Free Solo by Alyssa Brugman

Her dark hair is wet and sticks to the side of her neck, but when she turns towards me, I see that it’s not hair but masses of long black leeches.
    On the other side of the fire there is an older boy – almost a man. He’s choking. His face turns so red and bloated it’s almost blue. The capillaries pop in his eyes and they fill with blood. His tongue is swelling. He retches and retches and the foam runs down his chin.
    I close my eyes, but I can still see them. I imagine them lurching towards me.
    My bladder burns like a hot stone. Mosquitoes buzz around my ears and bite the corners of my lips. I put my hands to my cheeks. The mosquitoes sting my knuckles and settle on my eyelids. I lie still staring at the dying fire, like the figure in Munch’s Scream , waiting for the morning.

P ART F OUR

Truths

I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers.
    ‘ I RRESPONSIBLE H ATE A NTHEM’ M ARILYN M ANSON

1

B ALANCING THE U NIVERSE
    Things aren’t as ‘Poor me’ as I might make out. I’m a liar. I’m not even honest with myself. Sometimes when I’m close to the truth I just re-remember it a different way. I’m vain and greedy. I’ve been promiscuous in bouts. I’ve betrayed. I’ve stolen lots of things. I taxed Mellinda when I left. I took the iPod with me.
    There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Adults – my counsellor, my social worker, my school principal – can throw their hands in the air, exasperated. ‘We just don’t know what to do about you, Mackenzie.’
    And I think, ‘Good! That means I’ve won.’
    I can justify most things, at least in karmic terms.
    Every day I see other people my age who have won, just by being born into the right family. I have been set up to fail. I have all the excuses in the world.
    I’m in the lowest percentile range, the long-term, repeat-offender, intergenerational transgressor. I’m locked in the rock-throwing cycle. I’d lost before I was even born.
    Every now and then I deserve a few wins of my own – the occasional skirmish towards balancing the universe.

2

T AXING THE G UIDMANS
    We lived next door to the Guidmans for a while. One time when they went for a holiday to Coffs Harbour they asked me to feed their cat.
    The first day I retrieved the key from its hiding place under the third potplant, I went into the house, fed the cat with the first tin they had put on the counter and then I left.
    The second day I went into their house, and after the cat had finished eating I walked around their house. I sat on the lounge and watched a cartoon. I looked in their medicine cabinet in the bathroom and smelled the perfumes on the dressing table in the main bedroom. I kept waiting for the front door to open and for them to find me. It was exhilarating.
    The next time I went there I sprayed on one of Mrs Guidman’s scents and then I looked in their bedside tables. On Mr Guidman’s side there were some porno mags.
    I went through the pockets of all the jackets in their wardrobe and altogether I found thirty-six dollars forty in small notes and change. I left two dollars in loose change, but took the rest.
    Before I left, I tried to put everything back exactly the way I had found it. I went home and sat on my bed stinking of Mrs Guidman’s perfume. I curled my fingers around the money in my pocket and felt the way religious people must feel when they think they are going to hell. I felt damned.
    Sometimes if I had nothing else to do on a Saturday morning I would wait until the Guidmans had gone grocery shopping and I would go into their house using the key that they left under that pot for all eternity. I bet it’s still there.
    I would take money from Mr Guidman’s jacket pockets. I also discovered a jar of coins on the shelf in the laundry. I must have taken hundreds from them over the years.
    I took one of Mr Guidman’s porno mags and sold it to a boy from my class for ten dollars. Another boy found out and wanted me to get one for him, but I sold him a bottle