They Told Me I Had to Write This (5 page)

Well, that group got pretty hot coz of the flak about not being picked in the races and Hamish said it was like waiting for his father to come and pick him up when it was his weekend but he never came. And I got really mad at his father doing that to him and you know what? Hamish got stuck into me for bagging out his dad. How weird is that? We’re in group together and he never bags anybody out.

His dad’s just like mine and he complains when I start saying it out in the open. Not only that, but he got so angry that he started crying and then everybody else just sat and stared at us. I was fighting off something inside myself but then it got a bit weird and it was like I knew what was going on inside him. We sat there and looked at each other and said nothing. There’s too many kids in this place with all the same problems.

So Mike, that’s Mr O’Neill, asked if there was something that somebody else wanted to say, but I was still running pretty hot. Some other kid said how his mum’s boyfriend is like a father figure and I went off about that and was yelling back at him that what this world needs is not more father figures but more fathers.

‘This world needs more proper dads,’ I yelled. And that shut him up, but it got others talking and some of them were as hot as I was.

How does that happen? Do they have a factory for making dads where the mechanics in one section keep taking sickies and every dad comes out with the same bit missing? I reckon there’s a bit that the factory puts in most dads that’s like a magnet that sticks to another magnet in his son. But in this particular factory they forget to put the magnet in the dad and the son has nothing to stick to no matter how hard he tries.

I didn’t think that up in the group. I really thought that up in maths class. Well, Mr Williams was going on yada yada yadaracious about stuff I’d never heard of. I can find my way anywhere out in the bush, but in maths I can hardly find the lowest common denominator. I reckon I come from a factory where they miss out the bit that makes numbers stay in order in the kid’s brain, that’s what I reckon. It’s a simile. Or is it an allegory? I don’t know what it is but it’s the truth, I tell you.

We got back on the bikes and took turns in this thing like in the Olympics where the leader peels off each lap and goes to the back and the second boy becomes leader and the next lap it is the same until everyone has had a turn. We had to keep as close as we dared to the bike in front and the leader had to set a pace as fast as he reckoned the pack could keep to without getting dangerous. And that is the hardest time on the track that I have ever had.

Afterwards Mike asked us to say what position was the easiest and the hardest. I could see where he was going with this one (bit of visual speak there. Did you see it sneak past?), which was that it was probably the hardest to be in front and that’s what a dad should be doing, being in front. But that was only in my head and I didn’t say it out loud coz of Clem the Clam.

Trouble is, that idea was not coming from anybody else and I might have got it wrong. I spoke up about the front man being like the dad but nobody thought that was what we were really doing here. So I had to really think about what Mike had asked us and he started us off again with the question.

Most of the kids thought it was hardest to be the middle. The frontrunner gets to choose the path and there is nobody in the way. The backmarker doesn’t have to think about anybody following him so he can be a bit slack. But in the middle you have to keep your eyes on the bike ahead and you have to remember that the bike behind might ram your wheel but you also have to be his leader.

And after all that Mike said, ‘So, what do you reckon is the dad position?’ Ha! I knew it. It’s a metaphor, Gram. There’s these dads and they are trying to follow how their dad and granddad did it. But they have to be leader to the son behind and the son might ram his dad’s back wheel if he gets too impatient.

I reckon that is one heavy trip and Mike knew all along what was going to happen. Anyway, Mike is OK for keeping us on the track when we missed getting in the race team.

Couldn’t believe it when he said it was time to get back coz the others would finish the BBQ. So we pumped those wheels like mad and we never cared who was leader or who was following and guess who was first back? You guessed it, not me, Hamish.

Hamish the romantic with the moon painting light and everything, but out on the tracks you should see him ride the flat stuff. I can beat him through the trees but he gets pumping like crazy on the fire trails and so he beat everyone back to where the races were just finishing up for the morning and they hadn’t even started up the BBQ yet.

We stood around a bit and I said to Hamish, ‘Sorry to stir you up out there.’

‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘You were right about my dad anyway. Could have done without getting so upset, but.’

Suddenly we were talking about girls. He’s got a one-track mind, that kid.

Your custom-made grandson, factory finished, limited warranty, ha ha.

Clem.

TUESDAY, JUNE 9

Dear Gram

Mostly I ride alone. My tyre tracks must be all over this place.

Was Mum that kind of person? Off by herself all the time? Even in the rain? Dad never says anything about her except to get mad at me. I reckon there’s this pile of questions that should come standard and get answered when you are born, and this is one of them. I wonder sometimes if I am like her or not. How can I tell?

Maybe the questions will go around and around in my head and never slow up until I die. I hope not.

When I was out riding last weekend I decided to take some of the fire trails through the national park. Sometimes there are other people there and last weekend I got stopped by the park ranger. He was riding a mountain bike and it was a beauty. Carbon fibre handlebars, full shockers, schmick looking disc brakes, and more gears than I could see without getting down and counting them.

Anyway he waved me down and I was a bit scared coz that’s never happened before. But he just asked, ‘How are you going, mate?’

I said, ‘OK.’

Then he asked, ‘You from round here?’

