My Private Pectus

by Shane Thamm

  ‘Listen, this is what I'd do,’ Roger says. ‘I'd do what this Maloney says. Tosser or not, just go ahead with it. You'll get him respecting you, and you'll show the boys you won't take any rubbish, that you're willing to take things to the General, so to speak. The Principal will see you as reliable and responsible and the boys will be packing their daks every time you open your mouth. Go to the top,’ he says and points to the ceiling.

  Dad looks like a kid who's just been shown the error of his ways. He sits and rubs the scar on the back of his neck.

  ‘Even better,’ Roger goes on, ‘make Jack go with you. Get him to own up.’

  I gasp. ‘No way!’

  ‘That'll show him you're serious about it. You won't have a discipline problem then,’ Roger says.

  ‘You're right,’ Dad says. ‘Mate, I think you're right.’

  cellulite with my detention, please

  I'm on afternoon detention and Sam has just walked in. I haven't talked to her since that day at Westfields. There's been the odd nod in each other's direction, recognition that never happened before, but nothing more than that. The last thing I want is to give her or anyone else the wrong impression.

  Dad told Hassold what I did to Cuppas, just like Roger suggested. He tried to drag me along, but when we got to school I just racked off in the other direction. But that's still the reason why I'm sitting here, along with The P and Steve. All of us on the footy team got summoned together in the sports shed after our second training run. I think I dropped every ball that came my way. Then Hassold came in to make matters worse.

  He gave us a real blast. He's got a squeaky voice like Elmer Fudd—until he gets wound up. Then he booms and his voice vibrates your bones. Cuppas stood on his own, smiling to himself, while the rest of us got sprayed with verbal diarrhoea. Dad was nearby, his arms crossed. Maloney was in the doorway. They looked chuffed with Hassold's performance. But neither of them saw Cuppas giving me the bird. Steve, The P and I copped two days of afternoon detention for our efforts.

  Gez pulled me aside afterwards. ‘Is that what really happened?’ I couldn't believe Cuppas hadn't told him the full details.

  I nodded.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sticks, what did Cuppas do to you?’

  ‘He spat on me and called me a poof. He deserved it.’

  ‘Deserved it? He had half the team holding him back while you beat up on him. What the hell would you say in that situation?’

  I wasn't keen to talk about it. ‘I gotta go to class,’ I said.

  I watch Sam as she talks to the detention teacher at the front of the classroom, then she turns and smiles in my direction, just like she did at Ryan's place. She waves and I wave back, which sets The P and Steve off in whispers. Pretending to ignore them, I watch Sam from the corner of my eye. She takes a seat, pulls her mobile from her pocket and starts to text someone. At the sound of the beeps, the teacher looks up and Sam quickly stuffs her phone under her leg, but as she does so, she catches the edge of her skirt, pulling it up to reveal the pock-marked skin of her thigh. She covers it with her hand, wriggles, and pulls the skirt back down. The teacher comes over and I think for sure she's busted. But with the teacher there, I can stare in an obvious way without copping flak from Steve and The P, so I do. But the teacher doesn't ask about Sam's phone, instead she lectures Sam on how a lack of respect for the school uniform shows a lack of respect for the school. So that's why Sam's here: uniform detention. It looks fine to me. How can the girls get it wrong anyway? It's not like they have socks to pull up or shirts to tuck in.

  I wait for a lecture too, but it doesn't happen, so I take a magazine from my bag and get told to put it back. I sit and stare at the clock, figuring boredom to be the mode of punishment for the day. Sam looks over at me and rolls her eyes at the silence. I want to laugh, but I keep a straight face because of the guys. She goes back to reading the graffiti on her desk and twisting her ponytail around a finger.

  An hour later I get dismissed. I'm first out because I was the first one there. I can't be arsed walking home so I decide to wait for the bus. A few minutes later Steve and The P come out and sit next to me.

  ‘Did you see her leg?’ Steve says and screws up his nose.

  ‘Cellulite dump,’ The P says. ‘Imagine touching it.’

  ‘Woooaaagh.’ Steve shakes his hands at the thought.

  The P turns to me. ‘Did you see it?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ he says. ‘I saw you gawking.’

