‘Happy Valentine’s Day,’ Matt says, his gappy teeth beaming at me.
Clutched in his outstretched hands is a bouquet – no, a clump – of wildflowers. There’s all kinds of yellows, pinks and oranges, plus some stuff I’m pretty sure is just weeds, like sunflowers.
But I don’t care. I take the bunch of flowers from Matt’s hands and hold them close to my body, these little dead things that someone picked to show me he cared about me.
Someone cares about me.
‘I reckon I was meant to get roses or somefink,’ Matt says, scratching his nose. ‘But the general store in Northampton is the only place that sells flowers and the owners are family friends. If I went in for roses, everyone would be asking which girl was getting ’em. I picked these on the side of the road near Buller River. Didn’t expect to find wildflowers at this time of year, but there you go. Hardy little bastards, cropping up when the heat shoulda killed ’em.’
I take a whiff of the flowers. Kinda nice. They smell like wax and soil and remind me of my childhood hay fever. I really shouldn’t stay too close to them.
‘What are they? What types of flowers, I mean? Do you know?’
‘Dunno, ay. But they look hell nice.’
‘They do. Thanks so much.’
‘Glad ya like ’em,’ Matt says, grinning. ‘I never bought flowers for a guy before. I was like, what the hell do ya get for a bloke?’
He laughs his raucous, donkey-bray laugh. It’s dorky and makes him sound like more of a hick than he is. It also makes me want to launch myself at him and get on top of him.
I put the flowers down on the kitchen bench. ‘I got you something, too.’
Matt’s face goes slack, like he never expected his gift to be reciprocated. ‘Aw. Really? You didn’t need to get me anyfink.’
I sling my backpack around to my chest and take his present out from the front pocket. ‘Course I do. I made it for you. Here.’
He takes the clear jewel case and nods, then flips it over to the back. ‘Aw, sick. A mix CD. Old school.’
‘Figured you could play it in your car since you’ve got an old CD player in there. It’s just a bunch of cool songs I like,’ I tell him. ‘It’s not anything sappy like romantic songs or anything – gross.’
‘Yeah, that’d be weird,’ Matt agrees, peering at the track list. ‘Like, if it was Celine Dion shit or something. Gay as.’ Donkey bray.
‘Do you know them? The songs?’
‘Yeah. Some of ’em. Pretty old songs.’
‘Mostly 90s alternative and grunge, but some are just cool songs I like,’ I explain, moving beside him to point to the track listing.
Matt’s eyes flick across the shapes I drew in blue pen all over the back cover. He frowns.
‘Why’d you go and put them all over it?’
His stubby fingernail is pointing at the love hearts I drew.
‘Because – it’s Valentine’s.’
His mouth flattens into a line, like a python playing dead. ‘That’s a bit … y’know …’
For whatever reason, I force myself to smile through the shattering glass inside my chest. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘Nah, it’s just … it’s not very manly. I mean, between two guys, it’s just a bit iffy, don’t ya think? And I’ll have to make sure I don’t leave the CD case lying around. Otherwise someone will ask about it.’
‘So no XOXO in my texts, and no love hearts?’
‘Yeah. Just be normal, man.’
My smile twitches, but ends up wider than before. ‘Love hearts are normal for Valentine’s, Matt. What do you want me to draw for you, a dick and balls?’
‘Well, that’d get my attention, for sure.’ Matt’s gappy teeth shine through his cheeky grin. He taps the last song on the track list. ‘Hey, this is actually one of my favourite songs.’
‘Everlong,’ I read. My heart glows in my ribs. ‘The Foos. One of my faves, too. Makes me feel … stuff. We’ll probably play it in our set at the Summer Dance.’
Matt swallows. ‘Did you find someone to go with in the end?’
I shrug, as if I didn’t spend last night wide awake in bed wondering if I’d be the only loser at the dance without a date.
‘Sorry I asked you to come with me,’ I say, chucking my backpack to the floor. ‘That was stupid.’
‘It’s okay, mate.’ Matt reaches into the esky and produces two cans of Export. ‘But you can still find someone to go with, can’t ya?’
