The Origin of Me

by Bernard Gallate

  Safely back in the apartment, I checked out my bruise in the mirror. It was the size of a bread plate, a yellow-grey circle with a dark purple circumference, parts of it almost black. The graphic nature of my injury vindicated me for thinking I’d been shot by an elephant gun. But I also saw something more disturbing. The nub appeared to have the same diameter as before, but it was definitely protruding more. Maybe I could ice it as well as the bruise?

  No ice in the freezer. Phone gone. I called my mobile from the landline and Starkey answered.

  ‘Hello?’ he said in a fake voice. ‘Stinkin’ Lincoln’s phone.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Hey, piker! I was waiting for your call. Did the Nang-Nang get you?’

  I gave him a condensed version of the assault.

  ‘That bentarsesonofabitch fully nailed you.’

  ‘Can you bring my phone to school tomorrow?’

  ‘Sorry but it’s closed on Saturday, dickhead.’

  ‘Monday then. Please don’t forget.’

  ‘Wait. You got a message. Some hot chick’s cooking dinner on Sunday and she wants you to go. She’s begging for it, man. Her name was something stupid like Venn.’

  ‘That’s my sister.’

  ‘What’s it short for – Vendetta?’

  ‘Please just turn off my phone and bring it on Monday.’

  He hung up. Fifteen minutes later the landline rung. It was Starkey. ‘Just got a message from your dad. He’s entertaining clients tonight. What is he – a hustler?’

  ‘Advertising.’

  ‘Does he sell Coke or snort it?’

  ‘Just bring my phone on Monday,’ I said, and hung up.

  I sat on the balcony, knitting as the sinking sun turned the sky atomic orange, like the colour of my wool and probably the end of the world. The afternoon’s drama played through my mind on continuous loop until I finally twigged. I’d read about a wooden ball like the one that had hit me. I ran through the books on my reading list – Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, Frankenstein. It featured in none of them. And then I remembered – My One Redeeming Affliction. I found the passage:

  It rolled through to the other side, then down a switchback before dropping onto a red velvet cushion in a basket.

  ‘Troublesome thing,’ Esther said, making a performance of unscrewing the two halves. She turned her back on the customer to read the scrawled message:

  Insolence will not be tolerated!

  My ball also had two halves that could unscrew. And it had something engraved on the metal seam – what was it? Perkins? Peabody’s? Pennington’s?

  Pemberton’s! I scanned the book again and discovered the hat-maker was located in Pemberton’s Magnificent Emporium.

  Saturday morning Dad burst into my room singing ‘Good Morning Starshine’ from the musical Hair. When he hit the ‘Sabba sibby sabba’ part in falsetto, I begged him to stop.

  ‘Get your trainers on,’ he said. ‘We’re going in five.’

  ‘It’s Saturday. I’m going to sleep in.’

  ‘You already have. It’s eight-thirty. Quick sticks!’

  The bruise had expanded and darkened overnight, so I wore long boardies to hide it. In the kitchen I took a box of Nutri-Grain® from the cupboard but Dad snatched it away mid-pour. ‘No time for breakfast,’ he said. It dawned on me that he was playing hardarse so that I’d want to return to Signal Bay on weekends.

  ‘Bugger that,’ Homunculus said. ‘Keep up with him and pretend to enjoy it.’

  We trotted down the McElhone Stairs en route to Garden Island, where a gargantuan American aircraft carrier was docked. Its crew, all short and broad with buzz cuts, were joining the tourists for a Harry’s pie. Crossing over to the Botanic Gardens, we ran past Boy Charlton Pool and got trapped behind a troop of weekend warriors wearing nothing but Speedos and trainers, every foot strike rippling their back fat.

  I stayed with Dad all the way to Farm Cove – a.k.a. Woccanmagully, as I’d learnt in Aboriginal Studies. There on Gadigal land, men had once gathered to perform Yoo-long Erah-ba-diang – a ceremony where boys sat on the shoulders of male relatives and had one of their upper teeth knocked out. An initiation where boys became men. All about respect for elders. The opposite of my initiation, in which an elderly man had been tormented by juvenile delinquents. The opposite of Mum’s impending launch here, where people would gather to marvel at a product formulated to make you look younger.

