BRISBANE STORY
I walk into the lounge and XX has gagged and hog-tied XY with rope. XY is naked and in the doggy style position. XX forces a frozen ice block into XY’s anus. XX looks at me as if through a shard of obscured glass, hums something guttural and I catch the bass riff from Marilyn Manson’s ‘Tourniquet’. XX comes for me. My beloved the dominatrix will have me next. I stand on the back of a couch and start throwing whatever I can reach. My hand finds a supersize jar of Vegemite and I throw it. It misses XX by a mile and smashes near XY’s head. XY’s face is red. I leave. If you’ve ever seen the movie Dogma the scene was something like when Hitler is in Hell having a Pineapple inserted into his anus while wearing an S&M rubber French maid costume.
Walking around West End I pass a party house I know and go in. There will be a gathering tonight, someone is going to Japan. I ask if I can stay the night. The party is a strangely sober affair with hushed gatherings of domesticated urbane demure human beings mumbling pre-recorded social scripts politely. Body language and voice tone and conversation topics all adhere to strict conventions of what is acceptable. It’s very Brisbane. I steal some alcohol from the fridge but it seems to have no effect. I walk into their bathroom while some girl is on the toilet. Did I vomit in the sink or was it someone else I’m not sure. I stumble and one of the glass window louvres breaks behind me. Fuck. My friend is in the backyard entertaining, he likes to be called Julia. He wears shorts and a singlet and sliver glitter stiletto platform heels. Together we perform a show number to the tune of David Bowie’s ‘Fashion’. All night trying to get a cone, these hipsters don’t even smoke. Morning comes, the couch is available to crash on, but then the person-who-is-going-to-Japan’s parents are here and I just want to go home.
The cops pull up at the boarding house where I have a room, on the corner in South Brisbane just a stone’s throw from the skyscrapers of Brisbane. XX has called the cops on me. I went back to the house to retrieve my possessions, some clothes and my art. XX was not home, a note on the door saying XX and pet XY had gone down to the park by the water tower. Probably so XX could walk XY on a leash. There is a ladder under the house, I set it against the side of the house, stand back and throw a brick through the window and I’m in. I wrap everything in a swag like a reverse Santa Clause and walk home imbued with superhuman strength. Halfway I stop at the pub and get a lift from two strangers. A greasy man who says he will buy my art and this beautiful blonde girl like a model. She likes me too, she talks to me, says she knows me, an easy lay probably. I want to say that her clean blonde hair is incongruous to the grimy streets of West End. But this is not the 80’s, not even the 90’s, it’s the year 2000 and gentrification is wiping away the old world and people from around us. It’s the millennium and the city is in a state of flux, living half in the past with the homeless and the junkies, and stepping into a futuristic spaceship satellite utopia of steel and fresh concrete. I pay the dodgy guy and the streetwalker for the lift with two paintings. The cops come and go. XX somehow levitates ten feet to look in my window. XX’s goon squad is a menacing presence lurking in the alley demanding payback. I am so young that I think everything is secretly wishing me good karma.
Brisbane at night. The city was a magic wonderland to me, marijuana was some special element to hunt across the city in the dark. The thrill of concealing contraband from the authorities right under their noses and million eyes staring down from the city. Back to a cold concrete room with hard carpet, to light the drug and have loneliness transformed into warming buzz and then I’m gone. I was so alone. The drug was my only light. When it was gone I couldn’t cope. I had a rough year.
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