dollygolightly

[dollygolightly]

The last thing I wrote

[dollygolightly]

Dolly. No that’s not my real name, asshole.

It’s my 32nd birthday. Since having a baby my body has changed, my brain has changed. I don’t work as much. I care less, I hustle more, I make more money. I take it more seriously as a job, and give my body more respect. Wear less makeup, less lingerie, swear more, smile more. When the men I’m serving find out that I have a child and a husband, they sometimes recoil in shock. Either because the fragile illusion is shattered, and they remember their wives and children at home; or because they can’t believe my husband would ‘let’ me work on the edges of the sex industry. When I have these interactions, I firstly feel compelled to justify my occupation. “It pays well, the hours are flexible, short shifts, my husband is totally cool with it very supportive, good to have time away from the baby...” blah blah blah in a desperate attempt to legitimise my lifestyle choices to a stranger paying me to bring beers to his table 2ft away from the bar. Then I feel like this: Fuck it. Fuck you! How dare you ask why I do my job, how much money I make, if my tits are real. Why are you a plumber, Steve? Do you wear your wedding ring to work? Does it pay well? Does your wife know you’re still at the pub at 7.30 asking a stranger half your age if they shave their pussy? Judgemental Johns are so boring. I love working with/for men, but fuck. And while I’m at it a fuck you to the drunk off-duty barmaid who throws her arm around my shoulders, grabs my tit and kisses me on the cheek- telling me she loves red heads. Shut up and pay my fucking rent, all of you.

[dollygolightly]

Once, a man with three teeth told me my lipstick was too red.

[dollygolightly]

Mick

Mick has one big, bucked front tooth. He lost the other in a fight in his twenties. He is a tattooist for the local division of the Nomads, a ‘highly secret’ position he seemed very comfortable telling a stranger about. He drinks heavily, tips well and gives me his number saying he’d love to tattoo me one day. I called him a few times but he always said he was too busy.

[dollygolightly]

Thursdays with Bernie

Bernard has silver bullions buried in his backyard, but he says the price of silver is heavily regulated by a Chinese government conspiracy and so it hasn’t risen in value for decades. He used to own businesses, in what he won’t say, and painted landscapes in watercolours in his spare time. Now he is on a disability pension, he carries a cane with elastic bands wrapped around it the whole way down. He walks perfectly fine.

He rides a bike from three suburbs aways every Thursday night when the titty girls are on. He drinks soda water, which is free at the bar, but still tips $5 every time. 

I saw him out in the real world once when I was heavily pregnant. ‘Dolly!’ he said, ‘What happened to you?!’

[dollygolightly]

Birdman pt.2

Cvetko was/is an amazing man. 

He is the Birdman. He is halfway between Jesus and the Devil. He has died 1000 times and come back to life. He is a reincarnated American Indian warrior. He is a spitting image of Keith Urban.

Numbers have always played a big part in his life. He can predict the future through car number plates and phone numbers. He finds serendipity in street addresses, shop names and logos. ‘The Numbers’, a set of secret encryptions that surround us all, unawares, allow him to travel through time. He remains confident of his divining skills even though he wrongly predicted the sex of my baby and frequently gets his license confiscated for speeding.

He doesn’t like alcohol, he drinks coke with extra ice and a straw and chain smokes the cheapest cigarettes money can buy. I met him through work and know him well because he is addicted to gambling, and puts most of his paycheck through the pokies late at night when there is no one else around. He can’t sleep due to the pain in his shoulder. I would sit next to him and listen to him go on for hours about Michael the Archangel, his ‘bush pig’ sister and all the meaningful numerical coincidences in his life while he pumped hundreds and thousands of dollars through ‘Where’s the Gold!’. I never saw him win big, but he usually came out even.

I tried to explain BitCoin to him once, and the next time I saw him he gave me a  fragment of an ancient Roman coin he got at a flea market for $3. ‘A bit of a coin’, he said.

He once told me that if I walk under a rainbow and say ‘open sesame’ I will learn the meaning of life.

When I told him I was pregnant he cried and fist-pumped the air with the hand that wasn’t holding his glass of coke and cigarette packet. A lit smoke hanging limply from his pursed lips, the feature he had just won on the pokie machine singing loudly in the background.

He is a mechanic by trade, and an old shoulder injury keeps flaring up and has since stopped him from being able to work. He worked for a man named Loris whose left eye was missing, which Cvetko said was very significant, something to do with The Numbers. He spends a lot of time racking up his phone bill listening to music (Macedonian pub rock) and making ‘movies’ by mashing pictures together on his phone. He once sent me videos of him at work wearing a Flash costume, servicing heavy machinery and standing on the roof of his Hyundai Getz holding an electric guitar. I don’t know who was holding the camera.

He is a pigeon fancier, with over 100 birds including a dozen Spinners, who he says are very hard to train and frequently get stolen by rival fanciers when he is ‘flying’ them. He had a dog named Mark, but he got bitten by a snake and died on Australia Day a few years back. 

One night he came in distraught because he couldn’t ‘see’ his father anymore. His Dad passed away from a massive heart attack when he was a teenager, but since then he had always been able to see him in his subconscious. He spent a few days unable to work or leave the house he was so upset. When I saw him a few weeks later he was fine, his Dad had come back.

