by Andrew Daddo
When he wasn’t here, everyone seemed to get along just fine. When he was home he had this knack of making everything a little bit uncomfortable, like there was a chill in the air. He got pissed about the kitchen being a mess or the dishwasher being clean and full instead of empty. Dad’d go mental if there was no milk for his precious, orgasmic muesli or his designer tea that had been plucked by virgins in some forbidden rainforest.
Mum could handle anything, Dad thought she should handle it better.
When I went in to say goodnight to her, she was already asleep. I turned the TV off and pulled the string on her bedside light. Her plate was on Dad’s side of the bed, so I took that and gave her a kiss on the cheek. I’d managed to get to the door without disturbing her, but through the dark I heard, ‘Dylan?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You didn’t tell the girls, did you?’
‘No, Mum.’
‘Dylan?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What were you crying about, today? Is everything okay?’
‘Yep. It’s fine. Night, Mum. Sorry about Dad.’
‘Night, Dylan. I’m sorry about that prick, too.’
I’d been too tired to talk and Mum’d been too out of it to listen. I’d seen the box of Temazepam by the bed. Mum only uses sleeping pills when she’s stressed, and today would rate pretty highly on her stressometer so I suppose the pills had to be expected. Mum and Dad had both used them before but warned us not to in case we never woke up. It didn’t occur to me that Mum might have taken a whole bunch of them.
When sleep finally found me, it held me and smothered me and I slept like a dead person.
Mum seemed fine in the morning. She was, like, ‘no worries. Onward and sideward, Dylan.’ It was like any other Thursday.
‘Did you hear from Dad?’
‘I’m not ready to talk to him yet, but I will. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. Might have been a bit of an overreaction last night, you know? Our little secret for now, okay?’
‘Okay.’
I couldn’t really understand how Mum could overreact to the news that Dad’s golf bag had a phone in it going ‘Oh yeah. Oh baby. Oh yeah,’ and that he was seeing someone else, but then, what did I know? I wasn’t about to ask, either.
‘Listen, Dylan. I read this great thing online.’ I must have rolled my eyes, because she went, ‘I know, I know. It’s an affirmation. But this one’s different.’ Mum’s a classic for those things, she loves them. They’re on post-it notes all over the house.
‘I am,’ she said. Then she stood up very straight and pulled her shoulders back and said it again, louder. ‘I am.’
‘You are a what?’ said Hayley, dragging herself into the kitchen as if she’d been up all night.
‘I am a good person. I am a strong person. I am a mother and a leader. I am powerful enough to get through anything that life will throw at me. I am beautiful and a survivor, and I am a believer that I can achieve everything I desire.’
‘Actually?’ said Hayley. ‘You think?’
‘I know.’ Mum gave me the tiniest nod; for once I was in the loop.
‘You forgot nutjob,’ said Hayley without humour. ‘I am a nutjob. You’re out there, Mum. It’s time you thought about coming back or we’ll lose you to la-la land forever. Nutjooooooooob!’
Mum shook her head and pulled her lips into a skinny crescent moon, taking a few moments and a big deep breath before answering. ‘You are in danger of becoming a life-vampire, Hayley. You are a speed bump and a stop sign and a dream thief. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you’ll start bringing some good vibes into this house, and the sooner we can all move forward.’
‘And live happily ever after. God, Mum, you’re so embarr –’
‘Hayley,’ I said. ‘For once, you know?’
‘But it’s so stupid.’ In a baby voice she sort of sang, ‘Oh, look. I am a winner. If I think good things, I get good things. ‘
‘Stop,’ said Mum.
But Hayley raved on, ‘A positive attitude and a dose of gratitude. I am going to be the –’
Mum threw the sandwich she’d just made at Hayley. She actually threw it at her, hard, so lettuce and grated carrot and chicken went all over the place. Then she ran out of the kitchen.
Hayley’s head wobbled as she wiped herself down. ‘What?’
I shook my head.
Mum’s stupid affirmation was humming about my head like a cartoon budgie after someone’s been belted. I am. I am. I am.
