BORN LOSER

The bell eventually rang, to everyone’s relief. ‘Chairs up!’ instructed the bespectacled Mr Jackson, whose short, slight corduroyed frame – particularly frail on Friday arvos – became obscured by a haphazard scaffolding of bars, horizontal and vertical but mainly skewed, through which he could only just make out the remains of Positano on the poster peeling from the opposite wall, white houses nestling on the rocky cliffs above the Tyrrenhian Sea, whose stippled shades of turquoise lulled way beyond his retirement package.

‘Massimo, you’d better stay behind!’ the commands continued, the teacher’s fraught nerves notwithstanding, trying to spread his body by an extension of hands to a chair-back erected on the front row. But the acid was already roiling in his stomach.

‘Why, sir? It was un accidente!’

‘Don’t argue with me! Do as I say! The rest of you may go quietly.’

‘I wasn’t the only one, sir. Sir! Hey, sir!’

A fizz of thirty-three fourth-formers in bottle green sweaters and tan tunics or grey drainpipes at half-mast was uncorked for the weekend celebration.

‘Quietly, I said!’ fired a down-trodden voice. ‘And do those ties up! Hey, where do you think you’re going?’

‘A la mia casa, por certo!’

‘As long as you’re in this classroom, you’ll speak to me in English.’

‘Home!’ retorted Massimo, indignation clasping his lips, as he bee-lined for the door.

Imagination flaring, Mr Jackson was raining a flurry of blows on the wretch’s obdurate head, arms chopping like butcher’s knives to eliminate that smirk. Instead, a faltering hand checked Massimo’s charge.

‘If youse touch me, I’ll bring me ol’ man up the school.’ His intonation rose and fell in waves, like his turbulent blood, like his lustrous, black hair.

‘Tell me, son, why do you carry Ayers Rock on your shoulders?’

‘Va’a farti fottere!’

Mr Jackson noted the swarthy neck, elongated with pride as well as the greed for extra height, and suffered the urge to wring it. ‘Clean the board!’ Only too well aware of the resentment smouldering in Massimo’s dark brown eyes, he added tactfully, in a low, weary voice, ’Then you can go.’ And sighed.

The surly youth, verging on an eruption of tears and fury, snatched the duster and swept the board clean of learning. On turning, he blew hard on the powdered cloth-face. A shroud of chalk-motes mushroomed into the air, the fall-out ageing the startled teacher with dandruff. Mr Jackson sensed an irritation rasping the back of his throat, which dried up speech. ‘Get out!’ he gasped, before slumping onto a broken-backed chair that limped under his weight. He knuckled his forehead white to staunch the zimming sensation.

Gee, they’re a hard lot round here, he thought, shaking his head. At least the Leavers are a delight to teach. So motivated and starting to show some manners. Most of the dags quit after year 10, thank god! When Massimo came off the boat three years ago, he was a good kid, a quick learner. But he took a lot of stick from the other kids because he was a bit of a sook. Then his mum unexpectedly died from a malignant tumour. Since he’s shot up and filled out a bit, he’s always throwing his weight around. Not even his dad can control him and can’t speak English. What hope have I got? I’ll never get through to the wop now.


Massimo cursed his way down the corridor, swinging the faded brown schoolbag slam-bang against the lockers. Nick was in the reception area, kicking around a screwed-up lunch bag. ‘’Bout time, man. Where youse bin? I’ve bin waitin’ for hours.’

‘Got kept in. Where‘d youse think?’ snapped Massimo. ‘Bloody dittatore!’

'Who got you this time? Old Swartzy?’

‘No. Bloody Jackson. Andiamo!’ Massimo kneed open the glass-plate door and galloped off down the driveway.

‘Hey, waita minute! What’s the matter with youse?’ yelled Nick, haring behind. ‘Youse said I could come an’ see yer lizards this arvo.’ Massimo reined in alongside the rank of staff cars remaining. ‘I said, what’s up with youse then?’ Nick’s whine made no impression on his mute friend. ‘Hey, let’s go an’ feed them lizards of yours.’

