Misbehaving

I was getting all tight in the chest and panicky-feeling just imagining the shitstorm that would ensue if anybody went all 'won't somebody think about the children'...

"I only just got here!" I panted, "I probably seem strange to a lot of people anyway. I'm not exposing myself to the possibility of being talked about...in that way. I'm not-" I slammed the heels of my hands down on the wheel in frustration, "I-am-not-doing-that to myself! No way!"

I honestly thought that would be the end of it. I thought she would finally fucking quit. Either by proving my point, backing away slowly and acting deliberate and distant around me in future, or by sympathising and agreeing with me that the whole thing was probably too risky.

Instead she sat in silence for a while, chewing on her lip, before saying, "Okay. But if all that wasn't an issue, would you be prepared to give it a go?"

I sighed. "Of course I would, but no offence, I'm not just going to take your word for it that it won't be an issue."

"I realise that," Tui assured me. "I get it. I was just thinking...the problem kind of goes away if you're never alone with the kids, doesn't it? If there was someone else helping you? An assistant coach, somebody everyone already knows? My nephew Matiu, his oldest was on the team last year, and he'll probably want to play again this season. He'd help you out. And he's not...he's not some yokel, he lived in Sydney for twelve years. He's met and worked with all kinds of people, and he's a very decent guy. Would you have a chat with him, see if you can work something out between you?"

"Sure," I said, "sure. I'd be happy to." And I meant it. I felt actually happy at the prospect. I think it was partly because her level of persistence was borderline comical, but partly it was that she'd gone and found me a solution. A simple, obvious solution that I'd been too worked up to think of myself. I wouldn't have to expose myself to risk, and I wouldn't have to be the asshole who refused to lend a hand either...

A few weeks later I was standing beside Matiu at the edge of a pockmarked school field that it looked like we were going to have to share with a family of pukekos, meeting my 'team'. It was a small enough school that there were no tryouts, no grading. If you wanted to play that was good enough, you were in, so they were a pretty mixed bunch. Gender, age, size, skill, you name it. Well, this is gonna be interesting, I thought to myself. But the one thing they had in common was plenty of enthusiasm, and they all seemed to think I was some kind of god. Not that it stopped them asking me why I was called Michelle...

Walking home in the rain after our third practice, I admitted to myself that it was interesting. The good kind of interesting, not the grim sarcastic kind. It was interesting, and I was even enjoying it. I dried off, threw my gear in the washing machine, sat down to eat some stew made from the freezer full of donated venison that Tamati had left behind - 'eh, it's not like I paid for it, and the missus doesn't like it' - and thought about how fucking decent all these people were. How they didn't seem weird to me any longer. Mostly. I had to spend a lot of time gritting my teeth while listening to Lester, and I still hadn't fully adjusted to the whole free-range horse thing...

The rain let up shortly after dark and the wind died down a couple of hours later. By the time I went to bed it was totally still, silent apart from the dull bonking of moths head-butting the windowpanes. When I switched off my light they dissipated and I became aware of other sounds. A couple of moreporks were calling to one another, probably on opposite sides of the valley. One was close, crisp and distinct, the other much quieter, like a delayed echo. Interspersed randomly and sometimes drowning them out, a possum was cackling demonically.

Usually I'd get agitated if I didn't fall asleep quickly, 'cos if I had lots of time to think I'd starting thinking about the wrong things. Things like Vincent. But that night I felt okay just being. Just listening. Then the moreporks stopped abruptly, and I had about five seconds to wonder what was going on before the rain hit again. Straight down this time, ridiculously intense, like a bucket of nails being emptied out on the tin roof. I listened to the gurgly choking of the downpipe outside my window as it struggled to cope with the deluge, the wet spatter when the inevitable happened and the gutter overflowed onto the concrete path below, and it occurred to me that Vincent would not have liked it here - and that I did.

It wouldn't have worked. Regardless of...whatever, it wouldn't have worked. I sat up, reached for my phone, and opened Instagram. I hadn't even let myself look since he left. Too worried I'd go and do something stupid like buy a plane ticket. But there he was, on my glowing screen, bookended by a couple of mates, arms slung around each others' shoulders, leaning against the railings of what looked like a canal, an assortment of apartment buildings on the far side, not a single tree in sight. There was no possible way our surroundings could've been any different.

