And while we’re on the subject of Tony’s ability to produce incredible images, we obviously need to take a moment to honour his Instagram, a perfectly curated piece of art. You can actually pinpoint the moment he decided Instagram stardom was going to be his, as his feed went from unflattering selfies to Vogue-style photos within twenty-four hours. I would often tease him when he sat on the couch in our apartment, a plate of microwaved Griffith salami sitting next to him, while he spent hours – literally, hours – editing a single photo before it was ready to be released to the world. He once forced me to take one hundred and fifty-seven shots of him holding a milkshake. But I’m so glad now that he did, because his Instagram feed is such a stunning visual tribute to his life. Particularly to his travels, which he had so enjoyed the last couple of years. His time in Austin was some of the happiest in his life. He always felt a special connection with America, and that he got to spend so much time there, with a whole new tribe of soulmates, is so lovely to know.
But Tony always loved to come home. A Griffith boy will always be a Griffith boy. He was so excited to attend Joseph’s wedding to Melissa in September. Of course, he was the fashion genius who had picked the dress, and there was no way he was going to miss his flawless choice walking down the aisle. He had invited me as his date, since he had always told me that I would not BELIEVE what a real Griffith Italian wedding was like. He was so looking forward to it blowing my mind. It was one of his dreams, actually, to come back to Griffith one day and make a reality show about the Italian wedding scene. I think we all know he would have done it too.
Because that’s the type of man Antonio was. He spent his twenty-nine years on this earth doing two things – loving everyone in his life unconditionally, and following his creative dreams.
Antonio was electric. Antonio had an infinite heart. He was hilarious. He was creatively brilliant. He was selfless. He was generous. He was stylish. He was so good looking. He was TV-obsessed. He was an academic Master. He was an unstoppable force. He was love. Antonio was just walking, talking love.
And because he loved each of us so much, Antonio wouldn’t want us to cry as we say goodbye. He wouldn’t want his passing to cause pain. He wouldn’t want us to let the darkness of loss take over.
But there is something, as a lifelong performer, that he would want. And since his greatest performance ended up being his extraordinary life, it is something that he deserves. So I am honoured, as one of his many, many soulmates, to ask you all now, to please give Antonio Paul Sergi a round of applause.
I attached the file to an email and sent it off to Tony’s sister in Griffith. As of that morning, it was the only thing I’d ever written that Tony hadn’t read.
And I still hadn’t figured out what he did with that damn door.
I was very briefly possessed by the Devil.
(Look, I probably wasn’t, but I don’t think this one can be verified either way.)
When I was about five years old, my dad let me watch Stephen King’s horror movie IT. I don’t know if he wanted to watch it and my older sister and I just happened to be there, or if he specifically thought it would be an interesting experiment of human nature to see how two little girls react to being traumatised by a clown who eats children. (Given the way he liked to torment us in other ways, I suspect the latter. He once spent an entire day telling Rhiannon and me in secret that he loved each of us more than the other. Obviously, we proudly told each other the news that we were ‘Daddy’s Favourite’, because as a pre-schooler that means you have won at everything that could ever possibly matter. Then he would laugh hysterically as we had what was no doubt an adorable screaming match, because a four-year-old and a six-year-old in an emotional battle over their father’s love must have been hilarious.) Either way, like many kids my age in the early 1990s, I saw the movie and it scarred me for life. It also led to my bizarre, abusive relationship with horror films, which peaked with me crying on the phone to my mother after watching The Exorcist, convinced that my body had been possessed by the Devil.
