Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  I thought I knew all about hate but until I got to prison I had no idea how much hate there was in the world. But then, until I came to prison I didn’t know how many colours there were to skin. For years I stripped and showered next to only white flesh, only pale and luminous flesh, with slight variations in shade. But here there is flesh as black as the darkest ink, flesh that is as white as freshly pressed paper, mottled jaundiced flesh, skin the hue of black coffee when a few drops of milk are added to it, skin in all shades of yellow and red. There is flesh so black it shines blue; there is flesh that is grey and ashen, the flesh of the meth heads and the heroin users, the flesh that is dying.

  Carlo’s skin is the tint of the last days of a leaf in late autumn, the dark of ground just touched by rain. Carlo has skin the colour of the earth.

  Luke doesn’t know how to say goodbye to me, he doesn’t know how to sit in silence. This is something I can teach him.

  ‘Mate, I’m really glad you came.’

  I am shocked to see that his eyes are moist, stunned that he is trying to fight back tears. This is how my mother’s eyes are when she comes to visit me. My father has come once and his eyes were dry. My mum talked, she talked and talked, and my father remained silent. I won’t let them bring Regan or Theo here.

  ‘Danny, it’s nothing. It was great to see you. I’m going to come again.’

  ‘It won’t be long till I’m out.’

  And it won’t be, just a few months. Luke nods at this as if it is the best news in all the world. But I am terrified at the thought of it. There are no libraries for me in the world he knows, no bells to announce morning or lunch or supper or bed. There is no Carlo in Luke’s world.

  Carlo won’t be eligible for parole for another five years. I could bash someone, I could hit a screw, I could kill a screw, and then I could stay here. But I won’t, and neither will I wait for him. I’m the kind of man he would despise, he would hate me with a delirious fury in the world outside of here. And I won’t hit or maim or kill, because I have promised myself never to hit or strike or hurt anyone again. But to do that I have to remain outside of the world. This is what terrifies me most about stepping out into the sun again. I have to find the subterranean world once I am out. I have to find the world without sun.

  ‘There’s no sun here.’

  Of course Luke is startled, he doesn’t understand.

  I try to explain. ‘Even in the yard, when it’s day, when the sun is shining and the sky’s blue, I don’t believe it is the real sun. It’s another sun altogether.’ These words only make Luke sadder but I am glad that I have worked them through, that I have revealed the truth to myself. I am in another solar system, another galaxy. That is where I am.

  Luke doesn’t know what to do as he takes leave of me. He doesn’t know whether he is allowed to shake my hand, to hug me, to give me a high-five—what is it we do now we are adults? Should he kiss me on both cheeks? I mumble something again about being glad he came and he mumbles something back about it being the least he can do. The formality of our words makes both of us chuckle, and I am reminded suddenly of the nerdy shy boy back in school. We don’t hug, we don’t kiss. We shake hands. We bid farewell chastely.

  That night, in my cell, I listen to Kyle wank, his tugs so frenetic that the bunk bashes and shakes against the brick wall. He gulps as he comes; I hear the brush of his wet hand against the blanket and in seconds he is snoring. Only then do I start to bring myself off. I am lying on my front; it is still far too painful to be on my back. I am pushing into the mattress, I am thinking of Luke but it is Carlo’s cock I am imagining inside me. It is always painful, it will always be excruciating for me the moment I am opened up, torn into. I wonder if it is the same for women, whether women always feel this pain when they are fucked? Or is it only in sodomy that pain and pleasure are so linked, so inextricable?

  I have the last piece of tissue in my mouth. I am tasting Carlo, he is fucking me, and I am seeing Luke, his legs around me, coiled around me, I am fucking him. I shiver as I ejaculate, the warm fluid spreads across my thighs, dampens the sheet. I swallow the tissue. I lie on my front and as the pleasure drains away I am conscious only of the throbbing from both shoulder blades. The pain keeps me awake, and as I adjust to it, it also leads me to sleep.

