‘Hell yeah,’ I say.
‘Curtis wanted this place to work,’ Ahmed says. ‘If we shutter it, it’s like denying him his biggest wish. I won’t do that. Fuck the haters. I’m riding this pony all the way, hell or high water.’ He looks at us. ‘Will you boys stay on? Despite the backlash?’
‘Absolutely,’ Vince says. ‘Curtis was always good to me. I work here cos I want to.’
‘Hear hear,’ Noah adds.
I think about all those guys at Curtis’ funeral, and I wonder what this place becomes without him. If Curtis isn’t here, there will be nobody to protect the new generations of guys fleeing the country frightened and lost, arriving in the big city, hoping to find their place.
Except that’s not quite true. Curtis was a leader, and a leader never dies if there are people who carry on his mission. On that couch, one hand on my Heineken and one hand on Mason’s thigh, I realise Curtis had the glory I’ve always wanted, not Xander. Glory is not fame or fortune: it is purpose. Curtis found his at a young age, grabbed it between his bulldog teeth and never let go, and his example made thousands of other guys like him believe in themselves, too. He made me believe I had something to offer. He made me want to keep moving. He gave me hope. He showed me what courage and determination and hard work can do. That spark: that is the glory I’ve wanted my whole life. And now I have a place I care about enough to fight for and defend and build.
‘Think of me like the glory hole in the dunnies, Ahmed,’ I say, raising my Heineken to him in a salute. ‘I’m part of this place whether you like it or not.’
When the crowd dwindles to just the core of us, I end up with my legs on Mason’s lap as he knocks back another pint.
‘I meant what I said before,’ he tells me, drunk. ‘Your eulogy was beautiful. I was no good giving the eulogy for Jared. I kept crying. Yours was spot on.’
Mason tells me he snuck off after Curtis’ burial and paid a visit to Jared’s gravesite: he’s at Pinnaroo, too.
‘It helps me, to visit him,’ Mason says. ‘Do you ever visit Matt?’
I opened up to Mason afterJumanji. About Matt. About my father. About everything.
‘Actually, no,’ I admit. ‘I couldn’t be at his funeral, cos he was closeted, and I was the most infamous homo in the Midwest. I’ve never …’ I pause. ‘I never said goodbye to him.’
‘Memorials aren’t just for the dead – they’re for those of us left behind, to have closure,’ Mason says, draining his pint. ‘Don’t you think you’d feel better if you did?’
Less than two weeks later, I am in the Northampton Cemetery at the foot of Matt Jones’ grave.
It’s been a big day. On the way, I stopped at the Geraldton Cemetery to visit my father’s grave, too. I brought him one of my guitar picks from home, and a fresh cold king brown of Emu Export – his favourite – from a Gero bottle-o.
It was hard to see his photo (scruffy, grinning after a Powderfinger concert) in the cheap headstone that readCaleb Roth, 1981–2016. Even harder to see the words below that –loving husband of Nadine, devoted father of Charlie– and know only one of those was true (thankfully, the one that mattered). Hardest still to thank him for leaving money to send me to a decent school, and tell him how I miss him and think of him when I see Orion’s Belt.
I told Dad I love him, and thanked him for loving me. After all, he didn’t have to. Zeke’s dad was cruel to him and Hammer’s dad was indifferent and Matt’s dad hated gays. Their dads are still alive and mine is gone. But I was the lucky one, because my dad loved me loud as a guitar riff. All my strength, all my confidence, comes from him.
We thought about staying back in the old haunt longer, both of us. We both had family we could visit in Gero, even spend the night. We both dismissed the idea. Zeke seemed resolute on having some space from his parents. As for me, I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to reconnect with my mother, or make peace with Hannah and Rocky, or go give Father Mulroney a proper jump scare by wandering back into the school grounds and flipping him the bird, double-barrel, in the middle of a school assembly.
But if I ever do build up the courage to do that, it won’t be on the same trip I see Matt and my father. This is for them.
When we get to the Northampton Cemetery, Zeke stands beside me as I examine Matt’s headstone. Matt’s family were farmers, and they had more money than I realised. Matt’s headstone isexpensive and shiny: black composite marble with flecks of gold leaf. The photo of Matt built into the headstone is of him in his cricket whites, his buck teeth visible, making his smile disarming and cute. Someone still visits his grave regularly: there’s a shiny new cricket bat resting on the headstone and a wreath of still-alive flowers.
The words engraved in the headstone read:
Vale Matthew Warwick Jones, 1998–2018.
Top batsman, top bloke.
I lay a bunch of flowers in the crevice where the headstone meets the grave. They’re a mix of wildflowers and weeds I picked from the side of the road on the way here.
I ask Zeke for a moment alone, and he steps back a few metres, making the sign of the cross out of respect to Matt. I look at Matt’s photo smiling back at me from the headstone: his eyes there were bright and alive. I press my lips to the palm of my hand, firmly, then touch the palm of my hand to Matt’s face in the photo.
‘There you go, Matty,’ I tell him. ‘I kissed you back. It’s all okay now. You’re okay now.’
I bow my head, my eyes raining on Matt’s grave. Then I take an envelope from my jeans pocket. The envelope with a badly-drawn love heart on it.
I keep only one letter in the envelope – the last one Matt wrote to me, with the xo at the end. This I’ll keep forever.
I take the rest out – the thick wad of letterbombs he gave me before he died, and the reply I’ve written him, seven years too late, which I read to him aloud.