It wouldn't have worked. I'd always known it - I just needed to understand it. I lay back down and listened to the rain.

———

Next morning, Lisa managed to tip her forklift. I followed the shouting and screaming outside to the courtyard to see it lying on its side tangled up in a mess of cracked and broken panels. Lisa herself seemed mostly okay - she was clear of the wreckage and standing, though holding a hand against her torso in a way that suggested it was hurt. I wondered how she'd managed it. Forklifts are kinda designed not to tip - but she did have a bit of a gung-ho, let's get it done quickly thing going on, in contrast to Zac, who seemed to be much more about precision. I'd watched him working the previous week and thought of that old children's book where the steam-shovel puts a baby bird back in its nest, thought that he could probably pull something like that off...

When Bossman Steve arrived on the scene, he was furious. Not the spit-flying-everywhere type of furious, more the white about the mouth, speaking kinda jerky sort.

"Do you have - any idea - how much paperwork - you have just made for me?"

Paperwork. Yeah, there'd be a bit of that. I was standing in a huddle off to the side with three or four other shell-shocked people, none of us saying anything much, but I was thinking a mile a minute. Thinking about the orders I had coming in, about the consequences of a potential spill. Some of it was corrosive. Some of it was highly flammable. One or two items were suspected carcinogens. All of it was massively ecotoxic. I imagined a pallet tipping over, containers cracking, leaching their contents across the forecourt, into the drain. And a creek less than two hundred metres away. Paperwork, sure. But also a total shutdown, and fire crews in breathing apparatus and Worksafe audits and angry letters and petitions and maybe even a date in court...

I sidled over to Zac. "Hey...um...I was thinking, could I maybe get your number? And then I could, like, text you when I'm expecting a delivery? I usually get a notification about half an hour before they arrive."

He didn't say anything, and I wondered if I'd screwed up - if his tightness with Lisa was such that I'd offended him - but after a few uncomfortable seconds he stuck out his hand for my phone, and I passed it over. It turned out to be unnecessary, because Steve kept Lisa on a pretty tight leash when she came back after her wrist was mended, just doing the boring donkey work, back and forth transferring this thing and that. I felt a bit sorry for her. Okay, so it wasn't an accident in the true sense, but it was one little moment of carelessness over against all the other moments when nothing went wrong. But then, paperwork...

Regardless, everyone forgot about it after a while, and things went back to normal, people continued with their routines. For me, that was Fridays and Saturdays at the hotel, Sundays, get up at the crack of dawn to drive to wherever the kids' game was at that week, followed by groceries, petrol, haircut, whatever. Mondays, cook something that'd hopefully feed me for three nights, Tuesdays, training followed by leftovers, Wednesdays, leftovers and trash TV, Thursdays, marmite on toast, and often a little nagging sense of...I don't know...not exactly loneliness. Not boredom. Not restlessness even. Just...meh. I'd sometimes go for a walk if it wasn't raining and there was a chink of moon, and I'd wonder if I'd ever had the slightest influence over anything that'd happened to me, or if it was all just chance, everything.

Once, early spring, it was quiet and still and after midnight and I'd tramped well north of the t-junction, of any houses, anything at all, and I thought of that stupid horse, the day I got here, standing out in the road...I went and laid on my back on the centre line and looked up at the stars, the cross high in the sky at this time of the year, the Milky Way a wide dusty track almost directly overhead, and I thought, what the fuck do my problems matter? My ideas about anything? So I don't get it - well, maybe I'm not meant to get it. Maybe I'm meant to be amazed. I lay there looking up, feeling the dense cold of the tarseal underneath me, the more prickly cool of the night air, and I thought how all this would be so much more if there was somebody else here to be amazed with. Except...not. Because I wouldn't be doing this if anybody was watching.

