Tubby and I were in the coach’s office. The coach squared me up with his quarter-pounder grimace. Tubby nodded to him that it was all right my being back; I was on the level. And besides, it was only one match I’d missed. The coach got up from behind his cheap, ply-board desk.
‘All right, Big Feller,’ he said, ‘I’ll forgive you this time, but never again.’
I thanked him then asked for the key to my old locker.
‘You don’t have it any more.’
With the slumping of my shoulders, my bag nearly dropped to the floor.
‘Don’t get excited, Big Feller. I gave your locker to Arny’s replacement. You can have the one next to Dizzy’s,’ and from the rack of key-holders he took the last remaining key.
In the lockers, Dizzy was tying his shoelaces on the bench. When Tubby and I walked past he pirouetted faster than a figure skater.
‘Quick, guys, backs to the walls.’
I stopped in the middle of the floor. The walls were lined with teammates. I made a quick promise to myself: not all jokes would be at my expense; I would make a few of my own. Tubby was blowing a speech-bubble of invective fit to burst, but I got in first.
‘Dizzy, I wouldn’t even fuck you with his dick,’ and I nodded to Tubby.
Tubby was the first to laugh, Dizzy the last when he saw there was nothing else for it; the entire room had opened up teeth. I breathed easy. I’d own my name the way Tubby owned his. He was right – it was going to be okay. Probably the odd jibe in the showers, but I could handle that.
I took my locker. Standing in front of my old locker was its new owner.
‘Hi, Sam.’
It was Joe. The guy must’ve been promoted up the order.
Joe and I opened against Keilor. He went out but not before scoring a quick-fire twenty. This time I didn’t smash the balls, but still managed to stay in while the others made runs around me; the guy that frustrated the bowler.
‘Trying a new kind of game there, Big Feller?’ asked the coach when I was finally out, and making my way to the stands.
Maybe I was. I took a seat. Joe bundled down next to me, fringe of blonde hair swinging wide enough to reveal his blue eyes.
‘Sam, I know how hard it is making friends when you move to a new city,’ said Joe. ‘Me and Kelly are going ice-skating tomorrow; you’re welcome to come.’
I smiled broadly at him. Maybe I’d meet someone there who was gay. Joe smiled back.
Dad rang that night saying I couldn’t just make this ‘great revelation’ to him and Mum about being gay then not come home and discuss it. Mum came on the phone. She said when you have kids, you want them to have the world, but as they grow up, you just want them to be happy.
‘But are you happy, Sam?’
I was working on it.
Next morning I dressed up, adding more layers than the weather warranted, knowing it would be cold at the rink.
Luckily Joe’s house wasn’t too far from mine and I walked the distance in just over an hour. From the outside, his shanty looked pretty run-down and cramped; it did have a big yard but it was made smaller by the jungle growing in it. The flyscreen was open. Not that it wasn’t open when it was shut; it had more holes in it than a piss-poor batting defence. I called out a few times but no one answered. So I walked in.
‘Yes, hello?’
The girl shouting at me was giving a rabbit-in-high-beam impression. A good wad of her hair got loose from its band and fell over her face in wisps. Waving a paint brush in one hand, holding a turps rag in the other and wearing a paint-stained smock, she couldn’t even use her sleeves to push aside her hair. I introduced myself.
‘Sam…? I know you.’
I assured her she didn’t.
‘Perhaps your hair was combed the other times.’
‘Look, is Joe here?’ I was trying to get a glimpse of my reflection in the hallway mirror and see whether my part was holding.
She looked into the mess that was the back of the house and screamed, ‘Joe!’
I must’ve jumped a metre ’cause she leapt back herself. She gave me a pointed stare then disappeared out back. Joe emerged from the same direction a moment later.
‘That was my flatmate, Lydia,’ he said. ‘She’s a painter.’
‘Is she coming with – ?’
‘Oh no,’ said Joe quickly. But he then went on to say there’d be other friends who were going.
‘They’ll meet us at the rink,’ he said, and suddenly I was very keen they did.
Joe’s car was as messy as his flat. I could see the road rushing underneath through a tear in the floor. We had to yell to hear each other.
