A CHANGE IS AS GOOD AS A HOLIDAY 4 page

“Hello, my son,” Fat Nick replied from behind the counter. “What you like today?”

“Chocolate milk shake, thanks, Nick. Extra chocolate.” This was not a code. I had a sweet tooth, and for a long time sugar was the mainstay of my diet. Just being in the café was the code.

Nick busied himself making the milk shake. Candy waited in the car outside. I sat on the stool in front of the cash register, tapping my fingers on the Formica. Nick’s short-order cook, Little Nick, threw hamburger patties onto the grill. It was a beautiful Melbourne Sunday, and I almost felt that I didn’t really hate all the straight families who’d come down to St. Kilda for a gelato and a stroll.

Nick took the ice cream scoop from its milky rinse water and lowered his arm into the freezer. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows in a question.

“A one-spot,” I murmured.

He nodded, no worries, and the day became even more beautiful than a moment before. There were other people, of course, better people, really, but this was quick, convenient, and reliable. Candy had gotten home from a night shift at about four A.M. and we’d shared the last of the dope and gone to sleep. Now it was midday. We had oodles of money, so we could ring Kojak on the pager later. We weren’t really sick, but it was always nice to get the day started as soon as possible after waking up. So Nick’s café was it.

Fat Nick hitched the milk shake onto the stainless steel blender and left it frothing as he leaned down to the fridge door. He rummaged around and popped back up, pulling the milk shake off and placing it on the counter. He took a straw and speared it into the shake.

“Anything else?” he asked, ever the normal milk bar proprietor.

“That’s it, thanks.”

“Two dollars twenty,” he said.

I opened my palm to show him a folded hundred-dollar note. As he took it he dropped the small packet into my hand. It was wrapped in foil first, then tightly bound in Glad wrap. I put it in my mouth, lodging it up the back between my cheek and my lower teeth.

The hundred went into his pocket. He pressed some buttons on the register and pulled out a random selection of small coins and gave them to me. He always liked to make a show of giving you your change. I liked the way I never actually paid for the milk shake.

Among those of us lucky enough to be okayed by Fat Nick for heroin purchasing, the urban myth went around about how the dope was actually kept in the hamburger meat, and how once an unsuspecting (real) customer had bitten into a nest of foilies in the middle of his cheeseburger.

“What’s this?” he’d exploded, spitting a mouthful of meat and bun onto his plate and holding the burger open for Fat Nick to inspect.

Fat Nick hadn’t missed a beat, merely stepped around the counter, swooped up the plate, and ordered Little Nick to make another burger. “With the works, hurry up!” Pulling fifty dollars from his pocket, he’d thrust it upon the hapless customer.

“For the inconvenience,” he said, as if it were a hair or a fly and not seven hundred dollars worth of heroin.

Personally, though, I thought the story was merely the product of the wishful thinking of our small but motley circle of privileged buyers. It was certainly a hamburger I’d like to buy.

“See you soon, Nick.”

I took my chocolate milk shake and walked out into the bright sunshine.

“Okay?” Candy asked as I slipped into the car.

“No problems.” I smiled, balancing the milk shake and pulling the seat belt over my shoulder. “Do you want to go home, or find somewhere near here to do it?”

It would have meant the difference between fifteen minutes and five minutes. Normally I liked to get home and safe, but it was a beautiful day and it felt kind of friendly.

“Let’s find a park,” Candy said.

We drove along Albert Park Lake and pulled into a small parking lot next to a public toilet. Only one car was parked there. I gave Candy the remainder of the milk shake and went into the toilet to get water for the syringes. As I walked into the cement gloom, I heard a shuffling sound coming from one of the cubicles.

Then it clicked. The car outside. The noise from the cubicle. This was a gay beat. I’d interrupted something. I could hear the strange silence of someone trying not to breathe.

Don’t worry, guys, I thought. I’m out of here.

I turned on the tap in the basin, cupped the palm of my hand, and trapped a small pool of water. I sucked up a syringe full. Better from the palm of my hand than barbing the pick on the bottom of the basin. I mixed up the heroin with the 1 mil of water in the spoon. It expanded to about 1.5 mils, which I split into two syringes, each three-quarters full.

