I wear eyeliner.
I make no apologies for that, but when it results in me getting forcibly removed from a stationary train…I start to get a little pissy.
For some reason I often get mistaken for a hair dresser, even the girls that have been doing my nails for the past few months still think that, even though I have corrected them on many an occasion. Comments about how my eyes are tired from staring at a computer screen all day, how I adore their hand massages because as a ‘writer’ my wrists feel constantly strained (and this is not due to being a chronic self pleasure as some might allude to…). I’ve even bought in published articles I’ve written from reputable magazines and asked if I could leave them in the waiting room for their other clients to enjoy (to this day they have denied my constant requests).
One might be wondering at this point what this has to do with another tale of my woe? I’m on my way there. I bought my train ticket at the window (I like to think that somehow this small gesture keeps someone employed – and gives me brownie points in hell). The transaction apparently went smoothly, that is until the ticket man told me how much I reminded him of his wife. She was a bitch and she was also dead. (I’m now a big advocate of ticket machines at train stations).
I ventured to platform 12, as directed, purchased a newspaper, tossed the sports section, and hopped in what I failed to notice was a stationary train. After about 10 minutes of being stared at by a small blonde man who blessed me under his breath every time I tried to avoid eye-contact with him, I got up to find out what was going on and dreaming of the day I’d have my own personal driver, who with the slap of a glove I could fire for such insubordinance…when suddenly I was confronted by a woman who bore a striking resemblance to a brick wall – the kind kids bounce tennis balls against, or as a high school kid you pashed behind.
Her name was Sarah, though when we were at high school together, she was referred to as ‘the terror’.
Rumour had it, that upon graduation she had tried to flee to New Zealand to shack up with some guy she’d met on the Internet. She’d run into strife when, while going through the metal detector she got a little worked up and was aggressively subjected to a cavity searched to make sure she wasn’t carrying a bomb. She would later recall the incident as the only time she’d ever needed help cuming. I was a little scared of her, and to top it all up she was a certified ticket inspector.
‘Well, well – if it isn’t Louie Da Fly’ she rumbled.
‘Barely recognised you for a minute, but then I watched you for a while through that window and then it was just like I knew it was you, cos I had this dream about you once and you were in it and your hair was really short – so that’s how I recognised you cos you looked like that girl in my dream, but she was proper tall and you’re not that tall are you?’
Supposing it was a rhetorical question I chose not to answer. Instead I smiled politely, and tried to get off the train –’Look it’s really nice to see you again Sarah – do you know what’s happening with the trains?’
The storm came suddenly, without warning – ‘What? Aren’t you even going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to? Is this what happens when you get famous all of a sudden?’ (So sudden – I was caught completely unawares…)
‘You heard me! Someone told me you’d become one of those celebrity hairdressers, so I Googled you and there you were and I found your blog…ooh, so now you’re published…but I read it, not my cup of tea if I’m honest, but I thought I’d at least be in there somewhere – but it’s like you’ve forgotten me – why? Are you too busy with all your famous friends and their famous people parties? (I’m going to point out at this point that I was running late for a meeting at an employment agency…)
Trying to ease the tension, I went for humour ‘I’m more of a stay at home with a DVD type gal.’
‘You’re not funny,’ spat back Sarah.
I hung my head ‘I know.’
A few seconds passed with neither of us saying a word.
‘You wear eyeliner’, she stated.
‘Yes, yes I do.’
‘I’m rubbish at it. Eyeliner that is.’
The door was only inches away….
‘It’s pretty easy, practice really.’
‘Teach me’ she asked,
‘Um, I really have to go.’ I responded, like a coward.
‘No, I’ve got a break coming up, we could go to the girls bathroom and –’she was insistent.
My discomfort was growing.
’I really must go Sarah, if you’ll just let me-’
’-oh now you’re in a hurry – you were sitting on a stationary train a few minutes ago and didn’t seem in a hurry.’ (damn Connex!)
‘Listen Sarah, I’m getting the impression and correct me if I’m wrong – that you think we have some sort of friendship that I’m obligated to rekindle – well my recollection is of a girl who smeared dog faeces on my locker – in short Sarah from what I recall you are no friend of mine!’
She said nothing for a moment. I imaged for a second that she might step back, nod her head and let me get on with my life – I was wrong.
‘Can I see your ticket?’ flipping out her official ID.
‘My ticket?’
‘Is there a problem? – If you can’t produce a ticket madam I’m going to have to escort you off the train.’
Ok – so she wasn’t taking my little outburst as well as I’d hoped.
Searching my handbag, I began to panic, when suddenly I spotted the ticket at my feet.
As I bent down to pick it up, I felt a clammy hand take my arm and start to forcibly remove me from the train.
‘I’m sorry, but failure to produce a ticket when asked is an immediate on the spot fine of $180.00′ – I swear she was grinning.
I looked at the little blonde man with pleading eyes, needing his help, to look within himself – to acknowledge that while he’d been mentally undressing me he’d remember seeing my ticket drop from my bag to the ground. Both myself and Sarah stopped for a moment as he cocked his head, opened his mouth and proclaimed – ‘Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?…Don’t yah!’
It was high school and ok, by my own admission my short hair, black Levis jeans, bloodstone boots and Jack Daniels t-shirt had me at a distinct disadvantage with the boys. Not to indulge the stereotype but I wasn’t the kinda girl you’d ask to split a milkshake with, no I looked more like the girl a knowledge hungry high school boy might come to for advice on fisting.
Then came the summer of 96 and with it came the shedding of my sexual ambiguity and out sprung a bonefide boy fancying girl (granted I’d still kept the souvenir of being about 7 pounds overweight, but I wore it well, namely in my breasts, and anyway I was more then willing to work it off with any member of the boys 1st Eight Row team – I had to settle on the 3rds; private school politics).
