by Ian Martin
On the other hand, he was passionate about sport, especially rugby. ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’ was a motto, or mantra, he heard every day of his school career, and it was used to justify the emphasis placed on physically competitive games. The adulation and glory bestowed on those with sporting prowess quickly seduced him. He wasn’t a ‘natural’, but when he discovered he was good enough to make the B team, and sometimes the A when they were beset with injuries, his eyes were opened to a new self-image – he could be an individual of some value.
*
The first four years of high school were relatively happy ones. He bonded with his mates and even entertained sentimental illusions that involved things like friendship, loyalty, honesty, purpose, meaning and fulfilment.
He learnt about physical courage and the joy of battle. He trained hard and became a feared tackler. Tackle to kill, he was exhorted. In Grade 9 the coach said he was on the light side and needed to bulk up. They put him on a course of steroids (don’t talk about it) and gave him a bucket of high-protein food supplement. Three to four times a week he did an hour and a half of weight training, and on alternate days he ate a double breakfast. The transformation was astonishing.
After 3 months he’d put on 8 kilos of muscle and after a year he was barely recognisable. Now he was one of the iron men and the respect and admiration, not to mention fear, that he saw in the eyes of the other guys gave him a sense of omnipotence and calm euphoria.
He liked nothing more than to stand naked before a full-length mirror and admire his muscles as he slowly masturbated. When he ejaculated against the glass it seemed so comical he would laugh with genuine affection and feel deeply satisfied.
Not that it was all plain sailing. In Grade 8 he broke his nose. In Grade 9, a broken collarbone and two ribs. Grade 10, a broken arm and then his neck in a brace for 6 weeks. In Grade 11 the season was brought to an abrupt end with a knee op. And not to mention any amount of concussion, cuts and contusions.
He was a battle-scarred hero, man amongst men, walking tall, shoulder to shoulder with the other warriors in the macho brigade.
Then, towards the end of Grade 11, 2005, a seed of doubt was sown in his mind and began to grow with alarming vigour, as if it too was on steroids and double breakfasts.
4
The main honcho from the Sports Science Academy was coming to give them bereavement counselling. Bereavement counselling? You may well raise your eyebrows and ask what the fuck’s bereavement got to do with rugby. Matt did.
All was made clear when the learned doctor addressed the boys assembled in the hall. Because it was so important to win, be it in sport or any other endeavour, it was understandable that a great deal of energy and passionate devotion was invested in achieving the ultimate prize. It was also recognized that if, after making a supreme effort, one was to suffer the ignominy of losing, the effect could be devastating. The psychological and emotional trauma inflicted by defeat was equivalent to the suffering associated with bereavement. This was the logic.
To help the boys cope with failure on the field the sports psychologist would lead them through a process of healing similar to that which took place after the death of a close family member. If they worked through the stages of denial and isolation, anger, depression, and then acceptance, their recovery would be quicker, and mental scarring would be minimized. They’d be able to hope again.
At the time, Matt felt faintly puzzled but didn’t think about it much. He didn’t think about much at all. It wasn’t an environment that encouraged introspection. In fact it actively discouraged critical analysis and other forms of independent thought. But after a week or so the vague sense of bafflement revisited him and he began to wonder about it.
He took rugby seriously and loved winning and hated losing, yet the disappointment of defeat rarely remained with him for more than a few hours. And the other guys? They all got pissed after the game, anyway, whatever the outcome. Where did this arsehole come with ‘bereavement’?
Bereavement, as he understood it, was in a totally different league. If your mother or father died suddenly you’d be bereaved. You’d experience shock and grief and intense sadness. He didn’t feel anything like that after his team had lost an important game. Anger, disappointment and humiliation, yes. But not grief and bereavement. Christ, did anybody really believe this crap? The coach seemed to, and none of the other boys made any comment. Were they all brain dead? This was a form of indoctrination; brainwashing to make you try harder, take the sport even more seriously. This had to be an Australian idea. Not even the Americans would sink to such delusional depths.
