Underdogs

  I'm fighting against my brother.

  I'm also fighting for him....

  With a few minutes to go, I lose contact with everyone else. I lie down on the floor. With my eyes shut, my arms at my side. My gloves touch the tops of my legs. I don't see anyone. I don't hear anyone. I'm alone in my mind. There's tension all around me, pressed to the outline of my body. It gets beneath me and lifts me....

  I want it, I tell myself. I want it more than him. Future scenes from the fight angle through my mind.

  I see Rube trying to get at me. I want it.

  I see myself ducking and counterpunching. More.

  I see myself, standing, at the end. Standing at the end of a real fight. Not a win, or a loss, but a fight. I see Rube.

  I want it more than him, I repeat, and I know that I do. I do want it more, because I have to. I've -- "It's time."

  Bumper's near me , and I jump to my feet and stare forward. I'm ready.

  Perry's shouting voice registers, but only for a second. When Bumper pushes through the door, the crowd makes its usual noise. I see it, I feel it, but I can't hear it. I walk on, inside me. Inside the fight.

  I climb the ropes.

  I get rid of the jacket.

  I don't see him, but I know he's there.

  But I want it more.

  Now.

  The ref.

  His words.

  Silent.

  Looking at my feet. Anywhere but at Rube.

  In the suffocating seconds between now and the fight, I wait. No practice punches, I'll need them all. It's fear and truth and future, all devouring me. It hunts through my blood and I'm a Wolfe. Cameron Wolfe.

  I hear the bell.

  With it, the crowd comes storming into my ears.

  I walk forward and throw the first punch. I miss. Then Rube swings and gets me on the shoulder. There's no slow beginning, no warm-up period or watching time. I move in hard and get underneath. I hit him. Hard on the chin. It hurts him. I see it. I see it because I want it more and he is there to be hurt. He's there to be beaten and I'm the only one in the ring to do it.

  It's three minutes per round.

  That's all.

  Fists and pain and staying upright.

  Again, I feel my fist cut through my brother, only this time it rips into his stomach. In reply, a right hand lands on my left eye. We trade punches for nearly the whole round. There's no running, no circling. Just punches. Toward the end, Rube gashes me open. He gets me in the mouth, making my head swarm backward and the pulse in my throat go numb. My legs go, but the round's over. I walk straight to my corner.

  I wait.

  I want.

  The fight is there, and I want Rube to know that he's in it as well. The second round has to convince him.

  It begins hard again, with Rube miss-hitting two jabs. I follow, but miss with an uppercut. Rube gets annoyed. He tries to hook me, but it frees him up and I land the best punch of my life on his jaw, and ...

  He staggers.

  He staggers, and I chase him to the neutral corner, throwing my fists into his face, and slitting him once over his eye. He finds composure and fights his way out. Nothing hard lands though, and somehow, I stay out of his way the entire round. Once more, I find him on the chin. A good shot. A real good shot, and the round is mine.

  "You're in a fight," I tell him. It's all I say, and Rube looks into me.

  He comes out even harder in the third, and he gets me on the ropes twice, but only a handful of punches reach their mark. His breathing is heavy and my own lungs are exhausted. When the bell goes, I fake a burst of energy and head straight for my stool. I glance over at Rube as Perry talks to him. It's the face of our mother when she gets up in the morning, ready for another double overtime shift. It's the face of Dad that day down at the employment service. It's the face of Steve, fighting in his own life and then for his father, simply saying, "Hi Dad." It's the face of Sarah, dragging washing off the line with me. It's my own face, right now.

  "He's scared of losin'," Bumper tells me.

  "Good."

  In the fourth, Rube reacts.

  He misses me just once, then opens me up several times. His left hand is especially cruel, pinning me into his corner. Only once do I get through him and clip his jaw again. It's the last time.

  By the end of the round, I'm against the ropes, just about gone.

  When the bell goes this time, I find my corner, oh, miles and miles away, and stagger toward it. I fall. Down. Into the arms of Bumper.

