Always Eighteen

January 2nd 2012 11:09

Here’s one of those Happy New Year greetings to the judged, the needy, the hurt, the damaged. Here’s a drink to the drinkers and a strip for the strippers. If you’ve been rejected before, I’m right here with you. 2012 doesn’t come with any promises. You’ll probably continue to have bad taste or continue to hear bad news and the outlook for some things may be downright hopeless, and you’ll probably still embarrass yourself once in a while and you’ll break your promises and you probably won’t be as charming as you want to be and there’ll be a bunch of people who’ll hate your guts. But there’ll be moments. There’ll be those strange moments you’d never have discovered if hadn’t experienced what you’d experienced, if you hadn’t said the things you have, and people will be jealous of you because of these. I’ve had an arsehole of a year, but probably not as big of an arsehole as yours. I salute you for the pain and I salute you for your strength and I especially salute you for your weaknesses and I drink and write like some kind of douche of a preacher with a desperate hope that you’ll keep on going; although I’m young I can say for certain that good things come not to those who wait, but for those who get out of their own pity and pain and work hard for something of value. Don’t think about 2012 – think about the things we can do with the rest of our lives.

Good night.

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GETTING OVER HEARTBREAK ON CHRISTMAS

December 26th 2011 15:38

My heartbroken friends have done all sorts of things. They’ve threatened to kill themselves, they’ve killed themselves, they’ve cried in their cars, they've cried in their rooms, they've cried in front of crowds, they’ve beaten people, they’ve gotten tattoos, they’ve signed up to ballroom dancing. And it's not like these actions were always predictable - there's something about being in the period of heartbreak that turns us into strangers, into people we never knew we'd become.

I’ve found that first heartbreaks are always the most scarring. Every heartbreak after that, although still painful, becomes less and less intense. I remember my first heartbreak: it was with a girl who was two years older than I was, and she left me for God. I vanished from the universe and didn’t return for months.

I’ve also found that there’s a certain breed of people who attract heartbreak. They don’t necessarily go out and look for it, but it happens. If they’re not cheating or being cheated on, they’re victims of some kind of violence, or they’re breaking up with someone, or they’re being broken up with again and again and again, and you can spot these people in the crowd: it’s in their eyes, it’s in the way they crease their foreheads and post their photos on facebook and drink their coffee and smoke their cigarettes and respond blankly when you ask them a question.

I’ve also found that for many of these people, the heartbreak eventually ends. And it’s not time that mends their downward spiral – it’s pure luck.

“You do know it’s all your fault the receptionist left you.” I was having Boxing Day breakfast in Vail’s big home.

“I know,” I said. I had two hours of sleep and was slightly dizzy.

“But she does sound crazy, with the ex-fiancé and everything.” Vail poked last night’s leftover ham with her fork. She lifted a piece up a little before changing her mind and putting it back down. “Maybe it’s like, for the better?”

“Whatever it is, I want more alcohol.”

“You’re not getting more alcohol,” she said.

“I’m in pain. I’m in a terrible, selfish pain. Why can’t I get more alcohol?”

“Well, Dean,” she shrugged, “if you haven’t yet noticed all your vomit on my driveway, alcohol is bad for you.”

“These forks look expensive,” I said.

“They are expensive, Dean.”

I pushed my plate away. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. A lot of hurtful mistakes.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve made more mistakes than you have. But like, life goes on.”

I looked at her face carefully, at the way she responded to everything. “You’ve matured, you bitch!”

“So what?”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I ended our breakfast by raising my mug of coffee and smiling the worst smile anybody could ever possibly make. “Merry Christmas, Vail.”

She giggled and smiled back. “Merry Christmas, Dean.”

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TWO LIARS AFTER THE FOO FIGHTERS CONCERT

December 18th 2011 12:51

The words GIRLS ARE PERVS flickered on Jude’s singlet as about five of us ran around a campfire by some beach in the Gold Coast, dizzy from quite a few things we’d taken while watching the Foo Fighters live.

“It’s funny how thousands of people would go out of their way to watch people play music,” the receptionist panted as she sat down. “I wonder what, like, makes us so hooked to it.”

“I spent weeks with a girl once, just driving further and further north.”

“Who was the girl?”

