by Sean Kennedy
MICAH: Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I’d rather not talk about that.
JASPER: No new guy on the horizon?
MICAH: Nope. Next question.
JASPER: Okay. Obviously a sore area. No pun intended!
MICAH: Oh, grow up, Jasper.
JASPER: Just kidding. The readers obviously can’t see just how much you’re glaring at me at the moment.
MICAH: If looks could kill.
JASPER: Yes, it’s very reminiscent of someone I know. Which reminds me, are you still in contact with Declan Tyler?
MICAH: Of course I am, as you well know. He and his partner, Simon, are very good friends and they always check in with me. Dec switched teams—
JASPER: Switched teams, ha! Declan Tyler never switched teams, apparently.
MICAH: Hilarious, Jasper. But Dec had to move from Melbourne to Tasmania only a couple of years into his playing career, so he’s given me lots of good advice about how to cope.
JASPER: But he was a little bit older than you are now. Plus he’d already been playing professionally, so he’d had more experience under his belt.
MICAH: True, but I’m being looked after by the Mitchells. The Dockers made sure they gave me a good family to live with, and they’re keeping me in line.
JASPER: You, being kept in line? Is this a totally different Micah Johnson, then?
MICAH: A little wiser, maybe. A little more prone to listening to people other than myself.
JASPER: Sounds dreadful.
MICAH: It is, a little bit. I just don’t know what to do with myself.
JASPER: And how does it feel to be the first out, at least from the beginning of your career, AFL player?
MICAH: Pretty strange, actually.
JASPER: How?
MICAH: I mean, I should say, that it’s all good. The coach and the team are very proactive about tackling homophobia on the field and out in public. But I feel like they’re trying to set me up as a role model, which I don’t think I’m the best example for. I mean, if you want a great AFL role model, who happens to be gay, you go to Declan Tyler. Not me.
JASPER: I think you’re underselling yourself, there.
MICAH: No. I honestly don’t. Declan is a born leader, and a natural role model. I tend to screw up a lot and make a shitload of mistakes.
JASPER: Surely that makes you a more human role model?
MICAH: Are you saying Declan Tyler isn’t human?
JASPER: No, I know from experience he is.
MICAH: I should think so after that book you wrote [redacted—Ed.].
JASPER: Moving on.
MICAH: Probably for the best.
We here at Reach Out think he’s being a bit hard on himself. It is an understatement to say how much of an impact Micah Johnson could have on the young fans of AFL, both queer and straight. We can only hope this is the beginning of a long and illustrious career.
Micah Johnson is, in his own words, “getting his shit together.” And we can’t wait to watch.
Chapter 1
MICAH JOHNSON wasn’t getting his shit together.
He was already getting used to giving the interview everybody wanted to hear, not the reality he was experiencing.
Sure, some parts of his life were good.
He had his own car, for example. Okay, he didn’t own it outright. But it was amazing, the world of credit that had opened to him even on a rookie’s salary. He often went on drives, exploring the city. Locked in his own little cocoon, with the stereo blaring, he felt protected from the world without. If his “foster” family thought it was odd that he disappeared for lengthy periods, they didn’t say that much about it. They made every effort to make him feel welcome—well, all except Sam’s younger brother Dane, but the less said about that the better—Micah could tell they were puzzled he wasn’t doing more to try and fit in and join their own activities. Now that he had a car, he didn’t even ride in with Sam to practice anymore. It was nothing against Sam—Micah just didn’t want to be the tagalong, the burden, the annoyance that Sam had to put up with.
So he just felt more alienated and alone.
And horny. Recently he had a taste of what it was like to have a boyfriend, and the intimacy that came with it. He tried to write it off as mere horniness, but he was craving more than that. He missed Kyle. Not just the sex, but the conversations, the cuddles, the light touches. The feeling that he was wanted.
So he turned to apps. He knew they weren’t giving him what he really needed, but they fulfilled him for at least a few minutes until he felt even lonelier.
