Picture
a long room, wide enough and framed on each side by a
wall of windows blocked with steel bars. Picture this
room packed with bunk beds built over the top of study
desks. Picture the black and white checked and red and
blue doonas thrown haphazardly over stained white sheets.
Picture the desks, a mess with text books and notepads,
pictures of swimsuit models ripped from sport magazines
and fastened to the walls with blue'tac. Picture piles
of clothes heaped on the floor and in mesh laundry bags,
stained with the pang of male adolescence ' a mixture
of sweat and wet grass, thick in the air like rain.
At
the end of this room, in the last bed by the thick wooden
door to the fire escape, you'll find a boy. In a bed in
the corner, secluded from the rest, picture this boy sitting
on a plastic chair in a black Hendrix t'shirt and ripped
jeans staring in front of a note. Notice a note which
says 'Everything you do will be shit'.
It's
4.30pm on a Tuesday afternoon and school has been out
for an hour. 40 minutes ago, this dorm was a rush of activity,
filled with the sounds of dropping text books and adolescent
banter. It's December, the heat of Summer, and just 5
days before speech day and the break of term. Just 6 days
before the occupants of this dorm line the front steps
of this boarding house waiting for silver Land Cruisers
to pick them up and whisk them away to a two'month Christmas
break. This year, the talk for the past few weeks has
centred around a Christmas dance for which one of the
boys in the dorm, one of the more popular ones, is a host.
14 of the 15 boys on this floor will be going. It's the
event of the Christmas holidays the children say. Everyone
is going. Everyone except this one boy. And the girls
there will be oh so pretty in their summer dresses and
sandals, fob chains and ribbons in their hair. And the
boys,
so confident in their striped shirts and cowboy boots,
will smuggle in Vodka in emptied out Shampoo containers
tucked down the front of their jeans, which they'll take
on periodic visits to the bathroom for healthy swigs and
laughter before returning to the dance floor where someone
will do the Lawnmower and the Garden Sprinkler. Someone
will do the Shopping Trolley. Someone will do the Robot.
Someone else will throw up, splattering the arm of a girl
he was dancing near and eventually, like last year, an
ambulance will be called and someone else will be taken
off to have their stomach pumped. Someone else will be
off the invitation list next year.
Right
now, imagine the sound of an empty room recently vacated.
A sound only degrees thicker than silence. Like the vague
thickness of lingering souls. Like some sort of spiritual
inertia. The air still rich with all the flavours of human
presence. And then through it slices the tinny strum of
strings on an un'amplified electric guitar ' our boy,
lying now on his mattress, staring up at the ceiling,
a red Fender Stratocaster across his chest, picking out
the intro to Smoke On The Water.
There's
another kid in the room ' a taller boy with short clipped
hair and stocky football player's shoulders, olive'skinned
good looks and he approaches and says,
'Hey
Nick, everyone's up on the oval playing touch. Y'wanna
come up?' but our boy keeps riffing and says without looking
up 'No thanks'
And
an hour later, the chaos returns, this room once again
filled with chatter and laughter and the smell of sporting
equipment and sweat and each of the boys dropping their
clothes to the floor and wrapping thin white towels around
their waists, heading to the communal showers. Our boy
now, still on his bed, working on the riff to Sunshine
of your Love.
Just
before 6pm, a bell rings signifying dinner and all the
boys of this house, Rawson House, assemble in the concrete
basement and are led in single file into a large dining
hall filled with long wooden tables. At one end of the
Hall, raised on a stage, is the Master's table, all the
staff members and House Masters dressed in shirt and tie
and dinner jacket politely passing the gravy and sipping
from glass tumblers of apple juice. One by one, the boys
enter through a door to the kitchen, grab a tray from
the pile and edge along slowly as frumpy, middle'aged
women serve out spoons of watery peas and thin slices
of light brown meat which feels, looks and tastes like
rubber.
Then
one by one the boys, from another door reappear, trays
held to their stomachs, and scout the hall for a place
to sit. Picture our boy in the doorway near to last and
picture a pair of hands on his back. Picture, in slow
motion, him lurching forward, his tray launched into the
air. Picture how far cold peas can roll across a polished
timber floor. Visualise, if you can, the sound of teenage
ridicule. Then multiply it by 510. That's the number of
people laughing and cheering at our poor little deadshit.
Can
you see him now, with gravy on his chin and meat in his
hair, lying on his stomach and looking up at the Master's
Table to find all of them, bar one, also smiling?
Can
you picture it?
What
about this then? Close your eyes and come with me. It's
two hours later and the boys are seated at their desks
in complete silence studying for their final exams ' maths
tomorrow and then nothing on Thursday. Geography on Friday.
An assistant House Master, only just out of school himself,
enters the dorm every 20 minutes and walks its length.
