Chapter 4
cuppas cops the lot
It's after school. The boys mill around the oval, pushing and tackling each other. I'm sitting on the edge, not wanting to be here. Our first training session. Dad's over at the Pissan unloading brightly coloured field markers and his favourite Steeden footy.
The P is teaching Cuppas how to pass the ball by making it spin and torpedo through the air. Cuppas throws another wobbly pass. As I get close I can hear The P say, ‘Jeeesus! How many times do I have to show you?’
‘Rack off,’ Cuppas says.
The P says, ‘You're a wanker.’
Cuppas grabs his man boobs and shakes them.
I stop next to Gez, who looks at my boots.
‘I can't believe they're red,’ he says, grinning.
His boots are new as well, but they're cheap. Black. Inconspicuous. He scuffed them against the wall of the change room before coming out. They look a season old already.
Frank Maloney wanders onto the oval, a net bag of footballs slung over one shoulder. Dad's with him, chatting away, almost bouncing with excitement. But he's also nervous. I can tell by the way he keeps rubbing the scar on the back of his neck. He scans the faces and bodies before him, probably trying to guess at their calibre. His chest is puffed, but not enough to stop his round belly from protruding over his shorts. A number of the boys turn to me, grinning. Steve pads his own stomach in reference to Dad's.
Maloney gathers us around. ‘This is Mr McDermott, Jack's dad,’ he says.
Dad stands proud and says, ‘You can call me Brian if you like, or by my rank, which is Captain.’
‘Or Ferret,’ I say. ‘His nickname is Ferret.’ But only a few boys laugh.
Dad raises his hand and accepts the halfhearted laughter, but his eyes flick threateningly in my direction. Maloney, meanwhile, glares at me, hands on hips. He's not into this preferred name stuff, he's too old-school for that. Maloney's a rules man. You can tell by the stiff way he dresses: polo shirts, sneakers so clean they glow, a strap for his sunnies so he can hang them from his neck. But the socks are what set him apart: hauled up to his knees, kept there with a band of elastic. He's in his mid-fifties and he loves school structure. He gets off on sending kids to the principal.
‘Can we play a game, sir?’ Cuppas asks Dad.
‘It's Brian or Captain, are you deaf?’ The P tells him.
‘Or Ferret,’ someone up the back shouts, which is followed by a stronger volley of laughter.
‘Sir, can we?’ Cuppas insists.
Dad looks to Maloney to see if he's happy to get things started. Maloney nods.
‘This is how it will work,’ Dad says, his arms crossed. ‘You do what I say, and you do it well, you'll make the team. You take a slacker's approach, and sit around on your backside and don't have a go, your skinny butt will be lucky to make the bench.’ He looks straight at me before sending his attention back to the team. ‘I've played footy for years,’ he says, one finger raised. ‘I played Kingaroy A-grade and we were the best team in the South Burnett,’ he says.
‘Where's that?’ I hear someone ask.
But Dad doesn't stop to explain. ‘And I was the best hooker this side of the Queensland border. Even the Brisbane teams were sniffing at me. But I chose the army instead, where I learnt team work and discipline, and that's what I'm here to teach you lot.’
Bored, I scuff my boots together. They glisten even harder.
‘Sir, can we just start playing?’ Cuppas whines.
‘You'll play a game once you boys earn it,’ he says. ‘Train well, nail your drills, then we'll play.’
‘That's crap, sir,’ Cuppas coughs into his hands. And because it was Cuppas, nearly all of us go, ‘Eeeeer,’ like a herd of sheep, then say, ‘ya wanker.’
Dad glares at him, but says nothing.
He gets us to stretch then run a few laps of the oval. I lope along with Cuppas gasping behind me. Gez keeps up with the pack no worries, but slows down on the last lap so he can talk with me.
‘You know what we should do,’ he says, barely puffing. ‘We should have a themed party.’
