That’s when I realise the hysterical voice on the phone isn’t Curtis.
It’s Ahmed.
The man who died at two seventeen was Curtis.
24
TUNE-UP
HAMMER
Charlie loses it when he realises that Curtis bloke is dead. He flips out, like a psycho prick on a meth binge. Shouting and swearing, red in the face, kicks the wheelie table beside Zeke’s bed over, then yanks the blue hospital curtain clean off its railing.
That’s enough to make the security guards come running: they wrestle him out of the room and boot him outside. At the exit to the emergency department, the whole building hears Charlie loudly call one of the guards a fascist gronk.
‘Jesus,’ Zeke mutters. ‘Can you go make sure he’s okay?’
‘I wanna make sure you’re okay first,’ I say.
It just comes out: this little honest sentence after a lifetime of lying.
Zeke’s face goes all soft. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he insists. ‘Please, make sure Charlie’s not getting himself arrested.’
I jog along the yellow line that leads out into the lobby. The two security guards have their arms folded, guarding the entrance doors and watching Charlie at a distance. Charlie’s outside near the bus shelter, collapsed in the arms of that big tradie bloke, and the Arab guy, and two women. All five of them are in this weird sobbing group hug, trying to hold each other together.
I can’t bring myself to walk over. There’s nothing I can do to help. I don’t know them and I’d feel weird getting involved. The main thing is Charlie hasn’t landed himself in jail.
I head back to Zeke’s bed. He’s rubbing his eyes, crumpled tissues all over his lap.
‘Argh,’ he mutters, when I get to his bedside. ‘I think I loved Curtis. He was like a dad. He took me in. Not enough good people like that in the world, and now he’s gone.’
I scuff my sneaker on the beige hospital lino; it doesn’t leave a mark. Curtis talked to me too, yesterday after I left Zeke’s place. Maybe he was right.
We sit in a weird silence. Zeke cries on and off. I don’t wanna leave him alone, but I’m not sure what I can do. Some orderlies come and put up a fresh blue curtain around Zeke’s bed, sealing us off from the hospital: the two of us in a little bubble.
Zeke tells me about his drug-fuelled threesome gone wrong. He’s got no recall of me being the one who found him, and I don’t know how to bring that up. I just say I didn’t know he was the kind of guy who was into stuff like that. He tells me heisthat kind of guy. I’m a bit shocked. When we were at school together, he had something innocent about him, but it seems like the world’s beaten it out of him like a piñata.
I can’t help but wonder if I was the stick that cracked him and knocked all the lollies out. The longer he talks, the more guilty I feel.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurt out. ‘I shouldn’t have dogged you, man.’
‘Oh,’ Zeke says. ‘So, we’re gonna talk about it now, huh?’
I wanted to tell him this in Lancelin when I chickened out. I shift the plastic chair at an angle, so I’m facing the blue curtain. I can’t do this if I have to see his face.
‘Mate, I was scared,’ I tell him. ‘I shat my dacks the day you came back to school. I thought you were gone for good. I was back with Richelle. Then, bam, everyone’s talking in home room.Zeke Calogero’s back. There were all these crazy rumours, man. That you and Charlie were druggies. That you’d been a rent boy in Perth. That your parents locked you up in Graylands cos youhad a psychotic break. It didn’t matter if you pretended to be normal. Everyone knew you were a weirdo now. I was shitting meself you’d spill the beans about me, and my life would be over.’
‘You realise you’restillnot looking at me?’ Zeke snaps.
‘Just hard for me to talk about.’
‘No, fuck that, you’re a coward,’ Zeke says, full aggro now. ‘Turn around and face me. Have some fucking decency. Don’t ghost me for years and then rock up and what, pretend like you cared all along? Act like I actually exist to you, Kade. Look at me.’
I take a breath, turn my chair around, and look Zeke in the eyes. His eyes are fucken flamethrowers. His eyes want to incinerate me and the horse I rode in on.
‘Look—’
‘No, I’m talking now,’ Zeke snaps. ‘Kade, do you know what it was like being a fat woggy faggot in that town? My whole life I felt like this ugly thing nobody wanted to look at. I was like a tumour. I was like a mouse who got into the pantry. Every time I walked into a room I felt like everyone wished I would go away. All I wanted was for someone to look at me as I walked into a room as if they just saw something they liked. And the likeable thing, it would be me.
