

  I stand up and go back in. The room is musty with our breath and the fan heater she’s just turned on. Jez is still asleep, leaning against the wall, so I have to whisper, ‘I just saw your dad.’

  Stone Cold freezes on the spot. ‘Where?’

  ‘On the deck.’ I yawn and stretch out on her bed. ‘He must be taking Duke for a walk.’

  ‘Was he coming out of the house, or going in?’

  ‘Going in. Why?’

  ‘Fuck!’ She shakes Jez awake. ‘Wake up, Jez.’

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’

  ‘You’ve got to go.’ She’s trying to pull Jez to his feet, but sleep is still weighing him down. ‘He walks Duke, then has some water and a banana …’

  ‘Who?’ Jez is scrunching his eyes, trying to focus.

  ‘My dad. It’s what he does when he’s at home. He walks the dog, then has some water and a banana before he starts his circuit …’

  ‘In the gym?’ Jez says.

  ‘Yes. In the gym. In the room next door.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Fuck, yes, fuck. You’re not supposed to be here, Jez. You were supposed to go home.’

  Jez throws his shoes and his jacket on in a scramble and is almost out the door when Stone Cold screams, ‘Not out the door!’ And she opens the tiny window above her desk and holds the monitor as Jez climbs over the desk and out the window, and he kind of hop-runs across the lawn through the hedge, with Duke aw-aw-ing behind him, because it looks like a fun game to a dog.

  And just as Jez disappears into the hedge, Mr Fox appears in the sleep-out. He’s tall and solid, with a full-on moustache. If the world was an old black and white movie, he would be one of those strongmen, barrel-chested and in stripy wool togs. Everything about this family is supersized – where Stone Cold has a massive mouth, her father has a massive nose. Good thing you didn’t inherit that. Or maybe it just seems massive because when he sniffs his moustache moves up and down too.

  ‘What have you girls been doing in here?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Stone Cold is dwarfed by him. ‘Just watching movies.’

  ‘It stinks.’ Sniff sniff, like a dog at the airport. ‘You’ve got the heater on and the window open.’ And he barges past us to close the window. He leans against the desk to pull it in, and his hand lands right on the baggie. He picks it up and looks at it and turns around to us. Of course the bucket is still there where we left it last night – the chip packets, the lolly wrappers – because we’re not master criminals; hell, not even amateurs. He knows what’s been going on, even though he asks, ‘What’s been going on here?’

  What are we going to say? We can’t lie, but we can’t tell the truth. So we just stand there and try not to make eye contact with him, with each other.

  He dangles the baggie from his fingers, and it’s shaking. ‘Answer me.’ The colour is rising in his face, but what can we say? What can we possibly say?

  His voice is rising too. ‘Where did you get this from, Charmaine? Where?�
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  She looks like she’s going to bawl but she doesn’t crack, and somewhere in her tear-pricked eyes I see Jez, on his knees, his arms opened wide, waiting for the hit, and I can’t run away again, so I say the stupidest thing I have ever said.

  ‘It’s mine.’

  11

  The condom floats in the middle of the bowl like a flaccid, bloated jellyfish that would choke any shag that tried to swallow it. I flush the toilet, and the swoosh of the water pushes it down and around, but as the water calms and the cistern fills, it still bobs back up to the surface.

  A hotel is like a massive game of dress-ups. It’s a weird game of pretend played by the guests and staff. The stars they award hotels? They’re given to the best players, the ones who make it seem as if the room is brand new, as if no one has been there before, as if the room has been sealed and waiting especially for the guest to arrive. The guests play along, paying a premium to the places that lie the best, because in real life, how many of these guests would sleep in a second-hand bed on a second-hand pillow? In someone else’s sheets? Not the ones that stay here. But everyone chooses to ignore the reality of it, so it doesn’t exist. That’s part of the game. It makes me think of all the white wedding dresses in the world with a baby bump hidden in the tulle.

  ‘They don’t flush, Bub,’ says Trace, who calls me ‘Bub’ because I’m the youngest – or maybe she misheard mum say my name. I don’t know; I quite like being ‘Bub’.

  Bub is the kinda dumb kid who gets caught holding. Bub is the kinda dumb kid who says the baggie’s hers. Bub is the kinda dumb kid who spends the rest of her holidays cleaning up other people’s used condoms.

  ‘Just fish it out and put it in the bin. Not with your hands, Bub! Use the toilet brush.’

  I fish it out as I’m told, and must’ve made a face because Trace is laughing at me. ‘It’s not that bad, Bub, not that bad. It’s worse when they come flying out at you from the sheets. And that’s not the worst thing that you find in the sheets, let me tell you.’

  And she does: every kind of body fluid, on sheets, on pillowslips, on walls, on floors. It would be kind of funny, like the Cat in the Hat books, if we weren’t the ones that had to magic it away.