Boyz 'R' Us

by Scott Monk

  Stupid pig. The constable walked me to the front desk. Sean and Dad were waiting.

  ‘There’s the little criminal. I should leave him in the cells for the night to make him learn respect for the law.’

  ‘Mitchell isn’t charged with anything, Mr Jarrett,’ the constable said. ‘He actually saved a man’s life tonight.’

  ‘Saved somebody? My son? I think you’ve got the wrong guy, Constable. This brat thinks about nobody but himself.’

  The constable looked at me. He’d seen it a million times before.

  ‘Do I need to sign any papers?’

  ‘No. Mitch is free to go.’

  ‘C’mon, buddy,’ Sean said quietly, opening the door. ‘You did good.’

  ‘Did good? Yer right,’ the old man snorted. ‘Useless kid. Hanging out with gangs. Hope he does end up in jail one day. That’ll teach him.’

  ‘Oh, and Mitch,’ the constable called out just as we pushed the door open, ‘if you have any problems or information don’t hesitate to call. Just ask for Constable Evan Rourke. That’s me.’ He wasn’t talking about the case. He was talking about an abusive parent. I nodded and we left.

  Dad refused to say anything positive on the way home in the car. He gave me an ear-bashing about how kids respected the law and their parents in the good old days. Kids nowadays didn’t. Every one of them was spoilt and born with an attitude. Yer right, Dad.

  After picking Allison up from the neighbours’, Dad grunted he was going to bed. Him, and a bottle of bourbon. I forgot the goodnight. Sean stood in the kitchen, his back to me, buttering a slice of bread. I sensed he was angry. He hadn’t said anything in the car. I shouldn’t have even been near Barry Wheeler tonight.

  ‘Sean —’

  He turned and shook his head. It meant ‘be quiet. Wait until Dad’s bedroom light blinks off.’ Soon it did and I tried again to apologise for abusing my brother’s trust. Say I was innocent of stabbing the Trolley Man. But Sean spoke first.

  ‘Come here, Mitch,’ he said. ‘Stand right there and look into my eyes.’

  This lecture was going to be big.

  ‘I’m only going to say this once, so listen good.’ Sean stopped and swallowed. ‘Mitch, whatever happened I believe you,’ he said. And without further explanation he kept on making his sandwich.

  Me, I stood there. No arguments. No yelling. Just, ‘Mitch, whatever happened I believe you.’ Nobody ever said that to me. Friends. Teachers. Sternfeld. Especially Dad. The words shocked me. Sean knew I was innocent. He didn’t have to get the Bible this time. Whereas Dad refused to trust me because of his belief “once a criminal, always a criminal”, Sean did. Amazing. Amazing and cool. Okay, Barry Wheeler was out of my life now — permanently. The Thunderjets too. I had something much better. I had a loving brother.

  The next day me and my brother decided a game of one-on-one might take my mind off Trolley Man’s stabbing. Our school and its basketball courts were on the other side of Marrickville but we liked walking and I needed to get things off my chest. Sean was always a good listener. And wise. Once, when I was nine, I asked him to beat up this year six who kept stealing my chicken Twisties at playlunch. Sean rolled up to primary one day before the teachers arrived, confronted the kid, shook the living daylights and a few tears out of him, then turned and did the same thing to me. If I ever wanted someone punched again, Sean said, he’d punch me as well. To a nine-year-old that was a permanent moral. Until Mum died and I rebelled against everything and everybody, including Sean.

  The school was a good hundred metres away when Sean stopped. He purposefully dropped his keys and bent down to pick them up. ‘I think a guy is following us — don’t look!’ I thought he was kidding at first, but his face said it was no joke.

  ‘What’s he look like?’ I asked, hoping it wasn’t a cop tailing me, sniffing out who I hung with. Or a rival gang kid wanting revenge for last night.

  ‘He’s short and well-built with black hair. I’ve seen him before.’

  I groaned. ‘Is he in a car?’

  ‘No, he’s walking.’

  ‘It sounds like Barry Wheeler.’

  ‘The kid who hit you?’

  ‘Yer, and the kid who stabbed Trolley Man.’

  ‘He stabbed Trolley Man?’

