My older brother Doug is a boring bastard whose only interests are cars, doing mods to cars, and reading car magazines, but I’ve started liking him a lot more since he got his driver’s license a few months ago.
He always wants an excuse to drive somewhere, so I’ve been bumming lifts off him every chance I get. For the last four weeks we’ve spent our Friday nights in the Northgate Shopping Centre car park, out the front of Hungry Jack’s. All the revheads in town gather here each weekend, like a sacred ritual. They stand around looking under each other’s hoods, checking out neons and testing out subwoofers, then as it gets later they move to the back of the car park and start drinking piss and smoking some good stuff and hiding it when the coppers pass by.
I wouldn’t say it to anyone else, but I’m not that into cars. I like going fast, but I don’t get the total obsession with machines. The whole Assembly of the Revheads really isn’t my scene, but it gives me a chance to see Richelle, since her dad won’t let her stay the night at my place.
Each night’s the same: me and Doug drive into town, pick up Richelle and Doug’s mate Benno on the way, hit up the bottle-o and then chill most of the night at Northgate. Then we drop Richelle home, crash in Benno’s shed and head home in the morning.
This Friday night, the crowd in the car park is bigger than usual as we roll up in Doug’s ute. There’s about a dozen cars. A lot of people I don’t know. Some dickheads. Some people I do know. Spud, with his shirt off already; Westy, arm still in the sling from when he fell out of his moving Audi two weeks ago. Rocky, the drummer guy with long hair and tatts, and his skanky moll of a girlfriend whose name I don’t know but whose infected belly-button ring I have seen at way too close range. Razor’s dero cousin, Sean, rocks up with some of his mates. And there’s the life of the party: Robbie Calogero, that loser Zeke’s way cooler older bro, looking like a classic John Travolta-type greaser, with his hot blonde girlfriend, Natalie.
Doug and Benno get out of the car. Richelle goes to follow, but I grab her wrist.
‘I told you I’m not ready, Hammer,’ she says, wincing as if my grip on her wrist is too tight. It totally isn’t.
‘It’s not about that, babe,’ I say. I reach into the pouch on the back of the driver’s seat and pull out the green and white plastic bag. ‘I bought ya something nice.’
Richelle’s pencilled eyebrow folds into itself. ‘Oh, really? The first time you ever buy me anything, and it’s the week after I tell you I’m not ready to sleep with you. Do you think I was born yesterday?’
Dammit. She’s so smart. It’s like she’s always a step ahead of me, mentally. I hate it. It’s like playing footy against someone who always knows which way the ball’s gonna bounce.
‘Just open it,’ I say.
She sighs, takes a deliberately small sip of her guava cruiser, unwraps the plastic bag and opens the furry green box.
‘A necklace,’ she says flatly.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Are you trying to be gross? Meghan told me what you said to Razor. I know you guys have this whole joke about how you want to give me a pearl necklace. You’re disgusting.’
‘Nah, that wasn’t the idea! There’s not even a pearl on it!’ I say. ‘I just thought you might want something nice to wear to the Summer Dance.’
‘How much did it cost you?’
‘Twenty-nine dollars.’
Richelle closes the box. ‘Let me return it and pick something I want to wear, and then you can take me to the Summer Dance.’
‘But you already said yes to coming with me.’
‘So? I’m allowed to change my mind whenever I want. You have to keep up with me.’
‘I can totally keep up with you,’ I say, winking at her.
Richelle takes a deliberately bigger sip of her guava cruiser. ‘Dating you is like being trapped in a backyard with one of those stupid Jack Russells that want to just hump everything.’
‘Thanks,’ I say with a grin. I stretch my arm out and reach over her tanned shoulders. She’s wearing a halter top and her surfer-girl skin is exposed. She lets me touch it, but as I start tracing my finger down the soft slope of her arm, she wriggles.
‘Sprung!’ a female voice calls, as the door on Richelle’s side of the car opens. Cigarette smoke from Robbie and the other boys wafts in as Natalie leans in. ‘Did I interrupt a dirty backseat shag?’
‘Yep,’ I say, in unison with Richelle’s loud, ‘No.’
‘Is this meathead bothering you, hun?’ Natalie crawls over the seat on all-fours, her breath reeking of ginger wine as she bumps her jaw against Richelle’s. ‘I can take him out if you want.’ She flexes some non-existent biceps. ‘Check that out. I’ve been doing cardio boxing with Spud down at the gym.’
Richelle puts her finger and thumb together and squeezes Natalie’s spaghetti arms.
‘Oh wow!’ she blags. ‘Talk about guns!’
Nothing makes me want to vomit more than listening to two chicks compliment each other.
‘Or do you want me to sick Robbie on him like at the semifinal last year?’ Natalie offers, giggling like she just delivered a massive burn. She’s usually more straight-laced than this – I’ve never seen her so maggoted. ‘Don’t forget, Robbie’s the only one faster than you on the footy field, Hammer.’
