With my head in Hood’s toilet, all the alcohol I’d drank earlier evacuated. Along with that was my dinner, a snack I’d had earlier – and some carrot. There’s always carrot. My mouth sour with the taste of vomit, my throat sore and my head spinning, I felt great. The night had gone much better than I could have hoped and Katya seemed to be having a good time.
With a second round of sick approaching, ready to come screaming from my body and into the murky toilet water, my mind worked incessantly. Elated, I’m going over the nights events. Most of them already blurred. After arriving at Hood’s I introduced Katya to everyone and was in turn introduced to a few strangers. There were about twenty bodies at the party; all out of their heads, sucking down booze like babies at milk. Katya declined my offer to share the bottle of Jack with her, saying she didn’t feel like drinking. In retrospect, dry retching in the bathroom with mucus hanging out of my nostrils and puke dripping from my lips, I wished she’d had some. I wasn’t at all against being as intoxicated as I was – but vomiting was never too much fun.
After introducing Katya to the people I knew, Hood dragged me to the kitchen and we started a looong conversation about all the stuff we’d been up to lately. He told me about his latest hobby – graphing. Spray-painting. Tagging. It had become his joy; his sole outlet for creation. As dirty and illegal as it was (as if that had stopped Hood before), he loved to put up his pieces.
“There’s something about it, man.” He told me, slurring his speech. I fixed myself a coke and Jack mix and started toward my goal of slurring my own speech.
It’s like leaving my mark or something.” Hood tried hard to articulate his meaning. Getting deeper than I’d known Hood to get, he continued: “Everybody leaves some kind of mark on the world – I just want to leave mine. Graphing is all I’m good at, so it’s what I do. It feels amazing, man, knowing that people are going to see your creation. Whether they understand it, love it, hate it, it doesn’t matter. As long as they see it. At least you’ve had an effect. You can say you’ve made a difference.”
I listened intently to what Hood said, interested in his new perception of life. It seemed his time bumming around and being free of school had done him good. Given him time to think, and a whole new perspective. Sure he was breaking the law, but he was creating. His thoughts were clarified. As a writer I could identify with his view and for the most part agreed with it.
Quickly fixing drink after drink as we chatted, I realised had over half the bottle by the time the conversation ended. This realization brought all the alcohol to my head – suddenly I was drunk.
Staggering from Hood’s kitchen where we’d been talking to his lounge room where the majority of drunkards were, I spotted Katya dancing to hip-hop music playing. Weird, I thought. I didn’t know she liked hip-hop. I hated it.
I stalked up behind her slowly, watching as she moved. As much as the “music” offended my sense, Katya’s swaying and swinging and twisting attracted them. She was amazing and for the first time I looked over her whole body, not just her face. From top to bottom she was a vision. Captivated by her dance, I was hooked. She was like a drug. Instantly I had to hold her and when I reached and wrapped my arms around her as she continued to move, my need was satiated. She flowed through my veins. Slowly, she turned in toward me and wrapped her arms around too. Together we swayed, warm and slow like honey. The music engulfing us but disappearing at the same time. We were in our own world – a land of no possessions, laws or boundaries. Just feelings. In this world, for the first time I could remember, I was happy. I wasn’t just meandering through the days, living a pointless existence. I’d only known this world for moments, yet every one of them was precious. Eyes closed and moving, my cheek was against hers. I could smell her on me. I could taste her. I never wanted to leave.
The question my poem written at Flinders Street station had posed was answered in that moment. In my head, I wrote another.
Swaying musically together
Her touch soft as a feather
Slow like honey, we do move
In her arms, my soul is soothed
In a world all of our own
Inside each other we’ve found home
A light glistens from high above
On I, and the one I love
My eyes finally came open when I felt a third hand on my back. It was tapping me, trying to get my attention. Hating myself for doing what I was doing, I turned around, breaking the embrace. The tap had somewhat startled me and I needed to know who it was.
