by Ed Briant
Woodbury, Minnesota
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I Am (Not) the Walrus © 2012 by Ed Briant.
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1
Wednesday
Horoscope: April 14, Aquarius:
Wear something nice today as you may well find yourself in the middle of a group of friendly people. Even if you have nothing to say, you will be warmly welcomed. Lasting relationships will be formed in a moment.
Frosty lowers his head like an offended buffalo, then blows a long blast on the whistle for kickoff. Even though it’s a loud peep, it’s swallowed up by the sudden gust that blows in off the ocean. The wind flattens the grass, blasts up inside my rugby shorts, and rocks the trees along the edge of the playing field.
“Hey, Toby.” A familiar voice from just behind me. “Your lace is undone.”
“Zack! I didn’t know you were here.” I look down at my laces, meandering across the grass, then over my shoulder at my friend. “Bloody things never stay fastened.”
“Last-minute substitute,” says Zack, in what looks like a brand-new blue shirt. “Ka-chang!” He strums an air guitar. “Hey, guess what?”
“Silence for the kickoff,” yells Clive Wadman, the team captain.
“Who’s talking?” barks Frosty.
Twenty yards in front of me, on the other side of the halfway line, Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair pushes up the sleeves of his red shirt, exposing arms that are bigger than my legs. He holds up a finger to test the wind, then launches himself toward the ball.
“I’m not sure this is the ideal moment for guess what,” I say to Zack. “I think I have about three seconds.” I drop to my knee, gather the ends of my laces, then glance up just in time to see Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair swing back a treelike leg, and boot the ball skyward. “I don’t know,” I say. “You’re getting married.”
“Nah, you bunghole,” says Zack, shuffling from one foot to the other. “I’ll give you a clue. We’re going to have to think of a name.”
“A name?” I study the trajectory of the ball as it arcs upward. It brushes the bottom of a low cloud, hovers for an instant, then begins its descent toward the right-hand side of the field. I’ve only played this game a couple of times before, but I think this means that the ball isn’t heading in my direction.
With lightning-fast moves, I twist my laces into a knot just as another blast of wind knocks me sideways. “Are you telling me you’re pregnant?”
“Nope,” he says, then opens his eyes wide and points at a spot just in front of me. “Heads up, Toby!”
I spring to my feet just in time for a brown object, about the size of a small wombat, to slap into my hands.
I take a second to examine the object.
It is a rugby ball. Why would anyone bring a second rugby ball onto the pitch? As I think I mentioned, I am no expert at this game, but I thought it was supposed to be played with one ball.
There’s just enough time for it to dawn on me that there is only one ball, and this is it, before Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair grasps the collar of my shirt. He lifts me right off the earth’s surface, swings me around, then slams me back into the mud.
Lights flash as I gaze up at the stratocumulus clouds and listen to the thunder of boots drifting away toward our goal area.
“We need a name for the band, Toby,” says Zack, “and we need it pronto.”
I take a moment to examine my once-blue shirt, which is now brown, and look up to see Zack shuffling away from me toward the rest of the pack.
“Pronto?” I haul myself onto my hands and knees. “Wait. You don’t mean—”
“I do mean,” he says, hopping sideways. “We have a gig.”
“Get out of town!” I spring into a sitting position. I scan the oddball group of spectators along the sideline. My stomach knots. Right at the end are two girls. One of them is tall and blonde, and looks a lot like my ex-girlfriend, Katrina.
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. I always think every tall blonde girl is Katrina.
Besides, why in God’s name would Katrina be watching an under-seventeens rugby match?
Come to think of it, why would any girls be watching a rugby match?
For a punishment?
For a dare?
Probably Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair’s fan club.
Oh well, even if she’s not Katrina I’d still better make this look good.
“Hang on a minute.” I roll back onto my feet and stumble after Zack. “How did you manage to swing a gig?” I say when I catch up with him.
“My wit, charm,” Zack steps over a red winger who’s lying in a fetal position, “and winning ways.” He mimes a drum roll and cymbal crash—Ba-ta-ta-ching! “Thank you!”
“Mark a man,” yells Clive Wadman.
Frosty blows his whistle again, and raises his right arm. It’s a set scrum.
Steve Parsons and Gregg Lester throw their arms around my shoulders, lift me off the ground, and then the three of us lower our heads and slam into the red front row. The second row lock their heads between our hips, then finally we’re joined by the number eight, and the flankers, of which Zack is one. It’s dark in here. And smelly. But on the plus side, it is out of the wind.