But it all started with Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
Rhiannon and I were visiting my dad at a halfway house in Wollongong, during one of his very brief stints as a ‘sober’ person. We lived in Sydney with Mum, so he would catch the train from Wollongong to Central Station in the city, where we would meet him and jump on the train before it went back to Wollongong. This happened every weekend for a couple of months. After settling us on the train, he would always leave us in our seats to go and buy our favourite treats from the shop at the station – a spring roll for Rhiannon and a fried chicken drumstick for me. I could never understand why he would risk missing the train like that. I remember being so anxious, watching the clock count down to departure time, with Dad nowhere in sight. I didn’t need the damn drumstick – I just didn’t want to be left alone on the train to Wollongong. But he always jumped through the doors just as they were closing, drumstick for me, spring roll for Rhiannon, and the definite smell of alcohol on his breath. I knew that smell well.
The halfway house was exactly the kind of place you imagine people would go after getting out of prison or rehab. Kind of like a university share-house, but filled with men in recovery instead of students. So, the epitome of fun for two little girls. I didn’t mind that it was all men really, or that I didn’t know them – my sister and I had been living in random share-houses with Mum since we were born. We had been raised in the ‘this is your home now, make the best of it’ school of childrearing. I was used to forced familiarity with whoever we needed to split the rent. At least the men sharing with Dad in this place were nice. And I knew he wasn’t allowed to drink around them, so it was actually one of the only times I ever felt safe spending time with my dad.
A young guy with long hair had a Gameboy that he let me play, which I just thought was the most incredible thing to have ever happened in my entire life. We had a Nintendo at home that we played Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt on, but that had to be plugged into the TV. This guy could take his Nintendo with him, anywhere he wanted, ALL THE TIME. That was some Jetsons-level technology. That he couldn’t be more than twenty-two and was living in a halfway house for addicts and felons meant nothing to me – he could play Mario on the toilet. I couldn’t imagine a more glamorous life.
In the room next to the young guy was an Aboriginal man who was an incredible artist. He used to let Rhiannon and me use his charcoal to draw pictures that he would hang up next to his, like we were proper artists too. It was obvious he liked Rhiannon a lot more than me because she actually had some artistic talent. I had what could be described as an ‘awww, you did a little drawing’ level of talent. He used to encourage us to find beauty in the everyday things around us, so Rhiannon would sketch these incredible still-lifes of the TV stand or the plant on the balcony. She was only eight years old, the bitch. I did what I have continued to do in my adult life when I can tell I’m not good at something that I really wish I was good at – retreated into immature humour because ‘IT’S DUMB ANYWAY’. I would draw pictures of Rhiannon’s face covered in pimples and with monster teeth because art is dumb and I hate it and you smell. I like to think it’s just as charming when I behave that way now as it was back when I was five.
I’m not entirely clear on how the screening of IT began. But I can remember sitting in the living room with my dad, Rhiannon and his two flatmates, and being nervous about what I was going to see, but trying to act cool. Like, yeah, I’m five, but I can totally handle Georgie getting pulled down into the sewer, where my dad helpfully informed me his arm had been ripped off, because they don’t make that clear in the movie.
I had seen one horror film before, called Night of the Living Dead, also with my dad. I can’t have been more than about three years old, but that movie is burned into my brain. Rhiannon and I were sharing a bed then, and I stayed up all night, staring into her sleeping face, convinced she was going to wake up and eat my brains. I kept looking around the room for weapons, and
had decided on the lamp, which looked like the only thing sturdy enough to take her down.
I can just see the headlines now: ‘3-year-old girl murders 6-year-old sister with lamp. What turned this sweetheart into a killer?’ (Or the Daily Mail version – ‘SCANTILY CLAD 3-YEAROLD IN REVEALING CARE BEARS NIGHTIE SAVAGELY MURDERS INNOCENT SISTER IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE A RITUALISTIC KILLING WITH SATANIC UNDERTONES. POLICE NOT RULING OUT JEALOUS ROW OVER MUTUAL CRUSH – ATREYU FROM “THE NEVER ENDING STORY”. WAS HE THE LOVER OF THEM BOTH? WE SPECUALTE ON THAT AND MORE.’
