My Private Pectus (8 page)

‘Hundred and eighty-three centimetres.'

‘Weight?'

‘Sixty-five kilos.'

‘Say that again.'

‘Sixty-five!' I repeated more forcefully.

He came into the lounge room and planted the calculator in my face. ‘You're low,' he said. ‘Your BMI's nineteen-point-four. You've gotta be between twenty and twenty-four to get in.'

I shrugged. ‘So I'll put on weight. I'll have a big meal beforehand.'

He looked at me, his hands on his hips. ‘We'll just have to keep you training,' he said. ‘Keep you in the team.'

I groaned.

He sat down beside me, as if we were having a fabulous father-and-son moment. So I got up, went back to the dining table and looked up more stuff on the laptop. I wanted to check the medical stipulations. I trawled through pages of information, but couldn't find anything I wanted. They don't want to put anyone off.

I sat back and let reality sink in. Dad had booked me in for a physical in the first weekend of October, the weekend after Gez's eighteenth. I thought this was something I wouldn't have to face until next year. But now, my physical is set even before I finish Year 12. I'm set to join the army—Private Jack. That's me all right: private.

I thought of what Lisa said about the army on that Westfields afternoon and googled to see what she was on about. Sure enough, I found a few sites, but not heaps. There were a few about gay bashings in the US Army, another about sexual assaults on female officers, but what gave me the creeps was a UK site. It had a picture of a bunch of soldiers standing naked around another soldier on the ground—also naked. He was bloody and bruised. Unconscious. He was bashed during an initiation ceremony.

I put a hand on my chest. What would I cop? Imagine if they thought I was a gay like the boys on the footy team think? I wouldn't be unconscious. I'd be dead.

Convinced that Dad was completely engrossed in the footy again, I went onto the Pectus Boyz blog. I wanted some questions answered. I wondered if any of those guys were in the army. I started a new topic: PE and the military. I wanted to put a question out, asking to hear from anyone who had PE and was in the army. But just after I finished writing and was about to send, Dad said, ‘What are you looking at, Jack?' He was out of the couch, peering over my shoulder. ‘Pectus Boyz?' he asked. ‘What's that about?'

‘Nothing!' I said and slammed the screen shut.

‘Your um—' he stuttered, ‘your—' He rested his hands on my shoulders. ‘It's troubling you, isn't it?'

He has always referred my chest as ‘it', as if my PE is something to be disowned. It's virtually three years since he's last seen it. He has no idea how big it's grown. And only now, when there is a possibility it could affect his dreams, does he show an interest.

‘Is it getting worse?' he asked, kneading my shoulder muscles.

‘No.'

He kept standing there. ‘Do you want to show me?'

‘No!'

‘Jack, I think you should.'

‘Why? Don't you believe me?'

‘Course I do.'

‘Then I don't need to show you.'

I got up and went to my room. I lay on my bed and looked at Oscar's greasy business card. Maybe if I went to TAFE next year I could turn the job into an apprenticeship? I wondered how many guys would apply. What kind of stuff did I need to know? I got up and stuck the card to the top of my computer monitor.

In the morning, I gave him a call. He answered with heavy breathing. There was the sound of machinery in the background.

‘I want to apply for the job,' I said.

‘Yeah?' he said.

‘Can I have an interview?' I asked.

‘Send us ya résumé,' he said, followed by more breathing. ‘Listen, mate, I've gotta go. Why don't you call back?' He hung up.

I stared at my mobile then put it down. Maybe Oscar's wasn't such a bright idea after all, I thought. It was the army or bust.

The excitement of tackling The P hasn't exactly filled me with an aura of invincibility. In fact, right now I'm crapping my pants. We're at our first game and it's against Cavendish Road State High School. Those guys are red-hot. Cav Road has a Rugby League Centre of Excellence. At St Phil's we've got Maloney and Dad. Speaks for itself, really. We're gonna get murdered.

I'm on the run-on team, not even the bench. Dad can't shut up about it. He's so excited about it he assembled the frame of the bird aviary in just over a day. He dragged me down to Charlie the Hoarder's for hinges, a sheet of corrugated iron and more wire mesh. I thought about inviting Sam, but chickened out.

Getting off the bus, I look across the oval. The Cav Road guys are there, stretching, doing passing drills and grubber kicks. They're not that big. After all, they're Cav Road's lowest grade team. It's not like St Phil's plays first division.

