Chapter 11 #2
‘I’m not afraid of using my platform to call this out,’ Xander fires back.
‘You should,’ Mason says. ‘You have a huge following. Call Hammer out.’
‘Not Hammer,’ Xander says. ‘This place. Curtis.’
My blood chills to ice. ‘Whoa, wait, what?’
‘If he won’t speak up for his own community, he’s a fake ally,’ Xander says. ‘I was already put off by this bar being male-only. That’s exclusionary. All LGBTQIA+ venues should include everyone.’
I grit my teeth. My contempt for Xander is rising to the surface.
‘This place was created because all gay venues did open to include everyone,’ I say cautiously.
‘Every letter of the alphabet, and the straighties too. And tried to please all of them, which is impossible, so every gay bar became as bland as any other bar. Curtis started this to give us something just for us. And he’s not an ally: he’s one of us. ’
Xander picks up the bottle top of my green Heineken bottle and flicks it at me, hard. ‘Not. Good. Enough,’ he says. ‘Talk to him, Pomeranian Charlie, or I’ll say something.’
This is why Curtis was afraid of inviting Xander into the bar. The perks of having an influencer as your friend are huge, but an influencer as your enemy is downright dangerous.
‘Isn’t Hammer the real problem?’ Brayden suggests.
‘Exactly,’ Mason says. ‘Let’s go after him, not Curtis.’
‘Anyone who isn’t with us is against us,’ Xander recites in a sing-song voice, eyeballing Ahmed, who has finally started to mix the drinks. ‘I know there’s a protest against the Eagles. I’ll go show my support. What about your football team president, Mason?’
Mason’s brow furrows. He looks cute when he does that. I hope Xander and Brayden bail and leave us at the table together. Apart from this footy issue, Mason has this placid aura around him, like he’s too simple to be negative. I find it extremely attractive.
‘Brick doesn’t want the Centurions to make a statement either,’ Mason says. ‘He cares, but he’s got his own way of doin’ shit.’
‘Gutless leadership from Brick, then – maybe I’ll speak to him, too,’ Xander quips. ‘Gutless leadership everywhere.’ He raises his voice in Ahmed’s direction. ‘Doll, sorry, it’s been like fifteen minutes since I ordered our drinks?’ His tone is so sugary it’s toxic.
‘On its way to you now, babes,’ Ahmed calls, with the same sweetness.
Xander narrows his glare at Ahmed and mouths What the fuck? to us before calling, ‘Why are you dusting chocolate over the espresso martinis, doll? It’s not a cappuccino.’
‘That’s how we garnish it, babes,’ Ahmed calls back. ‘Be right with you in a jiffy.’
‘Well, that’s literally not how you garnish an espresso martini,’ Xander says. ‘Just three coffee beans in the froth. That’s it.’
‘Well, we garnish it with chocolate here,’ Ahmed replies, adding an extra-aggressive cloud of chocolate dust to Xander’s cocktail for good measure.
Brayden taps Mason’s forearm and whispers. ‘I love when two bottoms fight. It’s like watching Real Housewives. Someone’s gonna get a drink thrown in his face.’
Ahmed brings Mason’s pint and our espresso martinis over. They look fine to me.
‘Might be the last time I drink at this bar,’ Xander says frostily.
‘Oh no, we may never recover,’ Ahmed says, with supreme disdain. ‘I’ll be in the back, sobbing and rending my garments.’
Brayden snorts and I quickly hide my own smirk behind my fist.
Ahmed walks back to the bar, flipping his tea towel over his shoulder as he does.
‘Wow,’ Xander says, his eyes surveilling the rest of us until there are no signs of laughter. ‘I guess some people don’t want to stay in business long.’
That threat hangs over the rest of the conversation, and it should make me more wary of Xander than I am. But when Mason and Brayden need to head off to a friend’s event, Xander surprises me by insisting I don’t abandon him and join him at the Court.
We end up walking through the piss-stink of the Northbridge streets to the Court side by side. Xander pretends not to notice regular peasants gawking as he passes them, though he occasionally deigns to wave at someone he follows back on social media.
As we walk, Xander monologues at me, but it’s the most insightful ten minutes I’ve ever had with him.
His father works in Dubai and only visits the family home in Perth a few times a year.
His mother is a socialite and, if she’s home, she’s either drinking with friends or zoned out on pills.
Neither of them have ever seen the reality-TV shows he was on.
He once tried to physically show his father the trailer on his phone, and his dad sneered and took a work call.
Xander reckons his only friend growing up was his Pomeranian dog – the infamous Charlie – and that he’s been sad ever since he died.
