Underdogs: Three Novels, Page 3

  At the ground, when I arrived, Rube’s game had already started, and there was a pack of boys sitting up in the top corner, watching. When I walked past it, a voice called out to me. I knew it was Greg.

  “Cam!” he called. “Cameron Wolfe!”

  “Hey.” I turned. “How’s it goin’, Greg.” (I should have put a question mark there, but what I said wasn’t really a question. It was a greeting.)

  Next thing, Greg came out from his mates and walked over to me.

  It was brief.

  He asked, “You wanna know the score?”

  “Yeah, I’m a bit late, ay.” I looked strangely at his bleached, knotted hair. “What is it?” “Twenty-nil.”

  The other side went in to score. We laughed.

  “Twenny-four.”

  “Ay, sit ‘own,” someone from in the group yelled out. “Or get out of the way!”

  “Okay.” I shrugged, and I raised my head to Greg. I looked at his mates for a moment, then said, “I’ll see y’ later, ay.” Some girls had just showed up at the group now as well. I think there were about five of them, and pretty. A couple of them were school beauty queen pretty while a few were that more real-looking type. A realer kind of pretty. Real girls, I thought, who might, if I’m lucky, talk to me someday.

  “Okay.” Greg returned to his mates. “Catch y’ later.” About a month later, as it turned out.

  Funny, I thought as I walked on, around the rope that made the field an enclosure. Best friends once, and now we have almost nothing to say to each other. It was interesting, how he had joined those guys and I just stayed on my own. I didn’t like it or dislike it. It was just funny that things had turned out that way.

  The second interesting thing was that back home, toward evenin I was sitting on our front porch watching traffic go by when Sarah and her boyfriend came walking up our street. His car was outside our house but they’d decided just to go out for a walk. The car was his pride and joy. It was a red Ford that had plenty of guts under the hood. Some people are heavily into cars, but to me they seemed pretty stupid. When you looked out my window you could see the whole city crouched under a blanket of car smog. Also, there are guys who tear up and down our street till all hours of the night and think they’re absolutely brilliant.

  Frankly, I think they’re tossers.

  Yet, who am I to say?

  The first thing I do when I get up on a Sunday morning is look at pictures of half-naked women.

  So.

  From way down the street, I watched them: Sarah and the boyfriend. I could tell it was them because I could see Sarah’s pale jeans that she wore quite often. Maybe she had a couple of pairs.

  What I remember best is the way she and the boyfriend, whose name, by the way, was Bruce, were holding hands as they walked. It was nice to look at.

  Even a dirty boy like me could see that.

  I could.

  I admitted to myself on our tiny front porch that beauty was my sister and Bruce Patterson walking up the street like that, and I honestly don’t care what you call me for saying so.

  In reality, that was what I wanted — what my sister and Bruce had.

  Sure, I wanted those women I’d seen in that catalog, but they were just … not real. They were temporary.

  They would be like that every time — just something to pull out and then pack away.

  “How’s it goin’?”

  “Okay.”

  Sarah and Bruce came onto the front porch and went inside.

  Right now I still remember them walking up the road like that. I still see it.

  The worst thing about it was that it didn’t take a whole lot longer for Bruce to ditch Sarah for someone else. I do meet the replacement girl, later in these pages, but I only get a short look at her. Short words. Short words at a front door …

  She seemed okay but I don’t know.

  I don’t know anything, not really.

  I —

  Maybe all I know is that on that day on our front porch, when I watched Sarah and Bruce, I felt something and vowed that if I ever got a girl I would treat her right and never be bad or dirty to her or hurt her, ever. I vowed it and had all the confidence in the world that I would keep the vow.

  “I’d treat her,” I said.

  “I would.”

  “I would.”

  “— I would.”

  I’m at the one-day cricket with a large group of guys behind me. It’s raining lightly and the players are off the field, so everyone is miserable. The guys behind me have been screaming all day, abusing the opposition, each other, and anyone else they can find.

  Earlier on, they yelled out to this guy named Harris.

  “Oi, Harris! Show us y’ bald spot!”

  “Harris, y’ dirty boy!”

  I’m down at the fence, quiet.

  When our mob was fielding, they gave our own players a good mouthful as well, yelling, “Hey, Lehmann — you’re lucky to be in the side — give us a wave!” He didn’t, but they didn’t stop. “Hey, Lehmann, y’ ignorant bloody — give us a wave or you’ll get my beer on your head!”

  After a while the guy waved and everyone cheered, but now in the rain delay, it’s all getting a bit much.

  The Mexican wave is going around the ground.

  People go up, throwing anything they possibly can into the air and booing when it gets to the Members, and they don’t go up like everyone else.

  When the wave stops, the fellas discover a young security guard maybe twenty meters to our right. He’s one of many security guards wearing black pants, black boots, and yellow shirts.

  He’s kind of big and stupid-looking and he has black greasy hair and huge lamb chop sideburns that go right down to his jawline.

  He gets started in on: “Hey, you! Security man! Give us a wave!”

  He sees us but there’s no response.

  “Hey, Elvis, give us a wave!”

