Detours

by Tim Rogers

  My slow initiation into the club simply meant them knowing my name. A graduation from ‘Hey!’ to ‘Hey, North jumper!’ to ‘Over here, Rogers!’ was, I hoped, an affirmation that I could play a bit, and was a stayer.

  About three months after first joining in, I suggested to five other players that we head to a nearby pub for a restorative drink. A cold and wet Wednesday dusk, and a pub I knew wouldn’t turf us out for wearing shorts and boots. A couple of the guys expressed surprise and said that it wasn’t in the ‘culture’ of the club. This was a relief to me as I had thought, at that point, that I simply hadn’t been invited before, being a new guy and an undesirable pub companion. But as the last of the natural light bled out of the sky we strode towards our well-earned refreshment. Four hours at the bar felt like just enough of a session. We discussed and appraised the kicking styles of our team-mates, we talked about our AFL teams’ fortunes and our niggling injuries, and then, as the drinks stacked up, the conversation moved to work, relationships and kids. By the last round we had transgressed the unwritten code of team-mates and speculated at length on who was a drongo and about the sexual habits of several people. It was a hearty, lascivious dénouement to a great afternoon.

  The following morning I learned by text that two of the six had fallen off their bikes on the way home, another was brushed by a car while pursuing home by foot (to no great physical damage), and another had gotten into a brouhaha with a few British backpackers. Of course I was relieved to hear all were safe from major injury, but feared I’d breached some rule yet to be chiselled in stone by our club’s forefathers and would be chastised at the next Kick. I’m no fawning believer in social hierarchies, but being a part of this rabble of a club was becoming important to me. Immediately I resolved to play hard, be a contributor on the field, and lay low socially for a while. I was going away on tour for much of the coming year anyway, so if I could be a sporadic presence and keep my head down, membership would be kept.

  I needn’t have worried. Even so, I took extra care to remember names, nicknames, playing styles and the temperaments of everyone, especially half a dozen gentlemen reverentially deemed the ‘founding fathers’. Asking questions with the respectful tone of a scion, I learned the entire history of the club. The Kick had begun in the early nineties as a highly informal ‘kick to kick’ between a few fellas and, as word spread among friends and passers-by, numbers increased and drills and manoeuvres were adopted to accommodate the bodies now turning up. No-one’s ‘other’ life is ever an issue for exclusion or inclusion. There are writers, builders, musicians, doctors, carpenters, teachers and the wilfully unemployed. A broad rule seems to be that if you can kick and run, and aren’t a dickhead, you can come on down, but there is always an eye on the size of the club. There is no maximum capacity, but two dozen at any session seems the best number. Fewer players means more individual possessions as well as more jokes and chidings that everybody gets to hear and be involved in, for better or worse. When the player count gets beyond a couple of dozen, it’s almost anthropological (zoological?) to notice clusters of men corral into little packs on the sidelines, preferring banter over scrapping to get a stray handball or kick. An anticipated light-hearted kick and giggle around the park can turn slightly malicious when a shout-out to the ball holder for a pass goes unregistered or a handball request ignored. Audible complaints aren’t really tolerated and admonished as whining, but more than once a player has left the park in high dudgeon cursing under their breath at a perceived slight. The phrase ‘white line fever’ – used to explain the spell that is cast upon a normally mild-mannered human, re-casting them as blood-thirsty behemoths once they’ve crossed the boundary line – is applicable, despite there not being any formal competition in The Kick, because the vanity and the damnations of mid-life can still upset the congeniality or solidarity of an afternoon’s kick.

  I use the term ‘middle-aged’ to describe the players but the spread is wide, from late twenties to a scratch over sixty. Sons of a few blokes will join in from time to time, any participation from them giving us pause – even the fifteen-year-old boys look muscular and gym-sculpted despite shy awkwardness and their voices only recently thickened by puberty.