‘So, Sam, what do you do?’ yelled Joe.
That seemed a pretty daft question. He knew what I did.
‘Play cricket.’
‘Yes, but if cricket doesn’t work out?’
That had never occurred to me. What would you do if your dream didn’t work out? Crash pretty hard, I reckon. Joe was overtaking in zigzags. I forced myself not to grip the door handle.
Since I had no occupation beyond cricket, Joe got on to what he did, which was science. Geez, what sort of company was I keeping lately? First Arny the accountant, now Joe the scientist. How many others on the team clocked up degrees as well as runs? Made me look dumb.
Joe said he’d always liked science – loved it – at school.
‘Only just got the marks to get in, too,’ he said. ‘One mark less and I wouldn’t have. That was God telling me something…’
‘God telling you…?’
‘Yes,’ said Joe, with that great smile he had. He had the most perfect set of teeth, almost as if they were fake and one size too big. But he was pretty attractive, I have to admit, in that pretty, attractive, way: tall, broad and blonde.
But God telling him to do science?
The skating rink was full of Joe’s friends. Wouldn’t you know: they were all seasoned skaters, which left me as the single novice. Joe booked me into a free class, which ran on the hour. While I waited and half shivered to death, Joe and Kelly and their friends performed their moves. Hmm, they’d been coming here for a while, that was certain.
Eventually the class started. The woman running it had two flawlessly round circles of red in her cheeks, and hair so black and silky she was a doll.
‘My name is Rhada and I’m your instructor.’
We did a quick round of introductions – the five of us in the class, with us all holding the rails.
‘Now, if any of you ski, you’ll find ice-skating easy,’ said Rhada.
‘What if we haven’t skied?’ asked one of my older co-inadequates.
‘Then you’ll find it very easy once you’ve been ice-skating. So, who can show me a bunched-up fist? Anyone? That’s right. Now, if we fall over, that’s how we get ourselves off the ground. Much safer, I think you’ll agree, than with fingers splayed out, especially with all those whiz-bang skaters around.’
I took a squiz at those whiz-bang skaters. Joe flew past himself – backwards. Show-off! He waved at me. That was rubbing it in.
‘Oh well,’ I said to myself and let go of the rail. Immediately I fell over.
After the hour was up, I got off the ice-skating rink, pushing my way out the gate. My bum was wet; my knees were wet; my knuckles were bruised and red. Plus my feet ached, my ankles ached – what am I saying! I nagged with pain all over. A whole lot of muscles I’m sure I’d never used before were mad at me.
There was this area where you could sit and the sun got in through big windows overhead, but I didn’t get far. Kelly ran into me. She practically knocked her chest against me, she edged in so close. I stepped back.
‘Hey, what ya looking at?’ she asked.
‘Whaddya mean?’ I was taken aback by our collision and the schoolmistress tone. I’d only met Kelly on that weekend away with Arny and I don’t reckon she and I had exchanged five words.
‘Looking down my front,’ she explained, looking down her own front!
Actually, I’d been staring off at Joe. He’d moved back to the outside rink. He was clocking the ks, too. I was wondering when he’d fulfil his role of host and help me out.
‘I know you’re cured,’ said Kelly, ‘because you’ve been looking at me.’
Cured? I bristled. Was that meant to be a joke? But I wasn’t going to let insinuations get to me. I looked around for somewhere to retreat to but she had me cornered. She pushed herself even closer. She stared at her toes then ran her eyes up her body. When she got to her exposed bosom, she looked up at me, a finger-typist at last looking at the screen.
‘Sam, you need to take a cold shower,’ she said, placing hands on hips.
Pretty weird stuff. She was checking herself out and then projecting her leering onto me. Something was wrong, not just with that, but the whole situation. I got the same sense at Joe’s house.
‘Don’t pretend you weren’t looking, Sam.’
She hit me playfully.
‘Dream on, boy.’
She shook a finger at me. What if Joe saw and really did think I was hitting on his girlfriend? He seemed pretty mild-mannered, but what did I know? And what if one of his friends noticed? Actually, a few were looking our way. Was that Kelly’s idea, to create a scene?
