Invisible Boys

by Holden Sheppard

  I keep watch for a long time on the wharf, but nothing happens and there’s no sign of life anywhere. The sea breeze picks up a little, but it’s not cold: if anything, it’s refreshing, with a night as balmy as this one.

  By eight o’clock, I’m completely bored and I lose interest in watching the wharf. I lay down on the wooden table, which is as uncomfortable as it sounds, and stare up at the studded mural of black and silver in the sky above me.

  When I was little, my dad taught me how to spot Orion’s Belt, though everyone else I know calls it the Saucepan. I can still find it easily. Dad was so smart. People used to say I was just like him. He was obsessed with Greek legends and used to read them to me. I think he said something about Orion getting blinded and having to travel to get his sight back, or maybe that was Homer.

  The one thing I do remember is what he told me about how significant Orion was.

  ‘Orion was a hunter, which means he was a mortal,’ Dad used to say. ‘And yet, look up there. The Greeks found a way to place a mortal up in the heavens, and now, two thousand years later, you and me are staring up at the sky and talking about him. Proves anyone can make it to the stars, doesn’t it?’

  I always took that to heart. Anyone, from anywhere, could make it to the stars. It even made me join a band.

  I miss Dad so much.

  As I gaze up at Orion, I see a flash of light. A shooting star, surely – but my eye is too slow to catch it.

  But then another flash comes, and as I shift on the table, I realise it’s a pair of yellow headlights cruising into the car park in the shadows of the silos.

  I sit bolt upright. A sedan has chugged into the car park. It sounds unhealthy: spluttering and diseased. It’s got a square shape that tells me it’s really ancient – maybe from the 80s, if any cars that old are still running. There’s only one silhouette – in the driver’s seat.

  The car shudders to a stop. Freezes. Lights out.

  I’m transfixed for minutes. The driver doesn’t get out. There’s no greasy aroma of take-away burger wrappers, no rustle of a map or the glow of a satnav, no vermilion ember or plume of cigarette smoke from a rolled-down window.

  This guy just parked at the wharf in the cover of night for no apparent reason.

  Or did he park here for the most apparent reason of all?

  I flick the disposable cigarette lighter I got from the deli before and produce a little flame. I see the silhouette in the driver’s seat twitch, but no movement. I spark up a few more times. Nothing. The flash of flame starts to imprint on my retina and I can’t tell anymore whether the driver is looking at me or not.

  A surge of excitement bubbles within me. I want to know if he’s here for the same reason I am. How far did he drive to get to the wharf tonight? What happened to make this the best option for him? What excites me is the prospect of another me. I feel like a lonely iron filing who finally found his first ever magnet.

  I leave Hannah’s bike against the picnic table, slip my hands in my pockets and casually saunter between the bonnet of the sedan and the entrance to the wharf.

  ‘Dammit,’ I mutter to myself, as I pass the car. I was so focused on looking casual and not overtly cruisy that I forgot to check if he was checking me out.

  I reach a blackboy surrounded by white pebbles, then turn – as if this was my plan all along – and sidle past the front of his bonnet again, this time keeping my eyes trained on the silhouette.

  He moves.

  His squared jaw follows my movements like the arrow on a compass.

  And as I pass by the driver’s side, he flashes his headlights, my pale legs briefly illuminated in his path.

  It’s on.

  Without breaking stride, I circle back to the driver’s door. He’s already wound the window down, muscular arm dangling. There’s a battered P-plate wedged between the dash and the windscreen and my first, elated thought is holy shit, he isn’t forty!

  ‘Hey,’ he grunts. Deep. Throaty. Young.

  ‘Hey, dude,’ I say, hands in pockets.

  ‘Get in,’ he says.

  I scramble around the other side of his maroon sedan and slide into the front passenger’s seat. It smells like dust and sweat and a rich, overpowering aftershave. There’s a massive blue water bottle at my feet – the kind that tradies drink from to stay hydrated. The dash is decorated with a folded-up road map, a pair of white Oakleys and a little green army man, stuck down with a glob of Blu Tack, like he’s protecting the car from attackers.

  Without thinking, I strap myself in.

  ‘Goin’ somewhere, are we?’ the driver asks.

