Through the Cracks by Honey Brown

to use.
Sulk and you’ll get nothing.
    The night came in waves of movement and noise. There were times Billy’s arm was draped around Adam’s shoulders and his chatter spoken directly into Adam’s ear. Adam dulled his hearing and he backed up, inside himself. He stopped looking through his eyes and looked
out
from them instead. It wasn’t the same way he’d retreated when being beaten or hurt. He was withdrawing for the opposite reason. He needed to see and feel everything, but without distance it was too much. Standing back, inside himself, he was able to get a better view of things. Money mattered. It was in everyone’s pockets and being passed over every counter. Meanness didn’t only take place indoors and behind high fences. People swore and threatened one another out in the open, in the street. Fights broke out. One man threw a punch and Billy had to step back to avoid it, laughing as he did.
    ‘Dopey white cunt, have another go.’
    The man tried but stumbled and tripped over a woman sitting in the gutter. The man then had to shield himself from her blows. She hit him with her handbag. Billy giggled for a long time after that.
    Everyone drank. Billy didn’t.
    ‘Grog is toxic. If you’re smart you won’t touch it.’
    People smoked, almost as much as Billy did.
    At an all-night barber the air was so thick and hazy with cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke that it made Adam’s heart race and his eyes sting. Billy lounged on the counter with his back to the mirrors. Not all the men were getting haircuts. They’d come in just to talk, to smoke. Adam chose not to look at his own reflection. For the most part his head was angled down anyway. Damp lengths of Adam’s hair dropped to the floor. No sawing, no dry cutting, not like when Adam’s father had brought out the scissors. These were fast little snips and clean slices. Only when it was done did Adam look. His hair was short, except for his fringe, which was heavy over one eye. Billy spent longer looking at the new style. He pouted, clucked his tongue, made Adam turn in a circle. He smacked his lips and winked.
    ‘Now if you could stop hobbling like an old man, we might just be getting somewhere.’
    Pubs and clubs were full of people. Music thudded from deep inside the buildings. Adam and Billy walked past queues and stood around near crowds. Women smiled and were friendly when they were drunk. Not so friendly when they were sober.
    People kissed and touched out in the open.
    Adam’s feet sank in the soft sand as they walked down near the water. A man and woman were lying together in the darkness. Cold sea air blew. Waves rolled in and out and glistened in the moonlight.
    Up from the beach, Billy had a shower. There was a showerhead outside the toilet block. Adam watched for anyone coming. He stood beneath an orange streetlamp, at the edge of the empty parking lot. Billy bundled and balanced his clothes on top of a post. Naked, under the shower, he gasped and swore. He leaned down and scooped up small piles of wet sand and rubbed them over his body, under his arms, down his legs, up his neck, on his face, before rinsing it all off again. To dry himself he used his tank top, and then left it off, tucking it into the waistband of his shorts to flap about beside his leg.
    ‘Wanna wash?’
    ‘No. Can I brush my teeth?’
    Billy showed Adam to a tap above a grate. The cool air felt strange against the nape of Adam’s neck. All the hair there had been shaved off. He splashed his face.
    Finished brushing, feeling better for it, Adam put the toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste in his trackpant pocket and walked back to Billy. He was leaning against a post, staring towards the beach, bare-chested, the tank top flapping against his leg. He smiled as Adam approached. Right then, Billy looked like something out of a TV show. He seemed bigger than his surroundings, bigger than the picture he was in.
    ‘All good?’
    As they climbed the steps up to the street Billy