Free Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas Page A

piled above her head. She’s wearing a torn black T-shirt with a silk white vest over it. She’s beautiful and she sniffs the air as soon as she comes in, taking in the smellsof the pub. She sees me and rushes up to me.
    â€“Ari, give me a kiss. I give Maria a kiss, I give her a hug. How you doing, good-looking? I say.
    â€“I’m fucking full. The circle of men I’m in parts and she takes the centre, nodding at everyone but talking to me. I’ve been out to dinner with this new boy and he took me to a pasta place. The best cheese cake I’ve had in ages. I’m here to dance off the kilos.
    â€“Is he with you? She shakes her head. No, I’m meeting Kosta here later. I laugh. Maria is never short for a date. I know, I know, she laughs, I’m a slut. The only decent Greeks have all been sluts. She pauses. Or poofters, she adds, and winks at me. I wink back.
    â€“I’m going to get a drink, she asks, want anything? Later, I reply. I’ve got some quick, do you want some? Her face lights up. Darling, she screams, and hugs me. That’ll get rid of the cheese cake. She takes my hand and leads me through a door in the back of the pub and into the women’s toilets.
    We lock ourselves in a cubicle, avoiding the looks we get from the women doing their faces at the mirror. I pour the last of the speed from one packet onto the toilet lid and add a small amount of powder from the gram I’m going to sell to Spiro. Maria crouches against the cubicle door and lights a cigarette. She watches me cut up the powder into two medium-sized lines. How much do you want? I ask her.
    â€“One of those will be plenty. I snort my line and squeeze myself into the corner while she snorts her share. When she’s finished I sit on the toilet seat and she sits on my lap, both of us waiting for the drug to come into effect. She begins to sing me a Greek song, her voice a distorted echo of the song the band are playing. I hum along with her, swaying her on my knees. A platonic serenade that we both enjoy. When she’s finished her song I ask her about her date.
    â€“He’s a bit thick, she answers. I wanted to sing him a song at the restaurant and he requested Gary Glitter. Fuck.Australian men don’t have a romantic bone in their weedy bodies.

I don’t often fuck with Greeks. It is protection for myself. Someone may know a friend of my parents, or know an uncle. Greeks have big mouths and word can get around. When I was fucking with women it was not such a problem. No one cared about what woman you slept with, it made you more a man, as long as you didn’t end up getting someone’s sister or someone’s daughter pregnant. Fucking with Greek men is half sex, half a fight to see who is going to end up on top. When I get the urge to have sex with a dark man, a Mediterranean man, I end up in Coburg or Preston looking for Turkish or Lebanese cock, someone outside my community, someone no one I know is ever going to meet. Sometimes, however, I see a Greek man, not necessarily someone particularly handsome, and I want to feel their body against me, to use dirty Greek words with them, to have them whisper Greek obscenities.
    When Maria and I get out of the women’s toilets, the man in the fishing cap is waiting there. He doesn’t say a word. I watch him walk out through the screen door into the pub’s backyard. I tell Maria I’ll catch up with her later and follow him.
    Outside, the smells of beer mix with the stench of garbage. A group of four men are huddled together sharing a joint. The man in the fishing cap walks past them, out the open back gate and into the small car park beyond. I follow him in the night air, down a suburban side street. He glances back, then keeps on walking. He turns into an alley and I hesitate. I think of mad fuckers, think of my throat being slit, think of those crazy men who get off on death. The visions of madness entwine with my urge to