Brick is red

 

I pulled the clingwrap from the pantry, tore off a sheet and wrapped the phat bud I had sitting on the kitchen bench tight. Then I grabbed my hair gel and pushed the wrapped bud down to the bottom.

 

Later, when I got off the plane to Tokyo and made my way to the hotel, Eliminator Jr, who was doing research in Japan at the time, pinged me from reception and made his way up to my room. I dug out the bud, rolled a doobie and we got supremely baked, spending the arvo wandering around Akihabara before finding ourselves in a small bar off some side street.

 

We kinda stressed that there was no more bud, but as I rolled a smoke from my pouch of Champion Ruby tobacco, I realised I’d left another bud in there, unconcealed, that I’d somehow forgotten about. Back to my hotel, another phat boy and more time wandering through neo-Tokyo.

 

Another Tokyo trip. Eliminator was doing research at a lab in Tsukuba and took time off to meet me in the city. He’d scored tix to Canadian post rock maestros Godspeed You! Black Emperor. At the time ‘shrooms were legal in Japan, so we ate a bunch and went to the show. It was in a high-rise, tenth floor, and the only way to get there was up the fire stairs, no elevators. The show blew our minds and then we caught the subway to the end of the line, sleeping on tatami mats at a tiny family hotel.

 

1986

 

We sat in the front courtyard at what we called the ‘new school.’ It was a pentecostal school in Terry Hills, on Sydney’s north shore. The old school was a bush block, classes held in demountables. But in 1986 we moved up the road, to the new school, with proper classrooms and an oval reclaimed from an old rubbish dump. 

 

Eliminator pulled out a magazine, showing me a picture of a surfboard floating up the face of a giant wave, the board long abandoned by its rider. Eliminator and I grokked each other. We shared a developing taste in music – I introduced him to Radio Birdman and Talking Heads, and he hipped me to The Velvet Underground, Neil Young and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

 

But there was a shameful incident. The year before, at the old school, I was sitting next to him in class and made a racist remark about ‘slopeheads,’ influenced by my old man’s racism and bigotry. Eliminator's dad is Chinese, and the teacher nailed me for it. I learned a lot that day, and Eliminator forgave me. But I’ve never forgotten it. It made me want to be a better person, to transcend my upbringing.

 

In year ten Eliminator left the school, going somewhere better. I have no fucking idea how we stayed in contact, this being well before mobiles and socials, but we did. Sometimes a landline and a shared connection is all you need.

 

1990

 

We’d both finished the HSC exams on roughly the same day. Eliminator picked me up in his dad’s Type 3 VW and we sat in a park at Mona Vale, talking about the future. A week or two later we made our way to Hawks Nest, on the mid north coast, for our post – HSC getaway. I remember us sitting in a caravan playing Pixies’ Surfer Rosa / Come on Pilgrim and smoking unfiltered Camels, and one of our classmates walked in during the song Nimrod’s Son, which has the lyric: “You are the son of a motherfucker / you are the son of incestuous union.” 

 

The classmate, being a conservative Christian, was appalled. But Eliminator and I knew. Fuck you, we thought. Fuck everything we’ve been told. Fuck dogma. We’re going to soar. 

 

I’ve written about the 90s elsewhere. But, nearly 40 years on, Eliminator remains my closest and best friend. He knows me better than anyone. And while he might not approve of some of the shenanigans I get up to, our relationship is built on a foundation of deep trust, honesty and, yes, it must be said, love. I know I can tell him anything and I’ll get a no-bullshit response. And that is something worth more than gold.