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  I comb the place — unsuccessfully — for any drugs I might have had and forgotten about. There are two pills in one of those foil wrappers on the floor of my parents’ room. I’m fairly certain my mum’s addicted to Prozac, but these don’t look like Prozac. I don’t know what they are, but I figure they’re probably not anything exciting. I leave them where they are. Continue to comb the house but come up with nothing. I’m upset at first. Then again, if I’d found anything I probably wouldn’t have done it. Whenever I don’t have any drugs handy, I get this overwhelming urge to find some, but whenever I take anything I always find myself thinking, Jeez, I wish I hadn’t done that. Tricky situation. Well, okay, it’s not really.

  When I’m done combing the house, I get the urge to put on that particular Strokes album to remind me of Liam, but I can’t find it anywhere. I go to the kitchen for some cold water, and as I’m standing by the window drinking it, I stare out at the pool. It looks cool and vaguely inviting; I wonder what it would be like to jump in there with my school uniform and my shoes and socks and everything on, and I actually seriously consider it for about an eighth of a second, then I think better of it. I rinse my glass and go back to the living room. My Strokes CD is sitting on top of the stereo. I don’t know why I didn’t think to look there. Now I’ve found it, funnily enough, I don’t want to listen to it any more.

  70

  Brunette boy: You should have just played that CD.

  Me: No I shouldn’t.

  Brunette boy: You’re fucked up. You shouldn’t be obsessing over Liam like this. He doesn’t care about you. Believe me. He never wants to see you again.

  Me: I guess.

  Brunette boy: So, fucking, enough with the obsessional neurosis, okay? It’s boring. That’s the worst thing you can be Calvin. Boring.

  Me: What’s that, your philosophy?

  Brunette boy: Fucking hell yeah.

  Me: So what do you suggest?

  Brunette boy: You’re boring Calvin. And you’re obsessive. You’d have more fun if you were like me.

  Me: You’re a figment of my imagination.

  Brunette boy: I don’t obsess like you Calvin. I just do. I’m young and I’m hot and that’s all that matters. Life’s much more fun when you don’t think about it.

  Me: You really think so?

  Brunette boy: Just take a look at me Calvin. I’m fun. Guys want me Calvin. Lots of guys. Check me out; check out me and Jeremy … The shit we got up to. We did that because people wanted us. Because we were fucking hot.

  Me: So what? I mean, what was it like?

  Brunette boy: What was it like? Well we were two hot guys kissing each other and going down on each other and we didn’t care who was there to see it. We knew how good-looking we were. There was some guy with a camera; we were driving him fucking wild. That’s all that mattered. That’s what it was like.

  Me: You make it sound easy.

  Brunette boy: You wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t be able to be wanted like that. You’re too boring Calvin. Too safe. You don’t know how to let go.

  Me: Let go of what?

  Brunette boy: Let go of yourself.

  71

  I consider combing the house again, in case there are any drugs around that I might have missed the first time, then decide against it. On the stereo Julian Casablancas is telling me that he wants to steal my innocence. Understandable really. I go online. Maybe one of my friends will be on, hopefully with something interesting to do tonight. Go into IRC. That’s where I see Dean.

  72

  It’s not like I know Dean especially well. He’s four years older than I am, and he’s doing commerce or something at uni. He told me but I don’t remember. We met on the net a while ago. Spent a few very late nights chatting about movies and bands and guys we’d like to fuck and the coolest coffee shops in Brisbane etc, and flirting in a roundabout sort of a way. I sent him a photo of me and though he was surprised at how young I looked, he said I was kind of hot. That shouldn’t have made me feel good but it did. It’s not as though I’m shallow or anything but, like … I need reassurance. When it comes to myself, my looks, abilities, etc, I need things verified for me before I can believe them.

  For purposes of continuity, I should perhaps explain what I mean at this point. When I was fourteen or something I had a real thing about being, like, wanted, if you have any idea what I mean. I don’t know why exactly. Let’s just say I’m totally incapable of believing anything worthwhile about myself until I hear it from someone else. Point was that at fourteen I was just this ball of self-doubt, teen angst etc, all the normal fourteen-year-old things, and I needed someone to prove to me that I was attractive, that I was wanted.

