Swann

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

I’m not the kind of guy that gets noticed, right? I’m easily forgotten. I’m that kid. The one that people don’t really remember cause I, like, well I don’t make myself a nuisance. I just do what I’ve got to. Being like that has treated me pretty well. I mean, it’s not like I’m the number one target at school or anything – things could be a whole lot worse, I guess.

But, I suppose, it’s not all roses.

I mean, I don’t even know what ‘all roses’ would be. If you picked me out of the class and asked me to explain that phrase I’d give you one of those blank faces.

You know the ones.

Where I don’t just look like I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I look like I’m not even sure that I’m supposed to know what you’re talking about. Like you’re from some other planet and you’ve just asked me if my life is ‘all roses’ and I’m like, what is that supposed to mean? You’re an alien, right, and how am I meant to even know where to begin to decipher the weird misinterpretations of human speech you’ve got going on?

It’d be that kind of look.

I like to tell my parents that I stay out of trouble. It’s mostly true. It’s not like I get into trouble. I mean, sure, I might be there when stuff goes wrong sometimes, but it’s not me that’s making it all go wrong. It’s part of my personality, see? I don’t make those kinds of choices. I just kind of go along with what my mates are doing. Maybe that means I don’t have much personality. I don’t know. But I just don’t see much point in voicing an opinion on what we’re doing. In fact, I don’t even really know why they invite me most of the time. I just kind of stand around and laugh at them when they ride hard-rubbish tricycles down impossibly steep hills. But, I don’t know, I like them. I like being around when that stuff happens. It’s nice to think about later when I’m trying to forget that my mum and dad are fighting or that my sister just deleted a third of my music collection from the computer.

You know how it is.

Sometimes the only way to handle that kind of professional cruelty is to retreat into the memories of your friends smoking weed and stacking a Macca’s tray into the creek. Sometimes there isn’t much else to cling to.

I signed up to Phys Ed at school because my friends were doing it. I’ve never been much for exercise. I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t want to look fit cause that’s, like, well, that’s what the girls like, right? Name me a girl who wouldn’t want to be carried around in Chris Hemsworth’s arms. Girls want to be shielded, right? They want protection from all the bad s**t that happens to them, from all the drummed-up bigots and bogans out in the world. A weedy little guy like me doesn’t offer much in the way of protection. On top of that, I’m kinda short for a guy. Frankie is always talking about how if I face away from them when we’re getting changed it wouldn’t be hard to confuse me for a girl. I don’t know if I should take offense to that. It’s kind of funny, I suppose. Is it making fun of me or girls in general though?

Anyway.

My mates; Frankie, Chris, and Wong – that’s not his real name, his real name is Chris as well but it’s easier to call him Wong – Wong isn’t even his last name, his last name is Xhao which I always pronounce wrong – I don’t even remember where the name Wong came from. It’s just what we call him. It’s what everyone calls him. Whatever, the point is, they all signed up for Phys Ed and me, boring skinny little Rueben, signed up with them. The three of them are more athletic than me. Wong has one of those condensed Asian bodies, like he should have been doing gymnastics or Maui Thai or Kung Foo or something. He is sixteen with abs. That should be the subheading under his Tinder name: YearoftheSerpent - sixteen with abs. The girls would flock to him then – not that they don’t already. Chris is like twice my size. He must be almost seven feet tall. He plays football basically all the time, so he’s pretty toned and burly even though he’s not super-solid. Frankie is more like me, I suppose. He’s not super-tall, or super-fit. He’s a bit heavier than me which means that when he punches me it hurts a lot more than when I punch him, which annoys me greatly. Underneath a layer of podge he’s pretty fit though. He runs and plays soccer with Wong. The only reason he’s not defined is probably because he drinks whenever he gets the chance and he smokes enough weed to get a basketball team high.

Doing Phys Ed basically means that I have to learn some stuff about how the body metabolizes the various chemicals that come out of foods, and how injuries occur. And then, when the teacher gets bored, we get sent off to do weights or kick a football. There’s only eight of us in the class but I’m kind of the outcast because, even though my mates are all there with me, they’re also in with the other guys. I don’t know the jocks too well. I mean Chris is a jock, but he’s also cool. The others? They’re not really my scene, I suppose. You know how it is?

Anyway, so, it’s a Thursday and the class has been essentially dismissed about forty minutes before the lesson was meant to end. Mr Cranly has his feet up on the desk, tapping away at a computer screen, when he sends us out.

“A’right guys. That’s it. We’re done here. Go and work-out or somethin’.” That’s how he says it, all blasé-like, even though he’s the one not really doing his job at this point.

“And, Connor–” that’s my last name, “there isn’t a pretty girl in the school who’s interested in your scrawny arse. I bet your sister has more muscle than you. You’d best go and bulk-up, hey? Get some gains. Go give yourself some assets you might be able to convince someone to like.”

He laughs as though he’s the funniest guy alive.

That’s how he speaks.

That’s how he talks about girls.

And that’s how I get singled out in every lesson.

Some of the other guys in the class laugh as well and throw in their own insults as they shove one-another out through the door. I scowl at him.

