Surds. Deductive Geometry. The impact of White Settlement on Aboriginal Society. The beginnings of theatre. Macbeth: Should the audience speak of a villain, a victim, or both? With all this study, who-on-earth could have seen a day like today coming?

15 May 1996

Everything has changed since the last time I wrote. Hell, I don’t know what to do. Inside-out-upside-down-back-to-front. I’m meant to be this scrawny Year 9′er, that’s all. I’m meant to be joking, having fun, mucking around. There’s no guidebook for this. No rules. No one can tell you what to do. You’ve got to make it up yourself.

I need to write it all down – that’s what this stupid book is for -  so I’ll never forget about Jin, Snowy and everything that happened today. Here is it. From the beginning. In every painful detail.

No one eats lunch outside the Music Centre except musos. This is what you see around you: straight ahead, gum trees, down the hill across the tennis courts to the outdoor music stage. Next door is the Design Centre, so this corner is sometimes full of arty guys, carrying instruments or plastic folders. The school has taken over everything except for the old house where the Dragon Lady lives. She is always throwing tennis balls back over the cyclone fence. Jin comes here most lunchtimes. Today, he was trying to balance on the brick garden wall above the bottle brush telling stories in accents.

I wasn’t listening. Forget speaking about the band, or what happened at the concert. Jin didn’t want to talk.

This is how I remember the conversation near the end of lunch:

‘I’m off’, I said.

‘You’ve been off for years’.

‘I gotta go’.

‘What about the end of my story?’

‘It takes ten minutes to walk back to the lockers’.

‘I’ll come’. He jumped down.

‘You have Music next, what’s the point?’ I wanted to walk alone so I could catch Snowy and head to PDHPE.

‘Go on then, guv’ner’, Jin said, and handed me a folded letter.

‘Thanks’.

‘Don’t read it til tonight’.

‘Why?’

‘Put it in your pocket’. He meant it.

‘OK’.

‘Promise?’

‘OK’.

Jin jumped back onto the wall; long legs like a tight-rope walker. I wonder what was bouncing around in his skull. I’ll never know.

I should have stayed. I should have skipped class. But my feet were walking, and before I knew it I was back in the middle school stacking books, acting as if everything was normal, which it wasn’t.

Before PDHPE I went to the dunnies in the Aquatic Centre, the small ones near the classroom. I was late anyway. I pulled Jin’s letter out and held it in my hands. ‘Why’, written on one side in his handwriting. I could hear people tumbling in. They didn’t take anything seriously, especially this class. It was a bludge.

I opened the letter. I’ve stuck it here so I’ll always have it, even though I don’t want it.

To Jack
From Jin

Cheers, Jin

This letter was the scariest thing I’ve ever read. I folded the paper, unlocked the toilet and went outside like a robot. Right then, Snowy walked past and tried to snatch the letter from me as a joke, but I burst into tears on the spot. Any one would have done the same.

‘You OK?’ he said.

‘Yeah’.

He pushed me around the corner. ‘What’s wrong?’ I was expecting some joke, some tease, so I looked at the floor.

Instead he wrapped his arms around my back and hugged me against the wall. I hugged him back, my face in his neck. He wore Rexona for Men; I love that smell, like chlorine berries, lunchtime, chemical rain. I don’t know. This was nice.

‘Go walk. Then come back’, he said. ‘I’ll make something up. Dicko won’t even notice’.

I wagged the first half and walked around the senior school. I usually like when it’s empty. But this time felt awful, dazed. Jin should think about others. He’s not the only one in any kind of trouble. Telling Jin I was gay was my first big mistake. Now he has laid it all on. That he masturbates. That he’s gay. That I turn him on sometimes. I don’t know how good our friendship is; can it hold all of this? I’m scared. It’s like the flood gates are open, and he’s pouring it out by the gallon. All the responsibility all of a sudden has come down like a million tonnes. On me.

I now have this totally different image of Jin. Uncomfy. Before, we could joke about perving on guys and just tell each other anything, and that’s all it was. Now it’s serious.

This is the worst thing I hate about myself: I want to put it all out of my mind, and muck around with my Year 9 mates. No fuss. No thinking. Fun. Before today I had a grasp on everything, on life. It was even getting simpler. Now I’m the one who wants to shrivel up and die.

I’m sorry, but friends need to draw a line somewhere. I’ve decided that people know enough about me already. I don’t need to show them my sexuality. I’m comfortable with the way I am. I like this character. When I’m this character, I’m somebody. I’m Jack. Jack the muso. Jack the theatre guy. Jack the smart guy. I want to get past all this ‘Shit I’m Gay’ crap and all this deep thinking, and get on with it. Life doesn’t have to be deep, you know.

Snowy saved me a seat in the back row. I sat down and he squeezed my leg under the table and kept his hand on me. I took a deep breath and put my hand on his thigh right up near his crotch and I could feel his balls in his boxers. He didn’t move away. I couldn’t help it. I pressed up and felt his dick move. He let me. He had a habit of staring in my eyes in moments like this, unreadable. I’d seriously consider trying this more if the next bit didn’t always happen.

‘Geez. Fag’, he hissed, pulled my hand away, crossed his legs. My hand was fire. I can’t remember anything after that, just drum drum drum in my ears.

And here is the final confession. The awful, deep, ugly truth. That afternoon, I let Jin go. I saw him walking back from the Music Centre. I froze. We just looked at each other, our eyes met, I said ‘hi’. I couldn’t read him. Just his big black eyes, blank. I let him walk to the station. I’m lying awake now, 10pm, listening to the radio, hoping I hear nothing, hoping there’s no news. I didn’t say anything. All the time, his note burned a hole in my pants right where Snowy gripped my leg.

I’m such a gutless fuck dickhead. I can’t sleep. I feel like shit. On top of everything, exams Monday to Friday.

Great.

Go to Episode 12: Rain Rain Go Away