Too much, too young, too fast

Too much, too young, too fast
I’m gonna drink it up, while it lasts
Too much, too young, too fast
I’m gonna tear it up, so fill my glass.
- Airbourne, 2007

Today was Wednesday. I had things to do today. I’d made a list – well, actually, my ‘handlers’ had, they being Josephine Fang of dB and Daniela Selinic of Exocet. It was long and comprehensive, covering places I needed to be and things I needed to do. My contribution to the list was to write ‘Fuck this’ on it in red whiteboard marker, and to field all calls from the beer garden of the Story Bridge Hotel, and thereafter Zoo Section of the Gabba. For this was no ordinary Wednesday. This Wednesday was the great Martin di Biagini’s 31th birthday, there was a state T20 game on this afternoon, and we had beers to drink and Victorians to sledge. The only calls not being fielded were from anyone answering to the name Madonna Cohen-Lewis… sorry Mads, you’re breaking up. You want us where? Nah, didn’t get that…

We had co-conspirators, of course. Ed Terry and Tommy Wilson, Kurt and the two T’s from Sound Investment, the Duffer and the Jeff. The latter was a surprise late un-scratching, he’d turned up riding shotgun in Phil’s Skyline an hour or two after the rest of our northbound convoy – he’d originally just planned to head back to the farm after the Real Girls Eat Meat premiere and meet up with us again in Sydney tomorrow afternoon ahead of Friday's BDO show – but he’d either managed to negotiate an extended leave pass, or had enough of a barney with Beck re his continuing away-ed-ness that he didn’t really feel like sticking around anyway. He wasn’t saying, so I had a quiet ten on the nose in favour of the latter.

“Who the fuck,” declared Tommy, as my phone sounded off again. At least it was playing something decent like the first 12 bars of Airbourne’s Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast instead of the standard-issue R&B shite it’d come programmed with. “Sell, sell, sell,” he chanted as I pulled the Jesus Phone from its holster. Hadn’t heard that in years. Mobile phones mustn’t be big in Bowraville.

“Sydney number,” I reported. “02 97something.”

“Could be Mads,” Marty warned.

“Nah, it’d come up with the Imperial Death March as the ringtone,” I quipped.

“Yours does that too then?”

I laughed. Birthday boy was on form. “It’s not Exocet either. Might be the Jays.”

It wasn’t. It was a certain music journalist of my acquaintance. “Lena. How is ya. Me? Half cut on Coopers at two in the arvo. Nah it’s all good. B-vitaminy goodness. What can I do you for?”

“Not sure if now’s good… I’ve got those names.”

It took a little while for me to figure out what names she actually was referring to, which tended to suggest that no, now wasn’t that good, but we pressed on. “McCarthy’s trust? Who’ve we got?”

“Well, the obvious… Anne and Daniel Fyfe,” she reported.

“And the folks,” I presumed.

“You’d think so, but no,” she remarked. “I guess they’re not getting any younger…”

“They’re not that ready to pass on though,” I muttered. “Whatever. Any others?”

“Yeah, two others. One, this Renton Forsyth guy I told you about. He seems to be one of Fyfe’s key financial admin people, so that explains him…”

“If you can explain anyone with two surnames and no first name. Or trust the shifty bastard.”

Long standing bias of mine. Wasn’t that trusting of people with two first names and no surnames, either. Anyway, as you were.

“And one other… probably another legal or financial person, though I can’t say we’ve had as much luck tracing her. Name of Kathryn Miranda Stratford.”

“As in upon Avon? Shakespeare?”

“I guess. Kathryn Stratford. Or Kath. Or Kate, presumably.”

“Kiwi?” Forsyth was a Kiwi, which was why I brought it up.

“No idea.”

“And we think this is a legal person or something?”

“No idea.”

“Google it?”

“Please.” I took from her tone that I was welcome to pull the other one, as it played the greatest hits of Dr Hook.

Might as well have a crack. “Anyone heard of a Kathryn, or Kath, or Kate Stratford?” I asked the assembled drunkards. “Or Katie, even…” To this day, I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea.

“Might’ve fucked one,” Tommy offered, which was almost definitely rubbish.

