Not long to go now before the end of term. But something is wrong. As always, Jack feels like he’s the last to know. Why is Jin acting like a crazy person? And what-the-fuck was tonight all about?

10 May 1996

So many things to say. So I’ll get the normal stuff out of the way first, because I’m really confused about what happened tonight at the concert. Be patient. I’ll get to all that stuff soon, I promise.

Both Mum and Dad were sick for the first half of this week. I came home from 10-pin bowling (did terribly, as always, though I got a few spares), and Jesus Christ Superstar auditions (which I did awesomely in – they said I might even get a part! They never give Year 9s parts!). Mum was shivering and shaking and crying on the lounge. She’d been vomiting. It was really scary. But it made me feel really important for some droopy reason, like when I was 5-years-old and did stuff for Dad or Mum. When I was doing the washing, it felt important.

The thing that scared me was that I kept on thinking about Mum, and if she died. I’d be helping out, cooking dinner, washing, and I’d draw up this roster and have everything organised. And it was a scary series of thoughts, because it was like I wanted her to die; I was imagining this alternate reality so intensely. But listen! I-in-no-way-want-my-Mum-to-die. There. On paper. Got it? Wow… I wouldn’t want that in a million years. I felt so guilty about all the stuff in here. That has to change from now on. It made me think how dishonest I am to them, both Mum and Dad. Could I ever tell them? Not now. Not yet. Not ever?

Rugby has started, and I have to admit it. I like being in rucks and mauls. I know this sounds like I’m a complete raving poofter. But it feels good; it does. On Saturday, I felt this guys pecs, and another guy’s balls. It’d be the same if you were hetero playing against a bunch of sensuous hot babes, getting into brawls with them in the mud and stuff. Exactly the same. So I guess I’m not a total freak.

After rugby (we lost 67-0; well, I am in the E’s) Dad and I went to a cafe to get breakfast. I went to get the weekend newspaper. When I was in the newsagents, I saw ‘Blue’, that gay magazine. I looked around. The man was on the phone so I picked it up and looked through it. Wow. Pages and pages of nude guys. I’d never seen porno before, let alone a gay one. Wow! I got a hardon and had to walk around looking at boating magazines until it came down a bit. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind and I had to slip my dick under the waistband of my undies and pull my footy jumper right down to cover up.

I watched ‘Sweat’ the other night on TV. Mum and Dad were out. There was this guy called ‘Snowy’, and he’s gay. The actor’s name is Heath Ledger. He even looks like Snowy, the real Snowy, my Snowy (if I can ever call him mine). Sporty. Nice. I remember two years ago, the day I fell in love with Snowy. We went to the school athletics carnival — together — and we sat together for the first time, and spent all day together. I knew him because he always got the same mark as me in Maths. But that day we even caught the bus home, and we talked and talked. So much has happened since then.

Anyway. This is where I write about the complicated stuff. There were heaps of music rehearsals last week for the big concert we had tonight. Jin and I play in the senior orchestra with the Year 11s and 12s; though I’m still in the second violins I’m good enough to be there.

Tonight, Jin and I hung out in the back of the wings near the props table while all the other orchestras played, even the one from the junior school. They were so bad: messy, like they were still tuning. I thought it sounded like the soundtrack to a horror film. In the dark wings, all I could hear was muffled bass and brass; a scary farmyard.

Jin was agitated, that’s the word for it, drumming his sticks on his legs. It was really hot. He had his tie loosened. I may get some of this wrong as I’m remembering it because I was really upset, but this is how the conversation went. I don’t want to forget any of it.

‘Tim told me you wanted to tell me something today’, I said.

Jin looked up from under his long black fringe.  ‘If I knew what I wanted to tell you I would have told you already. So can we leave it?’

‘Obviously there’s something. From what Tim said, you want to say something?’ Tim was the Year 10 guitarist in our band.

‘Words aren’t coming easily at the moment’, he said. ‘And since when has Tim become such a gossip queen?’

‘He just said you wanted to talk to me, that’s all.’

‘Tim has no idea. Tim has based all of that entirely on his assumptions.’

‘But you said to Tim stuff about me, rather than telling me first’, I said.  I was upset. I didn’t want to fight with Jin. I’m always the last one to find out because I’m in Year 9 and he has all these other friends.

‘Why are you being so open to Tim and not to me?’ I asked.

The junior orchestra came to a sudden stop; the hall filled with applause.

‘OK. It’s true’. Jin stopped drumming and came closer. I could barely hear him. ‘I’m quitting Lunchbox. But I’m not telling Tim anything I wouldn’t or couldn’t tell you. I merely tell Tim what’s relevant to him, and you what’s relevant to you. Anyway, why does he have that stupid ring on his finger. He’s not married.’

‘How is quitting Lunchbox not relevant to me? We’re in this band together’. My face must have been really red. ‘I’m screaming here’.

‘I’ve told you. I need to find the words before I put this all into sentences for you. Maybe if you asked more specific questions, you’d get more straight-forward answers’.

‘I meant I’m screaming in my brain, all the time, and I tell you everything I feel, and you can’t tell me your feelings about me?’

‘It’s not like that. It’s not that simple’.

‘You’re quitting’. I felt like I was hearing everything underwater.

‘And anyway if you’re going through such hell, how could you possibly take another load from me’.

‘What more can I say or do?’

‘I would rather wait and see than give you the wrong idea. But if you really need a straight answer…’

He sat down next to me like he wanted to comfort me but he couldn’t look me in the eyes. We sat in that hot disgusting tension for ages. The air stunk of old clothes. The orchestra lurched into another song; too much noise.

Jin just poked me in the shoulder once, that’s all he could muster. ‘I don’t hate you’, he said. ‘There’s just more. More stuff.’

‘What about everything I told you in that letter? I fucking showed my soul’.

‘Just leave it alone for now, can you do that?’

‘No’. I really was crying now.

‘Too bad’.

‘Yeah. Too bad. You’re leaving me out in the dark.’

‘Light a candle’.

Jin grabbed his sticks, pushed the stage door open and let in a rush of cold night air. The whole audience would have heard the door slam. I hope they couldn’t hear me crying.

Go to Episode 11: Everything Changes