Death of a Scenester Issue 2 BOYS

death of a scenester

ISSUE #2

Spring 2010

WORDS and ART

tuesday press

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First published in 2010 by death of a scenester, an imprint of Tuesday Press Š death of a scenester and Tuesday Press This zournal is copyright. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this zournal may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at deathofascenester@gmail.com.

Disclaimer The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only. Some pieces may contain material only suitable for adults.

Cover art by Brad Rusbridge.

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elcome to the second issue of Death of a Scenester. We’ve learnt a lot since working on the first issue. We’ve learnt about the importance of building community from within both independent, underground publishing and the independent music scene (we’ve seen this from our previous launch and our last fundraiser – thanks to all the bands who played!). We’ve also learnt about unique styles of art and writing and we have grown/progressed – from being more efficient, to having increased amount of contributors, to meeting and publishing talented authors who get rejected by the ‘big wigs’, and meeting members of the zine community. We were also invited to be part of the 2010 Emerging Writers Festival where we were part of the 15 Minutes of Fame showcase and had the opportunity to ride on the very first Zine Bus! We met some amazing people on the Zine Bus – both prolific writers and underground zinesters.

We sold out of our first print run and through a lot of research and independence, built a wider network via online and offline channels.

Death of a Scenester maintains its identity as a zournal and maintains the thought that publications can cross boundaries, and develop their own style. It has been refreshing developing an eye for both acceptance and criticism, and the self-reflexiveness that has accompanied our entry into the public realm has been a rewarding experience. Underground publications need criticism and varied opinions to grow; otherwise what is the point of publishing at all? Sounding very serious, eh?! But the best thing about this whole independent publishing thing is discovering fantastic new writing – and there are some very funny, original writers out there!

This issue, Boys, discusses masculinity in ways that indicate that there is no need to conform.

By raising this topic we wanted to be true to the goals we set out to achieve with the first issue and open a debate through the discussion of a topic that has very limited scope in other general forms of media content. We wanted to reject stereotypes, to encourage the gender debate, to stay out of the gender debate, to turn the word upside down, and to encourage creativity. BOYS! Thanks again to all the contributors and to all who have helped us out – we hope you like the new issue and have a blast at the launch party!

Enjoy Ali, Shal, Meg & Katie DOAS xxxx

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OSLO DAVIES p.9 Oslo Davis was born in Brooklyn, Tasmania. He is now an illustrator and cartoonist living in Melbourne, Australia. Oslo draws cartoons for Meanjin, The Age, the Sunday Age, the Readings Monthly and the Wheeler Centre. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Business Week, The Big Issue, the Sleepers Almanac, Tango, Bicycle Victoria’s Ride On magazine, Going Down Swinging and Torpedo. Oslo Davis draws a twice-weekly cartoon for The Age, and a book collecting his Sunday Age ‘Overheard’ cartoons is out now through Arcade Publications. He also occasionally writes articles and reviews for ThreeThousand.com.au. Right now, Oslo Davis is undertaking a Creative Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria.

CRAIG SCHUFTAN p.10 Craig Schuftan is an author and broadcaster from Sydney. He has published two books, The Culture Club (2007) and Hey! Nietzsche! Leave them Kids Alone (2009), and is currently working on a third, a cultural history of rock music in the nineties, entitled Entertain Us! He is also well known for his radio series and podcast, ‘The Culture Club’, and for his controversial decision to see The Pet Shop Boys instead of The Pixies when they played simultaneously on the two main stages of the V Festival in 2007. This story, Music for Boys – his first for Death of a Scenester – explains why.

SLOAN p.15 Sloan is a fast talkin’ Americano who works far away from home out of Fitzroy. He does poetry readings at the drop of a hat.

JO AND GEORGE p.16 Jo and George met as co-misfits in an economics class at Adelaide Uni in 2005. George is currently ‘travel-doodling’. Jo is in Melbourne and makes music.

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NICOLA HARDY p.18 Nicola Hardy is a visual artist, writer, zine maker, amateur haiku-ist and one half of experimental project Love Crazy Voyagers. Find more of her writing at www. carcrashwitness.blogspot.com and join the Facebook group ‘Nicola’s Crazy Art Projects’.

She’s currently in Europe making art, causing trouble and working on her novel, just like Hemingway.

ANTHONY GRAHAM p.20 Anthony Graham has written for several publications and websites you’ve never heard of.

He’d like to give you the impression that he’s working on his novel and not his tan. He lives in your town and he doesn’t know much, but he knows he loves you.

RODNEY TODD p.22 Rodney Todd was born the year punk broke in 1977. Since then he has been playing in bands, doing stand-up comedy, writing little stories and emailing people. He likes to eat Chinese pancakes and dumplings in summer and laksas in winter.

CATHY MARSHALL p.24 Cathy Marshall takes black and white photos on film. You can have a peek at some of her photos here: http://bonzaiareba.weebly.com.

EDDY BURGER p.28 I like writing stories, poems, zines and plays. I’ve had lots printed. I also like dinosaurs, spaceships, robots, forests, singing, drawing and acting (younger than I am).

GARETH SOBEY p.32 Gareth Sobey is a Melbourne-based writer, academic, musician and artist. On the weekend he waits tables and makes coffee for money.

MATTHEW CECIL MURDOCH p.34 Matthew Cecil Murdoch can be found on the second story, hearding the ox with nag champa and $4 candles, and sometimes in public, performing under the questionable moniker Matt Sonic. www.myspace.com/mattsonic1.

RICK CHESSHIRE p.37 Rick Chesshire is an arty bogan from Geelong. He’s just finished the album cover art for You Am I. Check out his kitty litter at www.chesshire.com.au.

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DAMO MUSCLECAR p.38 Damo graduated from Flinders University a long time ago and has spent the last 13 years writing a magazine titled Long Gone Loser about all things awesome. He collects records, plays guitar, travels a lot, eats crap food and sleeps on the floor, sometimes even yours.

Why? Cos that’s rock n roll.

CATE FUREY p.41 Cate Furey is a graphic designer based in Melbourne who wishes that she could play the accordian like Astor Piazolla. Instead, she just has his CDs. Cate has recently procured a baby boy, and has not had the time for much else.

RICH WARWICK p.42 Well, what can you say about Richard Warwick, the creator of this issue’s sultry centrefold?

Not much, you’ve probably never heard of him. But we have and we can tell you he loves to draw things. If you would like to see some of the things he loves to draw, you can do so at www.richwarwick.com.

ANN WITHERALL p.44 I’m an old punk. I’m writing a series of novels about a young punk. The first story, FREAK, is about a fucked up, fucked-off young woman who runs away to Melbourne and gets into the scene. It’s currently being rejected by agents and publishers. Being an old punk, I don’t care!

AE p.49 AE likes books, guitars and sharks.

DAN CHRISTIE p.50 Dan Christie aspires to marry into one of the “better” families. If not stalking aristocrats in Belgravia, Dan indulges in one of his many dubious hobbies the majority of which involve Tilda Swinton, marmalade and a full glass of gin.

NINA GIBB p.52 Nina is such a big fiction nerd that she gets jealous when other people are more shutin than her. When she’s not behind the counter selling the nine millionth copy of The Passage she spends time writing, making random things that don’t quite qualify as an arts practice and attempting to get a readers and writer’s group off the ground. Check out http://typesetgroup.blogspot.com for details.

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JAMES HAWTHORNE p.59 James Hawthorne is a Bar Open-based writer. His first novel, Like Cancer For Orange is currently an open-source project.

THOMAHAWK MERRYWEATHER p.62 Thomahawk Merryweather is a man with a wealth of words, stealthy in the kitchen with a knife and, in life, is better company than brandy on a cold day and is an even better friend.

He was published in the inaugural zine issue of death of a scenester and represents part of our extended Australasian contingent having moved from New Zealand to Sydney.

SEAN GLEESON p.64 Sean Gleeson lives in Melbourne. Like many other men of his generation, his boyhood ended on September 11, 2001, a day that will be forever known to history as the anniversary of his first girlfriend presenting him with a dinosaur plush toy and a card that said “Let’s be Friends”. Nine years later, the war continues...

KATIE SCOTT p.68 K. Scott is a Melbourne musician, amateur lomographer and book enthusiast. Between a day job and playing gigs she also likes to tap away at a typewriter, consume too much coffee and toss and turn in her sleep. She believes the best way to calm the nerves is a large pot of camomile tea and to listen to Otis Redding’s ‘Cigarettes and Coffee’.

MATT FORD p.72 Matt Ford is the creator of punk-rock comedy publication Nerf Jihad. Matt enjoys reading, bus trips, Batman, watching Major League Baseball games, cooking, and ordering records from the internet. He is a vivacious supporter of animal rights and his favourite actress is Winona Ryder. Go to www.nerfjihad.net.

NICK LIVINGSTON p.75 Nick Livingston tries to be cool, playing guitar and drums and stuff, but is actually a nerd who is quite likely most happy alone with a thesaurus.

MATT SAY p.44 I am man. I draw.

BRAD RUSBRIDGE (cover) Brad had long hair, now he has short hair. He occasionally does posters or cover-art for his friend’s bands. This is his first zournal cover.

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MUSIC FOR BOYS

Craig Schuftan

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hen I was 15 years old, I stumbled into my first musical argument. I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I do remember that it didn’t go at all well for me. The following is a reconstruction of the event.

Paul: Hey Craig what are you listening to?

Me: Um… the Pet Shop Boys?

Paul: The Pet Shop Boys! They suck!

Me: No they don’t!

Paul: Yes they do, it’s fake synthesised crap for teeny-boppers. I can’t believe you would listen to that. It’s so artificial!

If I’d had my wits about me, I would have responded to this last remark with a well-timed “you are!” But I was witless, and speechless. I’d just been accused of the worst thing possible to be accused of at my high school, in my particular little group – being fake. My taste for artificial, synthesised music had exposed me as an artificial, synthesised person.

Thus, a simple inquiry after the contents of my walkman had left me with the feeling that I might as well be dead.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but this little confrontation reflected, in miniature, a sea-change in the wider world of popular music. Paul’s insistence that music should be authentic, and my guilt over not living up to his standards, were symptomatic of a need which had been growing, since the mid-80s – for something raw, something wild, something real in rock and roll. Between 1987 and 1989, commercial radio playlists showed the growing signs of a ‘soul’ revival, which propelled the strenuous emoting of singers like Michael Bolton (‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’), Mick Hucknall (‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’), and Bette Midler (‘Under the Boardwalk’), toward the top of the charts. This widespread need for something rootsy and authentic explained U2’s otherwise inexplicable ‘Rattle and Hum’, and led to the tragic downfall of Milli Vanilli – whose Grammy was revoked, in one of the defining dramas of the period, after it was

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revealed that they did not sing a note on their multi-platinum debut. Critics fell over themselves trying to find a proper guitar-toting hoarse-throated rock prophet to lead them out of the Godless wilderness of 80s pop. Who would it be – Melissa Etheridge? Tracy Chapman? Axl Rose? Lenny Kravitz?

And while these baby-boomer anxieties might seem worlds away from the brave new world of the indie-rock underground, hindsight reveals them as two sides of the same coin. In England, US bands like The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr had critics foaming at the mouth over the possibility of a full-scale rock revival. Meanwhile, in Seattle, the future members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were growing their hair long, extending their guitar solos, and looking twice at those old wah-wah and fuzz pedals in the local pawn-shop window.

Records that had been hidden in the basement since 1977 were dusted off and put back on the player; names like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Queen started to appear under ‘influences’ in the wanted ads; Black Sabbath were reinstated in the underground rock canon alongside Black Flag and Big Black.

