How it feels (27 page)

‘Hold this one for me,' Gordon said.

I took up position before the hand dryer, and made sure his shirt was getting a thorough working-over. Gordon's paranoia seemed to fall away as I brought his wet shirt back to drier, crisper life.

‘I've always been a sweater,' he said, grinning now, as he swapped armpits beneath the blow and push of air.

‘If a man is going to sweat,' I said, ‘today is the day for it.'

‘It's not that. I'm all over that.'

‘You don't look like you are.'

‘Why wouldn't I be?'

‘No reason, mate.'

‘I know what I want. Today I get it,' Gordon said, blunt, somewhat demeaning.

‘Good for you,' I acknowledged, nodding smiling nodding.

‘Can you ask the chicks at the shop if they have any deodorant? Buy some if they sell any. I stink like a fucking pig,' Gordon said, as it dawned on me: marriage was a type of societal elevation. Gordon had the licence to talk down to me, because I still remained with the paupers of singledom, whereas he was King in wedlock now, and I had much to do and learn from him.

‘I'll try,' I said, handing him his near-dry shirt and whipping my jacket back over my shoulder.

I was almost out the door when he said, ‘What, you think I should be sweating, Cronk? you think I got something to sweat about, do you?'

I shook my head. You fickle cunt. ‘No, mate. It's your day.'

The fat ladies behind the teashop counter laughed loud when I asked them if they had any deodorant. I explained the situation, which induced further hysterics; this was clearly one of the most amazing things that had ever happened in the teashop. I took a seat at the long table by the entrance before the table of brochures and maps, wishing they served beer; I could rape and murder a fucking beer, any beer, even a Tooheys New.

Gordon's bucks' party had kicked off here not two weeks ago. It was Rocky's suggestion to begin proceedings with a tea party, he thought it would be really fun, and despite Gordon's initial reticence, all the blokes loved it, sipping tea and devouring a collection of tasty delights as the chubby women wobbled around us, cleaning up and putting down fresh trays of goodies. Each of the twelve boys at the long table made a semi-erudite speech, and I put it down to the sweetness of the cakes and so too the occasion. Men only joined together on fields or with beer on soiled carpet, yet here we were sipping an old English hot drink for our old English friend, and I'd never seen a group of men more awake and surprised at how possible it was to have fun without smashing people's faces in or downing ten hundred ales. This was sophistication, and all were willing, especially Gordon, who kept whispering in my ear just how great an idea this was, and how he would never forget the tea party at the Camellia Gardens. I told him to tell Rocky this, it was his idea, but I don't think he did, he just kept saying it to me.

The contrast from garden tea party to animal bus was drastic to say the least, as we departed the garden respite and climbed up onto the deck of the musty animal-bus where Albert met us with a tall bottle each of cold beer and a set of rubber tits to wear. Gordon was made to demolish a yard glass of Coopers and a few random shots of green and blue liquid, then was pummelled into the back corner and the words
I Love Cock
were inscribed on his forehead in blue zinc cream. Then AC/DC came blaring through the speakers and we were off on our way to Heathcote, where the skirmish and paint ball fields awaited.

Gordon was hammered before we got to Engadine, which was around the time my face was painted in brown zinc cream, each of us a tribal colour of our own.

‘Holy fucken shit, Cronk! You're fucken brown!' Gordon said, lifting me up out of my seat to look at me. ‘You look like a nigga!' he spat, swinging a long bottle of Heineken in his hands.

‘I am a real brother,' I said, spotting Albert in the corner painting Michael Shoes with bright yellow war paint.

‘Gimme a hug, ya cunt,' Gordon said, hugging me.

‘It's going to be a good day,' I said, moving back towards my seat.

‘You need a beer. Albert, get Neil a beer!' Gordon yelled over four seats of buck hunters. ‘You like this bus?' Gordon punched me in the elbow and cackled.

Albert handed me a Heineken and bang, there were six men in the aisle of the bus singing Hunters & Collectors and clinking glasses. The beer was warm but I drank it anyway. I was pathologically hungover, having drunk an entire bottle of Chivas Regal on my own the night before. The only way I would get through this was by saying yes to this day, to my old life, and as a result I stared down at the floor and swallowed. I would drink harder than all of them and I would compete in the animal bus arm-wrestling competition but I am not afraid to say I was scared, this bus was lurching forward, lurching somewhere big and male and broken and I could feel it.

