Losing It
Page 7
You get to the baths you go to the tree where everybody usually sits there’s no one here yet. It’s that hot you just strip off straight away to your bathers you don’t care any more if you’re fat or not just a little bit in case your bum’s jiggling and you dive straight in smooth through the air breaking into water, blue and cool wiggly black lines underneath and you do dolphin dives all the way to the other end the noise in your ears of all the sounds together going in and out as you thread through the water. When you get out of the pool you see Linda and Sylvio they’ve just arrived so you go and sit with them even though he’s a suck and some of the boys are there too and Debbie arrives but that’s okay because you’re talking again and you laugh and smoke and sunbake get dunked watching the boys do rooters floaters mummies off the diving board and you stay there all day and afterwards you all go to the pizza shop.
All the boys are out tonight lounging around on hotted-up Toranas Monaros Holdens and Fords all the boys are here. You pull up in Gino’s Falcon, Raci and Hasan come over to check it out going Gino malaka you got a shitbox man. Tony Farfalla’s here he gets into the car sitting in the back with you, you like Tony he never makes you feel like you’re out of place with the boys. He says Josieee and you go Tonyyy. He says he’s going to write a letter to Stretch do you want to say hello? and you go I don’t know, do you think he’ll mind? and Tony goes he loves ya! stirring you so you tell him to shut up and he says ooh you’re a hard woman but you’re all right and puts his arm around your neck and pinches your cheek. Tony’s got long and curly hair and wears a denim vest his front tooth is missing he’s the oldest out of all the boys. His brother is fat Vince and fat Vince is so fat he can hardly walk, he eats about three pies for lunch and a big bottle of Coke he’s so fat he’s got tits you’ve seen them at the baths they’re bigger than yours. Mladin and Drago Filev are here, Mladin’s about the same age as Tony and he is mean. He’s got a bull terrier with a muzzle on it that only listens to him he keeps it on a short tight chain. He’s very tall he’s handsome when you catch him by surprise and he’s got good muscles even better than Dave’s but he doesn’t talk to you much except if you see him in the street by himself and you know when he’s watching you even when he’s not looking. His hair is really short like his dog’s. His brother Drago is a bit younger he’s big too but softer and mean in a different way he smiles a lot and makes everything out to be a joke. Sometimes you really like Drago and then he says something that makes you see him differently makes you want to stay away from him you can’t trust him he keeps changing. Rocka’s grouse he’s got long black hair riding around on his purple Dragstar he always makes you laugh he was pretty cut when Linda dropped him for Sylvio. Everybody else is here too and even some guys that you don’t know but Tony does, he knows them all he knows everyone and everyone knows him because he’s their dealer. In the pizza shop the old wooden table with initials and dates and lovehearts and your name is there too. It’s hotter in the shop than out, the red lairy wallpaper the telly on in the corner with no one watching it, Frank and Gianni behind the counter they’ve always been here they make the best pizzas it’s the best pizza shop around it’s a Tuesday it’s summer and all the boys are everywhere.
You want to know what your dad sees in the telly, why he leaves it on for so long lying in front of it staring or snoring or sleeping. You want to know how it gets into him, into his mind, what he sees. You sit up really close to it on static and you watch and you watch, lines and lines of moving black moving white little squares and leaning rectangles moving quick quick quickly so quickly over the screen. Some parts look like they’re moving really slowly even though they’re made up of lots and lots of tiny parts moving really quickly, other parts look like they’re almost pictures from a movie but they never quite make it, the sound is sometimes nearly voices telling stories from the movie that isn’t there. The shape of the loungeroom is reflected on the screen and so is your face looking funny right up close and through it the moving little squares. You get into the rhythm of it but it’s not a rhythm that you know, it keeps changing, there’s a bigger one over the top of all the little black and white patterns, one that you can’t see can’t hear that keeps you there on your knees, an invisible rhythm holding you close and taking you away at the same time, away from here, into a place where everything fits together. You feel like you’re getting to know him watching the telly like this, getting to know his mind, the way it works, where he goes and why he is the way he is.
