Chapter 4
RAGAZZO SQUILLO
ZEKE
On Friday morning, as I use my wet finger to draw my daily dick and balls on the fogged-up glass of the shower door, I hear Sabrina shout and know it means Woolies fucked up our delivery order again.
I step out of the beige-tiled shower recess, making sure to wipe away all traces of my steam phallus, wrap my Green Lantern towel around my waist, and pad into the living room.
Home is this eighties cream-brick villa in Joondanna. Sabrina rents it off her parents, so it’s hard to think of it as ‘our’ place: more Sabrina’s flat I have a room in. We’re down a laneway, so it’s quiet and has some charm, with a patio birdbath and wooden wind chimes and native plants.
In our combined kitchen–dining room, brown paper bags are strewn across the bench, their contents disgorged like a bomb blew them open; the fridge door is hanging open, beeping an alert nobody is listening to.
Sabrina’s in an even more hectic before-work hurtle than usual.
She’s hunched over the dining table, urgently tapping on her laptop to print something; half a custard Danish is hanging out of her mouth, the flakes littering her chic grey blazer; and her iPhone is pressed to her ear, water droplets sliding down the pink plastic case from the freshly apple-shampooed blonde hair hanging in limp strands around her cheeks.
‘No, I said frozen food. FROZEN FOOD!’ Sabrina barks into the receiver.
I raise an eyebrow, wondering what the person on the phone did to deserve her wrath, when a robotic AI-generated voice replies.
‘Did you say “dog food”?’ it asks, grotesquely buoyant.
Sabrina’s face contorts, causing the Danish to tumble from her mouth; she whacks it away from her laptop, but directly onto her lap: custard spurts up over her work blouse.
‘Oh come on!’ she cries. ‘FRO-ZEN FOOD. FRO-ZEN FOOD.’ She covers the mouthpiece, as if the robot could care, and hisses at me, ‘Woolies didn’t deliver the ice-cream cake I got for Maureen’s birthday morning tea today, and there’s nothing in the house for me to take.
Surely I can get their delivery driver to circle back?
Otherwise I’m going to show up empty-handed and look like the mean office bitch, or I’ll have to hit the shops before work and rock up late again.
’ She stares in horror at the custard mess all down her blouse. ‘Ew!’
I wince. ‘Have I ever told you you look absolutely ravishing in the morning time?’
Sabrina half-smirks, half-scowls and flings the Danish at me; I dodge it and it soars clean into the open fridge, landing between her bottle of Prosecco and my soda water.
‘At least your aim is still good,’ I offer. ‘All those years of hockey paid off.’
I forage in the dryer but can’t find my Ninja Turtles T-shirt or my jeans.
After the robot AI voice says to Sabrina, ‘I can’t seem to see any frozen food in your order …
’ Sabrina shrieks, ‘It’s literally called ICE-cream cake, you clanker!
’ then calls to me in a gentler voice, ‘Oh, Zekey, I already got your clothes out for you – they’re laid out on your bed! ’
I smile. ‘You’re too good to me.’ She really is.
I shuffle back to my room and get dressed while I hear the newsreader on TV say, ‘We often hear AI is now taking our jobs – but is it really all it’s cracked up to be?’
‘No,’ Sabrina snaps. ‘No, it is not. I WANT TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN,’ she roars at her phone.
‘Transferring you now to one of my colleagues,’ the robot says jauntily. ‘We are experiencing above-average wait times. Please hold.’
‘I’d love nothing more, you useless waste of space,’ Sabrina quips.
I hunt around my room: somewhere among the debris of my final semester’s uni notebooks is the gift my mother brought me on her last visit to Perth.
It’s a ritual from back when Dad had cancer.
We spent that year sitting around hospital waiting rooms, so my mother would busy herself with practicalities: she’d bustle off and bring me, Robbie and Dad snacks and something to read.
We all got the same baked goods, but Robbie and Dad – the men – would get some car magazine or Men’s Health or a newspaper, while little Zekey boy got an Archie comic.
Dad went into remission, but the ritual never went away: every time she and Dad visit me, Mum brings me a snack and an Archie comic. I’m still a kid in her mind.
Under the black robes of my graduation regalia is what I’m looking for: a Jughead Double Digest and a huge gift box of Italian chocolates I don’t care for.
I head back into the kitchen and brandish the chocolate box. ‘Would this work?’
Pearls of tears spring to Sabrina’s eyes. ‘Oh my God. Yes. That’ll do.’ She glares into her iPhone screen. ‘I’ll deal with you later, you piece of shit,’ she snarls, just as a young human voice says innocently, ‘Hi, you’re through to Sally, how can I help you today?’
Sabrina’s face goes bright red; she immediately hangs up on Sally, and we both burst out laughing.
