Hemi, snarl almost gone now, eyes glazed by violence done and foreseen — a kid at a Star Wars film — ‘Enuf? Huhuhuhu! Yu should know me beda than that, cuz! I ain’t even starded on ’im!’ And then he pulls Steve close, whispering for his ears only, but Mick, silent at their feet, catches every word: ‘Ain’t noe way I can back orf from this in fron’a all my boys, Steve. Yu noe tha pro-do-coal. So take the uva bawl’ead and fuck orf, no ’ard feelings. What yu doan see woan ’urt yu.’
Steve, intense near to tears, but just as low: ‘This kid’s as good as a bruva t’ me, Hemi.’ Nose to nose with his cousin. ‘Yu got no idea the things me an ’im’ve bin through. If I leave ’im to this I’m nothing. Fuckin’ nothing, man. I’ll die befaw I live wif that.’ Teeth clicking closed: ‘So let me promise yu this: yu ’urt ’im once maw and, befaw the week’s out, I’ll be back ’ere for yu wif a fuckin’ shotgun … And yu noe me well enuf t’noe I ain’t bluffing.’
For long seconds they stare off, passion shuddering Steve in pulses.
Until eventually, with a scoff like a hiss, Hemi pushes his cousin away. ‘Tssssssss. ’U said I wan-ed t’urt ’im sum maw, anyway?’ His eyes sweep the gallery, daring dissension. ‘We all noe ’ow soft bawl’eads are: giv’im any maw an’ I’ll be up faw fuckin’ murder.’ He forces a grin across his lips. ‘I’d beda finish my lesson, though. Can’t let ’im leave wifout ’is medsin.’
And in seconds Hemi’s freed himself, standing over Gator, dick in hand.
Hoots of pure glee light the congregation.
Steve grimaces disgust, averts his head, but is plainly willing to accept the compromise.
Rescued then betrayed by developments, Mick, half anticipating an act of molestation, jumps in surprise and alarm when Hemi takes deliberate aim, sends a jet of urine spouting at Gator’s half-conscious head.
Around him, Hemi’s flock cheer like a crowd with a match-clinching try.
Flopping like an epileptic, dribbling vomit, Gator turns his face away, arms lifting weakly, and Mick can see that he hasn’t a clue what’s happening to him.
Thank fuck.
Two chuckling gangsters move forward, taking Gator’s arms and standing on them, pinning him in position as Hemi’s full bladder picks off its targets.
Mick has to turn away.
But by the time Hemi dribbles his last a queue has formed behind him.
And it’s five wet minutes before Steve and Mick can drag Gator clear. Soaked, they bundle him murmuring and twitching into The ’Dan’s back seat, head lolling as if from a snapped spine.
With Barry at the wheel, they drive through town in black silence, and, minutes later, help Gator fully dressed into the hot natural baths of Ruikau Park.
(Compiled from data amassed by Informant O.C. 57846.)
The said informant observed apprentice cogs S.V. 568645 and S.V. 567791 beyond permissible orbits. Specifically, they were sighted on a gentle, grassed hillside fronting a wooded lake (non-productive overhead preserved and endured for the recreational bribery of Overseer Caste). Side by side, in programming-plant uniform, they lay upon the bonnet of that vehicular anachronism inside of which they have previously been scrutinised. (A single unit to last decades? What were our forebears thinking? A sleeker, less longevous model is what these two need, the payments on which would do so much towards discouraging this bothersome unorthodoxy.)
Worryingly, closer inspection by the diligent informant exposed the RED- and BROWN-haired pair as guilty of more than mere Desertion of Post and Trespass. It was revealed that the insubordinate twosome were engaged in consumption of the dreaded Sloth&Dream Weed, and a routine eavesdropping of their emissions suggests their heads house direly defective programming.
BROWN: Are you gonna marry that fucking thing?
RED: Oh, sorry, bro. Here ya go. I was miles away. [He hands BROWN the noxious creation. Wistful] Fuck, I’d love to be out on one of those boats.
BROWN [harsh with smoke and mutiny]: Yeah, and I’d love an extra inch or five of beef-blunderbuss.
RED: Ain’t that the truth.
BROWN [feigning anger — the pair seem fond of thespian camouflage]: What are you trying to say?
