Barracuda

by Christos Tsiolkas

  ‘Mr Kelly,’ Principal Canning begins.

  ‘Please,’ my father interrupts, ‘call me Neal.’

  I wait for Canning to offer his first name, but he doesn’t.

  ‘Very well, Neal. I know this situation is a little out of the ordinary as the VCE results are not released for another few weeks but I wanted to canvass the possibilities for young Dan’s future.’ Principal Canning is looking straight at my father as he speaks; he doesn’t once look in my direction. ‘Of course, the results could surprise us all, but I spoke to Dan after he sat his exams, and I have spoken with his teachers, and I’m afraid that the likelihood is that he has performed below standard in his examinations. Even if Dan passes it will be a bare scraping through at best.’

  For the first time he turns to me, his eyes steady and clear, boring right through me. ‘We are not being unfair, are we, Kelly?’

  My father stiffens. He doesn’t like that I am being called by my surname.

  ‘No,’ I answer gruffly, my arms slipping behind the chair. I can’t keep my hands still.

  ‘So is that why we’re here, is it to be told to fuck off, thanks very much, we don’t want Danny anymore?’

  I have to give it to him, I have to give it to Canning. He doesn’t cringe, or even seem affronted by Dad’s obscenity. But he does sigh and lean forward on the desk.

  ‘Mr Kelly—Neal. There are many teachers here who are supporters of Dan, who want the very best for him. Colin Gilbert, Frank Torma, they have all offered to work hard with Dan next year. They believe with effort and discipline he can do very well if he repeats Year Twelve.’ Again his eyes drill into me. ‘They believe in you, son, and I do too. But I need to know that you will commit to your studies, that you will give us the very best of yourself.’

  ‘My son has already given this school his very best.’

  Dad’s words stun me. I can’t look at him, can’t look at Canning. Outside the window a cluster of rose bushes have fallen into wretched bareness. I can’t look at anyone; that would release the lump in my throat. I think of Coach, believing in me. That helps; fury overcomes shame and I almost blurt out, I don’t want his help, I don’t want anything from any of you. I don’t want your fucking pity.

  ‘And you are prepared to have Danny come back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I know my father is taken aback by Canning’s answer. This was not what he expected and he is lost for words. I know my old man, the argument he would have been rehearsing all the way over in the car, about how this college was all about the money, how it was going to dump me now that there was nothing more to gain from me, now that I was no longer part of the swim team, no longer winning medals. And I am shocked too. I thought they’d be glad to see the back of me. I expected it and I deserve it. No one wants a failure.

  ‘It will have to be Danny’s decision.’

  ‘I agree,’ says Principal Canning. ‘It has to be his decision, made in consultation with you and your wife as his parents. As I said, I realise these are exceptional circumstances, but I wanted you all to know that we are prepared to have Dan back.’

  It is almost whispered, it sounds puny as it tumbles from Dad’s mouth. ‘Thank you.’ He wants to say something else, goes to form the words, but he’s shifting uncomfortably, like he doesn’t know how to say it.

  Principal Canning clears his throat. ‘Of course, repeating Year Twelve is not covered by the terms of the scholarship. He will have to return as a full fee-paying student.’ Canning knows what is making my father shift uncomfortably in his seat. Canning can sense that now it is all about the money.

  ‘How much are we talking about?’ Now that it is out, Dad’s voice is calm, his tone gruff and somehow indifferent.

  ‘You can talk to Mrs Marchant about those details outside. She’ll be happy to take you through the fee structure.’

  My father is sitting up straight, still, his hands on his knees. His voice is steel. ‘I asked how much.’

  Principal Canning blinks and clears his throat again. ‘It is seven thousand, five hundred dollars a term. Twenty-two and a half thousand dollars for the year.’

