by Chris Miles
Faking it was turning out to be harder than he’d thought.
The Boulevard Motel was one of about a dozen motels and mini-resorts that lined the main highway into town. Most of them had emptied out after the end of the spring holidays. The classier ones were all built and owned by the Bruno Distagio property development empire.
This was not one of the classier ones.
Jack spotted the minivan right away. He leant his bike against the wall of the reception building, crossed the car park to room 14, and knocked on the door.
Delilah was busy on the phone when she answered. She mouthed a ‘Hi!’ and waved Jack in. It looked like she hadn’t got around to completely unpacking her suitcase yet. A laptop was open on the bench next to the bar fridge. The Bold and the Beautiful was on the TV. Jack figured Brett and Todd had their own rooms. He wondered if they were watching The Bold and the Beautiful too, and decided it was unlikely.
He was glad Delilah was alone. He didn’t want anyone else hearing what he was about to confess.
Delilah wrapped up her call with a string of ‘Okays’, then tossed the phone aside and turned to Jack. ‘Hi Jack. What’s all this about wanting to come clean?’
Jack took a deep breath and plunged in before he had a chance to rethink his decision. ‘I’m just in kind of a weird place at the moment, and I guess I’ve been saying a few things lately that … aren’t exactly true?’
‘Okay …’ said Delilah.
‘Like, today, what I said about the shooting and the fishing and the boxing and everything? Well … none of it’s real. I … made it up.’
Delilah looked not entirely amazed. Jack wasn’t sure what he’d been hoping to achieve by telling her. Maybe he just felt guilty. Maybe he was hoping she’d offer to scrap what they’d filmed and start again. He thought there was a good chance she’d give him a serve about being unprofessional. He remembered seeing an executive on Bigwigs throwing a tantrum at an intern, the first week of filming, for not being able to get celebrity chef Courtnee Devries to the location for Blue Team’s restaurant challenge because of a grounded aeroplane. The executive had gone red in the face and screamed, ‘Fix it! Just fix it! Do you think my boss would just accept it if I wobbled my lip and said, “But I have no influence over air safety regulations”? No! So fix it!’
But Delilah didn’t yell or scream. She just nodded slowly, thinking for a moment. ‘I’m glad you told me. I was starting to worry about this whole shoot.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This is reality TV, Jack. The last thing we want you to be is yourself.’
Jack was surprised at how much that sentence seemed to make sense.
‘Actually, I’m glad you’re bringing these ideas to the table,’ said Delilah. ‘It gives us something to work with. So let me get this straight: you’re telling me that all those things you mentioned today – the shooting, the fishing, the boxing – they’re not real?’
Jack nodded.
‘Okay. My question is: do you want them to be?’
Jack blinked, swallowed – and squeezed the trigger.
A muffled crack split the air. The rifle butt dug hard into his shoulder, even through the padded protection he was wearing.
Jack squinted through his protective goggles, then turned to look behind him. ‘Did I hit anything?’
The range officer for the Upland Rifle Club stood huddled with Delilah and the crew at the back of Jack’s firing lane. There were a dozen other lanes in the concrete enclosure, which sat in the middle of a fifty-acre patch of scrub just outside town. The range officer raised his binoculars, paused for a moment, then turned to Delilah, shaking his head.
‘Doesn’t matter!’ Delilah shouted back. She leant over to talk to Brett, who prised one of his earmuffs away from his head to hear what she was saying.
Jack went to remove his own earmuffs, but the range officer held up a cautioning finger and pointed to the open grassy area next to the enclosure. Jack looked over and saw two shooters lying on their stomachs on the grass, their rifles aimed at the targets. One was a kid around Jack’s age. He figured the other shooter was the kid’s dad.
When Jack looked closer, he realised the kid was Kenny Hodgman; the second-last boy to grow pubes in Year 8. He had no idea the Hodgemeister was a shooter. Maybe that was how he’d finally kickstarted puberty into action – by taking up the rifle, just like Jack was doing.
Jack wondered if Sampson had ever fired a gun. Knowing him, he probably had a bazooka at home.