-----

Another Friday, and it was raining - well, of course it was raining, it was springtime in Northland - but I mean it was really fucking raining, like the brief cloudburst style rain that happens in romantic comedies, except it'd been going on for a day and a half without letting up. On the far side of the valley the creek was over its banks and edging across the flat, the pot-holes on my driveway were in the process of coalescing into three or four interesting-shaped lakes, and the sky was still uniform dark grey and tipping it down gallons at a time.

Inside the bar, tucked into what was by now my habitual little corner, it was unpleasantly humid, the steam of wet jackets and wet shoes and a goodly number of wet people overwhelming the archaic ventilation system, and just no end in sight. The door swung open with its usual annoying jingle and Zac burst onto the scene - and I do mean burst - there was nothing subtle about his entrance.

He stamped over to the bar and threw his keys, phone, and wallet down before snapping at Jack for a jug of Speights, all while still shucking off his coat. Then he swivelled round to survey the rest of us, saying bitterly into the silence he'd created, "Well, you'll be delighted to know we're all fucking trapped. There's a massive slip across the road at Twin Bridges, and another one about five k's south of Kaihoke. The ground's like porridge out there. Like soup."

That announcement caused a bit of general babble, people quite reasonably speculating about what would happen with work if no trucks were able to get through on Monday, but what I thought was, you were gonna go up to Kaikohe so that you could go down to Auckland? Now that's commitment...

He was clearly royally pissed at being bilked by the weather. I looked on as he had some sort of verbal tussle with Jack, which turned out to be because he wanted a double shot of vodka to get himself started, and Jack wouldn't pour it until he handed over his car keys to be hung on the board behind the bar. He eventually slapped them into Jack's palm with very bad grace, and then tipped the shot back the moment it was poured. I watched as he shook his head and shoulders in that shuddery way you do as hard liquor burns its way down, and...yeah...

I get this feeling it might be unusual in a guy, but I don't automatically assign a fuckability quotient to each and every individual who passes through my field of vision. Could be fear of being found out, and the attendant years of training my eyes not to see in gyms and changing rooms. Could just be how I am. Anyhow, up to that point the only thing I had really noticed about Zac, aside from the fact that he was very good at his job, was that he was welded to his phone anytime he wasn't welded to his forklift.

But that little movement? I noticed. Noticed-noticed.

Then of course I started to notice other things. Like, he was dressed up. Well, of course he would be dressed up if he was going out on the town. But he was...wow. He knew what to wear. And how to wear it. Like, his hair was a little bit curly. Usually, it was an indeterminate dirty blonde mat, compressed by the hard hat he needed to have on most of the time, but he'd apparently put product in it, making it look all tousled and pullable and...

Urgh. Fuck. I tore my eyes away and stared down into my glass. There was only about an inch of beer left, and I didn't generally like to have a second pint until after I'd eaten, but I needed something to distract me, and where the fuck was my meal anyway? It was taking an age. But the place was packed. Rammed. There was a little clear space around the bar, but...I counted...only three spare seats total in the dining area. One immediately opposite me, one on the table where Tui and Wiremu were having dinner with three of their grandkids, one on the table beside that, all with no view of any of the three screens in the room. Definitely fuller than usual. Probably people were getting rain fade on the TV at home and had come in for the stronger signal, prepared to pay for it in beers and chips.

Against my better judgement, I kept stealing little half-second glances at Zac. He was zoned out, ignoring everybody, focused on his phone screen, playing some game one-handed while motoring his way through the beer he had clutched in his other fist. If he kept going at this rate somebody would need to carry him home later. My dick volunteered me for the job. No, I told it, no. Abso-definitely-lutely not. I don't want to carry him to bed when he's comatose! I want to carry him to bed when he's awake and functioning and begging for it with every cell in his body...agh, no...now apparently my dick and my imagination were ganging up on me...

Something at the periphery of my vision caught my attention. I turned to see it was Tui waving her arm, beckoning to Zac, inviting him to come and take the free seat at their table. Trying, probably, to get him to slow down a bit - and to force some food into him. He held out for a while but she kept it up, and eventually he shoved his phone in his pocket and slipped off the barstool, glass in one hand and quarter-full jug in the other. The free seat was at the end of the table farthest from the bar, so he had to make his way through a narrow gap between tables to get there. As he lifted his arms, beer and all, above his head to shimmy through, his t-shirt rode up, exposing a couple of inches of skin, and my brain just...melted.

