Happy Birthday Cunt

We drove to Miami, Florida the next day.

I mean the Gold Coast. Tacky, soulless, outdated piece of 90s shit it is.

I met with my friend Katie. We went to the gay club in town.

They had $2 vodkas.

I woke up the next morning in a car park.

A guy had nudged me and sounding genuinely worried he said

"Are you alright, mate?"

I think he thought he'd discoverd a corpse.

In some ways he had.

"Im fine" I said, and started giggling like a mad man.

I remembered straight away the drunken lot of fun I'd had and the vomiting in the rain on the way home. After trying to sleep on the beach with my head spinning, the underground car park across the road seemed so warm and cozy.

Mum woke up when I got to the hotel. It was 6am and a gorgeous morning in a cunt of a place. We could see the ocean from the room and misty rain was slowly making its way to shore.

Drunk as fuck I started yaking to Mum.

"Thanks for waking me up" she said.

"I slept in a car park"

"That's jolly good"

"Im still tanked"

"How nice 4 u"

"I was dancing on the poduim with my shirt off and this guy said he'd give me $20 if I took my pants off. I had no underwear on, but I did it anyway cause I was broke"

Mum rolled her blurry eyes.

"Then he bought like 5 drinks as well and I threw up in the toilet. Then I went outside to throw up, a cleaner told me to move. And Im like its only water vomit, show compassion"

"You fuckwit" she said "So did you end up with that guy who bought u all those drinks"

"No, I was just playing him"

"To drinks and money?"

"Yep. He was old, wrinkled and grey"

"Yuck, was he sleazy?"

"No he didnt touch me. I never let them touch me"

"Hey, did you pay Grant back that money"

"I had no intention of paying him back"

"mmmmm"

"The whole club was great. The resident drag queen told me how fabulous I was. The guys were hot. I picked up a 21 year old Law Student. I lost him, however, sometime between saying goodbye to Katie and throwing-up"

"Oh well"

"And this girl came up to me and told me how gorgeous I was. Katie had to tell her to fuck off cause she wouldnt leave me alone"

My ego was out of control.

"Did Katie have fun?"

"I think so...hey, its my birthday"

"Happy Birthday Luke"

I went bed. Mum got her revenge 3 hours later when she woke me up being a bitch.

We drove to Byron Bay and fought several times about which direction to go in.

Northern NSW was flooded. Some fences were completely underwater. It rained the whole way. It was misty so I didnt get to show Mum the lush rainforesty landscape I really wanted to her see.

We walked around Byron and it was hard to miss the new COMMERCIAL Byron. Neoliberalism had invaded hippie land and colonised with units called "Jays Jays" and "Supre". What the fuck did I care now? I buy headbands from Supre, right???

There were middle class families and trendy young couples. Mum told me she had read in Who Weekly that Elle Mcpherson had been spotted surfing there. Prosperous Australia has no alternative. Perhaps that just means its nice to be mainstream at the moment. Im not sure. The nightclub I went to 7 years ago was now a vacant building. When I did see the locals. The old-skool locals. I nodded at them, they smiled back. "We know", "we are legit", "weve seen this place change". Just like them I felt at those moments proud to be a misfit.

Two teenage girls stopped me in the street. I was wearing a ninja style red headband.

"Can we have your headband" they asked.

"Sure"

"We love it"

I laughed.

"We love your t-shirt. Its cool. Robots are cool"

They were pretty, blonde, locals not hippies more like surfie chicks with a twist. They drank UDL's.

They were the type of girl who would never kiss me at high school.

"How old are you?" one of them asked"

"Im 28 today"

"Really your nearly as old as my Mum, she's thirty. Were both 15"

"Yeah, my step Dad is 26" the other one added.

"He's hot" her friend send eying my up and down as she said it.

"I dont feel twice your age" I said.

It was true. I could have easily grabbed a can of UDL and spent the night wandering the streets and talking about Britney Spears. I could tell they liked me. Girls like that, 15 years too late. Perhaps I'll put my braces and acne back on and see what they think of me then.

It would be nice to swallow some of their mentality. Being that young, there's that little feeling that you could be either swept off your feet or annihliated at any minute.

"Sorry about the rain" one of them said "Byron is still awesome though isnt it?"

"Yeah, its great" i said and walked back to the hotel.