  My father rises and I stumble as I follow, catching my shoe on a corner of the carpet. My cheeks burn. I am doing the maths, I am working out the cost of their investment: twenty-two thousand, five hundred for each of the five years I have been here. Over one hundred grand—I’ve cost the school over one hundred grand. My cheeks are ablaze and I can’t look up. It is not that I despise myself—I know that feeling well and I know how to carry it. And it isn’t the shame, though that is part of it, part of me: my shame is always there, and so is hate, they are one with my blood and with my lungs. What is new, what sears through me now, is a clear understanding of my worthlessness. I am the debt that can never be paid off.

  My father does now what he would not do before. He offers Principal Canning his hand. ‘Thank you.’

  Principal Canning looks my way once more. I don’t hear his words, I have to turn away from that sympathy, from that lacerating pity.

  My father and I don’t say a word until we walk through the school gates. And then I say, ‘Dad, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to repeat. Even if I fail, I won’t repeat.’

  My father has stopped. He won’t hold me, he can’t; he and I live in that physical distance. But he is shaking his head. ‘Don’t worry, son. We’ll find the money, don’t worry about that. We’ll get the money.’

  ‘No,’ I insist. I won’t let that word go. ‘No. I don’t want to repeat, I want to start my life.’ And as I say the words, I drink in the air: I’m finished with school, I’m out of this place. A cold, shivering sweat breaks out, but I know I am right. I am terrified and thrilled. I want to start my life.

  And then it goes, the euphoria vanishes. I realise I can’t see it. I have no vision of a life.

  ‘You don’t have to make a decision now,’ says my father gently, as we walk towards the car. We fall back into silence. I know that both of us are thinking about the money.

  On Denmark Street, a small lime-green Hyundai brakes suddenly in front of me. My eyes leap to my rearview mirror, to my side mirror. There is no one to my left; I swerve, I overtake the stalled car and straighten. My father turns to me. ‘I was right. You’re getting to be a good driver.’

  I am heading forward, the future is waiting. School has finished but there is no clear path ahead, nothing solid beneath my feet. I will just have to drive through. I accelerate, and speed into those shadows.

  Friday 15 September 2000

  His first beer, that tasted of earth and light, the touch of the first summer sun on wet ground.

  His first bourbon, that was the taste of sugar and sulfur, the sting to the nose of toffee burning.

  His first vodka, that was licorice; his first wine, fruit juice left out too long in the sun; his first rum, all he could taste was the Coke in it; and his first whiskey, that was fire. That was fire and heat.

  �You better watch it, mate, you�re getting a belly.� Bennie leaned across the table and patted Dan�s shirtfront.

  Omar snorted and that made Dylan and Herc laugh as well. Dan grabbed Bennie�s arm, and twisted it. Not too hard, but hard enough for Bennie to grimace a little.

  It was true, he was getting a belly. He had to run in the morning, he hadn�t run for three days. It was either run tomorrow or not drink beer for a week.

  They were sitting outside the chicken shop at the South Preston Shopping Centre, in their white supermarket shirts and grey cotton pants. The remains of their lunch were scattered over the table. Omar tapped the end of his cigarette over an empty container, the ash mingling with the gelatinous dregs of soy sauce and oil. Dan was the only one who didn�t smoke, he still couldn�t bring himself to do it. He�d tried cigarettes and joints, he�d even sucked on a bong, but with every inhalation he could feel the poison coursing through his lungs and into his blood. He felt its pollution instantaneously. That wasn�t the case with alcohol. With al
cohol you didn�t experience the corrosive effects of the toxins till the day after. That was the seduction of drink. It enticed you, it was deceptive. Even the fire of whiskey seemed medicinal, the shock of it, the jumpstart to the body.

  Elena walked towards them, munching on a pie from the Vietnamese bakery. She stopped at their table. �Are you watching the opening ceremony tonight?�

  Elena, she just blurted out statements or questions, as if she resented having to speak. Even now she wasn�t looking at anyone, was asking questions of the car park.

  �Yeah,� said Bennie. �We�re watching it at my place. You wanna come?�

  Dan looked down at his hands, examining the paper cut he�d got that morning, slicing open cardboard boxes. He hadn�t told the guys that he wasn�t going. There was no way he was going to watch that fucking opening ceremony.

