My Private Pectus (12 page)

The P has been out to it for a solid half-minute: eyes curled into his head. Maloney and Steve kneel beside him. I'm behind them, watching, still shirtless. Dad's in the middle of the group, rubbing the scar on his neck, his face ashen. The P coughs, he comes around, his eyes glazed over, his pupils unevenly dilated. The guys who are still sitting scratch nervously at their knees. Someone says we should take him to the hospital, but Roger says we shouldn't make it a bigger incident than it is already. The P refuses with a groan. I guess it's an insult to his dignity.

I pick up my bag, put my jersey back on and walk out. I leave the footy oval and the school grounds. I just need to be alone for a while.

Wandering a footpath above the muddy banks of Norman Creek, I watch the tide ebb, taking with it empty chip packets and a plastic bottle. Insects dart over the surface of the brown, almost black water. An ibis sinks its long curved bill into the festering mud. I replay the afternoon's events in my mind. Not-so-private Jack anymore. I've revealed myself, but don't feel any better. My phone rings. It's Dad. I turn it off.

I wander down the bank and into the mangroves. The black mud squelches under my feet, releasing a reek of rotting vegetation. I go further down until the mud comes up to my shins. The ibis walks further upstream. Looking about and seeing no one, only mangroves, I take my jersey off and hang it on a nearby branch. Kneeling, I take some of the black rotting mud and fill my chest. It's cold against my skin. I squeeze the mud tight against me until dark water oozes out, snaking down to my navel. Slowly I take my hands away. The mud stays there. I stand tall, roll my shoulders back and stretch out of my hunch, but as I do so, the mud drops out and gollops by my shins. I pull my jersey back on and leave.

When I get to Ryan's I wash my legs under a tap and leave my footy boots on a small square of lawn in front of the unit block. The door's locked so I let myself in. I hear the thud of cupboards closing and the sucking in of air as the fridge opens.

A girl is there, filling two glasses with cold water. I've seen her before, but I'm not sure where. She's about my age, has bronze hair, freckles, a familiar face. Then it comes to me—I've seen her on the bus, in a Coorparoo State High School uniform. She seems to have a moment of recognition as well. ‘Hi,' she says, like she's meant to be here. She's only wearing undies and a shirt, through which I can make out the shape of her nipples. Her hair's out and it falls over her face. She bends over as she puts the water jug back in the fridge. She drinks half of her glass then heads back up the hallway. Curious, I edge across so I can see where she's going. She opens the door of Mike's room.

I go and sit in front of the tube and watch the afternoon cartoons. Ryan comes home, offers me a beer and joins me on the couch. An hour or so later, Mike walks in from the hallway, shirtless, wearing boardies that hang so low on his hips that I can see his bum crack when he turns. He's not wearing anything underneath. His hair's messed up, but he's happy, humming ‘Sexual Healing'. He makes me sick. He plunges a coffee, makes two mugs and takes them back to his room. Later, when I go to the toilet, I can hear them through the bedroom door. Panting, the bed creaking. I stop and listen, fascinated and put-off by their lovemaking. It sounds so public, so raw. It doesn't sound nice, not even exotic, and certainly not romantic. When I get back to the lounge room, Ryan turns up the volume.

An hour or so later, after she leaves, Mike takes an apple from the fridge. He sits between us.

‘Do you like her?' I ask.

‘Nah, she's just a bit of fun,' he says. He notices the look on my face and shrugs. ‘It's not that I
don't
like her.' He sinks his teeth into the apple. It breaks apart crisply. Juice dribbles from the corner of his mouth and he wipes it away. ‘What's up?' he asks, his mouth full.

I slump deeper into the couch. The three of us zone out on
Deal or No Deal
. On the coffee table is Ryan's bong—green and putrid—and some aluminium foil, but there's no mull left. Bored, I wait for him to offer a beer, but when the offer doesn't come, I go to the fridge anyway, take some stubbies and pass them around. I resume my seat, and check my phone for messages. Nothing. Why is Sam still ignoring me? The guys stare as the studio audience screams frantically
No deal
! I sink deeper, finish my beer and strip the label.

