Boyz 'R' Us

by Scott Monk

  Tonight, it was empty. But the scenery was still the same: dust, mouldy walls, broken windows, a dripping tap, bricks, an old couch, rats, a tyre lot outside. Home unsweet home, you could say. Which wasn’t far from the truth. I’d stayed here a number of times over the years. I wasn’t scared of ghosts or being rolled or anything. There was always one or two other Jets camped down here too. Y’see when a guy’s father beat him up or his stepmother kicked him out of the house, the monsters inside the factory weren’t as scary as the ones back home.

  One of the guys had been here only this morning. He’d left behind a paper he’d probably pinched from somebody’s front lawn. Homeys weren’t into reading but this was different. Across the front page was the story of Sydney’s gang war.

  I’d seen it on TV. The Jets had got into a rumble with a group of tough guys somewhere in the ’ville. Somebody had called a Vietnamese kid a “chink” and people had started running from everywhere ready for a fight. A few punches were thrown but nothing serious. A couple of guys got bloody noses before the winners chased the others away.

  The whole scene would’ve gone unnoticed except for two things: a TV crew driving past and the Trolley Man being stabbed the next night. The paper found out about Wheeler and connected them. A race war was on, it said. Between the Lebanese and the Vietnamese. It had been so for months. What war? I didn’t know about any war. I hadn’t been out of the scene that long. Instead of scaring the Jets this’d only make them feel more powerful. They loved this kind of stuff.

  I tossed the paper away.

  Tapping out a wad of chewing gum from its packet, I walked over to the west wall. My greatest work was tagged there. It’d been a while since I’d seen it. In red, white and black my street name, DEATHCARD, was spraypainted; the A’s in the shape of spades. Leaning on the letters, a large yellow skeleton wearing a marine’s helmet grinned a toothy smile. With a quick roll of the thumb, my lighter confirmed a suspicion. The word TRAITOR was scrawled across the graffiti in purple. Not once, but several times.

  The style was Wheeler’s. The graffiti of every bomber varied as did the signatures of outsiders. Experienced bombers knew fifty to two hundred styles off by heart. And this was definitely Barry’s. It was easy to check. On the south wall was his mural. A homeboy surfed the roof of a red Lamborghini with the word WHEELER blasting out of the exhaust pipe. Yep, he’d definitely defaced my piece. So much for the street rules of respect.

  ‘Did you roll round in the mud with the pigs the other day, Mitch?’ a voice asked from the darkness.

  I spun so quick I nearly choked on my chewing gum.

  Wheeler’s face glowed orange as he sparked his own lighter to life. ‘Well?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you squeal to the pigs, Mitch?’

  ‘Where’s Peeper?’ I said, avoiding the question. ‘I’m s’posed to meet him here, not you.’

  ‘He’s home. I knew you wouldn’t come if I asked you to.’

  ‘So he arranged this meeting for you?’

  ‘Yep. There’s nothing like gang loyalty,’ he sniped.

  ‘What d’you want?’ I growled.

  ‘I asked you a question. Did you squeal, Mitch?’

  I steadied myself. If he’d found out I had squealed this scene could turn ugly. Who knew how many more bombers circled around in the rafters?

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘If I did you’d be talking to a pig now, not me.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Don’t then.’

  Wheeler dragged back on his cigarette then breathed out. His eyes probed for the truth in mine. I steeled them. It was an old trick I’d used lots of times. Outstare the opponent to see if they were lying. Wheeler was good, but not better than the pro. He looked away at my masterpiece.

  ‘Appears you’re not welcome here any more,’ he said.

  ‘Then why am I here?’

  The door was at my back. If anything was going to happen, it was going to go down now.

  ‘So I can say “Watch your tongue”. If I find you squealed, buddy, I’m coming after you. No cops, teachers or that brother of yours will be able to stop me either. Get it?’

  I breathed out, faking boredom. ‘You finished?’ I was tired of standing in this hole at one in the morning. I should never have picked up the phone and agreed to meet Peeper here. It sounded like a trap from the start.

