How it feels (11 page)

‘S'alright,' I answered.

Stuart slammed me into the traffic light pole, his eyes beaming with speed and steroids and all the things that made him seventeen and Stuart.

‘I WANT TO DO SOME DAMAGE TO THESE DAGO CUNTS, OK, MY FRIEND? IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET HOME SAFE I SUGGEST YOU WALK AWAY NOW AS I AM ABOUT TO MAKE A MESS – DO YOU HEAR ME?'

‘Ok… but there's a few of them.'

‘There's a few of me,' he replied.

Approaching the kerb Stu was spotted by one of the smaller Bombers, who then called out, ‘Here he comes! King of the Convicts!'

Stuart did not even bother with his usual flurry of retorts, such as ‘dago cunt' or ‘grease ball' or ‘immigrant'; he simply launched into the mess of it and somehow, by association, so did I. My face was rammed up against a phone booth. Through the glass I could see Stuart pounding into Daniel De Costa's face with his elbow and kicking Stavros Tsiokas in the gut. I was on the ground when a baseball bat with some spikes in it just swept by my face, but then a long neck of Fosters smashed over my shoulder. I rolled into the gutter, where my jaw was kicked into the kerb – which hurt. Again, like with Larissa, there was noise and there was quiet. There was flesh and blood and there was rain and there was me, and this numb excellent feeling, as another part of my soul was lifted up and taken away. I was crying but I didn't make tears. I just knew I wanted to go. And go and go and go and go. I hated this place. I fucking hated it. No one here had anything to do but harm what they didn't understand.

‘Holy fuck! I can see Neil!' I heard Courtney's voice scream.

By now there were about fifty people in the riot.

I was trying to help lovely Seamus Fraser from general studies out of a group-kicking when De Costa's brother Leo busted a knife into my ribs.

Gordon must have seen this, as he arrived within a second or two, launching an array of well-constructed jump-kicks and snap-kicks and force-quick solar-plexus punches to the Bomber's available areas. He broke Leo's jaw with an elbow – I saw it change shape before my eyes.

Gordon then picked me up off the pavement, where my blood was pooling, and dragged my limp body over to a blue Toyota T18.

‘Whose car is this?' I asked him as we went.

‘Kirkwood's brother's,' he said.

‘Fuck! Where's Courtney?' I said, peering out into the muddle of bodies; police sirens growing louder and louder.

‘We gotta jet brother,' Gordon said. ‘Cops!'

‘Where is she?' I said, falling in to the back seat.

‘Stu got her. Stu took her in a car. She's safe.'

Like most of the night, everything was bright and then it was gone. I could hear Phil Collins singing the bit before the drum solo in ‘Something in the Air Tonight'. I knew which of Gordon's mix tapes this was from, and how it cut out before the end of side A, then flipped over to side B, then finished in less than ten seconds. I could see a Hot Chicken Hero wrapper on the floor and an empty carton of chocolate Moove. I put my hand in my hair and there was glass. I put my hand near my ribs and felt this wet hot feeling like soup – and all I wanted to do was go and go away.

I could not believe all the blood and I could not believe the car was moving, but mostly I could not believe Gordon still had enough space in his brain to perfectly execute the infamous drum solo on the steering wheel as he cranked a U-turn out of there.

No idea. Gordon had no real idea where he was going but he drove on anyway to Bell Biv Devoe's ‘Poison'. Up President Avenue, through the five-ways roundabout, past Flower Power, around Sylvania Waters, past Paul's Hamburgers and over Tom Ugly's Bridge towards Rockdale. I spewed some blood and white stuff into the empty Moove carton then rolled a brick-thick cigarette, grinning gratitude through cracked teeth at Gordon in the rear-vision mirror.

‘Where's Stu and Courtney, do you reckon?' I asked.

Gordon pulled in to Sans Souci McDonald's for six cheeseburgers, two thickshakes and a stack of napkins. Then we took off back towards Cronulla. It was nearly 5 am. Gordon was driving really fast as ‘Why' by Annie Lennox played. She sounded good with the blood and the E – the wavering-ness, the softness, the female cuddle inside this lilting song; warm like breasts on your eyelids. The car went even faster up the incline but then it stopped dead, and Gordon craned around to look at me, patched with bloody napkins, sipping on a thick shake in the back seat.

