Tag Archives: covid

Rubbish stories

Rubbish story 7: Omar & Reggae

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“Ok, let’s be like…Hackney hard boys, yeah?” Omar says, slowing his pace.

“I knew we shouldn’t have banged out the whole season of Big Boy in one night” says Reggae.

“Come on bruuuuv…“

“Right, right, ok…so how izit bruv, all dem clowns in the States be taking horse worming pills to fight off COVID? Makes about as much sense as bathing in pea soup for erectile dysfunction.“

“‘Cause of socials, blood. ‘cause they don’t get out enough, get too much of their reality online. They need to mix up their company more.”

Reggae’s wearing an unconvinced pout. Omar continues.

“Seriously. Like…like you know how you say no one has made a good tune since Ozzy left Black Sabbath…“

“Truth man, but you weren’t interested in no choons written before ‘79 ‘til I played you Dark Side of the Moon.”

Omar is holding a “hold on” hand up.

“Ain’t disagreeing bruv, in fact that’s exactly what I’m saying. You play me Pink Floyd on a school camp up the Akatarawas, I take you to see Shihad at Bodega. We both gone an’ expanded each other’s realities.”

Reggae lifts an uncertain eyebrow.

“Serious, variety of lived experience, that’s what protects us from ignorance. “

Reggae gives a relenting nod. 

“Like that time You and Lei snorted them horse tranquilisers ‘cause Danni said it unlocks your third-eye chakra?”

“Ok ok, so yoof is the wellspring of both bravado and stupidity, yeah?”

“You hear Danni reckons Lei be coming back bruv? Said his grandma died last…”

Reggae slows suddenly, lifts something up from the gutter.

“Ok, so that’s weird right? Why the fuck is this here?”

He holds up a dirty black plastic zip tie. 

Omar leans closer.

“Yeah, maybe leave it there man…”

Reggae suddenly flings the tie up into the bush.

“Oh shit, that could have been evidence!” says Omar.

“Evidence we’ve been watching too much crime drama over lockdown bro. The tie was probably just holding up some Aunty’s tomato plant or something.”

“Do you see any tomato plants on this roadside? Only house ‘round here is old man Monvoison’s.”

Reggae picks up the pace, shaking his head.

Omar glances up to the house on the hill, then follows Reggae towards the skyline.

“I’d looove to catch up with Lei again, blood.”

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Rubbish story 5: William

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An avocado bounces past at speed. I shrug and stop. 

I close my eyes, slip the fresh pack from my pocket. The cellophane resists my picking, fingers which used to be so artful are now cumbersome. 

I never smoked as a kid. “Never” was my byword though. Never gonna have a Jap car. Never gonna let no cunt call me William. Never gonna sit next to a stranger in the cinema after buying a ticket last minute so no cunt would see me going to see a film about gays in a laundry. 

Then that mad, bent Beijing beanstalk detonated it all. Caught me at a vulnerable moment: my teenage years. I’m down the pines, alone. Fade to Black on my ghetto blaster, bevvies in my school bag. Suddenly he’s there, all fucking grins and air guitar. Bewilderment can be a useful state of mind, like mental white noise.Temporarily cancelling out logic and preconceptions. I offered him a beer.

I open my eyes, hold the packet up, unintelligible gold characters over oxblood. Fingers rediscover their old rhythm, I loosen the foil and slip loose a prisoner.

Turned out Lei was more bogan than me, in a weird, canted way. Modding mopeds, throat singing, bombing bus shelters in artful script with his Dad’s paint brushes. I spent so much time with him that Summer I ended up standing up to Dad over Tiananmen Square. That reckoning that had been brewing a long while. 

He gave me a key to his parents' shop so I could kip out the back when Dad blew a gasket.

He taught me just enough Mandarin to impress his Mum, not nearly enough to impress his Dad. He taught me to make peace with who I was. I taught him how to shotgun beers and make a pie sandwich. On reflection I guess I got the better deal out of the skills and talents exchange.

Lei left five years ago, off to live with his Grandma. Old bird was being pushed about by the government. Now he sends me these dodgy Chinese cigarettes every August. I have one each time, then dump the rest with the nearest hard-up street sleeper.

He’s still with me though, in the most important ways. I breathe him in on the days I’m courageous. Out on the days I’m not.

