Pig Boy (2 page)

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME,' I sing as I walk through the school car park. ‘Happy birthday, dear Damon.' I thump on the roof of Pascoe's new pride and joy, wishing my fist would go straight through the green metal. What a birthday gift that'd be. ‘Haaaappy birthday, to me.'

Standing at the top of the stairs outside the administration building is Pascoe. His arms are folded but under the weight of his elbows I can see his chest rising, his nostrils flaring in time with each heave. I'm tempted to wave but now he's pointing his finger and beckoning me up the stairs.

I lift my hands in a ‘what have I done this time?' action. He thrusts his thumb behind him in the direction of his office. Bring it on.

When we walk through the doors the office ladies stop talking and begin to shuffle bits of paper around the desk.

‘It's my birthday,' I tell them. The one who's been here the longest looks up at me. For a second I think she's going to say ‘happy birthday'. But instead her eyes dart away and she begins to frantically feed paper into the fax machine.

I follow Pascoe down the corridor. Mrs Finch sees us coming and spins around, walking back the way she came. Actually she's not walking, she's trotting. I was right. She still hasn't marked my assessment. But she will.

Pascoe just about punches open his office door. He hasn't spoken yet, but his nostrils are still flaring like miniature bellows. He settles himself in the big chief's chair.

I stand. I want to hear his voice before I get comfortable.

‘Sit. Down.' He says it like they're two separate commands.

Slowly I drop into the chair. It's not made for a fully grown man. It's more suited to the Year 9 tarts busted for giving head in the bushes at lunchtime.

My hands grab onto the sides to stop my bulk from spilling out. Having something to hold will help when the urge to laugh rattles my body.

‘I'm going to ask you, Damon, why you think you're here?' Pascoe calls the other blokes by their last name – Parker, Geraghty, Marshall. He's always called me Damon, not Styles. I know it's a lame name. A name only tossers have. So it's not like it bothers me, if that's his intention. ‘Hmm? Any idea why you're here, Damon?'

‘Sir?' It's imperative to get him talking first.

Pascoe reaches into a drawer and takes out a folder. It's my final English writing assessment. He opens it to the first page. ‘So what do you think of this?'

‘I'm thinking: why do you have my English paper? Sir. Mrs Finch was meant to have that marked and back to me last week.'

‘Tell me why you think I have it, Damon.' Pascoe leans back into his chair. So I lean back into mine and focus on the space between his eyebrows. It's an effective psych-out tool I stumbled over one day when a swollen blackhead on the bridge of his nose was more captivating than anything he had to say. The smallest flicker in his eyes, a tiny adjustment in his chair was all I needed to know that this slightly out of focus stare had Pascoe on the back foot and me in the lead. ‘Perhaps this will jolt your memory, Damon.' Pascoe clears his throat and begins to read. ‘“Delicately, as though playing his violin, Jeremiah begins to pluck each hair from her body. Starting at the toes, he …”' Pascoe pushes the folder away like he's sickened, like it's someone's daughter, naked and sprawled across his desk. ‘I can't continue.'

I shrug. He picked the lamest part to read.

‘So?'

‘So?' I echo back.

‘What do you think?'

I exercise my right to silence.

‘Well, I'll tell you what I think, Damon. I think it's a big concern …' The phone starts to ring but Pascoe doesn't move. We sit there listening to it while my stare bores a hole between his brows. Neither of us blinks until the phone stops. ‘A big, big concern,' he continues. ‘Actually, Damon, I think you're a big concern. I look at you, I look at the theme of your story – of all your stories – and it concerns me. Gravely. And you know that. We've had this conversation how many times and yet nothing changes. Does it?'

‘It's fiction. That's what you don't seem to understand, sir.'

‘Well, I'll tell you something that's not fiction.'

‘Sir?'

‘You've threatened Mrs Finch. Again,' Pascoe says.

‘Again?'

‘Yes, Damon. Again.'

Smug Pascoe. Any opportunity he can he refers to an incident almost four weeks ago when I kicked a chair across the room because Mrs Finch told me my story from the state writing competition wouldn't be read in assembly. I've told Pascoe a hundred times I didn't mean to kick the chair at Mrs Finch; she just happened to be in the way. And Mrs Finch needs a little prompt every now and then. That's why I gave her a talking-to yesterday for not handing back my English paper on time. But now I know why. I'll add that to today's speech.