‘I don’t wanna go with a girl.’
He hands me one of the beers. ‘You can’t be serious about going with a guy?’
I don’t have the heart to tell him I don’t like the taste of beer, so I take it, crack it open and take a sip. Fuck, it really is disgusting. I don’t get all the hype about beer.
‘Maybe I am. My school principal told me he’d expel me if I do it.’
‘Jeez.’ He glugs half the can of beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Matt has a huge, prominent Adam’s apple. I wish mine looked like that. It looks good on him. It’s not really a feature I would normally focus on in a guy but with Matt it’s part of what makes him so hot. ‘Well, that’s the decision made, right? You can’t get yourself expelled.’
‘I dunno. I think I want to.’
‘Nah. Ya don’t mean that. That’s dumb, mate.’
‘Why? Why should I hang around this place when everyone hates me?’ The fire of the injustice starts to burn at my stomach lining. ‘If I were in Perth or Sydney or San Fran none of this would be happening. This wouldn’t be the biggest scandal in town.’
‘But this is Geraldton,’ Matt says flatly. He swirls the remaining half of his beer and chugs it back in one go. Wipes his mouth. Crumples the can with macho vigour. ‘One down. No, seriously, this is Gero. What did you expect?’
‘I didn’t expect anything. I never planned on coming out of the closet. I was booted out of it.’
‘Oh yeah. I forgot.’ He cracks a second beer. ‘But don’t get expelled. It’ll fuck up your whole life.’
I shrug. ‘My life is already fucked up.’
‘Drama queen.’
I scowl at him. ‘Don’t call me that.’
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I glance into the esky and see a packet of plastic-wrapped meat from the butcher. Sausages. ‘What the hell? I thought we were gonna get pizza.’
‘Oh.’ Matt grins at me again. ‘That’s the other part of the surprise. I brought some meat over. I thought it’d be cool if we had a barbie instead.’
‘Jokes on you,’ I tell him, gesturing to the sliding door that leads onto the spider-infested patio. ‘We don’t have a barbie.’
Matt cocks his head to the side like he has water in his ears and didn’t quite hear me right. ‘How can anyone not have a barbie?’
‘We used to have one,’ I say. ‘Dad used to love it in the summer. But after he died, it just sat there. And when Fitzy moved in, he sold it off for weed money.’
Matt’s face crumbles. He lowers his can of Emu solemnly. ‘I’m so sorry, mate. I didn’t know about your dad. When did that happen?’
‘Two years ago. I don’t wanna talk about it.’
Matt perches his can of beer on the corner of the bench, and opens his arms out. ‘Come here.’
‘What?’
When he sees that I’m frozen, skate shoes glued to the tiles, he takes two loping steps over to me and wraps his big arms around my shoulders. The oxygen evaporates from my lungs – it’s like I just got sucked out of an aeroplane at high altitude. Matt’s body is warm and he lets my head nuzzle into the hard muscle where his deltoids and pecs meet. I feel his rough, dry fingers trace through the back of my shaggy hair and rub gently. I bury my face into his blue checked shirt – he smells like Brut aftershave – and close my eyes.
Warm, new blood pumps through my body. It reaches my calloused fingers, my hairy toes and my brain’s frayed synapses. My heart is a clam shell that just captured a grain of ocean sand. I�
�m going to turn it into a pearl.
‘You smell nice,’ I tell Matt.
‘You too, Charlie,’ he whispers, breath hot on my earlobe.
We sway for a few precious seconds more before he pats me on the back abruptly.
‘Orright,’ Matt says. ‘I’ll cook the snags on the stove instead, then. C’mon, show me where everything is.’
Watching Matt in the kitchen is the most hilarious moment of the past two weeks. He’s obviously never used a stove before – probably just watched his dad cook shit up on the barbie – and it shows. He has a stresshead side I never would have expected.
‘Ventilation!’ he cries, picking at the window lock. ‘We need more ventilation!’
I chuckle, and his forehead contours into creases.
‘You think I’m being funny? The smoke could build up and we could suffocate! Can you unlock the window, please?’
