Whole Wild World

by Tom Dusevic

  I admired Blanka and Zdenka, both of whom were born in Croatia. Blanka was tiny when her parents escaped by boat to Italy, while Zdenka had migrated with her parents and sisters near the end of her primary schooling. My cousins had flown out of a traditional orbit, building careers in areas where few Croatians had ventured in our new homeland. Nothing seemed out of reach for Blanka and Zdenka, and because of them, for me.

  Deputy principal Mick Keeble was coach of the 16As basketball team. As many of us were fourteen, to prepare us for the next season he entered us in a summer competition in another district. Mick was a disciple of rugby league’s enigmatic Jack Gibson, having once been a coach in the lower grades at Eastern Suburbs, when the Roosters were winning premierships under the ‘Supercoach’.

  Mick was our Supercoach and his training method suited my style and sense of play; we played games and he joined in. His signature move was the no-look pass. Although he’d been Sam’s coach for two seasons, I didn’t know him well. To get a better view of the action when Sam played I sat on the bench and listened to what Supercoach had to say. His teams had won the main competition the past two seasons. No matter what the state of the game, the slender, almost gaunt mentor showed no emotion. He was calm in the face of poor calls or deficits late in the game; it was an act of self-control, a strategy that expressed confidence in his team’s ability. On a mini flip notebook, he’d write the name of the opposition, then the names of his players in numerical order. He kept a tally of our goals and free throws: 2, 2, 1, 1, 2 and so on. I was looking forward to playing in his team and getting to know him well.

  At one of our early training sessions he zeroed in on a common aspect of my game: dribbling aggressively through heavy traffic to the hoop.

  ‘So Dusevic comes wombling along and instead of passing it to Salem or Carroll in better positions, he goes himself and misses.’

  ‘The Wombles, my little cousins watch that show,’ said one of the boys.

  Wombles stuck. I had stopped growing up but not out, on a home diet of soft drinks, chocolate, biscuits and chips and the tuckshop’s banquet menu of pies, sausage rolls, Twisties and Wagon Wheels. For a complete meal at school, we’d put a sausage roll inside a buttered roll, sauce being an optional, no-cost extra. The jelly belly had gone but I’d built up extra comfort above my hips, wombling free when I played sport.

  With George ‘Harpo’ Salem and Phil ‘Sticks’ Carroll I’d made the Western Suburbs basketball representative team. Basketball was a five-day a week commitment covering training and games. On Saturdays we trained for reps at Dulwich Hill High School’s gym, the same venue as our Friday-night competition games. On Sundays we played all over Sydney, driven around in a mini-bus by coach Brother Jeff from Christian Brothers Lewisham. Brother Jeff ’s coaching was sophisticated and intense; he was organised and analytical and we played to patterns on a whiteboard, involving endless practice drills. He kept a record of missed shots, baskets and fouls. Brother Jeff provided individual analysis of each game; we were asked to write evaluations of our performance and mail them to him before the next training session. I enjoyed competing at this level because the refereeing was superior, timekeeping stricter and we were playing against the best talent in the state. What I liked most, however, were the long trips to the outlying parts of the city and beyond in the mini-bus, where we niggled each other, cracked jokes and bonded with Friday-night rivals.

  On Friday I often did refereeing or bench duty for cash, jobs that rep players had an inside track on. We’d miss dinner altogether or make a dash to Dulwich Hill milkbars and hamburger joints. The coaches told us to avoid being alone as it was a rough area, with older boys and men gathering in groups for drinking, dope- smoking and car-hooning.

  I tended not to leave the gym because I liked watching other teams. Sticks, tall, flexible and super skinny, enjoyed fast food even more than I did. One night, he asked Harpo and me to walk with him to the shops on the main road. In a side street, we passed a dozen guys in their late teens and early twenties drinking outside a shop. They were listening to car stereos, making noise and jostling among themselves under a dim streetlight. We crossed to the dark side of the road to avoid them.

  On the way back, we caught the attention of a short guy in the rowdy group, who approached us in the dark.

