Pink Mountain on Locust Island

by Jamie Marina Lau

  So Honey wanted these ‘powers’ in return, is that right? Bugsy asks.

  Yes please.

  He retrieves his malt from the microwave. Screaming from the TV. The speakers bursting like pulp. He asks if I want a drink. I ask him what he has. Just water, he says.

  We are sitting in front of his television and the envelope is open on the coffee table next to mice. Bugsy is sipping his malt drink. I am sculling tap water.

  He points at the TV, asks if I like Survivor. I tell him my dad doesn’t. He asks me if there is Survivor in China. I say nothing.

  He changes the channel to a horror movie from the sixties. Psycho was the first time a flushing toilet was seen on a movie screen. Never watch a horror movie when you have to pee.

  In Bugsy’s bathroom is a plastic-cylinder-cased museum. His electric shaver and electric toothbrush are about to fall from the edge of the sink. It smells of urine and stew. In the drawers: tooth floss and foil lumps and mouthwash.

  In front of the TV, Bugsy’s fallen asleep. His flock of mice are ceramic and don’t need him to be awake and probably nobody needs Bugsy to be awake.

  I shake him, I try to ask for the powers to give to Honey. He is a slice of Old English cheese slumped over a beige slab of mouldy bread.

  Reverend?

  I hit him across the face because he might be dead. Reverend Bugsy is melting now. I sit next to him on the mouldy-bread couch.

  In between his cushions: a computer keyboard key that says ‘O’, a sesame snap wrapper, a pair of reading glasses, bits of foil. I shake him one more time. Nothing.

  On his computer desk he has newspaper clippings of dating ads and the personals section, some addresses highlighted or crossed out. A few books, including: Sink or Swim (“Learn how to swim in no time!”) and How to Be a Professional Dart Thrower.

  In the kitchen: a burning. A pot of yellow curly noodles that are now just squishy slugs. I turn the stove down and find bowls, slop some noodles in.

  The fridge’s contents are a Homebrand campaign. Cans of jalapenos, Roma tomatoes, kidney beans, sardines. Sardines are very cliché; I throw them in the rubbish bin and empty some jalapenos and a bit of soy sauce into the bowls. I put one in front of Bugsy and change the TV to the infomercials channel.

  I notice a printer on a bookshelf with a thick paper pile stacked in its mouth, causing it to almost tip over. I take the stack and sit at his desk.

  The first piece of paper on top says:

  Dear Id Friend,

  It’s me, Bugsy. I am sending this letter t yu regarding the recent change in weather and wanted t knw hw yu are cping with it. Maybe in the summer we shuld take it upn urselves to hire a bat again and g sailing at the bay. As yu knw I’ve been ut f business fr a while nw and have lts f spare time t kill. If yu dn’t want t sail, we can g fr dinner at the new place my mther recmmended t me recently. That’s all.

      Bugsy

  Bugsy’s internet history says he’s been looking at:

  • What swimming stroke will help me lose weight the quickest?

  • What is a baby worm called?

  • Where to get matching sweaters for a cat and a human?

  • Average price for a cat

  • How much money for a cat per year

  • Can cats eat mayonnaise?

  • Can I see myself on Google Earth?

  • If I go outside can I see myself on Google Earth?

  • Where is the camera on Google Earth?

  • Can police access Google Earth?

  • How to domesticate a meerkat

  An infomercial on TV about a portable juicer. A woman in a pantsuit setting her juicer in the office kitchen. Cuts to her dropping fruit in and smiling as her friends’ heads pop through the door. A scene with her and her colleagues drinking green juice at their desks. Mm, says the woman who owns the juicer, and then she goes back to typing on the computer. The next shot is a bald man: Exactly what I needed, he sighs and drops his head back. Good stuff! the last woman says and goes back to scanning her documents. To get a portable juicer, and impress my colleagues this week, I need to call this number NOW.

