Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

  Not long after ushering us through, though, Bum decided to switch the lights out as well, surprising and alarming us all.

  Because acid, like weed’s bigger cousin — so far removed from booze or amphetamines — is a drug prone to mood-swings if a favourable environment isn’t maintained. Paranoia and doubt of shocking force can supersede wonder in mere seconds.

  When Bum ordered we bring him here our bubble didn’t burst so heinously as this, but the come-down certainly kicked in a lot sooner and harsher than it might have.

  Leaving us in the here, a Henderson kerbside, euphoria gone, the world still viewed through higher eyes but without its cushion of giddiness, the negativity in our insights left inexorable and glaring, like an ageing Diva in morning sun.

  Bum climbs in back. Declares: ‘Well, that’s that sorted. As soon as ya’s lay your mitts on the blow, give me a call with an estimate of how much you have, and of its quality. I’ll phone the dude; he’ll get the bucks around.’

  Barry: ‘Can your man round up that sort of cash?’

  Bum: ‘He’s connected to all fuck, cuz. Wouldn’t have tried to jack up a deal like this with your standard ghetto tinny dealer. Don’t ask any more about him, please.’

  ‘Sweet.’

  Even given the introversion two hours in this neighbourhood has set to our trips, Mick’s been quieter than usual recently. He speaks now, though. ‘No chance of him falling through, Bum? I mean, is there a back-up if this dude doesn’t happen for some reason? We don’t fancy hanging on to this much pot for more than a day or so.’

  Bum: ‘He won’t fall through. If he can only take a portion of it there’s a couple of back-ups, but they’re smaller scale. I’ll move what I can, and I know a sweet spot to bury any surplus; it’ll be shifted in weeks.’

  I look to Steve; he nods tightly.

  Bum: ‘When are ya’s leaving?’

  Steve: ‘Somewhere round midnight. We wanna do all our drivin’ in the dark and spend the full day out there.’

  Bum: ‘Did ya’s hear the weather report?’

  Me: ‘Na.’

  ‘There’s a big storm crossing the Tasman. It’s forecast to reach Northland by Sunday night. Sounds like it’s gonna piss down for days.’

  Steve: ‘Won’t trouble us …’less it arrives early.’

  Barry: ‘Where to now, then? You need to go anywhere else, Bum?’

  ‘Na, mate, I’m a free agent. You dudes look as if you’re coming down pretty hard, though; should get a few drinks in ya’s, take the edge off things. I know a mellow pub nearby: low lighting, sweet jukie, dak up in the garden bar, cheap beer. ’

  Mick: ‘Nearby, is it? Must be rough if it’s near here.’

  Bum: ‘Naaa, man. Big Maori dude runs it. Tough cunt. Ex-All Black. Good mate of mine. Tolerates no shit in his joint. Always got three or four of his cronies in the house, too. The locals know better than to rumble there.’

  Everyone brightens to the suggestion — even Mick, whom I’ve never once known to touch a drop on consecutive days.

  Saturday, 11 March, 7.12pm

  That Lefty had resolved to hitch-hike home, and persevered with his thumbing for long hours — in spite of the manner with which motorists had shied from his hideousness — spoke of a depth of character none had ever credited him with.

  Because even though he had found in his pack a pair of sunnies to cover his black eye; even though his missing teeth could only be seen if he grinned carelessly; even though he was able to stand tall around his bruised ribs when need be; and even though there’re plenty of people sentenced to life with noses naturally larger than the size his broken beak had swollen to, Lefty believed that for such as himself to be asked to hitch-hike so soon after being cheated of his remarkable looks, amounted to a cheetah sent hunting with hind legs in plaster.

  But he’d made it.

  After a hellish night in a Smoke alley, to the Southern Motorway, to State Highway One, to the Vegas turnoff, Lefty had plugged away, stoically bearing the stares and the grins of the passers-by, even female drivers — who would customarily have burned brake-lining in their haste to collect him — stomached the horns of the heartless with no humanity to spare.

  Within several rides he’d reached his city’s outskirts, the achievement birthing in him pride of intense dimensions, because, stripped of one’s chief assets, penniless, Lefty was all too aware of how the fate of Joe Average in his shoes would have manifested.

  Back on home turf, immensely relieved for it, Lefty picks his way through the city’s western suburbs, his thoughts at last free to roam.

  Unprompted, they stroll immediately down the cold, stone cobbles of Retribution Drive.