“This is on the board of that trust administering McCarthy’s royalties, yeah?” Marty had a think. “Nah, still no.”

Whereupon the Duffer took another look at his phone, nodded in confirmation, and burst out laughing. He’d had an iPhone longer than most of us. Difference was, it was usually lost somewhere, so we tended to forget he had one.

“Sup Duffstar?”

“Have a geez at… here, Marty, I’ll just show it on yours… Jeez, how can you see properly with your screen settings like this. Lemme just…”

“Don’t. Touch. The. Screen. Settings.” Marty had played this game before and knew how it ended. It didn’t. Your computer/iPhone/car stereo would still be in an unrecoverable state of disarray at the heat death of the universe.

“Alright, alright. Sheesh.” Phil rapped on the touchscreen keypad, his tongue flickering disconcertingly at the corner of his mouth.

“What’s going on there, Angus?” said a tired voice in my ear.

“Erm, nothing Lena, Phil’s apparently just looking up porn on Marty’s iPhone…”

Ah, the irony. For what the Duffer turned up was a page containing the name Katie Stratford somewhere in the fine print. Whoopee fuck, you might say, can’t be the only one in the Anglophilic universe. But it’s all about the context, of course. And the context in this case was the sentence: ‘Chastity Chase, real name Katie Stratford…” On a tribute page dedicated to archiving some of the work of lost, lamented hotties of the Southern California porn industry. Subsection, Lesbifriends.

“Phil’s cracked it,” I said, dumbly. “It’s only fucking Chastity…”

“What?” Lena was as incredulous as I. “How the hell did he know that?”

I glanced back over at the Duffer, who was discussing some of the salient points of Ms Chase-Nee-Stratford’s work with fellow SoCal poontang aficionado Mr Dean ‘Tommy’ Wilson.

“Don’t ask.”

Marty returned from the bar behind the stands with worrying news. One, the Gabba were charging for those egg cartony beer holder things now. Bastards. Two, “You know tonight is fancy dress, yeah?”

Tonight was the Vanity Project’s sort-of-sideshow at the Zoo. Sort-of, because it wasn’t an all-comers gig. Basically, Marty actually had to work on his birthday. The VIP party guests were the Brisbane music scene, whoever out of the BDO circus was still around SEQ, precious few of Marty’s actual mates (the hand of dB in the invitation process of course) and a select few lucky competition-winning punters from Marty’s swathes of adoring pert-breasted fans. Because Marty had a surreal sense of humour, he’d decided he wanted to see the movers and shakers of the SEQ music industry dress like clowns and idiots for his own amusement. Which didn’t really help us, of course.

“We’re playing dressups in the centre of the Valley? That’ll make getting to-and-from interesting…”

“How did you not know? I’m sure I told you yesterday. Or Beth…”

“You see Beth here? Anywhere near here?” I had no idea whether she was coming along later. Maybe she was. Maybe she knew to dress randomly. Whatever. Go with the flow.

“I’ll go as a cane farmer,” Jeff declared. He was already dressed for the occasion. Ruggers, Blundies and the timeless flanno-over-wifebeater combo. His hat was in the car. Clearly he’d been halfway through considering a day on the farm when he’d thought better of it and had boarded the Philmobile for Better Days.

“What’s your master plan for costumery, birthday boy?” I asked him.

“Ah, it’s a secret.”

“Totes birthday princess,” I surmised. “Own tiara and all.”

His grin wasn’t giving away anything, so I could yet be on the money. “You?”

“No fucking idea,” I pronounced. And in that moment, had An Fucking Idea. Shortly after, some five or so kays to the west, the phone at Mount Road Motorcycles sounded off. The boss was in his office.

“Michael Martin?” I queried. “Got a mission for you.” And gave him his orders.

“It’ll cost ya,” he said.

“Half a case of Green’s Ginger Wine.”

“Done and fucken done,” Mick declared. “Be here waiting for ya when you get back from the tip-and-run.”

He was a man of his word. One set of white Alpinestars leathers, tailored waist, matching boots. Not a race suit, but close enough. One white streetfighter Bell helmet, dark visor. And one spray bottle of leather cleaner in case I threw up down the front of the fucking ensemble.

