The Origin of Me

by Bernard Gallate

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, showing her my ankle. ‘I thought she was afraid of cats?’

  ‘And men, when she first meets them. Her first owner was a very cruel fellow apparently.’

  I looked over at Tippi. Her plaintive eyes, a little too big for her head, almost melted my heart. ‘She’s lucky to have you now,’ I said and sat on the recliner. ‘You’ve had your hair done since I saw you on my birthday.’ It was short and fire-engine red like Nurse Nola’s.

  ‘Too bright?’ Nana said, primping it.

  ‘It’s hectic.’

  ‘I had such a lovely time at your birthday dinner, but I forgot to give you this.’ She handed me an envelope and for a moment I thought it might be last year’s card from Pop. But then I opened it and saw a picture of two elderly nudists driving a golf buggy. ‘Life begins at eighty!’ the caption said.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Nana took the card from me. ‘Glenda will be wondering why I wished her a sweet sixteenth.’ She put it on the sideboard and went into the kitchen, followed by Tippi. We chatted as she made us both a cup of tea, then returned and put a plate of lemon slice on the coffee table. Tippi leapt up, delicately removed one of the slices between her teeth and went back to her cushion to eat it. ‘Naughty little thing,’ Nana said with a chuckle and picked up the crumbs with a napkin. Then she turned back to me and said, ‘Now, tell me what this knitting business is all about.’

  I explained the project, thinking she’d agree that it was pointless to knit something to wrap around a pole, but like Venn she was intrigued by the idea. Eager to begin, she fetched a Spotlight bag and a vintage Arnott’s red parrot tin from the cupboard.

  ‘What’s the frown for, sourpuss?’

  ‘Knitting’s traditionally for girls.’

  ‘Phooey. Your pop couldn’t knit but he darned all his own socks. And he baked a much better sponge than I ever could. You won’t learn diddly squat if you don’t try new things. Glenda and I are learning salsa at the community centre with a Colombian instructor called Ernesto. The way he moves gives us both the palpitations.’

  ‘Way too much information.’

  ‘Old chooks cluck the loudest – don’t you worry about that. Choose a colour while I sort out my bibs and bobs.’ I ferreted through the bag and chose a ball of atomic orange. ‘Casting on is a bit tricky, so I’ll do that for you.’ Using her fingers, she magically created a row of stitches on one of the needles.

  ‘Now we’re set. Watch carefully – needle through, yarn around, pull it down, slide it off. Easy as pie.’ She made me repeat the instructions as she knitted a row. ‘You take over now,’ she said and handed me the needles. But before I could begin, Tippi jumped off her cushion and came and sat on my lap, which wasn’t exactly helpful.

  I grasped the needles firmly and pulled the yarn too tightly, stitching a row of mean little knots. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘Don’t get huffy. You’re doing well for a first-timer.’ She put her hands over mine and guided me through a second row. ‘Keep going now, and you’ll find your rhythm.’ She fished around in the Spotlight bag and pulled out a blue-and-yellow scarf. She brushed it against the side of her face with her eyes closed. ‘I was knitting this for Pop. Ten years living here and he never wavered in his allegiance to the Eels. I might finish it for your father instead.’

  ‘Dad backs the Roosters now.’

  ‘Oh well, I’ll give it to Clarry up at six-oh-five. He’ll think all of his Christmases have come at once.’

  We knitted together and chatted, the repetition soothing my mind, melting away the frustration. Every time I dropped a stitch, Nana Locke retrieved it and told me there was no mistake that couldn’t be mended. It was slow going but satisfying to see something grow beneath my hands. And Tippi stayed on my lap the whole time.

  ‘Somebody’s got a new friend,’ Nana said. ‘I hope you’re staying for dinner? I’ve got some nice lamb cutlets from the meat tray I won at the club.’

  ‘Dad wants me home by eight.’

  ‘It’s only half-six.’

  ‘I’d better get going.’ I lifted Tippi off and said, ‘You be a good girl – and take care of my grandmother.’

  Nana took my face in her bony hands and her smile betrayed the weary solitude of her grief. ‘Don’t leave it so long before your next visit. And bring that father of yours along next time.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you so much for teaching me to knit.’

  She put my knitting and an extra ball of atomic-orange yarn in a plastic bag. ‘Take these with you and keep at it. Next time I’ll teach you to purl.’