  It’s two in the morning when Bugsy wakes up. When I see his eyelids snap open, I take his bowl to the microwave. Yuya told me once to never stand in front of microwaves or I won’t ever have babies. The bowl of noodles spins for half a minute and when I take it out they’ve sagged even more. I put the bowl in front of Bugsy, who’s started to read his mobile phone. He asks me what it is. I tell him that it’s the noodles he was cooking before. He blinks. I ask him where the voodoo is.

  He says: what.

  I say: the powers, I mean. My face is one big pink flush. A mountain face.

  He tells me to tell Honey that he doesn’t like the stuff she gives him.

  He crosses his arms and purses his lips and says: I’m really trying not to get involved with this stuff.

  I tell him: I don’t have time for your garbage.

  He asks me what this all even has to do with me. I tell him that I need Honey to have her powers back so I can break my dad away from Santa Coy. Bugsy puts his face in his palms for a second and then grunts and reaches forward and pulls his bowl of noodles over. He eats it with the fork from between his couch cushions. I ask him why he took her powers away in the first place. Is it because she was trying to be God? Bugsy doesn’t answer me for a while and then says that he didn’t take her powers away. He slurps soup from the bowl rim. He tells me that Honey thought he did, that people’s brains can be very stubborn. That the problem with brains is that people believe them. I say: yeah.

  Bugsy says that the brain is a trick. That it’s only a thick pink mound because it wants you to believe that just because it’s a physical, tangible thing, what happens inside it is important. Even when it’s all probably bullshit. He puts his bowl on the coffee table and I take it back to the kitchen. But this is not my job, so I bring the bowl back, put it on the coffee table again. Bugsy doesn’t say anything. I ask: so you’re saying that you should never listen to your brain?

  I’m saying that the brain isn’t the only thing you should listen to.

  Me and Bugsy stuck in a silence for a second.

  Then Bugsy says a whole lot of things, including that if the world was one big hoax, then would I be relieved or would I be disappointed? I tell him that right now I’d be relieved because Santa Coy is an absolute prank on me. I ask Bugsy if his own dad ever stole his lover and Bugsy says that he’s never had a real lover, and he asks me how I know Santa Coy’s my lover, and I tell him that with Santa Coy I feel comfortable, and then Bugsy says that’s not good, that I should never feel comfortable, and then I say that he should probably stop telling people what they should and shouldn’t do, that this is probably why he’s never had a real lover, and then we sit for ten minutes and watch an infomercial about a hoverboard.

  Bugsy asks, is your dad gay for your lover?

  I say no, I don’t think so.

  I tell Bugsy that my dad is an artist actually, so probably he’s in love with anybody that loves him. I tell Bugsy that everybody’s in love with Santa Coy, and that Santa Coy’s lover is everybody. Bugsy laughs to himself and agrees and says that there’s not one person in the world that can’t be stolen by art. My face is a furious crater. I say that it’s not even about the art for my dad, though—that it’s the money.

  Bugsy sighs, you never really know between the art and the money.

  He tells me not to get sucked into all this tricky business. He says that buying art is for the people who are satisfied with their coffee tables and couches and the little coasters for their twin sets of coffee cups. That the people my dad is selling his paintings to are the demons of the world. They’ll die and won’t be remembered for none of their stuff. Art buyers decorate their house with art because they want to decorate their life. Artists make art because they want to be remembered. And then everything gets thrown out anyway. Did you want a malt drink?

  And I say I t
hought he had none left. He quickly looks at the tin can.

  He tells me that he doesn’t like having powers, that he wishes he didn’t have any. I ask him what’s it like having powers. He tells me it’s like when you go to the cupboard to get a cookie and end up eating until it’s gotten dark and the news has started and ended and it’s time for the serials and the neighbours have turned their lights on already and there are empty packets in the bin that you don’t even remember putting there. I ask if that is really what having powers is like. He says yes, but also that he doesn’t even remember what he did last Wednesday. He asks me if I remember, and I say that I was at a resort. Bugsy looks pissed off; he unslings his arms exasperatedly.

  The television bleaching my eyes.

  We change it to an LSD cartoon.

  I watch his hand slide between the cushions again. I ask him why his ‘O’ key is missing from his computer keyboard.

