Ishmael and the Return of the Dungongs

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  ‘Mr Barker’s a Dugongs fan,’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘Yeah,’ Razza said, shaking his even more, ‘and a human being.’

  37.

  AS POPULAR AS A ROTTING CORPSE

  It took a lot of” work, but Razza finally persuaded me to go along with him to support Lourdes College in their semi-final debate as we promised we would. When he also suggested that I might like to bring his poem along as a ‘secret weapon’, I took great pleasure in informing him that my treasured copy of ‘Hot or what!’ had somehow tragically and mysteriously vanished and that I wouldn’t be volunteering to lead the search party to look for it.

  By the time Mrs Zorzotto dropped us off and we found the right room, both teams were already in position nervously murmuring away or doing last-minute checks of their palm cards, so we grabbed a couple of spare seats towards the back of the packed room. When Sally saw us, she gave Razza a big smile and a mini wave. Then she touched Kelly’s hand and whispered something to her. Kelly looked our way and gave a half-smile then returned to her notes. A cold front moved through the room and a large depression settled right on top of me.

  I can’t even remember what the topic was that night, and the debate itself was a blur. All I remember is watching every move Kelly made and every emotion that played out on her face. She was only the length of a room away, but every time I thought of her last words to me, she might as well have been on the other side of the universe.

  This much I do remember about the debate, though – the girls lost.

  When it was all over we hung back a little until the huddle of family and friends began to thin out, then Razza dragged me forward to where Sally and Kelly were talking with their parents. Mr and Mrs Nofke and Mr and Mrs Faulkner said hello to us before telling the girls not to be too long and drifting off downstairs. That left just the four of us in the classroom, but it felt nothing like that afternoon under the pergola at Kelly’s house when everything was so easy. Now Razza and Sally had to struggle to fill up the embarrassing silences while Kelly stood there looking uncomfortable and I felt about as popular as a rotting corpse. Razza really did his best to lighten the mood, but it was a bit like being Tickle-me Elmo at a funeral.

  ‘You guys were great. Man, those judges didn’t know what they were talking about. I think they just ran out of fingers when they were trying to add up your score. Just wait till next year, hey Kelly?’

  Kelly squeezed out a smile that vanished almost the instant it appeared.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, man. Just you wait, you’ll see – there’ll be no stopping you guys. What d’ya reckon, Ishmael?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Yeah-no stopping you. The other teams probably won’t even bother showing up.’ Razza looked desperately around the three of us searching for a spark of life.

  Sally came to his rescue. ‘Well, look on the bright side, at least we’ve got our lives back now and we won’t have to spend all our lunchtimes and weekends working on debating, hey Kel?’

  Kelly cranked out another manufactured smile.

  ‘That’s right, man. I reckon you guys paid the adjudicators to give the debate to the other team just so you could chill out and party.’

  Sally laughed. Kelly didn’t.

  ‘Hey, that reminds me,’ Sally said. ‘Kel, isn’t there a school dance on this Friday?’

  ‘I think you may be right,’ Kelly said with a strange expression on her face.

  ‘Yes, I think I am … This Friday … and I’m fairly sure it’s the last one for the year, isn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ Kelly said, as if she was repeating lines from a play.

  ‘Well, now that we don’t have to worry about preparing for the final or anything, maybe we should go along. What do you say?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kelly said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll see what Brad says.’

  The sound of Brad’s name went through me like a cruise missile.

  ‘Right … I guess I’ll probably have to go by myself,’ Sally said, then shot a quick look at Razza, who was bobbing around waiting for an opportunity to jump back into the conversation with a one-liner.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I’ll just have to tag along with you and Brad … Unless, of course, I can bribe someone to go with me.’

  Razza’s eyes lit up. ‘Bribe someone to go with you?’

  Sally smiled shyly at him.

  ‘Where would you get that kind of money from? What, did you win first prize in the lottery or something?’ Razza laughed and then grinned at each of us in turn.

  Nobody grinned back.

