And Batboy — since you ask — is the spitting image of Gaetano Scirea.
It’s 10.30 on a late winter morning, and they are about to run out for the Grand Final. This gaggle of ordinary boys, straggling over the field, but in their coach’s eyes, each holding hands with one of the greats.
So much has been written about the darkness of our culture. But there is also this. Coaches who see greatness in the most unlikely of materials; and children hungry for that transforming gift.
I see my boy holding his body a little differently, enjoying what it can do, the skills he’s learnt, the confidence he’s won from earning David and Sam’s regard. There may be an answer to ‘Il Pressing’ — we’ll find out today — but not, I think, to all the other things they have learnt.
Blackballed
There’s an old dentist joke in which the dentist is leaning forward over the patient, about to start the drill, when the patient shifts forward and gets a pretty workable grip on the dentist’s testicles. Says the patient: ‘Let’s agree not to hurt each other, OK?’
I was repeating this joke to myself, as a sort of dulling mantra, while sitting on the metal chair waiting for the doctor. I knew what was about to happen. This complete stranger — sure, he claimed to be a doctor — would soon invite me into his rooms, request I remove my pants, then give my knackers a good hard squeeze. If only I were armed with a dentist’s drill, it might put things on a more equal footing.
Men are getting a lot of heat these days for our refusal to have regular check-ups at the doctor, but my experiences have not been good. For a start, amid the current blaze of litigation, doctors seem unwilling to do anything without a flurry of tests.
Walk into a Sydney surgery with a harpoon sticking out of your head, and the typical GP will start insisting on a blood test and an X-ray ‘just so we can rule out prostate cancer’.
He’ll then get quite shirty if you suggest the reason you feel unwell may be connected to this enormous harpoon, and the fact that buckets of blood are, as you speak, spurting forth from the wound. The implication is that he hasn’t done six years of medical school to have patients telling him what a harpoon looks like.
‘Well, usually we find the harpoon is masking deeper problems,’ he’ll say, gloomily gloving-up to commit a few passing indignities on one’s bottom.
This time, I didn’t even have something as complex as a harpoon injury. I’d presented to my GP with a good, straightforward injury, caused by dropping a double-hung sash window on my right foot — yet still ended up with a referral to a specialist to have my testicles squeezed.
Which is fine, except two weeks later I find myself sitting in the specialist’s waiting room, and already I’ve been here for a full hour and a half, floridly imagining my galloping testicular cancer, while enduring a truly ancient copy of Woman’s Day.
Specialists appear to have some sort of agreement that a patient must sit in the waiting room for at least two hours, presumably so one’s heartbeat can return to normal after hearing the cost of the consultation.
Of course, as patients, we should stand up for our rights — making the same sort of fuss we’d make if kept waiting for an hour at a restaurant or a bar. The only difference being that, at the time he’s listening to your complaint, the bartender usually doesn’t have you on a table, stretched out naked, with his hands cupped around your balls.
Depending, of course, on your personal choice of bar.
Eventually, though, my doctor sauntered in, showed me to a side room and promptly left me for a further twenty minutes — no doubt so I could complete my galloping cancer fantasies — then returned and began the examination.
Which brings me to the other reason we blokes don’t enjoy seeing doctors. Their use of the phrase ‘Oh, my God.’ For myself, I find the phrase ‘Oh, my God’ quite useful, especially after a trip to the hairdresser. It’s less useful when uttered by a doctor who at that precise moment is examining my testicles.
Doc: ‘Oh, my God.’
Me (voice a-quiver): ‘What do you mean: “Oh, my God”?’
Doc (fascinated): ‘It’s the lump. It’s huge!’
Me (showing the sort of dignity you’d expect): ‘Awwwwwww! I’m dying!! Awwwwwwwww!!!’
Doc (as if stating the bleeding obvious): ‘Course, it’s harmless, just a haematoma. But by God it’s a big ‘un.’
It’s at this point he wanders out, no doubt to check his waiting room queue isn’t moving too fast, leaving me to stumble out into Macquarie Street, wondering if those two hours reading Woman’s Day might have done some permanent intellectual damage. Hope not. Otherwise I’ll need another check-up.
The Kitchen Blues
The worst moment was on Old Windsor Road, with me driving along, Jocasta in the passenger seat, and each of us screaming about whether we should choose the calypso blue or the china blue. Of course, the colours are identical, but that wasn’t going to stop an experienced married couple like us from enjoying a fairly extended argument.
Especially since I could picture just how superbly the calypso blue would set off the white kitchen appliances, while the china blue would drag us into a life of degradation, shame and frothing insanity. And if you’ll give me a moment, I’ll try to work out which colour is which.
That’s what happens when you decide to fix up your kitchen; suddenly you find yourself thinking the colour of your benchtops is an issue of some importance, right up there with the changing role of NATO.
You find yourself speaking a language called ‘Kitchen’ — raving about coordinated trims and multi-function ovens with the intensity you once reserved for sex. It’s Kitchen Lust, and it keeps you awake at nights — trailing your fingers over imagined whitegoods, wondering how long it will before you’ll be alone together, just you and them, and how you’ll get to turn them on.