‘Get out, Cronk.'

‘What?'

‘There's no one on the bridge.' Gordon grinned madly.

The engine was off so we rolled the car to the exact peak on the bridge where the sign exclaimed: WELCOME TO THE SUTHERLAND SHIRE.

Gordon cranked the handbrake and climbed up onto the roof of the T18, hooting and shrieking like a freaked hyena.

‘Get up here, Cronk!'

‘I've been stabbed!'

‘Get up here, the bridge is ours! Captain Cook Bridge!'

I climbed up the tyre and onto the roof, Gordon helping me with the last bit. Soon we were sitting together on top of the car, staring out into Botany Bay where the mariners of this newfound land first sailed in to kill the natives and set up the jails. We were only up there a minute or so before the sun flopped over the edge of the horizon.

‘You know what I miss about being a kid?' Gordon said.

‘What?' I asked, rolling another fag as best I could with all the pain and wind.

‘Being afraid of monsters.'

I nodded, laughing through the smoke that drifted out my nose in perfect plumes.

‘When I was eight, I used to be so scared of monsters, man. I'd think they were coming to get me every time it got dark. And they fucken did sometimes, they came in to my room and they got me. But now. Now I know they're not coming. And it really shits me, man.'

The dreams of children never go too far away. Gordon was clearly talking about his dad, I could feel it, see it, he had that face on, the scrunched and punished face reserved for his father the monster. And Peter
was
a monster; he visited in the night, he surprised and fascinated, he terrified in assaulting bursts, shaking the very foundations of the boy. He killed the house of calm and put a scar on top. But still, Gordon missed him. We all missed our dads, in that time, even when they were actually there.

‘I know,' I said.

We put our arms around each other as the sun shot swiftly up over Snake Island.

‘She really loves you, man,' said Gordon. ‘Courtney, I mean.'

‘Really?' I said. ‘I don't know about that anymore.'

‘I didn't tell her,' Gordon said, squeezing my neck. ‘But I think she'll be cool, we kinda bonded tonight, she's an awesome girl, it's going to be awesome. Living in the ci-taayyyy!' Gordon beamed, high-fiving.

The Sutherland Shire was dead before me, but there was life beyond the horizon, and I wanted it so badly now. I was
so
in love with my life before tonight and the dreams it had gathered in its wake, but slowly and swiftly, in this collection of hours and moments I lost faith. I was already gone, I was already there, I was already someone else, and I had never felt so anxious. I rubbed Gordon's neck with my thumbs but I could not look at him. I just sucked in a whole pile of smoke, spat sideways and told the truth.

‘I fucking hate it here,' I said.

‘Huh?' Gordon replied, bewildered.

‘Cronulla, the Shire, I fucking
hate
it so much!' I punched the roof of Gordon's car with my fist and the sound rang out. My best friend just stared at my face, then down at my ribs, then back up at my face.

‘That's why we're getting out, right?' Gordon asked.

‘I gotta go, man,' I said, shaking my head. ‘I can't fucking breathe here man! I gotta get out.'

‘What are you saying?' Gordon asked, and with such weight.

‘The white cars, the beach, the fear, the Christian fucking conservatives, it's hell on earth here, it's small hell, so
small
. . .'

I started crying, and the words, too, fell out in floods, words I would come to regret for the rest of my life, but for some reason could not hold back on this roof, before this bay, beside this man.

‘You want somewhere with more street life?'

‘It's not just that – it's you, man!' I said. ‘I gotta get the fuck away from all of
you
people! Courtney, Stuart, Mum, Agatha, the shops, the charcoal chicken, the fucking acceptance that life is just
this
. It's the fucking
smallness
of mind!'

‘And let me guess, you're too
big
for it?'

I nodded, and the arrogance inflamed him. He punched me in the bloody wound beneath my ribs then shoved me off the roof of his car. It hurt in jolts, my face and ribs crashing into the asphalt bridge. I felt faint now, and confused, my vision failing in sections.

‘Fuck off then, wonder boy,' Gordon said, crying, looming, above me.

Gordon drove off with a skid, the sound of The Breeders' ‘Cannonball' moving away, fading off on that bouncy baseline.