I left the toilet block, and as I passed the other car I noticed that the passenger-side window was open. A brown leather wallet was on the seat. What a stupid place to leave it. I looked around quickly. The thing was, contemplation was never good in these circumstances. I leaned into the car and took the wallet.

Candy was busy doing her lipstick in the rearview mirror and didn’t notice any of this. I hopped into the car.

“We’ve got to go,” I said. “I nicked a wallet.”

The beauty of our partnership was that we knew never to be surprised. Candy heard the urgency in my voice. She merely dropped her lipstick, started the car, and drove off quickly but calmly. This was what true love was. Implicit understanding.

I looked back but nobody emerged from the toilet block. Cool. I opened the wallet. Five dollars.

“Five dollars. Five fucking dollars!”

I was a little pissed off. Something so easy happens, and then it doesn’t seem worth it after all.

Then I unzipped the other compartment of the wallet. I smiled and turned to Candy.

“Cards, baby. Cards!”

The trick with credit cards was acting fast—not for shopping, I mean for the big cash hits. Shopping was hard work—a little nerve-racking, a little boring. But to walk into a bank and try withdrawing cash, you wanted to know that card had not been reported stolen yet.

I chewed my lip and studied the cards. Roger P. Moylen. The signature was tough. Smart Roger. It would take several hours to get this one. Most signatures were a breeze, so basic that even the most rudimentary resemblance passed people’s inspection. But some were so full of the most precise curlicues and flourishes that it stood out like a dog’s balls if you didn’t get it exactly right. It took a lot of practice to make that happen under a teller’s watchful eye. We discussed the signature.

“It’s no good anyway,” I said to Candy. “As soon as he’s had his dick sucked he’ll know his wallet is gone. He’ll ring and cancel his cards tonight, for sure. I don’t want to risk the banks. Maybe we can just keep them for a little low-level shopping.”

Unless, I thought. Unless. My mind got to thinking as we found another park and had our blast. Roger Moylen. A National Bank MasterCard. A Westpac Savings Account Keycard. A State Credit Union Savings Card. A Grosvenor Insurance Company Flexicard. I’d never heard of the Grosvenor Insurance Company but the card looked pretty snazzy.

Four cards. How much money? I rifled through the rest of the wallet. No driver’s license. The only other item of interest was a borrower’s card from the Video Shack in Collingwood. Good. A clue. Now if only he was in the phone book, I was in with a slim chance.

We got back to the warehouse and went through the phone directory. He was there. It was not a common name. There were four Moylens in Melbourne and only one R. P. Moylen and he lived in Collingwood.

Time to scam. I figured he’d finish his business in the toilet and find the wallet missing and be pissed off and go home to Collingwood to take stock. I waited an hour and called. A young male voice answered.

“Hello.”

“Hi. Is that Roger?”

“Yes.”

“Roger Moylen?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Um. Look. This is hard.” I was trying my best to sound guilty and a little pathetic. “I’m the guy who stole your wallet.”

“Fuck. Fuck!” He was really pissed off. “And you have the audacity to call me!”

“Hey, listen!” I jumped in. “I’m calling you because I feel terrible. I’m sorry I did it. I’m really sorry. I was just after some money, that’s all. I want to give your wallet back. I feel awful. I feel stupid. I don’t normally do this kind of thing.”

He was softening. I could feel it on the phone line.

“Well, why did you do it?” He was trying to sound mean. But he was intrigued.

“I told you. All I wanted was some money. It was stupid.”

“It sure was stupid,” he agreed. Roger was reveling in his chance to act tough, to expel a little anger. Fair enough too. I would let him kick me while I was down.

“I’m lonely,” I said. “I was hanging down at that park because … because I’m lonely, you know what I mean?” Roger was hanging down at the park too, so I knew he’d know what I meant. “I’m really confused at the moment. I’ve got no money. I’ve come from Adelaide. I’ve got no friends, and … and I saw the wallet on the seat. I just took it. I—I wasn’t thinking. Now I feel bad about it. I’m not interested in your credit cards, and I want to give it back to you.”

“Phew,” he said. Young Roger was really chewing over this one. “How did you get my number?”

“Phone book.”

“Where do you live?”

“Footscray,” I lied.

“All right, when will you give it back?”

