I don’t smile at her as I leave: my mouth turns down at the corners, because it’s sad to lose a friendship. We might be amicable, but the bond we once had is lost, and I have to go.
So I walk out into the cold night air and I leave.
I leave Sabrina’s house, leave her cream bricks and her takeaway Chinese and herFireflyposters. I leave her rules, leave her pressure, leave her weight. I leave my old self on her driveway bitumen, like snakeskin that can get washed down the drain in the next storm.
I leave my airless bedroom, leave the call centre, leave the university. I leave the priest who gave me penance for my sins,leave the school that let Charlie get torn to shreds on the stage at the Summer Dance. I leave my good brother and his wedding, leave my father and his closed fist, leave my mother and her smashed potato salad bowl.
I leave the years that bent me out of shape. I leave the voices that drowned out my own. I leave behind homes that weren’t homes. I leave behind love that wasn’t love.
I leave in my own car, my own foot on my own pedal, my own window down, my own face buffeted by the cold bracing wind of my own slipstream.
I am on my own now. I am my own. I am.
32
SLAB
HAMMER
Before our last game of the season, I address my teammates in the theatre. Roo and Mosey and the coaching staff are there, and all the boys, and even the other staff, like Tessa and the physios, Donald and Brick. There is no soppy piano music, no rainbow flags.
Also, I am not coming out.
I apologise to the club for not being a team player. I tell them I’ll be doing some community outreach to show I’m not homophobic. I tell them if any player is gay, that’s okay with me. I tell them my new focus is to be here for the whole team, not just myself.
I say the word ‘sorry’. I mean it.
This I do let Tessa record, for the club’s socials. Wookie agrees it’s a smart move.
I avoid Tank’s and Kingy’s eyes for the whole speech. I have to, or I’ll laugh. I had ’em over my apartment last night, along with Sniper and Oshy, and told ’em about me. I got surprised looks and sweary disbelief, but once Sniper and Oshy convinced ’em I wasn’t yanking their chains, and once I could make ’em understand it didn’t change who I was, it was okay. They both reckon they aren’t that bothered by gay dudes, just woke shit. They’re hardly doing jumping jacks about me coming out: they more react like I’ve copped a season-ending injury. But they saythey didn’t mean anything by their comments during the Pride debacle. They reckon they were just taking my lead, staying in the Big Dog’s good books. If I was homophobic, they were homophobic. And if I’m okay with it, they reckon they will be, too.
When I’d finished talking, Tank clinked his beer to mine silently, and Kingy said, ‘Ay, had no idea, bro. Mad respect. You do you.’
If they were secretly uncomfortable with it, they kept it to themselves. S’pose time will tell if they stop wanting to hang out.
But at footy, at least, they’re still talking to me.
On Friday, we run out for our last game of the season, against Richmond, in Melbourne. The lights are dazzling; the winter rain is piercing. The tiger roar of the home crowd is not for us. We fly out onto the green turf of the G, Eagles in formation, a team fighting the odds in a hostile environment, with only one goal that matters.
I feel light as air for the first time in my playing career, like nothing and nobody can touch me. It doesn’t matter that the world doesn’t know. I know. I am free.
Between me and Oshy, we boot a bag of eight goals: four each. I take a speccy, leaping into the air with my knee in the back of the Richmond defender. That mark ends up on the back page ofThe Westthe next day, with the headline:Eagles Duo Flying High!
We had a shocker of a season. We copped a deluge of shit. We tore each other apart. We didn’t get anywhere near the top eight.
But we win our last game of the year together, as a club, by two points.
Roo tells us he’s proud of us.
Dad phones me after the game for his usual post-mortem dissection of my performance and his advice on what I need to do better. For once, I let it go to voicemail.
The other usual good-vibes post-game texts are back, since the video of my apology speech, to Tessa’s delight, went viral in a good way for once. I was seen as taking responsibility, and (most) people stopped hating on me. OnThe Footy Bounce, Hardwick argued there was no proof my attitudes had changed, but Dunk and Katy both said they thought I’d shown integrity. My mentor Steve Polak referred to this as a sign I was maturing as a leader. That meant a lot.
Richelle pops up to say she’s ceasing her ‘communication pause’ because she’s proud of me stepping up, and since I’m in Melbourne, do I want to get cocktails tonight. I suggest coffee tomorrow instead. I haven’t decided if I’m gonna come out to her yet (or my parents, for that matter), but if I do, I wanna be sober. Plus, tonight’s end of season and I’m not missing that for the world.
Richelle agrees to tomorrow, but suggests some hippie kombucha bar instead. Man.
As I’m leaving the away-team clubrooms at the MCG, Tank and Kingy are waiting for me at the exit, duffel bags slung over their shoulders. Kingy’s got his phone speaker turned up, blaring a Dom Dolla classic.