  "Hey buddy," he tells me, but he's so far away. Why's he so far away? "I don't think you can go out for the last. I think you've had enough."

  I realize.

  "No way," I beg him.

  The bell goes again and the referee calls us into the middle. One final handshake before the last round. It's always the same ... until today.

  My head is jolted back by what I see.

  Is it real? I ask myself. Is ... because there, in front of me, Rube is wearing only one boxing glove and his eyes circle inside mine. He's wearing one boxing glove, on his left hand, just like all those times in the backyard. He's standing there, before me, and something very slight glimmers across his face. He's a Wolfe and I'm a Wolfe and I will never ever tell my brother that I love him. And he will never tell it to me.

  No.

  All we have is this.... This is the only way.

  This is us. This is us saying it, in the only way we can possibly do it.

  It means something. It's about something.

  I return.

  To my corner.

  With my teeth, I take off the left glove. I give it to Bumper, who accepts it Mum and Dad are somewhere in the crowd, watching.

  My pulse does a lap of the silence. The ref calls something out. Sight.

  Is that what he yells? No, it's "Fight," although ... Rube and I look at each other. He comes forward. So do I. The crowd erupts.

  One fist covered. One fist naked.

  That's all.

  Rube throws first and takes me on the chin.

  It's over. I'm hurt, I'm ... but I throw a punch back, just missing. I cannot go down. Not tonight. Not now, when everything hinges on me staying on my feet.

  I'm hit again, and this time the world has stopped. Opposite me, Rube's standing there, wearing a solitary boxing glove. Both his hands are at his side. Another silence gathers strength. It is broken, by Perry. His words are familiar.

  "Finish him off!" he calls out.

  Rube looks at him. He looks at me. He tells him.

  "No."

  I find them. Mum and Dad. I collapse.

  My brother catches me and holds me up. Without knowing it, I'm crying. I'm weeping on my brother's throat as he holds me up.

  Fighting Ruben Wolfe. He holds me up. Fighting Ruben Wolfe. It hurts.

  Fighting Ruben Wolfe. His fight inside.

  Fighting Ruben Wolfe. Like the rest of us.

  Fighting Ruben Wolfe. Not fighting him, no. It's something else....

  "Y' okay?" he asks me. It's a whisper.

  I say nothing. I just cry on my brother's throat and let him hold me up. My hands feel nothing and my veins are on fire. My heart is heavy and hurting, and out there somewhere, I can imagine the pain of a beaten dog.

  I find that nothing more has happened. The bell rings and it's over. We stand there.

  "It's over," I say.

  "I know," Rube smiles. I feel it.

  Even in the following minutes, when scattered money falls into the ring, and when we walk back through the murmuring crowd, the moment carries on.

  It carries me back to the dressing room with Rube at my side, as people stare at us and nod and reach out not for Rube or for me, but for this moment that is both of us. "That was some fight," some of them say, but they're wrong. It was more than that. It was Ruben Wolfe and me, and the blood of brothers in our veins.

  In the dressing room, the feeling of it helps me get changed, and it waits with me for Rube. When
he finds me, Perry arrives as well and sorts out the money, though we both know we'll split it tonight, down the middle. The money means nothing.

  On our way out the back door, the crowd roars from another fight, and Perry stops us. I expect him to say something to Rube about not finishing me off, but he doesn't. Instead, with a smile and shake of his head, he says, "Not bad, lads. Not bad at all."

  "Thanks," Rube answers, and we walk out.

  Tonight, we're pretty quick to leave, mainly for our mother's sake. We meet back at the panel van.

  Outside, the cold air slaps me.

  We drive home, in silence again.

  On our front porch, Mrs. Wolfe stops and gives us each a hug. She hugs our father as well. They both go in.

  Standing outside, we still hear Sarah ask from the kitchen, "So, who won?"

  We also hear the answer.

  "Nobody."

  It's Dad.

  Mum calls out from inside. "Do you fellas want dinner? I'm heating it up right now!"

  "What is it?" Rube answers, hopeful. "The usual!"

  Rube turns to me and says, "Bloody pea soup again. It's a dis-grace."