  With my daughter living in New York these days, I have a lot of opportunities to daydream about her coming down for a little kick – and though she’s not a great fan of the game, she still asks me over the phone how her Bulldogs are going, and if the Kangaroos are sitting pretty. Some of the kids who come down irregularly are of a similar age to her. The way the kids are known to all is heart-warming and it’s easy to picture her as part of it. I often think on my relationships, or lack of them, with my dad’s footy fraternity. He was a player all his youth and then an umpire after us three kids came about. I’d follow him like a seagull after bread, the discomfort at hearing barrages of deeply impersonal threats from rampant supporters in the Western Australian goldfields assuaged by buckets of lemon squash and sausage rolls at post-game functions. Though Dad’s umpiring mates were genial and always friendly, their comradeship didn’t necessarily include kids or wives. With our Kick, we have designated family days, like a yearly cricket game, or a day of high hilarity called Superkick, where every bloke gets a chance to exhibit skills both sporting and theatrical, all graded and judged. The expected ‘longest torpedo punt’ and ‘handball accuracy wheel’ are present, but there are also points given for a choreographed, musical or poetic recreation of an incident from footy folklore past and present. That lore, of course, has come to include our own, as the wildly disparate characters who regularly join in The Kick have created indelible moments in the group’s memory. From social faux pas to ungainly physical feats, from off-field misdemeanours to sublime displays of prowess on the field, there’s very little not ripe for parody. As with the annual cricket game, families are encouraged to join in for a barbecue after the counting of votes. I have to keep myself in check not to spend time getting misty-eyed as I look around for my daughter. Such self-pity is not befitting of a clubman.

  Ron, whose impressive shock of thick silver hair and year-round tan gives him the appearance of Italian old money royalty when not wearing his shorts and decades-old guernsey, used to play a decent grade of footy even up until a decade ago. But now he’s in his mid-fifties, his drop punts no longer explode off his boot and bullet across the ground at thigh height for over thirty metres before greeting the recipient’s chest cavity with a punch. His punts now lunge upward, wobbly, like a large seabird battered by inclement headwinds, until landing in the arms, or vicinity, of a team-mate.

  Physical vanity sits uneasily with a forty- or fifty-year-old. As it should. The pursuance of a sculpted body can never really be talked about for fear of ridicule. And so us poor blokes battle on, sucking in deep breaths when changing a shirt to disguise an expanding gut, and doing sit-ups in the lounge room while watching war documentaries. I’m noticing a change. I suspect we are lucky to be still standing upright, but as our parks and streets are cluttered with personal trainers and increasing numbers of clients, it seems we’re deep within a new age of vainglory and not just flush with new awareness of health and fitness. The cut of modern leisurewear would have to suggest so. Abs and ribcages, biceps and shoulders, thighs and calves on display more than ever. Exhibitionism pardoned away by modern mores. I’m a little ambivalent about it all but will accept a charge of mild grumpiness. As I get a little looser, a little chunkier, I’m gettin’ a lil’ surlier. Misanthropy is still a decade of unsuccessful records away, and I’m genuinely glad to see people out and about enjoying the outdoors – unless an organ-blending hangover has me in its ugly grip, for then the whole lot of ’em can sweat down to spines in a gym in hell. But I’ve caught myself getting emotional if I see someone reading a book in a park instead of crunchin’ those bloody abdominals, or if a pair of romancers, dressed inappropriately for the weather, are strolling along a sidewalk arm-in-arm and not bustling overburdened with energy drinks and a Pilates mat. />
  A few years back I booked in to do some CrossFit sessions at a cavernous warehouse previously used for car repairs. I knew little about the regime, apart from noticing that anyone who wore a singlet advertising CrossFit had an air of confidence like a boxer entering a ring, with an assertive stride and their head tilted back slightly, not quite at Mussolini’s angle but enough to denote superiority. I was intrigued, in the same way that I was by Christian Youth groups as a teenager, if only because they offered a chance to play guitar in public on a weekly basis. A friend told me that CrossFit training was rigorous and fast moving. As I was a little gloomy at the time, concerned with my writing and warned again about my drinking, just signing up for a few casual sessions felt like an achievement. The Kick was essential, this was a challenge that didn’t necessarily conclude in a pub. And despite finding the two sessions I did difficult in both skills required and endurance, it was enjoyable. The mood among the group of a dozen men and women was convivial too. Weights and running drills, some elements of gymnastics mixed with raw tests of strength were a challenge, and then on the way out, some wearied, light-hearted ribbing of my abilities from the trainer about the perils of the touring life on one’s health made me sign up for another month.

  It was only the next morning when attempting to walk to the corner coffee shop that I noticed I’d done some damage.