  In the spirit of this, I would seek out quote-unquote ‘challenging’ guys. Dean was a case in point. They’d tell me how good-looking I was, how much they wanted me etc, and it wasn’t even what they said that made it worthwhile, it was the fact that I could do it in the first place. The fact that there were people out there who wanted to take me and pin their fantasies on me meant I was worth pinning fantasies on. I mean, you wouldn’t go out of your way to be with someone if you thought they weren’t worth the effort, would you? Fuck no. So you can see how this would all make sense.

  It made a lot of sense to me at the time anyway.

  73

  So yeah. Dean and I went out a couple of times. The eighteen-fourteen age difference wasn’t really that extreme but it was enough to keep me interested and give the whole situation a kind of meaning or context or (for me at least) ‘literary value’ or whatever. Nothing much happened. He told me I was cute, and he wanted to sleep with me, and we almost did it at one point — we’d just finished sucking one another off and he suddenly moved really close to me and I realised what was going to happen, that this would put me in the club, but I had this big freak-out and we didn’t. I told him it was nothing to do with him, which it wasn’t, it was just that I was really kind of unstable at the time. More so than now. If that’s possible. Anyway, Dean and I kept in contact over the net, although I haven’t really seen him much over the last couple of months. We’re still friends.

  I think.

  74

  sweet*Prince: hey Dean

  pure)(morning: Calvin! how the fuck are you?

  sweet*Prince: I’m okay, sort of bored. single. wasting my young life. you know.

  pure)(morning: hehhe. I do.

  pure)(morning: hey dude, there was a pic of you in one of those street press mags last week! ya see it?

  sweet*Prince: shit. no. which magazine?

  pure)(morning: oh man. one of them … one of the gay ones. I forget. but anyway, it was in the back section. you know where they have all those pictures of people who’ve been out clubbing.

  sweet*Prince: yeah …

  pure)(morning: it was a pic of you and some girl. you looked pretty cute.

  sweet*Prince: fuck. um. I don’t even know when that would have been taken. I was out with Margot a couple of fridays ago. might have been then.

  sweet*Prince: fuck. I really hope nobody else saw it.

  pure)(morning: it was a pretty good pic. you looked hot.

  sweet*Prince: yeah, but still. I fucking hate those magazines. I’m too scared to even pick em up any more.

  pure)(morning: why? scared of seeing someone you know?

  pure)(morning: an *ex* ?

  sweet*Prince: probably

  sweet*Prince: … I’m probably scared to see myself.

  pure)(morning: oh

  sweet*Prince: shit. I hope nobody I know saw that picture.

  pure)(morning: it was only a small one.

  sweet*Prince: doesn’t matter.

  sweet*Prince: so how about you? how’s uni going?

  pure)(morning: it’s okay. I’m still there, put it that way.

  pure)(morning: … hey Calvin, you doing anything tonight?

  sweet*Prince: not really, you have something in mind?

  pure)(morning: yeah. well, nothing too e
xciting. just some friends coming around. we’ll probably just get drunk or high or whatever then go out into the Valley or something. want to come?

  sweet*Prince: sounds good.

  sweet*Prince: who else is going to be there?

  pure)(morning: just some uni friends. just whoever’s around. rock up to my place anytime soon.

  75

  After Dean goes offline I click on jpeg number six to open it again. I stare into his eyes for a really long time.

  Brunette boy: You’re really taking this obsession with me to a whole new level. I’m impressed.

  Me: Sorry.

  Brunette boy: Don’t apologise. I think it’s kind of cool.

  Me: Okay. Yeah.

  Brunette boy: You know I’m just a series of dots on a screen?

  Me: Yeah, well, I’m fully aware of that. Sorry if I’m being kind of … you know … weird about this.

  Brunette boy: That’s okay. I like weird.

  Me: Really?

  Brunette boy: Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?

  Me: Maybe you’re just saying it because you’re a figment of my imagination.

  Brunette boy: What is imaginary?

  Me: What do you mean?

