Cricket’s about the only thing that makes me cool. If I’d been an accountant, say, I wouldn’t be cool at all. No way. But you can have a cool accountant. No, really, I’ve met one: Arny. So I guess I’m glad of the cricket thing a bit, ’cause if it wasn’t for that I’d be ordinary. Totally. I mean, if it wasn’t for my batting average, I’d be nothing but a dork.
It was the beginning of October and I caught up with Tubby and Beth. We were sitting around a park bench drinking beers in the middle of the day, and someone said – I think it was Beth – that she was a dork. I said I was too. Soon the whole table said it. We damn near hugged each other, like something off American TV. But for the first time it was okay. We were cool with it. So, yeah, though we still weren’t cool cool – we were dorks, after all – we were cool about being dorks, which kind of made us lukewarm beer. Bearable at a pinch.
And that’s when I realised it was okay. There’d be no more trying to be cool for Sam. From now on, what you got was what you’d get.
‘Man, I’m so glad cricket’s starting again,’ said Tubby. ‘You’re the best bat on the team, Sam.’
‘Hear, hear,’ added Beth.
‘First game tomorrow, hey,’ said Tubby. ‘Man, you sure you don’t wanna get in some practice today?’
‘Nah, I’ll be right.’
‘Welcome back, Big Feller,’ said the coach the next morning when I walked into the clubhouse. ‘Although I don’t know that I can call you that any more.’
The other cricketers laughed. I was a bit scrawny from all the high living with Zane and Filter. Compared to the lean beef of those who’d taken up footy in the off-season, I was mutton bone. I took my locker. The one next to it, Joe’s – and Arny’s before that – was empty. I turned to Tubby
‘Where’s Joe?’
‘He quit,’ answered Dizzy, who was standing by the exit, shining a ball on his trousers.
Joe … quit? Was I in any way responsible? I remember telling Joe that Tubby was wondering about him, why he was hanging out with me so much. I’d implied by my tone that I might reveal his secret. Yet as soon as I’d said it, I felt mean and petty. But did I ever make it clear I wouldn’t? He’d slept with Kelly after that and I hadn’t called him and he hadn’t called me. Apparently I was the last one from the club to see him. He’d sent through his resignation via email. That made him the second teammate whose disappearance I was linked to.
I sat down on the bench and gingerly padded up. Tubby slammed his locker and set off another of those landslides in my stomach. He walked over, sat down next to me and started strapping on his pads! With the last Velcro pulled and plastered in place, he looked up, answering the question I didn’t want to ask.
‘Man, no one else wanted the job. They reckon it’s jinxed. I’m your fellow opening batsman.’
Cricketers are a superstitious lot.
The game got under way. Tubby opened. He made ten without me even facing a ball. Then he got out to a bouncer he nicked to the wicketkeeper. ’Cause the ball went up so high, we’d managed to swap ends before it was caught. That meant I finally got to face since there was one more ball to go in the over. The bowler delivered the easiest shot in the book: a full toss. Putting the weight of the willow into my swing, I did the unthinkable and missed. Middle stump cart-wheeled four times.
I was out for a golden duck.
The coach eyed me on my waddle to the stands.
‘Probably best not to smash the ball, Big Feller, until you know you can hit it.’
I could see Tubby was worried himself, especially after building me up and all, and his own disgrace at the crease. I guess up till then I’d been cruising on natural talent. To get past this hiccup, would take a fright. And a fright that was. Plus the one thing all people who want to be good at their game need to do: work. I hadn’t worked at it, so how did I expect to walk back in at my old level?
The middle order and some of the tail-enders put on a good show and we just made it through the first round. But where was Joe?
I got home and snuck the landline into my room (I was trying to go easy on my mobile), pulling the cord out from behind the cupboards and shelves. Summoning up the courage, I finally made the call.
Joe and Kelly could spare a couple of hours, just. I looked in my door mirror. Already I was taking invisible gloves off my hands, one after the other. Joe and Kelly could manage half an hour with me in a Maccas in Coburg that night, before they hit the road (off to some party). I got to the Maccas first, wondering how long I could wait without buying anything. I needed a slash. Not long since the last one. Maybe nerves. At about that time, Maccas’ staff started locking the toilet doors, only handing out the key to patrons. Before then, they were considered public toilets – clean ones. Don’t blame the Maccas workers, really.