I think about all the failed themed parties I've been to, like the ‘M’ party Marissa Anderson organised for her sixteenth. Most of the guys rocked up as Maloney—their socks hauled up to their knees. As the night went on they tried to outdo each other. Socks crept up to groins. Gez and I left early.
‘Why would you want a themed party?’
‘Not just any theme,’ he says. ‘A theme we've gotta work on. You know, put some real effort into. A theme that makes everyone say, “I wanna be there”.’
‘Example?’
‘I dunno. Hawaiian maybe?’
‘Hawaiian sucks,’ I say.
‘No way,’ he says. ‘I like Hawaiian.’ He looks back over his shoulder and yells out to Cuppas, ‘If I invited you to a Hawaiian party, would you come?’
I don't turn around, but I can imagine Cuppas’ face: purple-red, beads of sweat on his acne, his eyelids half closed with exhaustion. His cheeks rise, a grin covers his face and his eyes light up like a pair of spotties. Cuppas never gets invited to anything.
‘Hawaiian's the pits!’ he yells.
I nearly trip over.
‘Pump with your arms!’ Dad yells as he gets us into our first drill. He's got us running back and forth between two lines on the ground. But I don't mind the sprints, as long as we don't do too many. Despite my loping style, I can keep pace with, or even beat some of the guys. But I'm useless at the ball drills. All legs. No hands. The ball slips from my grasp and I trip over myself when I go to pick it up. At least I look like I'm trying. I wear the most stains.
Dad yells words of encouragement, ‘Watch the ball all the way to your hands. Don't watch the defence. You'll do better next time.’ That kind of rubbish.
Until now, Maloney has been watching, as if to make sure Dad's up to scratch. But by the time the ball drills are done, he heads back to the sports shed. The moment he leaves, Dad gets us all together.
We're doused in sweat. It's humid and threatening to rain.
He gives us the low-down: ‘Three teams,’ he says as it starts to spit. ‘Two teams will play at a time, but when one team makes a mistake or gets a try scored against them, they come off and the other team goes on. The better you play the more game-time you'll get. I'm watching to see who's good enough for the team.’
Most of the boys look at each other as if they're mortal enemies. I avoid all glances, except for Gez's. He has his hands on his hips, head poked forward and is squinting at me, mocking the others. I snigger.
‘You got that?’ Dad says, looking at us.
I turn away.
‘Have you got it?’ But it's not Dad, it's The P repeating him.
‘Get lost,’ I tell him, but The P laughs and Dad says, ‘Who wants to join Gerald and Jack as the team on the sideline?’
We watch as the others tackle and run, trying to prove their talent. Gez leans back on his elbows as if he's at the beach. I try scuffing my shoes on the wet grass, but that doesn't work either. I think they're starting to glow.
The P carves everyone up as the rain gets heavier. Balls are dropped, boys slip over, the teams get rotated. I go straight to the wing, thinking that will keep me out of the play and less likely to screw up. But then Dad sends me closer to the ruck and to the action. It could be worse. At least that's closer to Gez, who looks out for me. He stands next to me in defence, makes the tackles first, then I come in second to finish them off. The opposition protests when I come in too late, but Dad doesn't seem to care.
Gez is dynamite whenever he gets the ball. He keeps the defence guessing, keeps me guessing, too. I've no idea where to position myself. At one point, he throws me a ball and the moment I catch it I get hammered by Cuppas. I land on my back, but as I twist to get up, he descends, drives an elbow into my kidneys, his full weight behind it. I drop the ball, arching my back in pain.
The whistle blasts. ‘Knock on!’ Dad bellows.
‘What about the elbow?’ Gez yells, arms raised. ‘That's a penalty!’
‘Fair tackle. Knock on.’
The game moves on from where I lie. In fact, I don't play any more. Hunched over, I leave the field and wait in the rain till we're allowed to head back to the dunnies to get changed.
