The footy world’s changed. When I was a teenager, the only way to protect my AFL prospects was to be straight. That’s a fact: zero wiggle room, as obvious as a footy stat, as irreversible as a final score. You need to be straight to be seen as a real bloke and an AFL player. It’s sewn into the fabric of being a man in this country. It’s agiven.
Now they’re telling me it’s all changed? The league and the club and the media and the boys are all on board, and Oshy’s post gets him love and praise? Bit stiff that it’s me, the one actually affected by this, who becomes the bad guy. Woulda been nice for someone to tell me this was okay when I was a teenager.Woulda been useful fucken information. Bit late now. Sorta ruins all the decisions I made.
But you can’t tell me I’m wrong that you have to be straight to be seen as a real man. That’s set in stone: it’s never shifted. Woke shit may come and go but the bloke in the pub hasn’t ever changed his mind on this, nor has the sheila. When people say it’s okay to be a gay AFL player, they don’t realise they’re saying it’s okay to wear a rainbow and mark yourself as a weak faggot; to be different; to be a lesser man; to be pitied with soppy piano music and hugs.
Nobody believes you can be the gay footy guy and still be the big alpha dog – nobody. You can’t be gay and tough. You can’t be gay and one of the boys. Nobody gets that. The world forces you to give up one for the other, and I already chose the one that matters most to me.
As I’m grinding out one last set of pec flys, a big bloke in a red Chicago Bulls singlet lumbers into the gym. It’s the physio prac student who helped me in Melbourne. Brick.
I give him a nod.
Brick doesn’t return it. His head doesn’t move an inch. He gets onto the leg press and starts loading a twenty-five-kilo plate onto each side as if I’m not even here.
I yank my Beats headphones off. ‘Oi. I said g’day.’
Brick freezes, then slams the second weight plate onto the leg press aggressively and turns to face me. Bloke’s pissed. ‘Oh really? You wanna say g’day to me, do you, Hammer?’ he snaps.
I shrug. I thought we were mates after the hotel rub-down in Melbs. ‘What’s your issue then? Just jumping on the Hammer hate bandwagon like everyone else?’
‘Not quite like everyone else,’ Brick says. ‘Bit more personal for me.’ He hesitates, then steps towards me, so he can speak in a lower voice. He jabs his thumb at his chest. He’s as angry as the Chicago Bull on his tank. ‘I’m gay, Hammer. I’m not out at work. I’m not scared, but it changes how people see me and it’s already hard enough being a Yamatji man in this industry. Don’t need an extra layer of shit.’
I am still processing the revelation that he’s a homo when I recognise the word Yamatji – Brick must be from the Midwest neck of the woods, too.
‘People like you have made my whole life harder,’ Brick says. ‘You make guys like me feel like we don’t belong in footy, when we do. We’re like any other bloke who grows up loving footy. Me and my boyfriend even started a gay footy team cos guys like you made us feel we couldn’t be ourselves in most regular men’s teams.’ The whites of his eyes are bulging at me. ‘So, no, I’m not jumping on the Hammer hate bandwagon. I’m driving the train. Choo choo, motherfucker.’
Brick walks away, clean past the leg press and out of the gym. He’s too mad to even be in the same space as me.
Freshly showered after my weights sesh, I head into the player lounge for a protein shake and walk right into Oshy heading into the lounge from the boot room.
‘Oh,’ Oshy says. ‘I thought you weren’t allowed to be here.’
I turn the dial on the huge wall-mounted protein powder dispenser over the sink: it shits out a blast of chocolate–peanut butter protein into my Eagles-branded shaker cup.
‘All g, bro, I’m leaving,’ I mutter, mixing in some water. ‘Enjoy being the big star tonight. Guess it’ll be a nice change for you.’
I dunno why I’m still being an arsehole. When everyone hates you in bulk it feels like there’s no harm in making it worse.
‘Well, I won’t enjoy it, because we’re a man down and it’s gonna be harder to win the game,’ Oshy says, folding his arms over his polo.
‘Game?’ I say, shaking my protein extra aggressively. ‘Who cares about the game anymore? It’s all about politics now, isn’t it?’ I adjust my duffel bag on my shoulder; it was digging into my flesh. ‘Bet you loved getting all that attention for being woke. Didn’t hurt that you could throw me under the bus by doing it, ay?’
Oshy narrows his eyes. I’ve finally dug under the good-guy act and gotten to the bastard within. There’s a bastard inside every good guy. The more good he pretends to be in public, the bigger the bastard he is.
‘If I wanted to throw you under the bus, I’d tell the club you called me a faggot,’ he says coolly. ‘Remember?’
I’d forgotten about that. It was before we even knew the Pride Round was gonna happen. At the time it felt risky, but in the context of what’s blown up since, it’s catastrophic.
I chug my protein shake while trying to think of a good defence that doesn’t exist, so I go with attack, which I’m better at.
‘Go ahead,’ I say, raising my jaw at him. ‘Tell the club. Finish me off.’
‘I could,’ Oshy says quickly. ‘If I wanted to, I could. Reckon it’d be the final nail in your coffin. But I won’t. I’m not selfish. I care about this club. I’m not gonna bring more heat on us when we’re in crisis. And also …’ Oshy peers outside the locker room; I see Tessa leaning against a wall near the club swimming pool, waiting for him, and realise they were in the middle of something. ‘Look, the clubs I grew up playing for had a strong team ethos. Like any footy club. You care about the whole team, even blokes you don’t get along with. I don’t like you, Hammer—’
‘Stop, mate, you’re too nice.’
‘No,listen,’ Oshy says, arcing up. ‘I don’t like you, but you’re my teammate. I grew up watching you on TV, man. I respect you.I admire your skills. I do care about you even if we might never be best mates.’ He touches a hand to his own curls. ‘What happened here? You shaved your head?’
I shrug. ‘What’s it to you?’
