They Told Me I Had to Write This

by Kim Miller

  After English I went to ask the Rev for a special session. I got to see him today and I asked him straight out about him being like a priest coz I didn’t want to have him wrong in my mind about his nickname meaning the rev-head thing. And he told me he is a minister but not working in a church these days.

  And I looked at him and said, ‘That is the first time you have ever answered a question straight up like that. And he said he answered my question like that because it was not something that I could find out from my own mind.

  Then I asked him what the name Paterson means and he said, ‘Son of Patrick.’ Got that one wrong, but it’s a long time ago now.

  ‘Well here’s another straight up question, how do I know that there really is a God?’

  He said, ‘What makes it important for you that there really is a God?’

  I had to think about that, and I said, ‘What about my mum and my gram who died and what about Hamish? If there is no God and no heaven then I’ll never see them again.’

  ‘Do you ever pray about anything, Clem?’ he asked.

  ‘How can you talk to somebody you can’t see?’ I said.

  ‘You write letters to somebody you can’t see.’ That was a shocker for me to hear.

  ‘Perhaps your questions about God are like those letters,’ he said.

  I tell you, Gram, the Rev sure knows how to get under your skin, and he did with that comment. Praying is something that I haven’t got a clue about, but writing these letters has turned out to be fully easy.

  So that serious gangsta car has got nothing to do with his nickname, but he sure makes quick getaways whenever I ask about anything in session, that’s for sure.

  Clem with love.

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12

  THAT TEACHER IN YEAR FIVE

  Dear Gram

  There are some things that I want to talk to the Rev about but I can’t seem to get the words out. About that teacher in primary school and what he did. No kid should have to talk or even think about stuff that is so fully straight-up toxic.

  I remember when my dad came to school when I was in trouble. That teacher told him my behaviour was not so good and it was because my mum had died and I was like a lost boy. That’s how he explained why I was making trouble for everyone.

  And Dad and the teacher sat talking about me like that and I could see that Dad wasn’t going to believe me and it was bad enough when I told him at home that this teacher did weird stuff and he said, ‘He is funny isn’t he?’ And that isn’t what I meant but when the teacher told my dad why my behaviour wasn’t so good and Dad believed him, well I knew then that nobody was going to believe me about that teacher.

  That is what I want to say to the Rev but I can’t talk about those things with anybody and that’s the sad truth of it.

  Clem.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 14

  ULTRA SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

  Dear Gram

  We’ve been doing this mad science class with Mr Williams and he is the craziest teacher on the high ropes when he gets going. And this is the thing in science. If you get this stuff called sodium hydroxide on you it will destroy where it touches just like that, coz sodium reacts to everything at the touch of a button or even a sideways glance.

  We have people like that at this school and you can touch their button just by a glance and they go fully carcino-lethal. I’ve got the bruises to prove it. Bundy was one of those people. Brian is another, but we don’t much set him off so much now that he is more of a friend.

  Well, this sodium hydroxide even makes water boil and that is the truth. You put some into the water and it will boil all by itself. And you have to always put the powder into the water and not the other way around coz that is even more dangerous.

  Mr Williams put on this old rock CD with a song called ‘Smoke on the Water’ to remind us to slowly sprinkle the sodium hydroxide on the water to make it boil. He must be a bit of a rock star tragic from way back. So there we were doing this coolio experiment with Mr Williams’ old rock music going in the background, and that is another reason why Rocky Valley really rocks.

  We had this water heating up, but as slowly as we could so it didn’t blast all that sodium over us, which would take our skin off. Mr Williams had some normal olive oil, and we each measured how much we needed. We slowly poured the water into the oil and stirred it around. And what happened then was so fully straight-up that not even Jacko said anything funny.

  The water with the sodium just mixed straight into that oil and it started to go milky misty and to thicken up. We slowly stirred the stuff until it was thick as custard which is called Trace, coz you can leave traces of the spoon across the top, and that whole process of it getting thicker while you mix it is called saponification which is the only clue that I will give you.

  Mr Williams showed us some that he did before and it had gone hard by then and you know what it was? It was soap! No kidding, this is straight-up. We poured our stuff into little pans so it can harden and dry out for a month which is called the curing process.

  I tell you Gram it’s really freaky when you think of that sodium hydroxide which can take your skin off and here it is after we slowly got the heat out of it in the water and mixed it into that olive oil.

  I’ve got an idea about this science class and that idea involves Mr O’Neill who does groups. And I bet in group this week Mr O’Neill will get us talking about how some of us react to things, like Brian the Brain does so easily and Bundy used to react like superflak when he was here but now that position’s been taken by Nick. That’s what I bet will happen in group this week and that is because in this school they are mega-tricky about things like this and I am learning to get it ahead of time.

  You know what I would like? I would like to stop reacting full-on like sodium hydroxide fit to take your skin off. But somebody has to slowly get the heat out and then wait for the curing process to happen. That’s what I would like. For Nick, and for Brian, and for me.

  Love from Clem the Clean.