I hate Cranly.

Frankie jabs me in the ribs and jokes about how I flinch. I shove him as though I’m being playful, but I’m not. I mean it. I want him to crack his head on the doorframe. But I don’t really, I suppose. I want him to be Mr Cranly, and for him to crack his head on the doorframe so I can laugh in his face about how he’s an uncoordinated Phys Ed teacher.

Wong wants to hit the gym so I follow the three of them, a few paces back, trying to think of what I’ve done this time to make myself such a target for that knob. But it’s probably nothing, right? He’s probably just an arsehole and I’m just an easy kid to s**t on. I suppose, that makes him a coward.

It makes me feel good to think of him as a coward. Like he’s so weak and insecure that he has to get his disciples to pick on me so that he feels like he has friends and power. I clench my fists and grit my teeth. Maybe I will bulk up. Maybe I’ll start eating protein bars and drinking that weird powder so that when I do weights it’s easier for my body to convert it all into muscle. Then, once I’m nice and solid, I could just give Cranly a little shove one day.

Like we’re jostling.

Like he does with some of the other guys.

Except my little shove will be all Bullwinkle and I’ll be like, ‘Oops! Don’t know my own strength!’ as he goes flying down the stairs and breaks something.

I smile at the thought of it, but it’s a hollow smile. I don’t care enough about strength and muscle to bother with such a long-term plan. Maybe I’ll just put honey all around the bottom seal of his car door so that ants fill the foot-well of his little two-door Mazda.

That’s much more plausible.

Wong’d probably be up for that.

#

The guys do weights and send text messages in between sets. Sometimes they post ridiculous pictures of themselves to their i********: accounts or joke about the poor girls who always get the left swipe on Tinder. I only know this because, for the most part, I just stand around in the gym. I usually run for a bit and then do sit-ups or medicine ball stuff. I mean, I see the point of weights and the various machines but I just, you know, can’t be bothered, right? There’s this little barbarian in me that totally wants to be able to throw logs with the rest of them, if there was ever the opportunity for such an idiotic display of strength, but the rest of me is sorely infected with the coonbies. As in couldn’t be stuffed. It’s a terrible affliction but it has me flailing in its grip most of the time. I mean, who can be? I’ve never known anyone to have the canbies.

I hear some of the jocks joking about some of the pictures that girls post on f*******:, i********:, and Snapchat. They hiss and giggle between deadlifts at the poses and the make-up and the sometimes-obvious ’shopping; the girls’ lips all pouty and their bodies jutting out as they try to emphasise their curves or lack-there-of. I’m kind of appalled by the whole thing. I mean, think of the double-standards? The guys wouldn’t even look at them if they didn’t try to ascribe to what is considered pretty by men’s standards and then they get teased for trying. One of them makes a comment about some new app that compiles pictures of girls from all over the school. I’m not sure if I can think of anything much creepier. The whole idea makes me feel intensely uncomfortable.

To avoid the rest of the conversation I go and get changed way before the others and then put headphones in and recline on one of the adjustable seats for bicep curls with ‘Medea’ which we’re meant to be studying for English. I don’t see much point in Greek tragedy, but Ms Frown - yes, that’s her name - seems pretty unnecessarily optimistic about it all. Everyone gets excited about Ms Frown because they kind of hope that they can line up all those great jokes they’ve amassed over the years regarding her name. But the truth is, she isn’t really the frowning type. In fact, I think she’s probably the most enthusiastic forty-year-old I’ve ever met. Just when someone thinks they’ve pushed her to the brink she just, kind of, swishes her hair and straightens her back and shrugs like she’s overcome stuff that’s far more horrific than student insubordination.

Chris gives me s**t about the book but I ignore him. He won’t ever read it. I’ll probably be the one coaching him through his essays ‘cause a day before they’re due he’ll get all self-destructive and useless. After twenty minutes or so the final bell rings and they all rush off to get changed and hit their buses. Frankie and Chris give me and Wong high-fives and pseudo-masculine shoulder-hugs before they jog across the oval to the buses. We watch them running for a second before Wong calls them fags. Frankie immediately begins to kick his legs out and behind, his bag bouncing off his arse, and he tries to take Chris’ hand.

“You just like the view!” Chris calls back to us, groping his balls.

I laugh and Wong shoves me.

We’re walking much slower. We catch public buses rather than the school-organised, direct-to-station, s**t. If we miss our ride there’s another every fifteen minutes. But if they do, they have to wait an hour for the late buses to roll around.

“What’s your deal anyway, Rueben?” Wong asks the question like he’s offended.

“What?”

“Why don’t you just do what Cranly says? Then he’ll get off your back and Max and Downer will stop screwing with you.” He kicks at the grass as we walk.

We’ve been told a thousand times to walk around the oval rather than across it, but no one listens. Supposedly, it’s some s**t to do with the quality of the grass and that our dreary footsteps somehow ruin the cricket pitch. I don’t think I’ve ever walked around the oval. I know for a fact that I’ve never cared for cricket though.

“Well? I mean he’s probably right, you know?”