‘Kelly, what are you doing?’
Kelly drew in closer and adjusted the straps on her shoulders, moving them back and forth. The white had nowhere to hide. I don’t know why, but I felt sorry for whatever white she had left. On her breasts. Her backside. Her… Geez, this staring at her assets wasn’t helping disprove her thesis.
Kelly bumped against me. I looked down. One of the black straps had fallen off her shoulder.
‘Oops.’
She slowly stretched it down, revealed more of her chest. I saw Joe again, ploughing the ice. He was breaking! He’d stopped! He was standing the other side of the barrier. Kelly turned to him.
‘Sam was trying to crack onto me,’ she said.
‘No, no, I wasn’t,’ I blurted.
Kelly pulled the black strap back onto her shoulder. ‘I just seem to attract the guys. You’d better hurry, Joe. True love waits but I don’t.’ And she walked off all demurely like her blades were high heels or something.
Now I got what she was trying to do; I didn’t appreciate it.
‘So, Sam, are you having a great time?’ asked Joe quite as if nothing had happened.
‘Um, yeah, sure.’
‘Perhaps I should come clean.’
If I was nervous before, that settled it. My stomach bunched up. What could Joe possibly have to come clean about? Then someone came up behind me, the oldest member of Joe’s set: stodgy and with merino hair.
‘Oh Sam, this is Shane, our group’s “Guide”,’ said Joe. ‘Shane’s now happily married with four kids.’
What…? What an odd thing to say.
‘What was he before that?’
‘Well, Sam,’ said Joe. ‘Shane was gay.’
Shane waved his trotter vaguely. ‘A lot of these people have thought they were too.’
At the cafeteria, I cradled my crap coffee. The floor was rubber, but it was still a hard job walking around on your skates – like little stilts. I made it from the counter to a table and sat down. Where was I exactly? We’d sure driven a fair way. How would I find my way back if it wasn’t with Joe? Were all of Joe’s friends ex-gay?
Despite the disaster with Arny, I felt I was breaking into life through my friendship with Tubby and acceptance by my teammates (barring Dizzy, though what did he matter?). But with Joe and his gang, I felt I’d just taken a wrong step.
A body loomed in front of me. It was Joe.
‘Sorry, Sam, I should’ve told you.’
‘Yes, you should’ve.’
He sat down.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just… watching what happened between you and Arny, I thought you might want help.’
‘I’ve just come out of the closet; I’m not going back in.’
‘It’s more complex than that,’ said Joe, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. ‘A lot of people go through a phase – ’
‘Are you an ex-gay as well?’ I cut him off. ‘You’ve had higher education – you should know there’s no helping who you are.’
What Joe said next didn’t seem to follow, but he said it.
‘Did you know, Sam, thirty per cent of science students are creationists?’
‘Makes me wonder if we’ve evolved after all,’ I muttered before sipping the last of my coffee.
‘See!’ smiled Joe. But it was he who didn’t.
Melodramatically, I crushed the paper coffee cup in my hand.
‘I want you to take me home, Joe.’
‘But – ’
‘Home. Now.’
Joe stood up, wiping his sweaty hands on his sides. ‘Just one more go on the rink, Sam. I’ll go at your pace.’
Joe was a pretty good teacher, taking up where Rhada had left off. I was almost managing to glide one foot at a time. Still had to crash into the railing to stop, though. After one such head-on with the barrier, Joe glided in smoothly next to me to make sure I was all right. It was then, unsolicited, that I got the low-down on his ‘situation’. Joe, it turned out, was a ‘born-again’ Christian, and so was just about everyone else in the group. Kelly he’d met at the rink. She wasn’t Christian but she was warming to the idea.
‘She’s a… um, a very sexual person, Sam. Very… insistent.’
‘Oh… okay,’ I mumbled, embarrassed. Did I need to hear this?
‘Very sexual,’ he went on. ‘I haven’t got there yet… but true love waits.’
I didn’t understand waiting. ‘If you’ve found true love, what could it possibly be waiting for?’ I asked.
‘Marriage.’
