RuKsaK

My town has two heads. It’s not the weather, but the tourist season which does this. In the winter the ill-afforded, cheap bits of neon are switched off. More than half the shops in the centre close down, and with the outsiders gone the people fold their loathing into each other. Near the sea front, large metal, creaking rides, which carried puking people, occasional fingering teenagers, and families laughing because-they’d-paid-for-it, are all covered up in very un-Christmas wrapping. It’s a town which lives in quiet, seething guilt in the winter, but lives off the fat of its decadent summers. A town with two soundtracks to dance to.

All the town’s money is stuffed in from video games, mechanical, bobbing animals and Mickey Mice, chemical ice creams, crude t-shirts, balloons with 3-hour mortality rates, food for slowing blood down, disposable everythings, plastic toys for leaving on the beach and a thousand learned smiles.

The summer hate comes from this. All these differently accented people, with their kids, putting endless coins into slots and open hands, when you have none.
------
It was November when I stared into the giraffe’s face. There was no way a real giraffe would be mistaken by it. It was more colours than any animal I’d ever seen on television, with a manic fixed grin spread to the edge of its luminously painted, plastic head - suspended on a stick which made it wobble when you kicked it and also set off the sound of metal money swilling in its stomach.
‘Stink – listen to this.’ I booted the giraffe again.
‘What?’
‘Listen to the money.’
‘And what Ruk?’

I nudged the box where the money was with my toe.
‘It’s in there. How difficult can it be to get it out?’
‘You’re fucking kidding right. Someone will see us.’

I looked around mocking the streets for 360 degrees, like a ship’s captain.
‘Who is going to see? It’s November – nobody is here. It’s dead.’
‘So, how do we get it out though?’
‘It’s perfect. You’ve got a top set-up. Your dad’s got loads of tools in his shed and you’ve got the tent where we can hide anything we make. You’re not breaking this world record, so let’s make it into an orange bank for our stolen money. It’s easy – like taking money from a giraffe.’

Stink’s laughing meant agreement and we were back in forty minutes with his dad’s crowbar.

The money box split open easily, but the giraffe seemed to make all the noise it could, plastic tearing and metal screeching. It made us jolt, but of course not a single person was around and the giraffe kept its inane expression. The smell of unaired coins shot up our noses telling our hands to start scooping. We got three pounds in five pence coins.
------
We celebrated with pie, chips and gravy with bits of batter. I huge feast for us and one our parents never bought us or we could afford. With the zip holding us securely in the tent the stench of the food bulged inside, hugging us. We ate excitedly. Getting close to a full gut Stink looked at me with an odd gratitude I’d never seen in him – he was happier than I’d known him before.
‘Ruk – can we do it again? This is great.’
‘It’s was really easy, wasn’t it? I reckon we should.’

Stink smiled at me and we stared at each other for longer than would have been comfortable usually.

With pie filled mouths we made a spoken pyramid of perfect plans. We were hooked, but forgetting our town was a schizo.
------
You can read Stink and the suicides - part 7 here.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Stink and the suicides - part 6