by Andrew Daddo
Ashley Smythe was working her way through the throng, looking like she was trying to catch up. She hated to miss anything, and what she didn’t know or understand she generally made up. If Gracie was there, I didn’t see her.
But it was the look on Madison’s face that cut me to the quick. It was mostly hidden behind her hands, but she was laughing – I could tell by those upturned wrinkles around her eyes and the rise and fall of her shoulders.
It was the weirdest position to be in. If I faced them, they were laughing at my ‘dickless’ ball-huggers. If I turned my back, they were laughing at the smear of shit rising from my arse crack. To get to the pool, I ended up doing this hobbled kind of bent over, sideways crab-walk. I was trying to cover my front and back at the same time and of course I knew it looked as ridiculous as anything, but I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t far to travel – it’s not as if I had to do a thirty-metre run to the pool – but it was far enough.
As soon as I got near the water I shoved my goggles in the side of my Speedos and dived. I launched hard from the pool-deck, using my legs to get me out as far as possible and away from the riot. I nearly landed on one of the squad swimmers. That would have been funny, too, I suppose. A bonus giggle for everyone.
Finally, I was safe.
I made myself all straight and long, putting one hand over the other, letting my fingers intertwine the way I’d imagined they would when I was holding hands with Gracie. It felt good. The chlorine stung my eyes and I knew it was time to close them, but I couldn’t. The sting seemed to help; it’d turn my eyes red and make it look like I’d been crying and give me a believable excuse to cover the truth. I kicked hard until I was deep in the water, a squad swimmer glided over the top. I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I use the other exit from the change rooms? Why did I stop and look in the mirror instead of coming straight to the pool? Why did they choose that exact moment to arrive?
I was running out of oxygen now. The end of the pool was still a fair way off – I’d only just hit the bit where the shallow end gives way to the deep. I must have swum almost twenty-five metres under water. It was close to my limit and still I kept going. My eyes were hemorrhaging. The inside of my chest felt constricted, as if it was pushing up towards my throat in the search for air. I couldn’t go up. I couldn’t stand it.
It’s the first time I’ve felt like dying. I would have just stayed down the bottom of the pool. I could have sucked the deep-end into my chest and my lungs and found a crevice or a crack in the tiles and hidden there forever. I would have loved to have done that. My dad always says that salt water cures anything, you just have to let it in. This is surely what he meant, and even though it wasn’t a saltwater pool, it was working. More big kicks, another pull of my arms through the water. I could make it to the end of the pool if I could hang on. I could hit it hard. I could smack my head into the tiled wall and knock myself out and gently drift to the bottom.
I could stay there forever.
In a last desperate kicking, paddling frenzy I tried to make the end. This would show them, this would shut them up and give them something to talk about. None of them can swim a lap of a fifty-metre pool under water, I was pretty sure of that. Are you ready for this, fellas?
In the end it was another epic fail. I didn’t get there. I was metres short, not inches. My body betrayed me. My lungs and chest were too strong for my head and heart. It’s funny how right before you surface, your body expels all the air that’s left. I’d only just broken the top of the water when my mouth yawned wide to suck up oxygen. It came in so quickly – so clean and cool and fresh.
I dived again. I needed time to think where I couldn’t be seen.
At the bottom of the pool I spread my hands along the tiles. Sometimes during comps, when a dive is really good, I’ll head for the bottom and do this. It doesn’t take much, a few extra kicks, maybe one or two strokes of my arms, and I’ll get to the bottom and place both hands on the tiles and smooth them across the surface. There’s always sand down there, lurking unseen between the tiles. And then I turn, bring my knees into my chest, firm my feet onto the bottom and push for the surface. On the way up, I kind of wiggle my shoulders, the way a fishing lure moves when it’s being wound back in. Just before breaking the surface, I imagine the crowd going a little nuts. ‘Go Dylan, yeeeew!’
One day. It might happen.
Not today though, please, not today. I hoped there was no one up there watching, that there was no crowd. I just wanted nothing up there at all.
‘You swim on top of water, Dylan. Stop mucking. Start swimming. You swim good. You dive good. Go.’
