Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  ‘OK, little man,’ his father said to Theo. ‘We’ll read more of it tomorrow.’

  His mother came in carrying a six-pack of beer, Regan following behind her, munching on a Bounty. She was getting fat, thought Danny disapprovingly. He couldn’t understand why his mother or his father didn’t say something to her. His mother handed his father a beer and opened one for herself. He watched his parents drink. His father’s arms were ropy, strong, speckled with fair hair, the tan a varnish over his pale skin. There was grey at his temples. Every year his paunch got bigger—the constant driving, the cheap and greasy food. His mother was also going grey but she hid it by sometimes dyeing her hair blonde, sometimes red, mostly jet-black. As she lifted the beer to her mouth, her upper arms wobbled, they were getting flabby. Danny sat still in his body, feeling the straight lines of it, the tautness of it. There was no flab there, no paunch, nothing ugly.

  ‘Did you eat all the lasagne?’

  ‘There was only half of it left.’

  She came over, wrapped her arms around him. ‘I just don’t know where it goes.’

  He smelled the sour yeast of the beer, felt the loose flesh of her forearms squashing his own firm skin. It is energy, he wanted to say, I convert it all to energy. It was simple, it was basic physics. Danny pulled away from his mother’s embrace and got up from the table. ‘You’re still gunna drive me to training tomorrow, aren’t ya?’ He was looking at his mother, but he could sense his father’s body tensing, a sudden snap of air.

  ‘Your mother is sleeping in tomorrow.’

  There was no space, no possible space between himself and his father that was safe.

  ‘Fine, then.’ Danny opened the fridge to get another Tim Tam. ‘I’ll just have to catch public transport.’ He slammed the door. ‘Again.’

  Regan’s eyes were darting from the fridge, to the Tim Tam, to Danny, to her father, back to Danny. They found her mother, who smiled at her reassuringly.

  ‘It’s a holiday, son,’ his father said. ‘You can swim in the afternoon.’

  No, he will swim in the morning and he will swim in the afternoon. He was already behind from spending the last two nights at the Taylors’ beach house.

  ‘It’s alright, Neal, I’ll take him in the morning.’

  ‘No!’ His father almost shouted the word. Theo dropped his book and Regan rushed to Danny’s side. ‘You and I are sleeping in tomorrow. If he needs to swim he can fucking walk there.’

  I do need to swim, you dumbfuck arsehole, I have to swim. Danny wished that his father wasn’t there at all, that he was lost somewhere in the desert. Regan put her hand in the crook of his arm. The small tender gesture calmed him. Why couldn’t it be just him and Theo and Mum and Regan? Just them.

  ‘OK, OK, Mum can sleep in. I said I’ll take public transport.’ But he couldn’t resist it, he wanted to get one dig in, just one small dig. He said it quietly, not quite under his breath: ‘That cool with you, Mr Shitkicker Truck Driver?’

  But his father heard, his father exploded. ‘Fuck you, you’re not going swimming at all. You’re going to stay here and we’re going to spend the day as a family.’

  Danny wouldn’t look at his father. ‘I’ve got more important things to do.’

  ‘Like swanning around with your Portsea mates at their beach parties. That’s what you’d prefer to do, isn’t it?’

  His father made it sound dirty, made them sound dirty, made Danny feel dirty. Couldn’t he be four thousand kilometres away, couldn’t he be forever and ever and ever away?

  Danny couldn’t look at him, the contempt would choke him. Put it back on him, throw it back at him.

  ‘It wasn’t a frigging beach party. It was Martin’s grandmother’s birthday.’

  She said I know myself, she said I’m not like the middle class. He wanted to find a way to express it to his father, to make it alright. His father also hated the middle class; he said it all the time, that the country was so bloody unrelentingly middle class. But Danny couldn’t connect the spaces between where he’d been with the old woman and where he was now with his father.

  His father slammed his beer bottle down on the table. ‘Do you know the old dame whose birthday you were celebrating yesterday, Danny? Do you know anything about her? Do you know who she really is?’

  She’s like you. I can’t explain it, but she is exactly like you.

