Method: Book | Part |/

It was a Wednesday and Method couldn’t decide on which shirt to wear. Shirts need to say something - he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

There are five degrees of shirt meanings - black, white, red, blue and yellow. Black shirts give a sense of control; white shirts - business; red shirts – looking for action; blue shirts – looking for calm; yellow shirts – looking to be remembered. So for instance if you’re a male wearing a pink shirt – in between red and white – it means you’re a tosser to the straight guys but a player to the girls; you want to mean business but you also want to get some action (sex or trouble). Of course any slogans or multiple colours could change the meaning and shirts are only for first impressions – once a person actually talks to you their impression could completely change – you need the aura to back a shirt up.

Method picked a green shirt – a nice guy shirt (calm but remembered). He had a job interview at another supermarket – this one wasn’t as rude – they didn’t ring him up at inappropriate times – he liked them for that and they liked him.

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When Ferrí had landed in Method’s backyard he initially thought she was an angel fallen from heaven. He then realised this thought was corny and attended to her – she clearly needed medical attention. He took her inside and lay her down on his bed – she had passed out and was covered in mud and water deterrent, which hadn’t worked that well as she was soaked. He was at home alone and the only thing he could think to do was to run over to Bé’s house - after all Bé was her mother. He ran out of his room and slipped on the wooden floorboards hitting his knee.
“Fuck, OW!” this was not a conditioned ow.
“Harr… light elf me soon…” Ferrí called from the bed.
“What?” Method got up and went back into the room; Ferrí’s arms were thrashing wildly. Her eyes opened and her arms calmed down when he touched her on the shoulder. Then her arms slipped to her sides and she began to pull down her top – she was clearly fevering, yet he stood and stared as she revealed her breasts. They were smooth and her nipples perky it was beautiful – NO he had to get help. He went back in the hall and grabbed a blanket – it was coarse and grey but it would have to do - he covered her with it.

Bé was startled when Method thrashed at her door. His knuckles bruised on the metal. After a brief stammered expulsion of words that in some way asked for help, Bé grabbed a red umbrella and they both ran to Ferrí. When they arrived, Ferrí was coughing; it didn’t look or sound good. She had thrown off the blankets from Method’s bed, his sheets were a deep blue and the doona cover was also blue but had white stars too. He understood why she threw off the grey blanket but why would she throw off the doona and sheets - they were nice sheets! That was trivial - Bé just wanted to help her daughter. She ran back to the street and got in her 1989 BMW, reversing it off the street and straight into Method’s driveway – knocking the bin over on the way. Method still thinking about the sheets heard the bin crashing out in the street and ran to his mother’s bedroom window to see what was happening. Method ran outside – slipping again in the hall. Bé told him to help carry Ferrí into the car. They both carried her to the passenger’s seat of the car – doona blankets sheets and all – and shoved everything in. Bé sped off down the street – dodging the wheelie-bin – leaving Method to ponder just what the hell had just happened.

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All they wanted at the interview was some information on who he was and what hours he could work – he got the job in a snap - partly because his t-shirt had Wallace and Grommet on it (the interviewer was a big fan) and partly because his sister worked there. The interview had taken place on a bench outside the front of the store – the bench he always sat on when waiting to pick his sister up from work. Somehow it felt like ‘his’ bench. He left the supermarket – it was in Manuka – and walked down the shopping arcade towards Greater Union.

There were three lots of cinemas in Canberra: Greater Union, Hoyts and Electric Shadows. Greater Union was in two areas – Civic and Manuka – it was the middle range cinema not overly big and not too small but it screened the blockbusters and some lesser known films but it still charged the same price as Hoyts, which was the ‘super-cinema’. Hoyts was located in three areas – all commercial metropolises in the suburbs. The Hoyts cinemas were your intimidatingly large cinemas they held about twelve or so individual theatres that all screened American blockbusters. Hoyts cinemas were the preferred cinema experience of most – they had good seats, good sound, and average projectors the only problem was they were all in the middle of the three holes of Canberra – Belconnen, Tuggranong and Woden. You didn’t want to be seen in these areas, as they were the areas that all the high school kids liked to ‘hang’. Lifeless and bland – these areas were the Mecca’s of shopping and the anti-Mecca’s of culture and aesthetics but they did have the best cinemas. That leaves Electric Shadows, which is where anyone who wants to see a quality film goes. It is underground/art/foreign film heaven. Based in Civic it has two elongated theatres – red and blue. Both fitted with old-school seats, 1940’s style lights and a piano to boot they make the best choc-tops you’ve ever had. Sadly this theatre was closing up. Not for lack of patronage but because a larger independent-film company, Dendy was installing a large theatre complex in Civic – this would swallow Electric Shadows like the sun.