“I don’t remember.” My head flopped backwards and I looked up at the night sky. It looked like it was being set on fire. “But I’m pretty sure she was like, really really pretty when she had makeup on.”

During the gig, Dave Grohl talked about how a few years ago, right after performing at the Gold Coast, he’d been arrested and imprisoned for driving a scooter while under the influence of alcohol. Everyone laughed except for me: I suddenly remembered the interview I had with a police officer a few days earlier. I sat with him for an hour or so as he asked me about my relationship with the receptionist, how intimate we were, if I ever considered that she was still actually engaged to her supposed ex-fiancé, if I believed that her supposed ex-fiancé actually hit her, if she’d ever lied to me before, if she told me a lot of nonsensical stories, if I knew that her supposed ex-fiancé was also in the police force.

The campfire grew; we drank more and more and found ourselves all at Jude’s place, in his bedroom, all lying under his sheets. The receptionist had a bottle of beer in her hand and gently poured some into my mouth. “It’s spilling on the pillow,” I said, but she ignored me. “Have you ever cheated on me?” she asked. “Shit no,” I said. “Tell me now, Dean, have you ever cheated on me?” she asked again. “Of course I haven’t I keep telling you,” I said. “Have you cheated on me, Dean?” she asked me again. I avoided her question and instead asked her this: “Have you ever lied to me? About, like, major things?” She poured some more beer into my mouth. “You’re avoiding my question, Dean.” “And you’re avoiding mine,” I replied, realising that she was completely sober. “Have you ever cheated on me, Dean?” She asked again. “Maybe,” I finally said, “but I’m not too clear on it.” She poured the rest of the bottle’s contents into my mouth, kissed my forehead, stood up and headed for Jude’s bedroom door. I mumbled for her to come back before passing out and waking up in the evening the next day to an empty, sweat-smelling room.

foo fighters gold coast metricon stadium

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HOW WE SEE THE BEAUTIFUL RICH GIRLS

December 4th 2011 12:19

Thank you to Sash and her partner for these drawings.

Lately, the receptionist and I have been hanging out with a lot of Jude’s wealthy female friends. After some time, we agreed that there are two types of wealthy people: those who’ve worked hard to create their wealth, and those who haven’t.

Here’s what we’ve found about those who haven’t.

They always have wine.

Whenever we’re over at one of their apartments or homes or out at a restaurant, we’re always offered wine. Red wine. White wine. Champagne, if the mood is right. And it all tastes so much better than anything I’ve ever had.

They look the part.

A lot of us try to dress wealthy. But behind our imitation clothing you can still see HARDSHIP written all over. Jude’s friends don’t have hardship written anywhere. Their skin, their mannerisms, their big designer bags, their elegant jewellery – their faces possess a soft, refined, clean look that many can only read about in magazines. It’s this look that seems to intimidate and unjustly attract many men, and it’s this look that has never made the girls afraid to boast such high standards.

They love the rich.

They’re rich, but they understand that there will always be someone with even more money. They worship the successful just as much as we worship the successful. I’ve never had a conversation with Jude’s friends without them admiringly mention someone who is the regional director of a financial institution, or a celebrity who came to their father’s party, or someone who’s doing it well in New York, or someone who’s doing it well in Paris, or someone who’s doing it well in both New York and Paris, or a cute guy who’s friends of a friend who was in the same set as Leonardo DiCaprio during his latest movie shoot, or a cute guy who owns one property in Mount Coot-tha and whose father owns a company that has a presence in America, Europe and potentially Japan (most likely in the second quarter of 2012).

They represent our dreams.