At my high school, things were much the same. Smart, musically curious kids like Paul were discovering The Pixies and Nirvana. The majority made do with their older brothers’ cassettes, and wrote Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Doors and Jimi Hendrix on their schoolbags. A weird kind of consensus seemed to have been reached between these angry young men and their angry old parents – whose nostalgia for the 60s was then pushing Bette Midler’s ‘Under the Boardwalk’ and the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack toward multi-platinum status. That is, that music was better before – we had it, and then we lost it. From the back of the school bus to the Jason recliner, the cry was unanimous – today’s music ain’t got the same soul, bring back that old time rock and roll!

But I struggled to relate to old time rock and roll. I liked it, but I was acutely aware that it came from another time, when people were themselves, when they had big, original authentic feelings which had never been felt before. I, on the other hand, felt as though all my feelings had been felt before – as though I was an actor struggling, and failing, to bring a script full of cliches to life. I couldn’t open my mouth without feeling as if I were quoting some corny old sitcom, which is why – like everyone else – I started peppering my conversation with the word ‘like’. This little word gave notice that I was aware that my thoughts and behaviour were not original to me – that I was quoting, copying, faking it. I felt terribly guilty about this, which is why Paul’s assertion that I was an artificial person had such a profound effect on me – I knew it was true. To make matters worse, everybody else seemed to have mastered the trick of acting naturally, so it didn’t occur to me for a moment that there might be others who felt this way. I didn’t read Sartre until 2002,

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and when I did, I wished somebody had shown it to me in 1989, instead of telling me – as people were always doing back then – to ‘be yourself’. I had no idea what this meant at the time, and I still don’t.

As a result, I began to resent classic rock singers. The authentic feelings they expressed seemed to be another thing I’d missed out on – along with free love, and free tertiary education. ‘Whole Lotta Love’ left me with the feeling that Robert Plant had used up all the feelings in the world before I was even born, it reached me as the musical equivalent to the bumper sticker that appears in the first chapter of Douglas Coupland’s Generation X – ‘SPENDING OUR CHILDREN’S INHERITANCE’. “I don’t know,” says Dag, enraged by this blatant display of Boomer smugness, “whether I feel more that I want to punish some aging crock for frittering away my world, or whether I’m just upset that the world has gotten too big – way beyond our capacity to tell stories about it, and so all we’re left with are these blips and chunks and snippets on bumpers.” Late-80s singers like Lenny Kravitz or Michael Bolton who sang sincerely, like they were singing from a time that pre-dated this world of blips and chunks, struck me – paradoxically – as very insincere. I wanted artists who could admit that – like me, they were faking it, thereby lending some dignity to my inauthentic life. This is why the music video for the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Always on My Mind’ meant – and still means – more to me than ‘All Along The Watchtower’.

‘Always on My Mind’ had first come into my life two years prior to this – a lifetime ago in ‘High School’ time. I was at my friend Franklin’s house, it was Saturday morning, and we were participating in a nationwide teenage ritual, the top 40 countdown on Video Hits. I remember watching Neil Tenant sing this impossibly sad love song, and waiting – waiting to see the scene which showed him with his girlfriend in happier times, or the one where she leaves him standing in the rain, or the one where he gazes longingly after her as she walks past, arm-in-arm with her new lover. But I didn’t see any of this. Instead, I saw a brief scene from a bawdy silent-film-era farce, a shot of women doing aerobics on an airport tarmac, a comedian with a puppet leering at the camera, the driver from the limousine throwing old junk into a box, two schoolboys walking past a funhouse mirror, rappers in puffy jackets standing on a street corner, and a big American car driving away from a casino at night. This was all very strange, but strangest of all was the singer himself. Instead of emoting, displaying his feelings in the way that singers in videos were meant to do, Tenant sang this song – the saddest song in the world – in a bored, offhanded way. He sat there in the front seat of a limousine, looking out the window. He didn’t clench his fists or hold his head in his hands or look imploringly into the camera.

He was wearing a tuxedo, but he never came close to breaking a sweat.

It was all very artificial – which is why Paul’s accusation was hard for me to refute. The

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Pet Shop Boys were artificial, but I can see now that they only seemed that way because – unlike ‘real’ bands – they constantly called attention to their own artifice. By refusing, for example, to emote in the manner that was expected of him, Tenant reminded his audience that what usually passes for sincerity – in videos, on recordings, and on the stage – is always a construction. If this sounds like media theory set to music, that’s only because it shares the same family history. As investigators of this world of blips and chunks, The Pet Shop Boys belong to a tradition which begins with Baudelaire’s The Painter of Modern Life, and includes the wanderings of Walter Benjamin, the collages of the Surrealists, the profoundly inauthentic art of Andy Warhol and the studiously fake creations of Tenant’s own teenage hero – David Bowie. In all of these, the search for authenticity is revealed to be a wild goose chase, and gleefully abandoned in favour of an art of play and imagination; inner truth is blasted into outer space.

Of course, in 1989, I didn’t know any of this. I just had the feeling, watching this video, listening over and over again to my copy of Actually, that being fake might not be the worst thing in the world. Faking, after all, is close to pretending. Pretending is almost the same thing as making things up, and making things up is what painters, poets and pop stars do. This seemed like good news to me, because I wanted very badly to be a painter, a poet or a pop star. It occurred to me also, a little later, that hidden in plain sight at the start of that all-purpose high school put-down, ‘artificial’, was another, much better word – art.

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Sloan 15

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Park NICOLA HARDY

It was very early morning and neither of us had been to sleep yet. I had just finished work and caught a cab directly to the bar. You were there and when you saw me arrive, you were like a rabbit in the headlights; maybe I was too.

I had some drinks.

I had no idea you were interested.

After a while, we pashed outside on the footpath and then somehow fell into a cab and sped off, leaving messy debris and bewildered friends behind. We kissed more in the back seat and when you pulled me on top of you, sliding your hand down my thigh, up my skirt and into my panties, I opened my mouth and raised my eyebrows, because we both soon realised that I didn’t have any on.

You went straight in and continued kissing me, and I quickly developed an absolute disregard for: a.

the cab driver;

b.

our destination; and

c.

pretty much anything else.

We reached our destination, untangled ourselves and emerged from the cab. At the convenience store, I checked out girlie magazines (to see if anyone I knew was in there) while you bought condoms. When we left, we held hands because it was cold and there

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was no one around to see and, and … and I just like fucking holding hands ok … jeeez.

We walked in the direction of your house. I’m not sure whose idea it was but one of us suggested we go into a nearby park. The grass was verdant and about 20 centimetres of fog arose from its surface, creating a mystical and steamy apparition. As we headed down the little stony pathway we noticed a really fluffy cat a long way away from us. When we reached* a park bench, I climbed on top of you and looked down at the ground and suddenly the cat was right next to us, like some kind of fast moving Matrix animal.

On this side of town, so unfamiliar, I felt like I was in another land. In this misty light we could have been anyone, anywhere, observing the bright and mighty red and yellow structures protruding from a floor of broken glass and concrete and dirt. Somehow it reminded me of London: the washed out colours, the unexpected surroundings, the quiet noise of faraway freeway traffic. I felt so fresh after being trapped inside a club all night and all morning. The breeze was nice and cool on the bare bits of my skin and with each thrust you gave me, my knees were digging into the wooden surface of the park bench but I didn’t care. You are so big, I have to take you in a little bit at a time, otherwise it hurt too much. When you fucked me deeply, it elicited a very sparkly feeling on the top of my head, like someone had lit fireworks there or a demon was being exorcised, or that your cock was trying to escape out of the top of my body.

And that mystical cat cruising around being all David Lynch-y made me wonder if it was a plot device or a metaphor or, secretly, a talking dwarf.

Your freshly shaven head.

My cool skin.

The wooden bench.

I couldn’t wait to fuck you.

I quite like fucking in parks.

{*achieve, arrive, attain, bring about, bring off, carry out, conclude, consummate, do, do a bang-up job, do justice, do one proud, do the trick, effect, finish, fulfill, gain, get someplace, get there, hit, make hay, make it, manage, nail it, perform, produce, pull off, put it over, rack up, reach, realise, score, sew up, take care of, win}

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Life Between Drinks Anthony Graham

Waking is the easy part.

The first strands of sunlight complete their improbable journey to my skin as a building I have passed hundreds of times before reveals itself from a new angle, in a new light. Seven colours appear streaked and bent across the sky, the entire visible spectrum of the physical universe. I am reminded again of the absurdity of this Goldilocks’ porridge Earth. Looking over my shoulder for no-one in particular, I board the tram, alone with everyone else.

Looking into the blank faces of the middle nothing, it’s hard to see anything redeemable about what we do when we’ve chosen to reward dishonesty, self-absorption, vacuousness and ignorance. Politesse only goes so far, only lasts so long. Most of the time I don’t speak because I know how the conversations will go.

We must also be capable of some other things, for we are nothing if not inconsistent. We must occasionally, and most likely quite accidently, get it right. If I squint, I can just make out the faint outlines of something worthwhile: Tenderness?

I swing left and right from the handrail, between bottomless empathy and complete contempt.

The key, I remind myself, is not necessarily not caring, but applying the same level of care to all things. Like water, I will eventually make my way.

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Two girls stand next to me, chirpy and shower-fresh. My eyes involuntarily check them over and part of me wants to fuck them. Vibrant and promising, all potential and no follow-through, they are the opposite of death; they are growing. Part of me wants to tear them down. Innocence is no cure.

Youth is another false prophet. For what courage is there without fear?

Nature has no rules and makes no mistakes. The distractions we talk ourselves into become ingrained and evolution follows as blindly as it should.

People have kids because offspring, the promise of legacy, is the only way to make the graft worth something. The meaning of life has folded back in on itself; meaning is sought via its continuation as its continuation has failed to reveal any meaning. Darwin was better than we give him credit for.

Science cannot offer us certainty either, only progressive likelihoods. Objectivity is an equally unreachable replacement for God. There are no footholds that aren’t already stuck into something else. Every philosophy or religion we have is reactionary. The cleansing clarity of existentialism sets it apart but it remains, essentially, an intellectual tool for pain aversion. Anything can be learned until it becomes intuitive. But at some point it becomes self-aggrandising.

There’s an old man, shrivelled and hunched, sharking for a seat. He was once young, only that much is certain. Meaning vanishes and the truth, or lack thereof, becomes apparent; we’re all on the same conveyor belt. The body has a thousand ways to betray you. There can be no other way. Life is underachievement. Life is procrastination. This is the beginning of futility. I step up and pull the cord.

The difference between acceptance and apathy becomes academic. My action is inaction. My effort is effortless. By standing still, relative to the river, the fisherman is still moving against the current.

I cross the road. In a car that has stopped at the lights a girl sits in the passenger seat with her bare feet on the dash. She smiles and wiggles her toes at me and for a brief moment, somewhere between simple and serene, I am untouchable.

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Rodney Todd

When I was young...

I always wanted to be tall. I went though a very short phase of wanting to play basketball and “shoot hoops” in my backyard. I was given a basketball hoop and board for my fourteenth birthday.

I wasn’t tall enough to slam dunk even though the height was much lower than the standard height of a basketball hoop. I asked my sister to take this photo of me hoping that it would look like an action shot of me doing a slam dunk. I was going to show my friends the photo of my awesome action shot. After the film was developed I noticed how stupid it looked and I didn’t show my friends. Even when you crop out the chair it still looks stupid and fake.

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five

photos

by Cathy Marshall

first glimpse of 2010

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unexpected day off

pumpkin soup outing

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i skim rocks better than you

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useless boyfriends

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Some to

things me

when

that I

happened was

young

by Eddy Burger

There are two things I’m really scared of – a photo of a lamb and a lion mask. The lamb is in a book at home that has an animal for each letter of the alphabet. ‘L’ is for lamb. The lamb is facing me but I can only see its chest and head. It looks as if it’s standing like a person. It’s really creepy. My brother John isn’t scared of it and he’s three years younger.

