Invisible Boys

by Holden Sheppard

  ‘He’s upstairs!’ Doug calls back. ‘Just gimme a minute, I gotta piss like a racehorse.’

  My pulse thuds in my neck. Just leave, I think.

  Red Speedo Guy’s grip on my shoulder has tightened. His eyes study mine. We stand there in an awkward, frozen embrace beneath the shower, waiting for Doug to finish peeing. A long, horrible minute passes. Finally, there’s a merciful flush of the urinal. Wet, heavy footsteps padding on the tiles. The creak of the door. The waft of pool chlorine.

  And at last, no noise but the roar of the showers.

  ‘You know them,’ he says.

  ‘Just mates,’ I lie, pulling away from him.

  ‘Maybe they wanna join us?’

  I shudder. ‘No way.’ I yank my sopping wet jocks and boardies up from the shower floor and hold them, a waterlogged mess in my hand.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ the guy asks. He tilts his head in the direction of his penis. ‘Get to work on this.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t.’

  I need to escape. Right now. I shrug him off and head for the door – but it starts to open again before I can reach it. Naked, I spin on my heel and lunge into a toilet cubicle, locking the door behind me.

  ‘Cleaner,’ a woman calls from the threshold. ‘Anybody in here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Red Speedo Guy calls back. ‘Buzz off,’ he mutters, lower under his breath.

  I press my hands against the walls of the toilet cubicle like a mime imagining a glass prison. I try to steady myself. I feel dizzy. Airless.

  The door creaks as the cleaner retreats.

  But then sloppy footsteps reach the door of my cubicle.

  ‘Room in there for two?’ Red Speedo Guy asks.

  ‘No. I can’t. Sorry.’

  Something slides over my foot. I glance down and see his face pressed against the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, staring up at my naked body. His chin is touching the tiles, where people’s piss must have splashed a million times over. His hands slide over my feet like sea serpents, eventually hooking onto my ankles and pulling at them like he’s trying to get me to the ground.

  Heart racing, I shift onto the throne. My feet are out of his grasp now. I slide my sopping jocks and boardies around my ankles and fold my arms over my knees, like I’m just a straight guy trying to push one out, and some weirdo is trying to get into my cubicle.

  ‘Come on, let me in,’ he says, in that high, lilting voice. ‘Come on, Kade …’

  ‘You okay there, mate?’ I ask gruffly, as if we’re total strangers.

  His too-wide-apart eyes stare at me a moment.

  And then he laughs – not the chuckle from before, but a cackling, hyena laugh. It echoes against the tiles, against my skin.

  Suddenly, his face disappears, there’s a loud BANG of his fist on the cubicle door, and he cries, ‘Cocktease!’

  His wet footsteps trail off. The door creaks. He’s gone.

  The cleaner calls out again. I don’t respond, so she comes in and starts clattering a mop around. I’m the world’s most undignified statue, frozen on the dunny, head between my knees in horror. I stay fixed in place until I hear the cleaner move to the showers to turn them off – both of them are still running. While she’s there, I take my chance and sprint out of the change room, bolting for the lobby.

  The whole run back to the hotel room, the dark voice in the back of my head is sneering at me:

  You’re not very good at being straight, are you?

  19: San Lorenzo

  Zeke

  Mid-afternoon sunlight refracts through the stained glass. Pools of rainbow light undulate and flicker on the thin carpet. The ceiling fans rattle, doing nothing to cut the thick waves of heat that has everyone slowly oozing to the ground like medieval wax candles. Seriously, who has a wedding in February?

  ‘Are ya nervous mate?’ Spud pokes Robbie in the ribs. ‘Thinking about screwing the same bird forever ’til ya finally cark it?’

  ‘Better than screwing your own hand until carpal tunnel kicks in, knobhead,’ Robbie fires back.

  Father Mulroney leans over and whispers to Robbie, ‘People in the front pews can hear you.’

  ‘Aw, jeez, that’s okay, Father,’ Robbie booms. ‘I don’t mind people knowing Spud’s a compulsive wanker.’

