Truck Stop by Lachlan Philpott

enjoying putting me through this? I don’t even want to know if it’s true but even if it is it doesn’t matter because this isn’t about Chante or me or our lives… this is about you. You want to intimidate me? Make me feel scared like some girl at your school?
    SAM: No.
    MICHELLE: I’m not scared of you. Why would I be scared?
    Take a look at yourself Sam. At what you do. What you did. Not about the way it might have looked in a movie or a video clip but about the reality of what you did. To your best friend. To yourself.
    I have been trying to figure out something about you. Where do you live? Not the house or the street or the suburb but in here. If you can’t see the difference between what’s going on in there and what’s happening around you, what’ll happen to you?
    SAM: Michelle’s spat on her blouse and knocked a Tim Tam on the floor.
    No idea what you’re on about. Gotta go.
    We hear swarming and trucks passing at high speed.
    KELLY/AISHA: Then
    KELLY: New guy at the food court.
    AISHA: Noah’s cousin. / Torquan.
    KELLY : Torquan.
    KELLY: He doesn’t go to school, works on the roads. Torquan knows he’s good looking. He’s seen the school girls watch him, he’s felt the eyes of every lady from Shoe-Deeni to GOLO look him up and down. He leans back on a chair in the food court looking bored. Noah brings him donuts.
    AISHA: I stand between Gloria Jean’s and Chinky Chonk’s waiting for Sam, watch them, him and Noah. The way Noah’s looking at his cousin.
    KELLY: Then Torquan sees Aish filming them. He sits up, his mouth snarls and he points at her. / They’re coming over.
    AISHA: They’re coming over. Torquan first then, another one of their gang followed by Noah. Torquan says /
    TORQUAN: Why were you filming us?
    AISHA: His breath is stale cigarettes his green eyes are cold.
    TORQUAN: Why were you filming us?
    AISHA: He grabs the phone out of my hand and plays back the film.
    TORQUAN: Oh look at that Noah, she’s got you on film. Why you filming my cousin, freak?
    AISHA: Noah looks down at his feet.
    KELLY: Torquan grabs Noah’s donuts, takes one out and squashes it on the phone.
    AISHA: Takes another one out and squashes it in my hair. His mates are laughing and a table load of boys behind him start cheering then Noah tells him to stop and Sam comes up behind us. She gets in between Torquan and me and says:
    SAM: What the fuck are you animals doing to my friend?
    TORQUAN: Teaching her a lesson.
    SAM: Teaching her a lesson?
    TORQUAN: Yeah.
    AISHA: My phone ringing now. Mum Mum Mum flashing on the screen.Torquan grabs the phone, answers it says: /
    TORQUAN: Hello Mum she can’t come right now ’cause she’s sucking my dick.
    AISHA: I close my eyes and start to cry.
    Sam yelling to get the phone back. Torquan saying it’s his phone now. Footsteps, security comes, some guy says sort things out or you can leave and then I hear something smashing. I open my eyes and Torquan is smashing my phone hard against this giant plastic kebab. The phone scatters in pieces on the food court floor.
    I’m led outside. Sam and Kelly both pat me like I’m a dog. Kelly strokes my hair while Sam tries to put my phone back together. She gives up, chucks it the ashtrays near the entrance to the food court.
    I’m shivering.
    SAM: Torquan’s such an arsehole.
    SAM/KELLY: What were you filming them for?
    SAM: Shouldn’t have filmed them. I don’t get you.
    AISHA: I look at them and can’t explain.
    An awkward pause, then SAM reveals a magazine.
    SAM: Look what I nicked.
    KELLY: Cosmo .
    SAM: Sealed section’s back.
    KELLY: Open it. Open it.
    AISHA: They peel it back like hungry dogs.
    SAM: The great Cosmo boobs and bottoms match up game. Look at him!
    AISHA: Photos of naked white guys with vegetables over their bits.
    SAM: And him.
    AISHA: Their fronts and their behinds.
    KELLY: Hot arse. Look at his