What am I? I thought. I am, what?
I added the news about Mum kicking Dad out on top of my world of crap to deal with. It was starting to feel like a massive snake slithering out of my control and squeezing me to death at the same time. No one had warned us about life getting more complicated as we got older – everything just looked like it would be twice as much fun. And maybe, sometimes it was.
I’d wanted to stay home today but Mum said it was important to keep things ‘normal’. She said the last thing I should be doing is sitting around the house moping. ‘Be with your friends,’ she’d said. ‘Be fifteen. Have fun. These are the very best years of your life, trust me. You’ll never have as much fun as you’re having right now. Ever.’
Who the hell was she kidding?
I am.
I am not going to catch the 140 but will walk the extra distance and hope Ryan’s on the 142; that is what I am going to do this morning. I am I am I am, Sam I am. I don’t have a clue who I am. I am the bloke running through life in a blindfold and bashing into things is who I am. I am up shit creek with everyone thinking I have no dick for a paddle. I am Shitback walking into a school-storm. I am about to be laughed at by everyone.
Mum would want me I Am-ing positives instead of negatives because that’s the whole point of all of her affirmations. It’s always about the good stuff, or turning the bad to your advantage. ‘It’s a state of mind, Dylan.’
I am.
I am on verge of going out with Gracie Chilcott if I can just talk to her and finish that conversation we were having. I am going to pash her and maybe more. I am going to have her as my girlfriend. I am going to have photos of her in my phone and she’s not going to have much clothing on and she will send me those photos in the dark of night and I will receive them and giggle and send other photos back. I am going to have so much fun with her.
I am just going to have to get through this other shit first and get the world spinning my way for once.
Ryan was at the bus stop. He had his head in a book and barely looked up when I gave him a wet willy in his ear from behind.
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘What are you doing back at the 142? You’re a 140 dude now, aren’t ya?’
‘Yeah, well. Just wanted to see how the poor people are going.’
‘Starving, mate. But happy.’
‘I’ll bet. I seem to remember life on the south side of Sydney Road was always pretty good.’
I had to know and couldn’t think of a better way of finding out than just asking. ‘Did you hear about yesterday at the pool? It’s everywhere, right?’
‘Hmmm,’ went Ryan in his typically dry way. ‘Whatever you’re talking about sounds awesome. What’s supposed to have happened? Did someone lose their top off the diving board? Tell me Gracie Chilcott finally let those dogs out.’
‘Did she?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything from anyone. There was nothing about the pool on Facebook or Instagram that I remember.’
‘No shit?’ Maybe the affirmation stuff’s working after all.
Ryan banged his forehead with his palm. ‘Oh, hang on a minute. There was this one thing that everyone’s sharing and liking.’ My nuts tightened at the same time the urge to crap arrived in my arse. ‘But it’s not from the pool, it’s a status post from Isabella Crentin and it says: “Sucks to be me, can’t log in to Facebook.”’
‘I don’t get it,’ I said, feeling like a bit of a dick.
‘She was upg
rading her status. And she said she couldn’t log in to Facebook. That was her post.’
‘Lost me,’ I said. I don’t have Facebook because Mum and Dad banned it. It was a bullshit reason, cyber bullying or something. They think we’ll get along fine without it, which Hayley and I do, but it doesn’t mean we don’t want it. If I want to know what’s trending, I have to ask someone else.
‘She posted that she couldn’t log in to Facebook.’ He was speaking louder than normal, and slowly, as if I was simple.
‘But wouldn’t she have to be logged in to post something?’
‘That’s why it’s funny. She’s so blonde. It’s started a whole new bunch of blonde jokes, but instead of saying what did the blonde say or what did the blonde do, they’re all Isabella jokes. Like, why was Isabella happy that she finished the jigsaw in six months? Because on the box it said 3–4 years. And, what does Isabella say if you blow air in her ear? Thanks for the refill. Stuff like that. It’s pretty funny, I suppose.’
‘Cos she’s an airhead, right?’
