Later that evening, I somehow found myself one side of the fireplace, feeding the flames woodchips. I’m a bit of a pyromaniac. Once I start, I can’t stop. It wasn’t too nippy, being summer and all, but you don’t always light a fire for warmth; there’s cooking and ambience. Arny walked over.
‘Sammy,’ he said.
Sammy again!
‘Let me make you a hamburger. I’ve put two meat patties on to cook.’
I sort of waved him away. He sat the other side of the fireplace, skewering the two sides of the bun and holding them into the flames.
‘You need something longer,’ quipped Dizzy from the other side of the room, grooming his goatee with one hand, and Jane with the other.
Arny smiled at me. He was deliberate with the toasting, doing one side, then the other. I got up and sat next to Beth on the couch while Arny went into the kitchen to put the meat patties and fillings in the bun. Beth was talking to Joe and Kelly who were sitting on the opposite couch and didn’t appear to be talking to each other. Arny returned, giving me the hamburger. I could see him looking for a space between me and Beth. I spread my legs to fill the gap. But the unbelievable happened. Arny took a pillow and threw it at my feet. I wanted to yell, ‘No! What are you thinking?’ but I was under water. Arny slumped down on the damn thing. All eyebrows in the room made a Mexican wave. I chomped into my hamburger.
Actually, I have to admit, he’d toasted it to perfection. Pretty good, considering what he had to work with. A crackling fire and a bent fork. He’d rolled it round, making sure it was crisped every side, licked hard on the outer but soft inside. A class job.
I could do nothing but eat it. Best hamburger I’ve ever eaten and I don’t generally care for them much. I could see the others looking at me. He was looking at me. Arny. Rather than lean back, he leant forward, head tilted up. Funny effect somehow.
Midnight ticked over. We were now one minute into ’99. I wondered, like you always do, where I’d be in a year’s time, when I’d forget, like you always do, what I was doing a year before.
Rooms were divided up among the couples and I was to have the fold-out couch in the main room we’d been sitting in. I felt pretty out of it, being the new kid and all. Beth helped set up then I got into my sleeping bag. Arny unrolled his, and said he’d kip with me. Tubby, Dizzy and Joe looked at him. ‘To stay by the fire,’ Arny said and lay on the floor next to it. The others cleared off to their rooms.
We watched the fire crackle. I could see Arny was getting quite toasty. I was lying to one side of my big bed and we both looked at the empty space.
‘Why don’t you…?’
‘All right.’
And before I could think about it, he was next to me.
We lay turned in towards each other, the green hood on Arny’s sleeping bag an oval frame for his face. We didn’t speak. Every time I opened my eyes I saw him just closing his.
The fire crunched the logs. Bits of red spittle were lost to the dark. The smell of must, of smoke, and… and him… a real live human lying next to me.
A log fell out of the fire.
‘Almost had an incident,’ Arny said next morning.
I coughed my cereal.
We were sitting on the porch with the others.
‘But me and Sammy saved the day,’ laughed Arny, leaning forward in his plastic chair. ‘We had these three logs we piled up high. To stay warm all night. Well, I knew one would roll off when it got a bit charred. Did too. We’d just gotten to sleep and “collumph”.’ He rolled his arm. ‘But it hit the grate. That’s why we have them, kids,’ and for a moment he spoke to a porch full of them. ‘Let that be a lesson to you. Remember the grate.’
This got a laugh.
‘Might have been nothing left,’ I put in.
‘Nope, and me in my nylon slipper.’
‘Could’ve been shrink-wrapped. That would’ve been a tragedy – ’
Arny’s face was all teeth.
‘I mean…’
But it was too late; I’d said it.
Somehow the morning dipped into day. Arny and I were back on the foldout bed we were both too lazy to fold away. We were poring over a coffee-table book of aerial photographs from around the world, so abstract they were like modern paintings. Except for Beth, everyone else was outside playing footy.
Beth called out from the bathroom, ‘Arny?’
‘Yes’m?’ replied Arny.
Beth popped her head round the door, pink toothbrush in her mouth.
‘No, not you, Arny,’ she said. ‘My Arny.’
She meant Tubby, but Arny played on the mistake.
