My Private Pectus

by Shane Thamm

  Later, while I'm lying on my bed, texting Sam, Dad comes in. ‘Roger's invited us over for dinner,’ he says.

  I dump my phone and sit up. ‘I've got plans.’

  He wanders back into the hallway.

  ‘Hey!’ I go after him. ‘I said I've got plans.’

  I follow him to the kitchen, where he opens the fridge, takes out the water and pours a glass. ‘You should have told me about them earlier,’ he says and pops a couple of pills. He gulps them down. ‘Anyway, Roger does a lot for you and me, and it's not like he has to. You should be grateful and I want you to come and show it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘That's all I've got to say about it. We're leaving in thirty. Don't worry,’ he says waving a hand, ‘we'll get back by ten and you can take the ute.’

  I storm off, swearing. I go to my room, slam my door and throw myself onto the bed. I punch the wall, kick the bedpost, then call Sam.

  She says to me in a quiet voice, ‘Listen, if you don't want to come, just tell me.’

  I press the phone against my ear, wishing it was her. ‘No. It's not that at all. I want to. It's Dad, but I'll be there a bit late, that's all. Promise. I want to be there.’

  Going by the silence, she's not convinced. She's probably thinking I'm worming my way out, trying to let her down softly. ‘It'll be a bit after ten,’ I say.

  ‘Just text me before you come.’

  ‘Will you still save me a beer?’ I ask, trying to make light of things.

  ‘If there's any left.’ She hangs up.

  I trudge off to the TV. Outside, Knight Rider scratches on the glass sliding door, rubs his nose at the join and barks. I close the curtain.

  Dad gets about like he's on a first date. He irons his shirt on the kitchen bench, buttons it up, tucks it into his slacks. He goes into the bathroom, comes back out having combed his hair. He threads a belt through his pants, tries to buckle it, but it won't make the last notch.

  ‘I don't believe this!’ he says in a long drawn-out way, as if he's just witnessed something improbable. ‘My belt doesn't fit anymore.’ He looks at me.

  I change channels.

  ‘Who would've thought?’ He pulls it out and holds it up like a snake. Still examining its length, he goes into the kitchen and stabs a new hole with the tip of a knife.

  I'm wearing a blue shirt that has a picture in the middle of a sun with thick red rays against a white backdrop, like the Land of the Rising Sun.

  ‘You can't wear that,’ he tells me.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Roger wouldn't like it.’

  ‘Why is that? He never fought the Japs.’

  ‘Doesn't matter. Go get something else on.’

  But I refuse.

  The Pasks live on the north side of town and the whole way there Dad reminds me of the speed limits. He repeats it over and over in every speed zone. I chew on the inside of my lip. Eventually, I pull into the Pasks’ driveway at Bridgeman Downs, a suburb for the rich, beautiful people on the north side of the city. Every house looks like a terracotta mansion. The lawn is green despite the water restrictions. There's a metal sign bolted to their fence: bore water in use.

  ‘Slow down,’ Dad says as the Pissan crawls up the driveway. He leans forward and points, ‘Park over there, by that palm, but not on the grass.’

  ‘Which palm?’ The entire driveway is lined with two-metre-high palm trees.

  ‘That one,’ he says, still pointing.

  Taking a punt, I pull up beside one.

  ‘Look where I'm pointing,’ he insists. ‘Up there.’

  I run my tongue behind my lip, the skin is in tatters. I park the car beside the garage, as far away from any palm as I can. The garage door is open so that everyone driving past can see Roger's BMW X5, a sleek black beast in its den.

  The moment I kill the motor, Roger and Gloria come out to greet us. Gloria smothers me with a wet kiss, which I wipe away the moment she's not looking.

  ‘Prefer the kisses from the girls at school, eh Jack?’ Roger says and winks at Dad. Then he sees the P-plate on the tailgate.

  ‘Pissan!’ he yells. ‘Whose idea was that? Yours, Brian?’

  Dad grins and thumbs in my direction.

  ‘Pissan,’ Roger says again. He puts his heavy arm around my shoulders and brings his red dimpled face near mine. ‘Great to see you're finally coming out of your shell,’ he exclaims as if I'm on the other side of the street.