Staring at the water inside the toilet bowl, I’m transfixed by its color. Once so translucent, so clear. Now with my mess invading it, all clarity was lost. All that was left was a wasteland of the past. The food I’d devoured, days I’d lived, all staring me in the face. Despising me for being so weak as to actually need to regurgitate them. I couldn’t handle them inside me, so I forced them out.
Staring at the water inside the toilet bowl, I remembered how angry I was when I turned around to see Damo holding my bottle of Jack Daniels. One arm still loosely around Katya’s shoulder, I looked at Damo who seemed to be fighting a smirk. He looked at both Katya and I a while before I asked him what he wanted.
“Hey, can I have a shot or two of your Jack?”
“Um…” I thought, deciding how drunk I wanted to get and how stingy I wanted to be, “hang on for a while. I’ll have a couple of shots with you.” I said, turning back to Katya, desperately hoping we could kiss and find that world again. But before our lips could touch once more, words came from Katya’s.
“I need some water.”
And before I could say anything, she was off and into the kitchen to get some H20, and Damo was sitting on Hood’s couch opening my bottle of Jack and pouring himself a shot.
“Wait up.” I said to him before going to my bag and getting my own shot glass out. I always bring my shot glass out when I’m drinking spirits. It’s one of those novelty shot glasses with Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner. Poor Coyote. Always chasing his goal but never attaining it. Reminded me of myself. A lot.
As a third wave of vomit rises inside of me, I close my eyes and let it out, all the while thinking of my conversation with Damo which preceded it all of this sickness. I was seated on the couch with him. We’d each had two shots of the Jack Daniels and finished it off. For a moment I thought I was out of alcohol and as drunk as I was, I could help but feel disappointed. The night was going so well that I wanted to get trashed. I’d forgotten Katya wasn’t drinking and that I may come off as a drunken fool to her. I wanted more, dammit, more!
And I got more.
Just as I was pondering where I could get any more booze, Damo pulled his bag up from next to the couch and brought a bottle of Tequila, half full, out.
“Hey!” I said loudly, causing Damo to glance at me as he opened the bottle. “If you’ve got that, why’d you need my drink?” I asked him accusingly.
Damo looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned his trademark grin. The one he used to hook in girls at will. Already with a six-pack and two shots under him, he replied.
“Well, I needed to have something to lead up to the big stuff!”
Straight after the comment Damo poured a shot for himself and then threw it down his gate. As he shook his head wildly with the rush, I could see another reason I hung around with Damo other than loyalty. Sure he was rude and loud and disrespectful of others and downright cruel to girls – but there was something undeniably fun about him. Something which drew people to him. This was also why girls liked him – aside from his looks. Tanned and tall with his hair so perfectly messy that no one could tell he’d spent an hour preparing it, he was just a magnet for people. Girls knew he’d break their hearts. They knew to him they would only be a one night stand. Yet still, his strong personality attracted them – much like it had attracted me to him when we first met.
“You can share with me if you want.” Damo’s voice chimed in and my thoughts evaporated. Taking the bottle from his hand, I poured myself a shot. Breathing in, preparing myself, within a second the shot glass was empty and I was drunker.
As Damo poured another shot for himself, he started on a topic of conversation which was unusual for him to speak about; me.
“So how long have you been hanging around with that Katya chick?” he asked before shooting down Tequila.
Thinking back to our first meeting in the courtyard at Uni, I smiled. The moment was fresh in my mind and looking back I could see exactly what it was that had attracted me to Katya instantly. Not only her beautiful. It wasn’t just her warm voice and words praising my poem. It was the fact that she approached me. Someone approached me. Basking in the glory of my memory, Damo interrupted with a firm slap to the back of my head. Straight away I felt my brain move and mush. I cringed and turned to Damo irritably.
“What the fuck was that for?”
He just sat there smiling.
“I asked you a question and you just blanked out. Dickhead.” He said jokingly.
Still mad, but calming, I answered his question.
