This is a home.
I pull into the brick-paved driveway, flick the kickstand out and shut the ignition off. The porch light blazes to life straight away. He’s been waiting for me.
The door opens before I’m within arm’s length of the Fremantle Dockers doorbell.
‘Quickly,’ he whispers, holding the door open about six inches. I can’t even see him.
I shrink my body into itself and press through the sliver of an opening. The guy watches me struggle, but he doesn’t open it any wider. Prick.
He shuts the door behind me and twists a key in the deadbolt.
‘Locking me in, huh?’ I say, partly to lighten the mood, because his face looks about as grim as the reaper. But mostly because it’s weird as shit to be locked in a stranger’s house.
The guy stares straight at me with dead eyes. The whites are bloodshot and the irises are grey. Do his eyes always look like this? Is that why he wore a dirt bike helmet in his profile pic? Because his fucked-up eyes make him look possessed by a demon?
Or maybe he’s on something, because in response to my comment, he sways to the side on a more precarious angle than the Leaning Tower and mutters, ‘Lock the door if I want to, mate.’ He sways to the other side. ‘Don’t lock it if I don’t want to.’ He somehow keeps his feet and tractor-beams me with his dead eyes. ‘Is it my house or your house?’
I swallow. ‘Your house. My bad. Didn’t mean to be rude.’
He bares his teeth in what promises to be a smile but morphs into a grimace. His chompers are yellow, and he looks too young for that. Maybe late thirties. Little beer gut but not yet out of waistband control. Bald spot flanked by limp strands of brown hair; no attempt at coverage.
‘I’m Charlie, anyway,’ I say, holding my hand out. We’re just standing a couple of feet apart in his dingy entry and it’s awkward as hell.
The guy sandwiches my hand in his clammy palms. He yanks my arm, but there’s no strength behind his handshake. His muscles are as limp as his hair.
‘What’s your name?’ I prompt him. We’re still shaking hands. His eyes are glassy.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘Come on. Bedroom’s this way.’
His sweaty fingers entwine with mine, and I let them.
He leads me into the main part of the house. It looks like the perfect suburban family home – a week after the perfect suburban family fell apart. The mahogany table has a black glass vase in the centre of it; its occupants, gerberas, I think, are dead, their colour long gone. There’s an espresso machine on the granite bench, its water reservoir empty except for droplets of condensation. The armchairs in front of the LED screen are reclined but nobody’s laying on them. There’s a bong on the kitchen sink, fast-food wrappers overflowing from beneath the armchairs and empty cans of pre-mix all over the kids’ play mat.
The guy lets my hand go and opens the fridge. I cop a whiff of off milk.
‘Beer or bourbon?’ he asks.
‘Oh. Nothing.’
‘Good one. What do you want?’
‘No, really. I’m good.’
The dead eyes fix on me. ‘You can do whatever you want here.’
‘I’m not a big drinker.’
He sways again and steadies himself on the fridge door. ‘Weak as piss. When I was your age I woulda done anything for free grog. You really are a fruitcake, aren’t ya?’
He takes two cans out and passes one to me.
‘I’m not a fruitcake,’ I tell him, cracking the can in defiance. The gases that waft into my nostrils smell like the varnish we use in woodwork class.
‘How many straight blokes paint their nails?’ He spills half his drink as he tries and fails to wrap his lips around the top of the can, like a baby trying to suckle on its father’s nipple.
‘It’s not a gay thing,’ I tell him. ‘They’re painted black. It’s a punk thing. I’m in a band.’
He peers at me in the semi-darkness. ‘Oh, yeah. Your hair. I see it now.’
I brush my fringe out of my eyes. ‘Why would you call me a fruitcake if you’re gay, too?’
He takes another swig of bourbon. His stained white T-shirt acquires a new streak of brown.
‘I’m not,’ he says, wiping his mouth. ‘I’m straight.’
‘But how –’
‘You talk too much. Come to bed.’
He leads me down a passage. The hallway is decorated with girly stuff: a block-mounted poster says ‘Live, laugh, love’; a blown-up photo of a couple on their wedding day with block letters ‘Kevin & Alicia’ in the background (ha! got your name, wanker); and a professional portrait of this guy with a strong-jawed, blonde-haired woman and two little blonde girls.