You’re lying in bed, little bits of the night breeze wafting in every now and then over you making you breathe a bit more even though you didn’t even realise you were holding your breath. Linda’s face is in your mind you’re so glad she’s your friend she’s the best best friend she’s great she really understands you, you can talk about anything and you do and even the things that you don’t talk about you know you could if you wanted to. She thinks the same as you it’s like you’re two parts of the same mind sometimes, you can really have a good laugh together. You might share a flat when you move out of home that’d be great but you’re not going to move out of home until you’re seventeen that’s miles off and anyway you should stay with your mum because of dad. If you go before you’re seventeen you’re going to go to Sydney you’ll go by yourself just go, you’ll hitch-hike you’ve got it all worked out all you have to do is save some money first. It was great talking to Linda tonight. She reckons Sylvio is just a user and you said yeah. She reckons she’s not going to go back with him this time she’s gonna let him crawl she’s really gonna break his arse he can come begging to her and she’s just going to say no. You said he can’t treat you like shit Linda said he is shit you said he eats shit Linda said he can eat my shit you go he’s just a shiteater Linda goes I’ll shit on him you said shit can eat shit Linda said shit can drown in shit and you both go ooh, yuk! and you’re pissing yourselves laughing then Linda starts crying so you put your arm around her and hold her hand. Linda goes I hate boys and you go yeah me too and it’s all quiet for a bit. Then she says I wish you were a boy I’d go with you. She just said it out of nowhere and all of a sudden right then, right there, you wish you were a boy you really wish you were. You say me too in a small voice and you both just stay there and then she gets out of your arm and lights up a couple of smokes and passes you one and says I really hate Sylvio he is shit and you both crack up again. Linda starts blowing smoke rings she’s really good at it even better than the boys. She taught you, showed you how to click your jaw properly but you’re not as good as her. She can do tricks. She can make one smoke ring a bit bigger and slower and then shoot a smaller faster one through the middle of it. You keep practising but you haven’t got it yet and you can’t do the Chinese drawback either but you can make a loveheart that was easy to learn you make a big ring and gently pull your finger down the middle of it before it disappears, you used to do that for Dave he could do it too.
You start thinking about Dave again as you’re lying there on your bed in the room you only share with Rosie now under the window the breeze coming in, even though you can’t tell when you start or when you stop. He would just say the right things sometimes like he really knew you, nobody else knows you like Dave does, you really miss him.
chapter four
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THINGS GET into some routine, there’s school there’s home there’s the weekends, your dad isn’t drinking like he said he wouldn’t, he’s been home for ages they’re even sleeping in the same bed again he’s got a job as a taxi-driver he’s on the night-shift. You’re going with Hasan. You don’t think your mum likes him she said he’s no oil-painting and you said well neither’s dad. He lives in the Housing Commission flats in Richmond you usually stay there after going to the Crystal Ballroom or Kingston Rock in St Kilda you go there all the time now. You don’t really like doing it with him, he’s skinny all over pointy tongue and hard, he doesn’t touch you very much but sometimes it’s easier to say yes than argue no. The fir
st time you slept with him properly his dad was in Turkey his mum gave you the double bed chocolate-brown velvet bedhead with night-lights in it and a radio, a big furry bedspread and a fake tapestry of lions and tigers on the wall, she even laid out a nightie for you, you didn’t wear it but you crumpled it up to make it look like you did and you woke to a soft touch on your forehead in the morning her gold tooth glinting smiling at you with a boiled egg and a cup of bitter coffee. One night you’re in bed you’ve been out everything is blurry your body moving thick the air is slow he wants to have sex you say no. He says come on, you hear yourself no, I don’t want to and then his voice saying sharp so what are you doing here? You lie there feeling like no one the sheets heavy on you, you move yourself under the covers and out of the bed. You start to dress yourself Hasan says where do you think you’re going? You say home, he says come here, you go no. The sheets swish he’s out of the bed in front of you fast grabbing your arm and twisting. Let go you tell him he tells you to keep your voice down so you whisper hard let me go. He doesn’t, then he does, then he says fuck you and gets back into bed. You’ve got your bag your boots are buckled you leave and switch the bedroom light on to annoy him as you shut the door, you hear him say something as you leave the flat, your shoes making their sound on the concrete down the stairwell, you rush through the carpark the shadows and the wind in all directions coming around all the corners of the big block buildings, you can’t go home your mum will get suspicious she thinks you’re staying at Debbie’s. You find the city in your eyes and you aim for that, you don’t know these roads you’re in a cave unknown and hollow, bats could attack you at any moment car lights flashing quick or passing slow are the eyes of snakes, you’re walking, the emptiness behind you opens, you’re walking quicker, the emptiness catching up trying to squeeze you and you find yourself fitting yourself into the dark so that nothing can see you.
You say to Rosie what’s up your arse Rosie-Posie? she goes shut up you little bitch, have you got any cigarettes? You say Park Drive and she says can I have one? you go dad’s home, she goes I don’t care. You throw your packet to her, she goes thanks, sorry I called you a bitch, you go why did you then? and she goes oh shut up! Rosie’s the tallest one in the family she’s got nice-shaped boobs you wish yours were like hers her legs are really muscly she’s a really good runner she always used to get first ribbons she’s got pimples she wears glasses she covers up her smile because of her teeth. She plucks her eyebrows she showed you how to do it properly she wears blue two-tone eyeshadow she lets you wear it too. She’s got this really nice Crystal Cylinder T-shirt that you wish was yours, dark-blue light-blue with white stripes in between and black as well all different thicknesses but it doesn’t look the same on you, on her it’s really tight she wears it with her denim Staggers baggies and her blue connie cardigan blue’s her favourite colour. It’s your favourite colour too but not because of her you just like it and anyway, you liked it first. She goes what are you doing? you go nothing so then she goes well get out, you say do you want to go for a drive? and she goes leave me alone all right! You go it’s my bedroom too I’m allowed to stay here if I want, she goes gee I hate you sometimes, you say I hate you too and she goes shut up and you go no, then she says I’m glad I’m moving out and you say me too. She rolls over on the bed and blows smoke into the wall so you pretend that she’s not there either, blowing smoke into your own wall listening to your own radio looking forward to having your own bedroom.
