Acknowledgments

by Becky Lucas

  My experiences with Brian made me realise that one of the reasons people in power work so hard to get there is that they actually enjoy people sucking up to them. Your transparent desperation when you’re trying to get the job or move up the ranks is what these tyrants get off on.

  Of course, if you don’t value people sucking up to you, as I don’t, then you wouldn’t crave being a boss, as every day would be a nightmare. But for Brian and others like him, people treating them as though they’re special is one of the best perks of the job.

  Thank you to Brian for the reminder that if you’re going to play a game where you kick the bottom of someone’s shoe, just do a quick check to make sure they haven’t recently had surgery on their foot.

  Mum and Dad

  My stepmum always talks about the fact that, from a young age, I was obsessed with whether or not I was going to have kids. This strange quirk is regularly brought up in conversation and, to be honest, I like it when it is. There’s something nice about people remembering things that I did when I was younger, as it serves as reassurance that the things I did and said have indeed been seen and heard by people – a relief, as I often feel as though I’m only ever watching other people and that my own personality goes unnoticed.

  I do remember talking to my stepmum about having kids a lot from around age six or seven. I would toss up the pros and cons with her, share my fears about how having a child might change my life and prohibit me from doing all the things I wanted to do, and debate whether I would even like my baby. I still do this now – for example, just the other night, I sat bolt upright in bed worrying about what happens to your phone when you’re giving birth. Does a nurse take it from you and put it in a locker? Or is it on a little bench in the birthing room just out of reach but close enough that you might see it light up occasionally? Even more terrifying, what if it never lights up? What if you check your phone after being in labour for sixteen hours and you don’t have any notifications? But being thirty-one and talking about birth and motherhood seems more normal to people than being a child who wonders whether having a baby might affect their ability to study further down the track.

  My need to constantly discuss procreation as a child was pathological. I couldn’t help but bring it up to my stepmum, even when I knew it annoyed her. I’d wander into the room and begin my little spiel about how I loved kids but I was not sure if I’d ever be ready for them. Initially, she’d stop whatever she was doing and indulge me for a while, occasionally nodding her head. But as I went on and on, she would eventually throw her hands up in the air or roll her eyes in a semi-joking way.

  ‘For god’s sake!’ she’d cry out exasperatedly. ‘I didn’t think about wanting kids or having babies until I was thirty! Why do you think about it so much? You’re seven years old!’

  I was baffled by this reaction. I didn’t know why I thought about it all the time. I guess I assumed everyone was thinking about it. I mean, we all had toy babies and played ‘mummies and daddies’ at school – wasn’t my obsession a logical extension of that?

  As an adult looking back, I think the reason I was so interested in discussing whether I would be ready to be a parent was because it was very clear to me that my parents weren’t.

  I imagine that when a couple falls pregnant, it must feel amazing to know that together you have created something made up of half the person you love. When I was born, everyone decided that I looked exactly like half my mum and half my dad. To this day, whenever someone meets either of my parents, they’re astonished at how split down the middle my looks are, and how it’s impossible to decide which one I resemble more.

  The problem with being half-Mum and half-Dad was that, when my parents decided they didn’t love each other anymore, to the point where just the sight of the other person induced rage, I often felt there was half of me that each parent hated. If I smirked like my dad, my mum would growl that I was ‘just like my father’, and if I raised my eyebrows the way my mum did, my dad would go quiet and look away, clearly annoyed at the uncanny resemblance.

  Even now, I get the feeling that people are going to hate half of me. Because of this, whenever I first meet someone, I have this terrible urge to do or say things that are unlikeable. This form of self-sabotage ensures that I know exactly what it is someone doesn’t like about me, as opposed to having this vague feeling that what they don’t like is just, inherently, me.

  When I was younger, I didn’t understand why people always talked about divorce in movies, because it didn’t seem like it was that bad to me. Yes, there was fighting, and I hated being apart from my parents, but I also didn’t know what else a family could feel like. Divorce was always presented as a kind of trauma for kids to go through, but at the time I didn’t feel like a victim of anything – it was just how things were. I didn’t want to be the kid whose parents’ divorce made a negative impact on them. I wanted to be a new generation of kid who was so aware and enlightened that I could perfectly rationalise everything that was happening to the point where it wouldn’t make much difference in my life at all. And it’s easy to see how you would think that when you’re a kid, because divorce doesn’t affect you as much then. Kids are resilient. It all hits when you’re twenty-nine, trying not to bail out of your latest relationship past the two-year mark.

  Sometimes, I felt vaguely annoyed at having to pack my bags more than other kids. It never felt completely fair that, of the three of us, I was the one doing all the packing and unpacking and moving around. They would both get irritated at me whenever I forgot anything, like my toothbrush. Looking back, I think they should have been more sympathetic, considering they had both forgotten their wedding vows.