  Bugsy pulls out some lint. He shakes it from his fingers. He tells me that if you have all the letters on your keyboard you forget how important each one is.

  Bugsy’s probably an idiot.

  An empty malt mug in front of me and the cartoons have stopped. Just a blank screen that says they’ll be back at six in the morning. I think Bugsy’s asleep but then he passes me a new envelope from between the couch cushions.

  I ask, is this for Honey? My face is bursting with juicy excitement.

  I ask him: are you really gonna give them to her? Even though you don’t like her offer?

  He closes his eyes and nods.

  He tells me whatever, says: Honey’s put me in a very difficult position here, sending you.

  I swallow an O.

  He asks how old I am anyway. I tell him fifteen. He frowns.

  We sit in silence for a while and I give Bugsy a hug but he smells like an old cat that’s been dipped in pomegranate juice. He holds the hug for a bit too long and tells me to be careful, using my name for the first time, Monk.

  Bugsy takes his Ziploc bag, kneels at his coffee table. I leave.

  Downstairs the man and his kid have fallen asleep on the red leather loveseat. The kid opens one eye when I walk past. He stares at me until the automatic doors open. He whispers as I go outside, says that I shouldn’t stay out so late that I get homesick. I ask him if he’s homesick. He says no, that it’s alright ’cause he’s already home.

  FAD

  In my bedroom I dream of white voodoo envelopes. I am scared of Honey eating me up, my hair like buckwheat noodles. I call Yuya.

  She says that she told me not to call her, that we can chat online. I ask her how Honey is. She says that Honey is fine. I ask her if she told Honey about Tre. She says that Honey found out. I ask how. She says that she’s already told me: Honey knows everything.

  The house is strangling me. I ask what’d she say about him. She says that Honey of course told her that there are bad spirits in him. I ask her why Honey doesn’t like him. She says that Honey knows his mother, that apparently his mother is a form of demon, but really, that she thinks Honey’s just being judgmental. Because they’re not the same as us. But she tells me, I’m not scared.

  I tell her: you should be.

  She asks me why, she says, how would you even know? It’s not like your mother is magic.

  I wipe lip balm from my lip and paste some on again. I lick the lip balm using my tongue. Yuya’s voice is bright grapefruit: that came out completely wrong, she says. I didn’t mean to bring up your mother.

  I sit in front of Santa Coy’s old computer and watch a video filmed really close-up of a thirty-nine-year-old lady with round cheeks doing a make-up tutorial, applying blush and hot pink lipstick. All this in her bedroom. In the background on her wall is a calendar of girl groups from the nineties and their record covers.

  DNKY

  Santa Coy’s a giant cliché sitting on the grumpy brown couch that’s supposed to be mine, or my mother’s. He’s got a paintbrush gripped between his teeth. Canvases leant up against each wall around timber nirvana. Dad’s playing Biggie on the radio and cooking something on the stove. It smells like expired pork.

  Santa Coy sprays the air with deodorant and asks me if I want to hang out in my room.

  Santa Coy has turned my stereo up very loud and we’re lying on the bed. He smells like fusty pork sweat when he opens his mouth or when he sticks up his arms. I tell him that I’m sick of all my CDs. I turn off the stereo and take out the disc and throw it out the window onto the road and a Jeep runs over it.

  Santa Coy and I sparring in stares. Lovers are not supposed to stare in the way that we’re staring. This is a serious 1994 Balenciaga runway. And everything’s beautiful in the worst way.

  GIANT CATS

  ‘Jaguar’, which means ‘kill with one leap’ in a Native American language. Santa Coy’s gone on a holiday to the Bahamas with his family. He’s a packed lunch with a suitcase and Ralph cufflinks and Dad is a grumpy brown couch again.

  TRANSACTION

  Trapped between this white envelope or for everybody to be the way they used to be.

  I stare at the envelope Bugsy gave me and wonder why I couldn’t have powers even if I tried. I am in a thumb wrestle deciding to return it to complete this transaction, or to keep it for myself.