‘Duh! There’s heaps of them. Why did Isabella put lipstick on her forehead? She was trying to make up her mind. That’s a crap one, some of them are pretty mean, but then she might have had it coming. She won’t be at school today, guaranteed.’
‘And there wasn’t anything from the pool?’
‘What happened at the pool?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly what “nothing”?’ He put his book in his bag and struggled to zip it back up because it was so full of other books and folders. Mine looked empty in comparison, making me wonder if I should be doing more. Ryan’s always been a big studier, it’s one of the things we used to do a lot together. We’d manage half an hour or so before the wet willies or ear flicking or anything to break the monotony kicked in. It was fun and we’d get good results, which had been cool, too. It’s weird how that new distance between our houses seems to have created a distance between us as well.
‘It was stupid, really. Just Sully and McAcca mucking around and making jokes and taking the piss. Same stuff as usual with those two. I just wondered if the jokes had legs, you know? Sometimes things catch on and sometimes they don’t.’
It was Ryan’s turn to say something, and he was meant to shake his head a bit and scrunch his nose and say, ‘Nup, nothing like that made it to the worldwide wasteland that I saw.’ Or not. He could brighten and say, ‘Well, yes. Now you mention it, there was a bit of postage on the web about yourself and your choice of bathing attire.’ But he didn’t do that, either.
‘Remind me why you aren’t on Facebook again,’ he said.
‘Um, I think my parents said something about a combination of waste of time and getting my feelings hurt. And something about stalking old girlfriends, because that’s what they must do. Lucky for me, I’ve got you to tell me what’s going on. So, nothing interesting?’
‘Nup.’
I could feel the tension leach out of me. It started at the base of my skull and seemed to flow down and out my hands and feet. All that time I’d spent agonising over how I’d walk in to school and people’d go past me and laugh. They’d try to hide their smirks and grins but deftly wave their little fingers at me as if they were in on the big secret about my little dick. I’d imagined walking into Tech and instead of screen-printing the logos or pictures we were supposed to be printing onto T-shirts, everyone would be doing their variations of Little Dick Dylan. Like, a picture of me next to a picture of a tiny rooster with an equals sign in the middle. Dylan equals Little Cock. Or a pair of Speedos with a dent where the dick should be and underneath it’d say, ‘Dylan’s Sluggos.’
The litmus test was if anyone was noisy on Facebook, and given Isabella seemed to have snagged all the attention, maybe things were sweet. Ryan nudged me back to consciousness when the bus arrived. ‘You coming?’
We sat together and took turns at playing Amazing Brick. If I didn’t have the stupid phone-me-down, I could play at the same time on my own phone. It was cool like this, though, and it took my mind off other things.
The only person who said anything about the pool on the bus was Georgia Skaz who said she’d seen me in the pool at training, but then I disappeared, so maybe she didn’t see me at all. ‘I did, then I didn’t. Or maybe I didn’t, then I really didn’t. Weird, eh?’
I just shrugged her off. Brilliant swimmer but that was about it for Georgia.
At school Sully asked how the sluggos were going, but there was no malice in the question, he was just joking. I’d expected everyone to be talking about Isabella, but they weren’t. News wasn’t news for long.
All the chatter was about Lurch and Hamish Banning who’d been suspended. Banning got done for pegging the pigeon with his keys, and Lurch was suspended for lying to cover him. He was so stupid. Apparently he’d been given the chance to tell what he knew but had said he ‘didn’t see nothin’. ’
Sampson said he’d bumped into Lurch as he came out of the Deputy’s office and that’s exactly what he said. Sampson was laughing. ‘He’s, like, “I told ’em I didden see nothin’. Even though I was right there next to Hammer, there’s no way I’d dob on him. Brothers for life, we are. I’d never give him up.” And he was all bent over and stooped and flexing as hard as anyone’d ever flexed, saying how cool it would be to have a whole week out of this shithole.’
