Merciless Gods

  ‘He loved you too,’ I answer.

  Then there is a knock on the door and a young nurse enters, all cheer and beaming smile, a small plastic container of apple juice in her hand. ‘How are you doing, Nick?’

  The cheer has vanished from my father’s face. Unperturbed, she places the juice on a tray and motions for me to get off the bed. I obey and watch her strip the sheets.

  ‘We’ll change your bedding, Nick, you’ll have lovely clean sheets for tonight. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

  Sullen, my father turns away from her.

  ‘I see your son has given you a wash, Nick, and changed your pyjamas. You’re very lucky to have a son like that.’

  My father is looking out of the window, at the too-perfect lawn, the ugly red-brick buildings beyond, the grey sky above.

  At the doorway to his room, I look back. ‘Bye, Dad.’

  He offers no reply, he doesn’t look my way. The nurse calls out a farewell but I don’t answer.

  Walking down the corridor, I glance through a window to the common room. An old woman sitting in a wheelchair is rocking back and forth, back and forth. Her right arm is raised and it shakes uncontrollably. She is mouthing words but I can’t hear them. Two other women, one in a pink nightgown, the other in a lemon-coloured robe, are sitting on chairs in front of the television, studiously ignoring the woman in the wheelchair.

  I find the men’s toilets and walk in. I lock the door. I stand before the mirror and raise my hand. I can smell my father on me, the sour fish-sauce smell of semen. A small streak of it is drying, claggy and white, on my index finger. I bring it to my mouth, I lick at it. I taste of my father. My father tastes of me. I wash my hands in the basin, I wash my dad off me.

  •

  It’s alright, Davey, I’m not angry with you, son, it’s alright.

  Holding me tight against his chest, my arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, walking past the couples and families sprawled on the beach towels on the sand, curious children peering at us, my howls seemingly unstoppable, my tears still falling, my father carries me back to my mother and sister on the beach. Gently he puts me down.

  My mother is about to say something, to scold me, but my father motions for her to be quiet. She shrugs and takes up her book.

  He is looking down at me. The wide black lenses of his sunglasses hide his eyes. I see a little boy reflected in each lens, pale and skinny and frightened.

  I muster all the strength I have, I take in a breath and hold it, I force myself not to cry; I need not to cry, I have to show my father that I can not cry.

  My father, a colossus soaring over me, a hero, a god, proffers me a dazzling smile and points out to the sea. ‘Go and play, David,’ he says. ‘Just go out there and have fun.’

  At the water’s edge, the waves rushing at my feet, the gulls screaming above me, the sun beating down on me, I build myself another sandcastle.

  Jessica Lange in Frances

  THERE’S NOT MUCH HAPPENING OUTSIDE THE window. There is just sound and violence. I’m looking down on cars slowly inching their way up the street, stalled by the trams. People are shopping. It’s a mid-afternoon, midweek crowd. The sun is still high in the sky, a thick sheet of heat.

  The cat is asleep, sprawled across my lap. I’m touching my lips to the cool glass of my water, sniffing the drops of lemon I’ve squeezed into it. A drunk girl is cursing the world, stamping through the crowd below. She’s fat: her oversized Adidas shirt can’t hide the flab. I’m stroking the cat, drinking the water.

  I can see Dirty Harry; he’s knocking into people, they’re cursing him. He’s eating paper. He tears it into strips, then sucks on it, chews it, swallows it all up.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ I asked him once. Drunk.

  ‘I like it.’ He asked me for another drink. ‘It lines my stomach,’ he slurred, ‘slows down the effect of the booze.’ He was scratching at a soaked beer coaster, scraping off the cardboard and rolling the scraps along his tongue. Washing it down with a whisky.

  The telephone rings and I push the cat off my lap. She lands expertly on the floor, licks at a paw and then wags her bum disdainfully at me. I grab the receiver.

  ‘It’s me.’

  I’m silent.

  ‘Aren’t you walking over?’

  ‘Maybe.’ I give in, I can feel a smile breaking through.

  He senses it, the bastard can always sense it. ‘You glad I called?’

