by Andrew Daddo
It hurt more than I’d imagined it could have.
He was loud and menacing and whatever I tried was useless against the might of Hamish Banning. The tears finally blurred everything, but brought on a different, shameful pain.
‘Enough,’ I heard someone say. ‘That’s enough.’ I thought it must have been the sub teacher, but it was Teddy Abrahams. He’s got such a big voice for a little dude. He wasn’t big enough to do anything but he tried. My wedgie was so perfect, so complete, that Hamish Banning’s hands were up near the middle of my back. He pushed me forward and I kind of flailed and fell into Teddy and the lockers beyond.
‘Nice G-banger, you arse bandit, tree hugger,’ cacked Hamish.
I was physically hot. Tears stung my cheeks. My face was red, and my zits were probably glowing like they were radioactive. I was steaming and seething, and balled my hands ready to punch the absolute life out of that prick. My underpants were literally halfway up my back. I wanted to jump up and face off. I wanted to be that kid at the end of the movie who makes a stand and humiliates the bastard who’s done all the humiliating. I wanted to sting him with words that would ring in his ears for days or months to come, words that would wound and bruise and penetrate his fantastically dumb, thick skin. But as I untangled myself from Teddy I slipped again which set off a new chorus of laughter.
It wasn’t as if I needed help humiliating myself.
I finally made it to my feet and brought the waistband of my underpants back to where it belonged. My undies were still up my crack, though, and there was no way I was going to pull them out in front of Hamish Banning or Lurch or these other wankers.
‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’ It was the sub teacher, all active and enthusiastic, and where the hell had he been two minutes ago?
‘Yes, Sir!’ said Hamish. ‘Let’s go, let’s go! Come on, tree hugger homo. You coming? Are you okay? You look like you’ve got something up your arse!’
‘You’re a –’ I started.
‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘I’m a . . .?’ And he came in menacingly close to my face and whispered, ‘If you ever make me look like a dickhead again, I will fuck you up so bad you’ll be cleaning your teeth through your arsehole! Got that, faggot!’ He stood up and said, ‘Let’s go’ again, just the way the substitute teacher had.
A couple of the boys hung back and asked if I was okay. It was hard to save face, but I said once I got my undies out of my butt I’d be fine, unless I had to get them surgically removed, which was pretty much how it felt. They left me to it. Teddy gave me a pat on the back and said everyone knew Hamish was a turd, it’s just that no one had figured out the best way to deal with him.
I could think of a few ways.
‘Thanks for trying,’ I said to Teddy. ‘I owe you one.’
Had I really made Hamish look like a dickhead? And how? All I’d done was write a story that the teacher liked. Big deal. Every day someone does school work the teachers like more than Hamish’s – he should be used to it. He didn’t have to call me a homo for writing the story, but it was kind of cool when Mr Baird turned on him. It was good to see him squirm a bit, to watch him suffer,struggling to read aloud.
The stupid thing is, his story actually sounded okay, kind of like an action story, just a bit simple. A bit like him, really. I don’t think it was worth trying to split me in half with my undies, though.
It was a struggle to get my jocks out of my butt. I tried to pull them down from the back with the waistband, but it hurt too much. Somehow my underpants had become like a band-aid that was too painful to peel off – it was either going to have to be a quick rip or find another way.
In the end I had to slide my thumbs in between my nuts and the fabric and gently peel my jocks out of my crack. Once they were free, I pulled my underpants down to my knees to have a look at them. There was red stuff, I’m guessing it was blood, in my underpants. It should have been shit, but this was red, not brown.
What had he done?
Still with my jocks around my knees, I went to the mirror and tried to get a look at my backside. I couldn’t see much, just a welt from where the fabric had been ripped up and down my skin, the line was like an extension of my crack. It must have been worse further down if that actually was blood in my undies. Maybe there was a pimple there, maybe that’s what had happened; all that friction had just ripped the head off it. It’d be fine, eventually. Still, it’d be good to know – maybe I should go to the school nurse or something. But what would I say? How would I show her? I grabbed my crappy phone and opened the camera. Pulling my arse cheeks apart with one hand, I tried to manoeuvre the phone the right way to take a photo – it was just so I could see what was going on back there, to see if I needed to get it fixed or not. That’s all it was.