  I wasn’t grinning because I’d seen the dark cloud that had engulfed Kelly’s face. And Kelly wasn’t grinning because she’d seen the red blush seeping into Sally’s cheeks and the sparkle switching off in her eyes.

  Sally managed a lopsided smile. ‘Yes … I guess that’s right, isn’t it? Just like you said … I’d need heaps of money, wouldn’t I? I mean, who in their right mind would want to go to the dance … with me …’

  Those last two words sort of crumbled from Sally’s mouth and awful silent tears began to pool in her eyes.

  Kelly reached forward. ‘Sal, don’t …’ But she was already turning and rushing from the room.

  Kelly spun round and glared at Razza. ‘You want some advice, Orazio?’ she said as if she’d been taking voice coaching with Mr Barker. ‘You know that enormous chasm between your ears? Well maybe you should advertise it for rent. You know, something like: huge, empty space – some sawdust to be removed – never been used.’

  Razza spread his arms wide. ‘But … But what did I do?’

  ‘What did you do? Has it ever occurred to you that Sally actually likes you?’

  ‘But I … I like her.’

  ‘Really, really likes you?’

  Razza’s eyes began drifting around as if they were trying to latch on to something that made sense to them. ‘But I really … I just … I didn’t think …’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Kelly said coldly. ‘You didn’t catch on at the party? Or when we asked you over to help out with the debating? Or just now when Sally practically begged you to take her to the dance? Hello! Earth to Orazio! Do you read me?’

  Kelly shook her head and made for the door. She was about to push it open when she stopped and turned a pair of tired, pale eyes on both of us. ‘Didn’t you guys used to be super-heroes or something?’

  The door swung open then eased closed and Kelly was gone. I looked back at Razza and waited for those crazy lights to burn in his eyes once again or for the killer smile to ignite or the smart comeback to be fired off. But there was none of that. Instead he just slumped down on the chair beside him like a rag doll and looked up at me with a face like a busted balloon.

  ‘She really liked me,’ he mumbled as if they were his dying words.

  Orazio Zorzotto had just been trampled by an elephant of surprise.

  38.

  IT COMES!

  ‘Ishmael, for god’s sake … do something!’

  It was Ignatius Prindabel. He’d cornered me out in the playground and now he was hovering around like a mad wasp while I tried to eat my lunch. I was sitting on a bench near the gym as he paced back and forth in front of me, raking his long fingers through his stringy hair.

  It was all because of Razza.

  ‘It’s got to stop. It must. Even when he was “normal” he was unbearable, but this … this is torture!’

  Ignatius was right, of course. It was over a week since the night of the debating semi-final, and Razza was still walking around like a death-row prisoner who’d just been told his final meal would be stewed broccoli.

  ‘But what can I do?’

  ‘Anything … something!’

  Right, let’s see. Oh, I know, perhaps I could use my fine standing in the community to write a reference for him.

  Dear Sally

  I have known Orazio Zorzotto for over two years now, and as a suspected pool piddler and convicted dia
ry perver, I feel well qualified to speak on behalf of his good character …

  Yep, that’d help heaps.

  Prindabel shoved his hands into his pockets and scrunched up his shoulders. ‘I don’t understand. You told us that this girl actually likes him, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well then, why doesn’t he just apologise? He could even send her one of those rigid poems to make up. I mean, we all know they’re crap, but she’ll probably think he’s a genius. After all, if she likes Orazio then she’s hardly going to be a member of Mensa, is she?’

  ‘Sally gets straight A’s and tops her class and she got an Outstanding Achievement Certificate in the National Maths Competition last year.’

  Prindabel looked at me as if I’d just informed him that Einstein was a cross-dresser. ‘But you said she likes Orazio?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But she’s … intelligent.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But she likes Orazio.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But …’

  We seemed to be caught in a loop.

  ‘Look, Ignatius, I think that’s the problem. Razza just doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t think he’s smart enough for her.’