I bought that syrupy Coke they sell, and got the key for a slash. When I returned, Kelly came in the sliding doors, hair flaming. Joe wasn’t like he had been, muscle stacked on muscle, but slim and stem-like.
Kelly and Joe sat down, nudging foreheads on purpose.
‘Head butt.’
They’d said it together, in singsong for Christ’s sake. I was one side of the table, Kelly and Joe opposite.
Kelly had a tight aqua jumper with little flecks of red. It was like she was a ship on fire and sparks were dropping into the sea. Sizzle, sizzle, hiss. Joe’s hair was longer and lankier than ever and a little unwashed, which made it darker. No beach-boy blonde now.
There was a bit of a pause so I asked them what they’d got up to the night before, being Friday and all.
With Kelly, that was like pulling a brick from under the wheel of an old car. She got on a roll, telling how they’d gone to the local. She’d worn her tight leather trousers, tight white T-shirt. Had all sorts of trouble with this old cheese. Crash.
Joe took over the story. His voice had changed like the rest of him. Over the phone, I’d put it down to bad reception. Live, it was unmistakably less smooth, more whiny. It was hard to believe he was the same guy.
‘So I told this nuffy,’ squealed Joe, ‘keep your eyes in your head or they’ll be on the ends of my fingers.’
Nuffy?
‘This nuffy kept looking at my chest,’ said Kelly looking down at her chest, ‘saying, please, can’t you put them away!’
When a girl’s talking about her chest, it’s pretty hard not looking at it, even if you’re not naturally inclined to those appendages. Joe was looking at me looking and so was Kelly. Pretty raw stuff. Don’t judge, Sam, I told myself.
Joe narrated how he stopped the guy staring. ‘ “Here, does that help,” and I put my hands over Kelly’s breasts. That made him look twice.’
They both laughed, Joe cupping Kelly’s breasts with those external hand bras of his. A gaggle of young girls giggled two tables away.
‘Bounce, bounce, bounce,’ said Joe and Kelly together.
Maybe it was the Maccas aroma, but I felt pretty sick. Joe had this little pitter-patter laugh – endless. He and Kelly went on about how much they had both had to drink –
Wait!
Stop.
They’d both had to drink?
But I’d heard right. Maybe Joe had been cured. He was turning into a genuine red-blooded male. Apparently, they’d thrown up ten to the dozen. Technicolour nights. So I thought, if they’re gonna go on with these binge stories, I’d mention that I’d downed a whole shit-load of drugs since our parting.
‘Grrr, drugs bad,’ murmured Kelly, and she and Joe knocked foreheads again.
‘Head butt.’
Turns out this head butt routine was alluding to the previous night. They’d been so slaughtered, they’d kept knocking heads.
Joe jumped in. ‘Me and my best mate, Dave, kept handballing Kelly.’
His best mate Dave?
‘I’d take a mark, he’d take a mark. Yeah, Dave scored pretty big,’ Joe snorted, pinching Kelly’s dimpled cheek.
Kelly looked over at me, laughing at my confusion.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘me and Dave have to work out our boundaries,’ and she zipped up her sparkly purse.
Boundaries? Taking a mark? Didn’t make sense. But it soon slipped out. Seems Joe and Dave were both pashing Kelly, taking it in turns, which meant Joe and this Dave guy were slag sisters (in other words, they kissed one person removed).
Kelly killed the catch-up by announcing she and Joe had to be moving on. At first I thought she meant relationship-wise. Turns out, she meant the party Joe’d mentioned: they were meeting up with friends at a pub.
‘Everyone will be there.’
Joe gripped the table.
‘Guy?’
Kelly smiled. ‘Yes, Guy.’
I couldn’t believe what happened next. Joe actually growled. ‘Grrr.’
Kelly growled back, ‘Grrr.’ They knocked heads.
‘Head butt.’
When they saw my look, Kelly nodded to Joe to explain, so he leaned forward.
‘I meet this guy with Kelly, right, and it turns out to be the guy.’
A bit of a pause. Joe explained.
‘Guy Rogers.’
Not that a name explains much in itself, particularly when you don’t know the name to begin with.
Kelly head-butted Joe on the shoulder. ‘So what does this guy here do?’
