My hand slides itself along the mattress until it reaches Benno’s stomach. His belly feels warm, even through the cotton.
Suddenly, he coughs and starts to roll over. Electricity sparks down my arm and my heart starts to pound like someone just zapped me with a defibrillator.
I keep my hands to myself after that, and my shell-shocked heartbeat chases me into sleep.
Our Saturday morning ritual goes like this:
sneak out of Benno’s shed with Doug before Benno’s parents find us there
drive to the Maccas drive thru and soak up the grog with hash browns
park on the foreshore while Doug has a durry
put on The Screaming Jets
hit the Brand Highway and head home
‘Oi, fuck-knuckle,’ Doug says. ‘Don’t tell Mum I’m still smoking, or I’ll break your legs.’
He flicks his cigarette butt onto the dead grass on the foreshore.
‘I think she already knows, dipshit,’ I tell him. I don’t care. My heart is still like a V8 supercar with no brakes.
Doug pulls out a can of deodorant and sprays it all over his torso with the ferocity of someone trying to kill a redback with a can of Mortein.
‘Chuck us a hash brown,’ he says, starting the motor.
We drive out of town towards Greenough. Mum and Dad bought a house in a new estate in the middle of nowhere a few years ago, so it’s a decent trek back home. We pass the suburbs by the beach, with their new subdivisions and mini-excavators abandoned by labourers for the weekend. Past the sheet-white sand dunes that look like someone dumped half the Sahara right next to the Indian Ocean. Past the homesteads and paddocks finally, out into the middle of farmland, sheep on one side and bright yellow canola fields on the other.
Nothing says “home” to me like the sight of that unbroken stretch of yellow against the cloudless blue of the Greenough sky.
When me and Doug come in through the sliding door into the slate-tiled kitchen, Mum’s standing like a statue at the bench. Her mobile’s in one hand, sedan keys in the other. I always seem to find her right before she leaves the house. Her blouses are always buttoned up practically to the neck, like she’s trying to keep her body from escaping.
‘I’m heading into town, boys. Need anything?’
‘I already told you I need new footy boots,’ I say, opening the fridge and grabbing a yoghurt. ‘The fluoro ones I showed you at Johnno’s.’
‘That’s a want, not a need.’ The sedan keys jangle against the doorknob as she turns it. The door shuts. The sedan starts, and leaves.
Dad stumbles into the kitchen, sunburnt gut hanging just a few millimetres below the line of his navy singlet.
‘She finally gone?’ he grumbles. ‘Gee whiz, boys, tell ya what, chasin’ the chicks seems all fine and dandy ’til ya get stuck with one! Eighteen years now. You get less for murder these days.’
Doug peers out the window to make sure Mum’s sedan is gone, then grabs his smokes and high-tails it back outside for a durry. As if she hasn’t already worked it out by now. You can smell ciggies days after they’re out, I reckon.
I open my yoghurt and lick the lid, but before I can tuck in, Dad goes, ‘You shouldn’t be eating that.’
‘Yoghurt’s healthy, Dad.’
‘Bollocks. Greek yoghurt’s healthy. That shit’s full of sugar and fat.’
I grab my spoon and take a big scoop, but Dad grabs my wrist. The yoghurt plops onto the slate.
Dad’s breath smells of old bacon as he breathes close to my face. ‘You think this doesn’t matter, son, but it does. When they come scouting for draft picks, they’re not gonna take the tubby kid who’s been digging into snacks every other day. Did I ever tell you what Dennis Denton told me on my first day with East Fremantle?’
‘A champion’s body isn’t built in the gym, it’s built in the kitchen.’
‘So if you already remember, why are you being a fat fuck? I can tell you now I will personally tell them not to fucking draft ya if ya aren’t at your peak, and at the moment you’re looking pretty damn pathetic. Do ya wanna get drafted or not?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then put the bloody spoon down, bud. I’ll make ya a protein shake. I was making one anyway.’
I don’t argue because I know he’s right. I was just being weak and undisciplined. Sport isn’t easy: it’s hard work. I know that. And I’m willing to do it. If I’m gonna get drafted like Dad did – if I’m ever gonna have a chance of being the leading goal kicker in the WAFL like he was – then I need to get serious.