If we lived in a world where money was easily available and we didn’t have to worry about debt or time or going to work, then I suppose Jude’s friends would reflect the type of people we’d be. I’d no longer be Dean the Struggling Writer – I’d be Dean with four BMWs. The receptionist wouldn’t be the receptionist – she’d be Donna or Helen or Pippa who owns three lofts in Teneriffe. We’d drink wine, we’d shop for Jimmy Choos, we’d call our best friends in Paris and New York, we’d know how to pronounce Comme des Garçons (and actually have Comme des Garçons in our wardrobes), we’d walk in slow motion; the banks would love us; we’d go to parties and laugh against golden plates of Hors d'oeuvres and we'd snort with credit cards and we'd sometimes make snide but witty jokes about those who aren’t as perfect as we are and we'd complain about those who don't do the things we do; I’d have thigh implants and teeth whitening done and my haircuts would cost three hundred dollars; the receptionist would have bigger breasts and no forehead wrinkles and permanently removed underarm hair; in the evenings, when I’d comfortably stride through one of my penthouses and look outside one of my large, well-maintained windows, I’d see everyone else in the world, also looking out of their large and well-maintained penthouse windows, and we wouldn’t think about bills or work the next day or worry about someone stealing from us – we’d be thinking about how we wear our chinos and how our women wear pearl necklaces, and although we’d be thoroughly full from our banquets, we’d still have a glass of expensive wine in our hands and we’d be smiling giant smiles, and instead of thinking, Was there pain? Was there some other world? we’d be thinking, We’ve achieved what we’ve always wished for, and although we’d admit that happiness can never be constant no matter what, we’d also realise that we have the power to purchase things that the jealous can’t, and we’d close our eyes and breathe in the smells of our wines, and we’d ignore our distorted reflections bleeding against our windows and live happily ever after.

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CHEAP THINGS WE DID THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

November 20th 2011 12:28

I waited for the receptionist outside her new workplace at about midnight, during her nightshift. I waited for her on a ledge near the car park: a few metres away, in the darkness, were a number of bushes where homeless people supposedly liked to sleep. I peered through, looking for a bum to appear.

The receptionist tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey.”

I turned around and stood up. We hugged for a while before I inspected her face. She turned away, pulling a cigarette out of her large bag.

“I hate to get you involved,” she said.

“We’re calling the police.”

“We can’t call the police.”

We were silent for a while. I walked a small distance away and called the police and made sure her ex-fiancé wouldn’t be the one who’d meet us. She looked up at me but didn’t say anything.

I sat down next to her again and we both shared her cigarette. “He came by because he wanted me to give back all the jewellery he gave me. I gave it all back. It’s when I walked away and didn’t want to speak to him that he got angry and…” She wiped her eyes.

Two officers came. One kept asking questions and the other looked bored. The receptionist repeatedly nodded to the talkative officer, brushing hair behind her ear once in a while. Behind this all, by the bushes, I noticed some movement. A beautiful woman with ruffled hair stood up out of the bush, stared at me for a good five minutes, then went back into her bush to fall asleep.

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BEING BITTEN BY A RICH GIRL BEFORE WATCHING TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN

November 13th 2011 13:48

I could tell that Jude had become a better business person because he was now thinking of ways to make money out of everything. He booked an entire Gold Class cinema out for the Twilight: Breaking Dawn Premier and then sold each of its seats to his (mainly female) friends for one hundred dollars each. It worked because they certainly had the money, and also because he sold them an experience above a mere movie ticket: he hosted a Twilight ‘Fancy Dress Only’ Marathon party especially for them in the entertainment room of his extremely large house the week prior to the premier where they could all enjoy a few glasses of champagne and watch the first few Twilight movies. After the marathon, all guests were then driven by limousine to Jude’s poolside party, which was hosted at one his parents’ other large homes. If the guests paid Jude an extra fifty dollars each, they received a wonderful Twilight-themed cocktail professionally made by his handsome Jacob-looking bartender friend, who a lot of the guests had a crush on (they had to pay extra if they wanted more drinks or if they wanted a kiss on the cheek). To add to his guests’ Twilight experience, Jude also hired a pale-faced Edward lookalike to play Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” by the pool, as well any other songs under request.

