Читать книгу War/Peace - Matthew Vandenberg - Страница 5

'I'm a cunt,' I say, shrugging. 'I don't deny it, never have, never will. I don't claim to be saint, I don't claim to be a role model. I am just offering you a solution to your problem, if you're a shy, depressed loser who ain't never had a girlfriend. Make like me into employment at the Cross, make out like me with three to five divas a night, drown your sorrows in the grasp of the hands of a bitch just as fucked as you've never been, and see the type of shit you ain't never seen. Fuck it: I go freestyle with this shit harder than I go with an attractive chick. I ain't even making sense no more. These are the fucking rantings of a lunatic. I'm thinking I should keep my voice low just in case my friends are listening, but since my salary is so fuckin' high, my confidence through the fuckin' roof I really ain't givin' a fuck unless I'm paid. Get it? I get laid and paid in the same sentence and it ain't a prison one, and I am one prism you can see right through if you concentrate hard enough. Color me with your stories, color mine, split your thoughts into a spectrum and lay them like a naked babe, smooth as drapes, across my naked thighs for all I give a fuck, coz in the end all I give is a fuck. That's right, Psych 101, give it a try. The lounge is my bed, the session a triple X scene that you ain't seen since the 60's. And if you don't like it you can fuck off. Check the FB status - does it look like I want friends? They're as disposable as condoms. So that's the low down, but it gets me high when I break it down like this and you break down hearin' me speak these words.

'But look - seriously - I ain't no angry guy. You want angry then read Adrian's shit. He's a self-absorbed little swine half the time, but still half his lines are to your sight what coke is to your night with 5 girls standing in the breath of starlight. Ha. But did Adrian get the girl? Fuck no. When I spit this shit it's coz I'm bored: each speech is a soliloquy that takes off like a G6 when I ain't in one, but instead strolling across the quad of my High. My life is so fast that I can be running and still feel like I'm sleeping, dreaming, and that's why my speech is fluent to a certain degree, coz my mind is so blank in between the nights I spend on the sexy streets of Sydney. Putting it simply: I ain't putting no balls in no bitches' mouths while I'm in school so I'm talking in order to keep myself awake. Yeah, I go to school coz I want to learn about Physics, Math, Chemistry: I love this shit. It's intellectual stimulation. But when I'm walking from one class to the next or I'm on my lunch break, like I am now, then the stimulation is insufficient. That's why I'm talking to you now. In the brief time between two fine women. Ha. I run this leg fast, you know. That's why I talk fast. You should live life in the fast lane: never tie yourself down. I know I've said this before but I'll just keep on saying it. You're only gonna end up mentally ill if you develop a crush on a girl and then the bitch don't want nothing to do with you, or, heaven forbid, a friend passes away from some kind of illness. Speed, people. Life is too short for funerals, too short for mourning. It's not your obligation to give a damn if someone you don't know passes away, and it probably ain't your obligation to have friends or even know people in the first place. Sure, you have colleagues, and friends with benefits, and your family but who the fuck needs friends?

'Yeah, I was gonna tell you about some of my bad experiences wasn't I? Wasn't all bad. When you see the look on someone's face when the guy's coming and you know that he's feeling that good because of you, you kind of feel good too. You kind of feel that someone actually gives a fuck about you. Ha ha. Ok, fuck this: let's introduce you to my office, if that's what the conventional term is these days. I'll tell you about two people I met a while before I hit the streets legitimately.

'It's a cold night, the rain strings that whip me, fingers that simply try to touch me but are falling too fast. It's past midnight and I'm standing on a street just shy of Bankstown in the western suburbs of Sydney. I'm standing there for only five minutes before a van pulls over, dark grey like the color of smoke. I ask the driver where he's headed, and he tells me out of the rain and so, just like that, I hop into the van to escape from the rain and disappear from the scene to the rough contours, and deep, sour tone of a blurry, grey puff of smoke. It's a strange office, but it's mine now.

'Meanwhile, on another day, I'm in Campsie, I have a large Biology textbook under my left arm and with my right fist I'm tapping on white door, shiny like a sweet tooth, on the second floor of a quaint apartment block. I can hear the voice of one young boy, two, three: coarse like the screech of the tires of a car caught in a donut. And now I'm caught in this loop: I can only describe an unsatisfactory experience when I mix the description with that of a pleasant one. But the similarities between the two experiences are profound. Anyway, she opens the door for me, just as he did. She smiles, just as he did. But her smile is a little warmer, her demeanor a little more relaxed. But perhaps I only think this because she's someone I actually want to fuck, she's someone I'm actually attracted to. I smile also and walk into what will henceforth be my office so long as I am seeing her.

'In the van the most prominent object is the gear lever, stiff like his speech at first. He tells me about the time he was denied entry into Canada when he was living in the States. He tells me about the contraband he was carrying in the boot, and later about the child he allegedly attacked, about the film of her which the customs officers viewed with suspicion. But first he tells me about some marijuana he was carrying in film canisters. He knows that it's best to talk about soft topics first. I'm a good listener, too good perhaps. I listen to every word he says. We're just inside a small, moving room, and he's lying on a seat, with one foot pressing an accelerator, another resting against a brake, and one hand on a wheel. There is no visible clock. The session will not be timed, and a fee not requested.

'In her apartment she introduces me to her four children. She is probably 35, with a smile just as sweet as any I have seen on girls half her age. When she talks it is not about soft topics but in a manner so soft, her tone seductive, her gaze focused on my face, and as concentrated as the cocktail she will mix. She talks also about soft drugs, placing a soft palm on my arm as she directs me to the nearest lounge with her free hand. She thanks me for bringing the text book to her place and places the token of her appreciation, the cocktail, on the small table between her and I. Ok, I'm a little nervous, perhaps more nervous than I was inside the van, because now it ain't a gear lever which is stiff. And ok, I have no idea whether I am a therapist or a client. But isn't that how all great relationships begin? We are both so very similar, and we both want the same thing. We're inside a large living room, and she's lying on a lounge, with one foot wrapped around the naked ankle of the opposite leg, and the other stationary, and one hand around the spine of a cocktail glass. There is no visible clock. The session will not be timed, and a fee not requested.

'Oh, dude, it's gettin' late in the lunch hour. I gotta be going. You get the picture, right? My name ain't Frasier Crane but I can talk smoothly when I need to. And I'm listening. Always.'

******

References

1 Confessions Part 1 - Usher

2 As Long As You Love Me - Backstreet Boys

3 Superman - Eminem

4 Do You Realize?? - The Flaming Lips

5 Meltdown - Rob Thomas

6 Let Go - Frou Frou

7 Thong Song – Sisqo

8 Fucking Perfect - Pink (to the female)

9 Shut Up And Drive - Rihanna

10 Like A G6 - Far East Movement