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 18

  THE BIRTHDAY, THE BIKE SHOP, THE BEER

  Dear Gram

  Told Dad about the soap and how some people are sodium hydroxide and react fit to take your skin off and he was surprised that we did all that in school. He never did that stuff and never learned that it was called saponification and it felt the best to be able to tell him about that. And then I asked him about a new mountain bike that has full shockers and hydraulic disc brakes and he was so up there about that and asked if I could wait for my birthday which is not that far away.

  So that is how our conversation went and I wanted us to go straight down to the bike shop and look through the window coz it was night and he said that we could do that on the weekend. And now I can’t wait until the weekend and until my birthday but I am OK about that coz Dad was so full-on listening.

  He was kind of quiet when we were speaking and not taking too much of the talk for himself and I wondered if he had something on his mind.

  I wondered if Dad was worried about Lyndel coz he hasn’t even mentioned her name for ages but I was nervous about that. Then I remembered that the silence is not my friend, coz the silence will only do what the silence always does, which is mostly nothing. It especially won’t ask Dad my question so I asked him if he was worried about Lyndal or something.

  And he said, ‘No, I am worried about what happened to Hamish.’ And that was a full-on shock to me coz he never even met Hamish.

  I didn’t know how to react to that coz some of the sodium hydroxide in me has been cooled off since I got to this school, but it made me sad to be thinking about Hamish again. And then Dad said that he would be really worried if I was to be doing drugs and that was what he was mostly worried about and why he wasn’t saying much.

  I felt good about telling him that I hadn’t done drugs ever, not even the dope that some boys try to bring to school. Then I got to telling him that some kids from my old school and me. Sometimes we got slabs of beer to dri
nk in another boy’s house coz his dad was always away working.

  It sounded like maybe I was talking about Dad always being away but it hasn’t been like that so much for a while now. Dad asked if I liked the beer and I said not much and he was pleased about that I think. And I full-on don’t coz I see him when he drinks beer, which is usually when he breaks up with a girlfriend, and he doesn’t look like I want to be looking if you get what I mean.

  And that was our conversation about drugs and beer.

  Dad was pretty quiet after that and I thought he was sad for Hamish. Maybe he was thinking, what if it had been Clem instead of Hamish? And that’s what I would have thought, too.

  After we had that talk about Hamish and drugs and beer I rang Violet. She wasn’t home and I spoke to her mum instead and she asked me how I had been and how the other boys at the school were and I knew what she meant and neither of us had to say Hamish’s name. And I asked her to tell Violet about what Dad said about the mountain bike for my birthday and would she like to come to the bike shop on Saturday and look around. And Mrs Carter was coolio-froolio with that and would tell Violet.

  I said, ‘Thanks, you are really ultra like Violet is,’ and she laughed over the phone with me. Suddenly I said, ‘Mrs Carter, why does Violet like me?’

  Mrs Carter said, ‘Clem, it is easy to like you.’

  And I said, ‘But I’ve been in trouble and get mad at so much stuff and Violet is not like that at all.’

  Mrs Carter said, ‘Clem, Violet was always the first to go dancing in the rain.’ And that stopped me right there and I said, ‘I don’t get it.’ Then she said, ‘Some people go dancing in the rain, others just get wet.’

  I am going to have to think about that. But I still don’t get it.

  Maybe I do get it.

  Love from Clem.

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19

  BEING MR PATERSON

  Dear Gram

  You won’t believe this but two amazing things have happened in two days. Mostly if the same thing happens two days running it means I’ve got bruises from two different fights but these two things are madaz different. Last night I had that radicool conversation with Dad about everything and today it was with Mr Paterson who is really the Rev but today he wasn’t.

  I was out at the paddock and talking to the calf and leaning on the fence and the Rev walked up and said, ‘G’day Clem.’

  So I said, ‘G’day Rev.’ He leaned against the fence beside me and we both just looked out over the paddock. I was still scritching the calf. And then I blurted out, ‘Can you be Mr Paterson for a bit instead of being the Rev?’

  He said, ‘How do you mean, Clem?’

  I was nervous by this time. ‘Can you just answer some questions for me without doing that slippery thing like you do in sessions?’

  ‘Do you think I’m being slippery in sessions?’

  ‘When I ask a question mostly you just lay it back onto me somehow and I don’t want you to do that out here with the calf and all.’

  I thought saying about the calf there sounded a bit stupid but the Rev mustn’t have coz he didn’t say anything about the calf comment. He reached over the fence and gave the calf a scritch. Then he said, ‘Can you give me an example?’

  Well I nearly went off coz it sounded like he’d just done the slippery thing on me again there, but I held it. I said to him, ‘Like that time I saw you in town with all those kids in the car and you just said, ‘Tell me what you were thinking when you saw us drive past’. How come you didn’t tell me who those kids were when one of them was Emily?’

  ‘I remember that. But your question, about who was in the car with me, that was not the real question. The real question was hidden away somewhere.’

  And I was like, ‘What’s the go with that?’

  ‘Clem, you asked me about who was in the car with me, but the real question concerned your dad and a motorbike.’

  ‘I don’t get it. That is full-on weird.’

