Ishmael and the Return of the Dungongs

‘Hey, cool, me too. You wanna come along, Sal?’

  ‘No, no. You two go. I better see what’s happened to Kelly and Brad. But when you get back … maybe we could have a dance?’

  You could have used Razza’s face for the entrance to Luna Park. ‘Yeah, cool! Awesome!’

  Sally smiled for a second then frowned and sucked in air through her teeth. ‘Only problem is … since I haven’t won the lottery or anything … I’m not sure whether or not I can afford you.’

  Razza’s smile flopped down like a closing umbrella.

  ‘I know,’ Sally said with her face lighting up. ‘Perhaps I could do a trade with you-you dance with me and I’ll give you free Maths tutoring. How does that sound?’

  ‘Rigid!’ Razza said, once again in Luna Park mode. ‘And you won’t regret it either, Sal. You’ll see-I’m a wicked dancer. Man, I’m Lord of the Dance!’ And to prove his point Razza began to thrash and jerk about like a plague of angry ferrets had invaded his jocks.

  Sally turned to me with her eyebrows raised. ‘Zorzotto the Humble?’

  ‘Yes, well … That was just a temporary cover,’ I said.

  It was, too. The Razzman was back.

  42.

  TIRED OF SAFE

  We left Sally in the gym and headed off to the rehearsal room. By the time we reached the door Razza was his old self. It seemed as good a time as any to bring up something that had been bothering me.

  ‘Hey, Razza … you know that stuff you said about your dad … and your mum and everything?’

  He threw a cautious look my way. ‘Yeah …’

  ‘Well … you know that bit about your dad making your mum cry?’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘I was just wondering … Do you think he ever felt as bad as you did … you know … about Sally?’

  Razza gave me a sad kind of smile. ‘Him? I doubt it. If he did, he wouldn’t have kept doing it, would he?’

  ‘Yeah … yeah, that’s what I thought.’

  Razza rested his hand on the door handle as he studied my face.

  ‘What are you getting at, Ishmael?’

  ‘It’s just, that thing you said, “like father, like son”? Well … I don’t reckon you’re anything like your father at all. I really don’t.’

  Razza smiled. ‘Thanks, man. But you know, I gotta admit, I did get some good things from my dad.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, obviously, my drop-dead-gorgeous, movie-star, heartthrob, teen-mag spunk good looks for one.’

  ‘Yes, well, that goes without saying.’

  Razza pushed down on the handle and opened the door. ‘And I inherited his one and only talent.’

  I was almost afraid to ask what that might be, but as it turned out, I didn’t get the chance. As the door swung open we found ourselves right in the heart of Worry Central.

  Prue and Mum were sitting huddled together on a desk, Uncle Ray and Leo were sprawled on chairs and Dad was pacing about dragging his fingers through his hair. There was no rehearsing taking place, but there was plenty of frowning.

  It didn’t take long to figure out the cause – one of the Dugongs was missing.

  ‘Where is he?’ Dad asked the ceiling. ‘He should be here by now. Ray, try him again, for god’s sake. It’d be nice if we could have a drummer for our first gig in twenty years.’

  Uncle Ray pulled out his mobile, but just as he did, it sprang to life in his hand and played the first few bars of ‘Collision course’.

  ‘Yeah, Ray here. Jen? I was just about to call-what’s keeping Mick?’ A pause, then, ‘Car accident?’ The silence in the room set like ice. Uncle Ray sat down on a chair and leant forward with the phone pressed to his ear. ‘Don’t cry, Jen. What happened?’ Everyone’s eyes were glued on Uncle Ray. At one point he rubbed his forehead and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Finally he said, ‘Look, there’s nothing any of us can do now. Don’t blame yourself. I’ll let the others know and get back to you. Take care, Jen.’ Uncle Ray clicked off his mobile.

  Dad was first to speak. ‘Ray, what is it?’

  ‘He’s in hospital – badly bruised hand and three broken fingers. He’s buggered – he can’t even pick up a drumstick, let alone use one.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘Apparently just as they were about to set off, Jen accidentally slammed the car door on his hand.’

  ‘She what? How’d she manage that?’