  Brunette boy: Just because I’m in your head, does that make me any less real? I’m still a part of you.

  Me: I guess.

  Brunette boy: I am. I’m basically just your desires and neuroses reflected back at you.

  Me: Well that’s great, but can you, you know, stop?

  Brunette boy: I can be whatever you want me to be. I’m in your head.

  Me: Whatever. I’m bored of this.

  76

  I’m trying to decide what to wear tonight. There’s the shirt with ‘Brain Dead Body Still Rockin’ ’ printed on the front. Margot and I found it in one of those shops in the Valley not so long ago. It looks cool, and it looks good on me, but I was wearing it that night with Liam, so I don’t know. The girl singing on the stereo assures me that she is open to falling from grace. I wonder whether or not I believe her.

  There’s this orange shirt. Button-up. Very tight. I like it.

  I try on both the red one and the orange one. Then this white ‘I LOVE NEW YORK’ shirt that my parents bought be when we were over there two years ago. When I was fourteen.

  77

  Me: Which one should I wear?

  Brunette boy: What are the choices?

  Me: This red one here, or the button-up one. Or the ‘I LOVE NEW YORK’ one.

  Brunette boy: Don’t wear that one. It’s stupid.

  Me: I guess.

  Brunette boy: Unless you’re wearing it as some kind of, you know, ‘ironic’ statement or whatever.

  Me: I wouldn’t be.

  Brunette boy: Then don’t wear it.

  Me: Okay, I guess so. I don’t know why I got my parents to buy that shirt for me in the first place.

  Brunette boy: I’d go with the red one.

  Me: You think? I don’t know. I think it’s kind of slutty.

  Brunette boy: That’s the point. I mean, you look hot in it. That’s all that matters.

  Me: Really?

  Brunette boy: Of course. I mean, okay, think about tonight. A hot guy’s checking you out from across the room. He’s not thinking about how much he wants to sleep with your personality, is he?

  Me: I guess not. But I mean …

  Brunette boy: Okay Calvin. Think of it this way. What was it, specifically, that attracted you to me?

  Me: The way you looked in those photos. You were hot.

  Brunette boy: Exactly. And it was only after you saw how hot I was that you started building a personality for me, wasn’t it?

  Me: I guess so.

  Brunette boy: It was only after that I became interesting or worthy of consideration, wasn’t it?

  Me: I guess so.

  Brunette boy: Totally. So you see. You can dress it up as much as you want, but ultimately, in that particular equation, good looks were the most important thing. I was fucking hot, wasn’t I?

  Me: Okay, yeah, you were.

  Brunette boy: There’s only so long you can play this ‘blissfully unaware’ role Calvin. Everything’s about sex, everything’s about good looks, and you fucking know it.

  Me: I guess you’re right.

  Brunette boy: So in the spirit of that, the sluttier the better, you know? Fucking wear the red shirt. You’ll be glad you did.

  Me: Well, okay. Is it the kind of thing you’d wear?

  Brunette boy: Fucking totally Calvin.

  78

  I decide to go with the red shirt.

  Brain Dead Body Still Rockin’.

  79

  I walk to my bedroom window, look at the rooftops of the houses nearby. In the grey afternoon it looks warm, serene. It reminds me of a book I had when I was a little kid — this village, somewhere in Europe, Finland or something, somewhere in the valley, with a bay, and the winters there were freezing cold but nobody cared because they had warm houses and fireplaces, and there was this one little creature, the Snuff-kin or something, and he curled up in this boat for the winter, and I remember I always thought that was incredibly cool, I wanted to be like that, and I’d curl up and pretend I was in a boat, under the canvas cover, and it would be cold outside but it wouldn’t even matter because I’d be so warm. I try to think what those books were called but I totally can’t remember, which starts to bug me in a way I can’t even explain, and I walk away from the window.

  80

  Suburban noir. I don’t know what else you’d call it. One of those late afternoons at the beginning of winter, when the familiar takes on this whole different look. Difficult to describe, but it’s in the overcast sky, the streetlights as they start to come on; in the way the tree branches hang low over the streets; in the cold air, and the eyes of all the people around you. It’s like there’s this whole other world just waiting to emerge as soon as night falls. Brisbane, the winter nights are like a whole different country here. You get the feeling that anything at all could happen.

