Milo was covered in a blanket and laying on the back seat of Cookie’s old HQ Holden sedan. They drove past Jet’s house.

“There’s two police cars out front,” said Cookie. Milo doesn’t reply. “Milo did you hear me?”

“Is Jet’s car there?”

“Nope. Where do you want me to take you?”

“One hundred and Six, Hampton Street.”

"Ah, Okay.” Said Cookie sounding nervous. Milo so exhausted and broken that he doesn’t notice. He shuts his burning eyes and wonders how he had reached such a sad sorry state. Then out of nowhere it just appeared in his mind. The actual moment that had started this chain of events. He’d relived it often. He was standing outside in the back alley to the Bean Bakery on Palmerston St. Himself and his co worker Russ Spicer were on midnight work break wearing white aprons covered in flour. They could hear muffled live rock music coming from Bludgy’s bar at the end of the block. Russ was lighting up a joint. Milo looks astonished.

“Aren’t you worried about being caught by old man Bean?”

“Nah he just snuck off for quiet one across the road.” Russ was correct. As he spoke, Bean was almost all the way across the street to the Union Hotel. That’s when he realised that he didn’t have his wallet on him. He had left it in the van parked In the alley. “Go on mate just have one toke, it will chill you out for the rest of the night.” Milo looks left and right then takes the joint from Russ. Before the tissue could reach his lips, Bean exits the bakery’s rear door. As he turns expecting to see the van, his line of sight is blocked by Milo’s hand holding the joint. Bean points his finger at Milo as if it was a pistol.

“You’re fired.” He sneers with glee.

Fifteen minutes later, Milo is quietly walking through the rooms of Jet’s place in the dark, on the way to Riley’s room. He has a big bag of freshly baked donuts which Russ had given him as he walked out of the bakery. “No hard feelings aye,” he had said with a pathetic smile. “No use us both going down though aye, but don’t let Bean see you with those or he’ll do you for theft as well.” He laughed a chuckle to match the smile. Milo didn’t respond and left.

Milo near silently opens Riley’s door and shuts it behind himself. “Hey Riley wake up, do you want a midnight snack?”

“Daddy?” Milo flicks the switch of a dim wardrobe light that softly washes the room. She smiles when she sees him. It melts his heart. She hugs him so tight he thinks nothing else matters. Then they munch on the doughnuts as Riley updates him with the current storyline from Princess Binky. It was right before she was about to burst into a rendition of her favourite song from the show, that the door opened and the room was flooded with harsh cool white fluorescent light .

“What’s going on?” asked Jet in her p.j.’s, looking half asleep.

“Just a little midnight party,” replied Milo who was doing his best to sound nonchalant.

“Why aren’t you still at work?”

“Yeah, there was a bit of bad luck.”

“Please explain.”

“Something happened, and I lost my job.”

“Oh no,” she said soundly bitterly disappointed. “Why?”

“Well, nothing really. Old man Bean told me I was done and then I came straight home.”

“You mean he laid you off in the middle of a shift, just like that? He can’t do that without giving you notice.”

“Well he kind of did, because I hadn’t actually done anything wrong.”

“Hadn’t actually? Then what, actually, happened.?” He looked cornered. “Milo?”

“He saw me holding a joint.”

“Are you serious.?”

“It wasn’t mine it was Russ’s. I didn’t even get a single toke.”

“I don’t know why I’m so surprised.

“Don’t get so upset it was just a crappy job, I’ll get another one.”

“You spend more time between jobs than you do working in them.”

“No I don’t think so.

“It’s the fourth job you’ve lost in twelve months.”

“You’re blowing it out of proportion.” She starts to cry.

“You’re the most intelligent idiot I have ever met. All you do is waste your time doing stupid stuff like learning to fly helicopters on a computer or filling your brain with useless information which you never remember because you’re constantly stoned.”

“Look, just calm down okay”

“I work two crappy jobs, I hate my jobs, they’re demeaning and horrible but I do them six days a week to get us ahead. I’ve never been fired because I can’t ever risk us both being unemployed at the same time and do you know why I’m stuck doing the shitty jobs that know one else wants?” Milo shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.