“Now wait a minute.” It was important to be plausible. And to use a bit of reverse psychology. “How do I know you won’t call the police? I’m giving your wallet back here, I’m doing the right thing. I don’t want to turn up to meet you and get arrested.”

“Listen,” he replied. “What’s your name?”

“Mark,” I lied.

“Mark,” he said. “You have my word. I just want my wallet back and we’ll forget about the whole thing.”

The real guilt I felt was not that I had his wallet but that doing this was so easy.

“Well, it’s too late now,” I said. “I can’t get over to Collingwood until tonight, and I want it to be daylight. In the open. So that I can see you’re alone. You’ve got to understand. I’m nervous about this.”

“Mark,” he sighed, “I won’t do the dirty on you.”

“Okay, then. Okay. I’ll meet you early in the morning. Let’s say around nine.” I described a park near Collingwood Town Hall. He knew the one.

“Right, then. Nine o’clock. How do I know you’re going to be there?”

I put on my best indignant voice. “Roger, do you think I’d go to all this trouble of calling you if I wasn’t going to meet you? I told you, I feel guilty. I’m not actually a thief. That’s why I’m doing this. Otherwise I could just throw your wallet in the garbage.”

Or empty all your accounts before nine, I thought.

But Roger’s mind seemed to be put at ease by that, and anyway, he sounded not a little curious to be meeting someone under such unusual circumstances.

I got off the phone. Candy had been listening to the arrangements.

“Well,” she said, “what do you think?”

“I dunno. I’m not sure.” This one really needed pondering. I was searching back through the conversation, feeling for the nuances in Roger’s voice. Had he bought it? My gut said yes.

“I think I can do it,” I said.

I spent the evening working on the signature. By midnight it was looking pretty good. The important thing was getting the speed up. I couldn’t afford to labor too carefully over Roger’s fucking baroque trimmings. Confidence and speed. That was going to matter in the banks.

Most banks opened at nine-thirty, but a handful of the central branches—all of which were within a few blocks of our warehouse—conveniently opened at eight-thirty.

Roger didn’t sound like the kind of guy who had ever needed to be aware of this kind of information. Not the kind of guy who works in the city. That was my gamble. If I didn’t turn up at that park by about twenty past nine, then he’d call the banks and cancel his cards. If all went well, by twenty past nine he’d be welcome to cancel them.

I woke up a little nervous. I shaved and got dressed in my scamming clothes: a tatty but neat suit and a conservative tie with some kind of crest motif. Definitely way out of fashion. Dark colors, everything muted and somber. Browns and navy blues. Nonmatching coat and pants. Nothing flashy about this commuter. I parted my hair at the side, the way I hated. I combed it back and stood there looking like just the right kind of Mervin. Candy straightened my tie like the loving wife. My mouth was dry.

We’d scored during the night and used the last of our dope at about three A.M., so I’d had about four hours sleep, but the dope wasn’t exactly out of my system. Enough so that I felt okay—only just—but my pupils weren’t too small. You didn’t want pinprick pupils when you were scamming. It tended to unnerve people. On the other hand, you didn’t want to be hanging out, with those big black saucer pupils like neon signs announcing, FEAR AND SWEAT! SCAM IN PROGRESS.

You had to find the balance. Just the right balance. A little bit of heroin and a little bit of adrenaline. And the carrot-on-the-stick of the rewards to come.

It was twenty-five past eight. I wanted to be at the first bank when the doors swung open. When the tellers were still half asleep. When no one was expecting a scam.

I pecked Candy on the cheek. “Should be back by nine, baby. Nine-thirty at the latest.”

I walked out into the bustling morning throng, swinging my empty briefcase, heading toward Swanston Street. I arrived at the doors of the National Bank at 8:29. I was third in line, which felt better than being first. A security guard came and unlocked the doors.

My eyes scanned the tellers and I chose the youngest girl I could find. She was making eye contact, waiting for her first customer of the day. I was locked into the mode now. There was no turning back. I smiled and strode up to the counter.

“Hi, there!”

I was beaming.

“Good morning,” she said, like a chirpy sparrow. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks.” I handed her the MasterCard. “I just want to know what my current balance is on this.”