Then he began to think about genuine bereavement and it occurred to him that he was probably incapable of it. He hardly ever saw his father and when he did, there was never any display of affection. There was no emotional bond between them, so there’d be no sense of loss if Bruce was to kick the bucket. And Trudy?
His feelings for his mother were more complex. He knew she was a typical rich bitch, through and through – loud, domineering, incredibly rude to domestic staff and shop assistants, dishonest in word and deed, foul-mouthed, lazy, quick to complain, callous, sexually promiscuous, badly educated, opinionated, bigoted, pompous, pretentious and, above all, supercilious. In short: a real Constantia matron.
And yet she was his mother, and he was her only child. Did she love him in her own degenerate way? Was she capable of it? And did he not love her regardless of her many flaws? Wasn’t he obliged to love her? The way the little prince was required to love his flower, not in spite of her weakness but because of it?
He pondered on this for a while and then snorted in disgust. He didn’t believe in sentimental fairy tales. His mother was a self-centred cow and if she died tomorrow he’d feel some bitter anguish and confused regret but no serious grief. Nothing a two-week holiday with a few of his mates wouldn’t sort out. Somewhere like Croatia or the Seychelles would do.
Accepting that he was unloved and loved no one, it followed that he must be a withered freak living in an emotional desert. He began to critically examine his other relationships – with relatives, friends, schoolmates, teachers – and found them all to be hollow. And suddenly he could see through the insincerity, the hypocrisy and the humbug that masked his world. Behind the mask lay a fetid-smelling emptiness.
He lost the fierce concentration that inter-school rugby demanded and promptly stuffed up his knee good and proper. Surgery, two weeks in hospital, five weeks on crutches – that marked the end of rugby for Matt Dreyer.
*
He stood naked in front of the full-length mirror and looked at what had become of his body. The extravagantly sculpted pectoral muscles had lost their tone and now sagged like flabby breasts. The square shoulders were rounded, his arms dangled heavily, their rippling contours flattened and blurred. No trace remained of his famous six-pack, and where there’d been a flat expanse of iron belly a misshapen tyre of fat had been deposited. Below it, his thing hung limp and despondent, contemplating the carpet in one-eyed apathy.
He was finished with sport. This consuming obsession with games, especially rugby, and the fanatical pursuit of victory were just too absurd. All that energy, for what? The backslapping bravado, the belligerent heroics now struck him as puerile and entirely ludicrous. As did all the other mindless rituals that went to make up the school’s proud tradition.
He felt revulsion for the image before him. He also felt ashamed of the person he had been, the willing participant in this authoritarian system. A model of conformity, he had accepted the necessity for cruel discipline and sadistic punishment. How often had he stood here before the mirror, cock in hand, and dreamed of the time when he would wield power as a senior? He’d have his revenge, not on the system but on the ranks below him.
His favourite fantasy had involved an imagined fag, snivelling with fear and humiliation. He’d shout abuse at him, slap him, shove him about like Uncle Claude had done. He’d make him perform demeaning tasks
and tricks and then, finally, he’d have him strip off and he’d sodomize the succulent little swine with his steel-reinforced, seven-inch erection. (Strange how erections haven’t gone metric.)
What a joke! Now that he was nearing the end of Grade 11 and about to inherit the power he had craved, he no longer had the stomach for it, figuratively speaking. It was all just a stupid farce and he wanted no further part in it.
*
The end-of-year exams drew dangerously close. If he didn’t make a move he’d fail and have to repeat the year. The prospect of extending his stay in purgatory galvanised him into action. With the aid of a crate of Red Bull and handfuls of Lert he crammed late into the night, night after night.
The final examination was behind him and he was satisfied with his performance. The period of intensive study had paid off and he was confident he was through. But instead of joining his classmates in noisy, drunken celebration, and then collapsing into bed for sixteen unbroken hours of delicious sleep, he began to pace.