  “Hey, Bobby Burns, give us a wave!” He smiles and nods, very cool, and cops a barrage for it. Oohs and aahs and you’re an idiot this and that. Still they keep going. “Hey, Travolta!”

  “Hey, Travolta, give us a wave! A proper one!” Toward the end of the dream, I suddenly feel weird and I realize that I’m actually naked. Yes, naked.

  “Geez, y’ right, mate?” someone asks from behind. Then the streaking dares start coming. “C’mon mate, I’ll pay your fine if you make it to the other side.”

  I refuse, and each time I do, another piece of clothing reappears over my sk

  The sick dream ends with me sitting there in my normal clothes again, glad and smiling that I didn’t streak or do the pitch invasion I was urged to do.

  As the dream suggests, I may be perverted and sick, but I’m not completely stupid.

  “You won’t catch me without my trousers. Not for long anyway.”

  No one hears.

  The players come back out.

  The security guard still cops a good mouthful.

  CHAPTER 4

  During th

  e next week the weather turned a corner to a more intense kind of cold. The mornings at our place were pretty hectic, as always.

  In her room, Sarah put her makeup on for work. Dad and Steve shouted out good-byes. Mum cleaned up all the havoc we’d caused in the kitchen.

  On the Wednesday Rube gave me a dead leg and then dragged me into the bathroom so Mum wouldn’t see me writhing around in agony on the floor in our room. I laughed and whimpered at the same time as he dragged me.

  “Y’ don’t want Mum hearin’ this.” He covered my mouth. “Remember — she tells Dad and it won’t be just me who gets it. It’ll be both of us.”

  That was the rule at our place. If there was ever any trouble, absolutely everyone in it copped it. The old man would come down the hall with that look on him that said, I’ve had one hell of a day and I didn’t come home to mess around with you lot. Then he’d pull out his backhander — either in the ribs or across the ear. There was no mucking around. If Rub
e got it, I got it. So no matter how bad a fight was, it never went further than us. We were usually in enough pain as it was. The last thing we needed was Dad getting involved.

  “Okay, okay.” I slashed my voice at Rube once we were in the safety of the bathroom. “Bloody, what was that for, anyway?”

  “I d’know.”

  “I can’t believe you.” I looked up at the stupid sap. “Ya give me a dead leg for no reason. That’s shockin’, that is.”

  “I know.” He was grinning, and it made me push him in the bathtub and try to strangle him, but it was no use — Sarah was banging on the door.

  “Get outta there!” she thumped.

  “All right!”

  “Now!”

  “All right!”

  When we were on our way to school we met some of Rube’s mates. Simon. Je Cheese.

  They were invited around in the afternoon for a game of what in our household gets called One Punch. It came about because we only have one pair of boxing gloves in our garage, so the game is pretty much a boxing match where both fighters have only the one glove. One Punch.

  We played it that same Wednesday, and we were keen. Very keen. Keen to hit. Keen to get hit. Keen to get away with it, even if it meant not socializing with the rest of the family. I mean, you’d be surprised how well you can hide a bruise in the darker corner of the lounge room.

  Rube’s left-handed, so he likes to have the left glove. I get the right, which is my good hand. There are three rounds and the winner is declared fairly. Sometimes it’s easy to tell who wins. Sometimes not.

  This particular afternoon was a pretty bad one for me.

  We took the gloves out into the backyard and first up was Rube against me. Rube and I always had the best fights. It was no holds barred. All it would take was one good punch from me and Rube would really try to knock my head off. One good punch from Rube on me would send the sky into my head and the clouds into my lungs. I just always tried to stay up.

  So “Ding, ding,” went Cheese with no enthusiasm, and the fight was on.

  We circled the small backyard, which was half concrete, half grass. It was an urban box, not much bigger than a real boxing ring. Not much room to get out of the way. Hard concrete as well …

  “C’mon.” Rube stepped in and went for my head, faked, and cracked my ribs. He then took a shot at my head for real and just skimmed my ear. That was when I saw him open up so I slammed one right in at his nose. It hit. Brilliant.

  “Yow!” Simon cheered, but Rube remained focused. He walked in again without fear and didn’t worry about my cocky bouncing around. He leaned in and whacked me over the eye. I blocked it and aimed up myself. He swerved me and turned me around and rammed me back against the wall, then pulled me out. He pushed me back. He hauled me onto the grass and crashed his fist into my shoulder. Yes. He hit. Oh, it was okay. It was like an ax had burst open my joint and next thing my head was rocked by his left hand. It flung forward and jammed onto my chin.

  Hard.

  It happened.

  The sky came down.

  I breathed in the clouds.

  The ground wobbled.

  The ground.

  The ground.

  I swung.

  Missed.

  Rube laughed, from under that increasing beard of his.

  He laughed as soon as I fell down to my knees and got up a little just to crouch there. The count came, with delight. Rube: “ — two — three —”

  Once I was up again and the cheers of Simon, Jeff, and Cheese were no longer mere blurs, there were only a few more punches and Round One was over.

  I sat in the corner of the yard, in the shade.

  Round Two.

