They have daggers for eyes. They stab at each other through red-veined slits, cutting through the strip. There are nodders on all corners, droopy, half-asleep and worn-out from days that melt into one big confused puddle. As night drifts across the metropolis the vibe stiffens, the streets jitter and sway with the meth-heads that bounce from corner to corner like shiny silver pinballs. On drab corners underneath neon signs hookers drowsily offer themselves, legs for the mind but the heart’s not in it.
A thick-jawed man and a blonde stand to one side of the strip, heads twitching while they discuss something. It’s not the daily news. The blonde has boobs like bazookas, and her husky voice is an octave too low to be safe. Their discussion is disrupted by a swarm of motorbikes cruising down Darlinghurst Road, mufflers baying for action, helmets bright and flashing as they rev past. Men peer out of open bars over middies of beer, and bouncers jut from doorways, draped in black, sullen and silent.
A deal is done. It all happens in the blink of an eye, blades glinting razor sharp. This is a hunting ground, when the time is right - when the price is right. It’s not piss that marks this territory, though there’s plenty of that; up walls and seeping through pavements, ingrained in the fibre of the strip. There’s a code here, raw as morse, deadly staccato taps on the spine. Tapping out letters to loved ones lost long ago.
