Chapter 24
TUNE-UP
HAMMER
Charlie loses it when he realises that Curtis bloke is dead. He flips out, like a psycho prick on a meth binge. Shouting and swearing, red in the face, kicks the wheelie table beside Zeke’s bed over, then yanks the blue hospital curtain clean off its railing.
That’s enough to make the security guards come running: they wrestle him out of the room and boot him outside. At the exit to the emergency department, the whole building hears Charlie loudly call one of the guards a fascist gronk.
‘Jesus,’ Zeke mutters. ‘Can you go make sure he’s okay?’
‘I wanna make sure you’re okay first,’ I say.
It just comes out: this little honest sentence after a lifetime of lying.
Zeke’s face goes all soft. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he insists. ‘Please, make sure Charlie’s not getting himself arrested.’
I jog along the yellow line that leads out into the lobby.
The two security guards have their arms folded, guarding the entrance doors and watching Charlie at a distance.
Charlie’s outside near the bus shelter, collapsed in the arms of that big tradie bloke, and the Arab guy, and two women.
All five of them are in this weird sobbing group hug, trying to hold each other together.
I can’t bring myself to walk over. There’s nothing I can do to help. I don’t know them and I’d feel weird getting involved. The main thing is Charlie hasn’t landed himself in jail.
I head back to Zeke’s bed. He’s rubbing his eyes, crumpled tissues all over his lap.
‘Argh,’ he mutters, when I get to his bedside. ‘I think I loved Curtis. He was like a dad. He took me in. Not enough good people like that in the world, and now he’s gone.’
I scuff my sneaker on the beige hospital lino; it doesn’t leave a mark. Curtis talked to me too, yesterday after I left Zeke’s place. Maybe he was right.
We sit in a weird silence. Zeke cries on and off. I don’t wanna leave him alone, but I’m not sure what I can do. Some orderlies come and put up a fresh blue curtain around Zeke’s bed, sealing us off from the hospital: the two of us in a little bubble.
Zeke tells me about his drug-fuelled threesome gone wrong.
He’s got no recall of me being the one who found him, and I don’t know how to bring that up.
I just say I didn’t know he was the kind of guy who was into stuff like that.
He tells me he is that kind of guy. I’m a bit shocked.
When we were at school together, he had something innocent about him, but it seems like the world’s beaten it out of him like a pinata.
I can’t help but wonder if I was the stick that cracked him and knocked all the lollies out. The longer he talks, the more guilty I feel.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurt out. ‘I shouldn’t have dogged you, man.’
‘Oh,’ Zeke says. ‘So, we’re gonna talk about it now, huh?’
I wanted to tell him this in Lancelin when I chickened out. I shift the plastic chair at an angle, so I’m facing the blue curtain. I can’t do this if I have to see his face.
‘Mate, I was scared,’ I tell him. ‘I shat my dacks the day you came back to school. I thought you were gone for good. I was back with Richelle. Then, bam, everyone’s talking in home room.
Zeke Calogero’s back. There were all these crazy rumours, man.
That you and Charlie were druggies. That you’d been a rent boy in Perth.
That your parents locked you up in Graylands cos you had a psychotic break.
It didn’t matter if you pretended to be normal.
Everyone knew you were a weirdo now. I was shitting meself you’d spill the beans about me, and my life would be over. ’
‘You realise you’re still not looking at me?’ Zeke snaps.
‘Just hard for me to talk about.’
‘No, fuck that, you’re a coward,’ Zeke says, full aggro now. ‘Turn around and face me. Have some fucking decency. Don’t ghost me for years and then rock up and what, pretend like you cared all along? Act like I actually exist to you, Kade. Look at me.’
I take a breath, turn my chair around, and look Zeke in the eyes. His eyes are fucken flamethrowers. His eyes want to incinerate me and the horse I rode in on.
‘Look—’
‘No, I’m talking now,’ Zeke snaps. ‘Kade, do you know what it was like being a fat woggy faggot in that town?
My whole life I felt like this ugly thing nobody wanted to look at.
I was like a tumour. I was like a mouse who got into the pantry.
Every time I walked into a room I felt like everyone wished I would go away.
All I wanted was for someone to look at me as I walked into a room as if they just saw something they liked. And the likeable thing, it would be me.
‘You gave me that, Kade. When you kissed me that night outside Amber’s party, you looked at me like nobody ever looked at me.
It’s like you saw me. I would have done anything for you.
And then you took it away from me. People lie to protect their image: that’s what you taught me.
I don’t trust anything except sex, because your body never lied to my body.