  We ran up and down the Fleet Steps two at a time until my leg cramped and I collapsed. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Dad said, still jogging on the spot. ‘Kenny Wallis, my rugby coach back in the day, made us do burpees if we lagged behind.’ He dropped, kicked out his legs, tucked them in and jumped. ‘C’mon! Let’s see what you’re made of. What’s wrong with you, pussy?’

  ‘This small thing,’ I said, hitching up my boardies to show him the bruise. ‘I got hit by a ball yesterday.’

  He looked concerned, and thankfully changed tack. ‘Ooh, looks sore. We need to get ice onto that. Let’s walk back.’

  Without mentioning anything to do with ‘the Brotherhood,’ I asked Dad if they’d had initiation ceremonies in his rugby days.

  ‘Mandatory dunny flushing for all new players,’ he said. ‘After my first training session, six of the bigger guys jumped me and dragged me into the change shed.’

  ‘Did you fight back?’

  ‘They’d just done Trev Pullitt and he’d lost a front tooth – smashed it on the side of the shitter. So I stopped struggling once I got near. They lifted me upside down, shoved my head into the bowl and flushed. Thought I was going to drown on piss. Bastards flushed it three more times.’

  ‘Brutal. Then what?’

  ‘I ran home, gargled Listerine and stood under the shower for half an hour.’ He laughed. ‘Pop Locke clipped me over the ear for using all the hot water. He was different back then. Really hard on me. Did I ever tell you that before and after school I had to work in the bakery, right through to the end of Year 12? It was no small miracle that I got into university, but he was disappointed that I didn’t want to take over the business. As you know, it had been in his family for three generations. Anyway, he softened when you kids came along. Transformed into a different person. You were his little prince,’ he said, with what sounded like a tinge of jealousy.

  We climbed the McElhone Stairs in silence and I thought again about Pop telling me that when a person knows their ancestors they’ll never be alone. Reaching the top of the stairs, I asked Dad why he had no siblings.

  ‘Let’s go and sit down over there,’ he said. We walked into Embarkation Park and sat on a bench facing the city skyline, gold with the still-rising sun. ‘I did have some foster brothers and sisters at different times. But Nana and Pop couldn’t have children.’

  ‘They had you, though?’

  ‘Well, not really. I’ve got a bit of a story to tell you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Pop Locke found me. I was abandoned on the steps of St John’s, where he was church warden. Pop and Nana were allowed to foster me after I’d been a week in the hospital. And some time later they were granted permission to officially adopt me.’

  I remained silent.

  ‘It’s okay, mate. I know it’s a lot to take in all at once. I was ten when they told me.’

  ‘But why? Why didn’t you ever tell us?’

  ‘It knocked me for six. Because unless my birth parents identified themselves, I’d never be able to find them. They never came. Nana and Pop constantly told me that I was a gift from God, which was a tough gig to live up to. I went through a pretty rough rebellion stage. Anyway, your and Venn’s relationship with Pop was something really special. Probably closer than mine ever was. And it just felt wrong to make him seem anything less than your true grandfather. Because he was – he is.’

  We stayed on the bench for over an hour. We talked about Dad’s early identity crisis, and his years of speculating that his mother or father could’ve been watching his life from afar without ide
ntifying themselves. I thought back to the History lesson a couple of weeks ago. My dad was a foundling, like Moses and Snow White and Superman. He’d been raised by a humble couple who ran a bakery and he’d made a huge success of his life in advertising. But he admitted, with tears in his eyes, that Pop had never been happy with his chosen career path.

  ‘What was the unfinished business with Pop that you mentioned on the night before my birthday?’

  ‘I’d just told him that we’d won the Rising Loaf account, the big breads and cereals company. I thought he’d finally be impressed, but—’ Dad shook his head, unable to continue. He whimpered and struggled for breath and it was almost unbearable to witness him breaking. ‘Fuck it all!’ he said, and recomposed himself. ‘He told me that I’d sacrificed my family in the process. And that was our last conversation.’ He exhaled loudly, shaking himself out. ‘Let’s get some ice onto that bruise of yours, eh?’