Anyone caught talking or out of their seats is warned
three times and then given detention. Tonight no'one talks
' the faint music from someone's headphones and the occasional
rustling of paper the only noise amid the breathing. The
Master, in pants and tie, appears at the door and steps
down the stairs, a plastic toy baseball bat in his right
hand. As he walks, he peers to his left and right into
each alcove until he gets about half the way down, stops
and brings the bat down hard with a thwack on a boy's
desk just to the right of his sleeping head. The kid jolts
upright slamming his head against the bottom of his bed
and screams 'Fuck' as the man says 'It's not time to be
sleeping James'.
And
then from the far end of the dormitory, a thin boy named
Nathan farts, its volume setting off landmines off laughter
all the way back to the door, and the Master quickens
his step and smacks his hat against the palm of his empty
hand and on approach bellows 'Ok, who was it? Was that
you Nathan?' and Nathan, red'faced and trying desperately
not to laugh says 'No Sir' and pointing over his head
'it was Nick'.
Picture
now our sad, lonely dropkick leaning forward in his chair
and reading from an Australian Guitar magazine crammed
inside his maths text book and looking up to see the Master
fuming above him then quickly slamming the books shut
and pleading 'it wasn't me sir' and the Master, taking
a small notepad and pen from his back pocket, looking
the pathetic little kid in the eye and saying, loudly
enough for the whole dorm to hear, 'Baker. Detention'.
At
8.30 another bell rings, this one for supper, and all
the boys except one make their way down stairs where packets
of biscuits and glasses of cold milk have been laid out
on tables and the boys, helping themselves, group off
in cliques around the walls. While they're there, laughing
and telling jokes, unwinding, I want you to imagine our
boy up on the second floor meeting with the school councilor,
an overweight and matronly lady who smells of sour tobacco,
who says with one arm on the kid's shoulder 'How are you
feeling this week Nick? Have you finished that course
of Zoloft yet?'
'Nearly,'
says Nick 'I've got about four days left. I'm not feeling
very great tonight Nurse. I just got another detention.'
'Oh
Nick,' the nurse says and then 'that's ok, just forget
about it. I'll have a word to your House Master'.
Then
the Nurse pulls the door shut and draws the curtains closed
and says 'Jump up onto the bed Nick. I'd like to talk
to you a bit more about your parents.'
From
where Nick is lying he can hear the faint mumble of the
other boys on the floor below. Occasionally, a monotone
hum cuts through which Nick figures must be the television.
There's a vague whistle of wind blowing through the top
of a window across his face and he's just thinking how
kinda nice it feels when the nurse cuts his daydream off
and says 'Nick, now why don't you tell me a bit more about
what your Dad was like to you as a young boy?'
Nick
shuffles his ass across the bed and says 'I don't really
remember. I mean, he wasn't like playing cricket and stuff
with me that's for sure'.
The
nurse is standing over him now, stroking his right forearm.
'And
Nick, what was the relationship like between he and your
Mother?'
'Well
no, it wasn't the best. He used to bring a lot of other
ladies around. But I've told you all of this before'.
'Tell
me again Nick'.
'Well
Dad used to drink a bit and Mum was always walking in
on him with, you know, other chicks'.
'I
see. And what did your Mother do then Nick? Can you remember?'
Nick
closes his eyes and thinks for a second about the light
turning the insides of his eyelids red. Thinks for a
moment again about the breeze, sending strands of his
long hair dancing across his forehead. He shifts his
weight once more and uncrosses his feet at the ankles.
Opens his eyes.
'Well
she fuckin lost her shit at him didn't she?'
'Nick?'
As she says this, picture the nurse unbuttoning the
last two buttons on Nick's shirt.
'Sorry.
Umm. Yeah well Mum would start yelling at him and she'd
kick the chick out. Then she'd say things like 'That's
your last chance' and 'how could you keep doing this
to me?'
'And
what would your Father do?'
'Well
first he'd try to cover the girl up and then he'd say
'we weren't doing anything', or he'd say something like
'she's a friend. She just needed to take a shower'.
But I know Mum never believed him and if ever for a
moment she did, he'd just do it again and then it would
all go back to the way it had been before'.
'And
what was that Nick?'
'Well
Dad would disappear again for awhile. Sometimes he'd
drive his car into a national park and sleep in it until
Mum would call him and beg him to come back and then
he'd come back and for a couple of weeks everything
would be great until Mum would either come home early
from work or Dad wouldn't come home at all and they'd
have another fight and Dad would go away again'
'And
how did that make you feel Nick?
'I
didn't care'.
'Why
do you think you didn't care Nick'.
'I
hated him'. As he says this, see our boy lifting his
ass and wriggling out of his black denim jeans.
'Now
I want you to tell me something Nick. Your Dad... did
he ever hurt you physically in anyway? Did he ever hit
you?'
Nick
says 'yeah, all the time', as the Nurse leans down and
takes him whole in her mouth.
Nick
tips his head back and says 'Can you get me out of my
exam on Friday?'
