Chapter 22 #2
‘Um, hey Sabrina,’ I say quietly. ‘What are you doing down here?’
Sabrina smiles. ‘I wanted to see what your football club was like,’ she says. ‘Maybe I’ve been worried for nothing.’
I feel a flash of rage because I didn’t invite her, or even tell her where we train. She must’ve looked it up on the footy team’s Insta page.
Panic darts through me at what her presence here means. There’s no way it’s benign. All I can think of is her post supporting Xander, and his crusade, and whether, once they’ve all finished destroying the Tool Shed, they’ll come for the Perth Centurions next.
But as usual, my rage manifests as my Mehrabian smile. No matter how invaded I feel by Sabrina being in my space, my nervous system is focused on not rocking the apple cart.
‘Well, feel free to cheer us on, I guess,’ I manage, in the tone I use to placate angry callers in the call centre.
That’s when Jack Brolo’s black SS ute rumbles into the carpark, V8 throbbing low until he revs it several times, almost like a threat; heavy metal is blaring from the subwoofers, with a screamo guy shouting about being a menace.
Jack slams the door of his ute. He’s in his footy gear but still wearing his black Akubra, and he lights a smoke as he stomps towards us.
‘Oi, Fudgy, how the fuck are ya?’ Jack booms, throwing his tattooed arm around me and squashing me into a rough hug.
The only smell more overpowering than the tobacco stink of his Benson & Hedges Smooth is the bourbon on his breath.
He’s hungover and hasn’t brushed his teeth.
‘G’day. Who are you?’ he asks Sabrina brusquely.
‘Sabrina – I’m a friend of Zeke’s,’ she says, not offering her hand.
‘I’m Jack,’ he booms back. ‘I’m a really good friend of Zeke’s. If ya know what I mean, ha!’
He gives Sabrina a sleazy wink.
Sabrina scans Jack up and down. ‘Oh, you’re that Jack?’
Jack smirks. ‘My reputation precedes me, ay?’ He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
‘Bro, come help me set the cones up,’ Brick calls to Jack.
Jack gives Sabrina a cheeky nod and trudges off to help Brick.
‘That’s the guy you’re trying to fit in with?’ Sabrina says, the moment Jack’s out of earshot. ‘Zeke, he’s an absolute dropkick! He’s what, thirty-five, forty? Too old! And he’s drunk! He’s like Hammer but worse. Sorry, but I can’t let you go out with a guy like that!’
My brain doesn’t register much after it hears the words ‘let you’.
All the air goes out of my lungs. Heat builds under my skin as a million long-swallowed radioactive pills all surface in the acid of my stomach at once. This must be how the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl felt before its catastrophic meltdown.
‘Do you realise what you just said?’ I ask Sabrina quietly. ‘You literally just said you won’t let me go out with a guy I like.’
To her credit, Sabrina’s hands have flown to her mouth, covering it but not the radiator-red of her cheeks: she’s realised how ridiculous what she said is, and looks mortified.
‘I didn’t mean – I’m not trying to control – okay, that came out a bit wrong …
’ she splutters, fanning her face. She glances into her coffee cup as if it’s made her nauseous.
‘I’m straight, so I know I can’t tell you what to …
’ She swallows, still floundering, but apparently unable to stop talking.
‘I’m trying to remember what Xander Sullivan wrote in that article – because he’s gay, and it was his words, not mine.
Something about it not being good to keep crushing on these “masc” guys or whatever you call them, you know, because it’s problematic. ’
Sabrina channelling Xander is what does me in.
Chernobyl’s nuclear core explodes, blowing the roof of the power plant into a million pieces of deadly graphite. Ghost Zeke is torn to shreds by the blast – annihilated totally – and in his wake is the rage of my flesh and bones finally screaming.
‘IT’S NOT FUCKING PROBLEMATIC TO LIKE MASCULINITY!’ I shout at Sabrina. ‘THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT BEING A GAY MAN FUCKING IS!’
Across the oval, Brick and Jack pause to look at us. I don’t care. This has been a long time coming and it’s not just about Sabrina. It’s about Xander, my parents, my work, Hammer, my Tom of Finland poster. It’s about who I am at my core.
‘Zeke, calm down!’ Sabrina cries, shrinking back from me like I just morphed into the Incredible Hulk. ‘I phrased it badly, but …’
‘You know what, Sabrina? I love masculinity!’ I interrupt, unstoppable now.
‘I love manly men. Two men fucking is the whole goddamn point. That’s what this IS.
If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with homosexuality.
’ I am spraying a radioactive cloud all over the oval and I don’t care who sees it anymore.
‘Holy fuck. You do. You have a problem with me.’ I back away from Sabrina. ‘You’re just like my mother.’
‘I am nothing like your mother!’ Sabrina shouts. ‘I am the polar opposite.’