  ‘Tonight, yer. But tomorrow, no. Not till I find out the truth.’

  Wheeler breathed smoke through his nostrils then threw the cig at me. I jumped back reflexively, swatting the butt off my shirt and onto the ground. ‘See you round, Mitch,’ he called from the darkness.

  The engine of a V8 grumbled then growled as it sped off from the factory’s back lot. Wheeler was gone. And so was our friendship. Permanently.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tink. Tink. Tink. Sigh. Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink. Yawn. Tink. Tink.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Jarrett. Please don’t do that.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I grumbled, replacing the fork next to the empty drink bottle. The teacher on cafeteria duty gave a “Why me?” smile then continued his playground duty.

  Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink …

  Bored, I sat at the corner lunch table alone, watching students file inside the closed courtyard and push in the canteen line. It was the usual routine. Friends called over friends and whispered the latest gossip. So-and-so was going out with so-and-so now, and all that rubbish. How childish. Didn’t they have a life of their own?

  The canteen was the meeting place for every school social group: the jocks, drama queens, geeks, potheads, wannabes, studs, waxheads, westies, bombers and a group that could only be described as future cell mates.

  The jocks were the sports heroes. Predominantly male and overdosed on hormones, they had no life outside the playing field and local bar. They played, ate and slept there. (If a remote control was handy, it’d be their earthly version of Heaven.) When they weren’t lying under a bar stool unconscious, jocks talked about chicks, beer and footy — the three biggest loves of their lives. To be a jock you needed to be born without a neck, scull a case of Tooheys after a big victory and make at least four disgusting sexual jibes a game. And if you couldn’t run, grunt and drink (not necessarily in that order) you could forget about ever being one.

  Jocks usually dated the drama queens — a social group other students loved to hate. Beautiful, yet spiteful, most were as artificial as Barbie dolls (some coming with as many outfits). They laughed with you one moment, then at you the next. Exclusively female, the drama queens lived up to their names. They studied drama as a school subject, watched the latest drama on Home and Away or Neighbours, and started their own drama at school if there weren’t several already occurring around them. The last of these usually happened if one of their subjects (ie. the rest of the school body) didn’t treat their majesties as the next supermodel or famous French fashion designer. School was a bore and only useful as a social gathering for drama queens. Their real life started after 3:20 when Telstra’s profits tripled for the next three hours. To be a successful drama queen — and there were many try-hard fashion victims — you needed to rip out your own heart, shop exclusively at the Queen Victoria Building, want to be seen on every social page in Sydney, and have your formal date chosen by the first day of year seven. They were complete opposites to me.

  In most schools the geeks were, by far, the largest group. Also known as nerds, squares, four-eyes, weirdos, wimps, brains, egg-heads, dorks and dweebs, they suffered the most bullying, usually by all other groups. Their handicap? Being too smart. Or normal. Or good. Less academic students tended to knock others who excelled. Geeks in Australia never wore the striped shirts, pocket protectors, braces and thick-rimmed spectacles always seen on American TV shows. They were just plain kids from good homes, a factor other social groups regarded as an exception to the rule. Geeks graduated from high school to become lawyers, doctors, bankers, journalists, accountants, managers, politicians, and writers
. One day they would be responsible for the jobs of those who bagged them throughout school, and that brought a smile to their faces when someone called them, ‘Ya four-eyed geek!’

  Whereas geeks strived for good grades, another group couldn’t care less if they even spelt their name correctly. Like their title suggested, potheads inhaled dope, not geometry formulae. Marijuana was their life. They came to school stoned, got stoned at lunch and went home at 3:20 to stone any nerves still unaffected. Potheads spoke their own language. It was a defence mechanism so Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t find out their darling was mulling up on wacky weed. Pothead speak went something like this: ‘Stripped junior last night for the bong, and boy, was he lush’. Translation: ‘Picked a few marijuana leaves off the cannabis plant stashed away in my closet for a smoke with the boys, and I felt fantastic’. Potheads were mostly harmless. Some were downright funny when they lost their minds. An exception to this was when a bad bout of munchies overcame each tripper and the chocolate machine or fridge was empty. A heavily armed SWAT police team couldn’t stop them from raiding the nearest food store. To be a pothead you needed to know other potheads, obtain a degree in hydroponics and use the word “lush” once in each sentence.