“That’d hardly be in character,” I argued. “Some say his stomach is already lined with two pies and a vulcanized hot dog. Others say his gut lining is reinforced with Kevlar and can withstand nuclear attack. All we know is…”

Dressing like the Stig was an idea, yes, but it wasn’t a very good one, really. Because what it meant was, I was now obliged to shut the fuck up for the entire night.

Ah.

Go with the flow. Already heroically drunk, I decided it’d be easier just to make a night of it in town, fired up the Magical Jesus Phone back at Mick’s, and managed to book two entirely separate rooms in two entirely separate Oaks apartment towers half a block from each other. Drunken interwebs FTW. Fuck it, Jeff or the Duffer could have the otherie. Dinner? Nah. More beers. What’s cold. Tooheys Red? Or Mick’s dodgy homebrew that he hadn’t cracked since 2005? Why the fuck not. Wahey that’s got hair on its balls like Chewbacca’s mum. Jesus suffering fuck, just as well us cunts aren’t playing tonight, yeah?

Fragments. It’s about all I had left to piece together the previous night with. It was 9am, I was on a plane to Sydney, I didn’t think I’d slept, I was violently, vehemently ill, and I wanted to die very, very badly.

Top night, you’d reckon.

Beth had shown. Jesus, had she shown. She stepped out of a cab opposite Brunswick St Mall and strode across the road against the lights with the studied arrogance of a catwalk model. Her ensemble required more than a little cockiness to pull it off. Glossy black hair, knee-high leather boots with serious fuck-off heels, and a clingy PVC-ish catsuity sort of outfit slashed and strapped in all sorts of interesting places. Jesus fucking Christ. Was this my girl? Either she was coming as the dirtiest dominatrix in the Valley, or…

“Aeon Flux,” murmured a strangled voice. Phil’s. Ah yes. A man who knew his Manga heroines. Probably closer to the Charlize Theron take than the original anime version, which was fair enough as the latter would have meant almost gynaecological levels of detail revealed to Brunswick St. She was a brave girl, it seemed, but not that brave. She’d had more than five minutes to come up with an idea, too, so Marty probably had told her after all.

She swept through the crowd of gawkers and randoms up to the rag-tag bunch of loonies led by the grumpy looking silhouette in the white crash helmet, flanked by Farmer Pickles from Bob the Builder and a bloke who’d apparently come as a derro country-town session muso (guess.) Nodding at my choice of attire, she remarked, “Some say, he’s going to have a hell of a time shutting up the entire night…”

Aha, but she’d reckoned without the power of body language. I reclined nonchalantly, and waved her on, linking my arm in hers. And on to the party.

Where stuff happened.

More drinking. Ill-advised in its ferocity and combinatoriality. At some stage, according to the photos on my phone, I’d started cataloguing what I was drinking. In one hand, a Becks and a bourbon and coke (why?), in the other, a vodka-and-something in a highball glass. Maybe not being able to speak was affecting my ordering abilities. However, I’d somehow learned to take photos with no hands. Some say, he can operate an iPhone 3G with his dodger… No wonder I couldn’t get a non-blurred one of Beth. She was so fucking hot the camera would have lurched for the ceiling any time I pointed it at her.

The Zoo was packed and heaving. Can’t remember who the opening act were, probably those kids Marty liked from New Years. Can’t even remember Marty’s set. He was dressed as Elton John, which wasn’t going to put any rumours to bed. Then again he could have come as Lady Gaga. Not very well thought out on someone’s part. Tommy Wilson, come on dowwwwnnnnn…

What I couldn’t remember could fill a fucking phone book. Couldn’t remember seeing Maddy, at all. Must have had one hell of a disguise. Couldn’t remember the sign language for ‘Five Cougars thanks’ for the benefit of the barmaid with the implausible rack, mainly because I’d never learned. Couldn’t remember how to walk. Or how to play Louie, Louie when Marty insisted I get up on stage and have a thrash with them to end. Never mind, I was far from the muntiest munted munter here tonight. Probably. Fucking blow was everywhere. Even Beth was in my ear at one point ref. the above. Great. “Fuck else confidence wear this” was all I made out of what she shouted in my ear over the melee. And something about her brother. Fucking brother. Fucking helmet. Fucking visor. Couldn’t hear shit and even Ned Kelly didn't have to put up with peripheral vision this fucked. Dammit, I was going to stick with this to the bitter end. Because I was a STUBBORN CUNT. Some say, he’s a stubborn cunt…