  I laugh. Don’t think I’ve ever laughed during a hook-up before. ‘Sorry. Force of habit.’

  I cast my eyes over him, and immediately, a flower blossoms within my rib cage, its succulent petals bursting with colour.

  He’s the most perfectly in-proportion guy I’ve ever seen in real life. Two round mounds for shoulders, his navy-blue singlet clinging to a broad, lean chest. There’s a tattoo across the length of his collarbone – some words in a dead language. His faded blue jeans are tight on his muscled thighs. And his face: rugged jaw; blue, searching eyes; no hint of stubble; very white teeth, but a little crooked.

  ‘Gettin’ a good look, ay?’ he says. Thick, ocker accent. Country boy. More country than here.

  ‘Sorry. You’re just a real hottie.’

  ‘I was gonna say the same,’ he says.

  I rip my gaze from his chest and follow his eyes. He’s checking me out – and looking just as curious as I feel. Dunno how he could find a skinny punk like me arousing. I don’t think I’m actively repulsive, but there isn’t a shred of muscle on me, just a skinny, nearly concave chest, not like his slab of burnt beef pecs. Plus, I have a few pimples, and my hair is kind of at an awkward stage. I won’t dispute someone calling me average-looking but I don’t know if I can stomach someone calling me hot.

  ‘How old are you?’ I ask him.

  ‘Nineteen. You?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Aw jeez, really? Does that make me a cradle snatcher?’

  ‘It’s only three years,’ I say. ‘If you’re a cradle snatcher, I don’t wanna know what that makes the other guys.’

  ‘Ha! Yeah, I know. Lotta old guys.’

  ‘You’re not from town are you? Never seen you on the apps or anything.’

  ‘Nah,’ he mutters. ‘Folks have a farm out past Northampton.’

  ‘Farm boy?’

  ‘Yep.’ A short, workman-like yep.

  ‘So you drove all the way here for this?’

  ‘Yep,’ he says, grinning with those dazzlingly-white, oddly crooked, gappy teeth.

  Something tumbles happily in my guts. ‘I’m Charlie,’ I say, almost breathlessly. ‘What’s your name?’

  I immediately regret asking it, because nobody I’ve ever hooked up with has ever answered. In the world of cruising for gay sex, there are four responses to that question:

  it doesn’t matter

  silence/topic change/starts touching his dick/starts touching your dick

  daddy

  Dave.

  Dave is never their actual name. It’s just the name that guys think sounds like the perfect alias for cruising: non-descript enough to not seem fake, common enough that nobody will ever bother trying to match it to a surname they know.

  But the farm boy just smiles and says, ‘Nice to meet ya, Charlie. I’m Matt.’

  6: Chicks

  Hammer

  My older brother Doug is a boring bastard whose only interests are cars, doing mods to cars, and reading car magazines, but I’ve started liking him a lot more since he got his driver’s license a few months ago.

  He always wants an excuse to drive somewhere, so I’ve been bumming lifts off him every chance I get. For the last four weeks we’ve spent our Friday nights in the Northgate Shopping Centre car park, out the front of Hungry Jack’s. All the revheads in town gather here each weekend, like a sacred ritual. They
stand around looking under each other’s hoods, checking out neons and testing out subwoofers, then as it gets later they move to the back of the car park and start drinking piss and smoking some good stuff and hiding it when the coppers pass by.

  I wouldn’t say it to anyone else, but I’m not that into cars. I like going fast, but I don’t get the total obsession with machines. The whole Assembly of the Revheads really isn’t my scene, but it gives me a chance to see Richelle, since her dad won’t let her stay the night at my place.

  Each night’s the same: me and Doug drive into town, pick up Richelle and Doug’s mate Benno on the way, hit up the bottle-o and then chill most of the night at Northgate. Then we drop Richelle home, crash in Benno’s shed and head home in the morning.

  This Friday night, the crowd in the car park is bigger than usual as we roll up in Doug’s ute. There’s about a dozen cars. A lot of people I don’t know. Some dickheads. Some people I do know. Spud, with his shirt off already; Westy, arm still in the sling from when he fell out of his moving Audi two weeks ago. Rocky, the drummer guy with long hair and tatts, and his skanky moll of a girlfriend whose name I don’t know but whose infected belly-button ring I have seen at way too close range. Razor’s dero cousin, Sean, rocks up with some of his mates. And there’s the life of the party: Robbie Calogero, that loser Zeke’s way cooler older bro, looking like a classic John Travolta-type greaser, with his hot blonde girlfriend, Natalie.