He chases me around the house with it.

My dad made the lion mask for a play he was in and now he keeps it in his wardrobe. It’s made of painted papier mâché and is tattered and has dark mouldy spots on it. It looks just like a rotting lion’s head or skull with skin still on it. John chases me with it too. He’s probably trying to make up for being such a weak pipsqueak.

I like going to my friend Frank’s place but sometimes there’s a horrible little dog in his courtyard that barks and tries to bite me. The boys who own the dog tease me for being scared of it. Frank teases me too. One time when school had finished, I was going to go to the milk bar to buy some lollies and I showed him the money but then he took it. I tried to get it off him but he wouldn’t give it back. He ran all the way to his place with it. I chased him to his court but the dog was out so I didn’t go in. I told mum and she went with me to Frank’s place. His mother, Mrs Freitag, said Frank was very naughty. She found him hiding in his wardrobe and made him come out and say he was sorry. Frank called me a dobber after that, but he deserved it.

The only pet I’ve had of my own was a beagle puppy. I called him Tiny Bubbles. One day we took Tiny Bubbles and our other two beagles, Wendy and Whimsy, to the Police Paddocks.

The Police Paddocks used to be owned by the police but now it’s just a place where people

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can take their dogs for a walk or ride their bikes. It’s near Churchill Park but doesn’t have as many trees. After we let the dogs run around for a while, we couldn’t find Tiny Bubbles.

We walked around, calling everywhere, and then we drove around in the car. There had been other people around and we think someone must have stolen Tiny Bubbles. I felt so sad to lose him. I didn’t have him for long.

There’s a girl at school called Lisa Maddox. Me and Frank have a crush on her. She lives next door to Frank, and one day she showed him her vagina. I was at his place when we were speaking to Lisa over the fence, and she said she’d show us her vagina if we showed her our willies. I didn’t want to do it because I know it isn’t right, so I walked away while they did it. It didn’t take long. I wanted Frank to tell me what it looked like but he wouldn’t because he said I’m a scaredy-cat.

There are two kids at school who get picked on more than anyone else because they’re a bit scruffy and dirty. It’s probably because their families are poor. Darren Metford is one.

He’s always being picked on and told he stinks. I don’t think he has any friends. One day after school a couple of kids were chasing him and he ran to his father who is the school cleaner. The kids were very rude to his father too but he really told them off. They never bothered his father again.

The other one is Veronica Homburg. She has messy hair and some of her teeth are crooked and black but she is nice to talk to. I’ve spoken with her a couple of times but not for long. After the last time, I said ‘I’d better go now because I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you.’ I felt bad for having to say it but she didn’t mind. I think she was happy I wanted to talk to her.

I’ve chipped both my front teeth. The first one got chipped when I was swinging between the desks at school and my hands slipped. I had my mouth open and landed on my tooth.

Then I had to go to the sick room. The other one got chipped at home when I was playing

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on the porch. I was on the other side of the railing, above the driveway, when my feet slipped. I must have had my mouth open again because my tooth hit the top of the railing when I was falling down. It really hurt.

The scariest dream I’ve had was about a monster that hid in the bathroom at night but only I knew it was there. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard it calling me but only I could hear it. I got my story book and went to the bathroom door as quietly as I could. Before I went in I could hear it knocking things beside the basin and moving the red high stool that we keep in the bathroom. Then I opened the door and there it was sitting on the high stool! It was so big its head touched the ceiling even though it was sitting. It looked a bit like a giant koala but its hair was really matted and dirty and it smelt like mould. It was really ugly and it was dribbling, but then I had to sit on its lap and read it a story. I hated being so close to it but I had to or else it would wake everyone up. Every night I had to go to it and read it a story.

I have a photo of John when he got mad when we were playing football in Marysville.

It shows him running after me with the football which he wanted to throw at me. He hates the photo but sometimes I show it to him when he is annoying me. He has temper tantrums all the time but at school he’s really good. We nicknamed him Roo The Wrecker because he always throws things and slams doors. Instead of fighting him sometimes I punch his teddy bear or his big soft rabbit then he punches my bear and duck and we start throwing them around and jumping on them.

Me and John went to my sister Elizabeth’s ballet school so we could learn to tap dance.

The teacher was nice. Her name was Miss Pretty and she was pretty pretty. She taught us a dance called The Policeman’s Song. The steps were easy to do but we still had to be careful not to make a mistake. We ended up doing the dance on stage when the ballet

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school put on their show. We wore police uniforms and had tappers on our shoes. It was the first time I’d been on a stage. It was dark but lights were shining on us and we could hardly see the people watching us. We did the dance alright and they clapped afterwards.

But when we left the stage, a girl who was waiting to go on called me a sissy. She wasn’t very nice. There’s nothing wrong with boys doing tap dance.

Me and Frank also have a crush on Penny Logan. She is short and cute and very smart.

She’s the smartest in the class. She knows we like her. One lunch time we chased her around the school yard. But then she became the girlfriend of Darren Mullarvey who is the strongest boy in class. But he isn’t a bully. He does weight lifting with his dad and his muscles are amazingly big. One day he showed our teacher how he could make his muscles and veins really bulge by squeezing his arm. She looked a bit shocked. He’s so muscley, it’s almost scary.

I’ve always been the best drawer at school but one day a boy called Michael McGary did a really good drawing of a cow. His friends said he was a better drawer than me because of his cow. They got me to draw a cow but it didn’t look as good as his. His was like a cartoon cow with a flower in its hat, a bell and its tongue sticking out. It looked good enough to be in a newspaper. I think they were jealous of me because I’m a good drawer, but I don’t mind much. He could draw his cow over and over but he never drew anything else as good.

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A Darkened Nostalgia Gareth Sobey

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ozing, half submerged in a shallow dream, a woman’s voice pulls me back to the surface. ‘Passengers’, she tells me, ‘the captain has turned on the seat belt sign.’

Her voice is firm but not unkind, reciting words from a script I have heard many times before. Blinking at the afternoon light flooding the cabin, I instinctively reach over and check my seatbelt. Strapped at the waist, my fate is now tied inseparably to this little white tin can, as we hurtle together across the West Australian sky. Sweaty fingers rub sleep from the corners of my eyes and I’m pulling thoughts and memories out of cupboards, drawers and cabinets, rearranging and tidying the furniture of my interior world as if readying it for the arrival of a long-awaited guest. ‘Today comes but once,’ I repeat to myself, but the words feel heavy and unconvincing. Peering over the shoulder of the businessman shifting uncomfortably in the window seat, I see clouds lining the horizon, blooming, half-golden.

Somewhere, thousands of feet below, I imagine the sinking sun projects our winged silhouette against red sand and shrubbery. The stewardess’s voice informs me that we are about to begin our descent, yet my thoughts have become stranded in the past. Now, as so often, they are possessed by a darkened nostalgia and circle like carrion birds above the long dead days of my misspent youth, of summers spent in Pentecostal halls and bible studies, trembling with fear and bowing in devotion, god gripping me by one shoulder, the devil gripping me by the other, everything shadowed by visions of hell, a place of torment made in the minds of angry men who had named as sinful all that is good and born out of the earth.

I heard the same words from church ministers, school principals and well-meaning parents. ‘Don’t swear! Don’t touch! Don’t smoke! Don’t think! Don’t fuck!’ Some of what they taught me might, when looked at from a distance, pass for wisdom. But what I learnt went far deeper and would define the very core of my being. I would stare at the sky and see eternity refracted through the clouds. I listened to my thoughts and heard the voice of god. Waves of peace would descend over me as I left my sins at the altar, receiving certainty, woven like a thick blanket, to warm me in the grey wilderness of existence.

I had wished for teenage summers of cars and girls and fugitive dreams yet now, as I steal another glance outside the cabin window and see the ground rushing closer, I silently ache for that unbearable weight, the burden of guilt and terrible love, to keep me anchored, keep me helplessly certain. The wheels hit the tarmac with a jolt. We bounce a few times and threaten to swerve but then everything becomes steady and we breathe a collective sigh of relief. ‘We’ve arrived in Perth,’ the woman’s voice tells me, ‘and the local time is four thirty-seven in the afternoon.’

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these hills hold. by matthew cecil murdoch

of course i was destined to fall in love with you... you were sent to clear my Karma, change this boy to a man. i watched you sweep in to play our game, while i sat in ponder, arms crossed to cover my heart from burden.

Part 1 the night shone clear and cold, melted between a day of travel and the entrancing to come. it felt in anticipation of itself. [i don’t control this slow moving thunder, wouldn’t want to]. my silence, between blue notes and street shuffle, was filled with the echoing of my dear baby sister, calling my lost beloved’s name in question, me twitching to the sound of her sweet, the way it’s been for nine jailing months. i too call her name, i too wonder why. my father, my teacher through observation and joy, sat idled in Gin, his happy place rising around him, a soft warm flush, an inflamed rose. he was again Laid Back, a little too far, perfect.

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we, and my friend, shared this cool night, miles from the cares we 3 are creased by.

Part 2 i called her, i hounded the hills in some mad want, to give me a minute. she returned to sit upright, and the sun and moon, all the earths and skies turned a wild, iridescent sepia. she sipped beer Leo as i rolled into her. i felt like a softly unwrapped man, falling gently downward through a field of green, navigating her epicentre. a rest and a comfort. as our stories were laid down, and from dead centre, her eyes continued to cast on mine, my body broke. small sins and large were in confession, most entwined in a year unfit for calendar. i told my princess how it all started with a yearning, slowly turning toxic, beginning this year with a folly and a fuckup. it set the tone for my dirty, long, 12 month waltz of un-syncopated anti-joy.

Part 3 through and after an ice-cold midnight we carried ourselves to the middle of the mountain, and laid with the faerie tales.

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[...and quiet she came, soft and backward, laying arched skyward. i held her brown shoulders and fought God and Man to stay alive inside of her. in the sync of our new selves, we held deep breaths together, called the mountains to come bury us in soft lovers jungle]. outro so for near a week i became a lover, a doctor, accident and farmer. i held all of her words high, as high as the burning lantern i set sail to greet my man Dean. i filled her with the year that never was, and will never be again. we, through sunset and Pai Mountain Fire, through coloured greetings and hopes above any ceiling, became everything my year was not. a warm, trusted and promising beating heart, softly framed in the good return of a warm yellow sun.

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Douchebags = dickhead fest Damo Musclecar

O

ne of the greatest things about writing your own zine is the mail. Mail rocks. It’s awesome. You never know just what you are going to find when you check the mail. And no, I am not talking email. I am talking about old-school postal mail.

I’ve always thought this was the best part of the whole zine thing. Going to my post-office box every Saturday morning was one of my favourite rituals and once, in the winter of 2004, a VHS video tape mysteriously wound up in my PO Box . It was from Copenhagen, addressed to me from some guy named Horst. Ok, first things first; I needed some questions answered. I didn’t know anyone named Horst so how did he get my address, and more importantly, just what was on this tape?

I arrived home and without hesitation, I took the tape out of my bag, read its label again – ‘Sabrina, Tape 1’. I was baffled. I was never really a fan of that teenage witch to begin with. I always had a problem with taking the whole talking to a cat thing seriously. I mean, sure, everyone meows back at a cat once it meows at you but, I dunno, this show was just stupid. Besides, I dated a girl once who thought she was a witch but she was all talk, no action. Not once did I see her rock the skies on a broom OR wear a pointy hat, but I digress. I made myself a drink, popped the tape into the VCR and sat back to investigate this mysterious arrival from Copenhagen.

Low and behold… there it cried out to me… ‘Boys! Boys! Boys! I’m looking for a good time!’