I couldn’t imagine. I wish I had, ’cause Joe and Kelly took it upon themselves to demonstrate. They both stood up. Joe showed how, still gripping Kelly’s hand with his, he rubbed it up and down her crotch.
‘Guy Rogers didn’t like that,’ said Joe, pushing out pellet-sized laughs.
We all nattered on a bit more. Joe and Kelly went easy on the head butt routine, which helped. Soon I couldn’t hear their words at all, just a hum.
Joe and I had both been trying to fit our lives to books. Okay, different books, but the same desire. His according to the Bible, mine according to my literature favourites.
Life isn’t either. You can’t just live the good bits. The rest isn’t silence. The rest is padding. But who knows what book Joe was adhering to at present.
Anyway, we said some awkward goodbyes, and they got up to go. When they were halfway to the door, they stopped – from the looks of it, arguing over something. Finally Joe came back to the table.
‘You wanna go to the pub, Sam? We’re getting there before the others to catch up with Lydia.’
On the way to the pub, we ran into Astrid on a street corner. Her poetry collection, Soul Whisperings, was doing well. For poetry. She wanted to hear the latest from me on the man front. She kept nodding at Joe. I kept shaking my head back. Kelly practically growled at the inference. How embarrassing! Eventually I brought up Arny – don’t know why – but I wanted to stop Astrid’s insinuations. At the mention of Arny’s name, Joe looked interested. I always wondered what he thought of the mess between me and Arny since he’d been witness to much of it. (Apart from wanting to introduce me to his ‘ex-gay’ friends, that is.) I mean, I couldn’t help wondering if he was, at any point, jealous.
‘Oh no, Sam, you and Arny – this sounds so like with me and Dale,’ laughed Astrid. ‘All the guys since – don’t we know it? – they’re just duds.’ (Joe pricked his ears like an elf. Did that mean he was cut?) ‘But he was the one. We were, like, not just made for each other, we were destined. It will happen, I know it will happen, he’s just overseas right now. He says he’ll come back. That’s why I can’t ever really commit to anyone else, not when, like, hello, he’s my soulmate.’
So Astrid’s ‘the one’ was overseas as well. Yet she still believed they’d get together when he returned. And I was still hoping with Arny. A truck drove by too fast, nudging the air in our path. When the wind backed off, I asked the obvious question.
‘How long ago did he leave?’
Astrid watched the truck running a red light at the end of the street then turned back to face me.
‘Five years.’
Five years …? Pining over a bloke for five years! Yes, it was silly. ‘The one’ was silly. If Arny returned and things worked out, that would be great. But in the meantime, I’d be silly to count on it.
The pub was empty. We took a ‘grotto’, the four of us sitting round a slice of tree. Lydia was looking all Toorak and cream socks, what with her white turtleneck sprogcatcher, and those earrings you could jump a dolphin through. As for Kelly, she let her hair off-leash, dumped her jumper, and was busting out of her tight black shirt with gusto. And Joe? He’d taken off that ridiculous puffer jacket. Underneath, he was wearing that same old stupid white T-shirt. But at least that was more him. Did this mean he was stripping back to his old self?
I had a bit of an internal laugh at the three of them. I mean, you couldn’t have gotten a more mixed set: the private school snot, Lydia; the suburban firelet, Kelly; and the country yokel, Joe. Then me, of course, done up since the Jen-days in half-arsed chic.
The conversation was moving about as fast as a brush fire on a windless day, so I went over to the bar to get us four drinks. The barman pulled a Carlton, then looked at me under about ten pine plantations of eyebrow.
‘So you two blokes finally landed yourselves some sheilas,’ he said, emptying one of the schooners of excess froth.
I didn’t know what he was on about. I must’ve signalled incomprehension mighty well, ’cause he nodded his hangover head to our grotto. All I could see was Joe, flanked either side by a floozy. Then it hit me the way a car V-necks a pole. This was the pub where Joe and I would drink a few beers after practice and before he paired up with Kelly all those months back. Funny to think the barman remembered. We’d nicknamed him ‘Muzzle Tops’ for some reason.
‘Oh, right,’ I said, picking up the four pots in a cross-formation, feeling their bar-fridge coolness.
