Just before we moved into this house, my parents sent me to a (relatively cheap) private Christian high school, instead of to the local public school in Emerald. I was always getting into trouble there, mainly for not doing any work and for yelling at the teachers. I failed every single subject except phys. ed. in Year 8. We had some strict, old-fashioned teachers at that school — one in particular never let us utter a single word in class. One day, with a water balloon in hand, I walked into a class he was teaching, threw it into the fan, and then ran down the hall, giggling ecstatically. Another day I stood up and told our keyboarding teacher she was a ‘stupid fucking bitch’. I was eventually expelled in Year 9 after — on the way to a school camp, and in the middle of nowhere — I stole a bunch of chocolate Big Ms and threw them at a house. A teacher saw me, and as I was already on my last legs there, I was expelled. I was then sent to the local public school.
During my time at the private school, I had tried to climb the social ladder and break in with the popular boys. They were at first a bit iffy with me, and I didn’t always get invited to parties. At one party I went to, though, I got really drunk — I was soon able to outdrink most people — and did all sorts of silly things, such as putting baked-beans tins in the fire, and squirting people with tomato-sauce bottles. From then on, I was in.
I am not sure why I was such a little shit when I was that age. I really just wanted to entertain myself and make people laugh. My school counsellor said it was a combination of ‘boredom and low self-esteem’. My mum said I ‘lacked self-control’. Indeed, the ‘self’ was all-important to my family back then — my parents thrived in the new capitalism. Appearance was reality back then, and reality was composed of what we imagined others might be thinking of us.
Mum said she remembers going for drives, away from her alcoholic, abusive household in housing-commission East Malvern, to the big houses around Chadstone Shopping Centre, and daydreaming about how elegant, proper, and peaceful life must have been inside them. She loved the new house; when we moved in, she didn’t really need to work. She never really cooked, and we had a cleaner. She spent ten to sixteen hours a day on the computer, playing solitaire. We had no family get-togethers, no traditions, not even a bookshelf; we each had our lounge area, and we never ate dinner together. I no longer had neighbours to run around with. But I did get an expensive tutor who my parents spent thousands of dollars on and many hours driving me into the inner suburb of Camberwell to see each week. This woman — Gillian — was a massive help, without a doubt, and introduced me to books and ideas and writing. She was a psychologist, too, just like I wanted to be.
Mum was often very upset by the things I did. For example, one day she asked me to make her coffee after I got home from school and I said no, because she hadn’t been doing anything all day. The next day she told me that I was a horrible person and that this made her cry; she looked at me as if I had thrown her out on the street with no money and nowhere to go. She cried a lot back then. She cried when she and Dad went through months without speaking. She cried for months on end when we found Daisy on the back porch, her jaw in an awkward position, having died of old age when we weren’t home.
After the bushes were burnt down, I could see the portable classrooms of my new school from the back fence. From my lounge room, I could see my classmates waiting for home group in the morning. They were hard to miss — they all had bright-red windcheaters on, which we had to wear with blue trousers and Blundstone boots.
This was the school that was preparing tomorrow’s labourers, tradies, and small-time crims — ‘access to excellence’ was its motto.
My ‘friends’ were always quick to acknowledge my presence once I got over the fence.
‘Luke the disgusting faggot is here.’
‘Poofter, poofter, cock-sucker,’ and so on.
Every morning for three years.
This was the dawn of a new era in my life — I would know now what it was like to be the lowest-ranking male. To use the metaphor of a diseased tree, the problem was that I was blossoming into an adult that some considered to be threatening to the population; an adult that needed to be cut down, turned into sawdust, and buried in a hole to ensure it didn’t spread weakness, perversion, and infection. I am, in fact, talking here about the life of a gay teenager in post-AIDS 1990s country Australia.
