Snake Bite

by Christie Thompson

  Then there was Mum. It’s not like she had always been such a bad drunk. It happened after we moved into this house, after she left my dad. At first it seemed like everything was gunna be okay. We were so excited to have a house just for the two of us. I mean, it’s a pretty shitty old house and a govvie rental. The front of the house is still the same—grey brick trimmed with peeling forest-green paint on the eaves and gutters, a little more weatherworn than when we first moved in, one tiny half-dead shrub drooping sadly in a mound of dirt next to the front step. But to us it was our new house and, for the first time in years, Mum appeared to be happy and she was so fucking proud, too, because she’d scammed the housing department into giving us a three-beddie on account of her asthma being so bad she couldn’t climb stairs to an apartment. I remember the day we moved in she started jumping around like a lunatic, crying and laughing at the same time.

  She started talking in excited ‘gunnas’—I’m gunna fix up the backyard, Jezza. A vegie patch for me, a swing set for you. I’m gunna paint the lounge room, replace those ugly old brown wood panels with a bright-red feature wall. You’ll get a new doona cover and we’ll get one of those big tellies and and and . . .

  Then Mum invited all the girlfriends she’d known since high school over for a housewarming—Shaz, Linda and Kaye came over, crowding our driveway with their battered Datsuns and Geminis and sprayed the orange-and-brown-tiled kitchen with cheap sparkling wines. While frost settled on the grass outside, I hugged the heater in my flammable fleece nightie, enjoying the way it made me feel all drowsy and floppy, until my mum reminded me for the hundredth time, Don’t get so close to the heater, Jez, you’ll catch fire, and then I moved to the couch and watched Mum and her friends dance around the living room singing along to Pearl Jam’s ‘Better Man’ at the top of their lungs.

  None of that ever happened, all that bullshit Mum said about fixing up the place. The backyard is still unused; I was too old for a swing set anyway. The ugly wood panels are still in the lounge room behind the old brown corduroy couch and I sleep under the same pink-and-purple lady-bugs doona cover I’ve had since I was four. We did get a new telly, though . . . And when Mum started drinking, like really drinking heavily, she’d park herself in front of it, sipping from cans of JD, shovelling crap into her gob like a zombie.

  So I sat in the backyard that night just kinda thinking about all that. Like I said, First World problems. Then as the light started to turn grey there was an old tabby cat near the back fence that looked up at me guiltily. I could see it toying with something under its paws: a mouse broke free and ran a little way. The cat just watched it run for a bit and then pounced on it again. This isn’t some metaphor for how I was feeling or anything gay like that, it’s just what happened. I lit the smoke and watched the cat play with the mouse for a little while longer, finished my coffee, then went inside to bed.

  FOUR

  ‘Yo yo, biatch! ’Sup?’

  ‘Hey, Casey,’ I answered, sliding my mobile phone between my ear and my pillow and stifling a yawn.

  ‘Somebody wake up on the wrong side of the bed?’

  ‘Nah. I’m just tired.’

  ‘Man up, Jez Pez! I still haven’t slept! Best night ever.’

  ‘What’d you get up to?’

  ‘Come over. Can’t talk for long on the mobile.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ring off the landline?’

  ‘Landline!’ Casey snorted. ‘What is this, nineteen ninety-six?’

  ‘Gimme, like, half an hour.’

  ‘It’s freakin’ midday! I’ll give you fifteen.’

  ‘What are we doin’?’

  ‘Mad hangs, fuckin’ mayhem, fuckin’ whatever. Come over.’

  I hung up the phone and groaned. I’d cocooned myself in a single bed sheet, an electric fan aimed at my face. The curtains were closed and my bedroom was lovely and dark, but the cracks of light that seeped under the bottom of the curtain warned of another scorching hot day outside.

  I pulled on my black satin kimono-style bathrobe, popped a piece of strawberry bubble gum in my mouth to get rid of my shitty dry mouth and wandered down the hall to my mum’s room. She was still in bed, sprawled out on her stomach, limbs in rock-climbing position. Even though her arms were over her head, the folds of fat on her back looked like Uluru under her orangey satin camisole. I flopped belly-down next to her.

  ‘Muuuum,’ I whispered, leaning close to her ear. ‘Mum. Wake up!’

