Dear Miffy Page 2

  But even that day, standing there watching you on the floor with everyone thinking you’d wrecked your back and me thinking I was going to be put in care for the next five years, I still didn’t give a flicker. Not a flicker. Tough guy, big man, that’s me.

  Come to think of it, you were pretty tough yourself—I was kind of shocked that you didn’t cry. Impressed, but I hated you for it as well. I think I wanted to make you cry or something. It’s not like I had this conscious thought that I wanted to do it, but when I looked at you I just seemed to want to make you cry. I can’t explain it any better than that.

  Geez, I said some terrible things to you for a few months there. In Maths that day when you said something and I said, ‘Hey, if I’d wanted to hear from an arsehole I would have farted.’

  Pretty good line, hey? Not original though. Wish it was. Wish I had thought of it myself.

  I never could figure you out, Miff, not for a long time. Maybe never at all when I think about it. It was just with you being so rich and all. No, more than that. Other kids at school were rich. But they were rich without much class. You were rich and you had class. Like, the way you said stuff. You never said ‘youse’ or ‘shut up’ or ‘g’day’ or stuff like that. I couldn’t work out what you were doing in our school. You didn’t seem to belong. The clothes you had, even your jewellery, it was just different to what I was used to. We’re all moccas and tats and shit, you know what I mean, but I had the feeling you wouldn’t have any fluffy dice in your car. Then Georgie told me how you’d been chucked out from some big richo private school. I got pretty interested then. But no-one could tell me why you got chucked out. I was trying everything to find the reason. Then Dino said, ‘How come you keep asking about her—do you like her or something?’ and I said, ‘No way, mate,’ so I didn’t ask any more then, cos you know what they’re like—they get their teeth into an idea like that and they’re worse than vampires with virgins, they never let go. So I shut up fast.

  But I’ll tell you what I did. I never told you this before. I followed you home. I was like a stalker! I felt pretty weird about it, but I just had to know more about your life. I followed you to the station and waited till you’d gone down to one end of the platform, then I went up to the other end. And when you got off at Kramer I mixed in with the crowd and kept about a hundred metres behind as you went down Ferris Avenue. You went left at St Peter’s Street—well, I don’t need to tell you cos I guess you know the way to your own house—and it got tricky then cos it’s such a quiet street. I had to stay way, way back. I was worried you’d go into some house and I wouldn’t even be able to see which one. Then you crossed the road to Moriah Place. As soon as you’d gone I ran over there. Must have looked bloody suss to anyone who was watching. Luckily, I don’t think anyone was. I was just in time to see you going into this mansion. I thought, ‘Geez, unbelievable.’ I mean, fair dinks, Miff: I’d only seen places like yours on TV. I thought it must have been about a hundred years old, your house, all that ivy and stuff. All white and big and them green shutters, and the garden out the front with them roses and all that other shit. And the tennis court. I mean, fuck.

  I couldn’t get that close because I was scared you’d see me, but I got a good-enough view. I watched for about ten minutes, then this lady came along with her dog and she looked at me like I was a used condom and the dog growled at me like I was a kilo of steak, so I thought I’d better rack off.

  But I hated you even worse after that. Just, I don’t know, not exactly because you were rich. Because you seemed like you had everything, I guess. I felt like I had nothing and you had it all. I tried to imagine what it’d be like living in a place like that and I couldn’t even start. It’s like you’re trying to tune a radio and you can’t even find a station. I felt sick every time I thought about you inside that big house.

  That’s when we had that fight at PE. You remember? We were doing netball and I got this bib saying WA and you said, ‘What’s that stand for: wanker?’ and you had one with a C. I said, ‘What’s that stand for: cunt?’ and you chucked the ball at me and then tried to rip my face off. I won that fight, too—or at least I was winning it until Ellis broke it up.

  That was the first time we got sent to Hammond together, like for the same offence. We sat there in the corridor, steam coming out of our ears. Hammond made us shake hands! Can you believe it? What a dickhead. Then that big speech about my being on probation and shit. I don’t reckon he had a right to say so much in front of you. It was none of your business.

