The Day of the Modern Irrepressibles

On Saturday morning we talk, his words salve to my 'sometimes' life - full of excuses and invented fears.



I often marvel
that for a man
you are beautiful -
a beautiful thing
I cannot touch.

You hold yourself tightly
as not to lose
a single part
of yourself to another.

Ask my name
I am 'another'
like pure miracle
I wait
to watch you
unfold.



After a conversation or two, my cold thoughts disappear. I can feel. Jacob tells me he loves me, his breath paused, waiting for me to reply. I ask him to repeat the words he's whispered. Later I believe I might have dreamt them. He say's other things, like what a spunk he thinks Nico is. Like how if I’d never moved here this would never have happened. He is grappling with fate. There is nothing Jacob can say now - nothing can erase, or dent the impact, of our first unwritten exchange.

Later the words changed to I like you.

I like you Karlo.

In Christchurch, I like you. In moments were it should have been I love you it was - I like you. Sometimes he would hold his breath, releasing it moments before he uttered the phrase, so it would be a tumbling, sort of breathless I like you. And then for a long time there was nothing. Months passed without either of us saying anything.


Jacob say's:
How did this happen?

Karlo thinks:
This is my life - this was meant to happen.

Jacob say's:
I love you, but I'm not in love with you.

Karlo thinks:
What is the difference. What is he really trying to tell me.

Jacob say's:
If you are the ONE, I'd know you were the one - wouldn't I?




...and Karlo persists because she doesn't know how to go on without him.



* * *



For a while I lie here, talking with my back to Jacob. Eventually I divert conversation and suggest other thoughts. I hope he will try to understand.


Karlo say's:
What happens when your travelling through the universe in a space ship and you hit a wall?

Jacob thinks:
What is beyond the wall?

Karlo say's:
With all that unfathomable space, opportunity is immeasurable.

and Karlo thinks:
I’m only alerting him to possibility - random and preordained.

She watches threads of thought knot his forehead, after a while Jacob complains of a headache. He is ready to sleep. Karlo has given up talking.

She watches him and Karlo has a new thought. Could this be, an honest start for love.



* * *



On Thursday I asked if I was your girl and if in return you'd be my boy. You didn't talk to me for a day.

Friday is a strange evening. You come home late, I think you must not be coming home at all, and then Nico meets me coming down the hall and says you’re here. I’ve just finished getting ready. I’m feeling lovely in blue jeans and a white halter. My hair is loose, my skin fresh. I know you won’t be able to resist me - not looking like this.

Gina arrives breaking walls of ice. I can be myself around her. I want you to see that I can carry on no matter what you have in store for us. We don’t speak and I can't bring myself to look at you. You will know this when I'm pained, upset or misplaced. I only give my eyes when I smile, only when they are clear will I ask you to look into them.

We sit in a room of people. You sit between Nico and Gina. I sit next to Otis. I can always talk to him. Even if he knows exactly what I’m doing and the truth is, he’s been your friend far longer. I get heavy trying to hold my head up. I can’t wait to turn the light out. Get drunk, turn the music up. Mel offers me some ‘good stuff’. I take the drugs, whatever it takes to get past you.

That's what the right combination should do. It should make you forget. What you don't know, what has been refused or denied can't hurt you anymore. The wine goes down fast. I’m desperate to leave with an ex-boyfriend of mine that I’ve invited. Not so him and I can be together but so you and I can be apart. He’s my ticket out of here but everyone ends with us leaving together. We go to a party on the Terrace. I wander around the house for a bit, restless. Unable to settle in any one room. I’m already starting to forget you're here. On a full circuit of the house I find you in the dark, on the couch, talking to some guy. Maybe we smile at each other a bit, I can’t remember. I leave shortly after with Nico and Otis, the house just isn’t big enough for us. The moment we step outside an adventure is unravelling. It’s happening all really quickly. The hill, the start of our journey - is vertical.

Excited with the world around us we crouch on the sidewalk to read a stray newspaper. Otis and I wait patiently as Nico reads our weekly horoscope. It asks me to imagine I'm scuba diving. Just as I've descended beneath the sea to find some lost treasure, I realise the precious thing I'm seeking is really part of me. It is mostly knowledge, thoughts that slipped away long ago. How could I have forgotten?

Walking down the busy city street I'm oblivious to what my friends and I are about to do. We stand in a sex shop under the frantic gaze of lonely, semi- aroused men. I find myself sympathising with a man who stands only to my shoulders, about the ironies of plastic wrapped magazines - the only evidence of sterility in this place. He looks at me sideways, I assure him I only want the right choice to be made, that I'm here to help. This is how in love I am with the world. Even this Friday night wannabe porn star is my friend. Otis purchases a bottle of rush. The shop attendant doesn't notice none of us, are wearing leather shoes.