  Father Mulroney stares straight ahead, down the green carpeted aisle of St Lawrence’s Church, like he’s a guard at Buckingham Palace. He won’t crack a goddamn smile, but those eyes aren’t glazed over – they’re resisting a chuckle. There’s a mix of muzzled snorts and disapproving glares from the front rows, too. Dad can’t hold back his grin; he had a couple of pints at the counter lunch so he’s already halfway there; he hasn’t even remembered to do his top button up beneath the oversized knot of his red tie. Mum’s eyes are hawkish, her shellacked nails pincered around her clutch purse like it’s a grenade she’s just about ready to pull the pin from.

  The rest of the guests are overwhelmingly Italian. You can tell Natalie only has fifty guests to Robbie’s hundred and fifty. It’s not the dark hair or the olive skin or the gold jewellery of our side that makes them stand out: it’s more that Natalie’s heathens look bewildered by the regalia of the Roman Catholic Church. I know Mum and Dad are proud of the turnout. First they defeated the Aussies in the debate about the pasta course (tortellini will be served between the soup and the main), then they crushed them on the music front (the Tarantella is going to crop up somewhere) and now they’ve vanquished them in sheer numbers. Natalie’s thin, bony mother sits in the front pew beside my parents, arms close by her sides and her weary head bowed, like a prisoner of war.

  Spud whispers something in Hammer’s ear and they both snort. Hammer doesn’t pass it on to me.

  My blood is still simmering with the change in line-up. I got bumped. How do you get bumped when you’re the groom’s only blood relative in the bridal party?

  ‘Hammer and Richelle were together when we asked them to be in the bridal party,’ Natalie had explained to me over cannoli and espresso the night before. ‘But since they’ve split up, we can hardly pair them up to dance.’

  ‘Shouldn’t they just suck it up?’ I’d said back, spraying icing sugar over Robbie’s jacket. ‘It’s only one night.’

  ‘But it’s the most important night of our lives,’ Natalie had explained. ‘And we’ve already had so many issues with people not getting along. You’re still in the bridal party.’

  ‘Can’t you bump Richelle up instead? I’ll be paired with her anyway. That way I don’t have to move down.’

  ‘But then that would make Josie feel awful about being bumped down. I couldn’t do that to her!’

  It was insulting how quickly Natalie had replied. And how unfathomable it was for them that I might be capable of feeling awful, too.

  Robbie had leaned over to grate his knuckles into my scalp. When you’re a little brother you get used to just letting people injure you. ‘Thanks for doing this, buddy. You’re a good egg.’

  And that was it. I’d never actually agreed. I didn’t get a choice.

  Hammer’s surfy blond hair touches the back of his collar. I hate how pathetic he makes me feel. There is a righteously indignant part of me that wants to drag him outside and challenge him to fisticuffs over what happened after the Summer Dance. And there is a softer – and sadly, bigger – part of me that’s too scared to challenge him. Any chance of him changing his mind and coming back to me would be squashed forever if I arc up. So I just stare at the back of that big blond boofhead and wonder if there’s any intelligent thought going on inside it. If he’s thinking of me right now. If he wants to look back at me, but he’s too scared.

  There’s so much I don’t like about this church. I don’t like its warmth and stuffiness; the heavy, cloaking incense smell is intoxicating, and not in a pleasant way. I don’t like Father Mulroney and his raised eyebrow and his confessional box. I don’t like how he always goes on in his homilies about starving people in Sierra Leone and ye
t the altar and tabernacle are coated in gold leaf. I don’t like the garish stained glass window they made for the golden jubilee. I don’t like how cultish we all are with our Pavlovian responses of ‘Lord, hear our prayer’ or ‘and also with you’.

  The only thing I’ve ever been drawn to in this holy place is the statue of Saint Lawrence to the right of the alter. He’s robed, but with a huge metal grill beside him, like he’s about to cook up a few snags; a cheerful smile is painted on his ceramic face.

  It would be funny if it weren’t the most twisted, macabre statue I’ve ever seen. According to legend, Saint Lawrence was barbecued to death by his Roman persecutors. And here he stands in the church that bears his name, grinning and parading the tool of his death.

  Although I think that’s part of the legend. Apparently when he was mid-roast, Saint Lawrence smiled at his enemies and said something like, ‘I’m done. Turn me over.’