No, it wasn’t porn, it wasn’t even softcore. It was… Sabrina! The 80’s singing sensation.

The one-hit wonder. The woman who fueled the fantasies of men (and possibly some women) across the globe with this very same video back in 1987. And now here she was,

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s

on my screen, attempting the same dirty tricks she played on me back when I was in year 7 at school. You know, the whole ‘sex sells’ thing? When I think about it, was this song a direct feministic response to Motley Crue’s anthemic ‘Girls Girls Girls’? Was it an ode to the strippers who shake their thang in the dark dingy clubs across the globe? It was released the same year, so one could believe it was such a move.

Speaking of Motley Crue, this brings me to today; I was on the tram listening to Twisted Sister (ok, so it’s not the Crue but they both had big hair and wore make-up, so play along with me here!) when my iPod died, mid-chorus, while crankin’ the song ‘Bad Boys Of Rock N Roll’. Now, if you have ever had your iPod die on you, you know the frustration one feels, especially when riding on trams. Personally, I absolutely hate hearing people’s inane conversations while I am on a tram, or any public transport for that matter, while I am heavily engrossed in a book (currently reading: The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen). I understand I am possibly alone here but I wish there was some kind of candid camera trick where people who have conversations about nothing on public transport would have their faces suddenly burnt to a crisp by the ticket machines after validating their tickets. Annoying passenger inferno! But I digress, back to Twisted Sister. This tune, while not finishing, got me thinking… what actually IS a bad boy of rock n roll? How do they define such a thing? I like rock n roll and my science teacher in year 9, Mrs Owen, told me once I was a bad boy after melting my pen over a Bunsen burner, but I still don’t feel I fit the bad-boy mold. Woe is me.

I do have to say though, that this book that I am reading is a perfect example of the ‘boys’ that I just don’t like. You and I both know of them, and unfortunately some of us even KNOW them personally… they’re douchebags. You know the ones. Tommy Lee is a prime example (to tie Motley Crue into what I am getting at so that whole intro doesn’t go to waste). Some would say Bret Michaels is most definitely one because these days he is usually seen in nothing more than Ed Hardy wear and from experience, Ed Hardy seems to be the choice of threads of the douchebag. No self-respecting person wears Ed Hardy.

Fact. I dig Mr Hardy’s tattoo work (yeah, he’s actually a real dude, just like Von Dutch was) but Christian Augier needs a serious slap upside the head. He’s muscling-in to our culture and making it look stupid. I mean seriously, if you like the tattoo so much, get the thing inked for Christ’s sake.

ANYWAY, where was I? Oh, that’s right… when I was in the USA last year, some girls invited me out to a bar in a place called Royal Oak in Detroit. This place is known to the rock n roll community as douchebag central, and the reason for inviting me out?

The girls were experiencing their own termed ‘douchebag night’ where they would don

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themselves in douchebag clothes and act like a jerk at a nightclub to get the lowdown on douchebag culture. Kinda like in that movie, ‘The Hard Way’ starring Michael J Fox and James Woods when Michael J Fox’s character needs to go undercover to get experience on how to be a cop for a part he is playing in an upcoming film. Anyway, I reluctantly go along to the aforementioned douchebag night (you only live once, right?) and from the moment I enter the nightclub, I am hit with the aura of douchebagness — guys in shirts with popped collars and gold necklaces holding drinks ‘checking out’ the ladies. What did I talk myself into? This was gonna be a long night but being the trooper I was, I was gonna ride it out.

I spotted my friends who were dancing like they were on a truckload of speed and asked them how everything was going? They continued dancing up a storm as guys would approach them and grind their bodies against them whilst whispering sweet nothings in their ears (or they could have been asking who the square with them was in the Motörhead shirt – that was me). I decided a beverage would be the way to go. I headed to the bar and got my token glass of water. I stood on the side of the dance floor just observing. I was minding my own business and enjoying the tasty Michigan water when I felt someone nudge my elbow. I turned to find some guy in a white polo shirt, collar popped, an excessive amount of hair gel and half a bottle of cheap cologne say to me ‘How hot’s that bitch, eh?’ pointing to some blonde girl in a short skirt attempting to do the hustle in high heels. I turned to my new found friend and respond with the following ‘About 4:30 but I don’t think I’m gonna make it to the party’ (thanks Eddie Murphy).

My friend looks at me stumped and says, ‘Where you from?’ and I politely respond with ‘Australia’. He looks at me surprised and intelligently says, ‘Man, there must be some hot bitches there!’ (I shit you not, this is how he spoke). I then tell him to hold my drink as I needed to use the bathroom. He says ‘Cheers mate!’ in the worst attempt of an Aussie accent I have ever heard and I head for the men’s room.

I enter the bathroom and find it’s pretty much the place to be for all douchebag culture.

The talk was all about ‘bitches’, ‘banging’, and one dude even praised another’s Ed Hardy shirt; ‘I like that design. It looks like a pair of tits!’ he jokes. I did my business and left (minus the tip – seriously, if you bring me food, I will tip but if your public service extends to you passing me a hand towel, I’m sorry but that doesn’t qualify you to get a buck outta me). I approached my friends and suggested that maybe we should leave and go somewhere ‘normal’. We all agreed and headed to a house in the suburbs for quiet drinks.

I reflected on what I had learned; it doesn’t matter where I go on the planet, douchebags are the same everywhere. Within minutes I fell asleep in some room that was painted from floor to ceiling like the Amazon River. True story.

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Chapter extracts from

FREAK by Ann Witherall

art by Matt Say

Chapter 36 X and Gas Babies were playing at the Prince. I could hear one of them going for it and could see people leaving to go watch them in the other bar. I wanted to get up and go watch too, but was trapped in a booth between two skinheads.

I was not mates with these skinheads.

Across the room Lucinda’s sleek mohawk and Smiley’s bleached spikes were outlined by the fuzzy bar lights. I called out to them but they didn’t hear. I looked at the skinheads on either side of me. They didn’t look at me. It felt deliberate, like I was being held captive.

The one to my left elbowed my ribs, hard, but wouldn’t make eye contact. His white shirt seemed fluorescent through the smoke. He smelt clean and of Old Spice. Unusual smells at a punk gig. My stomach retched with the artificial scent. I pushed the ashtray further back on the table. Put my arms on the cleared space and rested my head.

When I came-to there were fewer people in the bar. Smiley and Lucinda had gone. The skinheads were still there, confining me. Old Spice had moved to the outer edge of the booth. He whispered to a huge bloke with a shaved head, red braces and Doc Martins that came up to his knees.

They stopped talking and stared at me. Not in a nice way. The big one nodded his head slowly. The other one slid back and sat very close. He didn’t look at me but his arm and leg were right up against mine.

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I felt sick, like someone had a spoon down my throat and was speedily stirring the contents of my gut. Bony fingers gripped either side of my face and forced it to one side. My head spun. The skinhead kissed me, forcing his claggy lips hard onto mine. His hand wrapped around my upper arm. He slid along the seat, tugging me behind him. The skinhead on the other side pushed up against my side, nudging me along.

I tried to call out to someone, anyone, but couldn’t make the words happen. My brain circled the bar on its own. My stomach did a spin dive.

I chucked my guts up all over the table, the floor and the skinhead who had hold of my arm.

He let go. ****************************************************************************

Chapter 41 The day we got the electricity connected, Dee proudly fixed one of her stolen light bulbs in every room of the squat. She chose the colours to go with our hair. Mel and Dee got red.

I got blue. The lounge room got yellow because is smelt like piss.

Mel sat back on the sofa and stroked Scrotum’s oversized head while he scratched his fleas.

‘This yellow light-bulb makes sewing really difficult.’

‘You should’ve let me do it then,’ I said, scratching my flea bites.

‘Fuck off, Agro.’

‘Wow! Brilliant come back. I can see now why you think you’re so much better than me at everything.’

‘I’m freezing here girls.’ Dee stood in the middle of the lounge wearing only a t-shirt, black knickers and her Docs. ‘And I don’t want Andy coming home and catching me like this.’

‘Yeah, Agro, if you don’t mind I’m trying to sew.’ Mel knelt down next to Dee’s waist and looked up at her smiling. ‘This is great material, Dee. It really suits you.’ Mel was no good at sewing. She was only doing it so I couldn’t. ‘Just be careful when you pull it on,’ Mel said, making some final stitches and then twisting the skirt up around Dee’s waist.

‘There, one snake-skin mini, ready to rock.’ She stood up and admired her work.

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I thought it looked shit. Went to say I’d sew a few zippers onto it, when footsteps in the hall made us all stop and stare at the doorway, expectantly. The back door didn’t lock, so people just walked in.

Alien appeared, grinning with black lips. Pink paint circled his eyes. His thin Mohawk had been dyed orange. He had purple, feather earrings in. His Butthole Surfers t-shirt was ripped along the bottom exposing his bellybutton. The jeans he had on weren’t long enough. In the darkness of the hall Alien looked like a colourful, gay Frankenstein on drugs.

He walked in with his arms outstretched, shaking his body like a stripper and waving a tiny bag of acid tabs. ‘The Easter Bunny is here!’ he shouted, handing out the acid.

Thirty minutes later Iggy Pop was inside my head – 1969 – WOOOO – whirlpool. Baby – baby – baby – YEAH! The steel end table with the missing tile told me apples with holes tasted like gum trees. I tried to tell Dee but she was spinning around in the corner. Mel fell on the floor laughing like a hyena. Alien sang while doing a striptease in the hallway.

The walls disappeared and a perfect blue sky took their place. I could see the whole world and everything in it. The words Disarm or Die floated in front of me, talking. They said, ‘Hear nothing. See nothing. Say nothing,’ just like the Discharge song.

I’d been blessed by Discharge!

I felt glad the others were there, but was in a world of my own. Everything became clear and so obvious I didn’t know why I hadn’t realised it all before. I knew the meaning of life and the way to true happiness. I tried to explain it to Dee when she fell on me. But she wouldn’t listen, she cackled like a mad woman.

Mel’s head attached itself to Scrotum’s neck. Scrotum grinned and licked at the clouds in the clear, blue sky. Alien had gone missing. Where was Alien? I didn’t care. I knew everything, the universe told me. Music exploded in my head and Flipper took over the universe. I tried, tried really hard, not to see entrails spilling on the floor. Closing my eyes made it worse.

Time passed. Laughing so much had made my stomach feel like I’d just done a hundred sit-ups, fast.

Gradually normality crept back. Lifeless, mundane objects stopped being intelligent.

Ordinary things started to make sense. Life went back to being confusing.

Then Alien lost it. He came in holding a tampon by the string. It dripped blobs of tomato sauce over the floor. He waved it in front of Mel. She screamed and hid her face in her hands.

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Scrotum moved quickly. He was on the coffee table and then airborne within seconds. The tampon slide down his throat while a stunned silence blanketed the room.

Hysterics broke out. Dee slid off the sofa and onto her knees, gasping for air as she howled with laughter. It looked like she was worshipping some vengeful god. Mel curled up on her seat, still screaming into her hands.

Alien’s eyes almost left his face. Whatever he’d been doing while he was missing, it must’ve been strenuous because he was sweating. His hair dye was running down his face, neck and torso. It looked like streaks of orange blood coming from an axe-head sticking from the top of his scalp. He took off down the hallway, arms flapping, screaming madly at the top of his high pitched voice, ‘The dog ate the med! The med ate the dog!’

Never in my life had I seen anything as crazy – in real life or on TV. He ran back the other way still screaming. The whole scene went from hilarious to confusing then frightening within seconds. Shrieking loudly, he ran down the hallway one last time, half naked, totally freaking straight out the back door. He didn’t come back.