  We’re at Bum’s pub in five minutes. Mick parks along the kerb, beside a grotty little park, slide covered in birdshit and tags. The lads pile out, but I’m taken by an urge to kick back alone, suck on a gasper.

  Mick: ‘Here’s the keys, then. See ya inside.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Feet on the seat in front of me, I rest my eyes on a group of motley kids at play in the park, perhaps eight of them, multi-hued, wrestling, the largest and oldest, a Maori girl of around eleven, throwing the others about with ease. To me these younger don’t seem happy with arrangements, acceding to the sanctioned violence robotically, instinctively.

  But maybe it’s the acid reading too much into the scene.

  Some minutes later a mangy dog slinks into the commotion, tail wagging uncertainly, hungry for playmates, for attention. Sensing a role reversal, the smallest child rounds on the mutt, baying like a Cossack. It retreats in quick order but turns back, ears flat, fawning. The boy aims a kick at it, joined by two of his contemporaries; the dog darts clear, keeping its distance, though hanging on hopefully.

  Her prominence usurped, suddenly alone, Big Girl takes steps to restore things: locating a rock, hurling it at the mongrel.

  It scampers away further, but turns again, confused and needy.

  Her act captures her fellows’ imaginations: the dog is soon beleaguered by a storm of projectiles. The fusiliers offer rowdy chase.

  To dizzying impact, the scene becomes microcosmic of wider things. Under-stimulated kids, raised around violence, venting inner tempests on any victims at hand, all too happy to play aggressor for once, urges and habits to fester with ‘development’.

  Leaden for both parties, I leave The ’Dan on impulse, move into the park, toward the ‘mob’.

  ‘Hey, kids!’

  As one they turn to me, reflexively defiant. ‘What?’

  Just a suggestion: ‘Why don’t y’all leave the dog alone? He means no harm to ya’s. He just wants someone to play with.’

  Big Girl, caustic: ‘Shut up, mister! Yu can’t fuckin’ tell us what to do.’

  Again she inspires them.

  ‘Yeah, you ain’t our parents.’

  ‘Yu ain’t even a man!’

  A cheeky-looking seven-year-old: ‘Yeah, fuck orf, bawl’ead!’

  ‘Hahahahaha!’

  But I have their attention. The dog goes to ground along a nearby fence, observing events with interest.

  Me, ‘startled’: ‘Do you mean to say nobody’s ever told you guys what happens to people who’re kind to animals?’

  I’ve always had the words for kids. Of course: the Brotherhood would hardly suffer a leader unable to bait those with faith in the Easter Bunny. Also, a younger me once worked a babysitting racket — before penetrating the teenage elite — and necessity taught him the tools a child might be won with.

  Oh yeah, I can play Hamlin’s pipes with the best of them. Were I given to paedophilia, I’d enjoy a sex life to rival any man of the cloth.

  Still, given their home life and mob mentality, these before me present a tough audience.

  Big Girl: ‘Na, we ain’t bin told what ’appens, and we doan wanna be told, either!’

  A second: ‘Yeah, it’s much better t’…’

  The aroused youngster sets off along a tangen
t of nonsense I’ve no intention of suffering. Loud enough to slice his sentence: ‘Well, if you don’t wanna know, then I’m wasting my time with ya’s.’ I make eye contact with the cheeky Maori boy, judging him an agreeable medium. ‘I might as well just let you carry on living without the secret, even if it means that one day you’ll find out what it is, but it’ll be too late by then, and you’ll remember me standing here in front of you, and you’ll say to yourselves, “Why didn’t I listen for just one minute?”’

  Shrugging, regretful and ponderous — quietly confident — I turn from their silence …

  … and they let me go with zero bites.

  Well, not completely.

  ‘Yeah, fuck off, yu silly white cunt! Doan need no lekshas from yu!’

  ‘Hahahaha!’

  Stung by even this rejection, my cheeks redden. Shoulders shrinking, walking faster: tactical fall-back to chaotic rout. It seems my touch has deserted me.

  At my back: ‘I bet yu ’ad a secret, all right! A secret cock in yaw pants yu wanted us t’ touch!’

  ‘You fuckin’ dirty pervert!

  ‘Hahahahahaha!’

  And without warning this new element douses my abashment. Taints it with a shot or two of wrath. Though I’m not sure why, exactly. Maybe it’s simple umbrage at such gross disrespect from juniors. Am I merely incensed by the baseness of the category in which they seek to lump me?