As for Lydia, Joe met her when he answered the ad for a room. She wasn’t Christian either, and in her case it seemed there was no hope of her becoming one.
‘I think she also fancies me.’
I blinked at this. Okay, so he had all the girls falling over him. So what?
Then there was me, from cricket.
And, finally, the ‘ex-gays’ he caught up with. With some of them whizzing past, I asked Joe for the second time if he was ex-gay himself. He looked down, around, everywhere but at me.
‘I wouldn’t say I was ex-gay yet, Sam, but I’m winning. I’m winning the fight.’
I couldn’t imagine fighting to go back into the closet once you were out. Well, I could imagine it a bit. The moment I came out, I wanted to hide again, but not for long. The long fight for me had been to come out. Besides, there probably wasn’t a better time to be gay. Imagine a hundred years ago, fifty, even ten – that would’ve been a gargantuan struggle. Sure, people’s backgrounds and circumstances could still make it pretty difficult – I hadn’t found it such a breeze – but overall it was getting easier. In a way, you owed it to others as much as to yourself to be out.
I put some of this to Joe. Joe was looking at a guy and girl skating hand in hand. He finally looked at me.
‘It’s simpler than that with me, Sam; I just don’t want to be gay.’
‘Well, why not?’ I asked, exasperated. I was sick of asking ‘why?’ I now just wanted to know ‘how’.
‘Because, Sam… because I don’t want to go to hell.’
It took me a bit to clear up that Joe really, actually, honestly meant hell, as in the fiery infinity. He took the Bible literally, as the unquestionable word of God, and in it apparently homosexuals aren’t viewed favourably.
We made our way through the exit. That Shane-guy hurried over, telling Joe one of the boys had gotten the cafeteria girl’s number. While he told it, he stared at me. ‘Who is this guy,’ he must’ve been thinking, ‘to have had Joe’s ear for so long?’
Eventually, Shane broke off staring and gazed down at Joe, a little too down for eye contact. I had my hand on my hip so I waved it across Joe’s belt. Shane’s eyes shot up at me. Smiling, I watched his face turn red, and not just red with anger.
The stupid sheep shut me out of the pen after that, using himself and Joe as the gates. He rabbited on to Joe about how the group was dwindling – more and more members proclaiming their homosexuality was innate and natural as opposed to sinful and environmental. Well, that should’ve woken them up. Shane was telling Joe ‘one had to be ever more vigilant in consequence’. Joe swallowed and nodded – firmly. When he looked up it was at Kelly, standing by the Coke machine.
I didn’t know what to do: stay or find my own way home? I went to the cafeteria and bought another crap coffee for the privilege of sitting down.
They were playing this country and western thing over the PA, sung in a real sad way by some woman. Made me so lonesome. Made me think how quickly you can get out of touch with people. Cinders for one. She had been a friend – of sorts. I mean, you don’t ring someone and next thing you know a month’s passed. Not much holds us together…
But what I was thinking was, there’s something so sad about certain places. Take roadhouses. I find roadhouses really sad. Couldn’t stand working in one. There you are, stock-still, and yet there they are, all those people passing through, going somewhere. Or maybe going nowhere, but at least they’re moving. I’d moved, but now I wanted to get somewhere.
In Melbourne, I’d get to a tram stop, look up the road, and if I didn’t see one coming, I’d get itchy. My feet would want to move. So I’d walk to the next stop. Just standing still, waiting, I hated it. I was missing the tram a lot that way.
That’s why I took over an hour to walk to Joe’s that morning; I had meant to tram it.
I looked out the one window in the cafeteria. It had a grille over it so I could hardly see but I knew there’d be nothing familiar outside anyway. Was there even public transport this far out? I saw I’d have to wait and leave with Joe. I looked back to the rink. If I had to keep skating, I at least wanted to change my skates. They were a bit loose and my ankles kept splaying out.
There were more of Joe’s Christian friends (they were everywhere!) sitting on the seat where you tried on skates, and this other girl next to them putting on an extra pair of socks. She looked bookish but interesting. She looked up at me.
‘How are you finding it?’ she asked.