I strike a match, inhale briefly to ignite, then once again to ingest. Then set off after that avocado.
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Rubbish story 4: Dan & Noah

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Dan boosts Noah onto his shoulders as they cross the empty highway.

“Daaad...”

“Yeah mate.”

“Do you think Uncle Kurt might know Darryl Dixon?”

“Who bud?”

“You know, off the Walking Dead.”

“Mmmm...Why do you think they’d know each other?” Dan says.

“Well Uncle Kurt had a Harley and Darryl does. And Darryl has angel wings, and Mum says Uncle Kurt has them too.”

Dan sees the white cross up ahead and lowers Noah to the ground. 

“I reckon Kurt’d be keen on that Noah, Darryl maybe less so.”

Dan kicks a beer can to the edge of the footpath. 

“Ok Noah, have you got your card?”

Noah draws out and unfolds his hand crafted tribute, nodding.

They approach the crude memorial, and Dan frowns at the mess of bottles ringing it, like a white trash stonehenge. Noah’s quiet, folding and unfolding the crayon decorated cardboard. Dan takes his hand.

“Daaaaad…”

“Yeah Noah?”

“Mum says uncle died because he made a bad decision. And he did that because he was young.”

Dan draws a deep breath in and releases it slowly, feeling his eyes start to tingle.

“Yip, aah, yeah. Yeah mate, I guess that’s true”

Noah gives his own tiny sigh and looks up to Dan with an intense wee frown. Which just as quickly melts into a cheeky grin.

“He did do the best mouth farts though!“

Dan help giggling. 

“Ohhhh ho yip, he was the face fart champ alright.”

He lets go of Noah’s hand and begins clearing the bottles and cans from the base of the home made shrine.

He draws a carry bag from his pocket and starts picking up the cans and bottles, muttering to himself. 

“Double Brown. Corona. Wow, Flame...”’

Noah turns and looks up to him. 

“That’s what Uncle Kurt called you. Flame.”

“What do you mean? When was that?”

“On your birthday party. I made stinky stuffed eggs with him.”

“So wait...what...what did he say?”

“Yeah. Like, when it’s dark, and he can’t see anymore, and he gets lost. Then you’re a flame and he isn’t so lost. He said when the baby sister is made, I can be a flame.”

Dan nods and turns away, the chill of tears on his cheeks.

“Yeah wee mate. Yeah. I think you’ll be a really...a really bright flame. “

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Rubbish stories 3: Willow & Harper

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“Fucksnatch” Harper blurts as the bag splits.

“Harp! Oh Harrrrpeeeeeer, chase it!” yells Willow, giggling.

The avocado tumbles down the gutter faster than Harper’s motivation to chase it.

“Fuck it,” Harper says, kneeling to repack the one intact bag-for-life.

“Come on, you’re not going after it?”

“It’s one avocado Willow, I ain’t climbing this hill again for one unripened vegetable.”

“Maybe that’s why we’re being told we’re wasting all our money on smashed avocado.”

“Ha fucking ha, cram some of this in your backpack will you?"

Willow grins and squeezes the tub of salted cashew ice cream into her pack. 

“Seriously though, four weeks into lockdown I’m going stir crazy. Then I read that the government is supporting training, and I’m like, why the fuck can’t I design electric Harleys?“

Harper gives a shrug and pulls her vape out, inhales, puffs out a thick scented cloud of vanilla custard.

“What you need is one of them tech guys, all money, no self confidence. Build em up, bleed em dry, boot em out”

“Mmmm, and how did that work out with Caleb?”

Harper shrugs again.

“‘Apparently there’s more to making a billion in crypto than that boy’s prepared to learn.”
Willow takes a long breath and lets it out slowly, shaking her head. Harper carries on.

“We have to face it girl, we’ll never own houses. We won’t have friends named Tarquin or Genevieve or fucking Riccardo. I got a reading from that Ruth woman, you know, Delilah’s Mum. She says we’re a product of destiny. Fighting it’s a waste of spiritual currency.”

Willow looks over her nails, the worn blue paint, and lifts a lazy yet highly defined eyebrow.

“Do you think maybe it’s the people we surround ourselves with, which maybe hold us back, Harp?”