You’re going to make the State side you know it, you’re going to training on a blue train. You’re standing in the open doorway letting the wind come in bringing with it the soft drizzle in bursts. The train’s going over the bridge between Macaulay and Flemington and you look down, down to the wet black street the wet red houses and suddenly there’s a black wet tree. Blossoms all over it shining pink and wet swooping out of nowhere down below, the train’s going fast it’s only a flash a wet flash from nowhere, the train’s riding fast, bumpy, you’re in the open doors looking down going over the bridge a split-second pink flash and you go oh! and lean out to keep seeing it, it’s made a print in you like a photo all bright and black outlined in rainshine but it’s gone, gone.
You get to the field you get in trouble. One, you’re late ten extra laps. Two, you missed last training, if you miss another you can forget it another ten get going pump it! Push-ups hamstrings sprints, the coach is picking on you don’t ask don’t say anything keep pumping, your breathing hurts your face is red. You hate it when your face goes red it always goes red and really hot it stays like that for ages. You love training even though it gives you the shits it keeps you fit you’re burning off all that fat. Sometimes you’d like to sleep in especially if you’ve been out the night before, it takes ages getting there you have to catch a bus a train another train and then you walk and then you’re there. It always takes a long time Fawkner’s miles away especially on the weekends you have to wait for ages to get anywhere but you love lacrosse you love playing it feels really good when you win or even when you don’t out there on the field with no end. You’re going to go to Adelaide with the State team, you’re training for the State team and you know you’ll get picked. You could be a famous sports star. You’ll be really fit you’ll have a suntan your hair will go streaky blonde you’ll be taller with really good legs and you’ll never be fat you’ll have lots of money drive a Jaguar or maybe an MG you’ll have a motorbike too and a house by the beach and you’ll know how to surf and you can go to America for your holidays you’ll be a jetsetter. The field’s mud you might as well be wearing your moccies for all the good your footy boots are doing. The smooth wood of your stick in its familiar place in your hands, the net all neatly knotted criss-crossing leather, the ball sliding in wet and round and white and cradled then flying through the air in a curving perfect pass, your eyes on the ball always on the ball, your body ready and moving and swift, you can see the spaces between the other players before the spaces are even there, you know your way through everybody clear and quick and rushing making lines over the field, seeing where you want to go and getting there, running on those lines making patterns on the ground through the air.
Afterwards you sit around in the changeroom for a while with a can of Fanta and a cigarette. It’s different here in the changerooms to anywhere else you go, nobody else knows anything about you you could be anybody here, anybody you want. You don’t have that much in common with the others but you don’t care and you don’t talk about yourself because you don’t want to give yourself away, you just talk about lacrosse and the weather. You’re sitting on the bench in your tracksuit pants over your muddy legs, you feel the mud drying slowly cracking and tickly on your skin, you’re just one of the players training for the State side. Nobody can see who you really are, nobody can see what you’re really thinking, they can’t see the tree with its wet blossoms startling in your mind or where you were last night and what you did, they can’t see the bruises on your thighs from Hasan’s skinny hips, they can’t see your dad or the things you haven’t got, they can’t see how you think their lives are stupid. All they talk about is lacrosse and winning and who their boyfriends are and what the men’s team is doing, you’re not going to tell them what you’re thinking because even though you hate them on the inside you like them on the outside, you have to, and you don’t want them to hate you because if they hated you you wouldn’t be able to play in the team.
In Social Studies with Mr Phillips who wears a beard and army pants and hand-made vests knitted out of lots of bits of leftover wool, you learn about Nagasaki and Hiroshima that were destroyed by an atomic bomb dropped by the Americans. You see this video of it, the smoke rising all beautiful you see all the buildings flatten suddenly and the dead city from the air, the shadow of a person burnt into concrete people with their skin melted and a baby born years later totally deformed and you think how awful that would be if it happened here everybody just made into ashes or dying really slowly from radiation and
you couldn’t drink the water or eat the vegetables and fish would have two heads and flowers would be mutant. Mr Phillips says they’ve got the power to blow up the world many times over and suddenly nothing makes any sense. If you could just die like that well then what’s the point of anything? what’s the point of being here in this classroom fluorescent lights and lino? what’s the point of being anywhere, if somebody could start a war and the world could end then nothing that you do is ever going to matter? After class in the corridor everybody everywhere you kick the lockers just to see what’ll happen. You hear the sound, the little boom and crashing sound and you do it again knowing that it doesn’t matter, your hand bashing the metal doesn’t matter. Sharon does it too then Lisa starts doing it, the sound all around you of muscle on metal and you walk outside, hearing the sounds still going that everyone’s picked up on gradually stopping and people calling out coming through the double glass doors into the sunshine for lunchtime.