Any second now, this square-shouldered barmaid is going to come over and tell me I’ll have to leave if I don’t have parents or adult guardians with me, as the Batavia Tavern is a licensed establishment. Rocky and Hannah better not stand me up. If that’s their plan, I’m going to rain hell down on them for the rest of their lives. I’ve never wanted to hurt friends as much as I want to hurt them right now.
‘Hey, hun, you got ID?’ the barmaid asks briskly, leaning against the bar with authority.
‘No,’ I say. Wearily. ‘I’m sixteen. I’m the guitarist with Acid Rose. Oliver lets us meet here to talk about gigs.’
Her glossed lips reflect the light as she purses them. ‘Oliver’s told me to kick out any kids who come in here without ID.’
I death stare her back. ‘Oliver told me to namecheck him if any waitresses get too big for their boots,’ I say. ‘Ask him. I think he’s still out the back.’
She scowls and leaves. She won’t bother me again.
I sit and watch the footy half-heartedly. There are a few studs on the screen. I don’t like the big muscle-bound meatheads footy usually attracts – too much muscle, and too much of it between the ears – but some of the younger players are hotties. There’s one forward with swept-aside hair and a full sleeve of sailor tattoos who I could get behind.
It always surprises me how homoerotic footy really is. If I were into these kinds of guys, it would be like softcore porn: watching them sweat and wrestle and compete and punch and get all up in each others’ faces with aggression and macho rage. Those tight-fitting jumpers. The short shorts.
Okay, so, maybe I’m a little bit into footy players. They’re still guys, after all.
I send another message to the Acid Rose group chat. Hannah sees the message and doesn’t reply. Rocky doesn’t even see it.
The barmaid comes back and stares through me with contempt. I call her over and order a lemon, lime and bitters. She glowers at me as she stirs the Angostura into the fizzing lemonade.
‘Thanks, Rachel,’ I say, reading her name badge. I take a satisfied sip. ‘Wow, you know, that tastes really bitter, doesn’t it?’
‘Bite me,’ Rachel snarls, turning her back and taking her square shoulders to the other side of the bar.
I drink my LLB. Watch lazily as my tattooed full-forward takes a mark but then shanks the kick. Check the group chat: Rocky’s seen my message, too, now – but no reply from either of them. They’ve just left me on ‘read’. Weak shits. I shred my paper coaster into little strips on the bar.
As the sun sets, the cruisy beer garden vibe gives way to the Saturday night partygoers. At about seven, a flock of five farm boys rock up in their tight denim and dress shoes and newly-pressed shirts. Two of them are wearing Akubras. One of them sports a room-shattering mullet. One has a beard that would make Ned Kelly weep with envy.
And one of them is a tall, straight-backed, blue-eyed bloke with fucked-up country-boy teeth.
Matt.
My pulse chases itself.
Last night with him, in the car at the wharf, was the most exciting night of my entire life. I’d been planning to text him after I was done with Rocky and Hannah and try to meet him again.
It was only one night and one conversation, but it was also one kiss.
My first.
I don’t want to think too much about my first kiss with Matt. It was perfect, and I’m scared if I let my mind stray back to it I’ll overthink it.
But that doesn’t stop me wanting to see him again.
I’d been glancing at his message on my phone all day. I’d sent him a warm:
Hey Matt, this is Charlie from the wharf. Great meeting ya. Give me a call sometime! X
Plus a whole bunch of emojis that accurately represented the incredible moment we’d shared. Lots of smiley faces. And a winky face, for good measure. I’d toyed with sending him the eggplant and peach emojis but opted against it: I didn’t want to look like a total slut right away. Let him find that out in his own time.
His response?
Cheers bro. Matt here.
Plus one shaka emoji.
Like, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. On one hand, you could read that as him being utterly uninterested in me beyond the one hook up. I’d definitely lurched to that school of thought a few dozen times during the day. On the other hand, maybe it’s really sweet. He’s a no-nonsense rural boy and he probably never uses emojis anyway so maybe it was special that I even got one. And I like how he thought it was necessary to text back and tell me his name when I’d already used it in my text.
I watch the bunch of country boys as they form a scrum around the bar. Rachel’s square shoulders slice through the air as she approaches them, but this time she has a smile on her face.
‘My favourite Northampton boys!’ she calls, reaching for a pint glass. ‘Matty Jones, the cricket superstar of the north, fresh from demolishing the Chapman Valley boys! What’s the occasion tonight?’
