Alex Jackson: Dropping In

by Pat Flynn

  They waited for the decision, the ref holding each fighter’s glove. Someone pointed and the ref lifted one glove up.

  Alex’s hand never moved.

  As he walked out of the ring Alex felt numb, sure there was a mistake. The son of the great Chief Jackson losing his first fight? Impossible. Then on his way to the car, exhaustion hit and disappointment delivered the knockout blow. Air gushed out of his throat and his shoulders shook.

  Real boxers don’t cry.

  Chief pulled him close. “You got nothing to be ashamed of, son. You fought like a man.”

  “I still lost.”

  “You didn’t lose. You just ran out of time.”

  The side of Alex’s head started to throb. “I’m sick of losing,” he said, almost to himself.

  CHAPTER 10

  “We were wobbed,” said Chief when Sharon asked how the fight went.

  “Never mind,” said Sharon.

  “Alex is a loser,” Sam teased.

  The words stung him. Alex chased Sam and put her in a headlock. He must have squeezed a bit too hard because her face turned red and when he let go she started crying.

  “Mum!” she yelled.

  Sharon sent Alex to his room. She followed him in. “I don’t care what Sam says or does to you,” she said. “Don’t ever hurt her. Don’t hurt anybody. Understand?”

  He felt bad enough without a lecture from “Dr Mum”.

  Sharon left him to “reflect” while she went shopping. Sam came and stood at the door of his room, waiting.

  “I won’t eat you,” said Alex, after a minute.

  Sam lay down beside him. “Sorry for calling you a loser.”

  “Sorry for choking you.”

  “Why did you get so mad?” said Sam. “I always call you names.”

  Alex thought for a bit. “I s’pose ’cause this time you were telling the truth.”

  “No, I wasn’t. You win lots of things.”

  “Name one.”

  She thought for awhile, then looked at the ceiling.

  “See.”

  “Got one,” said Sam. “You win at … being ugly.”

  Alex got her in a headlock again, but instead of squeezing her neck he rubbed the top of her head with his knuckles — giving her a noogie.

  Not long after, Sharon came back. “Get your shoes,” she said to Alex. “We’re going for a little drive.”

  They went to, of all places, the Beeton Skatebowl. They sat on Alex’s favourite bench — overlooking the action. Casey was standing at the top of the vert ramp. Kids were crowded around, not believing he’d have the guts to try and drop in to such a deathtrap.

  “You really wanted to win the fight, huh?” Sharon said to Alex.

  “Guess so,” said Alex. Go for it, Casey, he thought.

  “I see you’ve been studying a lot lately, too,” she said. “What’s that all about?”

  “We’ve got a test coming up. Science.”

  Casey walked over to the edge. It was two metres high and the first metre went straight down. That’s why they called it vert — short for vertical. He put his wheels over the coping.

  “I want to tell you something,” said Sharon.

  Casey hesitated; he was looking down.

  “Your dad and I don’t care if you win a fight or get an A in a test,” Sharon continued. “We love you because you’re you. You don’t have to prove anything, to us or yourself. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “Look Mum,” said Alex, pointing at Casey. “He’s gonna do it, I know he is.”

  Casey’s foot was on the tail of his board. All he had to do was smack his front foot on the nose and drop down at the speed of gravity, making sure he didn’t lean to one side or the other. That was a sure way to break something.

  He went for it. The front wheels banged on the concrete, a sign of total commitment. Kids held their breath as they waited to see if he could stay on the board. He flew down and then up the other side, jumping off safely when he got to the top. Everyone let out a cheer. Even Sharon.

  “Go check under the backseat,” she said.

  Alex looked at her. He was going to say something but didn’t, instead he took the keys to the Corona. His hand reached underneath the worn seat and a smile lit up his face like a quarter-moon. It was an el-cheapo, probably from K-Mart, but Alex didn’t care. He finally had his own skateboard.