  Good one, Chuckles.

  But I always wondered why that’s what the statue focused on. I’ve been to this church since I was little and if you asked me what Saint Lawrence did in his life I couldn’t tell you a thing. Not even why they made him a saint. All I know is that the poor bloke got literally fried and smiled all the way through it. What message is the Catholic flock meant to absorb from that? If someone sets you on fire, just grin and bear it? Is every person in this church – with their gold chains tangled in chest hair and crucifix lapel pins and cross tattoos – supposed to enjoy their flesh being roasted off their body?

  Am I supposed to?

  I wonder if one day I’ll be standing where Robbie’s standing. Will a girl like Natalie latch on to me, too? I don’t think I would need to do very much to end up married to Sabrina Sefton, other than not actively resist her advances. It would probably just take one night of too much to drink. We wouldn’t even need to screw. Just one sloppy, intoxicated kiss would be enough for her to capture me, wrap her sticky web around my body and cocoon me for life. If I just took the path of least resistance, we’d be hitched within a couple of years.

  How bad would it actually be, to end up with a woman? I’m sure I could learn to live with it. I used to get a bit turned on by big boobs in Robbie’s old porno mags. Sabrina has a decent chest. I could learn to like playing with that. I’m sure. If I can enjoy sex with my own hand, I’m sure the addition of a female body won’t throw me off that much. It might even feel nicer. And if you close your eyes, well, you could imagine it’s a guy.

  ‘She’s running late,’ Robbie says quietly.

  ‘They always do,’ Father Mulroney says in his operatic whisper. ‘Every bride wants to arrive last, so everyone sees her walk down the aisle. It’s the whole point.’

  ‘I thought the whole point was to just get married.’

  ‘If that was the point, son, why are all these people invited to watch? Trust me. She’ll be here. Just fifteen minutes late.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s bloody hot in this suit, is all.’

  Robbie slides a cut-up, calloused hand between the shiny buttons of his silky shirt and scratches his chest. He flaps the tails of his suit jacket like wings, trying to get air to run down his sweaty back. It’s like watching a dog whose owner dressed it up in human clothes for the day.

  What would Robbie do if Natalie bailed on him at the altar? It’s probably bad that the thought makes my spine tingle with excitement, just like when I egged him the other night. But I’m so curious. Does he have any feelings beneath that boofhead face? Would he be gutted if Natalie cheated on him with Spud? Or would he dust himself off and say ‘fair enough’ and stumble into the next web along the line – maybe Josie or Freja or even Richelle once she’s eighteen? Does Robbie actually love Natalie, or did he just take the path of least resistance?

  Holy shit, what if every male in this church has done that? Is that the history of relationships? Is there some secret variation on the ‘wankers and liars’ code Dad hasn’t told me yet?

  ‘Every man prefers dick to pussy, son, but we have to pretend we like birds so we can pop out some kids,’ he will tell me one day soon. ‘It’s normal. There are two types of men in this world – homos, and liars.’

  ‘So, I should be a liar?’ I’ll ask.

  Dad will laugh. ‘Of course, Zeke. That’s the idea.’

  He’ll pat me on the back and tell me he likes me in my Perth Glory jersey. Maybe I’ll start liking it, too.

  Of course that’s not real. I know that. I’m just getting closer and closer to insane. If someone set me on fire right now, I’d probably smile.

  I try not to think anymore. It’s doing my head in. I look out over the crowd, and a knot of ice rope tightens in my gut. Natalie isn’t the only one who’s late.

  Charlie hasn’t rocked up.

  Rocky and Hannah sit on wooden stools behind the church organ, where the choir would usually stand. Rocky’s phone is clutched tight in his fingers and he keeps glancing at it. The floral crown on Hannah’s head – blossoms of white and pink entwined in green threaded stems – does nothing to distract from her blotchy red face. She keeps checking the side door, hands on hips and a scowl on her gob.

  I hope Charlie rocks up soon. He hasn’t answered my texts since he got expelled. I get it if he doesn’t want to talk, but it’s rude to leave someone dangling like that. Especially a friend.