  ‘Do you have a clue who her husband was?’

  Danny could sense the danger, he knew he should just get out and go to his room. But his dad’s scornful eyes, his dad’s disdainful tone, they had trapped him, they wouldn’t let him go.

  ‘Her husband was one of the biggest donors to the Liberal Party, one of their key benefactors. His money was behind every strike they tried to break, his money put the bloody premier where he is now. His money helped make Howard prime minister!’ His father’s voice was shaking. ‘That’s the kind of filth you’re associating with, son. Do you really think that kind of shit doesn’t stick to you?’

  Danny looked around the small kitchen, at the cramped cupboards, the cups with broken handles, the burnt pots, the stove with the one element that didn’t work. It was all too small, too mean here. There was no space at all.

  ‘So what? You’re just jealous.’

  They were right, the boys at school were right when they said that people envied the rich. His old man envied him, couldn’t stand the idea that his son was going to be better than him. That was why he was punishing Danny. He had to throw it back at his father. Humiliate him.

  ‘Anyway, what do you know? All you do is drive from bloody Melbourne to bloody Perth and back again. One day they’ll train monkeys to do your job.’ Danny said it coldly, keeping the emotion out of his voice. He had learned that from Martin. You didn’t give your words any heat, you didn’t show yourself through them at all.

  His father hung his head. Regan started silently to cry. Danny didn’t care, he couldn’t care. His mother’s outraged curse, in Greek so he didn’t understand, pounded in his ears as he went to his room. ‘Throw it back,’ he whispered to himself, ‘give it back to them so they are the ones who are hurt.’

  In his room, he sat on the end of his bed, starting to shake. He thought if he got up he would faint. The shame was splitting him open, cracking him apart. No one could ever put him back together, there was no way to do that.

  He took a deep breath, flexing his triceps, then moving his arms and shifting the energy to his biceps. He straightened his back—the strength there, the power there. He breathed out and looked up, across to the posters and photographs and medals above his desk. There was the photo torn from the Herald Sun, in colour, Perkins on the dais, kissing his medal, Kowalski in second place, looking straight ahead. Danny would be first, everything would be alright when he came first, all would be put back in place. When he thought of being the best, only then did he feel calm.

  As soon as the race starts, he knows he is going to win. It is an open-air pool and the sun is brilliant and the sky is clear and all around the stadium the crowd is shouting out his name. What astounds him is how effortless it all is, he can’t feel his arms, he can’t feel his legs, not only is he in the water but he has become water. The strokes, the kicks, they are exactly like breathing. This is what it must feel like to be a bird, he is rushing through sky. He is in water but he can feel the sun, is reaching the sun. The race finishes and he is first, of course he is first. He has won. He narrows his eyes to slits. He can hardly see the other swimmers, they are trying to reach him but they are miles away, flecks in the far distance. He raises his arm, he salutes the crowd. He looks up and his father’s hand is reaching out to him, to hoist him out of the water. Danny shakes his head. No, he wants to stay here, he wants to stay in the sky and in the water. He looks around. The cheers have fallen silent, the benches are empty. Frightened, he turns back and now Martin and Emma are standing either side of his father. And they are laughing, laughing and pointing at him. Danny looks down. His Speedos have g
one, he is naked, and he’s pissing. The stream is a vile acrylic blue, it clouds the water around him. ‘You’ve pissed yourself,’ Martin is laughing. Emma stuffs her hand in her mouth, shaking uncontrollably. And his father, his father too, he can’t stop laughing.

  Danny jolted upright. His room was in darkness. He’d pissed his bed, he was sure of it, he’d pissed his bloody bed. His hands searched the sheets and he fell back in relief. His sheets were dry. He peered at the alarm clock: it was not yet two o’clock.

  He needed desperately to piss.

  The hall was illuminated, the lounge room lit; someone was still up in the kitchen. Trying to ignore the fullness in his bladder, he stood in the doorway. There were record sleeves strewn across the floor, an LP still spinning on the turntable, the needle clicking and crackling as it ran over and over the same soundless groove.