RED [feigning severity]: That you’re hung like a castrated fruit-fly.
BROWN [‘angering’ further]: That’s a goddamn lie! You know full well that the donning of my trousers is a three-leg operation.
RED [‘contrite’]: Oh, yeah, that’s right. My mistake.
BROWN [‘appeased by an inch’]: See that it doesn’t happen again.
[For a time the flawed cogs are silent, the incendiarism of the Sloth&Dream Weed sullen in eyes drooling over betters at play]
RED [without warning]: So, man.
BROWN: So what, man?
RED: So why don’t you do what you’ve been promising to for weeks now?
BROWN: Namely?
RED: Quantify the incitements and objectives of this Brotherhood of yours. The one for which you’ve apparently had me performing ‘outer-circle duties’ for some time. I’m sick of nebulous notions. Nail this shit down for me.
BROWN: [‘sceptical’]: Do you seriously consider yourself ready to have your security clearance upgraded? [‘Bleakly grave’] You’re aware that the only way out from this point is victory or death?
RED: Dude, I’m about as serious as a heart attack.
BROWN: That’s pretty fucking serious. [Draws some ‘pensive’ breaths, in time reaching an ‘onerous’ decision] OK. You asked for it. Henceforth, you’re to view yourself an inner-circle member. Prepare for your indoctrination.
RED: How many inner-circle members are there?
BROWN: Rule number one: until proven in the field, new members shall learn the names of no other members. Because of the Brotherhood’s momentary shortage of cyanide capsules — and a dentist to install them in fillings — should you be captured, subjected to torture, and find yourself nearing breaking point, the Brotherhood needs to know you’ll preserve its integrity by biting through your own tongue and bleeding to death. We’re not yet prepared to do this.
RED [‘haughtily dismissive’]: Oh, na, you can trust me, man. My only fear in life is self-betrayal. I’d happily suicide if it meant keeping faith with fellow revolutionaries. The Other Side holds no fear for me; in fact I’m eager to learn what it looks like.
BROWN: That’s good enough for me, then. [Ceremonious pause] The Brotherhood’s inner-circle is currently composed of two members.
RED: You mean two members apart from us?
BROWN: I mean two members.
RED: Cool.
[Forsaking his seat, Brown spends a moment rummaging through the vehicle’s interior. He returns with pen and paper, resuming his lounging atop the ‘car’, back supported by the windscreen.]
BROWN [as he draws]: Lesson number two: are you familiar with the concept of the J-curve?
RED: The biological concept?
BROWN: Affirmative.
RED: I think so. [He speaks slowly, assembling the threads as he goes] Is it when the population of a species in a given area … enjoys unprecedentedly positive preconditions for life … and increases at an exponential rate?
BROWN: Correctamundo. [Finished, he offers RED the piece of paper] Behold: a factual J-curve, constructed from data seared onto my consciousness.
RED [holding the sheet before him]: That’s a pretty fucking steep J-curve, man. What’s the species? Some strain of swamp amoeba?
BROWN: You work it out; lateral thinking is highly prized among the Brotherhood. A clue: the X axis denotes years.
RED [musing]: Years …? That’d mean the zero signifies 0 BC then, and everything to the right of it is Anno Domini … Soooo, that given … [As if it has winked at him, RED suddenly reels from the graph, sitting up smartly. He glares at his accomplice, back at the paper. He looks up at last and all traces of irony have been blasted from his voice. Dismayed] It’s us, isn’t it? It’s mankind!
BROWN [remaining, by contrast, eerily phlegmatic]: Bing-go.
RED [groping for mitigation]: It can’t be! Are you sure? The stats, I mean! Are you positive they’re correct?
BROWN [nodding once, coldly]: The data are indisputable. The fact is, it took our venerable species millions of years of evolution and development to reach the figure of three billion members … and then we doubled in five decades.
[Dazed, RED scans the forest around them, as if seeing it for the first — or last — occasion]
RED [almost a wail]: But this is fucking hideous!
BROWN [yawning]: Am I to take it that, according to natural law, you’re aware of the pitfalls faced by a population locked on a J-curve?
[For an instant RED appears braced to shout, or maybe run. Instead he snatches the pen from BROWN’s hand and, like an act of outrage, scores the graph with a finishing touch. BROWN gives RED’s work a quick appraisal. His tone then is almost gentle.]
