Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Our heroine Chickpeas Tunisian is half woman half beastess who lives in a 2 bedroom Brunswick smell cave with a cat. She’s a private detective, unformed genius, inveterate root rat and treats her body like a bikie clubhouse. She can find anything and anyone for that is her superpower and is partners with a 50ish year old lone gunman type called Derek who she knows nothing much about. She does not drive.
Morning
Torn between finishing the text to her ex asking for a ‘friends with benefits’ arrangement and getting stuck in with her vibrator Chickpeas stopped to ponder her future errand. Lying down on the floor where she passed out earlier sometime was helping her a bit. She’d read somewhere you’re more creative lying down and more likely to engage in complex problem solving or even come to think of it napping, delicious quiet sweet…..”Honk!” “Fuck”! Chickpeas bolted upright “What is happening ? …oh yeah the delivery” she thought leaping towards drawers and throwing what she assumed was clothing on. ‘Coming!” She yelled at the closed door as she chucked shoes and sunglasses at the right ends of her body. She got downstairs fast. “What took you so long?” Derek remarked in a I do not really care about the answer kind of way. ‘Doing my nails” Chickpeas swung into the cab of the van “where’s the package?” She asked. Chickpeas liked to allude to her life being more mysterious than it actually was to add an air of enigma to her pick up situations. The package was an unknown brown paper wrapped box that needed to get to Uncle Knuckles that morning. Now Uncle Knuckles had a lot of strings to his bow and Chickpeas and Derek were new to the operation and the area, they’d been recommended by a mate of a mate so it was probably his dry cleaning but Knuckles needed it and they were getting 300 bucks to get it to him.
Derek moved his 1983 discovery camper through the Brunswick back streets like a turtle on valium “In the back Peas, obviously” ” well lets get there quick , i’ve got shit to do”. “You want to drive?” “Don’t be a penis Derock, you know I can’t” and on it went until they found themselves staring down the barrel of their destination. ‘That it then?” Chickpeas asked. “Yep” replied Derek “In you go”. Chickpeas put her head through the curtains that cut off the cabin from the van proper and held her breath. Derek was paid to hunt feral cats by the Catholic church for environmental reasons and he kept all his ‘things’ in the van. Chickpeas saw what she was looking for and grabbed it while at the same time ignoring everything else in sight and trying not to breathe.
Ok then? Derek asked “ok then D” she replied stepping away from the van and the festering mass of Eww in the back.
The sky had started to turn a light grey and a misty rain feathered down muting the glare of the city and making it softer and even relaxing to be outside of the day time doing a semi sinister transaction for a split of 300 bucks. She popped into the Cornish for a pint and a vegan pizza being 20 minutes early for the meet and pondered her next move.
This was the first real job they’d done for Uncle knuckles and if she fucked it he’d fix her for sure. The twenty minutes ticked by and no one showed, she had another pint and waited. 40 minutes and still nothing. One more pint and then the phone call “k Derek get over here before I get too pissed, we’ve got a situation..no I don’t know what to do you Massive PENIS..ok, k I’m calming down, fuck you very much, see you in a sec goodbye”.
An hour later Derek and Chickpeas were back at the smellcave down 300 and up an extremely unwanted box.
To be continued…..