I take a spot on an aluminium bench seat along the wall. The boys rip their jerseys off and dump them on the floor with a squelch. Most guys shower in their undies, only one or two take everything off. Wanting to get changed without prying eyes, I head to the cubicles. But each one is occupied, so I wait, rubbing my arms because I'm cold from the rain.
A commotion starts up, but I can't see around the corner to know what's happening. Then Cuppas, just in his footy shorts, comes running, holding a T-shirt in one hand. He spins, his arms out in front, trying to use the shirt to block a towel that lashes at his creamy thighs. He screams, ‘No! No! Don't!’ in his high-pitched voice. The P comes at him, swinging a rolled-up towel, whipping it at Cuppas’ pasty flesh with cracks that echo on the concrete walls. Some boys run over, grab Cuppas by his arms and pin him to the spot. The P gets stuck in. Cuppas writhes as the towel goes back and forth. Everyone's laughing, absolutely cacking themselves.
‘Hit his boobs!’ someone is yelling. ‘Go for his pink bits!’
Cuppas squirms, twists one hand free and feebly tries to pull on his shirt, but each time he tries, The P strikes at his tits. There are hoots of laughter. Cuppas swears and starts to sob.
My back's still hurting so I don't mind seeing him cop it. I edge closer to the action, but as I near the group, an arm grabs me and drags me in. It's Steve, The P's best mate.
‘You want a go, Sticks?’ he yells above the laughter.
I'm not so sure, but everyone is nodding. Someone else pushes me even closer.
‘Yeah, c'mon, Sticks,’ The P says in between swings. ‘Give him something back for that elbow!’
‘Yeah, c'mon Sticks. Stick it to him!’ another guy yells.
The P shoves the towel into my palm. I look at Cuppas, and think about the pain in my back. Then a chant starts: ‘Sticks! Sticks! Sticks!’
Maybe just one crack.
Cuppas screws his face at me as I grip the towel. ‘You're a poofter, Sticks,’ he says and spits on me. His saliva runs down the side of my neck. My body goes tense. Then he says, ‘You faggot.’
I go berserk. Holding the towel with both hands, I don't care where I get him. I go for his legs, his stomach, his boobs, his face. As the yelling gets louder, I go harder and Cuppas starts bawling and screaming. The cracking towel splits the air, the sound reverberates. He writhes. The boys struggle to hold him back. Then I start laughing and tormenting him. ‘Where next, Cuppas, where next?’ And I line up pieces of flesh that haven't been hit. I get his neck, his cheek, his chest. But as I raise my hand slowly, ready to strike his left tit, my arm is almost pulled out of its socket.
‘Get off him, Jack!’ a voice roars. I turn and drop the towel. It's Dad.
‘Stand back!’ he thunders in his best military voice. ‘All of you!’ Everyone scuttles, except for me and Cuppas.
Dad looks at Cuppas, whose lips are still quivering. ‘What's your name?’ he says.
‘Daryl,’ he sobs.
‘Sit down, Daryl.’
Cuppas sits, red-eyed. He rocks from side to side, examining the welts on the back of his legs, touching them, checking his fingers for blood.
Dad stands, his jaw thrust forward. I can see the white around his pupils. He sneers at me. ‘One hundred,’ he says.
I roll my eyes. This is pathetic. ‘Dad—’
‘One hundred!’ Spit flies.
I crouch, then drop to my hands and knees on the wet, muddy concrete.
‘Stretch out your legs,’ he says.
I lock my knees, my body straight like a broomstick. I bend my arms.
‘Lower,’ he says.
I keep going until my nose is about a centimetre above the floor.
‘Keep going.’
It dips into the water full of dirt and toe-jam.
‘One,’ Dad says.
I do another.
‘Two.’ This time a few voices join in. By the time I get to ten the whole team is in chorus, getting louder with each count.
‘Twenty!’
So far it's easy. I do twenty all the time in my bedroom.
