Chapter 19 #2
‘No, what’s problematic is attacking everyone who doesn’t agree with you,’ Brick booms, his voice rising through the sentence until he’s almost yelling the ‘agree with you’ part.
‘We’ve had multiple conversations. We’ve considered and reconsidered.
Our stance is final. You need to accept that and move on, or you’re being a nuisance. I’m asking you to leave now.’
Xander pouts at Brick, and makes a point of ogling Fergus’ jumper. ‘And here’s another issue,’ he continues, as if Brick hadn’t just dismissed him from the venue. ‘You claim to be an LGBTQIA+ football team, but there’s no indication on your uniform. Where’s the rainbow flag? Where’s the pride?’
An existential fear bubbles within me. Suddenly I understand Hammer’s resistance to the Pride Guernsey.
It’s unsettling, one-dimensionalising, reducing us to our sexuality.
Worse, we are the ones doing the reducing.
Or is it the world that wants to pockmark us?
Either way, why are we shouted at if we don’t want it?
Xander is in full flight. ‘The LGBTQIA+ community is constantly under threat, especially in the sporting arena,’ he declares.
‘Queerphobia keeps lots of our beautiful rainbow community self-selecting out of playing any team sports at all.’ He rattles off a series of statistics he pulled from some study. This feels like a church sermon.
‘Yeah, we already know, bitch,’ Fergus interrupts. ‘That’s why these guys started this team in the first place.’
‘Mate, did you not hear me?’ Brick booms at Xander. ‘I asked you to leave.’
Apparently that’s Jack’s cue to unleash. He stands up, tattooed arms tensed by his side as he marches across the clubroom with an aggro bouncer swagger, and bellows at Xander, ‘LEAVE NOW, OR I’LL brEAK YA FUCKEN LEGS, CUNT.’
Xander blanches and jumps back, making for the door and fleeing into the rainy night outside.
If Jack was screaming in my face, I’d shit my dacks.
Watching him do it standing up for all of us – I have never wanted to be someone else more in my entire life. I wish I was big and loud and tough like Jack Brolo. I wish I had the guts to say how I feel when I’m angry.
And for the rest of the night, I can’t help wondering what would happen if I ever did.
Sabrina and I meet for lunch the next day at a busy Korean café in Northbridge called Panda Panda.
It’s a trendy, woke-adjacent place due to its hipster location, full of people with asymmetrical haircuts and sleeve tattoos.
We sit at a high metal table with dangly lights over it.
Sabrina’s stool is in a patch of sunlight; the legs of my stool are wobbly and uneven.
Sabrina orders a poke bowl and I order a bao bun.
Neither of us brings up that we’re here to have a serious talk, so we discuss TV shows and people at Sabrina’s work and the latest drama with Shane and Allison. It’s nice.
Before we get into the weeds of why we’re here, a voice at the entrance calls out, ‘Oi! Fudgy!’
I turn, expecting one of the footy boys.
To my surprise, there’s a quiffed guy with sailor tattoos wearing flanno and a surfy blond mulleted dude with an oversized Mad Hueys T-shirt: Vince and Noah from the Tool Shed.
Noah’s got a Dare Iced Coffee in his shell-braceleted hand, while Vince is clutching one of the cold brew coffee sodas I wasn’t game enough to try: it looks like effervescent douche water.
They both guffaw when I respond to the nickname ‘Fudgy’. I give them a wave, which they take as an invitation to come and say hi.
‘Fancy running into you here,’ Vince says. Noah gives me a bro nod.
‘How’d you know about the Fudgy thing?’ I ask, avoiding Sabrina’s gaze. ‘I thought what happens on footy trip stays on footy trip.’
‘Apparently not everything,’ Noah observes, before swigging his iced coffee.
‘Jack and Fergus dropped into the bar and we heard about your exploits in Lancelin,’ Vince teases. ‘Fergus is cute. I’d go there, too.’ He notices Sabrina and looks her over. ‘Hey, I’m Vince,’ he says. ‘Love your blazer. It’s very Girl Boss.’
Sabrina beams. ‘That’s what I’m going for. Nice to meet you. I’m Sabrina. How do you guys know Zeke?’
I wince, but there’s no way to stop the train we’re already on.
‘We work together,’ Vince says. ‘I can’t believe he’s never mentioned us. We’re incredibly interesting people.’
Noah shakes his head. ‘Man, you talk some shit, Vince, for real.’
‘Oh, you work at the call centre?’ Sabrina asks.
The train is crashing in real time. I can only watch.
Vince screws up his face. ‘Ew. God no. I could never work in a call centre. I’d tell everyone to fuck off! No, we work together at the bar. I taught Zeke everything he knows about how to pour a good beer with minimal froth spillage.’
Sabrina blinks, and looks at me for clarification. ‘What? A bar?’
‘Yeah, the Shed,’ Noah says; I guess the abbreviation is catching on even with the staff now. ‘The Tool Shed,’ he clarifies. ‘You know it?’