I saw him like that at a rave, on a dance floor, 'misbehaving' in a club somewhere, arms upraised, head thrown back, shiny with sweat, lost to the beat, writhing in stop-motion under a strobe light, narrow, lithe, ropy-lean, slim but not frail...he'd be an awesome dancer, I just knew it. He owned his body like nobody else I'd ever seen...

My meal was placed in front of me with a thunk that actually made me jump. Shit, I thought, was I staring? I was definitely staring. How long was I staring for? At least I had something to focus on now...but I was hungry for more than food.

I kept up a low-level surveillance throughout my dinner, and saw the coolest thing unfold. When Zac first sat down they all started offering him fries and garlic bread and shit, and he obediently nibbled for a minute or so before pulling out his phone and re-communing with it, but the little girl opposite him wasn't having any of that. I couldn't quite keep track of all Tui and Wiremu's grandkids - they brought a set in every Friday on some kind of rotation - but I thought this one might be Kahurangi. About eight, maybe? Now an adult will give up on somebody who's not engaging with them after a while, but eight year-olds, they just double down. In less than ten minutes, Zac had put his phone away and was listening to her babble, eyes locked on her face, nodding now and then, beer apparently forgotten.

Then after the plates were cleared from their table she coaxed him into some sort of hand-clapping game, where you mirror each other's rhythm, hands down on the table, then palms together, then against the person opposite, one hand or both in some sort of sequence. It was too complicated for Zac. That, or he was making out that it was for Kahurangi's benefit. He'd fuck it up again and again, and she'd squeal with laughter, and he'd shake his head and grin - and that smile? - I'd never seen that smile on him before. Not a big smiler, Zac. Occasionally he'd manage a semi-sarcastic, self-deprecating smirk. But not that smile. I would have remembered that smile...

I felt a lump form in my throat, watching them. Oh great, I thought. Now I don't just want to fuck him. Now I want to hold him, and keep him, and...make him smile like that. Jesus, as if this needed to be any more complicated...

The crowd started to dissipate around eight-thirty, as the people who'd primarily come for dinner finished up and left. It thinned out noticeably more once Sky TV's coverage switched to NRL, which was about when Tui and Wiremu and their entourage decided to call it a day, leaving Zac marooned out in the middle of a by-now mostly empty dining area. He didn't stick it long, but instead of planting his ass back at the bar, he only went over to replenish himself - with just the one beer this time - and then came to sit where the small tables were, over my side of the room.

Directly opposite me in fact, with two now-empty tables between us. I was surprised he'd choose that spot, given there were plenty of seats available, because it was one of those where you had to sort of lean sideways on your chair to get a view of a screen. But of course the only screen he was interested in was the one on his phone. I watched it lending a slight glow to his face in the dim light, watched his expressions change, now concentrating, now startled, now elated, thinking about that smile, wondering when - if - I'd get to see it again.

He looked up suddenly. Straight across at me, eyes narrowing in suspicion, he stared. Don't back down, I told myself, don't back down. He's the one that picked a seat in your eyeline. I relaxed into my chair, lifted my chin, returned the stare. Yeah, that's right. I am. Looking at you. And you're gonna be the one to look away.

It took a while, and several emotions played across his face meantime. The initial what-the-fuck incredulity gave way to something akin to 'you've got to be kidding me', and as the moment spooled on it morphed again to a scowl of almost-outrage. But...not disgust. Not disgust. And in the tiny moment after he finally broke the gaze, his eyes flickered down and up before retreating. Seeing, assessing. Noticing.

He returned to his phone but he obviously wasn't engaged with it - it was acting as a shield, something to focus on so he didn't have to acknowledge me watching him. But he could feel me watching. He managed about a minute before wrenching his head up, locking eyes with me for a tense moment - and then away. Another extended pause, then again. And again. It was getting to be a pattern. At a point where I knew he wouldn't risk another glance for at least thirty seconds, I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, brought up his contact. I saw him stiffen when my message arrived.