Hot February Night

It was hot, I thought, as I wash rushing along Gertrude Street late for my dinner date. I'd only remembered at the last minute, after pissing the day away. I passed two girls with their hand bags tipped out onto the footpath, as I passed them one said to the other, with an unlit, half smoked cigarette hanging from her mouth,

"Me fucken lioghta doesn't work."

I was looking at my phone wondering if I was going to make it on time, wondering if I should continue walking or catch a tram, wondering how much I was going to sweat in the process, with either option, with my eyes on the lights at Brunswick Street ready to make a run for the green man, when I heard,

"Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me."

On the third excuse me, I thought, Oh, I guess they are talking to me. Yes, I have a lighter. I was about to turn around when I heard.

"Ah, he's just a rude fucken dog!"

"Yeah, ya rude fucken dog," wailed the other scrubber.

Yeah, that's the way girl's, I thought. Winning friends and influencing people. I kept walking without any hesitation.

I went to dinner with my friend Kym. She's just been to America and loved it. She agreed the food in San Francisco was tasteless, but said New York was completely different.

Kym found Americans are much more confident and assertive than Australians. I think it's all a part of the American dream. You can be any thing you want to be in America. Thank you President Obama. Where Australian's are taught that you can only do your best.

Kym just wanted to drink American wines and was often offered Australian or New Zealand, which surprised her. Surprised me too, I wouldn't have thought she'd have glimpsed a squashed Aussie grape at all.

"Americans are much nicer in America, aren't they," said Kym. "The people who really got to me were the whinging Aussies and Poms. If something was wrong, let's say with a meal at a restaurant, Americans would take steps to rectify the problem, where the Aussies and the Poms would do nothing but bitch."

I saw Carl, the straight boy I had an affair with, walking through Melbourne Central with some girl, as Kym and I drank coffee with the last of our red wine. Jeans, dark blue Bonds T-shirt, short cropped hair, handsome face, boy he looked good.

He didn't see me. I'd have said hello, but I didn't see him until he was passing by. I was just thinking about him, the other day. It's funny how when I think of people out of the blue, often they turn up, or something concerning them happens.

I thought about that night in the spa, the night in my bedroom when he stayed, on the couch that morning after that dance party in his chaps and wondered why we lost contact?

At dance parties, he used to take his singlet off and give it to me to wear and he'd walk around shirtless holding my hand.

Sweet Carl.