  ‘Not sure. Something about loading up the car and them being in a rush and it being dark … She’s pretty upset about the whole thing.’

  ‘She’s upset?’ Dad said, looking around in amazement. ‘She’s upset? What about us? What are we going to do now? We’re on in ninety minutes and we haven’t got a drummer.’

  ‘Ron, can’t you get someone to fill in … just for tonight?’

  Dad turned on Mum as if she’d suggested he fly around the room. ‘Fill in? Fill in? It’s our first gig for twenty years. We’ve been rehearsing together for two solid months to get it right and now you’re asking me if we can get someone to fill in – just like that? It’s impossible. Tell her.’

  Mum looked at Uncle Ray and then at Leo. They both glanced up for a moment and then went back to staring at their hands.

  Dad saw the look of disappointment on Mum’s face and spoke more softly. ‘It’s impossible, love. No one can fill in at the last moment. It can’t be done.’

  ‘So what are you going to do, then?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think we have much of a choice. We’ve got no drummer. I’m afraid we’ll just have to … cancel. I mean, what else can we do?’

  Everybody in the room felt the finality of Dad’s words pressing down on them. Well, almost everybody.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  Six sets of eyes converged on Razza. Six sets of ears thought they must have been hearing things.

  Razza looked around at all of us. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll fill in,’ he said, smiling and bobbing his head to some inner beatbox.

  He was my friend. He’d obviously lost his mind. It was up to me to speak to him. ‘Razz … Can you even play the drums?’

  Razza scratched his chin with his index finger. ‘Play the drums? Would that be important?’ Then he looked at me as if I had a brain the size of a microbe’s backside. ‘Of course I can play the drums. I’ve been playing since I was three. My old man was a drummer-his one talent. He left me his drum kit, remember?’

  ‘Look … Orazio,’ Dad said with a grimacing sort of smile, ‘don’t get me wrong – I appreciate the offer, I really do, but it’s … ridiculous. No matter how long you’ve been playing, you don’t know the songs or the arrangements – even a top pro drummer would struggle.’

  ‘But I do know the songs.’

  Dad looked as if he’d been cracked over the head with a baseball bat. ‘What? How?’

  ‘I borrowed your cassette off Ishmael ages ago. I’ve been playing along with it at home. That’s how I practise – I get new songs and work out the drum bit until I can play it just the same. I know all the songs on the album and I’ve sat in on a few rehearsals, so I pretty much know what you’re doing with them.’

  Uncle Ray placed his big hand on Razza’s shoulder. ‘Son, playing along with a record in your bedroom to your pet goldfish is a bit different from playing on stage in front of hundreds of people.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I played in front of a few hundred people last weekend. When was the last time you did that?’

  Uncle Ray’s eyes narrowed. I was worried his big hand might slip to Razza’s throat.

  ‘Look, I play drums in my Uncle Aldo’s band every fortnight down at the Italian Club. We get pretty big crowds down there. And when other singers and stuff come in we’re the backing band as well, so we have to play everything from Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra through to the 1960s and 1970s and all the modern stuff. Sometimes there’s hardly any time for rehearsal at all – you gotta just pick things up quick. I’m used to it.’

  Uncle Ray studi
ed Razza closely then stepped back and made a sweeping gesture with his hand towards the drum kit. ‘All right, Keith Moon – show us your stuff.’

  Razza bounced across the room and adjusted the seat with a spin. Then he pulled some of the smaller drums and cymbals closer and picked up the sticks and twirled them through his fingers the way I had seen him do with his pens a thousand times in class. Three heavy booms came from the bass drum then he clattered the sticks across the smaller ones, ending with a cymbal clash.

  ‘Cool, not a bad set. What would you like to hear?’

  ‘Well, let’s start off easy. Give us “All the time”,’ Uncle Ray said.

  Razza started on the cymbals then moved into a slow steady beat. ‘That’s pretty much it all the way through, except for this bit,’ he said, changing the rhythm slightly.

  Leo was next. ‘OK, what about “Bad day for angels”?’

  This time Razza began quietly then built steadily into a trickier rhythm. He stopped when Dad held up a hand.

  ‘Do “Collision course”, then.’

