‘Don’t,’ Doug says. ‘Woke shit is annoying, everyone knows that. But not worth risking your career over. Just keep ya head down and …’ he smirks ‘… suck it up.’
Doug exchanges a look with Mick, who makes a loud slurping noise, and they both piss ’emselves laughing.
‘Yeah, fuck youse both,’ I mutter, making the ‘wanker’ gesture with my hand.
Mick heads into the office, and Doug uses his blackened knuckles to wipe away tears of laughter.
‘Bro, I gotta get back to work,’ he says. ‘Seriously, what did faggots ever do to you? Don’t torpedo your career over this. Good luck for the game tomorrow.’
What a waste of time. Doug was no help. Nobody gets why I can’t ignore this or shake it off. I can’t tell anyone without telling them there’s something misfiring inside me, like the cylinder in the SS engine.
And if anyone ever finds out, they’ll know Doug isn’t the munted pancake of the family. I am.
7
LAUREATO
ZEKE
I’m meant to be a graduate today, but the day starts off distinctly teenage. I lug my hungover arse out of bed. I order Uber Eats to soak up the vodka (Hungry Jack’s hash browns are little alcohol-soaking life savers). I put an episode ofThe Boyson the lounge- room TV for background company (I wish I was Billy Butcher, but I know I am Hughie). And I flop on the couch to start a new game ofPokémon Violeton my Switch (I choose Fuecoco, the fire-type crocodile, as my starter).
It makes for a chill hour or so, until Victoria drops in for breakfast with Sabrina and ruins it.
To beat theWill & Gracecomparison to death, Victoria Fowler is Karen Walker’s personality in Grace Adler’s body: she’s a waifish redhead draped in designer clothes and Tiffany’s bling, with a disposition as sharp as her pale elbows. She’s never thought much of me. When I let her into the house this morning, she has the same look she always has when she sees me: like she just stepped in dogshit, but remembered she’s on camera, so she’d better force a half-hearted smile.
I turnThe Boysoff while Sabrina and Victoria commandeer the lounge room for a bitchfest about Shane and Allison. I keep playing Pokémon but occasionally laugh or add my two cents. When Victoria’s spikiness isn’t aimed at you, it can be brutally funny.
When the Shane/Allison well of gossip runs dry, the girls’ conversation roams further. Victoria goes on a diatribe about some fancy overseas brand of chocolate being appropriated by bogans as it’s cropping up in shops everywhere now: ‘Next thing you know, they’ll have it at 7-Eleven!’ They discuss Richelle Meyers from high school, who’s now a big TikTok wellness influencer they both hate: ‘As if The Veronicas even knew who she was – she was probably just lined up at a fan meet-and-greet!’ Then they get scrolling on the TikTok of an influencer Victoria is obsessed with – one of those tradwife accounts that are trending: ‘It’s like a new wave of feminism where women can reclaim our feminine side but, you know, without the bigotry.’
The whole tradwife thing gives me the heebie-jeebies, but I focus on my Fuecoco.
‘Modern technology has definitely made a lot of things worse,’ Sabrina agrees. She watches a trad-husband chopping wood shirtless and carrying it into a house where his tradwife is baking an apple pie in a checked apron like Snow White. ‘God, wouldn’t it be nice if men were like that again? Instead of grubby porn-addicted losers like Shane.’
I accidentally snort.
‘What’s so funny, Zeke?’ Victoria prods.
I consider trying to pass the snort off as Fuecoco’s Ember attack before wading in. ‘Don’t you think it’s kind of pretend Stepford-wife stuff? A performance for the camera? Those wood-chopping hunks are totally jacking off behind their wives’ backs once the recording’s done. You realise even guys in the 1950s masturbated, right?’
I’m not sure why I didn’t read the room or consider my audience. It just felt imperative to point out that these tradwhatevers are as fake as it comes.
‘You always have such a way of bringing us into the gutter,’ Victoria says drily.
‘Not all guys do that,’ Sabrina insists. I think she needs to believe there’s a prince out there who’s diametrically opposite to Shane.
‘And it’s not just a Stepford-wife thing, you know,’ Victoria adds. ‘There are gay trad-husbands, too.’ She taps on her phone and whips out a TikTok of a viral same-sex couple. One guy wears plaid and chops firewood and builds a deck while his husband wears a simple white collared shirt while he vacuums their rumpus room and bakes gingerbread. Their home décor is comprised of neutral, earthy tones that remind me of camouflage.
‘That might be the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen,’ I say.
‘Bit judgemental of you, Zeke,’ Sabrina scolds, but with a smirk.
‘Hey, to each his own,’ I say, with a shrug, and turn back to my Fuecoco.
‘You’d scrub up quite nicely as a trad-husband, Zeke,’ Victoria says, and I know it’s not a compliment, but to stir me up. ‘Get you off your devices, out into nature, some fresh air in your lungs, some muscle on your bones. Have you ever chopped wood before?’
I entertain saying something profoundly dirty about wood, and think better of it.
‘Victoria’s right, Zeke,’ Sabrina gushes. ‘You’d look absolutely adorable in one of those white collared shirts.’