Back out on the street, slumped in a door way I think my friends have found a new way out of the world. Reality is a swinging trap door. I decide that for now I am the gatekeeper. The idyllic Cheshire cat on the wall. Nico is Alice, peaceful and argumentative all at once. She dangles bait. We rally around the same conversation for what seems like hours. This reminds her of the old days, before, during and after school. She talks far too loudly for my ears to take it all in at once. In effect seventeen seconds have passed. The money, my wallet I give to Otis. Each time I ask him for it back I find it is already in my bag. I'm so excited. I've got cash on me, and my favourite lipstick. For a short while we stand under an old friends window. No one comes to look out. Sometimes it seems like we are shouting, and then all at once we are whispering under our hands and running down the street. Under the streetlights I catch sight of my friends for the first time tonight, their eyes glistening. On the way into Good Luck we pass management on the door. I feel caught, lowering my beaded eyes-on-stalks. Then I realise we are like this every night.

It's a different crowd tonight. One of my downstairs neighbor's is in the D.J booth. People line the dark walls, no one is on the floor except me. I dance, maybe minutes pass, my feet moving surprisingly fast, jogging my sense of how time travels. I realise I'm alone, that there is maybe one other person in the corner moving slowly to breaks. I shift toward a fleeting sense of myself, a type of self-consciousness which causes me to bolt for the door. Maybe I ask the nearest person where my friends are, maybe I sense this in a sixth kind of way because I know exactly where they are. I follow the silver cords of friendship. I don't even knock.

Otis is pressed up against the door, as I push through he kind of slides outta the way. For a second I feel ashamed. My friends are in the boys bathroom, a tangle of limbs on the floor, then I remember what I do in time likes this. First I go inside myself. I find that deep love within and I only need myself to be happy. If management walked in now we would all been asked to leave. Nico is trying to pull me down on top of her. Her face is smacked with a delicious grin. The entire toilet reeks of leather cleaner, and Otis's eyes are slowly rolling back in his head. But looking at those two I feel a tug of something deeper than friendship. I pull them both to their feet. There is a whole new world outside that I can't wait to show them.

The bar we frequent almost every weekend is different tonight, because the three of us are so in love. We dance, sometimes together sometimes as part of a three pointed star. Before long the dance floor is on its feet. Most people seem to think I am their long lost best friend. Some girl they met in the country, the one they heard moved to the city and joined the band. I tell Nico I'm having an orgasm. This must be the highest point; this is an equivalent for great sex. Dal keeps reminding me about my bag. About the wallet I've brought into town full of money. This brings me back to reality, but never for long. Every so often Nico hassles me, saying that I haven't taken enough of what they've taken. She is ecstatic, hopping on the spot. What annoys her most about me at this time is that nothing can sway me. My mind is made up about what I will and what I wont do. I decide to leave. They play our favourite song maybe once, maybe twice. Marek extends it because he knows that when it stops we will too. Even in this basement bar the street hums to us. Its song is never quiet, nor simple.

I contemplate stealing a bike. There are three of them, all various sizes. Nico and Dal are already moments down the road; they've stopped and are calling back so I do a strange, slow and sexy dance toward them. I'm wearing white shoes. I feel like an old bride. This is my debut moment of doubt. I'm 25. I have a child; at this rate I might not ever find my prince. A group of kids chuck rice of a low balcony. Nico stops to hassle them and of course they hassle back. All seven of them, they are tight - restless and content all at once.

As we saunter in a lazy stroll down Cuba Street I realise that to young boys I have obvious charm. Confidence exudes but I'm thirsty. There are two boys, two beers and three of us, but for the minute all I can think of is myself and this desert in my mouth. While Nico and Dal hassle a couple of drunks on a side bench, I work both these boys at once. We form a connection, a similarity and the beer is mine. The taller one probably gets far more girls than his friend so I make the short one feel special and take his mates bottle instead. We're passing into random territory now. This area is well lit, busy. Modern people stand in the streets. I'm a receptacle. I pass a bar well known for its brawls and feel aggressive. I shout at someone who looks sideways at Nico. I stop to glare at the bouncer who yellow carded me because I wouldn't sleep with him. Moments later the three of us are dancing to a busker playing reggae music. It would seem there is a conscience in all of this. About to move on I run back and offer him my favourite yellow lighter. He smiles at my single ray of light; my little beacon that says money isn’t everything.