“Okay. Just one moment. I’ll have to call the branch to find out your credit limit. Let me see.” She ran her fingers along a list of branch numbers. “That’s the Collingwood branch. I won’t be a minute. Let’s hope someone’s there. They don’t open for an hour, you know?”

Well, this is where I find out if my gut instinct is right, I thought. I tried to make my body look relaxed. My eyes drilled into her as she talked into the phone. Some keen teller was working early. I was looking for a sign that something was wrong. Looking for that confused expression a person’s face takes on when told, “Try and keep him there while I phone the police.”

But she wrote something on a piece of paper and put down the phone and walked back over to me and smiled.

“Your credit limit’s two thousand dollars,” she said, “and your debit balance is currently $1,096.55.”

“Right.” I nodded. I wanted it to look like this was approximately what I was expecting. “So that means I can withdraw …”

She took the cue. “You can withdraw … nine hundred, let me see, about nine hundred and four dollars.”

I rubbed my chin. “Better make it eight hundred and eighty,” I said decisively.

She didn’t even blink, and I knew at that moment that Roger had believed me and was expecting to meet me. Probably eating his Rice Bubbles right now with nervous anticipation. She pulled out a form and filled in the details.

“Just sign here.” She pushed the form toward me.

I bent over the paper and went into a four-second trance. The signature looked fine. She barely even glanced at it.

“How would you like that, sir?”

“Hundreds will be fine, thanks. And four twenties.”

She counted the cash and gave it to me. My stomach eased. I wished her a nice day and smiled and left the building. It was 8:37. I walked around the corner to the Westpac branch for transaction number two.

With the Westpac Keycard it was easier. I went over to the withdrawal slips and pulled out a few. I was happy with the second signature I did. I filled out the other details such as date and account number but I left the withdrawal amount blank.

I was in the swing now.

“Could you tell me my balance, please?”

It was four hundred thirty dollars. I started writing in the blank space.

“I’ll make it four hundred. Better leave a little in there, eh?” I chuckled. I was trying to be charming. This teller was a little stony-faced and she didn’t chuckle back. But she didn’t call the police either.

“How would you like the four hundred?” she asked. It was music to my ears.

I had $1,280 now and it was two down and two to go. The State Credit Union, next institution on the list, was one of those smaller operations, just two or three staff members working there. I preferred the anonymity of the bigger banks to the intimacy of this setup, but there you go. I had a job to do. I walked in and I was the only customer, so all three staff members looked at me and smiled.

“And how are we all this morning?” I asked, as if I was a regular customer. I filled out a withdrawal form again and left the amount blank.

“Could you tell me the balance, please?”

She ran the card through the machine.

“Three sixty-five,” she said.

Again I started writing. “I’ll take out three hundred and forty,” I said.

“No,” the teller said. “I mean, three dollars and sixty-five cents.”

My heart skipped a beat. My head said, “You are busted.” I could feel my whole face flush red and then scarlet. But I tried to continue.

“Ah. Three dollars. And sixty-five cents. No worries. Well, I’ll just take three dollars in that case.”

She did the rigmarole and gave me three coins. I think she felt more embarrassed than me, because she thought I was turning red at being so poor and pathetic. I was glad to get out of there.

There was only one office listed in the phone book for the Grosvenor Insurance Company, over on King Street. I walked through the revolving door of a stainless steel and glass office tower. A display case in the lobby listed Grosvenor Insurance on the second floor. That was good. Not too far down the fire exit if things got hairy. I took the elevator, all mirrors and soft lights. I looked really pasty.

This place was not like a bank, more like the foyer of any old company. I didn’t really like the idea of doing an unusual transaction in a place like this, but I was in the middle of trying to be a man, to redeem myself, to be a breadwinner, and what I liked or didn’t like was hardly the issue.

“Can I help you?” A smartly dressed receptionist looked me up and down like I was a tramp who’d somehow become separated from my park bench.

“Yes, please. I hope so. I’ve found a car that I want to buy—lovely old Alfa, you know—but I don’t have all the money, so I’m wondering if you can tell me what my policy’s worth.”

She took my Flexicard and studied it like it was a used condom. “Just one moment, sir.”

She walked through a door and into the abyss, where Interpol were no doubt giving her instructions. In a minute she returned. I was looking out the window, down at the street. I wanted to get a good view if a police car arrived.