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Now, standing outside Greater Union Method noticed how out of his element he felt. He recognised no one. People passed, chatting to each other and with a swish of the eyes glancing at him then quickly looking away. It felt like he was a beggar who had once been the inventor of something that everyone used, like the paperclip, but was now left in the gutter moaning for change, the people passing by thinking that he just wanted it for alcohol – the stupid derelict. Why they hell was he getting that feeling – he was well dressed, not doing anything unusual and had money (though very little). His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his name somewhere to his right. He looked over and there was Kith standing, smiling and looking as high on life as always. They walked over to each other and hugged. Method melted – this was the best hug he’d ever had – it had come out of nowhere without any pretensions or awkwardness and it lasted for a perfect amount of time – neither of them starting to feel uncomfortable… Wow!

Kith had gone to high school with Method and was now going to university with him too – she was also in his ‘My Generation’ class. In year ten when Method had come back from overseas she was the only girl who had seemed to take any interest in where he had been and what he had seen. He had a crush on her ever since. She was so fun and lively - eccentric would be the obvious word to describe her but not in a bad sense. It was just that she made connections to the most random things and burst out laughing even when she was the only one who understood what was funny. She hadn’t gone to the same college as him but at the end of year twelve her and him and a few friends had gone on a coast trip together. It was on this particular trip lying next to each other in the dark that he was going to tell her how he felt. It just so happened that another guy was in the room too. The other guy was asleep but Method was unsure of the relationship between her and the other guy. They were good friends he knew that, but he didn’t know at the time that that’s all they were. It ended up a wasted opportunity and Method had regretted not telling her ever since.

“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Method said.
“I know! I’ve been so busy. I have like ten assignments to do this week so I haven’t been going to the lectures.”
“What on earth are you doing on this side of town?”
“What on earth are you doing on this side of town?” she retorted.
“I just had a job interview here and I was heading home”
“Oh really,” she said in a sarcastic unbelieving tone.
They found a seat – a bench – the sun shone down it was beautiful. They talked for a while – Kith was meeting up with some friends who Method also knew. She asked him about how he felt about one of her girlfriends who was also in the ‘My Generation’ class. He had had a little thing for her previously but that was all it was – a passing lust – he liked her now as a friend and he told Kith this.
“But you liked her right?” she said.
“Yeah I did… what about you? Got any guys I should know about?”
“No,” she sighed, “I just don’t have the time to find a guy”
The light was so perfect – the white clouds were no longer white they glowed pink like fairy floss. The people on the street and cafes had subdued to an idle flow and the grass near a church that his sister’s preschool teacher had got married at waved and glistened in the lazy breeze. Method knew this was the time to tell Kith about how he felt. Method opened his mouth.
“Hello!”
The friends had arrived.

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Turns out that Ferrí had only bruised her arm – it wasn’t broken - but she did have a nasty cough. It had been about a week so Method decided to visit her while her mother was at uni. He brought flowers that he had picked from his garden – pink and white – yum they smelled nice.

The wooden door shuddered under his knocks – they had left the security door open. Ferrí had told him not to come over – she said she was too sick. Method didn’t listen, he had to see her, and he felt he was at least partially to blame for her sickness. There was no answer at the door – he sent a text message to her phone – he couldn’t hear it buzzing from inside. Maybe she was out? He left the flowers there and walked down the steps, passing by the letterbox. As he passed, something about the letterbox caught his eye - there was one main hole but next to it were also other holes for the mail. He turned around. There was another driveway that led behind the house – he followed it and found an apartment block. Where the hell had it come from, he’d never seen it from the street. Surely it was against zoning codes to build a medium-level residential property in a low-level area. He looked up at the windows of the building, there were four sets of double windows.
“Which one would Ferrí be in?” Method thought, mumbling “if any” out loud. He gazed at them then noticed a jacket hanging inside of one of the windows it had FERRÍ written in big golden letters and below it The Australian Flying Team in smaller white letters. He laughed.

