Imaginary Foe (3 page)

‘Stanley?’

‘Yeah, Dad?’

‘Get out here. I want to talk to you.’

‘Oh, shit.’ I have to leave the safe confines of my bedroom to deal with my impossible father, who will no doubt be itching to lecture me about something completely trivial. Hopefully I won’t bump into any other members of my family and have to engage in further monotonous conversation. What have I done to deserve this? Some of my friends actually have normal families. They don’t have to go to church; they don’t have to kneel around their parents’ bed to say the rosary; and their dads don’t shoot the family pet in front of them when he’s had enough of its whining.

Actually, I think Dad was looking for any old excuse to shoot the cat. He grew up on a farm and had violence towards certain species instilled in him from a very early age. He views animals as vermin if they don’t exist to service humans in some way. And cats certainly don’t service humans. That said, shooting a cat with a .22 rifle in your backyard in a sleepy country town is pretty extreme. I guess it just goes to show that the not-so-favourable values and behaviours passed on to us from our parents can be difficult to unlearn. They can lay dormant for years and pop up when least expected, slapping you in the face. ‘You know what we do to useless animals, don’t you, son? What are you waiting for? Go get the gun!’

Dad isn’t
that
bad, though. I don’t want to give the impression that he’s a real hard-arse all the time. He just has a very low tolerance for things that don’t sit well with him, which can be amusing at times. For example, Uncle Tom came round the other day. He wanted to get Dad involved in a pyramid selling scheme. He was going on and on about how easy it would be to own a Ferrari or a Corvette in a couple of years’ time and he had laminated pictures of both cars. He also had a cardboard diagram of the pyramid and he used a wooden pointer to highlight the different levels of the foolproof scheme. Dad watched, impatiently, as Uncle Tom delivered his spiel and then said, ‘You’re a dickhead, Tom.’ Then he turned and casually left the room. Uncle Tom looked at me, completely mortified by his brother’s statement. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head, feigning incredulity, while trying my damnedest not to burst out laughing. Uncle Tom packed up the diagram and pictures into his tattered brown briefcase and left without saying another word.

I enter the kitchen. Dad is seated at the table, reading the daily newspaper, happily absorbing all of its biased opinions.

‘What’s up?’

‘Sit down, Stan.’

I choose not to sit across from Dad so that he can’t recreate the dynamic of a formal meeting in an ‘old school’ environment, where, say, a superior might intimidate a subordinate across a meticulously ordered desk. While continuing to read the paper, Dad starts speaking, his expression hidden.

‘Tell me about this dance that’s on tonight.’

‘The school social?’

‘Yes, the school social. Who’s going to be there?’

Dad knows very well who’s going to be there. He’s obviously prepped to give one of those routine lectures that he dishes out every now and then to reinforce his authority. I look down at the kitchen table and notice the perfect placement of the salt and pepper shakers, the Royal Albert teacup and saucer, and the knife and fork that lie face down together across Dad’s fastidiously clean breakfast plate. I panic at the meticulous order of everything. He
is
my superior. I
am
the subordinate.

Dad is waiting for an answer. He prompts me, his face still hidden behind his precious newspaper. ‘Hmmm?’

His nonchalant authority infuriates me. I’ve got to turn the situation around. I’ve got to squash his authoritarian game into the ground. I do it with the most reliable weapons available to me – indifference and humour! ‘Well, Mike said that he’s definitely going and Jeremy wouldn’t miss it for anything because he loves to boogie.’

Dad finally lowers his newspaper slightly, raises his head and looks at me like I’m some sort of moron. ‘I’m not interested in your crackpot friends! Will the teachers be there? That’s what I’m asking!’

‘Why? Are you interested in one of my teachers?’

‘Stanley!’ Dad swiftly raises a forearm as if he’s going to give me a backhand, but he stops himself from following through and places his arm back down on the table. ‘Don’t get smart with me, Stanley.’ He pauses, having lost his footing in this game of intimidation. He puts the paper down and then continues to expel the usual words of encouragement that a loving father offers a son. ‘Your mother and I have decided to let you go tonight. But if I hear there’s been any funny business whatsoever, I won’t hesitate to pull out the strap again. You hear me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good. Well, then, with that in mind, try and enjoy yourself tonight.’ He picks up the paper again and snaps it into place in front of him. He resumes reading, bringing our conversation to an impressive close.

