The Sidekicks

by Will Kostakis

  Miles snaps the cookbook shut. ‘Will you . . . stop saying that?’

  ‘Oof,’ Thommo says. ‘Someone’s edgy.’

  I don’t see why. They’ll be fine. Thommo’s untouchable coz he’s the top swimmer and his mum works here, and Miles is Teflon. Nothing sticks to him. If Thommo’s Barton’s best, Miles is its brightest. Perfect record, perfect grades and glasses that are more supervictim than supervillain.

  But me? I give off major supervillain vibes. Whatever we’ve done, it’s my fault. I’ve been at Barton long enough to know that.

  Evans will probably give me another after-school detention that makes no sense coz I’m a boarder, and my life is one long after-school detention anyway.

  ‘What do you think he has done?’ Miles asks.

  ‘Who?’ Thommo asks.

  ‘Isaac.’ He says it like it’s obvious.

  ‘What makes you think he’s done something?’ I ask.

  Miles licks his chapped bottom lip. ‘Well, I have not done anything. Have you?’

  ‘Maybe?’

  It’s not the answer he wants. He turns to Thommo.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And all three of us? At the same time? No,’ Miles shakes his head, ‘this is about Isaac. He is our common denominator.’

  He’s obviously never been called to see Evans before.

  ‘Why would we be pulled out of class if he’s done something wrong?’ I ask. ‘That makes no sense.’

  Miles goes to speak but then shuts his mouth. Before I can gloat, Evans opens her office door. ‘Could you come inside, boys?’ she asks.

  Miles rises, Thommo springs up and I stay put. It’s weird. The only ‘could you’ I usually hear from Evans comes before ‘shut up’. She’s a woman of short directives. ‘Go to class.’ ‘Tidy yourself.’ ‘Come inside.’

  ‘Could you’ is weird.

  My head’s scrambled. Something went down after I left last night, I need to know what. I duck out of the chapel while Evans dismisses everyone by rows. I wait down the corridor. Omar’s out first. He’s a head taller than everyone else. He sees me and hurries over. He asks if he needs a lawyer.

  ‘That’s your first thought? Zac is dead, you dipshit. What the fuck happened after I left?’

  ‘Nothing. Isaac went home.’

  ‘Went home? You were already at home. Where did you go?’

  Omar stumbles over his words. Lanky spaghetti fuck can’t string a sentence together when it counts. Marty and Ex swoop in to save him.

  ‘Where were you?’ I ask.

  ‘We have to say something.’ I can hear Ex’s heartbeat in his voice. ‘We were there. We have to.’

  I try to keep calm. ‘Right. Walk me through it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ex continues. ‘We thought he –’

  Marty talks over him. ‘Isaac’s parents were coming back, so we went down to the motorboat club. There was no one else there. We set up on the pier, but he wanted to sneak onto the boats. We just chilled and let him do whatever. He climbed one that had a cabin and dove off.’

  Shit. That’s when he hit his head . . .

  ‘He came back soaked,’ Omar adds.

  I exhale.

  ‘He went home coz he was drenched,’ Ex says.

  ‘And that’s it, right?’ Omar asks.

  ‘No.’ Marty remembers something. ‘First he wanted to do it again, remember? He asked us to have a go. We wouldn’t. He disappeared and . . . I just figured he caved, went home without saying anything. A bit of an Irish goodbye.’

  ‘He was wasted.’

  ‘More than drunk.’

  ‘Shit,’ I mutter. ‘We’re screwed.’

  ‘Not we though, right?’ Omar looks me dead on. ‘You’re the one who . . .’ He trails off.

  I know what he’s thinking, and the others don’t disagree with him. Marty turned and gave me this look in the chapel. It was written on his face.

  ‘You’re gonna blame me?’ I ask. ‘I wasn’t there.’

  ‘But you . . . you know.’

  I know a guy. He’s not seedy or anything, he’s a regular bloke, only resourceful. If there’s something we’re after, he can probably get it. I don’t widely advertise, it’s a service for mates, and it’s not as if I make a mint from it. I just skim a bit from the top, enough for a coffee.

  ‘This isn’t my fault,’ I insist.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Marty asks.