Head pounding. Floor pounding. Cock pounding, but that was courtesy the ludicrously hot Venezuelan chick from Festival Mushroom (were they still Festival Mushroom?) whose tongue had suddenly found its way into my ear and her arse into my hand. Whereupon I turned to see…

Aeon Flux snogging the fuck out of a superhot Virgin Blue hostie.

Erm, whose birthday was this again? Mine wasn't for months yet...

“Fucking jerk followed us from another bar,” said the hostie, who was tall and luscious and liked me. Nametag said Stacey. I didn’t think she looked like a Stacey. “Soz, had to borrow your girl to get rid of him…”

And then there were two Virgin hosties. One shorter and bustier than the other. Too short and too, well, lesbo for Dick Branson surely. Nametag… Jesus, I’m falling into the abyss… nah can’t read that. Fucking dark visor. At least I had the excuse of cracking it open slightly to pour more alcohol in. Should have brought a full spec race drink bottle topped up with grog…

“Angus!”

That’s my name. I think. No idea how Non-Stacey knew it. I nodded, with pissed nonchalance.

“Angus,” shouted Non-Stacey, with an arm around her colleague, “this is my girl Carmen…”

Aha!

By which I mean, what the fuck?

You’ve figured this out by now yourselves, presumably, but it was Anna and her roomie from NEGS, who was also from Brisbane and back for the hols. They’d either scored fan tickets or had located and crashed the super secret birthday show, probably the latter. Who cared. I certainly didn’t. I was surrounded by more searing hotness than a space shuttle tile on reentry. Even if my balls were sticking to my legs in the leathers and I couldn’t see more than twenty feet through the gloom. You get that on the big jobs. Thanks v. much Mr Bear Sorensen of no fixed underpants.

And then… fragments, again. More stuff. Bad stuff, judging by my state this morning – tiptoeing along the precipice of needing to unfurl the Virgin Blue sick bags, fixated on the back of the seat in front, one decent series of bumps away from unloading. Actually, fuck it, it wasn’t worth the risk. Time to assume crash position. I made it to the cubicle up the back, locked the door behind me, and eyed off the dour grey plasticware with that sinking sense of doom. Circling the event horizon. There’d be no turning back pretty soon.

Fragments, I focused. Anything but on what was coming soon to a bowl near me.

Beats. Still at the Zoo, but beats. DJ somewhere, fuck knows who. DJ Fucking Cunt. Heh. Down to one hostie. And she was snogging Aeon Flux again, but not for show this time, for serious. With intent to create a disturbance of the peace. Hands going everywhere. Dark corner this time. Then again they were all fucking dark with this stackhat on... Something about curfews and cops and licences. Someone hitting me across the back of the helmet with a bottle. Being physically held back as the bouncers dragged Lady Gaga out the back for a good shoeing. After all I did for you on New Years Tommy you cunt. Not fucking funny. He had a serious fucking problem with substance abuse, for sure. Needs fucking help, that lad. Now for another drink…

Poured into a taxi. Giggling and squealing. No idea which apartment I’m headed to. Cabbie just reads the label on the keyring. He’s not a cunt, I like him. There’s a girl with her hand down my leathers and I don’t think she’s looking for spare change. No change there then. Hee hee. In the room. There’s champagne in the minibar. There was champagne in the minibar. Aeon Flux is peeling the Virgin hostie out of her skirt, who’s murmuring something about not ripping it, Carmen’s sister needs it for work. Holy fuck, she’s not wearing anything underneath. Wish I’d known that before. Daaaaamn, that’s pretty. …And so’s that. Matching pair. Don’t think that’s Aeon’s natural hair colour, so she’s had a professional remove the evidence. Today, she says. Wants me to survey the handiwork… Leave the helmet on? You kinky little bitch. Whatever. Take it, baby, yeah. Show me how you like it. Fuck yeah. That’s right girl, you come for me right now, squeeze mah lemon bebe, till the juice runs down your leg... Master of my domain. King of the fuckin’ world, baby. And now time for your little friend too…

And that, it’ll probably not astound you to know, was where the stunt went horribly wrong. Not at the time, of course. Oh no. Three hours later. In an empty, predawn hotel room, facing a beautiful, half-dressed girl with dyed-black hair and streaking mascara, telling me she couldn’t do this anymore, and goodbye.

