‘I stock it for the art studio down the road.’ He stared at me for a while. ‘Why aren’t you in school?’
‘I quit.’
‘No future in quitting.’
‘I got a future in art.’ I pulled out my sketchbook.
He looked through it slowly, creaky old hands turning the pages. After a while he pulled out his book. By the end of the day I was a subversive with a solid career in home decoration retail and a discount on my paint.
Mrs J visited after a week or two. Leo told her where to find me. She walked in and pretended to look at the paint. When I said hello she opened her eyes wide. ‘Ed, what a lovely surprise. I’m glad I caught up with you. I read your essay.’ I didn’t even have to tell her it was mine.
Bert made her a cup of tea and gave her a chair and we talked about the colours of Rothko’s paintings, how they took you some other place that was all hazy sky. ‘You could come back,’ she said. ‘I could help and there’s a department in the school that can make things easier.’
‘Thanks but no thanks. I got everything I need here.’
‘For now,’ she said, and I shrugged. I knew what she meant. The days were already dragging but Bert was a good boss and I figured that was the price I had to pay for being safe.
‘You got lucky,’ Mrs J told Bert on her way out.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said.
The train stops and people get out. Lucy’s in the same place she was before. There’s no one between us but she doesn’t ask the question again. She looks out the window, maybe at that hanging moon or the shooting flames and tells me, ‘I like that the skies go nowhere. In that painting. I like that the birds want to get away but they can’t. I like the reflection of paint in the dark.’ The train starts again and I hold tight to stay steady.
The party’s on Mason Street, a few minutes from the station. Leo takes the long way there, though, and I know it’s to show Jazz one of his poems called The daytime things.
While the girls are reading it I give him a what-do-you-think-you’re-doing? look. ‘It’s the plan,’ he mouths. But he’s not showing her this piece so she can think some other guy did it. Sooner or later he’s planning on telling her he wrote the poem.
‘I like it,’ Jazz says. ‘I like that he cares about the world.’
Leo grins. ‘Yeah,’ he says, looking thoughtful. ‘He seems like a good guy.’
This poem’s longer than Leo’s usual stuff. He read it to me before it went up on the wall. ‘When did you write that?’ I asked him.
‘Sitting at the servo. This guy started talking to me while I was waiting for Jake.’
I walk ahead and leave Leo and Jazz looking at the wall. You got to keep moving round here.
Poet
Assignment Three
Poetry 101
Student: Leopold Green
The daytime things
There’s a guy down at the servo
With lions in his hair
Matted tails of roaring kings
A dirty song caught on his skin
He can’t remember when he lost them
But he lost the daytime things
Daytime shirts and daytime ties
And shiny daytime shoes
Daytime cloudy thoughts that drift
In cloudy daytime blues
Daytime smiles from people travelling
While they ride the sunshine home
Daytime TV on the weekend
Daytime talking on the phone
Now he’s crying at the servo
Midnight stumbling in his mouth
Hope slowly sliding south
A dirty song caught on his skin
Matted tails of roaring kings
Who knows where or when he lost them
But he lost the daytime things
Ed
The party’s spilling onto the front yard when we get there and it’s only ten forty-five. A couple of Jake’s friends call as we walk past. Leo slaps their hands and leads the way.
Walking into parties like this is like walking into haywire sleep. People move past saying things that don’t make sense because they’re dripping with alcohol. The house vibrates with heat and music and in the darkness people who won’t remember each other in the morning are getting to know each other real well now. Everyone here is older than us and even though I know most of them I do a quick check of the exits. I feel better knowing I can get out.
‘What sort of party is this?’ Lucy asks, staring at a group of guys who look like they walked off the set of Prison Break.
‘The fun kind,’ Leo says. ‘Go have some. We’ll find you after I talk to my brother.’
‘The fun kind?’ Lucy shouts to Jazz. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw that guy over there on Crime Stoppers last week.’ She’s right. She did.
‘Don’t be paranoid,’ Jazz shouts, and drags her to the dance floor. Daisy walks behind them, blowing kisses to people she knows. The three of them weave in and out of the music and Lucy moves like she’s got extra beats in her head, beats no one can hear but her. I look at Leo talking to Jake and think about using one of the exits so I can go find myself a wall and paint a girl with a bunch of wild beats.
‘Ed,’ Leo calls, and I walk across to say hi to Jake. After we’ve swapped hellos I leave him and Leo to talk business and stand back with Dylan to watch the girls dance. More people crowd in, crowding out air, leaving only sweat and dark.
‘You’re acting worried,’ Dylan says. ‘You think something’ll go wrong?’
‘Yeah I think something’ll go wrong. If you got half a brain you won’t get involved tonight.’
‘You’ve got half a brain,’ Dylan says.
‘What?’
‘You’ve got half a brain. How come you’re doing it?’
‘I got a whole brain, for the record. But I got bills to pay and no job.’
‘My mum and dad pay the bills. They won’t pay for me to go to Queensland because I spent my money on a Wii.’
‘So get a job at McDonald’s, you idiot.’