BROWN: What does that line mean to you?
RED [frost in his throat]: Apocalypse, man. Human
3
Wednesday, 8 March, 12.48pm
I remain in my room for four days straight. Dealings with the world are beyond me. Lingering concussion cobwebs keep the hours hazy, an effect assisted by liberal doses of pot and Panadol. My old lady used to be a nurse: she checked me over and reached the diagnosis of no broken ribs. Pissed blood for a while, though. Couldn’t tell her that: she’d have had me down the A&E in two minutes flat. Thankfully, it sorted itself out.
Haven’t even ventured as far as the corner shop yet. I slipped Mum my ATM card, gave her an open mandate on shopping and cooking.
Mothers, eh? Where’d we be without them?
As teenagehood and its boundless selfishness fades, I’m beginning to realise I’m lucky to have a mother who even gives me the time of day. Christ, I was a prick! I’m hardly alone in that, but now that I can look back with open eyes this doesn’t make my actions any easier to stomach.
Filching money from her purse. Convincing her that lending me the car (her hard-earned and maintained conveyance) was in fact a good idea; driving it in all manner of pissed and drugged-up states; laying down squealies and handbrake slides; never once coughing up for wear and tear — hell, never once even washing the fucking thing; transforming it into a mobile dope-den; shafting the missus in the back seat, once on the bonnet, an act to leave a sizeable dent, of which I disavowed all knowledge. Throwing parties and piss-ups as soon as Mum departed for an overnighter. Thrusting spotting knives — filched from her good dinner set — into stove-top, heater or fireplace, as soon as she departed for … for anywhere. Smoke burns in the carpet … while she paid for my inhalers. Urine patches all over a lawn I outright refused to mow. Booze bottles at a quarter their manufactured proof thanks to siphoning and water or tea refills. Endless verbal abuse.
Man, I knew every fucking thing.
It got to the stage where she just let go, stopped censuring, or even advising, me, disapproval coming only in grimaces, in sighs.
At the time this was heaven.
Recalling these expressions now flays my insides.
Only when I started working — months after burning my final bridges with the programming plant — paying regular board, acting with a semblance of maturity, did things mellow between us. Though she wished more for me, Mum saw my job as the beginnings of a salvage operation.
So yeah, she wasn’t exactly brimming with enthusiasm when I pulled the pin and opted to have Wellington foot the bill for a spell.
I’ve made tentative advances toward apprenticing her into the Craft of Arch-Treason. (‘Don’t you see? Capitalist society is destroying its natural habitat, damage to ultimately result in Man’s own annihilation. Should folk not draw the dole, then, what would that money be spent on? Building a new road? Damming another river? Funding a GE experiment? Thus by claiming the dole and prolonging the life of the natural world, at the same time we’re doing our fellows a favour by extending protection to the grassroots on which they’ve forgotten their survival depends!’)
But these efforts have so far been deflected. Though the Juggernaut has used her callously, I fear my mother remains a reactionary.
There’s nothing like a wee crisis to nullify family acrimony, though. When I staggered in the other morning, Mum even accepted my manifestly phoney account of events without question (shock had sapped my instinct for disinformation).
Though I believe she’ll soon query my Listerine consumption — two bottles a day must seem a little obsessive.
And my mouth still tastes of piss.
Yet, excepting this deathless flavouring, I’m not as traumatised as one might expect a victim of facial urination to be. Thank fuck I was barely conscious throughout the incident: put to such use, urine must burn like acid, leave itching scars.
But what frees me most from inner torment is the fact that by being slashed upon, I surely dodged a bullet far worse.
It seems I’ve been run to ground by the Fiendish Beast … and all it really did was relieve itself on me.
Yes, as the pain in my side fades, I’m beginning to expend all excuse for staying bedroom bound. Beginning to question — if not through shame at my ordeal — why I feel the need to hide in here.
And finally, with a heaving sigh, I face up to the fact I’ve been quietly ducking. It is shame … but not with the world in general.
With my friends.
Since they left me at the hot pools — I made them explain what exactly took place; convinced them I needed time alone — I’ve not heard from them. And I can’t say their silence is puzzling: who’d want to hang with a dude who’s been pissed on by upwards of ten crusty black cocks?