‘Mate, the guy is a fucken legend,' Gordon said, as we stalked up the hill on our hands and knees, settling behind a blown-apart silo splattered in shot-out paint.

‘Albert?' I asked, panting from thirteen years of solid smoking.

Gordon loaded his gun with pellets and looked at me with utter earnestness. ‘Me and Albert have been through a lot together, he turned our whole lives around. I can't thank him enough, seriously.'

It was midday and this was the third ‘Warfare'. I was fucking exhausted, and longed to get back to Cronulla, to Bundeena, or just some pub with booze in it. But Gordon wasn't going anywhere, they'd bought seven Warfares and we weren't even halfway. One of the guys was in hospital having done his groin running down a ravine, and I was partly blind in one eye having been splattered with paint every time I popped up. I would be no use in a war, the only thing I could do was protect the art and, you know, linger around sipping tea and wiping down the maps and navigation instruments.

‘You know last Thursday me and Albert had a joint colonoscopy,' Gordon said. ‘That's how close we are now. The procedure required two days of working up to it, like this whole diet we had to do on the first day and then just fluids the second day, then on Thursday we drink this really strong lemon Picoprep solution which empties your bowel… Did you know the human bowel is like forty feet long? And it has explosive tendencies? The drink's fucking disgusting but it's good to get this test, man, we're getting to that age now where heavy stuff like that's a factor. Did you know chickpeas and grilled tomato are the best thing for prostate cancer? If there's a history in your family then get grilling your tomatoes, Neil.'

‘I did not know that,' I said.

‘Albert's my real dad,' Gordon said. ‘I don't even think of my other dad now, he's fucking not my dad, we made sure of that.' Gordon slammed home the gauge and lifted the gun strap over his shoulder. ‘I have no love for my old dad, I have a whole lot of love for Albert, but you know what?'

‘What?' I asked, somehow giggling now, caught up.

‘It doesn't stop me blowing the cunt's nut off. '

And with that Gordon stood up and ran, screaming ‘Hasta la vista faggots!' as he blasted away.

I peered over the edge of the busted silo in time to see Gordon hit the ground, surrounded by Albert and Michael Shoes and his brother Rocky, all members of the Red Team, having now officially kidnapped the leader of the Blue Team. I was the only one who could save him, but I simply did not feel like it, and I had failed to buy any more pellets in the gap between Warfares for this very reason. So instead I took off my gun, rolled a cigarette and lay down in the sun, listening to the war cry of the Red Team as they blasted into Gordon's neck and chest. Gordon called out to me for help and I would have ignored it, but in the call was a crack and inside the crack a little boy lost, the little boy I grew up with. Something about the event, the alcohol and the violence had brought this little boy back to me.

‘I'm coming for you, G-Funk, don't you worry about that,' I said to myself, hardly believing it. I really had not enjoyed one part of the fucking skirmish day, and I could not comprehend how on earth it was a legal activity. I mean, the bullets really fucking hurt when they hit you, my neck and chin were seriously bruised and the mask fogged up really quickly, which was why I kept lifting it off, which was why I got shot in the eyebrow and partially blinded, and the terrain was littered with dangerous obstacles like broken bins and sharp rocks and razor wire traps which you could hardly see down by your ankles, especially when your goggles were fogged up to the point of nil vision. I was surprised more people did not die out there – not joking. Marriage was such a beautiful gesture, why on earth did we choose to precede the event with this low act of bludgeoning and filth? Women went out on boats and gathered around the engagement ring, talking babies and dresses, sipping chardonnay and enjoying the company of the male stripper. That was civilised, women did it right; men, we had to go to war with paint, we had to rape each other in the dirt before we joined our better half in holy matrimony. Somebody make sense of this for me, please! I'm dying out here. Take me back to the tea garden!

I breathed deep, loading my gun with the four remaining pellets I had managed to save in my top pocket. I had barely shot anyone at all, failed in all my weapons missions – the only thing I had succeeded in was not being caught. Which was mostly due to the fact I had not really participated, preferring to smoke in the bushes until the Warfare was nearly over, then give myself up when we were outnumbered. But this time, well, this time my best friend was squealing in pain, calling my name, and I was so sunburnt, and semi-blind, and fucked off with life and men and love and life and Cronulla and London and art that anger overcame me, and I decided I would shoot some cunt in the neck. I mean, if you can't beat the gang, beat the living fuck out of
one
of the gang, that was what Stuart always said, and look, like most of his brutal poetics, it made good sense.

