Dear Miffy (3 page)

Dear Miff,

I'm totally off my head tonight, Miff. Nothing new about that, I suppose. It's just this place, being the way I am now, being here with so many dickheads . . .

One of these guys got busted last night with half an ounce inside his pillow. I wish I had a mattress full so I could get totally and utterly stoned for months to come.

I wish I could hurry up and get through this sickness that they call life.

Miff, I was thinking about you so much today, all afternoon. I wish I could see you and touch you again. Tell you the truth I want to make love to you, Miff. I know I can't, but try telling my body that. Your long black hair, Miff, like poetry: I want to run my fingers through it. I want to feel its softness. I want to take a handful of it and let it fall away strand by strand while I rub it against my cheek. I want to tap on your perfect teeth like they're piano keys and I'm playing a little tune on them—remember how I did that one time and you laughed and pushed me away with the lightest touch I've ever felt?

That was good that day.

Miff, I want to see your breasts again. You had the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. It was like God made them out of sand, golden sand that was lying in the sun a thousand years. They were so warm and alive and firm. When I touched them I thought my brain was going to melt. I felt like I'd stop breathing. I could hardly keep my stuff in me, just from touching them. The brown buttons, pointing away from each other, so proud, like little volcanoes: only I was the one going to erupt.

There's this old blues singer, Robert Johnson, so old he's dead, and he sings this song ‘Travelling Riverside Blues', and it's got this line in it, ‘You can squeeze my lemon, baby, juice runs down my legs.'

Well, you sure squeezed my lemon, Miff, and the juice ran down my legs.

Christ, I love chicks. I know why God invented them: to drive guys mad. I could never be gay, I just love chicks too much.

I'm driving myself mad, writing this, but I can't stop.

Sometimes you did seem about a thousand years old. I felt like an idiot, a clumsy idiot, lying next to you. You seemed so, I don't know, wise, ancient or something, like there was this blood flowing in you and it had been flowing through chicks since the beginning of time. It gave you this understanding of stuff that I knew I'd never have. Doesn't matter how long I live, I'll never have that.

‘Can't you hear me howling, baby, down on my bended knees?' That's Robert Johnson again. Different song, but.

The thing is, when I write like this, it's like I'm dreaming onto paper, I can escape into that past world where I used to live, and even though at the time a lot of it sucked bad, really bad, when I go back and live in it like I'm doing now, it don't seem so shitty after all. You know one thing, it's a whole lot better than what I've got now. I don't want to think about what I've got now, so instead of thinking about it I write these letters to you. And then I feel better. Makes sense, don't it? Pretty smart, you got to admit. And they used to reckon I was so dumb at school.

Sex, I can't stop thinking about it, but. It's like the best sweetest torture ever invented. It tears you apart but you wouldn't want it any other way. It's the drug you never try to give up. It's the poison that flows through your system and you'd rather have it than food or drink or dope because it makes you feel SO FUCKING GREAT! Even while it makes you depressed.

Thank you, God, for inventing sex. You did us all a big favour.

Thank you, Miff, for the great sex. It was fantastic, even if sometimes it wasn't as good as it was at other times, if you know what I mean, and I think you would. But even bad sex is better than no sex.

This is doing me no good, Miff, no good at all. I was wrong what I said before, about how great it is writing these letters. How it makes me feel better. It doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel like all I want to do is die. And I can't even do that. Remember how Mr Ellis reckoned there was this Japanese soldier in World War Two and he was captured and that was like a big disgrace for him and he tried to kill himself but they tied his hands so he couldn't? What he did was, he just lay down in the bottom of the boat and willed himself to die. And he did. Like, he thought himself to death. Don't reckon I could do that, but. So I'll just go to bed like I do every night—every fucking boring night—and go into my dreaming death instead. And think about how I'll probably never have sex with anyone except myself again.

Bye.

Tony

Dear Miff,

Don't want to think about what I wrote last night, Miff. I got a feeling it was pretty bloody dumb.

I dreamed about you again, but; like I do most nights. Sometimes it's nightmares, sometimes it's good dreams, sometimes I have to change the sheets. Depends on whether I'm remembering the beginning or the middle or the end, don't it? Geez, for a long time I didn't think there was going to be a middle or an end. It was pretty amazing that we ever got together, wasn't it? When you think about how we started. And it was funny the way it happened. I like thinking about that day. That's the best part of going with anyone, I reckon: the first time when you realise you like each other, that she feels the same way you do, and it's like, ‘Fuck! This is magic!'