‘Leo’s nineteenth!’ Matt booms. ‘Tonight, we’re going for a Troughy!’
His voice is so different to how he spoke to me last night. Rough and blokey, but with his young face it’s like watching a kid try on his dad’s suits, with the sleeves draped over the wrist. I didn’t know he was a gun cricketer.
Matt’s mates all chorus their approval and Rachel starts pouring the first round.
A Trough is what the Batavia calls getting through every single beer on tap in one night. There are sixteen of them. The story goes that everyone who tries it ends up chundering in the trough out back by the end of the night.
So much noise comes from the Northampton boys as they wait for their beer: every laugh is boisterous; every swear word lands with punch; every pat on the back claps with force. There’s so much energy in their bodies, like they’re modern day cowboys riding into town for a big night at the saloon.
I know Matt probably won’t want to chat with me while he’s with his buds, so I keep my eye trained on him, trying to get his attention for a quick, cool-guy nod. But he doesn’t look back. At first I figure it’s just bad luck, but after the other boys start glancing at the footy on the big screen and he doesn’t follow suit, I realise he’s actively looking in the other direction.
The Northampton boys grab their first pints and herd themselves past me. Fuck it, I think.
‘Hey, dude,’ I call to Matt as he passes.
For a second, his face spasms, like I just tasered him. Then it becomes blank, expressionless, as he moves as one with his mates: a block of granite among a cliff face.
‘Hey,’ he says, without looking at me. Bloke voice. He passes me with his mates, and then grabs one of them round the shoulders. ‘Check it out, Leo! Rusling’s gonna get his first goal ever. Told you he’d be a superstar.’
‘Who cares,’ Leo says. ‘It’s just pre-season bullshit.’
‘Hey, I’ve got a multi riding on this,’ Matt says, sipping his beer.
I tear my gaze away from them. Maybe it was a dumb fantasy, but I thought he would’ve at least given me a nod back. Maybe a wink, when nobody was looking.
‘Alright,’ a female voice beside me says, ‘let’s get this over with.’
Rocky and Hannah have finally showed up. Hannah’s wearing a giant bottle-green hoodie that clashes with the skanky green stripe in her matted, oily hair. Rocky sports a backwards cap and a new white tank top that hugs his muscled chest in all the right places: he looks like a backup dancer for Ariana Grande. I used to think he was hot, but the aloof smirk on his face today makes him ugly.
‘Oh, hey guys, you’re totally forgiven for keeping me waiting for forty-five minutes,’ I say, brushing the paper remains of the coaster off the bar. ‘Thanks so much for saying sorry.’
‘I don’t think I’m the one who needs to say sorry,’ Hannah says. ‘My neighbour told me you took my bike.’
‘So what?’ I say, putting my hands behind my head. ‘I brought it back. You never would’ve known it was gone if he hadn’t dobbed.’
‘Look,’ Hannah says, ‘me and Rocky have been talking, and we think you should bow out of the wedding gig.’
It feels like she just shot little bullets of ice into my beating heart.
‘I thought you guys decided we were going on hiatus anyway.’
‘After our last two booked gigs are done, yeah,’ Hannah says quickly. ‘But you really can’t be at that one.’
‘Why should I bow out? I’m lead guitarist. You need me.’ The words are tumbling out more quickly than I can arrange them – or get to my core point. ‘I’m a part of this band.’
‘You are,’ Hannah says, making a face like she just knocked back a shot of tequila. ‘But because of what you did to the Strattons, Nattie and Robbie don’t want you there. You don’t want to mess up another marriage, do you?’
‘It’s dog act, man,’ Rocky says, hands in the pockets of his boardies. ‘How could you wreck a home like that? They got kids.’
My blood passes boiling point in an instant and evaporates into raging steam that could power a locomotive.
‘Oh, you do have a tongue in your head, do ya, Rocky?’ I say. ‘I hate people who cheat, dickhead, in case you didn’t already know that from the millions of times I’ve said it. I hate Fitzy more than I hate anyone else. I even wrote songs about it. I would never do that to anyone. Kevin told me his marriage was already over, or I never would’ve done it.’
Both Hannah and Rocky flinch when I say Kevin’s name.
‘Oh,’ I say softly. ‘That’s what’s really going on, isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘You have a problem with me being gay,’ I say, louder than I mean to. ‘Both of you.’