  "Yeah," I agree, "but it's brilliant too." "Yeah, I know."

  I open the flyscreen door and walk into the kitchen. I check out what's going on, and the smell of everyday life fights its way into my nose.

  "Hey Rube?"

  We're on the front porch, eating pea soup in the dark.

  "What?"

  "You'll win that lightweight title in a few weeks, won't y'?"

  "I'd say so, but I won't be doin' it again next year. I'll tell Perry soon enough." He laughs. "It was pretty good chop there for a while, wasn't it? Perry, the bouts, all of it."

  I even laugh myself, for some reason. "Yeah, I guess."

  Rube looks in disgust down at his soup. "This is bloody shockin' tonight." He lifts a spoonful and lets it drop back into the bowl.

  A car drives past

  Miffy barks.

  "We're comin'!" Rube shouts. He gets up. "Here, give us y' bowl."

  He takes it inside and when he returns, we make our way off the porch, to get damn Miffy.

  At the gate, I stop my brother.

  I ask, "What'll y' do when the boxing's over?"

  He answers without thinking. "I'm gonna hunt my life down and grab it."

  Then we put our hoods on and walk out.

  Street.

  World.

  Us.

  GETTING

  THE GIRL

  For Scout

  and

  for Mum and Dad

  CHAPTER 1

  It was Rube's girl's idea to make the beer ice blocks, not mine.

  Let's start with that.

  It just happened to be me who lost out because of it.

  See, I'd always thought that at some point I'd grow up, but it hadn't happened yet. It's just the way it was.

  In all honesty, I'd wondered if there would ever come a time when Cameron Wolfe (that's me) would pull himself together. I'd seen

  glimpses of a different me. It was a different me because in those increments of time I thought I actually became a winner.

  The truth, however, was painful.

  It was a truth that told me with a sc

  ratching internal brutality that I was me, and that winning wasn't natural for me. It had to be fought for, in the echoes and trodden footprints of my mind. In a way, I had to scavenge for moments of alrightness.

  I touched myself.

  A bit.

  Okay.

  Okay.

  A lot.

  (There are people who've told me you shouldn't admit that sort of thing too early, on account of the fact that people might get offended. Well, all I can say to that is why the hell not? Why not tell the truth? Otherwise there's no bloody point really, is there? Is there?) It was just that I wanted to be touched by a girl someday. I wanted her to look at me as if I was the filthy, torn, half-smiling, half-scowling underdog who was trying to impress her.

  Her fingers.

  In my mind, they were always soft, falling down my chest to my stomach. Her nails would be on my legs, just nice, handing shivers to my skin. I imagined it all the time, but refused to believe it was purely a matter of lust. The reason I can say this is that in my daydreams, the hands of the girl would always end up at my heart. Every time. I told myself that that's where I wanted her to touch me.

  There was sex, of course.

  Nakedness.

  Wall to wall, in and out of my thoughts.

  But when it was over it was her whispering voice I craved, and a human curled up in my arms. For me, though, it just wasn't a mouthful of reality. I was swallowing visions, and wallowing in my own mind, and feeling like I could happily drown inside a woman.

  God, I wanted to.

  I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted myself to be. Yet.

  I wasn't.

  The only mouthfuls I got were a glance here or there, and my own scattered hopes and visions. The beer ice blocks. Of course.

  I knew I was forgetting something.

  It had been a warm day for winter, though the wind was still cold. The sun was warm, and kind of throbbing.

  We were sitting in the backyard, listening to the Sunday afternoon football coverage, and quite frankly, I was looking at the legs, hips, face, and breasts of my brother's latest girlfriend.

  The brother in question is Rube (Ruben Wolfe), and in the winter I'm talking about, he seemed to have a new girlfriend every few weeks or so. I could hear them sometimes when they were in our room -- a call or shout or moan or even a whisper of ecstasy. I liked the latest girl from the start, I remember. Her name was nice. Octavia. She was a street performer, and also a nice person, compared with some of the scrubbers Rube had brought home.