  Two knee operations in six months cannot be blamed solely on CrossFit but, after twenty-five years of larking about onstage, it was the straw that dropped on the back of the camel. The operations were not dramatic, but what followed were many months of very little mobility, a revised love affair with heavy painkillers, and questionable facial-hair decisions. I was unable to do shows or do much of anything involving standing, so thought it would be time well spent to acquaint myself with French symbolist poetry, work on my Spanish verbs and write an album’s worth of baroque balladry. Alas, I did very little apart from reread novels from my teens, sip whiskey to complement my medication and uphold an appreciation of time and space. And, as I stewed in my apartment feeling the confetti in my brain get blown by the wind, I became increasingly resentful.

  A group email chain had been set up by the guys at The Kick, and in between researching Tennessee Williams and barbiturates I received the weekly update from the club. It listed worthy and unworthy performances on the track, the names of players who had been taken interstate for work, and a growing number of social invitations. Some of these fellas were much closer than I had first thought – perhaps their sons and daughters went to the same schools, or they worked together (though work was not to be discussed on the track), or shared surfing weekends and book clubs, mutual friends and drinking buds. My favourite splinter group was one I’d heard about in hushed tones that involved cake and cups of tea, which I presumed was in defiance of boozy post-Kick activities, but was actually just a preference. Tea and cakes over beer and peanuts. I loved it. It was then I realised I missed the group dearly and determined to get myself right and join them again as soon as I could.

  Among most men I know, or whom I grew up with, affection and warmth are usually present only when wrapped loosely with mockery. More often than not a compliment is of the backhanded variety. So after a two-month absence from The Kick, as I hobbled with my trusty crutch the couple of kilometres or so it takes to get there, I was prepared to accept every guffaw and jibe when on arrival I declared my love for one and all. I was tired of pretending. I had a credit card in my pocket pleading to be used to buy a few slabs of beer for the able-bodied and injured alike. I still wouldn’t be able to run for months, but I wanted to feel part of a club again. A club of men on the shadowy side of middle age enjoying a kick and a giggle twice a week. I missed the wry asides after a misplaced drop punt, the groans and grunts as older bodies willed themselves into motion, the unrestrained chorus of enmity that accompanied Terry’s unwillingness to handball, the hushed awe that cushioned a perfectly executed torpedo by Gaz, the increasing calls for Richie to play the flanks more and get outta the middle, and, yeah, Tommy should probably cut down on the smokes straight after getting off the park.

  As winter is when the bulk of training is done, sunlight is always precious and a privilege. That Wednesday afternoon around four o’clock was already marbled by long shadows but blanketed with a honey golden light. My head was still fuzzy but I could sense levity in the fifteen or so blokes running around the park, and my reappearance was greeted with the same buoyancy. It was a relief, really. So although still a while off being able to play, I was still part of this bunch of men – playing a game designed for supermen and women, but that afternoon played by a bunch of boofheads.

  What is not spoken of weaves through our sessions like the lightest of breezes until there is a blunt reminder of how all this can have an importance beyond its physicality or the comradeship. It is acknowledged in such a way that the jibing and sarcasm drops temporarily. Blagging away to a Kick acquaintance one Wednesday, I noticed some deep scratch marks on his neck. ‘Strewth, Teddy, someone got you good out there today, huh?’ His reply came only after swallowing a lump in his throat. ‘Uh . . . no. It’s my son. He’s not doing too well at the mo’.’

  It would take only the dullest of minds not to see that many down here get more out of The Kick than sweating out the week’s impurities. More than a few times I’ve headed down for a run around to release some bubbling fury or a fresh sadness. This is what I call being ‘in a little bit o’ trouble’. A friend once asked me, during a Kick, if I could recommend a good therapist or psychiatrist. I tried to hide my frown, thinking ‘Why the hell would he ask me? A therapist?’, then took it as a recognition of trust, or a plea for one. This friend has the graceful bonhomie of a P.G. Wodehouse character and also fine football skills, so of course that’s where the shock lay. I realised that years of impropriety have left me as open as a newspaper on the street in the rain. There is no point in trying to hide my foibles or fuck-ups, as they’ve given me so much source material for songs. So I recommended a counsellor who I’d recently employed, and checked in with him at irregular intervals over the next year.