I yank my hand out of Kevin’s just as we get to the bedroom.
‘What now?’ he grumbles, nudging the door open with his foot.
‘These.’ I tap the glass of one of the family photos. ‘You have kids.’
‘Don’t look at those.’
‘But – are you still married?’
‘How does that affect you?’
Without meaning to, my fists clench. The can crinkles; cold alcohol fizzes over my knuckles and drips onto the vinyl.
‘Because cheating on someone is the most fuckedest thing you can do.’
Kevin ogles me, still glassy-eyed.
‘Well, tell my wife, mate. She’s the one who took off with me apprentice.’
‘Oh. Right.’ I suck the fizzy stuff off my fingers. It tastes like death. ‘Sorry. That’s horrible. Are you okay?’
He gapes at me. ‘What are you on about? Just get into bed.’
The bedroom is dirtier than the rest of the house. As well as the cans and half-eaten corpses of hamburgers, there’s dirty clothes layering every inch of the floor. Half the drawers are open, with women’s clothes hanging out of them. Some of the open drawers are empty.
Kevin backs his arse onto the unmade bed, but my eyes are drawn to the mess of CDs sprawled out over the top of the chest of drawers. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hole … so much good stuff. Some albums I haven’t been able to buy yet, because I like physical copies more than digital and nobody in town stocks enough 90s music.
‘Oh, sweet!’ I say. ‘Are you into grunge?’
Kevin sculls his bourbon and finishes it. ‘Uh huh.’
‘It’s my favourite kind of music,’ I tell him, glancing at the back of a Smashing Pumpkins album. ‘Grunge, alternative rock. All the 90s stuff. It’s so much deeper than anything on the radio right now, huh? I swear I was born in the wrong generation.’
‘You gonna come suck me or what?’
I run my finger over the cover of the Smashing Pumpkins album. I wonder, if he wasn’t so horny, if we could’ve talked more about how we both like the same music. He must feel the same connection to grunge if he has so much of it in his collection. He must have those same feelings. If he wasn’t so much older than me, maybe we’d end up becoming friends.
I take a sip of bourbon and leave it on the chest of drawers. It’s bitter.
‘Yeah, okay,’ I say, turning to Kevin. ‘I’ll suck, but no kissing.’
‘Cool,’ he says, stretching out and shaking his pants off. ‘What about –’
‘Nope. I don’t fuck,’ I tell him firmly.
We get into it for a few minutes. Now he’s on the bed, he’s completely relaxed – and drunk, and possibly high – so it takes forever to get him hard. I keep trying. He keeps saying ‘yeah boy’ despite his dick barely responding. It’s weird.
Just when he’s finally cracked a fat, his whole body suddenly goes rigid.
I come up for air. ‘What? Teeth?’ I ask him. ‘Sorry.’
‘No!’ he cries. There’s more energy in those dead eyes than there has been since I arrived. ‘Get up!’
I sit up. He’s moving faster than he should, and predictably, he trips over the doona and collapses to the floor.
‘You okay?’ I cry.
Kevin disentangles himself from the bedspread and finds hi
s way to his knees.
‘No!’ he gasps. ‘It’s my wife! She’s home.’
My heart begins to drum in my ears.
‘Your what?’ I splutter. ‘She’s what?’
‘Hide!’ he hisses, finally up on his feet.
‘You said you weren’t married anymore!’ I say. ‘You said she left you!’
‘It’s complicated!’ he roars, pulling his pants back on and hiding his half-arsed erection in the waistband of his Bonds jocks.
My ears are ringing, like someone just fired a shotgun next to me. I know I should disappear, but there’s too much screaming for attention in my head. Terror. Disgust. Rage.
‘Wardrobe. Now!’ Kevin bellows, shoving me with more strength than he’s shown during this whole visit.
He bolts out of the room and, just before the bedroom door clicks shut, I hear a female voice from the living area call, ‘Alright, Kevin. Whose scooter is it?’
I cram myself into the walk-in wardrobe, but the door won’t shut. Dirty pairs of jeans stuck in the door. I kick them into a bigger pile of clothes and close myself into silent blackness.