‘Boo hoo hoo,’ he cried, rolling about, ‘I’m nobody’s Arny.’ And he looked at me.
‘You’re your own Arny,’ I said. I don’t know why – I just blurted it out.
Beth turned from me to Arny and raised an eyebrow. The two shared a smile. Despite this, I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Beth’s Arny is Beth’s Arny,’ I went on. ‘But you’re your own. You’re Arny’s Arny.’
Arny looked kind of sad at that but he smiled and put a hand on my knee. Beth turned back to the bathroom with a flutter. I stiffened. I felt sick. I smiled but it was the twisted-est smile ever. I couldn’t get it right. I wanted it to say ‘righto’ but it just said ‘red’ – scarlet.
I got up, shaking Arny’s hand off my knee and peered through the windows for the others. Their game must’ve migrated down the hill. Arny joined me by the window. He had this funny way about him. Rather than just shouting something across a room like the others, he’d walk right up to me, stand a metre away or less, straight on, hands in back pockets, and talk like that. His hair was mussed from sleep.
‘Do you want to go for a walk, Sammy?’ he asked.
A walk! Actually, I thought, that’s good. Outside I’ll tell him. Tell him… well, not to stand so close and all. Hell, that would sound silly. Christ, I couldn’t even say what he was doing exactly. I just knew, with him around, I was feeling the funniest ever. Like I wanted to take off or something but couldn’t get a run-up.
No, that sounds good. It was bad. Something he was doing was bad.
He was mesmerising me.
I mean, I couldn’t take my eyes off him for more than a second. Why…? This was… It was too scary. There had to be a reason…
Ah! That was it! I’d worked it out. So obvious. Nothing to sweat over at all. It was simple. The guy had the perfect-est features you ever saw. Perfect mannerisms, so goofy, so fleet. Right-on voice, camphor and sweet. Perfect hands, perfect body, perfect package…
I wanted to look like him, that’s all.
Hell, I’d noticed that about myself. The way I’d eye up guys. That was normal enough. I mean, the way I’d look at guys all the time. Well, that was why. The reason was simple: I didn’t feel too special myself. If I’d been a looker, I’d be eying up girls – crotches to cranium and back – pretty much secure they were doing the same in return, but no, I was checking out the saucy guys to see what I didn’t have myself. You can rise above most things, but you can’t rise above your looks. A bit of styling mousse, maybe.
But did that explain the dreams…? I’d never slept well anyway. Not surprising, really.
I was still staring at Arny.
Hell, those curls, each one looping back, all in love with his head. My hair can’t wait to get away from me. Talk about the white afro.
Arny was outside by this time. I could see him standing by the clipped-wing gate, waiting for this walk I’d said I’d accompany him on. I’d told him I had to get my shoes on first. Beth had come back into the room and was washing up. Clink, clank.
Arny, hair wriggling in the wind. Hell, he was the sort of guy anyone would look at, right? Girls, guys, anyone.
I stood up, feet firmly sutured. Twelves stitches per boot.
‘Hey, um, Beth…’ I began.
Beth swivelled at the neck, hands still in the sink so the water wouldn’t comb down the carpet.
‘Um, why hasn’t Arny got a girlfriend?’ I asked.
She cocked her head at that. I had to make it normal.
‘I mean,’ I blurted, ‘you’d say he was pretty attractive and all. I can’t really tell with guys, you know, but…’
And my words ran out like coins. Ten cents short for the Coke. Beth turned right round, snow suds adrift.
‘So you think Arny’s hot, do you?’
Her playful tone and smile frightened me. It was like she was playing matchmaker. She must’ve seen how uncomfortable I was and backed off, turning back to the dishes.
‘Well, Sam, I suppose he’s not too bad-looking,’ she said to the window in front of her, obviously trying to sound flippant. ‘Guess it depends on your type.’
Depends on your type…?
That would mean he was my…
No!
That clinched it. I’d have to get out there quick smart and tell Arny to stop it. Once and for all. It was sick.
Seducing a feller. What was he playing at? And what made him think I was like that anyway? I was sporty, daggy, a regular bloke. Apart from the book-reading, just one of the guys. Or hoped to be…
In the barn, he kissed me.