  It was much the same, only this time Rube went down once as well.

  Round Three was a dog fight.

  Both of us came out throwing hard and I recall reefing at Rube’s ribs close to seven or eight times and copping at least three good shots on my cheekbone. It was brutal. The neighbor on our left kept caged parrots and had a midget dog. The birds screeched from over the fence and the midget dog barked and jumped at the fence while my brother and I fought each other senseless. His fist was this big brown blur that kept driving forward from his long arm, pumping out at me and singing as it pushed my skin into my bones. All was mirrored and shaky and shivery and getting orange-dark and I could feel that metallic taste of blood crawling from my nose to my lip, over my teeth and onto my tongue. Or was I bleeding inside my mouth? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything until I was crouched down again and dizzy and feeling like I might throw up.

  “One — two —”

  The count meant nothing this time. I ignored it.

  All I did this time was sit down against the back fence till I recovered.

  “Y’ okay?” Rube asked a bit later, his rough hair swinging down into his eyes.

  I nodded.

  I was.

  Back inside, I surveyed the damage and it didn’t look too good.

  There was no blood in my nose. It did turn out to be in my mouth, and I had a black eye. A good one. No hiding it. Not today. No point. Mum was going to kill us. She did.

  She took one look at me and said, “And what happened to you?” “Ah, nothin’.”

  Then she saw Rube, who had a slightly swollen lip.

  “Ah, you boys.” She shook her head. “You disgust me, I swear it. Can you not go one week without hurting each other?”

  No, we couldn’t.

  We were always hurting each other, whether it was boxing, or playing football in the lounge room with a rolled-up pair of socks.

  “Well, stay apart for a while,” she ordered us, and we obeyed the order. We tried hard to listen to our mother because she was tough and she cleaned rich people’s houses for a living and she worked hard to let us have an okay house. We didn’t like it much when she was disappointed in us.

  The disappointment was

  It really got bad throughout the next day because some of my teachers became a bit concerned about the state of my face and the way that every second week it seemed to have a bruise or a scab or a graze on it. They asked me all these weird questions about how things were at home and how I got on with my parents and all that kind of thing. I just told them I got on pretty well with everyone and that things were just as usual at home. Pretty good.

  “Are you sure?” they asked. As if I’d lie. Maybe I should have told them I ran into the door or fell down the basement stairs. That would have been a laugh. Mainly I just told them that I did boxing as a recreational sport and that I hadn’t really become too good at it yet.

  They clearly didn’t believe what I told them because on Thursday afternoon my mother got a call from the school, requesting a meeting with the principal and the head of welfare.

  She came on Friday at lunch and made sure Rube and I were there as well.

  Outside, just before she went into that welfare office, she said, “Wait here and don’t move till I say you can come in.” We nodded and sat down, and after about ten minutes, she opened the door and said, “Right — in.” We got up and went in.

  Inside the office, the principal and the welfare officer stared at us with a kind of amused, measured repugnance. So did Mum, for that matter, and the reason for this became quite clear when she reached into her handbag and pulled out our boxing gloves and said happily, “Okay, put them on.”

  “Ah, c’mon, Mum,” Rube protested.

  “No no no,” insisted Mr. Dennison, the principal. “We’re very interested in seeing this.”

  “Come on, boys,” my mother egged us on. “Don’t be ashamed….” But that was the whole point. Embarrass us. Humiliate us. Shame us. It wasn’t hard to see what was going on, as each of us put our glove on.

  “My sons,” my mother said to the principal, and then to us. “My sons.”

  The look on our mother’s face was one of bitter disappointment. She looked ready to cry. The wrinkles around her eyes were dark-dry riverbeds, waiting. No
water came. She just looked. Away. Then, with purpose, she looked at us and seemed ready to spit at our shoes and disown us. I didn’t blame her.

  “So this is what they do,” she told them. “I’m sorry about all this, to waste your time like this.”

  “It’s okay,” Dennison told her, and she shook hands with both him and the welfare woman.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again and walked out, not even looking at us again. She left us standing there, wearing those gloves, like two ridiculous beasts in winter.

  Don’t ask me why, but I’m in Russia, sitting on a bus in Mo

  It’s crowded.

  The bus moves slowly.

  It’s freezing.

  The guy next to me has the window seat and he’s holding some kind of rodent that hisses at me even if I so much as look at it. The guy nudges me, says something, and laughs. When I ask him if this really is Moscow (because of course I’ve never been there), he starts having this long drawn-out conversation with me, which is a miracle because I can’t even say a word to him on account of not knowing the language.

  He’s unbelievable.

  Talking.

  Laughing, and by the end of it, I actually like the guy. I laugh at all his jokes by the lines they make on his face. “Slow bus,” I say, but of course he has no idea. Russia.

  Can you tell me what in God’s name I’m doing in Russia?

  The bus is freezing as well — did I mention that already? Yeah? Well, trust me, it is, and all the windows are fogged up.

  Shiver.

  I shiver in my seat until I can take it no longer. Stand.

  I try to get up but I seem pasted down. It’s like I’ve actually been frozen to the seat.