  We had to talk for ages before I got it and it’s still a bit tricky for me but I know he wasn’t being slippery. It’s those metaphors again. Sometimes we have a question that hurts too much to come to the surface. We keep finding metaphors but the metaphor questions don’t work. One day the real question comes up and finds the real answer. Or something.

  ‘I think my metaphor question was about who was in the car with you, but the real question was, ‘How come my dad doesn’t have room for me?’

  ‘That sounds right. The dad question inside you saw me being a dad and recognised its metaphor. The metaphor helped the real question come to the surface.’

  I turned around to face him more straight on. ‘Mr Paterson, do you have any other kids apart from Emily?’

  ‘I have three children and you met Emily who is eight. There are twin boys called Simon and Peter and they are ten, and you saw my wife in the car that day too, and her name is Marilyn. How about that for a full answer?’

  ‘That is madaz of you to tell me all that.’

  ‘Clem, if I told you the names of my family way back when you asked about them, do you think it would have answered your real question?’

  ‘I would still be toxic about my dad wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you probably would.’

  We stayed like that for a bit. A couple of farmers looking out over the paddock. Waiting for better weather.

  ‘Mr Paterson, why doesn’t my dad stick to me?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure but let’s have a go. Imagine a man and his wife are very much in love. They have a new baby. Suddenly the wife is gone. The man wants to chase after her but the baby is crying and needs him. He looks one way into what used to be and he looks the other way into the eyes of his newborn son. How can he choose between those two?’

  ‘That fully sucks that somebody has to choose like that!’ I got all red-mist on this one and that is when the calf suddenly skits off, coz he’s skitty sometimes and he’s been standing there while we scritched his head all the way up to now. I suppose he just couldn’t take me getting toxic but seeing him get nervous slowed me down a bit.

  Change of subject time suddenly arrived so I said, ‘Do you think the calf should have a name?’

  ‘I think of him as Mr Bojangles,’ the Rev said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There’s a famous old song about a dancer who was light on his feet. The calf reminds me of it. That’s all, nothing too serious.’

  ‘Hamish was light on his feet,’ I said.

  ‘He sure was.’ The Rev smiled.

  We leaned against the fence a bit longer, but the conversation was over. ‘You can go back to being the Rev if you want to,’ I said. We both smiled at that. Sometimes I get it.

  I’m not so toxic on Dad now that I understand a bit, especially about my guess last night that he was saying to himself, ‘What if it was Clem and not Hamish?’ Coz if I am right on that guess then it means he is a bit stuck on me after all.

  I hope so.

  Love from Clem.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 24

  NICK & ME

  Dear Gram

  You know about Nick and how he gets toxic. Well, he doesn’t like being passed on the track, but that happens if you are not fast enough. Our worst ever day was when I said, ‘Nick is not a slow racer, and Nick is not a fast racer. Nick is a half-fast racer.’ Everybody laughed. Except Nick. I should have known there would be bruises for me in that joke. No pain, no gain.

  Today we were riding the track and there were about ten of us there with Mr Sykes who is a bit big to fit properly on a mountain bike but he does OK.

  If it is not a race sometimes we fool around and we try to knock each other off by tracking the next person’s back wheel with our front wheel. That can be fun but you have to be careful coz you only want the other guy to fall off and not run over him and fall off yourself.

  Sometimes we end up with a buckle in a wheel and Mr Sykes stands on the wheel and pulls it back to shape enough for us to
ride some more. Then we have to fix it properly back at the school with a little spanner on the spokes but most of us can’t get that right. And it’s Mr Hartley who teaches us about that spanner on the spokes and that is full-on funny coz it was him who taught us about tracking in the first place. I reckon Mr Hartley is sixteen in his head, but he looks like sixty from the outside. There’s some full-on fierce buckled wheels back at the school sometimes and that is really nangtastic coz it means there has been some hot tracking.

  Getting close to the gully today, where I’m always serious, I passed Nick and he tried to track me for payback and I had to duck and weave. So I slowed up a bit and let him have it in both ears.

  ‘Nick Off!’ I yelled, coz saying that presses his button and he goes ape. I knew there were going to be bruises in this one coz he gets up beside me and yells out, ‘Who are you bagging out, stick insect?’ That’s what I get sometimes for being skinny. And as soon as he yells that he steers straight into my front wheel and we both hit the dirt, luckily before we got too steep down into the gully.

  He was on top of me like a shot with his fists and was madaz agroholic but I wasn’t going to back down on that one, no way, coz that would be the end of me, so I was back into him with my fists. Suddenly Mr Sykes comes out of nowhere and he lifts us up with a hand on each and holds us apart and that man is like a giant when he does that. And having Mr Sykes on the spot so quick is exactly what we didn’t want because we try to keep our fights secret from the teachers otherwise we get really scarfed up.

  And we keep our bruises secret too, especially from the boy who hit us, which is a really full-on rule for us otherwise we would not be able to take the shame.

  Anyway, Mr Sykes was holding us apart and all the other boys were there by now and they all love a fight when it is somebody else. Mr Sykes gets really hot when there is fisties on the track. Are you two in the same group?’ and we say, ‘No.’ And he says, ‘It might be time we got you both together. I’ll see Mr O’Neill about that.’