Beautiful Mess

by Claire Christian

  ‘Sorry. Hello Ava.’

  ‘Hi,’ she smiled. ‘So, you want to go to the park?’

  ‘Yeah; we could hang out at Day in the Park?’

  ‘You want to spend the day at the park?’ Ava asked confused.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay. We can go to the park if you want to go to the park.’

  My heart started racing, I was not being clear at all. ‘No, it’s a thing that my friends do, it’s called Day in the Park, it happens in the park, there’s music and food and stuff.’

  ‘Ohhhh.’ I see clarity paint Ava’s face. She nods. ‘I get it. Cool.’ She turns around, picks up her phone and continues looking at whatever she was looking at before I crazily interrupted her with my bizarre ramble.

  At the end of our shift she told me she’d meet me at my house at midday. We didn’t really have a conversation. She asked questions, I answered them and then she left. She’s like the freaking caped crusader, only she doesn’t wear a cape. Or save people, or…okay, so she’s nothing like the caped crusader. I just find her mysterious and I think she’s cool, this is the only correlation between her and Batman.

  ‘What do I have to do?’ Ava asks, curious.

  ‘You have to come and play Uno with me.’ Andy grabs her hand and starts swinging it.

  ‘That’s it? I thought you were going to make me do a beer bong or something?’

  Norma laughs. ‘That’s later.’

  ‘Yes, the usual order of proceedings goes Uno, beer bong, paddles,’ Andy adds. I watch Ava giggle and be pulled along next to Andy as they skip off to another part of the park.

  We play four rounds of Uno with Suvi and Neil as everyone goes about quickly indoctrinating Ava into Prison Rules Uno. There is lots of yelling, pseudo-insults and swearing. Ava stays quiet for most of it but she laughs every now and again. I watch her face as more people join the circle and the conversations jump from topic to topic. We jump from discussing anime to music to gender inequality to an argument about pizza toppings to pronouns of choice and then back to some book that they’re all reading. A book which I said I would read but haven’t yet, mainly because it’s some genre piece about warlocks and sentient princesses, and I figure I’ve got enough drama in my life already.

  Ava listens, she answers questions when she’s asked and occasionally makes comments. At first I feel like bringing her here is a terrible, terrible error in judgment but eventually I relax and start to have fun myself.

  Later, when everyone runs off to play frisbee, it’s just Ava and me sitting on a rug. The group of girls that Issy sits in a circle with keep looking over at us and whispering. I don’t think Ava will notice or say anything but if she does I’ve pre-prepared a couple of responses which I think will effectively divert the conversation to other, far more interesting places.

  ‘You’ve got fans,’ Ava remarks, looking over at the girls.

  Shit.

  ‘No.’ I drop my eyes, embarrassed, then try to smile. ‘They’re called groupies.’ This was not one of my pre-prepared answers but I feel like it was excellently executed. I’m even impressed with myself.

  Ava laughs loudly. ‘Oh, sorry, your groupies love you.’

  ‘Nah. They’re just girls from drama. The one with the long brown hair, she does slam too, so yeah.’

  ‘Have you ever had a thing with any of them?’ she asks and it lands heavy in the air like a moment of great importance, because if I lie that will set a tone for mine and Ava’s friendship from this point on, but I also don’t know if I want to tell the truth because that’s admitting to a whole other level of personal weirdness. Plus, how do I even answer that question because nothing technically did happen. I look at her and make a choice.

  ‘Issy,’ I say quickly, which I think kind of catches her off guard because her head jolts back slightly in surprise.

  ‘Short hair?’ she asks, looking over at the three girls.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ she says, and she means it.

  We both look over at the girls; Issy has a frangipani tucked behind one ear.

  ‘We had a weird thing,’ I mumble.

  And before I have a chance to think about what to say next, Ava asks, ‘Did you kiss?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Why not?’ She pokes me; I think she’s teasing me.

  ‘It was weird. We built it up too much. Too much pressure. I think.’ I can feel my eyebrows furrow as I think and watch Ava’s eyes kind of glisten as she processes. It’s like she travels into the world and then quickly regresses back into her head. I wonder what happens in her brain.