“Because you never went to college?”

“No, it’s because I have a drug conviction. And why do I have a drug conviction Milo?”

“Not this again.”

Jet raises her voice. “Tell me why?” Milo rolls his eyes, triggering Jet to narrow hers. “Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“Because you took the wrap for when we were raided by the cops.”

“And why did l do it?”

“So I wouldn’t be deported.”

“I don’t even use drugs, I hate the smell of marijuana but I did it for you so we could be a family just like other people, but you had to be a loser. You’ll always be a loser dragging us down to the level of white trash. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of this, I’m sick of being angry at you all the time. I can’t do it anymore.”

“I can get a job tomorrow, I know a guy…”

“I’m done.”

“He’s a fisherman I met in Bludgy’s bar, he said he’ll pay me twice what I was getting in the bakery.”

“I don’t care, I said I’m done.”

“Meaning what?”

“We’re finished.”

“You’re just upset because you woke up tired or something. Maybe you’re having your period.”

“Get out.”

“Can’t I just sleep on the couch?”

“Get out of my house.” She screams as she points towards the front door. “Now.” Riley starts to sob.

“No mama.” She clings onto Milo. “I want Daddy to stay.” Jet pulls Riley from his arms, prying her hands free.

“No,” shouts Riley.

“You can come and get your stuff tomorrow while I’m at work, or else it’s going to the dump.”

“Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?”

“No, so get out, get out, get the fuck out of my house right now. How many times do I have to tell you to get out. Do it or I’ll call the cops and have them drag you out.” Riley was sobbing rivers of tears. To Milo it looked like her heart was breaking.

“It’s okay honey,” said Milo. “Daddy’s okay.” He looks at Jet. "If that’s what you want." He turns and leaves the house.

Milo thought of going to a friends place and asking to sleep the night, but it was already one in the morning and he didn’t want to wake them. Instead he headed to Bludgy’s Bar, which he knew would be open until four a.m., giving him three hours of hard drinking time to forget all his problems. After that he wouldn’t care less if he slept in the gutter, which he assumed he probably would.

When he arrived, the bar was overflowing with inebriated patrons spilling out of the doors and into the warm summer night. Bludgy’s grimy house band had the crowd inside moving to the rock. Tex and Cookie saw him from the other side and waved him over. Soon tequila shots were being downed by all involved in rapid succession. With a glow in his stomach, Milo was on his way to that memory loss he was looking for. His friends girlfriends who had been on the other side of the bar started walking over. Leading the pack was Crystal Abbit.

They reached the dance floor when the band started singing a satirical bogan version of Summer Nights from Grease. The girls sang the female lyrics to the guys. The guys respond by joining them on the dance floor.

“I didn’t say you could come to my party.” Said Crystal.” Milo smiled to himself as he looked around the bar seeing the same usual regulars.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know it was a closed event.”

“Well it is, and you’re only allowed to stay if you eat one of my special marshmallows.”

“What makes them special?”

“Because they make you feel, eeeeee-static.”

“Well will it make me forget that I’ve got nowhere to sleep tonight?

“Oh yeah baby,” she says with a grunty voice.

“Why the hell not.” He eats the marshmallow and asks her a question. “So the occasion of the party is what? Did you just turn fifteen?”

“No silly.” She throws her hands above her head her eyes go wide. “I’m going to be an L.A. model. She releases a happy squeal and gyrates her body into model poses.

“Good for you. I hope you love the rat race.”

They all drank and danced till closing, then purchased take away alcohol for a party on the beach. Five minutes later they were collecting driftwood and building a large bonfire that they all sat around on large washed ashore tree trunks as they joked and drank. Eventually everyone was gone except for Milo and Crystal. She was sitting next to him in front of a mound of glowing embers at the death of the fire.

“I’m leaving at midday for good. I’m going to be a star. I’ve got a Hollywood manager, a Hollywood agent. I’m going to be famous." She giggles and spills her drink, then looks mischievous. Want to hear a secret?” She toys with the sand with her right big toe. “I’ve always been a bit jealous of Jet, and it’s ironic that the one thing I want most from L.A. is going to be back here in little old Westport. Why don’t you come with me?”

