The turntable is my alarm clock, it has this thing where you can program it, but it will only play one side of course, and it doesn’t switch off after, so I wake up to a few lines by Tears For Fears, or a guitar solo by Lindsey Buckingham, but then I doze again and wake up to the train-rhythm of the needle just butting against the end groove and locked in a loop.
I’ve named the rat Ben. After the song. And because there’s just the two of us here, if you must know. Anyway, Ben has been quite useful in one way. He gets me out of bed. I’m up and off, always hopeful to not actually see Ben.
I have the alarm set, and so does this mean I have routine? I mean it’s the beginnings, right? It’s dangerously close, right? It’s a pretty good day to be alive too, we are using my car to get as much discounted beer as we can. The student rag posted some special offer, $5 off a dozen, but they forgot to do the limit per customer, or one coupon only or any of that fine print. So my mate Will has done a break-in on the office of the student magazine and got home down the hill with hundreds of copies; when they realised the mistake, they pulled them from circulation, but the store has to honour what they get. We’ve used a few between us over the last week or so, but today is the final day of the promotion and that fucking bottle store is not going to know what has hit it. We are going to pack beer so deep into the car we will be swimming in it.
Will hands the vouchers out in the carpark and one by one, all eight of us go in with a trolley and come out with our arms out in front, boxes of beer heaving. I dialled up some student loan before we got down here for the 10am opening. It’s gone straight in, and I’m all set to buy a dozen dozens. That seems the right amount. Should last me several days, at least. It makes each dozen only $10 instead of $15, that’s a third off, so it’s highly educational too. Packing the wagon is like a game of Tetris. And the guys are all gonna walk back home with me in charge of the precious cargo. I find a park near the town party-flat, and we carry up as many of the bricks of beer as we can in one go. We were gonna head back to finish the job, but just the first run up those stairs proves thirsty work, and besides, we’ve got enough piss up here now to last a week at least, so what’s the harm in cracking a can or two, and anyway it’s nearly lunchtime.
Well one or two turns into eight or nine before too long, because Jase has this amazing idea for us to do 100 nips of beer in 100 minutes; basically you all get a shot glass and you set up a timer, or just watch the second-hand on the clock, and every 60 seconds you take a shot. A shot of beer is nothing, right? But you can keep drinking in-between times, so you’ve got a can or two on the go all the time, then you top up your shot every 45 or 50 seconds in anticipation. Tell you what, it fucking comes around quick after the first few. By 20 or 30 shots, we were all starting to feel it. Jase implemented this rule that you were not allowed to leave the room, so you have to hold your piss in and no spewing or anything. Just be a man basically. So we’re sitting around this table in the kitchen pouring these shots and downing them and fuck me it starts to hit hard pretty quick. The game is over in less than two hours, and you get a mighty buzz on, all amber glow and lazily in love with what’s left of the day.
Daz has been visiting the whorehouse up the road. He’s quite proud of it. We’re all a bit blown away really, that it’s even a thing. I mean, we know it’s a thing, but you know, we didn’t know we’d know someone who frequents the establishment. After his hundred shots, Daz is loose as fuck, and he just lifts his wallet out of his pocket and holds up this card. It says ‘Frequent Flyer: 50% Discount’ — and underneath, on the all-pink card, it says, embossed, in italics in a slightly darker pink, The Pink Palace. I am thinking it’s some cheap dessert restaurant, but Daz confirms, this is his “whorehouse card.” We’re all a bit
gobsmacked, but giggling.
“Shall we go tonight?”
“Um, sure,” I say, because someone has to say something. We’ve all just had our bluff called big time. Will is looking at the wall. Glen is looking at the beer-can ring he’s fitted to his index finger. And John shrugs alongside me, as if it’s no big deal. But it’s a big deal.
Ultimately we leave Daz to it. John saves the day, by mentioning that The Bleeding Hearts & Artists are playing a gig that night in the old warehouse. They’re a collective from Dunedin, and I’ve never seen them.
“Eh Daz, save us at least the 50% you get off from when you get off for another time okay!” It doesn’t really make sense, but I’ve said it, and the room is deep enough in fizzed-up fake laughs that this is some knockout punch.
