by Jock Serong
I even do some footy, boundary-line stuff, for Globe in the winter. For the live crosses I team a scarf with a pair of designer glasses I don’t need. I’m putting a light blond rinse through my hair. Nothing radical, just a shade or so. Meanwhile, I owe a few people some money here and there—bets that went down, cars I’ve leased, things like that. But overall the living is surprisingly stable.
Then comes the night when it all gets upended again.
Rhapsody
The face again.
I just know this can work. It needs to work—it’s literally life and death. I get the irony—‘life’ probably only amounts to an extra twenty minutes or so. But the instinct to prolong and preserve it is stronger than I realised.
Where I think I went wrong with the gaffer tape was in the pressing on and ripping off, because I only had to get the angle of rip away slightly wrong and the tape would tear laterally. It’s not very good quality stuff.
So I’ve come up with a new approach, scuffing my face across the carpet so the exposed edge of the tape catches and pulls.
It’s soon apparent that this technique works better, but is a lot more painful. You’d think I had bigger fish to fry, pain-wise. But the small agonies, like the small indignities, are cumulative.
Scuffing away, the skin on my cheek rubs off and melts into a sticky, raw wound. The tape has indeed caught and is pulling away by the centimetre now. I can sip tiny gulps of air through that side of my mouth. I imagine I look like Groucho Marx working a cigar, and that makes me laugh unexpectedly, wheezing in and out through the tiny aperture I’ve made.
The bag of cricket gear’s at my feet. I’ve had to explain it several times since I came into the stadium—just felt like a net session, gonna give it away to some kids, it’s a charity thing…I really would’ve preferred to do this somewhere more private.
To my left, his earphones resembling two giant novelty mouse ears, is Christopher Wilkington, former captain of England, Oxford double blue and fantastically boring human being. Had a terrific Test average, built entirely on flat tracks and selfish not-outs. To my right, some drone from Globe. Mike or Mick or Nick or something. He seems bearable.
It’s a night game at the SCG between two celebrity teams, for a charity called Shine a Light or, no that was a Stones song…Shining Path? Shiny something. It’s grinding its way into the thirty-third over of the first innings. There’s a plastic biro lying on my notes and I’m feeling the urge to stab it into Wilkington’s left eye. I want to watch him scream and lurch back in the chair and pull it out with gelatinous eye-goo dripping off the end.
There’s a push to cover and someone ambles in to field, heaving a lazy throw into the night sky. The backdrop to the arc of the ball is hundreds of empty seats. No one’s said anything for a while, when there’s a tapping sound on the rear glass wall of the booth: looking around I see Craigo grinning like a croc, beckoning.
Craig’s been away for months, one of his mysterious disappearances. The first time he went, Wally and I thought he’d just moved on from our lives. Then he reappeared, and no amount of questioning could elicit an explanation. ‘Just stuff,’ he said. Another time: ‘Checkin some opportunities.’
After further disappearances passed without explanation, we gave up asking. Some of it, I figure, was his ‘Wattle It Be’ tours, but they’ve mostly been outsourced to bomber-jacketed minions by now. Anyway, here he is, back from wherever he’s been.
‘How the fuck did you get in here?’ I ask him.
He looks a little beery. ‘Dun matter mate. Doworry. Hey, you wanna get in on some action?’
He’s got moleskins on, tweed jacket and a straining chambray shirt. He’s dressed, in other words, to fool someone that he’s an Old Boy.
‘What is it?’
‘Little spot wager. The ol’ guy, the CEO of the charity, whatever it is. To score more’n forty. Hundred to one.’
He raises his eyebrows foggily. ‘It’s good, mate. Good odds.’
I sigh and try to think for a moment with a hand in my hair. ‘I’m sure that’s because he’s shithouse.’
‘Heeeey…’ It’s his look. The one that says trust me.
‘Okay. Gimme half an hour.’
‘How much you want on it? I can do you credit.’
Craigo’s bloody credit. Last thing I need.
‘Just wait will you, mate? I’ll have five hundred. I need to see a guy.’
He shrugs and ambles off. I duck back into the commentary box for the bag. Producer’s flapping his arms now and urging me to get back in the chair. He’ll be right. I’m headed the other way, down the office-lined corridors of the media centre and out, into the cool stale tobacco of the members’-stand bar.