  Then, when we got outside, you said, ‘What are you on probation for?’ and I said, ‘None of your fucking business.’ I just couldn’t believe what was happening, that Hammond had opened up my life to you like that. Like, you’d tried to rip my face off and failed, and then he comes along and kind of rips it off anyway. You know what I mean? All the stuff he said about me, a lot of that was real private. I’m getting mad all over again thinking about it now. ‘I know your mother leaving so suddenly like that, and then what happened with your brother, these things have been difficult for you to deal with.’ He was saying stuff like that. Fuck him. I couldn’t believe I was hearing it. If I hadn’t been in so much trouble already I would have gone him, I reckon. But what hope have you got? You can’t beat those blokes.

  Another thing that really got me, I couldn’t figure how anyone living in your kind of house could have any idea about my life. I thought I must have been a Martian to you. It never crossed my mind that you’d care about someone like me. So that’s why I told you to fuck off.

  Sorry.

  Anyway, fuck this letter, too. I’ve had enough of this writing shit. Might give it the ass I think.

  Nightie-night, Miff.

  Tony

  Dear Miff,

  Geez, I feel like shit tonight, Miff. I mean everything’s shit these days but some days are worse than others and this is bad, bad, bad.

  Seems like the nights are the worst times.

  How does it all work, Miff? I don’t understand it at all, not one little bit.

  There’s fuck all to do at this place. Like, there’s a pool table, nothing else. And that’s pretty hacked from blokes stuffing around with it. The computer’s totally hacked. I’ve got my CD but the batteries have had it, and you’re not allowed to use the things, what do you call them, those three little holes in the wall where you plug stuff in? I mean, people do, but you just get in more trouble.

  I was thinking about my uncle and aunt, you know. I don’t even know where they are any more. I don’t care a helluva lot either, but that’s another matter. After the stabbing they went apeshit. You can’t blame them for that, of course. But it’s not like I killed her or anything. You’d think I had, the way they turned it on. My uncle, when they bailed me, he took me back to their place and beat the crap out of me. I mean, full on. I knew I couldn’t fight back, I just had to take it. I mean, he’d been a boxer, you know. Did I ever tell you that? Twenty-eight fights, fifteen wins, two draws, two disqualifications, nine losses. He got knocked out six times. Like, that’s a lot of knock-outs. I reckon it fucked him up a bit, fucked his brain up, but you reckon I’d ever say that to him?

  He really could punch. I had to go back to the cop shop for an interview the next day and I had bruises all over. My head was the size of a watermelon. The cop said, ‘Been in another fight, have you?’ and I just said, ‘Yeah’ and he didn’t say nothing, he knew, he just looked at my uncle and my uncle didn’t say nothing neither, just sat there looking at the wall, and the cop said, ‘You ought to be more careful,’ but I don’t know who he was talking to, me or me uncle. Cos me uncle, he had a few mates in the force, he knew quite a lot of them.

  Bastards.

  It’s not like they were real bad, my uncle and aunt, I’m not saying that. I mean you’ve got to see it from their point of view. They never had no kids of their own, and it’s not like they wanted to and couldn’t, like some people: it’s because they didn’t want any. And then suddenly a
long comes this kid who gets shoved on them just because his old man wants to go off and fuck some young chick. And I know I’m not that easy to get on with. Like, I know some of the stuff I do really shits some people. I know that. They didn’t like my music, and the stuff I wanted to watch on TV, not that I’m into TV much, but sometimes there’d be something good, like that ‘Rats Unplugged’ concert.

  They didn’t like the stuff I did to my hair, and the rings and shit, and some of my mates, Nick and Ali for instance, they didn’t think much of them, neither. For a while they banned my mates from the house. If my mates came around they had to stay outside, like, I had to go and talk to them out in the street. Good one, hey? Did a real lot for my social life.