Dad pulls up nearby in the Pissan. He gets out and without shutting the door he makes a beeline for me. He wraps an arm over my slouched shoulders. ‘I know it's only your first game for St Philip's,' he says, ‘but as long as you get stuck in and have a go, you'll do me proud.'

‘Sure, Dad,' I say, knowing full well he'll only be proud if I play well. It'll have nothing to do with how hard I try.

As a team, we saunter across the car park, trying to look tough, but we can't be doing a good job because the Cav Road guys point and snigger. And it turns out that they aren't small at all—they're big. Real big. I hate it when it works like that: harmless at a distance, killers up close. Like paddling out into the surf and facing the breakers.

I spot one mangy guy who's staring at us. He's got facial hair, is even receding a bit, or maybe he just pulls his hair when he's angry. He must be angry a lot. His nose is flat as and I wonder if all the breaks have come from footy or fights. He shoves a black mouthguard into his mouth and chews.

Dad gees us up before the game as Maloney stands nearby, keeping watch. ‘Do the basics,' he says. ‘Complete your sets, wrap the ball up. Don't miss any tackles.' The boys nod, lapping it up.

Gez whispers, ‘How you feeling?'

‘Bit nervous,' I say. ‘Did you see that guy over there?' I nod in the direction of the mouthguard eater.

Gez nods. ‘Played against him last year. Lowlife. You gotta watch him.'

After Dad finishes, he comes over to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Good luck,' he says.

‘Thanks, Dad.'

‘Just try your hardest,' he says.

‘No worries.'

Gez plays in the centre and The P's at five-eighth. From that position he can control the game. Steve's at lock, which is in the forward line. Cuppas is prop, which is normally the position for the biggest forward, so it suits Cuppas well. I'm at full-back. Like Hauffy, whoever he was.

My first half is a blinder. I catch bombs, put on a try-saving tackle, and run hard whenever I get the ball. But these Cav Road guys aren't like their A-team counterparts. They're sloppy with their passes, lazy with their tackles. A few of us get nailed, but we make a few breaks, score a few tries.

It's near half-time when I get under a bomb on our try line. The ball goes high, it swirls in the breeze. Then it descends. I hear the opposition running in.

‘Keep your eyes on the ball!' Dad yells.

I steady my feet, and ready my hands. The ball plummets into my grasp and then I'm off. I dodge one guy then run straight into the path of their mangy, mouthguard-eating winger. He leaps, wraps himself around my chest. His feet come off the ground. I stoop under his weight. Then he reaches for the back of my collar and somersaults me forward as his feet hit the grass. Somehow, I end up on my back, with his knee in my throat. He smiles and his mouthguard drops out onto my face with a string of saliva.

I get up and play the ball then promise myself to get him back.

Come half-time, everything is electric. No one can sit down. We all jump about, pat each other's backs like we've won the game. Gez is laughing, The P is preaching to Steve about the try he scored. We're eighteen points up and even Dad's looking cocky as all else. He sits us down, tells us to keep up the effort.

‘There's still plenty in the game,' he warns, but it washes over us. We're up and we know it.

‘We've kept 'em tryless,' someone says and we all give a proud grunt.

‘See if you can keep it that way,' Dad says and there's more shouting and back slapping.

Dad tells Gez to keep up the effort, tells The P he's doing nothing wrong. He whispers something to Cuppas, which gets him grinning. Then he says to me, ‘Jack, I want you to stay deeper in defence, especially late in the tackle count, and run harder at the defence when you return the ball. Don't pussyfoot around, just go for it.' Screw him, I think, I'm doing just fine.

But come the second half, Cav Road plays nothing like they did during the first. Whatever spread they copped from their coach seems to have worked. They hit their targets when they pass, kick well, and run fiercely at our defence. We get tired. Get sloppy. They score a couple of tries out wide and soon the score's 18-12.

‘Dig deep!' The P keeps shouting. ‘Dig deep!' and he tells us where to stand in defence. He points at me and screams, ‘Get back! Go deep!' but I pretend I can't hear him and stay up in the defensive line. I'm after that mangy winger. When he gets the ball I'm going to bolt out of the line and nail him. Just like I nailed The P.

Then they send it wide. The winger gets the ball. I charge out from the line, ready to kill him. He sees me and prepares to pass as I drive into him, but not before he gets the ball away. It goes in-field to their centre, who belts straight through the gap I left in our defensive line. He scores.

