Alias: @The Full Monty
Date: Thursday August 28, 2.12AM
Hello?
Come on. I know you’re there. Respond.
I know you are reading this.
I’m so alone.
*
Something had to give. It was either going to be me, or them. I was like a caged animal, destined for the slaughterhouse. I decided if I was going down, I’d take some of them with me. I was going to fight back. So I took to exercise. I discovered that by eating properly and doing some physical exertion, things changed. I began to grow.
Now, most normal people would find this utterly obvious, but I had never really thought about what it took to grow. Back in primary school, we were given wheat seeds and some cotton wool. We all had to soak the cotton wool in water and, sure enough, after a few days we were delighted to see little green shoots spring up out of their fluffy white beds. But then came the hard part. Those little seedlings needed more. Only the kids who were wise enough to replant them in some soil kept their seedlings alive. The rest of us kept our green shoots stunted in their cotton wool. Without the proper nutrients, life withers and fades.
I was no different. I had purposely restricted my own access to nutrients. Food, exercise, human interaction; I had limited all three in an effort to seize control. Yet now I was doing just the opposite. Eating well didn’t come easy, and neither did the exercise; I simply wasn’t used to moving. My muscles had withered like an old man with the palsy and my first attempt at working out left me gasping on the floor of the shed. My father had some rusty old weights out there, left over from his youth. He must have experienced the same desire to bulk up. Sometime, long ago, a teenage version of my father had bench pressed those weights in the hope that muscles would solve all his problems. As far I could see, my father didn’t have a problem with muscles. His work at the motor shop meant that he was always lifting heavy things. He was literally bulging with them. Even the muscles under his eyebrows flexed furiously, like angry caterpillars on steroids. I swear he could probably lift more weight with his eyebrows than I could with my entire body.
I lay down on the cold concrete floor and heaved those weights into the sky. My arms threatened to explode and send that heavy bar down to my throat. Perhaps I’d be found there years later, I thought, like a piece of petrified wood under that old barbell. Oh, that’s where Monty went, people would say. I thought he just left school and got a job in a pencil factory. No, I wouldn’t end it like that, I thought. I fought against the tide of gravity and set that ten-kilogram weight safely down.
Working out became my daily ritual. Days turned into weeks. After so many years of neglect, I sprouted like a spring sapling. I slowly added kilos, along with some muscles. Eventually, I could lift more weight than I ever dreamed possible. The exercise helped me sleep too. To go with this, I now had a ravenous desire for eggs. One morning, I passed the mirror to realise I was ripped. Okay, maybe not exactly ripped, but I did have the beginnings of some actual muscle: little bulges of hope sprang from my otherwise puny arms.
I always thought it was some old wives’ tale, that kids literally grew overnight. But there I was in front of my mirror, looking as if I’d caught up fours years of growth in as many weeks. I was still paper-thin but where I was once skin and bone, I now had an underlying cover of hard muscle. I was wiry and lithe. To go along with this sudden explosion of masculinity, I had hair. Firm curls hung off me. They’d no longer blow off in a stiff breeze. My chin became shaggy and my armpits grew in confidence. They were manly and smelled of freshly baked yeast buns.
The flood of energy was relentless. The eggs and the weights made me hungry for more eggs and more weights. I couldn’t get enough. Adrenaline charged through me, like a young bull trapped in a field. I needed to get out. I needed to see things. I don’t know what things, just things. I wanted to take on the world. I wanted to rage at the machine. I wanted Tony to pick a fight with me one more time.
The day began like any other. I watched from up the street as Eliza took the bus. I walked to school the long way and came in late, so I didn’t have to meet anyone before class. I did my work, kept my head down, and suffered the usual lunchtime taunts. It’s often on the boring days that your life gets turned upside down, and is changed forever.