He had just come from some guy’s house—he couldn’t even remember his name now. If it had even been his real name. The guy was flushed with embarrassment, and wanted the deed to be over and done with as quickly as possible.
Micah hadn’t cared. That was fine by him.
Sticky, and desperate to wipe the smell of the other guy off him, Micah stopped at the beach. It was blisteringly hot, but fully clothed in his t-shirt and shorts, he waded into the water. He stood looking at the horizon for a while, blinded by the sun. Perth was flat, the sand burnt white hot beneath the unforgiving sun, but they sure had beautiful beaches. You wouldn’t believe the difference between Trigg Beach north of Perth and St. Kilda in Melbourne, for example.
Micah strode further out into the surf, and let himself sink beneath the waves. Cleansed, he broke the surface and doggy paddled for a while.
He quickly used the outdoor shower to wash away the salt on his skin, and back at the car, he laid a towel upon the seat so it wouldn’t get too wet. He blasted the air conditioning as he drove “home,” not caring how cold it made him.
The Mitchells lived near the beach. Sam obviously made more money and had a better line of credit, because his mortgage had to be huge. If you went to the second floor and onto the various balconies, you could see the ocean. Micah was glad his room was up here, although he didn’t get that view from his bedroom. It meant he spent a lot of time in the lounge, reading or surfing the net on the balcony. Only he and Dane lived up here, and Dane made an effort to keep out of his way, so it was almost like he had his own flat. Their parents were on the first floor, and Sam and Maia had the rather luxurious “granny flat” out behind the pool. Even if you lived that close to the ocean you still needed a pool. Perth people loved their water.
Micah should never want to leave. Everything was here.
Except his family. His friends. His boyfriend.
Ex boyfriend.
As Micah rolled into the driveway, Sam was standing at the end as if he was waiting for him. His blond hair glinted in the sun, making him look like a model for Billabong surf wear. What with his girlfriend, his family, his house, and his career, Micah felt like he should have resented Sam.
But he already felt too attached—Sam was the older brother he had always wanted for himself, instead of having to be the older brother. But with that came Sam’s mother-hennish nature. And Micah felt he was in for a lecture.
“Hey, Micah,” Sam said, pleasantly enough.
Micah slammed his car door and activated the locks. “Hey.”
“Have you been at the beach?”
“Yeah. Went for a drive and a swim.”
“You should have told me. I would have come.”
Micah coloured as he thought of the real reason he had gone out, and what Sam might have thought of those activities. Micah wouldn’t be lying if he admitted that Sam was uncomfortably good-looking, and before he had gotten to know him better, Micah had been slightly perturbed by Sam’s ease around him, both in the house and the change rooms at the stadium. Not that he had thought Sam was coming on to him, just that he was trying a little too hard to be cool with the first out gay on his team.
“It’s okay. I wanted some alone time.”
He dreaded seeing a look of concern on Sam’s face. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Talk?” Micah asked, in a faux jovial tone. “We’re manly footballing
men! We don’t talk!”
“Some of us do,” Sam said. “That’s one of the reasons why I was chosen to take you in.”
“I’m fine, really.” Micah attempted to get past him. “I need a proper shower.”
In fact, he dreaded just how much information Sam might be able to drag out of him. He was an expert conversationalist, and over many a late-night beer, he had managed to coax personal details out of Micah that had taken others years to learn, and often with force. Or maybe Micah had never been plied with alcohol before. Hang on, that surely wasn’t in the dealing with your AFL foster brother handbook! Not with the AFL’s crackdown on any kind of illicit substance.
“You’re not fine.” Sam gently placed a hand on his chest to stop him disappearing.
Oh, God. What if he had been following him? No, surely he wouldn’t go that far.
“I told you, I am.” Micah was sure there was a fine sheen of sweat on his brow, an inescapable sign of obfuscation.
“Are you homesick?”