‘I’ve got a job there. I don’t have time to save that much money again. Daisy’s going without me and she’ll be alone up there with all those surfer guys. You know what they want.’
‘A great wave?’ I ask, looking over at Lucy.
‘That’s right. They should get their own wave.’
We watch for a bit longer. ‘I think surfers are maybe her type,’ Dylan says.
‘You’re stuffed, then.’
‘I could be a surfer if I tried.’
‘Surfers don’t wear checked shirts and iron their jeans and shave twice a day.’
‘I like to be neat.’
‘And that’s fine. But you’ll never be a dude.’
‘Dude’s a stupid word,’ he says.
‘Yes, it is,’ I tell him. And then after a while of more girl watching I say, ‘Don’t do the job. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘It is,’ he says, eyes spotlighting Daisy.
Take your own advice, Bert’d say. His voice is loud even here in the screaming music and floating smoke. There’s nothing you can do for me now, Bert. You’re dead and I’m buried.
I did a piece for him the day he died. Not on the side of his shop because he would have hated that. I did it somewhere legal. Down on Edward Street near the docks where they fence off a place for people to make art. It was nothing clever, just a picture of him with that look he wore while he was having a beer or teaching me something new. I made him big, though, so no one on the trains passing would miss him.
I took Valerie to see it one afternoon. We stayed with Bert’s old eyes for a long time that day. She ran her hand across his face and shaggy eyebrows while I looked at the river. The water was lower than it had been for a while because rain was starting to feel like a story people told.
‘I have to sell the business, Ed,’ she told me, and I felt sorrier for her than I did for me. ‘There’s a hardware place in the next suburb that’s
been trying to buy us out for years. Bert kept saying no. He wanted you to have it.’
‘I couldn’t have run it anyway.’ I kept my eyes on the river.
‘Oh yes you could have,’ she said. ‘But I need the money. It’ll be a quick sale and they can take over almost straight away.’
I pictured the store without Bert in it and I had this thought, this feeling that there was a drought in me, like there was no water for my insides to float on.
Up until a couple of weeks ago I visited that picture of Bert. Most afternoons I sat there with a beer and told him about the jobs I’d applied for, about the art I’d seen.
But it seems pretty clear I’m not getting another job any time soon so I’ve stopped going. Some things those old eyes don’t need to see.
‘Right,’ Leo says, turning around from Jake. ‘At one I pick up a van from Montague Street. At three we go to the school. Security checks are at two and four-thirty. Dylan left the window open today so all we have to do is load the van with computers and anything else that’s valuable from the Media block and then take the stuff back to Jake.’
‘No alarm?’ I ask.
Leo pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘All under control.’
‘How’d Jake get that?’
‘I don’t ask questions.’
If I asked questions I’d ask how come we’re stealing from the Media block where the only teacher who was ever nice to me works. Good question, Bert says.
‘I need air,’ I tell Leo, and slide my way through the cracks of the crowd till I get to the back door. It’s blocked by a bin full of drinks so I push my way through to the front but a guy and a girl are getting right into it and I can’t get past. I tap the guy on the shoulder but he’s not moving unless there’s a fire and even then he’s probably not moving.
There’s always a window, I think, and head back to the lounge room and look around. I see it close to the couch where Lucy’s taking a break from dancing. She’s sitting next to Gorilla, a guy who got his name because he’s hairy and because some of his body parts are rumoured to be extendable. He’s grinning and moving closer and she’s blocked in on all sides by a mass of bodies. I look at her and him. I look at the window. I think back to our date. She can always break his nose if he gets too friendly. I jump through, land on the grass and turn around. Who am I kidding? I want to see it if she breaks his nose.
I rest my arms on the window ledge and watch her fighting the good fight. ‘So how old are you, baby?’ Gorilla asks her.
‘Old enough to know better,’ she says, looking at his extendable arms.
‘You like what you see?’ he asks, and touches her leg. ‘You and me should do it, later.’
‘Did you forget to evolve?’ she asks, struggling to get off the couch. I laugh because I like how she’s feisty, when it’s not aimed at me. Before she finds out what other parts of him are extendable I haul myself up and drop inside. ‘She’s with me, Gorilla.’
‘I don’t see your name on her,’ he tells me, and she looks mad and he looks like he wants a fight and I know I can’t take either of them so I end this quick.
‘Trust me. Find someone else. This is the one that broke my nose.’
‘Shit, she’s all yours.’
I fall onto the couch. ‘You hear that? You’re all mine.’
She flicks her wristband. ‘There’s a guy in the kitchen giving people tattoos. You want to go get your name on my arm?’
‘Later, maybe.’
‘Did you come through the window?’ she asks.
‘All other exits are blocked,’ I tell her, and sit there trying to think of something to say. It’s hard to think of small talk in a sea of couples that are slowly tattooing themselves all over each other. She can’t stop looking at them and that’s a bad idea at a party like this. ‘Don’t look,’ I tell her.
‘It’s like the sun during an eclipse. It’ll blind me but I have to look.’
‘If you keep looking at that girl she will blind you.’
‘What you need is a camera,’ the girl says to Lucy.
‘No, what I need is a hose.’
