Thunder Road (12 page)

THE FOLLOWING DAY was Saturday: the day that I had agreed to take Karen to the ball. I had still managed to keep my relationship with her a secret from Devon – it was not easy. I reckon there was a bit of jealousy there – he wanted me to himself and any girls we had were strictly short-term – nothing serious. I felt a bit stink, but I needed this piece of myself to be kept Devon-free. The trick was to get away without him tagging along and to avoid telling lies.

Some time that morning there was the clatter of dog claws on the concrete path outside my bedroom window. I got up and saw Johnno arriving surrounded with his posse of pig dogs. He seemed weird and eccentric enough in the country, but here in the city, he was something else. With his old clothes,
obviously
slept in, the leather hat and the funny mannerisms and noises he made, you could tell at a glance he spent little time with other people.

Devon met him half-way down. Johnno reached out and cupped Devon’s chin like you’d do to a four-year-old or a
favourite
dog.
Devon, everyone’s missing son.
I pulled some clothes on and went to the front of the house to meet them.

Johnno said, ‘So, this is your hideout, eh? This is where the big deals go down?’

His voice was loud and I noticed Devon looking around anxiously before hustling him inside. We wandered from room to room while he checked things out. ‘Where’s all ya stuff? You just camping here?’ The place didn’t seem empty to us but I
suppose compared to Johnno’s junkyard house it was like a show home.

We had tea and then carried the bags in from his old
Studebaker
truck. When we opened the haul inside the smell was overpowering. Not the usual dried hedge clipping smell but a thick pungent stink that immediately filled the room.

‘Jesus!’ I gasped. ‘We’ll all get ripped just sitting in the same room as this stuff.’

Devon looked at me proudly. ‘I’m telling you, it’s high grade skunk. Generations of careful breeding. It’s like the essence of dope.’

‘It smells like a dead body,’ I said.

Johnno poured the contents of the bag onto the kitchen
table
. It was just buds now, all the leaf and stalks had been taken off; hard and dry, it riffled like paper.

Devon picked up a bud and sniffed it. He looked at me significantly.

‘Show a bit of respect, Trace, some of the best minds in the country have been working on this. It’s connoisseur’s dope, not for your run-of-the-mill stoner. This will take you places you’ve never been.’

‘Travelling first class all the way!’ Johnno chipped in, as he rolled a joint.

I thought, ‘Here goes the day.’ It was the last thing I wanted to do, I had too much on. I went off to the toilet but in true doper fashion they couldn’t bear the thought of me missing out. When I emerged, there was Devon, waiting for me with the remains of the joint in his hand and an idiot’s grin stuck on his face. He could barely speak he was so whacked. I took the joint and made a point of inhaling shallowly, most of the air by-passing the joint and slipping in through the side of my mouth.

There was a rushing in my ears and a blast of hot colour poured through my whole being. It had the fullness and power of a fire hydrant being opened. This was not the weak, gentle stone I was used to. The room rocked and rolled, and the walls ballooned like rubber. Devon and Johnno were no longer people, they were figures in a painting, animated but flat. The house was confusing and difficult to navigate. My mouth was as dry as dust but even getting out of the room was nearly
impossible
because the floor reared up in front of me. I made it to the bathroom and climbed into the bath. At least here there was water and something to hold on to.

Some time later (my watch claimed about three hours), I was able to prise myself out of the bath and stagger into the shower. It took all my concentration just to swing on the cold tap. At first it was as though the water was falling on someone else. Then slowly, it soaked through the thick narcotic fug I was trapped in. I wriggled through the small opening which led back to the real world: normality. The pleasant familiarity of being cold and uncomfortable. I took off my drenched clothes and towelled down.

It was strangely quiet wandering through the house looking for the others. My feet seemed noisy and I was jumpy. The big pile of skunk weed was lying on the kitchen table, undisturbed. The other bags were on the floor, thankfully unopened. I closed the windows. I reckoned any decent drug dog worth his biscuits would have picked up this stench all the way from Auckland Central Police Station.

Devon had made it to the bedroom and was lying on his back snoring loudly. There was no sign of Johnno or his dogs. Surely he hadn’t driven home? That would be unbelievable. I dressed
quickly and headed out to look for his truck. As I walked up the path to the front gate I saw him, fast asleep, with the dogs lying under a big rhododendron bush. The pit bull looked up and made a quiet growl, the rest seemed content to wait quietly.

I was to meet Karen in Newmarket at three and hire a suit. From there it was all too complicated to follow, what with getting to Angela’s place for drinks, a pre-ball and after-ball party and somewhere in the middle the ball itself. I had this gut feeling it could turn out to be a twelve hour nightmare.