Now he is the sole carer for his invalid Mother. She beat him severely as a child and he loathes her, but has always lived nearby. His brother and sister have long since cut ties with her so when he could no longer work or pay rent, and she could no longer care for herself in the house she owned, he reluctantly moved in and took on the caring role which attracts a very small wage from the government. Now he sends me photos of adult diapers (unused, thankfully) and screenshots of the women he is talking to on dating apps. Spending all his days with his bitter, demented and demanding mother who refuses to learn english has taken a big chunk of his soul. The last time I spoke to him he was deeply depressed.

Everyone can learn something from Birdman. He has manifested his own reality and he lives in it with the whole of his heart. I haven’t seen or heard from him in a long time. His phone number is disconnected. I hope he’s okay.

[dollygolightly]

The Eulogy

This guy had spoken of his ailing mother the last few times I saw him. He also talked very animatedly about getting his air conditioner repaired; this seemed to be a bigger issue than his mothers impending death. I suppose one thing is inevitable and the other is expensive. 

She died on a Monday and on Thursday he bought his ipad into the pub to write the eulogy. He said he couldn’t do it at home because the dogs (a toy poodle and a 4 month old kelpie) were too distracting. He wanted to keep it light, and include some jokes and recipes she was known for. He read what he had written out loud and then explained, in excruciating detail, the origins of each joke. He got very upset and ordered another Resch’s.

[dollygolightly]

The Yugoslavian Guys

5 of them sitting in the back of the pokies room, not playing the pokies though. Buying buckets of 4 coronas and a Carlton Draught. They teach me how to use a cigarette roller and send me home with a joint. 3 of them asked me on a ‘date’.

[dollygolightly]

Hire Car Guy

Didn’t catch his name. Managed a car hire branch. When he took the management position it was revealed to him that the whole place was under the control of a local bikie faction. The bikies would pay him to ham up the paperwork when they used the cars for drug runs. They would change the colour and the number plates of the car and he would alter the records and replace the decals. 

He ended up getting caught helping out on a run in his uniform. Says he got in too deep but they were the best years of his life. Went to jail for 2 years. He says it ended on good terms with the bikies.

He packs shelves at BWS now. Looks younger than 30 but he’s turning 40 this August. Has a 15 year old daughter and a six year old son, both by different women. I don’t think he’s told anyone the full story before this, we were sitting in the pokies room, it was topless shift, he was in his BWS uniform. It was 11.30pm.

[dollygolightly]

Steve

Identifies as American Indian (birdman, he says). Has a very relaxed, ‘so it goes’ sort of vibe. Eagle tattoo on his hand. He got his hair done the day before; cut to shoulder length, blonde highlights. Actually it looks quite natural. 

He has a moustache to cover his top lip because he’s been in so many fights it’s all messed up.

[dollygolightly]

Luka

Very tall Sudanese guy with a very thick Australian accent. Made a joke about how he’s covered in tattoos as well, you just can’t see them.

[dollygolightly]

Ian/Dianne

Bisexual cross dresser. Probably mid fifties. Doesn’t recommend nail polish with glitter in it as it’s too hard to get off. He has trouble putting his own eye makeup on because of his glasses and usually needs someone to do it for him. Always asks for the name and number of my lipstick and nail polish. His favourite nail polish shade is called ‘Do you Lilac it?’.

He has a pair of fluro orange denim shorts he wears to the pub sometimes. A friend of his found a red glomesh skirthanging on a fence down the road from the pub. Still has the tag on it - $11.50. Fits like a glove.

 He got very drunk on Tooheys Old and made me waltz with him. He tripped over his bag and went home.

[dollygolightly]

Glen

Glen broke his back at work. He sits very upright and looks quite uncomfortable, he had surgery two months ago. He was a gravedigger and he probably won’t ever be able to work again.

He said that rotting flowers smell worse than rotting bodies; dead bodies smell ‘sickly sweet’

[dollygolightly]

Keep that ass fat girl

Big muscly guy, maybe Samoan? Says he’s a concreter. Has 3 rottweilers. Has 3 iphones, a blackberry and about $2k in cash. Tips $20 a round. He’s there with a friend who doesn’t really talk but sings a lot. I’m not sure if he was singing real songs or just making stuff up.

He went out for a big night in Kings Cross once and woke up with PREACH written in gothic font down the left side of his face and a broken wrist. Can’t remember either incident. Comes outside the pub as I’m leaving and shouts “KEEP THAT ASS FAT GIRL!” as I get into the car.

[dollygolightly]

Tradesman

Recommends two condoms and packet of tic tacs to spice things up in the bedroom when you get older.

[dollygolightly]

J

Another agency girl working the same pub as me. Spends a while talking to the Viking guy and takes his phone into the bathroom. Turns out she charges $10 to take a photo on his phone. He wouldn’t tell me what the photo was of.

[dollygolightly]

Viking

Big burly Scottish guy. Shaved head. Says he identifies as a ‘Viking’ and thinks he was one in a past life. He and his missus are active swingers and he has an app he’s talking to a few potential bedfellows on. Says he loves watching his wife get fucked by other guys, but doesn’t like it when she gives them blow jobs. 

He asks if I want to do coke with him in the toilets - pulls out a small piece of folded paper to show it to me. He accidently spills the powder all over the table and onto a wet coaster.