The Crush (5 page)

Matt and his mum squeezed through the noisy crowd behind a young Chinese woman who showed them to their table. She planted menus in front of them and asked them would they like to order a drink before they even had a chance to see what was being served.

‘A beer,' his mum said.

‘Make that two,' Matt added. Both women frowned at him until he said, ‘Just joking. An orange juice thanks.'

‘And a tomato juice for me,' a lady in her fifties said.

‘How's it going, Nan?' Matt asked, standing to receive a kiss.

‘Happy birthday, Matthew. How's my favourite grandson tonight?'

‘Sore.'

‘I can see that. Looks like they smacked you one on the chin.'

A flashback of a tackle earlier in the day triggered off stinging below his jaw. It would probably be a bruise by the morning.

‘If that was any redder you'd have every bull in the country chasing after you.'

They laughed and sat down after his Nan and mum had kissed hello.

‘Okay, let's see. What looks good tonight?'

The food was great. They filled their stomachs with Mongolian pork, stir-fried vegetables, beef chow mein, lemon chicken and steamed rice. Each morsel was eagerly devoured. It wasn't often they ate out; usually only on special occasions like birthdays. Matt liked it that way. He didn't like big celebrations
with streamers, cake, bad music and his friends either hitting onto each other or actually hitting each other. Family gatherings were swift and mainly painless.

‘So what did you get for your birthday, Matthew?' Nan asked.

‘A late note,' his mum answered for him.

‘What?' Nan laughed.

‘He wanted to sleep in until ten this morning.'

‘I told mum she didn't have to buy me anything this year. Just to let me sleep in.'

‘Surely you wanted something,' Nan pushed.

Matt's eyes flicked to a table where a father was laughing with his three young sons. ‘Only to win the grand final this year. I'm too old for presents now.'

‘Is that so?' his mother said. Opening her handbag, she flashed a white envelope in front of him. ‘Then you won't be needing this.'

‘What's that?' he asked, unable to mask his excitement.

‘Sorry, mate. You said you're too old for presents.'

‘Mum!'

‘Go on, Heather,' Nan said. ‘Don't torture the boy.'

‘Okay. But I'm sure he won't like it.'

His mum placed the envelope in front of him. His
face brightened as he opened it and pulled out a ticket marked
Grand Slam Music Concert, Sydney.

‘No way!'

His mind went crazy. Music. Mates. Mosh pits. Kelly …

‘Thanks, Mum!' he said, nearly knocking her over with his hug.

‘Happy birthday,' she said.

‘But … But how did you afford it?'

‘Don't you worry about that. You deserve it. That's all you need to know.'

Elated, he grinned then hugged his mum again, not knowing how to thank her properly. ‘That reminds me,' he said. ‘Thanks for the card and the money, Nan. That was great. You definitely didn't have to do that.'

Nan dabbed some sauce from the corner of her mouth and put down the napkin. ‘What card, dear?'

‘The birthday card you sent me. You know, the one with the motorcycle on the front?'

‘A motorcycle? No, that's not from me. I've got your present right here.'

Nan opened her bag and pulled out a package wrapped in black and yellow paper. Confused, he opened it and lifted out an old blue and white jersey. In black texta, seventeen players from his beloved
Bulldogs had scrawled their signatures. He nearly fell off his chair.

‘Where did you get it?'

‘Our local dance club ran a raffle. That was one of the prizes. I hope you like it. I bought fifty tickets to win it.'

‘I do! Absolutely! You're the best, Nan!'

He leaned over and hugged her too. But that still left one question. Who had sent him the hundred bucks?

‘Are you sure you didn't send me a card?'

‘Quite sure. I might be fifty-eight, but don't put me in the old folks home yet.'

‘Why? What's wrong?' his mum asked, suspicious.

‘Nothing. I just thought Nan must have sent that other card I got today. The sender forgot to write their name on it.'

His mum and grandmother exchanged a quick glance.

‘It must be from one of your old friends then,' his mum offered.

‘That wouldn't be surprising, what with the number of times you two have moved homes. How many times is it now? Five? Six?'

‘Does anyone want dessert?' his mum asked.

Wednesday began just like every other cool but clearing August morning. Clouds breezed through the blue sky that promised a mildly warm day and threatened late showers. Streams of Corollas, Commodores and Falcons started clogging the major roads as people finished their rushed breakfast and groggy goodbye kisses. Trains stalled and started, stalled and started between stations carrying loads of unhappy commuters. And houses echoed with screams about who had stolen whose hairbrush.

Weeds danced at Matt's ankles as he ran along the chainlink fence of the Chullora railway yard. Sweat teemed off his elbows, knees and chin as he glanced at the rusted coal, petrol, stock and flatbed carriages parked in the distance. Each swallow was dry and
gravelly. Cramps riddled his calf muscles and sides, still agitated even after a good night's sleep. But he fought on. Pain was good.