I didn’t hear the door open.
I just heard the words, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
I didn’t even know who it was; if it was a boy or a teacher or what. What if it was a girl with a deep voice? There was no way to know. I was guessing it was a boy because it was the boys’ change room, but girls come in from time to time for a dare. It happens. Things happen. But why does shit like this happen to me?
It felt as if bad shit’d been stalking me from dawn to dusk, and it was on my tail today. Or up it. Jesus. What was I going to do now?
Maybe they didn’t know who it was photographing their own arse. My back was pointed towards that door, so there’s no guarantee they would know it was World Class Dipshit Champion Loser of the World Dylan Hester. I managed to scamper like a roach into a cubicle with my clothes and one shoe. I had to get dressed and get out the other door before they worked out who it was. Before they could be certain, at the very least. If there’s a God and he’s even vaguely on my side, he’ll make sure that whoever that was who came into the locker room didn’t recognise me.
Crap! Shit! Crap!
I’d have to move schools because of this.
Or states. We’d definitely have to move interstate.
But if there’s a God . . . Oh please, let there be a God for me on this day.
It’s weird. I’ve seen people do some pretty out-there stuff. Sometimes you’re not that sure what you actually saw and you question it for a second, then forget about it because it was just so mad it couldn’t have happened. Like, you see people fall over, or pick their nose and eat it, or drop a chip on the ground and still eat it. I’ve seen tits at the beach when a mum tries to change secretly from bra to bather top. One time, in the middle of summer, I saw this old lady drop her undies and put on her bather bottoms out in the open, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. She had a long T-shirt on, but it didn’t cover much once she bent over. Afterwards, it was like she hadn’t done it, like it was normal and never happened and honestly, not a big deal. I don’t think I even told anyone.
What if that could happen today?
Maybe whoever walked in on me would have the same reaction to the one I’d had with the old lady. Like, it was so bizarre but so natural they wouldn’t even remember it later on. So natural? Did I just think that? Really? But then, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ doesn’t come out when you see someone washing the dishes or feeding the dog, does it? The only time you get a reaction like that is when you’re meant to be feeding the dog but get nailed eating the dog food. And of course that’s happened to me, but it was ages ago.
I sat on the toilet, knees up, feet on the seat. I couldn’t hear anything. It didn’t sound like there was anyone in the change rooms.
What to do? There was an answer to all of this, and a way out. If this was a wave and I was surfing there’d be an option, and I might get nailed or I might not. But then, if this was a wave it’d be massive – I wouldn’t even paddle into it.
I could leave school through that side gate near the crossing. I’d get done for wagging, but so what? That could be my alibi for whoever was out there. I might never have made it to PE in the first place.
How do I manag
e to turn things from being so good to so bad? How was I able to turn that magnificent proposition from Gracie Chilcott into this steaming turd?
The moment was utterly rooted by that idiot Hamish Banning. Obviously, I had to kill him. The only way to get back at him was to slowly and painfully take his life. It’d be hard to pull that off without being caught. I couldn’t just kill him and dump the body, I’d have to be really clever about it, maybe frame someone else. He’s such a jerk – heaps of people must want to kill him. I could pin it on ten people, easily, maybe more.
It’d have to be a slow death, he’d have to know what was happening and not be able to do anything about it. Drip by drip by drip. Would I love to see the life ebb out of him? Hell yes! Why didn’t I try and take a photo of my butt in the cubicle instead of out in the open? Could I drown him? I could drown him, easily. He’s a crap swimmer. I could run over him if I borrowed Mum’s or Dad’s car. I could accidentally push him into the bandsaw in tech and chop his smart-arse head off. ‘Sir. Sir? There’s been a bit of an accident. Hamish fell into the bandsaw and chopped his own head off.’ And his head’d be rolling around on the floor with his mouth flapping. ‘Bullshit. Bullshit. The homo did it. The homo chopped my head off!’
