24-hour Supermarket
We are nineteen and drunk on a night filled with energy.
The air changes when the sun goes down. A night lived in intoxication is bountiful with prospect, connection, and emotion.
The best and the worst things happen under the weighted sky.
Shadows reclaim their secrets and welcome you in to explore the depths of your fledgling boundaries. We use alcohol to poke at those boundaries with dulled anxiety. The beauty of Dutch courage, wrapping around our innards like an anaconda, like a majestic Purple Goanna.
How does the night occupy more mass than the day? I took physics in High school; I know it’s not scientifically possible. The spaces are the same, the buildings, streets and people, but at night the soft and gentle dissipate. Only the exciting and terrifying remain, filling space usually retained for everyday life.
Joely and Matty ride their battered BMX’s down Great North Road.
They fly through the night into the known and unknown.
The sky is clear. The stars are out, only just visible behind a thick layer of light pollution. Flickering street lights illuminate their passage, but Matty has her eyes almost completely closed. Feeling her way along the cracked concrete, rumbling under her bald tires. On the crest of Coleridge Street, she takes her feet off the pedals and splays them wide, letting gravity carry her down the hill.
Slow intoxication has made Matty feel brave. Her tummy is filled with bubbles. Vodka has taken the claw sharp edges away from her thoughts and left giggles and possibility. She knows it won’t last. As soon as she sobers up, her body will be wracked with tension once again.
None of her options are good ones.
“Don’t worry about locking them,” Joely says.
They drop their bikes on the ground to the left of the glass doors, piled atop each other.
Inside the lights burned Matty’s eyes, bright white fluorescent bulbs make her eye floaters vibrate unbidden.
There are no security barriers in 2001, just a swing-gate that opens into the fruit and vege section.
“Remember when this was a Big Fresh?”
It’s 2am when they walk into Foodtown Grey Lynn, a 24-hour monolith that sits squat on the crest of Coleridge and Williamson.
Only a handful of shoppers mill inside, most are in an equivalent state of inebriation.
No screaming children, no slow paced geriatrics - 2am is the domain of youth and vigour. Set aside for casual meet ups with friends and crushes, buying mixers, ice, and munchies.
Joely cradles a pair of Golden Pash cartons as they meander up and down the aisles.
Matty pauses in the personal hygiene section, below the tampons and the fruit flavoured lubricant.
“Are you gonna do it?” Joely asks in a sharp whisper, the kind of sound you make when you’re trying to go incognito, but alcohol has blurred your perception of your own volume.
“Hmm, I dunno”.
She was feeling brave on the ride over, but now the pressure of the outcome makes her recoil.
“What if it’s positive? What if I am?”
“I guess. Well, I guess we’ll call Family Planning tomorrow and ask them what to do.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“Ok well you can call them on Monday.”
“You’re not coming with me? I don’t want to go on my own.”
“Of course. Yeah, yeah. I’ll come. I’ve got a lecture I can’t miss on Tuesday morning but otherwise I’m open. We’ll get it sorted. Don’t worry.”
“How do they do it? Do you know anyone who’s had one?”
“Hmm, I think they use a hook thing to scramble it up, then a vacuum to suck it all out. Pete’s friend Juan’s girlfriend had a few, but I never asked her what they do.”
“Is it gonna hurt?” Matty can feel the vodka wearing off and her fears returning hot and sharp.
“You don’t know if you are yet. Just do the test first, then we can come up with a plan.”
They walk to the tills slowly, their baggy wide-legged jeans ripped and fraying at the heel, flowing out behind them like a NuMetal bridal train. There are no anonymous self-check machines in 2001. They must choose one of the two older Samoan ladies wearing beautiful flowers behind their ears. Which one looks the most sympathetic? Which one will judge her the least?
“Should we go home n’ do it?”
“Nah, I don’t want the others to see the test. Can we go back in and use the toilet here?”
“I didn’t know there was a toilet here”
“Yeah, it’s between the meat fridges and the bakery. It’s for staff but they let my brother use it once when he got sick. No one’ll see us sneak in.”
The Samoan check out lady smiles a warm friendly greeting to the girls. She doesn’t blink when she scans the test. She’s been here long enough to have seen everything. Nothing surprises her anymore.
“Have you told Pete yet?”
“Nah I haven’t said anything, but he knows something’s up. I was pretty quiet last week. I was thinking about telling him, but then... He has those backstage passes for the Big Day Out. He’s gonna be so fucking pissed when I tell him. He might break up with me and take someone else.”
“You think he’d dump you? He’s usually so careful about that stuff right? He fucking hates kids.”
“Might not be his.” Matty says quietly as they lock the toilet door behind them.
“What? When did you fuck someone else? Did you cheat? You hoebag!”
They laugh. Sometimes laughing is all you can do in these situations.
“What do I do? I’ve never done one of these before.”
Joely leans against the sink while Matty sits on the toilet, seat down.
They slowly read the instructions, it’s not easy when you’re drunk, but Joely has sobered up enough to explain the basics from the pictograms.
“Take that pink cap off and hold the other end, then piss on that bit, the textured bit. They call it a tongue. Ugh fuck, that’s rough as fuck.”
“I don’t need a cup? I’m fully gonna get piss on my hand. Oh, for fucks sake.”
Matty unbuckles her belts; one to hold up her jeans, one with studs that sits low on her hips, and one with big metal loops of different sizes. One belt would have been enough for the purpose of keeping her pants atop her slim hips. The second and third are an overt stylistic choice. To inform others of her chosen axiom.