There was something inside him that was being stretched and tightened, stretched and tightened. The moment he lay down the ratchet began to turn and he could almost hear the clicks. He had to keep moving.
Only at 5 in the morning did he finally lie down and sleep fitfully for two hours. When Trudy arrived to fetch him she was shocked at his appearance.
“Darling!” she shouted. “You look like a bloody ghost! What’s the matter with you, my poor little lambkin?”
The matter with him was this: he was having a nervous breakdown. At home she gave him two Stilnox, and two Zopimed for good measure and packed him off to bed. That evening she looked in on him and he was still asleep.
By 9 the next morning she decided he’d had more than enough sleep and it was time to get up. She put her head round the door and called his name. No response. Irritated, she strode into the room and yanked open the curtains. He was lying on his side staring at the wall.
Dr Sarah Bellum, another of Trudy’s friends, said it was too soon to make a definitive diagnosis but she prescribed anti-depressants, a mood stabiliser, and something for anxiety. It might take a couple of weeks before the drugs began to take effect, though.
“Oh my God, no!” Trudy cupped her face in both hands, her eyes large with horror. “Sarah, I just can’t can’t can’t bear the thought of having him staring into space like a zombie for two weeks. I just couldn’t stand it.”
So it was decided to take him down the road to the clinic, attach some electrodes to his skull and treat him to a series of shocks. It was called ECT, which stood for electro convulsive therapy. As it turned out, these electrical convulsions proved most therapeutic and, when he came home after a week, a glimmer of light could be discerned in the dark depths of his eyes.
He made a rapid recovery. Dr Bellum said this was on account of the ECT and the drugs she’d prescribed. She would say that, wouldn’t she? Still reluctant to put a name to his problem, she warned that his condition would need close monitoring. At R750 an hour. Not bad, hey? No wonder all psychiatrists take an oath of allegiance to the profession, swearing never to permit a patient to escape the lucrative medication trap. They have a cynical little motto that goes like this: ‘Once a nut, always a nut.’
*
He recuperated through the school holidays and in that time he had some visitors. Very few of them were his school friends – most of them were away on exotic vacations to trendy destinations; and anyway, they wouldn’t have wanted to waste their time in the company of such a loser. He couldn’t even play rugby anymore.
Rose and Gilbert called in. He was sitting in the lounge with the TV on but not watching it – it was all a lot of shit and he had given up hope of finding something worth staying with. The endless zapping exhausted him.
“Hi, Matt. Remember us?” Rose said, leading the way into the room.
He hadn’t seen her for nearly a year and she had changed. She’d always been pretty, but now she really was something to look at. Now that her body was mature. Her laugh was the same – just short of hysterical – and she smoked and swore a lot. She was also going into Matric: what a fucking bore!
Gilbert was bigger than ever and Matt thought he looked like a bouncer, with his barrel chest, cropped hair and grim expression. He’d been out of school a year now, and was starting his own Internet company, something to do with camera phones.
They didn’t stay long.
By contrast, Horry Horowitz was there for over two hours. He’d grown tall and scrawny, and his frizzy orange hair looked more wildly outrageous than Matt remembered it.
“Hey, man,” he said, throwing himself into an easy chair and stretching out his legs. He examined the patient’s appearance with intense curiosity. “So the mother-fucking system got you, did it?” He was a Kevin Smith fan and at times assumed a phoney American accent and the conversational style of Jay (Silent Bob’s partner). “Fucked you in the head, did they? Now your brain knows what the concubine’s cunt felt like after the Benjamite mob had finished with her.” This biblical reference (Judges Ch 19) alluded to the nauseatingly atrocious behaviour of some of God’s chosen people living in the city of Gibeah. It was lost on Matt but he kind of got the drift.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Horry went on. “The psychological terrorism us post-postmoderns are being subjected to! Fascist indoctrination accompanied by electrocution and toxic chemicals to further numb the mind. This is war, man!”
