Chapter 6
“Bloody hell.”
The phone’s been cut off because we don’t have the money to pay the bill. Or really, Mum and Dad don’t have the money to pay it. Steve or Sarah could pay, but there’s no way. It’s not allowed. It isn’t even considered.
“Well, up this, then,” Steve rips through the kitchen air. “I’m movin’ out. Soon as possible.”
“Then they miss y’ board money,” Sarah tells him.
“So what? If they wanna suffer they can do it without me watchin’.” It’s fair enough.
As well as being fair enough, it’s Monday night, and it’s close to seven. This is not good. This is very not good. Very not good at all.
“Oh no,” I say across to Rube. He’s warming his hands above the toaster. This means we can’t use the phone in Sarah’s room to ring Perry. “Hey Rube.”
“What?” His toast pops up.
“The phone.”
He realizes.
He says, “Bloody typical. Is this house useless or what?” and the toast is forgotten.
We go next door with Perry’s number in Rube’s pocket. No one home.
We go the other side. The same.
So Rube runs into our house, flogs forty cents out of Steve’s wallet, and we take off. It’s ten to seven. “You know where there’s a public phone?” Rube talks between strides. We pant. This is close to a sprint.
“Trust me,” I assure him. I know about phone boxes in this district.
I sniff one out and we find it hunched in the darkness of a side street.
It’s bang on seven when we ring.
“You’re late,” are Perry’s first words. “I don’t like being kept waiting.”
“Calm down,” Rube tells him. “Our phone got cut and we just ran close to three Ks to get here. Besides, my watch says seven sharp.”
“Okay, okay. Is that y’ breathing I can hear?”
“I told you, we just ran nearly.”
“All right.” Business. “Are you in or out?”
Rube.
Me.
Heartbeat.
Breath.
Heart
Voice.
“In.”
“Both of y’s?” A nod.
“Yeah,” Rube states, and we can feel Perry smiling through the phone line.
“Good,” he says. “Now listen. Y’ first fights won’t be this week. They’ll be the week after, out at Maroubra. First though, we gotta get some things organized. I’ll tell y’s what y’ need and we’ve gotta give you some hype. Y’ need names. Y’ need gloves. We’ll talk about it. Can I come over again or do y’s wanna meet somewhere else?”
“Central,” is Rube’s suggestion. “Our old man might be home and that won’t be apples.”
“Okay. Central it is. Tomorrow, four o’clock. Down at Eddy Avenue, where it leads into Belmore Park.”
“Sounds good.”
“Good.”
It’s settled.
“Welcome,” is Perry’s final word, and the phone runs dead. We’re in. We’re in and it’s final.
We’re in and it’s final, because if we back out now, we’ll probably end up at the bottom of the harbor. Down near the oil spill, in garbage bags. Well, that’s exaggerating, of course, but who knows? Who knows what kind of seedy world we’ve just entered? Our only knowledge is that we can make money, and maybe some self-respect.
As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenaline still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We’ve still been running in the mornings, but the city’s different then. It’s filled with hope and with bristles of winter sunshine. In the evening, it’s like it dies, waiting to be born again the next morning. I see a dead starling as we walk. It’s next to a beer bottle in the gutter. Both are empty of soul, and we can only walk by in silence, watching people who watch us, ignoring people who ignore us, and Rube growling at people who attempt to force us from the footpath. Our eyes are large and rimmed with awake-ness. Our ears detect every opened-up sound. We smell the impact of traffic and humans. Humans and traffic. Back and forth. We taste our moment, swallowing it, knowing it. We feel our nerves twitching inside our stomachs, lunging at our skin from beneath.
When morning slits across the horizon the following day, we have already been running for a while. As we do so, Rube discusses a few things with me. He wants a punching bag. He wants a skipping rope. He wants more speed and another pair of gloves so we can fight properly for practice. He wants headgear so we don’t kill each other doing it. He wants.
He wants hard.
He runs and there is purpose in his feet, and there’s hunger in his eyes and desire in his voice. I’ve never seen him like this. Like he wants so savagely to be some and to fight for it.
When we get home, sunshine splashes across his face. Again. A collision.
He says, “We’re gonna do it, Cam.” He is serious and solemn. “We’re gonna get there, and for once, we’re gonna win. We’re not leavin’ without winning.” He’s leaning on the gate. He crouches. He buries his face into the horizontal paling. Fingers in the wire. Then, a shock, because when he turns his head back up to look at me, there’s a tear dangling from his eye. It edges down his face and his voice is smothered with his hunger. He says, “We can’t accept bein’ just us anymore. We’ve gotta lift. Gotta be more … I mean, check Mum out. Killin’ herself. Dad down and out. Steve just about moved and gone. Sarah gettin’ called a slut.” He tightens his fist in the wire and explains it through half-clenched teeth. “So now it’s us. It’s simple. We’ve gotta lift. Gotta get our self-bloody-respect back.” “Can we?” I ask.
“We’ve gotta. We will.” He stands and grabs me by the front of my jersey, right at my heart. He says, “I’m Ruben Wolfe,” and he says it hard. He throws the words into my face. “And you’re Cameron Wolfe. That’s gotta start meaning somethin’, boy. That’s gotta start churnin’ inside us, making us wanna be someone for those names, and not be just another couple of guys who amounted to nothin’ but what people said we would. No way. We’re gettin’ out of that. We have to. We’re gonna crawl and moan and fight and bite and bark at anything that gets in our way or tries to hunt us down and shoot us. All right?”
“Okay.” I nod.
“Good,” and to my dismay, Rube leans on my shoulder with his forearm and we stare onto the morning street of black light and glinting cars. I feel that we’re together to face whatever falls down around us, and it staggers me for a moment that Rube has grown up (even though he’s a year older than me). It staggers me that he wants and aches so hard. His final words are, “If we fail, we’re gonna blame us.”
