Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  ‘Are you watching what you eat then, Bill?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Cutting back a bit maybe, and hooping.’

  ‘Well,’ Prindabel said, ‘if it’s not the dancing and it’s not the food, then by a simple process of elimination, you mustn’t be interested in …’

  Ignatius stopped in his tracks as it dawned on him where his logical process of elimination was about to wind up.

  Bill finished the journey for him. ‘Girls,’ he said.

  There was a bit of a gap in the conversation at that point and then Ignatius ventured, ‘Not interested in girls … at the moment?’

  ‘Not interested … ever.’

  Bill kept his eyes trained intently on his fingers. ‘You might as well know. I wanted to tell you all for ages anyway.’

  Silence. Stony cold, what-the-hell-do-we-say-now kind of silence.

  Prindabel frowned. ‘So … you’re telling us … you’re one of the very roughly estimated 2.1 per cent of the population who claim to be …’

  Bill nodded.

  Silence. The Extended Version. I tried to process what Bill was telling us but it kept getting blocked by a confusing image in my mind.

  ‘But Bill … last year at my dad’s concert … you danced with Sally … and you looked … pretty happy?’

  Bill smiled without looking up. ‘I was. She’s really nice. And she’s a great dancer too. It was like when I used to dance with Mum.’

  ‘So it wasn’t because …’

  Bill shook his head.

  ‘Right.’

  Silence. The Director’s Cut this time, with extra embarrassment and never before seen awkwardness. As always, it was left to Scobie to build a life raft of words and come to our rescue.

  ‘Well, Bill,’ he said, thrusting his hand forward, ‘I’d say congratulations are in order. You definitely win the award for Best and Most Original Excuse for Not Going to the Lourdes Semi-formal with Orazio.’

  Relieved laughter spilled around the table as Scobie and Bill shook hands and Bill at last found the strength to lift his eyes and smile. But it was only a second before his face collapsed in worry and doubt.

  Scobie, Ignatius and I followed the path of Bill’s gaze across the table. It led to Razz. His face was distorted with disgust and the full force of it was levelled at Bill Kingsley.

  ‘Razz?’ Bill said, just barely managing to get the name out. ‘Razz … you OK?’

  Everyone at the table held their breath and waited for the reply. Razz shook his head slowly and twisted his mouth into an ugly, bewildered sneer.

  ‘You like … ABBA?’ he said.

  20.

  THAT SMOKIN’ ELF CHICK

  After Bill’s surprise announcement any thought Scobie had of running a debating season review meeting pretty much went out the window.

  As for Razz, apart from the fact that according to him it showed a ‘complete lack of taste’, he insisted he was ‘totally cool’ with Bill ‘going for the other team’. To prove his point he added, ‘Geez, I’ve even got friends who support Manchester United. Can you believe it? Manchester United!’

  The rest of us looked at him vaguely while he continued.

  ‘And you should meet my Uncle Georgiou. Man, he didn’t just come out of the closet – he cartwheeled out in high heels! He does this act down at the Italian Club every month called ‘Show Tunes Serenade’. A couple of times I’ve filled in on drums. You should see his costumes. Mum says they’d make a peacock weep with envy. Uncle Georgiou is my dad’s brother. He’s helped my mum and me a lot. He’s a great guy.’ The smile that was on Razz’s lips hardened. ‘Heaps better than my dad ever was.’

  But just because Razz was ‘totally cool’ with Bill’s announcement, it didn’t mean that it made sense to him.

  ‘Bilbo, you’re totally into Lord of the Rings, right? So tell me this, if you had a choice between, like, that Aragorn dude you keep going on about and that smokin’ elf chick he had the hots for in the movie …’

  ‘You mean Arwen? Actually she was only half elfin. She and Aragorn met when …’

  ‘Yeah, terrific, anyway, her. My question is, are you honestly telling me, man, that if you had your choice between the two of them, you’d pick him?’

  Bill pushed out his bottom lip. ‘Might be a bit old … but if I had to choose … Yeah.’

  ‘Man, oh man,’ Razz said. ‘Unbelievable. So are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?’

