Thunder Road by Ted Dawe

Author:Ted Dawe [Ted Dawe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775530817
Publisher: Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter nineteen

THE FOLLOWING DAY was Saturday: the day that I had agreed to take Karen to the ball. I had still managed to keep my relationship with her a secret from Devon – it was not easy. I reckon there was a bit of jealousy there – he wanted me to himself and any girls we had were strictly short-term – nothing serious. I felt a bit stink, but I needed this piece of myself to be kept Devon-free. The trick was to get away without him tagging along and to avoid telling lies.

Some time that morning there was the clatter of dog claws on the concrete path outside my bedroom window. I got up and saw Johnno arriving surrounded with his posse of pig dogs. He seemed weird and eccentric enough in the country, but here in the city, he was something else. With his old clothes, obviously slept in, the leather hat and the funny mannerisms and noises he made, you could tell at a glance he spent little time with other people.

Devon met him half-way down. Johnno reached out and cupped Devon’s chin like you’d do to a four-year-old or a favourite dog. Devon, everyone’s missing son. I pulled some clothes on and went to the front of the house to meet them.

Johnno said, ‘So, this is your hideout, eh? This is where the big deals go down?’

His voice was loud and I noticed Devon looking around anxiously before hustling him inside. We wandered from room to room while he checked things out. ‘Where’s all ya stuff? You just camping here?’ The place didn’t seem empty to us but I suppose compared to Johnno’s junkyard house it was like a show home.

We had tea and then carried the bags in from his old Studebaker truck. When we opened the haul inside the smell was overpowering. Not the usual dried hedge clipping smell but a thick pungent stink that immediately filled the room.

‘Jesus!’ I gasped. ‘We’ll all get ripped just sitting in the same room as this stuff.’

Devon looked at me proudly. ‘I’m telling you, it’s high grade skunk. Generations of careful breeding. It’s like the essence of dope.’

‘It smells like a dead body,’ I said.

Johnno poured the contents of the bag onto the kitchen table. It was just buds now, all the leaf and stalks had been taken off; hard and dry, it riffled like paper.

Devon picked up a bud and sniffed it. He looked at me significantly.

‘Show a bit of respect, Trace, some of the best minds in the country have been working on this. It’s connoisseur’s dope, not for your run-of-the-mill stoner. This will take you places you’ve never been.’

‘Travelling first class all the way!’ Johnno chipped in, as he rolled a joint.

I thought, ‘Here goes the day.’ It was the last thing I wanted to do, I had too much on. I went off to the toilet but in true doper fashion they couldn’t bear the thought of me missing out. When I emerged,

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