  Then, after the stabbing, I was grounded something bad. I couldn’t see why really. I mean, it’s not like I was some uncontrollable maniac who was going to go around the streets killing people. I only stabbed her cos of me dad and all that. I just lost my head. Before that I’d been on a curfew of nine o’clock school nights, and midnight weekends, which was pretty bloody stupid, but after the stabbing I was on a curfew of nothing! I had to come straight home after school and I wasn’t allowed out at all. Even to go to the bloody shops I had to get down on my knees and beg. It was like, what do they call it, house arrest. It wasn’t that good an idea for them anyway, because it meant I was there all the time. Every time they turned around, there I was. In the kitchen, in the yard, in the lounge with the TV turned up real loud. I was doing it half-deliberately, you know, cos I figured they’d soon get jack of it, get jack of me, but I think I got jack of them before they got jack of me.

  Anyway, you know what adults are like, they couldn’t keep it up for ever. I wore them down after a while. We had some terrible fights first, but. They still wouldn’t let me go to parties but I could go to friends’ houses, or down the shops, or to the footy. Well, that’s where I said I was going. I think footy’s pretty boring if you want to know the truth, but it was a good excuse to get out of the place.

  That’s when I started hanging around with Franco so much. His mum let him do whatever he wanted. She never had no control over him. And he always had heaps of money so he could buy them little placcie bags. You know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to say too much here in case these bastards read it. They want to know everything. But yeah, Franco, he was good that way. I kept saying, ‘I’ll pay you back, Franco, I swear I will,’ and he’d just say, ‘Don’t worry about it, I don’t give a shit.’ I never got into no heavy stuff, not really, but geez, I gave that soft shit a hell of a workout.

  Franco, he wasn’t that popular, but when I started hanging around with him he got accepted better. So he thought that was all right.

  Anyway, you don’t want to hear all this, Miff. It’s ancient history now, hey?

  So, be seeing you (joke).

  Tony

  Hi Miff,

  How’s things where you are? I wonder how you’re getting on, and where you are, I really do.

  I’d like to visit you, Miff; I’d like it very much.

  That first day you took me to your place, I was trying so hard to be cool. I bet you knew that. Well, I kind of gave it away when I said I wouldn’t go unless it was just us two, I didn’t want to be there with your parents or anyone, couldn’t have handled that. But I was still packing shit. It was sort of funny, because I had to pretend I didn’t know the way, never seen it before etc, etc. Suddenly there I was, going along the yellow brick road, through the magical gates into the golden palace and, even though you’d told me all that terrible stuff about your father, I put it in the back of my mind, because I convinced myself that living in a house like that would have to be like living in fucking Beverly Hills, just everything beautiful, blokes in white coats handing out drinks from silver trays, everyone sitting around having little chats about the fucking opera or something.

  What did get me, though—and what I’ll never forget—is how cold everything was. It was weird to me. I’d never been in a house like yours, Miff. Everything was so, you know, like a shop or something. I was trying to count the number of TVs, but I don’t know how many there were. That one in the lounge, that was about the size of a movie screen. And everything looked so expensive. I reckon stuff like the rug in front of your fireplace would have cost more than all the furniture in my uncle and aunt’s place put together.

  All those old pictures on the walls with their little lights above them like the place we went to on the Art excursion, geez, I couldn’t believe that.

  I kept thinking, geez, it’s a wonder no-one’s ever done a burg here.

  Yeah, no risk about it Miff, your family had the big bucks.

  But a lot of the stuff was fake, too. Like, the house itself. I thought it was really old but when we got close you told me it was built seven years ago and just made to look old. Those plants in the first room: when you opened the front door they looked great, but they were all artificial. You couldn’t hardly tell, but. Then there were the walls. I thought that shit was painted on them, but when you get up close it was only wallpaper. The fire was burning away like there was proper logs in the bastard but it was only gas! Sometimes it seemed like nothing in the house was for fucking real.

  You were showing me all this stuff and I was just going, ‘Oh yeah, right, seen that. OK, what’s in the next room?’