  ‘Eeeeer,’ Mum grunted. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Time to get up,’ I said, flattening the bubble gum on my tongue so I could blow a bubble.

  She sniffed. ‘Bubble gum for brekkie, Jez?’

  ‘Technically I think it’s lunchtime.’

  ‘Really? Ugh. I’ve got to stop sleeping so late. I’ve got washing to do. You going to help me? I noticed you’ve just about filled the hamper.’

  I avoided her question. ‘You want a coffee?’

  Mum opened one eye suspiciously. ‘Yeeeeah. Why are you being so nice?’

  ‘No reason,’ I spoke quickly. ‘But if you’d be so kind as to spot me a twenty, then that would be super rad of you and I’ll love you forever and I’ll do the next two loads of washing.’

  ‘When are you gunna start looking for a job, Jez?’

  I sighed loudly. ‘I finished school, like, two weeks ago. After New Year, okay? I promise.’

  Mum pulled the doona over her head and sighed. ‘What’s the money for?’ Her voice was muffled from beneath the bedding.

  I knew she was anxious to make amends for our argument the day before. Mum was like that. I would get angry with her for drinking, then she would get upset, then I would ignore her for a day or two, and then she would feel guilty and everything would be okay again for a little while.

  ‘I’m just going out.’

  ‘So you’ve made up with Lukey, then?’ She re-emerged from under the doona.

  ‘I haven’t heard from him. I’m goin’ next door.’

  ‘To Casey’s?’ Mum said, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘She’s alright.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Mum grunted.

  Casey Holland has been my next-door neighbour since Mum and I moved into the neighbourhood about a decade ago. Casey was a bit older than me, just turned eighteen, and the type of girl whose own parents referred to as a ‘handful’, but other parents and authority figures referred to as ‘trouble’.

  ‘So can I have some money, puh-leeeese?’ I begged.

  ‘Take a twenty from my purse . . .’

  ‘Thank you, Mummy! I love you!’

  ‘But that’s it for the rest of this week. Milk and two sugars!’

  I was already halfway down the hall to the kitchen. ‘Shower or coffee first, Mum?’ I called behind me. I stopped in front of the stereo and slipped in a CD.

  ‘Shower!’ Mum yelled over the crescendo of guitar, drums and bass that belted out.

  While Mum was in the bathroom I tugged on a pair of stovepipe black jeans and a faded grey singlet and put my hair in a ponytail. I went out to our little patio table that was set up on the back porch and pulled my legs up under my chin, lit a smoke and started reading this awesome graphic novel that Lukey had loaned me, Preacher. I had only started getting into comics about a year earlier; mostly I got into reading fan fiction, which was my number-one way to waste a few hours. I loved that all these strangers could hop on the net and share their imaginings of another world. I also liked that being a total nerdlinger (in an ironic way, obviously) was becoming cool again, mostly because I was so shit at sport, and not great at book-smart stuff either. Maybe I could have been smart. I mean, I was okay when I was in primary school, kind of creative, too. But that was back when Mum would (could) help me with my homework. I think it got too hard for her. I’d take home maths and she’d be, like, ‘Fuuuuu . . .’ and shake her head kind of embarrassed and go, ‘Can’t you go look it up on the net?’ That was also around the time Mum started working nights at the club so I w
ould dodge homework for hangs with Lukey. So maybe I could have been smart, but stuff doesn’t always work out like that.

  Mum joined me on the porch, her hair wet and combed back, her face still not made up. She looked older than her thirty-three years, her fat face still blotchy from the heat of the shower. Probably hung-over, too.

  ‘Reading on the school holidays? Don’t you have more constructive ways of spending your time?’ Mum teased as she lowered herself into a deckchair.

  ‘I’m scoring heroin later today,’ I said drily.

  Mum ignored my sarcasm and sipped the coffee I had made her. ‘Mmm. Good coffee. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Mum shielded her eyes against the sun. There wasn’t much of a view from our yard. We could see the roofs of our neighbours’ houses; a large pine that grew in the corner of Casey’s backyard. In the distance, if you stood so you were looking between houses and powerlines and trees, you could see the purple silhouette of the Brindabella Mountains in the distant landscape. The yard was basically an oblong of sparse yellow grass, about thirty centimetres high in patches. A small shed stood in the corner. A concrete path led from the porch to the Hills Hoist, decorated with multi-coloured plastic pegs, which creaked with the hot breeze, joining in a chorus with the annoying squawking of cockatoos and chatter of the parrots, which I would probably take a gun to if I wasn’t so staunch on animal rights.