  ‘Well,’ Scobie said, picking up his pen and tapping it on the blank sheet of paper in front of him, ‘as fascinating as all this is, can I remind everyone that we are in fact gathered here for a debriefing meeting and …’

  ‘Yeah, hang on, Scobes. I just got one more question, OK?’

  Scobie placed his pen on the empty sheet and flopped back in his seat, waving a weary hand at Razz to go ahead.

  ‘Cool. OK, Bilbo, tell me this. You said you liked dancing with Sally that time, right? So, if you had a chance to dance up close and personal with someone, who would you choose, Sally or … me?’

  ‘Definitely Sally,’ Bill said immediately.

  Razz pointed a finger at him. ‘AAAAA-HA!’ he shouted as if he’d caught Bill stealing his lunch. Then his face snapped into a frown. ‘Wait up. What’s wrong with me?’

  ‘Now’s there’s an excellent discussion topic for an episode of Doctor Phil,’ Scobie said.

  ‘Might require a double episode,’ Ignatius suggested helpfully.

  Razz grabbed his stomach.

  ‘Oh, ho, ho. You guys should form a comedy team,’ he said, ‘but here’s a little tip – just make sure neither of you is in it, OK?’

  Then he turned his attention back to Bill.

  ‘Come on, Hoop Boy. How come you’d pick Sally over me?’

  ‘She can dance better than you … and I don’t see you like that … at all.’

  ‘What! Why not? Not good enough for you, is that it? Not attractive enough? You guys are all the same. You don’t give two hooters about brains or personality. It’s all just looks, looks, looks to you lot. Well, I’ve got feelings too!’

  Razz threw himself forward on to the table and sobbed silently.

  ‘We can still be … friends,’ Bill said with a smile.

  ‘Oh yeah, sure. The old “just friends” brush-off, is it?’ Razz said, dragging himself upright. ‘Well, it looks like I’ll just have to go to the Lourdes Semi-formal without you, Bilbo, and Sal will get me on the rebound. Your loss, her gain.’

  As it turned out, things didn’t go quite the way Razz had planned.

  21.

  WELL AND TRULY NEWTONED

  When the day of the Lourdes College Semi-formal arrived, Razz found it harder than ever to concentrate in class. However, he did end up learning something that day. Ignatius described it as ‘a painful but valuable lesson in Newton’s Third Law of Motion’.

  It happened at lunchtime in the gym. Razz was playing in the annual inter-house indoor soccer competition. He was captaining our Charlton House team and we were well ahead with only a few minutes to go. This was mainly because Razz was easily the best soccer player in the school and pretty much untouchable on the court. Or he was until Liam Bannerman touched him.

  To be fair it wasn’t really Liam Bannerman’s fault. It’s just that at one point in the match when Liam and Razz leapt to head the same ball, they collided in mid-air and Liam’s substantially larger bulk caused Razz to be propelled rapidly towards the side wall. The result wasn’t pretty. According to Prindabel this was entirely due to Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

  Ignatius explained it very nicely this way. ‘When object A (Razz’s head) applies a force to object B (a solid masonry wall), then B (the solid masonry wall) applies an equal and opposite force to A (Razz’s head).’ Or in even more simple terms – when Razz’s head hit the wall, the wall hit him back. The wall won. Poor Razz ended up well and truly Newtoned.

  Mr Guthrie and Mr Hardcastle were the first ones on the scene. Mr Har
dcastle held three fingers in front of Razz’s eyes.

  ‘How many fingers do I have, Orazio?’

  Razz blinked his eyes and leant forward. ‘You mean apart from those six?’

  ‘Boarders’ infirmary,’ Mr Hardcastle concluded. ‘Now!’

  Mr Guthrie let Scobie and me hang around while the infirmary sister looked Razz over. She didn’t waste any time with her diagnosis. ‘Bad case of concussion. Outside chance of a fractured skull.’

  But for Razz there was even worse news to come.

  ‘He’ll need to go to the hospital straightaway for X-rays. Even if there’s no fracture they’ll probably want to keep him in overnight for observation.’

  ‘Whaaaat?’ Razz slurred. ‘I can’t do that. Can’t. I gotta go to a Semi-normal tonight.’

