Mark went by train to Geelong to get the grand kid. He was attempting to leave the house at 9.20am for a 10am train at Southern Cross. We all shook our heads. I drove him there in Anthony’s car, after a couple of joints, the 40 kph speed limit is a stoners friend.
Luke took a train to the country to have lunch with LouLou.
We ate at Killeny, in Lygon Street. We all walked there, Anthony, Mark, The grand kid, Sam and I. It was a lovely day strolling past the Exhibition Gardens. I wondered if this was how lesbians felt when they go walking.
Nasi Lemak, all around, it is still my current favourite dish. I’m not sure if Mark really liked it, as he is not really a rice eater?
Sam, Anthony, The grand kid and I played an infinite number of Uno games. It was fun. It reminded me of all those nights up the cottage with Sebastian and Shane and Anthony and Mark and Luke and how stoned we got and how mean we became. Hysterical. Anthony, in part, made sure that one element of the Uno game was preserved, even in the presence of the grand child. We went outside, we were discreet. We stumbled in again, any one older than ten would have known what the deal is. Luckily, the grandson is not older enough to pick it yet.
Mark cleaned up the back garden, he said he had resisted up until this point, but he could no longer hold back due to how terrible the garden looked. He pruned back the tired old lavender bushes and even though they are now, basically, sticks the garden looks infinitely better. Shrug. He cleaned up the paving and finished off the upper car park too. Hands in the air. Grin.
Sam and Anthony and I, took up our positions on the wicker chairs out the back, usually with a j in our hands. Anthony is a terror with the pot, “Let’s have another.” It is the only sentence that brightens his tone.
The grandkid played Uno with Shane and Tulli. Fortunately. They acted like back up. Three hundred Uno games later, we were ready to take the back stalls and stare blankly into the changing garden. We slipped out quietly, once our replacements had arrived.
We got pretty stoned, like the good old days. Why did I give this up, I quizzed myself, a couple of times during the proceedings. It was usually followed by a slip of the foot, and falling back into the chair, as I tried to get up. “That is why, you dummy. Never forget.”
At one point, The grand kid was suddenly on the stool next to me at my desk in the study, I had just broken the cigarette in the mulli and I was reaching for the dope bag, all of which, at that very point, both of us were staring down at.
Shit! I really have to do something immediately. This is not a test.
Fortunately, The grand kid was rabbiting on about schemes and ideas about defeating some, well at least to me, unknown enemy.
“What? Um! Let’s go into the lounge room and see what we can work out.”
I took him into the lounge room did a loop and thought I’d given him the slip, when he was back next to me on that same damn stool seconds later.
“Come on, let’s go back into the lounge room,” I pleaded.
I gave him to Sam with, “Can you keep him here.” Big eyes.
The mother will be pleased.
We ate $100 worth of fish and chips. Sam and I drove to Lygon Street to get it. By then I’d had many joints, and I was feeling it some what, as I eased the little Barina into drive and eased it forward to the Gertrude intersection. I mentioned it to Sam. “Goodness me.” Laugh. “Wee!” Sam gave me that look. But, seconds later, my mind had focussed, and I was scanning Gertrude Street minutely. It is just a change of perspective, when you are stoned, in the tail effects of the last joint. Ha! Ha! I can justify anything. (Ed note – those of you clutching your pearls can now let go)
One hundred dollars worth of fish and chips, goodness me?
Luke got home after he’d had dinner with an old girlfriend.
We watched a special on Bill Hicks. We a cool performer. Such a unique style. Brutal honesty. Such a waste, dead from cancer at 32, I kept wondering what he would make of the current world, not much, I suspect.
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