  The other groups were self-explanatory. Wannabes longed to be cool. Studs prided themselves on their looks and took their shirts off whenever possible. Waxheads were surfers. Most were potheads and vice-versa. Westies were the complete opposite. They were either people who lived in the Western Suburbs, or people who wore black heavy metal t-shirts and long hair, and listed headbanging on their résumé as an occupation. Gothics made black clothes, black lipstick, black hair, black fingernails etc. a fashion statement. And finally, the bombers and criminal element were groups left well alone. Teachers moved schools to avoid speaking to them and students faked illness if they ran into any trouble with one.

  I used to be a bomber. Not any more though. Squealing to the cops broke the Oath. My gang days were finished. The word on the street was the cops had put out a warrant for Wheeler’s arrest for the attempted murder of the Trolley Man. No one admitted they’d heard from Wheeler since one o’clock this morning. Not even Peeper, Flash Jack or Marc. He’d gone into hiding. It seemed he learnt the truth about me ringing Constable Rourke and he was running scared. So was I to some degree. Wheeler’s threat was real. He’d get to me before the cops got him.

  I received a call from the station asking if I knew Wheeler’s whereabouts but I said the last time I saw him was near school Saturday morning when Sean and I were shooting hoops. I forgot to mention the midnight rendezvous. The cops would certainly ask me why I didn’t contact them first. My reason was clear. There was no way I was going to talk to that fat pig of a detective again.

  Not one of my friends was speaking to me. If they associated with a traitor they’d become one too. I knew Marc wanted to; maybe Flash Jack as well. What I’d said Friday night after the rumble troubled them. They were starting to question running with the Jets too. I heard them jaw about it as they had a smoke in the dunnies. I didn’t have a chance to hear their final decision though. Peeper warned that a teacher was coming.

  So I sat at a table by myself. The guys refused to hang out with me and the other social groups avoided me at all costs. (I was still a bomber.) Besides, an incident in the library clued them in I was marked. I got up from a study desk to use the photocopier. When I returned my geography assignment was shredded. Luckily Mr Billen granted me a two-day extension. Earlier, three bombers stole my bag and hoisted it up the flagpole. Even in hiding, Wheeler was enforcing his loyalty amongst the young Jets and ordering them to carry out vengeance against me. Obviously, someone in the gang was still in contact with Wheeler.

  I would’ve hung out with Sean if he hadn’t been duking it out with Ravenswood Girls in a debating contest. Nerdy, I know, but every school captain and would-be dux leads the debating team. It was a requirement.

  He’d be perving at the chicks about now, I guessed. If he wasn’t they would surely be eyeballing him. That annoyed me. Sean was smart, good-looking and too nice. Chicks just fell for him. Why not me? I suppose because I wasn’t perfect. Sean was. He always landed on his feet. Didn’t he have any problems which put him on a downer?

  Finishing my meat pie drowned in tomato sauce, I stood up to leave. That was until there was trouble on my side of the quadrangle. Some geek had spilt his lemonade over a bomber’s new shoes. The homey clenched his fists and told the geek he’d just made a big mistake.

  ‘But you tripped me,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Bad luck.’ The bomber pushed the geek against the wall, giving me a chance to see who the intended victim was. ‘These Nikes cost me two hundred bucks. I didn’t work for these shoes just to have some nerd spill drink all over them. You got that?’

  ‘Back off, pal,’ I said, catching his fist. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘Well, well, well. Lookit who’s come to the rescue. The squealer.’

  Great. Another tough guy.

  ‘Watcha gonna do, Mitch? Squeal to the cops if I hit him?’

  The kid pumping with aggro, Husk, was a new bomber. He’d never served under me and held no respect. Whereas I could’ve made the other Jets back off, this one promised trouble.