When I woke up in the morning, Dad had moved us both to the couch, because I had thrown up in the bed, which I can only assume was from unbearable fear (of having my brains eaten and also of unfairly spending my life in prison for defending myself against a horrifying sister zombie). Rhiannon is thirty-three now, and I still can’t look at her sleeping face without thinking about her shoving a handful of my brain tissue into her mouth. I also always quickly scan the room for possible weapons.
Despite having thrown up after Night of the Living Dead, I sat through the entire IT telemovie. Both parts. IT killing the little girl on the bike. The guy writing ‘IT’ in blood on the bathroom wall. Balloons popping blood into people’s faces. IT coming up through the shower drain. IT’s hand bursting out of the photo album. The giant, nonsensical spider.
I couldn’t sleep for weeks. Months. Maybe even years. The amount of nightmares I had about that clown is sickening. I couldn’t walk past a drain without thinking he was going to pull me down and rip my arm off. But, for some inexplicable reason, I kept going back for more. IT had awakened something in me, and now I wanted all the horror movies, all the time. Candyman. A Nightmare on Elm Street. Child’s Play. Friday the 13th. Halloween. Poltergeist. I couldn’t stop. I would torture myself watching these things, and then torture myself even more by living a life of terror in which I couldn’t sleep or be alone without thinking about all the possible ways I could be murdered.
I suppose my mum could have stepped in at some point, but she was often the one renting the movies for me, since even the most lax, pimply, video-store worker felt strange about handing over a copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to a seven-year-old. ‘Oh,’ Mum would say, barely looking at the box. ‘Is that the one you want? Are you sure? Well you’re not bloody sleeping in my bed again, I’m telling you right now.’
Yet there I’d be, at 2am, creeping into her room with my blanket, happy to just sleep on the floor next to her bed, because everybody knows that parents have a bubble of murder immunity around them. As long as I was in her room, I was safe. Even if she was drunk out of her mind and listening to Elton John while snot crying, the Candyman couldn’t get me in there. Not according to my logic, anyway.
I once forced her to stand outside the bathroom with a butcher’s knife while I went to the toilet, because I didn’t feel I could guarantee my own safety. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Rosanna,’ she said. ‘I’m not bloody doing it.’
‘You don’t understand!’ I cried. ‘I need security at the door. PLEASE!’
‘It’s your own fault for watching those bloody movies,’ she snapped, taking a sip from her wine glass. ‘I am not going to stand outside the door with a knife while you take a shit.’
Two minutes later she was standing outside the door with a knife while I took a shit.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Rosanna, hurry up.’
‘Look, Mum, you can’t expect me to rush this. It’s an organic process. I think all the drama scared it back in.’
‘Oh fuck off,’ she said, walking away and leaving me to fend for myself.
The last straw for her, though, came in the middle of the night eleven years later, when I demanded she save me from the Devil, who had taken over my body after I watched The Exorcist.
I was eighteen, and living with my wealthy uncle in his very fancy, but very cold, aloof mansion. Everything was open plan and polished floorboards and expensive art that I wasn’t allowed to touch, because the oil in my poor-person fingers was poisonous to anything that cost money. One touch from me was enough to make $50,000 worth of paintings immediately crumble into worthless ashes on the floor. And then the expensive floorboards would be damaged so I’d be in double the trouble.
My uncle and his family had gone away on holidays, so I was living in the giant, cold, money mansion by myself for a couple of weeks. And it was on one of those nights, while home alone in a scary house, that I decided to partake in one of my favourite childhood pastimes – pushing myself to a point of fear so torturous and visceral that I would either vomit and/or spend the night under my blanket, completely frozen, looking out of a tiny hole I’d made in the side so I could breathe and see imminent danger.
