HOT TOOTHFISH CHOWDER

“I don’t want to have this conversation now” I said as I picked up another used coffee cup. The kettle was boiling. I picked it up and poured boiling hot water into a plastic cylinder which stood atop a cup I just washed brandishing the Australian Flag.

I pushed on the cylinder and coffee poured into the cup, I put a sprinkle of cinnamon on top and walked it into the bedroom.

“Baby, do you want me to leave?”

“No…”

“I can leave”

“No, I don’t want that, I love having you here”

“But you’re angry at me”

“No, I’m not”

“Yes, you are, because you want $150.00 from me”

“I wouldn’t take it even if you begged me now”

She looked at me like a cat stuck in a hessian bag.

I walked into the bathroom and didn’t come out for twenty minutes. When I did she was sipping the coffee.

“We need to talk about this”

“No, we don’t”

“Yes we do”

“Ok fine, I’m being punished for every ex boyfriend you’ve ever had. Every woman in my life has used money to control me. My last boss did it, my mother does it, and now you’re doing it and you’ve tried to control your ex boyfriends with it and I’m not letting you disrespect me like that regardless of whether you think that’s being disrespectful to you!”

I went back into the bathroom and came out again after ten minutes.

“I wrote you this” and she she handed me a letter about leaving.

“Fine”

“Fine”

She got dressed. I was already dressed. Her back hurt and she tried to move her bike and then she started to cry. I looked at her blankly. She cried more and sat down beside me, exhausted and I continued to look blankly – I didn’t feel anything, that’s the way I like to feel.

“Baby, I’m sorry”

“What for?”

She looked at me with tears streaming down her face.

“Look, this doesn’t matter, money keeps coming between us and the money doesn’t even care”

“But baby, I already lent you money”

“And I told you I’d give it back to you on Friday”

“But I’ve told you about my past relationships and why it triggers me”

“I don’t care about that”

“We’ve only been seeing each other three or four months now, I don’t even really know you”

“No, I guess you don’t.”

We made love.

“Baby, that was great”

“Yeah, it’s always more intense after we have a tiff”

“Yeah” She smiled

“I need you to lend me one hundred and fifty dollars”

“Ok, see, this is the best time to ask me”. We laughed.

“Baby, can I buy you your morning coffee?”

“No. Well, you see, I’ve already accounted for it now; thank you for giving me the money. If I didn’t borrow it I’d spend all day trying to find a way to get it and then never get anything done”

“Yes, but baby, you said earlier that I was the thing getting in the way of you making money”

“Well, baby, yes, sometimes that’s true”

She cried again and left.

I walked out, got my coffee, and got on a tram. I had no cigarettes and refused to smoke the butt ends on the sidewalk. I’m better than that now I told myself. I bought the cigarettes, and had a laugh with the new clerk. I thought about how my father had treated women in his past and at 9:06am I wrote him a message:

“Hi Dad, I know you’re in pain. If it makes it any easier I will understand if you don’t call me on my birthday next Tuesday although I would love it if you did.”

Still no reply at 4:12pm. He’s probably working I thought to myself. Or crying.

I jumped back on the tram and into the city to buy ink to draw a picture for my girlfriend. I walked past an opportunity store and saw a baggy hat in the window. I’m getting that hat I thought.

I arrived in the city and got off one extra stop than usual and walked to the comic book store. It had moved so I walked the wrong way up the alleged new street a sign claimed it was on. As I walked back I saw a can of tuna on the ground, still sealed, and picked it up. Street tuna, I thought, kinda like fishing but in the city. I put it in my pocket.

I sparked up a cigarette and stood in a laneway waiting for 10:30am. It was ten minutes off. I saw two men yelling at each other moving boxes from a truck into some mystery zone. Then I looked at all the souls of people who had attached them to the wall of the laneway in which I stood. Some had codes for invites into their friendship circles. One read “we are the weirdos”. They were all under a poster of and moustachioed Indian man’s profile with AUSTRALIAN written under it.

I put my smoke out under my shoe and stuck it in my pocket for lack of a bin. I walked into the comic book store to buy one comic book and walked out with ten and two toys.

I caught the tram back to the opportunity store but walked into a stationary store.

“Do you sell Indian ink?”

“No”

Ok

“The newsagent might.”

“Ok”

I walked to the newsagent

“Do you sell Indian ink”

“What?”

“Indian ink”

“Indian?”

“Yes, ink”

“OH!” she said. “No” and she shook her head.

“No worries.” There were about ten salt lamps in the window.

I walked past a sign on the street that read HOT TOOTHFISH CHOWDER and thought that sounds nice. I pulled out the can of tuna and ate it with a wooden coffee stirrer while sitting in the gutter admiring the architecture in the street. I felt happy and free.

“You have to sign in here” a man said to me at the opportunity store.

“I don’t use a phone”

“No worries, I can sort it out” He took my details and typed them into an electronic tablet.

“We did it!” I said. He smiled and laughed.

“I’m just here about the cap in the window”

“Oh, Julie will help you with that”

“I just wanted to know the price”

“It’s sixty-five dollars”

“ok”

“But it’s Ralph Lauren”

“Oh, can I try it on?”

“Yes, sure”

I put the cap on and I looked like a train conductor. I like it. A woman walked out and congratulated me and said “I’ve been just waiting for someone to buy that hat! And it you!”

“Yeah, I think it is” I said and walked it to the counter “don’t suppose you barter on these things? I know it’s terribly undignified” I actually did say that

“Yeah mate, we do it all the time” the man said “what do you reckon?”

“Fifty bucks?”

“Awe, I dunno, it’s not been in the window long; we can’t budge that much”

“Ok”

“how about sixty?”

“Ok”

“Yeah, it’s been in the window a month”

“A month? Then it’s worth fifty”

“Ok, let’s split the difference: $55.00”

“Ok” we all had a chuckle and rang my hand like a train conductor and walked out.

I walked down to the record store and rolled another smoke waiting for 11:30am. I was ten minutes early.

I went in to buy two records for fifty dollars and instead walked out with three different ones for $95.00 and four further records held under the counter for me to pay for on Friday.

Man, I have a lot to pay for on Friday, I thought.

I still don’t have that ink.

I walked into the café at the end of my street and got a cup of coffee on tab until Friday.

My girlfriend phoned me when I got home.

“I’m crying in the supermarket because your food delivery won’t come until Saturday. I stuffed it all up.”

“Baby, I don’t care”

“What can I do? Can I buy you some groceries?”

“No baby, please don’t do this to yourself – come over”

She came over and cried and I looked into her eyes.

“I’ve terrified you haven’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I looked after you for five days and then I got mad at the end of it and now you feel like you can’t trust me”

“Yes”

I didn’t say sorry and wondered if this was domestic violence and then I asked her.

“No, you were violent, you just raised your voice”

I felt like a real scumbag.

“Baby, I enjoyed our fight, I enjoy everything about us.”

“I have to go back to work,” she said and she looked worse than exhausted.

“I love you”

“I love you too”

She walked off without looking back, she never looks back. I do love that woman.

So, I still don’t have that ink to draw her a picture and I’m now sitting in my apartment alone with a cold cup of coffee and ten cents in my bank account. I checked it again just in case. I’m expecting $150.00 to hit it any second so I can return it to her – that was the plan. I just have to wait a little longer – I hope she can too, but this story still feels unfinished.