A freight truck shuddered loudly beside him, blasting him with barrelling hot air. The stinking breath was nearly enough to knock him over. Exhausted, he stopped and doubled up, sucking in lungfuls of diesel fumes, smog and dust as he tried to regain his breath.

He looked around him as he stretched against a telegraph pole to rub the splintery cramps from his legs. An advertising billboard down the road caught his attention. It showed a proud father teaching his five-year-old son how to shave. The pitch was for a brand of electric razor. Matt stared at it for a moment, then sighed. Time to move on.

Regaining his rhythm, he made his way home. School started in fifty minutes and he needed to shower, shave and catch the bus. He turned a corner and nearly smacked into twin boys. They were no older than the boy in the billboard and still dressed in their pyjamas. They'd shot out of their driveway to fight for a rolled-up newspaper on the nature strip. Their father chased after them, hid them behind his legs then apologised to Matt.

‘Sorry. They're terrors, you know. We all were once, right? C'mon, boys. Back inside.'

Their father scruffed their heads then led them into the house.

Eyes down, Matt tore out of there. He sprinted as hard and fast as he could, clenching his teeth against the ache building up inside him. He kept running and running and running until the pain ripped through his legs, chest and throat like little powersaws. His tendons felt like snapping and his heart rupturing. But instead of slowing down, he pushed himself harder and faster until sweat, speed and agony blinded him.

Ssscccrrreeeeeeccchhh!

A car nearly splattered him all over the evening news.

‘What are you trying to do, you stupid kid? Kill yourself!' Stunned, Matt stared back at the driver, too scared to speak. The driver shouted at him again. He finally fought off the daze, and didn't hang round to argue.

With a quick twist, a tap blasted water into Matt's cupped hands. Kneeling in a corner of a small park, he threw the liquid into his face. Slivers dripped from his palms and elbows as he ran his fingers down his cheeks. He was shaking, which was good. It meant that he was still alive.

Relax, man. Relax. It had been a scare, that's all.

He hated this time of the year. The time around his birthday. The same thing always happened. He'd think about the past, freak out and try to run from it. He wished he could have escaped just this once. But no. Wherever he looked, he was always reminded of the same emptiness. Waiting for Chris after the football. At the Chinese restaurant. On a billboard plugging electric razors. And by five-year-old twins. The same thought had haunted him for most of his life: what would it be like to have his own dad?

Matt and his mum rarely talked about him, which was central to the problem. The only time they did was when she was in the mood, which wasn't often. All he knew about him was that he'd met his mum at a party. They'd got drunk, slept together then gone their own way the next morning. The day his mum found out she was pregnant was two weeks after his dad had died in a car crash.

‘What did he look like?' Matt asked her on a rainy day when he was seven and they were playing Monopoly.

‘Your dad? I don't really remember. His memory's faded over the years.'

‘Was he tall?'

‘A bit.'

‘Good looking?'

‘Oh yeah.'

‘What colour were his eyes?'

‘Brown, I think.'

‘How about his hair?'

‘I can't remember, mate. Now buy Mayfair or hand me the dice, would you.'

Matt had clung to that fuzzy image of his father for half of his life. He'd cast his father in his dreams—dreams about kicking a football together, dreams about going fishing and dreams about rumbling in the backyard until his mum called out: ‘Dinner's ready!' It sounded like kid's stuff, but it was the closest he'd come to having a real dad.

Turning off the tap, Matt collapsed onto the grass. He looked at his watch. 8:31. Oh no! He was going to be late for school again.

Rushing home and grabbing his bag, Matt was soon pistoning across the mall on his BMX. The bus hadn't waited for him, although he'd waved frantically to get the driver's attention. Typical. School bus drivers were card-carrying sadists.

So he had to bike it.

Every rotation was torture. After the morning run, he was spent. Chucking a sickie looked pretty good right about then, but the threat of angering the
Dragon Lady a third day in a row fired him on.

The BMX skidded to a stop outside the school gates. Using the cover of trees growing near the library, he snapped a chain around the wheels and bolted towards class. 9:28. He was so late.

The Dragon Lady's voice boomed across the playground and he braked as the windows rattled around him. Caught out! Eyes closed, he waited for her to snap his spine in half. But the mauling never came. He listened closer and heard the PA system echoing across the quadrangle. All right! An assembly! And during a double maths period too.

Hundreds of bored students shielded their faces from the sun or scratched at the black quadrangle's surface with twigs as the Dragon Lady roasted them for littering, not wearing the proper school uniform, or failing to turn up for sport. Two students were singled out for slagging on her office window while she was sitting inside. The Dragon Lady was the toughest, angriest and meanest principal Matt had ever known. She'd earned her nickname because she had sharp teeth, flaming red hair, long fingernails like talons, a fetish for green clothes and a well-honed ability to bite off the heads of Year 7 students. It was even rumoured she had two pet lizards named Son and Daughter.