That was why he thought Micah was acting strangely? Come to think of it, maybe he was partly right. He sure wasn’t acting normal. Or, at least, even normal for Micah Johnson, former tearaway, runaway, and fucker-upper.
Former? That was a laugh.
“Of course I am.”
Sam seemed to visibly relax—as if he thought that was the solution to all of Micah’s problems. “Of course you are. It’s expected. But cutting yourself off from the rest of us isn’t the way to handle it, kid.”
Micah wanted to bristle at the use of the word “kid,” but honestly it coincided with the feeling that Sam was like an older brother so he kind of liked it. It also reminded him of Declan Tyler, and made Micah miss him even more. Sam had to have big shoes to try and fill in for Dec.
“I’m not cutting myself off,” Micah said. “Really. It’s just, sometimes, I need to be by myself. It’s how I deal.”
“Well, maybe you need to change that.”
“But it works for me.”
Sam shook his head. “It’s not. Because you’re still miserable, and nothing’s changing. It’s not just us, here at home, who think it. The chiefs think so as well.”
“The chiefs” was the nickname given to the coach of the Dockers and the other bigwigs who controlled their destinies as if they were some amorphous blob with one distinct personality.
“They have nothing to worry about.”
“They do, actually. It’s not like they haven’t seen this before. And get nervous about what could happen next.”
Micah began to feel irritated. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ve got to want to do it as well, or else it will never work. You need to engage more. Bond with the team. Bond with my family. Maybe then you won’t feel so alone.”
“Bond with Dane?” Micah asked, pointedly.
Sam sighed. “Okay, that’s a bit of a problem. My brother… well, he’s got his own issues.”
“Yeah, he hates me for a start.”
“No, he doesn’t hate you—” Despite Micah giving him a very sarcastic eye roll Sam pressed on. “Just, he has a lot of stuff going on, and he, well—”
“Hates me.”
“Sees you as something completely different. You’re another me. Dane and I aren’t alike. But now you’re here, you play footy, I am ‘mentoring’ you, for lack of a better word, and he sees you as—”
“A cuckoo?” Micah suggested.
“Huh?”
“Some cuckoos lay their eggs in other nests, and let them be raised there. I’m a cuckoo in another bird’s nest.”
Sam grinned. “That’s an interesting way to look at it.”
“I’m nothing if not interesting.”
“I actually think Dane has more in common with you than he thinks, but it may take him some time to realise it.”
Micah inwardly scoffed at this, but didn’t say anything. His scepticism was probably openly broadcast on his face.
If so, Sam ignored it. “So, we’ll all try a little harder, okay?”
“Deal,” Micah said.
“Shall we shake on it?”
Micah stuck out his hand, and Sam used it to pull him in for a hug and a manly back clap. “Good man.”
“Sure.”
His work done, Sam walked off, grinning, to his flat.
Micah stood in the carport for a while, wondering if he would ever stop lying to people.
LUCKILY SAM’S parents Rhonda and Pete weren’t home, so Micah could escape upstairs without having to endure yet another conversation about what he had been doing with himself that day and how he was finding Perth and did he need anything, etc., etc. Micah knew he most likely sounded ungrateful and brattish when he resented people trying to be genuinely nice to him, but sometimes nice was too much.
He liked being left alone sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. It was how he felt most comfortable.
He wasn’t lucky enough to escape Dane, though. There must have been a blue moon preparing to rise in the sky tonight, as Dane was actually in the lounge. Sullenly absorbed in his Xbox, he didn’t even look up when Micah entered.
“Hey,” Micah said, at least trying to look sociable and friendly.
Dane grunted in reply.
Micah really wasn’t expecting anything more. In fact, he was expecting a lot less. At least this had been an acknowledgement of sorts.
He stood there for a moment, wondering what to do. Dane was in some sort of shoot ’em up game, and a controller was lying free beside him. Micah didn’t really want company, but Sam had pled for him to be more open with the Mitchell clan. He stepped over Dane’s outstretched legs and picked up the controller.