“Only a couple of days.” As soon as the words left me I felt weird. I pondered them for a while. Only a couple of days? I felt like I’d known Katya forever. She’d been all I thought about since I met her. How could I feel so much for someone I’d known only a couple of days?
Once again Damo brought me out of my thoughts.
Jesus man, the way you two were acting earlier, I thought you’d been going out for a while.” Damo echoed my feelings.
“We’re not going out.” I remarked, I don’t know why.
“So was that the chick you rooted last night?” asked Damo, now back to normal and seemingly ignoring my previous comment.
“Heh.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at Damo’s blatancy. Then, surprisingly to myself, I put him straight. “I didn’t root her.” Another shot was set for me, so I threw it down quickly, my head beginning to spin.
Damo said “Yeah, she seems like a pretty cool chick.” And I wasn’t sure if he had been listening to me at all. “You were right on the phone too. She is hot.”
Relaxing back in the couch, I observed the people in front of me, dancing away to shitty music. Bouncing, moving, drinking, laughing. It made me sick. Literally. My head was now going totally out of control and my vision crazy. The bass of the hip-hop was pounding in my head and the dancers ahead of me were moving so fast it made me dizzy.
“Are you okay?” I heard Damo say, but before I could answer, my party survival instincts had kicked in and I was running to Hood’s toilet. Out of the lounge room I sped, then through the kitchen where Katya was chatting happily with some girl. She turned panicked and watched as I flew into the bathroom. Other people were watching me too I guess, because as I opened the door to the toilet I heard a call of “someone is in there!”
Too late. The door was open and the vomit I’d been holding on to was about come streaming from my mouth. Hood, who was having a piss turned to me angrily and said:
“Hey! I’m in… whoa, Owen!” He must have known exactly what was about to happen as he abruptly left the room. I have no idea what happened to the rest of the urine.
With my third round of sickness gone, I suddenly feel completely clear. Still drunk, but not ill. Looking at the brown water and the chunks of Chicken from my dinner – and the carrot – I reach out blindly for the toilet paper. Finding it and pulling off a bit with one hand I wiped all around my mouth, hopefully getting whatever spew I had caught on my face, off.
Still a little shaky on my legs, I pushed myself up and flushed the toilet. The smell in there, I imagined, was awful. Slowly I opened the door and exited the room. The kitchen now was empty and the hip-hop music had turned to rock. The volume down much. Walking to the doorway I prepared to make a grand announcement of my recovery. Smiling at the thought, I stepped in and –
Felt sick all over again.
The only two in the room were Katya and Damo, arms wrapped around each other; embracing.
My heart sank. Jealousy = Sadness = Anger = Suicidal = Me.
Before they saw me I went back in to the kitchen. Silently I sat against the wall. Numbly I stared as tears started building up inside. A cocktail of emotions swirled throughout me. I was completely torn. Right then, only one option seemed viable. Leave. I’d lost. It was over. Damo had stolen my love. I was finished. Dead. Dead dead dead dead dead. Gone.
Slowly getting up, I eyed a door on the other side of Hood’s kitchen. It led to his backyard (SEE: 5 metre square concrete block.)
As I started tiptoeing toward it, I heard Damo speak.
“Wait. I think I hear Owen… Yeah, yeah, I’ll go and check.”
It would only take him two seconds to enter the room. Not caring about the noise I’d make, I fled. Fuck them I thought. If they were going to backstab me – fuck them and their feelings. I ran to the back door, swung it open and then jumped over Hood’s fence and into his neighbour’s “yard”. Behind me was Damo calling out to me. Then Katya.
“I’m sorry!” she yelled, and as I kept running and jumping from “yard” to “yard” her yells became louder and more choked with tears, Good, I thought. Fuck her. Fuck Damo too. Fuck then both.
And as I finally reached the end of the series of commission houses, I jumped over the last fence and was now on a footpath. Running faster now to wherever, I let the tears flow. My body moving as fast as it would go, I was completely cold and numb. I just kept running. Running home. And away from everything.