I went back inside to check Devon out. No change. He was lying frozen, in a punched-out position. The picture of a boxer, cleaned out in the first round.

The only paper I could find for a note was toilet paper. It was hard to write on; the pen kept snagging and going through.

Devon,

Gone out with Karen to her school ball.

(I know, fraternising with the richies).

Don’t wait up.

Trace.

That seemed about it. No point in trying to justify myself. I couldn’t.

I tried to check out my appearance in the little mirror in the bathroom. I seemed OK except for my fiery red eyes.
Trademark
skunk eyes. Perhaps no one would notice. I had only 14 dollars in my wallet so I grabbed a bunch of twenties from the top of Devon’s chest of drawers. I didn’t even bother to count it. Money was not an issue.

I MANAGED TO make Broadway, the big shopping street in Newmarket, a few minutes before three. Waiting outside the hire shop, feeling conspicuous and out of place, I was reminded how furtive and uneasy I’d become in public. Like a criminal. I scanned the cars driving past, the people coming towards me: I had my radar out for cops. The street was packed but everybody else seemed part of the scene, unselfconscious participants. Maybe I was invisible to the eyes of innocent passers-by, but I felt as if I stuck out a mile to anyone who knew what to look for.

‘There he is!’

I started. It was Karen and Angela.

‘Hi,’ I said, feeling a bit freaked.

Karen put her arm through mine. ‘I knew you’d make it,’ she said, sounding like’d she actually been sure that I wouldn’t.

‘She’s been a nervous wreck,’ laughed Angela.

‘Lies.’ Karen hauled me away. ‘We’ll see you back at your place at about six, Ange.’

As it turned out I was glad I had snatched as much money from Devon’s pile as I had. Hiring suits wasn’t cheap. After the deposits had been paid there was only forty dollars left. Did I have enough to get in? Karen must have sensed my anxiety; she told me that her dad had paid ages ago, and not to even think about it. The idea of Raymond funding the evening made me crack up. There was some justice in the world after all.

With Karen at my side I was able to enjoy wandering up and down Broadway, picking up the odd thing that she still needed
to complete her outfit. The feeling of being an outsider,
having
to be constantly on guard, slowly dissipated. We were just two more people thronging this busy street, with every right to be there. Having a girlfriend poured meaning into the silliest and most pointless of activities. At a florist shop the woman said, ‘You haven’t ordered her a corsage already?’ I hadn’t. I didn’t even know what a corsage was. Another little custom that tied me into the real world. Just being able to buy something for Karen, something pretty, that only lasted one night … it seemed so right.

Every now and then we would pass girls from her school and she would stop and exchange a few words.

‘Are you going?’

‘Who with?’

‘Whose pre-ball?’

‘Whose after-ball?’

And sometimes, ‘Who’s this?’

‘Trace. My partner.’ Nothing more. The mysterious boyfriend.

This was part of the whole ball thing. We had started already.

Later, back at Angela’s, the two girls embarked on the serious business of getting ready. Running in and out of bathrooms and bedrooms, sometimes half-dressed, sometimes only in bra and pants. There were other people coming and going. The phones kept ringing for thirty second conversations: checking times and places, and states of readiness.

There were liquor bottles and beer cans all over the place, like it had been used as a party house for some time. All this fancy old furniture, this huge building, and not an adult to be seen.

I had a snoop around. Where were the parents? I knew that
the father was an airline pilot, that explained him, but where was the mother?

‘In a sanatorium,’ Karen whispered.

‘What’s that?’

She looked around warily. ‘A place where alkies dry out.’

There was a knock at the door. Angela called from upstairs.

‘It’s Richard. Let him in.’

I opened the door. He looked very different from the gawky guy at the hardware shop. Not. He was now a gawky guy in a maroon suit, wearing lacquered shoes. He was surprised to see me, but not pleased, and it wasn’t just awkwardness. What had I ever done to him? I guess it was just what I was, that’s all. What I represented. We had a couple of stabs at conversation which didn’t work, so he busied himself with one of the aircraft
magazines
he found lying around in a designer magazine rack.

Angela came down a few minutes later. She was wearing this full-length dress in midnight blue satin. She looked amazing. All grown-up from giggly schoolgirl to fairy tale princess.

‘Just hair and make-up to go and then it’s lights, cameras, action!’