  Steve laughs. ‘Yeah, you got a real eyeful. Even looked back for more.’

  ‘Rack off,’ I say. ‘She's a tart.’

  ‘You bet,’ Steve says. ‘Remember when she screwed that guy from Beenleigh?’

  It happened at a party last year. Sam was off her face and got with some guy who rocked up with his emo posse. No St Phil's chick can get with a guy from Beenleigh and not be labelled a loose slag. They were sucking face for hours in the laundry. Right or wrong, everyone knows she bonked him. The next Monday at school there were photos of them above the drink troughs and boys’ urinal. Beenleigh's hand was up her skirt.

  ‘You coming?’ The P asks as the bus pulls in.

  ‘I'm gonna walk,’ I say. The thought of having to listen to their rot all the way home has made me change my mind.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he says and they both get on board.

  I think about Sam and wonder how much longer she'll be in there. It seems unfair she's in so long just for her uniform. Still, she won't have to face up again tomorrow. I think about that smile she shot me, the wave, like she was genuinely happy to see me. I pull my shoulders back.

  ‘You've missed it you know.’ I look up. She's standing at the end of the bench seat.

  ‘I know.’

  She reaches for her hair, plays with it as she had in detention. ‘Then why are you waiting?’

  I shrug and watch as she takes two huge loop earrings from her bag. She threads them into her lobes like J Lo.

  ‘So that's how you got uniform detention?’ I ask.

  She gives me that grin again.

  ‘I was thinking,’ I say, then stop, not sure if I should go on.

  ‘What about?’

  Then it just spills out of my mouth, like it went to my tongue, but not my brain. ‘Walking home with you.’

  ‘Walking me home?’

  ‘No!’ I blurt. ‘Walk home with you, not walk you home.’

  She lifts her eyebrows at me. ‘And the difference is?’

  It's too late to dig myself out of this mess, but in my nervous attempt to change the topic I dive into something potentially worse: ‘Pity about not getting included in the footy team.’ I cringe immediately, thinking she's probably furious about her name getting on the sheet.

  ‘Yeah, great pity,’ she says sarcastically. ‘I was pinning my dreams on that.’ She laughs and pulls on the strap of her bag.

  Pleased things went all right, I decide to go on with it. ‘I could have a word with the coach if you like. After all, I've got connections.’

  She purses her lips. ‘And what would you say?’

  ‘I'd say you've got—’ Is she aware of the way I'm looking at her? Scanning her body, neither impressed nor repelled. ‘I'd say you've got a good tackle.’

  ‘A good tackle?’ she says, then peers up and down the street as if wanting to leave. Yep, she noticed.

  ‘And how do you know that?’ she asks, turning back to me.

  ‘I dunno,’ I say and shuffle my feet nervously, ‘but I'd have to say something, otherwise you wouldn't get a run.’

  She looks up and down the street again. ‘Which way?’

  I point down the hill.

  ‘Lucky,’ she says.

  ‘Why's that?’

  ‘If you want to walk me home, we both have to go the same way,’ she says and starts off. I leap from the bench seat, pick up my bag and lope after her, wondering how far we'll get before our paths separate.

  ‘
What position would I play?’ she asks, looking up at me.

  I give her a confused look.

  ‘On the team,’ she says.

  ‘Oh right.’ I think: she's shortish, definitely not petite, not huge either, but solid, like a hooker on a footy team. And then I say it, ‘Hooker.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘No. I mean. Sorry. I didn't mean it like that.’

  ‘Then how do you mean it?’

  ‘I mean,’ but I stop before I make things worse. ‘The hooker is a position on the team. He's often at dummy half. Always in the action.’

  ‘Dummy what? Is this some dirty joke?’

  ‘No!’ I raise my hands in desperation. ‘I'm trying to—’ but give up.

  She stops walking. ‘Trying to what?’

  ‘Explain the position. Have you got a ball?’ She looks at me and I realise how stupid the question is. Despite this, she takes her bag off and rummages through it.

  ‘Nope. Forgot it,’ she says, her head practically submerged.

