‘Prison or an early grave sounds okay to me,’ I say, grinning as wide as I can back at her. ‘At least I won’t end up a seventy-year-old relief teacher.’
I leave her and go back to the party.
The night chugs on. Razor, Lockie and Jack disappear for a while (dogs) and I’m stuck in a circle with Piera, Zeke, Sabrina, Pedro and Jeremy and their dates. They’re all making awkward small talk and jokes about movies they’ve all seen that I haven’t. Yawn.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Amber.
‘Hey, Hammer. Just thought I’d speak to you about the whole King and Queen thing …’
‘You think you’re gonna win, do you? Tickets, much?’
‘No, of course not.’ Her glittery cheeks reflect the light of the disco ball as she smiles. ‘I’m just saying, if I did happen to win, I feel like we shouldn’t do the traditional kiss. You know, out of respect to Richelle. She’s a friend, even if we’ve had our differences. Okay?’
‘I thought you were frenemies?’
A sneaky grin. She can’t hide it quickly enough. Too tipsy. ‘Who taught you that word, mister?’
‘I’m okay with kissing,’ I say. ‘She’s moved on quickly enough anyway.’
‘I heard Jai wants to fight you,’ Amber says.
‘What? What for?’
‘Apparently because of how you tried to pressure Richelle to sleep with you. He’s been saying stuff about you all night.’
‘What stuff?’
‘That you’re chicken. That you wouldn’t fight him because he’s bigger, and rugby guys can always beat footy guys.’
‘Motherfucker. Screw it. If we win, we’re making out in front of them both.’
Sneaky grin 2.0. ‘Well, I guess that’s fair.’
Razor, Lockie and Jack sprint through the dance floor suddenly, darting around like Jesus lizards across a pond.
‘Where’d you fuckers go?’ I demand.
‘You’ll see,’ Razor says. All three of them are pissing themselves. ‘Hey, have you voted yet?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘No reason. They’re announcing it soon.’
I notice a stain on his shirt. Spray paint. I can’t see the colour through the blue and white disco lights but it’s all over his hands as well. ‘What’d you do?’
‘I said you’ll see,’ Razor says, grinning. ‘Trust me, you won’t be disappointed, my man.’
The last song of Acid Rose’s set finishes with Hannah doing a rock ‘n’ roll scream into the mic. Behind the drum kit, Rocky’s arms are beaded with sweat. Charlie’s down on his knees, fingers like a hundred spiders across the strings of his electric guitar. His eyes are shut and a little smile of exertion breaks over his pale, skinny face.
‘We’ll be back for a second set,’ Hannah calls, wiping her face on her sleeve.
The DJ dude comes back on stage and plays a few thumping dance songs.
After fifteen minutes or so, he fades the last song out and adjusts the mic. Zeke and Sabrina have appeared on stage behind him, carrying two crowns, two sashes and two envelopes.
‘Okay, boys and girls,’ the DJ calls. ‘ARE WE HAVING A GOOD TIME?’
‘Yeeeeessssss,’ the crowd sighs, tiredly.
‘Fuck off and get a new job, mate!’ Razor heckles. He turns to me. ‘This guy is so shit, man.’
The DJ goes on. ‘It’s time to see who you’ve crowned your King and Queen of Summer!’
General cheering. Mostly higher-pitched, but a few blokey ‘YEAHHH’s thrown in for good measure.
DJ Shit-for-Brains opens an envelope. ‘And the King of Summer is …’ He pauses and raises an eyebrow at the crowd, like a clown at a kid’s birthday party. ‘I only have one word here, so I hope it means something to you guys … HAMMER!’
There’s some general applause. I grin as I bound up the stairs to the stage. Sabrina fakes a smile and holds out a brass crown, placing it on my head. I get a shiver down my back. It’s good to be the king.
‘Don’t look so pleased with yourself,’ Sabrina whispers, sliding a silky sash over my chest. ‘It’s just a school dance. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Back on your broom, Sabrina,’ I say.
‘And now, for the beautiful, radiant Queen of Summer – the young lady who’s lit up the room more than any other tonight,’ the DJ announces. He opens up another envelope. ‘CHARLIE ROTH!’
