Christos Tsiolkas - Barracuda

Carlo’s skin is the tint of the last days of a leaf in late autumn, the dark of ground just touched by rain. Carlo has skin the colour of the earth.

Luke doesn’t know how to say goodbye to me, he doesn’t know how to sit in silence. This is something I can teach him.

‘Mate, I’m really glad you came.’

I am shocked to see that his eyes are moist, stunned that he is trying to fight back tears. This is how my mother’s eyes are when she comes to visit me. My father has come once and his eyes were dry. My mum talked, she talked and talked, and my father remained silent. I won’t let them bring Regan or Theo here.

‘Danny, it’s nothing. It was great to see you. I’m going to come again.’

‘It won’t be long till I’m out.’

And it won’t be, just a few months. Luke nods at this as if it is the best news in all the world. But I am terrified at the thought of it. There are no libraries for me in the world he knows, no bells to announce morning or lunch or supper or bed. There is no Carlo in Luke’s world.

Carlo won’t be eligible for parole for another five years. I could bash someone, I could hit a screw, I could kill a screw, and then I could stay here. But I won’t, and neither will I wait for him. I’m the kind of man he would despise, he would hate me with a delirious fury in the world outside of here. And I won’t hit or maim or kill, because I have promised myself never to hit or strike or hurt anyone again. But to do that I have to remain outside of the world. This is what terrifies me most about stepping out into the sun again. I have to find the subterranean world once I am out. I have to find the world without sun.

‘There’s no sun here.’

Of course Luke is startled, he doesn’t understand.

I try to explain. ‘Even in the yard, when it’s day, when the sun is shining and the sky’s blue, I don’t believe it is the real sun. It’s another sun altogether.’ These words only make Luke sadder but I am glad that I have worked them through, that I have revealed the truth to myself. I am in another solar system, another galaxy. That is where I am.

Luke doesn’t know what to do as he takes leave of me. He doesn’t know whether he is allowed to shake my hand, to hug me, to give me a high-five — what is it we do now we are adults? Should he kiss me on both cheeks? I mumble something again about being glad he came and he mumbles something back about it being the least he can do. The formality of our words makes both of us chuckle, and I am reminded suddenly of the nerdy shy boy back in school. We don’t hug, we don’t kiss. We shake hands. We bid farewell chastely.

That night, in my cell, I listen to Kyle wank, his tugs so frenetic that the bunk bashes and shakes against the brick wall. He gulps as he comes; I hear the brush of his wet hand against the blanket and in seconds he is snoring. Only then do I start to bring myself off. I am lying on my front; it is still far too painful to be on my back. I am pushing into the mattress, I am thinking of Luke but it is Carlo’s cock I am imagining inside me. It is always painful, it will always be excruciating for me the moment I am opened up, torn into. I wonder if it is the same for women, whether women always feel this pain when they are fucked? Or is it only in sodomy that pain and pleasure are so linked, so inextricable?

I have the last piece of tissue in my mouth. I am tasting Carlo, he is fucking me, and I am seeing Luke, his legs around me, coiled around me, I am fucking him . I shiver as I ejaculate, the warm fluid spreads across my thighs, dampens the sheet. I swallow the tissue. I lie on my front and as the pleasure drains away I am conscious only of the throbbing from both shoulder blades. The pain keeps me awake, and as I adjust to it, it also leads me to sleep.

It cost me a week’s pay from the money I make working in the kitchens. It cost me that and nothing more. Angus the tattooist is awed and nervous around Carlo: he is respected and feared, my lover, my protector.

Angus broke open a biro and carefully dripped the ink into a cup. ‘So what am I doing for ya?’

‘I want two scars, one on each of my shoulder blades.’

He shrugged in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Two scars,’ I repeated, ‘for where my wings used to be, where my wings were torn away from me.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded, getting it now, flicking his lighter and caressing the needle with the blue flame. I didn’t have to tell him anything else, he understood. We share the same false sun.

There was no light, only black night, no moon, no sound except for the burr from the alarm. Dan abandoned his dreams, willed himself awake, pressing the off button and fighting the warm inertia trying to drag him back to sleep. Feet on the carpet , he ordered himself, and with that he slipped off his underpants, drowsily searched the drawer for a new pair and put that on with yesterday's trackpants and long-sleeved shirt. Except for the illuminated red numerals of the digital clock, all was black night. He opened his bedroom door.

In the corridor he could hear Theo's short, sharp snores; a floorboard cracked and shuddered under his soft step. He was holding his sneakers and stuffed his socks in his trackpants pocket. He crept through the lounge room and into the kitchen, drank a glass of water and munched a banana, all still in black night. In the bathroom he squeezed paste onto his toothbrush, then up and down three times on the left, up and down three times on the right, up and down three times on the bottom left, and up and down three times on the bottom right, scrubbed the bristles to the back of his mouth once twice thrice, and gargled, rinsed and spat.

He was nearly at the door when his mother called from the front bedroom, 'Danny, is that you?'

Dan was still, one hand clutching his sneakers, the other hand at the door. 'Yeah, Mum,' he whispered. 'I'm just going for a run.' Don't get up, please don't get up.

There was only comforting silence and he opened the door and was out into the night. The birds were just starting their song and dawn was about to break.

He had an hour till six-fifteen, when Boon would be waiting for him in the car park at Keon Park station, where they always met. Dan put on his socks and sneakers, tied the laces tight. He breathed in, he breathed out, and started to run.

In five minutes he'd crossed Cheddar Road, and in ten minutes he was at the creek and the night was fading and the chorus of birds was getting louder. Dan wasn't thinking, he was only motion. The sweat had banished the cold and he could smell the pungent yeasty tang of himself as he increased his pace and followed the path, which was overgrown with thistles and weeds, but he didn't falter or break step as he coursed up a hill past warehouses and factories, running past people on their way to work. The morning didn't smell of himself anymore, nor of the rotting world of the creek; now it was the acrid and sour human-made stink of chemicals. Breathing and running, he could almost pretend he was flying, that he could fly past the smells and the shadows, but just as he thought that, his steps faltered and his pace slowed, for he was thinking: this is not flying.

And then thoughts came, and would not stop, and the pain returned, he could feel it in the heel of his left foot, in the right side of his body, it tightened around his heart and his lungs. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep running, but the thoughts wouldn't stop, of how this was not flying and how it was her birthday tomorrow. Martin had told him it was her birthday and he couldn't think of a present, it had to be something special but he did not know what she had and he did not know what she would want and he could not bear the thought that she might think his gift ugly or silly or stupid, but she probably would. The pain was now cutting into him, his breath was catching and Keon Park station was still fifteen minutes away. Should he get her music? But he didn't know music. Should he get her a book? But he was sure she had read everything. The ache was now ever-present, in his toes and at his heels, in his belly and in his head, and Keon Park station was ten minutes away and he could ask Martin what she might want and what she didn't have but he knew that Taylor would just laugh.