When a guy wants to fuck me, that’s the only time I know I am lovable. ’
My cheeks burn. My body has slowly crumpled in on itself as I’ve copped the brunt of his anger.
‘Do you have anything to say for yourself, or are you just gonna sit there like a dickhead?’ Zeke adds. ‘You hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me, Kade.’
‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ I say at once. ‘Never ever. I’m sorry, man. It’s my fault you’re in hospital. If I’d been nice to you, our lives woulda been so different.’
‘Our lives?’
Did I fuck up? Was that a Freudian slip? My mind was imagining a world where I never made Zeke leave my hotel room that night. What if I’d spooned him and kept him warm all night? What if we’d come out and got married and everything worked out?
‘You act like I broke things off for no reason,’ I say, in a weak but honest defence. ‘But you know the reason. Footy. I couldn’t do it, man. Not in the AFL. You know it’s true.’
‘I get what comes with a pro sports career, Kade,’ Zeke says, exasperated. ‘You don’t think I would’ve understood? We could have talked it over. Even if it ended, it wouldn’t have hurt as much as being ghosted!’
‘Well, fine then, I’ll say it like you want!’ I snap back, loud. ‘I only broke it off with you cos of footy. Not cos I ever stopped liking you. Okay?’
Zeke’s mouth falls open slightly.
While what I said is still hanging in the air like smoke, the blue curtain splits open, and an Indian nurse comes in wheeling a metal trolley with medical shit on it. Her name badge says Pooja.
‘Time for your obs,’ Pooja says to Zeke. Her cheery tone doesn’t mix with the smoke in the room. ‘Everything okay in here?’
‘Yeah, not bad,’ Zeke says. ‘I’m getting a bit hungry, though.’
Pooja does a bunch of obs on Zeke. ‘I’m afraid the doctor doesn’t want you eating yet. I can get you on a glucose drip; give me a moment. And you can have some juice.’
‘A drip and a juice it is,’ Zeke says wearily. He looks so tired and his skin is still grey.
‘Apple or orange?’
‘Orange, please.’
Pooja bustles out of the cubicle and me and Zeke don’t talk while she’s gone.
She comes back, places a cardboard cup of juice on the table and hooks up a bag of clear liquid on a metal stand.
She plugs the drip into a plastic tube that’s been wedged into the crook of Zeke’s elbow, a cannula or a catheter or whatever they call it.
Pooja promises more test results soon, then leaves.
Zeke grunts.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
He jerks his head at the orange juice on the table, then at the drip in his arm. ‘I can’t move with this thing in me,’ he says. ‘I can’t reach the juice.’
I pick up the cup of juice and hold it to his lips. Zeke looks up at me, his eyes lingering on mine, then he opens his mouth and I tilt the cup to give him a mouthful.
‘More,’ he says, when I stop.
I feed him more juice until he’s had enough, then I put the cup back on the table. He’s dribbled orange juice down the side of his mouth, so I grab a tissue and wipe it clean for him.
‘Thank you,’ Zeke says.
‘Look, do you want me to get out of here?’ I ask. ‘Is it weird that I’m still here?’
Zeke stares at me, his eyes pained. ‘Does it feel weird to you to still be here?’
I swallow. ‘No. I wanna make sure you’re okay. I don’t mind staying.’
Zeke smiles weakly, then closes his eyes. ‘Then stay,’ he says. ‘Stay with me.’
Zeke snoozes on and off after that. He gets moved to a ward for the rest of the night. I remember he was brought in naked, so I run out to my car and bring him one of my hoodies and a spare pair of footy shorts.
Charlie calls Zeke’s phone, so I answer and let him know Zeke’s staying overnight. Charlie’s still in shock, back at his house with the Arab and the tradie and the women. He says nobody knows what to do or say.
I sit next to Zeke’s bed and knock back instant coffees until morning. I watch him sleep. Hot Italian angel. I never want to hurt him again.
Zeke doesn’t know he’s watching over me, too. I was ready to die rather than face today. I make it through a night I didn’t think I would, because he’s with me.
Around sunrise, a male nurse comes in to do obs, and he recognises me. No booing, no praise, just recognition. He asks what I’m doing here – don’t I have a game this arvo? I tell him yes, but this is more important, and I’ll stay here until I have to get ready.
I settle back on the chair. The nurse leaves and Zeke stirs, all groggy, surprised to see me beside him. ‘You’re still here.’
I smile at him. ‘Didn’t wanna leave in case ya needed something.’
‘You’re not very good at being a bully anymore,’ Zeke murmurs, the nicest insult he’s ever thrown. He closes his eyelids again. ‘But you got a game. And the DM. You gonna come out, or what?’