  ‘Cool!’ Razza said, clubbing the drums with four thunderous beats before pausing and pointing a drumstick at Dad – ‘That’s when you scream, Mr Leseur’ – and then plunging into a hard driving beat that invaded your body and took over your muscles so that you couldn’t help but move to its commands.

  It was back to Uncle Ray. ‘All right, superstar, give us “Dead Toad Society blues”.’

  Immediately Razz launched into a throbbing tidal wave of rhythm. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he stopped after a while and said, ‘That’s the way it is on the album, anyway, but I reckon it’s a bit slow. It should be more like …’ and then he played it again like a runaway bullet train with his hands blurring and the heavy bass drum thudding so loud you could feel your internal organs bouncing to the beat. It all ended with a roaring drum roll, after which Razza twirled a stick in his right hand and flung it into the air. I’m sure he would have caught it as well – if it hadn’t embedded itself deep in a styrofoam panel in the ceiling.

  Uncle Ray was still watching the drumstick dangling above Razza’s head when he said, ‘We might stay with the original tempo, Sunshine … if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Sure,’ Razza said, ‘I’m cool with that. I guess you older dudes might have trouble keeping up, hey?’

  As someone with quite a lot of experience in these situations, I was fairly confident that, judging by the expression on Uncle Ray’s face, he was imagining himself force-feeding a certain person an entire drum kit a piece at a time – and not all of it via the mouth.

  Mum broke the silence. ‘Well? What do you say, Ron? I’m no expert, but that sounded pretty good to me. Orazio could do it, couldn’t he-just for tonight?’

  My father’s face was clouded with doubt and fear.

  ‘Look, he’s good enough – very good-but there’s more to it than that. We haven’t practised together. There’s the chemistry, the vibe of the band. And we’re doing some covers as well-what about those? There’s too much at stake. It’s our first performance in twenty years. I just think it would be … safer … if we cancelled tonight. Maybe we could try again another time. People would understand … They’d have to. That’s what I think, anyway.’ There was a long pause, then Dad added, ‘But the Dugongs have always done things as a team … So if you guys want to go ahead … then that’s what we’ll do.’

  Everyone looked at Leo. ‘I’m not waiting another twenty years.’

  We took that as a ‘yes’.

  Mum’s face brightened a little. ‘Ray? What about you?’

  Uncle Ray slumped back on his chair. ‘So it all comes down to me, does it? The future of the Dugongs is in my hands. Do we pack our bags and go home or do we pin our hopes on Superboy here? Big call. Well … for what it’s worth … I agree with Ronnie.’

  Heads fell around the room – even Dad’s – and everyone just seemed to get smaller. Mum couldn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Ray … are you sure?’

  ‘About agreeing with Ronnie? Absolutely. I really think it would be far safer if we cancelled.’ Uncle Ray slowly looked around at everyone in the room. ‘… And that’s why I say we should go with the kid.’

  Dad’s head jerked up. ‘What? But you just said …’

  ‘That it would be safer if we cancelled? That’s right. But Ronnie, tell me, when have the Dugongs ever been about feeling safe? Geez, you’ll be telling me that I should be relaxed and comfortable next.’

  Mum closed her eyes and put her fingers to her lips and Uncle Ray continued. ‘Remember when we first started playing? Don’t know about you, but I felt about as safe as Keanu Reeves in that Speed movie, just flying along by the seat of my brown jocks. Ronnie, I’ve felt safe for the past twenty years. And you know what? I’m tired of safe. Sick of it. Now I’m ready for something else-I’m ready to feel alive even if it means being scared shitless. Hey, isn’t that what playing with the ‘Gongs is all about in the first place? Feeling alive. And look at it this way, Ronnie. Even if it all ends in some gigantic bus wreck, at least we’ll have had one helluva wild ride, won’t we? And I’ll guarantee you, whatever happens, it’ll sure beat the crap out of selling insurance.’

  Then Uncle Ray turned his craggy face to Razza. ‘Just one condition, though. If motormouth here stuffs up, just once, I get to be first in line to boot him up the arse, all right?’

  ‘I’m second,’ Leo said.

  We all waited for Dad.

  ‘Well … I guess I’ll just have to settle for third,’ he said.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ Mum cried, throwing back her head.

