Zigzag Street

by Nick Earls

  Best failed attempt at a world record: An unsuccessful attempt on the world endurance doubles tennis record (then ninety-one hours and forty-two minutes), when students could use the uni courts free of charge. The attempt failed at six and a half hours on a hot day (the participants having easily endured twelve hours in each of two practice sessions during the preceding month). As they drove home defeated along Sir Fred Schonell Drive, still in the daylight of the first day of the attempt, a news crew drove past them, heading for the uni courts.

  And he has not so much outgrown this crap phase as come to terms with it. And I’m sure we could talk him into another tilt at the world record even now, if they’d give us the courts for nothing. I’d have to do no more than suggest it and within minutes he’d be saying, It’s only four days, how hard can that be? As a kind of mad enthusiasm overcomes him.

  39

  There is though, I think, one unspoken condition to Jeff’s rules concerning crap. I expect the crap should cause no significant harm, particularly to a third party. But I won’t be exploring this with him today.

  At five I realise I have done no work, but it’s too late to change that. So I will have to work on the weekend. I should call Renee and tell her I wasn’t lying, even though we both thought I was at the time.

  It’s Deb’s birthday today and she keeps telling me she’s years away from the dreaded bouncy castle of thirty, and I shouldn’t forget that. A dinner has been organised at a restaurant on the southside, so I hang around the office (and still do nothing) until I’ve killed enough time.

  I catch a cab to Stones Corner. I’m not expecting a great night. I really don’t like this sort of thing, but sometimes you have to do it. Deb has booked for fourteen, which means one long table of all the people she has ever liked at Shelton’s. And she’s far too generous for her own good. She likes far too many losers. I sit between two of them, and some distance from Hillary.

  I drink quickly. I drink too much. When I stand up to go across the road to the bottle shop my cutlery falls onto the tiled floor. I move into my new bottle of chardonnay with some speed. And I notice, in one of my furtive glances to the right, that Hillary has gone.

  When I go to the toilet, its checkerboard floor disorientates me badly and I have to sit down, even though I only came in with standing-up intentions. I must be there for a while because they send someone in to see if I’m okay and, for no good reason, that really pisses me off and I tell him to tell them that I am reading a play and I am only up to the second act, so I may be some time.

  When I go back out and sit down Deb comes up to me and says, Are you okay babe? And I hear myself shouting, Are you kidding? Have you ever read The Spanish Tragedy? Everybody dies. Everybody dies.

  She asks me if I think I should go home and says she could call me a cab, and I tell her I’m just starting to have fun.

  Some time after that I am in a cab, but with a few of the others (although I’m not sure who). Then we’re at The Underground. I haven’t been there for ages and it’s packed and smells of smoke and split beer. I end up squeezed in a corner, which is fine, and whenever it’s my shout someone takes my wallet to the bar and comes back with drinks. My bladder starts to strain and in the confines of the corner this is far from convenient, and I remember it was maybe the old Underground but maybe somewhere else where I saw a prominent Rugby League identity, obviously caught in the same dilemma, flop his dick out and piss very substantially into a pot plant. And I remember thinking, for a prominent Rugby League identity that’s a very uninspiring dick.

  My bladder becomes the focus of my existence until I realise I can quiet it no more and I climb out and make my way around to the toilets. The toilets by now are busy, with an industrial level turnover and the anticipated copious amounts of floor pissing.

  Further observations concerning men and toilets

  Why do they bother with any actual facilities in these places? Surely it would be cheaper to have just a gently sloping floor leading down to a hole. Easier for men involved in the obviously difficult task of urination, easier for hosing out. I’ve got to admit I’ve never felt great about urinals. How has the trough concept survived? That’s what I want to know. How in the late twentieth century has a Roman notion like communal urination kept going? You stand there, you get it out, you hold it in your hand, you urinate with it, and sometimes you have to maintain a conversation with men on both sides. You, in your work clothes, talking to other men in their work clothes as though you’ve bumped into them waiting for a lift on the fifteenth floor, with the one exception being that your penises are out of your trousers and urinating. Has no-one thought this is even slightly strange?

