The Empty Streets Of My Homecoming

I dash through the house into my room and take two blue biscuits of Mandy plus about half a gram of Hurry-up out of the wardrobe. Light from the headlamps of Mason’s car idling outside flood through my window. It’s raining gently. I rip my jumper over my head, throw it onto a chair, dip the nose of a key into the little baggy of powder and blast the small, white mountain up my nose. Comfort for the long drive ahead. I climb into a coat and slam the door locked behind me as I lope back to the car.

It’s Friday night. 10.14pm glints on the screen of my phone against the wallpaper of Mia Wallace overdosing. We’re moving. Pushing the speedlimit through the empty streets. “Rad Solar” screams from the stereo. It’s Friday night. Bored at the thought of spending another night in sweaty clubs and not on the right vibe for a pub and a wall of live distortion, Mason and I have leaped into his car and are burning to the town we grew up in to visit a friend who’s been spending the mid-year break with her parents. I haven’t been back for almost two years. “I just feel like driving, man.” He’d announced. “Fuck yeah, let’s do it!” I’d roared. We’re on the highway now.

“Are u really comming?!” flashes up on Mason’s phone. It’s a message from Ella. I juggle the Macbook over to one side of my lap, snatch the phone from its charger, spill iced-tea on my leg, type “YOU KNOW IT, SUGAFACE! PREPARE THINE SELF!!” and stab Send. I’m bouncing in my seat, drumming on the dash, rolling a cigarette, guzzling water, skipping a song, ramming chips down my gullet, cackling like a demon and stamping my feet.

I feel a little guilty that I couldn’t share a bump or two with my companion and keep him sharp for the drive, but his license has been suspended once already and I’m hardly going to tempt him toward risking a second. He doesn’t even know I have it with me. I scroll through his iTunes. I see The Fratellis and shriek a bit. We sing “Chelsea Dagger” as hard as we can from start to end and, as the song concludes, throw our heads out our windows and scream “NOSTALGIA!” Rain falls in my mouth.

As we get further from the city our excitement burns less intensely. We pull into a service-station and buy ice-creams and candy. We’re moving again. “Honey Bee” hums from the stereo. I must have travelled this stretch of tarmac from Melbourne to home at least a thousand times. Visiting relatives in Mont Albert at age 6, journeying to spend the weekend with mum’s partner in Greensborough at age 13, taking my brother for checkups at the Royal Children’s, aged 17. Barely a month went by without us going south for some reason or another.

11.34pm glows green from the speedometer’s centre. We pass the sign for Ennis and Locking Road that someone has paint-penned so that “Locking” reads “DIcking”. Even when I was a child I had found it puzzling that they had gone to such trouble, but left “Ennis” untouched. I can’t remember the graffiti not being there.   “40 minutes ‘til Dad’s place” says me, aged five, in my head. It’s not a thought. It’s part of me; a response, natural and automatic. The amphetamine’s waning. I start to feel tired, but I’m raging awake. “Where you boys at?”. It’s Ella again. “There in an hour, chicken XOXOGossipGrohl” I reply.

We’re passing the farm where I spent my adolescence. I can barely make out the shape of the house, sitting exactly 3.92 kilometers from the highway. I see no more than a faint glow emanating from one of the windows. Dad reading while his wife peacefully sleeps beside him. I take out my phone and tap New Message. My brother’s probably asleep. The decency in me suggests going to visit them tomorrow. They’d be thrilled. We’d have lunch, chat and drink tea on the verandah. I’d help dad move a log in the back paddock. He’d bum a cheeky cigarette then chew two sticks of juicyfruit to hide the smell from his wife. I’d play COD with my brother, aged fifteen (or is it sixteen now?). We’d quote Futurama and say fuck way more than we needed to. They’d drive me to the train-station, we’d hug, and I’d be at my house in time for Masterchef. They’d be grateful for the surprise.

12.17pm. Fixated on the phone, Mia’s dull, cow-eyes stare at me as they roll back into her head and blood streams from her nose. I toy with the thought a little longer, already knowing with absolute certainty that I can’t bring myself to do it. I put my phone away. We hit the outskirts of town. Everything is exactly as it was yet all feels eerily unfamiliar. We cruise through the main drag. “Deftones” pounds from the stereo and bounces around the empty street.

Ella greets us at the door. We’re all laughter and good will. Homecoming cheer. We pour glasses of ten dollar wine and sit on her front steps. They light cigarettes, I grind up the blue pellets and cut them into three fat lines. I light a cigarette, we swap stories, talk uni, talk smack, laughing, shrieking, grotesquely happy. It’s heady E-babble. Seratonin drenched chatter. What’s everyone doing these days? Danny bought a house, Hannah’s raising Mick’s kid, Mick fucked off north, Aaron works for Telstra, Hicky makes roof trusses, Mason’s ex is dating Luke (Mason laughs till he can’t breathe, raises a glass; “fuck them both with a shovel!” We toast and refill),  Andrew’s on hard gear (most think heroin) and just a week ago Jimi made his fourth suicide attempt by crashing Cam’s volvo into a parked landcruiser. He emerged unscathed and now owes two people new cars. Fuck all has happened in this cow’s arse of a place.

Everyone with half a lick of sense migrated to the city at the same time we did and I’ve been consciously avoiding them ever since. All that’s left here is the stench of wasted lives decaying and crabs in a bucket plucking each others limbs off as they all starve. We drink more wine. I haven’s seen the stars in months. They stare at me in unblinking accusation.

5.26am. I can’t sleep. I’m wandering through the town. Down streets of weatherboard houses and big front yards. Trees and bushes with glossy leaves spill over fences and hang across the footpath. I see no one. Not even a cat crosses my path. The wide streets are empty and crypt silent. There’s no wind. No illuminated windows. No televisions left murmuring. No cars cruise past. No dog barks. Nothing. The entire township has vanished and nobody in the cities will notice until the delivery trucks stop turning up at Coles. Utter vacancy. Croatoa. Suspension. Total sensory deprivation. If I died now I wouldn’t even notice until I met Lucifer. In these places he walks the earth and hunts out the lost. Here he’d find only piles of ash in place of sleeping humans. No man to beguile, no children to entice or women to seduce. Not even corpses to ravage. Only me. If I met him at the next crossroads I wouldn’t have the first clue what to ask for. ‘Faust burns for eternity in exchange for a Mars Bar.’ It’d make for a boring damnation. There’s no one here.

Welcome home, Matty-boy.
Silence.