I leave the kitchen feeling pissed off and deflated. Gee, thanks a lot, Dad. So, he has
decided
to let me go. What a crock of shit! If my parents had
decided
that I couldn’t go, I would’ve found a way to go anyway. I would have snuck out of my bedroom window.

For a while, I entertain unrestrained thoughts about what I’d do to my father if he ever did strap me again, but I soon tire of inventing gruesome weaponry. The first time he ever strapped me, I was so shocked. Just seeing the belt in his hand terrified me. I was about ten years’ old, and I’d been playing down near the railway line with some older kids. They’d been placing a dead cat on the railway line, which was now in four pieces. We waited for the afternoon train to come through so that we could see the four pieces of cat become eight. An older kid, Travis, decided that it would be a good idea to hold me over the track when the train was in sight. I screamed so loudly, that it brought my father out to our front yard. He roared for me to come home, and Travis released me straight away. I ran home and Dad dragged me inside. I didn’t even have a chance to explain what had happened. He disappeared for a minute and reappeared with the strap in his hand looking as angry as hell. I didn’t think it was fair that I got strapped for being bullied. Mum said that Dad had done the right thing by strapping me, because it meant that I wouldn’t play dangerous games with older kids ever again. I know I’ll always retain an image of Dad standing in front of me holding his belt, loosening and tightening it in a rapid motion so as to produce a loud snap, his mouth fixed in a manic grin, barely concealing the generous amount of saliva bubbling away behind his teeth. It’s not a particularly endearing image to retain of a person, but what can you do?

I return to my bedroom and start sorting through my vinyl collection. Over the years, I’ve managed to acquire a superb collection of music, which is no small feat when you live in a small country town on a long, lonely highway. Around here, you can’t just waltz into your local deli/video/music shop and expect to pick up a record that isn’t in the Top 40. I mean, who could imagine that people aren’t into shit music? Certainly not anyone who owns a shop in this town. So I’ve become an expert at ordering albums from dedicated music stores and having them delivered by post. I own every single album by The Smiths, I have the entire Cure collection and I even have rare Prince releases. The latter I keep to myself, because some people just don’t get Prince and I can never be bothered explaining.

When I play music through my headphones and lie back in bed, I’m able to completely escape from the present. I forget that I’m fifteen, I forget about pimples, I forget about my nervous twitch, I forget that my family is crazy and I even forget about feeling guilty about nothing.

‘So, what’s it gonna be? What do you want to hear, buddy?’

I turn and look at Bruce. Since Bruce appeared in my life, I’ve been able to drift along with relative ease. When there are hard situations to tackle, Bruce takes the wheel and I relax in the passenger seat. I’ve been able to do things with Bruce that I’d never have had the guts to do on my own. I owe Bruce a lot and I don’t know what I’d do without him. But, lately, he’s been showing up more and more, at times when I least expect it, and I find this unsettling. He’s demanding more of me these days too – more, perhaps, than I’m willing to give.

Bruce made his first appearance in 1977. I was four years old. Mum had dropped me off outside my grandmother’s house so that she could go and do the shopping in peace.

‘Just go in, Stan. That’s a good boy. Find Nanna and tell her about your new kitten.’

I entered a very quiet house. I remember it being very orange: a peculiar, saturated orange. It was as if my eyes were a pair of camera lenses and a photographer had placed an orange filter on them. To this day, I don’t understand why the house was so orange. I called out for Nanna, but there was no answer. I walked hesitantly into the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the dining room either.

‘Nanna? Nanna, where are you?’ My tiny voice was swallowed up by the orange house. I trod cautiously over the carpeted floor, careful not to make the floorboards underneath creak, and entered the lounge room. Nanna was seated on the couch. I knew straight away that she was dead.

