Coda Josh Grant

We all call him Snake when he is in 'that sort of mood.' It's never Cameron, when he is acting up, and that's when he says he doesn't care what you call him, as his eyes roll back into his head.

I put a load of washing on and I was and ready to go by 10am. I was rah, rah, rah as I walked out of the gym by 10.30. Fresh. Alive. Clean. The blood is pumping freely. Mike called up to see if Daniel wanted to accompany him out for a big night, early last night. "Are you up for a big night?" he asked. "Oh... gosh... gee, am I up for a big night?" Mike hey. Big night. I'm laying bets that the plan is for it to end at Mike's place. Big smile, voice crescendoing. "Considering... I have Monday off, I reckon you are on." Bro, bro, bro, look at him smiling into the phone. He knoweth not what evil forces are in play. "Even better," said Daniel. When I told him. Apparently, Mike said he had organised everything and Daniel didn't have to worry about a thing. "So... what time do you reckon?" A big night indeed. Mike would drop by and pick him up. When Mike was waiting and I had him alone in the lounge room. "What are your inte...

It was a cold, bleak day outside, as I gazed out through the crack in the curtains. I was up so early, just before 5am. It seemed a long time in between. I went to gym. I went to work. I lit the fire as soon as I got home. I put coffee on to boil. Coffee in the evening, I know? What day is it? Ah, the end of the week. Ah! I can do nothing for days. I'm exhausted. Time to stop and just take in fresh air and mountain rain water, er southerlies and glass with ice in it. I've been trashy all week. It was good, but it has to stop here. It is the weekend, and it is time to do weekend things. Take in a big breath, hands stretched all the way to the ceiling. He, some moments later, laughs, suddenly, after he has given the proposition serious, quiet consideration. "Why?" he says out loud. Then, as I contemplated my first reconnaissance mission and my first joint, I noticed the pile of bills on the kitchen bench that I still haven't paid. I eat pasta, as I pay all the bill...

It was a cold, bleak day outside, so I lit the fire as soon as I had put the coffee on to boil, as soon as I had got home. I'd been up half the night, working from home, Yes, sad stuff. The city was bleak, through which to walk home. I met up with Nick, as he hurried out of his building. “Oh, ‘ello.” He was meeting someone’s husband, the partner for who had left the state leaving him ‘up for grabs.’ “I’m sure she didn’t leave with that intension.” “Whatever that means?” said Nick He had his glass pipe in his top pocket. “Luv, you might want to hide that?” “If I have it here, it’s not hitting me until I get to the front door of his place, after a short taxi ride.” “Is that why you always stop in here?” “You never listen, Josh. Hello is there anybody in there? YES!” “Okay, I heard you.” Jees, he seemed angsty. “How many times do I have to tell you, your house is the perfect distance from the CBD.” Yeah, sure I’d heard him say that before. “TAXI!” And the...

Marcus want to model white trunks, he said he wanted to give it a go. I think he pulled it off rather spectacularly. What do you reckon?  He just leant down on the table with both his hands and said, "Take the shot."

I took a couple of days off, mental health sweetie. It was right after the moment that bitch Rachel questioned me on the Miller Matter. Oh, I don’t know, something about, ‘do I really need to be here?’ And oddly, The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and round, don’t know why. Good thing Hacks is a big boys club, hey? Ah, a coffee a muffin and a joint on the veranda in the sparkling sunshine at midday, quite a civilised time to be seeing the day in. Over grown front garden, can’t see in from the outside, that also helps. You know, when you walk down the street and you are sure you can smell something, but you can’t pick from which house it is coming? I’m that guy. Then a second coffee and a second joint at 1pm. Lovely. Days off, what were you expecting? It's good, in one sense, now that I'm pinching my supply from Daniel's stuff, it acts as a filter to my smoking. General decency and a natural sense of propriety tells me to only pinch the tiniest amount, at any one time. (And tod...

I went into Daniel's room and nicked a bud from his stash. He and I stocked up together and I've finished mine and I knew he'd have some left. I guess it's steeling, really. Technically. But, he keeps it in the same place, so I know where it is. There's not too much imagination put into that hiding spot. He keeps it in the first draw under his iMac. It always makes me nervous, when I head in there. I think all sorts of conspiracy theories, like he has set up his iMac to start filming if anyone comes into his room. And there I am being caught red handed, you know, like out of those nanny-beats-the-child on monitor videos. Suddenly, the perpetrator caught, naked out in the open. Anyway, it's nice to be stoned again this evening, no matter what the personal cost. Reputations ruined, friendships destroyed. “You are nothing but a common thief.” “Ah! You take that back.” I must give Nick a call and see what he is up to. A phone call is the minimum requirement connecti...

Daniel had been out with Mike doing meth. It made me think of the last conversation I had with Mike. He was over Rachel, always giving him grief, so he was over girls for that minute. Mike's usual modis de operandi is to have a girl friend – despite all of his big talk, and filthy ways, he's a serial monogamist – for a length of time, break up, dabble with gay sex, find a new girlfriend and the cycle begins again. The other guy usually has no idea why. "I'm gonna do your brother." "What? Daniel?" "How many brothers have you got?" Mike smiled his dirty he-man smile. "It would great to feel that point of him giving in with a straight boy again. It's been a while. And he's a really fit lad, your brother. Daniel's fit, okay." "You're going to bed my brother?" "Have sex with the one and same." Mike left him at the last club they were at, just wandered off into the distance unannounced, messy. Not a good...

