Underdog

by Tobias Madden

  Then

  Autumn feels off about stepping out of school bounds and onto the footpath at lunch. Their hands won’t stop shaking. The idea of their dad being called, told they left campus during school hours, Do not pass Go, Do not collect $200, is just not… no.

  But Sheridan’s already trotting up to them, trotting.

  ‘C’mon,’ he says, and starts off down the footpath.

  Sheridan is casual, calm and collected. He walks with his hands in his pockets, his bag off one shoulder. He’s not the one making Autumn so nervous; they’d pay to have an ounce of that—that casual, calm collectedness. Their dad’s always asking them why they’re so stressed and strung-out, while Autumn keeps on thinking, well, how can I not be, with everything.

  But they don’t say so.

  That’d make their dad feel worse.

  Now

  Autumn’s drowning in their hoodie and jeans. Terror cools uncomfortably on their skin. They feel like crying, though it’s not logical in cause or in function. Voice robbing, throat throbbing tears, the ones Autumn’s swallowing down now, are prolactin, leu-enkephalin and adrenocorticotropic hormone. They’re made up of endorphins, natural painkillers, and the same hormone that gets breasts working throughout pregnancy.

  Sir lifts his eyes.

  ‘Not today then, hmm?’ he asks.

  There’s a try there for casualness, and Autumn goes to mimic. The room’s kind of fuzzy, though, wobbling around the edges, so they settle for a safe, ‘No, sir.’

  Sir shifts through their things once again, sorting everything into little clumps on his desk. Their bag is empty, lifelessly draped over his lap.

  ‘No idea?’ he asks, gaze flicking down to their deflated backpack.

  Autumn, unsure, shakes their head.

  With a sigh, Sir sits forward, elbows planted on his desk, their faces now level.

  ‘We have zero tolerance for drugs at this school,’ he says. ‘Zero. You are a student with a lot of potential, Autumn. You work hard, and the feedback I have received from your teachers is promising. You could go places.’

  He says this as if there aren’t already barriers in place for Autumn to get to the places they want to go. Why does he think they have to try so hard? Care so much?

  ‘I am going to give you one final chance to tell me the truth. If you are honest, the consequences will be far less serious. If you lie to me—’ his voice is deadly even in its severity ‘—I will be forced to act accordingly. Now, tell me the truth. Have you, now or ever, bought drugs from another student on school grounds?’

  There’s a scream clawing somewhere deep in Autumn’s throat. They can see it, Dad called into school, slumped where they are now, witness to his kid getting tied up in cuffs or chains, his greatest fears, oh shit.

  But still. Phrasing. Autumn holds on tight to their side and the bulge down by their waistband. ‘No, sir.’

  They do not move one iota until Sir tells them to collect their things and dismisses them.

  Then

  Sheridan’s house is a house, firstly. Secondly, Sheridan has a rumpus room, a room that looks as though it hasn’t seen any ‘rumpussing’ for a long time. The dartboard on the far wall is chalked up with scores, pool balls are arranged on the abandoned table like artefacts of some bygone game. Autumn can practically feel the dust throughout the whole house. It’s weighed down by a skunky smell.

  Sheridan’s parents aren’t home, but maybe if they were they’d be okay about their son selling drugs during school hours, maybe doing drugs, presumably? The smell?

  God. ‘I don’t belong here,’ Autumn says into the empty rumpus room.

  Sheridan comes back into the room, a small sandwich baggie in hand. ‘Oh-kay… ouch?’ he says, having heard them. Shit.

  ‘No, I’m just—’ Autumn’s fingers, flexing down by their sides as though grasping for words, finally spasm and curl tight around their bag straps. Specks of visible dust drift about, landing on Autumn’s arms, their hoodie. They want to leave, there isn’t… this isn’t logical.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should go.’

  Yet even as they’re saying this, they’re stuck. Feet rooted in Newton’s law. They stare at the baggie: weed’s more clumped than they imagined, not that they really imagined, but it’s just…

  It’s different. An actual plant, kinda, sorta. Not just some green mass on a screen.

  ‘Did… you want me to stop you?’ Sheridan asks, watching them watch him.

  Autumn blinks. ‘What?’

  ‘From leaving.’