  I decide to change the topic. ‘How did you do that?’ There is a bruise and a little cut on her cheek that I touch gently and can’t believe that I did.

  Ava’s whole body shifts. ‘Oh,’ she says, covering the bruise with her hand, ‘I thought I’d managed to hide it.’

  ‘I noticed it at work,’ I say. ‘Was it something dumb? I do dumb shit all the time. See this scar on my lip? I got that the one and only time I’ve used a skateboard. I was seven.’

  ‘Yeah, I rolled into my bedside table, it was dumb.’

  All of a sudden a hula hoop appears around Ava’s waist and Norma is giggling.

  ‘Do you know how?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ava says, jumping up and spinning the hoop around her waist and moving her hips to keep it balanced. She knows what she’s doing and keeps the hoop up without any effort. ‘Is there another hoop?’

  ‘The lady wants another hoop!’ Andy yells to the group, and Norma hands it to her. She stops, lines them both up and gets them going. She moves the hoops up to her chest and back to her hips and then she lets them drop, laughing. The group cheers and Ava bows, kind of blushing. ‘Your turn.’ She points at me.

  ‘I can’t. I am completely uncoordinated.’ I prove it by shaking my hips violently back and forth as the hoop just drops to the ground.

  Ava laughs and sits back on the rug. She tells me a story about her Christmas holidays in Year 7 where she and Kelly learned how to hula hoop because they saw this thing on TV about a girl in the circus.

  ‘She had this incredible costume and could do like ten hoops at once. She looked like an elf.’ She’s talking quickly, excited, and even if I wanted to I couldn’t get a word in. ‘We thought she was so gorgeous. She had long curly blonde hair and big boobs and this flat stomach where you could see all of her muscles moving when she hooped. Kelly was just like, I wanna look like her, and I was like me too, and I’d just got fifty bucks from my mum randomly for my birthday and we washed cars to earn an extra twenty and we went and bought two hoops. It took forever to learn. We’d watch videos online and practise for hours.’ This is the most I’ve ever heard her talk; she’s so animated her hair bounces around and her hands move wildly.

  ‘Then what?’ I ask.

  ‘Then we found something else that took our interest, and I haven’t really done it since. I forgot how fun it is.’ She stops and lies back on her arms, looking up at the clouds. ‘Did you ever do that thing where you’d say what clouds looked like?’

  ‘No. I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say, and she whacks me in the chest. I lie down next to her and look to the sky.

  ‘I think that looks like a koala.’ She points up.

  ‘Yes, and that’s a dragon.’

  ‘Why is there always a dragon?’ she asks, turning her head to look at me.

  ‘One of life’s great mysteries.’ I turn my head to the side and look at her, we hold eye contact for a second before we break and look back to the clouds. I feel my usual base level of nerves but surprisingly I also feel calm. Like Ava and I are actually friends, like the day is a success, like maybe Annie is right: sometimes all it takes is a little bit of bravery.

  When we’re winding up and everyone is standing in a clump saying goodbye, Norma squeezes Ava. ‘Will we see you Friday night?’ she asks.

  ‘What’s Friday night?’


  ‘Gideon’s next comp,’ Andy says. ‘Has he not told you?’

  I blush instantly.

  ‘You have to come, Ava, he’s amazing,’ Norma adds as Andy is saying, ‘Not really, he’s actually shithouse, but it’s important for us to support his dreams.’ He grabs me in a headlock and ruffles my hair.

  ‘I’m rostered on at work,’ she says, and I pretend to look disappointed but am actually relieved. Then she says, ‘But I’ll get it off. I’d like to come.’ There’s a pause. ‘If that’s cool?’

  ‘Are you kidding? You’re the coolest thing to ever happen to us,’ Norma laughs.

  Ava’s embarrassed and she looks at me while the others keep chatting and insulting each other. She mouths the words Is that okay? and I nod big and mouth back Of course.

  Then I metaphorically shit my pants because today has already used up all the bravery I could muster. Having Ava watch me do one of my poems? That will require a Batman level of bravery.

  As Norma links arms with Ava and they walk off ahead, I realise I’ve got five days to get used to the idea. Crap.