‘You four looking to make a night of it?’ My ears fairly yelped. The barman’s voice needed sanding down something shocking. It was all done over in a nicotine patina.
One of the beers I was holding slipped, plunketing the carpeted bartop. It didn’t tip but out jumped a good mouthful or two. The barman steadied it with blunt fingers.
‘Here, I’ll bring two of ’em over for you,’ he said. ‘You’ll be wanting to take the other two to the sheilas.’ He shook his head to the side. I followed the flecks of white over to where Kelly and Lydia were standing over by the jukebox, picking tunes. They’d left Joe to his grotto. It struck me how silent it was. But then ‘Oh what a Night’ flared up, rash and red.
Muzzle Tops nodded to the two remaining beers in my hand.
‘Go on, lad,’ he said, winking.
I wondered if I should set him straight.
‘Don’t be shy, son.’
He was still smiling from me to the girls. For a brief second, I wanted to thump the fuck but then I saw I couldn’t. Imagine it. It would be so surreal somehow. He wouldn’t even have known why – and perhaps I wouldn’t have known either. Play back the videotape from the camcorder in the left-hand corner of the room, frame by frame, rewind, then run it back again, and I could see the cops still puzzling over it.
‘Why did he hit him?’
I gave up the notion. Sad to say, I bowed to the pressure of lack of supposed motive, left Muzzle Tops’ face intact and walked over all manly to the girls. Besides, I’d put aggression behind me, hadn’t I? Why was I angry anyway? I guess it was about regretting catching up with Joe again. He was a wrong step I’d taken in a number of bad moves and I didn’t want to be repeating mistakes.
Lydia and Kelly were getting on surprisingly well, showing each other little dance steps. At last, they’d found something to prevent them arguing: conversation-free activity. I gave them their beer each then departed but not before saying what an attractive couple they made. I reckon their eyebrows hit the roof.
When I got back to the grotto, there was Joe squared up with Muzzle Tops. I couldn’t escape the man! What was it with publicans? Muzzle Tops was an exact facsimile of Wally. But at least Wally didn’t assume anything about anyone. I slid under the pine plank, and right up next to Joe. I caught the tail end of what Muzzle Tops was saying. He considered himself a bit of a ladies’ man and was liberally giving Joe advice on the girls. Specifically, ‘them two sheilas by the jukebox’.
I had a scowl on my face that I reckon would have been scarier than the IQ for the mean intelligence. I reckon Joe, and even Muzzle Tops, detected it quick smart.
‘Well, whaddya know, hey?’ Muzzle Tops asked me just as if we hadn’t spoken a minute before.
I didn’t answer straightaway. I don’t know much but to list what I do know would still take the best part of a day. What kind of question is that anyway? Whaddya know? A pretty fucking good one according to Muzzle Tops, ’cause he asked it again.
‘Know?’ answered Joe for me. ‘Not much, I guess.’
Muzzle Tops tapped some squared-off fingers on my placemat of table.
‘Well, what about your friend then?’ he asked Joe, still trying to get me in the conversation. ‘Your friend here with the bit of shrapnel in his ear?’
Joe’s hand flew to my ear.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘He means the bolt in my ear,’ I said, and his hand fell away. But … but it was nice the way it had gotten out of the cage before he’d caught it again.
Muzzle Tops leaned towards me.
‘I hope you’ve got it in the right ear,’ he laughed.
‘No, the left one,’ I said. ‘If it’s in the right one, you’re a fag.’
Joe looked at me, amazed.
‘Jeezus, is that right, is it? Right ear and you’re a poofta, Barbara. Hear that?’
Barbara was breezing past, picking up clean ashtrays to clean them further.
‘Not so loud, Larry. They’ll think you’re uncouth. That must be what they’re thinking about you. Isn’t that right, boys?’
I didn’t contradict her, but Joe stepped in, six and a half feet tall.
‘No, no, not at all.’
I was silent. Don’t let me hate. Joe nudged me. I don’t want to hate. Barbara squeezed in next to Larry, gripping his hand, but he kept going.
‘Christ, so what else means you’re a poofta?’ he asked. ‘The tendons cut in the wrist, eh?’
Larry laughed that yellow-finger laugh.
‘So it flops about like this? Get it? Tendons cut?’