Through the lightning-edged gap in the silo I could make out Albert's body, leaning over Gordon, his knees on his stepson's shoulders, dripping a long line of saliva inches from my friend's face, to the amusement of the Red Team. I aimed at Albert's fat red neck, and firmed the trigger. A shot rang out and Albert fell back, clutching his throat in excellent agony. One! Rocky then popped out from behind Michael Shoes. He held a beer in one hand and shielded his eyes from the sun with the other in a vain attempt to make out the sniper. Bang! The palm of his hand was now painted; he bent in half like a flip-top phone, dropping his beer and moaning to Jesus. Two! Then Shoes came forward, laughing. Lifting his mask off and grabbing his cock, he said, ‘Come out, you pussy, and face me off. '

I thought ok, relit my cigarette, and stood. I walked towards Shoes, who was now pissing in my direction. He saw me and shot his last four bullets, but they flew past my goggles. He had none left so I walked closer and closer to him, his medium-sized cock flailing in the dead air. Three feet away he grinned at me; he knew I didn't have the guts.

‘Make my day, Cronk,' Shoes said.

I aimed at his cock and shot at it. I missed, but I got him in the groin, which sent him onto the ground. He then got up, and with rage in his smile he ran at me, cock still flopping about beneath his other rifle. As he lifted his weapon to hit me I shot at his groin again. This time I connected with his penis and he slammed into the scrub, screaming like a baby.

Gordon stood up. He could not believe what I had done, and neither could I. At this frozen time Albert rose and began inching towards Gordon with his gun raised, at which point I yelled out to G, who spun around and blew six bullets into Albert's chest and throat. Gordon then ran over to the Red fort, which up to this point had proved utterly impenetrable, grabbed the Red flag and ran towards me. This was war, this was what they were talking about, strength against strength, force against force, possession and territory, men on the ground, brothers in arms, camaraderie. Gordon leapt on top of me and we came crashing down on the grass, wrestling each other madly, panting like pigs, kissing each other's necks and screaming, ‘Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue! Blue!'

Bussed home, showered and changed. Walked to Northies and dropped an ecstasy tablet. Then a different bar called Sting, and the DJ's dropping a cool mix of ironic eighties classics and trip-hop weighted beats. I rested back into the couch talking to Albert's friend Graham about the recession. He was a nice man and I felt good talking to him. I didn't know him at all so there was nothing wrong. Gordon was on the dance floor with Albert. He had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves.

‘Neil!' Michael Shoes had blood-red hair and two beers in his grasp. He handed me one of the beers and clinked it with his. ‘Sorry I shot you in the dick.' I giggled in the pit of my throat.

‘No drama, mate – just lucky you didn't hit anything big!' Shoes exploded with a machine-gun laugh.

‘Fucking wild day,' I said, but Shoes didn't respond, he just slugged at his beer once, twice, three times, until it'd hit some spot.

‘You knew my brother,' Shoes said. ‘Daniel?'

Fuck. ‘Yeah…' I said. ‘Good bloke.'

‘Not anymore,' Shoes said.

‘No?' I said.

‘Well he's fucken dead, isn't he?' And the machine-gun laugh came thundering back into action.

‘You never know,' I said. ‘You never know where they all are.'

‘Yeah, some planet of their own. It's nearly our whole year book.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘Why does everyone do it? So nice down here.'

‘You're the thinker,' Shoes said. ‘You tell me, mate.'

And I couldn't tell him. I
couldn't
tell him. I couldn't tell him why his brother thought getting done DUI on his first night as a P-plater was enough to walk into the ocean at South Cronulla, I couldn't tell him why To m hanged himself. I couldn't tell him why Stuart, why my oldest mate, was not sitting here now, why he was missing out on all this, all this war and ecstasy – he would have eaten this up. I couldn't fucking say and it killed me, it fucking killed me, because it was all I wanted to fucking know. It was all I wanted to know in this fucking world: where did the beautiful boys go? Where did the beautiful boys go? Where the hell did they go?