  Friday morning I slept through my alarm, waking at 8.48 am. Dad had gone. My bike was locked up at school. Telling head office that my late arrival was the result of anxiety-induced insomnia would have incurred another session with Dr Limberg, so I jigged History and arrived in time for second period – English. While Mr Field was talking about a theme commonly explored in Victorian Gothic novels – the descent into madness – Starkey passed me a piece of paper that accelerated my own decline. It bore a crudely drawn picture of a plucked chicken that could’ve easily been mistaken for a penis, being strangled over a boiling cauldron. Below it was the note, BUK BUK BEGEEEEERK! We thought you’d chickened out.

  Later, in Biology, Nads kept leering at me with his scarred eyebrow raised, probably nutting out the final details of my impending humiliation. The lesson progressed about as fast as a crushed snail towards a pile of salt. When the glockenspiel finally sounded I made a controlled dash for a study room in the library and hid behind an old copy of Scientific American. Ten minutes later, Heather Treadwell tapped the glass. ‘R3 is booked for a prayer meeting,’ she said.

  ‘Send one up for me. I’m in desperate need of a miracle.’

  During French, my guts surrendered to the nerves, demanding I request permission to use the toilet on threat of letting loose in the classroom. Miss Moreau asked me to repeat it in French. Luckily it was the first phrase I’d ever learnt.

  Down at Rushcutters Bay Park in the afternoon for PE, Mullows and Nathan Trammel were chosen to be softball captains. Mullows picked Nads then Starkey, me and Cheyenne Piper, who was now his girlfriend. Afraid to pick anybody Mullows might want, Nathan chose all girls and Pericles. Simmons didn’t care about the gender loading – he revelled in watching his boys trouncing the girls.

  Towards the end of the final innings we were smashing them 22–3 and Cheyenne was our last batter. With the bases loaded, she belted the third pitch well past the outfielders, over the trees and into the sea. Pericles pulled off his trainers and began climbing over the seawall.

  ‘Leave it!’ Simmons yelled. ‘You’ll cut your feet to ribbons on the oysters.’ Cheyenne strutted the diamond, picking up Nads, Mullows and Starkey on the way.

  Our teams lined up to shake each other’s hands.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Pericles said to me. ‘You beat me again, champion.’

  ‘Please don’t call me that.’

  ‘Joking. I know I’ve been a bit shitty lately, but I was wondering . . . if you maybe wanted to hang out?’

  There was nothing I wanted or needed more than a solid friend – but the arsehole behind me had two fingers pointed in the small of my back like a gun. ‘Yeah yeah,’ I said. ‘But I can’t right now.’

  ‘Move!’ Starkey shoved me.

  ‘I’ll explain later.’

  ‘No need to.’

  I half-expected a rooster to crow my third denial of Pericles, but there was nothing so epically poignant. Only the imagined ‘Begeerk!’ of Starkey’s plucked chicken to condemn my cowardice.

  Nads and Mullows helped Simmons load the equipment into his egg-yolk MGB GT. When his back was turned, Nads stole a bat and passed it to Starkey, who left the group and went behind the change shed. Simmons squeezed himself into the tiny car and tooted farewell to the golden boys.

  Everyone was leaving the park except Cheyenne Piper and Liliana Petersen, who were lingering on a bench.

  ‘Bro
s before hos,’ Nads said to Mullows.

  Mullows took the hint and asked them to go. They had a small discussion among themselves I couldn’t hear then stood up and left, Cheyenne shaking her head as they passed Mullows – obviously annoyed that he’d complied with Nads. When they were out of sight, Nads said to me, ‘You’re about to become a fully-fledged member of the Brotherhood.’

  ‘I’m honestly fine with having a sister.’

  ‘Don’t speak.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘If you ever reveal any of this to anyone, you’ll suffer painful and long-lasting consequences. Understand?’

  Starkey’s reappearance with the bat sent shivers down my spine – all the way to the nub, the exclamation mark of my worst fears. I scanned the park and saw Pericles, Isa and Phoenix still standing on the bridge over the stormwater canal. Nobody else from school was around. I attempted to send a message telepathically, asking them to remain as witnesses from a safe distance, but only Nads read my mind – or the direction of my gaze. He turned and spotted the trio. ‘Sorry, no spectators,’ he said as if they could hear him from so far away. ‘Move along, nothing to see.’ He waved them off.