  Rocky taps his phone suddenly and nods to Hannah. She picks up her acoustic guitar and begins plucking away a sweet, soft melody. Rocky taps his palms on a set of bongo drums.

  At Father Mulroney’s direction, everyone in the pews stands, and the bridal party enters. First are the flower girl and page boy – Natalie’s cousins, I don’t remember their names – followed by Richelle and Josie, as pink-faced and blotchy as Hannah, and the maid of honour, Freja, her brown skin more pristine than the other girls’.

  Finally, Natalie enters, her shiny, made-up face basking in the glow of two hundred beaming faces. Her rigid, pencil-thin father strides beside her, mouth flat and grim.

  She reaches the altar and faces Robbie with a smile. The crowd seems to exhale as they sit down.

  Father Mulroney raises his arms. ‘We begin in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit.’

  Thirty minutes later, they’re married.

  Robbie and Natalie and the rest of us in the bridal party file out and stand around in the grotto with the big statue of the Madonna. After Spud and Hammer, I shake Robbie’s hand. We slap each other’s backs: the man’s hug. I kiss Natalie on the cheek and she pulls away within a second to receive her next congratulations – because now the entire congregation has formed a line that snakes back to the car park.

  Me, Spud and Hammer are shunted to the side as the procession of guests file through to kiss the newlyweds. Most of them are uncles and aunties and cousins from Perth who I’ve spoken to once or twice in my life: they’re more a list of names to me, really, than a line of people. I couldn’t tell you anything about them and they know absolutely nothing about me.

  A car boot slams nearby. Hannah and Rocky have packed their guitar and drums away. The sea breeze comes in, whistling through the gum trees, but that isn’t what makes my skin shiver.

  Charlie never rocked up.

  Robbie and Natalie’s wedding reception is an over-catered, over-dressed, overblown Sicilian nightmare.

  In short, it’s everything my parents ever dreamed of.

  The ballroom of the Mercurial Winds Hotel is done up in some floral and frilly décor I can’t possibly believe Natalie had any say in. It’s pure Mum, circa her own wedding, which was essentially based on your average 1930s Sicilian wedding. I suddenly understand why people talk about cheap stuff being ‘no frills’: there are literally frills dangling off everything: the drapes that cover the walls; the decorated gift table; the bridesmaids’ dresses; even the tablecloths.

  The bridal table is set up on an elevated dais, overlooking the parquetry dance floor and the sea of circular tables. I see Angelo sitting with som
e of my cousins from Perth and I’m glad I don’t have to be near or speak to any of them. Their only interests are playing soccer, either on a field or on an Xbox, and looking at girls. I’ve never fitted anywhere less.

  At the bridal table, Hammer is to my left, and to my right is a little white table with some generic wedding paraphernalia: giant, white-painted wooden blocks of the letters R and N with a giant ampersand between them; lots of schmaltzy photos in decorative frames. At one point, Hammer twists towards me. My heart leaps. He’s had his back to me for ten minutes, bantering with Spud.

  ‘Hey, is that my glass or yours?’ Hammer says.

  If someone stabbed me in the eye with a fork at that exact moment, I doubt I’d even feel it over the glacial rupture in my heart.

  ‘Yours,’ I say. ‘Glasses always go to the right.’

  Hammer tousles my hair. ‘I knew you’d know, Zeeky. Cheers, buddy.’ He turns back to the waitress holding out a carafe of Coke and forgets about me.

  I think I would rather be called faggot by Hammer than buddy. All through the photo shoot this arvo he was throwing his arms around my shoulders and calling me mate, champ, buddy. It was like taking a pick axe to the chest. And he only did it when we were posing and goofing around for the photos in a group. The moment Spud or Robbie or the girls weren’t around, he fell totally silent around me. I wasn’t even worth looking at.

  As I stir ice cubes in concentric circles in my Coke, a shape moves up to the dais beside me.

  It’s Hannah. Her blotchy face is stern and sour.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask, crunching an ice cube in my teeth.

  ‘Zeke – it’s Charlie,’ she says. ‘He isn’t answering his phone. We got through the ceremony okay without him, and Rocky is just playing some songs from Nattie’s playlist for the first part of the night, but we need him to do our main set.’

  My skin crawls. ‘When did you see him last?’