Alex Jackson: Closing Out

by University of Queensland Press

  Alex got partnered with Claire Carney.

  “The difference between you and Carney when it comes to relationships,” said Peter Callaghan to Alex, “is that she’s done it and you haven’t.”

  “Shut up, Callaghan.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Sam

  Sam and Alex waited for the train to go to school. They were playing one of their favourite games, recounting classic Chief lines. Today they didn’t have to think back too far. Chief was all excited as one of his boxers, Ben Wilson, was fighting for an Australian title next week. Last night after a workout he came home and confidently predicted that Ben would “beat the shirt off” his opponent.

  “The funniest thing is,” said Sam, her shoulders wobbling from laughter, “is that boxers don’t wear shirts.”

  They saw the train coming and calmed themselves down. It certainly wouldn’t be good for reputations if a brother and sister were seen having a good time together. They got into different carriages — Alex sitting with Jimmy, John, Adrian and Peter, and Sam with her new friends.

  Alex was still getting used to being at the same school as Sam. In primary school he didn’t mind, except when Sam came home and told his mother things he’d rather she didn’t know. Like how he got yelled at by a teacher for convincing a Year 1 boy to go into the girl’s toilet.

  Sam was still adjusting to high school life, but to Alex it looked like she was doing fine. Alex remembered how out of place he’d felt in Year 8, even though his best mate, Jimmy Homan, was at the same school. Sam knew a few kids but didn’t have any real friends when she started at St Joseph’s. Now, a month later, she hung out with a group of girls who used to be the ‘in’ crowd back at Trinity Catholic Primary. Alex didn’t know how she did it.

  Sam also didn’t know how she did it. She wasn’t sure whether to celebrate or run when Louisa Debono asked her to join her group on the second day of school. And that was before she knew the full scoop on Louisa — a girl who had more determination and skill than the prime minister when it came to playing schoolyard politics. She was the most popular girl at Trinity because no one was game to challenge her. If she was a contestant on Survivor she’d win the million for sure.

  One thing about Louisa was that she was either for you or against you. If she was against you, you might as well start enquiring about vacancies in nearby schools. She could crush your popularity, ruin your reputation, with a few choice words to her loyal followers. But if she was for you you’d never have a better friend or contact. And as they sat next to each other on the train, Louisa was for Sam.

  Sitting two seats in front of the girls was the object of Louisa’s desire, Brent Brown. Although only in Year 8, he was tall with a well-developed body, which immediately made him a hit with the girls. It’s not much fun having a boyfriend who’s 10 kilograms lighter and a full head shorter than you, but it’s what most 13-year-old girls put up with if they go out with a boy the same age. Brent had a quiet and mysterious presence that added to his mystique. Because he didn’t yell out things like “Liar, liar, pants on fire”, there was a chance he was an intelligent, caring type. Of course the girls knew that this chance was a remote one, but then again, he did have that good body.

  Louisa flicked back her beautiful brown hair and applied lip-gloss for the third time this train trip. Even though her lips weren’t the slightest bit cracked, a girl could never wear too much lip-gloss. She knew that boys loved it when she rubbed her lips, and she practised her technique in the mirror to make it look as sexy as possible. She offered the gloss around and all the girls took some, including Sam. It was Raspberry flavoured.

  “Do you think he’s noticed me?” asked Louisa.

  Sam looked up and Brent was looking right at them. He gave a smile.

  “He’s looking this way,” Sam said excitedly.

  Even though in Louisa’s mind she was already going out with Brent, it wasn’t yet official. In fact, they had never spoken.

  “I don’t know what’s taking him so long,” complained Louisa. “I told Justin yesterday at morning tea to tell him that I like him, but he had the whole lunch time and he didn’t even ask me out.”

  “Justin probably forgot,” said Georgia. “Or else Brent’s waiting for the right moment.”

  Louisa suddenly looked at Sam. “I know,” she said, “why don’t you talk to him for me? Then I can get the real facts.”

  “I’m not sure ...” said Sam.