  From the kitchen he heard his mother say, ‘I think that school is good for him.’

  And he heard his father snort. ‘Yeah? By making him despise his father?’

  ‘He doesn’t despise you, Neal. He’s just angry. You and I can’t understand the focus he needs, the obsession he has with swimming.’

  ‘Jesus, Steph, the swimming isn’t the problem. His selfishness is the fucking problem.’

  Danny heard a match strike, wrinkled his nose as the acrid smell of the cigarette hit. He was holding his breath, so they wouldn’t hear him, so he could hear his mother’s answer. Defend me, please defend me.

  ‘Going to that school is a huge opportunity, a really special opportunity, and I am not going to deny him that.’

  Another match struck, another cigarette lit.

  ‘He’s got a chance to be great, Neal. How can you deny your son the chance to achieve that?’

  ‘I just don’t think it’s fair. Regan is starting high school next year. What about her opportunities? Should we be sending all the kids to those kinds of schools? We couldn’t afford that, baby. How is that fair on Regan, how’s that fair on Theo?’

  ‘Danny will look after his sister and his brother. I have no doubt about that. He’s a good boy, Neal—you know he’ll do right by us, don’t you?’

  Danny slowly exhaled. His mother understood.

  He was waiting for his father’s answer.

  ‘That’s a pretty big burden to place on a young man’s shoulders.’

  ‘He’s going to be an Olympic champion. Don’t you get it? He’s going to be one of the greats.’

  Danny held in his breath again. He had forgotten his full bladder; he was waiting for his father to agree.

  ‘Steph, baby, what if he isn’t good enough? What if he doesn’t make it?’

  Danny crept back down the hall. He couldn’t go to the toilet now, they would hear him. He couldn’t bear for them to know that he had heard them. He softly shut the door to his room.

  Danny gently pulled at the window. He winced as it gave with a thud. He was motionless, waiting. But the sound hadn’t carried, they hadn’t heard. A cold gust of wind struck his face. He stood on tiptoes, pulled down his jocks and let go. The stream of urine rattled the side fence, but he didn’t care anymore whether anyone heard. Steam rose from where the urine splashed on the fence palings. Finally, his bladder was empty and Danny carefully shut the window again.

  It took an age for him to fall asleep. He had to count through the muscles in his body, tensing and relaxing, the way he’d been taught. He was supposed to clear his mind, but all he could think was how he was going to prove his father wrong. I am going to be the fastest and the strongest and the best and I am going to look after Mum and Regan and Theo, and I’m even going to look after you, you prick. Even you, you prick.

  He breathed out.

  He relaxed his shoulders, sank into the bed, pretending he was sinking into water. He was determined now, he was going to bring all the worlds together now. He breathed in. They were doing the right thing sending him to that school, they were doing the right thing supporting him. He owed them, he knew that. He owed them but it would be alright. He breathed out.

  He fell asleep, knowing it would all be alright.

  �I DUNN WANNA, I DUNN WANNA, I DUNN WANNA.�

  He repeats it over and over, so many times I am no longer aware of the words; what I am listening to is the rhythm, as if the real meaning is in the fall and tumble and shape of the words. Maybe it is. Four years ago, after shooting up a gram of speed and drinking fifteen beers, Kevin tore his car up Burnley Street, Richmond, and lost control of the wheel when he tried to turn the corner into Highett Street. The car slammed into one of the thick-trunked elm trees that shroud that avenue. Kevin, who wasn�t wearing his seatbelt, was thrown through the windscreen, his body flung onto the red-brick front fence of a house. It was on the fence that he cracked his head open. He was nineteen and he was lucky. When I first started working with him I was told that if he�d been wearing the seatbelt he would have been concertinaed with the car, reality becoming animation as it collapsed from three to two to one dimension. For the neighbour whose brick wall Kevin�s head smashed onto, it must have sounded like an explosion.

