How it feels

by Brendan Cowell

  ‘We can’t do this here,’ I said, looking up at the property which the jetty belonged to.

  ‘No one’s home,’ Courtney said, breathing loud in my ear.

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘They would have kicked us off by now.’

  ‘Can we just go back, please? I kind of feel weird… and it’s raining.’ Courtney held my nose between her fingers and peered into me, utter disappointment colliding with rage across her face and eyes.

  I stood up, pushing my erection into the seam of my jeans so no one would know. ‘I don’t want to fuck in front of Dolans Bay anyway.’

  Courtney led the way back round the rocks where we met with quite a startling image. There stood the Adonis Stuart Stone, arms and legs akimbo in the mouth of the cave, wielding a half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort, his jeans down by his ankles, underpants around his hips, six-inch tanned penis swinging in the cool evening air.

  I went back to the jetty to get my tobacco, and when I returned I noticed Courtney in a state I had never witnessed before. Her body was completely still, though seemingly being propelled forward at the same time, her big green eyes focused on the piece of science up above.

  I followed her eyes to where Stuart Stone’s marvellous cock swung back and forth like a wrecking ball. Then I returned my gaze to my girlfriend, who was still transfixed. Had she never seen a large penis before? Was she wondering what it would be like to put her little hands around it? Would they fit? If they did fit, would Stuart be happy with them? Would he be happy with what she did to him? Stuart had taken hand jobs from a thousand women aged between thirteen and forty-three; he’d surely laugh in her face at her hopeless technique. The way she clenched and dragged her little ring of fingers up the shaft. And what if she did put her mouth around it? How much would it grow in her face? On her tongue, how would it taste? Would it jab the back of her throat and if so could she take it? And what if she lay down in the cave right now and spread her thighs apart – would it fit? Would she scream?

  The cock stopped swinging and Courtney snapped out of her trance, realising that she had been staring at the beast for almost a minute. She dragged her eyes up Stuart’s torso, past his t-shirt and up to his neck, chin and eyes. Stuart looked down at her from the cave, no longer in a macho stance, but merely standing there, vulnerable, aware of where she’d been looking, and for how long. Was it curiosity or self-destruction that led her to this moment? She couldn’t work it out herself. But as their eyes met for that millisecond, there was the strongest, most foreign, yet palpable attraction ever written in Cronulla history. I read every word of it, and, really, I should have known then.

  ‘Let’s get drunk,’ I said, lighting a smoke and walking towards my cave.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Courtney asked, looking for her shoes and hiding her red face in her hair.

  Resting back on the cave walls, Stuart tried to tear his eyes away from Courtney but he couldn’t help himself; he was clearly imagining her long pale legs wrapped around his throat as he buried his face in her like she was a laksa. Gordon was propped up on his jacket, watching me hammer into the bottle of brown alcohol.

  ‘Here, babe.’ I passed the bottle to my girlfriend, looking down into the orange dust of the cave floor, making sure I held on to the burning pool of booze still hanging at the top of my throat. So many times I’d employed this method, right here in this cave. Staring down into the floor and counting to twenty, finding the right gaps in my breathing to suck the fluid down and stop it rising back up. I was shit-terrible at drinking hard liquor, I preferred red wine sipped over many hours, to taste the stuff and let it ride into my system, not this whole ‘get piss into ya’ attitude.

  ‘Remember the time,’ I said, finally fucking swallowing the brown hell. ‘Remember the time we came here with Daniel Shoes?’

  ‘Yes!’ Gordon said. ‘And he brought us all that gin!’

  ‘And we went to his house and stole all that jewellery!’ Stuart added.

  ‘And Nelly spewed on the carpet!’ Gordon said, giggling madly again.

  ‘I had had a bottle of gin to myself ,’ I argued.

  ‘Shoes loved it! Do you remember what he was like that night?’ Stu said.

  ‘I know.’ I turned to Courtney. ‘This guy, C, he was like such a maudlin, low-key guy, but then we all went to his joint and robbed his parents’ house and it was like the first time we ever saw him smile.’

  ‘Shoes, man, Shoes was smashing windows and loading us up with jewellery, laughing his tits off the whole time,’ Gordon said.

  ‘Yeah, the dude was a nut job,’ Stuart confirmed.

  ‘Then, when we were leaving with bags full of his parents’ shit, he calls the cops on himself .’ I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘He’s all like “Go! Go! Go! Go!” as he’s on the phone to the cops!’