For a second, there’s a dead silence.
And then Razor and them boys start cracking up and pissing themselves laughing, and everyone else follows suit. The whole Summer Dance breaks out into laughter. Boys are whistling and girls are giggling and someone’s cat-calling and cheering. Anyone who isn’t laughing has their hands over their mouths in disbelief.
The DJ looks confused. ‘Charlie … is that short for Charlotte, or Charlene?’
Sabrina and Zeke exchange a look. Both look horrified: neither of them have it in them to do something this fucked-up.
Razor.
Shit.
The whole crowd is turning left to right, trying to unearth Charlie Roth on the dark dance floor – and then people start cheering when he’s found in a corner near the back.
A chant begins.
‘GO. ON. STAGE. GO. ON. STAGE.’
The DJ peers at Charlie as he shrinks against the wall. ‘Is that actually a girl?’
‘No,’ I tell him.
The crowd seems to swell around Charlie – laughing, cheering, clapping, chanting – and then, abruptly, he breaks free. He strides toward the stage, like a shooting star blazing down to earth.
‘Here we go!’ the DJ announces. He doesn’t get it.
‘Hey, Queen Charlie!’ Lockie shouts, as Charlie takes the steps. ‘Spits or swallows?’
I see so many people laughing. Even Rocky. Even Hannah.
Charlie reaches us. His face is ghost-white.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Zeke says. ‘This is such a messed-up prank. We didn’t put your name in that envelope. Amber won. You shouldn’t have come up on stage.’
‘He has to,’ I counter. ‘If he doesn’t play along with the joke …’
‘They’ll never leave him alone,’ Sabrina finishes.
Charlie has tears in his eyes. He faces us, back to the crowd, until he’s blinked them away.
‘They’re right,’ he says. ‘Go on, Zeke. Just get it over with.’
Zeke has a face like thunder. He jams the brass crown on Charlie’s head and slides the sash over him as quickly as possible.
‘Uh. Your King and Queen of Summer, I guess!’ the DJ declares, looking at the teachers and shrugging.
At once, the animals start clapping and cheering. Lockie is still shouting about spits or swallows. Razor has his camera out, recording the whole thing. A few people do.
And then, suddenly, the chant changes.
‘KISS. KISS. KISS.’
Holy shit.
No.
‘KISS. KISS. KISS.’
Charlie doesn’t even look at me. He stares at the stage, looking like he wishes he could fall through it and die.
My mind is racing. If I kiss him, they might call me gay. If I don’t, I might look like one of those guys who’s scared of being gay, and then everyone might call me gay. If I don’t kiss him now, they’ll hound us all night. Jokes will go around about us at school. It could become a thing. People will make memes about us. People will associate me with being gay.
But if I kiss him now, a quick peck on the lips, it will end here. They’ll get their pound of flesh. It will go away and nobody will ever question me about it again.
Just as I make my mind up, Charlie glances up, grabs either side of my head, and plants his lips on mine.
I freeze. It’s shock.
He kisses me for two, three, seconds, bony hands squirming around the back of my neck. He tries to slip his tongue in, and I clench my teeth as a border wall to the invasion. No way.
Everyone’s either laughing or groaning now. Like the
y want to throw up.
Charlie pulls away from me, then tears his sash off, hurling the crown to the floor.
‘Are you happy now?’ he screams, holding up both middle fingers to the crowd. ‘Fuck you. Fuck you all!’
Miss Krispy Kreme is on her mobile phone at the back of the room. She’s lipless again.
Just as Charlie gets to the base of the steps, a bunch of the boys carry something in from outside.
‘You leaving, your Majesty?’ Razor calls. ‘You can’t go anywhere without your carriage, right? Don’t worry – we’ve made it fit for a queen.’
The boys move away, and more laughter goes around the room, though less than last time.
Charlie’s scooter has been spray-painted bright pink. The fairy lights from outside the PCYC are duct-taped onto its sides. The whole scooter has been glitter bombed.
Charlie says something in a low voice to Razor.
‘Aw, come on, man,’ Razor says. ‘It’s a joke, not a dick. Don’t take it so hard.’