  It cost me a week’s pay from the money I make working in the kitchens. It cost me that and nothing more. Angus the tattooist is awed and nervous around Carlo: he is respected and feared, my lover, my protector.

  Angus broke open a biro and carefully dripped the ink into a cup. ‘So what am I doing for ya?’

  ‘I want two scars, one on each of my shoulder blades.’

  He shrugged in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Two scars,’ I repeated, ‘for where my wings used to be, where my wings were torn away from me.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded, getting it now, flicking his lighter and caressing the needle with the blue flame. I didn’t have to tell him anything else, he understood. We share the same false sun.

  Friday 28 August 1998

  There was no light, only black night, no moon, no sound except for the burr from the alarm. Dan abandoned his dreams, willed himself awake, pressing the off button and fighting the warm inertia trying to drag him back to sleep. Feet on the carpet, he ordered himself, and with that he slipped off his underpants, drowsily searched the drawer for a new pair and put that on with yesterday�s trackpants and long-sleeved shirt. Except for the illuminated red numerals of the digital clock, all was black night. He opened his bedroom door.

  In the corridor he could hear Theo�s short, sharp snores; a floorboard cracked and shuddered under his soft step. He was holding his sneakers and stuffed his socks in his trackpants pocket. He crept through the lounge room and into the kitchen, drank a glass of water and munched a banana, all still in black night. In the bathroom he squeezed paste onto his toothbrush, then up and down three times on the left, up and down three times on the right, up and down three times on the bottom left, and up and down three times on the bottom right, scrubbed the bristles to the back of his mouth once twice thrice, and gargled, rinsed and spat.

  He was nearly at the door when his mother called from the front bedroom, �Danny, is that you?�

  Dan was still, one hand clutching his sneakers, the other hand at the door. �Yeah, Mum,� he whispered. �I�m just going for a run.� Don�t get up, please don�t get up.

  There was only comforting silence and he opened the door and was out into the night. The birds were just starting their song and dawn was about to break.

  He had an hour till six-fifteen, when Boon would be waiting for him in the car park at Keon Park station, where they always met. Dan put on his socks and sneakers, tied the laces tight. He breathed in, he breathed out, and started to run.

  In five minutes he�d crossed Cheddar Road, and in ten minutes he was at the creek and the night was fading and the chorus of birds was getting louder. Dan wasn�t thinking, he was only motion. The sweat had banished the cold and he could smell the pungent yeasty tang of himself as he increased his pace and followed the path, which was overgrown with thistles and weeds, but he didn�t falter or break step as he coursed up a hill past warehouses and factories, running past people on their way to work. The morning didn�t smell of himself anymore, nor of the rotting world of the creek; now it was the acrid and sour human-made stink of chemicals. Breathing and running, he could almost pretend he was flying, that he could fly past the smells and the shadows, but just as he thought that, his steps faltered and his pace slowed, for he was thinking: this is not flying.

  And then thoughts came, and would not stop, and the pain returned, he could feel it in the heel of his left foot, in the right side of his body, it tightened around his heart and his lungs. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep running, but the thoughts wouldn�t stop, of how this was not flying and how it was her birthday tomorrow. Martin had told him it was her birthday and he couldn�t think of a present�i
t had to be something special but he did not know what she had and he did not know what she would want and he could not bear the thought that she might think his gift ugly or silly or stupid, but she probably would. The pain was now cutting into him, his breath was catching and Keon Park station was still fifteen minutes away. Should he get her music? But he didn�t know music. Should he get her a book? But he was sure she had read everything. The ache was now ever-present, in his toes and at his heels, in his belly and in his head, and Keon Park station was ten minutes away and he could ask Martin what she might want and what she didn�t have but he knew that Taylor would just laugh.