  There’s a bottle shop near Barton. I find a sad sack of human in the Macca’s across the street and give him enough for a six-pack. He comes out with three bottles. There’s no use challenging him. He’s doing me the favour.

  Three beers is barely enough for a buzz. Stretch them over a three-hour train ride down the coast and they’re pointless. I can still hear Marty in my head telling me it’s my fault. I can still remember Zac resting his elbow on my shoulder, leaning his weight on me and asking, ‘Reckon your guy can get us more?’

  The carriage rocks. I take a swig.

  Dad was born in Gerringong. He says he’ll die here.

  He won’t have to wait long if he keeps hiding the spare key under a pot plant out the front. I let myself in. The place smells like a middle-aged bachelor. There are clothes piled in random places.

  I find two six-packs in the fridge, but I reckon Dad’s on top of how many he has and how long they’ll last him. I try the pantry. There’s a stash of red wine bottles collecting dust. Mom’s leftovers. I grab one by the neck.

  A cupboard door slams. A drawer opens. There’s the clash of cutlery. I push up off the sofa. It’s pitch black outside. Dad’s a broad-shouldered shadow in the blinding light.

  ‘Morning, petal,’ he says.

  I’m squinting. ‘It isn’t, is it?’

  ‘Nah.’

  I swallow hard and taste the spew mixed with red wine in the back of my throat. Food. I need food. I look around. There’s a pizza box on the floor. I stretch out and lift the lid with my toe – no leftovers.

  ‘You wish, mate,’ Dad says. ‘You’re getting toast. That’ll teach you to ring before you visit.’

  ‘I must’ve fallen asleep,’ I croak.

  ‘No shit.’ He comes around the breakfast bar with a plate and a can of beer. He hands me the plate and keeps the beer. He drops onto the single-seater and splays his knees out.

  People say I look like him. Yeah, before the divorce and apocalypse maybe. His salt-and-pepper stubble is less pepper than it was at Christmas, and his face is more cracked.

  ‘You’re lucky they called me and not your mother,’ he says. ‘For such a fancy place, they don’t seem too keen on phoning overseas.’

  ‘Or they’re scared of her.’

  Dad laughs. ‘True. Can’t imagine she’d like ’em saying they lost you.’

  I pick up a toast slice. Dad’s overdone the Vegemite.

  He gulps his beer and smacks his lips. ‘Don’t reckon running off was that smart. I covered for you, said I told you to come.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He’s looking at his beer can like there’s courage at the bottom of it. ‘How much trouble are you in?’

  He knows about Zac.

  ‘I wasn’t there.’ It doesn’t really answer his question.

  He strums the top edge of his can with his thumb. ‘And you’re . . . all right?’

  There’s an anchor tied around my chest.

  I shrug. ‘What’s the use if I’m not? Won’t change anything.’

  ‘Have you told your mother?’

  I shake my head. I haven’t spoken to Mom properly since . . . Not since Barton. It had been her idea to send me there. She thought a private school in the city would do me good, mould me into a fine young man, all that crap. A lot of good it’s done.

  ‘I have to tell her you’re here.’

  I can’t stop him, but I try to negotiate. ‘After I fall asleep?’

  He checks the clock and does the conversion in his head. I can tell it’s been awhile since he called the States. There ar
e cobwebs to clear. He gets there eventually. ‘You better hit the hay, then.’

  I wake up. My brain’s having a punch-up with my skull. I groan and force my eyes open. The room is bright. Instead of traffic and Twelvies, I hear . . . a lawnmower? It takes me a sec to catch up with my body. I’m in Gerringong. I ran away from Barton. Zac died.

  ‘Fuck.’ I roll over and check my phone. It doesn’t respond to my touch and I remember the battery didn’t last the trip down.

  I sit up and my brain slams my skull. Red wine. Never again.

  I’m still in my school shirt. It’s wet, stuck to my chest like another layer of skin. I shed it.

  ‘Dad?’ I call.

  He doesn’t reply.

  I cross the hall into blue. Everything in the bathroom is some shade of it. I cram my head into the basin and switch on the tap. I gulp. Water runs out of my mouth and down my left cheek. I pull up and wipe my face with the back of my hand.

  ‘Dad?’ I ask again.