  ‘Hey boys, what about some of this,’ he said, having undone his fly and sticking out his dick. ‘Oi, you,’ he said to me, the closest. ‘I said how would you like some of this?’

  We ignored him, kept walking.

  ‘Come on boys, come on,’ he taunted, still holding his dick.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘We’re not that type.’

  Bam. The back of my head’s just hit a wall.

  Where did that come from? I’m dazed, wobbling at the knees. Bam. An invisible force strikes just below my ear, knocking me sideways. Have I been hit by a flying car? Another blow blasts the other side of my head. I stumble the other way.

  It’s the little prick in front of me, bouncing on his toes. It’s a foot, not a fist he’s using. Disoriented, these eyes without cues for depth, I can’t see what’s coming. He’s not saying anything now; behind the group of men cheer every blow.

  Where are Sticks and Harpo? They’ve bolted. I can’t hear them calling me to run to safety, my eardrums ringing from a sonic boom and jeers.

  Bam. Again. Again.

  It’s a biblical assault. I’ve offended the Gods. The communication lines have been cut between head and body. I’m on my knees. He’s stopped, I see, because he’s lost one of his thongs. I’m watching him fetch it, I can’t move. This is a natural pause. Please let it end. But he kicks me again. Only kicks. He has a single target, the head. I put my arms up like a boxer, Ali on the ropes, but I’m not winning here. It’s Harpo, grabbing my arm, dragging me free.

  I still feel as if I’m being kicked. The eyes won’t adjust to more light. Can’t walk straight. Mind and pain are coalescing. I hear familiar voices, but faces are blurred. The undamaged body is recoiling from the head’s field of pain. Now I know. This is what getting the shit beaten out of you means.

  Other boys in our year, who’d come to see their mates play, saw what was happening from a distance, had no idea who was caught in the whirlpool of kicks. All of us on horses would be no match for a mob that big and, most likely, vicious.

  News reaches Supercoach that there’s been an incident, but not the details of how I’d been bashed. He doesn’t say I deserved it, for I was straying outside the gym, but I feel his censure. We play the late game. I sat on the bench, unable to focus or compute the state of play. A barrier of pain and disorientation separates me from the world. Shame settles in as I realise I was a kicking bag for a short-arsed thug. Irrational thoughts seep in. Did I actually cause this by opening my big mouth? Did my mates really abandon me? Is that all I am worth to them?

  I slept until lunchtime the next day, telling Mama I didn’t feel well. My body ached, taking some of the load off the head. I started counting the small lumps, all over the back of my head and neck, four or five around each ear, top of my head, places I don’t even remember being kicked; there were two dozen lumps, give or take.

  Did he really kick me that many times? It’s just not possible. Can you bring up several lumps with a single blow? I could barely move my jaw to speak, stiff in places that were untouched, my eyes puffy and vision blurry. I helped myself to painkillers. This is what it must be like to be Dallas Donnelly after every game.

  We had training at Dulwich Hill. I’d promised to meet Harpo at Belmore station. When I called his place, he’d already left. I didn’t want to leave him stranded so I packed my gear and set off. On the train, we went over the previous night’s attack.

  ‘We kept calling to you to get away,’ he said. ‘But you just stayed there getting kicked. What did you say to him?’

  ‘Nothing. He stuck out his cock and kept saying “Come and get it”. I said “No thanks” and kept walking and suddenly he kicked
me in the head, and kept kicking me. He was a lot shorter than you. I’m amazed he could reach that high to kick me here.’

  I was anxious as we walked to the gym, going a longer way to avoid places where groups might be gathered, although it was unlikely during mid-afternoon. While we were training in the gym some guys turned up, said they wanted to use the courts, and Brother Jeff asked them to leave. Suddenly we heard a thundering sound as rocks and bottles landed on the gym’s metal roof. I told Brother Jeff about the bashing and he locked us inside the gym. We didn’t know if they were some of the same guys from last night or how we would get out. Brother Jeff had parked the mini-bus at the back of the school. In a dressing room we removed several glass panes from the louvred windows, climbed out, then made a dash for the bus. It was less chaotic than the evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon, but no one was left behind. Brother Jeff dropped us off at Dulwich Hill railway station and then reported the incident to police.