‘Okay.’ I cover Lucy’s eyes. ‘No one’s looking anymore.’
The girl goes back to her business. I keep my hand where it is just in case. Nice and close to her mouth.
I watch her so I’m not tempted to watch anyone else. She moves her head and feet around in time to the music. ‘You enjoying yourself there?’ I ask.
‘More than I was. It’s not as bad if you can’t see it.’
I cover my eyes with my other hand. ‘You’re right.’
‘Do you think that’s someone chewing gum?’ she asks.
‘Uh-uh,’ I say. ‘Is that you heavy breathing?’
‘I’m trying to have an out-of-body experience.’
‘Do not leave me here alone,’ I tell her, and we laugh, and in the dark she could be a different girl and I could be a different guy. We could be two people swimming through painted music.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asks.
‘I’m thinking this party sucks.’
‘I’m pretty sure that there’s someone beside me actually sucking. Shadow wouldn’t be at a party like this.’
‘This is exactly the sort of party Shadow’d be at.’
‘You know him too?’
‘I catch a glimpse of him, every now and then.’
‘I’ve almost seen him. And Poet,’ she says, and I want to say, you have seen him and you didn’t want him.
‘Oh yeah?’ I say instead.
‘Yep. He was at the glass studio where I work. My boss texted me when he saw them. I arrived tonight five minutes after they’d gone.’
It’s strange that I’ve seen that old guy a few times and never seen Lucy once. I watch him sometimes, through the window of his studio, melting glass and changing its shape. ‘Did your boss get a really good look at them?’
‘He said they were young and scruffy.’
‘Shadow didn’t look scruffy last time I saw him.’ That old guy’s scruffier than Leo or me.
‘So how come you’re not mad at me anymore?’ she asks.
‘Who says I’m not?’
‘You’re not blocking my airway.’
‘It’s a crowded room. Lots of witnesses.’ I think for a bit. I’m not as mad when I’m not looking at her. Both of us stay quiet for a while and let the music weave around us. ‘We can’t stay like this much longer,’ I say after three songs have gone by.
‘Worried it’ll get awkward?’ she asks.
‘More worried someone’ll steal our wallets.’
‘Jazz is pretty keen to hang around. She said this place is perfect material for her drama audition. She’s doing this Shakespearean monologue, so I don’t know what inspiration she’s planning on getting here.’
A bottle smashes somewhere close by. ‘If she hangs around long enough someone’s bound to get killed,’ I say. She laughs again and I like it even more. Like that it’s me who made her laugh.
‘Maybe I’ll go home,’ she says. ‘Jazz won’t care now that Leo looks interested. You think he’s interested?’
I like the mood she and I have got going on, so I don’t want to tell her that when it comes to dating, Leo’s been on the bench since Emma. I haven’t really heard him talk about anyone since her. When the girl you like calls the cops, it’s bound to make a guy hold back. ‘Maybe,’ I tell Lucy. ‘Anyway, she’s got Daisy. I didn’t know you guys were friends.’
‘It’s a recent thing. You’re right. Jazz’s got backup. I think I’ll go.’
For the past ten minutes we’ve been on a couch hanging in the middle of nowhere, and while we’re hanging I don’t think about being broke or being without Beth or being in jail later tonight. ‘We should go find Shadow,’ I say, and close my eyes behind my hand. What are you thinking? This girl broke your nose. She keeps me waiting for her answer. I think about taking back what I said and then decide to leave it out there.
‘Where would we look?’ she asks after a while.
No guts, no glory, Bert’s old voice tells me, and I take my hand off her eyes and watch her blink me into focus. ‘I got one or two ideas.’ I tell her about the pieces at the old train yard and the skate park and I try not to act like I’m excited that she’s excited.
She says she’ll be a minute and pushes her way through the crowd. I watch her talk to Jazz and wonder what I’m doing. Whatever it is I can’t stop. I push my way after her and before she can change her mind I grab her arm and we heave with the crowd to the window.
On the grass outside I take a few breaths and while I’m doing that I see Raff and his mates forcing their way past the couple kissing at the front door. Shit. ‘I forgot to tell Leo something,’ I say to Lucy. ‘Give me a second.’
Before I crawl through the window I look back at her. She’s staring at the sky like she’s having a conversation with what’s up there.
I move fast and find Leo on the dance floor. ‘Raff’s here. You need to keep him away from Jazz.’
‘I’ll take care of it,’ Leo says. ‘Relax.’
‘Can I borrow ten bucks?’ I ask.
He hands it to me. ‘See you back here at two-thirty?’
The music switches to techno and the party’s a moving trance. You got to get out or go with it. Say no, old Bert says, but I can’t. ‘Two-thirty,’ I tell Leo. ‘Remember. Watch out for Raff.’
I work my way through the crowd to Lucy and before I go out the window again I look back at Leo. I can’t tell whether he likes Jazz or not. But if I had to take a guess I’d say he does.
Poet
Assignment Four
Poetry 101
Student: Leopold Green
Remember love
Remember
Love doesn’t make the world go round
Sex makes it spin for a second or two
If you’re lucky