‘I didn't threaten her,' I mutter.

‘You didn't threaten Mrs Finch?' Pascoe begins to growl. ‘You backed her up against a bookshelf. You said …'

‘I didn't touch her!' I yell. ‘And anyway, what always makes my threats so much worse than the phone calls you know those arseholes made to my mother? Hey?'

‘We are not talking about that, Damon. We are talking about you. You and your behaviour.'

‘Yesss,' I hiss. ‘It's always about me and my behaviour, isn't it? Never them.'

‘Yes, it is!' Pascoe roars, slamming his palm down on my English folder. He's angry today. I like it. He hasn't lost it like this in quite a while. These days he speaks in a monotone, like an automated phone message, and his eyes stare right through me as though I'm not really there, sitting opposite him. ‘It
is
always about your behaviour,' Pascoe spits. ‘And this time, Damon, you're going to have to accept the consequences.'

‘What's that meant to mean?' I spit back. But Pascoe doesn't answer. He's barely able to stay in the chair. His hands slide off the desk, his fingers wrapping themselves around the armrests, white knuckles almost bursting through his skin are all that seem to keep him anchored. He's more than angry. Perhaps I could push him harder, see if I could get him to throw a chair at me. Or maybe I should adopt the subtle approach and steer for his Achilles? It's a tough one. I decide on the latter.

‘Sir. Sir, I'm sorry,' I start. My tone is measured, waiting for him to settle back into the chair. It's only when his hands have folded themselves together on the desk that I continue. ‘I get worked up, I know that, sir. We've discussed my, my anger management many times. But it's different when it comes to English. I take it very seriously – you know that, sir.' I pause, count to three and then aim for his Achilles heel. ‘I'll get one of the top English marks in the state, sir, which means at last there'll be recognition for Strathven High. Your school will be read about in all the newspapers.'

Pascoe nods. But I'm not sure I've hit the spot. ‘You'd like to read about Strathven High in the paper, wouldn't you, Damon? And that's what worries me the most.' He sits back in the chair, folding his arms like the big kahuna he thinks he is. ‘Damon,' he sighs, and pushes my English folder even further across the desk. His voice goes flat. ‘I'm sorry, but this can't go on.' Now I wish I'd taken the first option and pushed him harder. ‘Over the years, Damon, you have had many, many warnings about these violent outbursts. I don't want to bring up things from the past. We both know what they are. I've done my best to help you. I had to fight hard to keep you out of the system and now I'm not sure if that was really in your best interest. In anyone's best interest.' I lean forward in the chair. The tone is the same but there's something different about his words today. I can't decipher exactly what it is. ‘No charges were laid after the Year 10 camp and now I'm not sure that was the right decision either. You received a most unfavourable report from the counsellor and perhaps I should've reacted differently.' It's almost like Pascoe is speaking to himself, that's what's strange about this moment. His stubby fingers stroke across the wood of the desk. All the times I've been in this office I've never noticed how square and trim his nails are cut. ‘We had a staff conference yesterday afternoon. It's the sixth one we've had this year about you. I mean, just last week I had to go and reassure the canteen ladies after you barged in and helped yourself without paying.'

‘I told them I'd pay the–'

‘Enough, Damon!' Pascoe thumps the desk again and I sit up straight. ‘Enough excuses. Enough! Your attitude, your attitude is …' He pauses and I see his Adam's apple pop as he tries to regain control. ‘… is menacing towards the students and teachers. As Principal of this school, it is my responsibility to ensure that every student and teacher feels safe. I have to protect my staff and students. Regardless of who they are or what their last name is or where they are in the class, every person at this school has a right to feel protected. To feel safe.'

I wait for him to add, ‘And I want you to feel protected too, Damon. Your wellbeing counts just as much as anyone else's …' But he doesn't and now I start to realise that I can't remember the last time he said those words to me. The soles of my shoes begin to rub against the carpet. I feel the heat rising into my socks.

‘I tried to contact your mother,' Pascoe says. ‘Is she out of town?'