  The moon has already risen, too early for night. There’s this faint impression of it against sky, like a bleach stain or something. It looks quite beautiful, the kind of thing I’d stop and stare at for ages if I wasn’t … distracted.

  I left a note for my parents telling them I was going out with friends. I don’t even know why I bothered doing that. Now I’m on the bus from my parents’ big, safe house in Albany Creek to Dean’s outpost of share-house bohemia in Windsor. The two might as well be on different planets.

  I have my headphones on; sitting near the back and staring out the window at the houses and the cars as they go by in the growing dark. I’m thinking about a lot of things at once; my mind is always vaguely scrambled, and my thoughts travel too quickly to ever pin down exactly what it is I’m thinking about at any particular moment. At the moment, I’m thinking about five things at once. They are, in descending order:

  5. The brunette boy from the net.

  4. Wondering about this couple, a guy and a girl, who were waiting, safe in the faint glow of a streetlight, as the bus slowed to pick them up. It seemed from the expressions on their faces, the way they were staring at each other, that they might as well be the only two people in the world. He whispered something into her ear and he laughed. An honest kind of a laugh. I’m wondering what he said; wondering if I’ll ever be able to feel that way with anyone. Really safe, I mean, and contented.

  3. Wondering, if I ever do find that guy, whether if he’ll feel the same re me.

  2. Wondering how tonight will turn out, with the Valley and everything else. I’m not eighteen, and I’m too short and probably too small to pass for eighteen, but you can get into all sorts of places if you want to.

  1. Wondering about the music I’m listening to. My discman. Vacant-pretty-sexy-nasty electronic music. I’m wondering what the singer was thinking when she sang about drowning, and forty days of one-night stands. Wondering if she felt t
he same as I did, though probably not.

  These thoughts circle around and play over in a continuous loop until we’re somewhere in Windsor, near Dean’s house. The bus stops just near an intersection; I get up and as I’m walking towards the door, I notice the guy who got on earlier. He has his arm around the girl; she’s looking out the window and he’s looking in my direction. We make eye contact for about an eighth of a second, then he looks away again. His expression is unreadable; I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking about, if he’s thinking anything at all.

  81

  Dean’s house is at the crest of the hill. I can see the tops of the buildings as I walk towards it, but as I draw closer, the city comes more and more into view. When I reach the top, suddenly the whole of the cityscape has unfolded, and I see the buildings, the cars, the thousands upon thousands of lights glowing and flickering like fireflies. For that fraction of a second, seeing the buildings and the lights stretched out for what seems like forever shuts out all my other thoughts. For that fraction of a second I am five years old again.

  It’s a night a long long time ago, in a park just near our house, I think it must be a party, though I don’t remember exactly. Memory is always elusive, and parts of the night have vanished altogether, but I remember the important things. I remember the music; the cold air. It’s so cold I can see my breath, and my father’s because I’m sitting on his shoulders, and all around me there are lights, brighter than any I’ve ever seen before. The lights are in the trees, and every tree in the park is strung with what seems like thousands and thousands of them. To me, at the time, it seemed like the lights could have covered the whole world. It was something magical, something I would never even have dreamed, and I remember the feeling of it was almost more than I could take. I was overwhelmed. Happy.

  For a second, as I’m staring, hypnotised, at the lights, I’m a little kid again, and the events of the intervening years have never happened. There is nothing of my parents’ coldness, or the gap that has slowly opened between us. Nothing of the secrets. Nothing of the drinks or the pills, nothing of the boys or the ‘promise to call you’ and ‘promise not to cum in your mouth’, the staying out at night or the crawling home in the morning. And as those things which have been buried, half forgotten, begin to come back to me, they bring a sadness with them. The kind of sadness that seems so clear, the truth of it can make you double over, suck all the air right out of you. The lights make me remember a time when I was still sheltered from the world. When I could sit on my father’s shoulders and I know that while I was there, nothing at all could hurt me.