‘Thirty!’
Still going good. I'll prove him something.
‘Forty.’
I grin when my nose dips into the mud again.
‘Forty-five.’
But this time I struggle. Panting above the mud, my arms sting, my stomach sags.
‘Straight back!’ Dad commands.
I grit my teeth and push up again, watching his shoes out of the corner of my eye.
‘Daryl,’ I hear him say. ‘Come here.’
I do another as Cuppas stands beside me.
‘Place a hand between his shoulderblades. That's it,’ Dad says.
It feels like another fifty kilos on my back. I groan and do two more.
‘Forty-nine.’
But it's only a spattering of voices, now.
‘Heavier,’ Dad says.
I push against Cuppas’ weight then collapse. My cheek cracks against the concrete. I cough and spit. Water seeps between my lips.
‘Next time I see one of you try anything like this it will be two hundred,’ Dad says.
The guys look at their feet.
‘What's going on, Brian?’
I get to my elbows. It's Maloney.
Dad waves his hands about as he explains the scene and how I was laying into Cuppas.
‘I can't believe it,’ Maloney says and tries to give everyone a stern look. ‘This will go to Mr Hassold,’ he says, referring to the school principal.
Dad scoffs. ‘No need,’ he says, half grinning. ‘I've sorted it out, haven't I, boys?’ which is followed by grunts of agreement.
Backing away to the exit, Maloney says, ‘We need to talk for a moment, Brian.’
‘Shoot,’ Dad says, hands on hips.
‘Outside.’
Dad looks slowly at the whole team before following Maloney out of the toilets.
Then, as I get up to my feet, Gez walks in. He pauses, looks around. ‘What happened to you?’ he asks as I wipe mud off my cheek.
‘Nothing. Where were you?’ I ask. He's still wearing his footy gear.
‘Left my bag on the other side of the oval. It's satched,’ he says and dumps it on the concrete. ‘And what about him?’ he asks, pointing to Cuppas, who's gently touching his stomach. He's got welts all over like hives.
Some of the boys start gathering around him again. The P even picks up the towel. Cuppas cowers, arms over his face. Then he bursts into a full-on bawl. He ploughs his way through the group, runs to the cubicles, slams the door and yells, ‘Stuff youse all!’
‘What's going on?’ Gez asks as Steve, on the aluminium seat, peers over the cubicle wall.
‘Hey, Cuppas,’ he says. ‘I can see you.’ Cuppas’ shirt flies out and wraps around his face. It falls to the floor, where The P picks it up and takes it to the urinal.
‘Give it back,’ Gez yells. He stands with authority, his hand held out.
And with that I can feel everything change. Gez has the floor. And as if sensing this, The P shifts his attention from the urinal and back to Gez. But then The P grins and lets go.
There're hoots of laughter and cries of disgust. Steve races over, but before he can pull down his fly, Gez hurls him against the wall. Gez picks up the shirt and carries it, dripping, to the basin, where I join him and turn on the tap.
The P is the only one still laughing.
Greg, one of the smaller guys on the team, says, ‘Now what? You're not gonna put your hands in there and wring it out are you?’
Leaving the tap on, Gez goes to the seat where Cuppas left his stuff, grabs his filthy wet jersey and passes it over the cubicle wall.
It's dead silent in there.
‘You're a moron,’ I say to The P.
He hits his chest. ‘You wanna say that again?’
But I feel awful and pathetic. I turn away. He laughs.
I follow Gez outside. Through the rain I see Dad at the sports shed, arms crossed, still talking to Maloney. One of the boys comes out and says, ‘Good on ya, Gez.’
Gez looks back. Cuppas wanders out, head down. He's wearing his filthy jersey, gulping back sobs. I can't look at him.
Seeing Dad walking to the car, I say to Gez, ‘We better go.’ We're supposed to give him a ride home. As we walk across the oval Gez stops and says, ‘Thanks, Sticks.’