After another ten minutes of bile, the Dragon Lady dismissed the assembly and everyone groaned as they trudged off to their classes. Matt easily blended into the crowd, believing he was safe.

Until science class.

He couldn't help it. Sitting up the back of the lab bored out of his mind, he was about to fall asleep when Chris suggested they conduct their own experiment. ‘Ever hooked up one of these babies to a tap?' the Sundance Kid asked, pulling a Bunsen burner from under their bench.

Matt grinned, knowing he was sure to find out.

Chris grabbed the Bunsen burner's hose and twisted it over the nozzle of the long thin tap on their sink. The teacher turned round at that moment and nearly busted them, but she was more interested in explaining carbon chemistry and quickly resumed writing on the blackboard.

Giggling, Chris aimed the Bunsen burner at the geeks in the front row and twisted the tap. Water rushed through the hose, up the Bunsen burner's spout and blasted out the other end. A ten metre jet of water drilled a geek in the back of the head. He screamed and Chris quickly turned off the tap and dropped the Bunsen burner into the sink.

The class cracked up, and the teacher demanded
to know what was happening. The geek kept quiet, though. After a warning, the teacher fumed then returned to writing on the board. Chris took aim again and a second stream of water hit the geek. When he turned round to tell the Sundance Kid off, he copped it in the face as well! That sent everyone into hysterics again.

Angry this time, the teacher huffed and puffed some more, threatening to keep the whole class in. But no one blabbed. Nobody ever did. School rules. Everyone from Year 7 to 12 knew dobbing resulted in more harassment.

The third shot was a beauty. Chris powered up his water pistol and hit the geek for a third time. Instead of saying anything, the geek just sat there, letting the water hit him in the back of the head and dribble down his back.

‘Christopher Pearce! Turn that tap off!'

Busted!

‘Get to the principal's office now!'

Matt laughed and laughed.

‘You too, Mr Cassidy! No doubt you were part of this circus too.'

‘Miss!'

‘Go! Now!'

So Matt ended up being mauled by the Dragon
Lady anyway. He was nice and crispy by the time she'd finished with him.

‘This has got to stop, Matthew. You're one of the better students at this school but I can't keep on letting you get away with this nonsense. If you're sent here again, I'll make sure you'll regret it. Do I make myself clear? Good. Now stand outside while I think of a punishment for you and Mr Pearce.'

Slam!
The door to her lair banged shut.

Matt slumped against the wall outside her office next to Chris, who had also been roasted for ten minutes.

‘And don't let me catch either of you leaning against that wall!'

Groaning, Matt and Chris stood straight.

‘What do you think she'll make us do?'

‘Probably find her a horse to eat,' Chris answered.

They laughed and attracted the ire of the office ladies nearby.

‘Hey, guess what,' Matt whispered. ‘I'm going to the concert!'

‘Get out of here! You're not!'

‘Am so. Mum bought me a ticket for my birthday.'

‘You legend, Ms Cassidy! I knew you'd make it somehow. Boy are we going to do some serious babe-hunting this Friday night!' Chris almost howled at
the thought. ‘Not that you'll have to look too hard. I heard that brunette of yours is going.'

Matt blushed. ‘What brunette?'

The Sundance Kid snorted. ‘Don't play dumb with me. You've got a crush on this girl, don'tcha?'

‘Do not.'

‘Oh yeah? Then why could I hire out your face as a stop sign right about now?'

Matt blushed even brighter and thumped his mate on the shoulder.

‘Matty's in love! Matty's in love!'

The principal's door swung open and the Dragon Lady stuck her snout outside. ‘Have you two forgotten something?'

‘Miss?'

‘You're both on detention! Now stop singing and be quiet!'

Slam!

Matt and Chris glanced at each other before quietly cracking up.

‘You're in trouble, Matty.'

‘With the Dragon Lady? Yeah, I know. Mum will kill me—'

‘No, with this brunette. I heard she's already got a fella.'

‘I know.'

‘You do? And you're still interested in her? Mate, don't do it. She's off limits.'

‘That's okay. She's just a friend.'

‘A female friend. And gorgeous too. They're the deadliest kind. You either fall in love with them or spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn't.'

‘I'm not going to fall in love with her, all right. Besides, we've only talked once.'

‘That's all it takes.'

‘Says who, Mr Chick-expert-himself?'

Matt pushed his buddy away and they both laughed.

‘Forget about her,' Chris said. ‘There will be hundreds of babes at the concert. I'll try not to steal them all away from you.'