Dad drops me off at Shadi’s house. This house with all its Greek pillars and marble, looking like it should be in Europe somewhere, not in Merrylands. Shadi’s younger sister Jen opens the door and shows me to the living room like she’s been doing for ever even though she knows I know the place. I go and sit in there, with all its neon-coloured daisies on the cushions and bright red leather sofas.
Jen is playing with the colour and tone buttons on their giant TV, just trying to get it perfect. ‘Better or worse?’ she keeps saying to me like an eye doctor. She’s got her hair tied up with blue and gold ribbons but she hasn’t tied it up real good and her hair is falling all over her face.
‘Better?’ I say but I’m not so sure. Shadi’s mum’s into those Jesus heads that light up and rotate and the pictures of the Virgin Mary with the back lighting. Between the corner of the living room where she keeps these things on a table and the red leather sofas and the white, white tiles, there’s too much colour in front of me and everything is getting all mixed up.
‘Better or worse?’ Jen says, looking at me real hard like she wants to make sure I’m not lying.
I can hear Shadi in the kitchen with his mum. He’s saying ‘Yes, Mum,’ again and again and she’s giving him a list of the things we’re allowed to do and not to do while she and Shadi’s dad go out tonight.
Shadi finally makes it into the living room but his mum’s still talking at him. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ I hear her shout from the kitchen.
‘Got it,’ Shadi yells before he drops down on the couch so hard he almost knocks me off. He’s got his Eels scarf on and his Eels beanie, even though it’s getting a bit too warm for that now. In his right hand he’s got a long blow-up balloon in blue and gold and he’s using it to whack Jen who’s lying on her stomach five inches from the TV going ‘Shadi, Shadi, stop it.’
Shadi’s mum walks through the living room with his dad. She’s got this bright green dress on and she says, ‘How do I look boys?’ And we shrug our shoulders and she rolls her eyes and Shadi’s dad looks at the TV like he’s drooling and you know he doesn’t want to go out.
And then, at last, they’re out the door and Shadi and Jen are in the cupboards pulling out homemade pastries and biscuit tins and Coke. Jen arranges the goods on the living-room table in front of the TV like we are going to a picnic.
Shadi turns on the plasma and unplugs all his mother’s glowing statues of the Virgin and the rotating Jesus heads so they don’t cast any images on the screen and then we’re ready and waiting to watch our own gods on the football field.