Underdogs

  The guy speaks to me.

  An answer."He's fighting the world." And now, I watch as the underdog in the middle of the circle fights on and stands and falls and returns to his haunches and feet and fights on again. He fights on, no matter how hard he hits the ground. He gets up. Some people cheer him. Others laugh now and rubbish him.

  Feeling comes out of me.

  I watch.

  My eyes swell, and burn. "Can he win?"

  I ask it, and now, I too cannot take my eyes off the boy in the circle.

  CHAPTER 9

  On the Sunday, Rube copped another hammering on the football paddock, Steve's side lost without him, and I wandered the streets a little bit. I didn't feel like going home that day. Sometimes you just don't. You know. It was time to tak e stock of things.

  At first, I allowed the sullen events of the previous day to cloud my path as I walked. I walked beyond Lumsden Oval, deeper into the city, and I have to tell you that there are so many weirdos in the city that by the time I made it home, I was actually feeling glad I made it back at all.

  I was wearing jeans and desert boots and I'd had a shower in the morning and actually washed my hair. As I walked I still felt it sticking up in that uncontrollable way, as if it was out to expose me. Still, I felt okay about being clean.

  Maybe the old man's right, I thought to myself. All that carryin' on he goes on with about us bein' dirty and a disgrace ... I guess it feels okay to be clean.

  The usual shops crept back from me as I went past. Milk bar places. Fish 'n' chips. I also walked past a barbershop and there was a bald guy in there cutting at a guy's locks with a kind of ferocity that scared me. I always see something like that -- some kind of molestation of a human being that can only make me trip or lose my footing with grim surprise. Or fidget with discomfort. That day, I remember it made me try to persuade my hair down, but it was up again right away.

  All up, the day and the walk weren't the success or rejuvenation I had been looking for.

  I kept walking.

  Have you ever done that?

  Just walk.

  Just walk and have no idea where you're going?

  It wasn't a good feeling, but not a bad one either. I felt caged and free at the same time, like it was only myself that wouldn't allow me to feel either great or miserable. As normal, traffic echoed around me, adding to the sense of not belonging anywhere. Nothing was fixed. Everything was moving. Turning into something. Exactly like me.

  Since when did I have something for a girl in my gut?

  Since when did I care about my sister and wt was happening in her life?

  Since when did I bother caring about the contents of Rube's mind?

  Since when did I listen to Success Story Steve and care about whether he looked down at me or not?

  Since when did I walk aimlessly around? Walking, almost prowling, through the streets?

  Then it hit me.

  I was alone.

  I was alone.

  No denying it.

  I was certain.

  See, I was never a guy who had a whole heap of friends to belong to. Besides Greg Fienni, I never really had friends. I kind of stayed on my own. I hated it, but I was proud of it too. Cameron Wolfe needed no one. He didn't need to be amongst a pack. Not all of us roam like that. No, all he needed was his instincts. All he needed was himself, and he could survive backyard boxing matches, robbery missions, and any other shame that came down the alley. So why was I feeling so strange now?

  Let's be honest.

  It had to be the girl.

  It had to.

  No.

  It was everything. This was my life. Getting complicated.

  My life, and as I walked along the hurrying street, I saw sky above me. I saw buildings, crummy flats, a grimy cigar shop, another barber, electric wires, rubbish in gutters. A derelict asked me for cash but I had none. There was city all around me, breathing in and out like the lungs of a smoker.

  Almost instantly, I stopped walking when I knew that all the good feeling had vanished from me. Maybe it slipped out of me and was given to the derelict. Maybe it disappeared somewhere in my stomach and I didn't even notice. All there was now was this anxiety I couldn't explain. What a sight. What a feeling. This was terrible: a skinny kid standing, alone. That was the bottom line. Alone, and I didn't feel equipped to handle it. Very suddenly. Yes, quite suddenly, I didn't feel like I could handle my feeling of aloneness.

  Was this how it was always going to be?

