Tigers and Devils

by Sean Kennedy

  From where we were sitting, the players appeared as very small yellow and brown specks on a green mass. But that didn’t matter to Roger, as he was out of his seat and jumping up and down like a man possessed.

  Of course, I did the same a minute later when black and yellow blobs appeared on the opposite side of the green. All thoughts of romantic rules and regulations were quickly forgotten about in the face of the game.

  RICHMOND lost, of course. Because they were playing Hawthorn, it wasn’t by much. Not that that really means a thing. Despite my loss, I was still strangely happy, and Roger couldn’t help but miss it as we made our way back to the tram stop to take us home.

  “So, aren’t you going to tell us?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “You know what.”

  I did know what, not that I was going to admit it.

  “Declan Tyler called you at the game, didn’t he?” Roger asked.

  We paused at the kerb while waiting for the little man to turn to green, and we raced across the road as we could see our tram coming in the distance.

  “Yes, he did,” I admitted.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “This is like pulling fucking teeth,” Roger hissed. “How did he seem?”

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No mention of why no-no on the blow?”

  I stared at him, trying to make sense of what he had just said. It finally hit me a moment later. “No, gross, Roger!”

  Roger shrugged. The tram rumbled up beside us, and we clambered on, opting for seats at the back. I stared out the window while Roger continued to press for details. “So what did he call you for, then?”

  We passed under the lights of the French end of Collins Street, and the tram seemed aglow from within before it fell back into shadow under the edifice of Parliament House.

  “To wish me luck for the game.”

  Roger looked appalled. “That’s dangerous, that is.”

  “Why? I did the same for him when he played on Friday.”

  “You never wish another team luck!” Roger leaned forward, his earnest expression becoming intense. “It’s like betting against your own team in the office pool. You never do it.”

  There was really no way I could refute that. I mean, I never bet against Richmond in the office pool, but it didn’t seem like I would be adding to their woes if I wished another team luck in a game the Tigers weren’t involved in.

  “You must really like him,” Roger said solemnly.

  “He’s okay,” I said flatly.

  Roger chuckled to himself. “Hah, you really, really like him!”

  Watching my best friend morphing into Sally Field was disturbing to say the least.

  “Just admit it,” he provoked me.

  “It’s too early to say one way or another,” I shrugged.

  He knew I was lying. I knew he knew I was lying. But the bonds of friendship meant that he couldn’t question me about it too much right at this point of time. But all gloves would probably be off after the second date, and he would come in at me with a right hook.

  I HADN’T been home for very long when another game of message tag began.

  Guess we’re both losers this week, then.

  I managed to multitask by responding while feeding Maggie and pulling a beer out of the fridge:

  As long as we’re losers together.

  He must text like a demon.

  But what happens when one of us wins?

  That looked pretty doubtful at the moment, for either the Tigers or the Devils.

  Then we’ll try not to lord it too badly over the other one.

  I grinned to myself as my fingers flew over the keys. Maybe some comforting will be involved.

  This time he took a little longer to respond.

  I like the sound of that. Even better than the beer.

  Bloody mixed signals in light of the incident on our first date. It was probably why he hesitated.

  Just have to make sure our differences don’t tear

  us apart like any other doomed romance.

  Declan obviously had no shame in acting like a sap or a geek:

  To quote INXS, they can never tear us apart.

  I wished I was at that stage. But it always took me a while. Like it took me a while to reply to that last message:

  Yeah, well, to quote Aimee Mann, you’re with stupid now.

  I could almost hear his laugh through the tips of his fingers.

  Stuck with stupid, more like.

  I couldn’t help but laugh myself:

  For a while, at least.

  His reply was brief, slightly insulting, but also sweet:

  Goodnight, stupid.

  As was what seemed to be my regular sign off now:

  Goodnight, doofus.

  As I closed up my phone again, I could hear Roger’s indignant words replaying for me: “No wonder you’re always fucking single.”

  Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, especially as some things with Declan were still obfuscated by his actions, but perhaps I wasn’t going to be for much longer.

  Chapter 8

  “SO, WE need to have that talk.”

  And that was how it started. It was Tuesday, and I had just gotten in from work.

  Monday night I had come home from having to endure a meal with the family to find Declan had left me a message on my answering machine. I was disappointed he hadn’t tried to reach me on my mobile, but it wouldn’t have been easy trying to field his call at my folks’ house either. I had thought it too late to call him back as he would probably be training the next morning, and he must have been because he didn’t call me at work.

  “Hello to you too,” I said. “And that sounds really ominous. You might want to tone it down a little.”

  “Sorry,” Declan replied. “I just wanted to clear up this… thing between us. And, uh, hi.”

  I nestled the phone between my ear and shoulder awkwardly as I spooned Fancy Feast into Maggie’s bowl. “So you’ve noticed the… thing?”