  On Sunday, Dad worked from home and I wrote an essay on Dorian Gray comparing the treatment of the external and internal self in the book with the same in contemporary life. Dorian’s signs of ageing and corruption appeared on his portrait, which was hidden away from public view. Conversely, my newsfeeds were filled with people posting digitally perfected images of themselves, hoping to be gratified by the likes. I proposed that in both instances this compulsion to maintain our self-image eventually has a detrimental effect on the soul.

  This afternoon Dad and I hovered around each other, tentative after his confession and the new understanding it had brought between us. But still the unspoken Maëlle thing lingered in the air. When he flagged the idea of calling Venn to tell her the story of his origin, I said that she probably wouldn’t take the call. So he used the landline, which didn’t have caller ID, and Mum answered.

  From the lounge room I could hear Dad’s side of an argument that, for reasons unknown, seemed to be about me. The call lasted less than three minutes and he didn’t get through to Venn.

  Dad came out and warned me that I was squarely in the doghouse with him. Then he asked if I’d sent Mum an offensive text message.

  ‘Of course not. I lost my phone on Friday, remember?’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to sort this one out on your own when you get it back. Nobody over there wants to talk to me.’

  Starkey must’ve sent my mother a message. I dreaded what it could have been.

  On Monday morning, I walked to school super early carrying the softball bat in a postal tube, hoping nobody would see me returning it. My plan backfired on arrival, when I discovered The Hive was locked. I could smell Mr Jespersen’s Indonesian clove cigarette in the air. Dressed in paint-splashed grey coveralls and a tatty Greek fisherman’s cap, the caretaker came around the corner of the building pushing an equipment cart made from a repurposed golf buggy that made him look like the lone survivor of the apocalypse. I told him I was returning some equipment for Mr Simmons. He shrugged, unhitched a key ring the size of a basketball hoop from his belt, chose one of the 738 keys and opened the main doors of The Hive. I sneaked down to the storeroom and replaced the bat, prematurely congratulating myself on the reverse heist. On my way back to the front, however, I heard someone coming through the doors. I pulled my towel from my bag and slung it over my shoulder.

  ‘What are you doing here so early, germ?’ Simmons said.

  ‘I came to warm up before squad, sir.’

  ‘You know that’s forbidden without a staff member present. There’d be sweet hell to pay if you injured yourself or, God forbid, drowned. Not that you’d care because you’d be dead. I should report this on The Owl – but I won’t. Let’s both hope you weren’t caught on camera. Now get out and let me eat in peace.’

  Nads and Mullows arrived together and wanted a firsthand account of what had happened after they scarpered on Friday. I gave them an embellished version and showed them the bruise.

  ‘Meaty,’ Nads said. ‘Did you bring the bat?’

  ‘It’s back in the storeroom.’

  ‘Anybody see you?’ Mullows said.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, you didn’t pass the initiation,’ Nads said. ‘But, taking into account the hammering you copped from the Nang-Nang and your successful mission with the bat, I forward the motion that you be accepted into the Brotherhood.’

  ‘Here, here,’ Mullows said, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Motion passed.’ Nads thumped me.

  After training, Starkey returned my phone with a dead battery. ‘I called a few of your friends,’ he said.

  ‘You’re joking?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing funny about it.’

  The electronic glockenspiel chimed in an unfamiliar way.

  ‘Special assembly,’ Starkey said. ‘Rumour has it that Tibor Mintz is being awarded the Crestfield Medal for Brownnosing.’

  In ascending years we filed into the Joseph Millington Drake Auditorium. Assisting with the pointlessly regimental procedure were Tibor and Isa, who both seemed to perform an inordinate amount of school service.

  The lights dimmed, the chatter died down. Someone wolf-whistled, another impersonated a ghost and a third arm-farted, causing the entire assembly to erupt in laughter. Silence returned when Dashwood strode onto the stage. He could’ve been the handsome, silver-haired commander of a Tactical Operations Unit, except for his occasional lip-licking.