Joe laughed too. I couldn’t believe it. I had to ball my fists under the table. Don’t hate, Sam.
Muzzle Tops turned to me. ‘Get this, do you? The bloody tendons cut in the wrist. The hand just flops there like steak.’ To Joe, tapping the side of his weaponhead: ‘Your friend here’s a bit slow.’
I wasn’t slow; I was just stone to his wanking hand. Harder than stone. Joe was nudging me, probably jarring his shoulder for his efforts. Muzzle Tops grew louder.
‘C’mon, that’s right. That’s a poofta. What else is? C’mon, there’s more of ’em your age.’
Everyone waited. I could see Barbara was doing her share of nudging the other side of the table. At last I let my mouth smile.
‘A preference for mineral water.’
Joe breathed out. Muzzle Tops slapped the table. He laughed the day’s menu.
‘Yeah? That’s a poofta, is it!’ he said, thumping the table. ‘Really! That’s a poofta, Barbara.’
‘Larry,’ hissed Barbara.
‘So that’s a poofta, boss?’ said Muzzle Tops to me.
I looked up, dramatic as could be. Like I’d heard him across a valley, for the first time.
‘What, mineral water?’ I asked, innocent as all heaven, and then the killer, face clenched once more: ‘No, boss, a poofta’s someone who likes other men.’
‘Sam, you shouldn’t have done that,’ whispered Joe about three minutes later. Muzzle Tops and Barbara had excused themselves back to work. But I didn’t care, not a hootenanny. Joe was lucky he still looked so good dressed the way he was. Christ, the man had about as much style as the Pope. Any face, when you look at it long enough, turns ugly.
Muzzle Tops was wiping the beer glasses back at the bar, looking at me and Joe then over to Kelly and Lydia limping at the jukebox. I reckon his mind was working overtime. Good old Babs was replacing the tanks.
Joe sipped his beer. That was the last straw.
‘It’s not fucking tea,’ I said.
‘Sam …?’
I got up before I hit him. He could play at straight all he liked, but I didn’t have to watch. Kelly and Lydia weren’t by the jukebox. Their empty beers were sitting on a windowsill. Maybe they were in the toilet or out the back in the beer garden. But I didn’t want to join them either. I walked past the pool table to the pinball machine and computer games. There was this game I liked to play. One of those old ones with a flat glass top. You sit one side, someone else the other. Primitive as hell nowadays, with these 3D games and all, but fun just the same. Moon Buggy. Hell, I remembered when it was hip, the newest, the most revolutionary thing in our small town. The fish and chip shop had it, and I’d always go with mum to get the fish and chips in town ’cause then I could use the twenty cents I’d saved to play the game. Damn near clocked it in the end. ’Cept it broke or something.
Anyway, I got going and was doing pretty well for such a hiatus, but there were voices behind me getting in my ear. It was like someone was turning up the volume, louder and louder, but real slow, slow as a cop. At first I could ignore it, but then there it was, in bloody surround sound.
‘What you wanna do,
what you wanna do is,
what you want, mate,
you wanna take that cunt and set fire to his fluffer.’
I looked about. The guy talking (his mates referred to him as Mario) had spiked-up black hair. Next to him a broody, wide feller. And next to him, another, with a mo, a bit shorter. And, behind the three, a fourth guy, who I couldn’t get a proper look at. They looked a piece, apart from differing dimensions: spiked up, over-gelled black hair, that would’ve taken longer to style than a model’s; colourful, shiny garments, with zippers in abundance; and enough collective jewellery to open a pawn shop. And silver, lots of silver.
Geez, I was getting pretty sarky. Why?
I hadn’t even heard them come in, I was so engrossed in the game. I decided they were loud and annoying. But the feller at the back was quite cute (finally got a good look at him), with his hair over his face. His mobile rang and he had it to his lips two nanoseconds flat.
Mario’s antenna-ear swivelled a degree as he paused his pool-stick pre-jab on the green.
The cutie killed his call.
‘I gotta go,’ he said.
Mario smacked the ball. It grasshopped to the floor.
‘What’s fuckin’ wrong with you, mate?’ yelled Mario. ‘You forget your friends? Your mama rings and you’re off chasin’ pussy? What happens to your mates?’