The mayhem eventually eased. My whole body ached from laughing at things that had scared the shit out of me. We talked of going to look for Alien. And what might happen to the med in Scrotum’s guts. I worried about blockage. We’d almost decided on something, I’m not sure what, when a loud knock on the front door stunned us into silence, then a giggling fit.

I whispered, ‘Who would that be, everyone uses the back door? No-one knocks.’

Mel tutted. ‘You don’t have to whisper. They can’t hear you from here.’

‘Maybe it’s one of the neighbours,’ Dee said, ‘complaining about Alien’s mental breakdown.’

Another knock and we individually stated we weren’t getting it. Then Mel moved for the door. ‘If it’s a neighbour, we’ll just tell them to fuck off.’

I stood up. ‘No, wait, we don’t need the neighbours pissed off at us. We should all go.’

Mel yanked the heavy front door open dramatically and we stood dumbstruck. The guy on our veranda was small, old and looked even more bewildered by us.

We must have been a strange sight. Dee’s skirt had unravelled so it looked more like a groin flap than a skirt. Her mohawk drooped like a large, red question mark on the top of her head. Mel, the scribbled-on-Barbie with hacked off hair, had mascara running down her cheeks and over her nose. My hair had zigzags cut into it. I wore a fluffy, baggy, black jumper that went down past my knees. My army boots had little anarchy signs drawn in liquid paper all over them. I wasn’t wearing pants.

The guy talked quietly in Italian. He seemed sure we knew what he was saying, which was

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weird because I was sure we didn’t. He stopped talking and made a move to come in. We stared at him, giving him no room to enter.

‘Wot’s he sayin?’ I asked Dee behind Mel’s back so the guy wouldn’t see me laughing at him.

‘I don’t know. Maybe this is his house.’

‘Shit! It could be.’

‘Nah, it’s four o’clock in the morning and he keeps saying something about girls. Listen.’

He pointed towards Mel’s window. We turned and looked over the veranda. Nothing.

‘He must be crazy.’ I decided.

‘Speak English or die, you wog bastard,’ Mel demanded.

I was mortified. ‘Shut up, Mel. God! Whenever you get the chance to be a bitch you go for it, don’t ya?’ I wanted to apologise to him but the look on his face was so funny. He seemed positive we knew what he was going on about. He kept pointing to either side of the veranda and saying ‘girls’ in his own, strange, little way.

Mel got behind me and pushed me out the door. I almost fell on the guy. That upset him and he tried ushering me back into the house and following me in.

‘Nah, nah mate, just a sec. I wanna know wot you keep pointin at.’ I moved past him and down the steps to the path. I stared up at the house. It looked like a monster. Mel, Dee and the guy standing in the doorway were its teeth. The red lights coming from the front windows were its angry eyes.

Dee came out and stood next to me. A second later she walked up to the guy and glared down at him. Her mohawk wobbled as she shouted, ‘Go home to your wife, you dirty little bastard. No girls here for you.’

Frightened, he stumbled backwards. We went into the house and Dee slammed the door in his face.

She opened her bedroom door. ‘Red light-bulbs! We need to swap the red light-bulbs to rooms at the back of the house.’ ********************************************************************

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Sick fish, birds’ nests and gumboots AE When I was a kid I watched an angry man drag my cousin through a massive pile of mud. The man chased him and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, pulled him down and dragged him along. I watched this happen as I ran away down the hill, to the saftey of my home. We’d been throwing pine cones at the man and his friends from behind the bushes in the botanic gardens. It was funny at the time. There were six of us. Each with different personalities. One with the annoying ability to get the rest into a fight, the others with the ability to do anything to stand up and fight. And me.

When I was a kid I went on a one week fishing holiday once a year with my family. I rarely caught any fish, though, as I often drifted off into daydream land. I daydreamed so much that once I accidently let go of the rod when I cast in – in it went, far into the lake, the water and the mud, never to be seen again. The next year I was determined to catch a rainbow trout. I did; the fish lunged at my Tassie Devil lure as I reeled it in. The fish looked really sick. I was too afraid to whack it over the head with a rock. My brother did it for me.

When I was a kid I made my mother buy me shoes with no laces because by the time I’d tie them up, everyone else would already be ten yards in front of me and I’d have to chase them to catch up. My mother bought me gumboots.

When I was a kid I stole, made prank phone calls and never brushed my hair – it looked like a birds nest. I thought I was one of the boys. It turned out that I wasn’t...

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AN ANECDOTE REGARDING MY BLEACH-BASED BOYHOOD AND WHAT MIGHT HAVE CAUSED IT

By Dan Christie

As a boy of 8 I was possessed by the malignant spirit of a late 19th century parlour maid. I had no interest in misbehaviour or dirt or Auskick practice on the weekends. No, no. My notion of joy was to be arm-deep in suds at the sink after my parents’ dinner parties or vacuuming the hallway to Buckingham Palace standard.

Excited by the thought of owning my own range of cleaning implements, I’d look for creative ways of transforming seemingly frivolous objects into useful additions toward my domestic weaponry.

What began as a lady’s pom pom, acquired from a reproduction Victorian milliners store at Sovereign Hill, was appropriated for use as a natty duster. It was apparent that my imagination extended mostly to dusting chairs that clearly didn’t need dusting.

And like a late 19th century parlour maid, I slipped through corridors, when off-duty of course, in insatiable pursuit of forbidden household gossip. Scrapes in the playground and swapping ‘Jurassic Park’ trading cards were the definition of mediocrity compared to adult office politics. Who cared about jokes regarding flatulence when there were troubled marriages to smirk about?

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This morbid identification with the role of domestic servant extended even to the board games I played. When partaking in a game of Cluedo, I would demand the role of Mrs White and fervently hope that it was me that killed the victim off, in the kitchen, with the candlestick. In selecting my token for Monopoly, I would rush for the iron. I would admit the thimble as a disappointing second best.

Indeed, so complete was this possession in my younger years that I believe there to have been some sort of cosmic mix up. I propose that by a slip of physics and through some tragic mix-up in the space-time continuum, that in some manor house, in late 19th century England, a poor parlour maid was dismissed for a confusing and sudden bout of insubordination related to unbecomingly child-like behaviour.

There she was, diligently scrubbing at knobs and straightening pictures. Then, for no apparent reason, seeing the master of the household walking ahead of her down the passage, she dropped her rag and went full-bolt, arms jerking about, for a massive specky of AFL Grand Final proportions. Or perhaps, instead of serving the guests at dinner, she got found out giggling loudly with the master’s children in the pantry deeply involved in a game of ‘disgusting foods’ using soot, half a pound of bacon and the lord’s very best champagne.

Maybe, if this little glitch had not occurred, I would have put down my dishcloth and gone outside to play with the other kiddies my age. Perhaps, if the space-time mix up had been reversed, the poor maid would have kept her job and my parent’s good China would have survived the 1990s, sans the chips and cracks created by slippery 8-year-old hands.

But I also like to think that my 19th century double got something from her trials.

After years of scraping and toiling and answering yes-sir-no-sir-of-course-sir, I hope that this maid, for a few days at least, went out with a boom. No more tasteful discretion and bitter gratitude. No. I see her high on the spirit of an 8 year old breaking, kicking, cackling and misbehaving her way through those privileged halls. Not stopping to think about her actions or to listen to anyone, I imagine her tearing at every tradition of order ever imposed upon her. I see her sprinting down the corridors and yelling at the top of her voice. The lord has no concept of how to deal with this. He just looks on in confused outrage as, one by one, the maid breaks, without care, every little petty rule she was once so used to obeying on this once so quiet and ordered estate.

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Barkin’

by Nina Gibb

Turtlesalthewaydown@gmail.com

It got really cold. I hurried along the street. With the wind and the rain driving against me I’d unlatch the gate and slam it as I ran the last few feet to shelter. So I guess I didn’t think much about the dog.

But one day, still freezing but bright and still, I walked home slowly. I came up alongside the fence without even thinking and I heard the sound of a growl and then panting following me until I came to the laneway where the fence ended. I didn’t really think about it very much then but later while I was watching the TV I looked out the window and saw that it had started to snow and I wondered if the dog was sick. It was a strange thought but I prefered it to be healthy and nasty than unable to exercise its natural malevolence.

Just as long as it was healthy behind the fence.

It snowed for a week, just hard enough to put down a thick blanket over everything and keep the edges from looking too grey and dirty. I walked up the path feeling warm in my coat and thinking how much more I liked winter than the freezing wet before it. The sun came out and things sparkled. This time I thought about the dog as I came up along the fence. I listened to see if it would follow me. I thought I could hear paws breaking the crust on the snow on the other side of the fence. I came to the laneway that ended the fence and saw the gate was open. I stopped. The dog came out of the gate, walked slowly and then turned around and looked at me. It was a bitch. She pulled her lips back from her teeth in a snarl and lowered her head but didn’t make a sound. Her ears were down flat and her lips were pulled back but she just stood there and looked at me. I started to walk towards my gate. I didn’t run. I walked about two steps past where she stood and then I

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heard her start walking. I didn’t turn around, I just kept walking with the dog following me until I got to the gate. With my arm up beside my head to reach the latch I could hear my heart. I turned around to close the gate and she was standing right at the boundary, ears back, head down and her lips pulled right back so I could see all those teeth and her spotted wet gums.

She stood right there and watched me as I shut the door. I listened. It was about a minute before she walked away.

When I got inside I thought about calling the neighbours. Their dog was out and maybe it was mad or sick but I didn’t have their phone number and didn’t like the thought of going back down that lane.

I thought about the neighbours: I didn’t really know them – I had seen the man coming home drunk one afternoon at around three o’clock – I remember thinking that it must have been a long lunch for him to be so tipsy at three o’clock- and once I heard him yelling at the woman as I walked by. The dog had shut up for a minute and I heard him say something and then yell ‘fucking bitch!’ and then a bottle smashed against the inside of the fence.

Come to think of it I hadn’t seen the woman in a while. Maybe she’d packed up her peroxide and curling iron and left her husband, the souse.

The wind picked up that evening and I thought there may be a storm. I fell asleep and I woke up in the dark and it was very silent. Perhaps it was the silence that woke me up. I lay there and thought about what had happened to the rifle my brother borrowed and also that there was bacon for breakfast. And then I held my breath.

I heard a crunch of something breaking through the snow.

There wasn’t any other sound at all.

I saw her pacing slowly through the new snow under my window with her nose to the wall.

Trying to sniff me out.

I wished I had the rifle.

It took me a long time to get back to sleep.

The next morning I woke up to the aftermath of a blizzard. I didn’t understand how I could have slept through a storm like that. The door was snowed shut and it took me a while to wriggle it open, digging at it as I pushed and when I went around the side of the house to look under my bedroom window there was only a huge drift of snow. No doggy tracks. No stench of sulphur.

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The sun came out and everything shone. The back gate was snowed wide open. I thought it might have sprung open in that wild storm, but something felt as if it was not right but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I thought it might come to me if I had some coffee and it was just when I headed back inside when I felt it. I didn’t hear anything but then out of the nothing I heard those feet breaking through the new snow. She came in through the gate and kind of tottered sideways a few steps and then righted up and whimpered; but not an ordinary whimper; it was a sound that came right out of everyday human-life and slipped over into the other place. She staggered and whined again almost like a woman crying and then came forward three quick steps. She looked hungry. I could see white around her mouth and I thought of rabies. I jumped for the door and just as I got inside I realised a whole lot of snow had fallen from the awning and I couldn’t close it. Then she was on me and making her horrible noise and I put my arms up so she’d get them instead of my face and I remember I could feel the warm blood dripping down before I could feel the pain and then I swear she sucked my running blood and made a sound like a moan. And then she was gone.