First things first. I swing left into the gents and get myself a cubicle, chop up a line and snort it home. As I come out, a thousand angels sounding triumphant bells in my ears, a kid wanders towards the urinal, fumbling for his fly. He sees me—sees me for the darting, twitching middle-aged caricature that I am. Hope, disappointment and resignation, combined in three seconds of a twelve-year-old’s face. How cynical he must be for a young fella. I throw him a gedday champ and he smiles uncertainly.
Out into the boozy light of the bar, and there’s the guy. Reefer jacket, hand around a beer. I plonk the bag down, sniff my happy nose back and shake the wet hand. Derek. He looks through the bag: two bats, one used and covered in red cherries, the other brand new. Pads, gloves, sweaty old thighpad. Lastly—and I arranged the bag so the theatre would unfold this way—out comes the Australian jumper. He holds it up to his chest as if to check the size, but actually, pathetically, imagining himself. The crest is facing towards me, and inside the neck I can see the name written neatly in finepoint texta on the label, the way he’s always done: Wally Keefe.
‘How much do you want for it?’
‘It’s taking up room. I’ll take eight hundred,’ I say, feigning disinterest.
He looks troubled for a moment. We both know what’s going on here.
‘I mean Darren, I’m very grateful. You’ve lugged it all the way in here and my son, he’s a good kid, but it’ll take him forever to repay me that much…’
He looks hopefully into my eyes. ‘I don’t want to let him down.’
‘Okay,’ I sigh. ‘Seven-fifty.’
‘I could do six hundred?’ He proffers the notes.
‘Fine.’
I take his money, another quick handshake and I’m off, his request to say thanks to Wally ringing in my ears. Like, right.
Minutes later, I’m back on my arse in the commentary box, bouncing off the vapid Yorkshireman. Right on the thirty-minute mark, Craigo reappears, tapping the bloody window again. I pass him the six hundred: he counts it, winks at me and disappears.
The wickets fall rapidly. There’s two overs left, they need forty-eight to win. And onto the ground waltzes the CEO.
The ground PA greets him: ‘Please make welcome the Chief Executive Officer of Shine for Kids, and former captain of the Danish World Cup team, Ole Terjessen!’
Oh captain, my captain. Craigo didn’t mention he had form.
This could be interesting. Big man, thick moustache, swinging the bat around in circles as he adjusts his eyes to the lights. He looks thoroughly at home.
First one he watches through outside off. Second one he deposits halfway up the sightscreen with a loud bang. It seems Ole has a straight drive, and it’s a monster. Third and fourth clear the rope at mid-on and backward square respectively. Fifth is a classical late cut through backward point for four. He closes out the over with a single to third man so he retains the strike. Been around the block, this fella. He’s already on twenty-three.
The other mob have saved their opening bowler for the final over, but he looks tired. He trundles in and lets go a straight one, which big Ole slams directly back, nearly taking out the umpire at waist height. Two bounces into the fence and the thin scatter of spectators have come to life. I’ve even got some reparte
e going with Wilkington, whose version of exuberance is, ‘Well by golly, he’s hit that.’
Next ball, another pull shot. Four more. A glance to fine leg brings another four, and everyone, including me, is now on their feet. The Dane seems composed, unhurried. Next ball he drops to one knee, looking to hoik it over square, but only succeeds in getting the toe of the bat on it. It smacks into his front pad off the edge and squirts out to point as he ducks through for a single.
Shit.
The Dane’s off strike. Twelve to win. Two balls left. I’ll have to pinch some more of Wally’s gear to recover from this.
But then a little crickety miracle: a no-ball. And perhaps sensing the crowd’s eagerness to see the Dane do the business, the other schmo ambles through for a single, putting Ole back on strike.
He stands there with the bat on his log-splitter’s shoulder for a while, surveying the field. There’s nothing much to see out there—a standard six–three spread, four inside the restriction circle, the rest on the boundary. He thinks about that for a minute then rests the bat on the ground and taps gently as he waits for the bowler.
I’ve got the call of the delivery. I bring it down a notch, talking the bowler in.
It’s a flat, hard full toss outside off: Ole lifts it up and out and into the stands and I’m screaming and jumping as though they’ve actually won the game with that mighty hit. Of course they haven’t but I’ve sure won as the Dane is now forty-two and my six hundred bucks has just become sixty grand and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have mates like Craigo who seems to know just where to be and when and how. Oh man, and how.