  Elena still hadn�t answered, she was munching on her pie, looking out at the car park.

  �What time should we rock over?�

  Bennie shrugged at Omar�s question. �Seven, I guess. That�s when it starts. Yeah, nah, come at six-thirty.�

  Dan�s finger throbbed, the pain insidious but relentless. He knew he�d be feeling the subtle pain for days.

  �OK,� said Elena.

  Bennie made a face, making Omar snicker.

  �OK what?� Herc asked.

  �OK, I�ll come.� Elena wiped pastry crumbs off her work shirt and walked away.

  When she was just out of earshot, Bennie leaned into the table and whispered, �Lard arse.� That made Omar snort again.

  Dylan lit a cigarette. �I like a bit of flesh on a girl�s arse,� he said, not bothering to whisper. �Fat arses and fat tits, that�s what I like.�

  �No way.� Bennie looked disgusted. �I like my bitches slim, I don�t want any fat on them.�

  Dylan blew smoke in his direction. �That�s not a bitch, Bennie, mate. That�s called a guy.�

  Omar nearly fell off his chair from laughing.

  Dan got up, checked the time on his phone. �I�m going back.�

  Bennie had lit another cigarette, and he held it up. �I�m going to finish this.�

  Dan heard them laughing as he walked across the car park to the Safeway entrance. He knew it couldn�t be true, but it always felt as though they had to be laughing at him.

  Everyone asked Dan, So what are you going to do? They meant after working at Safeway; they were really asking, When will youget a real job? He usually answered that he was taking a year or two off to save some money and that he�d start studying in the new year. If they persisted and asked him what he was going to study, he just made it up. I�m thinking electrical engineering. Or, I�m considering health sciences. Or, Maybe communications. Usually they didn�t ask anything more after that; it seemed to be enough that he was thinking about a future.

  What he would have really liked to answer was the following: I like working at the supermarket, I like packing shelves and I like being in the stockroom. He didn�t much like working the registers, and he hated stocktake, but that was only twice a year. Overall, he enjoyed his job.

  Dan knew he could never say that to Demet, or Martin, or Luke. They were all at uni, Luke and Martin at Melbourne, Demet at La Trobe. To them, working at a supermarket was something tangential to life: for it to ever be at the centre of life was unfathomable. But for Dan it was their worlds that were unreal.

  He liked his job, he liked the people he worked with, he liked that he could disappear into what he was doing, that sometimes hours could pass and he�d been lost in a task, stripping tape off boxes, checking off items on stocklists, stacking and neatening up the shelves. A job is a job, said Demet. At least you can save money, encouraged Luke. Are they all brain dead there? asked Martin.

  His mother found course information for him. His father asked whether he�d thought about what he�d like to do in the long term. Dan knew that they were ashamed of him. From time to time, when some manager was telling him off for getting an order wrong or some impatient rude customer was abusing him because the yogurt was past its use-by date, he realised that if his friends or family had seen it, they would have been ashamed for him.

  What�s new? he thought. What difference does it make?

  He was in aisle eight, stacking tins of soup on the shelf. Each tin carried the Olympic logo and the words Sydney Olympics 2000.

  �Aussie Aussie Aussie,� muttered Dan, �Oi Oi Oi.�

  They were the real brain dead. The ones who kept screaming, Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.

  He�d asked for a double shift, he wanted to work tonight. But Jim, the floor manager, had smiled at him and said, �Nah, mate, it�s the opening ceremony tonight. You don�t have to work�there�s enough part-timers to carry the load, don�t worry about it.� Then, all grey hair and sour smoker�s breath, Jim had winked and said, �Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.�

  He should have insisted, he should be working tonight.

  At the end of the shift, Bennie called out from behind the tobacco counter, �See you tonight, Dan.�

  �Yeah,� said Dan. �See you then.� There was no way he�d be going.

  As he left work he felt the phone vibrate in his pocket. It was Demet.

  �Howya doin�?� he answered.