Dad walks along the sideline as I head back to our goal posts to join the team huddle. ‘What are you up to, Jack? What did I say about staying deep?' But I jog away and join the team, only to cop more.

‘You think we're a charity, eh, Sticks?' The P says when I arrive. ‘You think we're here to give the game away?'

All the boys stare at me.

‘We're still up,' I say, feeling guilty as all hell.

Even Gez has a shot: ‘Just stay in position, Sticks.'

Cav Road converts and levels the score.

From the sideline, Dad makes some changes. He puts Cuppas on the bench for a breather and shifts me out to the wing, as far out of the action as he can.

But it's not long before I have a chance to redeem myself. Cav Road kicks the ball long and deep. I run back and gather. I step around one guy, then palm off the next and am left with seventy metres of open pasture to the try line. Tucking the ball under my armpit I go for it. My legs start slowly. I can hear a Cav Road player breathing behind me, but once I wind up, I'm off. The boys shout and scream from behind. ‘Go, Sticks! Go!' Even Dad is jumping by the sideline and waving me on. The boys on the bench rise. They shout and cheer.

‘Left!' someone yells. ‘Man on, left!'

I look over my shoulder and see that mangy winger coming for me. He's quick and gaining fast. I look up. The try line's still thirty metres away. I'm not gonna make it.

‘Go, Jack, go!' Dad shouts.

Twenty metres.

I look at the guy again. I am gonna make it! I am gonna make it!

I cross the line and plant the ball. I punch the air, jump and spin around. The boys are yelling, they're pointing; they're jumping and screaming my name. ‘Jack! Jack!'

I raise my arms in victory. ‘Jack The Hauff McDermott,' I yell.

But that mangy winger picks the ball up from my feet and starts bolting back.

‘Hey!' I yell, but who cares? I scored. We'll have the kick for conversion to wrap up the game. But he keeps on running.

‘Go, Jack!' Dad screams. He's waving his arms, completely distraught.

What's the big deal? I look at my team-mates and no one's watching me anymore. They're chasing that winger and he's carving them up like butter. Stepping here, darting there, weaving his way to the other end.

‘BUT I SCORED!' I scream at the ref.

‘Get down there!' Dad yells, pointing to the other end of the field. ‘Get down there!'

‘But I scored!' I yell back.

Cuppas gets up from the bench and screams at me, ‘You're at the ten-metre line, ya knob!'

I turn around. Sure enough, not ten metres away is the try line, begging me to cross it. Only I haven't got the ball. That mangy winger has scored at the other end.

On the bus on the way home, the boys treat me like scum, like that skanky butter you scrape off your knife after spreading your toast—crumby, unwanted. I sit near the front, trying to ignore the comments from behind. The P's on the back seat with Steve and Cuppas. Even Gez is back there, probably having a laugh or a whinge about what I did.

‘If it wasn't for his old man, Sticks wouldn't even be on the team,' The P says, deliberately loud enough for everyone to hear.

‘Mummy's boy!' someone calls out.

I turn around, even though I don't want to know who said it, but I don't want to just sit here and cop the abuse either.

Cuppas stands up and points at me. ‘He's not a mummy's boy. He's a gay daddy's boy!'

The P cracks up, even claps his hands, which is a cue for everyone else to laugh. ‘Imagine if Sticks ever got with a chick,' he says. ‘He'd stop at the undies and reckon he got laid!'

‘The same way he plays his footy!' Steve yells.

Everybody erupts, even Gez is grinning. Maloney, sitting across the aisle from me, is going, ‘Boys. Boys. I think that's enough.'

Useless.

I turn around and stare out the window, but then I see Dad driving the Pissan next to the bus. His window is down and he rests an arm on the door. He stares dead ahead. I replay the look he had on his face as I sprinted down the field. It was awesome. At first he looked anxious, then exuberant. Then his expression went to complete despair, like I'd broken his heart.

‘You gonna give him a wave, Sticks?' The P screams. I feel caged.

‘Trust you to do that, Jack,' Dad says when I get home. ‘Do everything right then screw it up at the last moment.' There's a bitter undertone to his voice. I push past him. ‘What happened?' he asks. ‘Did your brain explode?'

‘It was a mistake.'

He follows me to the kitchen table, Knight Rider behind him. ‘Maybe you're not a finisher,' he says and laughs cruelly at his own joke. I can see he has a migraine by the dull menace in his eyes. ‘I mean you didn't want to join in the first place did you.' It's not a question, it's a statement.