  Nothing. He must be gone for the day.

  I twist a little. I’ve sweated most of the tatt off.

  I head back across the hall. Whenever I come back to Gerringong, my room feels smaller. Everything does. I get older and the world shrinks. I open my wardrobe. Nothing in it will fit, it’s all from before the move.

  I should of planned my escape better, packed a bag or something.

  ‘Good one, Harley,’ I mutter.

  One of my skate posters curls off the wall. On my way past, I press the corner back. The second I remove my finger, the poster folds off the wall worse than before.

  Dad’s room is at the front of the house. I plug my phone into the charger by his bed and raid his closet while it boots up. It’ll take ages to connect to the network. This street is a black hole.

  I settle for tennis shorts and a T-shirt, both spoilt by flecks of paint.

  There’s an uninterrupted stream of chimes and vibrations. My phone’s found the network. Forty-seven notifications. I scroll through the list and stop at Mom.

  Brief, to the point, all while avoiding it. Mom’s signature style.

  She has form. She didn’t send me away to feel less guilty about leaving, she wanted to give me a chance at a better life. She didn’t hate living in a small Aussie town, she was offered a job in Brooklyn. She didn’t fall out of love, she just didn’t think it was fair to stay together.

  She’s a bullshit artist.

  Whatever. She’s back in the States, where she grew up. Dad and I were a detour.

  I don’t reply. There’s no use pretending like we’re closer than we are.

  I leave my phone to charge and walk up the back. Dad’s left a carton of eggs in a pan on the stove with a note: Explains itself.

  Part of me wants to fry the carton and send him the photo, but that’d probably piss him off. I fry three eggs close together so the whites mix. I fold the massive thing over itself, and stab it with a fork like an egg popsicle. I plate it and streak barbecue sauce over the top. Between bites, I dunk my head under the kitchen tap and a chug a litre.

  I hover around my phone till it hits fifty per cent. That’ll do.

  I take it out onto the back deck. Now there are sixty-two notifications to clear. Everyone asking where I am, what I know.

  My phone goes off in my hand. It’s a fresh text.

  I scroll back up through the convo, till I recognise the messages from yesterday morning.

  I want to reply but I know I can’t. Sydney is done, and the sooner I act like it, the easier this’ll be.

  I quit the convo and scan the rest of the texts. Five guys send me a link to the same Herald Daily news story. I cave and open it.

  He jumped or fell. My eyes sting. I scroll down until the dot-point summary’s gone.

  They’ve used a photo of him at a hipster party, with a collarless shirt buttoned right to the top. It’s probably the most formal he’s ever looked outside his uniform. Seems smart too, he’s wearing glasses. They’re just a pair of empty frames though.

  Anyone who knew him will know he was taking the piss. Everyone else will think how lovely and intelligent he looks.

  He was an aspiring actor apparently. First I’ve heard of it.

  I skim the rest of the article.

  His body was found five hours after he was last seen . . . The Barton House community is in mourning . . . Kathleen Evans, Deputy Headmistress of the exclusive all-boys inner-city school, said the community’s thoughts and prayers are with his family . . .

  There’s a photo of the guys on the pier with police. I can make out Ex and Marty. They’re holding flowers.

  ‘He was a top bloke,’ close friend Xavier Jones said.

  I’m suddenly white-hot. My grip tightens. My hand shakes. ‘You left him there! You didn’t even know he was . . .’ I toss the phone into the yard and chew on my thumbnail.

  ‘Close friend, my arse.’

  I dust off a bottle of red. It’s a 2010 Shiraz. Stuffed if I know what that means, but the first mouthful is harsh. The next one’s better.

  I wipe the soil off the screen and the article scrolls. It stops on a block of text.

  ‘He was an aspiring actor, his talents and great potential were on show when he took part in our pilot young filmmakers programme last year,’ Mrs Evans wrote in a letter on the school’s website.

  I read it again, in case it sounds less like a shameless plug the second time.

  It doesn’t.

  ‘Hi. I have some questions about an article on your website . . .’ I hold down a burp. It tastes like 2010 Shiraz. ‘I was wondering if I could speak to the journo who . . . Oh . . . Is there anyone I can talk to? An editor person? . . . Okay. Well, could I give you my number? Coz there’s this bit where it says . . .’