Something from the cutie. Not that guys stay that cute when they’ve got girlfriends. Mario went off at the response, whatever it was.
‘Yeah, like at that party,’ he yelled. ‘I mean, you coulda given us a go, mate. I’m talking five minutes, mate. Five minutes tops. Five minutes flat, mate. Yeah, your mama layin’ flat, sick mate, sick. I’ll hold her for you, brother, I’ll spread her for you. I’ll guide that cock in, mate. No worries. Just let us watch.’
The cutie said something but I couldn’t quite hear. Mario slapped him on the shoulder.
‘Nah, forget it, mate. I’m just joking with you, brother. You think I’d fuckin’ touch her after you’d been inside her? Getting all the slops? No fuckin’ way.’
Mario beefed up against the boy, grabbing him by the shoulder. I thought Mario was going to biff him one. I reckon the cutie did too, ’cause his head went back, but then Mario pulled his punch, bringing an arm round the kid’s neck instead. A footy hug, fist still clenched.
‘I thought we was friends, mate. Hey, Alexi?’
There, his name.
‘You put spadge over me, do ya, mate?’
Spadge?
‘Are we playing pool here or what, fellers?’ asked Mario, and the others said yes, all pretty much at once. Except for the tall, wide one; he was resolute.
Mario reached for Alexi’s fold-out mobile.
‘Here, let me take that for you, mate, so you can concentrate on the game. I’ll hold it for you, brother.’
Alexi gave it up.
‘No worries, mate,’ said Mario. ‘You’ll get it back, bro’. That’s guaranteed. Guar-an-teed.’
Alexi sat down. Mario turned back to his two mates still going at it with the blue chalk cube.
‘What’s stopping you cunts?’ he asked.
The guy with the mo’ replied, flipping Mario the cue. ‘It’s your go.’
Mario took the stick and stabbed some balls. Alexi stayed sitting at the table.
‘In like Flynn, mate. Alexi, sit over here, mate. You a bit shy? Hey, Alexi, come sit here, mate, next to your buddy.’
Alexi swished in his seat. A real struggle. The broad guy potted three balls in a row. Mario had a word with him.
‘Hey, Trepper, you still fucking your mum?’
Trepper was a big guy. He looked up slowly from his next shot.
‘I wouldn’t tell you if I was, mate,’ he said, and proceeded to pot his fourth ball in a row.
Mario turned back to Alexi.
‘No manners, brother. Still get abused every day, man?’
Alexi whispered back some response.
‘Who by?’ shouted Mario. ‘Who fucking by? By your fuckin’ a-mama, mate. By your mum, every day, mate. Tell your bitch, back off. See this bottle, I’ll break it and fuckin’ stab you.’
Mario whacked his empty beer bottle on the cushion of the pool table but it failed to break.
‘Sick! See that, Trepper, I scared half the fuckers here, man.’
Trepper shook his head slightly. Our eyes connected. Geez, with Mario this was real aggro. I didn’t ever want to get angry again. It was ugly.
Lydia and Kelly walked in. The guys shushed. Lydia looked at the computer game I was playing and said something about me still being a kid. Kelly waved at Joe. The two girls then noticed the pool players staring at them.
‘Well, hel-lo, brother, what have we here?’ crooned Mario. ‘Would you two lovely ladies like to play?’
No, no, no, Kelly, Lydia, I thought, please God no.
‘We’d love to,’ said Kelly, and she and Lydia were handed a pool cue each.
I felt pretty sick at that but it seemed to go all right. The guys lifted their game. Mario was a real gentleman and all, even shouting across to me and Joe not to worry, just a friendly game. Our girls were safe. There, that fucked-up assumption again. But I was glad of it this time. Now and then Mario would call over to Alexi but Alexi was sitting at a table way back, hunched forward, feet arched up on a chair. Sulking something heavy. So I was feeling a bit relieved. But then the gay jokes kicked in. They generally do.
My echidna got busy, burrowing way back to my spine. I was worried I had ‘gay’ written all over. I felt the bolt in my ear. But looking over at those guys, I saw they had more jewellery than me. Appearances don’t mean much. I let go of my ear.