I feel the glances of some of the Northampton boys on my back. Rachel squints at me as she washes a glass.
The empty look on both Rocky and Hannah’s faces tells me I’m right on the money. There’s no indignation and no pleas of being misunderstood.
My heart feels like an overcharged battery.
‘I get it,’ I say. ‘So, we can be in a band and talk about civil rights movements, and you guys are on board with that because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to call yourselves ‘woke’ like real artists, right? Hannah, you have a fucking rainbow badge on your school bag. Rocky, wasn’t it you who used to go on about how groundbreaking Macklemore’s song was?’ I glare at them both. ‘But when your mate actually comes out – a real-life, tangible gay guy – then you have to put your money where your mouth is, and suddenly your pockets are empty.’
Hannah frowns. ‘We both support gay rights.’
‘Bull,’ I spit. ‘Support isn’t just talk. It’s fucking action.’ I stare at their averted faces, both deliberately looking at the bar and not at me, and rage bubbles inside me. ‘Are you forgetting the swimming carnival, Hannah? When Razor called you a beached whale in front of everyone and I went ape shit on him?’ She traces a circle on the wooden bar. ‘And Rocky, when Tamara accused you of being the one who stole from the mission box – you know, because she’s a racist skank – I told her what for.’ Still no eye contact. ‘That’s fucking support. When the shit hit the fan for both of you, I had your backs. Do you have my back now, or not?’
My question hangs in the air long enough to answer itself.
‘Just let us replace you for the wedding gig. You can still perform at the Summer Dance with us.’
‘No!’ I shout. Suddenly I’m on my feet. ‘I’ll be playing at the Summer Dance next weekend. And I’ll be playing at the wedding the weekend after. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’
Even as I’m saying it, I can see my entire future crumble in front of my eyes. We were going to make an EP. We were going to get a manager’s attention. We were going to make it out of this town.
But now we aren’t even going to exist.
‘Told you he wouldn’t agree,’ Rocky says.
‘Hey, how about you don’t talk about me as if I’m not right in front of you?’ I spit.
‘Fine,’ Hannah says. ‘I’ll tell them you’re not co-operating. We might lose the whole gig because of you.’
‘You know, there was a time when both of you would’ve preferred to lose a job than hurt me.’
‘Whatever,’ Rocky says. ‘Come on, Hannah. Let’s bail.’
‘Hey, just so you know,’ I say, grabbing the sleeve of his oversized, baggy white T-shirt, ‘if either of you try to cut me out of this band, I will sue your arses.’
‘Don’t fucken touch me,’ Rocky says.
Hannah snorts with derision. ‘I don’t think your mum’s Centrelink money can afford a lawyer, Charlie.’
They leave. I don’t have any comeback to that. If they decide we’re through, I can’t force them to be in a band with me anymore.
I’m still on my feet, but I can’t feel the floor. I might as well be an empty carcass dangling in a cold abattoir.
‘Hey,’ a voice says to my left.
I glance up. Rachel is standing opposite me at the bar.
‘I couldn’t help but overhear that,’ she says. Her tone isn’t as harsh as earlier. ‘I didn’t realise you were the kid everyone’s been talking about.’ She frowns. ‘My friend runs a group for kids facing what you’re going through. I could give you the details.’
‘I don’t need that,’ I tell her blankly. ‘Sounds like a fucking waste of time.’
She shrinks back. I’m not the wounded little lamb she thought I was. ‘I was just trying to help,’ she says, raising her hands in surrender. ‘No need for anger.’
‘Really?’ Suddenly I’m on my feet. ‘You think there’s a need for some bullshit group therapy but no need for anger? You obviously don’t get it at all.’
I shove my stool in, making sure it shrieks against the lacquered floor, and leave without looking for a response from her. But in my haste to escape, I’ve charged for the opposite end of the bar, instead of the exit. I can feel the Northampton boys and some older drinkers in their thirties staring at me.
Automatically, I stride into the men’s toilets, like this was my plan all along.
And of course, Matt is standing at the steel urinal, pissing with resonant force.
‘Oh,’ he mutters, seeing me.
‘Hey,’ I say, beaming at him. I can’t help myself. I want to screw up my face and call him a prick for dogging me in front of his mates, but I can’t bear the thought of letting him know I’m even a little bit mad at him. Stupid, soft-centred idiot that I am.