‘A few more rounds for the camera, Jack!’ shouted Delilah. She mimed shooting an invisible rifle at random points in the air. Jack couldn’t tell, because of the earmuffs, but he was fairly sure she was making shooty noises out the side of her mouth.
Jack turned back to the bench rest where the .22 rifle had been set up for him. He nestled the butt of the rifle firmly into his shoulder, where the padding on his rented shooting vest was thickest, the way the range officer had shown him.
He fired three more shots, then turned to Delilah again. ‘I still don’t think I hit anything!’
A series of shots rang out from the grassy area next to the enclosure. Delilah made a ‘time out’ sign, then touched the range officer’s shoulder and asked him something. He nodded and sent two of his staff off to opposite ends of the enclosure.
‘Just calling a ceasefire,’ Delilah announced as she took off her earmuffs. Jack noticed that Brett had gone around the back of the enclosure and was climbing into a jeep with one of the range staff. ‘Don’t want my only cameraman coming back looking like Swiss cheese!’ she joked.
The range officer and Todd laughed.
‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Like, imagine if someone accidentally shot the cameraman and he died!’
Silence.
The range officer emptied Jack’s rifle of ammo and helped him out of the shooting vest. ‘That was a good first go, son. A lot of boys your age can’t handle the recoil.’
Jack wondered how old the range officer thought he was.
The jeep had pulled up next to the sandbag backstops piled behind the targets at the far end of the range. Jack saw Brett jump out of the jeep, camera on his shoulder.
‘How did that feel?’ Delilah asked, as the range officer took Jack’s goggles and earmuffs and laid them onto the folded vest.
‘Okay,’ said Jack. ‘I wish I’d actually hit a target. I guess I showed those sandbags a thing or two, though.’
Delilah shrugged. ‘You looked like a natural. It’s going to be great vision.’
When Brett returned, driven back to the enclosure in the jeep, Jack asked to see what he’d filmed. The cameraman glanced at Delilah, who nodded.
Jack leant over and peered into the viewfinder as Brett scrolled back through his footage. The screen froze on a shot of one of the targets, with two ragged holes inside the ‘8’ ring, and one inside the ‘9’ ring, close to the bullseye.
He glanced over at the grassy area next to the enclosure, where Kenny Hodgman was getting ready to fire again now that the range was clear.
‘All good?’ asked Delilah.
Jack nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘All good.’
The instructor cast the line into the water and passed the rod to Jack. Jack had finally got used to the boat lurching every time the instructor leant over to grab some fresh bait or check one of the rods. Even so, he was glad to be wearing the flotation vest.
Jack glanced over at Delilah, who stood on riverbank with the crew. At her feet was a small blue icebox she’d had with her when they’d collected Jack at sunrise. When he’d asked her what was in it, all she’d said was ‘coverage’. She didn’t elaborate.
Jack had never been out on the Redcook River – not even on one of the paddle-steamers that chugged tourists up and down the river for most of the year. He’d swum at its edges with primary school friends during summer holidays, and played cricket on the sandbar near the caravan park upstream.
Out on the river itself, the stilln
ess was eerie. Jack lost all sense of time. Occasionally he caught the fishing instructor just staring at the water. Maybe the instructor saw some mysterious pattern in the ripples left by the bugs as they skimmed the surface. Maybe he saw some hidden truth in the murky depths that Jack couldn’t.
Jack stared broodingly at the water. He wondered if Sampson had ever caught a fish. (‘Does wrestling a shark count?’ he’d probably say.) He hoped the camera was capturing his now very profound understanding of all things natural. His ease with the elements. His Lionheart Tigerwolfiness.
He’d actually considered letting Delilah know about Mr Trench and his weird wilderness survival group, in case they could help out with the fishing or shooting segments. But then he’d had visions of Mr Trench paddling over to him in a camouflage-painted tinnie, with lures and spinners stuck into the band of his fishing hat like ammunition on a bandolier, and announcing on camera how proud he was of Jack for finally becoming the ‘commanding officer of his Y-chromosome’ or something equally ridiculous. Mr Trench had way too much embarrassing intel on Jack and his testosterone troubles to be let anywhere near the Bigwigs cameras.