I spent the last week up the shack, until last weekend, only coming home for mum's birthday lunch on Monday. It was nice, peaceful, not internet, no phone. I was enjoying the solitude, on my own, nobody around, just the trees and the gentle breeze, that was until the neighbouring farm's son, Chad, came strolling down the track with what looked like a j in his hand. Cute. Cropped dark-haired. Muscular. Tan work pants. Maroon hand-knitted jumper. Brown Kelpie. I was chopping wood for the fire. I put the axe down. "G'day." "Hi ya." "I come over here to get away from my… um… dad, sorry, I didn't realise anyone was here." He shrugged and looked around. "I hope you don't mind." “No,” I said. Jesus! Look at you, why would I mind. I could feel a buzz in the pit of my stomach. Had I turned into a lecherous old man in my mid thirties? "Nice car," he said as he walked up to me. "Do you like it?" I looked over at the G...

It was mum's birthday lunch in Malvern The whole family was there and a good time was had by all. I stumbled in late, as per usual, all the usual comments were made. I was stoned, sure, but when I say stumbled, I don't mean visibly. I was just feeling like I was stumbling on the inside, the stumble I talk about wasn't visible to the naked eye. Daniel coughed me, as I sat down and indicated that I should take my sun glasses off, oops. Nobody noticed. He rolled his eyes. He'd come from work. Of course, mum asked me if I have got a job yet? It didn't take long. "You know mum, it's one thing for the powers that be to legislate down to the bogun now a days, but please don't ask me to go out and work with them." "Oh Josh." "Their baby bonus' and their family payments and their tax breaks and their kids and their kids and their kids. And that unshakable belief that they are the back bone of the country, when it is just stupidity begetti...

She wrote sorry in red lipstick and then left. Daniel went out down Chapel Street and picked up some pissed first year uni student named Mya, who lives at home with her parents in Doncaster. She was gorgeous but questionably smashed on alcohol. Daniel said later that she claimed to be a virgin out for a rare night of partying with girlfriends she has just made in her first lecturers and tutes. She said it was one of the first times she had gotten so drunk. Apparently, she slurred it all into his ear. As he was stoopin’ her. She said she'd never sucked cock before, as he slid his into her mouth. "She was a natural." He rolled her on to her back and rubbed his big dick across her pussy as they kissed and she wrapped her legs around him and said that she was so horny. Then he slowly nailed her to the bed, as her breathing was deep and laboured. "What a lovely, tight little cunt." Then he fucked her on her knees on his bed. "She loved it. Fucken loved it."...

We took a few days off, to play ladies, as Owen put it. Owen worked every day, so Gordon and I smoked pot and cut fire wood and enjoyed the country. We stayed up late and watched home life style shows. And repeats of Frazier. I was messaging Nick a lot, as I said I’d be home on Wednesday and here I still was, in the country playing ladies with Gordon. “Ladies,” said Gordon. “Let’s not have any of that shit up here, okay.” It was said as a mild threat, it had menacing undertones. I promised I would go to something with Gordon and he was cross. “Fuck you Josh Grant, you never hold up your side of the deal, you always back out.” Sorry. What could I say. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. “But I wanted to be seen with a hot date,” said Gordon. “And you're the closest thing I have to that and you can't even do that much for me.” What can I say, I'm sorry. I don’t remember agreeing to be Gordon’s date to anything. I’d have remembered that, that would have gone down in ...

I had congee at Box Hill with Nick. He thinks he is being all very ethnic and original. I still remember it when it was a street full of red brick shops. "If you want good Asian food, you go eat where the Asians' eat. It is a simple as that." Except, the way Nick says it, it is almost racist. Dane, to eat. I have come down to meet with thee. Nick smiled triumphantly when two bowls of white coloured stuff was put in front of us. With something going on in the middle. There were bits in the translucentness of rice, I could see. Pork, and veg and just gorgeous things. Still, it was good to get out of the house and go for a drive. The GTI appreciated it, it gurgled with delight. You could hear it in the exhaust note, it was good to be alive. My car is really nice to drive. Now, I'm home smocking pot in bed watching porn and wanking. Big teli, digital porn, you can practically smell their arseholes it is so clear. Nick was going to arrange flowers for the coming week. “I h...

Kurt came over pissed off his brain, late. He stumbled into my house, out of it. I'd been asleep, for a while, afternoon nap and all. I guided him back to the bedroom, he was unsteady. I pulled his clothes off and he was asleep on the pillow before I finished getting his arm out of his sleeve. It was really touching, really. Yes, touching. I listened to his breathing, in out. I felt his smooth skin with my fingertips. I touched his soft hair. I felt his chest rise and fall. He snored for a minute, but only a minute. It was gentle and sweet. Then I climbed in next to him, and the afternoon siesta continued. Lazy Sunday afternoon. I smelt of soap and shampoo, Kurt smelt of beer and cigarettes and puppy dog’s tails.