  Whatever my parents did, and despite the mistakes they might have made, I’m genuinely thankful for their divorce, especially when I meet people who have had perfect childhoods. I’ve seen what a supportive and normal home life can do to someone’s personality. Sometimes I’ll find myself with someone at a party, not exactly clicking, and I’ll finally get around to my favourite topic: childhoods. They’ll then reveal their snoozefest of an upbringing and I’ll think, Ah, that’s why we don’t get along. You’ve got no neuroses because you were brought up self-assured and happy. That’s genuinely wonderful for them but, excuse me, I must be off now to find someone at this party who is suffering and hates themselves.

  In fact, there were a lot of advantages about my parents getting divorced. For one, I got a stepmum, whom I love, and who gave birth to two great half-sisters. I got to be influenced by two very different people with two very different outlooks, and I was able to spend time around all the various people in their respective worlds, and I really owe my parents a lot for that. I did a lot and I saw a lot and it’s helped me, I know it.

  The disadvantage of having two very different parents, though, was that there was no consistent framework on which to base my personality or opinions; it was all malleable and subject to whomever was around me. A lot of my childhood anxiety was fuelled by trying to please people, and the people I was trying to please the most were my mum and dad.

  When you don’t have two parents in a good relationship deciding as a team what is best for you, it can be difficult to work out how to act in a given situation. I was in a position where every decision each parent made infuriated the other, so I ended up having to mitigate how mad each one was. As a kid, I became really good at cherry-picking what things to tell each parent in order for them to be in a good mood, which I think has probably helped me as an adult learn how to tailor a story perfectly to the person I’m telling it to. I also think this is what makes me a good gossip. I developed a knack for making whomever I’m with feel like it’s me and them against the world. They get it, the others don’t, and can you believe what such-and-such did?

  I never meant to be manipulative, though I can’t say I haven’t used these skills to my advantage since then. At the time, though, I just wanted everyone to be happy and for things to be calm. I knew I could say the right
things to diffuse the situation, and I knew I could manage everyone’s feelings if I worked hard enough at it, but it had the effect of making me very tired. I was always so tired.

  When I was twenty-five, I dreamt that my parents were together. I can still remember the whole dream: we were walking along the ocean, near where I grew up, and I felt disappointed. Even though they were acting like they were fine, I could sense that they were both unhappy and I was frustrated that they were pretending to be something they weren’t. I wanted them to trust me with the truth. In the dream, I promised them that I would do my best to understand them as people and not think of them as just my parents.

  In later years, I’ve come to realise there was never any pressure on me to fix anything or make it okay. I was lucky to be privy to the inner lives of my mum and dad, who always made their interests and desires very clear. They both showed exceptional bravery in their day-to-day interactions and, while it may have been hard at times when I was young, as I’ve grown into an adult, it’s given me permission to show bravery in mine.

  So thanks Mum and Dad for making me, and in the process giving me a unique set of skills and enough trauma to make me a great party guest.

  Michael Jackson

  A few years ago, my younger sister Hannah begged my dad and stepmum to send her to a religious school. When Dad told me this, I could immediately relate – growing up, I had always wanted to be religious. I thought it was so cool to be forced into conforming to something, which then gave you the opportunity to find ways to subvert or reject it. My mum was spiritual, meaning she did yoga and had a pillow with the word ‘dream’ on it, but telling my mum I wasn’t in the mood to have my tarot cards read to me before bed didn’t feel that subversive. My little sister, on the other hand, got suspended within months of enrolling at the religious school because she and a few other girls were caught taking selfies pretending to be Jesus on the cross and posting them online with the caption ‘mood’.

  The problem with spirituality is that, by the time it reaches the suburbs of Brisbane, any kind of rigidity has been lost along the way. Most of the time, it’s just bits and pieces of religions patched together and used to justify people’s wishy-washy behaviours and narcissistic tendencies. In the morning, spiritual people are chanting ancient Sanskrit and, by nightfall, they’re eating a burger and chips at a chain restaurant that underpays its workers.

  I think that I have missed out on something by not being raised religious. I know those religions have snuck in some secrets to life that I’m not privy to, and I’ll always resent my friends who bemoan their religious commitments because there’s a part of me that suspects they are much better prepared for life than I am, and they don’t even realise it.

  As a kid, I occasionally went to church with Sophie’s family, who were Anglican. On the first trip, I was disappointed to find that the church was not a centuries-old building made from stone, but one of those modern churches that looks more like a council building where you’d go to contest a traffic fine. I also found the sermon a bit of a let-down. I wanted to be made to feel bad by a fiery preacher, to be told I was going to hell unless I pledged allegiance to God. But the pastor was this milquetoast nothing who looked like a JB Hi-Fi employee. ‘Just try letting God into your hearts, guys, you know, if it’s not too much trouble.’ I decided I must be more of a Catholic girl, if I wanted to be shamed and made to feel guilty.

  I stayed behind with Sophie after the sermon for youth group, which was even more disappointing. They didn’t seem to want to tell us what to do either, and the ‘leader’ was just some run-of-the-mill horny teenager a couple years older than us, wearing a Stüssy T-shirt one size too small, with bad jeans. He didn’t seem to possess any religious authority and, during a game of touch football, used the opportunity to chase the girls around and then pin us to the ground for longer than was necessary.

