~~~
Colin and I were in our final year of primary school. We had begun to play for a team at the local soccer club. A teacher called Mr Cronin, whose love of soccer was well known, and who was a friend of a coach at the club, had come into our classroom one day and asked if anyone would like to play for its under-13 team. No-one responded at first. Most of the boys in the class preferred hurling. Looking around, he recognised Colin, and said, ‘Why don’t you give it a go, Colin? You’d do very well for them.’ He was aware of Colin’s liking for rugby, and his years of training sports teams had taught him that a boy who had an aptitude for one sport would be able to learn the essentials of another without much difficulty. Colin quietly agreed to attend the team’s first training session, without seeming flattered by the individual attention Mr Cronin had paid to him. I no longer played hurling. I was not much better at soccer, but I was envious of Colin, and I still craved success, and the admiration of others, though I was not willing to work for them. To me Colin seemed incomprehensibly privileged, a member of an elite group of boys to which I yearned to belong. In reality, to a mature observer, the contrast between his humility and my anxious, amoral egoism was probably striking. I did not tell Mr Cronin that I wanted to play for the team, but later I asked Colin if I could accompany him to the training session, and he agreed.
As we were changing in the clubhouse I noticed a boy called William, whom I recognised from school, looking at me curiously. He asked me, ‘How come none of the nerds have ever snogged anyone?’ He spoke with a thick city accent and I could not understand what he was saying.
I said ‘What?’ and he repeated the question. When I said ‘What?’ for the second time he turned away from me scornfully and put the same question to Colin.
Colin replied, ‘I don’t know,’ quietly and sadly. I do not know if he was tempted to lie, and say that he had, but I knew that I would have been if I had understood the question, that I would have been unable to resist the temptation, that my dishonesty would have been obvious, and I was relieved that my incomprehension had saved me.
Our trainer’s name was Austin. He was short and bald and had a moustache, wore thick glasses and smoked in the changing room, during training sessions and matches. I heard one of the boys say that his older brother’s friends had once found pornographic magazines in Austin’s car.
Our first match was on a sunny day, against a team whose pitch was on the island in the centre of the city. This area had a bad reputation, and there was childish excitement in the cars on the way to the match. When we arrived we saw young men on horses, and broken glass near the edges of the pitch. Austin chose me to start and handed me a blue and white shirt with 8 on its back. During the match I felt lethargic and did not once break into a run. I hardly touched the ball and my few passes were weak and inaccurate. I remember the father of one of my team-mates shouting ‘Wake up, number 8!’ from the sideline. I was substituted shortly afterwards. With the other boys who were not playing, I wandered away from the pitch towards the river, still wearing the blue-and-white kit. A few yards further along the bank a man stood fishing. Idly we began to throw stones into the water, knowing that this would scare away the fish. The man shouted ‘Fuck off!’ at us.
When we returned to the pitch our team had lost 6–1. The referee was standing by his car, viciously cursing a group of local boys who had threatened to damage it. He seemed used to having to defend himself and his property. As I was changing at the edge of the pitch, one of the boys walked behind me. Instinctively I turned so that I could see my possessions on the ground. The boy, who was older and taller than I was, said, ‘Don’t worry, kid, I’m not a thief at all.’
I told my mother about the football team and she bought me a new pair of Hi-Tec boots. They were black with blue and white markings, and I was mesmerised by their cleanness and brightness. Among the noise in the changing room before our next training session, Colin admired them, and I felt pride. Austin entered the room just as a boy called David complained loudly, ‘My hands are freezing!’ Austin approached David, bent and whispered to him. David burst into scandalised laughter as Austin resumed walking and left the room by another door. The other boys demanded to know what he had said.
‘He said, “Stick them down your pants and they won’t be long warming up!”’
I was not chosen to start our next few matches, which we lost. On a Saturday afternoon in Spring a young man called Pa introduced himself to us, and told us that he was replacing Austin as our trainer. He had never seen us play. In the changing room before the match, I was being mocked noisily. Pa came in and announced the team by pointing to each player and telling him his position. He pointed to me and said, ‘Left-back.’ When he had finished he left the room, which remained silent. I said nothing but felt a great relief. My confidence had been boosted and I played better than I usually did. We drew the match. Later Colin told me that Pa had asked him before announcing the team if I was any good, and he had told him that I was.
Our performances improved but we continued to lose matches. Pa became frustrated by our inability to pass the ball to each other accurately. At the start of one training session he divided us into two lines facing each other. The boy at the front of one line passed the ball to the boy at the front of the other, and then moved to the back of the line so that the next boy could receive the return pass.
