Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

Another match struck, another cigarette lit.

‘He’s got a chance to be great, Neal. How can you deny your son the chance to achieve that?’

‘I just don’t think it’s fair. Regan is starting high school next year. What about her opportunities? Should we be sending all the kids to those kinds of schools? We couldn’t afford that, baby. How is that fair on Regan, how’s that fair on Theo?’

‘Danny will look after his sister and his brother. I have no doubt about that. He’s a good boy, Neal — you know he’ll do right by us, don’t you?’

Danny slowly exhaled. His mother understood.

He was waiting for his father’s answer.

‘That’s a pretty big burden to place on a young man’s shoulders.’

‘He’s going to be an Olympic champion. Don’t you get it? He’s going to be one of the greats.’

Danny held in his breath again. He had forgotten his full bladder; he was waiting for his father to agree.

‘Steph, baby, what if he isn’t good enough? What if he doesn’t make it?’

Danny crept back down the hall. He couldn’t go to the toilet now, they would hear him. He couldn’t bear for them to know that he had heard them. He softly shut the door to his room.

Danny gently pulled at the window. He winced as it gave with a thud. He was motionless, waiting. But the sound hadn’t carried, they hadn’t heard. A cold gust of wind struck his face. He stood on tiptoes, pulled down his jocks and let go. The stream of urine rattled the side fence, but he didn’t care anymore whether anyone heard. Steam rose from where the urine splashed on the fence palings. Finally, his bladder was empty and Danny carefully shut the window again.

It took an age for him to fall asleep. He had to count through the muscles in his body, tensing and relaxing, the way he’d been taught. He was supposed to clear his mind, but all he could think was how he was going to prove his father wrong. I am going to be the fastest and the strongest and the best and I am going to look after Mum and Regan and Theo, and I’m even going to look after you, you prick. Even you, you prick.

He breathed out.

He relaxed his shoulders, sank into the bed, pretending he was sinking into water. He was determined now, he was going to bring all the worlds together now. He breathed in. They were doing the right thing sending him to that school, they were doing the right thing supporting him. He owed them, he knew that. He owed them but it would be alright. He breathed out.

He fell asleep, knowing it would all be alright.

'I DUNN WANNA, I DUNN WANNA, I DUNN WANNA.'

He repeats it over and over, so many times I am no longer aware of the words; what I am listening to is the rhythm, as if the real meaning is in the fall and tumble and shape of the words. Maybe it is. Four years ago, after shooting up a gram of speed and drinking fifteen beers, Kevin tore his car up Burnley Street, Richmond, and lost control of the wheel when he tried to turn the corner into Highett Street. The car slammed into one of the thick-trunked elm trees that shroud that avenue. Kevin, who wasn't wearing his seatbelt, was thrown through the windscreen, his body flung onto the red-brick front fence of a house. It was on the fence that he cracked his head open. He was nineteen and he was lucky. When I first started working with him I was told that if he'd been wearing the seatbelt he would have been concertinaed with the car, reality becoming animation as it collapsed from three to two to one dimension. For the neighbour whose brick wall Kevin's head smashed onto, it must have sounded like an explosion.

'I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.' Kevin is standing in his shower recess, while I am trying to pull down his pants. He's shat and pissed himself. 'I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.' I try to get his pants out from underneath his feet, and the shit and the piss smear on my hands, my arms, my shirt. 'I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.'

'For fuck's sake, Kevin, stand still!'

The shouting works. I don't like doing it but yelling at him is the only thing that quietens him down. I know why he shouts, why he chants over and over and over, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I know all about that. You repeat, you repeat, you repeat to block out the shame, to block out the voice screaming at you, What a mess, what a monster, what a no-hoper, what a disgrace, what an idiot, what a fuckup, what an animal, what a douchebag, what a freak, what a loser, loser, loser, loser , the voice that won't stop, can't stop, that mocks and taunts and jeers and fills your head till you just repeat the words over and over and over to make them music, to make them rhythm, to make them just sound, bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam . The shame, like a piston ramming right into me; the memory of it flaying me, stripping the skin off me. The shame still cuts me in two, in four, in eight. I am hung and quartered and skewered on it.

'It's alright, Kevin, it's fine, mate, it's fine, I understand.'

'I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.' But the voice is getting quieter. I carefully guide his feet over the trousers, and he is naked, cupping his dick and balls in his hands.

'It's OK, Kevin, it's fine, mate. I'm just going to turn on the shower.'

The pipes knock, scream, and then the water cascades all over him. I grab the yellow sponge and scrub his body. I don't mind getting wet, it washes my shame away, as I rub his belly, his groin and his thighs. The shit turns runny as it swirls around the plug hole, turning liquid, disappearing till it is just clear water.

Kevin is silent now, Kevin is calm now. His cock is half-erect and he points at it.

'OK, mate, that's enough.' I turn off the water and start to rub him down. His cock is fully hard now and he can't stop chortling.

'I'm sor-ry, Dan.'

'That's OK.'

He sniffs, his face contorts. 'You. . you. . you smell, Da-Da-Dan.'

I finish drying him and then point to the door. 'Out. I have to shower too.'

I shower, quickly, scrub my skin. The rush of hot water on my back, it finally relaxes me.

My pants are fine, but my shirt is soiled. I find a plastic bag and place the soggy mess in it. I then search under the sink, find some disinfectant, a Chux, and finish cleaning up the bathroom.

When I go back to the living room, Kevin's sitting on the end of the sofa, drinking a beer and watching porn.

'Is it cool if I borrow one of your t-shirts?'

He is ignoring me, he's fascinated by the athletic contortions of the two women and the man on the screen.

I take a plain blue t-shirt from his room and put it on. I should be scolding him: You shouldn't drink, you know that. If you drink too much you'll lose control of your bladder and your bowels, you know that, Kevin.

There's no washing machine in Kevin's flat, so I put the bag of soiled clothes in the car boot for us to do later at the laundromat. I lock up and we begin the slow shuffle to the Sunshine Pool. Sometimes I have to remind him: this foot, I point, bring it forward; that foot, I point to the other, now move that one. This foot, that foot, we shuffle, we crawl, I catch his arm when he stumbles, we reach the pool.

He doesn't want me to undress him, he wants to do it himself. The smell of chlorine, of toilet soap, the humid air, the stripping bodies. I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.

At the pool a cheerful young man in Speedos takes Kevin's hand and starts pulling him away, trying to lead him to the shallow end.

'No. I–I-I wunn wunna, Dan.'

'Come on, Kevin. You know Sean is going to swim with you.'

'No.' Kevin pulls at my t-shirt, trying to get me to go with him. I don't budge. The chlorine is thick in my nose and in my mouth, the heat and the steam is seeping into me. I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna, I dunn wanna.