“Well I would but I’m certain there won’t be available seats at such short notice.”

“It’s a private jet.”

“It is not.”

“The C.E.O. of the agency representing me just flew into Queenstown for three weeks holiday, but the jet is needed for other executives so it was going back empty and they asked me if I wanted to fly in it and I said, HELL YEAH. So what do you say?” Her voice turns soft and sultry. “Do you want to come?" She softly touches his thigh.

“Ahhh… You know it sounds like fun but I just can’t leave Riley. I’m her dad, I love her to bits and she needs me.”

“Then how about just one night, on a beach. All alone, just us, except for the stars and a crescent moon. I’ll be gone by tonight and our secret gone with me.” She goes to kiss him, their lips touch. He pulls away.

“I can’t because of Jet.”

“But she dumped you.”

“You know she always takes me back.” She gives him a cheeky look then stands up and starts undressing seductively.

“When I was little I almost drowned, since then I’ve had a phobia of being in water, so I never learnt to swim.” She undoes her bra and removes her panties. Her body is bathed in the soft light of embers, moonlight and the stars of the Milky Way. “It’s going to be tragic. A beautiful young model, slash aspiring actress, drowns at nineteen because a selfish brute of a man was too callous to save her. And I’m not kidding when I say that I really am terrified of water, and I really can’t swim.” She runs off to the water as fast as she can, giggling all the way. Milo hesitates until she hits the waves, then he jumps to his feet, strips to his underwear and sprints towards her.

“Oh save me save me. It’s up to my very very hard nipples already.” Crystal unwittingly steps backward into a hole and vanishes under the water. For a moment he wonders if she’s pranking him then he dives under. He can see her lit by beams of dancing moonlight. She stops thrashing around when she sees him and for a moment just floats at subsurface depth with her wavering hair floating swirling amongst the phosphorous. He takes her in his left arm and he brings her back to the surface.

“Just relax your body. Let me swim with your body. We’re stuck in a rip. I’ll get us out.” He swam them both parallel to the beach for fifty metres until the waves started washing them back in. As it became waist deep Milo cradled her in his arms and carried her up to the water’s edge and laid her down on the sand. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I was going to play act drowning but then I really was, and you really did save me. Please kiss me and hold me. Please.” Milo didn’t know if it was because of the ecstasy tablet she had put in the marshmallow, but as the waves washed over them he had an overwhelming desire to make love to her. Her lips and skin were cool and taunt. Her breasts and nipples felt swollen to Milo’s touch and that was his breaking point. By the time he finally came inside her, the making love feeling was completely spent. He thought of Jet and Riley being cut off from him. He felt empty and spent, though Crystal felt elated in love. She imagined what it would have been like if someone had secretly filmed them. Incredible, she thought, enough to make me a superstar.

Milo seized the bright hot heat of the weekend, annoying every business owner he could find on their days off until one finally gave him a job. He started eight thirty Monday morning. By Thursday night Jet had allowed him back home. Her mother Barb had been insisting that Milo must attend the coming family dinner Friday night as he had missed the previous three. Milo had vowed to himself that he would change. It’s time to be an adult he thought and start being a man for my family, so he went without argument. The affair started off as normal. Jet’s Dad Stan gave Milo his monthly lecture on the reasons why drugs are bad, but then Barb changed the subject. She was completing the preliminary questioning for her new mini inquisition as to why Milo would want to leave the bakery, for a “smelly dirty job, draining septic tanks, that pays less money?” She asked like a prosecutor,

“Oh you know,” said Milo feeling cornered, “you get to drive trucks and stuff.” He gives her a stupid smile.

“Really,” she said sounding unimpressed. To Milo’s relief Riley interjects.

“Did you know that Princess Binky has her own truck?”

“No I didn’t know that what color is it? Asked Milo encouraging a change of subject.

“It’s pink.”

“Just like her binky?”

“Yes Daddy but not all her binky’s are pink.”

“Really what other kinds are there?”

“That fellow Cookie,” said Stan interrupting to change the subject, “do you know him at all?

“I know of him,” replied Milo, fudging the answer without looking away from Riley.