Charlie glances between the scooter and the door. For a second, I think he might actually launch at Razor. But then he grabs the scooter, black fingernails flicking desperately at the edge of the silver duct tape. He can’t get it to peel off. It takes those few seconds too long, so everyone starts to just watch him, this pathetic faggot clawing at the fairy lights on his bright pink scooter.
‘Fuckers!’ Charlie screams.
He throws a leg over the moped and jams a key into the ignition. Girls scream and everyone on the dance floor throws themselves to either side, out of the path of danger. Among the shouts from the teachers, Charlie guns the engine, eyes glancing up to identify the wide exit doors. Stinky fumes blossom onto the stage. Tyres shriek on the dance floor.
Charlie Roth takes off on his bright pink scooter, and disappears into the night.
Letterbomb #4
there’s only been one night when I felt that maybe being a homo wouldn’t be the worst thing ever and that was the night of the summer dance not because of what happened at the dance (so fucked up) but later that night gave me the idea that suicide was a bad idea because lately I’ve been thinking death is definitely preferable and the only three possible scenarios where I could consider actually living rather than taking myself out as a mercy kill are:
safe option: I say this was a mistake/phase and forget it ever happened then get married to a woman have kids live as a straight man and have my normal family and I will be a normal bloke then when I am sixty or something all my kids will be grown up and living overseas then my wife will die leaving me alone and most people who know me will be dead by then so there won’t be anyone to see what I’m up to and then I can hook up with guys without anyone knowing
risky option: go backpacking around Europe but not on a Contiki or Top Deck tour just go solo like a ghost through the continent on trains and in hostels and be a nobody no face no name and go to gay saunas and beats and sex clubs and give in to every disgusting impulse in my body and if it kills me that’s a good way to go
ridiculous option: be with him and stay in this town build a life together and people wouldn’t hate us and if they did we’d protect each other and if we got into a fight the other one would step in like in the Sacred Band of Thebes we’d be brothers in arms and flesh and cum we’d be bound together forever through the fire of everyone else’s rejection and hatred but we’d be together and be happy, truly happy, and love, he would love me and I would love him ridiculous of course and I only thought this that one night after the dance and by the next night everything had changed anyway but for that one night it felt like I could live forever
16: Luna Piena
Zeke
I give the DJ points for trying to resurrect the Summer Dance after the Charlie incident, but nobody’s on the dance floor anymore. Everyone’s huddled around the corners of the polished parquetry, talking about the epic scene of humiliation they just witnessed. Every single phone is out. Looped videos are doing the rounds on every social media platform. There’s already a meme going around with Charlie’s face stuck over a prom queen. Another meme is of Charlie on stage, ashen-faced with horror beneath his brass crown, and the caption: ON WEDNESDAYS, WE WEAR TIARAS. A third one captures the moment Charlie kissed Hammer, with the caption: WHEN YOU FINALLY GET THE DREAMY QUARTERBACK TO NOTICE YOU.
Some of the girls, like Amber and Richelle, are arguing with the teachers, trying to overturn the decision, outraged that the title they thought they deserved has gone to Charlie because of a prank. How dare they be forced to miss out on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be Queen of Summer. Some of the footy jocks are still high-fiving about their stupid spray-painting stunt. I bet they were the ones who switched Charlie’s name into the envelope. Those spineless pricks. They don’t have half the balls Charlie does.
The teachers are useless. They called Brother Murphy and told him what happened. The dance isn’t cancelled or anything – although the live band is. But now there’s whispers that Charlie will get expelled because he kissed Hammer. Homosexual misconduct. Jesus would weep.
I feel sick. Dizzy.
I find my way to the freshly-refilled punch bowl and ladle myself a drink while one of the relief teachers watches me with a hawk eye.
‘Well, that didn’t go so well,’ Sabrina says, finding me as I’m stirring my cup of punch with one of those little multi-coloured paper umbrellas. ‘I can’t believe they would subvert the process of voting like that. Amber won fair and square. Those idiots must have swapped the envelopes right under our noses! Poor Amber …’
‘And poor Charlie, right?’ I say drily.
Sabrina blinks. ‘Obviously, poor Charlie. I’m not being cold, Zeke. I’m just saying I feel partly responsible for not noticing the envelope swap. Those meatheads are so horrible.’