  �I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.� Kevin is standing in his shower recess, while I am trying to pull down his pants. He�s shat and pissed himself. �I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.� I try to get his pants out from underneath his feet, and the shit and the piss smear on my hands, my arms, my shirt. �I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.�

  �For fuck�s sake, Kevin, stand still!�

  The shouting works. I don�t like doing it but yelling at him is the only thing that quietens him down. I know why he shouts, why he chants over and over and over, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I know all about that. You repeat, you repeat, you repeat to block out the shame, to block out the voice screaming at you, What a mess, what a monster, what a no-hoper, what a disgrace, what an idiot, what a fuckup, what an animal, what a douchebag, what a freak, what a loser, loser, loser, loser, the voice that won�t stop, can�t stop, that mocks and taunts and jeers and fills your head till you just repeat the words over and over and over to make them music, to make them rhythm, to make them just sound, bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. The shame, like a piston ramming right into me; the memory of it flaying me, stripping the skin off me. The shame still cuts me in two, in four, in eight. I am hung and quartered and skewered on it.

  �It�s alright, Kevin, it�s fine, mate, it�s fine�I understand.�

  �I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.� But the voice is getting quieter. I carefully guide his feet over the trousers, and he is naked, cupping his dick and balls in his hands.

  �It�s OK, Kevin, it�s fine, mate. I�m just going to turn on the shower.�

  The pipes knock, scream, and then the water cascades all over him. I grab the yellow sponge and scrub his body. I don�t mind getting wet, it washes my shame away, as I rub his belly, his groin and his thighs. The shit turns runny as it swirls around the plug hole, turning liquid, disappearing till it is just clear water.

  Kevin is silent now, Kevin is calm now. His cock is half-erect and he points at it.

  �OK, mate, that�s enough.� I turn off the water and start to rub him down. His cock is fully hard now and he can�t stop chortling.

  �I�m sor-ry, Dan.�

  �That�s OK.�

  He sniffs, his face contorts. �You . . . you . . . you smell, Da-Da-Dan.�

  I finish drying him and then point to the door. �Out. I have to shower too.�

  I shower, quickly, scrub my skin. The rush of hot water on my back, it finally relaxes me.

  My pants are fine, but my shirt is soiled. I find a plastic bag and place the soggy mess in it. I then search under the sink, find some disinfectant, a Chux, and finish cleaning up the bathroom.

  When I go back to the living room, Kevin�s sitting on the end of the sofa, drinking a beer and watching porn.

  �Is it cool if I borrow one of your t-shirts?�

&n
bsp; He is ignoring me, he�s fascinated by the athletic contortions of the two women and the man on the screen.

  I take a plain blue t-shirt from his room and put it on. I should be scolding him: You shouldn�t drink, you know that. If you drink too much you�ll lose control of your bladder and your bowels, you know that, Kevin.

  There�s no washing machine in Kevin�s flat, so I put the bag of soiled clothes in the car boot for us to do later at the laundromat. I lock up and we begin the slow shuffle to the Sunshine Pool. Sometimes I have to remind him: this foot, I point, bring it forward; that foot, I point to the other, now move that one. This foot, that foot, we shuffle, we crawl, I catch his arm when he stumbles, we reach the pool.

  He doesn�t want me to undress him, he wants to do it himself. The smell of chlorine, of toilet soap, the humid air, the stripping bodies. I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.

  At the pool a cheerful young man in Speedos takes Kevin�s hand and starts pulling him away, trying to lead him to the shallow end.

  �No. I-I-I wunn wunna, Dan.�

  �Come on, Kevin. You know Sean is going to swim with you.�

  �No.� Kevin pulls at my t-shirt, trying to get me to go with him. I don�t budge. The chlorine is thick in my nose and in my mouth, the heat and the steam is seeping into me. I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.

  �Ca-cum inn, Da-nee.�

  �No!� The force of my vehemence hurts him as much as if I have smacked him. He looks down, distressed and ashamed.

  I apologise, hug him. �Come on, Kevin, you know, mate, you know I can�t swim.�

  I watch Sean lead Kevin down the slow lane, watch Sean try to teach Kevin how to tread water again. I sit as far away from the water as I can.

  I don�t swim.

  I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.

  I won�t swim.

  I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.

  I can�t swim.

  Australian Swimming Championships,