  I dwelt on the bashing for a long time. Often I thought I’d brought this on myself by not keeping my mouth shut. I couldn’t tell my parents, for fear of losing my nocturnal liberties, such as they were. Sam was doing his final year of high school and, besides, what could he do about it now? Wally and Frank suggested a vivid and violent course of retribution when we were older and stronger and had getaway wheels. Milk and refereeing money couldn’t get you a posse of vigilantes.

  Yet, in my mind, I’d failed a big test: too gutless to fight, too stupid to run. I could see no middle ground. There was no use wallowing in pity. It destroyed my previous confidence in the street: my sense that I could read situations, avoid danger and look after myself. There must be something soft in the way I appeared that brought the short man to me and not to anyone else that night.

  I willed misfortune on to my assailant, hoped God would call him on it, that the short man would one day fight the wrong guy. But I also had to take care of myself and push through the fear. I vowed not to be so vulnerable or to depend on others. I’d wobbled, stumbled, but it was up to me to find the courage, to stay on my feet, like Dallas.

  That year I was school captain of St John’s. In my time, there had been an illustrious lineage of all-round good guys and I wanted to leave my mark. Even though Sam had done the job two years earlier I wasn’t aware of all his duties, caught up as I was in footy, basketball and the business of running a medieval kingdom.

  Typically, I anticipated the prestige. That lasted a week. I wasn’t a monarch who could order people around. The role was about service, and it was humbling. I worked in the tuckshop every day and coached sporting teams. There were numerous speeches to make and receptions to attend representing the school. At a couple of funerals, I was obliged to offer condolences to the widow on behalf of the school. I’d escort guests on school visits and on weekends help out at working bees and charity drives – I’d not lost my zeal for knocking on doors and asking for money or the curiosity to see what kind of people lived in the house with three wrecked cars in the front yard. Leadership was also serving by example; there was pressure not to put a foot wrong in class or away from school. It was toil and self-control, ego in abeyance. This all-consuming experience at fifteen would help to make, and unmake, me before I became an adult.

  A blow to our It’s Academic aspirations came at the end of Year Nine when Mr Fernandes accepted a position at another school. Even though he hadn’t been hands-on, his mere presence and solidity would count when we were doing the real thing. Did Mr Fernandes detect something lacking in our makeup?

  Supercoach stepped in. He’d be equally hands-off, yet wily, cool in any crisis, with a nose for the big occasion. The team had been settled the previous year: David Maher, who was captain, Anthony Schwab and me. We may not have been the best students in our year, but were avid readers, interested in the world, and had abundant general knowledge for our age.

  As well, we brought quirks to the quiz table: Dave was an excellent speller and knew history, Tony was strong on literature and science, and I was up with current affairs and geography, even though I’d never been anywhere. Dave and Tony were from Punchbowl, the Anglo end of our school zone in those days. I enjoyed their humour and company. Having spent a year preparing for our moment under the studio lights, we were a harmonious team.

  At Channel Seven on the morning of our first show, Supercoach had a quiet word to the floor manager. One of our team members was hard of hearing – news to us – so would it be okay if our team sat closer to the host? No problem.

  Given the layout of the studio it meant we would have a slight advantage in beat-the-buzzer because Harwood would be facing me directly. In our year, the competition had been reformatted, with NSW and Victoria combined and broadcast in both areas. I was seated next to a boy from a selective high school in Melbourne. He was self-assured when we spoke; I was the opposite.

  ‘Where’s Lake-emba?’

  ‘It’s in Sydney.’

  ‘Oh, whereabouts?’

  ‘It’s in the western suburbs, near Bankstown. Which footy team do you go for?’

  ‘I don’t follow the VFL.’

  In previous years, St John’s teams had worn black blazers, a garment that had been phased out years before I started. Blazers had to be dug out of safekeeping from the mothers of old boys. We were now in a blazer-free era at school, so for the show we turned up in plain blue short-sleeved shirts and blue jumpers. The school hired a bus, so there was a good crowd from St John’s that morning.