‘Yeah. They are,’ I say, watching Hammer laughing with Razor and his crew as they watch a video on one of their phones.
How can they not see what they just did to him? How can they find it, on any level, funny?
‘No point dwelling on it,’ Sabrina says, ladling punch into a cup and licking sweet juice off her fingertips. ‘Don’t want it to ruin our night. Do you feel like dancing?’
‘To be honest, no,’ I say flatly.
My eyes move from Hammer to Matt, who’s chatting with his date Kara Spumani and a bunch of the boarders. How can neither of them be reacting? Shouldn’t they have run out the door after Charlie to save him? Shouldn’t someone help him?
‘Sabrina,’ I hear myself say. ‘I think I need to call it a night.’
She laugh-splutters. ‘What? You’re kidding me, Zeke. Why?’
‘I just need to go,’ I say. I kiss her on the cheek. ‘It’s been a really nice night. Thanks. You look great. Sorry.’
I leave her by the punch bowl, but I don’t head for the door. Blood rages in my arteries as I stride right up to the group of footy boys in their closed circle.
‘Square alert,’ Lockie says.
I ignore him. ‘Hammer. Got a second?’
Hammer puts on a cool-guy smirk. ‘For you, Zeeky? Anything.’
He swaggers his way out of the circle. God he’s hot as hell when he’s cocky like that but I’m beyond caring about his looks right now. The second I know we’re out of earshot, I lean in close.
‘We need to make sure Charlie’s okay.’
‘Hey, mate, I had no idea they were gonna do that to him,’ Hammer says. ‘I wasn’t in on it.’
‘I believe you. It doesn’t matter. I just think we should check he’s alright.’
Hammer glances back at his group. Piera is sitting with some of the boarder girls, staring sullenly at their phones as the guys talk shit.
‘I can’t really leave, mate. He’ll be orright. Probably just needs time to cool off.’
‘You have to.’ Rage rises like bile in my throat. ‘Come with me right now, Hammer, or I’ll tell all your mates what happened in the park.’
Hammer cocks hi
s head to the side, like he’s seeing me for the first time. ‘Damn, Zeeky. What got into you?’
‘I’m not fucking around,’ I tell him. My heart is racing. Bones grinding. Blood surges through me like it just broke through a dam. ‘Let’s go.’
Matt is easier to break away from his pack. I barely have to whisper that I’m going to make sure Charlie’s okay. He nods. Moves over to Kara Spumani and wraps his arms around her shoulders. Peck on the cheek. ‘Be right back,’ he mutters. She nods.
Matt winks at me as he joins me and Hammer.
‘We might be gone a while …’ I explain to Matt, gesturing back to Kara. She doesn’t realise she’s being abandoned.
‘Yeah, no worries,’ Matt says, not getting it. ‘C’mon. Quickly.’
To anyone watching – anyone from class, even the teachers – we would look like the weirdest mob of mates ever. Zeke, the square; Hammer, the meathead; and some random farm boy whose name nobody at the dance knows.
The weirdest part is that I’m the one leading them.
We get outside. People are standing around chatting: girls sharing photos on cracked-glass phone screens and ohmy-godding at duck-faced backlit selfies; a couple of rebels standing in the shadows of the skate park across the road, smoking cigarettes in rented suits, shoes chipping away at the potholes on Pass Street. The DJ’s doof-doof isn’t heard here, only felt, though the vibrations in the concrete. It’s a relief. I’d almost forgotten what quiet sounded like.
‘I don’t see Charlie anywhere,’ Matt says. ‘That’s not him smoking, is it?’
‘Nah. Just some stoner losers,’ Hammer says. ‘Dropkicks.’
‘He’s on his scooter,’ I remind them. ‘He could be anywhere now.’
I stand at the edge of the car park with my arms crossed and look out over the darkness of the recreation district. The looming, hollow tin of the basketball stadium. The eerie, chlorine-scented stillness of the public swimming pool. Such an empty place at night.
And no sign of Charlie, of course.
‘I’d be dumping the scooter if I were him,’ Hammer mutters. ‘Get him bashed, that thing will.’
‘No shit,’ I say. ‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
Invisible Boys Page 20