Furtively withdrawing a compass from his bag and quickly scouting about him, then giving a measured stare at the staff room window, Massimo began scratching at the bodywork of a car, head down.

‘Jeez, what the hell are youse doin’? This is Jacko’s car.’

‘I know that, stupido!’ The sheen of the bodywork taunted. ‘This’ll learn ‘im.’ Silver lithographs began to squeal.

‘Youse snake!’ snarled Nick, pinioning Massimo’s arms and bundling him backwards. ‘Jacko’s okay!’ he insisted and gave him a shake. ‘E’s me Special English teacher. ‘E bloody listens to youse!’

‘I wish ‘e’d bloody listen to me! Git off !’ Wrenching free and springing round, Massimo waved the point of the compass in Nick’s pasty face. ‘Teachers, huh!’ A globule of spittle smacked the windscreen. ‘They always turn on youse. So piss off!’

‘Youse better not touch ‘is car no more, see? Cos I’m warnin’ youse, I’ll get youse meself if youse do.’

‘So youse’d dob me in, uh?’

‘Course not. I’ll get youse meself. No worries. Jeez, look at the damage youse’d done. Youse’re crazy, man.’

Massimo slowly backed away, eyeing his adversary darkly, till the metallic body pressed against his back. Still glaring at Nick, he half-turned and with a wild swoop scored the door panel from top to base.

‘Right, youse just wait!’ warned Nick. ‘Youse just wait, that’s all!’ Though his legs shivered at Massimo’s goblin scowl. ‘Okay then, youse done it now.’

‘Mama mia!’ Massimo’s sharp cry snapped the tension between them. ‘There’s bloody Jackson comin’. Andiamo prontissimo!’

And was already scampering off through the main gate and down alongside the foundry belching long, black plumes of smoke. Nick stood rooted to the spot, staring at the fine silvery-grey criss-cross etchings on the vermillion paintwork, a compass point lunging before his eyes.


Massimo loved his soccer. The captain of his school team, he played in goal. Athletic he wasn’t, having a stocky build and medium height, but he possessed the presence and sharp voice to dominate the penalty area.

Late on Sunday afternoon he was careering down High Street, zig-zagging through startled pedestrians and tooting motorists, his mates whooping in his wake - even Charlie, who usually spent weekends in horizontal position glued to the tele, to help his English, he claimed - warmed by the Fosters they had swilled on the terraces. They needed it: their local team, the Red Devils, had lost by three goals to one, in spite of all the obscene barracking and swearing in ethnic tongues, even the odd banger and cracker, and there seemed little to nourish them until the ritual of Sunday week.

Breathless but fervid, Massimo halted at the arched gateway to Fellowes Reserve and clapped his hands sharply. ‘What d’we want?’

‘Vic-tree!’

‘What d’we get?’

Vic-tree!’

‘When d’we get it?’

‘Now!’

Then swelling out over the desolate enclosure, dank with low, creeping mist, resounded the ragged chimes of ‘We’re the devil wankers!’ But the abrupt departure from gaudy display-windows and neon lighting darkened Massimo’s mood all the more; it wasn’t long before the wailing drowned in the chill.

‘Got any smokes, Con?’ asked Massimo.

‘Here, man,’ offered Charlie, winded from his unaccustomed exertions.

‘How ‘bout a game of billiards at Bruno’s? Aw, come on, youse guys, what youse goin’ to do?’

‘Dunno,’ mumbled Haluk. Maybe go see that Melina Mercouri movie.’

‘You girl, Haluk! I want some action. Jeez, youse guys are borin’!’ Massimo was lighting the Alpine with a calculated sophistication that fascinated them. His long drawn-out sigh funnelled smoke into Haluk’s sallow face.

‘Allah! Allah! Who youse callin’ girl,’ challenged Haluk, seizing Massimo’s arm with a squeeze. ‘Anyway youse always jewin’ fags.’