‘I don’t think the frying pan is going to generate much smoke.’
‘It’s what you have to do when you barbeque!’ Matt insists frantically. ‘Can you just do it?’
I oblige and throw the window open, but that’s not the only crisis he faces. Everything from the amount of oil, to whether or not the onions are burning, prompts him to freak out. I keep laughing at him, and he keeps casting me sidelong glances with a twitch of his mouth. It’s cute. He knows he’s overreacting to everything in the kitchen but he can’t help it.
We eat on the patio. I wipe the thick layer of yellow dust off the green plastic table and set out a couple of plates and some paper towel as makeshift serviettes. Matt brings out a silver foil tray of sausages and onions, a loaf of bread dangling between his fingers. He goes back inside and drags the esky out to sit underneath the patio table, where he can easily reach inside and crack open his fourth beer.
‘Bong app-a-teet,’ he declares.
I prod the snags with the tongs. They’re mostly burnt, but there are a couple of halfway decent ones. I pick the best of the bunch, wrap it in white bread and onions and mustard and tomato sauce and down the hatch it goes.
It’s dry. And salty. And it has a really weird aftertaste.
‘You like it?’ Matt says thickly through a mouthful of snagger.
‘Yeah. You’re a good chef.’
His mouth twitches.
‘Thanks for cooking for me,’ I say, forcing myself to take another bite without overtly cringing. ‘It’s really nice to have a meal made for me.’
‘Doesn’t your mum cook then?’
‘Nah. Dad used to do all the cooking. Mum and Fitzy leave me to fend for myself.’
‘Really?’ Matt is legitimately shocked. ‘So you don’t all eat together?’
‘Ew. Hell no. What kind of Brady Bunch shit is that?’ It spills off my tongue before I can fully comprehend his expression. ‘Oh. Why? Do you?’
‘Every night. Mum cooks tea and the only reason Dad would ever miss it is if there was something major holding him up on the farm – but if that was the case, me and Mum and Shane would be down there helping him out, then we’d just all have tea late.’
‘So you just sit at the table and talk?’
‘Pretty much. And eat, obviously.’ He demolishes the first hot dog and reaches for a second sausage.
‘But if you all live and work together, how do you find anything new to say to each other?’
Matt’s eyebrow nudges his forehead as he squiggles mustard over the snag. ‘There’s always somefink new to say. Every day’s a bit different. Might talk about what happened while we were working. Or what happened in town. Or people we know. Or events. Or ideas. Like, sometimes we have these big talks about weird stuff. Like if there’s alien life. Or if God really exists. Or if reincarnation is a thing. Or what would happen if there was a zombie apocalypse and we had to survive for years on the farm.’
I snort. ‘Your parents actually talk about that with you?’
‘Of course. It’s fun.’
‘Mum and Fitzy aren’t like that. They don’t talk about anything interesting. It’s all about money. How to get more money, make more money, steal more money. They care about scamming people and leeching off the government.’ Something curdles in my stomach and finally a bubble of unspoken truth issues from my mouth. ‘They’re white trash. They’re actual white trash.’
I feel like I shouldn’t have said it, but I’ve known it for so long.
‘Oh, okay,’ Matt says simply.
‘I wouldn’t want to eat dinner with them anyway,’ I say. ‘They’re both horrible people.’
‘But she’s still your mum, mate.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t know what she’s done or what she’s really like. I’d rather sit in my room and eat my tin of baked beans than look at her for a second longer than I have to. She makes me physically sick.’
‘You eat baked beans from the can? Yuck.’
‘You get used to it.’
‘What were they like when you came out?’
The question throws me. I reach for an answer and realise I don’t have one.
‘Dunno. They haven’t really reacted to it properly. They kind of laughed about it, like it was a joke. Fitzy keeps saying fuckedup stuff about me, like how perverted I am, but it’s not serious. Kind of as a joke. Other than that, they haven’t talked to me about it at all. It’s like it never happened.’
‘Jeez. I guess that’s not the worst outcome.’
‘I dunno. I feel like I’d rather have them yell at me and condemn me, like Zeke’s parents did. They’re all religious. At least you know where they stand.’