The gay jokes were reminding me of that night at Dirk’s. This time, I stopped myself from storming off. But Lydia! Every time they threw a gay joke, she’d look over at me. Kelly didn’t seem to connect the two. So at least that gave Lydia some cred. I must’ve looked white ’cause she smiled. Lydia smiling at me. Christ, I wanted to scream, don’t look over at me every time they make a gay joke. One of these woollies might just join the dots.
So I got stuck into Moon Buggy, or pretended to, like it was the best game on earth, just so Lydia wouldn’t look my way.
But Kelly was getting into it, loving the attention.
Things turned green. One beer too many.
Alexi had been roped back into the game. He leant over to play a shot. Mario penguinned up behind him, his arms flapping at his sides for the visual benefit of his mates and the girls, and started thrusting a cushion of air at Alexi’s arse. Kelly and the guys laughed. Alexi swivelled round. For the first time that night, I heard what he said.
‘Poof.’
Mario roared.
‘What?’
I saw Barbara, hunched and watchful, reach under the counter. Obviously with a finger on the ‘Trouble’ button.
‘Ya brushed up against me,’ said Alexi, softer now, but still a half-tone up from before.
‘Want this pool cue up ya arse, mate?’ yelled Mario, his lips practically touching Alexi’s.
Alexi didn’t budge. Then out came this voice. ‘See. You are a faggot.’
I think we all expected an explosion. The second hand had counted down the last tock. But nothing forgot itself and fell to pieces. Everything and everyone was still intact. There was just the silence. And, at any moment maybe, the punch. But before it could come, a mobile rang. It rang with one of those stupid, ditzy rings. Neither Mario nor Alexi seemed to know whose it was. Mario grabbed his but it wasn’t ringing. But still the jingle – on him! Finally, he remembered. Reaching into his other pocket, which was jiggling like it was home to a mouse, he whipped out Alexi’s mobile, which he’d confiscated before, and pressed the answer button. Alexi reached for it but Mario played keepings-off for a bit before jumping on the pool table and saying hello into the mouthpiece. There was a long pause then, finally, a big smile.
‘Hey, Alexi, mate, you’d never guess who’s on the line?’
The others stood silent. Alexi stopped reaching for his mobile.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Ya Mum!’
Laughter. Muzzle Tops put down the phone. Barbara’s hand came from under the bar to rest on top of it. Mario tossed Alexi his mobile. Alexi ducked into a corner whispering words of love. Probably his girl on the line.
‘You gotta play one more game, girls,’ said Mario. ‘Leave Alexi over there talking to his sweetheart.’
Then Mario started working his magic on winning the game, and the girls. Telling Kelly and Lydia about his car, his cool. Trepper piped in.
‘Man, you’re not real. You are your ethnicity.’
Mario looked at his mate. ‘Ethnicity? That’s a big word for you, brother.’
Trepper stood up tall. Mario went back to sweet-talking Kelly.
‘Lydia, what am I going to do?’ bubbled Kelly. ‘This is the third time this week some guy’s tried to pick me up.’
Don’t, I thought, don’t. I was thinking so hard I felt Kelly just had to’ve heard. Don’t. Then one of the men sweet-talked her more.
‘What can I do?’ said Kelly. ‘I just seem to attract men. Hey, must just be me.’
Kelly leant over the table, trying to reach for the white ball, halfway out on the green. Mario came behind her, throwing one claw on the small of her back.
‘Yeah, stay there, baby.’
Kelly rolled round. Her belt twisted out of Mario’s hands.
‘Way to go, Mario.’
‘Are you going to behave? You’re scaring me,’ Kelly pleaded.
‘Leave her alone,’ yelled Lydia.
‘Bitch!’ screamed Mario. ‘Bitches don’t fuckin’ talk to me like that.’
I got up. Joe came over as well. It was us four against those four. I hadn’t heard much from the other two all night but they looked ready for a fight. Trepper alone was a four-man team. We backed our way out. I heard Mario yell after a pause.
‘Fuck this,’ and this time he managed to smash the bottle.
‘Run,’ I yelled.
We got in the car, Joe’s car: 4-cylinder, brakes rusty, suspension fucked, me driving. They ran out and got in their car: V8, twin-cam, Commodore with mag wheels and a chain steering wheel.
You get the picture. We were fucked.
The chase began.