  He adjusted his tie and tapped the microphone. ‘Good morning, student body and members of staff. Before I address a most serious matter, Mrs Hammond will lead us in the school anthem to remind us of the values our school was founded on.’

  The anthem lasted forever. This was the final verse:

  Live a life of virtue.

  Uphold the Golden Rule.

  Community ambassadors,

  bring glory to your school.

  ‘Fine words indeed,’ Dashwood said, and licked his lips. ‘But amongst us are students who have not behaved as community ambassadors.’ A shock of adrenaline surged through my veins. ‘Boys who have behaved like hooligans and heaped burning coals of shame onto our beloved school.’ He double-side-licked. Sweat dripped from my pits. ‘Ruffians who’ve vandalised the property of an elderly member of the community. To say I’m appalled by their disgraceful behaviour would be a gross understatement. Would the boys whose names I call join me onstage? Darvin Naylor . . . Evan Starkey . . . Hurry up, lad! And Sean Mulligan.’

  I rocked forward, preparing to stand, but my name wasn’t called. Relief washed over me like a wave of raw sewage.

  Dashwood announced to the entire school their four-day suspension and five hours of community service every weekend till the end of term. From centre stage, Nads gave me the death stare of an outlaw betrayed by his own gang member. The assembly was dismissed, and the condemned trio were led away by Dashwood.

  ‘You were so lucky,’ Pericles said on our way to Maths.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I’m not stupid. I saw the bruise on your leg at training.’

  ‘I got hit by the softball.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Considering that Pericles, Isa and Phoenix had all seen me with them, there was no point in keeping the details of the initiation secret – and I still desperately needed a friend. So I told him the whole story.

  ‘That’s brutal,’ he said. ‘They must think you squealed.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘They’ll be planning retribution. What are we going to do?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I’m fully in,’ Pericles said. ‘A hundred per cent.’

  ‘Suggestions?’

  ‘You could hire after-school protection. My cousin Angelo’s a nightclub bouncer – massive unit, all muscle. I could organise mate’s rates.’

  ‘Terrific.’

  At lunchtime Pericles helped fix my tyre with a puncture-repair kit and a bucket borrowed from Mr Jespersen. When I held the inflated innertube underwater to locate the holes, it fizzled in five places.

  ‘Byron Pag
et is such a little sphincter,’ Pericles said. ‘You’d think once was enough.’

  ‘At least it wasn’t stolen.’

  ‘The bike’s a bit old for that.’

  ‘Old things have greater value. They’ve stood the test of time. More people might’ve used them, but that gives them a history. Imagine all the adventures this bike has taken people on in its thirty years of service.’

  ‘All the sweaty arses that have sat on the seat.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not fully anti-consumerist. I want a new surfboard, but my finances are low and I’m not in a good position for mooching.’

  ‘So get a job.’

  ‘I would if Maccas wasn’t the only option.’

  ‘You serious about wanting a job?’

  ‘Hundred per cent.’

  ‘I might be able to help.’ Pericles pulled out his phone, called his Uncle Manos and handed it to me. Uncle Manos gave me a two-minute interview then asked if an avocado was a vegetable or a fruit. When I answered correctly he said, ‘I like you, Lincoln. A friend of Perilakimu is a friend of his Uncle Manos. You’re a good boy. You’ve got the job.’

  So that was settled. I’d be working 5 to 9 pm on Thursdays, and maybe some Fridays, at Give Me the Juice at Bondi Junction with Perilakimu. Aside from the very real possibility of those three goons seeking revenge, it seemed like things might be improving.

  I arrived home, plugged my phone into the charger and checked all the messages I’d missed while Starkey had it. All two of them. One from Venn and one from Mum, both saying they’d missed me and urging me to go over for dinner yesterday. I felt sick when I read Starkey’s malevolent response to my mother:

  BACK OFF YOU STUPID COW! I’D RATHER EAT MY OWN SHIT!!!

  No wonder she’d cracked it on the phone with Dad. I called her to explain that it wasn’t me, but she didn’t believe me.

  ‘We all have our moments of irrational anger and sometimes fail to think before we act,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t excuse your destructive behaviour. Your remark was highly offensive and deeply upsetting, and I expect an apology.’