  ‘Where were you?’ I’m not giving in, not straight away.

  ‘Got pissed.’

  ‘I figured that.’

  ‘Oh, don’t start with that shit.’

  My smile is gone. ‘I waited up.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘I just did.’

  The cat has jumped up on the coffee table and nudges herself into the fruit bowl. I’m lighting a cigarette, silent.

  ‘You’re smoking?’

  I inhale.

  ‘It sure sounds sexy.’ Low, low voice. Late-night movie and joint voice. I exhale. Forgiving him.

  •

  The party was loud, crashing percussion on the stereo. There were bodies pressed against bodies in every room, the atmosphere thick and wet. Drunk people dancing, drunk people shouting, drunk people slumped in armchairs and couches. I turned up late, after a midnight session at the pictures. Sober. I weaved through the couples in the narrow hallway, made my way to the bathroom and tried to find a beer, but I was out of luck. There were only empty cans and cigarette butts in the icy bathtub slush.

  ‘Looking for piss?’ He held out his stubby to me.

  I hesitated.

  ‘G’on,’ he urged, ‘take a swig.’

  I took one.

  He stumbled over to the toilet bowl and unzipped. I took another sip and watched him. His jeans were baggy, so I couldn’t make out the shape of his arse, but his black T-shirt stretched tight across his hefty shoulders. He started pissing and turned around to look at me. He held out his hand. I walked over and handed him the stubby and, still pissing, he took a swig before handing it back. We smiled, together.

  ‘Finish it,’ he said. The stream of urine slowed down to a trickle. He shook out the last drops, zipped up and left without washing his hands. I noticed that. I can’t piss without washing up afterwards. The habit of a lifetime.

  I found Leah in one of the bedrooms, sharing a joint with some of her friends from college. I sat down next to her, put my arm around her and kissed her neck.

  ‘How was the movie?’

  ‘Good,’ I answered. ‘Fun.’

  The man from the bathroom was now standing in the doorway, stroking the face of a very beautiful neo-hippie girl. She had glitter on her cheeks and he was tracing the stardust.

  I looked away, pretending to ignore him.

  He was pretending to ignore me.

  •

  A grape has fallen into the cat’s water bowl. Black hairs are swimming around in it. I pour out a dish of dry food for her and wash the bowl in the sink. The grape falls into the plughole and I squash it down with my thumb, watch the flesh drop through the grille. Some nights, especially when it’s rained, slugs swarm around her bowl, getting into the meat, drowning in her water. I pick them up with toilet paper. I hate touching them, hate the sticky residue they leave on my fingers. He doesn’t mind at all, picks them up and chucks them straight back into the garden, wipes his fingers across his jeans, leaving silver streaks.

  The cat sniffs at the dry biscuits, eats a few, turns away. I close the laundry door, walk through the garden and go out the back gate. The kitchen hand from the Vietnamese restaurant next door is sitting on a milk crate, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘How you going?’ I ask him.

  ‘Alright.’ He drops his voice and points to the terrace behind us. ‘But I wish I wasn’t working in this fucking dump.’ A strong wind is blowing stale hot air hard onto my face. I smell the greasy stink from the kitchen.

&nb
sp; It takes forty minutes to walk to his place. I arrive hot, sweating and in a bad temper. He is out in the back garden, a wet cloth draped over his head, empty beer cans around his feet. He’s wearing his underpants, nothing else. His white underpants, his very brown skin.

  He looks up at me, squints, grinning. ‘How are ya?’ He doesn’t wait for a reply. ‘Feel like going to the pub, mate? I’m all out of piss.’

  •

  They had put chairs and a few cushions out in the backyard. Scented candles were melting over a small coffee table. I left Leah, her friends and their boring conversation about school and exams and gossip. I was stoned. There was no one else in the yard, the party had thinned out and I was enjoying the solitude. It wasn’t much of a garden, a few patches of green. I lay down on a cushion, looking at the stars. A half-moon.

  ‘Had enough, eh, mate?’