  We first met her down at the harbor one Saturday afternoon in late autumn. She was playing a harmonica so people would throw money into an old jacket that was sprawled out at her feet. There was a lot of money in it, and Rube and I watched her because she was damn good and could really make that harmonica howl. People would stand around sometimes and clap when she was done. Even Rube and I threw money in at one point, just after an old bloke with a walking stick and just before some Japanese tourists.

  Rube looked at her.

  She looked at him.

  That was usually all it took, because that was Rube. My brother never really had to say or do anything. He just had to stand somewhere or scratch himself or even trip up a gutter and a girl would like him. It was just the way it was, and it was that way with Octavia.

  "So where y' livin' these days?" Rube had asked her.

  I remember the ocean green of her eyes rising then. "Down south, in Hurstville." He had her then already. I could tell. "You?"

  And Rube had turned and pointed. "You know those crappy streets past Central Station?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, that's us." Only Rube could make those crappy streets sound like the best place on earth -- and with those words, Rube and Octavia had begun.

  One of the best things about her was that she actually acknowledged my existence. She didn't look at me as if I was an obstacle stuck between her and Rube. She would always say, "How's it goin', Cam?"

  The truth is.

  Rube never loved any of them. He never cared about them.

  He just wanted each one because she was next, and why not take the next thing if it was better than the last?

  Needless to say, Rube and I aren't too much alike when it comes to women. Still.

  I'd always liked that Octavia.

  I liked it when we went inside that day and opened the fridge to see three-day-old soup, a carrot, a green thing, and one VB beer can sitting inside. All three of us bent down and stared.

  "Perfect."

  It was Rube who said it, sarcastically. "What is that?"
Octavia asked. "What?"

  "That green thing." "I wouldn't have a clue." "An avocado?" "Too big," I said.

  "What the hell is it?" Octavia asked again.

  "Who cares?" Rube butted in. He had his eye on the VB. Its label was the only green thing he was staring at.

  "That's Dad's," I told him, still looking into the fridge. None of us moved.

  "So?"

  "So he went with Mum and Sarah to watch Steve's football game. He might want it when he comes home."

  "Yeah, but he might also buy some on the way."

  Octavia's breast brushed my shoulder when she turned and walked away. It felt so nice, it made me quiver.

  Immediately, Rube reached in and grabbed the beer. "It's worth a shot," he stated. "The old man's in a good mood these days He was right.

  This time last year he was pretty miserable on account of having no work. This year he had plenty of work, and when he asked me to help on the odd Saturday or two, I helped him. So did Rube. My father's a plumber.

  Each of us sat at the kitchen table.

  Rube.

  Octavia.

  Me.

  And the beer, sitting in the middle of the table, sweating. "Well?" Rube asked it.

  "Well what?"

  "Well what the hell are we gonna do with this beer, you stupid bastard?" "Settle down, will y'." We smiled, wryly.

  Even Octavia smiled, because she'd grown used to the way Rube and I spoke to each other, or at least, the way Rube spoke to me.

  "Do we split it three ways?" Rube continued. "Or just pass it round?"

  That was when Octavia had her great idea. "How 'bout we make it into ice blocks?" "Is that some kind of sick joke?" Rube asked her. "Of course not."

  "Beer ice blocks?" Rube shrugged and considered it. "Well, I s'pose. It's warm enough, ay. Have we got any of those plastic ice block things? You know, with the stick?"

  Octavia was already in the cupboards, and she found what she was after. "Pay dirt," she grinned (and she had a lovely mouth, with straight, white, sexy teeth).

  "Right."

  This was serious now.

  Rube opened the beer and was about to pour it out, in equal amounts, of course. Interruption. Me.

  "Shouldn't we wash 'em out or somethin'?"

  "Why?"

  "Well they've prob'ly been in that cupboard for ten years." "So what?"

  "So they're probably all moldy and mangy, and --"

  "Can I just pour the goddamn beer!?"

  We all laughed again, through the tension, and finally, painstakingly, Rube poured three equal portions of beer into the ice block containers. He fixed the stick on each of them so they were straight down.