My heartbeat is out of whack, drumming discordantly in my ears. I hate Kevin for making me the bad one in this scenario. I hate Alicia for coming home. I hate myself for being here in the first place.
I hate that I am now literally in the closet. Or in the wardrobe, I guess. I’m a wardrobed homo.
Bad time to joke.
Shouts echo down the hallway, then grow louder as the bedroom door is thrown open.
‘Oh, please, Kevin!’ the woman cries. ‘There’s obviously a girl here! Her jeans are still on our bed.’
Jesus. My jeans. Yes. I’m wearing my shirt and my boxers, nothing more.
‘You said we were done!’
‘I said I needed time to think – that’s all!’ Alicia cries. ‘And this isn’t about me! We’re still married. Oh, come on, don’t tell me she’s hiding in the wardrobe?’
My breath catches in my throat. This really was the most predictable place to hide.
‘Come on out, sweetie,’ Alicia calls. ‘Let me get a look at you. Come on, you were perfectly happy to have an affair with my husband. Don’t start being embarrassed now, just because I caught you!’
She knows I’m here. I know she’s going to find me. And yet it’s the principle of the thing, not to surrender yourself to fate until fate gets you. I stay rooted to the floor of the wardrobe, huddling my arms to my chest. This is legit the worst night of my life.
The wardrobe door flies open.
‘Come on, show your face, hun,’ Alicia says, flicking the light on.
Her eyes meet mine.
‘Oh,’ she says. The colour leaves her face. She stares at my bare legs, my boxers, the guilty smile that’s fought its way to my face. ‘You’re a boy,’ she says blankly.
‘He told me you were broken up,’ I say. ‘If I knew, I never woulda …’
‘Stupid kid,’ Kevin mutters from the doorway.
Alicia’s green eyes go wide, like a feral cat.
‘Oh my God, Kevin, you freak,’ she cries. ‘He’s – he’s a he. And he’s – how old are you?’ She snaps her head back to face me.
‘Sixteen.’
‘Fucksakes,’ Kevin says.
And then the worst thing happens. Alicia stares at me for the longest second in history. Her wild eyes spark and she clutches her mouth in horror.
‘You’re Nadine Roth’s son,’ she breathes, through her white-knuckled palm. ‘Charlie.’
If there was any blood still circulating in my body, it drains to my feet. My head spins.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ I say at once. ‘You can’t tell anyone. You can’t tell my mum.’
Alicia takes a step forward. For whatever reason, she’s got my jeans clutched in her fist. She looms over me, despite being a few inches below my head height.
‘This is my life you’ve wrecked,’ she whispers. ‘This has nothing to do with you. I don’t give a damn if your mum knows. Nadine should know where her son is going at night. You’re only a teenager!’
Alicia flicks her head back to Kevin, like she can’t work out who to breathe fire at first.
‘He’s a teenager, Kevin!’ she screeches. ‘What did you do to him?’
‘I didn’t do anything to him!’ Kevin protests. ‘It was online. He wanted it. He approached me!’
Like that’s gonna make it any better, moron.
Alicia sinks onto the bed and chucks my jeans in my direction. Her hands claw at her forehead. ‘For God’s sake. How long has this been going on?’
‘I just came over tonight for the first time,’ I splutter.
‘I’m not talking to you!’ Alicia shrieks, eyes sparking with green venom. ‘Just get your shit and get out!’
Alicia rounds on her husband. He’s pitiful: gross grey eyes leaking as his wife tears him to pieces. Nearly forty and he just sobs like a kid who scraped his knee. He keeps muttering, ‘Don’t tell anyone, Leesh.’
‘I’ll tell whoever the hell I want!’ Alicia roars.
I try to put my jeans on, but my hands are shaking. Everything’s shaking. My shoes and socks are on the other side of the room. I can’t get to them. I can’t get into my jeans. I can’t see. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.
I crush my jeans into a denim ball, hug it to my chest, and sprint from the bedroom barefoot in my boxers. I run through the dirty bomb house and outside, where the fresh air prickles my exposed skin and the scooter’s engine takes too long to fire up and the headlight lingers for too long on the tricycles of the little girls whose home I’ve now broken.
Alicia’s words ring in my ears the whole way home. I’ll tell whoever the hell I want.