  CHAPTER 11

  Alex winced as he moved in his seat. His gluteus maximas hurt. Big time. Nevertheless, he was feeling good. Yesterday he dropped down his first gutter on a skateboard. So what if he landed on his rear end? It was still fun.

  “Alex, I suggest you stop smiling and concentrate on the test,” said Miss Connors. “Time is your enemy.”

  Alex read what he’d written so far.

  The tibia, also knows as the shin bone, is the longest bone of the skeleton, except for the femur. In the male it is vertical but in the female it has a slightly oblique direction.

  So what if Alex didn’t know what oblique meant? It was in the book so it must be right. Alex had memorised the entire bones section.

  The fibula (calf bone) is the smaller of the two bones and the most slender of all the long bones.

  Actually, the question only asked which bone was longer, the tibia or the fibula, and to write their common names, but Alex thought he’d show off. It wasn’t often he got the chance.

  He’d already labelled the various bones and muscles on the human diagram. It was easy, straight out of the book — page 42. The only tricky part of the test was when he had to draw the bones of the hand. Alex couldn’t draw to save himself. In his version it was hard to tell the thumb from the pinkie, though these weren’t their anatomical names.

  “Pencils down!” said Miss Connors.

  Alex took a deep breath. This was the most he’d ever studied for a test x 10. If he didn’t top the class he’d probably never study again.

  “How’d you go?” asked Jimmy, as they waited backstage to perform the assembly play.

  “Not bad,” said Alex. “You?”

  “It was hard,” said Jimmy. “Mucked up a few, I reckon.”

  Alex took a deep breath and turned around. “How’d you do in the test?” he asked Sarah.

  “What?”

  “The science test,” said Alex.

  “Bad,” said Sarah. “Real bad.”

  Alex felt a pang of hope in his tummy. Maybe his day had finally come.

  “What I mean is I feel real bad for you,” Sarah said. “You’re a nice guy, but not too bright. ‘One socket short of a full circuit’, my mum would say.”

  Emma giggled.

  She must be still hacked off about the phone call.

  “Don’t count your chickens, Mary,” said Jimmy. “Jackson memorised the whole textbook.”

  “Yeah, he put it under his pillow when he went to sleep,” said Emma. “Hate to tell you but it doesn’t work.”

  “Shut up, MSN,” said Jimmy.

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Enough, you two,” said Miss Connors. “We’re on in a minute.”

  The principal stopped talking and Miss Connors went out the front, introducing the play to the rest of the school.

  Alex’s gut started tingling. Sarah touched him on the shoulder. “I didn’t mean that, about you being dumb,” she said quietly.

  “Sorry about what I said on the phone.”

  Miss Connors was madly waving. The whole school was waiting.

  “Hey Alex,” said Sarah. “Break a leg.”

  Alex took her advice literally. Well, almost. Unbeknownst to Sarah, Miss Connors or anyone else, Alex and Jimmy had added a fight scene to the play.

  “I’m sorry Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, you three will have to come with me to the detention centre,” said Jimmy— a line which was part of the original script.

  “Don’t sorry me, Immigration Man. I’m taking you out to the desert to bury your backside,” said Alex — a line which certainly was not in
the original script.

  “Bring it on, J-Man,” said Jimmy.

  Jimmy did a flying dive and Alex responded with a roundhouse kick. Half the school was cheering, the other half laughing. Jimmy grabbed Alex and pretended to head-butt him. Alex used his acting skills and stumbled backwards, holding his head. He stumbled all the way to the edge of the stage, except he didn’t know it was so close. Not until he fell off.

  Now the whole school was laughing. The whole school except for Miss Connors, and Sarah — who was forced to improvise. “Oh my darling husband, are you all right?” Sarah said into the microphone. “I want you to know that I love you very much, Alex … I mean, Joseph.”

  Alex wanted the concrete to swallow him up and spit him out in a place far, far away. Like the desert. It didn’t, so he just lay there.

  CHAPTER 12

  The next few days it was all anyone could talk about. Alex falling off the stage and Sarah telling the whole school that she loved him. Sam told Sharon and Sharon told Chief.