  Doug and Benno get out of the car. Richelle goes to follow, but I grab her wrist.

  ‘I told you I’m not ready, Hammer,’ she says, wincing as if my grip on her wrist is too tight. It totally isn’t.

  ‘It’s not about that, babe,’ I say. I reach into the pouch on the back of the driver’s seat and pull out the green and white plastic bag. ‘I bought ya something nice.’

  Richelle’s pencilled eyebrow folds into itself. ‘Oh, really? The first time you ever buy me anything, and it’s the week after I tell you I’m not ready to sleep with you. Do you think I was born yesterday?’

  Dammit. She’s so smart. It’s like she’s always a step ahead of me, mentally. I hate it. It’s like playing footy against someone who always knows which way the ball’s gonna bounce.

  ‘Just open it,’ I say.

  She sighs, takes a deliberately small sip of her guava cruiser, unwraps the plastic bag and opens the furry green box.

  ‘A necklace,’ she says flatly.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Are you trying to be gross? Meghan told me what you said to Razor. I know you guys have this whole joke about how you want to give me a pearl necklace. You’re disgusting.’

  ‘Nah, that wasn’t the idea! There’s not even a pearl on it!’ I say. ‘I just thought you might want something nice to wear to the Summer Dance.’

  ‘How much did it cost you?’

  ‘Twenty-nine dollars.’

  Richelle closes the box. ‘Let me return it and pick something I want to wear, and then you can take me to the Summer Dance.’

  ‘But you already said yes to coming with me.’

  ‘So? I’m allowed to change my mind whenever I want. You have to keep up with me.’

  ‘I can totally keep up with you,’ I say, winking at her.

  Richelle takes a deliberately bigger sip of her guava cruiser. ‘Dating you is like being trapped in a backyard with one of those stupid Jack Russells that want to just hump everything.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say with a grin. I stretch my arm out and reach over her tanned shoulders. She’s wearing a halter top and her surfer-girl skin is exposed. She lets me touch it, but as I start tracing my finger down the soft slope of her arm, she wriggles.

  ‘Sprung!’ a female voice calls, as the door on Richelle’s side of the car opens. Cigarette smoke from Robbie and the other boys wafts in as Natalie leans in. ‘Did I interrupt a dirty backseat shag?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, in unison with Richelle’s loud, ‘No.’

  ‘Is this meathead bothering you, hun?’ Natalie crawls over the seat on all-fours, her breath reeking of ginger wine as she bumps her jaw against Richelle’s. ‘I can take him out if you want.’ She flexes some non-existent biceps. ‘Check that out. I’ve been doing cardio boxing with Spud down at the gym.’

  Richelle puts her finger and thumb together and squeezes Natalie’s spaghetti arms.

  ‘Oh wow!’ she blags. ‘Talk about guns!’

  Nothing makes me want to vomit more than listening to two chicks compliment each other.

  ‘Or do you want me to sick Robbie on him like at the semifinal last year?’ Natalie offers, giggling like she just delivered a massive burn. She’s usually more straight-laced than this – I’ve never seen her so maggoted. ‘Don’t forget, Robbie’s the only one faster than you on the footy field, Hammer.’

  ‘He’s faster, not better,’ I say, giving her one of those grins that tells people you’re not really grinning at all.

  She leans over me, and for a second I think she’s gonna spew in my lap. But instead she winds my window down and bellows, ‘Robbie, come on! You said we’d do it together!’

  My car door opens and a massive, meaty hand claps down over my eyes.

  ‘Guess who, maaaaate!’ Robbie shouts in my ear. I cringe as his wet finger enters my ear canal and wriggles around like a snake having a seizure. ‘Does it feel nice to have my cock inside you again, baby?’ he says to me in a porn star voice.

  ‘Ew,’ Richelle and Natalie say at the same time.

  ‘Mate, you’re a weirdo,’ I tell Robbie, taking his hand off my eyes. But damn, he’s a funny fucker.