‘No, you don’t want that,’ Matt says. ‘Trust me.’
‘Are your parents like that?’ I ask.
‘Not religious,’ Matt says. ‘They’re just traditional. They’re farmers and their parents were farmers. It’s just something they’ve never dealt with. I actually think they’d prob’ly be okay with it eventually – they’re nice, real loving, and family always comes first. I love ’em. But I don’t really wanna tell them until I absolutely have to. Not yet. Not now.’
‘Fair call.’ I realise he’s nearly done with his second hot dog and I’ve barely nibbled at mine. I take a huge bite. Gross. It’s so dry and weird tasting. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Nup.’ Matt bursts into his donkey-bray laugh. ‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘When did you first know?’
‘That I was …’
‘Yeah.’
‘Huh.’ He mulls it over. ‘I guess when I was fourteen. You know, you start wanking and watching porn and you realise that you like looking at the guys more than the birds they’re fucking.’
‘You started wanking at fourteen?’
‘Yeah. Why? How old were you?’
‘Like, eleven. I had my first wet dream and looked it up online and I was all over it from there.’
‘Eleven is pretty early.’
‘Really? I thought fourteen was late.’
‘No. I don’t think so. Fourteen is normal.’
‘Well, it’s all normal,’ I say, picking some gristle out of my teeth. I will never finish this damn hot dog.
‘So you knew you were gay when you were eleven, too?’
‘Yeah, I think so. That first dream was about …’ I trail off as I realise what I was about to tell him. ‘It was about a character from a TV show, who was a guy.’
‘Ha! Really? Who?’
‘Not telling. It’s embarrassing. It was a cartoon.’
‘No way!’ Matt cries, his eyes wide as he takes another swig of beer. ‘Don’t tell me it was something freaky like Bob the Builder or something!’
‘Piss off!’ I cry. ‘It wasn’t anything weird like that.’
‘Was it one of the Muppets?’
‘No! Stop.’
‘Oh, Christ, you shot your load to Spongebob, didn’t you?’
We both burst out laughing. Tears actually roll down my cheeks. This is the weirdest conversation ever, but it’s also the best conversation of my en
tire life and I don’t want it to stop.
‘New question,’ I say. ‘Who was your first crush?’
‘What is this, truth or dare?’ Matt jokes, wiping his eyes. ‘Um. There was a farmhand who Dad brought in from up north to help us out one year, when I was fifteen. He was about twenty-five. Brent. He used to wear an Akubra and a bolo tie and these cool boots for riding his motorbike.’ He swallows. ‘I crushed on him so hard. I used to bring his beers from the fridge so he didn’t have to get up from his game of Pontoon with Dad and the other guys.’ He looks away from me, staring at the overgrown shadows of the backyard. ‘I burned for him like you wouldn’t believe, mate. He just saw me as his boss’s kid. He was super straight. But I so wanted him to catch me in the shower. Or creep into my bedroom drunk and, I dunno, get to talking and get side-tracked and start touching me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ve never told anyone this, but when he quit and went to work in Three Springs I went to the dunny and locked the door and burst into tears.’
Even now, his eyes shine in the dull light from the bug zapper.
‘You?’ he says, reaching for his Emu.
‘Mine is dumb. My bandmate, Rocky. I always thought he was a bit of a stud. Rocky’s half Aboriginal, half Maori. Hell of a mix. He’s really hot.’ I realise how much I’m gushing. ‘I mean, I’m not obsessed with him or anything. But I’ve always had daydreams about him, you know?’
‘Does he know?’
‘That I’m a homo? Everyone does.’
‘No. That you like him.’
‘No. I don’t like him. It was a physical crush. He’s an arrogant twat. And I really hate him now.’
‘Why?’
‘Him and Hannah completely rejected me when I was outed. We used to talk all day, every day. And now it’s just dead silence.’
‘That’s fucked. They aren’t real mates, then.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think they ever were.’
‘Is that why you dress like that? Because you’re in a band?’
‘Yeah. I’m a punk, I guess.’
Invisible Boys Page 18
