For Freena

1.

Frank stares one-eyed down the beer’s neck: ‘Imagine, oourf, imagine you get woken’n middle of the night.’

Al, neck bent 90° back: ‘Middle of the maaawning.’

‘Shut up wog.’ Laughter behind Frank’s scorn. ‘You’re asleep’n get woken by er demon’n your chest.’

‘Hot.’ Eric leans on the table and clasps air 9cm short of the vodka. ‘You’ve, thankee James, you’ve my attention.’

‘Whichas cursed you to repeat your entire life, everything ‘cluding that moment, over and over and over, how’d you respond?’

Eric tops up a tumbler glass: ‘Izze’ demon a redhead?’

Frank tilts head right and down with annoyed smile. The sky is black-turning-blue. Three magpies begin to chorus.

James lowers his Switch and sighs through his nose: ‘It’s about time.’

Frank raises his beer in salutation, skulls it and pats his pockets. James heads from backyard to front door with some stops: the lounge room for his bag, the fridge for two cans of pre-mix bourbon, the parlour for blankets and pillows. He holds the screen door to slow its closing to a quiet click, slides into his car, reverses out the driveway and makes the left-right-left to the main road.

The sky is cloudless yellow. James passes over the peak of the slight, unnoticed elevation underlying this suburb, granting vantage, blinkered by single-storey commerce, of the four kilometres of bitumen before him. He counts a dozen vehicles ahead and solitary cop car five hundred meters behind. The rear view mirror blips red and blue for twelve seconds. Eight minutes until home, dropping the bag by the front door and crawling into bed.

His girlfriend stirs: ‘Boring night?’

‘Same old same old.’

2.

James lowers his Switch and sighs through his nose: ‘It’s about time.’

‘Travels.’ Al straightens his neck and raises his tumbler glass, lowers a squint to the drink’s meniscus. ‘Pete’s those hypnophonic night terror things and it’d be great to ask him but hrmmm hmm hmmeur.’

Words mangled by drink slipping down throat.

Eric swigs vodka from the bottle: ‘Just lay ‘n Chris’ chest.’

Frank stares one eyed into the empty cigarette packet and inhales uh-oh: ‘I’d love to suffocate Chris but we’ve problems.’

Eric: ‘Aww and James just fucking left.’

They find the front door unlocked. It crashes closed behind them. They walk to the end of the street, where Al places a traffic cone. Around the corner and another three minutes before the service station. Eric has forgotten his wallet. Frank heads in alone, makes transaction, four minutes. Back to the traffic cone, turning the corner and passing a cottage with waist-height mesh fence.

Eric points eyes and grins: there’s a bike just there.

Frank: ‘We should go in and take it.’

Al detours through the open gate. Frank and Eric stop and, eyebrows raised on the edge of giggling, watch Al wheel the pushbike onto the street. They proceed homeward with barely restrained smiles for one minute.

‘Oi! Give that back!’

Eric is first – a glance over shoulder that snaps back, left arm lunging ahead, into a forward leaning sprint. Already measured inhale and exhale, already leaving Frank and Al behind, already past their intended destination. Speed maintained over the first two cross roads, then turning at the next left and then the third right.

Eric stops to catch breath with hands on hips, slowly turning 360° with furrowed brow. Yawning, he jogs to the end of the street and sights a corner deli.

Placing the weekend newspaper on the counter: ‘Could you tell me, my good man, which way it is to Princes Street?’

The clerk slowly drums the counter with thumbs: ‘Ummm.’

3.

Suburbia is waking slowly, enjoying the bed’s warmth and dream’s aftertaste as it recollects the day’s plans with half-slit eyes. Tradesmen and the breakfast shift, five to a red light, drop visors to block a cold yellow sun. Side streets are sparse – the occasional runner, the occasional semi-retiree moseying to their weekend newspaper. Frank, Eric and Al walk a pushbike down Phillips Street and, about fifty meters back along the path, a woman is jogging in pursuit:

‘Oi! Give that back!’

The bike tips onto scrappy council-strip lawn. Al and Frank run. Eric is already ahead and increasing distance. Al snarls ‘slippery yid’. A roundabout: Frank follows Al’s right turn. Past three no-through-roads then turning at the first available left, which weaves abruptly into a right. Frank’s foot slides. Dizzy, a white picket fence between himself and nasturtiums, all parties horizontal. Frank rolls onto hands and knees, sees nobody to follow, rolls onto his ass, sees nobody following.

Standing again: ‘Fuuucking cuuunt.’

Hand on left knee. Wincing, Frank limps to a vacant block with a two meter black nightshade at the fence. Hiding behind the weed, he sits down to stretch his leg and exhales ‘fuuuck’ louder than he realizes. The sun has risen to heat his scalp. A hard metallic ping begins in the rear of his skull and shoots, in pulses, to his forehead’s hairline. He texts, one handed: Dod jou get sway?

Running hands from knee to hips, Frank finds the cigarettes. Plastic and alfoil is shed to the right as he lights one and reclines. His gaze is parallel to the column of rising smoke – it is linear, bouncing like a heavy creek, for thirty centimetres, before going through three two-second clockwise spirals that break into a wide river mouth flowing up and leftward past the nightshade.

4.

The florist brings irises from the back room and begins their arrangement on tissue paper. Through display-window pane, Pete watches his fiancé scroll her phone down Instagram until she finds the desired photograph. She leans over the counter to show the florist, who flips out notepad. Neat-almost-cursive numbers trickle thickly down the page – cost per flower, flowers per bunch, total bunches.