  Razza celebrated with a machine gun burst on the drums. ‘What d’ya know?’ he said, beaming his smile around the room like a lighthouse. ‘I’m a Dugong!’

  Prue rolled her eyes and grinned wryly. ‘Was there ever any doubt?’ she said.

  43.

  SLICED OPEN AND PINNED TO A BOARD

  Mum, Prue and I left lhe band to their fast and furious rehearsal and returned to the gym to pass on the news about the line-up change. First we told Mrs Zorzotto, who assured us that, ‘My Orazio won’t let anyone down,’ and then we told Mr Barker, who stared back at us as if we’d informed him that Ronald McDonald had just been elected prime minister.

  When the first of the school bands started up, Mum, Mrs Zorzotto and Mr Barker moved outside so, as they put it, they could hear themselves think. Prue and I hung around at the back of the gym, but we weren’t by ourselves for long.

  ‘There you are – look who I’ve found.’ It was Sally, and standing stiffly beside her like a little soldier was James Scobie. ‘Hi,’ she said, noticing Prue. ‘I’m Sally.’ Prue introduced herself and then Sally looked around. ‘Where’s Razz?’

  At first Sally seemed excited when I told her about Razza and the band, but then she had second thoughts. ‘Wait a minute. That means I’ve been stood up again. Who am I going to dance with now?’ Then she pointed a finger at me. ‘This is all your fault, Ishmael. Your father’s band has kidnapped my date. For your punishment, you’ll have to dance with me instead.’

  As punishments go that was right up there with being force-fed chocolate. There was just one problem.

  ‘I’d love to, Sal, I really would, but Razza asked me to get something for him at one of the stalls and bring it down to the rehearsal room. I’ve got to do that first.’

  Sally took a deep breath. ‘Scobie, what about you? You’ll dance with me, won’t you?’

  Scobie’s eyes flicked over to Prue and his mouth stretched in the opposite direction. ‘Well, certainly, I …’

  But that was as far as he got before Prue reached over and grabbed him by the shirt front. ‘Sorry,’ she said with a sympathetic smile at Sally, ‘he’s taken,’ and dragged him off towards the stage.

  Sally looked daggers at me. ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

  I searched the crowd for a familiar face. I was about to give up when I spotted one lurking in the shadows by the back door. I ra
n over and piloted him in.

  ‘Sally Nofke – this is Bill Kingsley from our debating team. Bill, this is Sally.’

  For a second Sally seemed a little overwhelmed by how much of Bill there actually was. Then she turned to me. ‘Not the famous Bill Kingsley? The one you told us about? The hero of last year’s secret topic debate? The guru of sci-fi?’

  ‘In the flesh,’ I said, then sort of wished I hadn’t.

  Sally smiled up at him. ‘Bill,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to dance with me?’

  It was a stupid question. Bill Kingsley was gazing back at her as if all his Star Wars had come at once. I left them together and headed off. By the time I returned from the rehearsal room, the second of the school bands was already playing. From the side door I surveyed the sea of bobbing heads, looking for Bill and Sally. Eventually I found them. They were dancing in a group with Prue and Scobie … and Kelly and Brad.

  I watched them all for a moment, but every time Brad and Kelly laughed or smiled at each other or touched, something tore inside me like I was being stretched out another notch on a rack. In the end I decided there was no point in torturing myself, so I left to find a quiet place outside to wait until it was time for the Dugongs.

  I ended up behind the gym on a low retaining wall around a garden bed and settled in to listen to the music. I was still there when the second of the school bands finished up and a short break was announced before the final support act would take the stage. A handful of people drifted out my way, but most hung around inside or headed for the playground and the food and drink stalls. I was thinking about going there myself when a shadow fell at my feet.

  ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding. You’re in big trouble, you know.’ Kelly Faulkner was framed by the glow of the gym lights behind her. It shone through the tips of her hair and outlined her body. She looked like some kind of angel – but what else was new?

  ‘Trouble? Why?’

  ‘Sally says you’ve been hiding just to get out of dancing with her.’ She smiled half-heartedly and looked down at a beaded bag she was carrying. ‘I haven’t thanked you for sending the tickets. That was nice … thanks.’