  ‘We should do something with this yard,’ Mum murmured.

  She said this too frequently for me to take it seriously. I picked up a bowl of soggy frosted cereal from the table and shovelled an oversized spoonful into my mouth.

  ‘Thish schereal ish sho grosshh,’ I said, spitting flakes across my lap.

  ‘Nice,’ she commented.

  ‘Meh.’ I shrugged and flicked my fringe out of my eyes. ‘You working tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘As always,’ Mum confirmed. ‘I’ve got Sunday off, though. You want to do something? Dinner? DVDs?’

  ‘Uuuum. Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  Mum’s disappointment crossed her face like a shadow.

  ‘We’ll hang out Sunday,’ I assured her.

  A grateful smile lit up her eyes. When she smiled and the fat on her cheeks kind of stretched out a bit, I could see how we kind of looked alike, the same small noses that turned up slightly, eyes set just wide enough to look a little weird. We had the same curled upper lip that rested upon a set of large, square front teeth—one of the things I hated most about my face. When I got nervous, I held my hand in front of my mouth to hide the bunny chompers. Most of the time I felt lucky to have my father’s build—gangly, long-limbed and stupidly thin—whereas Mum was short and big-boobed and had an arse like the back of a bus.

  Our novelty doorbell chimed ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ I hopped up.

  Lukey was on the front-door step looking freshly showered and shaved, his long black fringe combed over his eyes. He was wearing long shorts and an Embrace t-shirt. He glanced up briefly then looked at his black Volleys, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  ‘What’re you doin’ here?’ I asked. I fished in my jeans pocket for another piece of bubble gum, unwrapped it and popped it in my mouth.

  ‘Just seein’ what you’re doin’. Goin’ over to Laura’s for a swim.’

  My hand flew up to tug on my hair, irritated as fuck but trying sooo hard to act casual. ‘You’re goin’ in the wrong direction, then.’

  ‘Seeing if you wanna come.’

  ‘Nah, I’m hanging with Casey today.’

  ‘Casey? No shit. How’s she?’

  ‘Dunno, haven’t seen her yet.’

  ‘So you wanna hook up later?’

  ‘Maybe. Chuck me a message or sumz.’

  ‘Cool.’ He shrugged and searched my face, waiting for me to say something. ‘Well, see ya,’ he said before turning to leave.

  I shut the door and went down to my bedroom and pulled on my faded green Converse high-tops. I shoved my mobile, the twenty bucks from Mum and pot of choc-peppermint lip balm in my pockets.

  ‘Mum? I’m heading. Later!’

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid!’ Mum stuck her head inside the sliding door.

  ‘Nah. All good.’ I half smiled and nodded.

  FIVE

  I loved Casey’s front garden, maybe because I knew that the rest of the neighbourhood hated it. Casey’s mum had potted plants, shrubs and cacti in all sorts of weird receptacles she’d collected: toilets bowls, sinks, bathtubs, beer kegs, ice-cream containers, buckets and old tyres cut to resemble swans. In the middle of the garden, the centrepiece—the body of an old Valiant which hadn’t been worked on for years—rusted on bricks.

  ‘Case?’

  The front door was open and the flyscreen was unlocked. I let myself into the house and walked to the family room that adjoined the kitchen at the back of the house. Casey was on the couch wearing a canary-yellow spaghetti-strapped dress, her white stiletto heels up on the coffee table, legs spread so I copped an eyeful of a scant pair of panties barely covering her, no doubt, immaculately waxed crotch. Her body gleamed with shimmering bronzer which looked extra orange against her white-bleached hair extensions. She was watching Dr Phil on the huge wall-mounted plasma.

  ‘Shhhh,’ she whispered and leaned forward. ‘I just want to hear this bit. Dr Phil is gunna take this bitch doooown.’

  ‘What’d she do?’ I asked, not really interested. I plopped down beside her, picked up a copy of Who Weekly from the coffee table and started idly flipping through it.