  “You gotta girlfriend, mate?” he asked Alex, as they sparred together in the garage.

  “No!” said Alex, punching Chief as hard as he could in the stomach.

  Chief smiled. His stomach was made out of bricks. “That’s not what I heard.”

  Sarah must have been embarrassed about the whole thing because she didn’t call Alex for five days, a record for the year. Alex didn’t exactly feel sorry for her. He couldn’t understand how she could crucify him like that; he wasn’t even playing Jesus.

  On top of everything Miss Connors was majorly unhappy about the whole fighting thing. “You made a mockery out of the very serious issue of refugees,” she said to Alex and Jimmy. “There was a lot of work put in to this play by the whole class, and you two vigilantes ruined it.”

  Alex wanted to ask her what a “vigilante” was. He held his tongue.

  “Sorry, Miss,” said Jimmy. “We didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean for you boys to clean the gum stuck under every desk in the school,” she said. “But I have a feeling it will just happen.”

  Alex felt like complaining but he held his tongue.

  At the end of the week they got their science tests back. Alex didn’t want to look. His hands were actually shaking as he went to flip it over to see the mark. It’s only a test, stupid.

  He wasn’t sure why he cared so much. It wasn’t like he loved studying anatomy. (Well, he loved studying Kylie’s anatomy on Video Hits, but that was different.) For some reason this test was a test of him — of who he was and what he was going to become. He hated the fact that now he was in Year 6 people started to put him in a box. Sarah was the brain, Jimmy a computer whiz, Alex the nice bloke who was an all right soccer player and boxer. He didn’t want to be in a box, not yet. He wanted to jump over boxes on his skateboard.

  He turned the test over. Not bad, Alex thought. Not bad at all. He got 19 ½ out of 20.

  He looked over at Jimmy who held up his test — 18 ½. Jimmy stuck his thumb up when he saw Alex’s mark.

  Alex went over to Sarah’s desk. “How’d you go?” he asked casually.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Alex glanced at her test but she had it face down.

  “How’d you do?” said Sarah.

  Alex showed her.

  She was quiet for a second. “Wow! That’s excellent. Congratulations.”

  She said it slowly and deliberately, like it was a line from a script. Which made Alex think that she’d got 20 out of 20 and was taking the micky out of him.

  Jimmy came over. He snatched the test off Sarah’s desk.

  “Hey!” said Sarah. “Give it back!”

  “Don’t be a sore loser,” said Jimmy, smiling. He gave Alex a look at her test.

  She got 19 out of 20.

  Jimmy started doing a little jig, and Alex couldn’t help but join in.

  CHAPTER 13

  The rest of the day Alex was on a high. Heaps of kids congratulated him on beating Sarah Sceney. Even Sarah seemed happy for him, which surprised Alex. He was kind of hoping she’d be a sore loser; it would have made it more fun.

  “I tried as hard as I could and you still beat me,” she said. “It goes to show you’re just as smart as me, maybe even smarter.”

  I wouldn’t go that far.

  “Do you get the feeling Sceney’s up to something?” asked Jimmy.

  “What do you mean?” said Alex.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Jimmy. “She’s just taking it really well.”

  “I know.”

  Even Miss Connors had a “special” word to Alex after class, and for once it was good special, not bad special. “Very well done,” she said. “You’ve set a high standard for yourself, I hope you can maintain it.”

  I wouldn’t go that far.

  That afternoon Alex grabbed his board, some fresh banana cake and told Sharon he was off to the skatebowl.

  “How come Alex got a new skateboard?” Sam asked Sharon. “I asked for a new Barbie way before him. Just because he lost a stupid boxing match.”

  “Hey Alex,” said Sharon.

  He was nearly out the door.

  “Good work with the science test,” she said. “I didn’t know I had Albert Einstein for a son.”

  Alex smiled. Sometimes it was good having a gossip for a sister.

  “Hope you fall off,” said Sam.