Still, with us it was just a bloody shock. I didn't know you liked me and I sure as hell didn't know I liked you! And it was exactly the same for you!

Geez, that day, I'll never forget it.

At first it was just bloody embarrassing. When I got to the det and realised it was only us two, no-one else, all I could think of was this movie I saw yonks ago where some bunch of high school kids get a Saturday morning det and they talk about life and stuff as if they're real good buddies.

All these movies, a lot of them seem like us, don't you reckon?

But when I was thinking about that
Breakfast Club
movie I was just laughing, thinking nothing like that could ever happen with us.

I didn't even know anyone else had a det; I thought it was a little treat Fishbum had dreamed up especially for me. I can see his point, but: if he's going to waste his Saturday at school he might as well get even with everyone he can think of. Why keep it just for me?

So there it was. I rolled up ten minutes late, feeling pretty proud of myself that I'd got out of bed at all. And there you were, walking up to the door at exactly the same moment.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?' I said. It was the most polite I'd ever been to you, but I got such a shock to see you, that's why.

‘I've got a fucking det with fucking Fishbum,' you said. You flicked your hair out of your eyes. Your hair was still wet; I guess you'd washed it and then had to hurry to get to school. But I always remember how beautiful you looked as you flicked that long wet beautiful black hair. You always walked like a panther anyway, and you had eyes like one, and you never looked more like a panther than you did that morning.

‘So have I,' I said. ‘I thought I was the only one.'

‘I hope we're not the only two,' you said. ‘I don't want to spend the next three hours locked in a room with you.'

You seemed different to normal, but. Kind of . . . switched off. Like you weren't awake yet, sure, but more than that: like you had your ropes cut and you were drifting in some big old sea and you didn't know the name of it or whether it was water or what. I felt a bit weird being around you when you were like that.

Like, even when you were telling me how you didn't want me in the same room, you seemed you weren't really thinking about it. Like, your mind was in another place.

But before I could say anything Fishbum appeared. He didn't yell at us for being late, the way I thought he would. Guess he was pleased we'd turned up at all. And besides, Saturday morning is, like, different; everyone seems kind of quieter. The school felt pretty weird. Everything echoed, and it all looked bare and empty.

He just put us in that room, B13 I think it was, and gave us our work, then off he went to his own little office. And there we were for three hours, just the two of us: the two worst enemies in the southern hemisphere and no-one else to talk to.

It was pretty cold and silent in there for a while, hey? You sat on one side of the room, I sat on the other. We couldn't have got any further away from each other. I just stared at the textbook. I would have read the same sentence seventeen times and I still didn't know what the first word was. I always do that, Miff; I don't know whether I'm stupid or what, but I can read a sentence a hundred times and not have a clue what it's about. The words sit there on the page like dead black ants.

So there I was, doing that, with the cold starting at my feet and working its way up my legs.

I think it was about when it reached my knees that I got my big shock.

You were crying.

You, the great Miffy Catriona Simmons, princess of Salmon Heights, ex Warrington Girls' Grammar School, toughest wildest bitch in the school, more vicious than a rattlesnake with rabies, colder than a Maths classroom . . .

And you were crying.

At first I thought you had a cold and your nose was dripping onto the paper. And the sniffling noises were because of your cold. Then I realised what was really happening. I just couldn't believe it. Impossible! I sat there in shock. And before I could stop myself I said, ‘You're crying.'

You didn't say anything. And I said, ‘What are you crying for?' I was, like, amazed.

And you said, through these little sobs, ‘Mind your own fucking business.'

I said, ‘OK, I will.'

So we both just kept on sitting there, you still crying, me still in shock. Then I saw Fishbum's head coming towards the room. I said, ‘Fishbum's coming.' That gave you time to wipe your eyes and try and look normal. He came in and stood next to you for about five minutes, probably trying to look down your front, I reckon. He didn't say anything, but. Then he came over to my desk and did the same thing, except I don't think he was trying to look down my front. Then he went out. He hadn't said a word, not one.

And there we were, alone, just the two of us again.

I guess a lot of people who think they know me don't know me too well. A lot of people think I'm some total mongrel who couldn't give a shit about anyone: who'd pick up a cat and give it the helicopter treatment on top of a fifty-storey building, then let it go.

