Pretending I didn’t really know him, and putting myself in the drill he wasn’t in, meant I didn’t see how he trained, but he effervesced in class the next day. He was definitely coming to the next training sesh, and he reckoned he might even put his hand up to play when the season began that Saturday, if the doctor was cool about it — who were we playing again?
“Tuggeranong Bulldogs at Gordon,” I said.
He shrank a little at that. Turned a bit greyer. “No shit,” he said. Apparently they had been his junior club. He hadn't been to Gordon Oval for five years - more than. Since before he got sick.
“It’s still wind-burnt and” — sotto voce — “f---ing cold,” I said, then tactfully, “You were sick then, were ya?” “Yeah,” he'd murmured, licking the gums between his teeth and his top lip, “a bit.” Then the teacher free-kicked me a question about the Cambrian explosion and I grasped the opportunity for a cheap goal at Naomi's expense.
As I drove home, L-plates on and hyperventilating, I raised the subject with my old man, who taught at the same school. I was trying to be a good bloke so why would Stevie keep serving up bullshit and expecting me to eat it?
“He keeps talking about how he was a jet and tore it up when he was a junior. I let it go, but it’s annoying and it’s sort of sad.” I checked the mirrors.
“He’s not taking the piss - a few years ago Stevie was a superstar.”
“Wait, what?” I stomped on the brakes. “What?”
Dad’s eyes flickered open, checked the road, skimmed to me and shut again. “It is sad, but not because he’s lying. He’s probably not told you how good he really was.”
Well, I flustered, how the bloody hell did he know that? Turns out that Dad taught Stevie physics (news to me) and he’d seen letters to the principal from Stevie’s club coach, the ACT representative team coach and the head of the ACT Junior AFL. To say they were solid references was a wilful understatement verging on criminal fraud.
“So he was good then? He doesn’t look that good. He looks skinny.”
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