  ‘Be serious, Robbie,’ Natalie says. ‘Go on. Ask him.’

  Robbie blows smoke out through his nose. It looks sick.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Hammer, mate, wanna be my groomsman?’

  It takes me a second to click what groomsman means. Before I can answer, Richelle shrieks in my ear and throws her arms around Natalie.

  ‘Oh my God, of course!’ she cries. She glances at me like we just won the lotto. Her smile is bigger than I’ve seen it for weeks. ‘Oh wow, I’ve never been a bridesmaid before.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, man,’ I tell Robbie. ‘Thanks for asking me.’

  ‘Awesome,’ he says, taking a drag on his smoke. ‘Thanks, bro. Nattie will sort out your suit stuff.’

  ‘Who else you got in the line up?’

  ‘In the squad, you mean,’ Robbie says, with a wink. ‘Spud’s best man. You’re gonna be a groomsman, same as my little bro, Zeke. He’s in your year, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, seen him around.’

  ‘But it’s only two weeks away!’ Richelle says. Her eyes turn quizzical. ‘How come you’re asking so late? Did someone else pull out?’

  ‘Imogen,’ Natalie explains. ‘And Bailey pulled out as groomsman, since they’re a package deal, you know. Imo’s mum had a huge falling out with my mum over the whole Charlie Roth thing.’

  It’s instantaneous: the second Charlie’s name is mentioned, I feel aggravated. Why do people have to keep going on about him?

  ‘Really? What happened?’ Richelle asks.

  ‘Just dumb family stuff,’ Natalie says. ‘Imo’s mum is Kevin Stratton’s sister, and my mum plays netball with Alicia Stratton, so everyone’s taking sides in them splitting up. It’s ugly stuff.’

  ‘Can you believe he got with Charlie? Gross.’

  ‘Gross for both of them,’ Natalie says. ‘I just feel so sorry for Alicia, like, people are blaming her for her marriage falling apart, it’s such bullshit.’ She pauses, eyes bulging with restrained gossip. ‘Even worse than that – we booked Rocky’s band for the wedding entertainment.’

  ‘Isn’t Charlie in that band?’

  ‘Exactly. But we already put the deposit down. I don’t think we can get around it, even though my mum wants us to change it. But Rocky’s such a good mate and they need the gig. And you know what, it’s my wedding, not my mum’s.’

  ‘De
finitely not mine,’ Robbie mutters to me. ‘I’m right out.’

  I chuckle enough to stop him trying to joke any further, but my mind is caving in on itself and I can barely hear the rest of the conversation – not just in that moment, but for the rest of the night. I’m physically present but my brain is hiding.

  Later, when a few people have left to go to the pub or house parties, I walk Richelle around the back of the shopping centre, where the dumpster and delivery entrances are, swigging from my last stubby of beer.

  ‘No,’ she says, as my hand snakes beneath the waistband of her denim short shorts.

  ‘Aw, come ON!’ I shout, throwing my stubby to the asphalt.

  It shatters. Lager fizzes into a silent puddle.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Richelle says, deathly quiet.

  ‘Come off it!’ I say. ‘As if you don’t know. What’s the deal, are you just gonna tease me forever? We’ve been together for three months and you’re just being a frigid bitch.’

  I’m not too drunk to notice the beams of ice explode from her eyes. ‘Wow. For some reason, I got the stupid idea I was actually your girlfriend. I didn’t realise you thought I was just another one of your skanks.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’ I say. ‘You wish. You’re just some chick, Rich.’

  ‘Get Doug to drive me back home. Right now.’

  ‘Sure,’ I snap. ‘Since you never chip in for fuel money, how about you suck my dick as payment? Least you could do.’

  We lean against opposite windows on the car ride back to her place. Doug and Benno are rabbiting on about some second-hand car that Spud is selling off. I don’t think they notice what’s happened between us.

  We crash in Benno’s shed. I flop onto the wafer-thin mattress with my head spinning. After Doug and Benno pass out, I find myself staring at Benno’s face, which is faintly lit up by the electric blue light of the bug zapper. I wonder what would happen if I reached over and touched him? Would he flinch, or sleep through it?