“They say he uses drugs.” Stan narrows his eyes, looking for anything he could read in Milo’s face.

Riley looks grumpy at her Grandfather for interrupting and raises her voice a bit more to counter future interruptions as she continues listing the entire catalog of Princess Binky’s binkies. Jet had been watching in an unimpressed near stupor. She had been feeling numb all week, just going through the motions. Her phone has been vibrating repeatedly in her pocket and she couldn’t care less. She takes it out with the intent of turning it off, but notices that her closest friends are trying to get in touch about a post by Crystal Abbit that Milo’s been tagged in. It took her thirty seconds to read the post and by the end her face had turned white. Milo had watched her the entire time, witnessing the transformation. She looks him square in the eyes her stupor is gone. He’s afraid. 

“Take Riley into the living room to watch the new Princess Binky…”

“Yay,” cries Riley interrupting.

“Use the cordless headphones. Then return your ass back to that seat.” She said it without emotion. “We have something to talk about.” He did as she said without question.

As he gets Riley’s viewing session underway, he can hear loud spikes of muffled conversation coming from the dining room. When he walks back in alone, the room is eerily silent. Jet is staring through Milo’s empty seat. Stan and Barb’s eyes are bearing  down on him like tractor beams, dragging him back to the table. Once seated Milo looks across the three pairs of eyes angrily staring at him. After a moment of silence he’s first to speak.

“Is something wrong?”

“Did you fuck her in the ass?”

“Jet don’t talk like that at the table,” both her parents said at the same time.

“I don’t understand what it is you think I’ve done, but your parents are right, frankly this isn’t the time and place to talk about it, whatever it is.”

“Answer the bloody question boy,” hollers Stan.

“Crystal Habbit,” prompts Jet, “the filthy anal meth whore. Ring any bells?”

“Where are you getting this from?

She waves her phone in front of him. “Hot off the internet. It’s titled a models blog, first week in L.A. And I quote. It happened last weekend on an empty NZ beach. We were both technically homeless at the time, but in each others arms we needed no home, the beach was our home that night, the moon and stars revolved around us and no one else, we were the centre of the universe. The sky, the ocean, the beach was ours alone and you literally took me to the moon and back multiple multiple times. Two star crossed lovers, ships passing in the night. The momentous tragedy was that I left your manly arms on the very same day that I had found your love and had to come to L.A. to achieve my dream of being the world’s next top model. And oh the irony, that I was a native Westport NZ girl now in L.A. when you’re a native L.A. boy living in Westport. Oh Milo my love, we will meet again. We wrote it in the stars. I love you with all my heart, and I know you love me too.” Jet looks back up from her phone to look back at Milo who’s staring at the table. “ Awwww that’s sweet. You should over there and be with her. You both would make a nice couple.” Stan was snorting like a bull about to rage. Barb shut her eyes for a moment to hold her composure. “Well do you deny it?” Asked Jet. Milo takes a deep breath and looks her in the eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“So that’s it? You’re sorry? Do we forget it ever happened and we go back to playing happy families again?

“Look I was really drunk and I was given an… and we were broken up.”

“You were broken up?” Asks Barb.

“The same night he fucked that slag, I had kicked him out for losing his job.”

“I knew it,” said Barb. Stan shakes his head

“He was caught smoking weed," said Jet.

“Oh my god.” Stan and Barb both said in unison.

“But what was it you were saying before Milo,” asked Jet, “about being given something? And then you switched to being broken up. It was an e wasn’t it. You took one and you wanted to blame your cheating on drugs but you couldn’t say it in front of my parents.”

“What is that thing an e? Is it a drug like an opium suppository?” He turns to Milo. “Because I’d imagine it’s your kind of thing.”

“No Dad, it’s e for ecstasy. You used MDMA didn’t you Milo.”

“Oh my fucking god.” Said Stan looking floored. “I always told Bard, didn’t I Barb, that he’s a drug fucked idiot.” Barb nods her head. “So now we know the truth, you really are an addict.”

“For what? Taking a single MDMA on the night I’m fired and dumped?”

“Drugs are drugs,” said Stan.