The receptionist refused to come to any event that involved Jude, so for the majority of the poolside party I found myself in the company of liquor. “Here,” Jude would say whenever we’d bump into each other, giving me a free cocktail laced with something. “Down this or I’ll kill you.” After an hour or so I could see dragons, big, beautiful dragons with squinty eyes and slippery blue skin and drooling mouths that would eat the women or lick them up from behind. I knew everyone else could see them too, because they were all pointing up at the sky, their mouths open as wide as the dragons’, screaming as to how beautiful the dragons were, screaming for them to stop eating them and licking them from behind. It was the most horrific sight in the world and I couldn’t stop laughing. After goodness knows how long I found myself in a smoky room, holding hands with an unusually tall girl. “Those shoes don’t look good on you,” she said before kissing me. “You have uncomfortably large hands,” I told her as I kissed her back. She smiled, turned around and grinded against me; looking right, I noticed her holding her bra up and dropping it on a glowing table. Someone was pinching me – I turned around to see Jude, who had a spark plug coming out of his head. He grabbed my collar and shook me around. He was yelling, “Don’t do this man, don’t do this, don’t screw it up,” or something like that but it all seemed muffled so I slurred something back and pushed him away. He sighed, laughed and took a photograph of me with the tall girl and vanished. Almost instantly, the entire room turned red and the ceiling began to rotate. A significant amount of silence seemed to pass. “Stop biting,” I slurred softly, looking down. The tall girl stood up, smiling, licking her lips, her pupils as red as everything else in the room. Her face looked out of place: she was as pale as the moon. She whispered something and I nodded. She leant forward, biting my neck softly at first, and then suddenly biting it so hard I could feel it cut open and bleed – I knew I was going to die. “You’re a vampire,” I realised. “No shit,” she hissed, pulling away, giggling, her teeth painted with my blood. “I’ll suck your blood until you’re as hollow as everyone else in this party. When I’m done with you, you’ll always rely on others for validation. When I’m done with you, you’re going to die and be born again as a handsome brooding teenage vampire who sparkles in the sunlight.”

I woke up in a parked BMW. Rubbing my eyes, I stepped out, closed the door and walked towards a McDonald’s. I found Jude and Vail sitting inside. “You’re a naughty boy,” Jude said, shaking the brown McDonald's paper bag until some chips came out. He picked up a chip, looked at it, and then quickly put it in his mouth. “Anyway I pimped out the Edward lookalike to this sexy fat chick for a thousand bucks,” he snickered. “We split five hundred between both of us.” I sat down next to Vail, who was busy checking something on her mobile phone. I began to cry. “I got bitten by a vampire and I died,” I said, trying to wipe all the tears out of my face. I put my head on her lap, hoping that she’d tenderly stroke my hair like she used to. She didn’t. I looked up and realised that she wasn’t Vail, that she looked nothing like Vail, that she was actually one of the wealthy blonde girls we met at the Barracks. Smiling cruelly, she leant towards my ear and whispered something that I no longer remember.

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SCREWING UP A RELATIONSHIP ON A HALLOWEEN EVENING

November 6th 2011 11:42

I was in a cab with Jude, drunk, and as we headed to a Halloween party in Ascot hosted by one of the girls we met at the Barracks he told me about this time when he was sixteen and he and a girl had just broken up right after a night-before-Halloween themed school dance; he was in the kitchen of his three storey home, drinking some of his father’s whiskey (he was drinking for the first time in his life), when he spotted his father’s grand piano in their dining hall in the distance. It was a shiny piano, an unplayed piano. He stumbled over to it and opened the whatever it is that covered the keys and placed his fingers on the keys and started playing anything he could think of. Laughing and swaying, he sang Savage Garden and a little bit of Sisqo and a little bit of Limp Bizkit and for some reason it all made sense, the feel of pressing his fingers down on the white and black cold to make music that people would listen to and admire and adore and appreciate made so much sense. From there he immediately fantasised about becoming the best grand pianist in history. They’d make him play in a giant concert hall in Sydney, they’d make him play in a giant concert hall in New York, they’d make him play in the most prestigious halls in Europe. He’d be eccentric, but a good looking, sexy eccentric, just like the characters Johnny Depp plays as, and because he’d be handsomely eccentric he’d get a lot of blowjobs, he’d get so many blowjobs, he’d get SHITLOADS of blowjobs and forever and ever and ever ever they’d be the best blowjobs in the world: the first one would be from a pretty Asian girl he had a crush on, then he’d get one from a pretty African girl he had a crush on, then a pretty blonde German girl he had a crush on, then a cute but bitchy looking Russian girl he had a crush on – he’d make his own little UN with the women who’d suck him off, and they’d suck him off everywhere he could ever dream of: in an airplane, in a dressing room, by the Alps, besides some quicksand and most importantly, as he’d play on his favourite grand piano. Would they bite? Of course they wouldn’t bite. Would they complain about it? Of course they wouldn’t complain about it. Jude couldn’t sleep just thinking about the piano playing he’d do. He set out a routine inside his head: I’ll wake up at three in the morning and play until I have to leave for school; during lunch, I’ll go to the music room and play and learn from Mrs. Keith, then I’ll rush home and play and play and play; I’ll ignore my mobile phone completely because my whole life will be about about mastering the piano.