‘Well, yeah,’ I said to Sampson. ‘But you’d be housebound, right? If I got suspended, Mum and Dad’d put a bloody prison anklet on me and I’d get electrocuted if I left the house. I reckon my dad would do that. He would’ve, anyway, but not now. He can’t, can he? Mum wouldn’t, though. She’d be all right.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Ryan, looking from me to Sampson and back again.
‘What?’
‘Yeah, what?’ said Sampson.
Sampson still looked confused but I knew where Ryan was coming from.
‘I was just talking, geez. I wasn’t saying anything.’
‘You rarely do, Dylan.’
The sound of a hunter’s horn came from my pocket. ‘Text,’ I said.
‘Set your alarm again to look popular, as if someone’s texted you?’
‘Funny. At least I get texts, loser.’
‘It’s probably from your mum.’ Ryan was right, again.
I read it again with an excitement I hadn’t felt for ages. It was like some big, incredibly warm, invisible force had picked me up and swallowed me, and I was in the belly of happiness. Mum was wrong about Dad. She’d overreacted like Mum does, Dad was still Dad and he wasn’t going anywhere that wasn’t for work and I suppose that’s all right, too.
This wave I was riding was ridiculous.
I read it again, slower, to see if I’d missed anything. I’m sure if my phone was able to take emoticons they would have been dancing about like bodyless babies.
‘You beauty,’ I said aloud.
‘Mum find your penis?’ smirked Sampson.
‘What?’
‘Your dick? Did your Mum find your dick?’
I looked at Ryan who shrugged but had that shit-eating grin he has when he’s ahead of the game. ‘Well, thanks for telling me, prick. So someone did say something?’
‘What?’ said Ryan and Sampson together.
‘About yesterday? What’d they say?’
‘About what, Schitzoid?’
Now I was confused. ‘What shit are you talking, Sampson? What’s with the no-dick stuff? Who said something to you?’ I got into his face, looking down on him. Sampson took a step back and stopped smiling. Now he was the one looking confused.
‘I made it up,’ he said. ‘It was a joke.’
‘First, how is it funny? And why would you make that up now, today of all days? It’s because you heard something, right?’
‘Dude,’ said Ryan. ‘It was a joke, but you’re the only one who doesn’t think it’s funny. Unless you did lose your penis and your mum did find it.’
My head hurt. I was
imploding. Did the whole school know I’d been humiliated at the pool, or was Sampson just making it up? He did spend a lot of time drawing dicks and rearranging his own from one side of his underpants to the other, so it could have been a coincidence. But wasn’t that doubtful? Who the hell makes up no-dick or missing-dick jokes?
‘As weird as things have been lately, no, my mother did not find my penis. It’s right here.’ I put my hand over my groin and grabbed myself as if I was Michael Jackson, but instead of going ‘heee!’ like he did, I went wide-eyed and said, ‘Noooooooooooooooo, where’s my dick?’
We all laughed. It felt like the first time in ages I hadn’t forced it.
I rang Mum but had to leave her a message, ‘Ripper,’ was all I said. It’s what she said when things were going really well. I couldn’t wait to hear what had happened and how she’d squirm her way out of it. She’d overreacted for sure, like someone else seemed to be doing.
For all her positive affirmations and ability to find a joke in a sore spot, Mum managed to misread lots of things. Quick to decide, quicker to condemn, that was Mum. If the evidence was against you, even vaguely, she’d find a way to say something she’d eventually regret. Her wanking advice still stung, even though I know her intentions were true. This must be what had happened with Dad. Of course the phone wasn’t his, why would it be? But Mum had found a way to add it all up and get Dad rooting someone else. That’s Mum.
The bell called us for assembly.
It was the usual trudge in. The Head and a few of the other senior teachers stood about in the Quad looking incredibly important, waiting for their moment to enter. Sometimes it took ages for everyone to settle, and that usually cost us overtime at the end.
I saw Isabella Crentin. She was wearing sunglasses, cowering a bit and looking like she was in protective custody on her way to court. Gracie and Hannah had an elbow each and were clearing the way. I didn’t catch the joke that made everyone around them laugh, but couldn’t miss Isabella saying, ‘Just piss off, would yers!’