  The Pasks usher us through the front door. The second we're inside, Gloria says, ‘Oh, before you go any further, I have to show you something.’

  ‘What is it?’ Dad asks.

  She leads us through the house and I follow briskly, trying to keep out of Roger's arm length. There are polished floorboards throughout. We end up in the lounge room where there's a dark leather couch, a wooden coffee table and a mahogany bar. In front of the bar is a thick rug. Gloria stands over it. ‘Roger bought it in Turkey, from a quaint little store in Istanbul.’

  ‘It's beautiful,’ Dad says.

  Like he cares. He purses his lips and I know what he's thinking: what a waste of money.

  Gloria kneels on it and rubs her hand over the rich fibres.

  Roger says, ‘I bought it for Gloria as our twentieth wedding anniversary present.’

  Dad looks ashamed. Best he ever did for Mum was Thai takeaway. No wonder she cleared out.

  Before dinner, I stand in the kitchen, picking at the hors-d'oeuvres as Gloria sorts them onto platters. Behind us is a massive stainless steel fridge, the type that spews ice on command—crushed or cubed. Roger marches in. He fills a glass from a water purifier near the sink then holds it under the ice cube shoot. Ice clinks in, water splashes. Thrilled, Roger watches as if they're nuggets of gold. He gives me the water, offers Dad a beer and Gloria a shandy.

  ‘He's so sexist,’ Gloria says as he puts lemonade in her beer. ‘Like I can't handle a beer because I'm a woman.’ But she's smiling, teasing him. I can't work out why she's not serious.

  Roger laughs. ‘That's what the girls say about me at work,’ he says. ‘If I want to tell them a joke, they ask, “Is it sexist?” and I just say nope and tell it anyway!’ He winks at me again. Gloria shakes her head and drinks her shandy, leaving lipstick on the glass.

  ‘How's the footy team going?’ Roger asks Dad.

  Dad cracks his beer and shoots me a look, which translated means, keep ya trap shut. ‘Great. The boys are really coming along. Half way through the comp already. Can you believe it?’ he says.

  Roger turns to me, holding his wine glass up near his chest like it's a stubby. ‘And what about you, Jack? Giving the opposition hell?’

  ‘Not really,’ I say.

  ‘Not really?’ Dad says and puts his beer on the sideboard. ‘You should've seen him a few weeks back. This kid was coming for him, right, and it's not just any kid, it was Dale Petersen. Remember Dale Petersen? We've talked about him before? Anyway, he's the best on the team and Jack nailed him. Puts him on the turf like a sack of spuds.’ He punches his palm with his fist.

  Roger opens his mouth and raises his eyebrows like it's the best news he's ever heard. ‘Christ, Jack. Who taught you to be so damn modest?’

  ‘Mind you, it was only at training,’ Dad goes on.

  ‘You bring him up good, Brian,’ he says, and leads us to the dining room table.

  Roger pours some more wine into his glass, and then offers me some. I look at Dad, who shakes his head. Roger puts the bottle down, smirking. ‘And what about your old man, Jack? What's he like as coach?’

  ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Better than I expected.’

  ‘He's being kind, isn't he, Brian?’ Roger says. ‘Come on, Jack, tell us the truth.’

  ‘We haven't won a game yet.’

  Dad rolls his lips inwards.

  ‘That so?’ Roger roars. ‘Brian, you sly bugger! You were gonna let that one slip, weren't you!’ He grins. ‘And how many have you played now?’

  ‘Four
,’ I say.

  ‘Four to zip!’ Roger bellows. And throughout dinner he digs Dad about the performance of the team. Dad keeps looking at me to say I should've known better.

  After dinner, Gloria gathers the dishes and heads into the kitchen. Wanting to get away from Roger, I help out with the washing up. The men head towards the lounge room. Roger says he has a bottle of red he's dying to try.

  ‘Joining the women are you, Jack?’ he says. I turn and follow.

  Roger and Dad keep drinking; each of them lazed back in a recliner. Roger holds his wine to his bulky chest; Dad sips on scotch and ice, which rests comfortably on his stomach. They talk about their old army days. From a sea of leather in the middle of the couch, I look at the photos on the wall, which are mostly of Roger. There's one of him and Dad, both in their fatigues with M-16s hung over their shoulders, in front of an armoured personnel carrier.

