The True Story of Butterfish by Nick Earls Page B

daylight, might or might not have been salmon in colour. The Beck’s on the coaster in front of him was almost empty. ‘Another one of these,’ he said, holding it up, ‘to thank me for fighting off the hordes who wanted this discreet dimly lit corner table.’
    It was early for the Troubador. There were not yet hordes present, not that it took much of a horde to fill the place. The entire venue was as wide as a loungeroom and about three times as long, and decorated in the mustards, chocolates and burnt oranges of the seventies, with sagging vintage furniture and a large print of junks in Hong Kong harbour at sunset. It was all history, as Annaliese had said, and all history sat in op shops across the city ready to be plundered with whatever sense of irony could be mustered. Patrick had moved into a house that had looked just like this when I was still at school, but there had been nothing chic about it then. I was sixteen, he was twenty. That was where I came temporarily into possession of quite a volume of rum and Coke, before I lost it over the verandah railing and was sent to bed. He told me the next day it wouldn’t have counted as a house-warming party if no one had done that.
    It was my first and last experience with rum. I couldn’t really remember if there had been girls there that night or not.
    I waited my turn at the bar and shouted out my order for two Beck’s as soon as I got the look from the guy serving.
    â€˜Hey. Curtis Holland.’ Next to me stood a teenager in a pork-pie hat and his first straggly attempt at a goatee. He was the height of my shoulder and gripping his beer as if it was a handweight. He was the kind of person who, I was sure, blogged regularly about what a talentless arsehole I was. Or maybe I had disappeared sufficiently from view that there wasn’t as much of that now. Surely those people are always cruising for new targets. Surely the target isn’t really what it’s about. He reached across and clinked his beer against both of mine. ‘Man. Curtis Holland.’
    I nodded, and reached over and clinked both my beers against his.
    â€˜So, what have you been doing?’ he said. ‘Could I get you to sign something? Anything?’ He was patting down his pockets for pens. He saw one behind the bar, next to some spiked receipts, and he leaned over and picked it up. ‘A coaster? How about a coaster?’
    â€˜Are you bullshitting me, or...?’
    No, he was playing it straight. ‘What?’ He was too drunk to carry it off if it was an act, too drunk to whip the coaster scornfully out from under the pen or to walk away shaking his head and saying ‘As if...’ and leaving me signing for no one. Curtis Holland thought I actually wanted his autograph. Hilarious. ‘No, seriously. It’s for Josh. That’s me.’ He slid the coaster along the bar, with the pen on top. ‘J O S H.’
    I wrote: ‘Josh, If you drink too many of these, they’ll come out your nose.’ And I signed it, though the pen hit a soft damp spot near the edge of the coaster so the D in Holland was nowhere to be seen.
    â€˜Wow, excellent,’ he said, as he struggled to read what I’d written in the dim bar light. He put the coaster in his shirt pocket and clinked his beer against both of mine again. It seemed as good a sign as any that the interaction was done.
    When I turned around, I could see that Patrick had watched the whole thing. He looked away, towards the empty stage at the far end of the room, and drank the last mouthful of his first beer. I moved away from the bar, head down and with a beer in each hand. Two people slid by me to claim my spot and order drinks.
    In my second week back, I had been buying groceries and had slowed down to test the ripeness of the avocadoes when someone called out my name. ‘Hey, Curtis Holland.’ Just like the guy at the bar. Her name was Dana and she was a stripper,