  Perhaps, but I don’t think so.

  Though I’d face firing squad before speaking this aloud, I fear my sudden aggrievement stems from the sexual spin the kids impart upon their snubbing of me. After all, without fail, my life’s most agonising humiliations occur in the carnal arena.

  I’m no kiddie fucker, am appalled by the notion, but deja vu needs little cover from which to spring ambush.

  My feet stop. They no longer wish me elsewhere. Even as the illogic of the reaction chafes at me, I turn back to the imps, face hardening all by itself.

  Their grins slip, two of them backing off a pace.

  Warming me darkly.

  I know this is wrong, but I’m able to ignore the voice. Iniquity offers unique thrills, and these little fucks have touched my rawest nerve.

  I doubt, however, that an urge to press this vengeance further than intimidation could ever possess me — thank god. And I’m well aware of the chances even the wittiest lone mouth takes into an outnumbered squabble (My cock’s had someone a lot better looking than you monkeys touching it recently!): I bite back verbal assault as well. With phantom daggers only, I move stiffly to a nearby bench, climb aboard — feet on the seat, arse on its back — looming like poised thunder.

  Removing a smoke from my shirt pocket; flicking a flame; lighting up — Billy the Kid on a lazy reload.

  But gradually, as physical threat fades, the alarm gripping the pipsqueaks eases.

  Big Girl, belligerent: ‘So yu think yu a man just ’cause yu puff, do yu?’

  Flat stare. Flawless smoke-ring.

  Then, for the barest second, I sincerely consider offering her one.

  Another: ‘What’s wrong? Cat gotcha tongue?’

  ‘Cat got ’is ’nads, maw like it!’

  ‘Hahahaha!’

  Flat stare. Flawless smoke-ring.

  So suddenly it sickens, the enmity inside me retreats — red mist lifted … voila!: a grown man harassing underprivileged children.

  Way to go, tough guy.

  Could’ve happened to anyone, though, really. That is, anyone with the arse-end of an acid-trip in their noggin.

  Nausea fades obediently.

  Clears a breach for more habitual impulses; awkward seconds are spent weighing options for departing the impasse with face intact.

  Arriving empty-handed.

  Until fate throws me a joker.

  Overlooked by all, the incident’s catalyst, the dog, has skulked into the scene, rounding the bench I’m on. He gazes up at me: the boundless wisdom of the mute pitying me my volatility.

  With no thought for the hazards of rejection No. 2, I pat my leg and whistle. Gingerly, the dog creeps nearer, stretches his snout to my hand …

  … sniffing …

  … blinks at last, tension deserting him.

  A tap of the bench and he springs up beside me.

  Scratching his ears, just a bloke and a dog … we could almost be alone.

  A twisted cheer: ‘What’re yu gonna try it wif the mutt now, I s’pose? Yu got sum butter in yaw pocket, ’ave you? Yu can rub it on yaw knob, get him to lick it off!’

  ‘Hahahahaha!’

  I front them with a six-gun more PC by far: guilt.

  Sombre frown, bruised eyes, borrowing from the dog’s benevolence shamelessly.

  I offer compassion and this is my thanks?

  A couple seem moved, compunction smothering their mirth.

  Big Girl as well seems to tire with the sport. Scoffing: ‘Let’s go. Leave this weirdo alone wif his new girlfriend.’

  They follow her lead. Cheeky brings up the rear, his gaze the last to leave me, sudden solemnity hollowly gratifying. Before long the group are wrestling again, the mêlée wheeling them slowly toward the park’s far corner.

  Stroking my new friend: ‘Immaculate timing, old boy.’ Gratitude outweighing the mange of its coat, the scabs beneath, the crust round its eyes.

  Lefty had promised himself dire vengeance.

  And they’ll deserve every cold inch of it, the fucking cocksuckers.

  Imagine it! Disfiguring a man for life for no better reason than petty jealousy. Seeking, through battery, to deprive him of his inalienable station above Joe Average; suck him into their sphere of sexual mortality.

  All last night, shivering in the alley, hidden beneath a wheelie bin, fear gnawing his insides at every voice, every footstep — suffering dulled by piss and cocaine, though still sorer than a virgin at a gang-bang — Lefty had rehearsed any number of times the telephone conversation he would have with Joe, the Rabble prospect, as soon as he hit town.