We walk inside soon after, knowing he’s right. The only people we want to blame are ourselves, because it will be ourselves that we rely upon. We’re aware of it, and the knowing will always walk beside us, at the edge of each day, on the outskirts of each pulse in each heartbeat. We eat breakfast, but our hunger is not fed. It’s growing.
It grows even more when we meet Perry at Eddy Avenue, just like he told us. Four o’clock.
“Lads,” he greets us. He carries a small suitcase.
“Perry.”
“Hi Perry.”
We all walk together to a bench near the middle of the park. The bench has been slapped hard by the pigeons from above, so it’s a pretty dodgy place to be sitting. Not something you’d eat off. Still, it’s safer than some of the others, which the birds seem to recognize as their own public toilets.
“Check the state of this place,” Perry smirks. He’s the kind of guy who likes to sit in a scummy park and talk business. “It’s disgraceful,” though his smirk is now a full-blown smile. It’s a smile of diseased malice, friendliness, and happiness all rolled into one devastating concoction. He wears a flanno, rough jeans, old boots, and of course, that vicious smile of his. He looks for a place on the table to put the suitcase but settles for the ground.
A pause of silence arrives.
An old man comes to us asking for change.
Perry gives him some, but first he asks the poor old bloke a question.
He says, “Mate, what’s the capital of Switzerland, do y’ know?”
“Bern,” the old man replies, after some thought.
“Very good. However, my point is this.” He smiles again. Damn that smile. “In that country, once, they gathered up all the gypsies, whores, and drunken bums such as yourself, and they threw ‘em over the border. They got rid of every dirty swine that graced their precious land.”
“So?”
“So you’re an incredibly lucky drunken bum now, aren’t you? You not only get to stay in our fine land, but you also earn a living out of kindhearted people such as myself, and my colleagues here.”
“They didn’t give me anything.”
(We blew our last cash at the dog track the other day.)
“Certainly, but they didn’t throw you in the Pacific either now, did they?” He grins, evil. “They didn’t chuck you out there and tell you to start swimming.” He adds for good measure, “Like they should have.”
“You’re crazy.” The drunk begins to leave.
“Of course I am,” Perry calls after him. “I just gave you a dollar of my hard-earned wages.”
Yeah, right, I think. It’s money he earns from fighters.
The old man is already on to the next people — a grungy black-dressed couple with purple hair. They’ve got earrings stapled across their faces, and Docs on their feet.
“He oughta give them the buck now,” Rube observes, and I laugh. He’s about right, and as the old man lingers around the couple, I watch him. He has turned his life into the pocket scraps of other people. It’s sad.
It’s sad, but Perry has forgotten all about the man. He’s had his pleasure and is now strictly onto business.
“Right.” He points at me. “We’ll get you out of the way first. Here are your gloves and shorts. I thought about shoes but you’re not getting any. Neither of you are worth it, because I’t know how long you’ll last. I might get you some later, so wear your gymmies for now.”
“Fair enough.”
I take my gloves and shorts and like them.
They’re cheap, but I like them a lot. Blood-colored gloves and navy-blue shorts.
“Now.” Perry lights a cigarette and pulls a warm beer from the suitcase. Smokes and beer cans. He annoys me with that garbage, but I listen on. “We need to get you a name, for when you get introduced to the crowd before your fights. Any ideas?”
“The Wolf Man?” Rube suggests.
I shake my head.
Thinking.
It hits me.
Smiling.
I know. I nod. I say it. “The Underdog.”
I continue to smile as Perry’s face lights up and I watch old beggars and weirdos and city pigeons scouring the city floor for the sake of their lives.
Yes, Perry lights up, behind his smoke, and says, “Nice. I like it. Everyone loves an underdog. It appeals to them and even if y’ lose they’ll send some tips your way.” A laugh. “It’s better than nice. It’s flat-out perfect.”
No time-wasting though.
“Now,” he moves on. There’s a finger pointed at Rube. “You’re all sorted out. Here are y’ gloves an’ shorts.” Gray-blue gloves. Cheap. No laces. Just like mine. His shorts are black with gold rims. Nicer than mine. “You wanna know what name you’ve got?”
“Don’t I get a choice?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Y’ sorted out, that’s why. Tell y’ what, you’ll find out when you fight, okay?” “I s’pose.” “Say yes.” Forceful.
“Yes.”
“And say thank you, because when I’m done with you, the women’ll fall over you like dominoes.” Dominoes. What a tosser.
Rube obeys him. “Thank you.” “Right.”
Perry stands and leaves, suitcase by his side. He turns.
He says, “Let me remind you fellas that your first fight is next Sunday at Maroubra. I’ll take you there in my van. Be here at Eddy Avenue again at three o’clock sharp. Don’t make me wait or a bus’ll clean me up and I’ll clean the pair of you up. Okay?”
We nod.
He’s gone.
“Thanks for the gear,” I call, but Perry Cole is gone.
We sit there.
Gloves.
Shorts.
Park. City.
Hunger. Us.
“Damn it.”
“What, Rube?”
“It’s been annoyin’ me all day and night.”
“What?”
“I wanted to ask Perry if he could get his hands on a punching bag for us, and some of that other practice gear.”
“You don’t need a punching bag.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve got me.”
“Yeah.”
“Y’ didn’t have to agree.”
“I wanted to.”
A long pause …
“Are y’ scared, Rube?”
“No. I was before, but not anymore. Are you?”
“Yeah.”
There’s no point lying. I’m scared as hell. Scared crazy. I’m asylum scared. Straitjacket scared. Yes, I think it’s pretty much decided.
I’m scared.