  He wouldn�t ask Martin. Dan forced himself to run faster, he dared the coming day, and fate, and sped across a street without looking, he dared and he won and he thought that was an omen: he could get her something and she would cherish it, she had to cherish it. Taylor would tease him, Taylor would wrap his arm around him, pretend to punch him; these days Taylor didn�t only smell of citrus and fresh soap, he sometimes smelled of the illicit cigarettes he smoked, one before and one after school. Dan could almost sense the boy�s arm around his neck, their skin touching, and then he was at the car park and he stopped. He bent over, taking in breath after racking breath. He could almost feel their skin touching.

  There were already people on the platform, looking up and down the tracks. The toilets were shut so he went behind a rubbish skip and stripped off his shirt and wiped under his arms. Taylor never ponged like that�how was it that other boys always seemed to smell so sweet? Not in the change rooms, of course; there the chlorine dulled the sting, there the smell didn�t belong to anyone, it belonged to all of them. But he hadn�t been in a change room for months.

  He had forgotten that smell; he didn�t remember anymore what change rooms smelled like.

  He put his shirt back on, feeling the cold again. A car horn tooted; Boon was waiting. Another toot, and people on the platform turned to stare. The sky behind them now was magenta, the sliver of moon was a vanishing translucent dash. The car looked like a cab, with the solid cube across the top, with the words in English Boon Tan�s Driving School, and what he assumed was Mandarin on the other side.

  �Alright, alright, I�m here.�

  �You are late.�

  The clock on the dashboard read 6.17. But he wouldn�t argue. Boon never listened to argument, just shook his head, saying, �I am the teacher and if I say you are wrong, you are wrong.�

  �Sorry.�

  Boon nodded, satisfied. He stepped out of the car and Dan got in front of the wheel. Boon was overweight and always dressed in a beige suit one size too small for him. He waddled around to the passenger side and manoeuvred himself into the seat. Then he tapped the dashboard impatiently. �OK, OK, what you waiting for?� he hissed. �Start the fucking car.�

  No one could know that Dan was taking driving lessons. His driving test was only a month away now, just over a month till he turned eighteen and could sit the test and get his licence. He would be the only boy at school with a licence. But he couldn�t tell anyone, not Luke, not Taylor, not his family. They couldn�t know till he�d passed the test. Because he could fail. He could stall, he could forget to wait the requisite three seconds at a stop sign; something simple like that could mean a fail and he must not fail. All his money from working at the newsagent on High Street was going towards driving lessons.

  Most of all, he couldn�t wait to tell Theo. He just wanted Theo to be proud of him again; he was tempted to tell Theo just so he could see pride on the boy�s face. But he wouldn�t say anything until he had passed the test. He could not fail.

  Everyone was up and in the kitchen when he got home. Everyone except his dad, who was on the road. The past year his father had been promising their mother, �Wait till Regan finishes high school, let�s just wait till then and then I�m off that frigging road for good. I�ll be a removalist, a courier, I�ll do anything to get off that fucking road.� Their mother, Regan, Theo, they had all been thrilled when they�d heard this. But not Dan. He enjoyed the space around him when his father was away. It was too small, Dan told himself, the house was too small for the both of them.

  The black night had gone but the morning was all grey; low slate clouds drew a curtain across the sun and the lights were on in the corridor and the kitchen.

  Dan walked in and they all looked up. Everything stopped: Theo�s hand that had been raising a spoon to his mouth; Regan waiting for her toast to pop; his mother filling the bottom chamber of the espresso maker with coffee. Dan didn�t know what to say, so he mumbled a good morning and mumbled again when his mum asked if he�d had a good run.

  It was a relief to walk into the bathroom, to shut the door.

  It was a pleasure to turn on the taps, to peel off his sweaty clothes, and to feel the warm water on him. He scrubbed hard, under his arms, scrubbed between his thighs to get rid of the stink. He soaped and he rubbed at his face and behind his ears and his neck and his nose where all the pimples were, red and ugly.

  It was a pleasure to stand there, being cleansed by the clean, warm water. But what was not a pleasure was to stand there, after having dried himself, to stand there and to look.