  ‘He means Semi-formal,’ I explained, ‘at Lourdes College.’

  Razz turned a pair of glassy pinprick eyes to me. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s right, Prindabuggle. What you said. Tell ’em I can’t go to hostipal … ah, hopstacle … um hot … I can’t go there. Gotta take Sal to the semi-trailer.’

  Razz lost his appeal right then.

  Mr Guthrie rang Mrs Zorzotto and arranged to meet her at the hospital. Scobie and I volunteered to go too but Sir said there wasn’t much we could do, so he took my number and said he’d give me a ring when there was some news.

  A couple of hours after I got home I finally got the phone call. Mr Guthrie said the X-ray showed there was no fracture and that Razz was much better but the doctor insisted he stay in overnight just to be on the safe side. About ten minutes later I got another call. I recognised the voice straightaway.

  ‘Razz! How’re you feeling? You OK?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m OK now, apart from the guy setting off landmines inside my head. But listen, man, you gotta help me. You gotta do me a massive favour.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Razz, anything. Just name it.’

  Even as the words were coming out of my mouth I was wondering what I was getting myself into.

  ‘Thanks, man. You’re the only one who can do it. And I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t really important. I’ll owe you big time, dude, big time.’

  Now my imagination was working overtime on horrendous possibilities. Had the collision somehow caused Razz to lose bladder control? Would he need someone to empty his bed pans? Or worse?

  Razz’s voice came pleading through the earpiece to put me out of my misery.

  ‘You gotta take Sally to her Semi-formal for me, man.’

  I have to admit, compared to changing Razz’s bed pan, taking Sally to the formal was quite a step up. I was still a bit surprised though.

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because she won’t go otherwise. You gotta do it, man. Sal’s been hanging out for this thing for ages. She’s got a new dress and she’s had her hair all done specially. She reckons she doesn’t mind missing out on it, but she does, man. She’d be gutted. Her mum brought her up to visit me and I could tell she’d been crying. And it’s all my stupid fault.’

  ‘Razz, you hardly head-butted the gym wall on purpose.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, man, I know, but I’ve still stuffed it up for her anyway without even trying. So come on, will you do it, Ishmael? It’s her big night.’

  ‘But what does Sally think?’

  ‘She wasn’t going at all until I suggested you. You’re the only other person she’ll go with. That’s what she said. Come on, man. She really wants to go. I can’t take her. Will you do it? Please.’

  There was really only one answer I could give.

  ‘Well, if you’re absolutely positive Sally’s OK with it. Then yeah, no problems.’

  ‘Awesome! That’s great – thanks, man! You’re a legend, dude, a real hero!’

  That was a first. Razz calling me a hero. It certainly felt a lot better than him wanting to know what was wrong with me all the time. Ishmael Leseur – hero. It had a nice ring to it.

  But I was about to find out whether it was true or not.

  22.

  WATCH YOUR BACK, BILLY SHAKESPEARE

  As soon as I got off the phone to Razz everything went into fast forward. Mum started ironing some clothes and I wolfed down half a sandwich then threw myself in the shower. Just as I was finished getting dressed Mrs Zorzotto arrived with a pretty cool jacket Razz had bought specially for the night as well as some roses he’d got for Sally. Then, less than an hour after agreeing to the whole thing, I was being dropped off by Razz’s mum at the Nofkes’ house.

  Mrs Nofke met me at the door and took me into the lounge room. I was there talking to her and Mr Nofke about Razz’s accident when Sally came in. I could tell you plenty of things about her. I could tell you the colour of her dress and what it looked like. And I could tell you about her long dark hair and how it was lifted up off her shoulders. I could tell you all that kind of stuff. But none of it would come close to telling you how beautiful she looked.

  ‘Hey,’ she said with a smile.

  Her smile was beautiful too. But there was something missing from it. And it was missing because of me. It was missing because I wasn’t the one that Sally Nofke really wanted to be smiling at right then. I wasn’t the one she wanted to look beautiful for.