  ‘Yer, he stabbed the old guy to blame me. Called it the “new blood oath”. He thought I’d run to the Jets for help. Well, he was wrong. I stayed to help the old dero.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the cops that?’

  ‘Not now. I’ll tell you later. Wait till we ditch Wheeler.’

  Sean agreed. ‘Let’s keep going then. If he makes a move, split up and meet me back at Beaman Park. Wait in that old treehouse we built when we were kids.’

  I nodded and we kept walking. Sean always seemed to know what to do. Me, I bluffed it all the way when I led the Jets.

  ‘Is he wearing any colours?’

  ‘None that I saw. Just civvies.’

  ‘It mightn’t be him then. Could be a cop.’

  ‘No, cops drive round in cars. This guy’s on foot and looks about fourteen.’

  Wheeler was fifteen.

  ‘Should we make a run for it?’

  ‘No, he’ll be onto us then. Just act normal. When you get to the corner, I’ll crouch down to tie my shoelace. You look around like you’re checking traffic. Get a make on him then follow me across the road. If he keeps walking, he wants to talk to you. If he stops or jumps into the bushes he’s watching you. Either way, I don’t want him hanging round you.’

  ‘Neither do I. Okay, let’s try it.’

  We reached the corner across from school and carried out Sean’s plan. I turned, and in the second my eyes brushed over him, Wheeler pulled up, picked a gum leaf, then started walking up someone’s garden path. So he was following me. Probably to find if any cops were hanging round me. He must’ve found out I helped Trolley Man. I was a threat: life imprisonment.

  ‘Did you get a make on him?’

  ‘Yer, it’s Wheeler all right.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Stop, like you said.’

  ‘Okay, he only wants to know what you’re doing, not talk. We shouldn’t have any problems with him as long as he keeps his distance. A game of one-on-one it is, little brother.’

  I grabbed the basketball from Sean’s hands and ran down onto the school’s courts. ‘First to twenty-one wins!’ I yelled. ‘The loser pays for lunch!’

  ‘I hope you’re rich! I’ve got a big appetite!’

  The ball rolled round the ring then scored.

  ‘Eleven-nine, little brother. Got that hundred-dollar note handy?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said, catching the ball and starting my run. ‘Because,’ — (I dodged Sean and threw) — ‘I’m not gonna be the one who’s paying.’ The ball bounced off the backboard and into the ring. ‘Ten-eleven.’

  ‘Okay, so you think you’re good. I scored first so I get to ask the question first.’

  Every point Sean or I scored we were allowed to ask the other a “truth” question. Already I had learnt the truth about why Sean’s first girlfriend, Melissa Bryant, only lasted a week. On their first and only date, a late night movie at Hoyts Bankstown, my brother laughed so hard after a funny one-liner he puked Coke all over her. Needless to say, that chilled their relationship completely.

  Me, I told Sean about the day me, Wheeler and the guys spent down at Manly. There was one particular girl in a purple bikini I fancied on the beach. I walked over, introduced myself, and eventually we played beach volleyball together. One shot went wide, I lunged for it, handballed it back over the net … then finished my amazing stunt by landing sideways in dog dung! Yep, and lots of it. Let me say no one on the beach was as red as my face. To the sound of hysterical laughing, I ran to the outdoor shower to wash the brown smear off my side as fast as possible. But the story didn’t end there. To complete my embarrassment, while I was still showering, Flash Jack dakked me as the chick in purple walked past! Need
less to say, I never saw her again. The guys ribbed me for months after that.

  Now that I had told Sean, he would too.

  ‘My next question is —’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘I’m not gonna answer it.’

  ‘But that was part of the deal.’

  ‘I know that. But you’ve already asked your question.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Did so. You said, “Got that hundred-dollar note handy?”.’

  ‘That wasn’t a real question.’

  ‘Bad luck. You asked it,’ I laughed.

  ‘Okay, Brains, what’s your question?’

  This time I wanted to see how far our trust extended. I wanted to ask a question that would make a lot of teenage guys squirm if sworn to the truth.

  ‘You’ve dated lots of girls over the years. Have you ever slept with any of them?’

  ‘What?’ he gasped.