He says people imagine he’s very social but he rattles around the family mansion in Dalkeith alone almost every day.
‘People know of me,’ he explains. ‘But they don’t actually know me.’
Xander reckons that when he was promoted as an openly gay candidate on reality TV, he copped a massive wave of homophobic hate, and it fuelled him and gave him a sense of purpose for the first time.
‘And that’s why I fight so hard,’ he says. ‘I’ll never let anyone go through what I went through. Not without speaking up. So you’ll come with me to this protest, won’t you?’
After that, it’s kinda hard to say no.
Due to that walk with Xander, I find myself in a crowd of fifty people at Mineral Resources Park on Wednesday arvo, protesting at the Eagles headquarters.
I joined the protest to help smooth over the situation between Xander and the Tool Shed.
If Xander sees a staff member rock up, maybe he’ll back off the bar.
I remember the ruckus when he went after that bakery.
He didn’t let up until that old bloke was forced to close.
I can’t let Curtis lose the Tool Shed. I don’t want to lose it, either.
It’s the only thing giving my life meaning.
Showing up is also a chance to suck up to Xander, which makes me a sellout. But he mentioned that music producer and it would be stupid of me – negligent, really – not to try to find a way to meet him, right?
The biggest reason I join the protest makes me less a fame whore and more an actual one. Mason’s going. I could have sworn I felt a vibe between us the night we met, but the last two times I’ve seen him have been fleeting. I’ll get to know him better at the protest.
Using a protest to get closer to a hot boy. Teenage me would punch me in the face.
The Eagles have obviously been tipped off about us coming. The players are meant to be training, but they’ve been ushered inside. Two security guards are standing sentry at the front, while four cop cars are stationed in the carpark.
I’m not sure if Xander organised the protest or if he’s just the most famous person here. Either way, he ends up with a megaphone and leads the crowd in a series of angry chants.
It’s a weird crowd. Maybe half of us are holding banners about No to homophobia and Football is for everyone and AFL shame on you.
The rest seem to be members of some socialist activism group, who have simply made this the protest they happen to go to today, carrying signs about their own completely unrelated causes, from anti-racism to anti-fracking to anti-literally all cops existing.
I spend the protest with Mason, Brayden, Vince from the bar, and two of Mason’s Centurions teammates, who monopolise Mason by discussing last weekend’s game, something I can’t contribute to, so my plan of getting to know Mason is thwarted again.
‘Finally, some movement,’ Xander says, as the security guards step away from the doors. He raises his megaphone and calls, ‘Is the club president going to address us?’
His hope is immediately undermined. Two staff members bustle out the doors with Hammer in tow. He’s wearing the club polo and training shorts, gaze trained on his shoes except when he steps into the waiting car and glances up, I guess to see the mess he’s made.
Hammer looks more wounded than I expected. He’s always been a bully, but in that moment, I feel sorry for him. I’m the only one here who knows who he really is.
As Hammer looks over the crowd, he spots me. His mouth opens in shock. ‘You …’
Mason and Brayden turn to me curiously, but before there’s any more chance for interaction, Hammer’s swept into the car and driven away.
The protest goes for another half-hour, but once Hammer’s whisked away, everyone loses their oomph.
Xander gets increasingly riled up, demanding someone addresses the crowd, and when they don’t, he goes on an Insta Live and sobs about how the Eagles have turned up their noses at the queer community and he is ‘tired, broken and heartbroken’ at fighting so hard and being silenced.
The footy boys suggest we decamp to the Tool Shed for drinks and commiserations; in fact, they’ve started abbreviating it to just ‘the Shed’, which I know Curtis will love.
I’m surprised Xander agrees to join us there, given how he snarked at Ahmed, but maybe he’s making an exception for the occasion.
Once we arrive at the Tool Shed, of course, I realise I was wrong.
Brayden drove me and Mason to the protest in his gecko-green hatchback, so he drives us into Northbridge ahead of the protestors.
We have a bitch about Xander in the car. We all agree he’s coming from a good place, but is overzealous and doesn’t realise he’s hurting good people in the process.
‘Silenced isn’t quite the right word, is it?’ Brayden says. ‘Ignored, sure. But there’s never been anyone louder than Xander, has there?’
‘I don’t know why he’s so involved,’ Mason blurts out, turning the dial down on Brayden’s Chappell Roan mix. ‘Bloke’s never played footy in his life. He doesn’t even watch it. Footy culture is more laid-back than all this.’
‘Are you saying you don’t agree with the protest anymore?’ Brayden asks.