Method went inside and went up the steps finding the door that corresponded to the window the jacket was in. He knocked on it and heard a waspy voice call out “I’m coming” from inside. For some reason the movie ‘American Pie’ came to mind. Ferrí opened the door. She didn’t seem too phased to see him and she also didn’t look that sick at all, until she gave a dry sore cough.
“Sorry, I was in the shower,” she said thought she was fully clothed and her hair wasn’t at all wet.
“Just wait a second I brought some flowers but left them at the wrong door!” Method stammered running back to the front house and the flowers that had now fallen over and were about to be attacked by ants.
“Aww how sweet,” she said when he returned with them. Her voice was as sugary as the flowers. They hugged and she offered him a seat on her bed while she found a vase for the flowers. The room was small; two beds a kitchen and a door to what Method assumed was a bathroom, it was also a mess – clothes and art everywhere.
“You should get some air in here its stuffy,” Method said, he got up and went to the windows reaching through the Venetian blinds and unwinding the windows he brushed past the jacket whilst unwinding. “I noticed your jacket in the window – that’s how I found you – I thought you lived in the front house.”
“No that’s the communal area – it has like a rhombus room with a fireplace and it’s where we do our laundry and stuff. It’s connected to the flats via an undercover passage way – we usually come in that way,” she explained.
“How come your mum was in there when I came to find her when you crash landed in my backyard?” Method asked.
“I don’t know – she was probably working on her laptop or something – we don’t have any chairs up here.”
Method noticed this – there was no place to sit and eat, which kind of made the kitchen a bit redundant.
“So where do you eat – is there like a table or something downstairs?”
“No we usually eat take out.”
“You know I could cook you guys some dinner at my place if you want,” he offered.
“Nah my mum likes getting take out.”
There was a pause and Method looked down at a teen girl magazine – Dolly – that lay on the floor.
“I know, how embarrassing,” Ferrí said, picking it up, “Mum got it for me I read it in like ten minutes – it’s all ads – but at least it’s something to do. I’d prefer it if she got me Cleo or Cosmo though, they have better articles.”
Method nodded, “Are you healing up? You’re looking a lot better from when you landed.”
“My arm’s still sore and I have the worst cough but I am feeling a lot better. They gave me morphine in the hospital – it felt so good – wish I had some now.” She gave a short giggle, which turned him on.
“You know heroin was invented to get people off morphine but it ended up the other way round,” Method said expelling some of his unsourced knowledge.
They talked like this for about an hour before Method said he had to head off to uni. She escorted him downstairs to the front door and they stood at the steps both waiting for something.
“Believe me you don’t want to kiss me with the cough I have,” Ferrí said.
It had honestly not crossed Method’s mind to kiss her, but now that she mentioned it he was disappointed that he wasn’t allowed to.
“I wasn’t going to,” he said, straight away thinking that that might sound like he didn’t want to.
They hugged again and both went their separate ways.
“Oh wait!” Ferrí yelled running down the steps to Method, “My mums part of this thing called CAPO and they have this auction every year and I was wondering if you wanted to volunteer with me. Cause I thought I might as well do it seeing as I’m in Australia and all and it would be cool to do it with someone. We would be setting up things before the auction, doing odd jobs and stuff like that. It’s on in a couple of weeks, do you want to do it?”
“Ha,” Method laughed, “my mums a part of that too - I’ve already volunteered.”
“Ok great I’ll see you there then.”
“Ok.”
“See ya,” she waved turning around.
“Bye.”
And off they went again.

φ

Two days straight of working. It was going to be tight. The year was almost over and everything was due. All-nighter after all-nighter, no sleep and a lolly and soft drink diet was taking its toll – Method was starting to see things. He got home from a 4am session of rendering a film, and for some unknown reason he thought that someone was sleeping in his bed – one of his sister’s friends or something - so he chose to sleep on the couch, unbeknownst to him his bed was quite empty.

It was 6am Method’s eyes went from murky to glazed to blurry as he tried to focus on the silhouette that was positioned in front of the large living room window. The silhouette expanded and contracted as if it was bent over - it was – it was tying its shoelace.
“Hello,” the silhouette said, as its features became less silhouette like and more distinguished.
What the hell are you doing here? Method thought, as the features finally came into view – it was Juxta.
“Hello,” Method said – he might as well be polite. Juxta continued to organise himself as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“How’s the film going?”
Method’s film involved the breaking up of a shot into tiles, which were moved around like a sliding puzzle finally forming an image. It was a fairly simple process to create but it was tedious.
“It’s going well, I’ve nearly finished.”
Juxter nodded, “Great.” He smiled and then stood up. He was wearing a white shirt and simple black pants - he looked good, healthy and happy.
“Bye,” Juxta said leaving as though he was off to work and he would be back in the afternoon.
“Bye,” Method said, dazed at the whole experience. The front door slammed and outside the sudden sound of rain assaulted the roof like screams from a dove.