‘How was last night in town?’ Dad asks, scooping powdery whey isolate protein into a shaker. ‘Cop a root?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Ha! Good man!’ He sticks the shaker under the tap. ‘Who with?’
‘Richelle.’
‘She finally put out?’
‘Yeah. She let me finger her in the car. Then I nailed her behind Hungry Jack’s.’
Dad chuckles. ‘You’ve always been a lot more like me than Doug is,’ he says, shaking the plastic container. ‘Mate, when I was your age, I was drowning in pussy. Drowning in it. Enjoy it while it lasts, because once you’re old and past it like me the chicks don’t wanna know ya anymore. These are your best fucking years. Enjoy ’em, ya know?’ He slides the shaker across the bench to me. ‘There ya go. That’s how ya make a champion.’
‘Cheers, Dad.’
‘Just one thing,’ Dad says, preparing his own shake. ‘When you’re rooting around, make sure you put on a goddamn condom. Don’t want any of these birds getting pregnant and fucking up your life. Trust me.’
7: Stronzo
Zeke
When you pick tomatoes from the vine you have to check them for two things: brown bits that feel like rough leather patches against the shiny red vinyl of the fruit, and grubs nesting in the flesh. If you find either of those, you need to chuck them in the bad bucket. If one of them winds up in your good bucket, Uncle Mario will start checking every damn tomato you pick for the next ten minutes until you prove your worth again. And since he smells like every fart he’s ever done is trapped inside his overalls, you can’t afford to make too many mistakes.
Lucky for me, I’ve gotten really sharp at this, even in the semi-darkness of morning where the sky is a bluey-grey. I don’t just look at the tomatoes, I feel them as well. As long as you don’t mind shoving your fingers into the occasional family of grubs, it’s not bad. One tomato is more grubs than flesh: it’s revolting.
‘Old Vincenzo made coffee,’ Dad calls. ‘Let’s have a spell.’
Old Vincenzo looks like the kind of guy who’s been called Old Vincenzo for at least half his life. He’s the full-scale version of those freaky shrunken heads that Amazon jungle tribes used to make. Even his overalls look like they once fitted a much more robust man, not the wrinkly tuft of white hair who so far has spent the whole morning sitting on a deck chair beneath the mulberry tree. In fact, when the five of us gather beneath the mulberry tree, Old Vincenzo is still firmly wedged in his deck chair. The only difference is the chipped white melamine table beside him now hosts a steaming stainless steel percolator and some chocolate-brown espresso cups. It’s like the coffee just materialised beside him while he dozed.
We sit in a crowded circle around the melamine table: Old Vincenzo, with his wrinkled arms; Dad, glancing up at the sand track driveway every now and then; Uncle Mario, rotting tomato flesh and seeds peppering his stinky overalls; Uncle Gino and his massive gut with its own gravitational field; and my cousin Angelo, who is so woggy-looking that I usually think of him as a young Luigi from Super Mario Bros (plus, Uncle Mario is his dad, so it kind of fits).
The piping-hot coffee smells like home to me. We drink. Silence first, then some low-key mumblings around the table about tomato yield and logistics and the cricket. Then someone asks if anyone has any funny stories from the morning’s picking. The someone is me, and everyone looks at me like I’m a stronzo. I tell them about how I fo
und that really grub-infested tomato. Someone mutters, ‘Yuck’ and that’s the whole response.
As if I’d never spoken, Old Vincenzo busts out a red-and-white pack of Briscola cards. They’re the Napoletane ones we’re used to playing with over here, though by rights we ought to be playing with the Siciliano pack.
‘How about father and son against the uncles?’ Uncle Mario suggests.
‘Yeah, alright,’ says Uncle Gino, and that’s the most enthusiasm he’s displayed for anything all day. ‘You and Angelo onto me and Sam.’
Dad starts to shuffle the deck. Something cold and acidic is nipping at the lining of my stomach. The delicious black coffee suddenly tastes bitter.
‘Dad,’ I whisper to him. ‘Why does Angelo get to play instead of me? He’s two years younger than me.’
‘Well, it was a father-son deal,’ Dad mutters back.
‘Yeah, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have father and son versus father and son? Uncle Mario and Angelo against you and me?’
‘But then, what will Uncle Gino do while we’re all playing?’