It matters not that next ball the Dane is bowled middle stump trying to repeat the shot, or that the game has now been won and lost and I should be commentating it and announcing the man of the match and talking through replays of the wickets and throwing to ad breaks. It matters not that in walking out as I’m doing, I’ve probably squandered the Globe job and with it any hope of securing a permanent gig calling Tests next summer.
Sixty grand buys a lot of good times.
Wandering the carpark in search of a taxi, I’ve signed half a dozen autographs before I see Craigo, relaxed and proud, leaning against the grille of his new wheels: a heavy, low-slung black Chrysler that looks like it’s been pimped out for a drug lord. He’s grinning like a little aths parent at the podium, and he extends his arms, looking for one of those hugs.
‘Bring it in!’ he rumbles, and I’m swept up in his suffocating grip.
Desperately in need of a breath, I pull back. ‘I didn’t even know Denmark had a World Cup team.’
‘That’s the magic. Nobody bothered to check.’
‘So how’d the ground announcer know?’
‘Little something I arranged for your amusement. You like that?’
‘Much. Where are we drinking?’
‘New place in Elwood. Very exclusive. You got any better shoes?’
Four a.m.
Craigo and I are laughing it up with these two girls. We’ve just finished with a thing we call the Mister Joshua routine. We saw it in some eighties movie. Craigo gets his lighter and I hold out my left hand, with the thumb, ol’ Squibbly, stuck out parallel to the floor. Craigo puts on his sinister voice:
‘Mister Joshua here has forgotten more about pain than you and I will ever know.’
I do a tough face. He lights the Zippo.
Puts it under my thumb and holds the flame there until the skin begins to bubble a little. Normally he’ll wait for a little wisp of smoke to curl up from the burning skin. Master of stagecraft, Craigo.
The girls shriek in horror. I stare back at them deadpan. Craigo produces an ice bucket with a sweep of his arm and I plunge Squibbly into it. One of the girls takes my arm tenderly, concern all over her lovely face.
‘It’s numb,’ I assure her. ‘Can’t feel a thing.’
We all laugh and throw back a tray of tequila shots.
Later, I’m dancing with her and she’s twirling, pouting, grinding against her friend. There’s a lot of hair flying around, lights in my eyes, more hair brushing my cheek. She’s young, but so am I. The hammer blows from the speakers stop a moment and she’s pushing me, squirming with animal intent. There’s perfume, faint cigarette smoke and sweet, sticky alcohol. With a hand on each of her slight shoulders, a finger on each strap of her black dress, I pull her in and against me. Now she’s grinding again, breaking away, laughing, swirling back in. The friend is hovering nearby, a half-smile on her face. This could go anywhere.
I am the sixty-grand man.
Her friend is taller. Athlete’s legs in stripper heels.
Anywhere.
The music explodes and the lights blast everything into a raging white cataclysm. The bass is thudding into my chest and I’m swinging my arms in the air like I can make it all go faster. Craigo appears, a tray of shots held high and raining on us as tranced revellers slam into him. I sweep one off the tray, slam it and throw the shot glass into the darkness. The nymph does likewise. Craigo leans into my ear and yells.
HOW YOU GOIN?
SWEET! I’M ON HERE BUDDY. ON!
YOU GOOD TO GO? He raises those eyebrows. NOT FADING A LITTLE EH?
I wobble an outstretched hand in his direction. WHAT YOU GOT?
NEW STUFF. STAY THERE.
He points and winks. I pull the girl in close and talk under the sweep of her hair, ask her if she wants to party. She does. I want to stay under the hair. I stick my tongue in her ear, bite her earring as my fingers trace the contours of her neck. The other hand finds a thigh, smooth and hard and angled towards me. For a moment, I cannot imagine a more perfect human form.
Then we’re up and rising to it again and the last shot, it turns out, was tequila and there’s a hot numbness in my mouth and the taste of her still, or maybe it’s the smell, and the girl, the friend, the whole seething, crushing mob of the nightclub, we’re heaving like we’re tied to something gigantic. Great cities could run on this.