  ‘What happened? Did they come?’ Courtney asked, nibbling at the brown bottle of booze with gentle, focused chick-sips.

  ‘Yeah, and he said to the pigs he was held prisoner by these criminals and it was all in the news and everything. He got off and everyone felt sorry for him!’

  ‘About three months later the dude was found dead on his parents’ bed.’

  ‘Shit! Oh, ok, that was Daniel Shoes,’ Courtney realised.

  ‘Daniel Shoes is Mick’s brother,’ Stu said.

  ‘Yeah, Daniel knocked himself off the week after Benedict Hawker did,’ Gordon said.

  ‘No! Shoes was before Hawker. Luke Dwyer was the week after,’ Stu said.

  ‘Luke walked into the water, right?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, he got done by the cops drink-driving and didn’t want to tell his dad so he fucken tied bricks to his feet and walked into Shelley Beach.’

  ‘Hawker jumped off Kurnell cliffs.’

  ‘That’s right – down into the rocks there.’

  ‘Which is worse, you reckon?’ I said, not thinking.

  ‘Hanging,’ Courtney said.

  Dolans Bay thumped then went quiet.

  7

  From the time she was twelve years old, academic achievement and school leadership were integral parts of Sarah Kirkwood’s existence. Sarah wanted to make her parents proud, and dreamt of becoming a doctor or perhaps a lawyer, having a beautiful family (a child of each sex) and, most importantly, maintaining a high standing and reputation within the community – perhaps even as a Justice of the Peace! Sarah would be popular outside the church, and even at Payless or Coles on a Saturday, people would call out to her on Cronulla Street: ‘Sarah, hellooooo!’ But! Sarah launched into study because she genuinely loved it; the teachers at De La Salle College Cronulla had never seen a student like her. Always Prefect, always the first to hand in an essay, always the first to put her hand up, always editor of the yearbook, always organiser of school events and fundraisers – she loved a foundation! If the school could have cloned her they would have.

  Her parents rewarded Sarah’s indefatigable enthusiasm for school by allowing her half-a-dozen house parties a year. They believed it was essential that Sarah live a balanced life, and unless she let her hair down every now and again this was not going to happen. So every couple of months Sarah Kirkwood’s parents threw a do. It was on these nights that Sarah Kirkwood proved to her peers that she was not the straitlaced, stuck-up nerd they had all pinned her as. On the contrary, Sarah was a fucking animal!

  Kirkwood’s parties were famous for the food, lack of parental supervision and buckets of free booze, but more than this they were famous because Sarah Kirkwood always stole the show, pulling on beer bongs, volunteering herself for numerous Vodka Super Duper Water Squirter championships, and inevitably getting herself so fuck-eyed her dress would end up over her head and at the end of the night some pimple-headed stringbean from 3 unit maths would be dipping himself in her half-unconscious body behind the shed. All the piss would get drunk, the house trashed, and everyone would leave, with Sarah sleeping in the leaf-mulched garden or passed out alo
ne on the kitchen floor. A well-respected train wreck. Then on Monday morning Sarah Kirkwood would stroll into school, impeccably put together with her gloves, hat (tam-o’-shanter) and stockings on, behaving sweetly and studiously, as if none of the weekend’s shenanigans ever took place. She was a wonderful anomaly, one I truly respected, as I was well aware that the real reason why her parents allowed two hundred and fifty teenagers over to trample, drink, fight, fuck, spew and wreck the enormous place was because Sarah Kirkwood had no friends.

  ‘Right!’ Stuart said, holding up his hand as an indication to halt!

  Obedient, we wobble-halted on the kerb across from Sarah Kirkwood’s garish mansion, where seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds filed in with painted hair and cases of mixed grogs.

  ‘So there are four pills for Gordon and myself in this baggy here,’ Stuart announced, flapping a bag in his palm. ‘And four pills in here for Joseph and Mary.’ Stuart waved a second bag in our faces.

  ‘Biccies, baby!’ Gordon said, licking his hands excitedly.

  ‘Now! They’re Mitsubishis, ok? The same ones we had down Lake Conjola… so don’t go too hard too fast!’ Stuart warned, pointing at Gordon.

  ‘Ok, ok,’ Gordon said, waving these accusations away. Gordon was famous for taking half a pill, then ten minutes later complaining that nothing was happening and taking another half or even a full, then spending the rest of the evening mauled, mute and immoveable on the laundry floor.