  He sat down next to me and passed me the joint. We sat in silence for minutes, listening to the music, trance reggae. We smoked the joint and I sat up. His eyes—black eyes, not brown—were shining bright, mirroring the candlelight. There was stubble on his baby face. It suited him.

  He was looking hard at me.

  ‘Enjoying the party?’ It was an inane question, but I wanted to break the tension. This silence was getting uncomfortable.

  ‘Where you from?’

  I didn’t expect that question. He kept on looking into me. ‘Melbourne.’

  ‘No, I mean where your parents from?’

  And you, where are you from? That’s what I was wondering.

  ‘Jordan,’ I answered. ‘My father’s from Jordan and my mother was born in Egypt.’

  He whistled. ‘Jordanian-Egyptian. Very sexy.’

  I laughed. ‘I’m a mongrel. Mum’s half-French and half-Greek. I’m a genetic soup.’

  ‘That’s why you’re so good-looking.’ He said it softly. But every word was clear.

  I got scared. But I liked him calling me good-looking.

  ‘Are you going to come home with me?’

  I wanted a cigarette. I started fumbling through my pockets. My pack was squashed. He offered me one of his. I took it, slowly, careful not to touch his hand.

  ‘Are you going to come home with me?’ Again, soft. The same steady insistence.

  I pointed towards the house, to the party. ‘That’s my girlfriend in there.’

  That’s when he looked away, pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. He said something, said it to a place deep down inside himself.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’ I wanted him to look up, to not be sad. I wanted him to look at me again.

  He lifted his face. A wide, wicked grin. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’

  •

  ‘Fuck you!’ I scream it, stressing both words. I’m pacing up and down his concrete shithole of a backyard.

  ‘I’m out of money, alright! All I did was fucking ask you to shout me some cans. You don’t want to do it, fine. Just leave it.’

  ‘It’s the way you ask me. No hellos, no how are you, no nothing. I’m sick of it.’

  ‘You want a kiss, baby?’ Sarcastic tone, spat out in a faggot voice.

  ‘You’re a prick.’

  A grunt.

  ‘You’re a prick!’ I scream it out.

  ‘Enough!’ I can tell he’s angry now, really angry. I shouldn’t push it. But it’s hot, too hot, I’m tired, and yeah, fuck him, I could do with some affection.

  ‘You’re nothing but a drunk.’

  He stands up, abrupt. Automatically, his hand becomes a fist. I jump back. And he laughs.

  ‘Come on, come on.’ He leans over, kisses my lips. I lick his, we touch tongues and he pulls away. ‘I’ll cook you dinner.’

  ‘You serious?’ I’m dubious.

  ‘Oath.’ He crosses himself.

  I go down the road, get him his beer.

  •

  I told Leah I was tired, felt a bit sick. She was having a good time, was talking about going dancing, and after a few moments of her stroking my face and holding my hand, we kissed goodbye. She asked no questions about him; she thought nothing of him walking out with me.

  We walked through parkland. There were possums everywhere and he stopped in front of one, crouched, and whispered quietly to it. It looked at him, transfixed, but he overbalanced, fell, and the possum ran fast up a tree. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and he took it and helped himself up. He didn’t let go.

  I looked around, nervous, feeling spied upon. His hand felt rough, enormous, so different to Leah’s light touch. I took my hand away.

  He grabbed it back, his grip tight. Then, letting go, he threw his arm over my shoulder, bringing me in closer to him. I felt safer. I noticed the thick hair on his arms, was aware of the heaviness of his body. We kept walking, his arm around my shoulder, staggering, mostly silent all the way to his house, except for when he asked me what football team I barracked for.

  ‘Essendon.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Carlton.’

  And that was it. We kept walking, through the park, down back alleys, all the way to his house. He was humming tunes I recognised.

  When we got to his house he put his finger to his lips, opened the door and navigated me quietly to his bedroom. The light, when he switched it on, was far too bright. A naked globe hung low from the ceiling. He sat on the unmade mattress. I remained standing, wanting to be there and not wanting to be there, looking around at the bedroom walls. There were a few snapshots, a poster of Taxi Driver, and old record sleeves, Lou Reed’s Transformer, Hunters and Collectors’ Human Frailty. I looked everywhere but at him. Until he started stripping.

