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Now, I know that's pathetic in just about its purest form, but there's no way I can deal with this kind of thing so early. I need experience with this. I need a few wins under my belt before I can test myself against the rapist built like Tyson.
I pull out the card again one night as I drink coffee with the Doorman. I gave him some Blend 43 the previous night and he was quite taken by it.
At first, he wouldn't touch it.
He looked at me. He looked at his bowl.
Back and forth.
It took me nearly five minutes to realize that he saw me putting sugar in my mug that says Taxi Drivers Aren't the Biggest Shitheads on the Road. Once I gave him some sugar he became much more enthusiastic. He slurped and licked and carried on, demolishing the entire bowl and looking up for more.
So it's the Doorman and me in the lounge room. He's going at his coffee while I stare at the card, at the other addresses. Thirteen Harrison is next on the list, and I make my mind up to go there the next evening, six o'clock sharp.
"What do you say, Doorman?" I ask. "This one'll be better, you reckon?"
He gives me a grin because he's all hopped up on the Blend 43.
"I'm telling you." Marv points his finger at Ritchie. "I did knock. I don't care what you say."
"Did he knock?" Ritchie asks me.
"I can't remember."
"Audrey?"
She thinks a moment and shakes her head. Marv throws his hands in the air. He has to pick up four cards now. In Annoyance, that's the way it works. You get down to two cards and you knock. If you forget to knock before you put down that second-to-last card, you pick up four. Marv forgets to knock quite frequently.
He scowls as he picks up the cards, but secretly he's trying not to laugh. He knows he didn't knock, but he'll always try to get away with it. It's part of the game.
We're at Audrey's place, on her balcony. It's dark but the floodlights are on, and people look up as they walk past the lot of town houses. It's a street around the corner from mine. A bit of a dive, but nice enough.
In the first hour of play, I look at Audrey and know that I'm in nervous love with her. Nervous because I don't know what to do sometimes. I don't know what to say. What can I tell her when I feel the hunger rise in me? How would she react? I think she's frustrated with me because I could have gone to university and now I just drive a cab. I've read Ulysses, for God's sake, and half the works of Shakespeare. But I'm still hopeless, useless, and practically pointless. I can see she could never really see herself with me. Yet she's still done it with others who are pretty much the same. Sometimes I can't bring myself to think about it. Thinking about what they've done and how it feels and how she likes me too much to consider me.
Even though I know.
It isn't just sex I'd want from her.
I'd want to feel myself mold with her, just for a moment, if that's all I'm allowed.
She smiles at me when she wins a round, and I smile back.
Want me, I beg, but nothing comes.
"So whatever happened with that weird card thing?" Marv asks later.
"What?"
"You know very bloody well what." He points at me with his cigar. He could use a shave.
Everyone listens as I lie. "I threw it out."
Marv approves. "Good idea. Load of shit, that."
"Damn right," I agree. End of story. Supposedly.
Audrey looks at me, amused.
For the next few games I think of what happened earlier, when I went to 13 Harrison Avenue.
