4

The glass of the windowpane feels cool against my cheek, and if I close my eyes the world comes to a halt for just a little bit.

‘If you’re going to spew, can you crack the window and do it outside?’ Jez has followed me into his room. I flap my hand at him, which means: I’m OK, you should go back to the party. But Jez sits on his bed and chucks a rugby ball up and down, up and down – thump, thump, thump.

‘I feel sick.’

‘I told you not to mix your drinks.’ Smug bastard puts the ball down and sips his beer. He offers it to me and I turn away from him – thwack! Against the window.

Jez gets up and checks me. He opens the window and makes me lean out of it. He closes the door, which quietens the music to a throb, throb. At least I think it’s the music; it could be the blood pulsing in my head.

‘I’m going home.’

‘Not yet, B. You think your mum would be stoked to see you like this? I’ll walk you home later.’

‘She’s not at home. It’s Saturday, she’s doing a double shift.’

‘You can’t walk by yourself.’

‘You just want to keep an eye on the Cock.’

‘Yeah, that too.’

‘The Cock’ is not a gay thing or anything. He’s the latest boyfriend. Jez’s mum is one of those chicks that can’t handle it on her own. I reckon that’s why her and my mum don’t really get along, because my mum is still staunch without a boyfriend. I mean, they don’t bitch slap each other or anything; they just kind of tolerate each other for Jez’s sake. I hate to say this, but I kind of agree with Mum. Some of the guys that come through this place, man, they’re just not worth it. I reckon it’s better to be alone then to put up with some of the shit they do. Not that Jez’s mum is alone; she’s got Jez.

So anyway, the Cock is a cock, and thinks just because he’s spading Jez’s mum that he gets a say in Jez’s life. And he has this dumb-arse nickname – Havoc – which me and Jez pronounce ha-VOCK because he’s a cock, a cock, a cock.

That’s all he’s good for, eh, Jez?

Ew Bugs, that’s my mum you’re talking about; I don’t wanna think about it.

And sometimes when he’s had a few shit can get out of hand, so that’s why Jez stays and why he’s been sipping the same beer while I got wasted.

‘I’m thirsty.’

Jez throws me a bottle of drink. I miss it and it hits the wall with a bang. I pick up the plastic bottle and drink the sickly sweet blue shit. The rugby heads guzzle this because they’ve been suckered in by those ads that say the All Blacks drink this stuff. Like you can become a champion by drinking sugar water. I guess everyone is looking for a magic potion. I don’t know if it’s the electrolytes or isotopes or whatever, but it does make me feel a bit better, so I get up and sit with Jez on the bed. I try to snuggle into him, but he pulls away, holding his ribs.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I took a big hit in the game.’ I hope that’s true. ‘If you had been there you would’ve seen it.’

Ow. Who’s prodding who in the ribs now?

Jez’s bed is hard up against the corner of the room. I shuffle around so that I am cradled by the two walls; I can see his face now. Jez doesn’t look at me though, he just keeps looking ahead.

‘I was busy.’

‘Yeah, sleeping.’

‘Whatever. Stone Cold’s cheering not enough for you?’ I pretend to shake my pom-poms and make ju-ju lips at him. He doesn’t even turn around.

‘She wasn’t there.’

‘Where was she?’

‘Skiing,’ he says, like it’s something actual people do.

‘Oh. I wondered why she wasn’t here.’

‘Like I’d invite her to this.’

I know what he means. If my place was a revelation for her then this place would be a total mind fuck. Jez lives in a flat, one unit in a block of five. He lives in the middle. I lay my hand on the wall at the head of his bed. Through this wall is someone else’s place: only a ruler length away. They’d be calling noise control if they weren’t already at the party. The other flats are empty except in summer, when the landlord rents them out for the holidays. But who would want to holiday here? The flats were built back when they didn’t care who lived on the other side of the river. Then the town got all flash and people wanted river views; people wanted to be close to the harbour. I guess if these places were built now they’d be all sleek concrete boxes, not the hodgepodge of peeling weatherboard and concrete block that they are. Can you imagine Stone Cold here? She’d snap her neck from looking down at us all: the filth! The squalor! The people! And as much as I love Jez, it does stink of boy in here. But this is how people live – not like the magazine life she’s stuck in.