  I think again. ‘What about an apple, an orange?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘Hang on.’ I put my bag down and pull out a bruised apple of my own. ‘Let's pretend this is the ball.’

  ‘Bit small, isn't it?’

  ‘That's why I said pretend.’

  She smiles. ‘Okay. The apple is the ball. Got it. What next, Einstein?’

  ‘Um.’ I look about. I feel good, feel nervous. ‘Pretend I'm the person doing the play-the-ball.’

  ‘Play the ball?’

  I'm getting nowhere. ‘Let's pretend I've been tackled, right?’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘By anyone. By the opposition,’ I say. ‘There.’ I point to a fence post. ‘That's the opposition player.’ I stand in front of the post, bend over and put the apple under my foot, mimicking the position of the play-the-ball. ‘The hooker often goes at dummy half—that's behind me—and picks up the ball, runs with it or passes.’

  ‘You want me to pick up the apple?’ she asks.

  ‘It's the ball, remember.’

  ‘While you're bending over?’

  ‘C'mon.’

  ‘With my head near your butt?’

  ‘Just pick it up.’

  ‘Forget it,’ she says and picks up her bag. ‘What other positions are there?’

  I toss the apple into a bush. ‘There's the bench,’ I mutter.

  Whacking me on the arm, she says, ‘I know what that means.’ She starts walking again. I laugh and catch up. She's trying to keep a straight face. I'm not sure what to say next, so I listen to our feet slap on the concrete as we head down the hill. My heart is thumping. I can't believe I'm so worked up over one stupid conversation with a girl I don't want to like.

  She slows as we pass an old house on stilts that has peeling paint and rusting gutters. The place is famous in the suburb for its array of junk. It's surrounded by a yard of long grass, strewn with old planks of timber, corrugated iron sheets, metal pipes and other piles of useless stuff. Even beneath the house, in between the stilts, there's junk piled up.

  She rests her hands on the flaking white paint of the fence. ‘I've always wanted to go in there,’ she says. ‘See what stuff he's got.’

  ‘Why haven't you?’

  She shrugs. ‘Have you seen the owner? He looks like a pervert.’

  ‘Charlie's harmless, you know.’ Dad and I refer to the owner as Charlie the Hoarder. We don't know his real surname. ‘I go there sometimes with my old man.’

  ‘Really? What for?’

  I rest my hands on the fence, next to hers. She doesn't edge away. ‘Dad gets excited about things sometimes, goes into building frenzies. He doesn't usually finish anything, but.’

  ‘What does he build?’

  ‘He's building an aviary at the moment.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Birds.’

  ‘Duh, what kind of birds?’

  ‘Finches.’

  She looks at me critically.

  I feel stupid for saying it and go on the defensive. ‘Hey, it's Dad's idea, not mine.’

  ‘So the football coach of St Phil's breeds finches? Sounds kinda soft, don't you think?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘but, he hasn't started yet.’

  ‘I'd like to see them.’ She looks up at me. ‘Once he's got some.’

  Did she just invite herself over?

  ‘Sure,’ I say, but not really meaning it. I wonder what she'd think of our house, of Dad? He'd probably be on the couch, comatosed by a migraine and Panadeine Forte, or doing Sportsbet on the laptop.

  We walk again and settle into a comfortable chatter. She tells me about her weekend job at a Gloria Jean's café in the city, how her parents don't like her going there on her own. But as we get to a street corner about three blocks from home, she stops and asks, ‘What were you really waiting for?’

  Now it's me re-positioning the straps of my bag. ‘For you,’ I say, finally sure I'm telling the truth.

  She crosses her arms.

  ‘Is that so hard to believe?’ I ask.

  She drops her eyes and shrugs. ‘Yeah. Kind of.’ There's only a hint of a smile. ‘I live up there,’ she says and jinks her head at the street. ‘I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I say.

  ‘See you, then,’ she says and turns away.

  I watch for a while, noting the houses, wondering which one is hers. Then I start off home before she can turn and catch me staring.

  i flogged the p

  There are only two days to go before our first real game. Dad's put me on the team, all based on one event: I tackled The P. Dad even phoned Roger just to tell him I made it. ‘He's gonna be full-back, I told you he could do it!’ he yelled into the phone. ‘And you know what else? Jack's gonna join the army. He's enrolled for a physical in October!’