Mind you, I didn’t even see myself as being gay at the time. The trouble had its origins in grade five, before anybody knew what gay was. I had earned a reputation for being able to make guys ejaculate using my hands. Every second guy in my grade was shown this magic trick. Years later, when we all figured what this meant, not a single person came and patted my back in the gym change-rooms and said, ‘You gave good hand jobs for one so young, do you want to come to a party on Saturday night?’ Rather, it was seen as transgressive and abject — an act of faggotry — and suddenly, like magic, I had no friends: a dangerous proposition at a working-class bush school, where boys liked to start wars.
‘Hi, Luke’ wasn’t something I heard very much in those formative years: the years in which it’s generally considered healthy and necessary for a person to have a peer group, which is the first step in a natural and incremental flight from the nest. But I did hear plenty of other things, in high-pitched whiny voices from the grotty little shits at our nondescript public school filled with eucalypts, portable classrooms, and the petty criminals of tomorrow. Every lunchtime and recess I heard myself called a ‘cock-licker’, a ‘poo-pusher’, a ‘girly-boy’, and a ‘faggot’ because I ran on my toes. For the sake of variety, a group of boys would often call ‘poof-poof-poof’ to emulate the sound of a chicken as I walked — quite ingenious, really, and quite remarkable the extent of cruelty’s entertainment value. Perhaps more amazing was how many derogatory words there were for a boy who liked boys — and how just one of these words could leave the target feeling utterly isolated and defenceless
Here are some of the other highlights:
One morning in Year 9, I found my two best friends amid the sea of red jumpers and the rotten, salty scent of cheap canteen noodles. I had known Leigh and Todd for six years by this stage. They had come to every one of my birthdays, and me theirs. They were an old reliable pair — smart and sensible without being stuffy, low maintenance, and generally pretty easy company. On this morning, they were both sitting in silence, staring ahead, when I put my pencil case down next to one of Leigh’s. Without raising his eyes to look at me, Leigh knocked my case to the floor. When I went to put the pencil case back on the table, he picked it up and threw it across the room. A few snickers echoed around the room — though, for the most part, nobody really seemed to be paying attention.
‘Don’t sit next to us, poofter,’ Todd said. When I picked up my pencil case and placed it next to a group of boys down the other end, they said, ‘Yeah, don’t sit next to us either’, and my pencil case once again made its way to the floor.
Once the ‘populars’ deserted me, the middle-ranking males joined, then the lower-ranking boys, and finally even the lower-ranking girls joined in, on occasion, with choice impersonations of my voice taken straight out of 1980s Hollywood depictions of limp-wristed, constantly horny gays.
One day, I was standing in line during phys. ed. when I felt a thud on my back. I turned around to see the offending basketball bouncing away, and a kid with muscular dystrophy explaining, ‘I fucking hate faggots’. I stood there confused, shocked, and horrified as I saw the boy, barely able to stand up from his neurological condition, looking at me as if I was the biggest turd nature had ever produced.
There was one particular group of no less than 15 strapping young lads who lived on farms in the backend district who loved to torment me, and at least half-a-dozen smaller packs who joined in. I was not only without allies — I was a late bloomer, one of the smallest in my year level by height and frame. Defence was futile, attack was unthinkable, and dobbing them in would h
ave just made it worse.
Seeking even greater thrills, their attacks became more theatrical. Sneak attacks were the favourite. One day, I was standing outside a classroom when I felt a strong push in the back, and ‘thud’ — I went straight into a metal pole upholding the corrugated-iron roof. I turned around to see a little bully henchman with spiky, light-brown hair and a small neck, his glowing grin slowly becoming a light cackle.
‘Look at how red his face gets! Fuck, I could do this every day, just to see how red your faggot face gets,’ the henchman said.
Funny indeed. The fact that I had red hair, glasses, braces, and acne — the fact that I was one ugly little bastard — probably just added to the comedic display. Unsurprisingly, those watching laughed raucously; others not privy to the group tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help cracking a smile. These were human kids tormenting a disgusting little insect caught in a jar, fascinated by the reactions to their own cruelty. Had it not been me getting thrown into metal poles, perhaps even I would have quietly cracked a smile about how ridiculous it all looked; helpless creatures can react in quite spectacularly pathetic ways when they are attacked.