But the boys were noticing me and I’d recently developed a talent for giggling and batting my eyelashes. As such I found myself being invited to parties for the first time based on my bustling wit and less to do with my earlier approach of ‘you can put it anywhere I can’t reach’.
One such party was at my neighbour’s house on a Saturday night. She was the year above me at school and for a short while we were friends, until she picked up a pamphlet on ‘Bullying, bitching and f&*kwit behaviour’ and became an instant convert. Now there was a boy at this party – Peter, slightly older, less inclined to wash and shave, more inclined to smoke Wini blues and call girls ‘babe’. HOT!
It was set; I had a date with pash rash and passive emphysema and then Jared showed up. Tall, gangly, most certainly a virgin in every regard and recently suspected of playing with himself behind his Cello in music class, Jared opened every conversation with me the same-
‘Hi Lou, can I touch you…get it it rhymes….good times, good times.’
‘No Jared. Shut up and die’.
He’d then spend the next hour or so sulking and then finally I’d feel bad and dance with him and let him touch my wrist.
The truth was though this was high school and hanging out with Jared, well it made me a loser, and at 16 I’d take the potential labelling as the ‘town bike’ over being a known associate of Jared Robuckle any day.
So pulling my t-shirt down and my skirt up I made straight for Peter, he liked short girls and as long as the school midget Katie didn’t make an appearance I was in a with a shot.
‘Hi Pete’
‘Oh hi Lucy’.
‘It’s Louise’
‘I thought it was Lucy’
‘Oh you’re right. It is. I forgot. I’m always forgetting things like that, I’m such an idiot’ (cue giggle)
‘Cool – so do you go to school?’
‘Yeah, I go to your school’
‘Cool’
HOT!!!!!!!!
…and then I could’ve been as in as Flynn, nothing was going to stop what happened next.
I felt heaving breathing on the back of my neck and knowing it wasn’t the good type I was reluctant to turn around, there was a distinct home invasion feeling in the atmosphere.
‘Hi Lou…’
It was Jared – why was he not dead? I’d told him to go and die somewhere. Could no one commit to basic direction anymore?
‘…good times, good times…’ he mumbled.
Something was wrong.
‘I really like you Lou…’ and with that he threw up all over me, and looking at Peter’s face as he ran away I suddenly knew why so many teenage girls killed themselves, oh and then it started to rain.
It’s not often you get someone’s life placed firmly in your hands, that power to decide if someone lives or dies and unlike the time my little sister locked herself in the fridge and I knew the right thing to do was let her out before she suffocated to death, I was conflicted over to whether to save Jared from choking in a pool of his own vomit. Surely it was his decision – conscious or unconscious?
The rain was persisting and so realising I wasn’t going to be getting to know Peter in the laneway next to the bins anytime I soon, I dropped to my knees and picked up Jared’s head. He drew breath, tried to open his eyes and then started vomiting again, this time down my top –, my own personal money shot.
Seven hours later I awoke to find Jared passed out next to me, one hand trying to reach my wrist, the other trying to get down his pants. Quietly I picked up my shoes, reconciled that the vomit was going to have be shampooed out of my hair and made my escape.
That should have been the end of it, but oh no the Victorian government had to be all serious about school being compulsory and ‘you will be going back to school on Monday Louise –whatever happened on the weekend, well young lady you’ve made your bed and now will just have to lie in it.’
‘But mum, that’s problem – it was the wrong person, wrong bed’.
‘Explain to me Louise, when did beggars become choosers?’
I retuned to school, ready for the stares, the whispers, the gossip, the tabloid press, but to my relief there was nothing but by my own admission it was 6.30am in the morning and I was hoping to make it to the library before anyone noticed I still existed, and that’s when I discovered Jared standing by my locker, my vomit covered bra clutched in his hand.
‘Hi Lou..can I-‘
‘Why have you got my underwear!’
‘You left it behind and why are you yelling at me?’
‘You have my underwear!’
‘Underwear you took off when we spent the night together’
‘Underwear you threw up on’
‘Yes, when we were doing it’.
My world stopped.
‘’We did not do it – you were unconscious’.
‘How do you really know we didn’t do it, you were asleep’.
‘Basic logistics idiot boy’
‘I’m just saying I didn’t feel like a virgin when I woke up the next day’
‘Well I didn’t feel like a virgin when I woke up either, but then again I didn’t go to sleep one!’
‘Exactly! Ha! You admit it – we sooo did it.’
‘No, you threw up on me and kept passing out in pools of your own vomit. No one would come near me because I was also covered in vomit and so I spent most of the evening holding you up over a toilet.’
‘Maybe we can just agree to disagree on this one…?’
‘No’
‘Oh’
I watched as he fingered my bra.
‘Can I have that back’
‘Finders keepers’
‘What!’
‘Ok’ reluctantly he handed it back, his fingers now lingering around my wrist.
‘What do you want Jared?’
‘I just thought now that we’re officially boyfriend and girlfriend…’
‘Are you retarded?’
‘I just wanted to sit down like adults and talk about us, thought maybe I could buy you a milkshake?’
‘Oh and then what? We go down to the army barracks and I give you a hand job?’
‘Christ Lou, that wasn’t what I had in mind…I mean after we did it I thought we’d be talking blow jobs if anything’.
I’d like to say Jared mysteriously lost his penis that day. I’d like to say that I wasn’t so easily swayed by milk products and declined his invitation of a milkshake – to be honest there are a lot of things I’d like to say I never did.