‘What are you doing tonight, Sticks?' Mike asks without looking at me.

‘No plans.' I want to see Sam, but it's a Wednesday night and she doesn't want to know me anyway, let alone see me. The last few days at school she hasn't even looked in my direction.

‘Not going out with your mates?' he asks in an almost mocking tone.

‘And where are
your
mates?' I ask.

Mike gives me the bird.

Ryan says, ‘You can hang with us, Sticks, we've got no plans.' He gets up and goes to the freezer, puts a pizza on the bench to thaw, then comes back with more beers and puts them on the coffee table where they sweat.

Still nothing happens. We stare at the news then flick between current affairs shows. I go down to the garage. The car's due to get registered in a week, but I bet it'll be Gez and Lisa that go cruising first. I'll be forgotten. I run my hand over the bonnet. He hasn't even bothered to wash it, I think, and then head back upstairs.

Ryan gets up, puts the pizza in the oven, and then says he's going out to buy some ganga, but doesn't offer an invite to join him. Great, I think. A night with Mike. I think about going home, but it's not a place I want to be right now.

Mike says, ‘You smell like something the cat's chucked up.'

I tell him I went swimming in Norman Creek. He looks at me like I'm a freak.

Sometime later I get the pizza, which is blackened on the bottom and almost cheeseless on top. As we eat, Mike starts bragging about his high school girl. I think, Ryan, please be back soon.

‘It's just gonna be the one root,' Mike says.

‘Any good?' I ask, not because I care, but because I know he'll tell me anyway.

‘Blood oath.' He sits forward on the couch, legs spread, hands on his knees and he goes on about what he did to her like she was something he bought. He picks up on my vacant expression. ‘You ignoring me?' He asks the question like it's a threat.

‘No.'

‘Then what did I say?'

‘About what?'

‘What are you, thick? About me root.'

‘I dunno. You said she's got big tits.'

Mike leans forward. ‘What's your problem, Sticks? Don't you like talking about girls? You gay or something?'

I should make a T-shirt. On the front it will say in capital letters NOT GAY. On the back it will have JUST FRIGID.

Dad is silent when I get home, even though it's late. Everything suggests he's not made it to bed. The TV is on, the volume down low. There's a blanket on the couch and coffee grounds are scattered across the kitchen bench. Knight Rider yelps excitedly in the backyard. Dad's at the laptop. He thuds on the keys. He gets up, plunges a coffee, but says nothing, just lets me sweat it out. But as I wait I realise he's not going to say anything. Maybe this has gotten too personal, too emotional? I watch him closely. Regret is pasted over his face. His lips are taut, there are bags under his eyes, he's sweating an unusual amount and smells like it, too. He wipes the back of his hand across his forehead. There's no doubt he's in shock at what he saw, but I suspect there's more. He's freaking about what he did to The P and what Hassold will do when he finds out. Dad's a goner for sure.

I leave him to his laptop and go shower. I fire another text off to Sam. My final apology for missing her party, I tell myself.

In the morning, I don't bother with breakfast. My stomach is queasy. I can't get out of my mind what will happen at school today.

I choose to walk, but more in the hope of avoiding The P and Steve on the bus than to chance a meeting with Sam. But she's there, sitting on the gutter on the corner of her street. I stop in front of her, not sure what I'm meant to say, feeling like I've said it a dozen times in phone messages already.

She gives me a cautious smile.

‘It wasn't my fault, you know,' I say.

‘So you keep telling me.'

‘Why didn't you call back?'

She crosses an arm over her chest and rests her hand on her shoulder. ‘I'm not so sure about us,' she says.

I nod, doing everything I can to hide the melting feeling inside my chest.

She looks at me, but I don't say anything more. So she goes on. ‘Greg and Rachel were all over each other all night,' she says.

‘Gross.'