  By Wednesday I’ve circled through all of the possible emotions about Ava coming to the competition, all of the possible scenarios of how Friday night could go down and all of the possible poems I could do, and I’ve landed right back where I was on Saturday, in a state of dread and panic because I have no idea what to expect or what poem to deliver.

  ‘That’s easy, doofus, do my favourite,’ Annie smiles, all pixelated on the iPad screen.

  I’ve made out that the majority of my anxiety about Friday night relates to not knowing what poem to do. I did not tell Annie that I was freaking out because of Ava being there.

  ‘It’s a bit full on.’ I lean on the desk and grimace.

  Annie looks at me like she’s just smelled something bad. ‘Piss off! It’s fine. You’ve never done it for a comp before and it’s good.’ She pauses. ‘Go hard or go home, little brother.’ She pulls a stupid face which I respond to by putting both my fingers up my nostrils.

  ‘Are you gonna do it?’

  I huff loudly, ‘Fine!’

  ‘That was easy. What other shit do you need me to solve for you today?’

  ‘Global warming, political apathy, bad pop music, the guy in my Ancient History class who thought Dubai was in India.’

  Annie looks mortified. ‘No?’

  I nod and she laughs. ‘You’re on our own with that one. The others I’ll sort by lunch. I’ll fax you because that’s the only way to contact you.’

  ‘Gideon,’ Mum shouts from the hallway, ‘is she still online?’

  ‘Mum wants you,’ I tell her and she smiles.

  ‘I love you,’ she says, pulling another weird face.

  ‘Oh, just warn Mum and Suse you’re doing the poem.’ At that moment Mum appears in the doorway, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme,’ she says, dancing as she picks up the iPad to take Annie out of my room.

  A second later Mum pops her hand around the door and throws an envelope at me.

  Gideon,

  I had a really great time on Saturday. Thank you for inviting me. Your friends are so cool. I don’t know if it’s okay to have favourites but I really like Norma and Andy. They were lovely and so funny. And Prison Rules Uno? Oh man. Brutal. I feel like you were all being lenient on me too. Your friends are cutthroat. Ha.

  I spoke to Ricky too about Friday and he gave me the night off, but I had to promise that you and I would clean the cold room, which I figure was a worthy compromise until I actually remembered how disgusting the cold room is and then I feared I may have put us in a really shitty position. So, Friday night better be awesome. No pressure. I’m kidding. I’m really looking forward to it. I thought it was amazing that you were smart enough to write poems, let alone get up and read them to people. I don’t think I’m that brave.

  I stop reading. Brave? Maybe Annie’s been sending Ava postcards too.

  I get too nervous speaking in crowds of people. Get all tongue-tied and clammy, it makes me feel shit so I just don’t do it. Well, unless I’m telling a thousand people to get fucked, but that comes from a different place. Please tell me you have no idea what I’m talking about. Please tell me you weren’t at school that day? Oh man. It wasn’t my best moment. But I just got so angry with how they had dealt with everything. Like not at all, and Mrs Bryan is a bitch and yeah. What I’m trying to say is I think you’re awesome, Gideon. I think it’s awesome that you write and that you do slam poetry and I’m glad that Norma and Andy invited me.

  I’m having an okay week. TAPs is fine. Good, even. Lots of discussions. I’ve made a new friend, Minda, she has green hair, a one-year-old kid and she is loud and bossy and smart. She cracks me up. You know what I think the best thing about TAPs is, though? No one knows me. They only know what I tell them. I think even if they did know they wouldn’t give a shit. There’s some kids in my class who are dealing with the biggest things. There’s people who’ve been kicked out of home, or who are in trouble with the cops, there’s one girl who’s so shy that she just couldn’t cope with being at regular school and another guy, who’s in my English class, who’s been sober for six months and we had a cake for him the other day to celebrate. He was so stoked. It’s just making me realise that everyone has got stuff going on, you know? I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

  See you Friday, Gideon. I hope your week is awesome too.

  Love Ava

  I fold the page back up and put it in its envelope. Yes. You are right, Ava, everyone does have their own shit, and you, my friend, are about to learn a little more about mine, whether you like it or not.

