Sushi Central Read online

  212

  Anthony stops the tape. I look across at him and for a second he says nothing.

  Calvin: Oh my god.

  Anthony: Mmm.

  Calvin: That’s really … That’s …

  Anthony: You see what I’m getting at?

  Calvin: … I don’t. I really don’t. What were you trying to …?

  Anthony: Nothing lasts forever.

  Calvin: What do you mean?

  Anthony: Nothing. I mean … Look. One night about a year ago I was up late watching TV. I’d just broken up with this guy and I was in a pretty bad way, and I happened to come across this documentary on SBS. And I stopped it there for a second, mainly because the guy in it was pretty cute, and they were showing all these close-ups of him, like, photos from when he was younger and stuff, then suddenly it cut to that shot of him in a hospital bed.

  Calvin: Okay.

  Anthony: Then I realised what it was actually about. That the kid was dying of AIDS or whatever. And I mean, it really got to me. I grabbed this videotape and stuck it in there because I felt I just kind of had to videotape it so I could see it again, or keep a record of it or something. Because I mean, the kid … That Benni kid. He was so cute. Seriously. He could have been me. Or any of my friends. Or even a guy I’ve dated.

  I make this little throat noise at this point. It’s not loud, but it’s enough for Anthony to look up at me and realise I’ve made the same connection, and he gives me this strange little smile … I guess you’d call it a smile because, in context, I really don’t know what else you’d call it.

  Anthony: He was only, like, eighteen when it happened, which isn’t even that much older than we are.

  Calvin: I know what you mean.

  Anthony: And it really started to get to me. I mean, really. It got to me that this boy, through no fault of his own, just by living, by going out and partying like we all do, that suddenly he had this death sentence on him. And I was all hung up after that. I mean, you know, if someone as cute as that can be dying, if someone whose only crime was being good-looking, going out and having fun, has to die in such a shitty fucking hospital room like that, then what hope is there for anyone?

  Calvin: So why did you …?

  Anthony: It got to me, that’s all. It made me think. You might as well live, or whatever. You might as well have fun. I don’t know. Fucking … I don’t know. We’re all going to die Calvin. Why shouldn’t we have fun while we still can?

  Calvin: I understand.

  Anthony: Do you?

  Calvin: I want to hear you say it. I want to hear someone else say it.

  Anthony: Because I want to give myself to as many people as possible before I’m old and ugly and nobody wants me any more. You know, Calvin, seriously, after a certain point, when we’re not as young as this any more, our lives will pretty much be over. There’ll be nothing left. A new group of kids will come up to replace us and that will be that. Is there going to be anything left of us? No. Not even a memory. So why the fuck shouldn’t I sleep around? Why shouldn’t I have fun while I still can? Because there are guys out there who want me. That’s power.

  213

  Hungry: I don’t know what this was. Insight into Anthony or something. Some sign of weakness, a crack in the facade. I don’t know, but it was enough. I mean, I was thinking about Benni, thinking that, yes, the world was an extremely horrible place and I could totally see Anthony’s point, but the whole time I was thinking how incredibly hot I was for Anthony. How wrong is that? We fucked just after that. Desperate. Hungry. Or I was. It felt like Anthony was holding back. I think it did anyway. I’m starting to wonder if I know anything any more.

  It was raining outside the whole time.

  214

  Cut ahead to Friday night: Cold. Whale are playing on my headphones, and the singer is telling me about her habit of crying at airports. I’m meeting Anthony later, but right now I’m in the city waiting for Margot. She and I haven’t been out in ages, like, in forever, so we’re meeting for sushi. My friends and I always seem to meet for sushi; it’s not like it’s deliberate or anything, someone always says ‘let’s get sushi’ and we all agree.

  215

  My fashion statement tonight: Cute/young/faggy/I want to be eaten alive.

  a) Grey shirt: Tight. With a series of numbers on the front. Like, computer printouts or something. I don’t know. Some kind of equation, maybe. The point is it’s really tight and I look cool in it.

  b) Thin strap of leather: Tied around my wrist. As always.

  c) About a ton of product: In my hair. You know.

  d) This necklace thing: That I used to wear around all the time and I thought I’d lost; and it had been gone for, like, a year or more until just the other day when I was digging around in my room and I found it again. It’s silver. A chain. Reminds me of a time when everything was less complicated, which is probably the main reason I’m wearing it.