‘He’s faster, not better,’ I say, giving her one of those grins that tells people you’re not really grinning at all.
She leans over me, and for a second I think she’s gonna spew in my lap. But instead she winds my window down and bellows, ‘Robbie, come on! You said we’d do it together!’
My car door opens and a massive, meaty hand claps down over my eyes.
‘Guess who, maaaaate!’ Robbie shouts in my ear. I cringe as his wet finger enters my ear canal and wriggles around like a snake having a seizure. ‘Does it feel nice to have my cock inside you again, baby?’ he says to me in a porn star voice.
‘Ew,’ Richelle and Natalie say at the same time.
‘Mate, you’re a weirdo,’ I tell Robbie, taking his hand off my eyes. But damn, he’s a funny fucker.
‘Be serious, Robbie,’ Natalie says. ‘Go on. Ask him.’
Robbie blows smoke out through his nose. It looks sick.
‘Okay, okay,’ he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Hammer, mate, wanna be my groomsman?’
It takes me a second to click what groomsman means. Before I can answer, Richelle shrieks in my ear and throws her arms around Natalie.
‘Oh my God, of course!’ she cries. She glances at me like we just won the lotto. Her smile is bigger than I’ve seen it for weeks. ‘Oh wow, I’ve never been a bridesmaid before.’
‘Yeah, sure, man,’ I tell Robbie. ‘Thanks for asking me.’
‘Awesome,’ he says, taking a drag on his smoke. ‘Thanks, bro. Nattie will sort out your suit stuff.’
‘Who else you got in the line up?’
‘In the squad, you mean,’ Robbie says, with a wink. ‘Spud’s best man. You’re gonna be a groomsman, same as my little bro, Zeke. He’s in your year, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah, seen him around.’
‘But it’s only two weeks away!’ Richelle says. Her eyes turn quizzical. ‘How come you’re asking so late? Did someone else pull out?’
‘Imogen,’ Natalie explains. ‘And Bailey pulled out as groomsman, since they’re a package deal, you know. Imo’s mum had a huge falling out with my mum over the whole Charlie Roth thing.’
It’s instantaneous: the second Charlie’s name is mentioned, I feel aggravated. Why do people have to keep going on about him?
‘Really? What happened?’ Richelle asks.
‘Just dumb family stuff,’ Natalie says. ‘Imo’s mum is Kevin Stratton’s sister, and my mum plays netball with Alicia Stratton, so everyone’s taking sides in them splitting up. It’s ugly stuff.’
‘Can you believe he got with Charlie? Gross.’
‘Gross for both of them,’ Natalie says. ‘I just feel so sorry for Alicia, like, people are blaming her for her marriage falling apart, it’s such bullshit.’ She pauses, eyes bulging with restrained gossip. ‘Even worse than that – we booked Rocky’s band for the wedding entertainment.’
‘Isn’t Charlie in that band?’
‘Exactly. But we already put the deposit down. I don’t think we can get around it, even though my mum wants us to change it. But Rocky’s such a good mate and they need the gig. And you know what, it’s my wedding, not my mum’s.’
‘Definitely not mine,’ Robbie mutters to me. ‘I’m right out.’
I chuckle enough to stop him trying to joke any further, but my mind is caving in on itself and I can barely hear the rest of the conversation – not just in that moment, but for the rest of the night. I’m physically present but my brain is hiding.
Later, when a few people have left to go to the pub or house parties, I walk Richelle around the back of the shopping centre, where the dumpster and delivery entrances are, swigging from my last stubby of beer.
‘No,’ she says, as my hand snakes beneath the waistband of her denim short shorts.
‘Aw, come ON!’ I shout, throwing my stubby to the asphalt.
It shatters. Lager fizzes into a silent puddle.
‘What the hell was that?’ Richelle says, deathly quiet.
‘Come off it!’ I say. ‘As if you don’t know. What’s the deal, are you just gonna tease me forever? We’ve been together for three months and you’re just being a frigid bitch.’
I’m not too drunk to notice the beams of ice explode from her eyes. ‘Wow. For some reason, I got the stupid idea I was actually your girlfriend. I didn’t realise you thought I was just another one of your skanks.’
‘Girlfriend?’ I say. ‘You wish. You’re just some chick, Rich.’
‘Get Doug to drive me back home. Right now.’
‘Sure,’ I snap. ‘Since you never chip in for fuel money, how about you suck my dick as payment? Least you could do.’
We lean against opposite windows on the car ride back to her place. Doug and Benno are rabbiting on about some second-hand car that Spud is selling off. I don’t think they notice what’s happened between us.
We crash in Benno’s shed. I flop onto the wafer-thin mattress with my head spinning. After Doug and Benno pass out, I find myself staring at Benno’s face, which is faintly lit up by the electric blue light of the bug zapper. I wonder what would happen if I reached over and touched him? Would he flinch, or sleep through it?