  “I’ll do it,” said Georgia.

  “Oh, please, Sam!” said Louisa. “You’d be perfect.”

  Georgia looked out the window.

  “Okay,” said Sam.

  It wasn’t the easiest of jobs but it was one that Sam wasn’t entirely inexperienced in. In fact at Beeton Primary she had organised dozens of relationships. Not that she’d actually had a boyfriend. Well, she’d had one. She went out with Zac for a day before they realised they were better off as friends. When they’d been a couple they’d stopped talking to each other. There didn’t seem to be anything left to say.

  Once they got off the train Sam called Brent over. The others walked off and pretended that they were engaged in an important conversation, when in fact each girl had her head tipped on an angle, catching scraps of gossip like an illegal fishing trawler.

  “Can I ask you a question?” said Sam.

  “You can ask,” said Brent. “It doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

  “Do you like anyone?”

  “Like, in Year 8?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I know someone who likes you, and this girl would be very happy if you asked her out.”

  “Would she?” said Brent.

  “Yes.”

  “Is she nice?”

  “Very.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll ask her.”

  Sam gave a sigh of relief. At first he’d been putting up some impressive resistance, for a boy, but as usual he’d folded like a house of cards.

  “Will you go out with me?” said Brent.

  “What?”

  “Will you go out with me, please?” said Brent.

  “What?”

  “Will you go out with me, pretty please with a cherry on top?”

  Sam looked over at Louisa, and she knew that she knew. She was staring daggers. She also knew that her good run at St Joey’s was as good as over.

  CHAPTER 8

  Claire

  “So, um, what do you think is important in a relationship?” Alex asked Claire Carney.

  They were sitting under a gum tree. One of the good things about Miss Phillip’s RE class was that she believed in spending as much time as possible in God’s natural environment. All of a sudden Alex was hit on the foot with a sharp stick. He turned and saw Jimmy looking up at the sky.

  “I think the physical part is very important,” said Claire.

  Did she just say what I think she said?

  Alex wrote down her answer and tried to think of a follow-up question. This lesson it was the boys’ job to ask the questions, and unless they came back to class with a page of notes they’d stay in during lunch. Alex looked around and Sarah was writing busily in Jimmy’s book, probably making up both the questions and the answers.

  You snake, Homan.

  “I know that isn’t something a girl is supposed to say,” continued Claire. “Girls are supposed to say they want a guy who will love them and treat them with respect and all that crap. But if I waited for a guy to do that, I might as well become a nun. The guys I meet are no Alex Jacksons.”

  “What?”

  He had just written I know that ... when he heard his name.

  “Like, you’re a nice guy. You’re sweet and you treat girls well. I used to love watching you and Becky together. I’d get so jealous. But guys like you don’t go out with girls like me. I get the rejects who get me drunk at parties because they think I’ll give them what they want.”
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  This question and answer session was getting interesting. “But you don’t have to be with guys like that. You’re real pretty and a nice girl, too. Haven’t you, sort of, learnt your lesson?”

  “No. I try but I get bored being alone. Then I go to a party and a bastard like Billy Johnstone gives me a bottle of Kahlua and tells me that he loves me and ...”

  She paused.

  “Do you feel guilty?” said Alex.

  “Not really. My mum got pregnant with my brother when she was 16. If she can do it, so can I. Well, that’s what I think. She says as long as I don’t get pregnant I can do what I want.”

  Alex looked at his watch. If he didn’t start writing soon he’d be hangin’ with Miss Phillips rather than playing basketball this lunchtime. “What about God?” he asked. This was RE, after all.

  “Never slept with him,” said Claire.

  At lunchtime the guys wanted to know what Claire Carney had said about boys. Jimmy wasn’t with them. Miss Phillips made him stay in after she saw how neat the writing in his book was.

  “Any tips?” asked Adrian Dorry. “Talking to Claire Carney is like reading a year’s supply of Dolly magazine, only better. She’s the real thing.”

  “She said that the physical part is very important,” said Alex.