“When did this all come about?” The side of my head presses against the ear of one of the red prop forwards, and for a second our ears are like two suction cups. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I only found out at lunchtime,” says Zack, through the grunts and gasps. “I was down at Harry’s trying out one of the new guitars he’s got in, when Harry himself runs up the s
tairs and goes, ‘Sounds good. You still in a band?’ I go, ‘As a matter of fact I am,’ and he goes, ‘What sort of stuff do you play?’ So I go, ‘We do cover versions of Beatles songs,’ and he says, ‘You want to play a support gig?’ I go ‘Yeah, I suppose. Why not?’ And he says, ‘Don’t go overboard with the enthusiasm.’”
“Silence in the scrum,” yells Clive Wadman.
“Who’s talking in the scrum,” barks Frosty. “Be quiet and concentrate.”
The whistle blows, and the ball rolls in. This is my moment. I lash out, and get my foot around the ball, but at almost the same moment Paul Hammerton, the red hooker, lashes out and kicks me right on the shin. Pain sears up my leg.
“Heave!” shouts Clive Wadman.
“Push,” barks Frosty. “What are you? Men? Or mice?”
“Squeak, squeak,” goes someone behind me.
The scrum lurches forward. I kick out and get my foot on top of the ball, but the other dude kicks it out from underneath me again, and it’s in the reds’ possession. The air is filled with shouts. Once again I’m in daylight, and once again we’re stumbling backward toward our own goal.
I almost trip over Steve Agar, who’s on his hands and knees, then catch up with Zack. We struggle to make a defensive line. “So, who are we opening for?” I say.
Once again the ball slaps into my hands.
“Move it out,” shouts Clive Wadman.
“Play up!” barks Frosty.
Fine. I turn. I’m just about to throw the ball to a player with a blue shirt, when I realize that the player is Zack, so I turn to pass it to the other side. My hands strike something that feels more like concrete than a person. It’s neither a red shirt, nor a blue shirt. It’s a tweed jacket.
“Pull yourself together, you scallywag,” yells Frosty as he swipes the ball out of my hands. He tucks his head down. “This is what you need to do.” He lays into the red forwards with his leather-patched elbows. Even Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair staggers backward with a look of horror, as if Frosty really is a charging buffalo.
“What did Frosty do before he was a teacher?” I say, over my shoulder.
“He was a Commando, or a Marine.” Zack points at the other team. “Or something like that. He probably thinks they’re Germans.”
“Pretty impressive,” I say as Frosty is swallowed up into the mob. “He’s got to be fifty years old or something.”
“Anyway.” Zack slaps me across the back. “We’re supporting the Disappointed Parents. Harry’s band.”
“The Disappointed Parents!” I turn and grab two handfuls of Zack’s shirt. “They’re famous!”
“Well … ” Zack straightens out his lapels as if he’s wearing a fancy dinner suit instead of a rugby shirt. “They’re famous in Port Jackson at any rate.”
“I wouldn’t mind being famous in Port Jackson,” I say.
Red players rush past us, putting us offside, so we jog backward. I’m getting good at the running backward part of this game.
“Listen,” says Zack. “You have to do something about your bass guitar.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
Zack speeds up so I almost have to break into a sprint to get in front of him.
“I think you should take it down to Harry’s and trade it in for another one,” he says. “Something is seriously wrong with it.”
Another whistle. “Line out,” shouts a red player.
We arrange ourselves, puffing and panting, in order of height at the touch-line, the tallest players in the middle. This leaves me at one end of the line, and Zack at the other, us being about the shortest players on the field.
“But it’s not my bass to trade,” I say, in between gasps for air. “Shawn’s letting us use all his stuff out of the goodness of his heart. It’s a bit inconsiderate to repay his kindness by selling his bass.”
“Silence in the line,” yells Clive Wadman.
“Who’s talking in the line?” barks Frosty. He jerks his head from side to side, then blows the whistle yet again.
The ball flies up. We all jump, but a red player gets his hands on it. The ball makes its way out to the fast runners on the red wing, and the blue defense falls apart.
“Look. I think I can fix it,” I say to Zack. “Shawn has a soldering iron somewhere.”
“Can you do it this evening?” he says. “If we’re going to play a gig then we can’t have it making crackling noises and cutting out in the middle of the songs, or maybe even completely self-destructing.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean,” I say. “The bass does seem to have a mind of its own. It always seems to go on the blink at the worst possible moment.”