  His body was firm but not tight. He took off his T-shirt and I looked at his chest, almost hairless, the long nipples, the three small folds of his belly. I felt a locker-room shyness, as if caught stealing illicit glances.

  He dropped to his knees.

  I looked away to a picture on the wall opposite me, a page torn out of a magazine. The edges were ragged. Jessica Lange, her gaze intense, straight into the camera. He was unzipping my trousers, kissing my cock through my briefs. My cock remained flaccid and I was blushing.

  ‘Good movie,’ I said, making conversation. He stopped kissing.

  He looked over his shoulder and up at the picture. ‘Yeah, ace movie. A fucking classic. What they did to her, you know, Frances Farmer, that’s the worst thing you can do to someone, take away their soul.’

  I was looking down at him. His hair was limp and fine. I was feeling tenderness: the footballer’s shoulders and inside them the little boy. I stroked his hair, his face, and

  we were kissing and

  his mouth was harsh, not a girl’s mouth, and his body was hard as it pressed against

  me, covering me, but the skin was just so soft, like touching the underneath of bark

  and I thought a few times, as we were making love, that

  fuck, it’s a man, this is a man

  but our bodies worked together, and I liked him coming all over me, groaning and swearing loudly,

  repeating

  oh man oh man oh man

  and as I was coming I had my eyes closed but I was digging my mouth into his neck and

  I had to stop myself screaming, so I bit into him, because what I wanted to scream was something about love. Which is terror, which made me want to hit him, kick him. And then I came, the tremors stopped and I could finally breathe out.

  He got up, switched off the light, grabbed his T-shirt and wiped the cum off me. I lay there, still. From the street I could hear cars, the screech of cats fighting. He held me, his arm wrapped around my chest. The sharp odour of his perspiration, overwhelming, nothing of sweetness in it. I kissed his skin just to have the taste of it.

  ‘Are you going to tell your girlfriend?’

  ‘No.’ The streetlight was making ghosts of the pictures on his wall.

  ‘Is this the first time you’
ve slept with a guy?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Me too. I mean, I’ve had sex with guys before. But you’re the first guy I’ve brought home.’

  I was aware of the pressure of his thigh on mine, coarse hair digging into my skin.

  ‘You believe me, don’t ya?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I remember thinking, women taste of nectar, men smell like citrus.

  ‘Of course it fucking matters.’ He whispered it. ‘Of course it matters.’

  I fell asleep in his arms, watching Jessica’s hair dance silver.

  •

  It’s ten o’clock and my stomach is rumbling. He’s back from another trip to the pub. There’s an English cop show on television but I’m not taking it in. He’s lying on the couch drinking. I notice his belly’s got bigger.

  ‘You’re getting fat.’

  He pats his stomach and lets out a Tarzan yodel.

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Order some pizza.’

  ‘I’m tired of pizza. You said you’d cook.’

  ‘Can’t be bothered. Order a pizza.’

  ‘Who’s going to pay?’ Fucking user. I don’t say that. I don’t want to believe it.

  I get up off the floor and walk into the kitchen. There’s dry bread in the cupboard. Two tomatoes, a lettuce, a jar of mustard and some tinnies in the fridge. That’s it. I walk back into the lounge room and position myself in front of the TV screen.

  ‘Let’s go out. Get something to eat.’

  ‘Get out of the frigging way.’

  I don’t move.

  ‘What the fuck is up with you?’

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Well, go out and get something to eat.’ He opens another can of beer.

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Look, mate, I just want to watch some teev. I’m not in a mood to go out.’

  ‘You were last night.’ Without me. I’ve not forgiven him.

  ‘Last night was different. Now get out of the way and let me watch the show.’

  ‘You’re a drunk.’

  He takes a long sip, he’s silent, watching me.

  ‘You’re also a pig.’

  He finishes the can in two long gulps, throwing the liquid down his throat.

  ‘You always stink of piss.’

  ‘That’s enough.’