  Dan straightened his back, flattened the upright hair that had been messed by the towel. He forced his gaze to his reflection in the mirror. His skin was blotchy and red. The pimples on his brow were cracked and pink, there was a faint moustache, black bristles on his upper lip, and black down forming on his chin. He would have to shave tomorrow and probably again on Sunday night. The hair wouldn�t stop growing.

  He had to look, he had to look down.

  He had to keep a firm watch on it, Dan�s new body, he had to examine it every day, to be on guard. That was never the case with that other body, Danny�s body. That body was fit, that body stayed lean; he didn�t have to think about it and he didn�t have to worry about it. But this new body resisted, it felt as though it was not his own. That was why he had to run every morning, why he now went to the gym three or four times a week after school, to keep the new body in order, to keep it in check. This was why he had to watch what he ate, no more sugar and no more fat. That other Danny hadn�t known how lucky he�d been, scoffing down Macca�s and pizza and Toblerones. The new body bloated, the new body sagged. That useless prick had had no idea how lucky he�d been.

  He forced his eyes back to his reflection in the mirror. What repelled him instantly was all that hair. It disgusted him. He had heard that shaving made the hair grow back even thicker, and it had to be true. There were ugly clumps of it across his chest, down his belly, dense black thatches of it under his arms. He hated how it was crawling up to his shoulder blades, he saw it as a virus invading his body, the explosion of it from his crotch, how it crept up his legs and grew thicker and blacker on his thighs. One day he would get it all waxed, have an operation to get rid of it, the whole filthy mess of it. It sickened him.

  He pinched at the flab on either side of him, lying deadened above his hips. He could see that it was receding�all that running and ab work was paying off. He pinched the fat between his fingers. The other Danny never had to worry about fucking fat.

  Dan dropped his hands to his sides. He was done. He turned his back on the mirror.

  At the kitchen table, dressed in his white shirt and striped tie, his fine woollen jumper and thick woollen trousers, his shoes polished, his blazer hanging neatly from the back of the chair, he ate carefully: he didn�t want to stain his shirt or his tie. His mother was in her bedroom getting ready for work and Theo was watching cartoons in the next room, but Regan was still finishing her Vegemite and toast. Dan and his sister didn�t talk, they just chewed their food. She was wearing black jeans, and the ugly sweatshirt that was part of her school uniform, pea-green, with the name of the school stitched in yellow thread.

  Dan looked up from his plate and smiled at his sister. It made Regan beam; she was grateful for his smile. She didn�t ask anything of
him, she didn�t quiz him like his mum, didn�t demand answers like his father; unlike Theo she didn�t dream of him returning to swimming. If it were just him and Regan, there would be space, there would be all the space he needed.

  Dan returned his attention to his plate. He had to eat carefully. The school had paid him a uniform allowance as part of his scholarship. But not anymore, not since he dropped out of the swim team. That was another reason he had to watch and maintain his body. His family literally couldn�t afford for him to get fat.

  The school had paid for the other Danny, they had supported the other Danny, because that other Danny was water. He was water and he was air. He flew. This new Dan, he was solid earth. He wasn�t a swimmer, he didn�t fly. The shame whipped him; he didn�t believe that shame would ever go away. How the very word�swimmer�could lacerate, could remind him of how far he had fallen.

  Dan waited for the train at the very end of the platform, as far as he could possibly get from those other schoolkids, those girls in jeans or short slutty skirts, the boys who didn�t have to wear ties. The other Danny, he used to stand tall, knew he looked good; that other Danny belonged to his uniform. Dan pulled his shirt tails out of his pants and loosened the knot of his tie. Slovenly. He nursed the word, he loved the shape of it on the roof of his mouth. He could never look as slovenly as those other schoolboys, those regular schoolgirls. Even in the middle of winter, they all showed skin, the boys in short sleeves, the girls in skirts hitched high up above their knees. As they all boarded the city-bound train, Dan tried to resist peeking, to ignore the flesh, the hair, the skin. The other Danny had never noticed such things. Now, all Dan could see was skin.