Anyway, it was actually Delilah making the whole manhood thing happen. She was doing a way better job of faking manhood for Jack than he ever could have managed on his own.
‘Any luck?’ Delilah shouted from the riverbank.
The fisherman nudged Jack. ‘She’d be scaring the fish away, shouting like that. That’s if there were any fish to catch.’ He gave Jack an apologetic look. ‘They’re just not biting today, son. If you were here for cod opening you’d really see them on the chew.’
‘We’ve got nothing!’ Jack shouted back.
Delilah held up a hand and knelt down to open the icebox. She reached in and pulled out a slim, greeny-yellow fish. She handed it to Todd, then wiped her hands on the back of her skirt.
‘Yellowbelly,’ said the fisherman.
‘What?’ said Jack.
‘That’s a golden perch. A yellowbelly. She’s gone and bought you your catch.’
Jack realised what it was. A stunt fish. The fisherman raised his eyebrows at Jack but said nothing. He gave the outboard motor a yank and aimed the boat for the riverbank, where Todd was edging his way towards the water, holding forth the fish like some kind of sacred offering.
As the boat got nearer, Jack reached out to grab the fish. But just as the fake catch was within reach, Todd slipped. He skidded down the bank and tumbled sideways into the river.
The fish fell out of his hands, landed in the water with a plop, and immediately sank.
Todd was chest-deep in water, and didn’t look particularly happy about it. In fact, the string of words he let out through chattering teeth was guaranteed to have frightened any fish that might have heard them. Even the fishing instructor seemed slightly taken aback.
‘Are you okay?’ said Jack.
Todd didn’t answer. He pulled himself out of the river and seemed to be doing his best not to shiver. Muddy water dripped from his beard. He continued to not look particularly happy.
‘Did we lose the fish?’ asked Delilah.
Jack nodded. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked.
‘It’s okay,’ said Delilah. ‘We got some shots of you in the boat. With the right voiceover, I’m sure we can sell the whole “rugged bushman” concept.’ She checked her watch. ‘Okay, Fisherman Jack, we’d better get you to school! Tomorrow afternoon we hit the gym.’ She faked an uppercut jab and made a ‘Pow!’ noise.
The gym, thought Jack. Where there’d be no shooting vests or flotation vests to protect him. He pictured the shots of him in shorts and a tank top, landing feeble blows against a punching bag.
He pictured himself in the changing room, getting ready.
And he pictured Oliver Sampson standing there in front of him, laughing.
Jack stared at himself in the ensuite mirror. He held his skinny, bare arms out in front of himself, and wondered if Delilah could buy him some muscle powder from the chemists, to really complete his onscreen transformation.
She kept telling him how great the firing range and fishing boat stuff was going to look on TV. And he did feel different, somehow. When he’d laid hands on the rifle and the fishing rod, it felt a bit like taking hold of a flame passed down to him by the earliest, manliest cavemen. The problem was that it was all on the inside. Nobody watching the reunion show was going to notice that.
Maybe it was time to get that tattoo he’d been thinking about. A rifle and fishing rod, crossed like clashing swords. Or ‘wig’ on the knuckles of one hand, and ‘big’ on the other. Something to distract everyone from the tragic shortage of biceps and body hair his tank top and gym shorts were guaranteed to reveal.
Tracksuit, he thought. Tracksuit bottom and hoodie. A fleecy armour to hide inside. He’d be like a warrior in a sheepskin cloak. Let the Bigwigs viewers imagine the rippling, muscular powerhouse underneath.
Jack opened his chest of drawers and rummaged through the piles of clothes Philo had stashed away for him during the move.
And that was when he saw it. The thing that kept following him around, finding its way back to him.
Like Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, but made of pubes.
There was one other difference between Sam Gamgee and Philo’s merkin. Frodo Baggins needed Sam. Jack most definitely did not need –
Then he thought for a moment. And he thought for a moment longer. Then, after a further moment of thought, he reached in, fingers like forceps, and extracted the merkin from the drawer.