  Alex practised some tricks on the concrete half-basketball court next to the skatepark. He could already tic-tac and cess on the flat, which wasn’t bad as he’d only been skating a week. Once his confidence built up he hit the ramps. Not that he could do much besides roll up and down some of the small concrete banks, but he was working up to his goal. Dropping in. Not in to the vert like Casey, or even the quarter-pipe, but down the mini-bowl.

  The mini-bowl was no vert ramp, with a drop of about 50 centimetres at a not too steep angle. But Alex was no Casey, either. Casey was not only dropping in to the vert but pulling sick tricks. Alex watched as he rocked to fakie and threw down tail-stalls on the U-shaped skyscraper. Alex wished he could talk to Casey but was too intimidated. Maybe when he became a better skater — like in 50 years.

  Alex stood on the top of the mini-ramp and put his back wheels up against the coping, like he saw the other kids do. Most kids made dropping in to the mini-ramp look as easy as eating a ham sandwich. Alex took a deep breath. He once choked on a ham sandwich — when he tried to eat it too fast.

  Trying to avoid eating it too fast again, Alex thought about what he needed to do. The book he borrowed from the library said it was important to transfer your weight quickly but smoothly for a successful drop-in. It also said that most people fall on their first few tries.

  Come on, Jackson. You can do it.

  He leant onto his front foot and realised that people who write books are smart. He didn’t commit quickly enough and slid down the ramp on his backside. Not one to give up, he went to the top for another try. He slid down again. And again. For some reason the instant he went to drop-in something caused him to hesitate for a split second too long. It was called fear.

  After a fourth unsuccessful attempt, Alex lay on his back at the bottom of the ramp. He looked up and saw Casey standing above him — a big smile on his face.

  He’s laughing at me!

  Alex took off. He didn’t turn around and he didn’t stop. Not until he reached his bed.

  CHAPTER 14

  Alex stayed in bed all evening, reading comic books. He wasn’t going to come out for dinner but Chief brought home pizza and it smelt like … pizza.

  While they were eating, the phone rang. The girl put on a Texan accent but Sam had her pegged before she could say “Y’all”.

  “What do you want, Sarah?” said Alex. He wasn’t in the mood tonight. His tailbone was killing him.

  “I just wanted to congratulate you again on the science test. You beat me fair and square.”

  “I know.”

  “So
now you don’t have to worry about me being smarter than you, there’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

  “What?”

  “You can let go of your inferiority complex,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to be jealous of me. We can treat each other like equals.”

  “What?”

  “Stop saying ‘what’!”

  He thought about saying “what” again, just to annoy her.

  “Alex, why do I have to spell everything out to you?” said Sarah. “Why do you have to act so dumb all the time?”

  He didn’t have to take this. Not today, of all days. “If I’m so dumb, how come I beat you in the test?”

  “Do you want to go out with me or not?” said Sarah.

  Alex almost dropped the phone. Sarah might have said she loved him in front of the whole school, but she had never been so blunt before.

  He didn’t answer. The silence did it for him.

  “Maybe I let you win,” Sarah said softly.

  “What?”

  “The test. Perhaps I got one wrong on purpose. So you could beat me.”

  “You did not.”

  “You might be right. Then again …”

  “Sarah! Tell the truth. Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Let me win.”

  There was more silence.

  “Bye, Alex.”

  “Wait!”

  She hung up.

  CHAPTER 15

  Alex spent most of the weekend moping around the house. He didn’t want to go to the skatepark because Casey would be there; Jimmy was at the Gold Coast with his family; and going shopping with his mum and Sam didn’t turn him on. After juggling the soccer ball, practising his first ollies on the grass (he couldn’t do it) and reading some old comics, he went looking for Chief.

  Chief was in the living room watching a boxing video.

  “Who’s fightin’?” asked Alex.

  “Me.”

  And he was. It was the bronze medal fight at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. Chief loved showing his old fights at family get-togethers, just like Aunty Shirley loved showing her old wedding videos (she’d had three already), but Chief never showed this one. Not even Alex had seen it.