Red Jacket

To the scruffy gentleman selling the Big Issue magazines in the Monash Campus Centre: You are a genius.  Exploiting the generosity of left wing students who are too young to have a mortgage or develop the belief that ‘hard work pays off and by extension you didn’t work hard’ but too old to have their pocket money still in silver, is genius.  Everything about you is genius.  You stood there looking solemn, not speaking but expecting a donation none the less.  These kids, wearing bows in their hair and sparkles in their eyes donate their spare change to you to read your piece of shit magazine.  Then they run to their parents and ask for more change to buy sushi and coffee; they are regular Robin Hoods. 

I was watching you yesterday.  I was on a table in the food court area.  Between sips of coffee and mouthfuls of sushi I watched you.  Standing there looking solemn, you knew you had the wool over their eyes.  When you finish your nine to five shifts, I bet you erect your spine, get in your car and go home.  Your wife is probably waiting at the door with your two children, wearing one of those aprons that fray out.  The smell of dinner radiates from the kitchen, a roast no doubt.  One day, your children will grow up and ask you for money.  Make sure you take them to the beach with some rice instead.  Buy an avocado tree and salmon at the market.

Tuesday: 11am, I sat at the same table.  You with your red jacket made of that fabric that suits the rain, were standing not twenty metres from me.  Your face was worn like you spent your winters in the snow.  With two hands gripping tightly, you presented your magazine to the public. Like a self conscious writer who had writing a novel they knew was shit but had spent too much time to not reveal it: desperate.  Students walked passed like a conveyer belt, an assembly line. They assembled an assortment of gold and silver, payed for the magazine and then embarked on a journey.  Most did anyway, not the truly proud ones!  I saw students, walk up, pay the three dollars fifty for their salvation and your child’s future sushi , and immediately strip naked and fuck on the floor. 

Adam and Eve were fucking on the floor in front of me but their guilt had been saved by a glossy publication.  The Big Issue served not only as toilet reading material but it made a handy sheet to lye on.  Students frantically ripped sheets from the stapled binding and layed them on the floor to protect their backs and paws from the grime of where their previously dirty (now clean and sacred) feet once trod.  They gave each other guiltless pleasure and their smiles were permanent.  You tiptoed between the makeshift mattresses to sell more smut! You pretended not to notice them! You pretended not to perve as I perved!  You genius you, in your waterproof jacket that apparently protected you from rain, strong winds and responsibility.  I envied you entirely.

Five coffees down my palms began to sweat and my face felt unclean; this was no doubt aided by the steamy atmosphere created by an ever-increasing amount of couples fucking on the floor.  I knew for sure the intoxication you were providing.  Cheap thrills, the cheapest brothel, the cheapest night out away from Chapel.  Buy your magazine and fornicate to your heart’s content! You provided a new form of procrastination for the expert student.  Your red jacket changed to a beautiful red suit jacket and your silver hair turned to a top hat.  Carrying a cane and humming circus tunes you gathered all the whores, players, idiots, bigots and bandits to your corner of the university campus centre; affectionately named “The Meeting Point” .  People were getting high on a new drug called guiltlessness.  They were popping it twice daily, before their first class and after their last; in conjunction with their medication to accommodate other deficits. 

Wednesday: 11am.  The whole university had gathered at the Meeting Point.  I was providing the only business to the coffee shop and occasionally I bought some chicken from that weird shop with the bright yellow walls.  The chicken was about three dollars and I cant deny that I thought about joining everyone.  I just want to feel good, I just want to feel good about my ‘self’, kept repeating in my head.  You had hired some of the tradesmen who were working on building 10 to hold signs advertising your horizontal trapeze artists.  You had made them wear frocks and nail polish to fool people into thinking they were one of us.  How pretty they looked, the most masculine of ballerinas. Well I sat there, glued to that table, wanting to join you and completely able.

That night I woke up in a cold sweat.  I had been dreaming of you and your pleasure house.  I jumped out of bed and immediately began to search my wardrobe for a red jacket.  In my dream you and I were out to lunch, your shout obviously.  You sat with one leg over the other and sipped tea while looking around.  You recanted stories about how you once spent eighteen months in Alaska! “I stood there, snow gathering around my legs”, you took a sip and chuckled, “by the time I sold my first copy the snow was around my waist.”  You continued to tell me how a lady had seen your red jacket and felt sorry for you.  She stayed to chat.  She didn’t leave. She was a sucker.  Within three days you had Eskimos from all over Canada shipped in by the ice road truckers to build you a giant igloo fit for a king.  You had a bouncer who wore an ear piece but spoke to no one.  The entry free up there was more expensive by comparison because of higher upkeep costs you told me.  The waitress came over and you picked up the check.  I fell to my knees, I did not possess one red item of clothing!