  I hoist myself out of the floral lounge chair and start the walk to the stage. Stepping delicately along the people-lined path as they clap and cheer. Andy and Norma are sitting right at the front and one pats me on the leg and the other pinches my bum. I’m not sure which. They’re smiling big and giving me a thumbs-up.

  ‘Hello,’ I say into the mic. I look at Ava. She is sitting forward, resting her elbows on her knees with her chin in her hands. Her pinkie fingers sit in between her teeth and she is smiling in a way I’ve never seen her smile before. Her eyebrows are raised, and her eyes wide.

  She’s nervous. My capacity to work out how she’s feeling hasn’t suddenly improved over the course of the evening. I know she’s nervous because she told me in the car on the way here, and again at the door when we paid our entry and again when we got a drink and then when we sat down she told me another five or six times.

  ‘Why are you nervous?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I just feel, like, jittery.’ And she was. Her hands kept clenching and releasing and flying to her hips then her face, then together under her chin. I laughed at her and she pushed me hard in the chest.

  ‘Are you nervous? Do you get nervous?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah. Kind of.’ If only she knew the week I’d had in terms of dealing with ALL of the feelings that were swirling around my person about tonight, which I still feel right now and will feel until right up until the moment I open my mouth to perform. When it’s happening I don’t really feel anything, not until it’s over. Then I feel electric, like when your stomach squishes with happiness, only not momentary. It lasts at least the whole night.

  ‘I just—I don’t know what to expect.’ She pauses and looks at me right in the eye. ‘What if you’re shit?’

  I laugh. ‘It’s highly probable.’

  ‘No, I mean, what if you are? Then I’m going to have to pretend that it was awesome and you know I’m crap at that.’

  ‘At pretending I’m awesome?’

  ‘Yeah. And lying. I’m a shit liar.’

  ‘Yeah. Just. Don’t.’ I nod; she cocks her head to one side and looks at me, her hair falling around her face, so I finish. ‘Lie. Don’t lie.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I hadn’t really thought about it like that, until she’d said it. What if she does think it’s shit? That I’m shit.

  ‘I’m
Gideon,’ I say and I can hear them all wooh and holler. I breathe in through my nose. ‘This is called “Head of State”.’

  I catch Ava’s eye, she raises her eyebrows at me; takes her fingers out of her mouth and intertwines them and keeps them rested under her chin. I take a deep breath, clear my throat and close my eyes. Here we go.

  surprise attacks / her surprise or mine? / she says it was an accident but the only accident is that it didn’t happen sooner / a knitted straitjacket hiding the external / the dark refusing to let in the light / weighed down by a woollen weight so heavy in a summer so bright it burned my mother to her core / she knew, she knew / knew that the polyester telegram emblazoned on my skin was hiding a torment that would cut her soul in half / shocking her till she cried / tears streaming into my flesh / burning my skin / not because of my scars, but the ones i’d just given her. i came in pain and then again i hurt her / couldn’t tell her, ‘Mum, i need you’ / but i didn’t have the words—just tears / now these cries stain the perfect body she made and i can’t say anything cause i’ve been saying it with the tip of a compass, with broken glass / i’ve been saying it to myself / my mind screaming out for her to pick me up like she would have, pick me up like only she could have / pick me up / pick me up / pick me / pick me and tell me that the dark in my mind, my chest, my heart and skin caused by my hands can be healed with hers.

  surprise attacks / she opens the door and she sees me / she / sees / me / like she always has with love in her eyes that hits me so hard straight to my chest that i am winded / by her need to feed, to fix, to find a way to take it all away / wear it on her own shoulders in a click if she could / that’s why this woman is / she is.

  Queen.

  my very own monarch butterfly / flying so high into my head of state / the state that i am in / that she will now rule / cause i’m sick of ruling bleeding lines into my skin.

  Gideon’s bedroom is like something out of an Ikea catalogue, all neat and sleek. It doesn’t look like anyone actually lives in it, let alone a teenage boy. It even smells nice. There’s a double bed that’s been made, a desk with squared piles of books and papers. Above the desk is a pin-board with a couple of photos stuck to it; I recognise a few people from Day in the Park.