  I tune in halfway through Channel Seven’s new game show and try to make sense of it. Nina from Camberwell’s about to answer a question to double her money or some shit, and Dad mutes the TV from the kitchen.

  ‘Oi, what gives?’

  ‘I asked you what you got up to today.’

  ‘I sat out on the deck, and now I’m sitting here.’ I also drank a bottle of 2010 Shiraz. I also spilt some on a pillow. I also walked down the street to toss out an empty bottle of 2010 Shiraz and a pillow.

  ‘Well, that’s . . .’ Dad struggles to find a supportive word. He turns back to the burger patties sizzling on the stove.

  My phone vibrates. I fish it out from between the sofa cushions.

  ‘What’s on the agenda tomorrow?’ Dad asks.

  ‘Scott?’

  ‘Hm?’ I drop the phone back between the cushions. ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’ Shit. He didn’t ask that. ‘Nothing, I dunno.’

  Dad doesn’t push it.

  I pop the cap off and hesitate. Zac notices.

  ‘Just do whatever.’ He’s sitting in the tub, holding a chipped Mother’s Day mug loaded with bourbon. ‘Do the lines again. They were cool.’

  A couple of tatts ago, I had horizontal red stripes up my arm. The higher they got, they shortened at both ends, but I ran out of arm to make a point.

  ‘Nah, I want something for here this time.’ I slap my right side hard enough to leave a palm-print.

  ‘Have you thought about flora?’

  ‘Flora?’

  ‘Plants, you dumbass.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m gonna draw a fucking flower down my body.’

  ‘I don’t fucking know.’ Zac spits a laugh. ‘Fuck’s a funny word. They should let us say it more.’

  ‘You say it enough, I reckon.’

  ‘Mm.’ He has a bit to drink. ‘How about a tree?’

  I look at my reflection and imagine one of the massive fig trees from Hyde Park down my side. I dunno. ‘If someone asks about it, I wanna say it means something though,’ I tell him.

  ‘Right. Well, your tree wouldn’t have roots.’

  ‘Huh?’

  His eyes are glassy with fermented wisdom. ‘You don’t strike me as someone who is ever, like, locked
into anything. You get me?’

  ‘Sorta?’

  ‘You move, not with the wind, but just in it.’ He acts it out with his free hand. ‘Only draw the leaves, nothing else. Coz no tree roots can hold you down.’

  ‘That’s weak.’

  ‘It’s a metaphor. Miss Pill’d lose her mind if you took your shirt off and showed her.’

  I shrug. ‘What chick wouldn’t?’

  ‘Boom.’

  I bounce it back. ‘Boom.’

  I press the Sharpie’s tip against my skin then open my eyes. I’m in bed, in Gerringong, miles away from Zac’s bathroom. It was a dream. It had felt so real. It was real. I don’t remember much of Sunday, but I remember that. I was by the sink and he was in the tub.

  I push the covers down and stretch my skin so I can see more of the tatt. It’s faded to a grey whisper.

  I kick off the sheets and raid the kitchen’s drawer of miscellaneous crap for a Sharpie. I trace over it. I botch a few leaves, but it’s mostly as good as it was before.

  I add an extra leaf, blown off to the side.

  Pill’d go nuts for that shit.

  Through the flyscreen, Dad asks if I’m coming to bed. I’m sitting on the porch. I tell him I’ll be a minute. He asks if I want the light on. I say, ‘I’m good.’ My eyes are stuck to the final line of the Herald Daily article.

  Barton House will host the funeral service for Isaac Roberts on Thursday afternoon, with his peers and key members of the school community expected to attend.

  Tomorrow.

  Instead of shuffling away, Dad opens the door. He sits and waits like he has all the time in the world.

  ‘There was a party on Sunday.’ I’m talking into my lap. ‘I left, but the others kicked on. They went down to the pier and Zac jumped or fell from a boat. That’s what the article says. Here.’

  I pass the phone over to Dad. He scrolls too far. ‘Motorboat Bikini Babes?’ he asks.

  ‘That’s the video at the bottom of the page,’ I say.

  ‘A bit tacky, no?’