  Roger gets up and goes to the bar. He tops up his wine and takes a decanter of scotch to Dad. He thumbs at me. ‘Can I give him a glass of something, Brian?’

  I look hopefully at Dad. He raises his palms, then relents. ‘Just half.’

  Roger clicks his fingers at me. ‘What would you like?’

  Peering over the back of the recliner, Dad says, ‘Just give him a beer.’

  Roger waves his hand. ‘Jack'd have beer all the time. Isn't that right, Jack? That's what you boys get into at your parties, isn't it? Beer, bourbon, or is it Bundy?’

  ‘Goon,’ I say, watching Dad out of the corner of my eye.

  ‘Fair dinkum!’ Roger goes. ‘Even I didn't stoop that low.’

  ‘What have you got?’ I ask.

  He ushers me behind the bar, which is jammed with all sorts of liquor: Kahlúa, Midori, Drambuie, Sambuca, and other liqueurs I've never heard of. In the bar fridge is a selection of local and international beers, and another bottle of something I've never seen before. It's green with a picture of a deer with enormous antlers and a glowing red cross.

  ‘What's that?’

  ‘Your boy's got an eye,’ Roger says to Dad. He pours the brown-green liquid into an oversized shot glass. ‘Jägermeister,’ he says.

  ‘Do I throw it back?’

  ‘However you want.’

  I rotate the glass as he walks purposefully back towards the recliners. He takes Dad's scotch glass and marches off to the kitchen.

  ‘Just the one,’ Dad tells me.

  ‘I'll only have a sip,’ I say. ‘When we get home I've got to take the car. No blood alcohol.’

  ‘Good on you,’ Dad says.

  I sip the Jägermeister. It's sweet and strong. Liquorice. I want to slug it back, but I leave it instead.

  Roger comes back, studying floating cubes of ice in the scotch. He hands it to Dad then resumes his spot on the recliner. As the men get talking again, I think about Sam and wonder how her little do is going, whether she's even thinking of me. I take my phone and check the time. Nine. I start writing a text, then stop, trying to think what to say.

  ‘Sending a love message, are ya?’ Roger calls out.

  ‘No,’ I say and put it away. ‘Hey, Dad, what time are we going?’

  He smiles at me, his eyes glazed. ‘A little while yet,’ he says.

  ‘You said we'd be home at ten, remember?’

  At nine-thirty I go to the toilet. On my way back to the lounge room, Gloria calls me into the kitchen and gives me a bowl of chocolate mousse. As I eat she starts telling me about their holiday in Turkey and their visit to Gallipoli and the Anzac service.

  ‘There's actually not much there,’ she says. ‘I mean, it's quite an imposing hillside when you stand and look. You can still see the trenches, but it's all quite dry, brown, not many trees. I wouldn't like to have been there.’

  Thanks to Dad, I've always been surrounded by army stories, but with him having been sick for so long, it's hard to remember him as a soldier: strong, confident, determined. Roger might be a fair bit older than Dad, but he's still got it, still looks the part, and still acts like it. If it wasn't for childhood memories and Dad's photo albums, I'd struggle to believe that he was ever like that.

  Gloria tops up my bowl then fills three more, which we carry out to the lounge room. I'm thinking that after dessert, we'd better get going. When I give Dad his mousse, it's clear he's feeling loose by his sloppy grin, showing off his compacted teeth. There's no way he's fit to drive. I glance at my shot of Jägermeister on the bar, relieved I didn't finish it off. Turning back to the men, I see Dad leaning forward, almost tipping off the couch, talking to Roger who's leaning back, absorbing whatever's being said.

  ‘So what happened?’ Roger asks.

  Dad starts describing the Cav Road team. Straight away I see where this is going and my immediate reaction is to head him off, so I attempt a distraction. ‘Can I have another shot?’ I butt in.

  ‘Anything you like,’ Roger says then signals Dad to keep going.

  ‘I'm gonna have another shot,’ I call out to Dad, but he just waves his hand. He's on a roll.

  I rub my eyes as he says, ‘At Cav Road they've got a Rugby League Centre of Excellence, so you'd think we'd get pasted, right?’