Pa sometimes picked me to start matches, and sometimes used me as a substitute. At half-time in one match he said to me ‘You’re giving your man a start on goal. You’re catching him all right, but it’d be easier if you stayed goal-side of him.’ I took this not as a criticism, but as an acknowledgment of my speed, and I was pleased by it. Colin became annoyed by the lack of aggression in my play, and told me that my goal for the season should be to get a yellow card.
Our last match took place on a beautiful day in June, near the end of the school year, on a new, smooth pitch near the university. I wanted to live in a neighbourhood like this one, the life of which I imagined to be different to the one I knew. The other team scored early in the match. As they celebrated I noticed my team-mates and trainer looking at me with exasperation. Colin told me that I had played the goal scorer onside. Shortly afterwards, as an opponent was about to sprint away from me with the ball, I tapped him on the heels with my boot, and he fell over. The referee gave a free-kick against me, but did not book me. I noticed a strange feeling of liberation in myself, and I began to sprint up the pitch whenever I received the ball. Every time I approached the other team’s penalty box I became hesitant and passed to a team-mate. Colin equalised a few minutes from the end, and we celebrated wildly.
There were not enough cars so we had to get home by ourselves. As we left the pitch and wandered towards the bus-stop we talked about our plans for the summer, and the secondary schools we would begin to attend the following autumn. Colin and I were being sent to different schools. I did not know when I would see my team-mates again. It occurred to me that this group of boys would never again play together, nor ever live together, in this neighbourhood. If I had mentioned this fact to them they would probably have considered it obvious and uninteresting, and they would have been puzzled and scornful, but for a moment it caused me an extraordinary sadness, a sadness which was also an exquisite pleasure, and which I assumed would characterise the entire summer.
Wednesday 15 May 2013
Hero Comes Home
Mark Fowler
Magill, ACT
Mikey called and insisted he march
But Mikey liked to remember the hero things of later life, not
The real Binh Ba.
The smoke and confusion,
the screams,
the fear and the loathing,
the innocent,
All bloodied and broken discarded dolls.
Mikey called and insisted he march
For the boys, in their memory, afterwards raise a glass at the RSL.
Not to Binh Ba.
The
fetid smell
of three generations
who cried
leave us in peace;
And lost all in one morning of madness.
Mikey called and insisted he march
For the people, for the people to remember and be proud.
Not to remember Binh Ba.
But to feel
some vague notion of hero,
of fearless men
who saved us
From the threat of small men in black pyjamas
Mikey called and said he’d march
To spite the peaceniks and to teach the new generations
Not about Binh Ba.
But of
national pride,
gratitude for freedom,
and memories
of our contribution
To a war no one really wanted or needed to fight
But, when Mikey called to get him to march
Mikey forgot he’d finished it last year, thirty five years it ate him.
Binh Ba,
Still there it was,
those discarded dolls
pointing accusingly
at the shiny medals
Which jangled on his chest as the crowds waived gaily.
Wednesday 15 May 2013 4 pm
Envy Of Aging Begonia (A Voyage Of Beginning)
James Craib
Wentworth Falls, NSW
I’m beginning a voyage of discovery of the labyrinth of my internal mind,
expecting to find, there’s really nothing there but empty space.
Every night in the endless cosmos of my head, I’m trying to locate the thread
of where I came from: the spark beyond; the elusive trace.
Some might view this as a symptom of madness, sadness, of a deep psychosis,
perhaps it’s another by-product of the scoliosis that entraps and inflicts me.
If what Eastern Religion tells us is true, then reincarnation is on the cards,
but ... haven’t I already done the hard yards? Nirvana is strictly ...
For the Buddhists? Perhaps, a devotee could explain it better than me: a jester,
the arch agnostic, the eternal cynic trying desperately to mimic sages.
Down history’s pages greater intellects than I have grappled with the enigma of being,
whether a whale, an insect, a python or plankton; begorrah, even a begonia ages ...
Withers, dies and fades away. But are they ever bedevilled of thoughts of the sublime?
They’ve no concept of crime or time only survival; would they call it instinct, intuition?
They have no need of institutions or the Bible; only the zoos and other facilities
where we process all fauna, flora to our needs. Even the seeds we take for nutrition!
I’ve just returned from an exercise session – a voyage of beginning each week
and each week I’m becoming weaker; is this just futility as well?