I take my bag off and dump it on the tiles.

‘What are you doing?' he asks.

‘Dumping my bag,' I say.

‘Not there you're not.'

I look at his gear all over the table: the laptop, the form guide, an open packet of chips. I collapse on a chair. ‘You're pretty messy,' I tell him.

‘You lost us the game,' he says, ignoring me.

‘What about the bombs I caught, that try I saved?'

He dismisses me with a grunt. ‘Maybe you're just not up to playing footy,' he says.

‘Like you weren't for the army,' I say.

His nostrils flare. The muscles in his neck turn into sinewy ropes. I jump up and the chair clatters behind me. He raises a fist above his head; the veins in his forearms bulge. I dart around the table. I see the white of Dad's eyes, can make out faint red capillaries. Knight Rider barks as if it's a game.

‘Don't you ever!' Dad roars, spit flying. ‘Don't you ever undermine what I did in the army and what I've done for you!'

Knight Rider keeps yapping.

‘There are times, Jack, there are times I wish you—' Then he trails off and mumbles the rest so I can't hear it. But I've got a good idea what he said.

‘That you let me go with Mum instead?'

‘That's not what I said.'

‘I think it might have been,' I say. ‘Admit it, Dad. I'm not good enough for you. Even though you're the one who sits on your butt day after day, I'm the one who's not good enough.'

He points at me. His face is red; there are web-like veins in his cheeks. But with the table between us, I take a gamble and keep on going. ‘Look at you,' I say, the words dripping from my tongue. ‘You're the failure.'

‘Come here!' he yells, reaching across the table. I step back. He can't reach. His nostrils flare again and narrow with his breath. He plants both hands on the table, and glares at me, his jaw tense. His left eye twitches. Then he drops his head and stands back. He points at me once more. ‘So I'm not good enough, eh? You're the superior one.' Slowly he turns and takes some pills from the cupboard. He throws them back without water. He clenches his teeth as he gulps. His Adam's apple bobs. He takes some more, watching me as he swallows.

I step out from behind the table. Slowly, I make my way past him, trying my best to hide my fear. But when I get to the hallway, I can hear his footsteps, feel his breath on my neck. My hair tingles.

‘It's not all about you, Jack!' he roars.

I dive into my room and slam the door.

But later that evening, when I get up for dinner, all the lights are off. I find Dad lying on the couch in front of the TV, the screen dimmed so low there are only shadows. There's a glass of water on the floor and a box of migraine drugs. With Dad, it rarely works. He ends up spending the whole night in the lounge room. I know because I find him still there in the morning. Only difference is, there's a bucket in case he has to puke.

When I get breakfast, I deliberately make as much noise as I can. I rattle the cutlery in the drawer, bang bowls together in the sink.

I walk to school feeling like I've gained just a little bit of revenge—that whatever he makes me suffer, he'll get back in return. So I'm all smiles when I get to the school quadrangle and see Gez under the jacaranda talking to Lisa and her friend Catherine. He calls me over, and of course I scurry across. I stand opposite the girls—each of them in a uniform they've grown out of. Their skirts no longer reach their knees, but pause in a region that neither breaks nor complies with school rules. The stitching over their breasts is tight, threatening to tear apart. I stand in my baggy shirt, ignoring the permanent ache in my shoulders and try miserably to puff out my chest, but not too much to make my PE obvious. I feel great in their company. Gez smiles and laughs and talks with his hands, grows taller under the light of their attention. But they never look at me, don't even say ‘hi'. Before long, all I can do is try not to stare at their tits, and wonder if anyone would ever admire me in the same way they do Gez—the same way I admire him. And as I come to terms with the fact it will never happen, I see Sam sitting at a table nearby, resting her head on her hands, listening to her iPod. I drop my eyes to my chest. My shirt caves in as if being drawn into a vacuum. I resume my hunch and walk away.

‘I'll catch you later,' Gez calls.

The girls say nothing.

Sam looks up at me and smiles. And for the rest of the day she's all I can think about.

When I go home I stop at her street and look at the houses. I'd like to know which one is hers. Then I take a deep breath and head for home. I'm not falling for her—that's what I tell myself—but like it or not, that's exactly what's happening. I'm falling for the fat girl none of the guys like and I don't want to admit it.