Swann

Chapter 1-2

“What? About the girls?” I ask defensively.

“Yeah. I mean, you know that even Frankie is going to pick up at Bianca’s on the weekend. And, it’s not like I’m trying to salt your game or nothing, but Frankie hasn’t got much going for him, yeah? I mean, that nose...”

I smile without speaking. I’m suddenly intensely focused on the ground.

“I mean let’s face it, he’s not the most forward thinking dude, right? You know, he comes from one of those ‘the woman is my slave’ kind of households. There’s not a lot there for a girl to appreciate. At least I wouldn’t have thought so, right? But last weekend he was laid out on the stairs at that geeks place - what’s his name? Simon... Forest?”

“Florent,” I say.

“Anyway, he’s there with Marcia Hendrix. I mean, she’s not the hottest girl at school, but she’s pretty fit, right? Certainly more than anyone would have thought Frankie would get to rub his nose against.”

I shrug.

“Didn’t last though, did it?”

“Course not,” he laughs and shoves my shoulder. “I mean, it was never gonna last! As soon as she sobered up her friends told her what happened and with who and she freaked. At least that’s what Lauren says.”

Wong has been in a strange, not-so-exclusive, relationship with Lauren Benson for a bit over six months. I don’t really understand how it works. According to him they just hook up when they get lonely, or feel the urge, or want some familiarity, but that doesn’t really make sense to me. Sometimes they’re like proper, hot and heavy, like, basically dry-humping wherever they go. Other times it’s like they’ve never even met. It’s weird. But, as far as I can tell, they talk a lot through social. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was the one he was texting and chuckling with while he was resting his arms between sets.

“So, what? I mean, maybe I don’t want to kiss Marcia Hendrix! Maybe I don’t want some girl dictating how much I drink and what I do on the weekend and s**t. Just seems like a good way to complicate things, and I can’t be bothered with that.”

“No need to get all flustered, Connor. Jeez...”

We’re just crossing the cricket pitch and Wong stops to stamp his feet a bit, scuffing the hard grass that they’re always trying so hard to protect.

“Look at this shit.” He kicks his foot again and dislodges more grass. “Cricket is so...” he looks at me with hooded eyes for a second, letting the pause drag out. “It’s so white!” he hisses the words and laughs.

I grin and give him a shove which makes him drop his bag. He thumps his chest and pulls his shoulders back, puffing out his pecks and jeering at me with a smile playing on his lips.

“Come on! You wanna fight? You wanna be broken by the Wong?”

I let him bump into me and hold up my hands in acquiescence.

“You ain’t getting off that easy, Connor!”

He slips a foot behind my legs and pushes me so that I trip over his leg and crash onto the ground. Wong made sure to grip my shoulder as I fell so that he could soften the blow and just as he moves to pounce on me I raise my knee and wind him so that he lands beside me amidst gasps and laughter. He recovers quickly, jabbing me in the kidney and rolling on top of me, pinning my arms under his legs.

“You’re f****d Rueben Connor! Your days of indecision and casual disillusionment are over!” He lifts his arms triumphantly and twists as though allowing a crowd to admire his success.

“Get a room!” I hear Chris’ voice.

“And you called us fags!” Frankie yells from the window of a bus, giving us the finger.

“I was ending Connor’s racist dictatorship! Much easier to subdue than your vicious regime of sodomy!” Wong stands up, waving his arms after the bus, a wide smile across his face.

I admire Wong. He’s good-looking, quick-witted, and a genuinely nice guy. It’s hard not to respect him and I think that feeling exists through our whole year level. He’s that guy. The one that everyone knows and everyone wants to know. He’s the reason the other three of us get to attend all the parties. I mean, I’m pretty sure that most of the year level doesn’t even know who I am, but when I turn up at their houses with Wong I get little more than a second glance as we get ushered into the celebrations. It’s hard to be friends with him without feeling a little hint of jealousy, you know? That little twist of envy that just lurks behind everything and every-so-often lifts its head as though it’s going to choose that moment to force you to say what you really think.

He holds out his hand and drags me back to my feet.

“Surely, there’s someone you like that’s worth taking care of yourself for?” he asks, returning to the conversation from earlier.

It’s hard to respond to him though. I don’t like these kinds of conversations much because I don’t see the whole thing like a competition. I mean, Wong has probably been with half the year level. Even though Lauren is his on-again off-again girl of choice, I have no real idea how many other girls he’s kissed or whatever in the last six months.

“I don’t know, man,” I shrug, dusting my arse. “The girls around here are all kind of skanky, don’t you think?”

He raises his hands, palms up.

“Girls are girls, dude. Guys are just as skanky, no?”

I think on that for a second, seeing my narrow-mindedness like a flashing beacon. “Yeah, I suppose. I mean, I’m not!”

“No s**t, Sherlock. So what? Are you frigid?” He looks at me with comically startled eyebrows. “You’re not gay, are you? I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, but like... You’re not, right?”