I reckon I'd do that, too. I don't like cats. And face it, I've done worse. Remember Clint Eastwood in that movie: ‘I've killed just about everything that walks and crawls, at one time or another.' I've killed mice and frogs and lizards and birds, and even a dog once, except that was an accident. But one thing I just can't hack, one thing I can't stand, even for a minute, is seeing a girl cry. It makes me feel so damn bad. I can't sit there and listen to it. So in case you've ever wondered, that's why I tried again after you'd pissed me off so bad the first time.

I think I said something like, ‘What the fuck's the big problem anyway?' which I guess didn't sound too sympathetic and you didn't even bother to answer. Which was fair enough. But at the time I didn't think that; I got the shits with you and said, ‘You reckon you're so bloody tough and now you're carrying on like a fucking wimp.'

See, I just couldn't stand to see you crying, like I said, so I was saying anything that I thought might shut you up.

Boy, you really cracked then. ‘WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU KNOW?' That's when you started chucking the books. I was ducking and dodging, and at the same time trying to look out the window to see if Fishbum was coming. I thought, If he comes, we're dead. I was counting on you running out of books. But I guess I must have miscounted because, just as I took one more quick look out the window, you got me fair and square on the side of the head with your fucking mobile phone. Geez, I was pissed off. It wasn't one of those little wussy phones that most people have; no, not this baby: it was a thing called The Brick and it felt like one, too. ‘Geez, you're a fucking bitch,' I was going to say, but I couldn't even finish the sentence, because you started crying full-on then, like you were totally out of control. Scary stuff. I went over to where you were sitting and you had your head right down on the desk and I didn't even know if you could tell I was there. I wanted to touch you but I was nervous about it and I had blood running down the side of my face—it was pretty funny, I guess, when you look back on it, but at the time it wasn't. I thought if I touched you, there was every chance you'd belt me again or else you'd get Fishbum and have me charged with assault or harassment or something. Still, I couldn't help myself. I put out a finger and gave your hair a bit of the old stroke stroke treatment and when you didn't shove your pencil case down my throat I got a bit more daring and went for the shoulder. And next thing you're holding me like I'm your best friend, and you're sobbing all over my shirt.

So that's how it started. Last thing I expected when I went in for the det. I've never had anything good come out of a det before. And it wasn't all good—Fishbum cracked the shits when he saw how little work we'd done, and on Monday he dobbed us in to Paspaley. But I'd been there and done that enough times before. And Paspaley's such a weak bastard. I seen him playing table tennis with the Year 12s and he was bloody pathetic, doing all these wussy little shots and they were smashing the crap out of the ball, smashing it right at him, and you could see they were doing it deliberately, and he was giving this weak little smile, like he wanted to be in on the joke, and he didn't realise that he was the joke.

Anyway, I just wanted to write about us, to make myself feel bad, not about Paspaley, which
really
makes me feel bad.

Miff, as much as we hated each other before that det, that's how much we loved each other after it. Don't you reckon? I knew I was pretty damn intense about everything, and now I'd found someone as intense as me. We walked down the street to the park and we were just so into each other.

You know, Miff, touching you was like eating honey. I had your beautiful hair in my mouth, your beautiful clean black hair, and your hands were all down my back, pressing me so close it was like you wanted to pull me right into you. You had the hottest hands I've ever felt, it was like these two hot little animals were running all over me, making me hot wherever they touched. Christ, I wanted to rip my clothes off and your clothes off right there and then, and be right into you, and I know you wanted that too, but being in the middle of a tiny little park, it was a bit difficult. Then, fuck it, you had to go to meet your mother or something, and we had to rip ourselves apart.

Story of my life.

I floated home to my uncle and aunt as if I was on something. And I was, Miff. I was on you. Someone had grabbed a soldering iron and melted us together. Without even having sex we were into each other, like no-one I've ever been with before. It was so wonderful it was scary. So amazingly good that it scared the shit out of me.

I was actually nice to my uncle and aunt for at least half an hour when I got back there. Must have been a helluva shock for them.

You know what they say here, Miff? They say I'm in denial, which I won't bother explaining, and that these letters are all part of the denial. What a lot of shit. They know about the letters by now, of course, cos I spend so much time writing them, but I don't think they know they're to you. One thing's for sure, they don't get to read them. What I do wonder about though is how they even know they're letters. They must have been looking over my shoulder maybe. Makes me kind of nervous.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

See ya.

Tony