  Bingo! Got him! Sean Jarrett was speechless for the first time in his life! Get the camera quick! This was a rare moment indeed. Boy, did my big brother blush.

  ‘It’s a game of truth, remember,’ I sang.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of cheek.’

  ‘Get it all from you.’

  ‘That’s not all you’ll get,’ he said.

  ‘Well, go on. Tell me the truth. Have you slept with anyone?’

  Sean grinned out of the side of his mouth, wondering if he should lie or not. He turned around, checked if anybody apart from me was listening and whispered, ‘Nope.’

  I howled. ‘Sean the stud is a dud.’

  ‘Hey! Keep your voice down.’

  ‘Sean’s a virgin!’ I shouted, letting the message echo across the playground, through the school and into the streets.

  ‘Shut up, Mitch! It’s something a guy doesn’t like other guys finding out about, you know.’

  ‘Wait till I tell your friends.’

  ‘Mitch, if you do, you won’t be able to talk to another person for the last thirty seconds of your life.’

  I went on laughing.

  ‘Okay, because you think that’s so funny, let’s see you laugh at this.’ Sean threw from the centre of the court and scored. ‘Twelve-ten. Now it’s your turn, studmuffin.’

  I stopped laughing. Quick-time.

  Sean circled me and asked, ‘Is Mitchell Jarrett — the swooner of women, the prince of passion, the lover of all girls — a virgin?’

  Gulp. Maybe my previous question had been too personal.

  ‘Well, studmuffin? Are you a virgin? And I don’t need to remind you you have to tell the truth.’

  I shuffled my feet, felt the lie ball up in my throat but quickly blurted out the real answer to get it over with. ‘Yes.’

  What Sean did next was really low. ‘Mitch is a virgin! Mitch is a virgin! Mitch is a virgin!’

  The whole suburb — no, the whole city of Sydney — heard that one.

  Sean only shut up when I grabbed him in a headlock and gagged him with my hand. He just laughed on and on.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, peeling my hand off. ‘I give in.’

  ‘That was slack.’

  ‘You yelled out first.’

  ‘Yer, but I didn’t think you’d do it to me.’

  We looked at each other and just burst out laughing together. Don’t ask why.

  ‘So you’re a virgin, huh?’ Sean asked.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Then we must be the best-looking virgins around these parts.’

  ‘You? You’re ugly.’

  ‘Me? You’re the gross one, hogface.’

  ‘Hey, at least my mirror doesn’t scream when it sees me in the morning.’

  ‘No, it shatters.’

  We went off. I loved it!

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘why haven’t you done it?’

  Sean took a few moments to think the question over, then said, ‘There’s a lot of pressure on guys to have sex these days, but I just haven’t found the right girl yet. Besides, I swore to Mum I’d wait. She wanted me to marry the right girl.’

  The Mum factor again. Sean would keep his word out of respect for her.

  ‘How about you?’

  I kicked the ground. ‘Pretty much the same. Mum made me promise the same thing. She talked about waiting till after marriage and being faithful to my wife. Y’know what I mean? The right girl, like you said. I guess she’s right. The first time I do it I want it to feel special, not cheap like in the back of a car. I got hot for Sarah-Jane a couple of times but I backed off. Neither of us were ready for it.’

  It might sound strange — even hilarious — to hear a tough guy like me was still in the virginity league. I was curious about sex. Every guy is. I thought about it every day — sometimes (especially in tight jeans) when I didn’t want to. But it was hard enough to understand puberty, bodily changes, hair in strange places, lust, urges, guilt, shame and religion at the same time, let alone full-on sex. And then there was the problem of HIV/AIDS and other STDs.

  I didn’t know about holding out until marriage, because I was keen. But I’d wait for now. There was nothing wrong with that.

  I went to pick up the ball. ‘I thought this was a basketball game, not a personal development class. Let’s shoot some hoops.’

  Faking left, I ran past him towards the basketball ring with the ball bouncing wildly in my hands. I jumped and with a mighty swing aimed to dunk that baby in for a point — only to have Sean knock it away! Helpless, I watched as he jogged to the other end and scored.

  After he finished gloating it was time for another question. ‘Mitch, why did you protect Barry Wheeler last night?’