  “How could I not notice the thing?”

  “Well, you were doing a good job of avoiding it.” I threw the can back into the fridge and made my way back into the lounge room.

  “So were you.”

  “I was the injured party. Of course I had to wait for you to bring it up.” I collapsed upon the couch and used the arm as a shoe lever to prise the sneakers off my feet. They fell noisily upon the carpet.

  Declan was silent.

  I sighed. “So talk to me, Dec.”

  Somehow, all it took was this affectionate shortening of his name. “I just couldn’t do it right then.”

  I hated myself for letting that part of me sneak through, but I guess like any human being I needed that reassurance. “Was it… me?”

  He laughed, and I felt like he had just skewered me with a meat fork. “Wait,” he said quickly, “I wasn’t laughing at you. It’s just, I was going to say it’s me and realised how clichéd it sounded.”

  Relieved, I agreed with him. “Yeah, it would’ve.”

  “But it is me. It’s stupid, and I’m embarrassed to tell you.”

  “Is that why you wouldn’t tell me on the night?”

  Declan paused. “…it’s just that you want everything to go right on the first date—”

  “I shouldn’t have been so stupid to—”

  “No, shut up for a minute. We had a great night and believe me, I wanted things to go further.”

  I wanted to scream Then why didn’t they? but I bit my tongue.

  He stopped again, and I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

  “Dec? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Well, I’m listening.”

  “I still feel bloody stupid.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to sound wise. “We’re not going to get past it if you don’t tell me, are we?”

  “It wa
s the night before a match,” he said finally. As if that explained everything.

  I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “And?” I prodded him.

  “Oh, come on! Surely you’ve heard about pregame superstitions.”

  It finally dawned on me. And I burst out laughing.

  Now it was his turn to be butt-hurt.

  “Hey!” he protested weakly.

  “It is a bit stupid,” I told him.

  “You don’t get it.”

  I tried to be fair. Hey, I’m that kind of guy. Sometimes. “No, I do. But it’s all a bit arbitrary, isn’t it? I mean, just because your coach tells you it probably builds up your stamina or something—”

  “Well—”

  “I mean, I’m sure I recently read somewhere that they did a study, and they proved that sex before a game has no effect upon your ability to play it—”

  “Oh my God, will you stop?”

  Cowed, I fell silent.

  “Let me get a word in, huh?” Declan asked.

  “Shoot,” I said. And couldn’t resist adding, “After all, you’re not playing tomorrow.”

  He sighed. “Are you always like this?”

  “Please don’t ever ask Roger and Fran that. They lie a lot.”

  That elicited a chuckle out of him. “So the answer is yes. You’re impossible, you know that?”

  “I thought you were about to defend yourself?”

  Back to serious mode. I wondered how he was sitting. Was he lying down, like me? Or was he upright, perfectly postured, conditioned into being so after years of rigid sportsmanship? I wished I could see him right now. Talking over the phone was fun, but I would rather have been needling him in person.

  “I know it’s got nothing to do with how you’ll play the game,” he said hesitantly. “It’s just that the very first coach I had told me that, and it became a superstition for me. Like the guys who wear the same socks every game and don’t wash them until the end of season.”

  I winced. “At least yours is more hygienic.”

  “Yeah, believe me, you don’t want to be around them when they pull those fuckers off after a game.”

  “Can I ask you something?” I picked at a stray bit of fabric on the couch arm nervously. “Without you hating me?”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “You’re not playing at the moment, so why does the superstition still stand?”

  There was a long pause before he answered. It seemed like days that we sat there in silence with me beginning to sweat thinking that once again I had crossed the line.

  “I’m still part of the team, aren’t I?”

  I nodded and remembered he couldn’t see me. “Of course you are.”

  “Then, it still stands.”

  “Then I apologise for jumping you.”

  The warmth was evident in his voice. “If I remember rightly, I jumped you.”

  “That’s right, you did.”

  “You know, maybe I should come up a day earlier than usual next time.”

  I squirmed with anticipation at the thought, my dick starting to feel heavy. “That could be good.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

  I couldn’t believe that was still almost two weeks away. That’s when it hit me. I was entering into long-distance relationship territory. As if it weren’t hard enough maintaining a relationship with someone in the same city, I had decided to throw in the towel and see someone who had an entire sea between us.

  We said our good-byes, and promised to speak again soon. I should have been happy that everything had been sorted and things were right between us. But truth be told, I was now feeling a little… sad.

  WHEN I had been to dinner at my parents’ on Monday night, Mum for some strange reason had decided to ask while serving the mashed potatoes whether I happened to be seeing anybody at the moment.

  My dad’s fork clattered against the plate as he dropped it, and Tim leaned in wolfishly to take delight at whatever might happen next.

  Even though my normal world was pretty much upside down and all over the place at that point of time, I played it safe. “No.”