  216

  I’m standing by that fountain thing on the mall, arms crossed. Feeling strange. Kind of edgy. I’m still thinking about Anthony. Thinking about the two of us last night. What he said.

  Anthony: Because I want to give myself to as many people as possible before I’m old and ugly and nobody wants me any more. You know, Calvin, seriously, after a certain point, when we’re not as young as this any more, our lives will pretty much be over. There’ll be nothing left.

  If that’s true, then what purpose do either of us have? Anthony, or me, or Mykal or Jamie, or any of my friends? Once we’re old, once we’ve outlived our usefulness, is there going to be anything left of us?

  Anthony: Is there going to be anything left of us?

  217

  The Queen Street Mall is full of people:

  1. Boy in a brown corduroy jacket: With his arm around a girl. They’re both carrying books, like they’re uni students or something. But he has his arm around her and he’s protecting her from the cold.

  2. Girl in an Elmo shirt: With a belt buckle that looks like it’s meant to be a pair of apples or something. I guess she’s waiting for someone. Tapping her foot, looks kind of impatient.

  3. Boy in a chef’s uniform: Or what is probably a chef’s uniform, hurrying past in the other direction. He is tall and has bleached hair and a nose ring, and I wonder if they mind — wherever he works, I mean — I wonder if they mind about the nose ring.

  4. Woman in a suit: Who looks like she might be a lawyer or something. Carries herself like a lawyer anyway. She looks kind of like that actress, whoever it is. She’s talking to someone on a slim silver mobile which looks exactly like mine. Laughing.

  All of these people seem to have a purpose. A reason for doing what they’re doing. I don’t know if I have a purpose. I don’t even care.

  218

  Purpose: Up to this point in my life and in everything I’ve done, my only purpose seems to be drifting around picking up random sensory information and occasionally providing pleasure to others. I think that’s the main one. Pleasure. I’ve never done anything worthwhile. Nothing I’ve done is ever conceivably going to change the world. The only reason I’m here, it seems, is to stand around in clubs and at parties taking drugs and looking attractive. To fuck/be fucked. To take people out of themselves and occasionally take myself out of things in the process. I struggle to think of what meaning there is in any of this. But I can’t. I think about it for a long time and I can’t come up with anything at all. I’m a cipher. All the boys I’ve been with I’ve treated as conduits for fantasies too complex and, ultimately, too boring to explain. They’ve probably treated me exactly the same way. So maybe that’s my only purpose. As a cipher for other people’s pleasure. I mean …

  219

  I suddenly realise where I am — which is to say, standing in the middle of a crowd — and try to snap myself out of that particular thought process. I only partially succeed. It suddenly seems like everybody is looking at me, and I need to escape, get away from people for a few minutes.
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br />   There’s a random stupid stuff shop nearby. The kind that sells imported crap that you won’t need, ever, but it’s all pretty, shiny, you know, distracting, so I head in there. I walk through the shop, searching for something, past a giant teddy bear — it’s more of a panda, fat, with huge eyes and a red tongue that sort of pokes out, and it freaks me out, though I really can’t say why exactly, so I head for a stack of manga.

  I have no idea what I’m doing but I don’t really care. I just want to pick up something, to read it, to distract myself. Even if I can’t understand it. I pull one at random from the stack. I guess I pick it because the boy on the cover is cute and mysterious looking. I don’t know. Whatever.

  220

  The manga is in Japanese, so it’s difficult to work out exactly what’s going on. The characters are all these beautiful, angular creatures, too serene/ethereal to be human, but I don’t know what else you’d call them. I flip through it, sometimes looking at all the panels on a page, sometimes skipping ahead three or four pages. Just to get a feeling for the story, to work out what’s going on.

  Panel: The main character is a beautiful, glassy-eyed, spiky-haired boy who I think is meant to be a famous rock singer. He is onstage, pouring his heart into a microphone, performing in some huge auditorium in front of an ocean of people. Floodlit. Spectacular.