She tottered over to Richard in impossibly high heels, and gave him a peck on the cheek. Richard flashed me a look and then blushed. We both watched her mincing out to the
bathroom
. Maybe the hostility on his part was just shyness. ‘Who knows, who cares,’ I thought. The idea of him and me being anything more than fellow passengers in the same car was more than unlikely. We were worlds apart.

At last Karen appeared. Her dress was tight and shiny, like Angela’s, but its pale blue picked up the colour of her eyes. All her hair was held aloft by a glittering clasp, making her neck seem even longer. My heart ached: she was the most beautiful
thing I had ever seen.

‘What do you think?’

I was tongue-tied. No words or even sounds would come out.

‘You don’t like it?’

‘I’d like to buy you a sapphire ring. The colour of your eyes.’ It came out all croaky. Then it was my turn to feel the blood rushing to my face.

She laughed and gave me a little kiss on the lips before
disappearing
into the bathroom to work on Angela’s hair. I felt so elated. So proud, so knocked out by her transformation it was like I was afloat. Weightless in a blue sky.

There was the sound of a car arriving. It sounded more like a party in full swing. Richard went to check it out. He opened the front door to a blast of noise. I looked out the window. There was this big green Merc full of people singing and moving in time, making the car rock. They all clambered out when the song finished: three guys like a rugby front row, large and beefy; the girls like Barbies. They gathered around the front of their car, the guys stiff and swaggering. Their large upper bodies, exaggerated by the hired suits, told of long hours in the gym. The girls who had the loud, brassy confidence that came with a few tokes, walked up the path, sure of their mission. They passed by Richard like he wasn’t even there. He stood
indecisively
for a moment and then wandered on down to the car to make some sort of contact.

One of the guys, the driver (dark suit, killer shades, shaven head) said, ‘Hey Richard, what’s happening man?’ I could tell from the exchange of little smirks that he was regarded as a loser.

When the guys came up the path I sat down on the couch again and pretended to be reading one of the flight magazines. I
could hear one of them say ‘Where’s the captain?’ And Richard reply ‘Kuala Lumpur’. Then there were the inevitable mocking echoes from the other two. Koala lumpier. Torana Roopa. The girls went straight upstairs with Angela and Karen. I was waiting when the guys wandered into the room. They tried to mask their surprise at seeing me, someone unfamiliar and dressed down. I could see all the unvoiced questions.

Who was I?

What I was doing here?

What school did I go to?

My ploy?

Say nothing.

Offer nothing.

Hold the power.

I wasn’t going to make them feel better by giving away
anything
so they could slot me into some category to sneer at.

We staunched it out for while in tense silence until one of them decided he would ‘go out for a smoke’. The others were pleased to follow him. Beyond the dope, their confidence was paper-thin.

After Karen had introduced me to the three Barbies (I didn’t really listen, just gave them each a cheesey little smile so they wouldn’t think I was stuck-up) it was time for me to suit up, like the others. I was sharply aware of what I was giving up to go through with this, wearing a penguin suit. First Devon and the boatie outfits, now this!

As soon as I was dressed, Angela appeared with a big bottle of vodka and a carton of orange juice. Everyone skulled and then took a quick pull on the fruit juice to kill the taste. More people arrived. The rituals were repeated, each time getting a little looser as the vodka did its job.

Someone suggested we better go while we could all walk straight. As we climbed into Richard’s dad’s Jag I looked back at the house. Not only were all the lights on and the stereo blasting but we had left the front door wide open too. Angela didn’t give a stuff about the place. It was weird. All she was interested in was finding a lost joint; she and Karen had evidently stashed one away for the big night and now it couldn’t be found. (I suspected the rugby boys from earlier in the evening: they had been
sniffing
around all the rooms, picking up stuff.) Then Karen turned to me and said, ‘Trace, you can get us some can’t you?’

I felt really on the spot. It was such a knowing voice. It seemed to hook directly into my other life.

Angela turned to me. ‘Please, Trace. Please, Trace. I’m
counting
on you now.’

The last thing I wanted to do was give them some of the new Northland skunk. They wouldn’t be able to get out of the car. I tried to make a joke of it.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t use drugs. Reality’s my trip.’

They weren’t amused. This was serious. At least they let the matter drop, Angela holding out, hoping to score in the car park. Richard said nothing but his whole back bristled with disapproval.

The venue was a yacht club down on the waterfront. We had to drive past the same bar where me and Devon had been dealing earlier. The boat harbour was a forest of waving masts. Floating money. Money I could never hope to earn. I thought of the yachties we had spent the night with. Travis’ friends. Devon was right. The world was screwed.

It didn’t make sense.

None of it did.