  Dad picked up his fork again, and Tim leaned back into his chair with a disappointed expression on his face.

  I thought that would be the last mention of my love life for the evening, but for some reason Mum had a bee in her bonnet about the issue.

  “But why not?” she asked as she sat herself back down.

  “I’m too busy at the moment, Mum,” I said, using the same old excuse as always. “I can hardly fit in everything I have to do for work, to do anything else.”

  “Got enough time to hang out with Roger and Fran twenty-four seven,” Tim grumbled, obviously hoping he could goad me into making this family time a controversial one. “Got enough time to go see Richmond play.”

  I glared at his obvious attempt to remind Dad of another reason that I was a thorn in his side. “Yeah, doofus, they’re my best friends. I have to see them occasionally.”

  “Are we going to eat?” Dad asked uncomfortably.

  “So you have enough time to see friends, but not a boyfriend?” Tim asked deliberately. I wondered how many beers he’d had before I turned up.

  I used my peripheral vision to see how Dad was taking this. His knuckles were kind of white as he clenched his fork and used it to shovel peas into his mouth.

  “Why are you so interested?” I asked Tim.

  “It’s what families do, they ask shit,” Tim replied.

  “Timothy!” Mum cried, whacking him over the hand with her fork.

  He winced and waved his fingers. I laughed.

  “Boys,” Dad said. “Act like adults.”

  “Tim has a new girlfriend,” Mum said, desperate to keep the conversation flowing.

  “Another one?” I asked. “What happened to the last one?”

  “Got bored,” was his laconic reply.

  And they think my kind is promiscuous.

  “We’re going to have her over for a barbecue in a couple of weeks,” Mum continued.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, already trying to come up with an excuse for why I couldn’t attend.

  “I just thought if you were seeing someone you could, you know, bring them.”

  It’s funny how she resisted saying the word “him” like his gender could be mistaken for the other one by any listener. Still, you had to give her an A for effort, at least.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, really hoping this would be the end of it.

  “I’m not disappointed,” Mum said kindly. “Just it would be nice if you did. Like your brother.” It was nice that she meant it. Or apparently meant to mean it. Or hoped to mean it, or was at least practising. Okay, that was a lot of “ors.”

  But if my brother was meant to be the epitome of coupled bliss, I was glad I was… whatever I was at that point of time.

  “No one will have him,” Tim sniggered over his meal.

  I rolled my eyes, but kept silent. There was no use fighting it.

  “I’m sure somebody will,” Mum said.

  “Pass the gravy, please,” was Dad’s response.

  I did so and tried to imagine Declan being exposed to this situation, having Mum’s earnest pawing at him to see if he was suitable husband material coupled with Dad steadfastly trying to ignore his gender and Tim trying to provoke any kind of reaction he could get out of him. Of course, it could be totally different as it would be Declan Tyler. Maybe they would just sit in openmouthed awe and express shock at his inclination to like dick, because that just wasn’t meant to be possible with people like him.

  I couldn’t even begin to imagine Declan meeting my folks or me meeting his. It seemed even more impossible than me going out with Declan in the first place. So, really, stranger things had happened.

  After dinner Tim sidled up next to me. “So you’re really not seeing anyone?”

  This amount of interest in my love life was really unnerving me. “I said s
o, didn’t I?”

  “Jesus, you’re the most boring gay guy I know.”

  “Aren’t I the only gay guy you know?” I asked.

  He started reciting a list, and I zoned out.

  I came back to the real world just in time to hear him say, “I mean, you should be getting some action. It’s unnatural. You must have carpal tunnel just from jerking off.”

  I went back to my happy place in which my brother refused to be so… so himself.

  And not long after that I begged off coffee and dessert, citing work that needed to be done before the morning. As I drove home I wondered if I was being too hard on them. After all, I guess they were trying in their own way although Dad could afford to be a trifle more accommodating.

  But in the end, they were what they were, and I was what I was. Somehow we would meet in the middle.

  I’VE never done the long-distance relationship thing. I mean, I’ve found it hard enough doing the three-suburbs-away relationship thing. But it really hit me hard over the next couple of weeks what was what I was doing. Declan and I spoke every day, getting to know one another, but somehow it still didn’t seem real enough because we weren’t actually together. You can find out a hell of a lot about a person by speaking to them for hours on end, but without the added intimacy of being able to see their expression or touch them, all the subtle intricacies of contact and closeness were nonexistent. We may as well have been pen pals, and I wondered how it was that people could fall in love over the Internet. Maybe I just didn’t get it.

  All I wanted to do was see him. But their next two games weren’t in Melbourne: one was a home match and one was in Darwin to try and popularise the game in the far north.

  It felt like I was in a relationship, but with none of the advantages. And yet I was happy. I would have been happier if I could see him, but that’s what you get for falling for an interstater.