  Panel: Close-up of some girls in the crowd. Also glassy eyed and spiky-haired, screaming the singer’s name, or what I can only assume to be the singer’s name — or maybe they’re screaming declarations of eternal love or swear words or whatever, I don’t know.

  Panel: A plain brown envelope slipped under a door. Sealed so you can’t see what’s in it.

  Panel: Close-up of the rock singer boy. Still on stage, but now he is looking down. An unguarded moment. His glassy eyes are watery and he could almost be crying. I don’t know what could make someone like this cry, someone too beautiful to even be on earth.

  Panel: A whole page — a city skyline at night. Neon, Coca Cola, a blur; a woman’s face on a billboard, twisted weirdly out of proportion, although this only makes her more beautiful; a busy street, far below, and towers, and office buildings, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lights, disappearing up into the darkness.

  Panel: The beautiful rock singer boy standing at a window, looking out at this floating world. He himself is half reflected in the glass, so you almost can’t tell which version of him is real.

  Panel: Close-up of a bottle of pills sitting on a dresser, next to a bottle of what might be champagne.

  Panel: Hotel room. The beautiful rock singer boy is lying dead — or he appears to be dead — on the floor. He is flat on his stomach. You can sort of see his profile. One arm is extended, and a thin strip of leather is tied around his wrist. A charm is attached to the strip of leather. Tiny. Silver. Might even be a raccoon. He is lying in a pool of vomit.

  Panel: Paparazzi. Cameras — flash/flash/flash. Close-up of girls in a crowd. Might be the same girls from the auditorium. Might not. Doesn’t really matter that much. They are crying. Screaming. In mourning. Everyone is in mourning for the beautiful dead rock singer boy.

  Panel: Close-up of another boy. Feathery blond hair. Wide eyes. Nervous/sad/something, it’s difficult to say. He is staring off into the middle distance. Impossible to tell what he’s thinking.

  Panel: Close-up of the blond boy’s wrist. There is a thin strip of leather tied around it. A charm attached. Small. Silver. Looks like it might be a raccoon or something.

  Panel: A plain brown envelope slipped under a door. Part of the corner is ripped up, almost enough that you can see inside, but …

  221

  That’s the last page. It’s obviously meant to be continued. I can’t see the next issue anywhere and I’m kind of upset, but not really, a) because, courtesy of the language barrier, I wasn’t really following the plot anyway, b) because I can now make up my own ending. This fantasy spins off in my head wherein Anthony — no wait, I am, no Anthony — is beautiful dead rock singer boy, and it’s his last performance, and I’m standing backstage watching him, no, wait, I’m discovering his body, maybe I’m the feathery blond boy — yeah, that would work — so I’m the feathery blond boy and I’m discovering dead rock singer/Anthony’s body, and discovering the envelope, and it’s like …

  222

  Someone taps me on the shoulder.

  Margot: Hey Calvin, whatcha doing in here?

  Me: Couldn’t handle waiting around on the street. It was kind of getting to me.

  Margot: Tell me about it. So how are ya?

  Me: I’m all right.

  Margot: Porno. Totally. So come on, let’s get going. I need some sushi before I, like, fucking die.

  I’m feeling kind of sick and I don’t overly feel like eating anything. Still I say:

  Me: Cool. Sushi. Immediately.

  Margot: Definitely … What’s that thing you were reading?

  Me: Just this manga I found.

  Margot: Cool. The guy in it’s pretty cute.

  Me: I guess.

  Margot: I’d fuck him.

  Me: He’s a fictional character.

  Margot: I’ll bet you’d fuck him too.

  Me: Probably. Come on, should we go?

  Margot: Okay.

  223

  Margot’s fashion statement tonight: Punk rock/I am cool and I know it

  a) Polka-dot dress: It’s white, with little black dots on it, and on anyone else it would just look like a polka dot dress but it fits the curves of Margot’s body perfectly and she manages to turn it into a statement of intent.

  b) Thin strap of leather: Along with about a dozen of these little bracelets with brightly coloured beads on them. They’re in deep, semitransparent blues and reds and they look almost like candy, almost like you could eat them, which is probably the intention.