I let myself slowly sink to the bottom of the pool again and pulled my goggles from the side of my Speedos. Even in the cold water I was so hot; it’s like a little bomb had gone off in my chest and my heartbeat was the aftershocks. There was this constant boom, boom, boom inside me, filling my ears and thumping at the walls of my chest.
I got owned, again.
My dick’s not even that small!
It’s normal. It’s bigger than Sully’s; I’ve seen his in the showers.
A line of swimmers was bearing down on my end of the pool, the monotonous slap and splash of their arms sending a warning for me to clear the centre of the lane. I moved to the side and waited, taking the time to get a decent fit on my goggles and have one last look at Gracie before chasing the black line. She was sitting on the edge of the grass with Ashley. They had their heads together, almost conspiratorially, then they both laughed, before looking over at my end of the pool. Wouldn’t it be great if they were talking about the way I’d almost swum the whole length under water, how that was a totally cool thing to be able to do? But I don’t think that’s what they were doing. I think they were talking about the shit streak up my back and how it got there and how I had a small dick.
It was time to fall in behind the last swimmer and follow. I liked the way her feet would kick with the same rhythm, four fluttery movements followed by a couple of bigger, more powerful kicks. They’d cross at the ankles as she took breath. Left foot over right, flutter flutter boom boom, right foot over left. It was like watching a drummer playing the snare and high-hat, then busting off for a crack at a distant cymbal on every sixth beat. I hung in there, watching, just out of reach. Safe.
As hard as I concentrated on swimming, I couldn’t shake their laughter. It was a dull throb, like laughing in slow motion. I’d have swum into the filter box if that was possible and come out when the lights were off and everyone had left.
The thought of having to get out and walk to the diving pool, past the grassy hill where McAcca and Sully were sitting with all the other cool kids, was up there with getting another atomic wedgie from Banning. I’d have to climb the little ladder to the diving boards, stand firm until the board stopped wobbling from the diver before, then dive. They’d all be watching me. Someone’d yell out, ‘Go No-dick!’ If I got out the far side of the diving pool they’d get another look at the welt and yell, ‘There’s shit on ya back!’ or ‘Hey, Shit-back!’
This was a disaster; it’s how nicknames were born. At school, if I stood up someone’d say, ‘Shit-back down, Dylan.’ I’d be Shitback from now on, it wasn’t even my fault.
Between strokes, I tried to rattle loose the picture of Madison laughing behind her hands. I counted the strokes for a whole lap but lost interest somewhere in the mid-teens because I could still see her shoulders going up and down. And when she tried to stop, her eyebrows had gone up ever so slightly in the middle and made way for that pitying, you-poor-puppy expression. It was a withering look.
I’m normal size.
Of course it’s going to shrink a bit in a pair of slightly damp Speedos. And walking out of a shady change room into swimming practice, there’d been no thought to pointing it in the right direction or stretching the wrinkles out of it.
I threw a couple of punches towards the bottom of the pool, which slowed me down and made me feel completely ridicu
lous.
I headed for the ladder at the edge of lane one and kept myself under water by pushing against the bottom rung. There might be a way to wedge my head between the ladder and the side of the pool, but it was probably designed so the gap wasn’t wide enough to get anything stuck in there. It’d also be a pretty stupid way to go. Dylan? Dead? How’d it happen? He what? He got his head stuck in the pool ladder and couldn’t get it out and he drowned? You’re kidding. Unlucky, eh? What a cock. That’s like the biggest cock thing you could do. Oh, didn’t you hear? A big cock was definitely something he was not.
It’s all stupid. Everyone’s stupid, but especially me. Diving’s for losers.
I watched my imploding world from the ladder. The hill was busy now, there was a mob of them lolling about importantly, but having the time of their lives. Now Hamish was there, too.
That was enough for me.
The walk home was numbing, I ached from the inside out.
It was like I’d been stung all over by a swarm of bees, and I’d blown up so much my skin was stretched tight. I was encased in a fragile layer that might have felt fine to the gentlest touch, but when pressed, it just plain hurt.