Teachers often loved the spectacle as well. I never got along well with teachers — though I was often scared to say ‘boo’ at the new school, when I did act up, I made sure it hit its mark, and the teachers responded with even greater force. One day, I was taken into an office where three middle-aged male teachers took turns in telling me what an awful student I was. I had accused one teacher of being negligent, and refused another when she told me to stop scratching my nuts in class. One told me I would be better off leaving school ‘because your work is so crap’, and another said, ‘I would say most of the staff room hates you, and if I was ask three-quarters of the people in your level, they would say the same thing. Yet you sit here, high and mighty and sanctimonious, like you never do anything wrong.’ This went on for about half an hour until tears fell down my cheeks, and the three sat around me, glowing with self-satisfaction at how, despite my ‘big mouth’, I now didn’t ‘have anything to say’. About six months after this, I’d left my school bag in a classroom and when I went back to retrieve it, the male teacher whispered under his breath, and then said very sarcastically, ‘Sorry, I’m homophobic’, at which a group of students broke out in hearty laughter. The same teacher had taught me English in Year 9, and announced halfway through the term, ‘It doesn’t matter how your good work is, I am not giving you an A.’
There comes a point when you must draw on your reserves to get through things.
Remembering what a war-hungry little shit I was, I decided that I could wage war without any close allies. Why not? I had nothing to lose.
Then came my idea. I listed the seven people who had picked on me the most, and asked people to sign a petition that said, ‘If you don’t like X, Y, and Z, please sign here and give your reason.’ The petition was my attempt to not only enlist a few allies, but to also shame the perpetrators. I had managed to collect dirt on all seven of them over the years — girls who had rejected them, abusive fathers, physical deformities, etc. — all of which were stated on the petition. I collected 80 signatures, and I put copies all over the school. When three of them saw me with a couple of surveys, they snatched them out of my hand. The no-neck henchman said, ‘We’ve got the muscle-power and the evidence — you’re fucked.’ The second he finished his sentence, I punched him straight in the face. The other two joined in to help him, and kept throwing punches. After about thirty seconds, a teacher came over and broke it up.
By this stage, I was growing into my body, and doing athletics training nearly every day. I became enraged, yelling that they had ‘shit for brains’, and that it would take ‘less than an hour to get another 80 signatures’ and that they ‘should just mind their own fucking business from now on’. The bullies were incredulous; they rang me at home threatening to stab me, and lined up along my fence. I shouted, ‘There’s fuck-all you can do about it — I have 80 people backing me up now.’
A week after everything died down, thanks to some stern words from the school headmaster, I got another phone call: ‘I’m one of those guys you’ve been writing all that shit about. You’re not going to get away with this. You better watch your back; you won’t get away with this. One day, one day, maybe years and years after school, there’ll be a massive gang of us, and we’ll get you and your family, too,’ he said.
But I had gotten away with it. Despite this victory, I left school, and finished it by correspondence. Academic and sporting achievements followed. I had my first real group of friends in a long while. I officially came out as gay.
Although my parents responded reasonably well to my coming out — both said they didn’t really mind — my relationship with them was becoming increasingly difficult. They told me they didn’t want to think about me having sex. Dad said he thought it was just a phase. I had only ever heard him mention gay people twice; both times were to say that they ‘made him sick’. When I caught crabs, Mum yelled at me about having a responsible sex life. Dad wanted me to move out. My sister had already moved out, and was estranged from the family after a bad fight with Mum.
Mum had particular difficulties with the fact that I now dressed in op-shop clothes and had friends. She would call me when I was at a friend’s house, crying and demanding I come home. When I came home, I had to take off my op-shop clothes and dress myself in the surf clothes I used to wear when I was fourteen. Eventually, she said I wasn’t allowed to dress in the clothes I’d bought for myself in the house, and I had to keep them at a friend’s place.
One terrible fight led to my mum throwing me out of the house. I hadn’t finished Year 12 at the time. I had nowhere to stay and no money. I begged a friend to let me stay with him, and I stole all my food. Determined to survive with flair, I dressed up as a ‘person with a disability’ — complete with neck brace and op shop clothes — stole a raffle book, and went door-knocking, asking for money for the ‘U/21 disabled hockey team to compete in the upcoming national championships in Canberra’.