  Would I always live with this kind of self-doubt, and doubt for the civilization around me? Would I always feel so small that it hurt and that even the greatest outcry roaring from my throat was, in reality, just a whimper? Would my footsteps always stop so suddenly and sink into the footpath?

  Would I always?

  Would I? Would?

  This was terrible, but I dug my feet from out of the footpath and continued walking.

  Don't think, I told myself. Think nothingness. But even nothingness was something. It was a thought. It was a thought, and gutters were still full of the loosened stuffed gutsity.

  I didn't feel like I could cope with this, but I walked on regardless, trying to dig up a new idea that would make things better again.

  Can't worry yourself like this, I advised myself a bit later, when I reached Central Station. I hung around in the newsagent's for a while, looking at Rolling Stone and all that kind of thing. It was a waste of time, of course, but I did it anyway. If I'd had the money on me I would have got a train to the quay, just to set my eyes on the bridge and the water and the boats there. Maybe there would be a mime there or some other poor sap I couldn't give money to anyway because I had none on me. But then, if I had the money for the train, maybe I would have it too for a humble busker. Maybe I could even have taken a ferry ride over the harbor. Maybe. Maybe ...

  The word maybe was beginning to annoy me, because the only thing that was fixed was that maybe would be with me forever.

  Maybe the girl had something inside her for me.

  Maybe Sarah and Bruce would be okay.

  Maybe Steve would get back to work and on the paddock as quickly as he wanted. Maybe one day he wouldn't look down at me.

  Maybe my old man would be proud of me one day, maybe when we finished off the Conlon job.

  Maybe my mother wouldn't have to stand over the stove at night, cooking mushrooms and sausages after working all day.

  Maybe I could cook.

  Maybe Rube would tell me what was going on in his head one night. Or maybe he would grow a beard down to his feet and become some kind of wise man.

  Maybe I would end up with a couple of good mates at some point.

  Maybe this would all go away tomorrow.

  Maybe not.

  Maybe I oughta just walk down to Circular Quay, I thought, but decided against it, because one thing that wasn't a maybe was that Mum and Dad would fold me if I came in late.

  After fifty times of hearing that guy over the loudspeaker saying, "The train on Platform Seventeen goes to MacArthur" or wherever it was going, I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little different than it did on the way. It's because you're seeing it backward.

  That's how it felt, and when I made it home, I shut our half-broken, half-hearted small front gate and went in and sat on the couch. Next to that stinking pillow. Across from Steve.

  After half an hour of a Get Smart repeat and part of the news, Rube entered the room. He sat down, looked at his watch, and said, "Bloody hell, Mum sure is draggin' the chain with dinner."

  I looked at him.

  Maybe I knew him.

  Maybe I didn't.

  I knew Steve because he was less complicated. Winners always are. They know exactly what they want and how they're going to get it.

  "Just as long as it isn't the usual," I talked over to Rube.

  "The what
?"

  "The usual dinner."

  "Oh yeah." He paused. "That's all she cooks, though, isn't it?"

  I have to admit right now that all the dinner complaining really shames me now, especially with the way people on the city streets are begging for food. The fact is, the complaining happened.

  Still, though, I was over the moon when I found out we weren't having mushrooms that Sunday night.

  Maybe things were finally looking up.

  Then again, maybe not.

  I'm running.

  Chasing something that doesn't seem to exist, and time and time again I tell myself that I'm chasing nothing. I tell myself to stop, but I never do.

  The city is thrashed around me by broad daylight, but there is no one on the streets. There is no one in the buildings, flats, or houses. There is no one in anything. The trains and buses drive themselves. They know what to do. They breathe out but never seem to breathe in. It's just a steady outpour of non-emotion, and I am alone.

  Coca-Cola is spilled down the road. It flows into the drains like blood.

  Car horns blow.

  Brakes snort and then the cars carry on. I walk. No people. No people.

  It's weird, I think, how everything can just carry on without all the people. Maybe it's that the people are there but I just can't see them. Their lives have worn them away from my vision. Perhaps their empty souls have swallowed them.

  Voices.