  “Baby!” said Peter Callaghan. “Keep talking, Jackson.”

  “She said she always falls for guys who get her drunk at parties and tell her they love her.”

  “I’d tell her I’ll marry her,” said Peter.

  “But what she really wants is a nice guy like me,” said Alex.

  “Like you?” said Adrian. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Why she want you when she can have rap star like me?” said John Carson-Zanger.

  “Dunno. But that’s what she said.”

  “You should go for it, Jackson,” said Peter. “A girl like Claire can turn you from a boy to a man in one night.”

  “In your case, Callaghan,” said Adrian, “it would take about 15 seconds.”

  Later that lunchtime Alex saw something that made him sick. He was in the toilet doing his thing and reading the graffiti on the wall. It wasn’t that he got a kick out of the badly-spelt toilet writings, but they were right in front of him so he read them. It was like when the homeless blokes of Beeton fought. You wished they wouldn’t but you watched anyway. There was the usual stuff ... Zanger is gay ... If you can read this your snake’s too small ... when all of a sudden he did a double take. It was only in small writing, but nevertheless it was clear enough so that every boy who stood at the urinal at St Joseph’s could read it. The ones who could read, that is.

  Sam Jackson is a slut.

  Alex went back to his bag and took out his pencil case. He came back, made sure no teachers were around, and whited out the slur on his little sister. He tried to find her but when he asked her new friends where she was they said they didn’t know. The brown-haired one with lots of lip-gloss looked at him smugly.

  “She might be hanging around the boys,” she said. “She likes them a lot.”

  The others giggled, but stopped when Alex stared them down.

  “You’d better be careful,” he said. “Some of my friends love flushing VEGEmite sandwiches down the toilet.”

  ‘‘Vege’’ is the name given to Year 8 students. Flushing their heads in toilets is a time-dishonoured tradition at St Joseph’s.

  “Is that a threat?” said the brown-haired girl calmly. “Mr Letcher said that if anyone threatens us to let him know straightaway. This is a bully-free school, you know.”

  When Alex was in Year 8 a bit of pressure from a Year 10-er would leave you grovelling then running for cover. This girl looked like she was enjoying it.

  What’s wrong with the kids of today? he thought.

  CHAPTER 9

  Steve

  Alex didn’t get a chance to see Sam that afternoon. Mandy Lee’s family picked her up from school and took her to the Gold Coast for the weekend. He thought about saying something to his mum but decided against it. He’d get the full bucket off Sam first.

  After quickly stuffing his face with banana cake, Alex rode to the Beeton Skatepark. He didn’t have much time because he had to be at Becky’s at 6.30 for dinner, but he couldn’t go without a quick skate. He was stoked to see Casey back on the deck, his ankle looking strong when he nailed a frontside air on the vert.

  They greeted each other like long lost friends. “G’day mate,” Casey said in his falsetto, 12th man voice.

  “Yesss, welcome back,” said Alex.

  They caught up on the goss between runs. Casey had been talking to Mike who had some big news. The owner of the Zen team was stoked with the photos of Alex and was thinking of adding him to the team permanently.

  Alex was so pumped he nailed a boardslide down the long rail that ran off the funbox. He’d had some run-ins over the years with this rail, so crushing it felt good.

  A police car pulled up outside the skatepark, which wasn’t unusual. Occasionally there were small-time drug deals going down, or a local would complain about too much noise on a Friday night. What was unusual was the policeman getting out of his car and walking towards them.

  Alex’s stomach started to fall when he recognised the copper. Last year this policeman gave Alex a ticket for skating outside the courthouse. It was a ticket Alex never paid, because instead of giving his own name he’d said he was Billy Johnstone. It looked like his scam was up.

  “Mark Massingham,” said Casey, shaking the policeman’s hand. “How long has it been?”

  “Since school,” said the policeman. “We got into some mischief back then, huh?”

  “Now look at you. Wearing blue and arresting bad people.”

  Alex didn’t know that Casey knew any coppers. Perhaps he can put in a good word for me.