  I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction.

  We went upstairs, walking on that carpet. It was like walking on feathers. More paintings on the walls. You know which one I liked but, don’t you? That great big one with the clouds all rolled back and the angels and shit. Pretty corny, but who cares? Whatever turns you on, I reckon.

  Well, I know what really turned me on, and that was you in your bedroom. Don’t think I’ll write about that, but; I don’t want to cream me PJs, I got a clean pair on tonight. I’ll write about your bedroom instead. Pretty nice room, Miff! Good views. Geez, you can see the city and right across to the bay. And it’s so big, your room I mean. When I was going out with Becky I spent a bit of time in her room, just an hour or two here and there, don’t get the wrong idea, but it was kind of different to yours. She had magazine pictures stuck on her walls, and cheap old furniture that rocked every time you touched it, and perfume that smelled like that plastic shit you hang up in toilets. She had a mirror that was all blotchy and the ceiling was fuzzy with mould and the bed was so soft in the middle it was like sleeping in a sponge.

  Not that I’d know what the bed was like, of course.

  Your room, everything in it matched, that’s what got me. Like, the flowers on the wallpaper matched the leaves on the doona, and the gold in the carpet matched the edges of the doona and the curtains, just everything matched.

  I’ll say one thing for myself, Miff, I’m observant. I notice all that stuff. I even noticed how the clock had those little rose things twirling around it. I mean, it was all kind of square, old-fashioned, but geez it was nice, Miff. It got to be my favourite place in all the world, the only place where I felt a bit of peace, you know what I mean?

  Bloody different from my bedroom here.

  You know, sometimes I wish we’d gotten on with each other a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to spend more time with you. We only had three months when we got on, a bit less really, and four months fighting. I wish it had been the other way around, at least. Geez, we wasted those four months, didn’t we? Ripping into each other. I didn’t understand you then. I didn’t try to understand you. It took me a long time to figure out what the deal was with you and why you were the way you were. Pretty dumb, hey? But you didn’t give me a lot of help. You didn’t give anyone a lot of help. I thought you were just too big a snob to bother with scum like me.

  See, everyone thought I was scum, Miff—at least they treated me like they did. Just everyone. Geez, I’m getting sorry for myself now, but I can’t help it. As long as I don’t cry. You don’t cry in here. I just felt like everyone was putting shit on me, every chance t
hey got. My uncle and aunt, it’s like they just waited for me to make a mistake. It was like they wanted me to make mistakes. Didn’t matter what it was—a drip of tomato sauce on the floor, getting in late from a movie, a pack of ciggies in my pocket. They were out to bust me. It was like living with a couple of cops, I reckon.

  And speaking of cops, the pigs were out to put shit on me, too. Geez, they made it hard. Like, before I did that terrible thing to me dad’s girlfriend they’d pulled me up a few times. After that but, when I was on bail, they must have all known me then, because once my uncle and aunt let me go out again the cops stopped me every bloody day. Well, just about. Fair dinkum, it was no joke. They never beat up on me or nothing, like they’ve done to some of me mates, but they just hassle you. And they try to scare you. They make all these threats about how they’re going to get you. And how they’re going to make sure you get put away and how you’re going to get the shit beaten out of you, and raped and stuff, once you’re in there. And there’s no way I was gonna let them know they were getting to me, but they were.

  So I was getting it on the streets, getting it at my uncle and aunt’s, and if that wasn’t enough, I was getting it at school, from the teachers. And, geez, was I getting it there. Once they heard about me getting charged, I was like the worst mother-fucker in the whole place. Hammond, I reckon he followed me round the school trying to pick me. Funny though, the worst stuff wasn’t him giving me dets and sending letters home and putting me on report and stuff. The worst thing was the bullshit he kept hanging on me about what a failure I was. You know, ‘Great future for you, Tony, you’ll be in jail by the time you’re eighteen,’ ‘You’ve got no hope, son—you tell me what kind of employer’d take someone like you.’