Again and again and again.
That night, stuck in my cramped room above Lygon, I tried to get to sleep but couldn’t somehow. My head felt saddled to the pillow. Eventually, I hugged the pillow to me and that was enough, just, to canter through the night. Arny kissed me. Or had I kissed him? No. We’d kissed each other. In the barn. The light slicing the boards. The others’ footsteps outside in the grass. On instinct, me pushing him away. Arny falling heavily. Then the door opening. The cricketers and their girlfriends standing there.
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ I said with all of us there, in tableau. ‘I’m not a fucking faggot.’
Arny got up and left the barn. We followed him out and watched him walk to his car.
Dizzy told how he’d seen us walking to the barn together, close, a little too close. That’s why he’d gathered everyone for the hunt.
We watched as Arny fumbled for his car keys.
‘He tried ta come onta ya, Sam,’ said Dizzy in my ear.
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Lucky I saved you.’ A little louder: ‘He could’ve fucked your arse right up.’
‘I know.’
‘You owe me one.’
‘I know.’
Beth went over to Arny and tried to make him stay. She turned and yelled at Tubby to make Dizzy shut up. Dizzy started another crack but Beth cut him off. She pleaded with Tubby to say something, take control of the situation, lead.
Too late. Arny drove off, taking a swig of the horizon. A coffee dreg on the porcelain sky was all he left.
I got a lift back in the troop carrier with Tubby, Beth, Dizzy, Jane, Joe and Kelly. Beth sniped at Tubby from time to time. I couldn’t hear what it was about but I knew: Tubby not coming to the aid of his best friend, Arny. Joe tried shooting the breeze with me but Dizzy turned the music too high for talking comfort.
I’d managed to break into a friendship group – tenuously, yes, but enough to be invited away with them. Not only was I messing that up; I’d created rifts in the group.
They dropped me the other side of Edinburgh Gardens. I felt like the walk.
We’d just had a whiff of summer rain that had wet the grass to a crew-cut, and there was me, walking the footpath, telling myself how lucky I was. Geez, a little bit later and… he might of… we might of… I thought of those hills, and how there was something I wanted, something I wanted to get so badly, but couldn’t for cucumber eyes. But I’d been saved. Must remember that. Something terrible could’ve happened. I’d let my guard down and I wasn’t even drunk! A minute or two later and… and… My cheeks felt wet. Before I knew, it was raining. Like it never had since I was a kid. A full-on flood. Seemed to flow right through me, lifting my organs and dumping them on higher ground, my heart in my mouth and my life downstream. I shivered; barely made it off the footpath and onto a seat. I had only one thought, and it was pretty silly: hold myself. That’s right, hold. Hard as could be. Otherwise I’d tear apart. I’d just about pulled the shoulders of my white shirt together at the front, double-breasted, when it ripped, with every cotton strand aching apart down my spine.
A lady walked past with soft pink impasto features. A lovely green scarf like seaweed caught on a jetty post.
‘Son…?’
Just keep holding yourself, Sam. Hold.
‘Son, have you hurt yourself?’
Injured? I looked at my knees. Maybe I’d tripped.
‘Are you injured?’
Not a scratch.
‘Have you hurt yourself?’
And I knew the answer.
Yes, I had. Deeply.
Back in my room, for some reason I thought about this effeminate guy at school, Carl. I hadn’t thought about him in ages. The other kids teased him – no, I lie, we teased – so much his parents took him out of school and moved away. I was especially cruel. Reckoned we had nothing in common but maybe I feared we were too alike. It was the first and last time I teased someone about their sexuality. But I didn’t reckon there was anything sissy about me. Nothing. I was – wanted to be – could still be – one of the guys.
The next day, Saturday, I forced myself to make the long journey to the clubhouse. There were general shouts of ‘Here he is’. The coach told me he didn’t want to lose both star openers.
‘Both…?’ I forgot to step back as I pulled my locker door open, getting a metal slug in the chin.
‘Yep. Arny’s done a runner.’
The coach walked outside. A great scythe had taken out my feet but I was still standing. I saw Tubby on a bench, strapping on his pads, and something snapped. For the second time, I let my guard down, like I had finally let myself get drunk. Drunk all the time.