My hand slides itself along the mattress until it reaches Benno’s stomach. His belly feels warm, even through the cotton.
Suddenly, he coughs and starts to roll over. Electricity sparks down my arm and my heart starts to pound like someone just zapped me with a defibrillator.
I keep my hands to myself after that, and my shell-shocked heartbeat chases me into sleep.
Our Saturday morning ritual goes like this:
‘Oi, fuck-knuckle,’ Doug says. ‘Don’t tell Mum I’m still smoking, or I’ll break your legs.’
He flicks his cigarette butt onto the dead grass on the foreshore.
‘I think she already knows, dipshit,’ I tell him. I don’t care. My heart is still like a V8 supercar with no brakes.
Doug pulls out a can of deodorant and sprays it all over his torso with the ferocity of someone trying to kill a redback with a can of Mortein.
‘Chuck us a hash brown,’ he says, starting the motor.
We drive out of town towards Greenough. Mum and Dad bought a house in a new estate in the middle of nowhere a few years ago, so it’s a decent trek back home. We pass the suburbs by the beach, with their new subdivisions and mini-excavators abandoned by labourers for the weekend. Past the sheet-white sand dunes that look like someone dumped half the Sahara right next to the Indian Ocean. Past the homesteads and paddocks finally, out into the middle of farmland, sheep on one side and bright yellow canola fields on the other.
Nothing says “home” to me like the sight of that unbroken stretch of yellow against the cloudless blue of the Greenough sky.
When me and Doug come in through the sliding door into the slate-tiled kitchen, Mum’s standing like a statue at the bench. Her mobile’s in one hand, sedan keys in the other. I always seem to find her right before she leaves the house. Her blouses are always buttoned up practically to the neck, like she’s trying to keep her body from escaping.
‘I’m heading into town, boys. Need anything?’
‘I already told you I need new footy boots,’ I say, opening the fridge and grabbing a yoghurt. ‘The fluoro ones I showed you at Johnno’s.’
‘That’s a want, not a need.’ The sedan keys jangle against the doorknob as she turns it. The door shuts. The sedan starts, and leaves.
Dad stumbles into the kitchen, sunburnt gut hanging just a few millimetres below the line of his navy singlet.
‘She finally gone?’ he grumbles. ‘Gee whiz, boys, tell ya what, chasin’ the chicks seems all fine and dandy ’til ya get stuck with one! Eighteen years now. You get less for murder these days.’
Doug peers out the window to make sure Mum’s sedan is gone, then grabs his smokes and high-tails it back outside for a durry. As if she hasn’t already worked it out by now. You can smell ciggies days after they’re out, I reckon.
I open my yoghurt and lick the lid, but before I can tuck in, Dad goes, ‘You shouldn’t be eating that.’
‘Yoghurt’s healthy, Dad.’
‘Bollocks. Greek yoghurt’s healthy. That shit’s full of sugar and fat.’
I grab my spoon and take a big scoop, but Dad grabs my wrist. The yoghurt plops onto the slate.
Dad’s breath smells of old bacon as he breathes close to my face. ‘You think this doesn’t matter, son, but it does. When they come scouting for draft picks, they’re not gonna take the tubby kid who’s been digging into snacks every other day. Did I ever tell you what Dennis Denton told me on my first day with East Fremantle?’
‘A champion’s body isn’t built in the gym, it’s built in the kitchen.’
‘So if you already remember, why are you being a fat fuck? I can tell you now I will personally tell them not to fucking draft ya if ya aren’t at your peak, and at the moment you’re looking pretty damn pathetic. Do ya wanna get drafted or not?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then put the bloody spoon down, bud. I’ll make ya a protein shake. I was making one anyway.’
I don’t argue because I know he’s right. I was just being weak and undisciplined. Sport isn’t easy: it’s hard work. I know that. And I’m willing to do it. If I’m gonna get drafted like Dad did – if I’m ever gonna have a chance of being the leading goal kicker in the WAFL like he was – then I need to get serious.
‘How was last night in town?’ Dad asks, scooping powdery whey isolate protein into a shaker. ‘Cop a root?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Ha! Good man!’ He sticks the shaker under the tap. ‘Who with?’
‘Richelle.’
‘She finally put out?’
‘Yeah. She let me finger her in the car. Then I nailed her behind Hungry Jack’s.’
Dad chuckles. ‘You’ve always been a lot more like me than Doug is,’ he says, shaking the plastic container. ‘Mate, when I was your age, I was drowning in pussy. Drowning in it. Enjoy it while it lasts, because once you’re old and past it like me the chicks don’t wanna know ya anymore. These are your best fucking years. Enjoy ’em, ya know?’ He slides the shaker across the bench to me. ‘There ya go. That’s how ya make a champion.’
‘Cheers, Dad.’
‘Just one thing,’ Dad says, preparing his own shake. ‘When you’re rooting around, make sure you put on a goddamn condom. Don’t want any of these birds getting pregnant and fucking up your life. Trust me.’