“Bummer,” says Zack, as the red winger crosses our twenty-five yard line, with the ball securely tucked into his armpit. “Looks like we’re going to lose again.”
I make a lame attempt to tuck my shirt into my shorts. “I’ll do it this weekend, though. Be easier to solder in daylight.”
“No. No!” says Zack. “You can’t do it tomorrow. Do it tonight. I mean, how can we rehearse a set if one of the instruments isn’t working?”
“Fantastic,” I say. I slide my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “No pressure.”
A large person in a red shirt appears in front of us. It is Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair, his fingers wrapped around the ball.
“Would you mind taking that thing somewhere else,” says Zack, pointing at the ball.
“Just taking it to your goal line,” says Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair. “Seemed like the easy route would be via you two big-girls’-blouses.” With that, he shoves his free hand into Zack’s face and sends him sprawling.
Then he turns toward me.
“Look at you,” he says. “Pathetic. If your brother could see you now he would weep in shame.”
The moment he says this something flickers in the corner of my eye, like someone switching channels on a TV, and there, standing in his navy uniform with his arms folded, is my brother, Shawn. He puffs his cheeks and blows out a long breath of exasperation.
A split second later he’s gone and all I can see is a red shirt. Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair’s hand shoots up toward my face. I flex my knees and slip under his arm. I lunge forward, butt my head into his six pack as hard as I can, then lock my hands around his waist. There’s no way he can punch me in the face now; instead he hammers on the back of my skull with the ball. I hang on for dear life as I let myself drop, and then squeeze his knees together.
At first nothing happens, and I ponder the fact that I may already be dead. Then the light shifts as Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair’s upper body continues to move forward, while his boots remain anchored, by my arms, to one square foot of turf. A moment later the ground shudders, and there is a howl so profound that it might come from the earth’s crust itself.
I lie there gazing up at the cumulonimbus from between Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair’s hairy legs. I roll them to one side, and rise to my feet. Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair is stretched out right in front of our goal line. The ball rolls over the line.
“Oh well,” I say to Zack. “They won. Let’s go and play some music.”
“No,” says Zack. “In rugby, the player has to cross the goal line, and also touch the ball to the ground to score.” He points to Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair. “He’s only dropped the ball across the line. It doesn’t count.”
“Play on!” bellows Frosty. “What is this? You look like a bunch of grannies at a Sunday-school picnic.”
I study Zack for a moment, then I study the ball. Why is nobody doing anything? Red and blue players are arranged around us in a semi-circle, as if they’re taking part in a pageant.
Then, off in the distance, I notice the two girls on the touch-line.
They are not merely watching the game.
They are w
atching me.
They are watching me while I do nothing.
“Bugger this.” I scoop up the ball, turn my back on our goal, and stumble into a steady run.
What the hell. Nobody lives forever.
Any second I expect to be flattened into the turf. I expect to be buried, to have grass planted on top of me, and to have generations of happy children playing tag above me. But nothing happens. Blue players stagger back to let me through. Red players stand in my path, but then melt away as I get closer.
A blast of wind hits me square in the face, almost bringing me to a standstill. I look up. Nobody is between me and the red goal. I tuck my head down and force my way into the wind. My feet fly over the rutted grass as an unfastened bootlace whips around my ankles. I glance at the sideline, and for a moment I seem to be standing still as the motley mob of spectators blur past me.
I never realized a rugby pitch was so long. I reach out imaginary tendrils from my forehead and wrap them around the goal posts, but they still don’t get any closer. Every second I expect to feel the grip of hands around my shoulders, sharp nails digging into my back, mighty fingers pulling my hair out of my scalp.
Then I’m alongside the last two spectators. It’s worse than I thought.
Not only are they girls.
Not only are they around my age.
They’re pretty. A tall blonde one and a shorter dark-haired one.
Dammit. I’m going to score if it kills me.
The goal line is three paces away, then two paces, then one. And then I slam into the ground. The ball bounces forward. My fingertips are three inches away from the line. No. I scored. Surely I won the game? But the whistle blows.
I roll over and gaze at my feet. My shoelaces are twisted around both of my ankles in a granny knot.
“Ball thrown forward,” barks Frosty. “Offside.”
I roll back and glance over at the two girls. They look away from me. Presumably from a sense of shame.
Oh well. It’s not the end of the world.
Even if I had scored a goal, they still would have been way out of my league.