‘Tubby, what’s Arny’s number?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘His number?’
Tubby, Dizzy and Joe just stared at me. I turned to Arny’s locker. Maybe he’d left something with his number on it. But Dizzy was there, shoving his bag into it, then fumbling with the lock. Didn’t make sense at all till he walked away with a smile, and then it did. I’d forgotten the ‘Vice-captain’ on Arny’s locker. Dizzy had got his promotion.
But how to find Arny? Maybe when he had cleared out his locker, he’d thrown something in the bin. I looked. And sure enough: no number, but an old bill with his address on it. I put it in my pocket and ran outside, pushing through the others, who’d been watching me rummage like a dero, and past the coach who yelled at me, ‘Where are you going?’
Arny’s flatmate said he didn’t know where Arny was either. But he sure as hell wanted to. The ‘bastard’ owed him on the electricity. I looked at what I’d rescued from the bin: an overdue notice.
I walked back to the game. The coach nearly hit me. He’d put Joe in to open with Tubby. But Joe and five more were already out and we’d only made fifty. Tubby and Dizzy scored fifty more between them before Dizzy was bowled out and I was sent in. At that point, we had to at least double our score for a chance of winning and, with the overs remaining, that meant better than one run a ball. We were playing Brunswick, the team Dizzy reckoned was unbeatable.
I took the crease, then walked up the pitch towards Tubby for the usual chat, but he just stayed at his end. My stomach bunched up and I turned back.
Tubby tried to get a single down to long-on but was picked up in slips. A dot ball. The over finished, leaving me to face. The new bowler came on; the wicketkeeper moved in close; there was even a silly mid-on. Must have been planning spin.
The bowler marked out quite a log run-up. Medium-fast? He hurtled in. As he let go of the ball, the wicketkeeper whispered at me.
‘Poofter boy.’
The ball hit the pitch short, a bouncer.
‘Poofter boy.’ This time it was silly mid-on.
I was distracted.
‘Poofter boy.’
And didn’t see it off the pitch.
I must’ve staggered pretty near the stumps ’cause the slips went up, but I hadn’t knocked the bails off. My head hurt like hell where the ball had connected under my ear. The umpire’s voice was a wet buzzing. I waved him away.
What was said? Before the ball came? Poofter boy, that’s right! Poof? Strangest thing in the world. I mean, whispering that at me!
Tubby half walked up the pitch to me. I waved him back. The bowler got ready again. His arm cartwheeled, the ball was loosed.
‘Poofter boy.’
Crunch!
My left elbow melted from solid to liquid state, and was aiming to go gaseous. Silly mid-on stepped in close. He put an arm on my shoulder. I looked round and he blew me a kiss. A kiss! Tubby yelled, halfway up the pitch. He must’ve seen. Then the wicketkeeper pinched my bum. What was that supposed to say? I was a girl or something?
Again, the whispering, ‘Poofter boy, poofter boy.’
Just your regular sledging?
‘You all right, Big Feller?’
The coach, I think. From the sideline. Everything was a dull cicada hum, and it wasn’t the crowd.
‘You all right?’
Maybe it was Tubby. I looked down the pitch, long enough for a runway, and saw Arny. A mirage, for a moment. We’d opened the last match and never gone out, retiring with a century for him and almost a double century for me.
‘Have you hurt yourself?’
It was that lady in the park, with the pretty, green scarf.
‘Have you hurt yourself, dear?’
The scarf blowing over one shoulder.
‘Do you want the medic?’
It was the umpire, this time, definitely.
I shook my head at him. The world shook twice as hard back. Stay with it, Sam. The bowler winked at me before turning to find his marker. Tubby elbowed him as they passed and there was a bit of scuffling. The umpire shouted at them both.
The bowler merely shrugged at Tubby.
‘You’re the poonce, mate! Tubby yelled. ‘With a name like Charles Acton-Heath!’
Charles Acton-Heath? Dizzy’s mate.
The umpire motioned to get on with it.
Next ball. The run in.
‘Fucking faggot.’
Whack!