My uncle had The Exorcist on DVD, a magical technology that he’d been watching since it first became a thing. He’d bought a DVD player before you could even really get DVDs anywhere, that’s how rich and important he was. Luckily, he lived in a wealthy area with lots of other people who were rich and important enough to buy DVD players without any DVDs to watch on them. So a tiny little store opened at the local shops, next to the place that sold macrobiotic burgers with patties made of grains stuck together with some kind of organic nectar. And this was before Gwyneth started selling that stuff on Goop, along with crystals that you soak in the sun before shoving them up your twat to improve your sex life. And $600 honey from bees that have only been allowed to mate while listening to Beyoncé.
Basically, this wasn’t your regular local shops – this was rich people local shops. And that’s why it was one of the first places to get a DVD rental store. Not many films had even been released as DVDs at that stage, so the store consisted of a few trays of discs in paper sleeves, which you had to flip through like records. There were maybe a few hundred titles, if that. When you picked what you wanted from the trays, you’d take it to the very snotty man at the counter, and talk for a few minutes about what model DVD player you have, like it was so exclusive to have one you might as well have been comparing private jets. Then you’d go next door and get your macrobiotic food that not even Gwyneth had heard of yet, before heading home to laugh at everybody who still had to watch things on VHS. Savages.
I popped The Exorcist in the DVD player at about 7pm. It was dark outside, which made this house a little spooky because, like all rich houses, one entire side was basically made only of windows. It seems like a lovely and very impressive idea, but when you turn the inside lights on at night and can’t see anything but an endless dark void through the glass, it’s a little off-putting.
It was about halfway through the movie when I started to feel like my heart was beating too quickly. Probably normal, since I was watching a horror film while alone in a dark, scary mansion, but since this particular horror film is about a girl who loses control of her body as Satan takes it over, I started to think that maybe some outside forces were making my heart beat too quickly.
In spite of being slightly worried I was slowly losing my soul in a battle with the Devil, I continued to watch the movie. By the time it was over, I was sweating profusely – yet more evidence that I was lost to Satan. The more I thought about it, the more distressed I became, and the quicker my heart would beat. I suddenly became very aware of my body – my breathing seemed deliberate, my heartbeat too fast. I felt itchy all over for no reason. It didn’t matter to me that all these physical symptoms were obviously the result of sending myself into a panic via horror film – I had been possessed by the Devil, just like the girl in the movie who stabbed herself in the vagina with a crucifix. The more I panicked, the more my body reacted, and the more my body reacted, the more convinced I became I was possessed, which only increased my panic . . . I was stuck in an idiotic cycle of self-imposed fear. I knew my uncle didn’t have any crucifixes in the house but I put on three pairs of underwear just to be safe.
By about one in the morning I was in total hysterics. I was completely convinced that I was done for. The next step was going to
be me yelling sexual obscenities about Jesus and throwing a priest out the window. I could only think of one person to call. The only person on earth with a bubble of murder immunity around them. I needed to call my mother.
‘OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE, ROSANNA!’
She was not pleased.
‘Mum, I swear to god, something is actually happening to me. My breathing is weird and my heart is funny. It’s definitely the early stages of possession. I know, because I just watched The Exorcist.’
‘You’re not bloody possessed,’ she laughed, not treating the situation with the seriousness I felt it deserved.
‘Mum, I think I am. I need to come over. This could be bad.’
I didn’t drive. She was obviously too drunk to get into a car, so there was only one solution: a taxi. And she was about forty minutes away. It wasn’t going to be cheap, and at eighteen, I didn’t have that kind of cash.
I needed to beg her like I used to beg her to let me sleep in her room.
‘Please, Mum.’
‘No.’
‘PLEASE, MUM.’
‘Fuck off! No.’
‘Please, Mum – I could die!’
‘Oh shut the fuck up, Rosanna.’
‘Please, Mum.’
‘No.’
‘Please, Mum.’
‘No.’
‘Please, Mum.’
‘No.’
‘Please, Mum.’
‘Fucking hell! Alright! Get a bloody cab and I’ll pay for it when you get here.’
Every Lie I've Ever Told Page 13