  They don’t know. They’re not exactly leaving but they’re not really doing much of anything else either. Is there enough in the bag? It looks like a lot, but then too little. God. Autumn’s whole body is thrumming on a weird frequency.

  ‘It’s good,’ Sheridan says, and the way he says it is kind, gentle. ‘Promise.’ It’s like he’s trying to coax an animal.

  Autumn swallows down the urge to blurt, ‘It’s not for me.’ Hands shaking, they reach into their bag, pull out their wallet. Sheridan steps forward.

  ‘Deadpool?’ he asks, looking down at Autumn’s themed wallet. They got it for their birthday.

  ‘Love it. Hey, you kinda look a bit like, what’s her name, with the hair and the—’

  Autumn knows. It’s not a coincidence. ‘Negasonic Teenage Warhead,’ they say.

  ‘Negasonic Teenage Warhead, fucken-A, yeah.’ Sheridan clicks his fingers. His smile is so sweet, so gummy, stretching hard at the ties on either side that twist and pull in his mouth. Autumn throws their eyes to the floor. To their shoes. Which are boring. And kind of blurry.

  Oh shit, wait—

  A hand touches them. A soft, ‘Hey, no, ’s all right,’ followed by an even softer, ‘Crap, don’t cry.’

  Damn it. Autumn smears their sleeve across their face, dragging the back of their hand over their nose a couple of times. They scramble with their wallet. Get this over with. Get this done. Go home.

  ‘W-Wasn’t sure how much…’

  ‘Hey, no, it’s fine.’ He isn’t bothering to take it or count the notes Autumn’s holding out. ‘I get it.’

  He doesn’t really get it. At all. A part of Autumn is comforted, though, that he says he thinks he might. ‘G-Got more—’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ This time, Sheridan steps back, putting distance between them. One corner of his mouth kicks up. ‘First one’s free.’

  Autumn stands there, wallet out. ‘Free?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  First of all, no. Secondly, a) No. b) No. They shake their head. ‘I can’t do that.’

  Sheridan blinks. ‘Oh-kay?’

  ‘I mean it. Please.’ There’s a formula to this, a procedure. An exchange of goods for services. Autumn shoves the money at him. ‘I’m not taking it if you’re not too.’

  In this school, this town, Autumn should be used to everyone knowing about their dad. Half the town works in the hospital after all. Even then, just for a second, they think maybe he doesn’t know, that he’s not going to say it. It’s a thought as flimsy and thin as lined paper. Sheridan’s words pinch either end and tear.

  ‘It’s not for you, though, right?’ he asks without having to really ask. ‘Your dad’s—’

  Something in Autumn’s expression shutters him off.

  ‘Hey, uh, shit.’ Sheridan shifts from foot to foot. Not approaching, not backing off, some awkward middle ground. ‘Sorry, it’s just. Everyone sorta… knows, y’know? Small town—’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Uh, just that he’s sick—’

  ‘No. How much for the bag?’

  ‘I’m not gonna—’

  ‘Please,’ Autumn whispers, keeping their money outstretched.

  Sheridan just stands there, and it’s only when Autumn moves half a step forward, knuckles almost bumping his chest that he sighs, stepping back a bit. He takes the money. Some of the money. He curls the last twenty back under Autumn’s fingers. Hands soft and warm.

 
‘Next time,’ he says. Because he knows.

  Autumn sniffs and takes a second while Sheridan’s back is turned, to make themself presentable. Too obvious in their pocket, they slide the baggie down into the waistband of their undies. Sheridan kicks off his shoes.

  And whatever this is, it’s done.

  Now

  Sometimes, when their dad looks tired, on the days when he can’t get back to bed after dragging himself to the kitchen table, Autumn sits beside him, brings a book or a newspaper and asks him to read.

  Their dad is good at reading, reads just about anything. Autumn loves the way his mouth forms the words, the gaps he takes between them, how his finger follows each mark on the page. He’s good at reading and he’s good at fixing. He fixed their house up before Autumn was born. He handwashes dishes, fixes torn shorts. He’d get up first when he used to work and fix Autumn some toast in the morning, turning the burnt bits delicious—an exact measured ratio of Vegemite and butter. He’d fix the car, the sink, the gutters, their neighbours’ gutters, and even Autumn’s phone when they dropped it.