  ‘She decided she’s a lesbian after twenty years of marriage, but she wants to stay married to her husband for the sake of her children when meanwhile she is having affairs and going out to all these lezzo clubs at night and taking drugs and shit. Totally fucked up! Look at her. What a fugly bitch. There is no way I would eat that. She probably has a big fat flabby grey vag.’

  ‘Gross, Casey. I was just gunna ask if you had any food, but now I’ve lost my appetite.’

  ‘Yeah, help yourself. But I mean, really. Look at her. A massive gunt. You’d have to lift up that fucking flesh apron to find her clitoris.’

  ‘Casey . . .’

  ‘Nah, I’m totally serious.’ Casey gave me an earnest look. ‘If you are gunna be a lesbian, be a lipstick lesbian. I mean, I’ve hooked up with chicks before but they were hot. I’m not gunna fuck a butch dyke with tattoos and a shaved head. Might as well sleep with a man if you’re into that.’

  ‘Yeah, good point.’ It was useless disagreeing with Casey when she was on one of her rants.

  I went to the fridge and scanned its contents. The Hollands always had the best food, and a well-stocked kitchen full of cheeses, jars of pickles and marinated vegetables, soft drinks, dips, biscuits and chips. I took out a can of Coke and a bag of cheddar cheese cubes, went to the pantry and located a box of Jatz, then took my bounty back to the couch.

  ‘Om nom nom!’ Casey eyed off my loot. ‘Dude, it’s a miracle you aren’t a heifer eating shit like that. Gimme some of that.’ She leaned over and cracked open my can of Coke and took a long swig.

  ‘Hey!’ I protested. ‘I’m starving. There’s, like, bread in our house. That’s about it.’

  ‘My house, my rules, bitch.’

  ‘That was the last Coke, fucktard.’

  ‘I’m chronically hung-over. I need the sugar and caffeine.’

  ‘Dude, you actually stink. Have you even bothered to wash lately?’

  Casey grinned. ‘I did the walk of shame at ten o’clock this morning from some random dude’s house. Walked two freakin’ suburbs in these heels in thirty-degree heat. Total bun and thigh work out, hey.’

  ‘You don’t smell pretty,’ I observed.

  ‘You want some of this, bitch?’ Casey lifted up an arm and dived on me, pressing an acrid and warm sticky pit against my cheek until I shrieked in submission.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell! Investigate getti
ng some purse-sized deodorant.’

  Casey cackled. ‘Sweat is good for the complexion.’

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘Tell me all the goss. Haven’t seen you in ages.’

  Casey and I have never been close friends. We’ve been convenient friends. Casey had been somebody to play Barbie dolls with in primary school (Casey used to make Ken sexually assault Barbie and then the other dolls would be crime scene investigators). We were occasional sleepover buddies in early high school when Casey would get me to read out ‘Dolly Doctor’ advice requests from Dolly magazine and then she would make up mock answers. For example, Q: My vagina doesn’t look like pictures I have seen in magazines. My labia are much bigger. Is this normal? A: (Casey) ‘You are a fucking freak, biatch. Turn lezzo pronto ’cos no dude is gunna go down on those fat lips.’ Since she’d turned eighteen and started going out to pubs and clubs, we pretty much only saw each other in passing. Even though she was kind of shallow, plastic pretty and totally self-obsessed, I found her entertaining.

  ‘So,’ Casey echoed, her eyes gleaming. ‘I got a job!’

  ‘You got a job?’ I exclaimed. ‘Get fucked. Doing what?’

  ‘Guess!’ she said, and leapt up, pulling one of the chairs from the kitchen table. ‘Duh duh da de duh . . .’ She threw a leg over the chair, facing backwards, and arched her back until her hair brushed the floor.

  ‘No way!’ My jaw dropped.

  Casey came up to me and gave me an impromptu lap dance, shaking her small bra-less boobs in my face. I turned my face away and pushed her off me.

  ‘Jesus, Casey.’ I shook my head. ‘Seriously, you need to take a fucking shower.’

  ‘So what do you think, then?’ Casey asked. ‘I’m making a motza in tips. I’ve been working for three weeks and already have enough to buy myself a new car. Pretty sweet, hey?’