I love Jez’s room. My mum would freak if I did this to my walls – not that I would because I don’t have the talent to pull it off. He’s filled the walls with our names, and thoughts, and silly little pictures all drawn in thick black Vivid. He lets other people draw too – which explains the many pictures of penises that his teammates seem to be obsessed with. I drew a couple of lopsided bunnies when I was trying out my tag. I tried to cross them out but Jez wouldn’t let me. He said because they make him smile, they’re a little bit of me in his room. Besides, it’s his room, at least for now. He’s promised the landlord that he’ll paint the room when they move out, but I think that’s a shame. Because this room is our history. Near me is an early Jez, a picture from back when he’d draw like they do in cartoons; you know, girls with big boobs and guys with big … swords. Down by the mirror there’s some new stuff, a series of Jez’s eyes – happy, sad and angry. It’s strange to see Jez angry; I think that’s the only record of it. But it’s just art. It doesn’t mean anything, does it?

Jez should have taken art. I wanted him to, the art teacher wanted him to. But instead Jez is taking all the classes that he reckons will get him a job as soon as he leaves school. I want to tell him that hospo is not a career; just look at my mum. But I reckon he has looked. He’s seen my mum and how hard she’s worked and what she’s worked for and he wants it for himself. Maybe he thinks that if he can get a job then his mum won’t need those guys any more, that he will be enough.

But he could be more than that.

I guess because she’s had to Jez’s mum really knows how to stretch a dollar. Sometimes stretching that dollar means a skateboard is sold, school books are bought a fortnight after class starts and shoes just have to last until the end of term. I never eat at their place – it’s like she’s totting up what I’ve had in her head and she’ll present me with an invoice at the end. Sometimes I joke with Jez that his mum could be an accountant. Everything comes down to the dollar for her; especially, I reckon, her son.

Jez says I’m too hard on her, that she’s doing the best she can. But is she though? Is she? Because I reckon her ‘best’ would be making damn sure that her kid was going to have a better life than she does, recognising his talent and encouraging it, not letting him waste his life here. The really sad thing is that she has no idea how much her boy is worth.

Harsh, Bugs, harsh.

Fuck me. So here I am with my head tilted back looking down my nose at Jez’s life. Maybe Jez sees me like I see Stone Cold – a prissy little tourist, out sightseeing, believing I know how he lives because I’ve visited a few times. But I don’t know what it’s really like here.

I reach out to a wall and trace the black ink from name to picture.

One day when all the walls are really full, he’ll move on to the ceiling. Who knows if it will be a masterpiece? All we know for certain is that it will be wiped away and painted over as soon as Jez is gone. And that sucks, and thinking about it makes me, I don’t know, angry. But what can I do about it?

So I’m on my knees pulling at his duvet, looking under his pillow.

‘B, what are you doing?’

‘Looking for the pen.’

‘It’s on the floor.’

I lean down from the bed head first and grab the Vivid. I stand up on the bed a little dizzy from the head rush, so I steady myself with an arm against the wall and my legs astride Jez and write Jez Was Here in very big letters above his head.

Permanent impermanence.

It cracks me up and I lose my footing and fall over on the bed. I forgot to put the lid back on the pen so I’ve drawn a big, black line down my face. I’m still laughing as Jez puts my head in his lap. He traces the line with his thumb, and the rest of his fingers cup my chin.

‘You’re a mess.’

He wipes my cheek again and again, but it is too soft and too slow to budge the ink. It is something else and I’m not sure …

We’re startled by the sudden change in volume, the snap back into reality, as the door opens.

‘Am I interrupting?’ The Cock is at the door. ‘You’ve been in here long enough. I thought something would have happened between you and your girlfriend by now.’

‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

Jez has a look on his face like I’ve dropped him in it. The Cock laughs.

‘Having trouble, eh, Jez? You want some tips? I know what chicks like: ask your mother.’

‘Get out of my room ha-VOCK.’

‘Hey. Remember who pays the rent around here.’

‘Mum does.’

I kind of hold my breath. Jez doesn’t usually push this far, not when the Cock has been drinking since the afternoon. The Cock balls up his hand and for a second I think he’s going to hit Jez, but he smashes the wall above his head. Fucking nutter walks off laughing.

Jez grabs my wrist. ‘C’mon, we’re out of here.’

We climb out his window, and in the cold, fresh air I realise that I’m not drunk any more.

We walk down the hill towards the river, leaving the throb, throb, throb of Jez’s place behind. We cross over the control gate bridge and onto the domain. We sit down on the bank and look back across the river. It’s too quiet now; my ears are ringing.