  Twisting the ball in my hands, I looked down. My voice was hollow. ‘I didn’t want to see him go to jail.’

  ‘He nearly killed a man, Mitch.’

  ‘D’you think I don’t know that?’ My shot missed. ‘I don’t know why I protected him, Sean. I just didn’t have the nerve to dob him in.’

  ‘Did he threaten you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, maybe too quickly.

  Wheeler rang last night when Sean went to tuck Allison in bed. He told me to forget about squealing to the cops. If I did —

  ‘But he’s likely to want to get you if you do dob him in, right?’

  Unwilling to face my brother, I picked up the ball.

  He walked over to me. ‘Mitch, don’t shut me out. No secrets.’

  ‘C’mon, Sean. Y’know about gang justice. What squealing to the pigs means. They get cowards.’

  ‘Cowards are the ones who stay silent,’ he shot back.

  ‘I don’t think I want to have this conversation.’ Throwing the ball away, I left in the opposite direction. Sean swore and kicked the ground.

  ‘How do you think Trolley Man feels?’ he yelled.

  I paused and looked at the sky. Sean’s nagging was one reason why I’d hated him over the past few years. ‘He’s only a dero, Sean.’

  ‘He’s a human being too.’

  My head dropped. The truth cut. Trolley Man was a human being. Not only a dero. Listen to me. I sounded like I was in the Jets again — heartless. Sean was right. Again.

  I shot a question back into his court. ‘Okay, what would you do, Sean? What would Golden Boy do if one of his mates broke into a little old lady’s house and robbed her? Would you report him to the pigs? Huh? Squeal on your buddies like a traitor? Or keep quiet? Not say a word? Forget it all happened? Well? What would you do?’

  Sean looked at his feet.

  ‘Yer, that’s what I thought,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘How do you know what I’m thinking, Mitch? I haven’t answered the question yet.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’d dob him in, hard as it would be. If someone I knew robbed a little old lady, I wouldn’t consider them a mate any more.’

  ‘You never dobbed me in when I was a Jet.’

  ‘Because with you it was different. I didn’t know you were running with the Thunderjets till I got that phone call you
were in the emergency ward of St Vincent’s cut up bad. I just thought you were goofing off with a couple of your bomber mates. That, or I was scared to face the truth. How was I supposed to know? We never talked. But things have changed now, Mitch. We’ve changed. For the better. You’ve got to follow it through.’

  I walked back slowly and met Sean halfway.

  He went on. ‘Hey, I know this isn’t easy. Either way you’re going to get hurt. But if you don’t tell the police you’re still controlled by the gang. It’s your decision, Mitch.’

  The moment was tense.

  ‘We’ll let the ball decide,’ I said. ‘If it lands in the ring, I squeal. If it doesn’t, I forget everything.’

  I moved to take the ball off Sean but he held tight. ‘Like I said, it’s your decision, Mitch. Not the ball’s. You’ve got to decide.’

  Those same words bugged my conscience all that evening. Reluctantly, at eleven o’clock I picked up the phone. ‘Yer, Constable Rourke? It’s Mitch Jarrett. I need to talk to you.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was dark inside the cold grey factory. Quiet too. The last machine stitching boot leather together had been switched off thirteen years ago when the owners were forced into liquidation. Locals wanted the factory torn down. They were worried it was a firetrap. But the fat cat councillors were too busy licking their paws at dinner functions to care. There were rumours a homeless kid had died here one night after part of the roof collapsed on top of him. His skeleton still hadn’t been found, and his ghost haunted the place. Those same backfence gossips pegging their clothes instead of their mouths also believed the local gang now controlled the factory.

  I didn’t know about the homeless kid, but they were right about it being gang land. All thirty-five Thunderjets regularly used the factory as a hang-out. Most of the gang’s important decisions, like initiations and rumbles, were thrashed out for hours inside its walls. Guys stayed here if there was a problem at home or with the law. There was always a place to sleep as long as there was floorspace. And drugs and booze exchanged hands readily inside, sometimes in alarming quantities. Parents and busybodies didn’t feel safe trying to find someone here. A lot of the gang saw it as an oasis in the middle of a desert of trouble and despair.