Friday’s I have class in the morning.  I was late but I attended none the less.  All of the students in my class brought smiles with them.  Even the tutor was smirking!  Red hats, red scarves, a girl was wearing red socks even.  The teacher would say something about something or rather being immoral or repugnant (usually to do with the government) and they would stand on their chairs and cheer. With glory on her shoulders, the teacher continued, the students admiration like hot air to a balloon.  There was definitely plenty of hot air in this classroom. With some parting words of wisdom all of us students left the communist cathedral known as the classroom.  As the door closed the teacher took a deep breath of relief.  Another day another dollar. 

Between class, every class, it is customary to get a coffee, otherwise you are no student.  I was obviously worried that the campus centre would be overflowing with glossy pages and naked students – both of which are probably stuck together by now.  My alarm was raised by the fact that my classmates, comrades, ran from building ten to the campus centre ripping their clothes of and leaving them on the lawn.  I paused.  Remained paused.  Then, I unpaused in a fit of ‘if-you-cant-beat-them-join-them’.  I stripped naked right then and there.  On the icy cold concrete, I ripped off my shirt (for some reason I went shoes up).  I darted into the campus centre like I was at Pamplona.  To my horror the party had been cancelled or at least relocated.  The red shirt posing hobo stood there in an empty campus centre like a horror film.  “Three dollars fifty” he said while gripping a copy between his two hands.  Now we both had a big issue, my wallet was in my pants. 

I sprinted back outside as if bulls decided on a round two at Pamplona.  Of course the break between classes was still in full swing, students frequented between rooms.  Girls were walking left and right and a mix of both.  Boys were doing the same.  And the mixes of both were keeping out of sight.  But me, I stood bent over amongst the concrete looking for my pants.  The task was proving difficult because of the foot traffic, other pants, empty coffee cups, banana peels left by jokers:  It was truly tragic.  Reduced to my hands and knees I sifted through the Savers style piles of clothes.  Pretty girls, wearing pretty flower dresses, talking about politics and pretty boys, were stepping on my fingers.  I screamed the first couple of times and maybe one or two of them looked down by the rest just kept going.  Where did all these girls come from? Why were they walking back and forth between classrooms, just to step on my fingers again I suspect.

My wallet! I found it beneath a pair of pointy boots I left there. Back inside. Same bullrunning routine.  I payed the man my three dollars fifty for admission.  A smile came over his face and turned the contours of his face to the roof.  A smile came over my face and I got a little excited.  The chicken shop sold some chicken. The bathroom was used twice down the hall.  Standing in suspense, he handed me a copy of the Big Issue that he was grasping firmly.  Indents of his sweaty fingers remained like when superman punches a building.  I gave him the benefit of the doubt and waiting a couple of minutes for the piles of bodies and sticky magazine pages to reoccur – I was no longer even concerned about the ratio.  Nothing.  Still nothing.

“What the fuck man? I screamed at him.  He stood there eyes wide and startled, hands already gripping another copy, “wha…”

“where the fuck is my parade?”

“…”

“Where the fuck are the tradies wearing the nail polish? Where are the blankets made out of your magazine? If this is some joke you are in trouble.”  He said nothing.  I suppose he couldn’t I was speaking the truth and he was caught out.  “I tell you what”, I calmed down, “I’ll pay you eight dollars if you sort me out.” He did take my eight dollars. He did not sort me out.

I sat back in my usual chair, defeated and horny eating an avocado sushi roll.  I was guiltlessness-less.  By now, people were shuffling around, in between classes, going home, going to recreational activities, going to other shit I cant be bothered labelling.  I was stuck at my usual table, covering my naked body.  Covering my hair, my imperfections, I had no ambition to leave.  What was the point? Where would I go? The party was over and I missed out.  That night, if I dreamt of him again I was going to strangle him as he retold the story of the Alaskan Igloo.  He would be talking, flicking his cigarette in the ashtray shaped like a beer can, “then, as the snow built up around my body I saw something in the distance.” He would say and I would edge him on.