It sucks. If the world was fair, Jez would have been born somewhere, I don’t know, chill. He would have been born to someone who recognised his talent, sent him to classes, bought him supplies. But I guess if the world were different Jez would be too. If he had been that guy, would he even be my friend? If he were that guy we wouldn’t be sitting here now.

‘Would’ve been funny if he hit a stud, eh?’

Jez sort of smiles and shakes his head. ‘Nothing about that was funny.’

‘Nah. I’m sorry.’

I reach out and grab his hand. It’s sort of shaking. ‘Jez, are you all right?’

‘Yeah, just … I’ll walk you home.’

He lets go of my hand to push himself up and then he offers it to me again. ‘C’mon.’

We walk together hand in hand and I’m sort of wigging out because we’ve held hands before, you know, helping each other up and stuff, but this is different. It’s like holding hands now means something, so I kind of don’t want to but I can’t let go because Jez has enough problems and I don’t want to be one of them.

We’re walking the long way round – past the domain and the Great Lake Centre, past our playground and on to the lakefront. In the dark you can’t really see the mountains, but you know they’re there. In this place you can’t escape them. I reckon tourists who sit here and look at the mountains, who wonder when they might erupt, forget about the crater in front of them. Yes, the big fuck-off volcano that we’re standing on. Just because it has been asleep for so long they think it will never wake. But we know different, us locals. We know that it still smoulders. We know that it is alive. If you look you can see proof of life everywhere. The steam hole down by Tauhara Primary, an open sore weeping sulphur fumes. The ancient trees, burnt black and toppled over away from the blast, exposed under the soil when the banks are cut away for new roads. The weird contrast of the cold water of the lakefront and the warmth beneath your toes when you dig them into the lake bed. If your swim has frozen you, stick your cold feet on the belly of the sleeping giant – I’m sure he won’t mind.

I shiver and sniff, which wrinkles my nose. ‘We should get a hot chocolate.’

So we go to Maccas and get some hot chocolate with those little marshmallows. I insist that we sit on the plane, even though we haven’t been up there for like five years or something. We used to love the plane as kids; it was cool – a whole, real aeroplane that you could sit and eat your dinner in. After you’d finished your burger or nuggets or whatever you could pretend to be the pilot and fly the sucker across the sky, if only the damn thing wasn’t bolted to the ground. Oh, and an engine would probably have helped too.

Jez and I sit at one of the tables. We can see the car park out of one of the tiny plane windows. I take the lid off my hot chocolate so it cools down a little. Jez looks at me.

‘It’s hot.’

‘That’s why they call it “hot chocolate”, B.’

‘No shit.’

I blow on my hot chocolate. Jez is still looking at me.

‘What?’

‘You’ve still got pen on your face.’

I put my hand up to my cheek and rub until it burns. ‘You let me go up to the counter.’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘No wonder that guy was staring.’

‘Yeah.’ Jez laughs and although I want to hit him, it’s good to see him smiling again so I just let him laugh at me.

The security light almost blinds us as we walk up my driveway. Mum’s not home, not that I expected her to be until morning. Since I turned fourteen and have been able to be at home by myself she’s been taking on more hours. Sometimes, when I’m feeling paranoid, I think it’s because she’s avoiding me, but I try not to think about that too much because really it’s awesome for me. Like tonight, I got to hang with Jez; just hang. If Mum were around we probably would have done something G or PGR – a DVD and fish and chips and tucked up in bed by ten.

Sarge greets us with a gruff-wuff and wags his little stub tail. Sarge loves Jez too. I turn to lock the gate and Jez stops me.

‘I’m off home.’

‘You should stay here.’

‘Nah, I’ll just go.’

‘You can sleep on the couch.’

‘And freak your mum when she gets in?’

I want to say that he can sleep in my room. We’ve done it heaps before. When we were little we used to top and tail – Far! Your feet stink! When we got older Jez would sleep on the floor next to the bed – Door open! Mum would say. But tonight it feels different somehow, so the couch is the best I’ve got.

Jez nods his head towards the road. ‘I better go, eh?’

I climb the steps to the back door. Jez waits until I’m inside, like I could get raped right there on the doorstep. I shut the door behind me and turn on the lights as I pass like I’m leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. I should have made him stay; who knows what kind of mess his place is in. Then I remember the rabbit’s paw. He should have it, for luck.

‘Wait!’

It’s in my room still wrapped up like a present. I grab it, knocking the wooden box on my bookcase to the floor, and run to the back door. He’s gone, so I run to the ranch slider in the lounge – but I can’t see him on the street. He has been wiped clean, painted over; gone.