  Phoenix returned a single finger and the three of them headed towards Edgecliff Station without looking back.

  ‘Time for us to pay a visit to the Nang-Nang,’ Nads said.

  Starkey started a chant: ‘Nang-nang-nang-nang-nang-nang.’

  ‘What’s the Nang-Nang?’

  ‘All of your most hellacious nightmares in subhuman form,’ Nads said. ‘The local lolly-baiter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s a paedo. A registered sex offender.’

  ‘The filthy old bastard pisses his pants and stinks like shit,’ Starkey said.

  ‘Why’s he called the Nang-Nang?’

  ‘Years ago he spilt the beans on some big drug lord – blabbed to the cops,’ Nads said. ‘Mr Big got thrown into the slammer. His heavies hunted down the Nang-Nang for payback. Cut off his tongue for squealing.’

  ‘Can’t talk anymore,’ Starkey said with bulging eyes. ‘All he can say is “nangnangnangnang”.’ He waved his arms above his head, bumping me along with his chest.

  Walking up the backstreets of Darlinghurst, fear trickled cold down my sides. I wasn’t scared of the Nang-Nang – I was scared for him. Starkey was tapping the fat end of the bat in the palm of his hand, again murmuring ‘nangnangnang’.

  ‘Why do we have to go and see him?’ I said, stopping.

  ‘It’s part of the relocation plan,’ Nads said. ‘We’re providing him with some gentle encouragement to move away from the hood.’

  ‘He’s too close to Crestfield,’ Starkey said.

  ‘What’s the bat for?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  The street we were walking along was empty except for five or six cockatoos perched on poles. I slid my phone from my pocket, hoping to find a message requesting my immediate presence elsewhere. Starkey snatched it away before I had a chance.

  ‘No photos,’ he said, and put it in his bag. We continued past the workers’ cottages towards the old man’s property on the corner, confirming my hunch that the ‘Nang-Nang’ was the old guy who’d sold me the bike.

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Tough shit!’ Starkey clawed the neck of my shirt and twisted it till it bit into my skin. Then, mock-soothingly, as if pacifying a crippled pigeon whose neck he was about to snap, he said, ‘Calm down and don’t ask questions. Do exactly what we say and nobody’ll get hurt.’ We stopped at the junkyard.

  ‘Keep watch,’ Nads said. He pressed his shoulder into the wire gate and pushed, causing the unlifted bolt below to grind a screeching arc into the concrete. He squeezed through the gap and reached back for the softball bat.

  There were six rosebushes in bloom. Nads crouched beneath the window line of the cottage and crept to the closest one. Twisting his shoulders and lowering the bat, he lined up his shot then swung the bat skywards, hitting the top rose with such force it exploded silently into a hundred pieces that fell to Earth like the dying red sparks of a firecracker. Starkey cackled, hands bearing down on my shoulders, pinning me to the spot.

  Nads passed the bat to Mullows, who performed the same act of violation on the second rosebush with clinical precision, expressionless, merely executing his duty. Starkey, unable to wait his turn, let go of me and pushed through the gate, snatching the bat before letting Mullows out. He strutted past the windows to the third bush, oblivious to the possibility that the old man was home. He cranked the bat way back then snapped it forward with such uncontrolled aggression he missed the bush completely, performing a clumsy pirouette.

  ‘Just warming up,’ he said, and proceeded to smash every one of the seven flowers, counting as he struck them from their stems. He turned to us, lifting the bat above his head, and took a bow. Nobody applauded.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Nads snarled, but Starkey ignored him. He slid the bat under his arm and hefted the shop mannequin from the dumpster, held her from behind and pumped his hips against her.

  ‘C’mon baby! C’mon, c’mon! Tell me you want it.’ Two green hundred-dollar bills, dislodged from the mannequin’s fingers by Starkey’s violent jerking, fluttered to the ground.

  ‘Get out now!’ Nads said.

  In one fluid movement Starkey laid down the mannequin, picked up the notes and pocketed them. I was dumbstruck, unable to tell them that the cash had been the payment for my bike – and in doing so reveal I knew the old man. One of the cockatoos swooped low, splitting the thick air with a furious squawk.