Though perhaps they’re more ashamed of themselves than me. After all, technically, they allowed it to happen.
I ardently pray for this to be the case. To have to begin recruitment afresh will set my agenda back months, if not years. And for a fraternity of one, the telling perpetration of Arch-Treason is a virtual impossibility — when winter’s blizzards rage, the lone wolf succumbs while the pack hunts on.
Not to mention the security hazard posed by allowing inner-circle members beyond my sphere of influence.
And yeah, losing my three best mates would suck as well.
I take a moment to give solemn thanks for Lefty’s innate cowardice. Had he remained to bear witness to my fate, plans for my relocation would already be under way — Newfoundland might have been ideal — for not only would Lefty have found subtle means of refreshing my memory of the experience every ten minutes for the remainder of my life (‘Busting for a slash, guys.’ ‘Well, I damn near pissed myself laughing.’) he would also have extracted excruciating revenge by effectively broadcasting a detailed description of the episode on Radio Vegas.
The clock hits one; I decide it’s high time to begin my day, time to motor-vate. Rolling from bed, I briefly consider breakfast … discard the notion. Toy with the idea of washing and brushing … decide it can wait. Get stoned and read for half an hour? By god, the lad’s a genius!
(A part of me knows that half an hour will stretch out to two or three — cannabis being procrastination’s mistress — but overlooking this beforehand is a simple task.)
Opening the top drawer of my dresser I’m confronted by enough drug paraphernalia to see me jailed for several lifetimes should I strike an inclement beak with the power of non-concurrent sentencing.
True to routine, I grimace at the sight, even as my hands enter the drawer, sifting through the felonious debris.
Blackened tinfoil — smeared with cannabis oil, lit from beneath and inhaled — to tally to square metres should one ever unscrew and assemble the stuff.
Spotting knives — upon which, once heated to redness, oil and weed might be burned. Straws and funnels — manufactured from pen-shells and bottles — through which smoke from spotting might be breathed. Sewing needles for the allocation of oil; for ‘pinball’. Metal cone-pieces used in conjunction with water and bucket bongs, some purchase
d — ornamentally legal prior to deflowering — some hacked from aluminium cans.
Simple bongs made from such cans. (‘First cut a hole on top. Not too big or your weed’ll fall through. Yep, that’ll do ya. Now poke another hole the same size underneath. That’s ya carburettor; some people prefer not to use one; you’ll have to decide for yourself. Then all you do is put a little gear on top, light ’er up, and suck like hell through the mouthpiece. Hold that baby deeeeep.’)
A reeking plastic bottle which served time as a water-bong, before wear compromised its airtightness. (‘Fill ’er up and leave it in the fridge ovanight. I tell yu, bro, yu ain’t neva smoked nufing so smoove in yaw whole fuckin’ life.’)
Standard pipes bought, borrowed and made — including one ingenious device manufactured from the plastic case of an asthma inhaler, tinfoil fixed across its empty head.
Scissors for the mulling of buds, for the halving and quartering of strong acid.
Plastic capsules that once housed cannabis oil. (‘Forty bucks a hit, dude. Tastes like shit, though. Not sure what kind of crap they mix it with, but it’ll get you wrecked a few times a day for a week or so. Oh, yeah, much better value than a tinny.’)
A razor blade for the powdering of lumpy speed.
Packets of blue and yellow ZigZag, old and new, many hopelessly glued by moisture, strewn through the drawer like leprechaun bog-roll.
Evil-green hash-oil stains clinging to everything. Lighters in all manner of condition. Empty and near empty matchboxes, some so aged the writing’s faded to illegibility. The stubs of candles, used when running low on incendiary products …
For perhaps the hundredth occasion in three years I resolve to dispose of this evidence of fun-lovin’ criminality … tomorrow.
Skulking toward the side of the drawer a Sportsman packet yields its treasure: a small lump of seedless bud, rock-like in its solidity, layered in purplish filament. An insignificant amount of blow to the uninitiated, perhaps, but to such as myself this represents three return trips to Stonesville. More, were I to bong or pipe the stuff. Recent tribulations in mind, though, I’ve been a trifle decadent of late, savouring the inefficient luxury of small solo joints.
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