Jude woke up at noon the next day and just as he was about to approach his father’s grand piano he was distracted by a text message on his mobile phone: I love you baby, let’s not break up again. I miss you so much and I’ll die without you. Please don’t be angry with me. He drove to her home in the second hand Alfa his father gave him and they made out in her room while her parents were hosting a lunch party downstairs and she cried and he cried, and they kissed, and for the first time, he saw her naked (she had hair on her nipples!). He went to his empty home happy, and as he passed the kitchen he looked at his father’s grand piano. It was disgustingly clean. He sat down in front of it and began playing, but after about five minutes or so he was bored and irritated by the challenge. He went to his room, gave his girlfriend a call, watched some bizarre porn on a CD his friend from school gave him and just as he was about to sleep, he realised that it was Halloween.

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LOVE, LOVE AND THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

October 30th 2011 08:04

What’s love? I asked the receptionist. It’s something you get bored of, silly, she smiled. Although it’s now been some time since all of this has happened, I can still pick out pieces from the blurry shaky parts of my memories and remember the good things about what we had, like when we’d run out of things to do we’d have some dinner or go to South Bank and watch a movie and when we’d line up for tickets I’d take photos of her and she’d always pose: she’d lean against someone, she’d give me the finger, she’d blow a kiss, she’d do something for me to remember.

Once she rang me at four in the morning, crying. A demon has taken over my friend! she said. We went to her friend’s home and her friend, a mother of three and an ex-wife of two, was in the bathroom, screaming in a number of completely different languages. The door was locked and she wouldn’t let anyone in. Her kids were all huddled and the eldest one was kept screaming, WHAT ABOUT SCHOOL TOMORROW? The receptionist took my hand and we walked to the backyard and she ran her fingers along the back of my head and asked me if I ever knew what the world was thinking.

After about an hour a few neighbours arrived and kicked the bathroom door open and we found the receptionist’s friend in a bath towel, shaking. Her skin was completely cold; she didn’t remember anything.

That evening, the receptionist and I walked around her neighbourhood and we found a black ring on the sidewalk; the ring had a plastic cat’s face attached to it. I wiped it clean and the receptionist took it from my hand and wore it on her middle finger. I took a photo of her showing me the ring and as we continued walking around the neighbourhood we found a painfully high hill, and we kept climbing this painfully high hill because at the top of it was this house with lights and people drinking and laughing around. We got there and it truly was an excessive house. From the driveway we could see Brisbane. Expensive tiny lights, dribbling like tiny falling fireworks, hung onto the expensively maintained trees around the entrance of the expensive house, and all the expensive looking visitors slowly swayed to the expensive sounding music. Millions of boys out there would die to hang out with someone like you, I told the receptionist, to which she smiled and said nothing and tucked some hair behind her ear.

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BACK IN BRISBANE

October 17th 2011 11:00

“I’m going to catch a cab home,” the receptionist said.

We’d just exited the Brisbane International Airport. “I don't get it. Why do you want to catch a cab home when Jude can drive us home?”

She shrugged, not saying anything. She gave me a brief kiss on the cheek, waved goodbye to Jude and walked away.

Jude tapped my arm. “Your girlfriend has nice legs.”

The receptionist was being strange, but it was good to be back home. The sun was out and everything was quiet, even the traffic. “I can’t wait to take a shower and fall asleep.”

“No sleeping yet,” Jude said. “We’re going to meet some girls at the Barracks.”

“I don’t want to meet girls at the Barracks.”

“We’re meeting girls at the Barracks, Dean. We’re going to meet them and you’re going to like them.”

We went to the Barracks, where the girls were, to this place that charged a lot of money for lunch. “Jude, I don’t have money anymore. I can’t pay for this kind of shit.”