  ‘Well that goes without saying, but it doesn’t help us, does it? Look, you’re his friend. You have to talk to him-you can’t let him mope around like this for the rest of his life. It’s excruciating … It’s nauseating … It’s … It’s …’

  Suddenly Ignatius lifted his head and looked past me into the distance. Then he raised his arm slowly and pointed with a trembling finger. ‘It comes!’ he croaked.

  I twisted round and saw Razza on the other side of the playground drifting his way towards us. When I turned back the bent form of Ignatius Prindabel was loping away in the opposite direction, casting hurried glances back over his shoulder like an extra from a Godzilla movie.

  Moments later Razza flopped down on the bench beside me and sat there without speaking.

  ‘How’s it going, Razz?’

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘You OK?’

  Another shoulder shrug.

  ‘Look, you’re not still beating yourself up about Sally and the other night, are you?’

  Those shoulders were certainly getting a workout.

  ‘Razz, come on, why don’t you just ring her up, say you’re sorry and explain to her that it was all just a stupid joke?’

  ‘Some joke, man.’

  ‘She’ll understand. You heard what Kelly said-she really likes you.’

  ‘Liked me, you mean. You think anyone with a brain like hers would seriously want to hang around with someone so stupid he doesn’t realise when he’s being asked out?’

  I looked at the lifeless form slumped beside me. The Twilight Zone had claimed another victim. ‘Come on. This is stupid,’ I said. ‘This isn’t like you. What happened to the Razzman? The Big Z? The social worker for love? The child of the universe?’

  There was quite a wait before Razza replied, but when he did I knew that it wasn’t the Razzman or the Big ? or any of those other guys who was speaking to me.

  ‘I made her cry, man.’

  ‘Yeah … I know, Razz, but you didn’t mean …’

  ‘My old man used to make my mum cry all the time – before he pissed off for good. He was always yelling … and doing other stuff … and then he’d go off and we wouldn’t see him for days. I hated it when Mum cried … so I’d tell her jokes and muck around and make stupid faces, anything to get a laugh out of her. That was my job-making my mum laugh. I got pretty good at it, too. But then the old man’d come back and ruin everything and Mum would start crying all over again. Man, I swore I’d never be like him.’ Razza flicked a bit of twig away. ‘He finally racked off when I was eight. Left us nothing but his old drum kit … he was good at beating things. And you know what, man? I was glad. I was glad he was gone.’

  Just then the end-of-lunch bell came blaring across the playground.

  Razza pulled himself to his feet and looked down at me with a face as cold as a tombstone. ‘I made her cry, man,’ he said. ‘How’s that thing go … like father, like son?’

  Track 8:

  The time has come

  The time has come

  To stand up and be counted

  The time has come

  To burn our wings upon the sun

  The time has come

  The bugle charge has sounded

  It’s all been said and done

  Now the time has come

  From The Dugongs: Returned & Remastered

  Music & lyrics: W Mangan and R. Leseur

  39.

  THE CROWN PRINCE OF ‘GO-TO’ MEN

  Prindabel was right. I had to do something about Razza. I’d never seen anyone so down. Well, at least I hadn’t until two nights later when I walked into our rumpus room and came face to face with the Dugongs.

  Apparently the big meeting that I’d told Mr Barker about hadn’t gone too well. Even though their old manager promised them that everything was under control, there was still no sign of tickets, and the advertising brochures hadn’t arrived from the printer. Dad’s worries were galloping into panic. With about a month to go before the big night he called an emergency meeting at our place to make sure all the arrangements were definitely in place. That’s what I walked in on.

  I looked around the room. Uncle Ray was on the couch-a bit beefier and balder than he used to be-sort of a feral Santa Claus. Slumped down beside him with his long thin legs stretching halfway across the room was Leo McCrae. Judging by his hair and clothes, it was a pretty safe bet that Leo’s favourite colour was black. Sitting opposite them alongside my father was the new drummer Mick Stallybrass – not much taller than me but with biceps as big as his shaved head.