Glen is such a fucking dick at the gig, trying to convince us all that the Bleeding Hearts & Artists are not very good. I angrily point out that that is the point. It’s experimental, and improvisational, and you get what they serve on the night. And besides, there’s absolute fucking heart and complete truth in what they actually give. But Glen is a jazz school dropout who has just enough theory to be good in theory, and knows too many chords to not be annoying. When he can’t get his ideas over the line with me that we should all leave in protest, he starts petitioning the group. There’s only four of us left in the crumpled-packet end of the evening, but Glen is bugging Will to do a walkout with him, and I have to jump in and say, “Look, fuck, just let those of us enjoying it enjoy it you fucking dick.” And as I say it, I’m thinking I’ll probably be getting a call from Glen in the morning to hear all about his feelings on the matter. Yawn.
“This is just pretentious shit,” Glen says over the band, but they finish their song, and the burst of applause dies down right as he finishes whisper-shouting ‘pretentious,’ so a lot of people actually hear him yelling the word ‘shit.’ And fuck it is hilarious. And he ducks down low. And I just let him suffer in that for a bit, until it becomes murky around who said it, and it looks like it could just as easily have been me — so of course we all leave.
Speaking of leave, I stumble home up the long and grinding road, leaving the car in town, even with its precious cargo of everyone else’s extra beer, and mine. I’ve got Paul Kelly on the discman, and I’ve got nothing much on my mind, except for the fact that his concert is coming up soon, and I should go, even if I have to go alone.
I get in to my empty rat-nest, and thankgod Ben is away on business, or with his family quietly in the walls, or anywhere else. The turntable still whirring away, and I kinda like its ambience. The stick and click of the needle and arm knocking into that end-groove still. It’s been going on 12 hours already, so what’s a few more. I’m out. Face down, clothes on.
I wake up to the phone ringing. Fucking Glen. Banging on about the dominant Phrygian mode in music, and how The Bleeding Hearts & Artists could take a cue from Paco de Lucia, and Yngwie Malmsteen, and Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani, and though I’ve heard of them all, I’ve really only listened to Vai and Satch, and really, that shit was best left at high school. I mean, fucking grow up. So I tell him I’m in a ‘Fridge-ian’ mode and hope there’s no real queue — meaning I want beer. Straight away. But this joke doesn’t really pop across the phone. So I hang up, after telling him I’ll be down the hill as soon as I can and we’ll refrigerate what’s left in the car.
Nearly fifty steps up to the gang’s flat, just the two of us carrying, so this time it’s a few trips. But the rest of the beer is in the two fridges they have, with some extra boxes stacked to the side and ready to go. I’ve kept a half dozen of my dozens in the back of my car, under the passenger and driver’s seats — for emergencies. But I don’t need to tell the others that. That’s for me to know, and the ambulance and cops to find out, and I snigger to myself and then have to pretend I’m thinking back to last night’s big botch with Glen yelling out “Shit” right at the end of one of the best songs.
“Holy shit that was embarrassing,” I add.
“Yeah mate, but so was that band.”
“Oh, fuck off!”
“Hey, neither my comment nor their music was as embarrassing as a bunch of us sitting waiting for the whores to come down the stairs at the Pink Palace though, eh? We dodged a bullet there.”
“Ha,” I say. Adding, “You hear from Daz at all yet?”“Only to tell me he punched his card.”
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“Some men need pussy,” Glen states. “It makes them feel good about themselves. Like they’ve conquered something for the day — or, er, night. This is fucked up, but I reckon the ones that visit prostitutes the most never had proper relationships with their mums.”
“Hmmm,” is about all I can say to that. And then, “I spoke to my mum last night.”
“That’s a weird fucking segue,” Glen spits.
“I’m just trying to clear my name,” I say, laughing. But Glen doesn’t laugh. Perhaps largely because he was with me the whole night, so knows I’m talking complete shit. I haven’t talked to my mum in months, on account of how much money I’ve been chewing through. The student loan, the money they are sending to cover the rent. The petrol vouchers I sneakily cash in for a Cream Egg or Moro Bar, and then pocket the $18-19 in cash that comes back. And I have to write a letter! To the fucking bank manager…
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