  I ‘hey’-ed her back and handed over Razz’s flowers. I told her how great she looked but it sounded pathetic and I frantically searched my mind for something better. I came up with, ‘Really great’. Genius! Watch your back, Billy Shakespeare. There’s a new kid on the block! Sally blushed a little bit, then Mr Nofke left to get himself ‘organised’ to drive us to the dance and Mrs Nofke said she’d better ‘pop those roses in some water’ and then Sally and I were alone.

  As soon as her parents were gone, a little crease formed in the middle of Sally’s forehead as if she was feeling a pinprick of pain and her smile went all crooked. ‘Thanks for doing this, Ishmael,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind too much, do you?’

  ‘Mind? Are you kidding? I went to all the trouble of putting a contract out on Razz and hiring a hit man to throw him head first into a wall, didn’t I?’

  I know what you’re wondering – How does he come up with them? At least Sally was nice enough to manage a laugh.

  ‘Thanks, Ishmael. But really, I’m sorry for dragging you into this. You probably had heaps of other things you wanted to do.’

  The amazing thing was that Sally seemed to actually believe there was a possibility this could be true.

  ‘Well, Mum did want me to clean out the bottom of the budgie cage, so I was pretty disappointed about missing out on that. Anyway I’m the one who should be saying sorry to you.’

  ‘You? Why?’

  ‘For not being Razz.’

  Sally shook her head.

  ‘Well then, I guess I should apologise to you too, shouldn’t I? You know, for not being Kelly.’

  We both smiled then and I tried to imagine Kelly Faulkner standing there in front of me, but the image kept fading into Sally.

  ‘You know what I think we should do?’ she said. ‘I think tonight we should forget about who we’re not and stick with who we are and just have fun. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ I told her.

  ‘Then here’s to our plan and here’s to us,’ Sally said, holding out an imaginary glass. I followed her lead and we clinked two invisible drinks together.

  And for quite a while that night, our plan worked just fine. In fact I was enjoying myself so much that I started to feel a bit guilty. Here I was dancing, laughing and chatting with Sally while Razz was stuck in hospital thinking I was a hero.

  I didn’t deserve that title. True heroes had to face big challenges. They had to be put to the test. How could I be a hero then? Spending time with Sally Nofke at the Lourdes Semi-formal was easy. I wasn’t being tested at all.

  But I was about to be – and severely.

  23.

  FOCUSING IS FOR WIMPS!

  The trouble started towards the end of the evening when Sa
lly and I took a break from dancing. It was a muggy night and we were both melting, so we headed outside to a courtyard scattered with tables and benches to cool down. While Sally found a seat, I went to get us some drinks.

  There was a big crowd ahead of me with the same idea. While I was queued up an elbow nudged me in the back. When I turned round I discovered it was connected to Danny Wallace. I’d spotted him a couple of times during the night but had managed to keep my distance. Now he was standing in front of me with a styrofoam cup in each hand.

  ‘Hey, Leseur, got a couple spare lemonades here if you want ’em.’

  Now normally I’d avoid Danny Wallace not just like the plague but like any one of a number of contagious diseases capable of wiping out huge tracts of humanity. But right then my throat and mouth were so dry I was worried that if they didn’t taste liquid soon, they might never talk to me again.

  ‘Where’d they come from?’

  ‘Got ’em for some friends, but they’ve nicked off somewhere. Look, Leseur, you want ’em or not? Otherwise I’ll dump ’em.’

  I checked out the mass of bodies ahead of me, then glanced over at Sally, who was flapping a hand in front of her flushed face, then back at the cups of cool, clear liquid.

  ‘Yeah, all right, OK. Thanks.’

  Danny handed them over.

  ‘No problems, Leseur. Us St Daniel’s guys have to stick together and look out for each other, right?’

  Not quite the words I ever thought I’d hear coming from Danny Wallace’s mouth, but hey, maybe Mr Barker’s ‘mature and responsible Seniors’ talks were actually sinking in. Anyway, before I had a chance to reply, Danny Wallace was making his way over to a tight cluster of people in the far corner of the courtyard.

  I looked at the two drinks. There were beads of condensation on the outside of the cups and they felt cool and moist in my hands. My throat, on the other hand, felt like it was coated with a mixture of dirt and roughly ground glass. I wove my way quickly to Sally.