Dad’s car was in the driveway; I could see it from halfway up the street, glowing like it was on fire. Mum’d hated that Holden from the moment he’d brought it home. She never understood how the two-door model worked for our four-door family, and she hated the muscles over the wheels and the deep throb of the engine.
‘It’ll cost a fortune to run, you know?’ Mum’d said. ‘What is it, anyway? That colour, what’s the colour?’
That was the moment Ronnie had burst out the front door and yelled, ‘Sporange!’
‘Sporange,’ agreed Mum. ‘It’s sporange! Who has an orange car, darl?’
‘It’s not sporange,’ growled Dad, possibly sounding more pissed off than he’d meant to. ‘It’s more burnt sienna. It’s Australia. That is the colour of Australia on the car of Australia.’
‘Sporange,’ Ronnie yelled again. ‘Three points to me. Yeeeew!’ she went.
‘It’s definitely sporange,’ agreed Hayley. ‘You should know, Dad. You invented sporange and added it to Spotto. Everyone else was happy with just ‘spotto’ for yellow cars, remember? But you added ‘sporange’ for orange cars because you were losing. I remember the day you did it.’
‘Oh my God, Dad. I can’t believe you bought a Sporange,’ I said.
Mum had her arms folded across her chest and muttered, ‘Fingers crossed it’s not a lemon.’
Dad pushed the door closed, putting an end to the discussion and the new car smell. Blip blip, went the alarm. ‘Yeah, righto, whatever. Show’s over.’
But we all still stood there.
‘Mon-a-ro?’ asked Hayley. ‘It sounds like Mong-oh. All the cool kids are saying, “My dad bought a Jeep” and when they say, “What’d your dad buy?” I’ll have to say, “My dad bought a retard.”’
Dad dragged in a big breath before pointing his face at the clouds and letting it whistle out through his teeth. ‘There are so many things wrong with what you just said, I’m not sure where to start,’ he said, waving a finger at Hayley. ‘And it’s a Monaro, not a Mon-a-ro. Mon-ahhhh-ro. Mon-ahhhh-ro!’
Dad had gone from looking like the kid who’d found the most Easter eggs to tight-lipped in record time. He had the service book out and was thumbing through it.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘The color, for the record, is Tiger. It’s not orange, it’s not sporange. It’s Holden Tiger.’
‘You hate the Tigers,’ I said. ‘You should have bought a blue car, that’s more your team, isn’t it? Carn the Blues!’
Dad shook his head. ‘You know, I try to do something a bit different and a bit new and everyone’s a smart-arse. Well, fine by me because no one has to ride in it, do they?’
He blip-blipped again, got in and opened the front door. I got a better look at the inside of the car; the pedals were fast looking, with cheese-gratery holes. There were dials all over the dash and the seats were black with a bright orange centre panel. When Dad fired it up, the Monaro sounded like thunder.
‘It goes, boy,’ he said to me before closing the door. When he dropped it back into reverse, the car seemed to slink lower, ready to pounce. I made a move to the passenger side so I could go with him, but before I’d even got past the front of the car, he’d started reversing down the driveway.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I said, waving at him but pointing at me. ‘I’ll come.’
Dad smiled and nodded, but continued his retreat down the driveway. I was pointing madly from me to him, him to me. ‘I’ll come. I want to come.’
At the bottom of the driveway, the bit where it meets the road, Dad practically stopped. It was my chance to get in, but after a bit of looking around he snibbed the doors so I couldn’t.
‘Wait, wait!’ he said with his hands up, his grimace turning to grin. Very slowly, he inched the car onto the road – it was so he didn’t scrape the bottom of the fairing on the gutter. Once he was clear, he unlocked the doors and that was the moment I moved towards the passenger door. But again he gave me the ‘wait, wait’.
I could see why Dad chose that car. It was pretty hot, and very loud when he revved it. Mum was standing with Hayley, both with their arms folded across their chests looking fabulously bored and Ronnie was hiding behind Mum’s legs with her fingers in her ears.
Dad lined the car up in the middle of the road and revved it some more.