  Do I hear voices?

  At an intersection, a car pulls up and I feel someone staring at me -- but it is emptiness that stares at me. When the car leaves, I hear a voice, but it fades.

  I run.

  I chase the car, ignoring blaring don't-walk signals that flash their red legs at me and beat at my ears, just in case I'm blind.

  Am I blind?

  No. I see.

  I keep running and the entire city swipes past me like I'm drien by some human-alien force. I bump into invisible people and keep running. I see ... cars, road, pole, bus, white line, yellow line, crossing, Walk, stutter, Don't Walk, smog, gutter, don't trip, milk bar, gun shop, cheap knives, reggae, disco, live girls, Calvin Klein billboard with woman and man in underwear -- enormous. Wires, monorail, green light, orange, red, all three, go, stop, run, run, cross, Turn left anytime with care, Howard Showers, drain, Save East Timor, wall, window, spirit, Gone for lunch, back in five minutes. No time.

  I run, till my pants are torn and my shoes are simply the bottoms of my feet with some material around the ankles. My toes bleed. I splash through Coke and beer. It dribbles up my legs, then down.

  No one is there.

  Where is everyone?

  Where?

  No faces, just movement.

  I fall. I'm out. Cracked head on gutter. Awaken.

  Later.

  Things have changed, and now, people are everywhere. They're everywhere they should be, in the buses, trains, on the street.

  "Hey," I say to the man in the suit waiting for the walk sign to clock on. He acts like he may have heard something, but walks on when the right sign arrives.

  People come right at me, and I swear they are trying to trample me.

  Then I realize.

  They come right at me because they can't see me. Now it's me who is invisible.

  CHAPTER 10

  During the week, I must confess, Rube and I were up to old tricks. Again. We couldn't help ourselves. Robberies were out. One Punch. Out.

  So what the hell else was there for us to do? The d

  ecision I came to was backyard soccer, or football, or whatever you please to call it. For starters, we had to.

  We did.

  I promise.

  Maybe I asked Rube if he wanted to get into it because he was still so miserable about the whole street-sign debacle. Admittedly, it was demoralizing, to actually succeed and then find a way to make yourself fail again. It hurt more than Rube could relate. He just sat there every afternoon and rubbed his gruff jawline with an ominous, melancholic hand. His hair was dirty as ever, strewn over his ears and biting at his back.

  "C'mon," I tried to get him in.

  "Nuh."

  It was often like this. Me, being the younger brother, I had always wanted Rube to do things, whether it was a game of Monopoly or a ball game in the backy Rube, the older brother, well he was the judge and jury. If he didn't feel like doing it, we didn't do it. Maybe that's why I was always so willing to go on his robbery missions -- simply because he actually wanted me to come along. We'd given up on doing things with Steve years ago.

  "C'mon," I kept trying. "I've got the ball pumped up, and the goals are ready. Come have a look. They're chalked onto the fence at both ends."

  "The same size?"

  "Two meters wide, nearly one and a half high."

  "Good, good."

  He looked up and gave a slight smile, for the first time in days.

  "We on?" I asked again, with far too much eagerness. "Okay."

  We went outside then and it was lovely. Absolutely lovely.

  Rube fell to the cement and got up. Twice. He swore his head off at me when I scored, and it was getting serious. An out-of-control shot at goal went flying to the top of the fence, we held our breath, then let it out when it hit the edge and came back. We even smiled at each other.

  It was brilliant mainly because Rube had been down and out with his own form of identity crisis while I was in my typical agony over the whole Rebecca Conlon affair. This was much better. Yes. It was, because all of a sudden we were back to doing the things we did best -- throwing ourselves and each other around the backyard and getting dirty and making sure to swear and carry on and, if possible, offend the neighbors. This was better all right. This was a welcome return to the good old days.

  The ball thumped into the fence, making next-door's dog bark and the caged parrots over there go wild. I copped a whack in the shins. Rube fell on the concrete again, taking some skin off his hand when he braced himself for the landing. All the while that dog next door kept barking and those parrots were in some kind of frenzy. It was old times all right, and typically, Rube won, 7-6. I didn't care, though, because both of us ended up laughing and not taking things so seriously.