Matt turns and faces the brown, mottled tiles on the wall. I make for the cubicle, but the door’s locked. A sign of paper and black texta says ‘out of order’.
It’s destiny. I shuffle up to the urinal beside Matt and flop it out.
Please let the pee flow immediately, I pray to the universe. If I don’t start peeing, I’ll get excited at the thought of the two of us standing here, holding our dicks. And I really can’t afford to get a hard-on at a public urinal.
Thanks to the lemon, lime and bitters, the pee flows. Now I need to capitalise.
‘What are you up to after this?’ I ask Matt – gruffly, as if I’m a random straight mate. I already know how to play this game.
‘Uhhhh, yeah …’ he says, eyes examining the metal flush button. ‘Well, it’s gonna be a messy one tonight, mate. We’re going to stay ’til stumps.’
‘What about tomorrow night?’ I press. ‘There’s a double feature down at the Dongara drive-in, do ya wanna go, maybe?’
Matt shakes his dick before it stops dribbling.
‘Think I’m busy,’ he grunts, zipping up and racing from the bathroom without washing his hands.
The stream of my pee hitting the metal urinal is suddenly deafening.
I leave the Batavia Tavern with my hands in my pockets and my head down, focusing on the cracks in the concrete that the council hasn’t fixed for years. All I want to do is get onto the roof of the old primary school and egg some randoms in the street below.
Marine Terrace is alive with the spirit of Saturday night: everyone’s either already half-cut or has a hungry look of anticipation on their face that says they’ve been hanging out to get smashed all week.
As I walk past the Blue Dog Bottleshop, I glance up and see a familiar – but unexpected – face.
Zeke Calogero is sitting on a wooden bench outside the bottle-o. We’ve never had much to do with each other, though he’s in my English class. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, like when Hammer or Razor or someone is giving him a hard time, but other times I think he should just damn well grow some balls and stand up for himself.
Right now, though, he doesn’t even look like he could stand up. He looks like a kid who just got told their dog was going to go away and live on the farm for a while.
‘Weird place to hang out,’ I say.
Zeke glances up. If possible, he looks even more upset to see me standing there. I seem to have that effect on everyone today.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he says.
‘I have a name,’ I say. ‘Nice to see you, too.’
His forehead creases apologetically. ‘I know. Sorry. Charlie. I’m not really in a good place, man.’
That’s the straw, on top of all the other straws, that caves in my spine.
‘For Christ’s sake, Zeke, do I look like I’m the right person to talk to about not being in a good place?’ I cry. ‘I’m gay. I broke up a marriage. My family hates me. My friends hate me. Literally everyone hates me. My band is over. Do you really want to pile on and talk about how you feel? Seriously?’
Tears shine in Zeke’s charcoal eyes. ‘I think I’m gay, too.’
‘Oh, Jesus!’ I turn around, looking for something to kick in rage, and there’s nothing except wooden bollards to stop cars jumping the kerb. I take my skate shoe off and hurl it against the pastel blue bricks of the Blue Dog Bottleshop.
‘Did that help?’ Zeke asks in a small voice.
‘Not really.’
Why do I have to deal with any of his shit? I haven’t even dealt with my own yet.
‘What do you want me to say?’ I growl at Zeke, pacing in front of his bench. ‘I can’t help you. You are what you are. Deal with it.’
Zeke recoils.
‘What did you expect?’ I say. ‘That we’d have a big gay cuddle and I’d be your new best mate and we’d start talking about boys all the time?’
‘No,’ Zeke says finally. ‘Actually, I wasn’t going to tell anyone. It’s just … you appeared, and I thought you might understand. I wish I hadn’t said it now.’
Something in his fragile voice resonates in my chest. I know the wish-I-hadn’t feeling all too well.
‘Shouldn’t you get your shoe?’ he asks. ‘Someone might nick it.’
Unexpectedly, I laugh, and he cracks a smile. I don’t remember the last time I laughed. It’s funny because we’re so used to people nicking stuff in Gero that it’s actually feasible that someone might steal a lone skate shoe, especially since it’s pretty new.
‘Yeah, I’d better,’ I say.
I retrieve my shoe and when I get back, Zeke’s shuffled over to make space for me on the bench.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask him. ‘This is where all the dropkicks hang out, hassling people for spare change so they can buy piss.’
‘Well, I s’pose I was trying to become one of them,’ Zeke says dully.
The thought of perfect, award-winning, top-of-the-class Zeke becoming a metho-drinking dero is laughable.