  It all started at training last night.

  About ten minutes into the game and playing for the opposition Cuppas broke the defensive line. He palmed off one guy, trampled over another. Hitting open space, he gulped for air as he ran, his flab shuddering with every step. Then, as the defence caught up from behind, he threw a pass to The P. It was a shocker.

  It wobbled and dipped. The guys screamed, ‘Forward, it went forward!’ But Dad did nothing.

  Sprinting, The P stooped forward, scraped the ball up from his ankles and returned to full height in the one motion. Gez came after him, but The P palmed him off and charged straight on. He tucked the ball under an armpit. His knees drove up and down like pistons. He ran at me full pelt, daring me to take him on. But I was still peeved with him. Annoyed that I let him pressure me into beating up Cuppas; pissed off with myself for being such a soft touch.

  So I lunged forward and buried my shoulder into the soft flesh below his ribs. Air exploded from his lungs, the ball shot from his grasp and tumbled out of play. There were groans of shared pain from The P's team mates and cheers from mine. The P collapsed to the ground, rasping for air.

  Gez seized me in a friendly headlock. ‘Aawww, what a ripper!’ he yelled.

  The boys on my team were ecstatic. They slapped my back. They laughed. No one could believe The P got nailed by Jack ‘the axe’ McDermott! I felt great, but terrible, too. The P was on all fours, gulping for air. ‘How do you feel?’ I asked, but I said it with a smile.

  He looked at me with a vicious snarl and watering, bloodshot eyes.

  When Gez and I got to the car after training, Dad threw me the keys. He was grinning. His eyes were bright with pride. Gez couldn't stop laughing as he climbed into the back seat. Dad opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out.

  Gez leaned forward and blurted, ‘You're in the team, Sticks. Boy, are you in the team! Am I right, Brian? Is he in the team?’

  Dad turned to me as I started the motor. ‘He could be,’ he said, still smiling.

  ‘Could be? Jack nailed him. His P-ness went down like a sack of spuds!’ Gez laughed and I grinn
ed. ‘Wammo!’ he yelled and clapped his hands. ‘Jack flogged His P-ness!’

  When we got home, Dad marched inside and yelled, ‘What a tackle, Jack!’ He walked purposefully into the lounge room and went to the sliding doors that open out to the yard. ‘I'm proud of you,’ he said.

  ‘It was just a tackle.’ I was trying to keep my joy under wraps.

  ‘Just a tackle? It was beautiful.’ He puffed his chest. ‘Perfect!’ He looked out at the wire mesh on the lawn waiting to be turned into a bird aviary. He opened the sliding doors and marched out. ‘It wasn't just any tackle,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘It was a ripper!’

  He started to build.

  Later that night, between footy games on Foxtel, Dad stuck his head into my room. He was absolutely glowing. ‘I've got to show you something,’ he said.

  Back at the dining table, he sat me down at the laptop and talked me through My H.Q., the online enrolment for the Australian Defence Force.

  ‘What if I want to do something else?’ I asked him.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Be a mechanic.’

  He screwed up his nose like it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. ‘If you want to be a mechanic then do it in the army. You'll even get a trade ticket. And you won't be working on a Japanese hunk-a-junk. Think about it: four-wheel-drives, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, trucks. That's the stuff, Jack; let me tell you, that's the stuff.’

  The excitement of the day drained away. I felt numb. I don't want trucks, or tanks. I want things to be simple, easy, I thought. And Dad didn't understand. There was another question, too, a more important one: what if they won't take a kid with PE?

  But he looked on as if this was my only hope. Or am I his only hope? I thought. Maybe I'm the last dregs of his dream that got stripped away? I'm his chance to live again. It was then I realised that this battle won't ever end until one of us gives up.

  So I started going through the enrolment page by page, filling in my details: date of birth, address, job preferences. At one point it asked, reason for applying? Dad was still behind me, watching over my shoulder, so I turned to him and raised my eyebrows. He got the drift and went back to the footy on Foxtel.