“Na, you’re trippin’, we’re surrounded by the same damn people. Next thing you’ll be choosing fucking Mima’s fucking yoga retreat over my 50th”

Willow turns back to face Harper’s incredulous expression.

“I just need to...evolve Harp.”

Harper lifts her brows in contemplation.

“I mean sure, I’m all-the-fuck about evolution, just so long as I don’t gotta change.”
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Rubbish story 2: Delilah’s Mum

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I poke the remote at the telly, hitting the power button forcefully ‘til that thick Trumpette Judith Collins disappears. Used to be that politics required a degree of cunning, ‘til the Russians figured out they could pay dissidents in Adidas sportswear to rewrite the results.

Matt used to call me that, before I helped him understand he was better off without me. Or the house. Cunning. The way I see it, there’s an elegant emotional mathematics to it, clever multiplied by duplicitous.

I always let my ego trip me up though. Too happy to crow about how I got one over someone, instead of keeping quiet enough to realise the benefits of my manipulations.

I wised up though, now I’m all about influence. That’s a cleaner kind of power. No forensics. No DNA. It started with the tarot readings. Fascinating how far some fools will go to have you tell them what to do. Then pay you for the privilege. All they need is a little push, and pretty soon I’m choreographing the whole damn neighbourhood.

Whoops, there’s the front gate. Delilah’s home. She’s a good girl, if easily manipulated. Of course I’m pushing her in good ways. Taught her to draw in colours. Blue for those you love the best, red for those you want to be your friend. Green for those you can’t trust. The bad-feeling ones. Each fridge picture is now a coded journal. 

“Draw Mum a picture of school pickups love, all those other Mums. What colour is Mrs Petrie?” 
Mrs Petrie forest green, filthy forest green.

Uh oh. Young Miss is wearing a frown. Dumping her bag to the ground. 

“No picture today angel?”

“I showed Mrs Clugh my homework. She laughed at it, said she didn’t know why I used all my colours. I chucked it out. I don’t want to draw all the thoughts, it’s dumb.“

“Oh love, I’ve told you, Mrs Clugh is sad because her husband is on the verge of leaving her. Don’t you pay her no mind.“

“Are you mad at her Mama?”

“Not mad baby, I just feel sorry for her. You go put your bag in your room. I’m going to have a wee chat to Peggy Clugh, maybe I’ll give her a free reading. Help a sister out, right De-de?”

“Sure Mama.”
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Rubbish story 1: Darryl

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Darryl peers at his murky reflection in the aluminium rim of can number two.
 
“One beer, per idea.” 

This’d always been their thing, him and Kurt. A six pack each, no one gets to start the next beer ‘til he thinks up a new idea.

The third beer, that’s where they usually struck gold. That’s where the giddiness took hold, where their imaginations crept out from under inhibition. 

That’s where Kurt had found their best (and only) pub con, AKA “bent elbow telepathy”. It was the birthplace of meat flavoured ice cream. 

It was at the tail end that things tended to fall apart. The recent Cling Film COVID Mask test had turned frightening as a panicky Kurt had bent double and coloured up, unable to make noise enough to distract Darryl from a five-can piss.

Darryl thinks of Kurt’s very last last ever idea. Popular opinion (popular between Kurt & Darryl at least) was that a duck’s quack was the only noise that didn’t echo. So Kurt came up with the idea of a secret code built entirely of duck quacks, something an invading army could use for covert communications. 

Darryl might have pointed out that he couldn’t think of a single canyon-based Special Forces operation which might benefit from this dark art, but the name of the game wasn’t nit-picking, No, the name of the game was sinking piss. And so instead Darryl made mad-sounding duck quacks as Kurt had cracked the last can of beer he’d ever taste. 

Darryl’s last, high-impact idea was to play rock-paper-scissors to see which of them drove home. Darryl had won.

He remembers Kurt standing on a dirt bank swaying gently in the moonlight, keys dangling from his fingertips. He remembers Kurt steering with one hand, pointing with the other, and the rumbling as the car crossed the median strip. Then he remembers nothing.

Darryl stands alone, next to the old state highway. He peels the lid from the can of Flame, and closing his eyes against the sun pours the contents to the asphalt.

One last idea for Kurt. He drops the Flame can to the ground, stomps it flat. He limps toward home, knowing this last idea might just be their best ever.