  The fern on the kitchen bench looks dead, but Autumn waters it, just in case. Dad should be up now, but he isn’t. They throw down their bag, kick off their shoes, unravelling themself from everything that isn’t here in this house. They pad down the hall in socks to their dad’s room. They push on the door, fearing the worst.

  Inside, heat presses down on them from all sides, even though there’s a whirring fan in the corner. In bed, Dad’s asleep, his thin frame outlined against sweat-soaked sheets.

  He usually wakes up so easily: light, noise, anything.

  ‘Dad?’ Autumn puts a hand on his arm, not daring to squeeze, not wanting to hurt him. ‘Dad?’

  There’s a long moment between that sleeping breath and the next one waking. Their dad shuffles over, one crusty eye sliding open before the other. ‘Hey, Bub?’ he whispers. Coughs phlegm that he doesn’t even try to swallow, just turns his cheek into his pillow. ‘How’s school?’

  ‘School’s school,’ Autumn answers, knowing he’s not really hearing them. He’s sunken so far into his pillows they’re almost swallowing him. Dad’s kind of looking at them, kind of up at the ceiling, his head sweaty and bare, greyish in the low light.

  There’s an irresistible urge then, inside Autumn, to cover him up, protect that vulnerability. Especially when their dad reaches out, hand blindly searching his bedside for his rolling papers.

  Voice thick, eyes wet. Their dad looks at them. ‘How was—’ he breaks out into phlegmy coughs.

  Autumn’s hands sink into their waistband, where time and sweat and friggen Sir have fused plastic to their skin. Just a small bag. They’re picking up some shifts next week and can pay Sheridan properly then, for this week’s bag and next.

  ‘Here, Dad.’ They set it on his bedside.

  Autumn knows pain isn’t a feeling, not a feeling, really, just another chemical, able to be balanced when unbalanced. Nerve fibres and endorphins.

  At first there’s nothing, then recognition, then delight. Relief already in their dad’s eyes.

  ‘Bubba.’ He moves too suddenly towards the baggie and is racked with rib-crushing coughs.

  Autumn backs off, to help the pain, crossing their arms tight in front of themself. They watch their dad’s probing fingers, his deep inhale as he lifts them from the baggie to his nose. The longing stare, his smile. Oxytocin.

  ‘Beautiful, Bub. You legend.’

  ‘Yeah-nah, all right.’

  Dad reaches out for their hand. ‘Beautiful.’ His hand trembles, but it always trembles. Autumn sits again, watching their dad sit up. Soon, arid smoke lifts up and swirls around Autumn, blown by the fan across the room.

  ‘God.’ Dad breathes out a dragon’s breath. After a few minutes, the line of his shoulders has eased. He’s not a patient, a burden, their sick dad. He’s a guy in bed, and tonight, tomorrow, he might actually be able to get out of it.

  He looks up at them, and that look evolves into a weary smile.

  ‘C’mere.’ Autumn dives forward. ‘Mmmpfh.’

  Arms tight around his neck, a flame too close to their head. But they don’t care. They always hug. They’re a hugging family. This time, Autumn hugs him a little more. Feels the outline of him under thin skin and cloth. The shape of a benzene molecule.

  ‘Wasn’t any trouble?’ he asks them without really asking, his momentarily pain-free, lucid mind already on other things.

  ‘Nah. No trouble.’

  Their dad puts his arms around them, Autumn curls inward. Warm and alive.

  After a while he whispers, ‘Think you might be bruising me, Bub.’ He laughs, then coughs.

  So, Autumn lets him go.

  The bees went first. Great swarms blanketed the whole of Perth city for three days, frantically searching every tree, every flower, for one last chance at survival. The buzz was like an alarm clock jammed inside my brain. On the fourth day, the buzzing stopped. All that was left of the bees were empty hives and thousands of fuzzy carcasses covering the streets. The buzzing was replaced with a crunching sound as people marched into their workplaces, still pretending that global warming wasn’t real, that the sea levels weren’t rising, and that the city wouldn’t be completely underwater in a month’s time. The coastal suburbs were already half submerged by then. At least one multimillion-dollar beach house sank into the ocean each day, like it was nothing more than a sandcastle. But the clocks kept ticking and the cogs kept turning.

