Enough Said About It - Part Two

By popular request ... awww shucks ... thanks guys! And glad to know that I crawled 'correctly' into the psyche of a boy. It was a punt that boys and girls really weren't that different - boys just didn't put a romantic spin on it. I'll put a quick post after this, that will allow you all to see how it's tied in ... between the two characters (what we know of them to date!)

It was a frustrated six weeks of black crosses on the calendar, waiting for the final day of school. He’d be free, and she’d be free to keep her promise. “Wait until you graduate,” she’d said tormentedly. “I really want to kiss you now, but its not right. Wait until the 17th.” Occassionally he’d catch her in the library, sitting there with a bundle of absentee forms and a highlighter – in the process of catching truants. One time he was bold enough to actually walk up behind her, look over her shoulder and ask her what she was doing? Even though it was pretty damn obvious what she was doing.

Two weeks after the formal he fell off some rocks, while he and his nutty Dad were out fossicking in rock pools. His Dad, decked out in one of his endless supply of loud polyester Hawaiian, kept the video camera rolling the whole way through, including in the doctor’s surgery while the deep gash in his foot was being stitched up. A cryptic getwell card arrived in the post. He hoped it was Abby that sent it, but was pretty sure it was probably Melanie, who was still hanging on the periphery hoping for another shot with him. He wasn’t interested.

Damo and Nicky, Damo’s girlfriend, had gone in to see Abby on graduation day. Nicky had a silly book she was carrying around getting everyone to write something in. Damo had said that Abby and Nicky had been hanging out a bit – Abby had driven Nicky home a few times and even gone out for a coffee once. Damo also said that Abby screwed a PE Teacher from one of the highschools in town on the basketball courts one Friday night … but he decided that Damo just said it to bait him. Damo knew something was up with him.

He walked past Abby’s room with his Mum and Dad, on their way to the graduation ceremony. He wanted to go in and remind Abby that today was today, but he wasn’t sure what had gone on for her in the six weeks since the formal. He was again embarrassed to be with his parents. His Dad had hauled out a bird of Paradise shirt to wear to the graduation ceremony and was carrying an umbrella, despite the fact it wasn’t forecast to rain for the rest of the week. His Mum walked on the other side of him, a perpetual look of disappointment on her face. He hadn’t sat exams like his sister had two years ago. She had excelled in everything she tried, music, sport academia and the only thing he’d been good at was being lazy and narrowly avoiding failing everything he tried. He hoped that Abby wouldn’t see him with his folks.

That night, he’d given up of ever living his dream. He started smoking joints in the early afternoon. His parents were packing the last of their stuff up. There had been a sold sticker on the For Sale sign out the front of their house for the last month. His folks were sticking around waiting for him to graduate and now that the day had come, they were leaving. He didn’t know where he was going – not with his parents. Damo’s Mum had offered the spare room until he worked out what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go. He and Damo had talked all year about buying a kombie van and going fruit picking, getting second hand surf boards and leaning to ride a wave. But he wanted more, he wanted Abby and the exchange on the night of the formal told him that it was less a pipe dream than the kombie and the second hand surf boards.

It was about 9:00pm he thought and the streams kids were still pouring in. Although the official graduation party was tomorrow night, Damo’s Mum had said it would be OK for them to celebrate at their place. His Dad was away on business – probably picking up more dodgey porno while he was at it. He went into the kitchen and there was Abby with a Breezer in hand talking to Damo’s Mum. Damo and Nicky had invited her along, so they told him the next day.

There she was in one of her colourful halternecks and a pair of faded jeans. Her hair was newly dyed, an even more vivid red than usual. She saw him and smiled. Then she was on his knee as they sat in Damo’s room talking as a group, listening to music, with his trademark hat on her head. Someone suggested going for a swim, Abby disappeared to her car for her bikinis and in a blur of time they went from dive bombing to being alone in the pool, her warm muscular body, barely covered in the lime green string bikini, pressing against his, as they floated around in the water, the stars bright above and the air tropically warm.

Inside in Damo’s room, they got dried and dressed, then lay down together on Damo’s bed. Abby had got up to lock the door so no one would interrupt them. But they didn’t get naked. Instead she lay there in his arms, his head spinning and trying to integrate reality into the imaginary life he’d been playing out in his head for months. She told him how she’d been frustrated in the weeks between the formal and now. She admitted to sending him the card when he hurt his foot, of wanting to send him a note to meet her at the beach. But it didn’t matter now, they were here together and the summer holidays were on them.

Damo busted his door down, when he found it was locked and she jumped out of bed, grateful that she was fully dressed. Damo started mouthing off about the door being locked and what the fuck were they doing there. Damo had been drinking rum. Sometime in the dead of night he’d found her asleep on the floor, on a rough mattress that Damo’s Mum had dragged in from the garage. They quickly undressed and hurriedly had consummated the months of frustration - then he’d passed out.

In the morning she was gone and he wasn’t sure if it had really happened or if it had all been one long hallucination. Nursing a terrible hangover, like most Saturday mornings he’d ambivalently got dressed in his K-Mart uniform and ridden his bike the half a kilometre from Damo’s to the shopping centre. An hour before he finished she was there, in the fishing isle, looking tired and ill. She pushed into his hand a slip of paper and walked off.

The paper had her phone number and a short note … “My Dad is out of town for December and January and I’m baby sitting his beachfront apartment. Do you want to come and play for the summer? No strings attached? Complete freedom. I’ll be there from the 1st December.” At the bottom was the address.

He wondered what ever happened to Damo and to Nicky. Nicky was going off to join the Navy and would be at sea for a year. They had planned a long distance relationship. He wondered if Damo bought the Kombie and learnt to surf? He wondered if Damo’s Dad still bought back C-grade pornos from Asia? He wondered if Damo’s Mum still had those photos from the night of the formal. He wondered where his Mum and Dad had ended up. He realised that it was years since he spoke to them last.

Machine Gun Fellatio’s ‘Unsent Letter’ clicked onto the stereo. He’d purposely programmed it for random, so he wouldn’t consciously sit and wait for it. He lay back on the dark studded leather couch and put his hands over his eyes, and allowed the lyrics, and the emotions they resurrected wash over him.

I don't know if I lied
when I said we're not together
But I try to talk to you,
and some how you seem gone......

Each drum stroke, each tortured lyric reverberated through his sculptured football hardened body.

Before the song beat through the last of his fragile defences, Hux got up and cracked open a Corona – tossing the cap and opener onto the granite bench top. He sat drinking and snorting up copious amounts of the forbidden white powder, while Unsent Letter played over and over on the stereo and Abby played happy families less than 15 minutes drive away with the Grandaddy Pom.