A bomb explodes in Boston and again I’m lost in contemplation of the fragility of life;
perhaps it would be for the best to escape with my wife to the coast, not be a ghost in hell!
In a few more days I shall be the same age as my father when he died; of course
he lied to himself, saying ‘I’m fine, nothing wrong with my health; just pour me a beer!’
But cigars, grog and fatty food and salt clogged his arteries but latterly, I’m thinking,
‘What does it matter?’ Give yourself over to absolute pleasure – what use to shed further tears?
And what of my son who has ‘run’ away from his family; apparently, familiarity
breeds contempt, as the old saying goes, and so, we sail the calmer seas of ambiguity.
It’s so easy to be wise with hindsight and I’m not blind to the mistakes I made,
and the passing parade makes me melancholic, though non alcoholic; I espouse continuity.
Autumn is here and winter draws near and begonias begin their time of hibernation;
(the tuberous variety that is). No qualms are found, their ‘feet’ in the ground: bliss!
I’ve not kissed the Blarney stone but we’ve been to the castle – is travel an option these
days of uncertainty? Eternity beckons in the depths of unconsciousness; safe in the abyss.
Thursday 16 May 2013
The Punter
Bob Edgar
Wentworth Falls, NSW
‘When my ship comes in,’ is the gambler’s pipe dream. ‘I will pay all our debts ... when my ship comes in. I will set up the kid’s education expenses ... when my ship comes in.’ The elusive pot of gold at the end of the final stretch is always there, in the gambler’s imagination.
Louie Brohman had chased rainbows for years craving that pot of gold. He was now out of breath, out of money, and almost out of hope.
Louie sat slumped on the floor of the only betting shop that would still take his bets. He cradled his head in his hands and made a silent promise. He promised himself he would never gamble again, if he could just have one big win. An illusionary prayer perhaps.
The door of the betting shop opened allowing a whiff of fresh air into the smoke filled den. Louie’s eyes were drawn to the door frame to see a priest illuminated against the invasive sunlight. The priest’s robes brushed Louie’s face as he made his way to the betting window.
‘I wish to place a wager,’ the Father whispered.
The bookie’s clerk politely stared at the priest for a full five seconds.
‘Could you elaborate your holiness, as I am not cognitive to the thoughts of the celestial beings among us mere mortals.’
‘I wish to place a sum of 10,000 pounds on the result that the Pope will die within the space of three days.’
The clerk was stunned, as was evidenced by his silence and his gaping mouth.
‘I also wish to know the odds of such a wager.’
‘Excuse me, I’ll just get the boss,’ the excited clerk said as he scurried to a back room.
Ten minutes passed before a serious looking man in a pin striped suit emerged from the business end of the betting shop.
‘Father ...?’
‘I am Father Hennessy and I wish to make a wager.’
‘Yes Father, my colleague has informed me of your desire. You want to wager that the Pope will die of natural causes within the period of three days. We have run the usual checks on the Pope’s health and immediate itinerary and find nothing untoward.’
‘Then I may place the wager?’
‘Yes of course, if you accept these generous odds then we will accept your 10,000 pounds.’
The transaction completed, Father Hennessy swept his robes around his body and made for the door.
Louie Brohman had not heard a word of the conversation between the priest and the bookie; however, he gripped the priest’s robes and pleaded.
‘Father forgive me for I am not worthy of your blessing. I have lost all my possessions to gambling, I am at the crossroads of my life. My children’s education savings is all we have left. I will never gamble again if I can have just one life saving payout.’
Father Hennessy looked down on Louie, placed his hand on his forehead and said, ‘Withdraw your savings my son, and wager the lot on the result of the Pope dying within three days’ time. Insist on the odds of 30,000 to one.’
Two days passed and the bookie was still smiling. On the morning of the third day the newspapers of the world bellowed the headlines:
POPE DEAD
The ensuing story told of the Pope dying of a massive heart attack, brought on by the result of a football match. Upon hearing of his favourite team, Notre Dame, being beaten 136 to nil by the New York Devils, he dutifully dropped dead.
The following morning Father Hennessy entered the betting shop and collected his cheque from the mute bookie.
Making his way to the door the priest saw Louie sitting among the cigarette butts and sobbing into a half eaten pie.
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‘What on earth, my good man!? Didn’t you place the wager on the Pope as I instructed?’
‘Yes Father, I did, and I collected a fortune. Then placed the lot on the Archbishop of Canterbury in the daily double!’
Friday 17 May 2013
Five Easel Pieces
Judith Bruton
Lennox Head, NSW
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he (she) grows up.