‘You know she doesn't answer the phone any more.' I can barely speak. ‘Not that you'd give a damn.'

There's a second of eye contact and I wait for him to acknowledge the day he sold me out to a new air compressor for the school; wait for him to be that person he used to be. But he doesn't. I don't even catch a flicker of remorse. So I stare into my lap and begin to silently count.

‘It's now reached a point where teachers are refusing to have you in their class. Damon?'

I won't look up.

‘Damon, I sincerely regret to inform you that a letter will be hand-delivered to your mother today explaining that Strathven State High can no longer have you on its campus …'

My fingertips curl around the edges of the chair. These words weren't what I was expecting. How could he do this to me? Why didn't I see it coming? I should've seen it coming. It's been waiting around the corner and I missed it. My hands squeeze the metal until I can feel the blood pumping in my wrists. Suddenly I see Pascoe is looking down at them. It makes me feel naked. It makes me wish I was wearing my other school shirt. Not this one with the red pen bled across the pocket.

‘Of course, you can sit your exams.' He's still speaking and the insincerity is bubbling out of him. ‘I will arrange for you to do them down at the –'

The chair bounces as I stand. I throw my bag over my shoulder, knocking over the tin of pens on his desk.

‘Damon, sit down! We need to talk about …'

I open the office door with such force that it hits the wall and the framed photograph of this year's prefects goes crashing to the floor.

I storm through the corridors. I'm breathing so hard I can almost feel the air hitting my brain. My hands, I'm all hands. I don't know what to do with them. I curl them into fists. I thump them on the wall. I let them slide across the photos of Pascoe's smiling leaders and smug sporting champions.

On the office desk sits the fax machine but I can't reach it. So instead I roar and slam my palms against the glass doors, pushing them open to the leering mob that's gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Someone's started chanting ‘Damoink oink oink oink, oink oink oink!' They're yelling, kids from every year. It's been a while since they've unleashed the snort, and the thrill on their faces makes me wish I could reach out my hands and choke every one of them.

Three yellow recycling bins sit outside the admin building. One by one I pick them up and hurl them down the stairs. The bottles scatter and roll across the quadrangle. Now everyone's watching – the loners, the canteen kids, all of them.

A circle of girls scream as I charge down the steps growling and kicking the garbage towards them.

Andrew Parker comes towards me. He's making a show of it, rolling up his sleeves and snorting like a bull, ready to protect the womenfolk.

‘Don't bother,' I spit. ‘I'm gone.'

Parker elbows me and says, ‘About time, you fucking psycho.'

As my final gesture I make sure I push over every bin I pass, tear all the Year 12 formal posters off the walls, and when I reach the back gate I kick it so hard the sole of my foot burns and the rusty springs screech with rage.

I disappear into the bush vowing that revenge will be sweet.

I DIDN'T KNOW MY HANDS could shake like this. I'm pumped, I'm freaking out. It's … I've got dirt smeared all over me. I've got to scrub. Get clean. I've got to get it all out somehow. I've got to stop thinking of the man's face. I reach for my notebook.

You know what it is, you know how it works, you've used one a thousand times playing Kaos with Vigilanteboy.

Get the words out. This is the only place you say them and these words are the only words you say. The rest you keep in your head.

Get it together. Get something out on paper you know that works even though Pascoe FUCK PASCOE and his sanctimonious bullshit.

Get organised. You can't go back. It's too late.

Plan. Plan. Plan WHAT's THE PLAN?

Get ready. You have to be prepared. They saw you, they fucking saw you. They're not going to push you around this time. This is for real. It's serious – BIG TIME NOW not little boy shit. Say it, dickhead, THEY'RE NOT GOING TO PUSH ME AROUND ANY MORE. Every time you read this you'll remember what happened. They're the real deal. They don't care if they have to do it to you. You're just like the cat. You're nothing. NOTHING. They'd do it without a second thought and you know they would.

I'm sitting here reading my words while fat drops of water fall from my hair and bounce onto the page. Air fills my cheeks and I feel like I'm going to spew again.

It's the man's face that's the worst. I can't get it out of my head. His face and the sound of the phone ringing and ringing and ringing and him just looking at me like there was something I could do.