  A cubicle door slaps open and a man staggers past, his fly at half-mast, and he gives me the thumbs up, but he’s looking shaky. And sure enough, he’s pissed on the floor. Why can’t these guys work it out? Why can’t they work out that if you’re that far gone you don’t just go for the cubicle, you actually sit down? Sure it’s the girl thing, but no-one’s going to see you. Or is the word out that this is what I like? No worries Rick, thumbs up, pissed on the floor. As though he’s done me a favour. As if I like having to work out where to put my feet, and then trying to go at the bizarre angle this usually imposes. So here I go kind of side saddle, which is quite awkward. And I piss on the floor.

  I clean up what I can, and on the way out I tell the next guy, Watch out, the guy before me pissed on the floor.

  When I go back to the others, I seem to take a wrong turn and I’m out in the street, then standing for a while in a queue, then sitting in a taxi again, this time by myself. It’s only when I get out that I realise I’ve given the driver Jeff and Sal’s address instead of my own.

  So I stand in their front garden working out what to do next. It’s a nice garden, I realise. They have several grevilleas but their lights are all out, so maybe nobody’s home. I sit on their steps and have a rest. It starts to rain, but not heavily.

  I decide it might feel good to walk home and soon the rain comes down harder and the roads start to shine and the wheels of the cars spit the warm water up as they drive past. My suit becomes heavy, particularly on my back where most of the rain is landing, and the water runs from my hair down my face. There are puddles now when I’m crossing roads and the water gets into one shoe but I’m not sure why only one. And I go the way I would drive, which is not a fast way but a sure way, and there are more hills than you would be aware of when you usually only come this way driving an automatic car. There are four hills even before you leave Toowong. After that I don’t count.

  At least I’m not a cellist. But then, you’d be a fool to be a cellist, out on a night like this.

  40

  In the morning I am quite uncomfortable, in many parts.

  In the daylight I see that I am in my own bed, but thrown damply across it with some of my clothes dropped in a pile nearby on the floor. My suit may never be suit-shaped again. It lies amorphously where it landed, with the smells of smoke and wet sheep now oozing out of it as it warms up in the sun.

  When I lift the jacket, I notice it is on top of Purvis the Sock Friend, the long-forgotten, dazed-snake-faced companion I made for Greg. Fleas bale out of Purvis in large numbers. I realise while I am watching them that I’m scratching myself, and I think it’s more than the power of suggestion. I think the fleas now live in my bed.

  I drink water, and as I have no food I drink more water. It sits in my stomach between the constipation and a big gas bubble, as though it’s there to stay. I put on loose fitting clothes and sun glasses and I go to Toowong. I have a list of tasks, but first I buy a burger. I drop my suit in to the dry cleaner’s, where it is treated with suspicion and they tell me they can make no promises. I return home with an abundance of food and several flea bombs.

  I was planning to work at home, but the flea bombs say the house should be evacuated for at least two hours, and evacuated doesn’t sound like the sort of word a smart person would disregard. It�
��s also far too hot to work, so maybe I should go in to the office.

  Just as I’m feeling that I’m backing myself into a corner and going in to the office is inevitable, Kevin Butt turns up looking very cheery and says, I’ve been booked for two gigs since they ran the story on us. Nursing homes. I’m back in the game. We’re famous, youngster.

  He insists I go back to his place for lunch and a few beers. So soon I’m sitting in his kitchen and he’s talking repertoire and next door at number thirty-four the flea bombs hiss quietly away.

  He has a lot of cold beer in his fridge, and all of it Fourex, for which he expresses a great enthusiasm. This obviously stays in his mind, as he whistles a medley of Fourex jingles through his teeth while he’s tossing the salad.

  And as I take a mouthful of beer, I can’t help but wonder who came up with the idea of the Battle of El Alamein Fiftieth Anniversary stubby holder that it’s sitting in.