One Sunday the Apollis family came to a lunchtime braai. Well, actually, not the whole family. Auntie Pat wasn’t feeling well, ostensibly because her new medication didn’t agree with her. Anti-depressants are funny things: for some people it’s dead easy, for others it’s a never-ending battle to find some sort of equilibrium. This was her excuse for not joining them, but the real explanation was that she still bore Claude a grudge, for some strange reason. After all, it was more than a year since her sister Marion had swallowed the pesticide. Surely in today’s world you don’t need more than twelve months to get over anything?
It was a nice day and they were out on the patio overlooking the pool. While Claude did the Kebabs and sausage on the gas, Ben kept him company, beer in hand, and they talked business. That’s about all they ever talked: business, cars and sport.
Trudy bustled between the kitchen and the patio, for it was Prudence’s day off. She also replenished snacks and drinks, especially her own. And as usual her phone was forever ringing.
The youngsters sat in the sun at the poolside. Larry had grown tall and his features had rearranged themselves into an almost flawless symmetry. His dress sense, his choice of jewellery, indicated a case of chronic narcissism. Was he gay? Was he metro? What the fuck, he was a moron. He had plugged his head into his MP3 player and every now and then the rhythm would cause him to raise his hands and wave them in the air. And now for Ophabia.
Fuuuuck: Christ, man! And he thought Rose had turned into a beaut? Obviously the onset of puberty had been early, because at 15 she was fully developed. From her builder’s boots her lovely legs rose a long way and ended under the shortest of black leather skirts. She wore a loose white T-shirt. Printed in discrete grey lettering on the back was the slogan I LOVE DONKEYS. On the chest (Oh what a chest! What a pair of pomegranates!) was a donkey’s head. He sported sunglasses and a toothy grin. When she sat down and opened her legs he could see she was wearing the yellow Beetle panties Trudy had given her for Christmas. He even caught a glimpse of the VW emblem. For the first time in months he felt himself stirring and he had to sit forward on the edge of his lounger.
*
Later, when Trudy told her about the transformation, Dr Bellum’s eyes dilated and then she snapped her fingers in the air.
“Bipolar disorder!” She said this with triumphant conviction and began to rummage in her bag for a prescription pad. “Just as I thought. First the episode of deep depression and now the accompanying bout of mania. Exactly as you’ve described, Trudes – all the symptoms of mania: eup
horia, increased psychomotor activity, rapid speech, flight of ideas, decreased need for sleep, distractibility, grandiosity, and poor judgement. A textbook case.” Oh yes?
They say love’s a form of madness. And the neuroscientists claim that everything can be reduced to chemistry. Electro-chemical impulses determine animal behaviour. Well, there’s no doubt that Matt’s chemistry was getting a thorough shake-up. A superabundance of testosterone, an over-supply of dopamine and norepinephrine, and a cutback in serotonin were having to compete with all the chemical shit Dr Bellum was pumping into his system. So it’s hard to say whether the shrink was right in her diagnosis of his new symptoms – which presented themselves so soon after Ophabia’s visit.
You be the judge though; was his new behaviour a symptom of bipolar disorder, or was it a case of lovesickness?
5
Two years later, roughly. January 2008. The same venue – the Dreyer residence in Constantia – only now it was early evening, just getting dark. A party was in progress and there must have been a good fifty guests in the house and spilling out onto the patio and into the garden.
The occasion was the marriage of Trudy and Claude, the two friends who had decided to turn their backs on the loneliness of widowhood and spend the rest of their days together in… yes, yes, yes.
Matt was on the lawn beyond the pool talking to Horry Horowitz and the Sternkranz’s, Rose and Gilbert. At his side was Ophabia Apollis. He was in a funny mood: cheerful, even animated at times, and then he’d go silent and look distracted. What was on his mind?