There was still no noise in the change room and I was beginning to cramp in that muscle above the thigh. Standing was a relief, and I got dressed right there on top of the toilet, put on my shoe and hoped the other would be easy to find. The place looked empty through the crack in the door. There was no noise, no laughing, no walking around.
Coast clear.
The bolt slid back with a clunk, so I gave it a second to see if there was any shuffling or noise beyond the graffitied toilet door. It was the usual sort of stuff: tags, dicks and who the easy roots were. I scanned the walls to see if I had a mention and was thankful to come up empty. In the middle of the door was a poem,
Some come here to sit and think,
Others come here to shit and stink,
But I come here to scratch my balls,
And read the bullshit on the walls.
That would have been pretty funny last Monday.
There was no one in the bathroom – in either the cubicles or the urinals. The showers were mercifully clear as well. From what I could see, the change rooms were empty, too.
I could see my shoe. My bag was there, and a bunch of other stuff.
I took a deep breath and glanced around the entrance into the change rooms and squirmed as I realised I was out of luck. Someone was sitting with their back to me, they were at the bench where I’d been sitting. Was it Ryan? He was face down in his phone and texting. I was terrified of what the text might say, even though I hadn’t heard the click of a camera, I knew I was done. The thought of it being a video made me feel even worse. I tried to silently slide back into the bathroom, but as I did, I knocked the paper bin with my foot.
‘Have you noticed that people post the weirdest stuff online?’ said the texter. It was Ryan. There was a God. If I could choose one person from the entire universe to catch me taking that photo, it was Ryan. The relief washed through me like a torrent and formed tears in my eyes.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t doing what you probably think I was doing, whatever that is.’
‘What were you doing, you freak? What kind of weirdo culty messed up Facebook world have you entered? Were you seriously taking a photo of your arse?’ He looked perplexed as I giggled with relief. ‘There’s arse photos – like, chicks who stick their bums out – and there’s your arse photos. I don’t even know how you’d search them. “Close-up-spread-your-bum-cheeks-wide photos”? I dunno. You’re getting weirder, Bucko.’ He wasn’t laughing. ‘It’s not normal, Dylan.’
But I laughed. It was the relief of having Ryan bust me and not someone else. Where I’d ached from embarrassment a few moments ago, I was now so happy. Ryan would save me from my own stupidity. He was always there, always good, always giving, always Ryan – the smart, mouthy kid from up the road. We’d been through so much together, and this could be another chapter in our long, funny story.
There’s so much stuff we have on each other that if we wrote it all down it’d be like the guidebook to embarrassment. The time he fell off the bridge into the prickles and howled like a banshee, wailing for his mum. He was there when I ate dog poo. I was two, and apparently we thought it was peanut butter and I begged him to let me eat it first. We’d played doctors and doctors, we’d been married and chosen our honeymoon spot by throwing darts at his dad’s antique map of the world. I knew stuff about him no one knew, so this new secret of mine had to be safe with him. It had to be. I wanted to hug him.
‘That’s not what I was doing,’ I cacked.
‘Really? It sure looked like that’s exactly what you were doing.’
‘Nah, I wasn’t. I’m not a freak. I was checking something, that’s all. Oh, I’m so glad it was you who came in. You’re not going to tell anyone, are ya?’
Now I was probably laughing too much, even to me it was beginning to sound over the top, verging on the maniacal I’m-going-to-rule-the-world-bad-guy laugh. I just couldn’t believe it was Ryan sitting there. How did I get so lucky? If it hadn’t been Ryan, I think I’d rather be dead.
But Ryan wasn’t laughing. He was wincing, looking from me to his phone. ‘You know there’s a Facebook page of the teachers’ arses, right? It started in the Div 5 maths class with Miss Lexington. Those guys are such dicks.’