  The closest I ever came to religious fervour was in my devotion to Michael Jackson. Writing this now, I’m finding it hard to find the words to explain how deeply his music spoke to me. I had every album and I knew every lyric. When I pressed ‘play’ on my cassette player, I felt like I was tapping into something bigger than myself.

  Part of the reason I loved Michael so much was because he was like a blank canvas. I could fill in the blanks of information I didn’t have. Nowadays, celebrities are so accessible – you can listen to them on podcasts and follow them on social media – and that accessibility makes them seem so much more like us. Michael Jackson was from the era when celebrities were unreal and untouchable, so you could reflect yourself onto them, and they could be whoever you needed them to be. Michael Jackson became this idol onto whom I could project my own belief systems. I really believed in him and I believed anything was possible because of him.

  From the age of five, I collected anything to do with him, to the point that, if I saw his name in a newspaper, I’d cut it out and keep it in a scrapbook. I had every version of his face up on my walls, and I became obsessed with learning how to read just so I could properly devour his biographies and any other little snippets of information about him that came my way. He was my escape from the real world when I needed it.

  I fantasised about being older and going to his concerts, surrounded by other people who loved him as much as I did. There was a video I had of his 1989 Bad concert tour of Europe, which I would watch again and again. My favourite part was when hordes of people ran to the stage as soon as the gates opened, desperate to be the closest they could possibly be to Michael while he was performing. Their faces were so elated and joyful, it seemed religious, while Michael, the solitary figure in front of hundreds of thousands of people, looked like a messiah. I felt like them – like a zealot who would have done anything for this holy man. To this day, on an afternoon resembling the one in that video, when the right combination of breeze, sun and clear blue sky hits me, I get this jolt of happiness that feels like pure worship.

  I have never felt fandom to this degree about anything or anyone else ever since. I was so protective of him that I hated it when people made jokes about him, and would defend him bitterly. Even when I spoke to someone who claimed they were a fan, I wanted them to prove how much they loved him, so I could determine whether they were a ‘real’ fan like I was.

  Like a lot of kids, I used to have some minor obsessive-compulsive behaviours. Michael Jackson was my main compulsion. I once had a talking to by a teacher because I couldn’t stop drawing him again and again in my notebook, which is probably why I still can’t grasp exactly what maths is. I also used to have this little tic where I used my four fingers on each hand, excluding the thumbs, to create patterns of four every time I passed an object or heard a beat. My favourite activity was to listen to Michael Jackson songs and create little finger patterns in time with the song. There were different combinations, but they all had to be repeated on each finger four times, without missing a beat, or I’d have to start again. When I got it right, I’d get this deep sense of satisfaction from having successfully completed a task. Combined with my love of Michael Jackson’s music, it would make feel absolutely euphoric, like I was whole.

  As well as sending him birthday cards and gifts, I became a member of a few online fan clubs filled with people who were as fanatical as I was. In those groups, people started addressing the many claims of Michael being a paedophile and I started reading all these articles written by people claiming that the victims were money-hungry liars and attention-seekers. I believed them, too; they all seemed to come from reputable sources and were written very persuasively, but most importantly they were saying what I wanted to hear.

  This is why I can find compassion for conspiracy theorists – because I know what it feels like to be inundated with information that feels legitimate, even though it’s not.

  As I got older, my interests broadened and Michael fell by the wayside. His posters on my wall were replaced by ticket stubs of music festivals I’d been to, or Jack Johnson lyrics I’d written on a
piece of bark in class – you know, cool stuff like that.

  I had also started to think more seriously about the allegations against him, and realising there was perhaps more to them than I had originally thought. When it became clear he was guilty, I felt abandoned, and ashamed that I had defended him for so long. Maybe that’s the reason so many religions tell you not to worship false idols. Celebrities are only human after all.

  In 2009, when my dad popped his head into my room to tell me Michael Jackson had died, I was upset, but not devastated. It was like hearing the news that somebody I used to be close to had died, but I’d sort of already mourned the end of our relationship.

  I was in a bakery the other day where Michael Jackson’s music was playing and a woman went up to the counter and asked if it could be turned off. The woman behind the counter began defending him and blaming the media for what had happened to him.

  I stood there, paralysed. I felt scared at how easily I could tap into the feelings of the woman defending him. I could see myself saying those same things years ago, but I absolutely knew that she shouldn’t be saying them now.

  I will say, though, that I believe it’s unfair that the burden of responsibility has fallen onto the individual consumer when it comes to a problematic artist’s work. That wasn’t the first time I’ve seen someone getting in trouble for listening to Michael Jackson, and here’s why I have a problem with it.

  Art is often created with one intention, but interpreted completely differently by the people who consume it, which sort of means that once art is out there in the world, it no longer belongs to the artist. When you consume art, it becomes a part of you, whether you like it or not – even if you see a movie you hate, you’ve still thought about what you didn’t like about it, and it’s either altered or reinforced your worldview in some way.