She had these lovely glasses with blue rims, a loose blue shirt and sapling legs. Her black hair was tied back. Anyway, I just said, pretty uninterested-like (not putting on an act at all – I was just tired): ‘Yeah, not bad. I’m staying on my feet more.’
‘You’re getting better,’ she said.
I sat next to her and started putting on my replacement skates. She looked like a teacher. But a nice one. The one you form a first crush on. The librarian. Anyway, I didn’t even know why I liked her. Like I said, with this girl sitting next to Joe’s friends, I thought – I didn’t even think it – I just took her for a friend of theirs.
So I walked onto the rink. Halfway out, I looked back at her and she looked sad, disappointed kind of. Don’t know what. Wondered what she could’ve expected.
I caught up with Joe. He’d left Shane behind. The girl sped past us. She looked good from the back. I’d seen her from the front, and I’d probably seen her on the rink before, but people look more attractive the better you know them. Even if you only know them a little. They’re not just a face, then.
Joe wasn’t keeping pace with me but racing ahead. I asked him how he knew her – I practically had to yell.
‘I don’t,’ he said.
I almost lost my balance.
‘Isn’t she one of your friends?’ I shouted. ‘She was sitting with them!’
I was at a corner, with Joe now well ahead and on the straight. He swivelled so that he was zooming backwards and yelled at me, ‘No, I don’t know her at all!’
I crashed into the barrier. My knees wouldn’t take much more of this.
I thought over the conversation. She said I was getting better. She must’ve been watching us. Watching me. Maybe she’d heard a bit of what I’d said to Joe, and liked it. The feeling behind it, I mean. Maybe I wasn’t just a face to her. She’d worked up the courage and I’d snubbed her. Not even that, I’d just… well… I was tired before she spoke.
I almost wanted to hit Joe.
Look, I didn’t even know why I liked her. I thought I’d, well, finally settled on a path, so to speak.
Joe was lapping me. I yelled out. He stopped.
‘Take me home,’ I told him.
In the car on the way home, Joe was driving fast, which I gathered from Kelly, and from the journey to the rink, was normal for him. I was next to him and Kelly was in the back. The wind was coming in, cooling us off. Kelly started to speak, voice all girly. I thought of that other girl’s voice: free-flowing, liquid, clear.
‘Hey, guys, look, you can answer me truthfully here – I want your honest opinion – do you think I’ve got what it takes to be a model?’
Kelly flicked her red hair. Joe looked her up and down in the rear-view mirror. I thought that was for seeing out the back window.
‘You sure do,’ said Joe, sticking his tongue out.
‘Sorry?’ I asked.
Then I remembered he wasn’t even talking to me. But he was looking at me hard enough. He and Kelly seemed to be waiting for something.
‘Well, Sam?’
The sound of the wind got louder.
‘What, Joe?’
Joe slapped the wheel, which looked like a metal backbone turned in on itself.
‘You think Kelly could be a model, don’t you?’ yelled Joe.
I turned to look back at Kelly and she uncrossed her legs.
‘Yeah, sure thing, Kelly,’ I said.
Joe smiled. Put on a proud-father look and everything. They went into the logistics of it after that. Joe would be her agent, how to avoid sleazy photographers, stuff like that. Now and then I’d listen for a few lines then say something – something relevant I hoped. But I just wanted to nod off, mostly.
The only boon about the whole car ride was the clear view of the scenery, me being in front and all. All those concrete retaining walls along the highway – I could believe I had space. I wasn’t just stuck in a car. Nothing could touch me. But then I thought of that girl with the blue-rimmed glasses: sometimes you don’t want your space.
Joe and Kelly kept play-acting while I was jet-skiing on the make-believe. Kelly kept tickling Joe’s neck through the letterboxing in the headrest. I found it hard looking ahead, at that ever-widening triangle of road. Joe grabbed Kelly’s fingers. Christ, how old were they? Kelly breathed on Joe’s neck. He turned around for the umpteenth time and the car veered into the next lane. Both my shout and a motorist’s frantic horn finally got Joe slowing down and concentrating on the road ahead.