‘What for?’
‘For helping out.’
I shake my head, confused, but then I realise he still has no idea of the part I played. ‘That's okay,’ I tell him. The car lights flash and there's a long toot of the horn. ‘C'mon, let's go.’
But he doesn't move. He's watching Cuppas who's walking away, pulling at the bottom of his jersey. ‘I'll walk,’ Gez says. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. See you tomorrow,’ he says again and walks off.
Once inside the car, I look out the window. A group of boys stands under the shelter of the loos, looking hopefully at the car park for their lift. Gez runs up to Cuppas and joins him at the bus stop on the street.
‘I can't believe that man!’ Dad fumes and crunches the car into reverse. ‘The nerve of him!’ He thumps the steering wheel and looks at Maloney by the sports shed. Then he turns to me. ‘And you!’ he bellows.
I look out at the rain. The wipers flick. I want to melt away. I want to be like the water on the window and just run away and soak into the ground.
•
When we get home, I go to the bathroom and take off my jersey. I run my fingers over the indent in the middle of my chest, turn side-on and look in the mirror. My ribs stick out on either side like a malnourished child. With straight fingers I touch the centre of the indent as a way of measurement. Is it still getting bigger? They disappear to the second joint. I have pectus excavatum, a deformity of the chest. It's caused by the inward growth of cartilage in the sternum. It's genetic, apparently, but I don't know any relatives who have it. When I was young, it was barely noticeable. My parents weren't worried enough to take me to the specialist for a diagnosis. No one cared about it, I didn't care about it—that's until I hit thirteen. I sprouted upwards, my chest went inwards.
I diagnosed myself by reading stuff on the internet, seeing pictures, comparing them to me. When Dad saw it, he hauled me off to the doctor and sure enough I was right. Pectus excavatum, but it's not severe—at least it wasn't then. I didn't feel it. It didn't push on my heart or restrict my lungs. It just looked weird. But after thirteen it started to freak me out. It seemed to grow deeper by the day. That's when I started hiding myself, even from Dad. The year between fifteen and sixteen was the worst but then it slowed and now I think it might have stopped, but I keep checking just in case.
After my shower, I go to my room and turn on the computer. There's a blog I sometimes go to: Pectus Boyz. I scroll through and read a bunch of posts, even though I've read them all before. The thing I like about Pectus Boyz is that I'm not alone. Every blogger has a depression like mine, or used to before they got it surgically fixed with a metal bar. One in five hundred has it, at least that's what they say. That means there're over three thousand people with it in Brisbane alone. But what difference does it make? Three thousand and I've not met one of them. I think about Cuppas and wonder if it's worse for him being obese. I doubt it. We're all born fat.
I read a new post:
hi, i'm 15 and have a depressed chest. i went on a school camp last week. there was swimming at the beach. when i took my shirt off one of the girls laughed at me, others had weird looks like i'm some freak show. we've got swimming for PE at school next wk. seeking advice—J.
There's a reply from Lionel, a regular contributor:
Hi ya J. I've got PE too—pectus excavatum, not phys. ed! Anyway, I'm 19 now and I had those experiences too. But let me tell ya, man, when you get in a situation with a girl that counts, she won't give a damn about your chest. It's not the size of your chest that counts, but the size of your manhood. Lionel
ps. Keep in contact, bro.
I stop thinking about my chest and look at my crotch. What hope have I got? I turn off the computer and lie on my bed. The image of Cuppas screaming and crying as I hit him is on high-rotation. I can see the welts, his tits; see the look on his face, pleading with me to stop. I can't believe what I did. I had a chance to walk away, but then The P put that towel in my hand. What else could I do?
I feel the crevice in my chest and think, but if I was fat, I'd do something about it. Anything. There's nothing I can do about what I've got. I think of Cuppas’ warm saliva on my neck, how he drove his elbow into my back during that tackle.
Screw him, I think.