“Mr. Moylen?”

I swung around and smiled sweetly at her. I got the feeling she would do this quickly to get me out of there.

“The current value of your policy is standing at $949.11.”

“Can I withdraw from it?”

I was trying to feign stupidity. I wanted to appear like the dandruffy type. To send her the vibe of an innocent nerd.

“No, sir, you can’t withdraw from an insurance policy.”

“Hmmm. But I need that money. It’s such a lovely car. A lovely car.” I breathed deeply and sighed. “Ah well, then. I suppose I’ll just have to cancel the policy then. Will that take long?”

“Not too long. I’ll just get the necessary paperwork.”

I stood there slightly incredulous that this too could be so easy.

She came back with some forms and a file marked MOYLEN.

“Do you still live at Dempsey Street in Collingwood, Mr. Moylen?”

“I certainly do,” I replied. It seemed like the right answer.

She filled in some forms and I signed Roger’s name a couple of times. After a while she gathered everything into a bundle and began to walk back into the abyss.

“Now, it will just take a few moments to process that check, Mr. Moylen.”

“Check! Did you say check?” I stifled a gasp. She nodded. “But this … this bloke with the Alfa … er, I really need the cash. Is there any chance of cash?”

She was definitely shitty with me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Moylen. We don’t handle cash transactions here.”

“Are you positive? No chance at all, then?” I was really pushing things here, but the junkie in me was thinking, So close and yet so far. It seemed such a waste to get a useless check.

I waited for it anyway, all the time keeping an eye on the road below. I thought it might be a bit of a lost cause, but I had one more plan. Across the road from Grosvenor Insurance was another Westpac branch. I got the check and walked over, filled out deposit and withdrawal slips for $949, and marched confidently to the counter.

I explained to the teller that I’d just received this check from the Grosvenor Insurance Company, and that I needed the cash right away. I said that I assumed that since it was a corporate check, from the company across the road, made out to my name, and since I had several forms of ID—here I pulled Roger’s cards from his wallet—it would be no problem to put it through my account and cash it immediately.

The teller said he’d have to check with the manager. The manager carefully studied my deposit and withdrawal slips, and the Grosvenor check, and the Westpac Keycard. He looked over at me briefly and then, to my great surprise, nodded his head.

I felt like cheering but it stayed inside. It was a time for decorum as I collected my $949 in cash. I said thank you to the teller and left the bank at a moderate pace, but with a spring in my step. It was nine-fifteen and I had $2,232 in my wallet, which was once Roger’s wallet.

I was feeling fucking great.

At 9:25 I opened the door to the warehouse. Candy was naked on the couch, hunched over, painting her toenails. She looked up with a hopeful smile as I came in.

“So how’d it go?”

I tried to play a little joke. I pulled a sad face and shook my head and said, “It fucked up.”

But a smile broke out on me before I’d even finished saying the words. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wallet and showered the money all over her. “Only joking,” I said. We both started laughing hysterically. Candy jumped up and down and hugged me.

“Baby, baby, baby!” she squealed.

She had her arms around my neck. I was rubbing my hands over her back and buttocks, looking down at the hundreds and fifties and twenties scattered around our feet.

“Let’s make a phone call,” I said.

“Kojak or Lester?” she asked.

Later in the day we were pretty fucking comfortable. Pretty happy. Fucking stoned. We were on the couch in the warehouse. I was having trouble opening my eyes. My mind was doing that thing, you know the thing, kind of like zooming over landscapes. Gliding through the ether. Never happened much anymore.

In the middle of my immense and exquisite warmth I pictured Roger, sitting nervously on a bench in a park in Collingwood. I knew he would not still be there, but in my mind it was the only way I could picture him.

Lightly built with sharp features and short dark hair. Blue eyes. A few pimples. Wearing a denim jacket. A neatly dressed guy, with white runners, Reeboks maybe. His eyes scan the horizon. And he looks at his watch a lot. Then he starts looking behind him, left and right, trying to work out where the fuck I might appear from. Hoping I’m running late. Forcing himself to believe in his heart that I’m just running late.