With a quick glance over his shoulder to check that nobody was about to walk in on him, Jack padded back into the ensuite and stood in front of the mirror. With one hand he dangled the merkin out in front of him, and with the other, he tugged down the neck of his tank top to bare his hairless chest.
Could he? Would it be too obvious? Too up-front? He cocked his head and squinted as he draped the merkin across his pectorals, trying to imagine how it would look on camera.
Probably how it looks in the mirror, he thought.
Like pubes.
Maybe there were other options. Less visible options. Options that would still give off an overall impression of manliness.
He peeled the merkin from his chest, lifted one arm in the air, and inched the wiry black thatch tentatively towards his armpit. If he cut the merkin in half –
‘Jack?’
He spun around to see his mum standing in the bungalow doorway. ‘Mum!’ He whisked the merkin behind his back. ‘Some privacy, please! I’m … rehearsing!’
‘Pardon me, Mr De Niro!’ Adele craned her neck slightly, as if she were trying to see over Jack’s shoulder. ‘I thought you should know. Delilah just called. She wants to come over.’
Jack frowned. ‘What, tonight? Why?’
‘Something about a change of plans? It sounds urgent.’
Jack wondered what it could have been. Had Kenny Hodgman blabbed to the press about being the one to hit bullseye instead of Jack? Had the media got hold of the ‘fake fish’ story?
Calm down, thought Jack. A change of plans, his mum had said. ‘Maybe we’re not filming at the gym tomorrow after all,’ he wondered aloud, trying his best to sound disappointed.
Adele looked doubtful. ‘I think it might be bigger than that. She said something about rethinking the whole reunion show.’
Behind his back, Jack clenched both his hands, giving the merkin an anxious squeeze. Did rethinking the reunion show mean what he thought it meant? Was Bigwigs about to be taken away from him again? Sampson would have a field day with that news. He realised how tightly he was clutching the merkin. He wanted to fling it away, but his mum was still standing in the doorway.
‘Oh! I forgot to tell you, Philo stopped by earlier in the week while you were out with Delilah. He said he had something he wanted to drop off for you?’
Jack went pale. Had Philo made another merkin? A second-generation model with twice the sticki
ng power and double the pubes? He’d been cagey about what he’d been researching when Jack had found him in the library, but he’d insisted it wasn’t another merkin. So what was it? On past form, it was guaranteed to be massively embarrassing. After all, Philo had started off with fake pubes. The next logical step was …
Oh my god, thought Jack. It’s going to be fake junk. He had a vision of a huge papier-mâché dong springing out from a drawer like something from an X-rated pop-up book. But surely his mum would have noticed Philo walking that through the house?
‘This thing Philo dropped off,’ Jack said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. ‘Was it big? Was it small?’
Adele shook her head. ‘I was on my way out to work, I wasn’t really paying attention.’ She frowned. ‘What’s the matter? You’re acting like he’s hidden a snake in your room or something.’
A trouser-snake, maybe, thought Jack darkly. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll just … finish up here, then I’ll come in for dinner.’
Adele craned her neck again, obviously hoping for a glimpse of whatever Jack was holding behind his back. Luckily, Jack’s body seemed to be blocking the reflection of his merkin-clutching hands in the ensuite mirror.
‘Okay,’ said his mum, pausing at the door on her way out. ‘You’ll never guess what we’re having.’
‘Great,’ said Hallie. ‘Sausages again. I’ll pass.’
Jack drummed his fingers nervously on the kitchen table. As soon as his mum had left, he’d upturned his entire bachelor pad. He yanked out drawers and flung t-shirts and socks and underpants over his shoulder in a desperate search for Philo’s new pube-prop.
Nothing. His room was a mess, and he’d found nothing.
Philo must have suffered one of his typical brain-fades and had forgotten to actually leave the mystery item for Jack to find. It was the only explanation Jack could come up with.
‘When did Delilah say she’s coming?’
‘Soon,’ said Adele from the kitchen. She rolled another spatula-load of sausages onto a plate.