But like all lust, Kitchen Lust brings its ghostly sibling, fear. You’ll make a terrible mistake. You’ll go all the way with the wrong colour. And you’ll end up not with a kitchen, but a kitsch-en.
It’s the kitchen outfitters who are to blame. They’re the people trying to convince us that kitchens are important; that the world judges people according to the colour of their benchtops. ‘Are you marble people or laminate people?’ the saleswoman asked chirpily, right before she checked whether we were ‘fawn people or bright colours people’.
And so Jocasta and I cheerily admitted we were laminate people and bright colours people, which, translated into the language of ‘Kitchen’, means roughly: ‘Look, everyone, the Suburban Trash has arrived.’
Certainly, there’s nothing like staring at a wall-full of laminate samples to make you feel it’s all hopeless; that you’ll end up with a colour combination proved to cause grand mal seizures in laboratory mice.
First up, there’s the row of reds and coppers — sophisticated tones which can transform the most humble home into an up-market brothel. And there, just below, are the charming pastel blues and pinks — irresistible colours for anyone considering converting their kitchen into a Darrell Lea outlet.
But the more colour chips you accumulate — and I’ve so many I rattle when I walk — the more you realise you’re about to do something both ghastly and permanent. That’s the point about Jocasta and me. We know we’ve got bad taste. We’ve seen the clothes we buy. And the mistakes I’ve made in the shirt department should look quite startling when seen over a whole benchtop.
That’s why we’ve become so obsessed.
Witness the moment in the cinema — halfway through the climactic scene in Roddy Doyle’s The Snapper. There was the father, berating his daughter for becoming pregnant; there was the tearful girl, passionately refusing to name the man responsible. And, somehow, by means of the hairs on my neck, I knew it. ‘Are you,’ I whispered to Jocasta, ‘thinking the same thing as I am?’
‘Yes’, she admitted, her voice thick with emotion. ‘Those cupboards in the foreground; I wonder if we could get handles like that.’
The scene in the gangster movie, where the villain smashes someone’s head open against the kitchen cupboards? Sure it was ghastly — but did you see how easily the blood wiped off that Corian surface?
And what about the movie where the drug courier frantically tries to stuff his cannabis into an already packed kitchen drawer? At last we could feel good — we’ve ordered pot drawers twice that size.
When will our obsession end? Only when we’ve spent our thousands of dollars, stared for a week at our horrible choices, and then realised that no-one judges your personality on your kitchen anyway. They look through your record collection instead.
Now we really need to do some shopping.
Party Animal
I have come across the following scrawled notes lying on my own bedside table. I cannot think who they belong to, although the handwriting is somehow familiar.
I publish them in case the warnings they contain may be of use to others.
Notes to self after returning home from a party
I will henceforth begin with beer. And not with red wine. And certainly not with gin.
I will no longer make a pig of myself with the guacamole. I will especially refrain from polishing off a whole serve before the other guests arrive, noting my shame when Michelle felt it necessary to place her body between me and the access point to the second bowl.
When being introduced to new people, I will admit defeat and ask for the name to be repeated. At the point of introduction, all my mental energy is going into the task of smiling and looking agreeable. This, it appears, is such an uphill battle, I’m left with no spare brain capacity. With the result: I can be introduced to people ten or twenty times, over a period of decades, and still not have a clue as to their names.
I will no longer pretend to be an old fan of their work, their company or their product. I acknowledge that it’s far more likely that I’ve become confused, and the thing I’ve read/seen/heard/bought was done by their arch rival.
I will no longer pretend to have seen the new signs outside David’s business. When David tells me he’s spent $10 000 re-doing his shop-front, I find myself automatically saying: ‘Yes, and doesn’t it look great.’ I now acknowledge this will inevitably lead David to ask: ‘Which bit in particular?’
I will not attempt to wriggle out of David’s inquiry by slurring my words and leaving pauses.
– Yes, well I really love the new win … awn … doo …
– Doorway?
– Yes, doorway, especially the way you’ve surrounded it with …
– Neons?
– Yes, neons. Exactly. In that wonderful colour. What do you think one would call that colour?
– I think most people would call it ‘blue’.
I will no longer offer lengthy and passionate views about the level of violence in the film Gladiator. The point will inevitably be reached where I have to admit I’ve never seen it.
I will no longer remove my shirt during a social gathering. I now understanding that, while my body may look good in those sunbaking photos, that’s because I was (a) horizontal and (b) breathing in. I now accept that (a) vertical and (b) dancing to ‘Nutbush City Limits’ is another matter entirely.
I will not claim to remember the gender, age and name of everyone’s kids. The attempt to ask ‘How’s the kid(s)?’ — with the ‘s’ half-swallowed so they can take their pick about whether they have one kid or ten — is sometimes successful, except when the response is: ‘But you know Gary and I are in the IVF program.’
