An event that occurred several months ago which is worth noting and revisiting.
It was early 2009 when my friend had just moved into his new house in an expensive, atmospheric part of ********, where jazz cafes blossom and noise bands perform. The area would be the definitive centre of hipster communities, where University students with fixed gear bikes come to discuss the Indie music scene to the best of their abilities (if they even knew anybody to talk about, that is). Upon passing the famous Art & Front cafe, tall, egocentric kids with slick black hair can be seen lighting up cigarettes like they had practiced in the mirror. Girls with short, dark hair and skinny frames gawk through their round, eye-shadowed eyes, cute by stupidly empty. Chai-tea is always steaming through the nozzle of a pot on a small round table, and 30 year old failed writers push their luck on laptops under heavy beards and old clothes. The interesting thing here is that in this part of town, the differences between a hipster and the homeless are so blurred that it is almost dangerous to ask for directions if you aren't carrying any spare change. Although a very friendly and expensive neighbourhood, the flats that are located several blocks down dispatch a number of ghastly junkies and low-lives every now and then who wander up the street to the shop/cafe area. Anywhere in Australia you are bound to find these people lurking around, even in the cleanest of areas, as long as the council flats remain and the IGAs sell Long Beach cigarettes for less than 15 bucks. Anyway, this stuff isn't so important.
The strange event took place in the earliest stages of the night, where the three of us (me, my friend and a dark skinned girl-friend we both wanted to fuck) had gone shopping for groceries and were lining up in the queue. It was the Asian part of ******** which was often infested with students who ransack the Chinese supermarkets for 30 packs of dumplings that went for 3, 4 dollars. The 24 hour fastfood joint was also an attractive facet, and every corner of the district was packed with a liquor store, Subway, KFC, yam-cha restaurant etc.; basically making the place a large dining area with a library and gas station on the side. Apart from the students, there are many empty-pocketed, track-armed fiends who smash beer bottles for fun and push their four year olds around in trolleys in the middle of the night. Kids beep at old Asian ladies to flip them off, truckies stare you down while they smoke their cigarettes, and the generally heavy atmosphere of the place will make you jump at the sound of a bird flying off. The public toilets are littered with syringes and successful heroin dealers loom over the area from their dimly lit flats only located across the street. During the day the public swimming pool is packed with kids of all ages who have the time of their lives there, myself included as a six year old, and the area always had a nostalgic quality attached to it for me. But thirteen years later, all I see is dirt and insanity staining the concrete with trails of repulsive odours. The food vans (vans that park in the middle of shopping areas or any open space, providing things like sandwiches and coffee for the underprivileged) are surrounded by flocks of hungry seagulls who throw the food up right around the corner, unable to keep it down after days of not eating. I once remember being stuck with a number of dirty but friendly junkies on that side of town, hanging around to score some mescaline (very rare in Australia). These guys had just fixed up in the aforementioned public toilets and came to the food van to eat. Less than 3 minutes later all three of them threw up, complaining about the catch 22 that their appetite only came around when they were smacking.
So I'm sitting outside of a Woolworths smoking a cigarette, waiting for the other two to emerge with their shopping bags, when I notice this fairly young, dark kid smoking a cigarette very close to me. Not taking any particular notice I continued to stare ahead and smoke, when I realize out of the corner of my eye that this guy is inching closer and closer to me extremely slowly. Taken back, I turned around and looked him in the eye, pulling a face that suggested he explain himself. There was the longest pause between us before his expression changed to an extremely fake sense of recognition, which he followed up with "Hey man!! Do you remember me??" His eyes widened up at such a delay it was almost laughable. At this point I was quite speechless and even more taken back before, wondering if this guy really intended to pull this act off. The guy had obviously contemplated this for a long time, and his recognition of me was the furthest thing from natural I had ever seen. "No, who are you?" I replied with little to no apologetic tone in my voice, 100% sure he was just making this all up on the spot. This time he goes for the "I can't believe this" act and starts saying "Man.. I can't believe you don't remember me!" laughing between his words. This sentence was done more convincingly but he was still a far way off, since his smile was quivering and weak. I asked him where I had met him before and he said here, the other day, which was impossible since I hadn't been to that area in months. I said "Oh yeah? What was I doing?" which I said in a way that must've sounded interrogative to him (although this was unintended), and he paused, seemingly choking on the question, and stammered "I-I think you were shopping!" At this point I was no longer interested in talking to him since his jig was obviously completely up, and told him I had to go. He looked at me as if he was hurt, and blurted out "Oh, ok man, I'll catch you around dude!" still acting as though he knew me. Hilariously, I stood up and walked less than 10 meters away and stood there until my friends came out.
Although I told this story to my friends as if it were a joke, they didn't seem to think it was as funny as I did. They stood there with a bewildered, slightly unsure expression, claiming the whole situation to be extremely strange. A little while afterwards I continued to think about this guy, wondering what he wanted. He was already smoking a cigarette, so he didn't want one of mine, and he was wearing decent clothes, so wouldn't have wanted change. Something about the whole act was desperate and lonely, as if the guy spends monday to friday working and then sits around in public areas in his free time looking for potential friends. It made me wonder if he tried that move on a lot of people, expecting them to return him with a "Oh yeah! You're that guy!" and start talking to him until they realize he's a different person. He spoke coherently enough to be sane and wasn't strange enough to be not. It is easy to see him sitting around his empty apartment with nothing to do, loneliness slowly eating away his sense of social norms and eventually sanity...