My feet fell out. I sank to my knees. A direct hit to the stomach. Air, air – I needed air! I stopped wheezing and sucked, gentle as could be. The pain, the pain…
Tubby was yelling, the crowd shouting, and I could hear booing from the boxes where the rest of the team was up, standing.
Poofter boy? I mean… they were saying it… to me!
Me, Sam. I felt sick. Sickest I ever had, on top of the physical hurt. I felt exposed. Starkers in the middle of the oval. Practically a streaker. Maybe even the crowd were in on what had happened. I couldn’t see how everyone knew about… Well, I suppose my running off to Arny’s had done it. Guys just don’t charge off after each other like that unless…
‘Right, help this guy off,’ said the umpire.
He and Tubby lifted me up.
‘No,’ I said.
Tubby squeezed my arm.
‘Come on, Sam.’
‘No.’
I threw off their arms. They walked back to their places. Three balls to go this over. I felt like a half-made house robbed of its struts.
My eyes on the pitch, I saw Arny driving away.
And it hurt. Ten times as much as it should’ve. I looked round at the fielders and saw what I’d lost, what it should’ve been. That memory, Arny. If it’d been boy and girl, not boy and boy, it’d be something else now, an altogether different time. It’d be my first real kiss, first love, something to think back on at eighty and smile about. The first real awakening of heart and hard-on, a tingling, a tantrum in the groin. But no, it was just pain. All pain. And no one wants to think back on that. No one, I tell you. I didn’t want to hate.
Silly mid-on was whispering again.
I did hate.
Charles Acton-Heath loosed the ball.
Terribly.
Smash.
Silly mid-on was rolling on the ground, grabbing his groin. Snot and tears streamed from his face. Got him! There were yells and cheers all round. They took silly mid-on and replaced him with the twelfth man. No one was going to kick me out, no one was going to oust me from the game! Either this one or the game of life. I wouldn’t be excluded any more. If I was gay, then I wouldn’t hide it.
I smiled the meanest smile at the wicketkeeper. He signalled for a helmet. The next ball I stepped forward and hooked straight into him, hard as I could. He went to catch it, then tried to get out of the way, but couldn’t do either. It caught him in the ribs, rolling him over and (I heard later) cracking two of them. There wasn’t anyone to replace him.
The umpire lectured me. I ignored him, completely.
Next ball after that, I whacked a perfect cover drive. Charles Acton-Heath watched the ball straight into his forehead and fell with a crunch.
Tubby hardly got a bat the rest of the game. I made a hundred and fifty-three runs, not out.
Our rivals put on a good run-chase. Charles Acton-Heath was absent so someone batted twice. The wheezing wicketkeeper had a runner. In the end their ‘good’ wasn’t good enough. We’d won.
I felt strangely elated. Justified. The opposition walked off, heads bowed. Tubby came up to me, took my hand and raised it in the air as the volume of the crowd rose. Tubby and I walked off to claps and cheering.
‘You stayed in there Sam,’ said Tubby, taking off his helmet. ‘Man, you stayed in – you took control.’
I removed my helmet. The coach was staring at us as we approached the gate. Tubby’s voice developed a wobble.
‘Beth reckons I’m not much of a leader… for a captain,’ he confided.
I turned but it was too late to say anything. The coach watched as we walked through the gate. I couldn’t gauge his expression. Tubby and I made our way through the crowd and into the clubhouse.
Head down, I approached the bench, then realised Tubby was no longer beside me. When I turned, he was in the doorway, staring. I followed that stare.
‘Dizzy!’
Dizzy turned around, surprised at Tubby’s tone.
‘What?’
‘You told your mate Charles about Sam, didn’t you?’ spat Tubby.
‘So what?’ I could tell Dizzy was surprised Tubby was taking him on.
Tubby half-turned, looked like he was going to drop the matter, but then walked over and grabbed Dizzy, shoving him against his ‘Vice-captain’ locker.
‘It isn’t fucking cricket, that’s what.’
This was captaincy! Beth could be proud of Tubby now. Tubby let go.
‘Well, Tubs,’ said Dizzy meekly, ‘you tell Charles that. He’s in hospital. Unconscious.’
The coach stuck his head in.
