We were the kind of drunk you can’t really get once you’re adult, once you have a job and pay rent. The kind of drunk only teenagers can achieve. Delirious to the sound of our own nonsense, K and I staggered back towards Jayne’s mum’s garage.
Pat and Jayne peeled away ahead of us. Their hazy dark shadows disappeared into the distance as we trailed behind.
*
I fucking love you, K said to me with a smile- he laughed, his attention pulled away.
You too, bro… you’re obviously way more wasted than me,
Screw you-u-u
His last words struck with a hiccup, face turned up into a snarl. He shoved me hard just below the collar bone; unbalanced, I fell back.
What are you doing?
Don’t fucking laugh at m-m-e-e
Another shove to balance broken syllables, his face drove in close to mine.
What the fuck are you guys doing?
K’s older brother strode over – I hadn’t seen him until now – his presence shifted K’s attitude.
*
Together, we poured into the garage. Weathered carpet cuts laid from wall to wall. Rushed graffiti and blinking fairy lights and a cheap cylindrical fold-out bed. Wasn’t much but it was enough to be ours. The only place we could smoke in ease and there was something in that.
The lights blew and K’s brother and Jayne seemed to be fucking each other; always Pat and Jayne. The music wasn’t as loud as their drunkness calculated.
What the fuck was that about before? I whispered to K.
I stared fiercely into the pitch black.
I love you
We were best friends. He had always been a better brother than any of mine had been. He and his dad only had each other, so I was always around. It just worked.
Stop fucking around
Is that wrong?
I staggered out into a wall; my head was spinning; I staggered out into the dark.
*
I didn’t talk to him. Years. When he came out I still didn’t talk to him. He never called. He could not be a real man. I was the last of our high school friends to reach out to him. Everyone knew I was last. He never answered. They stopped texting me- but I was a man. I am a man. I am a man.
word by Sam Fresco
colour by Fintan Magee
Born in Lismore NSW, Fintan Magee moved to Brisbane as a child and began drawing shortly after. In his early teens he was exposed to Brisbane’s graffiti culture and began painting on walls.
Moving away from traditional graffiti in recent years, his large-scale murals often inhabit the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of the city. Mixing surreal and figurative imagery his paintings are deeply integrated with the urban environment and explore themes of waste, consumption, loss and transition and contain a sentimentality and softness influenced by children’s books.
He has traveled extensively completing projects in Sydney, Melbourne, London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Moscow, New York, Oslo and Dublin amongst others. His diligence, technical skill and progressive approach to painting have solidified his reputation as one of the leading figures in Australia’s Street Art and Contemporary Mural movements.
wordandcolour 