‘Dude, you have straight As. You’re not cut out for this.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he says. ‘I was thinking whiskey. I’ve been hanging here trying to work up the courage to ask someone to buy it for me.’
‘Why are you here, though?’
‘My folks found out.’
‘That you’re a big homo?’
He winces. ‘Yep.’
‘They’re not flying the rainbow flag?’
‘Negatory.’
‘Mine neither.’
‘What did you do, then?’
‘Well, I just go home as little as possible,’ I explain. ‘Fitzy likes to get up in my face and act like he’ll get physical but he’s all bark. I get in late, once they’ve passed out, and I set my alarm early and get out of the house before they wake up. Hang out at the deli or whatever and then get the bus into town.’
‘Wait – you’ve been doing that since they found out?’
‘Yeah. Since Wednesday.’
‘But …’ His dark eyes are wide with disbelief, as if Mr Tetley gave him a B for physics. ‘Haven’t they called you? Haven’t they come to find you?’ He shows me his phone. There are twenty-eight missed calls. ‘I ran away from my uncle’s place a few hours ago and my family is hunting me down like CIA agents.’
I have the sudden urge to grab the phone from him and shatter the screen.
But I don’t.
‘That’s nice,’ I tell him. ‘They must really care about you.’
‘Not enough to accept me.’
‘Did they actually say it?’
‘Yes. Dad said he was disappointed in me.’ He knots his hands together in his lap, like he’s going to add a more graphic detail, but then he says, ‘Mum is disgusted with me, too.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. About your Mum and your stepdad.’
‘He’s not my stepdad. He’s a cheating piece of shit.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Silence falls between us. Three girls in bikinis and massive sunglasses stroll out of the Blue Dog and pass us, carrying cases of cider as they walk down to the foreshore.
I nudge Zeke. ‘Look at those tits,’ I say. ‘Absolutely wasted on a couple of poofs like us.’
He snorts with laughter. ‘Pretty much,’ he says, with a grin. I don’t think he’s ever laughed about being gay before. It’s disproportionate to the simple joke I made. But at least he looks less like he’s about to slit his wrists. ‘Hey, so where have you been going every day, since you haven’t been at school?’
I hesitate. My first response is to make up a lie. But then I think it could be kind of nice to share this place with him.
‘I can show you, if you want,’ I say.
‘Oh God,’ Zeke says. ‘Dad’s calling again.’ He holds up his vibrating phone. ‘I really should answer, shouldn’t I? I’ve never done anything like this before. They’ll be freaking out.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘You’re lucky your Dad cares that much. Answer him.’
I retie my shoe while Zeke takes the call.
Zeke hangs up after a minute. ‘He’s coming to get me. He’s so mad.’
‘At least mad means he gives a rat’s,’ I say, standing up. ‘I’m gonna head. See you around, hey?’
‘But – we should hang out,’ Zeke says. ‘I know we’re not really friends at school, but we should do something. Talk. Something.’
‘There’s a double feature on tomorrow night at the Dongara drive-in. I was gonna go with someone but he can’t make it.’
‘Oh, right.’ Zeke looks confused.
‘As in, why don’t you come with me instead?’ I explain. Poor bastard mustn’t be used to people inviting him to stuff. ‘Would be good to get outta town. You’re cool to ride on the back of my scooter, yeah?’
His eyes widen. ‘Oh, I mean, I guess. It’s a bit far to go on a scooter, isn’t it? And where would we sit during the movie?’ He looks terrified, like I’ve just asked him to come to a satanic cult initiation instead of a movie.
‘Give me your number,’ I say, holding my phone out. ‘I’ll text you. We’ll sort it out.’
We swap numbers.
‘And anyway, your brother’s Robbie, right? I’ll see you at the wedding rehearsal.’
‘What?’ Zeke’s olive skin blanches.
‘Me and my band are playing at the reception.’
Zeke looks utterly horrified. ‘You can’t tell anyone else about me.’
‘I think you’re talking to the one guy in town who knows exactly how that would feel,’ I say. ‘Relax.’
I leave him on the bench and trudge down Marine Terrace. Before I’ve gone fifty metres, my phone vibrates. Oh, crap – is Zeke going to be a needy loser?
But it’s not Zeke. It’s Matt.
Hey. Sorry couldn’t talk b4. Yep can drive you to the movies tomorrow. It’s a date.