“What about all the alcohol you pour down your throat every day, isn’t that a drug?”

“That’s different,” said Barb dismissively, “a few drinks doesn’t make a person go all weird or have sex with strangers in public places like ecstasy does.”

“Well what about the time Stan got so drunk he set the dog on fire.” Barb is immediately triggered.

“We all agreed that we would never talk of Mr. Diddles ever again,” she shrieked.

“It was just a simple mistake,” said Stan. "I got the water and petrol containers mixed up, had just one too many but I wasn’t drug crazed nut like you.”

“No no no,” cried Barb. “You killed him, you killed him, you killed Mr. Diddles.”

Stan was frustrated that his war on drugs was being sidetracked. “But it’s not the same as taking a drug to weird out your brain.” He looks angry and points his finger at Milo. “And it’s all your fault that our little girl got addicted to marijuana.”

“Oh I never used weed Dad, I tried it once and hated the smell.”

“Oh my god, and all this time we thought it was the drugs that were making you crazy.” Said Barb.

“What do you mean crazy? Asked Jet sounding insulted.

“But why would you plead guilty in court for something you never did?” Asked Stan.

“Because I did it for him. So he wouldn’t be deported. Stan turns to Milo with his nostrils flaring and snorting like a raging bull.

“You son of a bitch.”

Milo wasn’t having it. “You know for years I’ve been putting up with listening to the drivel that spews out of that troglodyte mouth of yours.”

“Just push me that one little bit more pretty boy and I’ll rip off your God damn head and shit down your fucking throat.” 

Jet rolls her eyes at they all squabble off topic. She raises her voice. “Did you use a condom?” Stan and Barb stop talking and wait for an answer. “You know the word cunt isn’t a nice word that should be used in place of vagina for any nice girl, but in her case it’s entirely fitting for someone whose cunt is filthiest that the worst sewer in Calcutta on the hottest day of the year. Did you wear a fucking condom?”

“No,” he said, again staring at the table.

“Get out of my parents house.”

“But we’re going to be good though right? I mean we’re not breaking up over this.”

Barb immediately turns to her daughter. “Oh honey you don’t you even consider having him back.  You can do much better than him. You’re the prettiest girl in town, you could have any man you want.”

“Especially since that Crystal girl is gone,” said Stan trying to help. Jet furrows her brow at her father then turns back to Milo.

“You need to understand this, that you’re never coming anywhere near me ever again with that festering rotten whore infested cock of yours ever.”

“But they’ll deport me if we’re not in a relationship. My immigration visa is due next month, can’t we pretend that we’re still together, for Riley’s sake?” 

“Oh okay, so you’re saying for that for Riley’s sake, I should act like a cuckold with a smile to everyone but us, and if confronted by someone who feels compelled to tell me what an asshole you are, I should just say what? That I enjoy you cheating on me?

“You’re making it sound a lot worse than it really is.” Said Milo with nothing to stand on.

“Take your diseased rancid johnson out of this house and the entire fucking country. Get the fuck out of my life. You make me fucking sick.”

“Get out, get out.” Jill screams as she hits at him. Milo raises his arm to deflect the blows. Jet starts crying. Stan leaps to his feet. Milo’s repeating he’s sorry over and over. Stan takes him by the collar and drags him to the door. Milo breaks free of his grip and pushes Stan back.

Riley had been standing in the doorway, watching, shocked. Seeing it all in slow motion. Everyone shouting and screaming at each other in a deafening homogeneous din with their jaws rising and falling like blind steampunk machines, powered by rage. She had realised at that moment, that If the people she loved most in the world could do this to each other, then the world was not as she had known it and that it would never make sense ever again. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to help. She closed her eyes Tears continued flowing through her long eyelashes. She feels love for the Earth, love for all beings, and love for her family. She sits on the floor. Her pulse rate drops. Her mind was calm. Her entirety radiates a slow motion bow wave of empathy, unconditional love that bellows out all around. When she opens her eyes again, Milo had just left. Jet and her parents were looking at Riley in silence as if they had just woken from a dream. Riley slowly closes her eyes once again, then collapses to the floor unconscious.

Next Chapter: 11