‘Well, what am I supposed to do while you’re all playing?’ I demand, a little too loud. Everyone looks at me.
‘Don’t be a sook, Zeke,’ Dad says quickly, dealing the cards with a flourish in an attempt to divert the stares back to the table. ‘It’s done. Be a man about it.’
Be a man about it, I scoff silently. How, when you’re treating me like a little kid?
It’s crazy-making stuff, Briscola. There is a hierarchy of manhood involved here, but it’s written nowhere and you’ll never hear it uttered by a single Italian. It’s the card game the men play while the kids are in the backyard and the wives are in the kitchen. Oh sure, the wives and kids play too – and they play well – but it always seems to be the men first. That Angelo gets to play before me when he’s fourteen and I’m sixteen means something.
I know, deep in my heart, Dad is still furious about my internet history. Homosexuality. It’s unspeakable for him, so he’ll never talk to me about what happened. I’ll never know what he honestly thinks. I’m supposed to just see the priest on Monday night before the wedding rehearsal, confess my sins, and move on with my life as a straight Sicilian boy.
The men of the family play their game of Briscola while they drink the percolated black coffee. They laugh and swear and tell rude jokes that would usually crack me up – but today, I want nothing more than to upend the table and spill the scalding coffee in their laps.
I finish my coffee – it’s grainy, like sand, at the bottom – and get up from the table, glancing at my phone as I do so. I’m staring at a black screen, but it just seems to soften the departure from the table and make it seem less like I’m storming off. Which, of course, is exactly what I’m doing. There’s electricity in my veins. I don’t know where it came from or what to do with it, but I know I can’t sit still a second longer.
I prowl around the fresh, mulchy dank of the mulberry tree. The sun is just starting to crest over the Moresby ranges and the green leaves are translucent in the sunrise. It’s beautiful.
A stick cracks beside me. Old Vincenzo has teleported to my side. His overripe hands pick a mulberry. He pops it in his mouth.
‘You can, too,’ he murmurs.
I rummage among the leaves for a good cluster of fruits. The mulberries are dark purple, like congealed blood; I rip them from their viney umbilical cords and eat a few at once. They’re sweet and juicy.
There’s a whoop of victory as Uncle Mario and Angelo win the game of Briscola. I don’t feel anything one way or the other: I kind of hate Angelo as much as I hate Dad right now.
‘Dammit, Zeke!’ Dad calls, standing up as they get ready to go back to picking. ‘What are you doing? Look at your hands!’
Sure enough, my hands are stained an almost fluorescent violet. Bloody mulberries.
‘What’s the big deal?’ I say, with a shrug. ‘I’ll just wash my hands.’
‘And that’ll take time,’ Dad moans. ‘I swear, mate, sometimes you’re still like a little kid.’
Uncle Gino picks up his bucket and puts his fishing-branded cap on. ‘Doesn’t look like Robbie’s gonna make it, Sam.’
Dad frowns and glances down the sandy driveway again. ‘I told him to set his alarm.’
‘He didn’t,’ I say automatically. ‘Him and Natalie went out drinking last night.’
Unlike me. I went straight to bed and woke up at three, just like Dad wanted.
Uncle Gino raises his eyebrows and moves off to his vine.
Dad scowls at me. ‘Nobody likes a dobber, Zeke.’
Robbie doesn’t bother rocking up to Old Vincenzo’s place at all. We leave mid-morning, when it starts warming up, and take the crates of tomatoes on Uncle Gino’s ute over to Uncle Mario’s house out in Woorree, where the rest of the family has converged. By the time Robbie and Natalie finally wander down the driveway, half the family is sitting on plastic patio chairs around a rusted old bath tub full of bleach and brown bottles. Robbie struts along in his denim shorts and Mad Hueys tank top and reflective sunnies, his keys jangling. Natalie carries a white cardboard box.
‘Robbie!’ half the family choruses.
There must be a cosmic law that if you’re hot and popular, people look like their day just got made every time you show up somewhere.
Robbie grins at his family like a rock star greeting his fans.
‘Sorry, fam … we had a bit of a big night,’ he says, scratching the side of his neck. ‘Last big night for us before the wedding, I’d say.’