I went to the doctor. I told him the story and he gave me the rabies shot and cleaned up the bites, saying how lucky I was but with a funny expression on his face. All of a sudden he said, ‘Mr Hughes if there’s anything you need to tell me it would be perfectly confidential.’ And looked at me like I had something to say.

I said ‘I don’t understand.’

He sighed and turned away to drop the ends of the dressing into the yellow ‘hazardous waste’ bin and then turned back to me.

‘Whoever it is can go in to the hospital and get treatment.’

I didn’t reply, so he continued.

‘In fact if I thought there was a reason that anyone was in danger – for themselves or of hurting other people – I might be obliged to report this to the authorities.’

‘I don’t understand’, I said again.

The doctor looked uncomfortable and hesitated and then sat up straight and said, ‘Mr Hughes, those bites are plainly human. If there’s a reason you’re covering up for someone then this is the time to come clean. We can cure rabies these days. It’s perfectly simple, nothing to be ashamed of.’

He looked at me.

‘But it was a dog’ I said.

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He kept looking at me for a while.

‘Mr Hughes at this point I have to tell you I’m going to report this. It’s a public safety issue. I’m going to send someone around.’

I shrugged. I stood up and wriggled my jacket over the bandages. I said, ‘It was a dog. The neighbour’s dog. It used to bark and then it stopped and now it’s out.’ I shrugged again ‘I’ve called the council already.’

The doctor looked at me like he was trying to figure something out. Then he was finished figuring.

‘Take care to keep that clean and to take all the pills in that prescription, Mr Hughes.

Right to the end. Don’t stop just because you’re feeling better.’

I paid my bill to the redheaded boy with spots at reception, picked up the medicine from a pharmacy and went home.

At about four o’clock that afternoon, I was lying on the couch with the television on to keep me company and I had a book open on my belly at the same page I’d marked an hour ago. I’d taken pain killers so that the bites wouldn’t bother me too much, at least not the pain, because they bothered me another way; the doctor was right. I’d unwrapped the one on my left wrist when I got home and you could see it as plain as day. Human teeth. And it looked like they were teeth from a little mouth. A small woman’s mouth maybe. After a while the ads between programmes were on and there was a knock at the door. A guy in a medic’s uniform stood behind two cops. One of the cops was fat and the other, a lady in a very stiff uniform and a face as shiny as a vinegar bottle, said that they were here because my doctor had reported some unusual bites and a case of rabies. They asked if they look around.

I said ‘I guess so’, and they came in.

I told the guy in the medic’s outfit that the dog that bit me was down in the lane, behind the long pine fence on the right, and that it might be an idea to talk to the guy who lived there.

‘I’ve called the council already, I said.’

The fat cop moved around my back yard, then he started on the cupboards. He asked if I had a cellar or attic. I didn’t even bother asking why. I said, ‘An attic; there’s a pull-down ladder. The handle’s on the ceiling in the hallway.’

He went and had a look. The woman cop asked me questions about my activities – my job, my social life. She said they might ask a few people at work some things and that it

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would be better if I didn’t try to talk to my colleagues about ‘the case’. I told her the bar I go to sometimes for a knock-off. She said, ‘Thankyou Mr Hughes, you’ve been most cooperative. This is just routine.’

No one acted suspicious. No one said, ‘We know about those bite marks.’

After the cops left I got pretty tired and lay down on the couch. When I woke up it was dark and the wind was blowing. There was a movie on; the one about a guy who finds these sunglasses that let him see that half the world’s population is really skeletons that run everything and are in charge of the government. I’d seen it before. I got up and turned it off and listened to the wind moan. I switched the set on again, but turned the volume down really low. How had I been sleeping with the sound so high? I turned until the dial wouldn’t go any lower and then I turned it up just a tiny fraction more. A comfortable volume.

I could smell something and realised I was starving – really ravenous, right deep down. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in a week.

I went into the kitchen and hunted through the pantry, through drawers, until I finally hit on the fridge. That packet of bacon. I opened the parcel and fried it and ate it all and then I ate a whole packet of bread with the rest of the milk and then when I was sitting there looking at the end of the sausage packet in the bin I got up and went to bed.

I got to work on Friday. Everyone was a little too cheerful, except for Leonie.

At lunch I mustered up a bit of energy and said, ‘The usual, sweetheart?’ and offered my arm like I always do and she blushed under her glasses and smoothed her dress down and said something about Mr Driscoll not being so pleased about that. And then I said ‘Mr Driscoll hasn’t cared these last two years.’

And she said, ‘Rich, no.’ and got up from her seat and walked away.

Then I remembered the cops.

Mrs Driscoll wouldn’t want to eat lunch with the guy with human bites on his arms.

The bites itched.

After lunch I went into Hugh’s office and said I wasn’t feeling well and thought I’d take off if it was OK with him. He said, ‘Matter of fact you have some time owing Richard. Why don’t you take a holiday?’

I scratched my arm.

‘You think that’s what I need to do Hugh?’

‘Yes, Rich, I do. Call when you’re feeling better. Tom will handle your accounts until then.’

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He hadn’t even managed ‘Come on back when you’re feeling better.’ Just ‘Call’.

I walked into the drive-through on the way home and bought a bottle.

I felt a bit dizzy and slipped on some ice near the exit. A lady grabbed her kid by the arm and pulled him away. I heard the kid say ‘Is the man drunk?’

It came up kind of slow and then fast and bright like a flare. I wanted to rip him up. It must have showed on my face because the mother looked up at me and took two steps back and fell into the street, pulling the kid over so he screamed. I got dizzy. I leaned against the building for a second to steady myself. I got the hell away from there.

Two streets later I stopped and unscrewed the bottle and hoped the whisky would dam whatever had just burst; after about half a bottle it started to help.

The woman neighbour was back.

I walked along the fence where the dog used to be and I could see her head of yellow hair move behind the window and hear the radio turned up loud. The snow was looking pretty dirty now. I didn’t hear the dog. I guess it really had escaped.

Then I looked up the street and saw the cop with the vinegar-bottle face at my gate. I came up to her.

‘Long lunch Mr Hughes?’

‘Guess so.’

I wondered if I should be putting the bottle somewhere other than where it stuck out of my pocket.

‘We’ve had a report – a man fitting your description drunk and disorderly up on Travers.

Menaced a woman and her kid.’

‘Sometimes people have a rough day.’ I said, then ‘Might have been a misunderstanding.’

She waited a little bit.

‘Mr Hughes, what can you tell me about South Lake?’

I had to think about that one. Then it came to me. The cop said, ‘Cecilia Brown?’

‘But she was fucking nuts!’

It got out before I could think. The cop looked like someone had given her a donut.

‘Nevertheless. You might want to re-think what you decide to let us know.’

She lifted her shoulder of my fence.

‘We’d appreciate it if you could come down to the station. At your convenience.’

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I didn’t tell her my convenience was all I had.

She got in the car and backed out of the lane. She twisted round to look back over her shoulder like I wished I could do; I couldn’t make out anything in front of me and now I couldn’t see what was coming behind.

Then I noticed the woman with the yellow hair standing at the gate that came out into the lane.

I said, ‘Your dog got out.’

She took a sip of what looked like a cola with ice, but since she was wearing rubber boots and a fur jacket I didn’t think she was drinking it to cool down.

‘Who’s Cecilia?’

I didn’t say anything. She took another sip.

I felt that slow burn and sudden heat again and lost my balance. I hoped it looked as though I’d leaned back deliberately; taking my ease.

I had to look somewhere to steady myself and I found myself looking at her bare legs. It was a short coat.

Suddenly she was a bitch. I wanted to tear the coat and then keep on going. I blinked. My jaw felt tight.

She said ‘Sometimes you just have to get your teeth into something and give it a good going over. You know?’

I could smell her. My stomach rumbled under all the booze.

She winked at me. Took another sip.

‘Just to get it out of your system.’

I took a deep breath to get another whiff.

I didn’t have to wonder what she was talking about.

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Getting On James Hawthorne

T

hey sat in her car. The engine was running. She didn’t want this to take long.

Scratched CDs sat on the dash and on the broken glove-box door. The car was not old, but had been poorly looked after. It’s what happens, Warren thought, when parents spoil their children.

She twisted her bracelet around her wrist.

‘We’re into different shit,’ she said.

Warren couldn’t argue.

‘And it’s not the age thing, so...’ She pushed in the cigarette lighter.

Warren sat in the passenger’s seat. He stifled a shallow yawn and watched people walk by on the footpath. A girl, maybe five years old, looked in. She stared the intrigued, unabashed stare of the very young. Warren smiled at her in the same way he smiled at his own daughter – sadly, a little forced, not sure what he wanted in return. The girl pushed her face into her mother’s skirt.

He glanced across at the bare thighs of his most recent ex-lover. She bruised easily, especially on the legs. He wouldn’t miss those yellowy stains sprawled across her thighs.

He often wondered if people thought he was responsible for them. All through their time together, the final two months of an uninspiring summer, she had worn short denim skirts. And all the while these sickly-coloured bruises were on display. But she was proud of them. The bruises were some perverse display of strength – a way to tell the world she didn’t care. And she truly believed she didn’t. He had known many girls like her. She was going to disappear into drugs. He could tell. She already did speed, but her voracity for chemical alteration meant she was probably not too far from heroin. She’d age quickly, become drawn, gaunt, and friendless.

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She already had heroin friends floating in the background. She thought they were cool and artistic and sensitive and they couldn’t agree more. Warren resented their presence.

All they ever wanted from her was her car or some money.

He wouldn’t miss them.

He wouldn’t miss her.

The lighter clicked out and she lit her cigarette.

‘But, you know... it’s not everything over, bam... you know...’

She looked out the window and gave a half-hearted wave to a friend who cycled by helmetless on the other side of the street. A loose-tongued mongrel dog jogged alongside him, yapping at the turning spokes on his wheels.

‘Fuck!’ she said, exasperated by his silence.

Smoke curled from the end of her cigarette. Warren felt the urge, but he had given up years ago when the baby was born. Funny how the desire never really goes away, he thought.

‘Man! Don’t be such a P.A. arsehole,’ she said. ‘You can fuckin’ tell me I’m a bitch or something. Tell me I’m a fuckin’ bitch.’

Warren smiled to himself. She meant passive-aggressive. Everything was initialised in her world.

‘Okay. You’re a bitch,’ he said.

‘Ha ha,’ she said. ‘Real fuckin’ funny, Warren.’

The silence of something irreconcilably over settled in the car.

‘Can I go?’ Warren said. It sounded more petulant than he had intended.

She gestured toward the door and tried to sound upset.

‘I guess this is goodbye.’

Warren laughed a little. This was exactly the sort of drama she thrived on. He finally felt like a provider.

Warren stepped onto the footpath and closed the door gently, to retain his dignity. He had never been a door-slammer. He tended to smile through gritted teeth. It drove people crazy.

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He tapped the roof twice with an open hand.

On your way.

He watched as she tried to pull out into the traffic. A stream of cars rolled by, slowing for parking spots. The traffic lights behind her had just turned green. Warren stood there watching, knowing how uncomfortable it made her feel. He knew how much she would have loved to have pulled out dramatically and torn off up the street in her little Honda, fleeing the scene of the crime. But there she sat, her cracked indicator blinking quickly, like an excited heart.

There was some confusion as she realised someone wanted her spot. A middle-aged man sat in his car gesticulating and mouthing questions to her. But then her famous ‘red mist’ came into play. She hit the horn until he drove two car lengths further. She pulled out into the street, but had to wait for the flow on the other side to pass. She tried nudging in, but no one sensed her urgency. She flicked the cigarette from the window and hit the horn again. She managed to slip into the stream just as it choked to a standstill before the red light.