I will not pretend I can hear somebody over the music when I can’t. Nor will I take the punt that they are telling me a joke by laughing uproariously the instant I see their mouth stop moving. Especially since it’s just as likely they’re disclosing details of their fatal disease.
I will no longer pretend to remember the name of Michelle’s cousin. Especially as I can’t be sure whether it is Judy or Julie. Or maybe June. And there’s a very good chance it’s Rhonda. I will no longer stage a coughing fit when someone asks to be introduced.
I accept that the length of one’s anecdotes should not exceed the amount of time you’ve known the listener. My hilarious half-hour account of our family boating holiday may be better reserved for old friends.
I will refuse the chicken wings from the proffered tray. Experience teaches there is never anywhere to put the gnawed bone. Except, wrapped in a paper napkin, in one’s own pocket. I now accept that this can leave one’s dry-cleaner unimpressed.
I will strive to be enigmatic when drunk. No longer will I feel personally responsible to fill every gap in the conversation. Nor will I feel the conversation would go better if someone stood up for the point of view currently being attacked by everyone else in the room. In future: let the next drunk guy do it.
And, finally, but crucially: I will apologise to everyone. Just as soon as I can remember their names.
Clash of Wobblies
When deciding to take up any sort of competitive sport, the trick is to find an opponent of similar ability, which is the reason I was patrolling the office, squash racquet in hand, hunting out the sort of emphysemic, pot-bellied lard-legs who’d be my perfect match.
Finally my eyes alighted on this broken-down figure in the corner of the office, the bum amply filling the chair, the belly straining against the elastic expanders in his pants, the hands busy manoeuvring another doughnut towards his mouth. My kind of squash opponent.
To reveal his true name would be too humiliating for the man concerned, so let’s just call him ‘Tony Squires’.
‘Tony Squires’ and I met on the court the very next day. And what a sight we made: two overweight men, dressed in very tight shorts, trying to hit the bejesus out of a rubber ball, all the time wondering why our sports gear had shrunk so badly since its last use, sometime in the late 1970s.
Ten minutes into the game, and we’d both turned bright red — the sort of throbbing, alarming red which a paint catalogue might call ‘coronary cerise’. Each realised he might die at any minute, but each was spurred on by one bright hope: from the look of things, the other might die first. And then the survivor would win. Sure, the survivor would be crippled for life. Certainly, he’d have the death of a colleague on his conscience. But he’d win. Further proof that within even the most spongy-bottomed male there lingers sufficient aggression to launch World War Ill.
Consider what happens when a man misses the ball. Does he maturely take note of his error? Does he quietly work on improving his next shot? Not quite. Instead he throws his racquet to the ground and lets loose a scream of bloodcurdling intensity.
Even the most effete man believes his manhood is at stake when he’s placed in a competitive situation. That’s why we overturn the Squatter board in a blind rage, just because our five-year-old was the first to irrigate his paddocks.
And that’s why we lie awake nights, sweating mad over the bastard boss and how we’ve been passed over for promotion — wondering whether a conviction for first-degree murder might affect our superannuation entitlements.
And so what we lacked in talent, ‘Tony Squires’ and I were making up for in pure aggression — creating a game which combines the sweet elegance of English squash racquets with the mindless brutality of Rugby League. And, for those of you who play squash, there’s nothing quite like the look of wide-eyed surprise on an opponent’s face when you first unleash the full power of a head-high tackle.
As ‘Tony Squires’ may well have asked, save for his momentary lack of consciousness: Why are men so aggressive? Scientists believe it may result from the way the male brain is regularly bathed in a naturally occurring liquid known as ‘beer’.
Certainly, men will compete over anything — some even competing with their wives, trying to be the first to finish common household chores, such as orgasm.
What would happen if men could give birth? They’d t
urn it into a competition: ‘You should have seen the bloke in the next labour ward,’ they’d say, as they showed their mates their birth video on action replay. ‘He was struggling and straining, and out pops this little five-pounder. What a poofter! Mate, mine was a 12-pounder with a 20-hour labour, and we bonded right on touchdown. As for the breast-feeding — it was up with the footy jersey and the little tiger was away.’
As for me, the lungs have recovered, but not the ego. That’s what worries me — if ‘Tony Squires’ can beat me five games to nil, what does it say about the way I must look?
8
‘So I suppose these don’t belong to either of
you?’ says Jocasta, staring grimly at Batboy
and me, as we try to wriggle out of the
tightening domestic noose.
‘Yeah,’ Batboy stammers finally, showing
a most regrettable streak of honesty,
‘the CD is mine.’
Which leaves Jocasta to focus on me:
‘So,’ she says with a wave of the size
10½ shoes, ‘what about you, Cinderella?’
Clean Bowled
I‘m sick of this house, and I’m sick of this idea that if you leave things lying around, someone will magically pick them up.’ Jocasta is standing in the living room, holding a Smash Mouth CD in one hand and a pair of kicked-off men’s shoes, size 10½, in the other.
In Bed with Jocasta Page 13