‘Me? Me?’ I said, pointing at the middle of my chest. Dad nodded. But before I had a chance to get to the car, he chucked it in gear and planted it. There was smoke and noise and not much else until he backed off the accelerator, giving the tyres a chance to get some purchase on the road. He took off, leaving us in the stink of burning rubber and white smoke.
The burnout marks are still there, but only just.
He should’ve taken me with him that day. It would have been fun, I reckon, but he took off and stayed away for a couple of days. Mum said he had a conference. I was snaky when he came back and ignored him for as long as possible.
‘Let it go,’ he’d said once he figured out why I was giving him the cold shoulder. ‘I had to go anyway and, really, burnouts are pretty boring when you’re in the car. It’s one of the rare things in life that’s more fun watching than doing. So the fact is, I did you a favour.’
‘S’pose so.’ I was still mad, but he did promise to take me for a burnout session ‘another time’. It’s a growing list.
Ronnie kept saying ‘Sporange’ whenever she saw the car, Hayley kept calling it the ‘Mon-a-ro, mate’ as if she was Greek or Italian, and Mum barely went in it. It was Dad’s car, and that seemed to be the way everyone liked it.
I was glad he was home now, though.
It felt like he hadn’t been around for ages, but really, we just operated on different clocks. For once, I could talk to him about stuff. He’d know what to do about my afternoon, he was pretty good like that. He’s a fixer, my dad, and right now I had a mess of stuff to sort with no idea where to start or what tools to use.
I stood at the back of his car. It had a few little marks on it now: age and shopping trollies and out-of-control kids on skateboards. And he still hadn’t fixed the little dent in the bonnet where I’d accidentally planted a cricket ball.
That was bad, that day. He was washing the car and I had the ball and my bat and stumps and I just wanted him to bowl me a couple of balls. He was working away at the rims when I called out to him. ‘Dad!’ I’d said. And he’d half turned and I said, ‘Think quick!’ before throwing the ball to him. It was more of a lob than a throw, and pretty high. Dad lost it in the sun, so he covered his head with one hand while his other was outstretched hoping for the ball. He was nowhere near it; the throw was too hard and the ball went too far and it landed with a doont in the middle of his bonnet, right next to the letterbox that stuck up like a grimace.
It wouldn’t have mattered how many
times I said sorry that day, I was just the stupidest, most idiotic and selfish moron in the world.
‘Who throws cricket balls near cars, Dylan?’ he’d said when he’d kind of calmed down. ‘Who does that?’ But even though he’d said I would pay for it out of my own money, he’d never got around to getting it fixed, so it sat there, a memento of me and my stupidity.
Eventually he kind of apologised for getting so angry. ‘I know it’s just a car, mate,’ he’d said. ‘But it’s about respect, too. And thinking about consequences and –’ that’s pretty much when I tuned out because he’d said it all already.
But this was different, none of it was my fault. The hard part was working out how to bring it up with Dad so he could help me figure out the next step. The whole story, or just the pool part? I didn’t want to sound like a dickhead or a whinger. Oh, Daddy. The boys are being mean to me. They said I’ve got a little willy and then they all laughed and the girls did too, and I feel sad, Daddy. They hurt my feelings.
Of course, that is exactly what happened, and saying it like that made me feel a bit better about it because it did sound pretty stupid. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. But it felt like one. There was other gear going on, anyway. I traced a finger around the dent in his bonnet. Geez that ball must have landed hard.
‘Good times,’ said Dad, out of nowhere. ‘Admiring your handiwork, are ya? I get to see the reflection of the world with that little dent in it everywhere I drive.’
‘Yeah, well. Sor . . .’ I started, but Dad finished it for me. It must have been the thousandth time.
‘If I get on the right angle, I can make things disappear into it, like it’s a mini black hole. Where’ve you been, anyway?’
‘Diving,’
‘Good?’
‘Orright,’ I said, moving my head this way and that to try and make stuff disappear into the dent in the bonnet. I was dying inside. I wanted to say that it wasn’t all right at all, that it was totally shit, that just about everything I touched seemed to have the stench of death about it, but instead I just said, ‘orright’.