‘No, you’re identical,’ I insist. As angry as I am at Sabrina, it’s not only her I’m unleashing at.
‘You loathe what gay men are actually like, don’t you?
We disgust you. At least with my mother, I know where I stand.
You pretend to be, what, a friend? An “ally”?
Yuck. You act like you’re better but you’re worse. You’re both homophobic CUNTS.’
‘Hey, that’s out of line!’ Sabrina snaps.
Mason is jogging towards us, Brick and Jack not far behind.
‘Hey, ease up, Fudgy,’ Mason calls. ‘Not cool to say that to a girl, ay.’
And that’s the moment I really lose it. Suddenly I am shrieking like a maniac – screaming my goddamn head off – not at Sabrina but at Mason, at Brick, at Jack, all of them.
Don’t fucken call me Fudgy! Don’t tell me what to do!
Everyone needs to stop telling me how to live my goddamn life! Everyone leave me the FUCK alone!
Everyone’s faces are the same: totally thrown to see quiet little Zekey boy go ballistic.
It’s Jack who ends up wrestling me back from the others, muttering something apologetic to Sabrina before hauling me towards the clubrooms, grunting in my ear that I need to calm down or he’ll deck me.
He’s much stronger than me and I can’t do shit about getting out of his grip.
We stumble across the oval awkwardly until we reach the clubrooms, and Jack shoves me roughly inside before him.
I march behind the bar, into the back kitchen area where we keep our grog in the Coolies fridges, and scream incoherently until my throat feels like it’s bleeding.
My nervous breakdown, if that’s what it is, lasts for about ten minutes, which is actually a very long time to be screaming like a psycho.
I am totally unhinged for those ten minutes.
I shout every curse word – in English and Italian – while Jack watches on, his arms folded like a nightclub bouncer.
He’s blocking the door, preventing me from getting out, but doing nothing to intervene.
He just watches as I kick empty beer cartons and throw cans across the room and punch the face-brick walls until skin comes off my knuckles and they bleed.
Everything swirls into a psychedelic cacophony in my mind’s eye.
My parents crucifying me for my porn habits years ago.
The priest judging me. Robbie’s wedding.
Hammer. Matt. Charlie and me fighting at the hostel.
The Geraldton Airport. Sabrina. My Tom of Finland poster.
My parents, again. Charlie, again. Hammer, again.
Everything so fucked in my life, over and over, and I never let myself show any anger about it.
Until now.
When the fury peters out, I wind up slumped against the wall behind the bar, beside a mop I threw in my rage. I have tears on my cheeks but no memory of crying them.
Jack lumbers into the back area, opens the fridge, pulls out two bourbons and slides down onto the floor beside me, handing me a can. ‘Well, that bloody needed to come out, didn’t it?’ he says, eyes bulging. ‘Here.’
He cracks both bourbons, hands one to me, and takes a sip of the other one.
I don’t like the sour sting of bourbon and I don’t think alcohol is correct treatment for a rage episode, but I drink it anyway. The raw nerve that is my soul slowly numbs out as the warmth of the Woodstock springs to my cheeks.
‘Fuck,’ I say. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’
Jack nods slowly, eyes still bulging. ‘Mate, I don’t think anyone can believe you just did that. You’re not okay.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I admit.
My molten anger cools into sadness, and the sadness solidifies into humiliation. I can’t believe everyone saw me in that state. Sabrina. Jack. Brick. All the footy boys. Everyone knows I’m fucked in the head now.
I am mortified. I can never come back here.
‘I feel like an idiot,’ I mutter. ‘Is Sabrina okay?’
Jack glances at his phone. ‘I think Brick checked in with her. She’s gone home.’
‘I can’t believe I lost it at her like that,’ I admit.
Jack grunts. ‘To be honest bro, I got the feeling you weren’t just losing it at her.’
He might not be quite as dumb as I’ve imagined. I know it was about more than Sabrina. And my fury was incoherent: I remember telling the others not to call me Fudgy, and I have no idea why. I was so happy to have a nickname. ‘The boys okay?’
‘They’re training. They’ll shrug it off. You’re the one I’m worried about. That was a long time coming, ay?’
I nod. ‘Like my whole life’s worth of anger at once.’
‘No shit,’ Jack analyses. ‘I know what it’s like, ya know. Being a wog who’s into blokes. Everyone’s judgy, wants to fix ya, control ya. You go arse-over-tits trying to please ’em and end up wreckin’ yaself in the process. Sound about right?’
I nod and knock back more bourbon. ‘Nailed it,’ I say. ‘How’d you deal with it?’
Jack snorts. ‘I didn’t. Told ’em all to get fucked instead.’ He shadowboxes the air. ‘Ouss ouss. Nobody fucks with Jack Brolo.’ He chuckles. ‘Wasn’t easy to do, but I’m about a billion times happier now.’