I vomited profusely into the aircraft toilet. Long, and loud. So long, and so loud, that the hosties came to check on me. The shorter, bustier one, she seemed nice. The tag on her lapel said her name was Stacey.

I threw up again.

Lena’s battered Peugeot 306 GTi, alloys caked in brake dust and kerb scrapes, speared down O’Riordan St in pursuit of Danno’s fleeing Mazda3. I grimaced as the Pug bucked over the expansion joints in the badly-subsided concrete roadway.

“You’re not alright, are you.”

“I’m fine,” I croaked, insistently. How come I’d spent the entire night silent (maybe apart from the end bit) and still had no voice at the end of it? Apart from that whole acid-stripping-of-the-throat routine this morning on Virgin Blue Flight WTF.

I was, really. I’d spent a lot more of my life without Beth in it than I had with. Erm, yeah. This thing we’d had going on, whatever it was, it had a finite timeframe. She said it herself. Often. Used to beat me over the fucking head with it, to be honest.

He’ll only fuck it up somehow, you know it.

Ah, it’s great ain’t it? If you’re going to be a fuckup, at least be a predictable fuckup.

“Got anything on our mate Kate Sandford?”

“Stratford?”

“Whatever. Chastity, for fuck’s sake.”

“You’re not OK, Angus. Talk to me.”

“That’s… not going to help.”

She wasn’t the first, Angus. She won’t be the last, either.

Yeah, yeah. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Want it bad enough and it’ll come true… yeah, cos it’s her fault you fucked Anna. Again. Except this time in front of her. You useless fucking douche.

“Chastity,” I reiterated. “Have we got anything on her? Doesn’t she live in the States?”

“Not according to the address given in the trust documents. Business address in Perth.”

“WA?”

“No, Madagascar. Of course WA.”

“Could be Perth in Scotland, you fuckin’ smartarse.”

“You want to walk to Alexandria?”

We were headed to Exocet’s shiny new HQ, then to dB’s Sydney offices in Rose Bay, then on to Fox Studios at Moore Park for a live TV bit on their afternoon request show.

“We’re in Alexandria.”

“You’re a fuckin’ smartarse.” But I wasn’t listening. I was eyeing off the pubs on the corners. Old-school, proper pubs. Tooths and Reschs artwork on the tiles. Nice. I was going to move down here, fuck the expense. Manwhoring was good money, I’d heard.

“Look,” she said, “you look like a derro and you smell like a distillery. You’re not going on TV looking like that. Plenty of time before then, and this is just meet-and-greet shit anyway. Come over to my place and have a shower.”

In another world, on another day, I’d have made some sort of double entendre laden remark about the come-over-for-a-shower thing. But not today. Definitely not today. I’d book in for a sex change before I’d go looking for girlie action today.

I spent a long time in the shower, just standing there, staring at the tiles. They didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know: I was a useless fucking douche. And Lena had joined the dots by the time I emerged, in what had been packed as tomorrow’s BDO show gear. Didn’t take a genius, I guessed.

“She left you,” she said. Not accusingly, just matter of factly.

“Yeah.”

“Your fault.”

I exhaled. “She said she was cool with something, that apparently she later realised she wasn’t cool with.”

“Your fault,” she repeated.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

She nodded. “C’mere,” she said, wrapping me up in a sisterly hug. “You won’t be told, will you?”
She didn’t need to ask the rest, she could guess most of it. I’d shagged someone else. It’s what I did. Because I was, ladies and gentlemen, a useless fucking douche.

Alright, enough self-pity. On with the game.