By this stage, while I was selling stolen raffle tickets in order to eat, my parents had taken advantage of a new tax-incentive scheme called negative gearing, and now owned three properties. Then I got a call from my tutor who told me, ‘Your mother is not well at the moment. She needs to go the doctor and get herself put on medication. You probably need to stay away until she gets better.’
After a couple of weeks, my mum rang and apologised, and I moved back home. I kept going with Year 12, but then halfway through — out of nowhere — things started to change. I felt tired, unmotivated, and sulky. I didn’t want to leave the house. I felt a strange sense of dread and disaster every time I did go out. I had started spending time with a group of gay guys who lived in Prahran, but over time I found them more and more confident, good-looking, and intimidating, and eventually I cut my ties with them. Once I got my marks halfway through the year, I realised they would be enough to get me into an Arts degree at La Trobe University, and after that I did the bare minimum, including during exams, where I walked out after the minimum one-hour time.
Often, the onset for serious mental illness — such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia — occurs at about the age of seventeen or eighteen. Until then, the individual might be weird, or misbehaved, or withdrawn, or normal. My uncle Gary didn’t develop schizophrenia until he experienced acute work stress at the age of thirty-five. But when he was seventeen, he spent a period of about two years hardly speaking, not socialising, and just sitting in his room. It was possible I had caught the family disease. I had certainly caught one sort of family disease — an obsession with appearances. Every time I saw myself in the mirror, I saw nothing but the world’s ugliest person, and assumed that everybody saw the same — and then they saw a faggot.
By the time I finished high school, I had trouble leaving my room under any circumstances. When I did, high-pitched
alarms went off inside my head, and a prickly little echidna spun around slowly in my stomach. I was at the point of having to drum up the courage even to go my local shopping centre. Once I walked through the bushland next to my house to the bus stop across the road. I took a deep breath that soon turned into rushed panting, and walked back through the bushland and into my house, where I didn’t leave my room for another couple of weeks. I was spooked by the slightest noise. I watched TV all day, and smoked in my room. I read Smash Hits magazine, and spent hours with my headphones on, imagining I was a pop star — as if I were thirteen again.
A few months later, I started my philosophy degree at La Trobe, in Melbourne’s outer-northern suburbs. I missed the first two weeks of the course because of ‘my friend, the echidna’. When I finally made it to campus, I left a lecture to hide in the toilets for a good hour, before catching the bus and going back home. My room became both a refuge and a scene of minor carnage. I shaved uneven patches out of my hair and dyed it green. I started cutting myself with a kitchen knife, and, at one stage, I had three piercings under my lip.
Eventually, I met the town’s hippies with their makeshift homes, their tepees, and was introduced to their magic herbs, tea-tree cleaning products, and all-night Shamanic shindigs in the bush. I adored their healthy eating, near-asexuality, and earthy liberalism. A few of the women invited me along to my first-ever rave. These events, held deep in the forest, were a wonderful mixture of counter-culture, individualism, and archetypal tribalism — I felt as if I had found my tribe. I do wonder now if I would have liked it so much were it not for the drugs — at my first rave, I tried my first ecstasy. So while I salvaged the year and managed to get out of my room, there was a caveat on my newfound freedom: I couldn’t go out without first taking so much ecstasy that I lost sense of who I was and where I was going.
I tried ‘speed’ one night in mid-1998, when we couldn’t get any E. I didn’t get as ‘off chops’ on the white powder, but I rather liked the fact that it gave me confidence without turning me into a blubbering mess. Many of my friends used syringes, which seemed exciting and edgy. I was very curious, but the hippie women were reluctant to show me how to do it because they said I had ‘addictive tendencies’. However, after a few months of my nagging, they gave me my first intravenous shot of amphetamines in a glittery station wagon — which the owner called her ‘unicorn’ — outside a converted mansion nightclub in St Kilda.
The Ice Age Page 10