Sabrina’s tone is too cordial to be real sugar. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of it.’
‘Speaking of – we’re on shift soon, so we’d better head down or Ahmed will get all prissy,’ Vince says, rolling his eyes. ‘Seeya tonight, Zeke – you’ve got the five pm shift, right?’
‘Nah, call him Fudgy again,’ Noah eggs on.
‘Yeah, I’m working tonight.’ I nod. ‘Seeyas there.’
I think that’s the end of it until they get to the doorway and Noah calls, ‘Later, Fudgyyyyyy!’ before prominently raising his fingers to his mouth in a V-shape and waggling his tongue between them in the universal sign for cunnilingus.
Vince and Noah crack up as they leave Panda Panda and walk down the street.
‘That is disgusting!’ Sabrina says. She teepees her fingers and peers at me with concern. ‘So,’ she says.
‘So,’ I concur. I know this is a ‘so’ moment now.
‘Look, Zeke … you’ve changed a lot lately, very suddenly, and as your friend, I’m really worried about you,’ Sabrina says.
Her words flow fast and cold, like Vince’s effervescent coffee soda monstrosity.
‘Ever since you started seeing that Jack guy – the footy guy – you’ve started going off the rails.
You pretended to get into sports to impress him.
You moved out of my flat but all your stuff is still there.
And now, what? You’ve quit the call centre to work at that gross bar, really? ’
‘I didn’t quit,’ I say, out of Catholic honesty, nothing else. ‘They fired me.’
Sabrina’s eyes bulge. ‘Okay, now I’m freaking out,’ she says. ‘You got fired! And then you’ve gone on some dirty footy trip with these guys? Who’s this Fergus? Did you cheat on Jack? Why are they calling you Fudgy? Is that slang for something?’
I have this mental image of me as a soldier standing on top of a castle’s parapets and Sabrina as an archer down below, firing arrow after arrow directly into my chest without mercy, her quiver apparently bottomless.
‘No, Fudgy is because I threw up chocolate mousse after getting wasted,’ I explain. ‘And I didn’t cheat on Jack – I’m not with him. He was a one-night stand. Same as Fergus.’
The archer reloads. ‘But this is what I’m talking about!’ Sabrina says. ‘Where are you even staying? Please tell me you’re not sleeping in your car.’
‘No, I’m staying with Charlie.’
This is, of course, the worst thing I could have said.
‘Charlie Roth! No!’ Sabrina cries. ‘Well, that explains it. He was always a horrible influence on you. Look at you: writing yourself off, sleeping with every other guy, couch-surfing at Charlie’s. This isn’t you, Zeke. I feel like I don’t even know you anymore!’
And without any warning, Sabrina’s crying.
She isn’t a manipulator: these are real tears, and I feel guilty of betraying her, even without understanding why.
In that moment, something weird happens.
I split off from my flesh and bones in real time: my physical body – a Ghost Zeke – gets out of his seat, while my soul watches on from above, aware of it but unable to stop it unfolding.
Ghost Zeke draws into the chair beside Sabrina, and throws his arms around her in comfort.
He is so worried about his friend not liking him anymore, he throws himself under the bus.
He says sorry for causing a fight. He tells her she was right.
Sabrina is the main character and Ghost Zeke is the BFF who exists to support her – a symbiosis he will do anything to avoid losing (gay kryptonite; fatal).
Sabrina dabs her eyes with a serviette. ‘You’re back,’ she whispers. ‘I felt like I’d lost my friend, but you’re back.’ She smiles gently. ‘Okay. Let’s draw a line in the sand. I forgive you. Come back home and let’s forget this ever happened.’
The nerve in my wrist twitches; the knuckles of my unformed fist briefly tap the edge of the table, but with no power.
Ghost Zeke is in charge: I am somewhere else, somewhere hidden.
I’ve dissociated from my body the way I did years ago, when I walked through those sliding Geraldton Airport doors and squashed myself back into straight Zeke’s body.
The oxygen is crushed out of my lungs. I am suffocated again.
I remember how fiercely Jack stood up to Xander. I am no Jack Brolo. I’m not strong enough to prevent my self-abandonment – but I have enough fire in me to delay it.
‘My parents have applied for this flat, and if they get it, I have to move in there,’ I say. ‘If not, I can move back in with you. I’ll have a clearer plan in about a week’s time.’
I wonder if the plan might involve running away to Europe so I never have to see either Sabrina or my parents ever again.
Sabrina pulls her blazer tighter around her chest. ‘A week it is,’ she says. ‘Either way, let’s get started with the job hunt. We need to get you out of that bar as soon as possible.’
‘Of course,’ I agree, another radioactive pill of anger dissolving into the nuclear wasteland of my guts, invisible to Sabrina as I fix her with my big, beaming smile.
Wonder if I’ll ever be able to see my real face again.