I punch him in the arm.

“No!”

He laughs.

“Hey, where’s your bag?”

I look around and realise that I must have left it in the gym. I’m still holding ‘Medea’ but I just didn’t even think to grab the rest of my stuff. I swear and he laughs again.

“I ain’t waiting. I’ll see you tomorrow, dude,” he waves. “And remember: when you come back you need to walk around the oval or risk the wrath of Mr Newb!”

Wong grins and slaps me on the arse as I turn to jog back to the gym.

#

The sport centre’s all locked up when I get back, which I think is total bullshit. Typical teachers, right? The moment the bells ring and they’re out there squealing their wheels like Year 12’s who’ve just got their P’s. So I’m left standing at the doors with my copy of ‘Medea’ and a look of frustration as my only weapon. My wallet’s in my bag. My house keys are in there and my locker keys. I’m up s**t creek without a boat, floundering in my own sloppy mess.

I check all of the doors at the entrance. They’re all locked. But there are still a few cars in the carpark so there might still be people inside. I knock for a while but no one comes. I consider heading back across the oval to grab the first teacher I find but, considering the elbow patches on most of the teachers I know, I figure they’re well-and-truly out the gates for home or the pub by now. There’s an evening security guard that patrols the school and I figure he’ll have to swing passed the gym at some point so I sit on the concrete with my shoulders against the glass and read my book for a while.

After fifteen minutes I’m bored and I realise that I haven’t been paying much attention to the plight of old Medea. My eyes have been moving over the words but I haven’t been taking them in. Instead, I’ve been picturing Frankie making out with Marcia Hendrix. When I realise that that’s what I’ve been thinking about I do a kind of mental double-take and try to work out what’s wrong with me. I mean, Marcia is pretty hot. Wong’s just a snob. Thing is that she’s not like typical pretty though. Marcia has these hard features, you know? A mouth that doesn’t look like it smiles too much and eyes that look like they were sculpted to win a scowling competition. But there’s something about her, right? Even though she’s kind of standoffish and not even super-nice or anything. I mean she has a killer body which obviously helps, but why would she get with Frankie? Even if she was drunk? She would have had to be totally blind drunk, or hoppin’ or something worse. I don’t know.

It’s not like I’m envious of him. I’m not. It’s just what I find myself thinking about. It’s probably just on my mind ‘cause Wong was pushing me about who I’m interested in. But it’s not that simple, is it? I mean, there’s a couple of girls that I kind of like, but I’m not even remotely in their league. That’s how I feel about all of them. How do you even talk to girls who look like that? Any of them. I mean, girls have all the power. I know that my English teacher keeps harping on about how it’s a man’s world and that women are treated poorly and that needs to change, and I see her point – I mean, I totally agree – but it seems to me like men built the world the way they wanted it to be and in the process they made themselves slaves to their own desires. Some feminists are all about how men create women’s clothes and there’s all that weird porn with women in high-heels while some guy huffs and puffs all over her, but that s**t - the clothes, the look, that girls have – I mean, it’s nuts right?

I don’t know.

I don’t know, maybe there’s men out there immune to that stuff. It’s not even maybe, is it? There’s totally a whole bunch of idiots out there who see girls and see objects and possessions and all that. But me?

Me?

I can’t do it.

I mean... They’re their own people, right? And they get all that pressure to look a certain way and be all pretty and that. And for me... I’m totally f*****g powerless to that. Men might have framed the world, but I’m a prisoner to the beauty that girls have. ‘Cause I haven’t got any of that. Skinny little me is just a worthless observer. I’ve got no autonomy - no mind at all when I’m faced with a pretty girl.

My arse has fallen asleep. I push myself up off the ground and stretch my legs. It’s pretty warm out and the sun is shifting and moving towards the doors of the gym which means that I’ve got to move unless I want to burn. Lifting my legs nice and high, trying to urge some life back into my worthless butt and I start to make my way around the far side of the sports centre thinking maybe one of the other doors is open. I’m pretty sure there are doors onto the basketball courts, not that I’ve ever seen them used. The grass is long on this side of the centre, it’s probably because parents don’t see it so the groundskeepers don’t mow it so often.

When I reach the first door I take a deep breath and hold it before trying the handle. It’s locked. I sigh, lamenting my terribly underdeveloped psychic powers, and keep going.

When I turn along the last edge of the sports centre, the side facing back towards a lot of the school, I see the fire door is propped open with a brick and I almost skip I’m so relieved. Worse than anything else I was getting really bored with wandering around at school alone. I mean, walking home was never completely out of the question. It would only take me an hour or so, and as I reach the door and check my watch, I realise that I would have been most of the way home if I’d just left as soon I tried the main doors. Of course I still wouldn’t have had any keys and my sister probably would have left me outside because she’s cruel like that, you know? Doesn’t matter anyway, salvation is at hand!