“What was it, what was it?” He would let off a confused look as he sipped his coffee. The story had changed on him.  I would sit there naked, wearing nothing but a bib to ensure I did not get messy from the lobster I was eating; from the lobster he was paying for.  “What did you see?”I would repeat.  “I saw a naked man running at me in the snow.” He paused.  Sipped his coffee.  Flicked his cigarette.  “It was you!” he would shout and at that moment, I would jump the table and strangle him, like the bulls of Pamplona decided to start their jog in your bedroom.  I was excited for that dream. 

Hours past and I sat there and he stood right in front of me, gripping that magazine.  I was fiddling with my coffee cup.  Slowly, I was tearing away the corrugated cardboard exterior of it. Apparently, this is a sign of sexual frustration.  His red jacket taunted me, I envied his Alaskan adventures, I envied the good he was doing for the other students, I resented that he was not doing it for me.  More students walked up. They bought the magazine.  He let go of his grip.  They walked off smiling. He gripped another one.  Rinse lather and repeat.  After three or four cycles many souls were cleansed but I still sat there with a dismantled coffee cup, naked.  Enough was enough.  If you cannot attack the source, children, make sure to take out your frustration on those who benefit.  I stood up, in all my naked glory.  The music that insinuates an epic build up was playing in my head.  I stormed over as the next lucky contestants received their prize.  The young man turned to see me naked.  I gave him my best death stare.  His girlfriend looked utterly alarmed.  He smelt of avocado and salmon.

Enough is enough.  I grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and threw him against the red pole in the meeting point.  He dropped his books all over the floor, including the Big Issue.  “Wow, wow” he said, clearly worried. 

“What the fuck is going on around here” I screamed, “what has a guy got to do to join you and the circus owners party”, I gripped his collar tighter, “I’m ripping coffee cups over there man, I’m desperate.” 

He was shocked.  I was not buying it.  “Answer me this then stud, what were you smiling about just now, that you weren’t smiling at before?” He looked at his girlfriend who stood frozen in the absurdness of this situation (summed up as a naked man assaulting her boyfriend).  “We…” he chocked a bit, “We, we were laughing at the guys hat.”

“Which guy?”

“The guy selling the Big Issue.” I dropped him and took a step back.  My idol, my nemesis, the man I envied and despised, was being laughed at by this fucking poser wearing the scarf.  This guy thought he was better than the man who stood freezing to death in Alaska only to manipulate and convince imported Eskimos to build him the Shangrila of igloos! Once again, I didn’t buy it.  “Whats so funny about his hat? I asked.

“Have a looked at it yourself?” he said, readjusting his top while his girlfriend fetched his books. 

The man stood there with a vice grip on that valuable piece of literature. His red jacket, as I said earlier, built for the rain.  His hat, black and bent.  I didn’t see anything funny about it on first inspection.  I moved closer, arms by my side, eyes fixed on his hat.  I was within one metre, he turned and faced me.  His hat, black and bent.  “Penguins can dance” read the hat, with a picture of a cute little penguin doing a jig.  Penguins can dance! Penguins can dance! What a fucking joke.  My idol, the man who excluded me from the most decadent and erotic of parties was wearing a hat fit for a child. The closer I inspected it the more I began to notice that it didn’t fit well either.  It sat atop his head with his greyish hair flaring out like his wife’s apron!  It was pointed up at a forty five degree angle so it provided no protection from the sun and made him look like he hung out at Southland on Saturday mornings.  He plunged the book out to me once more.  His hands gripping it tightly, I was still confident I could smack it out of his hands, but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. 

Unable to move, I watched students come up, pay their three dollars fifty, and walk off laughing.  They laughed all the way past the fish and chip shop before throwing the magazine in the bin.  The bins began to overflow with copies of the Big Issue.  Still I stood there.  “You have never been to Alaska have you?” I asked.  He turned with a “huh?” and I knew from his eyes he had not.  His worn face had probably never left Australia, probably never even Victoria.  I began to cry. The students kept laughing. He kept gripping more magazines like a cheap gag.  The drug guiltlessness has other ingredients that are not listed on the package.  This way it allows the user to feel all the great effects of guiltlessness without contemplating the damage they are doing to their livers, kidneys, minds.  Truth be told it is probably a placebo.  Still crying, vile creatures, the assembly line was a joke and he was the punch line.  Poor soul, poor rotting soul, who stood there day after day wearing that hat, gripping that magazine, being laughed at.  The snow was piling up around him even as he sold the magazines. 



I worked on this for a couple of days and left it.  I want to return to it and clean it up and change it around. It is going to become part of a longer piece i am working on.