  ‘Dad, Mum wants to know if anyone wants a tea or coffee.’ Then I remembered Mr Barker. ‘Oh, and are the tickets on sale yet, because the Deputy Principal at school keeps asking me about them and …’

  ‘I think you can forget about the concert.’

  Four gloomy faces avoided eye contact. Dad was out-glooming all the rest. I waited to see if it was some kind of a joke. Nobody laughed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Dad shook his head as if it was too much effort to explain, so Uncle Ray took over. ‘Well, it seems Alex, our esteemed manager, has decided to bugger off with all the money we gave him and leave us up a certain creek without a paddle.’

  ‘He stole your money?’

  ‘Yessireeeee bob,’ Uncle Ray said with a cheesy grin. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘You know, I’m not sure,’ Uncle Ray said, ‘but I’ve got a feeling that maybe he’s just not a nice man.’

  Mick nodded. ‘Well, he was always dirty on you guys for splitting up, wasn’t he-always whingeing about missing out on the big bucks. I guess he thought he’d hop in for his chop early this time and avoid the rush.’

  ‘Bastard,’ Leo drawled – apparently a man of few words as well as few colours.

  ‘But can’t you have the concert anyway?’

  Uncle Ray sucked his teeth. ‘Well, that might be a little difficult. It appears that as well as being a thief, our manager is also a scabby lying dog. It seems that he didn’t book the venue like he said or place ads in any local papers or arrange to have posters made up or make contact with any media outlets. To give him his due though, he did manage to sell a couple of hundred fake tickets in the last few days and pocket the profits. And of course, let’s not forget the master stroke – all our amps have mysteriously disappeared.’ Uncle Ray pushed his fingers down the sides of his bushy moustache and frowned. ‘You think maybe it’s just a coincidence?’

  I looked at my father. For the second time in a couple of days I found myself facing a pair of defeated eyes. I kept thinking about what Mum had said, about Dad wanting and needing this reunion, even though it frightened him, and I had the terrible feeling that if it did
n’t happen now it might never happen. I didn’t need Prindabel shouting at me to do something. I was shouting it at myself.

  ‘Well … why don’t you … book another place … and just hire stuff you need … Go ahead anyway?’

  ‘We’ve been through all that, mate,’ Dad said, rubbing his forehead. ‘To get a hall that holds even a few hundred people, with all the right sound and lighting gear, you have to book months in advance. There’s just none available – believe me, we tried. And even if we had a venue, we’re still in the middle of rehearsing. There’s just not enough time for us to organise all the publicity and ticketing and everything else. Not to mention the fact that we’re already thousands of dollars out of pocket. And we can’t leave it any later, otherwise it’s too close to Christmas. So that takes care of this year. And if we don’t do it this year it wouldn’t really be a twenty-year reunion concert, so what’d be the point?’

  ‘I hate to say it, little buddy, but I think your dad may be right,’ Uncle Ray said. ‘A bit under four weeks – it’s nowhere near enough time to start from scratch. So unless you happen to know of some organisational genius who just might be willing to work their butt off for nothing to help get a concert up and running on the smell of an oily rag – oh, preferably someone with their very own concert hall would be nice-then I’m afraid, as they say in show biz, we are well and truly stuffed.’

  ‘Buggered,’ Leo added.

  But I wasn’t really listening, because a strange thought had begun to struggle to life in my head. ‘So … What you really need … is sort of like … a “go-to” man?’ I asked.

  ‘Well,’ Uncle Ray said, puffing out a breath, ‘I’d say more like the crown prince of “go-to” men.’

  ‘Right … And would it help a bit … if he was also a big Dugongs fan?’

  Uncle Ray eyed me suspiciously. ‘Don’t suppose it would hurt.’

  My strange thought looked like it might survive. It was a bit wobbly but it seemed to be standing up. I was thinking that when I noticed everyone looking at me as if I had two heads. It was probably because I was the only one in the room who was smiling.