  ‘Did you beat them?’ Roger blurts. ‘I thought you said you haven't won a game.’

  Dad holds up a finger. ‘I'll get to that.’

  Roger turns to me. ‘Did you beat them?’

  ‘Dad,’ I say.

  ‘You can tell him if you like,’ Dad says.

  ‘I don't want to tell him.’

  Roger raises his hands. ‘Why not?’

  ‘C'mon, Jack, it's not that bad.’

  ‘No, I don't want to.’

  Roger rubs his hands. ‘This is gonna be good!’

  And then Dad tells him what happened. ‘So the scores are almost level, it's nearly full-time and Jack's running down the field, going hell for leather, and no one can catch him, right, but they didn't need to.’ He puts his glass down and waves his arms about, describing how that mangy winger came at me and how the boys on the sideline screamed hysterically in support. ‘But when Jack planted the ball, everything—just for a second—went dead, like the world stopped spinning.’ He cuts the air with his hands.

  Roger looks at me, then at Dad. ‘Why? What happened?’

  Dad's hands are on the coffee table now. ‘Jack put the ball down at the ten-metre line!’

  Roger roars and claps his hands.

  ‘Jack planted it and raised his hands like he'd won us the game!’

  Roger guffaws. ‘Ten-metre line? You're pulling my leg!’ He looks up at me. ‘Jack, you didn't?’ I stand there. ‘You did!’ And he slams his palm on the coffee table, hooting and howling. Scotch spills from Dad's glass. I watch it trickle to the edge and drip onto the floor. Gloria gives me a sorry smile and leaves the room.

  ‘And then we all start screaming at him,’ Dad says, ‘telling him to pick the ball back up, but the Cav Road kid, that winger, he just skims it off the turf and runs to the other end and scores. Just like that. Wins them the game. And the whole time Jack's standing there, hands raised, soaking up the glory like Willie Mason!’

  They both peer at me through tear-filled eyes.

  I go back to the bar and slug down my shot of Jägermeister. ‘I'm cabbing it,’ I say and head towards the door.

  ‘You're what?’ Dad gets up, and walks after me. ‘You're not doing that.’

  ‘I'm meeting a friend at ten, so I'm off.’

  He swallows and grins, drunkenly. ‘Under whose command?’

  ‘Under my own command.’

  ‘You got money?’ he asks.

  I don't even have my wallet. It's on my bed at home. ‘Then I'll drive, you can cab it.’

  I pat my pants for the keys. Then I realise they're on the bar. Dad follows my gaze and upon seeing them he turns and marches towards them. Running, I try to push past, but he just moves his bulk against me, sending me to the floor. He grabs the keys, jiggles them in my face as I look up from the floorboards. He throws
them to Roger, who catches them, laughing.

  Dad wanders over to me as I get up. ‘It's time you start showing me and Roger more respect,’ he mutters then goes off and joins Roger. I slink off behind the bar.

  For the next half hour they talk about coaching styles and tactics. Roger's a big one for hammering the forwards up the centre. Dad prefers a game that gets the little guys darting around the fringes of the ruck. ‘You won't win a game of league playing your way anymore,’ Dad tells him. ‘Sure you need big forwards, but they've gotta be mobile.’

  Time drags by. I call Sam. It rings out and I leave a message. Then another half hour. I send a text. Still no reply. So I fill my shot glass again and throw it back. The Jägermeister slides down my throat, thick and warm. I scan for anything else I can drink. I reach for a bottle of Drambuie, have another shot and wait for the feeling of the alcohol to move through my body. It doesn't, so I drink more.

  I end up sitting on the floor behind the bar, leaning on the fridge. I shoot Sam another text, this time saying I won't make it. Then I just stare at my phone hoping for a reply, almost pleading.

  Roger's voice booms from beyond the bar. ‘Hey, Jack!’

  I peer over. ‘What?’

  ‘Your dad says you're gonna join the army. Congratulations!’

  ‘October's the physical,’ I say.

  He nods and looks at Dad. ‘I'm gonna go,’ he says.

  ‘You don't have to,’ I say quickly.

  ‘I'd love to,’ Roger says. ‘How about it, Brian? We'll give the lad some moral support.’