  Starkey rammed the bat into my gut and said, ‘Your turn.’ My head was mushy with panic as I squeezed through the gate, devoid of escape options. I’d asked Heather Treadwell to pray for a miracle and I think she must have taken me seriously because at that exact moment Pop Locke appeared in my mind’s eye. His hair was slick from a visit to Joe and Vic’s. I could smell the Swiss Valley Hair Pomade™ – maybe that was just the shredded rose petals? He looked pleased to see me, but when I held up the bat his smile dropped. And I clearly heard him say, ‘Lincoln, what are you doing?’

  ‘What the uck-fay are you doing?’ Nads said. ‘Smash it up!’

  I lowered the bat and shook my head.

  Starkey shut the gate, trapping me in the yard. ‘NANGNANGNANG!’ he yelled. He pushed the bolt into its hole and stood on it. Nads jumped onto the wire fence and shook it like a rioting prisoner.

  ‘NANGNANGNANGNANGNANGNANGNANG!’

  I froze. The bat fell from my hand.

  I imagined myself melting, liquefying, running down the drain and flowing like filthy sullage through the stormwater pipe to the canal under the bridge that Pericles, Isa and Phoenix had been standing on, floating out to the harbour – way out, to be absorbed by the deep blue ocean.

  The >SMACK!< of a rickety screen door returned me to my senses like a slap in the face. The old man came lurching around the side of the house. Nads, Mullows and Starkey fled.

  ‘Johnny-come-lately. Run rabbit run! Johnny shot the buggers with an elephant gun.’ He sounded like Dr Seuss on a bender.

  I raised trembling hands. ‘Good afternoon, sir. You probably don’t remember me. I’m the kid who bought the Malvern Star.’ I was seconds away from soiling my shorts.

  ‘Ruby Rose. Turned-up toes. Long black car. Off she goes.’ He registered the torn petals scattered on the concrete. ‘The hooligans came back, Rube.’ Fixing me with his one good Bombay Sapphire eye as he backed me up against the wire fence, he said, ‘You’re one of them, aren’t ya, Finnegan Beginagain?’

  ‘They’re not my friends.’

  ‘Billy Liar!’ he shouted at my face, the fence pressing diamonds into the back of my head, the thin air between us souring from his fermented breath. ‘Get out of here.’

  I picked up the bat.

  ‘NOW!’ he yelled.

  I dropped the bat, pushed the gate open and ran.

 
Ten metres shy of the corner, something hit the back of my leg and felled me. I’d been shot by Johnny’s elephant gun, whoever Johnny was. Rocking and groaning on the nature strip, I felt the liquid warmth of blood seeping from the bullet wound in my hamstring. My life flashed before me, and it was a short and disappointing movie. The thought that I may never experience anything more exciting than pashing Nicole Parker distressed me. I wanted to live some more.

  I was dizzy and possibly going into shock. Starkey still had my phone, so I couldn’t call an ambulance. What would Bear Grylls do? Staunch the flow with a tourniquet made from his t-shirt. But when I reached around to assess my potentially fatal injury, I discovered my leg was bone dry. Sore and tender but there was no blood, not even a drop. My life had been spared.

  I looked back down the street and saw that the crazy old git had gone. The projectile was in the gutter – a wooden ball the size of a grapefruit, too large to pass through the drain’s iron grate. Dividing the two hemispheres of the ball was a metal equator engraved with the word ‘Pemberton’s.’ I unscrewed them and found inside a small metal cylinder, which was empty.

  The Nang-Nang may have been a cantankerous and mad old fart with a volatile temper, but he’d been acting in self-defence. He’d found me in his property with a softball bat. As much as it hurt, I didn’t blame him for pegging the wooden ball at me.

  Remembering the bat was still behind his fence and I’d been the last to hold it, I limped back to the junkyard to retrieve it. I heard him around the back giving a rambling account of the incident – hopefully to Percy, not the police. I slid through the gate, switched ball for bat and left.

  ‘Sport today, was it champ?’ Frank the concierge said when I walked into the lobby with the bat. He frowned. ‘Are you limping?’

  ‘I got hit by a ball. Any mail?’ I said to block further enquiry.

  ‘Afraid not.’ As I passed Frank’s desk he added, ‘Nasty bruise you’ve got there. I’d get some ice onto that quick smart.’