  More than once, a chat among a small group has flickered with intimations of anxiety – about depression, about being adrift. I can provide lists of party drugs to avoid, or keep an eye out for team-mates and regularly meet up with them at the pub, but who knows what’s going on in someone’s life really? Marriages, divorces, kids, work. Round-table dinner conversation isn’t a part of my life since my family moved away and, though phone calls are received like saintly blessings, I have the time to listen – and I figure the best thing I can do for these blokes is to listen, and not be quick to criticise or to give easy advice. To the kids of these friends, maybe one day I’ll even be weird old Uncle Tim. It’s a moniker befitting me well as our seasons proceed. As my back stiffens up and my hairstyle remains at no fixed address, my knees proceed to betray my rushes of blood, and my fashion sense on the field is as inspired as off it, I’ll look more and more like a kindly, not at all threatening scarecrow. But one with an ear to lend and a shout if that’s what’s required.

  One guy has been with us for two years. His skills improve weekly and he’s largely silent on the track, though his difficult life shows in his wiry frame and occasionally haunted gaze. This winter we found ourselves together on a wing, thirty metres of free space to either side, and he asked me gently if I had adequate heating in my apartment. For the previous two years, our chats had been exclusively about Hepatitis C treatments and family abuse. An afternoon having a kick, some shared possessions, and a gentle man who has possibly received the odd kicking or two in his time asks me if I’m warm enough through winter. I’ll be paying extra attention to where he is for the next few months on the park, even if I won’t hear him shout for the ball.

  A man can waste a lotta energy trying to be a good bloke. Not the ‘civic-minded, altruistic, peace-according libertarian’ good bloke, just the ‘not a dickhead’ good bloke. To pull yer head
in, quit being a lair and not be a sook.

  I regard football as being ‘the great equaliser’: you can sit as a spectator to a game with your speed dealer on one side and your brain surgeon on the other – sport can reduce you or raise you to a common appreciation. As a sociologist I make a great guitarist, but on some level down at The Kick, we achieve a kind of equilibrium. Geez, even in the nicknames there’s a Tall Skinny Damo and a Short Fat Damo. For every loudmouth sounding off and demanding a possession, there’s a quiet wallflower who’ll accept whatever comes their way. For every larrikin joker on the sidelines, there’s a moribund introvert. Time moves under our feet, just not when we’re on the track. Injuries will nobble us, and it sure shits me that guys will be swiping left or right for dating opportunities when you’re trying to talk footy at the pub, but the one constant is that for an hour and a bit twice a week we can untangle some knots inside us, and it’s cheaper than therapy.

  Just don’t ask me where we’ll be. I won’t tell you.

  To Cry About

  I watch her on the screen as I had stared at a magpie on the grassy verge this morning: both are as sure of their next movement as I am sure of when I will next blink. Her head moves as if tracing the flight patterns of a butterfly. When she smiles, her crab-apple cheeks ballast her eyes as they coruscate with joy, and I wonder why I am so concerned for her. Then her smile drops, and I feel my heart drop too.

  The film is Museum Hours, by Jem Cohen. It’s about a museum guard in Vienna who befriends a Canadian woman who, when not attending the bedside of a dying cousin, wanders the Kunsthistorisches Museum adrift, alternately haunted and illuminated. The woman is played by Mary Margaret O’Hara. It’s a quiet film that can seem meandering in scenes, until my heart steps into its slow rhythm beating for a relationship that is a breath from romance. The streets and edifices of the city are presented like whispers from a confidante. I’m sinking like thick cream spooned into a winter’s stew. The third lead character is Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Netherlandish Renaissance painter whose room in the museum is the guard’s favourite. Johann, the guard, is played by Bobby Sommer, who has a face not unlike British actor Tom Courtenay: dolefully handsome with moist eyes that could also harbour malevolence, or is it a hard-won strength born from years of bullying? But although his face is ‘sad’, I cannot picture him ever crying. Johann is a former road manager for punk bands touring Europe, who now lives alone and socialises little, seemingly buoyed only by the motions of his working life. He’s a charming, tender character, his human interactions surprisingly gentle, though when Mary Margaret enters the frame I’m as entranced and concerned as a parent watching their child perform. She just has that effect on me.