We passed under a footbridge. There was this kid up there, a girl, peering over. I thought how I’d stood on a bridge myself after Arny left and after my horrible night at Dirk’s. No, Sam, wait, I told myself, hang around. In no time at all, things will be better, you’ll see. And I saw myself go under my feet, on that highway, in a car travelling with two kids tickling each other through a rectangular hole in a headrest. Hang around. Wait.
What was I waiting for?
I’d missed my ride: Arny…
Kelly was running a hand like an amputee spider over Joe’s shoulder. Joe was pretending not to see. But he was looking at her through the rear-view mirror, really looking at her, looking with his hands and tongue. Well, maybe… maybe… I mean, that girl had looked at me, hadn’t she?
Maybe it was a phase.
Hey, there was something I hadn’t taken in at the time: she’d almost crashed into me when we were on the rink. She was going fast, one leg coming level with the other and pushing out in succession. I know what I would’ve said if she had, now. If she’d crashed into me, I mean. I’d have said, both of us sprawled out there, bums wet on the ice – I had it all worked out – I’d have said, ‘That’s an interesting way to meet someone.’ She’d have laughed, I’d have laughed. Then we’d have helped each other up. Me with my washed-out blue jeans navy blue in the seat, her in those grey slacks with dark grey padding, like jockeys wear. We’d laugh, look at our behinds… feel their wetness and… and… well…
Nothing probably.
Not a thing. Or nothing sexual anyway.
No, I was gay. I knew that finally. Well, as much as you can know anything without testing it, I guess. The real reason I kept ruminating over that girl was because I’d missed an opportunity to make friends with Arny and I was worried I was making a habit of it. I actually knew why that girl said hello. She’d been leaning against the barrier behind Joe while I told him the hard part was coming out. She’d heard it. And it touched her. That’s why she wanted to talk to me.
A friend I’d missed out on.
Joe dropped Kelly off first. I hardly answered a word he said to me once Kelly was out of the car. His pretence of helping me get a social life was really about him getting a convert. Prick.
Next training session in the nets, I was going to ask Tubby if he and the guys knew Joe was gay. But Joe watched me with such a pleading look, I said nothing. Instead, I asked Tubby if he had any gay friends. And none of them ex-gay, thank you very much.
‘Not apart from you,’ answered Tubby.
We were packing the gear into two polo bags. Everyone else had gone home, Joe the earliest; I’d ignored him all day. As I tracked down and located the last bail, a thought occurred to me.
‘What about Beth?’ I asked Tubby. ‘Would she know anyone?’
‘I’ll ask,’ grunted Tubby as he lifted one of the bags to his shoulder. I hoisted the other bag onto mine. He was lagging behind me on our trek across the oval to the clubhouse. I swung round. Tubby had stopped.
‘Man, I’m even pimping for you now!’ he laughed.
‘You can’t catch gay, can you?’ he added a second later, half-seriously.
I thought about this.
‘No, nor straight neither,’ I laughed back.
When I got back to the pub, Wally relayed a message for me. It was from Tubby. That was quick.
‘Apparently his girlfriend’s got a friend who’s got a friend who’s friend’s friend is gay.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Wally.’
Wally poured us a couple of half-mast soapy beers and we took a swig. He let the froth coat his moustache (‘for later’); I made sure to lick my top lip. Wally leaned across the carpeted bar.
‘Look, mate, why don’t you just go to a pub,’ he said and then looked around at his regulars before whispering, ‘and not this bloody one.’
He was right.
At the library, I sussed out this queer event from a gay magazine I leafed through on the sly. Not sure why I was leafing through it on the sly! Anyway, what grabbed me first was this ‘Q&A Night’. In this case, Q&A didn’t stand for Questions & Answers but Queer & Alternative and it was held on a Thursday night at the Builders’ Arms Hotel. It happened to be Thursday afternoon.
When I moseyed back to the pub in order to get ready, Wally shook a snowstorm of dandruff at the corner of the room – to the couch he was too sentimental to put down – and to some guy sitting there. No, not some guy; I knew that mop of blonde even from the back.
‘Joe.’
Toco Productions 