‘It was,' she says. ‘So I was really peeved.' She pats the concrete gutter. ‘We've got a while,' she says.

I take up the invite and sit down. I tell her about what happened at the Pasks, from Dad telling Roger about my failed try, to me puking up everywhere and collecting the keys the next day. ‘I really am sorry I didn't make it,' I say again.

She smiles at me. ‘I bet you are.'

‘So Greg and Rachel just pashed in front of you?' I ask.

‘Didn't they ever!' she says. ‘You should've seen them.'

We laugh and look at each other, but our smiles quickly fade as if there's no more to say.

‘We should go,' I say.

It's nice to be with her, walking up the hill, but I feel uneasy, tense. I want to tell her how bad it felt when she didn't return my calls; that I am sure about ‘us'. I want ‘us'. But the closer we get to school, the more distracted I get. I've got other things to worry about, like what kind of flak I'll cop. I trudge beside her, my hands thrust in my pockets. Once at school, we go our separate ways.

The P and Steve are there with Lisa and co. She's laughing as The P talks with his hands, his stature tall, proud, and confident. But as I walk by, their conversation stalls, eyes watch me, lips move in whispers. Later, at my locker, a couple of guys wander past, but before they round the corner, they stop and have a second-take with squinted eyes like Clark Kent with X-ray vision. On my way to class, I hear voices from the veranda above. ‘Caveman,' they snigger. I spend lunchtime in the library.

Sam joins me again for the walk home. I wait for her to say something, but she doesn't, even though she would have heard the story by now. Maybe she's embarrassed for me. Maybe she's embarrassed by me. I watch our feet like I always do when I'm not sure what to say. The muscles in my neck feel like rocks. It's strange this feeling I have—of being close and distant with her at the same time.

As we walk past Charlie the Hoarder's, she asks, ‘How's your dad's bird aviary going?'

I stop and rest my hands on the fence, like that afternoon about six weeks ago.

‘He started on it a little while back,' I say, ‘but he hasn't touched it again since.'

‘Why not?'

‘He's been crook. And now he's in deep trouble for sure.'

With her back against the fence, she asks, ‘What do you mean?'

I run my finger over the cracking paint. ‘His incident with The P.'

She turns to me. ‘Or do you mean his incident with you?' She tilts her head, trying to get a view of my face. ‘Come on, Jack. I know what happened; everyone's been talking about it.'

I scratch at the flaking paint which digs into the skin under my nails. ‘Want to go in?' I ask and point at the piles of junk.

‘Now?'

‘Yeah, you said you've never been in there, remember?'

‘Jack, don't you want to talk?'

‘C'mon,' I say and push the rusting gate. ‘Let's see what we can find.'

We scrounge through the junk. There're sheets of rusting corrugated iron, a pram without wheels, a 44-gallon drum two-thirds full of water. Sam finds a pair of Converse shoes with fluorescent yellow skates screwed to the bottom. I find a plastic yellow daisy covered in dirt. While she's not watching, I wipe it clean on my shirt and then give it to her. She takes it, tucks it behind her ear, twists it and laughs. We get closer as we explore. Eventually our hands brush and shoulders touch. She leans against me and points at something beneath a cracked plastic clothes basket. ‘What do you think it is?' she asks. I don't want to say because I don't want her to move, but she takes a look anyway.

Beneath is a skateboard, its under-body chipped, the trucks scratched from rail slides. I hold it up and she rubs her hand over it, removing the dust so we can see the graphics, but with all the use this board has had, we can't make them out too well. There's a name on there: Brian Heffernan. Whoever this kid was, he obviously didn't want to lose his board because his name is printed on with felt pen. It looks like he's gone over it several times. Sam covers up the last three letters of his surname. ‘Heffer,' she says. ‘Do you know some of the guys call me that?'

I try to gauge her thoughts by her face. She's not smiling, not moping, either, and those huge brown eyes just look at me without an ounce of self pity. ‘Yeah, I know,' I say.