I have to get up now. I have to keep moving but it's as if I'm an old man trying to stop my knees from shaking as I lift myself off the bed, the exercise book rolled up in my hands like a weapon ready for an intruder.

It's hard to reach the desk. My feet don't want to move and my legs can barely hold me up. ‘Focus. Focus. Focus.' The lone word sticks between my teeth like my jaw is wired shut.

The black gym bag is inside my wardrobe along with my school clothes. I have showered and washed my hair. I have watched the spew and mud and shavings of crushed leaves get sucked and swallowed into the drain. I have got this far. I can do this.

I lean the book on my desk, open to the next page and write.

THINGS TO DO

• Gear in wardrobe. LEAVE IN WARDROBE FOR NOW
  
• Check newspapers, TV etc
  
• Get a padlock
  
• Google AK-47
  

Fuck, idiot! Stay focused or you're gone.

For you're a jolly good fellow.

My fingertips slide across the words, then I shove the book between the mattress and the old spring base of my bed. This list can't be stored with the others in my desk because it's the most important one I've ever written.

My body is numb, heavy like my bones are filled with lead. Yet my mind knows it wants to rage and roar and tear out the light fittings. Again I tell myself, ‘Focus. Focus. Focus.' When my nerves spring back to life I will need to stay calm. Calm is the key.

Slowly, like each number brings me closer to my death, I count to five then walk out of my bedroom, closing the door behind me. This is the same as the cat but so much worse.

It was in the summer holidays after Year 7 that I first witnessed the evil of the Marshall brothers and understood that they were the real deal, not wannabes. It was a big day. I also remember it as the day I wrote my first list. Short and sweet – only four names.

The Marshall boys had probably been taunting that cat all day. It wasn't until late in the afternoon that I spied four pairs of feet – three bare, the fourth booted – lined up along the stormwater drain, their pale, freckly bodies disappearing over the other side. Every few seconds, their crazy hyena laughs spiralled into the sky like an invisible twister.

My towel was wrapped around my neck, the thick scent of the river mud still fresh in my nostrils. Only minutes ago I'd been lying on the banks reading the latest
Mad
magazine, not knowing that my lazy afternoon was about to take a nasty turn.

I was curious about what the Marshall boys were doing, yet understood the implications if I was spotted. I was at school with Curtis and Little Joe Marshall. They led the lunchtime stampede against me, always squealing ‘Damoink! Oink! Oink! Oink!' louder than all the other kids. So, carefully, I propped my bike against one of the trees and crouched behind a rock.

A cloud of muffled words hovered above the drainpipe. Little Joe yelped with delight and, like a puppet show, four heads of curly black hair popped up in a row – Steven, Joe, Billy and Curtis.

I flattened myself behind the rock. My fingers gripped the edge as I slowly leant around just enough to see Steven, the eldest, climbing to his feet. He held one arm out in front of him, then bent his thick legs and hurled something across the ravine. At first I thought it was a rock until I caught the sound of a bell and a high-pitched ‘meeeeee' following the airborne object. There was a wet slap, a second of silence and then clapping and cheers from Steven's audience.

‘Show's over,' Steven said, pulling up little Joey by the neck of his t-shirt. ‘C'mon. I'm bloody starving. Let's go.'

I folded myself back out of view and shoved the towel into my mouth as Billy's uneven step clip-clopped along the concrete pipe. The thought of what the Marshall boys would do if they discovered me had my chest heaving like an asthmatic's gulping for air. It was the older brothers – Steven and Billy – that I'd heard really bad stories about and now I understood the stories were true.

I imagined Billy in his special brown boot kicking me until my knees gave way. Then Steven dragging me down the riverbank, his big hands grabbing at my neck and forcing my head underwater until my flailing limbs stopped splashing.

I kept my back plastered against the rock and the towel wedged between my teeth while I counted backwards from one hundred.

Suddenly Steven stopped. ‘I think I heard something,' he said. He was so close. Through the grass I could see an ant weaving its way through the tangled black hairs on his ankle.

‘It was my tummy,' Little Joe answered. ‘I'm bloody starving!'

‘Joey!' Steven and the others laughed. Then the four figures, each one taller than the one behind, resumed their flight, ducking and weaving their way through the trees while the warm piss ran down my legs.