‘Ewww! She’s not even hot.’
‘Every time she faces the board, they photograph her butt. They put the Smartboard markers on the floor before she comes in so she’ll bend down and pick them up. They put them up against the wall, too, so she has to face either sideward or towards the board, then whoever’s in the right spot takes the photo. I’m pretty sure they post the photos while they’re in class. Can you believe that?’
‘Ms Anker’s arse, maybe. But not Miss Lexington. What’s the page called?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ryan. ‘You have to be invited to join, and I’m not really in the Div 5 maths dudes clique. What do you call your page?’
‘What page?’
‘The one for your arsehole photos.’
‘I’m telling you, it’s nothing like that.’
‘You can tell me, Dyl. It’s like, who would have thought those other blokes would make a page like that? No one. So who would have thought you’d pull your bum cheeks apart and photograph your a-hole? No one. It’s weird, but it’s not the weirdest thing, you know?’
I grabbed my other shoe and put it on. ‘Yeah, but I’m normal. Those guys are freaks.’ I laughed again. I just wanted it to be funny, not as embarrassing as it was. Ryan was smirking, but not really in a way I knew. ‘What were you doing in here, anyway?’ I asked.
‘So, it is something like that. I knew it.’ Now he laughed.
‘No, it’s not! I was checking something.’ I wasn’t sure whether to tell him what I’d been doing. Now that the pain had backed off and the moment had passed, it did seem sort of ridiculous. But there was blood in my undies, which couldn’t be good. Of all people, Ryan would understand the need to know what was going on back there. In fact, given he’s so smart, he’s probably the only person who would get it.
‘That you had an a-hole?’
‘It was Banning –’
‘Banning was in your a-hole?’
‘So funny. When I came into the change room, I bent down to get something and Banning picked me up by the jocks and swung me around and around then bounced me up and down. It was like a super-wedgie. I haven’t even thought about wedgies since we were about five. He’s such a dick. Anyway, it was pretty heavy and it hurt like hell, and when I finally got my jocks out of my crack there was blood on them, so I was trying to see what it was from.’
‘Right,’ said Ryan, nodding.
‘And I can do a lot of things, but I cannot see up my own backside. So, like, I thought, take a photo. Simple, right?’
<
br /> ‘Bullshit.’
‘Tragically, it’s true. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.’
‘You are five! And even though that is an excellent story, it has to be crap. You should definitely come back to the debating team, we need that sort of creativity.’
‘Why’d you come back in, anyway?’
Ryan pressed his lips together until they disappeared. He took a deep breath through his nose. ‘Oh, I heard about what happened and thought I’d see if you’re okay. They said it was hilarious but it sounded pretty nasty. So, are you okay?’
‘So you did know! How could you make me squirm like that?’
‘Good one, eh?’ Ryan gave himself two thumbs up. ‘Is it really bleeding?’
‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘I think so. You want a look?’
‘No!’ said Ryan, pushing himself up from the bench. ‘I think you’re going to make it.’ He slapped me on the bum, footy style, and said, ‘And please do not, under any circumstances text me that photo,’ before heading through the gym doors back to PE.
Gingerly, I sat down and tried to work out my next step.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, so instead of trying to photograph my butt, I went to the cubicle and gently dabbed at it with toilet paper. It was more a red smudge than anything else, and not much, so whatever had been happening back there wasn’t happening now. It’d be fine. No real problem. My arse hurt, though. All the way from the bottom of my ballbag to the top of my crack. It felt like someone had taken a fishing line and run it up me, which probably isn’t that far from what actually happened.
Ditching school was definitely the best option.
I told the nurse I was feeling sick and wanted to go home. We went through the whole ‘we’ll have to call your mum or dad’ thing. But of course I said that was impossible because they worked and things were really busy and it’d be fine, really. Eventually I got the okay to go, but not before being reminded about bringing a note to school tomorrow. She said, ‘Take the bus, you’re looking better already.’