How could I answer that? I didn’t know if I should tell him I was from the school or not and I got stuck on that and he said, ‘Are you OK?’

I said, ‘Yeah I’m OK. I’m Clem and I’m from Rocky Valley.’

‘You’re pretty lucky to have that race track,’ he said. ‘I ride it sometimes and it’s a great track.’

‘You are lucky for having a job to ride a mountain bike around the national park.’

‘I love this job. I get to check the fire trails and make sure people don’t come in with cars or motorbikes.’ And we talked about his bike which has twenty-seven gears and those disc brakes were hydraulics.

I was nervous but that bloke was OK in the end. He only wanted to talk mountain bikes. I get edgy when other people ask who I am.

So I need to know what Mum was like. If I am like her then I probably don’t have to be like Dad. And you know what I don’t want more than anything? I mostly don’t want to be like Dad.

Thoughtful and lonely,

Clem.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10

Dear Gram

You know when I was little you were the only person I could talk with properly. I didn’t know it back then, but I know it now. I suppose that’s why, when the Rev reckoned I should write stuff, I started to write these letters to you.

What makes it so hard to talk to people anyway? I loved the way you listened back then. It was so good just to be a little kid with his gram. I would give anything to go back to being that all over again.

At this school people listen, most of them. I think I’ve even learned to listen a bit. What I mean is that sometimes I really get the feel of what another kid is saying, especially in group when we are all into the flow of it. Sometimes there is this buzz inside me and I’m glad to be there and I can talk easily and listen easily. And when that is happening I know that what I say is making sense and I understand what the others mean.

Sometimes though, Clem the Clam takes me over and I don’t want to talk. You know what I’ve figured out about that? I’ve figured out that I talk the best when I know that the other person cares about me, that’s what I’ve figured out, and nobody ever cared about me like you did. I remember one teacher way back somewhere who used to say that getting me to talk was like opening an oyster with a bus ticket. Well what I reckon is, you can open a clam with a bit of listening. My bit of talk for the day.

Clem.

FRIDAY, JUNE 12
THE FUNERAL, THE CLAM & THE BUS TICKET

Dear Gram

I’ve been thinking about the oyster and the bus ticket and that put me in mind of when they did the funeral for you and I didn’t go.

I just knew that I would have to talk to people and they would talk to me, or Dad would say something, or he wouldn’t say something, and I just didn’t know what to do or how to handle it. So we were getting dressed for the church and I picked a fight with Dad and when he was angry enough I went yelling out of the house and grabbed my bike and rode away from there until I was lost in the traffic. Didn’t even look back.

Dad must have been pretty worked up but I am only just starting to see it. I knew he would have to go to the funeral and not come after me. I sure left him carrying the can that day.

But what he didn’t know is that I rode around and around until I got to your place. And then I went into the backyard and hid my bike between the bushes and the shed and I climbed up into my tree house and hid there. And the funeral was happening and I wasn’t there.

I stayed in the tree house looking at the back door and I knew the time would come when you would call out for me to come in for tea like you always did. But you didn’t call. No matter how long I waited.

Dad came looking for me and was calling around the yard but I was not going to answer, no way, and then he kind of drooped onto the back step. He sat there looking up at the tree house for ages. I thought he must have seen me but I was in a war zone and I was not going to lose this one. When it finally got dark he left.

I knew that you wouldn’t come calling out for me but still I waited for you to do it. Nobody could see me crying and somehow I went to sleep until the cold woke me up in the dark. I sat and shivered until the morning when you always opened up the back door. I knew it wasn’t going to happen but I waited anyway.

When the time for opening the door was gone, I got down from the tree house and rode home and didn’t say anything to Dad. I knew that I was as closed up as an oyster and all Dad had was a bus ticket. That is why you didn’t see me at the funeral.

Three years later and I still hate myself.

Clem.

FRIDAY, JUNE 19

Dear Gram

It’s Friday night and I’m sitting here at home.

It’s not really home. It’s just a house and sometimes I’m here and sometimes Dad is here and sometimes we are both here. Even if we’re both here we don’t share the same space. How do I even get close?

So I’m sitting here waiting for some mercy to come my way. And it’s Friday night. How bad is that?

Anyway, I got this buzz of something inside me and I can’t make it sit still long enough to understand it. All I know is that here I am in Dad’s house and it’s not really my place and not really my time. Well, my time better not be too far off. And that’s it for Friday.

By now I must have a box full of bus tickets.

Clem the Thinking Clam.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20
INTER-GALACTIC SUPER-SATURDAY

Dear Gram

It’s Saturday night and I am hungry. Man-o-man, am I hungry. I’ve already cooked up three of those chicken things with the butter and garlic inside and I am still hungry.

That’s what love can do to you. Love, sweet love. Her name is Violet.

This morning I decided to wander around the shops coz Dad’s place is pretty boring. Perhaps I’ll see the Rev go past on his Aprilia with a little koala on the back. So I wandered around the plaza and I bought a smoothie. People everywhere in there and noise coming from all over, but all I could see was this one person sitting there in the smoothie bar. Violet. Long hair, soft and shiny. Eyes that I just wanted to look at. Saturday morning and there she was.