  224

  On the way to sushi Margot tells me that Mykal and Jamie are meeting us there. I don’t want to see them again, though I can’t exactly say why.

  Maybe it’s the thought of Mykal and Anthony. I wonder what Anthony is doing right now. I wonder if it’s going to be awkward with Mykal.

  I don’t communicate any of these things to Margot.

  On the way to sushi, we are talking:

  Margot: No, I didn’t see it.

  Me: I think it was on a while ago. On SBS or something.

  Margot: And it was a documentary?

  Me: Yeah.

  Margot: What was it about?

  Me: AIDS. Like, this boy with AIDS, I mean.

  Margot: Oh. Sounds depressing.

  Me: It was. I mean, he was so young, and he was pretty cute. But that wasn’t even it. It was like …

  Margot: Where did you see this documentary?

  Me: Anthony showed it to me.

  Margot: Anthony. As in that guy you were telling me about?

  Me: Yeah.

  Margot: So … why did he show you an AIDS documentary? As, like, a public service announcement or something?

  225

  When we get to the sushi train, Mykal is already waiting for us. He is sitting at a booth near the back, with a half-eaten plate of tempura vegetables in front of him. He looks up; sees the two of us. Smiles.

  Mykal: Hey you guys!

  Me: Hey Mykal.

  Margot: Dude! How was the party the other night? Did you guys end up going?

  Mykal laughs. We all sit down.

  Mykal: We went …

  Margot: Yeah, and …?

  Mykal: It was fucking bizarre. That ex of mine … Simon, the doctor. Total fucking sleaze. He got us both really drunk and tried to crack onto the two of us. And I was like …

  At this point we are interrupted as Jamie walks in.

  Mykal: Jamie!

  Margot: Heey baby!

  Jamie walks over. Hugs Mykal, sort of. Doesn’t kiss him.

  Jamie: Hey guys.

  Margot: Love the shirt.

  Jamie is wearing this faux-cow
boy shirt with red checks on it.

  Jamie: Thanks. You like it?

  Mykal: Totally.

  Jamie: Urbane cowboy.

  We all laugh, but I’m suddenly thinking about something else.

  226

  Home, home on the range: I only think of it now because of the way Jamie is dressed. A cowboy shirt, with red checks and little pearl buttons. I’ve seen them around, in the Valley; the shirts, I mean. ‘Urbane cowboy’, the kind of off the cuff remark that it probably took him all day to come up with. Before Jamie sits down, Mykal lands this very aggressive kiss right on his lips. People are looking at them but it doesn’t seem as though they could care less. The two disentangle.

  Mykal asks Jamie if they’re going out tonight and Jamie says he has a plan, and Jamie asks Mykal if he has anything, and Mykal says of course he does, and I know that in about four hours both of them will be tripping out of their minds, and by the end of the night they’ll probably be tearing one another to shreds before they even make it back to whoever’s house they go to. The thought of that worries me a lot.

  Worries me because despite how vulnerable and I guess boyish they both look, what’s underneath is quite different: boys who can deal with taking eccies and dancing all night, who’ve been with lots of guys between them, felt strange hands all over their bodies; although they’re so young, they’ve somehow had the kind of lives that have equipped them to deal with all of this.

  I used to have a cowboy shirt like Jamie’s, when I was a kid. Like, even down to the little pearl buttons, although mine had a little horse, though I guess you’d call it a pony or whatever, sewn onto the front pocket. I used to wear it all the time and my parents used to sing that song, ‘Home on the Range’. Where the deer and the antelope play. Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the sky is not cloudy all day. That one. They used to sing it to me all the time. It used to make me happy. I remember a time when it only took something like that to make me happy. The memory of it, in all its retrospective perfection, washes over me and for a second I can’t breathe, can’t stay balanced. Six years old. It was only ten years ago but it seems a lot longer. Like, way longer. I look at Jamie to see if there’s a little pony sewn onto the pocket of his shirt. There isn’t, and that somehow calms me down.