  �All good. How was work?� Demet�s voice had changed. She didn�t run her words together anymore. She didn�t call people cunts anymore. Now she said she had problems with the word cunt. She said it was sexist. She said many words were sexist�and if not sexist, they were racist, and if not racist, they were het-er-o-NORM-a-tive, a word he always had to spell out in his head to remember. He could never remember what it meant but he assumed it had to be bad.

  Demet didn�t want to know about work.

  �What�s up?� he asked.

  He knew her well enough to catch the hesitation. �Luke and I were wondering if you wanted to meet up tonight? We�ll be at a pub near his place, the Curry Hotel in Collingwood, in Wellington Street. You know it?�

  It kicked. It was irrational and foolish but it hurt that she had spoken to Luke before him. Luke and Demet were always speaking now, seeing bands together, arguing about politics and books and films and music. It stung too that they knew all those pubs and bars and caf�s, all over town. He hadn�t known there were so many of them.

  �OK. I�ll find it.�

  He knew that they had been discussing him, that they were concerned for him. He should have been grateful that they wanted to be with him, that they wanted to take care of him tonight. But he can hear it in her hesitation. All of that was out of pity.

  �Cool, we�re getting there at seven.�

  She�d hung up before he could ask who we were. He hoped it meant just Demet and Luke.

  Dan checked the screen. There was a missed call from Luke, a message from Regan. He texted Luke that he�d organised tonight with Demet.

  He looked at the message from his sister. Theo is wetting his pants about 2nite. RU home? It was a question but it wasn�t. He put the phone back in his pocket. He didn�t text back, he didn�t call.

  The wind had ice in it, and it whipped across his neck and his exposed forearms. If he were to walk faster, he would have warmed up. But Dan loved the walk home, the forty-five minutes it took to leave the Safeway, to walk past the Catholic cathedral on Bell Street and cross into the market through the Chinese grocery on High Street. He never wanted to rush it. He loved squeezing past the cluttered aisles of tinned food, the wall of refrigerators full of cuts of meat he couldn�t identify and trays of misshapen frozen dumplings. He walked to the back, passed through the orange plastic strips hanging over the door to keep the flies away; and though he did it three or four times a week no one in the store paid him the slightest attention. The orange strips of plastic slid over his shoulders and Dan waited for a forklift to pick up two large crates of Japanese aubergines before he crossed into the hangar-like space of the market itself. He could smel
l oranges, the sharp aroma of ripening fruit, and a rich bouquet of parsley and coriander, the Vietnamese mint and the basil. He dodged the shoppers who were picking through the fruit, inspecting the herbs for deficiencies, a skill Dan was convinced he would never learn�he thought it must be a talent that had come from migration; he didn�t know anyone Aussie born who had that skill. He shifted sideways to avoid a veiled African woman bearing down on the shop counter with a bag of okra. He walked past a vendor selling potato cakes, chips and bratwurst hot dogs, and was tempted to stop, the smells igniting hunger. Better watch it, mate, you�re getting a belly. He wouldn�t stop. It had been three days since he�d gone running.

  He never changed out of his work shirt for the walk home. The other guys rushed to change their gear as soon as the shift was over, or put on a sweatshirt, embarrassed by their uniform and the job it represented. They didn�t want to be known as supermarket workers. But Dan was glad for the uniform, that it defined a station and gave him a role. He liked work and the routine of it, how his days and the week were shaped by the spread of his supermarket shifts.

  Every time his dad came back from an interstate haul, he�d ask whether Dan had given a thought to his future. What was he going to do? A few months before, Dan had mentioned something about becoming a manager, thinking that might allay his father�s concerns, get the prick off his back. His father had tried to remain impassive, but there was a moment, just a flash, like the ghost of an image under an old spent videotape there was a flicker in his eyes, just for a moment, of something like contempt. Dan had been mortified. �Well,� his old man had said finally, after a long pause, �just remember that a lot of those manager positions nowadays don�t mean shit, Dan. They�re just ways of making people believe they�re something but in reality they don�t pay you more, you�re not learning any skills; it can be a dead end�you know that, don�t you, son?