  ‘Hey! You three!’ The teacher on duty looked up from the cluster of year eights pleading with him to take bribes for the next exam. ‘What’s happening there?’

  No answer.

  ‘I want it to break up whatever it is. Do you understand that, Mr Jarrett?’

  I outstared the bomber then said, ‘Yes, sir. Just a friendly joke, that’s all.’

  ‘Joke or not, this is a school. Grow up if you want to stay in it.’

  Husk marked me with a quick flick of his eyes. He wanted to prove how tough he was. Just like the rest of them. Give them a bit of power and they want to be king.

  Young bombers craved power like a drug. To join a gang they usually mugged some loser to show how tough they really were. Once in, they kept wanting more and more power. The more power, the more respect. Stephen Malden, Cougar, me, Wheeler — we’d all given into it. But power was a vampire too.

  ‘C’mon,’ I said to the geek. ‘Let’s get outta here.’

  Outside, Elias said, ‘Thanks, Mitch.’

  ‘No problem.’ It was Elias Batrouney, the kid who cared for me when Napoleon overthrew my leadership in the dirt lot. ‘I owed you one. Just watch yourself next time. If you want to eat lunch eat it someplace else, like behind the library or by the car park.’

  ‘But they’re outabounds.’

  I stopped but let it slide. ‘Yer, right.’ This guy needed one or two lessons about school and which rules not to follow.

  We stood there trying to think of what to say next. Our common interests in life, except breathing, amounted to zip.

  ‘Well, you can go and finish your lunch now,’ I said. ‘If the kid gives you any more trouble find me and I’ll sort him out for you.’

  Elias grinned weakly but rejected the offer. He’d passed up booze and cash a couple of days back, but the idea of a bodyguard seduced him. It was that power thing again.

  With nothing more to say, I started to leave.

  ‘Hey,’ Elias called out. ‘Do you want to have lunch? I mean, if you’ve got nothing better to do we could talk about the old days.’

  I turned and was about to say I might have sunk down the social ladder but not that far. Instead, I said, ‘Sure — okay.’ I had nothing to lose except twenty minutes. If Elias started telling me how calculus was the greatest asset to mankind or the names of his pens, I’d ditch him on the spot.

  I finally coaxed him to go outabounds a short time later and sit behind the science block. Teachers rarely patrolled the area and only if there’d been an incident recently. As far as I knew, it was safe.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a lighter or a match on you, would you?’ I asked, putting a cigarette in my mouth.

  ‘No, I don’t smoke,’ he answered. (H
e probably never farted either, I thought.)

  ‘Maybe that’s good then. Sean, my brother, he’ll kill me if I go home with cigarettes on my breath. He’s the ultimate good guy and he’s trying to convert me.’

  ‘Have you cut down?’

  ‘Yer, I smoked my first one in three days yesterday. The nicotine withdrawal was killing me, man. I had to have one. Lucky I woke up before Sean did this morning. I’d forgotten to hide the pack.’

  And if I hadn’t talked with Wheeler at the boot factory, I’d still be a non-smoker.

  I decided to keep the conversation going. ‘D’you have a brother?’

  ‘No, I’m an only child.’

  ‘That’s right. I forgot. It’s been a while since we talked.’

  Try four years.

  ‘You don’t act like an only child. Aren’t they supposed to be self-centred and greedy and all that?’

  ‘I don’t know. As far as I know I’ve been just … well …’

  ‘Quiet? Mysterious? Weird?’

  ‘I don’t know about weird and mysterious, but quiet sounds right.’

  ‘You don’t have a lot of friends do you, Elias? Not that I’m prying or anything. It’s just an observation.’

  ‘I do, but they don’t go to this school.’

  ‘What, and you prefer sticking to yourself than hanging out with anybody here?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. Everybody here just seems so — what’s the word? — artificial. Fake. I don’t like people like that. Sure, when I do something great or win a competition everyone’s my best friend. But when I’m a loser they forget me. I’ve grown to rely on my good friends. They don’t put me down or want to use me.’