Together they sat with beers at a table by the road down the far end of Fremantle. This was the old part of town and it was the part they enjoyed best. The authentic section that the sun would set behind leaving a sheen of rays about the whole stretch of road and aged building faces along it as if a runway for the orange burning light. The only place you could really enjoy the beer and the town as one unless you drank it down by the ocean, but tonight there would be too many others that way. The heat was close and felt as if it were sweating out of the sidewalk and road then hanging low leaving their skin wet against their collars. Both of the men shined with it in the yellow of the streetlights. Their beers perspired leaving puddles on the table. They sat in the night waiting for its end and they sat in their town. They knew its lighting by heart. Sep had explained to Chase how Hunter Thompson had copied out the entirety of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises just so as to understand the style and art of it, he had the sickness Chase said, and Sep knew that he had and that they did too or were as close to it as any he knew of. Sep gulped a long portion leaving his glass done then motioned up and got another for him and Chase. Both were having a genuine bitch of a time in life. Sep had no work and his girl at home now without him and Chase was facing dismissal with the armed forces if he went too far just once more and both knew he probably would.
Maybe the boat has sunk Chase said, I know many have already for us both but maybe this one has too, Sep considered him, if you mean the writing you’re wrong, Sep said it and meant it, not the writing, never that, how could that ever be…you have that and you know I believe you do and I am really on you to give me some of it, Chase was approaching it and Sep reckoned he was, Sep knew what he was coming to and that he didn’t want to say it, Chase took an even mouthful and smacked his lips for it when done with the beer down his throat, this I mean, this, just this, just now, it’s you and your girl now and you know how that goes and Sep did. It had followed him for days now. This feeling of heartbrokenness that minced with excitement and left you exhausted and vacant. He knew of the sprawl of it and the weight and had seen others done in by it though he was convinced he could beat it. I love her Chase and there is no other way for it, this is what is done, what else is there anyway? You could leave her, just leave, many do it just that way, this Sep had thought of already, no he said, then drank, I would end up dead in a cheap Paris hotel room and you know it, and he had already thought it out thoroughly, that and many other things, always a blur sharpened into a cutting clarity, though mostly on all the other three billion girls out there some of whom he’d had and seen and smiled or flirted with or read about or masturbated over and some he’d never meet or seen and he’d loved others and wondered mostly on that and what happened to the ones you loved and never had or almost had and who he knew had known he loved them just by the glint of their eyes and sway of their voice, what became of the love you lost and the pain that had been and gone with it, you could still feel it if thought about it enough, he knew that, it was different for each girl you’d lost and there were maybe only five who had counted for Sep, by five he meant five whom he was quite sure could feel the pain for him if they tried enough to, individual loss of another aching in a past whose future never came, I love her, it is that simple, there is nothing that simple stated Chase, Sep knew it, knew in a way he was done for because all men are eventually done for in some way, let’s get whiskey said Sep, Chase ushered him to sit while he went for it, so he sat and made eyes for a girl walking by and she made them back and he thought by fuck it’s useless, you can love them and never had spoke a damn word to them, Chase had the drinks and they downed them in swift snaps and then had more this time Sep buying and they were scrupulously spent very quickly on whiskey having at least three more shots each with beers for the burn and then walking along the street away from town and to the beach beyond the old limestone convict holding on the hill. Sep felt he was handling the liquor very well. He felt that mostly he always did this. He measured his gait and watched the road and train tracks they crossed and then the rougher terrain down by the water. There wasn’t a false step he had taken and both had spoken well on literature and football with two conclusions reached, the first that much more Faulkner must be read and read out loud and his life must be understood more fully, he worked with Fante in Hollywood you know Sep had said, Chase adding that Bukowski had told Fante on his deathbed that he was as good as Faulkner ever was, Sep already knew this, he also knew that Faulkner was the greatest drunk of them all, more than Hem or Jack, than Buk or Hunter, Sep wondered in a flash of the work he could produce if he left and died in that Parisian hotel alone and drunk with whores and books and paintings fresh in his eyes, the second point settled was that the Dockers may do well this year if they just had more courage when the ball was there to be won and if they would play genuine football, Sep added that Pavlich would have to be All-Australian Captain and both admitted he was one of the real ones and could kick eighty goals from centre half forward. They both handled the booze well and sat on a bench on the grass before the sand of the beach was below them. The sand under the green of the grass was white. Both were sweating now and the breeze down that way did them well for cooling. Sep felt the whiskey in his blood more when he was sat. He could see the moonlight on the water more than the water itself. The breeze wasn’t cool but due to the heat had an effect as though it was. The ocean and night together were what looked as vast as the space past the moon and out to the stars. Sep could barely make out the separation of sea and sky but for the moon’s light that was a flickering yellow tower ceasing flat with water’s tucking under along with earth’s curve. He felt tired now and knew neither should drive home. He hoped Chase would offer anyway. By god it is hot Sep said, this summer seems to never want to end, he unbuttoned his shirt, let the air run over his skin some, I kissed a blonde beauty just over there Chase, he pointed to the start of the park behind them, she read poetry I wrote of her and we kissed and I loved her then and for a time after but that is so far away and dead now, I think of it sometimes, it makes me so gloomy that I stop thinking, she was wonderful that girl, she kissed like a firm warm heaven and had skin like vanilla ice-cream, she smelt and tasted like fresh milk, when I kissed her she was the most marvellous thing I had ever known and nothing else could matter cause that marvellous thing was kissing and holding and thinking of me, that never dies, it shouldn’t and doesn’t, Chase didn’t speak, he listened to Sep and enjoyed the listening, Sep was finished speaking though, he thought to himself that he was gone, even with the love you’re gone, and what makes it so and what can take it away, there is nothing for it and maybe nothing for anything, the ocean did not cease its coming and going, it crashed against the rocks of the mole and the roar was clear each time it combusted in the dark, are we better off alone? Sep asked it of Chase, he asked it to the dim, no said Chase, I was only saying. That was it then. They went back into town footing across the park and aiming for more whiskey. They wanted to see their town spin and spark and burn out in the morning’s drunken pale light. The entire time Sep wished he were at home asleep near the girl he simply loved. It got worse as he got more thorough. There was no way to explain anything. He realised it as the sun beat back the darkness and converted it light blue.
© 2006 JJ DeCeglie