I knew all about death. Our dog Spot had died about a month before. I’d been spellbound by his lifeless body. He looked just the same, except he wasn’t jumping around and yapping and snapping at my ankles. Mum said that his soul had left his body and gone to Heaven. I imagined Spot’s soul to be a translucent grey mass floating around in that infinite white place they call Heaven. The grey mass housed Spot’s personality, which would live on endlessly in the white world. I pictured Nanna’s grey mass floating around, which I was sure would be larger than Spot’s. I imagined it merrily humming away, as she always did when she was working in her kitchen.

I sat across from Nanna in an armchair and talked to her in a continuous monologue, not wanting to let in the stark silence. I told her about my new kitten, Seymour. I managed to keep my flimsy way of dealing with the situation working for a while, but then a cockroach crawled over the top of Nanna’s head. It walked down her face and passed over her slightly parted mouth. It stopped still for a few seconds and then continued down on to her shoulder and then disappeared over the back of the couch. I waited for over an hour for Mum to return. While I was waiting, Bruce showed up, out of the blue, and talked to me about dolphins. It was a very good subject for Bruce to choose. I’d seen a show about them on television the week before and I was absolutely fascinated by the creatures.

I continue sorting through my record collection, searching for something fitting to play. There’s something about Bruce that has been niggling away at me lately: the whole time I’ve known him, he’s stayed the same age. Also, he always wears the same peculiar clothes. He sports a sloppy striped jumper and brown corduroy jeans. And they might get dirty while we’re doing something together, but the next time he shows up, they’ll be pristine. The colour never fades from his clothes – or from his character.

‘Earth to Stan. Come in, Stan. What’re you gonna play, man?’ Bruce taps on my forehead with his index finger.

‘I don’t know. Unfortunately, I don’t have any music related to killing fathers!’ Bruce appreciates dark humour. Sometimes, one side of his mouth turns up and his eyes twinkle, resulting in an expression of demented satisfaction. The first time I ever saw that expression, it scared the shit out of me. Bruce had laughed so hard at my reaction that he’d scared me even more.

I put The Smiths’
Hatful of Hollow
on the turntable. I love the act of pulling a record from its sleeve and carefully placing it on the rubber mat. I love the initial contact of the needle with the record. ‘How Soon Is Now?’ saturates my bedroom, drowning out all present concerns. Bruce and I sit on the edge of the bed. We sing along with Morrissey and wallow in the melancholy.

Rhonda Parker is going to be at the school social tonight. I’ll make eye contact with her, engage in flirtatious conversation with her and eventually kiss her – gently and passionately like there’s no tomorrow. That’s my genius plan, anyway. If I can keep my nervous twitch from surfacing, I might just be able to carry it off.

I rub some gel into my hands and smooth it through my hair. I want my hair to look as sexy as possible. I know what girls like – they like that I’ve-just-been-working-on-my-car look. You have to have a fringe that hangs down near your cheekbone, obscuring an eye every now and then. They love that shit. I also, fortunately, have a pretty good idea about what they like in clothes. I figure they love a guy’s skinny hips just as much as we love their child-bearing ones, so I always accentuate my hips by wearing a thick belt with a classic silver buckle. It helps, too, if you jam a thumb in behind your belt and let your hand hang loosely down while you’re casually standing around. It draws attention to a certain area of the male physique that girls can’t resist. I wear black stovepipes that run right down to my ankles and my Winklepickers turn up slightly at the toes. Last year, a girl named Mandy O’Connor had a crush on me. She told me that whenever she saw me walking around in my Winklepickers, I reminded her of a pixie in a strange land. I thought that was kind of cool. It made me feel different, and, for some time after that, whenever I slipped on my Winklepickers, I felt like I was slipping into a cooler, more carefree version of myself.

Mandy was cool. We made out heaps. She was a great kisser. But, for some reason, I just lost interest in her. It was like this switch was on and all of a sudden it got switched off. She thought I was a cold bastard and she couldn’t understand how someone’s feelings could change overnight. I didn’t really understand it, either. When I told her that we could still be friends, she poked her tongue out at me and stormed off.

Mum comes into the bathroom, unannounced. Privacy is something that doesn’t exist in this household, but I’ve learned not to complain about it. I’ve complained about it in the past, only to have absurd, accusatory questions flung at me: ‘What have you got to hide?’, ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’, ‘What do you need to do behind closed doors? God sees all, anyway. Just remember that.’