I finally got to my feet, blood pouring out the side of me. I dipped my index finger inside myself, and then licked it. My own blood, it tasted so sweet. The sun was up now and Botany Bay was busy with boats and windsurfers. I heard a truck. I held my arm out. I needed to go to Sutherland Hospital immediately; I was born there after all.

The next few weeks were a torturous brand of limbo, waiting for our first-round offers to university, then second- and third-round offers. None of us saw much of each other in this period. Stuart went surfing, fucking and para-sailing in Bali, while Gordon seemed to always be working. I saw him a few times, of course, but it was only brief, on our bikes, at Coyotes for a quick beer, or an even quicker jam in the garage where neither of us quite committed to the repertoire. His restless leg was back, and I knew I was the reason. It took years of love and friendship to stop that thing shaking, then just one crazy night, and it had returned.

While Gordon was ignoring me, I was ignoring Courtney. I knew if I saw her all the feelings would come back and I'd rethink my decision to go, and I knew that wouldn't be right: I
had
to go. But still, she kept calling – even Nina called once or twice to ask me over for a fruit whip – but I never called back. I just nodded at Agatha as she delivered the messages and said, ‘yeah, cool, thanks'. And sure, maybe I was a little, or let's call it a lot, embarrassed. And if anything is going to hold a man back, it's that.

So after dozens of unreturned calls Courtney appeared on my front lawn in jeans and a t-shirt, and we walked to McDonald's Caringbah. On the way up Telopea Avenue she picked a rose off a tree and asked me why
I
didn't think to pick it off and give it to her.

‘I simply didn't notice the plant,' I said.

She picked the petals off the thing as we walked, leaving a melodramatic trail of broken romance behind us.

We ate Chicken McNuggets in silence then went to see
Cousins
at the Miranda Greater Union, which starred Ted Danson and Isabella Rossellini, it was kind of a stupid and predictable movie, but I liked how everyone was sleeping with everyone. Towards the middle Courtney and I kissed a bit and I tried to finger her but she said she had her period so we just fixed ourselves up and watched the end. On the home we stopped by McDonald's again and got a sundae – I didn't want one but I got one anyway – and we sat out in the children's play area and ate slowly, watching fat kids rock back and forth on plastic dogs.

‘How are you?' I asked her.

‘Okay,' she said, licking her plastic spoon.

‘Good,' I said. I wished we were outside in the adult area so I could smoke, but instead we were here with the kids and it was all about setting ‘good examples' and bullshit.

‘Why have you been avoiding me?' she said, which was a stupid fucking question, but perhaps the only way in to this.

‘Dunno,' I said. ‘Didn't realise I was.'

‘It was mean, what you said.'

‘Yeah, well.'

‘You can't just say something like that and then go off and not ever call me or anything, I mean you're an intelligent person Neil, but you're so narcissistic, haven't you ever heard of human decency?'

Haven't you ever heard of fuck off?

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I felt stupid.'

‘
You
felt stupid? I was the one called “desperate” and left there on Murray Kirkwood's bedroom floor completely naked!'

I wanted to laugh.

‘Neil? Are you listening to me?' she said, like how Mum would.

‘Yeah,' I said.

‘Then
what
? Anything to say about that night?'

‘If I could have it over again… I would do it differently,' I said and left it there. It was true I would have it over and when I had it over I'd stay home and read
The Celestine Prophecies
instead of going out at all.

‘It's ok. It's just drugs. And timing…'

‘We were pretty smashed.'

‘The Es were strong,' she said, and it was over, all of it forgiven, well at least on the outside.

‘Have you decided?' I asked her, as a blond child spilt his icecream cone and went into a psychotic tantrum beneath the slippery slide.

‘Decided?' she asked, and she sounded so innocent, all the power was mine and I abused it, never looking at her or colouring my voice – just cold – cold and equivocal.

‘University,' I said. ‘Where will you go?'

She didn't say anything for a while. She just stared down into her sundae cup painted where the dregs of gone strawberry ripped up the sides. Then she rose and walked over to the entrance gate, popped the dessert in the bin and returned to her position beside me on the steps.

‘I'm going to Sydney still,' she said, and in her voice there were tears but the tears had a hand on them, pushing them back behind a gate.