  I ask him if he knew my grandfather.

  No, before my time I’m afraid. I would have moved here maybe a couple of years after he passed away. I only know what I heard from Edna. Now there was a fine kind of a woman. So if I know only one thing about him I know he was a bloody lucky man. You would have known him though, wouldn’t you?

  Yeah. I was about ten when he died. So I knew him, but I don’t know much about him. He was just my grandfather, you know?

  Yeah. I only know what Edna would have told me, and I don’t think he told her everything. I think he kept the details of some things to himself. Well, France anyway, she said that. All I know is that the day he copped the gas at Bullecourt, he did something that got him mentioned in despatches as well. Buggered if I know what though. What would it have been?

  I don’t know.

  We drink more beer and we eat, and some time after two I go back to my flea-bombed house to work. I have a lie down instead.

  I don’t sleep.

  In the late afternoon I shower and put on work clothes. I pretend the day is beginning. I drive into town, taking with me a packet of Tim Tams and two bags of Freckles, as I will be too busy to go out for dinner and they go well with coffee.

  Some time after eight the air-conditioning turns off and the office becomes progressively more stifling. I keep working, but it just gets worse, and there’s no way I can override the timer. So I start taking off my clothes. The shoes and socks and tie go first, but it’s not enough. Shortly after eleven I’ve lowered the pants and the airflow does improve things, but I keep them around my ankles in case anyone turns up and I have to move quickly. By midnight I realise no-one’s turning up and the pants are off, and then the shirt. Some time before one I’m totally naked and sitting on my shirt as the upholstery is more scratchy than I would have guessed.

  And I’m cruising with this work. It’s making sense. I’m going to be okay. Maybe all I ever had to do was let my body breathe. It is strange though, when you’ve been sitting staring at the word processor and working intently on something and you happen to glance down. The genitalia someone has left in your lap always take you by surprise.

  One more cup of coffee. I walk down the corridor and the air moves past my warm clammy body in a very soothing, pleasing way. I see my reflection in plate glass and I feel strangely liberated. Instead of making coffee I turn the Musak on and crank it up as loud as it’ll go, and I dance.

  And I have just executed a neat leap over an occasional table when the lift door opens and Hillary steps out. I think it’s the volume of the Musak that startles her first, but I could be wrong.

  It’s okay, I tell her, as she starts to lurch back towards the lift. I’m just working but the air-conditioning’s off. It got very warm.

  Is anyone else here?

  No. No-one. It’s nothing like that. I’m not like that. It’s just hot. I was starting to get some good work done.

  You looked like you were dancing.

  Yeah. I’d only just started with that though.

  Well that’s fine then, isn’t it? If you’d only just started dancing. She laughs. It looks like nothing flaccid.

  How big does it need to be for dancing? And what are you doing here anyway?

  Dan’s got an ear infection. He’s not sleeping. It’s Peter’s night on, but there’s no sleep happening in that house. I thought I’d come in and do the work I was planning to come in and do tomorrow. You know, during daytime, outside office nude dancing hours.

  I really don’t think you should hold this cynical view of office nude dancing unless you’ve tried it.

  Some other time maybe.

  This is when we both realise that we’re in the foyer at work, having a conversation in which everything’s normal except that I’m totally naked. And it all becomes more like the bad dream of an insecure child and a lot less liberating.

  How are things with Peter? I ask her.

  Okay. But said a little reluctantly.

  So what does that mean? What does he know?

  Nothing. He knows nothing. I don’t know what to do. Am I a bad person if I don’t tell him? Am I a fool if I do? I should. I should tell him, get it out in the open. ‘Girl from Ipanema’ blazes away at maximum volume. I should be honest with him. Life is just not that easy though. Can I say to myself this is a one-off thing, a once only error of judgement and it’ll hurt him more to know?

  It’s a good theory, isn’t it?