  When the Swan River finally broke its banks, the flood water raced along St Georges Terrace, up William Street, spilling across Yagan Square, dripping into the underground rail, turning the South Perth foreshore into a swamp. The government finally sounded the alarm—a constant beep emitted from speakers bolted to the roofs of all the skyscrapers—and started herding us all out of the city, setting up a refugee camp above the coastal plain.

  That was my seventeenth birthday.

  They cut the power two days after that, hoping to force stragglers like us out. A lot of people wouldn’t—or couldn’t—go. They sent buses around to transport anyone who couldn’t make their own way out, but they didn’t send enough, and they didn’t send them to the right places, as usual. We could have left well before they cut the power, but Mum refused. She kept telling me, ‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ and then she’d go off to her room with a bottle of wine and disappear until morning. The next day she’d say the same thing.

  I was up early on the day we finally left. It was the day after they cut the power. The light was still grey. The breeze coming through the open windows of our house was cool, despite the summer heat wave. The air had already turned sour by then, but first thing in the morning it wasn’t so bad. I wore socks that day, ones with a pattern of the moon and the words ‘It’s Just a Phase’ printed on them. Mum was in the kitchen. I could hear her talking to someone. I paused in the hallway, hidden from view, and peered around the corner. Mum sat at the old wooden table, phone to her ear. I ducked back behind the wall and crouched on the floor, listening.

  ‘Enough is enough, Mum,’ she said. She was speaking to Nan. ‘I’ve organised for the bus to collect you today at noon. The water is getting higher, this is the last chance you’ll have.’ There was the sound of a metal spoon being stirred in a ceramic mug, despite the hot water being out. She was drinking her coffee cold.

  She let out a long sigh. I could imagine her with her head in her hands, rubbing at her temples, the way I’d seen her do a thousand times—particularly when she was on the phone to Nan.

  ‘Honestly? No, I don’t really care whether you come or stay. But Remi does,’ said Mum. ‘Are you at least going to say goodbye to her? I’m used to you pissing off and only thinking about yourself, but she still thinks the world of you, not that you deserve it.’

  A pause. I heard Mum take a sip of coffee as she listened to Nan’s response.

  ‘No, she’s still asleep,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll get her to call you when s
he’s— What do you mean, “no”? You have to say goodbye.’

  Mum was breathing heavy. The chair scraped again. I could hear her footsteps on the floorboards, pacing around the kitchen. I stayed frozen, staring at my socks.

  ‘Don’t give me that crap,’ Mum said to Nan. ‘You know she won’t accept that. If you don’t say goodbye, you know exactly what she’s going to do. Is that what you want?’

  Mum was hurling dishes into the sink. She always made a lot of noise when she was pissed off.

  ‘You know what, don’t even bother with your excuses. I’m so done with all this. Stay there and die alone for all I care. I was fine without you when you left me and Dad to run away with May. I was fine without you when the kids were born. I was— No, you listen to me! I was fine without you when Joe died. I’ve been fine without you my whole life and I’ll be fine without you now. I’ll sleep soundly at night knowing you can never bother me ever again. As for Remi, I’ll tell her the bus came to collect you, but it was too late, you were already dead.’

  I couldn’t stand what I was hearing. Mum wasn’t even trying to convince Nan to come with us. She was such a hypocrite, calling Nan out for being a shitty parent. When I’d come out as gay to Mum she’d all but kicked me out of the house. She told me I could do whatever I wanted, just as long as it wasn’t under her roof. I’d called Nan straight away and she’d welcomed me with open arms. Nan was there for me, no question. At least she was, until Nana May died, then it all became too hard. I ended up back at Mum’s, but it was never the same. I got that Nan coming out and abandoning her and Grandad really did a number on Mum. I got that, I did, but how was that my fault? Why did I have to suppress who I was just because Mum hadn’t dealt with her own shit?

  I heard Mum open the fridge, then the distinct hiss… clunk of a beer bottle being opened and placed on the table. Cold coffee, warm beer. ‘Whatever,’ said Mum, the fight gone from her voice. I heard her throw down the phone.

  I felt the tension in my body reach breaking point. My skin was burning, my fists clenched so hard they hurt. My breathing was hard, so hard I was sure Mum must have heard me there long before I burst into the room, ready for a fight.