I was king-hit from behind on my way home from school. I didn’t see it coming. Tony karate kicked me across my back. I fell and hit my head. Snowflakes invaded my vision. Concussion threatened to spirit me away. I could feel the old urge to float off with it, to relax in the fluffy white nothingness. I fought it though, and for the first time in my life I tried to remain where I was. A hot mix of egg yolk and testosterone surged through my muscles. My fist clenched. I swung around and let it fly.
The punch I threw at Tony Papadopoulos is commonly known as a haymaker. It was a wild swing that arced out in the longest possible route towards the intended victim. It would be a devastating punch if it landed, but it was so uncontrolled that it gave Tony plenty of time to get a look at it, think about it, make a cup of tea, watch a game of football, step aside and defend it then land a crushing blow of his own to my gut. Which he did.
I was a winded snow angel, gasping for air. Tony, Jordan and Rhys flogged me, laughing the whole time. I hit back. I got some good punches in. My new physique held up for a while but I was outgunned. It was three against one. They held me down and pummelled my back with their knees until I gave in. Then they each took turns to urinate on me. Hot piss splashed all over my face, soaking my hair. I spluttered against the putrid, yellow tide, desperately trying not to swallow any. They laughed and aimed at my mouth. I had no choice but to taste their fetid curses on my tongue. I cried. I was small and helpless, like a mouse caught in a trap by its tail, doomed to die a slow death. As their wee finally petered out, I thought that was going to be it. Tony had made his point. They’d had their fun. They’d leave me to dry off in the sun. But then Tony did something unexpected.
In science we had studied exothermic reactions. Mr Rooney led the class out to the shelter shed and placed down a cute little ceramic flowerpot. This was a teacher-only experiment, he warned. We all stood back as he added two seemingly innocuous powders together to produce something truly terrifying. Iron oxide and aluminium were completely harmless on their own. Put them together even and they happily coexist. But increase the temperature, like by adding a really hot spark, and they explode. These twin elements fuse and merge; atoms reorder themselves and become something entirely new. Along the way huge amounts of energy are released. We all shielded our eyes that day as the little flowerpot blew up in cloud of smoke. All that was left behind was a little ball of molten iron, bubbling away in the bottom. That’s what Tony Papadopoulos put in my back pants pocket.
In the days before, somebody had broken in to the chemical storeroom. Mr Rooney couldn’t tell if anything had been stolen; he just put a new lock on the door and left it at that. It had been Tony. He’d taken just a few grams of these chemicals. Jordan and Rhys had no idea what he was doing. Neither did I, until it was too late.
My bum literally exploded. A red, hot fireball tore through my back pants pocket. My pants were on fire. I was on fire. A ball of molten iron filled my pants. I screamed and ran around like mad, trailing smoke and ash. I tore off my pants and my jocks. The pain was incredible. The reaction was short-lived, but it was so hot it left a burning hole in the cheek of my bum, big as a dollar coin. The smell of charred flesh hung in the air. Jordan and Rhys looked on, shell-shocked. One of them threw his water bottle over me. It didn’t work. The pain was intense. My mind had enough of this world and disappeared.
I can’t exactly remember how it all went from there. It was like a dream. I remember Tony and Jordan arguing. An ambulance came. They were gone by then. The ride to the hospital was loud. The siren reminded me of a dying cat, moaning in the night. The paramedics gave me a little green straw to suck on and all the pain drifted away. I woke up in a clean white bed with Dad
sitting at the end on a plastic chair. His face was creased into a sharp point, like a dagger poised to strike. His shoulders were tensed. His thick, meaty hands gripped the steel rail at the end of my bed. He curled his lip into a fierce line. I thought of those laughs. I thought of that reeking torrent and the hot, searing pain. Dad’s look frightened me and I cowered.
‘Tell me their names.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘The boys who did this,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Monty, this is serious.’
‘I’ll handle it.’
‘I called the police,’ he said. ‘I want to press charges.’
‘I didn’t get a look at them,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry.’
Dad furrowed his enormous eyebrows together in frustration. He walked out and talked to someone beyond the curtains surrounding my bed. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I guessed it was the police. I could hear my mother crying.