  What greeted us on the back step was, however, something very different. It was Sarah, alone.

  First to notice her was Rube. He backhanded me lightly on the arm and motioned over to her with his head.

  I looked.

  I said very quietly, "Oh, no."

  Sarah looked up then because she must have heard me, and I promise you, the way she looked was bad. She was sitting there, all crumpled up, with her knees up to her shoulders and her arms folded, holding them up as if to keep all air inside her. Tears cut down her face.

  Awkward.

  That's exactly how it was when we walked over to our sister and stood on each side of her, looking at her and feeling things and not knowing

  Eventually, I sat down next to her but I had no idea what to say.

  In the end, it was Sarah who broke the silence. The dog next door had settled down, and the neighborhood seemed stunned by this event occurring in our backyard. It was like it could sense it. It could sense some form of tragedy and helplessness being played out, and to tell you the truth, it all surprised me. I was so used to things just going on, oblivious and ignorant to all feeling.

  Sarah spoke.

  She spoke. "He got someone else."

  "Bruce?" I asked, to which Rube looked down at me with an incredulous face on him.

  "No," he barked, "the king of bloody Sweden. Who do y' think?"

  "Okay, all right!"

  Then Sarah leaned away and said, "I think you'd better leave me alone for a while."

  "Okay."

  As I stood up and left with Rube, the city around us seemed colder than ever again, and I realized that even if it really had sensed something going on, it certainly didn't care. It moved forward again. I could feel it. I could almost hear it laugh and taste it. Close. Watching. r />
  Mocking. And it was cold, so cold, as it watched my sister bleeding at the back of our house.

  Inside, Rube was angry.

  He said, "Now, you see? This spoils things."

  "It was always gonna happen." As I said it, I saw Steve's figure out on the front porch. Away from us.

  "Yeah, but why today?"

  "Why not?"

  From the couch, I looked at an old photo of Steve, Sarah, Rube, and me as very young children, standing in staggered formation for some photographer man. Steve smiled. Sarah smiled. We all did. It was strange to see it, because it was there every day and only now was I really noticing it. Steve's smile. It cared -- for us. Sarah's smile. It was beautiful. Rube and I looked clean. All four of us were young and undaunted and our smiles were so strong that it made me smile even then on the couch, with a kind of loss.

  Where did that go? I asked inside me. I couldn't even remember the photo being taken. Was it actually real?

  At that moment, Sarah was on our back step, crying, and Rube and I were slumped on the couch, powerless to help her. Steve didn't seem to care, for any of us.

  Where did it go? I thought again. How could that picture turn into this one?

  Had years defeated us?

  Had they worn us down?

  Had they passed like big white clouds, disintegrating very slowly so that we couldn't notice?

  In any case, this was pretty awful, and it was to worsen.

  It worsened during the night when Sarah went out and didn't come back for hours.

  She left with the words "I'm goin' out for a walk," and a lot of time passed while she was gone. The rest of us acted indifferent to it at first, but by just after eleven, we were all worried. Even Steve seemed a bit affected.

  "C'mon," our father told us. "We're goin' out lookin'."

  No one argued.

  Rube and I went out in the panel van with Dad while Mum and Steve stayed home in case Sarah showed up while we were gone. We checked the pubs and all her friends' places. Even Bruce's place. Empty. She was nowhere.

  By midnight, when we got home, she still wasn't back, and all we could do now was wait.

  We each did it differently.

  Mum sat, silent, not looking at anyone.

  Dad made coffee after coffee and drank them down like there was no tomorrow.

  Steve put a heat pack on and off his ankle and kept it elevated, determined.

  Rube mumbled something very quietly, at least five hundred times: "I'm gonna kill that bastard. I'm gonna kill that bastard. I'm gonna get that Bruce Patterson. I'm gonna kill that ... I'm gonna. I'm gonna ..."