‘Good bowl, Stevie,' I heard.

‘It's me fast ball, Joey,' he answered.

‘Middle stump, Stevie.'

‘Never in doubt, Curtis.'

I waited as their voices faded through the bush. I waited until I couldn't hear a sound. Then I ran, as fast as a fat thirteen-year-old could.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it echoing across the ravine. I charged down the bank, my feet sliding underneath me, my toes catching on the gnarly roots anchored in the mud. Holding the towel above my head, I waded through the water, the sudden patches of cold stealing my breath.

On the other side, something stirred. The twisted vines that strangled a river gum twitched then stopped; twitched again and stopped.

I grabbed onto the roots, using them as a rope to haul myself up the bank. Now I was only an arm's length away and clearly I could hear a tiny bell tinkle with each movement.

My hands ripped apart the canopy of leaves and underneath, spread-eagled on the ground, was a slab of wet, matted fur. It was too big for a kitten but not yet a full-grown cat. Around its neck was a red collar and two silver bells.

I cupped my hands carefully under its body and lifted it up for a closer look. It was Princess Anne, Mrs Fryes's new cat. Her head was soft and squashed like an apple that'd been in a schoolbag too long. Her tiny chest puffed up and down so fast it was impossible to count her breaths. But the worst was her stare, the way she looked at me: her eyes all pleading and begging, like there was something I could do. ‘I'm so sorry,' I whispered. My fingertips brushed across the soft pink skin of her tummy. ‘I can't help you, little one.' But I knew I could.

Gently, I placed her back on the ground. ‘If I leave you here like this the birds will come and peck at you, Princess Anne,' I said, as if hearing the words could absolve me from what I was about to do.

I remember the sobs shaking my ribs as I searched for a rock big enough to finish the job the Marshall brothers hadn't.

By the time I pushed my bike through the bush and back onto the road, the sun was sliding away and the mosquitoes were feasting on my damp ankles.

I had this feeling. I'd felt it before but I couldn't give it a name. Actually say what it was. But it started in my fingers. A tingling at the very tips that slowly worked its way up my hands until it was like a tic I couldn't control, and with it came the urge to wrap my hands around something and squeeze it until it couldn't be squeezed any more.

That was the day I bought an exercise book and wrote my first list of names. Before I knew it, everything – every rotten feeling – had pooled inside the hand that held the pen. Forming each stroke of each letter, feeling the nib pressing into the paper, seeing their four names before me, lined up one on top of the other, was something I hadn't expected to feel so good. Today, though, it won't be enough.

The old girl's back in bed. She didn't hear me come home or take a shower. I stand at the bedroom door timing her snores. They're four seconds in and four seconds out. She sleeps easier when she thinks I'm not here.

I was about eight years old when I started counting Mum's breath. It was after my father left. ‘Ya goin' to kill me,' she'd say. ‘Ya goin' to be the death of me. One day, son, ya goin' wake up and find me dead.'

So as long as there was something to count, I figured she was still alive.

When Mum's boyfriend Archie moved in, her misery and my counting stopped. But the minute he left it was back on, worse than ever.

For a while I lean into the doorway, watching the corners of her pillowcase quiver with each breath. I wonder what she dreams about. I wonder what she'd say to me if I told her what's just happened.

A fly buzzes past. It circles the room a few times and Mum begins to snuffle at the air, so I creep away.

When Mum finally shuffles out of her room she looks surprised to see me. I tell her I have free study periods this afternoon.

‘Ya smell good.' She sniffs me. ‘Don't tell me ya gone and washed ya hair? That's a first.'

My hand goes to touch my head but I'm so wound up I can hardly move.

There's a mountain of old mail piled up on the kitchen table. For some reason I'm sorting through it, probably to keep my hands busy. My fingers have to hold the paper tight so I can hide their trembling. If I can keep calm she won't sniff the trouble.

There are still unopened letters from twelve months ago.

‘Ya father haven't sent ya no birthday card if that's what ya afta.' The old girl's always brutal with the truth. ‘Wouldn't matter a rat's arse to him if you were turnin' eighteen or twenty-one. All he'd be worryin' about is me trackin' him down and squeezin' money outta him.'