Nobody chides him for being late. Not even Dad. Everyone always seems to melt around Robbie: my aunties kiss him on the cheeks and hold him close; my little cousins, who until now have been playing with barbies in the mud, rush up and want him to put them on his shoulders.
Which he does, because he’s such a good cousin to them.
‘We brought some pastries for when everyone has a break,’ Natalie coos, chucking the white box on the table in the open shed. ‘Wow, so this is the bottle washing? Someone will have to show me how it’s done.’
Mum’s slender hands grip the side of a king brown and swirl it around with the force of Wonder Woman wielding her lasso of truth. A vortex of bleachy water cycles out into the bathtub. She holds the bottle to the sun, peers into it and spots no imperfections on the glass. She hands it to my Aunty Marisa, who takes it to be hosed out.
‘Like that,’ Mum says shortly, standing up. ‘I need a break. You can take my place, Natalie.’
Natalie takes off her engagement ring and slides it into the pocket of her white short shorts. ‘Hey, Zeke,’ she says, with a smile. ‘Wow, there’s a lot of bottles here. Did you guys have to buy them all?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘They’re recycled beer bottles.’
‘We drank each and every one,’ Uncle Gino says, with a proud wink.
Natalie picks up a bright yellow bottle-brush and inserts it into the nearest bottle. Her technique is lazy and ineffective, but I don’t say anything. I’ll let her get picked up by Aunty Marisa’s quality control department. For some reason, the thought makes me feel satisfied, even though I don’t mind Natalie.
‘Oh hey,’ Natalie says. ‘You’re in the same year as Richelle Meyers, aren’t you, Zeke?’
In the same year, sure, but on very different planets. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, guess what! She’s going to be at our wedding. She’s one of my bridesmaids.’
If Jeremy and Pedro were here, I’d be making all kinds of comments I don’t really mean. Something about how hot Richelle is. How much I’d love to have sex with her. Blah blah blah. But they aren’t here, and I can’t be bothered playing it straight when Mum and Dad are both within earshot. I’d expect them to keel over in sarcastic laughter.
‘That’s cool,’ I mumble. ‘She’s nice, Richelle. We’re in PE together.’
‘Oh, speaking of PE – you’d know her boyfriend, too, wouldn’t you? Kade Hammersmith? Well, y
ou’d know him as Hammer, right?’
My jaw seizes up. ‘What about him?’
‘Well, he’s going to be a groomsman for Robbie, too! You guys will be sitting next to each other, actually.’
I press the steel butt of the brush as hard as I can into the glass bottom of the bottle I’m cleaning. I want it to shatter, but it doesn’t. Either it’s too strong or I’m too weak.
‘You don’t look happy,’ Natalie says. ‘Are you guys not mates at school?’
I try not to think about Hammer stealing my PE shirt and asking to practice titty fucking on my man boobs.
‘I guess we’re not that close,’ I say slowly. ‘No biggie.’
‘Well, you’ll have to get along, even if you’re not best buds,’ Natalie says, swirling a pathetic amount of water around her bottle. ‘I’ve already had my share of people butting heads over my wedding. It’s all going to be peaceful from here on. Remember, the rehearsal’s on Monday, so be nice!’ She tilts her head and glances at her still-dusty bottle. ‘I reckon this one’s clean!’
I fall silent and stare emptily at the floating beer bottles. For some reason the news that Hammer will be at the wedding hits me harder than when Mum and Dad confronted me about my internet habits. I hate Hammer. There isn’t a single redeeming factor about him: he’s every bit as good-looking and popular and obnoxious as Robbie – I guess that’s why they became mates – except he’s better at footy, so his ego’s even bigger. It’s bad enough dealing with him in PE and Health classes – and that’s usually from a distance. The thought of being stuck beside him, at close quarters, for hours on end, makes me want to call in sick to my brother’s wedding.
I space out, automatically scrubbing bottle after bottle without really seeing them. It’s like I’ve become one of those robot arms you see in factories, whirring and working but with no eyes. The family laughs around me, occasionally breaking into some song or other, but I feel like I’m enveloped in my own bubble, separate from them all. It’s such a weird spectacle, anyway: a bunch of Sicilians sitting around a rusted tub in the middle of a rural property in the Australian bush, surrounded by metal dust and ghost gums. When my grandparents left Sicily and landed in Geraldton, did they know they’d be bringing the old country with them?
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