It feels like he hasn’t been gone more than a few seconds, but Craig’s back. Never caught on a dance floor, always the one guiding on and off, now he takes the nymph under one paw and her friend under the other and swings them both away. We’re cutting through the crowd, half of whom seem to know him by the way they part as he advances. Or do they know me? I am the sixty-grand man, after all.
There’s a booth clear against the wall. We slide in and I look up to see heavy men close the space through which we passed. We are enboothed. I look at Craig with new eyes, new wonder. He knows people. The human wall obscures us from view. He hands us little vials, plastic or very thin glass, my fingers can’t tell. There’s clear fluid inside, visible only by the air bubble that recalls a spirit level.
He looks at us paternally.
‘Now kids,’ he says. ‘This stuff is called rhapsody, and it’s got some kick. No more drinks, okay?’
We nod solemnly.
‘And get out of here. I don’t want anyone falling over.’ He casts us a benevolent smile and pats me on the back.
I’m grinning like a fool. He slips around me, headed towards the adjoining booth. We pass each other sidelong, two shits in the night.
The girls haven’t got up yet. The nymph has peeled the strap off one shoulder with an easy tilt of the hip, and turned the black dress down to reveal a breast in a black strapless bra. She pokes the vial under the fabric and it’s held in the gleaming satin curve. Her friend is still watching: watching me, watching the nymph’s long fingers tug the bra back into position. The nymph’s eyes lift from there to meet mine. The friend’s still smiling, and she leans on the nymph and whispers something that makes them both giggle. She’s put a hand on that bare shoulder. Softly.
I’m in a fever. They’re so young. I just want to get the hell out.
She’s yelling to me across the booth table. Her teeth, so white, so straight and perfect.
‘One more round! Go go go! Whooh!’
There’s a
waitress, three vodkas, deep lowball glasses. As soon as they’re on the table the girl’s got one of those fingers in her glass, dipping it and streaking the warm fluid down over my lips and chin. She leans in, draped across the table.
‘I’m Emily,’ says that mouth.
‘Yes you are,’ I agree, and she smiles.
We throw the vodkas back and stand to leave, and I remember the lights and her extraordinary arse, them walking arm in arm, her friend’s hand resting just where the high curve of her buttocks meets the small of her back as they stride regally through the void ahead of me. The thudding sound from within and without. The blurring roar of the crowd.
And then there is nothing more.
Next there’s me in a car in a state that’s not me at all. I’m in the passenger seat. Someone’s in the driver’s seat and I don’t know who it is. We’re parked, I think. I’m warm and content.
But someone’s crossing the road towards us: the fleeting sight of them makes me feel protective of the other person in the car. They’re crossing the road and it isn’t good and they’re walking towards the car and the figure is a man, tall and thin, in a suit. The suit’s pale, and he’s wearing a hat with a brim like a fedora, and it obscures his face as he skip-walks lightly across the road towards us. He’s approaching the driver’s side, approaching the door, where he slows, looks in briefly, then changes his mind. He’s moving around the front of the car now, slower and more deliberate, turning past the front corner of the bonnet and angling towards me when a feeling of total dread consumes me. This man fills the night with a cold menace: the atoms themselves have turned sour. And I know as he approaches that he can feel my fear and takes pleasure in it. The fear and his pleasure are escalating in unison. He is nearer, leaning down and looking in and I lurch for the door lock, reach out a hand to snap it downwards, but I’m too late, and in a light-fingered instant he’s opened the door and I find myself looking up at him and he has no face. Not darkness beneath the brim of the hat, just nothing at all. And somehow he’s taken my left hand in his hands, holding my forearm firmly and I can see one of his hands and it’s finely sculpted, cut from square angles, and the flesh is not the colour of the living but the colour of some kind of meal or grain, sandy, unliving and scattered with hints and faint shadows like I’m looking straight through his skin and into rotting flesh or a writhing mass of larvae. And I don’t want him to touch me more than anything I do not want him to touch me but he has my hand and now he is reaching out his other hand to touch me, simply and deliberately on the forearm with his fingers, and as he does so I feel a satisfied smile that I can’t see, because his pleasure has found a new height like laughter or even orgasm because he has touched me and now I can’t be untouched, and I’m still trying to get my arm away from him but he doesn’t even notice my efforts, because he has touched me. And I’m screaming and screaming and screaming and none of it will make the slightest difference because he has touched me.