One of the guys started flashing his dick at us through the passenger-side window. Lydia mimed looking through a magnifying glass. Mario was flashing his arse. Next thing I know, Kelly was flashing her tits in response, and then Lydia. What were they doing, egging them on? But they pulled themselves back into the car when the return gestures became too obscene and the shouts full of violence.
The chase spanned several suburbs. Now, for those few times you speed five k over the limit, or speed up through the orange light, there’s always a cop car with a speed gun, or an intersection with a red-light camera. But cross two suburbs, with every element of reckless driving, dangerous conduct, high speeds, you name it – and you think there’s one cop around?
To cut it short, I outmanoeuvred as much as I could (there was no hope of outgunning them) until I was forced to stop at the intersection of Johnston and Hoddle for a bloody red light.
The hoons surrounded the car: Mario at the front, Trepper at my window, Alexi behind and the fourth guy at the passenger rear door. Trepper had a clublock. The first swing smashed the window; the second, me. Seemed the lights weren’t changing any time soon. I ducked the third swing, flooring the car in the process. Mario was thrown up – or half jumped – onto the bonnet. It was car-gauntlet through the crossing.
I tore down a few side streets on the other side, Mario the whole time hanging on to the windscreen wipers. The others were nowhere behind us. By the time they recovered, got back in their car and took off, we were gone.
I braked at the foot of some cyclone fencing rigged up round a demolition site. Mario flew into the wire, like a ball into the net. Let.
We got out of the car.
That whack with the club lock had snapped me out in more ways than one. Mario had got up and was hobbling away. I had his jacket in my hand. Houdini-style, he was out of it, but still fettered at the ankles in pain.
A brick was conveniently near. I picked it up, polo style, hardly breaking my canter. I was over Mario, above him, the brick high in the air. His eyes stared past their lids.
And I dropped it.
Mario didn’t wait for reasons. He was up and limping, heading back towards the street. Joe, Lydia and Kelly flanked me either side. Joe had somehow found an iron stake. Lydia threw up a hand.
‘Don’t you want to smash that fuckhead, Sam! Don’t you want to fucking kill him! He’s getting away!’
Joe was dribbling.
For the first time, I noticed the other torrent: the blood spilling out of my head.
Kelly was bawling, ‘I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for, Kelly?’ yelled Lydia. ‘Those misogynistic fucks. You should be able to be as sexy as you like. Those cocks shouldn’t touch you.’
‘Lydia … Lydia … what if we were … what if …’ stumbled Kelly.
‘If we’d been on an isolated country highway,’ said Joe, stepping out in front.
Kelly bawled thanks. ‘And if they’d caught us there … we would’ve been …’
No one needed to finish the sentence.
Lydia stopped pacing. She pursed her lips ten times. She wanted to say more but couldn’t get the words out. About ready to explode, she suddenly saw the jacket and grabbed it – the red windcheater of Mario’s – with a quick, angry flourish, and pulled from its pocket his mobile and wallet.
‘Aha! We’ve got that guy’s address. His filthy friends’ numbers, too. I say we go over there and cane the bastard. Smash him up. Well, Sam? All that gay talk. You know, since Joe told us you were, well, you know … I hear it everywhere now. I mean, jokes about, well, your type …’ She was getting bogged down.
‘And they hit you, for Chrissakes,’ she went on. ‘You should want to fuck them up more than any of us.’
Lydia held up the wallet. That wallet with Mario’s address.
Kelly bawled louder. Joe half raised his iron stake.
‘Well,’ screamed Lydia, ‘let’s fucking smash that bastard.’
I thought about my smart-missile day. Those cricket balls I’d smashed into the opposing team, hitting silly mid-on in the groin, the wicketkeeper in the chest and finally Charles Acton-Heath in the head.
‘I don’t want to hate,’ I said.
There was silence. Kelly stopped crying. Joe dropped the stake.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Please, Lydia,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to hate. Don’t make me hate.’
And with that, I took the mobile from Lydia’s reluctant fingers and sent a blanket text message to every phone number Mario had listed.
Sorry, everyone
4 being such a
fuckhead. I’m
scared and
lonely. Please
don’t abandon
me & help me
get thru this time
2 become a
better person.
Lydia wanted to ring a double-o double-five number on Mario’s mobile but I put it and the wallet into an old tin and set fire to them. That would cost him enough.
Toco Productions 