An old fire engine from the 1970's is idling beside us. We've barely had time to square it with the driver and Otis is helping me into the back. Nico sits beside me. The driver must think were drunk, he keeps telling us to hold on. He is creeping along at 5 miles per hour. Out comes the rush. I'm the last to try it. For six seconds all my thoughts have thoughts of their own. There are the sister thoughts, the distant cousins. They are in an immense hurry to get out of my head, all of them at once. The problem is I'm trying to make sense of them; I should just be sitting back now, closing my eyes. I look at my friends who are looking back at me. They are eager, teetering on the verge of more than crack upholstered seats. Nico is saying "...and there it goes, and there she goes". Then with relief I draw air. I'm falling over them, touching their faces, breathing again. That was gross, this is great. This is how I always want to feel, outside of my thoughts.

I don't want to think I just want to feel.

The fire engine is still chugging softly round the block. We stop at the bus stop but we don't get out. Moments later we find ourselves at the same place we boarded, only on the other side of the road. I'm putting the fire hat back down, slowly exiting this red cloaked character - the lighter of tonight's fires. Reluctantly I get out. Nico is convincing a cab driver to take us to Sandwiches. But the ride isn't over. I want to walk this out. I grab both their hands and pull them through busy crowds. I'm the cab driver now. The beauty about this place is that we are open to suggestion. Self-imposed persuasion is up with the best of them.

We're dancing to moving shapes on the sidewalk; this is when I remember my thirst. It is greater than me and I have to go back to the bright lights of Star Mart, to the risk that everything will be revealed under white fluorescent lamps. The man behind the counter picks my drink; he ends up opening it for me also. Outside Otis and Nico are in fresh conversation. It's as if Nico is attempting to pull herself up a ladder and Otis is a giant teetering on the edge of a bean stalk. We’re on our way again dancing outside each bar for a few moments before moving on. Scent is overwhelming. A dozen colognes, a hundred individual food ingredients. The smell of stale liquor, fresh liquor and then the unexpected smell of fish. We are running, dancing away from all of this. This walk might be our last moments together, before we enter and loose each other in larger territory. We risk coming up and coming down all at once. Otis doesn’t make it past the foyer of the bar. He slumps into one of the booths that lines the nearest wall. We hand everything over. Our jackets, our bags. I contemplate removing my shoes. Now we move to dance. Otis won’t stand up. He is still smiling. Nico and I have each of his arms. If he won’t dance in there then we’ll dance here but unexpectedly the bouncers ask us to move on.

That is the last time I feel like this. If I were addicted I would have asked for more. Part of you knows that the drugs are looking for new experiences; part of me knows that this place kills a piece of me every time I come here. I can’t remember exactly what happens next. There are two separate worlds co-existing side by side. MC Kyla commands me the moment I walk through the door. Dancing is effortless, standing at the bar, asking for a drink, wondering exactly what Nico and I want - now that is tiring. For a long time there are no boys. Just Nico and I.


I find you sitting, doubled over toward a fat girl, talking to her like you havn’t talked to me in days. I resist you for just a moment. As Nico moves over, I follow. The girl sees us coming and moves away - a little too quickly. I watch her disappear into the crowd and we take a seat on either side. Now back to those unseeing eyes that evade me. Your face, neither a smile nor a frown. You are angry with me because I’ve challenged everything you thought you knew. After Nico walks to the bar, you say something. Is it to hurt me? You are laughing as you say it. It’s a running topic from three days ago but you are colouring new facts.

What Jacob doesn’t know is that nothing can insult me tonight. Strangely his usually silent flat mate breaks the ice. I apologise to him for noisy children and trashy pop music. He’s heard neither. He’s smiling, happy that we’re all here at one time. When Nico comes back I suggest we go next door but she wants to stay sitting/talking. I’m restless, so for a very brief moment I dance with myself. On our way through the crowd I find Stella, an ex-lover/current friend of Jacob's. As he comes up behind me I push them together; tonight they can have each other. I keep following Nico. This is the point where I lose Jacob again. Later we spot Stella on the dance floor. Nico thinks this girl is nothing but blonde hair in a boob tube, but I think she has great posture. She dances with the straightest back.

Nico and I take toilet stops together. I am crouched at her feet and she is in love with my eyes. They are the widest she has ever seen them. This is the opposite of heroin. Tonight we are brunettes with brown eyes. With the light behind her I can see my reflection in her eyes clearer than I’d like. I decide this is far more soul snatching than photography. Both of us will probably wonder why we have headaches the next day.

In a split decision we’re off to Go-Go. There are no goodbyes. We slip past the front bar unseen. I grab Gina and attempt to take her with us. Tonight we are a lopsided star. Three wine goblets, three good girls, alone but unafraid - lost in the world.