‘Okay, Big Feller. Out here.’
I was sick to the core, elation gone. Knocking that guy out – I’d never gotten angry like that before. Always pictured the ball as my enemy. It was the missile, the grenade I had to get away from me, far as I could. But now it wasn’t the ball so much as the field. The whole thing had been target practice. What had I done?
I glanced at Tubby, then followed the coach outside.
We sat down in one of the now-empty stands. To my surprise, the coach lectured me on how smashing up the other side was none too nice but an indication of phenomenal talent. He went on so long, I couldn’t get away. I was aware of the other cricketers leaving, their friends and families all gone. It occurred to me the coach was excited, like I had been, by how I’d batted. He was a big, toned guy, and to see those arms waving about like a kid’s was a strange sight.
‘This is what a coach hopes for in his career. Even if it occurs once.’
I finally got away, heading back to my room above the pub. But on entering the bar, I saw Tubby drinking beer and chatting to Wally over the counter. The fact he’d dropped by indicated he was still my friend. Certainly seemed like it, the way he’d come to my aid on the pitch, and his taking on Dizzy in the clubhouse. But I didn’t know if I could face him right now. I’d cost him his closest friend and key player, Arny. And there had been an explosion in my life bigger than my explosion on field I needed to deal with.
So I slid out of the pub, making my way to the street and the phone booths. Even though mobiles were taking off in a big way, they still hadn’t gotten round to removing most of the booths.
Tried calling Ashleigh but the line rang out. I couldn’t quite talk to my parents yet. Don’t know why. Nothing else for it, so I rang Dirk.
‘Dirk, I… Dirk, I’ve fallen for a… for a guy.’
The phone booth window had been smashed. I remember thinking it was like a glass web. Silence. Then Dirk’s gravelly voice.
‘Me and Janet always thought you were a bit of a woolly woofter, Sam.’
‘Prick.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.
If they thought I was a ‘woolly woofter’, why hadn’t they ever said anything? Why had they gone on so much about me getting a girlfriend?
‘Hey, you coming back, Sam? Drinks are at me and Janet’s again. You bailed on us for New Year’s.’
‘Okay… all right. See you tomorrow.’
And I hung up.
I didn’t get there till late – the afternoon train again. Cinders wasn’t at the station but, then again, she didn’t live there. The sun eased below the horizon, leaving a ripple of red. I walked to Dirk’s. Noise carried from the backyard. I went round the side of the house, Lady and the other dogs greeting me. Dirk and his mates were getting the fire going, getting into their tinnies. Ashleigh wasn’t there with Tarlia yet, Mum and Dad either. Dirk told me to get myself a drink from the tub.
I sat down in the circle. Again, I felt sick with nervousness. But it seemed to go okay – I kept up my end of the conservation, until Dirk said to fetch him a beer. I said he should. He went on, fuck, how he was always waiting on me, and stuff. Telling his friends he had a lazy sod for a bro’. It got pretty nasty.
‘Steady on, you two,’ said Janet.
I reckoned I should be the one waited on, if anyone was. Not like I was the birthday boy or nothing, still… Well, it is kind of special in a way, like opening a tinnie. Don’t know if it will just fizz or, if it’s been dropped, whether half of it will foam away. Things got sore between us, that’s all I’m getting at. Dirk reckoned he always had to do everything for me. Whenever he hung out with his friends, Mum and Dad always insisted he let his ‘little brother’ tag along. ‘Only way Sam’s gonna make friends,’ they’d say to him. That always pulled me up short. Pretty sad when even your parents feel sorry for you.
Night was getting on, I could tell Dirk was still black with me, and people started telling jokes. Kev just told a funny one about a talking dog, when Dirk piped in – Dirk my own brother. ‘I’ve got one,’ he said. And he leaned forward into the fire.
‘Okay, there’s two fags fucking and one goes to the fridge to get a drink of milk.’
Straightaway, my stomach bunched up. I couldn’t believe it.
I sat in horror as he told his filthy ‘joke’.