Warren watched it all, but she kept her head very still, only facing forward, never looking over to him. He could tell she was upset, not about him, but how the last two minutes of her life had been awkward and decidedly uncool. She always tried hard to make things appear serendipitous and film-like. Almost everything about her was a pre-determined attempt to appear interesting, apart from her temper tantrums and sulkiness, which Warren guessed were the real her with the artifice stripped away.

He wouldn’t miss her, even though she was pretty, in a pallid, pretentious way. Years ago he would have put in more effort, but these days he was all too frequently reminded of those three sad little words.

Life’s too short.

She tucked her dyed-blonde fringe behind an ear and checked herself in the rear-view mirror. For the first time, Warren noticed the feather earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders. He wondered if he’d bought them for her. Then he remembered he had bought her nothing. It had only been two months.

A brief burst of sunshine was doused beneath grey clouds. It suddenly felt like winter. He wasn’t far from home, but slipped his jacket on and started off in the opposite direction.

He thought he might go for a beer.

It wasn’t even 2pm.

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1.

They are falling With reason Leaves in the streets Somber and oddly sweet The promise of life after death Leaving to give new buds breath I crunch their heads With my barely living feet Wishing to be as self sacrificing In this life With at times reason so bleak.

Three poems by

Thomahawk Merryweather

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2.

The hairs of time lost cut short in my razor fingers hidden from untamed hordes that gallop through quiet cities ...looking for opportunity as they rapine many a door ajar many a house empty except thus hasped full to the brim with rich manes and golden locks that would weave the finest of tapestries

3.

My heart sings in these gallows Oh to be hung so high in this chest These my branches, my arches My holding, my foliage folding My fingers can’t teach my mind what to say My mind doesn’t have the words to portray Ahead of hands on wrists Moving silently clinging like fists We can fight this nature Or put ourselves in it free Just another living thing expecting to die Exist and suffer Only these ringed arms to buffer This orphaned punch abhored A branding that has become ignored My arm in my heart A thief I won’t ever wrestle again It’s all really real It’s defined by what you choose

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The Last Gasps of Boyhood SEAN GLEESON

W

hen I was growing up, a lot of boys I knew behaved as if losing their virginity was an act of heroism. The way they spoke about it made it sound like those few pathetic thrusts were incidental in importance to the accolades they were given in the inevitable round of high-fives and lurid re-enactments that came afterwards, premature ejaculation being a rather fitting metaphor for the way they considered themselves to have been precociously catapulted into manhood. Yes, they may have still been touching themselves eight times a day and their weekly income was contingent on how nice they were to their mums, but in their minds and in mine there was a night not long ago where they lay down a boy and rose a Man. Me and my two friends remember it differently when our time came around.

ME We had been seeing each other for a week when I took her to her year 10 formal. She was Sinhalese and eighteen inches shorter than me, and for most of the short time we were together, she was living in a women’s refuge after a fight with her adoptive father. I felt

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too self-conscious to dance with her, so instead I went and smoked a joint with another kid in the toilets and then sat at the table picking wax off candles for the rest of the night.

A week later we went to a friend’s party. I was completely tanked by about four in the afternoon. She had disappeared somewhere and I was onto double-digit bong hits in the garage later in the evening when she found me, gently touching my hand and ushering me into the study, where she’d laid out a single mattress. We barricaded the door with a clothes hoist. I was too rough when I was touching her but it didn’t dissuade her, and after a few minutes of failed sensuality she pulled me on top of her. It was dark and I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going but I thought it might be a little rude to go down and inspect. Even though it wasn’t her first time, I was too big for her, and it was pretty clear from the faint noises she was making that she was in pain. She wouldn’t let me stop at first; it felt like she wanted this to be gratifying for me and would wear the pain if that’s what it took. After a few minutes I said I was too tired and I put a stop to it. I lay next to her in silence while she shivered, and then I went out in search of more to drink without being able to think of anything soothing to say.

The place had been gatecrashed in the meantime. The police took two hours to come and calm things down. Before they came I passed out on a couch in the lounge room and woke up with a dripping cock inked on my cheek in permanent marker. Everyone else had bailed when things had got hectic. In the morning she and I gathered up rubbish bags full of half-empty beer bottles and ciggie butts and walked back and forth to the shopping strip down the road to dump them in a skip. We caught our buses home without saying much of anything. I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t have to suffer for my pleasure, but I didn’t have the words or the balls to say it. That said, I don’t know how long I could’ve sustained such a serious discussion with her when there was still the faint remains of a dick drawn onto the side of my face. I broke up with her over the phone a few days later.

DANTE Losing my virginity was a shocking, petrifying experience that still scars me to this day.

She unexpectedly hit on me in an indie nightclub, took me home and promptly scared the bejesus out of me. I can’t recall the exact night where the carnal act took place; all our sexual relations blend into one dirty and terrifying memory. It’s difficult not to be scared of a hot girl who is cooler than you, older than you and well experienced in sex when you’re a virgin from the suburbs who got to nineteen without a kiss. She was a couple of years older than me and she would horror me with stories of her past sexual escapades.

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The first couple of times I went home with her, we ended up on her couch making out.

She begged me to follow her into bed but I was literally shaking in my boots to the extent I couldn’t get up off the couch let alone get it up. I consulted the internet for sex tips and also a doctor, who said I was in perfect working order but gave me three doses of Viagra.

Oh, and a prostitute: that was her idea, an honest and heartfelt suggestion to help me overcome my fears but only ended up petrifying me more. Even with the Viagra I still had no luck.

I’ve learnt that there are few things more upsetting and undermining to a girl’s selfesteem than when she can’t make a man work. When I finally did ‘work’ I didn’t know what I was doing – it’s supposed to be the most innate, biological action, but to me I might as well have been trying to fly a plane. A comforting word would have been appreciated, but unfortunately her expectation and disappointment only intensified. Things didn’t really work out for me in that department until I met my current girlfriend.

I was never really on a quest to lose my virginity. Sex and relationships aren’t necessarily complimentary components. Despite the many hot things we did together, she didn’t want to be my ‘girlfriend’ (I’d call four years living together a ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’ situation, but whatever), she still had complex feelings for her ex-boyfriends and her father, and she was terrible at discussing her feelings. I was hardly ever relaxed enough to truly enjoy the experience, whether it was our first time or any time after that. I’m still not sure if I would thank her or tell her to fuck off if we ever spoke about it.

BEN I hated high school, but I had a few friends that kept me solid, who were more popular with the girls than I was. This one girl was really pretty and she seemed cool, she was down with friends of my friends and that’s how we started hanging out. We got talking and she had a really husky voice from all the cigarettes she smoked; she had some Jewish heritage and an American accent and that’s pretty exotic when you’re growing up in Canberra. A couple of weeks after we started hanging out, I met her in the park after sneaking out of home during the night with a bottle of Jim Beam. We were probably there for two or three hours. I’m not too sure what we were talking about. I guess if we were talking about anything meaningful and profound we would have continued to have some kind of contact afterwards.

Nothing had happened between us before but we started hooking up at the park, and soon we stumbled back into my house. We woke my parents up in the process. We were in my

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room and the thing I remember most clearly is that she was wearing these big, ridiculous boots laced up to her knees, all the intimacy went on hold for ten minutes while she was taking them off.

She freaked out after we did it and called her mum to pick her up at one o’clock in the morning. I don’t know why. I felt later I should’ve been mad about that. It was confusing because she wouldn’t speak to me at school afterwards, so there was no way to find out what I’d done wrong. I came into contact with her a couple of times after that night but we never mentioned having sex or anything. I don’t know what it would’ve been like to spend time with her again, because I was confused and I probably would have been too scared to talk to her anyway. But I guess it would’ve been nice to say to her: ‘Hey! We’re friends, right? We don’t need to behave like this, you know?’ It was quite a long time before I slept with another girl after that.

She was a lot older than me, I don’t mean in terms of age but she had a bit more perspective and experience in the world. I definitely got the feeling that that was part of the reason we never really spoke again – I think she realised she was a bit ahead of the bell curve, and I used to see her hanging out with much older guys later on. She wasn’t a virgin and I was, and that must’ve been very apparent to her, because I sure didn’t know what the fuck I was doing!

I found her bra in my room two months later. I decided not to give it back to her, it would’ve been awkward. Of course, telling people I still have the bra of the first girl I slept with is kind of awkward too.

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Blue’s Elevator Katie Scott

I

work the elevator in the biggest building in my town. It is 11 stories of early twentieth century design. Beautiful and functional. Warm and forgiving. This is the tale of how I came to feel that every time I arrive to start my working day, it is like walking in to the warm embrace of a favourite aunt. It did not always feel like this.

I had been working here as a doorman, but met some misfortune with a revolving door about three years into my employment. It has left me unable to stand comfortably for any longer than ten minutes... and certainly unable to carry folks’ bags from their cars or be much help, full stop. Kindly, the management of the building kept me on at the same rate as a doorman would earn, but I now sit in the elevator on a tall, graceful stool (too graceful for my behind, if you ask me) and ask people ‘Which floor today?’ Then I push the gates across, without rising from my perch – like some awkward, lame parrot – I pull the lever to the right position and away we go...

About three or four months back, a nice man from the big city came to do some specialised maintenance work on my office. He told me his name was Bo and allowed me to stay seated atop my stool as he worked, if for nothing other than to have someone to converse with as he went about his business.

He told me that his company had assigned him the task of knowing these old elevators front to back and then around again so they could have some sort of lock down on the market of fixin’ them up. I didn’t know anything about this lift before Bo came, truth be told, but he schooled me good. Now I feel like a qualified professional after only a couple of meetings with him here in my office.

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We talked about how in the early 1900s with the advent of the sky-scraper, architects were akin to gods. Building structures so fine, so high, so strong, they were like titans, creating mountains like Olympus, each story taking us a few meters closer to the big Boss... or bosses, whichever you believe.

So, Bo says, ‘Blue...’ – Blue’s what they call me – ‘Blue, I discern that you are a man of some faith,’ to which I replied ‘Bo, I once had beliefs as strong as the foundations of this very building, but I’ve seen some hard years, with love passing through and crossing over and leaving life cold... I used to believe that love was god and now love is gone, I have a hard time believing much of anything.’

Now Bo, he turns to me from the electrical panel he’s been labouring on and says ‘Blue, if I could show you how to find that love you talk of again, would you be interested?’

Naturally I am interested, but bitten once if you catch my drift. So I say, ‘I am hesitant to believe it can be found, Bo, but seeing as all I have in my diary for today is to be seated here, pushing the goddamn lever whenever you say so and talking to you so long as you are interested in what I have to say... I say, why not?’ I get the feeling that I’m foolishly following my tongue around today. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.

So Bo pulls a silver hip flask from the back pocket of his oily coveralls and says ‘you’ll need a good swig of this first. Maybe a few good swigs.’ I look at him funny because I think he knows we are not supposed to drink on the job. I look at him steady, with his silver flask held out to me, like some sort of carrot I’m thinking, ‘til I start to get a good feeling about it. The gates are closed. I reach out slowly and take the flask from his fingers, unscrew the cap and put its coolness to my lips. A milky, licorice taste suprises me. I was hoping for whisky, but I’ll take it. Its quite sweet, but a lingering medicine taste kicks you once it slides down the gullet.

‘OK’, says Bo. ‘Take her to eleven.’ I pull the lever all the way around and after the first jolt of gears and chains locking in to place, we ascend to floor eleven.

‘Blue. I want to ask you a couple of things before something big happens, if that’s alright?’

His words scare me a little. Life has been uneventful lately and anything big happening feels like it would throw me a bit. But that silver flask has loosened up my nerves a little, so I agree.

‘Do you believe in heaven?’ I guess so, I say. I like to believe in something pleasant as a reward for putting up with the nasty things life delivers.

