Because Anyone Can Whip Up a Batch of E

I could see him scrabbling with his things desperate to free up space on the seat, I had noticed him earlier but chose to ignore him. There were no other seats and exhaustion forced me to join him. I returned his beam with a polite smile and proceeded to read my newspaper.
‘’Those look heavy.’
’Pause. Oh he’s talking to me.
‘’Uh yeah they’re from the library.’
’Back to my newspaper.
‘’So you work there?’’
Again it takes me a few moments to register his words.
‘’These are for an assignment, I’m a uni student.”
By now it had become clear that this boy was going to insist on dialogue and that I would have little choice in this matter. Resigning myself to what would surely be a very painful 40 minutes I folded the newspaper in my lap and turned to face him.Still smiling, he pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt and pointed to the Southern Cross tattooed on his arm before beginning to question me. ‘Whereabouts you from?’’
‘’Sydney...?’’
‘’Oh, right. Well if you enjoy a barbie and the footy on Sundays then anyone’s welcome around here!’’
Apparently an attempt at being friendly.His name was Brad, aged eighteen and he had recently joined the army reserves, an idea that appealed to him wonderfully because it complemented his awesome chef’s job in a city club. He’d get to party after work every night and train with the army every now and then; he figured it was a pretty a sweet life.He stopped to pull a thread from his shorts.
‘’It really helps to keep busy, especially now, just gotta keep moving forward you know?’’
His girlfriend had broken up with him, dumped in favour of the HSC. She was a nice girl, lived on the Northshore, the uptown girl to this downtown man.
‘’It’s funny cos all her friends were scared of me, since I’m a westie and all.’’
He’d decided to tackle this perception on the day he met her parents. Brad turned up to his (now) ex-girlfriend’s home dressed in army shorts, a white singlet and a baseball hat. As soon as he was introduced to anyone he would throw up his arms and shout
‘‘Don’t worry! No guns! No knives! You’re all safe!’’
What a relief.

‘’So, do you have a boyfriend?’’
‘’Uh No’’
‘’Aww why not?’’
I threw him some roundabout response that didn’t answer the question; I did not appreciate having my personal information broadcast on a train to an audience silently urging us to shut up. His smile wavered for a moment, then returned as he continued his chatter.‘
’Us westies we’re not so bad right? Those Northshore types think we’re all into drugs and that, I can tell you now it’s not just us, any science student at uni can whip up a batch of E, it’s real easy, my friend can do it’’.
He leaned closer to me in our cramped, hot little corner.
‘’I reckon it’s all a conspiracy, the government, they want those drugs out on the streets, they want kids out there getting stoned, it keeps their little system rolling you know?”
What could I do but nod along? Watching his blond curls jump with every bump of the train. He would have to shave those locks off soon; the military had their rules after all.
Much sooner than I expected we reached his stop.
‘’Anyway it was nice to meet you, I’m stationed in Iraq in two weeks so wish me luck!’’