Golden Boy

BY Nghiem Tran

Where did all his hair go?

He sees where I am looking and, self-conscious, pays homage to the ruins of his temple. Grabbing at blond ghosts, tucking air behind ear. I remember that gesture from school.

I have been caught staring. I surprise myself by showing the tormentor of my youth the kindness of averting my eyes.

I was picking up mint from the Asian grocer when the ridiculing nickname, unheard for a decade, was called out to me. I recognise the voice without turning. David. Mouthpiece of my high school persecutors. Trophy boy of all the unfairness in the world.

It is definitely David’s voice. But the man buying the cigarettes doesn’t look like him. At this distance I’m uncertain. Maybe it isn’t him. He confirms his identity by adding “Ha! Knew it was you. Awesome.” Yes, that was his phrase. I still don’t recognise his face but I know that laugh and that mocking tongue. The latter I intend to sandwich between two rows of perfect teeth.

The owner of the teeth takes his ten paces. I ready the munitions to be fired in the coming duel, where we compare lives. After that I will move on to insults and, finally, violence.

He stops before me, baring the straight teeth. Although they are a little tobacco-stained, they stir some further recognition. Two men. We face. Present arms. Our blades release. When they meet there is no clang of metal. Puzzled, I look down. No wedding band. My opponent is unarmed. This is when I notice his hair.

For years I dreamed of this moment. Elaborate, dramatic ways to confront him. Very childish, I know. I had cause to be angry. He was a fucking prick. That anger sustained its own momentum for planning well beyond the point of probable reunion. But even that burnt itself out. Still, the plans rose from memory quick enough. I thought I had every angle covered. However, no provision had been made for baldness.

He speaks.

In school, when that voice kissed our ears, everyone hushed to savour, scuttling to perform what they guessed would please him most. In the PE change rooms at the end of a class, he first spoke of me. I had been lowering my tie back over my head carefully, so as not to let the smaller tongue slip from the noose.

“He can’t tie his tie.”

David’s words had the strength to send a large body my way and the tie was soon disassembled. Until this school I didn’t need a tie. This tie took my dad an hour to fasten round his own neck, recalling the skill left behind with his profession when my family fled Vietnam. Factory work only requires overalls. The product of his reminiscence was a fluke impossible to replicate. It was beyond him to teach it to me. Instead, my first tie lesson was the advice: “Don’t take it apart.”

The lesson was now as useless as the denatured tie before me. David’s one sentence, directed to a neighbour, made it clear that though I was at his school, I did not belong. I felt uncivilised for not having a father who could pass on a routine skill with the ease of David’s father. I understood the foolishness of hiding my ignorance, stupidly hoping for mercy at my exposed weakness. That day I learnt how to tie my tie, adding many more styles over the years.

I notice the tie he is wearing now is in the exact same four-in-hand knot he used in school. Crooked and unbalanced. He, apparently, is satisfied with what he has inherited.

He is saying something. Friendly words, no sarcasm or malice detectable. I don’t think he ever approached close enough for a handshake. I can only comprehend that he stinks of chips and cigarettes.

I hold my breath as long as I can while he recites the cliches of reunion.
“What’s new? How’s life?”
My surfacing for air is interpreted as the prelude to a response. It prompts the closure of the doors to the stench. The air is momentarily breathable.
A moment’s silence passes before I realise I have his expectant ear.

“You reek!”
The other boys always tripped over their sausage rolls to agree with David. As if the messiah had cured their sense of smell, the fish sauce in my lunch, previously unnoticed, suddenly offended their noses too. My family didn’t have the money for me to buy from the canteen every day, so I was frequently in the position of apologising for the leftovers I had packed. The comments about the odour, the weird ingredients, the use of chopsticks, all made me hide when I ate. On the days when I knew the previous night’s dinner would be particularly offensive to David, I would fast until dinnertime. On the way home from school I would dump the contents of my lunchbox, so as not to upset my mother. David made me wish I could just be normal. An Aussie, like him. It was many years after high school that I finally saw past the shame David had taught me and I grew to appreciate and seek to learn my mother’s cooking. The bag of takeaway in David’s hand showed he had overcome his aversion to Vietnamese food.

I try to speak the first line of my revenge script but discover the wrath of my adolescence, so quick to spring from its shallow grave, has with equal rapidity deserted its station. Perhaps it is unconvinced that this is the same person from my youth?

I am at a loss. I grope around and perform an act of habitual civility, returning his greeting; see his clichés and raise him my own.
“Not much. Same ole. What about you?”
I inwardly grimace at hearing myself say something so empty-headed. We begin trading histories.

This is not how it is meant to go.

He still has the same humour of his youth. Without the eager laugh track of our high school audience, his jibes seem as original as bumper stickers. This is the cleverness that I tried to imitate for so long? Having wrestled laughs from the locked chests of far more hostile audiences, I don’t bother responding to his lame prods. Gone is my envy.

The jewels on his watch said it would soon strike show-off-money o’clock.
“Four investment properties can really keep a man busy.”
Hickory Dickory.
“And they expect a lot of extra hours when you’re manager.”
I probably would have cared more if I were still in school.

I overheard him telling his mate once that when he got his qualifications, he would join his dad’s practice. And they weren’t going to bother with a deferred debt. My dad would have shot me rather than have me follow him onto the factory floor. I would have handed him the gun. Aside from some half-hearted career suggestions, which I ignored, Mum and Dad were just glad that I would make it into uni. What kind of grown man needs his dad to get him a job?

I realise why I have so much trouble recognising David. My perspective has shifted after a decade. What I thought was important in school looks so irrelevant now.

David can’t see this; he is still there. He is no longer fascinating, popular or even dignified. And he’s really boring. I’m missing TV for this?

He talks about his life as if he has climbed Everest. With the head start he had, who wouldn’t have? It’s like bragging that you bought tickets to the Eiffel Tower elevator. Big deal. No one cares about people like him.

I used to wonder in my bunk bed, “What did I do to make him hate me?” I carried that question with me for years. I can see it doesn’t matter any more.

He is keen on establishing a friendship and suggests we have a drink. I make excuses and move to leave. He touches my arm and as if also aware of the question, apologises for high school; he didn’t know why he did it.

I do something I don’t expect. I thank him and try not to let the pity show. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

I had it all wrong. It is me whom life has blessed.