  Now, though, in the cold light of sobriety, Lefty slowly accepts that, without a doubt, this most baleful strain of revenge lies beyond his reach. Because given such stimulus the Rabble — or at least Hemi — would make an attempt on the lives of all four of them, perhaps even upon Bum.

  And Lefty couldn’t bear to have this happen …

  … because what if one or some of them escaped the gang’s justice? With the betrayal stemming from him so glaringly, Lefty’s own life would in turn become forfeit.

  He swears frustration, resolved to brainstorming, trudging wearily.

  Soon, along the quiet street, a car whizzes past him. Too late, Lefty recognises it as belonging to Rachael Mills, an ex-flame. He waves an arm in her rear-view mirror, desperate for a ride (/concern/sympathy/attention/adoration/worship/surrender), but Rachael either fails to identify him, or chooses not to.

  Most likely the latter, given that after he’d broken up with her, relegating her to his list of part-timers, Rachael had consented to ‘see’ Lefty on just a few more occasions, preferring instead to form a relationship with a colleague from the law firm she’d begun working for.

  Snobbish bitch. He flicks a petulant finger at the car as it vanishes around a bend. Flirts her way into a good job and thinks that makes her Queen Shit. Never mind that I could make more money than that in a heartbeat if God had given me a greasy hole between my legs and a couple of bags of fat on my chest.

  Lefty had lasted less than a month with Rachael for she typified what he found most nauseating in females: mawkishness. Of course, when it came to the chase this trait was a red-blooded male’s dream, but after the catch was made, like so many chicks, Rachael had made a habit of clinging to Lefty and murmuring inanities like ‘What are you thinking?’, or ‘Tell me something nice.’

  Or, Lefty’s personal favourite, ‘What’s your fantasy?’ Followed by a predictable Mills & Boon excerpt, perhaps: ‘Mine’s riding behind you on a horse, on a wet summer day, then making love on a bed
of mountain daises.’

  How can any chick ask such a thing of a bloke and expect a genuine answer? Does she really wanna be told: ‘Well, baby, my fantasy’s to travel to America and seduce some billionaire’s wife, convincing her to take him for half in the divorce courts, then slapping my own ring on its finger quick smart. I then bribe some shrink into telling my wife that rooting around’s my only therapy for sexual abuse as a child; that it’ll surely taper away to nothing if she shows me enough love. I’m then free to cultivate as vast and exotic a string of mistresses as can possibly be accomplished on endless money and travel; limos; Ferraris; Harleys; a super-yacht; the best drugs and piss; tailored clothes; my own nightclub …’

  The train of thought captures him and Lefty forgets Rachael; trudges along almost merrily.

  For perhaps a kilometre he then puzzles over how he might denounce his ‘friends’ to the police while painting himself free of all wrongdoing. It isn’t long, though, before he’s forced to declare this plot tantamount to the first.

  And it’s only a short while after this that Lefty grudgingly concedes that the only viable option he has for taking revenge will be in the manner which to him has become habitual.

  Yes, following a few dentistry sessions, a bit of cosmetic surgery to straighten his nose out — Might as well get a little extra work done while I’m there — Lefty will simply bide his time, keep an ear to the ground, then go to work on the appropriate females.

  Of course in view of the complete disintegration of his relationships with Barry and Mick — and thus Gator, who had started the whole thing by poisoning that nigger whore against him in the first place — Lefty can this time afford to do battle in fashions vastly less subtle. He’ll need to ingratiate himself with a new crew beforehand, however. A tough one at that, because by the time Lefty’s done, he knows Barry at least be will be hunting him high and low.

  But Lefty envisages few problems in this area. Indeed, a few weeks ago he’d managed to wheedle himself an invitation to a party at the headquarters of the white bikie gang, the Devil’s Disciples. For want of another date, Lefty had taken Becky along, almost bursting with pride when several of the gang hierarchy expressed lustful approval of the leggy brunette. With this leverage, Lefty had contrived to elevate himself to first-name terms with the bikies, and as he walks today he grows more and more convinced of his ability to curry favour among the Disciples by having Becky strategically sleep with at least one of them. Hell, if he can pour enough sauce down her throat, blow her enough shoties, slip a tab or two into her brandy, promise her enough undying gratitude, Lefty begins to fancy his chances of strutting through the gates of the pad with Becky on his arm, and showfully presenting her as a gift to them all!