‘Hey, that’s out of line!’ Sabrina snaps.
Mason is jogging towards us, Brick and Jack not far behind.
‘Hey, ease up, Fudgy,’ Mason calls. ‘Not cool to say that to a girl, ay.’
And that’s the moment I really lose it. Suddenly I am shrieking like a maniac – screaming my goddamn head off – not at Sabrina but at Mason, at Brick, at Jack, all of them.Don’t fucken call me Fudgy! Don’t tell me what to do! Everyone needs to stop telling me how to live my goddamn life! Everyone leave me the FUCK alone!
Everyone’s faces are the same: totally thrown to see quiet little Zekey boy go ballistic.
It’s Jack who ends up wrestling me back from the others, muttering something apologetic to Sabrina before hauling me towards the clubrooms, grunting in my ear that I need to calm down or he’ll deck me. He’s much stronger than me and I can’t do shit about getting out of his grip. We stumble across the oval awkwardly until we reach the clubrooms, and Jack shoves me roughly inside before him.
I march behind the bar, into the back kitchen area where we keep our grog in the Coolies fridges, and scream incoherently until my throat feels like it’s bleeding.
My nervous breakdown, if that’s what it is, lasts for about ten minutes, which is actually a very long time to be screaming like apsycho. I am totally unhinged for those ten minutes. I shout every curse word – in English and Italian – while Jack watches on, his arms folded like a nightclub bouncer. He’s blocking the door, preventing me from getting out, but doing nothing to intervene. He just watches as I kick empty beer cartons and throw cans across the room and punch the face-brick walls until skin comes off my knuckles and they bleed.
Everything swirls into a psychedelic cacophony in my mind’s eye. My parents crucifying me for my porn habits years ago. The priest judging me. Robbie’s wedding. Hammer. Matt. Charlie and me fighting at the hostel. The Geraldton Airport. Sabrina. My Tom of Finland poster. My parents, again. Charlie, again. Hammer, again. Everything so fucked in my life, over and over, and I never let myself show any anger about it.
Until now.
When the fury peters out, I wind up slumped against the wall behind the bar, beside a mop I threw in my rage. I have tears on my cheeks but no memory of crying them.
Jack lumbers into the back area, opens the fridge, pulls out two bourbons and slides down onto the floor beside me, handing me a can. ‘Well, that bloody needed to come out, didn’t it?’ he says, eyes bulging. ‘Here.’
He cracks both bourbons, hands one to me, and takes a sip of the other one.
I don’t like the sour sting of bourbon and I don’t think alcohol is correct treatment for a rage episode, but I drink it anyway. The raw nerve that is my soul slowly numbs out as the warmth of the Woodstock springs to my cheeks.
‘Fuck,’ I say. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’
Jack nods slowly, eyes still bulging. ‘Mate, I don’t think anyone can believe you just did that. You’re not okay.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I admit.
My molten anger cools into sadness, and the sadness solidifies into humiliation. I can’t believe everyone saw me in that state. Sabrina. Jack. Brick. All the footy boys. Everyone knows I’m fucked in the head now.
I am mortified. I can never come back here.
‘I feel like an idiot,’ I mutter. ‘Is Sabrina okay?’
Jack glances at his phone. ‘I think Brick checked in with her. She’s gone home.’
‘I can’t believe I lost it at her like that,’ I admit.
Jack grunts. ‘To be honest bro, I got the feeling you weren’t just losing it at her.’
He might not be quite as dumb as I’ve imagined. I know it was about more than Sabrina. And my fury was incoherent: I remember telling the others not to call me Fudgy, and I have no idea why. I was so happy to have a nickname. ‘The boys okay?’
‘They’re training. They’ll shrug it off. You’re the one I’m worried about. That was a long time coming, ay?’
I nod. ‘Like my whole life’s worth of anger at once.’
‘No shit,’ Jack analyses. ‘I know what it’s like, ya know. Being a wog who’s into blokes. Everyone’s judgy, wants to fix ya, control ya. You go arse-over-tits trying to please ’em and end up wreckin’ yaself in the process. Sound about right?’
I nod and knock back more bourbon. ‘Nailed it,’ I say. ‘How’d you deal with it?’
Jack snorts. ‘I didn’t. Told ’em all to get fucked instead.’ He shadowboxes the air. ‘Ouss ouss. Nobody fucks with Jack Brolo.’ He chuckles. ‘Wasn’t easy to do, but I’m about a billion times happier now.’
‘I wish I was like you, Jack,’ I admit. The guy has seen snot coming out of my nose as I shout-sobbed, so we’re past the point of me worrying about seeming pathetic.