  Harwood explained the rules and we were away. A girls’ team would be first up, answering questions from one of fifteen envelopes on a board.

  ‘Pick a packet please, David.’

  ‘Number thirteen please, Sir.’

  David was hamming up the drama by choosing the unlucky number, knowing the audience would respond with an ‘ooooohhh’. It made no difference as the girls hit a perfect round, giving them 50 bonus points: 150, runs on the board.

  This would be a tough assignment. David did our spelling; I did maths; the three of us in unison for most of the rest. By the time we got to the final round we had not made a mistake and were on 450 points, with a decent buffer on the other teams. I was jumpy and quick on the buzzer and we scooted away to win with over 600 points, a kind of benchmark for gun teams.

  During the last round whenever I buzzed in, the boy next to me said the wrong answer in my ear to put me off, David said. Spellbound, crouched low as if the task was to leap the desk if Harwood said ‘jump’, I could not hear what he was saying as I had another soundtrack in my head – facts tumbling out in an even flow.

  Over the next few weeks we won three in a row, near perfect in the three one-minute rounds and on fire in beat the buzzer. Once or twice you’d catch a wave in these lightning rounds, answering every question. I found myself pressing instantly, the answer popping out on cue; once an answer (the symbol for one of the elements) came out of my mouth I didn’t even know I knew. It was pure instinct, scary at the same time.

  In the series final we attracted a big audience. One of the prefects had organised for seven younger boys to sit in a line, each holding a placard. It spelt out W-O-M-B-L-E-S. The cameras caught it.

  ‘Who’s WOWBLES?’ a girl from a school in country Victoria sitting next to me asked during a break. I was mortified, not least because boy number three had his sign upside-down.

  ‘I think it must be one of their mates at home,’ I said.

  We were now in the state final. While the stakes got higher, we were also more familiar with the show, and so became more relaxed; gone were the jumpers and we now competed in basic blue shirts, workers getting on with the job at hand. We found ourselves in a tight game with Patrician Brothers Fairfield and it came down to the final beat-the-buzzer period. The coaches sat in the front row of the audience. Supercoach was impassive, a poker shark in Vegas. The Pats’ coach was dressed like a priest, with a white collar on black shirt and pants. The Pats were on a roll when Harwood announced it was the final thirt
y seconds. Mr Fernandes once told us if another team ever got on one of these magical rolls to buzz in as soon as Harwood began the question. You’d be penalised twenty points, unable to answer, but you’d stop the other team’s momentum.

  We couldn’t get a word in. Their coach was bouncing in his seat, riding to the finish on Cup day; Supercoach looked faintly bored. A horn sounded.

  ‘And that’s the end of the show!’

  Supercoach may have raised his eyebrow, a slight turn at the end of his mouth becoming a smile.

  We’d won. The Pats’ coach, having ridden hands and heels, slumped in his seat. We’d cracked the mighty 600 yet again and were now NSW and Victorian champions. The Australian championships would be in Sydney the following week. Harwood had seen the competition; in the euphoria, he told us we were the team to beat.

  We competed in a complicated round robin, finishing second twice. In the grand final we ran into a rampant Brisbane State High School, captained by a quiz wizard who would a few years later be the grand champion on Sale of the Century on Channel Nine.

  Still, we were champions of the two most populous states. We’d beaten many of the nation’s most prestigious schools, yet were oblivious to such vast differences in wealth and class. Our reference points were schools in the district, the other kids in our year at St John’s. We were pragmatic enough to know we had been primed to do well in a game, which depended on luck and wit. And getting all your letters in the correct order!

  M-B-O-W-E-L-S. Really, kids?

  There was no travel abroad for us, but there was a fuss and recognition in the local press. Being on TV seven times at fifteen was its own reward. Our prize was 500 each in a Wales Savings Bank account. That was a month’s pay for an adult, enough to buy a second-hand car or used as a nest egg for later in life.