Gaby stole a drill and keyhole saw from Patterson Street and removed four floorboards under Frederic’s bed and whenever Meg rattled on the chain she crawled beneath the floor and lay on the stinky gas and cat-piss dirt until she left.
Of course she lived part-time at Bell Street High School where she became mates with the black giantess Solosolo and through her, the brothers. Aleki and Peli introduced her to a better “recreational facility” than she could ever have in Carlton i.e. the wasteland of rocks and thistles past the old Kodak factory, between Newlands Road and Elizabeth Street where a gang of stringy bogans ran a scrap yard and would sell you a “shit-bucket,” e.g. an unroadworthy Datsun, for twenty bucks. Peli was Solosolo’s eldest brother, nineteen years old. Her younger brother—Aleki—drove the clapped-out Datsun around the paddocks across the creek from the Agrikem factory. Peli lay on the bonnet pouring petrol straight into the carburettor, flame erupting, burning hair and eyebrows while massive Aleki made 3D figure eights, sneezing and bouncing amongst the pitted brown rocks and boxthorns and purple flowering thistles.
This was fucked-up Samoa, not Fa’a Samoa, the “Samoan way of life.” They left the Datsun’s bonnet lying in the paddocks so the girls took possession and floated and dragged it down Merri Creek, between wattles ripe with crops of plastic bags, until they reached the rusty F J Holden stripped and abandoned in the water. Solosolo was the six-foot centre-back of Bell Street girls’ soccer team, but she was afraid of spiders. She sat with the little white girl on the slimy bench seat of the Holden, shrieking at the cold water on her backside.
Frederic waited for Gaby in solitude, rewriting Zork. He was the tapeworm. He crawled into its belly and became its god.
Fast forward.
Sometimes Gaby was lonely. Sometimes she hung with a kid named Troy who had been expelled from Clifton Hill. Troy claimed to have a girl in Northcote but she was blatantly imaginary. He had cute lips, curling wild black hair, and mild brown eyes which secret softness he kept hidden in the shadows of his hoodie. His one true love was Cannabis indica and Gaby helped him search for it amongst the tree violet and fennel of Merri Creek. This wild weed was as imaginary as the girlfriend. When they finally did find a homegrown crop in the lane behind Service Street, a bald-headed bogan came at them with a shotgun. Get out of here youse little cunts before I blow your brains out. Gaby thought, I have seen an actual gun.
After school she and Solosolo raced and chased each other screaming amongst the wild mad fennel, two metres high, rolling down the bulldozed spill from Whelan’s tip, not stopping until they were wounded by a brick or buried spring.
The white girl thought, my life is starting. She was alive all day all night. The best part was when Meg left home to sell at the markets and Gaby and Frederic were free to do weird shit in Zork. In her ignorance, she did not miss being online at all.
One Sunday Gaby went to lotu, which was Samoan for church and prayers. Church, her mother cried. You can’t. This might have become a family story if there was a proper family anymore.
Frederic had a plan to steal a new modem and to access his neighbour’s phone line. He would not tell her how he might do that, but she never doubted he would do it and it would be against the law. They did their homework side by side and criticised their fucked-up parents. They ate pizza and searched for gold and jewels in the tunnels of the world of Zork. At this stage, she was the bossy backseat driver. Go there. Do that. Pick up. He smelled of lavender and his cheek was smooth.
Blind cars and feral trucks roared up and down Royal Parade. The trams rang their bells. No-one had any clue that behind that peeling pale-blue door there lived grues, zorkmids, and dwarves. Frederic introduced new actors and renamed the old cast. Thief was the first renamed identity.
“Thief” in Zork became “Dad” in Frederic’s version. The differences were not so great.
Like Thief, Dad carries a large bag. He is never seen by light of day. He likes to wander around the dungeon. He likes to take things from you. He steals for pleasure rather than profit, so he only takes things you have already seen. Of course he prefers valuables but he is often drunk (see shickered) and takes worthless stuff by mistake. From time to time he examines his take and discards booty he doesn’t like. He may occasionally stay with you in a room but more likely he wanders through and rips you off. For a long time Gaby thought that this was fiction.
“Pick up sword” and “kill dwarf” both give a good feel for Zork-talk. However, the machine will understand you if you type “put the lamp and sword in the case.”
I would tell you more but it would be wasted on you, Mr. Moore, Gaby said to the unwashed fugitive she could not see. Who could have foretold the straggling hair on his upper lip? Zork, she said, begins in total darkness. You have to “get lamp” and then you can “take,” and “drop” and “examine” and “attack” and “climb.”
She emerged from her secret summer pale as a vampire just off the boat.
Stop, eject, play.
Celine said she had become a thick-waisted “hoyden.” She blamed McDonald’s.
Stop, eject, play. She returned to Bell Street High a wonder to the big-hair girls and the white-shoe boys. So many kids had NES consoles. They played Super Mario which Gaby had never seen. She hung with the Samoans who hadn’t seen it either.
By winter when the Samoans were mad for football, Frederic had still not got his phone line back. They were enclosed in their own world.
Fast forward.
They could hear the animals in the zoo, the crowds at Carlton Football Club. They did not prefer one to the other.
Meg promised an NES console so they could play Ninja Gaiden.
Zork was under new management. Its name was changed to Wank.
All the terrace houses have been restored by the Troll except one with a grungy blue door.
>west
The house has two windows.
>open window
The window is locked.
>break glass
The window is barred.
>turn doorknob
The lock is broken. The door swings back and you are in the hallway which is tangled with old bicycles and flyers from Safeway. There is a parcel on the floor.
>get parcel
The parcel is addressed to Frederic Matovic. You are Frederic Matovic.
>open parcel
In your hands you hold a Phoenician blue garment with gold embroidery on its hem.
>take off clothes
They have no value in this game.
>put on gown
You are wearing the gown. It is so light and DIAPHANOUS against your bare skin. You have become a girl.
>you are a pervert. go west
You are in the kitchen. On the table is a baggie of Sumatran grass.
>get weed
A passage leads to the west and a dark staircase can be seen leading upward. To the south is a small window which is open.
>go south
You are likely to be eaten by Meg.
>go south
This is the last time you will be warned about the fierce and random Meg. You find yourself in a narrow east–west alley.
>go east
You face a brick wall.
>go west
In the distance is an overgrown garden containing the wet mushy packaging of stolen goods. To the right is a red corrugated-iron wall. There is a hole in the door and the wall. A chain is threaded through the door and is padlocked.