Everyone laughed. Pretty hard. Even Janet. I could see she couldn’t help it. I couldn’t look at my brother. Couldn’t look at his friends, either. I didn’t even know if they knew about me yet. I didn’t know what would be worse. If they did, or didn’t. Dirk sure as hell knew. There was just one joke after the other, after that. He’d got them started. All pretty much the same theme. And I felt scared. Very scared. I’d felt scared sometimes before in similar situations, but I’d always thought: Geez, it’s lucky I’m not gay in a place like this.
I got up.
‘Hey, we’re just telling jokes, Sam,’ said Janet. ‘Your turn.’
I headed for the exit down the side of the house. Dirk yelled that Mum and Dad were coming over any minute but I walked straight out and down the road and caught the last train home. Yes, home. I would make Melbourne my place.
When I walked into the pub, Wally was holding the phone: Dad was on the line. People could ring in; I just wasn’t allowed to ring out (Wally was onto the fact it wouldn’t be local). Taking the phone from Wally’s pizza crust fingers, I put it to my ear.
Dad wanted to know why I’d ticked off without warning. I said, well, what did he think of what Dirk had told him. Dirk hadn’t told him anything, he said. Just that I’d taken off, no explanation. I could’ve killed Dirk.
‘I’m gay,’ I told him and hung up.
I’d done it now. I was gay and out. My family knew. The cricketers knew. I knew. How would I face anyone? I called in sick at training all week, and for the match at the weekend. Just stayed in my room and turned troppo.
Tubby caught up with me the following week. He’d been phoning the bar every day. (Wally was complaining about turning into my ‘personal secretary.’) But it was nice of Tubby. Seems I’d made one friend in Melbourne, at least. Could’ve been two with Arny. Tubby took me to the nets, for practice. That’s why he was pursuing me: he still hoped I’d return to the club. No one bought my ‘feeling ill’ excuse.
I asked about Charles Acton-Heath.
Tubby broke his run-up.
‘Man, you go and do something like that, which rocks, then you go and soil it all by feeling guilty. Don’t feel guilty. Fuck the cunt.’
I certainly hadn’t expected an approving response.
‘Mild concussion, that’s all,’ Tubby offered at last.
The echidna in my stomach eased up slightly but then it scrunched up with my next question.
‘Heard from Arny?’
Tubby looked at his feet. ‘Yeah, he’s gone overseas.’
I nearly cried. Don’t, Sam, don’t.
‘Hey, Sam, he was always planning to,’ said Tubby hurriedly. ‘You… I mean… we just pushed his schedule forward.’
I liked Tubby even more for that touch but I didn’t agree with it. ‘We?’ I asked sceptically.
‘Yeah, well… maybe I should’ve come to his aid,’ Tubby explained.
I tried to convince him it was all my fault, which was how I felt. He got ready to do his run-up but broke it again. He then said something else that surprised me.
‘Man, maybe it was a little bit Arny’s fault as well.’
I didn’t understand that at all. I asked him to explain.
‘Sam, I know what it’s like to be called names. But, hey, I’m still here.’
I’m so thick, again I didn’t know what he was getting at. He eventually had to explain it.
‘Tubby!’ and he slapped his belly.
That pulled me up short. It never occurred to me that the name hurt him. But he’d braved it out, even ending up by owning it. Maybe my problems weren’t so big or rare.
‘So, man, are you going to tough it out?’ he asked.
This time, I knew immediately what he was getting at. I’d wanted to change, I’d hoped Melbourne would change me. It had. Now I had to decide to face people as the new Sam. Could I?
Tubby was still staring at me.
Swallowing drily, I nodded yes.
Tubby bowled his ball which I hit straight back into his hands.
‘Anyway,’ he said, the serious tone dropped, ‘Arny will be back by the end of the year. No long-term harm done.’
Just under a year? It wasn’t that long to wait. I lowered my bat, indicating I was ready to receive the next ball, but it was Tubby who wouldn’t play. He got onto another topic, one that completely surprised me.
‘Um,’ he said, looking at the ground, ‘have you ever… er… fancied me?’
I just about tripped over myself in a rush to say no.
Tubby was just as quick to yell, ‘Good.’
A long moment passed and then at last he looked at me.
‘Why not?’
I reckon the stupid bugger was really cut.
Toco Productions 