If she didn’t listen to her husband, she sure as hell isn’t going to listen to my pleas for her not to tell anyone.
Which means, by tomorrow, the whole town will know.
2: Cazzo
Zeke
Doing the best mouse dissection in the class does nothing to stop me feeling like the biggest failure in the whole Biology lab.
When the bell rings, Charlie Roth jumps off his stool and grabs his backpack. ‘Later, dude.’
‘But Mr Capaldi hasn’t dismissed us,’ I whisper.
Charlie just snorts, walks straight past Capaldi with his chin out and kicks the sliding door open with his skate shoe.
‘Class dismissed,’ Mr Capaldi says, doing his best to pretend he has any control. ‘Unless you haven’t finished washing your equipment. That means you, Kade. Pedro, please pick that up. Amber, phone off until you’re outside, come on.’
I’m probably the only one who hears him. The school has a no-phones policy during the day, which means the bell ringing at 3pm doesn’t just mean it’s time to go home. Almost everyone whips out their phones, zombie-scrolling as they grab their backpacks in slow motion and blindly shuffle for the door. Amber and Piera are giggling about something they’ve seen in their feed. Razor’s eyes are glued to a footy highlights video and he physically slams into a bench on his way to the door. I’m not sure he even feels it.
‘You alright there, Zeke?’ Mr Capaldi asks, his back to me as he wipes the whiteboard clean.
I’ve waited until I’m the only one in the lab. I hate talking in front of people.
‘I just wanted to apologise, sir. I didn’t do a very good job with Charlie.’
Mr Capaldi pauses mid-wipe and turns sharply. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
My hands are clammy and knotted together, one hand pulling at the other. ‘Well, I tried to get him involved in the dissection and I did my best to teach him why we were doing it, but he didn’t care and wanted me to do everything. I’m really sorry. I tried my best.’
Mr Capaldi’s forehead ruffles. That’s his version of a smile, I know, because he did the same when I got highly commended for the state-wide Chemistry competition last year.
‘Zeke, I wasn’t expecting you to teach Charlie Roth. That’s my jo
b. I just wanted you to be a better influence on him than his mates. If he sat there and did nothing, that’s an improvement.’ He watches the tension in my hands. If I were stronger I’d have pulled my thumb off by now. ‘You did brilliantly,’ he adds.
At once, I feel the relief I was looking for. My hands relax and my thumb returns gratefully to its socket. ‘Okay. I just didn’t want to let you down.’
Mr Capaldi studies my face like I’m a mouse he hasn’t yet had the chance to dissect. ‘Zeke, you’re my top student. I’m sure you won’t ever let me down. Now go.’ He jerks his head to the door. ‘You’re a teenager. I’m sure there’s a phone somewhere you should be staring at.’
Jeremy and Pedro are waiting for me in the corridor. Pedro’s watching some Grand Theft Auto playthrough video on his phone. Jeremy’s holding two pale arms over the metal railing of the science block.
‘Working on my tan,’ he says as I join them.
‘You’re too pale to tan,’ I say. ‘You’ll just freckle even worse.’
‘At this point I think I’m okay with that,’ Jeremy says with a sigh. ‘If my arms were just giant brown freckles at least they’d be darker than they are now. I look like a White Walker.’
‘With anaemia,’ Pedro adds, not looking up from his video.
‘And a vitamin B deficiency,’ I add.
‘I’m so glad I have friends,’ Jeremy says.
We walk downstairs, to the school exit. As we head down the high, wide staircase to the street, Pedro nudges me.
‘Look. Sabrina Sefton. I think she’s waiting for you.’
I glance over. Sabrina’s under a gum tree near the foot of the staircase, stuffing something back in her school bag while her blonde ponytail flicks behind her.
‘She could be waiting for anyone,’ I say, at exactly the same moment as Sabrina spots me and waves me down frantically.
‘Yeah, nah. It’s you, man. You’re in.’
‘What are you waiting for?’ Jeremy mutters. ‘She’s obviously keen. Just ask her out.’
My skin crawls. ‘My parents don’t want me to date in year eleven,’ I say at once. It’s the only defence I have, and it’s a complete lie. ‘I need to focus on school. Exams this year.’
Invisible Boys Page 2