So much of my own life seemed to be spent waiting on park benches, knotted with stomach cramps and trying to look casual, willing the dealer to arrive. Roger was no more than a ghost to me. But it was during my own long waits in parks—they say that if you’ve been a junkie for ten years, you will have spent seven of them waiting—that I began to realize that I myself was becoming transparent. That I myself may well have been a ghost, and that I was haunting my own body, just as the image of Roger would occasionally haunt my mind.

CRABS

Let me tell you about the crabs.

Things were fucked up, as always. But not too bad. Candy had a good job in a brothel in East Melbourne—day shift, the boss liked her, she’d been there two months, hadn’t caused any trouble, was earning heaps—so I didn’t have a great deal to do with my time, except wait for Candy and the money to come home. After that it was my job to get the dope, or do any other drug-related things—credit card stuff, check fraud, whatever came up.

In a way, Candy was like the steady income, the bottom line, and I was on special teams. The bottom line averaged about four hundred a day, but sometimes we had tight two-hundred-dollar days or good thousand-dollar days. Either way, it all went up our arms. Four hundred was subsistence, a thousand was a bonus day. This is above average for shit-kicker junkies, but like I’ve said, Candy had the looks.

Sometimes, for whatever reasons, we ran out of money and gear. Candy would go to work not feeling so good and I would sit at home watching Here’s Humphrey or The Young and the Restless and not feeling so good either. Then she’d ring me after she’d done her first client for the day. She’d dress sensibly—put on an overcoat, at least—and go outside the brothel and up the road to meet me. I’d come by in a cab and get the money. Go get the dope. Have a blast. The world feels fine.

When you’ve been hanging out and you have a hit and get that relief then at last you can think about things like breakfast. A chocolate milk and a jelly doughnut. Buy a packet of cigarettes and you feel like a king.

But I never fucked around for too long in such circumstances because I knew Candy was back there in the brothel doing the hard slog: getting pins and needles and beginning to sweat and touching hairy men.

So I’d load her a syringe and go back to the brothel, pretending to be a customer. They put you in a waiting room and the girls came in one by one.

They’d say, “Hi, I’m so-and-so.”

I’d say, “Hi.”

Then they’d leave the room. It was pretty appalling.

At the end of it, you go back to reception and say, “I’ll have her, thanks.” But when Candy came in I’d give her the syringe and say, “How’s things?” and “I’ll see you tonight.” She’d leave the room and then I’d go out to the foyer and say, “Thanks, but I’ve changed my mind.”

Mostly we didn’t have to worry about this kind of shit, because, as I said, it was a pretty comfortable time. The main thing I remember from this few months is that I read everything by Graham Greene, Len Deighton, and Robert Ludlum. Deighton and Ludlum—heroin helps you concentrate on stuff like that, helps you settle into the plot convolutions. Greene is good at any time.

Anyway, the crabs. One of the hazards of the job. You got crabs, you went to the pharmacy, you bought the crab lice lotion, you got rid of them.

Not us.

Maybe our lives were a little limited. But to be invaded by such predators was a fascinating thing. These were primeval creatures that lived on blood, as we did. Creatures that pierced the skin and jacked back blood and existed for one purpose only, as we did.

What’s more, as a heroin addict I was always happy picking and squeezing and prodding. Monkeys have less going on in the way of higher brain function and more in the way of brain-stem activity than humans. Less neocortex and more cerebellum. At the zoo you can see how happy they are picking nits from each other’s hair. This is the primal business. Which heroin reinvents, as it so sensually overwhelms the brain stem.

That’s why on heroin you can spend four hours squeezing blackheads that aren’t even there. That you wish were there. Not even the monkeys know such sophisticated pleasures.

So you can see how the arrival of the crabs would be an exciting event, like a festival. We all want festivals to last. Through the night, at least.

When the itching gets so bad that you actually notice it through the sense-numbing wall of the heroin, then you know you have a serious infestation.

The first thing Candy and I did was mix up and have a blast. Then we took scissors and cut our pubic hair down to a basic manageable five or six millimeters, a kind of pubic crew cut. I thought this looked pretty silly on me, with my dick looking goofy and exposed, but of course from Candy’s point of view it was all the rage and quite a money spinner in the brothels.

We were a tight team, so none of this was in any way embarrassing. It was microscopic and medical and not much different from watching a good documentary on television.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 559