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O’fortuna – the techno version - played over his headphones as Method trod the all too familiar path to university. His feet ambled along trying to keep up with his sporadically sugar-filled brain. Method had specifically picked techno to listen to so that he wouldn’t fall asleep – not because he found it enjoyable. It was working, slightly, as he still seemed to fall into a microsleep with each blink of his eyelids. The effect was like a strobe light in slow motion, suddenly he would appear in a different point of the walk, it was as if he was a child slowly drifting in and out of sleep who was being carried by their parent and only seeing brief snapshots of the journey.

What made the whole walking experience worse was that the trek into uni was his doing – he could have avoided it if he had thought ahead. Method had been disappointed with the marks for one of his essays, he had got a high pass which was practically a fail for him, so he had organised a time with the tutor to see if the marks could be rectified into something that Method would find more appropriate. They had organised to meet at a café on campus – Calypso – it reminded Method of an airport – dull and grey. It had a miserable interior but supposedly the coffee was good – Method didn’t know, he tried to avoid falling into the all too common student trap of coffee addiction.

The rain was pouring down; it was quite soothing, as it washed away all the irritable fluff that had been floating around campus over the last couple weeks. Method walked into Calypso and found a spot giving him a view of the whole cafe. He had arrived right at the appointed time. He waited.

Ten minutes later: he waited.

Twenty minutes later: he waited.

Thirty minutes later: he left.

His tutor didn’t come; Method just sat there staring at the generic red brick wall that made up the Manning Clarke building outside. It had stopped raining – the sun was shinning and everything was sweet. So he slowly trudged home every now and then spinning his umbrella like a military man.

He thought of Juxta – had Juxta really been there when Method had woken up that morning? No it couldn’t have been – it must have been a dream – he was really tired. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of screeching tires, a car – a silver Audi T – sped down the street towards him. Method was on the edge of the road – the street was empty, calm prepared for the maelstrom that was about to occur - it was just him and the car. It pulled to a halt in a driveway a couple houses up from where Method was standing. The roof went down, a man with a camera jumped out and a large busted woman lay back in the car. The man started saying things like “turn sideways darling” and “you’re looking good cutie,” the woman pulled her top down to reveal her breasts and the man started snapping away faster. She got out of the car and bent over as if she was getting mail out of the house’s letterbox revealing to the photographer that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She did a couple more poses like this, raising her leg onto the letterbox and such until the man finally said,
“That’s enough let’s move on baby.” They both jumped back into the car and sped off. Talk about flash floods this was a flash exhibitionist porn shoot – they came they left – leaving Method wet and scrambling for high ground.

Remedy was to come from further along Methods path. He sloshed along his head in a spin – he just wanted to get home and fall asleep. As he went past his old high school and came to the home straight a man all in black came walking towards him. He was a priest; he held a canteen and walked as if god himself was guiding his hand. Method smiled and the priest said hello as they passed each other. It was odd, a priest in such an unlikely location. Method’s eyes fell back to the footpath ahead – too weary to be raised. Shortly some black shoes met his gaze – Method looked up and to his astonishment what look like fifty or sixty priests stood before him – there must have been a convention – they wore exactly the same attire. Method couldn’t help but smile, where’s the camera, he thought. An aura of bliss like a mist swept into his lungs and he felt eternally grateful for everything that had ever had in his life. Some of the priests were barbequing sausages others were throwing frisbies they were having a jolly time. He thought of Ferrí – she was something special – just that thought made his stomach tingle with anticipation and what could best be described as the first physical sign of love. He got an erection, which felt odd as male priests surrounded him. He glided past them guided by this feeling but as Method floated out of the invisible mist his elation dropped.
“Fuck the world” he thought, “it will never work between us.”
He made his way home and crashed in bed. Method thought of killing himself.
“But why when he was having such amazing feelings about this person,” he continued to think, “What good would dieing do when you’ve come so far and achieved so little.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Method’s negative side said. Method rolled over.
“Dieing is the weak way out – it only causes more pain,” Method said out loud, as his thoughts slowly drifted away from him and his eyes grew moist. The clarity of darkness will cure me of this chaos.