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‘Good. Do you believe in the goodness of people?’ I suppose I do. But people ‘round here are pretty ordinary and keep their heads down,’ I say. Truth is, Bo is the only person I’ve held a conversation with for longer ‘en five minutes in, I estimate, a year and a half.

‘OK, that’ll work. Do you care for other people?’ I tell a little white lie and say yes, certainly. But really I haven’t cared for anything or anyone a great deal since my girl up and disappeared on me around five years ago. Bo looks at me as if he knows I lied, but continues on.

‘Remember how we talked of these buildings and their architects? How back then, constructing a building like this was sort of like building a ladder to heaven? That thought has been around for many thousands of years and permeates cultures around the globe. Well, two years ago or so when I was working on a lift quite similar to this one right here,’ he looks around with a gentleness in his eyes and softly touches the metal and wood panelling of the elevator as if it’s his favourite pet, ‘and I had a bit of an accident... or at least it started off like an accident.’ He bends slowly down ‘til he is crouching next to his tool bag. He takes out a hammer and a wrench, the adjustable kind.

‘I am going to take you on a brief but, I hope, life-altering, mind-altering journey. It will only take a minute of your time, but I believe you will benefit from it. Have another couple of swigs, would you?’ he motions toward the flask that I am still holding and begins to labour away on something inside that panel of his.

You probably think I’m crazy, but I just go along with what this man is saying. A calm comes over me that makes what he is saying seem perfectly normal. I’ve been a pretty good citizen in my life. I drink, sure, but I’ve never touched a drug other than what the doctor has prescribed. I’ve read things, though, that should make me concerned when someone says they are about to do something mind-altering. But Bo seems like a man that can be trusted. We’ve talked long and hard about some things in the couple of days he’s been here and I feel okay about the guy.

A swirling sensation comes over me. Like I’ve gone fast over a dip in the road, my stomach falls inside me and I realise that I know what is bringing on that feeling. The lift is falling down the elevator shaft. Bo is still crouched with his back to me at his panel and I say ‘what the fuck are you doing, man?’, before I see black velvet stretching before me, dotted with stars. I have a tingling feeling under me and realise I am floating. I’ve been unhinged, I’m thinking. That man has drugged me and I can no longer see anything like the familiar surrounds of my old elevator. I close my eyes hard and open them twice,

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three and on the fourth time I am seated on top of my building, on my stool. The only way I know it’s my building is I can see the cinema complex and ice cream shop signs that are nearby it, small as dollhouse miniatures, way way below me.

Bo is standing in-front but to the right of me. He says to look up. There is a blue ball of flame, kinda like electricity, sparking, burning and pulsing. I can’t feel my legs. LET GO says Bo, and I realise I am clutching my stool seat. As soon as I do as he says, I float free from the top of the building. It feels just like being in water. I see myself as a kid swimming in the river in my home town and I feel the free feeling of jumping from a rope into the water. The sky flashes blue and pink and green like I’ve stared at the sun too long.

LOOK UP, I hear Bo’s voice say again, but can’t see him any more.

I look up and see my sweetheart’s face, shining and smiling like how I remember it when we were happy together. I open my mouth to say ‘Honey... I love you, why did you go?...’ but all that comes out is an ‘oooooh’. Her face is still there, blushing pink and then paling.

I will never grow tired of that face. I miss her still. I realise how bitter I had become.

BO, I think I say, but I really know I’m just thinking it. Bo, I can see it. I can feel it. I think I started to cry, not something I would freely admit to previously, but my heart had shifted in my chest. Like a transplant almost. Something cold and hard that was present in me without my knowing it, had melted away in a ball of light and colour.

I don’t remember the rest, or coming to, but it was like nothing had changed physically.

Almost as though I was sucked back in to my body, mid-conversation with the elevator man. I remembered nothing until a couple of days later I got home and started to make some coffee and saw the blue flame of my gas cooker. Then it all came reeling back to me.

That’s my story. Each time I go to work now I look up at that building before I go in, to my stool in my office, and remember being so high up looking down. I don’t know how I got up there. And Bo was never to be seen again. But he remains in phrases I repeat daily now. LOOK UP, LET GO... and in the flask I keep in my back pocket.

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Fear.

MATT FORD

As a young boy I was never afraid of the typical things that scared other children. I could stay up late watching horror movies and afterwards walk a block late at night all by myself without a problem. I’ve never really been afraid of the water, nor have heights ever frightened me. I have always been fond of animals and insects, and always experienced immense joy when riding roller coasters. I managed to get through my childhood with many people considering me a heroic individual. A boy who fears nothing. A boy who is impossible to scare. A boy with nerves of steel.

But that is simply not true. I had plenty of fears and it is time I come clean. Here I will discuss some of the biggest fears faced in my younger years.

Movies about dead people I’m not talking about zombies or movies that are considered a part of the horror genre in any way. I am talking about simple movies where the subject of the film is dead. The first occurrence of this one came about one night I was watching a movie about the life of Buddy Holly with my family. All the lights were off in the house and we were in the living room. ‘He’s dead you know...’ my dad says out loud. ‘Who?’ I reply. ‘Buddy!’ he responds.

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Instantly I froze up and for the remainder of the movie freaked out about noises I was hearing around the house.

Static electricity Growing up we had a trampoline. I would often jump on it for hours on end having the time of my life. When it came time to get off though I was always very cautious as to not touch the sides, as getting a static electricity shock was one of the worst things I could imagine. Once I clued in to the fact that metal objects often gave static electricity shocks I would not touch metal handrails and I would wait until someone else opened doors that had metal handles. If I was by myself and there was no chance of anybody else opening it I would wrap my sleeve around my hand or if sleeveless, use an object of some kind. Even today if there is something that I know will give me a shock, I will do all in my power to avoid contact.

The big golden Village Roadshow “V” at the end/beginning of movies Do you remember some movies in the 80’s used to have a giant golden “V” that would appear on the screen while making a really scary “DUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNVOOOOOOOM… twinkle twinkle twinkle” noise? I remember that it used to happen at the beginning of The Neverending Story. I was petrified of this to the point where I would try to talk my dad out of renting movies that had a Village Roadshow logo visible on the front cover. If I knew it was coming I had to turn my head away from the screen, block my ears or just leave the room until I knew it was gone.

Bankstown Square shopping centre My dad worked as a truck driver, and as a kid I would often go to work with him and help out for some pocket money. One time he was making a delivery to a store at Bankstown Square shopping centre and we entered via the docks. We walked around these desolate, dark, dirty halls to try and find where the delivery had to be made. At one point I walked past an opening and saw this really old Italian looking man covered in blood and sharpening a knife. He spotted me and just stared at me menacingly while sharpening his blade. I was staring back at him, frozen and my dad yelled out at me to get moving, so I hurried along. We entered this filthy looking elevator that thudded along like it was about to break down any moment. We got to the next level and there were more filthy, empty, dark halls. To my knowledge we were basically lost in a horrifying maze of deathly abandon for half an hour, and I was basically shit scared the whole time. From that day

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on anytime I had to go to Sydney with my parents I would have to ask a lot of subtly investigative questions to confirm that we weren’t in fact going to Bankstown Square shopping centre. This event damaged me to the point where for approximately one year I would refuse to ride elevators anymore in fear that I may end up in another terrifying maze of dread.

And finally, my biggest fear...

The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ music video This was the thing that scared me the most out of everything… ever. Seeing it for the first time in my life, with the haunting music and dark, mystical men in matching costumes was creepy enough. But my mum mentioning that Freddie Mercury was dead pushed me over the edge. I had to get the fuck out. I piss bolted from the room. I could not take it.

I stood out in the middle of our backyard, waiting for the song to finish. A few minutes later I returned inside thinking the video would be over. But as it’s the longest fucking song ever it was still going, and once again I had to get the fuck out of there. From that moment onwards, for many years, I could not listen to the song. Sometimes I just mentally blocked it out. Sometimes if someone said they liked Queen I would berate and insult them for having a ‘horrible taste in music’ but in reality, I was just terrified by the thought of having to experience the extreme fear that accompanied me witnessing that song and video ever again. As I got older I learnt to deal with my fear. I wouldn’t freak out if it came on the radio, and I even liked the song when played in the context of its appearance in ‘Wayne’s World’. But deep down I was shit scared, still battling my demons.

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A u t

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by Nick Livingston Cryptic Crosswords are fun, addictive, and not so difficult once you get the hang of them.

Usually clues consist of two hints – a literal meaning of the answer (be it a word or phrase), and a more lateral aspect, often with a ‘trigger’ word instructing you on what to do.

For instance, if the answer to a clue is “Death of a Scenester”, examples of clues may be: O! Feces and the rest combined to make a new publication (5,2,1,9)

or Passing of a prophet holds Catholic bird’s home for new publication (5,2,1,9) In clue no.1, by combining the letters of O! Feces and the rest, we obtain the name of the publication.

In clue no.2, passing is a synonym for death, of a is literal, prophet is a seer, which holds the letter C for Catholic, and a bird’s home – a nest – to obtain the word scenester.

Get the idea? Quasi-intellectual folly, no? Don’t be disheartened if you’re a newcomer, I’ve made this one relatively easy, I think. Keep in mind also, this issue’s theme is prominent within many answers.

Fight senility! Enjoy!

Answers will appear in the next edition. If you’re really stumped, you can contact me at nickaliv@yahoo.com and I’ll try get around to emailing you the answers.

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Answers from Previous Edition Across 1. surface 5. awnings 9. owl 10. pigskin 11, 29 across. Blown my cover 12. round up 14, 23 across, 18 across. Sum of the whole 15. material 18. see 14 across 20. see 29 across 21. tiara 22. V.D. 23. see 14 across 25. eased 27. mess 29, 20 across, 24 down. Cover our asses 31. hit 33. glee 36. expeditions 38. see 30 down 39. depot Down 1. superimpose 2. rugcutter 3. asked around 4. eon 5. alibis 6. not on my watch 7. noun 8. slayer 13. practice 16, 33 down. Old git 17. backside 19. over 24. see 29 across 26. above 28. shed 30, 38 across. Red beard 32. tip 33. see16 down 34. lo 35. end

Across 1 The theme of this issue converted hoodlums. (4) 3 One brother married a person described as hirsute and needing pluck. (10) 7 Partly relative, one down endlessly uncivilised. (7) 8 Drugs can make a mad man. (8) 9 Namby pamby tavern provides back support. (8) 11 Whether you think he’s ugly or cute, Russell Crowe is clutching a female reproductive organ! (6) 12 Self-pleasure during an endless afternoon nap looks most elegant! (9) 14 Turns a trick for shrimps. (5) 16 Some moments equal beginnings, consent within can create a boys’ room activity…

(5) 18 Model on drugs – got leg! (5) 20 see 6 down.

21 Not applicable! Extremely quiet! Why make a child’s garment? (5) 22 Reverberations concern drums. (13)

Down 1 Oy! Shut out the kids! (6) 2 …cos Stu messed up the boys’club. (6) 3 I’m broke too! Take nothing and scramble for Chopper. (9) 4 Escape for a young boy’s nightmare. (5,3) 5 Young people appear confused without a lashing before integrating persons without love. (15)

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6, 20 across Gainful professions, yet a game for young and old – playing transcends odours! (7,3,6) 8 Strangely secure without a party drug. An obscenity! (5) 10 A teen sin, I’m trying to sow wild oats. (10) 13 Can make nun cross when bad boys run with these. (8) 14 Rough extremities in love can evoke a horny animal. (5) 15 The very first Ayers Rock visitors welcomed the last people to leave. (7) 17 Type the French arouse. (6) 19 Sounds like being honest is now out of currency. (5)

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Stay tuned for the next issue of death of a scenester ISSUE #3 coming soon! contact us for distribution and contribution...

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