“Don’t worry, man, I’ll pay for you. Can you stop worrying?”

We sat at the table and I looked at all of them. They looked terribly expensive. They were youngish, maybe nineteen, and they looked like they’d never seen the face of tragedy and never will see the face of tragedy. One of the girls, the non-blonde one, casually flicked through the menu and scowled. “Peter made partner.”

Her friend rolled her eyes. “I know, right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the non-blonde one said. “At least our men have better wardrobes.” Everyone laughed.

“I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” I said.

They ignored me. One of the girls leant towards Jude. “Speaking of men and wardrobes, Cassandra needs someone new for her wardrobe I think.”

“If anyone will accept her,” the other one added, following her statement with a strange giggle.

"She's big enough to be a wardrobe." Everyone laughed.

“Did you see her in the gym last Wednesday?”

“I don’t see why girls like that even try when in the end they’ll be too lazy to change.”

“And even if they did try to change, they wouldn’t be able too.” They laughed.

“How about we put a paper bag over her head?” Jude said loudly. “That way, she can finally look at the mirror and be proud.”

Everyone laughed again. He was completely red – I’d never seen Jude laugh so hard at one if his jokes like that before. I checked my phone: there were no new messages from the receptionist.

I looked at them all and I knew they were judging me just as much as I was judging them. The girls looked pretty, they looked deliberately perfect. I wondered if they’d ever been to Bangkok. I checked my phone again and found nothing. Wine came, and then more wine came, and then eventually the bill came.

“Listen,” Jude said. “You’re going to have to pay your part I didn’t bring enough cash.”

I smiled. “I’m going to punch you.”

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LAST HOURS IN BANGKOK

September 20th 2011 10:56

I was stabbed while the receptionist, some British girls and some Thai guys and I were wondering around Bangkok, laughing. It was much after the tuk tuk ride and it was a little bit after our fourth bar. Maybe not stabbed. More like cut deeply. I don’t know who cut me but it hurt like hell, and it’s not like the movies, where you’re just watching someone get cut – it’s more like real life, where you’ve actually got a deep gash pulsating in your arm.

“This hurts,” I told the receptionist.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” she said. “You’ll live.”

We’d been waiting in the hospital for about three hours. I looked at her. “Remember when we were with the tour guide, and we were in that jewellery store, and she showed us the souvenir section, and I jokingly asked her, ‘so where do you keep all your ivory?’ and she actually pointed us to a shelf completely full of ivory stuff?”

The receptionist giggled, quickly stealing a glance at my bloody shirt.

There was another guy sitting next us. “I don’t know your name,” he told me.

“I don’t know yours either.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I’m a writer.”

“No you’re not,” he said.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “So what do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

We both laughed.

“Can you give me a lift home later?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t live here. I don’t have a car.”

He didn’t say anything. He looked at my gash, then at the receptionist. He smiled at her and shook her hand. He was reading a book: Forrest Gump.

There’s something irresistible about running away, about leaving what you know to travel somewhere different. There’s something also irresistible about running back home. A few hours later (ten painful hours later) the receptionist and I were back at Suvarnabhumi airport, back under the high ceiling and the long walkways and the brightness and the art to our right. We both left the majority of our luggage back at our hotel but that didn’t really matter anymore. We found a restaurant that let us order as much as we wanted, only as long as we paid for our first dish. I rummaged through my pockets and found just enough to pay for us both. We sat down, ordered, waited for our orders. We looked at each other as she giggled and put food in my mouth. “Why did you make me sleep with a prostitute?” I asked her. “I made you sleep with three,” she said, wiping my bottom lip. “But the third one didn’t count because she was ugly. And possibly a man.”

We’d lost a few things, we’d gained a few things. There were so many things we never got to see. Where the hell did we spend our time? At least we got to see three temples. At least the receptionist looked good. She looked hung over, irritated, happy, insane, strung out, but good. I most likely looked like a pile of cow shit with a few hairs sticking out of it. I suddenly remembered this moment in time when I was a kid, when I was about ten or eleven or something, and I noticed that my fingers had started to form wrinkles.

“The best holiday of my life.” The receptionist smiled a frightening smile. My arm hurt. She put her hand on the table and I held it tightly.