  ‘These puppies are strong,’ Stuart warned again, issuing the bags.

  Courtney snapped a pill in half, a bit of its pink edge falling about in her hand. Everyone looked at it, wondering who would get the extra little bit. Courtney picked her half out of her palm, kissed me on the neck and swallowed her pill, washing it down with a Schweppes Cola we had bought at 7-Eleven. I slammed mine down and the little extra bit. I was nervous as hell, my stomach rumb ling and my chest vibrating, but what the hell, it was the end of school, and I was safe in this circle of love.

  ‘Drug-hug!’ Gordon called, and we were hugging each other. It felt good to be hugging my friends, seeing Courtney’s and Gordon’s faces so lit with anticipation. For some reason I couldn’t quite match their euphoria. Something was blocking my path. I made the appropriate face but inside, I knew this was the last ride.

  ‘Let’s break on through!’ Stuart said, pretending to be Val Kilmer pretending to be Jim Morrison pretending to be nearly there.

  By the gate at the end of the driveway Sarah Kirkwood stood behind a long wooden table holding up a blank netball bib and smiling like a full maniac. Her teeth seemed larger and cleaner than ever and that’s saying something. If we were all monsters, Sarah would be the leader and the most feared.

  ‘Helloooooooo! Thank you for coming to my parteeeee!’ Sarah said, bouncing from side to side with the bib. ‘It is soooooo exciting to have you guys here at Results Party Class of ’94!’ She was semi-screaming both her tits off.

  ‘Kirkwood, thanks a lot. We’re really very excited to be here too,’ Stuart said sardonically. ‘Gordon is especially excited to see you, aren’t you, G-Man? He’s been all “Oh, can’t wait to see Kirkwood… she’s so sweet!”’

  ‘You’re a fag,’ Gordon said, staring down at his Doc Martens. How could he not have seen it coming? ‘And ahhhh… yeah… Hi, Kirkwood.’

  ‘Hi, Gordon. It’s really nice to see you as well!’ Sarah said, sipping her vodka and orange flirtatiously. ‘Now! As it is Results Party Night, it’s absolutely compulsory that every Year 12 Class of 1994 graduate writes his or her TER mark on one of these bibs! Ok? Everyone’s doing it and it is soooooo funny!’ Sarah jumped up and down again, this time showcasing the bib.

  ‘Why?’ Courtney asked in the driest of chick-dry tones.

  ‘Because it is just so much fun! Look, here’s my one!’ And Sarah took away the blank bib she was holding to reveal her own. The bib read 98.7.

  ‘You got 98.7?’ Gordon asked. Sarah nodded, winking and flirting as best she knew how, but also like ‘How could that’ve happened? 98.7?’

  ‘No wonder you want to wear a bib,’ Courtney said, failing to add that she scored even higher than Kirkwood.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you did well too, Courtney, you’re amazing in class. Anyway. Look. Everyone’s just got to put a bib on and get your number out there and really I mean just don’t worry so much about it. Just be honest, I mean who cares what you got, like if I got eighty or even something low like sixty-five I wouldn’t care, I’d be proud that I did my best and that maybe I could one day be a real estate agent, or a newsagent, or like my cousin Christina got like fifty-eight and she went and did arts/law, got in the back way. What I’m trying to say is everyone wishes they got more. Even I do! I want to know where I lost my 1.3! I was pretty sure I’d get more like 99.7 but there you are, it’s crazy how they mark the tests, and I get scaled down because of the poor standard of the school. But anyway! It’s a great conversation starter, I mean just look at the one we’re having now!’

  ‘Yeah! Hand me a bib, Kirkwood,’ Stuart ordered, picking up a texta.

  ‘Good leadership, Stuart! That’s the spirit everyone!’ Sarah clapped her hands.

  Sarah winked (with both eyes) at Gordon as Stuart drew a big cock and balls on his bib and slinked on through to the party.

  ‘He did really well in biology,’ Courtney joked, drawing a pair of tits on her bib. ‘And so did I.’

  I wrote ‘Just enough’ on my bib and Gordon wrote ‘Stuart Stone is gay’ on his. Sarah Kirkwood smiled and grinned and giggled, but I could tell she was dying inside. Again she had tried too hard and failed.

  ‘Dude, it’s cool,’ I said, comforting Gordon with a scruff of the hair.