Pete’s pocket beeps and his depth of vision focuses on his reflection. ‘Dod jow get sway?’

Pete hits dial and converses with his transparent double:

‘Hey man, what’s up?’

Chatter from the phone and Pete’s reflection rolls eyes.

‘You’re leg?’

A head shake.

‘Sorry man, can’t, busy at the florist.’

Wiping left hand under nose.

‘I ahhh appreciate the offer but we would prefer a professional as opposed to, um, black market.’

A frown.

‘Got you. I’ll call Al.’

Pete dials again, reaches default voicemail, dials again with deep exhale.

‘Hey. Eric.’

A bamboozled sneer.

‘Nooo. Frank already offered.’

A fair enough rightwards tilt of head.

 ‘A bike? A newspaper? I suppose it isn’t a stretch.’

Gaze steeling.

‘I tried. Nope. Yep. Ok, I’ll send you his location. Leave. A. Trail.’

Pete ends call, starts texting and sighs when his fiancé, arms crossed, sidles alongside him: ‘So. They’ve gotten shitfaced and lost. Eric knows where he is but not where he’s supposed to go. Frank knows where to go but can’t get there. And Al’s forgotten to charge his phone.’

She throws an exasperated hand open: ‘For fuck’s sake, how old are they?’

‘I know.’ Pete lowers phone and rests a hand on her upper back. ‘Ages back, I found something on my car bonnet after a Star Wars marathon with the ex.’

‘Traffic cone?’

‘Mooore anti-Semitic.’

‘Oh.’

‘I was pissed. Didn’t speak to them for weeks. She was pissed. We broke up. So, without that moment…’

Pete smiles softly. His fiancé glares: really?

Quickly: ‘And they offered to supply the flowers. They’d steal them. From suburban front yards.’

She concedes two slow nods: ‘It would be cheaper.’

5.

Al walks with hands in pockets, eyes darting amongst potential landmarks: keeping straight at a red-bricked ranch-style home, turning the corner at a white bungalow, passing a strata of three units before stopping in front of a red-bricked ranch-style home. He tries to ignore it, gaze cast down, but has to flip middle finger at said house. Al resumes walking for four houses, stopping again in front of a white bungalow. He looks at his lightless phone and, snarling, raises it above his head and freezes –

Ten meters down the street, a scowling elderly man in dressing gown crosses their lawn: ‘Some prick turned off my mains water.’

Al, instinctively: ‘Kids these days, amiright?’

Sore from chewing itself, Al’s stomach now cracks ampoules of nervous energy that waft up through lungs and into his head. Eyes bright and lips sucked in, Al walks hurriedly to the next crossroads, where he looks down all directions. Along the street on Al’s left are three tilted mailboxes. Al pursues the trail: a front yard featuring smouldering newspaper pyre, a splotchy arrow drawn on cement pathway with urine, turning right at a corner with keep-left sign hanging upside down from oak tree. Walking towards him is Eric and Frank.

Smiles and relieved laughter, patting Al on the back. Fifty meters until home. The screen door slams shut behind them.

Eric turns into the bedroom: ‘Smokes but no bike. Still, a win.’

Frank limps hurriedly to the back of the house. Al follows him, shivering, with some stops. In the parlour is an inflated palm tree riddled with green and red dots crisscrossing like busy ants. On the kitchen table is a ziggurat of sugar cubes, officiating the wedding of the salt shaker and pepper grinder, attended by the wider spice rack. In the lounge room is the couch that Al gracelessly collapses onto:

‘Never. Fucking. Again.’

6.

Pete, James, Al, Chris, Eric and Frank sit around a table. Pete begins a nasally ‘aww hawr hawr’, which the rest imitate in disjointed chorus. Pete points a revolver at his temple and it clicks. The faux-laughter stops.

James takes the revolver: ‘A komodo dragon stole me baby.’

Gun barrel in mouth. Click. Al wipes the barrel on sleeve before aiming into his jugular.

‘Are you saying this is “good cunt” or “good, comma, cunt”?’

Click.

Chris takes the revolver, aims at his temple and, enthusiastically: ‘You’ve reached Dan Murphy’s, this guy’s house. There’s two meters of concrete and strobe lights everywhere.’

Click. Eric plants the muzzle behind his chin. Frank watches tight-lipped.

Eric smiles at him: ‘Smokes but no bike. Still, a win.’

Bang. Eyes open. Chris is sweating under a quilt. Eric is silhouetted by daylight in the bedroom doorway. He approaches the bed head and looks down with thumb over shoulder:

‘Hungover? Come with me.’

Eric staggers out. Chris blinks, sits up, drinks a jug of water, blinks, throws on a dressing gown and follows Eric. In the bathroom, Frank closes the medicine cabinet and leans forward, gripping the sink. Deep measured breaths fog the mirror. Frank’s scowling reflection is joined by those of Chris and Eric.

Eric whispers: ‘Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary.’

The reflection gains depth. The mirror fades to black before displaying a red-haired woman with a bottle of vodka,  standing behind a front bar. Four shots are poured. Frank continues his deep breathing. The woman and Eric raise their glasses. Chris shoots eyes between the bartender and the shot of vodka, somehow between his thumb and two fingers.

Eric leans back on the bar with a told-you-so smile: ‘Well then? Once more?’

– Aaron Nobes