I lay on my side in the bed, with my bum all bandaged up like a wounded soldier. Nurses tended to me. They changed my bandages and wiped the weeping sores. I needed a skin graft. The surgery took weeks to recover from. They literally shaved the skin off my other butt cheek with a massive stainless steel cheese grater thing and glued the fresh skin to the wound. It hurt like hell. My arse was a red-raw disaster zone. After weeks of lying on my front, aching pain and dealing with a dangerous infection, I finally took my first few tentative steps, like a toddler walking for the first time. I thought I knew agony but I had no idea. Mum and Dad visited me, but there were long times in between where I’d just ponder what I’d do to Tony Papadopoulos. Muscles weren’t going to be enough, I thought. I needed a better retribution.
I woke to see Eliza. I don’t know how long she had been there but when I opened my eyes she was staring right at me. She was silent as night. I blinked and she was gone.
A phantom, perhaps.
Days drifted by. The nurses were great. They never once pitied me, never once told me they were sorry for me. I guess they’d seen much worse in their time, like kids with cancer and mashed up car accident victims. They always remained upbeat and businesslike. They just got on with the job, wiped the festering sores on my bum, and moved on to the next kid in need. Eventually my pain subsided. My skin healed. Walking became easier, if I didn’t stretch too far. Dad came to pick me up, and on the way home told me the news.
‘You’ll need a uniform. Heathmont High wear blue and yellow. It’s pretty casual. Just t-shirts and shorts mainly. It’s a bit of a drive, but I can take you before work.’
‘I’m changing schools?’
‘You can’t go back to Middleford,’ he said. ‘Not after this.’
‘I want to go back.’
‘You’re not going Monty. That’s it.’
Mum and Dad bought me the uniforms. They enrolled me in the new school. They had a special program in science, so I’d fit right in, they told me. Dad continually quizzed me about the names, but I kept quiet. My butt eventually healed. The scabs were enormous. The skin graft left me with two matching scars on each butt cheek. I looked like a walking Rorschach test. I stared at my butt in the mirror, to see what I could make of those dark, symmetrical shapes. The blots coalesced and changed form. Then it all made sense. The dog was tattooed on one side, and I was on the other. I was the dog and it was me. We were perfectly reflected on my butt.
‘He can’t get away with this,’ said the dog.
‘No. He can’t.’
‘You can’t fight him. He’s too strong.’
‘I know.’
‘There’s something else you can do, though.’
‘Yes?’
‘Go now. While they are busy. Be quick. Nobody will know it’s you.’
I found the old spearfishing rubber deep in the back shed. I had thrown it in there and vowed never to use it again after I’d killed that bird on a wire. But vows can be broken, I guess. I set the rubber back into the gun and went to pay Tony Papadopoulos a visit.
*
From the perspective of an uninvited guest, Tony’s house looked like a fortress of concrete and high bars, with metal shutters on all the windows. I guess when you fill your house with the most expensive gear you can buy, you have to make it secure. I wasn’t out to steal anything though. I lay in wait out front and watched.
Night fell and the smells coming from inside Tony’s house were intoxicating. I knew the Papadopouloses were sitting down to a hefty indulgence. It seemed to go on for hours. Finally, lights came on in the lounge room. I guessed they were finished gorging themselves and were sitting down to watch some TV. Tony came out to the street carrying a bag of garbage. I watched silently, lying in stealth. Tony had no idea how close he was to the end, as he lifted the lid of the wheelie bin to discard the remnants of his night’s meal.
The spear flew like a dart.
Tony froze, shocked, as the garbage bag he was holding split open, blasting rubbish all over him. Meat fat and cheese and half eaten pickles splattered all over his front. The spear went right through the bag, cut it open, and ended up stuck in the neighbour’s timber fence. Tony stared at me, wide-eyed in fear, as I lowered the spearfishing gun.
‘Next one’s got your name on it,’ I said.