They wear their conscript style with pride, with arrogance. The arrogance of a 19 year old who until recently had her Mum packing her lunches, but now relies entirely on her own acumen to survive. This style, their first attempt at personal expression without a metaphorical acrobat’s net to catch them when they fall.
In 2001 this style projected a disinterest in the patriarchal constructs of female sexuality, or so we thought. On the cusp of child and young adulthood, our bodies chronologically matured, but our emotional maturity still in its infancy.
But was it ever our personal expression? Or the expression of the boys we crushed on, in hopes of ingratiating ourselves within their tattooed, studded coterie?
They can hear the radio in the toilet, playing Lydia by Fur patrol.
“So, who was it?” Joely can’t quite believe her best friend had fucked someone without telling her. Pete had been her first boyfriend and only her second sexual partner. Joely thought she knew everything about Matty, every desire, every plan, every intention.
“Remember that night when everyone stayed at ours? We went to that show and a bunch of boys came back to the flat and stayed over?”
“Yeah, of course. But Pete was there that night?”
“Pete and I went to bed, and Fred wanted to sleep with us because there was no sofas left. Then Pete left. He went home. I can’t remember why. I thought we were good, but he went home without saying why.”
Joely is silent, afraid to hear what is coming.
“Fred didn’t go with him. I don’t know why, they live together for fucks sake. They should have gone home together. I rolled over to go to sleep, but Fred kept touching me.”
“I wasn’t interested. I was being faithful to Pete. But he kept stroking me and trying to kiss me. I rolled over and pretended to go to sleep but he pushed himself against my back and I could feel it there by my butt.”
“Did you say no?”
“Of course. I said no. And I’m not interested. And I said I’m Pete’s girlfriend, but he didn’t stop. He said Pete wouldn’t mind sharing and they did this all the time.”
“I tried to hold my undies up but he rolled them down and started.”
“Why didn’t you just get up and leave?”
“I dunno. I guess ‘coz it was my room. It seemed easier to just let it happen and get it over with. Maybe it was my fault, letting him sleep there. Maybe I was coming-on to him in some way. I thought it was my fault ‘coz I got really turned on. I’m guilty of cheating ‘coz I liked it.”
“Isnt that rape? If you said no, isn’t it like date rape?”
“Nah, he wasn’t violent or angry or anything. He was really gentle. I just didn’t want to, not with him.”
“Did you kiss him back?”
“I guess I must have, at the beginning. I don’t really know. I was pretty drunk.”
“Why does he think he can just take what he wants without asking? I know Fred’s hot, like Fred Durst hot, but couldn’t he just go find a girl who’s into him instead of pestering you?”
“I dunno. I was there I guess. He’s kind of a slut, he’s always sleeping with heaps of girls, they’re all over him at shows. No one would believe me if I said I didn’t start it. No one would listen if I said I wasn’t into him.”
“He didn't use anything, y'know, as protection?”
“I don’t think so, I mean I doubt it. I hadn’t given him anything and I don’t think he had anything with him. Not sure where it would have come from if he had.”
“Did he finish inside you?”
“I dunno, I guess. I went to sleep when he was done. Jus’ kinda tried to pretend it didn’t happen.”
Matty had been worrying about her missed period for a few weeks. Waiting for the swipe of blood on the toilet paper that told her she was saved. The blood never came, the beacon of refuge remained absent.
Matty’s tummy was swollen with guilt at keeping such a huge secret from her best friend. But if she blocked it out, it never happened. It was a bad dream, just a bad trip, a nightmare that was gone the next morning.
So many things happen in the night that can be forgotten in the daylight.
But this growing problem dragged it all out into the sun where it sizzled and burned on her flesh.
It would drive a neon monster truck through her prospects, through her possibilities.
It would take away all the certainty of her youth and arrogance.
The problem could be solved, but at what cost? The night had been brought up and even if she could abort the reality, the memory was no longer forgotten.
They waited in the toilet for 15 minutes while the stick cured.
It wasn’t face down like in the movies, but face up. Reality wasn’t like film studies. The surprise was not a welcome wonder. The surprise was a brutal wake up.
“If I tell Pete what happened he’ll break up with me for sure. He hates sluts.”
Matty let out a bittersweet chuckle.
“I thought we were better than this.” Joely says, pondering their new reality.
“I thought this was what happened to the flossies and the white pants girls. Do you think Fred’s Dad beat him? You think that’s why he’s like this?”
The pink lines on the stick slowly appear. More lines than she wanted.
“Do you think they’ll let me wear my headphones when they do it? If I listen to Korn really loud and close my eyes, I can pretend it’s not happening. That I’m just getting a smear or something.”
“I dunno, maybe.” Joely puts her backpack on her shoulders and holds the straps with both hands.
“I need another drink. Let's go home. Maybe if I drink enough it’ll go away on its own?”
“Worked for Victorians right? Mother’s ruin.”
Their bikes are still where they left them on the ground outside the automatic doors.
They walked them up the hill to Great North Road in silence, 3am silence which is much deeper and thicker than midday silence.
At the corner they get back on, Joely standing up balanced on her pedals, swerving the handlebars side to side to help her balance.
The burnt amber street lights illuminated their path in huge swimming pools of light.
The moon is out.
Matty stared at it while their wheels carried them home.