“Mind if I jump in?” he asked.
“Free country,” Dane mumbled.
It wasn’t exactly streamers and a parade, but it would do.
Micah jumped into the game, his avatar materialising beside Dane’s on the television screen.
“Try not to get me killed,” Dane said.
He had said more to him in these last three minutes than he had in the past week.
“I’ll try my best,” Micah told him.
He also made sure to keep as much room as possible between them. Although he had never said so, Micah could tell Dane wasn’t entirely happy about a known homosexualist invading his living space. Dane was in his last year of high school, and probably still felt the pressure of being a normal heterosexual boy—and as every paper had trumpeted that new Dockers recruit Micah Johnson was living with Sam Mitchell and his family, it was probably all around Dane’s school. Micah could only imagine what was being said to Dane. So he cut the guy some slack, even if it usually exploded in his face.
Dane was so different to Sam—Sam was tactile with everybody, very comfortable with dispensing hugs and casual touches. Dane was in dire need of a stress ball, all tight and with a flashing sign above his head that growled stay away. He didn’t seem to have many friends either—maybe that was a consequence of having a famous brother: you didn’t know who your true friends were.
So all in all, Micah felt a bit sorry for him, even if it wasn’t reciprocated.
“Aww,” said Sam, from where he had suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Look at you two, getting along.”
Dane didn’t look up. He casually blew away an enemy soldier, and his gun’s sight tracked briefly over Micah’s avatar. “Just playing a game.”
“Cool,” Sam said, blatantly ignoring Dane’s not-so-subtle rebuke of any friendliness between him and Micah. “We’re having a barbie for dinner.”
“Surprise,” Dane mumbled.
“Sounds good,” Micah said, to make up for Dane’s prickliness.
“You’re going to join us, Micah?” Sam asked.
It was rare that Micah didn’t join them for dinner, but he guessed that Sam meant he would be there in spirit as well, actively socialising and trying to come across like a normal human being.
“Sure thing,” Micah said, gunning down anot
her enemy.
“Excellent.” Sam left them to it.
“Excellent,” Dane mocked, and this time the gun’s sight didn’t waver over Micah’s avatar. He fired, and “Micah” disappeared in a spray of blood and bone.
“What the fuck?” Micah jumped up.
Dane shrugged, leapt to his feet and disappeared down the hallway, slamming his bedroom door behind him.
Micah switched off the console and the telly, and headed for the slim pickings of a sanctuary in his room as well.
Chapter 2
MICAH THREW himself down on his bed and activated FaceTime on his phone, hoping his mum would pick up.
She must have had her phone right by her; she picked up immediately. Relief flooded him when her face filled the screen. “Hi, honey!”
“Hey, Mum.”
“To what do I owe this wonderful pleasure of my famous son calling me of his own accord, twice in two days?”
“God, tone it down a bit, Mum. I always call you.”
Joanne nodded. “True. But you’ve been taking it up a notch lately. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” he lied. “Everything’s fine. Just wanting to touch base.”
“With little old us? I’m surprised you’d remember us, living in your palace by the sea.”
“The view’s nice.” He didn’t say what he ached to: that he would rather be in the boring outer suburbs of Melbourne with his family, nice view in Perth notwithstanding.
“You becoming a proper surfie?”
“Yep. Have my surfboard waxed and ready to ride the curl every morning, with The Beach Boys playing on my vintage record player.”
He actually was seeing a lot of the surf. The Dockers were firm believers in using Perth’s glorious beaches as training and recovery grounds for the players during the week. Micah had spent more time at the beach in the past two months than he had in his whole life.
“Groovy,” his mum said. “Oh wait, that was more of a sixties word, wasn’t it?”
“I’m pretty sure surfing and The Beach Boys were still around in the sixties. Didn’t Charles Manson live with them at some stage?”