“Chastity.”

“Would have been a good idea on your part,” she offered tartly. “What, too soon?”

“Too soon,” I winced. “Tell me why Chastity’s on the board of McCarthy’s trust. And don’t tell me it’s fucking hush money for something he did that he shouldn’t have.”

“Hey,” she cautioned, “no fair. I’d already jumped to that conclusion, find your own.”

“How about, he’s still alive and working in a 7-11 in Kalamazoo with Elvis, Lord Lucan and Ronnie Biggs.”

“Plausible,” she noted. “But somehow unlikely. I like mine better. Seems to check out.”

“How do you come at that, what’ve you got?”

“Dunno yet. Depends on what happens in the next half hour.”

“Oh cryptic. Just what I fucking need with a head full of rank. Translation? How’d you find out what’s going on?”

“I called up one of the other directors and asked,” she said simply.

I groaned. No prizes for guessing which one.

“Made her cry again, I guess?”

“Nah, she just hung up,” Lena replied. “Made the phone call a bit more affordable anyway.”

“Is that how they taught you investigative journalism at New South, Lena?” I wondered. “Find the most vulnerable point in the chain and go in two-footed and studs-up?”

“Just call me Rino Gattuso,” she remarked. “I get the impression you think I shouldn’t have.”

“Well you didn’t fucking learn anything, and you made Anne more upset…”

“There you go, jumping to conclusions. All those old skills from Frogger and Mario…”

Lena was far too bright and shiny for my liking this early in the afternoon. Just wanted her to get on with it. Which she did.

“An hour or so later I got an email. Anne. Just saying ‘Ask her yourself’ and an email address. Sent that address an email last night. Got one back this morning. Saying she’d been told I was asking questions, and on condition of confidentiality, she could answer some of them.”

“Which you’ll respect, I assume…”

“Oh yeah, sure. Whatever.” Lena smirked. “I’ll see if I believe her crap first… holy shit we’re on.”

Her laptop – a previous-gen white MacBook – had Skype open, with her list of contacts and their status, online or not. I wasn’t on Skype, but I could recognise some of the nicknames from email addresses of mutual friends.

“That’s Bear isn’t it?”

“Yeah, what of it?” Lena coloured up surprisingly quickly.

“Nothing,” I said. “That one’s flashing.”

It was. It was newly online. It was the one Lena had been waiting for. She initialized the call, while I got the fuck off-camera and round the other side of Lena’s writing desk – she’d turned the flatscreen monitor around so I could see the feed without being smack-bang in front of the MacBook’s webcam. And, as if by some sort of magic, shortly emerged the voice I recognised as belonging to Chastity Chase. Last heard telling me to cover up the evidence of Brady Priddle trying to rape my girlfriend. She sounded irritated. Not as irritated as I was. Those flat faux-So-Cal vowels set my teeth on edge.

Seconds later the grainy pixellated image appeared on screen. The girl looked like Chastity, if five years older and dressed up ready to play a MILF in her next production (though Phil’s interweb sleuthing indicated she was long since retired from the industry). Honey-blonde hair with highlights, tucked back into a ponytail; sensible V-neck sweater. And scowling. I’d always remembered her with a permanent pout, somewhere between being permanently pissed off and being ever-so-slightly special needs, and it seemed nothing had changed.

“Ms Stratford, thanks for your time.” Who the fuck was Lena channelling, Kerry O’Brien?

Kathryn Miranda Stratford lit a cigarette. She was outside, backlit by blue sky, presumably sitting at a table and chairs on a balcony or deck somewhere. Could be WA, given the timezones, given the business address on the docs. Made sense, or as much as any of this did.

“You said you’d be alone,” she responded flatly. “Show me the fucking room.”

She hadn’t come down in the last shower, it seemed. Lena and I did the Laptop Waltz, promenading around the room with the laptop (my chest against the back of the screen) to show there wasn’t anyone else in it. Step two three, turn two three. Dance teacher Beck would have been so proud of us. For sufficiently low levels of ‘so proud’.

Then, finally satisfied, Kathryn Miranda Stratford told her story. While I sat off camera biting my tongue so hard I was choking.