  ‘Matthew Updike? Are you serious?!’ Gordon bellowed.

  ‘Simmer down, Gord, ok? It’s ok, man,’ I said.

  ‘The fucker’s got a weight problem and he reeks!’ Gordon bellowed again.

  We hadn’t been there two minutes and already there was drama. During Gordon’s establishing lap of the party (where he took in everyone’s TER bib, scored some chilled cans of ale from the stack of eskies on the grass, and high-fived some of the Jap guys from karate), he spotted his ex-girlfriend, Renee Gulliano, kissing and cuddling up to the rotund and generally unappealing Matthew Updike. Less than two weeks after Gordon and Renee ended their five-month relationship in the car park at Coyotes nightclub in Caringbah, she was already taking other offers.

  ‘Has she not heard of a grieving process? I mean for fuck’s sake, I have a heart here! I’m a sensitive guy!’

  ‘Hey hey hey, Daryl Braithwaite, don’t go riding off with the horses quite yet. Look to Stuart. Look to Stuart, please,’ Stu said.

  Stuart took Gordon’s pale and pimply face in his hands, consoling and educating at the same time. ‘Renee is a bush pig. Remember when we decided to break up with her?’ Gordon nodded. ‘Yes we do, we broke up with her because she was a bush pig.’

  Courtney and I stifled our laughter behind our couple wall.

  ‘She gave no blowjobs, her house smelt like chicken loaf, and bits of her lip fell off when you pashed her. It is a good thing she is with Updike! Look at the two of them. It’s a match made in heaven.’

  ‘The guy is in my soccer team!’ Gordon fumed.

  ‘He’s the goalie, man – enough said!’

  That afternoon Sarah Kirkwood had built a little stage and podium between the Australian flagpole and the water feature, and now she was tapping a microphone on it, ready to address her public.

  ‘Hellloooooooo, everyone! Woohoo! Welcome to the Class of ’94 Year 12 Results Party!’ Sarah jumped up and down as she spoke, evoking a mild din from the one-hundred-and-forty-four-strong crowd of semi-drunk, stoned, cooked, tripping, E-ing, speeding, aerosoled, Amyl-ated teenagers.

  ‘Thank you sooooo much for all getting in the spirit and wearing your bibs! It’s such a great conversation starter and let’s face it, who cares what you got, as long as you tried your b
est and continue to follow your dreams.’ Sarah jumped up and down again, inspiring even less of a reaction from the crowd.

  ‘Now some of you – and I won’t name names, Stuart Stone – thought it would be funny to draw naughty things on your bibs.’

  The entire crowd cheered and whooped as Stuart Stone held his cock-and-balls bib up in the air for all to see.

  ‘She’s a nice person, Sarah, isn’t she? Means well,’ Gordon noted to me in his overearnest fashion, and right back at him I nodded support. Sure.

  ‘Soooooooooo!’ Sarah swooned, switching the mike to her other hand. ‘I just wanted to say that I have had the best time at school with you guys and I hope you have too – with me – and you know where I live so don’t be a stranger, feel free to drop in any time and say hi.’

  ‘Will there be free piss?’ Stuart yelled, inspiring a loud cheer from the crowd.

  ‘And just have an awesome time tonight. Dance your hearts out and drink as much as you like. I’ll be coming round with the beer bongs and Vodka Super Duper Water Squirters so don’t be shy! Go crazy! I LOVE YOU, YEAR 12!’ Sarah finished with a bang, slipping off the stage and knocking into the flagpole, inspiring the biggest, most enormous cheer of the evening, just as Pearl Jam’s ‘Animal’ came blaring out of the speakers, and everyone threw their arms in the air, moshing and slamming into each other with rough abandon.

  ‘Dude, look.’ Stu pointed.

  ‘What? Who? Where?’ Gordon asked, looking about.

  ‘The Year 11 epileptic I was talking about is here. Check it.’ Through the mosh and mess of sweating, heaving bodies was Kyla Druid, wearing a short skirt and torn Sportsgirl t-shirt, sipping from a West Coast Cooler.

  ‘Jesus – she came up alright,’ Gordon conceded.

  The evening deepened and dipped as everyone packed off into cliques and corners, merging with those they had formed an alliance with over the past one to thirteen years. If adolescence was a war zone then fashion and music were both protection and artillery, they kept us safe and offered us a position to fire ourselves from.