‘Oh my God,’ Sabrina cries. ‘Do you think she heard?’
‘There’s no way she didn’t,’ I say. ‘Poor Sally. That’s what she gets for being a ray of sunshine. Absolutely annihilated and called a piece of shit.’
Sabrina wipes her eyes. ‘Meh. She had it coming.’
I snort.
Sabrina grabs the chocolates off me before kissing me on the cheek. ‘This is why I love you, Zekey. If Shane was still living here he’d just be like, “Stiff shit, babe.” But you’re so thoughtful. Thank you.’
She bustles off to her room to change her blouse.
Sabrina broke up with her ex-boyfriend Shane nearly a year ago, but he still comes up in conversation almost daily.
They were together two years, and he lived here, though they were a mismatch.
Shane made good money working FIFO on the mines up north, but he was too rugged and boofheaded for Sabrina.
She’d dress him up in Tommy Hilfiger polos and chinos and he’d take her to Nobu and the Ritz-Carlton, but when he was at the house he’d happily lounge around watching car racing or footy and day-drinking himself into a stupor.
I think Sabrina thought she could fix him, but she couldn’t.
Eventually she found out Shane had a massive porn habit behind her back and she flipped out.
They had this massive fight. I heard it all play out through my door.
Sabrina crucified him. She later insisted to me and her uni friend Victoria that she wasn’t being old-school prudy Catholic, rather a progressive feminist: porn was degrading to women, and she didn’t want her boyfriend watching it.
Victoria and I both agreed Shane was ‘an arsehole’.
Victoria had always hated Shane, so this gave her a chance to go in for the kill.
Me? I never hated Shane. We weren’t close, but I didn’t really believe he was an arsehole for logging on to Pornhub to explore his milf and BDSM fantasies.
If watching porn makes Shane an arsehole, you can lump me right in there with him, proudly, along with the entire fraternity of men.
It’s healthy to jack off and enjoy porn: like my dad once said, ‘There’s two types of people in this world: wankers and liars. ’
But I knew sex-positivity wasn’t going to get through to Sabrina, and I didn’t want to defend Shane and have her realise I’m a chronic wanker, too. I’ve learned if a girl breaks up with a guy, you have to call him an arsehole if you want her to still like you.
And ultimately, I did feel sad for her. Sabrina’s sweet and she gave a lot to Shane – she thought they’d get married and have kids – so I was gutted to see her fall apart.
She’s never been allowed to fully recover, either, because a few months ago, there was a sordid, Days of Our Lives–esque plot twist to the saga, when Shane started going out with Victoria’s sister, Allison (who Victoria hates).
Now when Victoria comes over, they bitch about Shane and Allison over Tim Tams and English Breakfast tea.
I’d like to pretend I’m above it, but I sometimes join them. I blame it on my Sicilian genes.
While Sabrina races around getting changed, I finish packing away the Woolies delivery, putting the fridge out of its beepy suffering. Just as I crush the paper bags into a giant ball and shove it into the bin, my phone rings with a video call from my brother, Robbie.
I startle, and answer it fast. Robbie never video-calls. My blood chills.
‘Hey, bro – everything okay?’ I ask, before seeing the face on the screen belongs to a chubby toddler and has porridge all over it. ‘Hey, little Bianca!’ My voice goes into that high-pitched voice guys have to use with babies to not terrify them. ‘Did you call Uncle Zeke by mistake?’
‘Say hello to Uncle Zeke, principessa!’ Robbie calls, half off-camera, followed by a dramatic shout as Bianca’s little hands grab two fistfuls of his thick, almost Ned Kelly–length beard. ‘Ow. Ow. Ahhh! Let go of my beard, you little psychopath! Ahhh! Nat!’
There’s some chaos as the phone drops onto a couch and I’m left staring at a stuffed Peppa Pig.
Then Nat’s tired face – make-up free but also flecked with porridge – appears, flashing a kind smile my way and an apologetic, ‘Hang on, Zeke – extricating your niece from Robbie’s facial hair as we speak! ’
There’s a bloodcurdling shriek from Bianca like she’s a vanquished Sauron and just saw the ring destroyed in front of her; then, finally, Robbie’s face appears squarely on my phone screen, his black beard even more frizzled than usual.
‘Oi, bro, just ringing to let ya know we can’t get down to Perth for your graduation,’ Robbie tells me. ‘Nat’s mum’s had to go to work, so we don’t have anyone to watch Bianca, and we’re not dealing with that terror on a Perth trip.’
‘Fair enough,’ I mutter, using Robbie’s usual catchphrase against him.
‘I’m like, full proud of you, and shit,’ Robbie mutters, sucking some stray porridge off his work polo shirt. ‘You big square gettin’ a degree and whatever. We’ll send a present down with the olds. Congrats, bro.’