  BABYLON

  Moving effortlessly around my bedroom floor on knees. My T-shirt is off and in the mirror it looks as though I’ve got a bulbous belly. It’s a round balloon because of the litre of fizzy drink Dad asked me to glug. He said I should drink it because it expires tomorrow and otherwise it’ll go to waste.

  In the medicine cabinet after I puke, looking for something that says it’ll soothe the gag reflex.

  With Santa Coy gone it’s just like an electric stirrer on mode one or a construction site of Babel. Dad is just a man on a couch watching a television that shows a shark sniffing blood, the orchestrations sneak after him as he’s lulled to sleep. The cupboards are all open and there is a police siren symphony out the skinny window. This whole home is a shiver and I leave out the front door, don’t lock it.

  Sipping hot orange juice in this parlour for mahjong players. The man behind the counter knows me because Dad used to hit it up here after work. Their orange juice is served hot but I’ve never asked why. Today it’s almost boiling in its glass. I tell the bartender: you know orange juice isn’t supposed to be hot right? He tells me that being close-minded will get me nowhere. He goes into the kitchen and doesn’t come back out again.

  This parlour is sweating from the walls. There are cow-skinned bar stools and when I slip my hands in the space between my bum and the cow-skin it feels like rubbery hair. There are pink lights flickering which frame the dart boards, and the mahjong table lamps are green but browning, and men sit around them waiting to play. A conversation next to me sounds like a romantic comedy from the gutter:

  – When she came along, everything changed. You’re not meant for me, I can feel it.

  – How can you feel it?

  – I can feel it from my soul.

  – How?

  This night goes on forever and when I leave, the rubbish man from the yum cha who kept winking at Santa Coy the other week is smoking a cigarette and reading a Chinese newspaper. He doesn’t look.

  Walking down the street, the pavement is a concrete treadmill to Honey’s parlour, closing in ten minutes.

  I get to the door when Honey’s locking up and she shudders when I tap her on the shoulder. Her whitened face is a frisson and she picks up her bags from the ground again. She says that she didn’t see me here. Her voice is a kind of breathiness, the kind they have in black-and-white movies with crowded lips. I take the white envelope from my back pocket and tell her: Reverend Bugsy said your voodoo was always there. He didn’t take her offer, but he gave me his offer to give to you. He’s very nice.

  Honey looks confused for a second, and then she drops her bags. She takes the envelope, looks at it like it’s a baked lunch. She smiles so large when it’s in her han
d. She gives me a big fat kiss on my cheek. She sniffs and asks me if I’ve had dinner or if I want to come over for dinner and I think about the silence around the table and I say no.

  This night is going on forever and I can feel the shiver from outside the front door of our apartment. Inside is a low gurgle from in front of the television. A purr almost, and the walls are perming and the lights are all off and I switch on the main yellow ones and the whole home shudders.

  I dream a king’s dream. No magi to interpret and the king will finally know that it is something only God can tell. Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel. Gold statue and bronze thigh and belly with baked clay feet. A rock hitting the soles of his shoes, and the thick body bantering with the ground, and this rock will mould into a huge mountain filling the earth. Feet of clay and divided kingdoms. Weary beast. A form of Babylon and my dad has come to banter with the carpet, bleeding from his nose and the corner of his mouth, eyes rolled back to view his brain.

  TIN FOIL

  An ambulance is under the most pressure in the world to do things right. And on the floor of our apartment are craters of tin foil with stuff pulled out of them and the cupboards have all been shut and my bedroom door is open and my bed has been untangled and Dad still won’t say anything. There’s just a thick hum running out of his mouth with the red sludge.

  I am sitting on the floor, waiting for the ambulance, eating a tub of yoghurt that expires tomorrow using a fork because the spoons are stained from Santa Coy using them as stamps on his canvases. Goosebumps I can’t control because it’s cold because I’ve left the door open in case failed murderers came back.

  Ambulance in a rush. He’s taken away on a stretcher. I take a photo. This is like the movies. I’ll have a cool story to tell at Fabio’s ‘Pop Star’ themed dress-up party.