  It’s a great theory. She pauses. But anyway, I don’t know just yet. I don’t know how I sort it out with him. But how are you after last night? When I left you were standing up at the other end of the table announcing to everyone that you had the cutest arse in the world, but a cock like a pig’s tail.

  And she’s not kidding. As soon as she says the words I recognise them as some part of last night. And it’s far too late to wish I’d heard them from someone else’s foolish mouth.

  Cock like a pig’s tail. What does that even mean?

  Who knows. You wouldn’t say. I don’t think anyone thought it was likely to be a good thing.

  No. It doesn’t sound like a good thing.

  But I didn’t feel it was my place to either confirm or deny.

  The lift door opens again. Barry Greatorex emerges in a dinner suit, stands quite still and stares impassively at both of us, his eyes as lifeless as two currants thumbed into a big bun. ‘Girl from Ipanema’ slides into another variation. Is that a marimba? Barry reverses his step and the lift doors close and he is gone, like an Alfred Hitchcock effigy in a medieval clock, appearing once to mark the hour, and disappearing in identical retreat.

  Some secret we’ve got, I say to Hillary, but she’s still staring at the doors in disbelief, as though she’s wondering what’s next.

  41

  After tennis on Sunday I buy a sausage roll and a tube of wine gums.

  And you wonder why you don’t shit, Jeff says.

  I don’t wonder. I know why I don’t shit.

  Beans, eat beans.

  Beans, okay.

  He insists on taking me home for a meal of beans, and I sit on a stool in the kitchen sucking wine gums while he talks me through the preparation of a kidney bean pilaf.

  After we’ve eaten, and I have to admit that for a bean meal it’s really not bad, Sal says, Shall we give Rick his present now?

  Sure.

  So what do I get the present for?

  For being such a sad boy. Sal wanted to give you something to symbolise your triumphs.

  She comes back in with a T-shirt, a white T-shirt with my fist-in-the-air Westside Chronicle photo on it, enlarged. And on the back, in big letters, ‘Hero of the ‘hood’.

  How special, I say. I shall wear it with my medal and they shall call me the mayor of Zigzag Street.

  And they can feature you in one of those curious character segments, Jeff says, when a current affairs show needs lightening up, you know, between the infanticide story and the pensioner fraud story. And they can edit it and come up with bizarre camera angles to make you look like a complete idiot whate
ver you do.

  Yeah, and I think Kevin would be in that too. We’re a double act in the eyes of the media, a sort of Steptoe and Son for the nineties, but very elegant.

  I can recall a time before the trashing, perhaps a year ago, when some act of flagrant incorrectness led Sal to buy me a T-shirt with ‘Bastard’ on it. Perhaps it would be more appropriate if I was wearing that now. But for the moment I’m the ‘Hero of the ‘hood’, and modelling my shirt in their kitchen to some acclaim.

  Later Jeff drives me home.

  You seem a bit crazy at the moment, he says in the car. Is it just all that work you did last night? I mean, apart from the usual?

  Yeah. Yeah. No. Well, it’s to do with work.

  What do you mean? To do with work. Things at work? People at work? Do I get any details?

  You want the details?

  Sure. Always.

  Okay.

  But I don’t seem to go on.

  Okay? There must be more than okay. You realise the longer you spin this out, the better it needs to be.

  It’s good enough. Okay. Well, last night I went to work. You know that. There’s more. They turn off the air-conditioning around eight at night on the weekends and it got very hot. No-one else was there. No-one else had been there the whole time, so some time after midnight, I took my clothes off.

  You took your clothes off.

  Sure.

  All your clothes?

  Well, not straightaway. But eventually, yes. All my clothes. And I have to say it felt good. It felt so good that when I saw my reflection in something I just couldn’t help myself. This very strange feeling came over me, and I turned up the Musak. And I danced.

  You danced naked in the office.

  It’s not over yet. Anyway, there I was dancing naked in the office, specifically dancing naked in the foyer, in fact, right in front of the lifts. And the lift doors open, and there’s Hillary. Of all possible times she picks one o’clock this morning to go in to work.