  “You come to skate?” asked Casey.

  “Nah, gave that up a long time ago. I’ve come to ask you a favour. For old times sake.”

  Casey kicked down on the tail of his board. Like a yoyo it flew up into his right hand.

  “It’s to do with the brother of an old friend of yours. Steve McTeigue,” said the policeman.

  Alex thought about skating away before Constable Massingham recognised him, but he didn’t. This was getting interesting. Steve was the head of a gang called SWA (Skateboarders With Attitude) who believed that the societal system was flawed and that the only way to change it was to rebel. They recruited kids through skating, and Alex had been part of the gang until he’d realised it was a bad idea. Well, his decision was helped when he got busted by his parents for skating around Bee-ton at all hours of the night. The time Alex got his ticket Steve was arrested by Constable Massingham for damaging the bonnet of a police car with a flying skateboard.

  “We run a program called ‘Break the Cycle, not the Law’, where we try and hook up a troubled kid to a respected member of the community,” said Constable Massingham. “Steve is the troubled kid, and I’m asking you to be the respected member of the community.”

  Casey laughed. “Me respectable? Come on!”

  “To tell you the truth, I thought you’d be in for armed robbery by now. Instead you’re the guy all the kids look up to. You’ve done well, mate.”

  Casey rarely talked about it, but Alex knew he used to get into trouble as a young teenager. Casey had hung out with Steve’s brother, Ryan, until Ryan was hit by a car skating away from the police. Ryan died and Casey changed.

  “Steve’s a keen skateboarder — I hear he’s just as good as Ryan and you’d know better than anyone how good he was.”

  “The best,” said Casey, “till he got done in by your mob.”

  Mark didn’t take the hook. “You could make a big difference to this kid, because right now he’s going down the same road as his brother. It’s your call.”

  Casey was quiet for a bit. “I’m going to be travelling later in the year,” he said. “What do I have to do?”

  “Spend
time together, talk to him, maybe help him get a job. There’s an 8-week program that’s all laid out. It’s not just you, there’s a social worker involved and I’m the police liaison officer. All you have to do is say the word.”

  “When does it start?” said Casey.

  “He’s in the car. Why don’t you meet him?”

  Mark brought Steve over.

  “Grommet.” Steve nodded to Alex. “Still skating wussy parks, I see.”

  “You hear Alex boardslided the courthouse stairs?” said Casey.

  “Wouldn’t have believed it but a friend of mine saw him. Said he got lucky,” smirked Steve.

  He looked Casey over. “The only reason I’m doing this is because Ryan used to talk about you all the time. I wanna see if you’re as good as he says.”

  “Charming, isn’t he?” said Constable Massingham. “Don’t forget, Steve, if you don’t do this program, and do it well, you’ll be under the care of the Children’s Court.”

  “You got your board?” said Casey.

  “Nah. Officer wouldn’t let me bring it.”

  “I’ve got a spare one in the car,” said Casey. “Why don’t you leave him here and I’ll take him home after we’ve had a skate?”

  “He’s all yours,” said Constable Massingham. He looked over at Alex. “See you later, Billy. Make sure you don’t get any more tickets.”

  Casey gave Alex a puzzled look. Steve laughed.

  There was no doubting Steve’s ability on a skateboard. Though he’d never skated parks before, he seemed to instinctively know what lines to take, and he had a fear factor of zero. He was better than Alex when it came to flip tricks or grinds, and he’d obviously had plenty of practice destroying public benches, stairs and rails. Alex felt miffed when Steve boardslided the rail first pop.

  But because he hadn’t skated parks he couldn’t work the ramps nearly as well as Alex. After awhile Casey dared him to drop in on the vert and he took up the challenge, even though the vert is for boarders who are either very experienced or very crazy. And the latter only try it once.

  Steve slid down on his back and elbows three times in a row. After each miss he screamed obscenities, and after the third went to chuck his board, then realised it wasn’t his. Instead he punched himself in the head.