Tony wilted. Urine soaked his pants. His breath cut short. He dropped the garbage bag and ran back into the house, screaming his head off. I could hear his cries from the street.
‘Mummy! Daddy! Mummy! He tried to kill me!’
I didn’t have much time. Tony’s father would be out looking for trouble. I quickly pulled the spear from the fence and shuffled away to disappear into the night. I merged with the darkness to listen in Machiavellian glee. Tony’s father roared at the empty street.
‘Show yourself! Come on! How dare you!’ he screamed.
He hollered at the night, desperate for his revenge. Yet, for all his fury, he could not see me. I had taken to the shadows and was beyond him. I calmly watched as he paced back and forth up his driveway like some beast marking the edge of his territory. He didn’t dare venture out any further, I could see. Soon enough, his pride gave out and he returned to the house, slamming the door behind him in a final act of bravery. They were all weak in the end.
I hid the spearfishing gun in the train tunnel on the way home. The only evidence was a small dent in a timber fence, which would be hard to find, and almost impossible to determine what really had made it. All that remained was a spilled bag of rubbish and Tony’s testimony. It was his word against mine.
Two police officers sat with my mother for around an hour. The oldest one was fat and grew a moustache straight out of the seventies, which was odd because he would have only been about twenty-five. Perhaps he’d grown up watching old TV shows and thought having a large gut and a gigantic moustache was what it took to be a cop. The other one was younger, maybe straight out of cop academy, and looked no older than some of the kids at school. She was thin and angular and her police-issue utility belt hung off her hips like a gigantic weight. I imagined her ultimate demise, not from fighting criminals, but by being suddenly crushed one morning under that ridiculously heavy belt. They both wore guns too. I was metres away from their guns. Something in me wanted to reach out to touch them. They looked so light and plastic, nothing like the shiny metal guns from the movies. I wanted to feel how light they were. I wanted to feel the recoil as I triggered off a round, aiming it straight at Tony’s head.
‘Show us the shed Monty,’ fat moustache guy ordered.
I led them out back and turned the light on in the shed, allowing them to freely look around.
‘Like I told you, I was in my room all night,’ I lied. ‘I don’t know what Tony’s talking about.’
They dutifully ignored my testimony. I sensed cops spent almost everyday being lied to by some lowlife or other. I needed to give them some element of truth, just enough to deflect suspicion.
‘Look, Tony is angry with me because he failed a test. I was
meant to help him and I didn’t. Now he wants to get back at me, I guess.’
The younger cop’s eyes searched mine for any hint of duplicity. Her cop training wasn’t up to the task. She looked as if she believed me straight up.
‘Your father says you’ve had some trouble?’ fat moustache guy quizzed.
‘That? Yeah. Like I said, I don’t know who did it. Just a prank, I guess.’
‘Is that what this was? A prank?’
‘No.’
‘Someone could have been killed.’
‘So you say.’
‘There’s nothing here,’ younger cop reported.
Moustache guy nodded and approached me swiftly, pushing his round gut into me threateningly. This was all he had left to intimidate people with, I guess. That and his moustache.
‘We’ll let this go with a warning. If we hear anything further, action will be taken. Is that understood?’
I desperately wanted to look him in the eye and stare him down. I knew I could do it. I knew I had developed the coldness required. But that would give me away. I needed to feign submissiveness. He needed to see me cower before him.
‘Yes sir,’ I said.
I bit my lip, forced myself to tremble, and held my gaze on the floor. He sniffed the air around me, trying to discern any hint of deception. Eventually he decided I was frightened enough and left, followed by his eager young protégé.
‘Well done Monty,’ said the dog.
‘I don’t need your praise,’ I told it.
‘True. You don’t.’
‘Don’t act like you’ve got some plan.’
‘It’s not my plan. I simply allow you to see, that is all.’
‘See what exactly?’ I asked. ‘Will you do to me what you did to Martin?’
‘It was unfortunate you met. I did not mean for that to happen.’
The Hounded Page 16