‘Shut yer neck, I’m thinkin’.’

‘Thought I heard a clickin’ noise,’ Con chuckled in his whimsical way, popular for always seeing a funny side that the others seldom understood but laughed anyway. What’s more, he could juggle a soccer ball onto the nape of his neck.

‘I’m not chicken like youse!’ exploded Haluk.

‘Yeah, but you got no brain, no guts, no nothing!’

‘Double negative,’ mumbled Con.

‘How many times are youse repeatin’?’

‘Yeah, but I gotta Honda, see.’

Haluk was yanking at the two ends of the red and white scarf that wound round Con’s neck as he eyeballed him. ‘Vay canina!’

‘Nick off, you greaser!’

At that moment Massimo pricked up his ears. He could just make out a couple of shadowy figures sauntering towards them along their path of crumbled paving, hand in swinging hand.

click-clack, click-clack, click-clack

Reverberations that disturbed Massimo as always. High-heeled shoes snapped their fingers at him, slapped his cheeks, flaunted and flounced before the totem of adolescence, danced a silken web round the grottoes of consciousness, enticing him . . . yet still he fought for memories of Mama, even though they hung like bits of bat, black and irreversible, best hidden; still he refused to be agitated, stung and swallowed up by intriguing young girls sloughing off the chrysalis of puberty.

Like Voula, Con’s kid sister, who got much better grades at English than he did.

‘I take youse any time youse like,’ Haluk was saying. ‘I’m no yeller chicken.’ But his rubbery lips were quite dry.

Massimo spun back from the trance.

click-clack, click-clack, click-clack

And yawned theatrically. ‘So youse says, but can youse prove it, uh?’ Screwed up, his beady stare settled on the gait, the familiar gait of a teenager walking his girl. ‘Can youse prove it to yer mates ‘ere?’

Con snickered. Charlie’s forehead registered disbelief. Massimo’s bullet head leered out of the murk. Haluk’s brain was vibrating with click-clacking. A gust of wind feathered up to cool his moistening brow.

‘Bash ‘im!’ hissed Massimo.

clickety-clackety, clickety-clackety, clickety-clackety beat through Haluk’s skull. A girlish laugh spiralled into the mist. Like a military unit, the gang craned round, then back into Haluk’s wide, staring eyes. Those intense glares, the pillars of antagonism around him, the penetrating glare of his leader, all helped to dissipate the ‘buts’ that trembled on the edge of his parched tongue. ‘Easy, no worries.’ He turned to peer through the mist and swallowed hard.

‘Hey, waita minute!’ pleaded Con, the enormity of the directive gradually infiltrating the ruins of conscience. ‘’E can’t do that! No way!’

‘Course I can!’ Haluk’s voice sounded cracked behind the veil of dusk.

‘Course ‘e can!’ mimicked Massimo, thrusting out his chest and flexing his biceps in mock pride.

At which Charlie nudged out a guffaw. ‘Eh, Rambo.’

‘That’s right,’ Massimo went on. ‘E’s a big boy now.’

‘Mass, youse sure you want this?’

‘Youse’re becoming a pain in the ass, Con. Nick off, will ya. Go an’ shoot some baskets. Go on.’

‘E’s a girl,’ muttered Haluk, without conviction.

clickety-clackety, clickety clackety

The uneven vibrations were skittering along the rubbly path to where his feet were rooted.

‘Well? What are youse waitin’ for? Avanti!’

‘’E’s yeller!’ Charlie teased, his excitement grown husky.

Haluk clenched his fists to flatten Charlie’s beak. ‘Why youse . . . ‘

‘Not ‘im, youse idiota!’ He nodded in the direction of the clattering footsteps. ‘That’s the guy youse do over!’

Haluk debated the motion in black and white, before sloping off into darkness, as reluctant as ambling to school with half a mind to wag, the cold bore of Massimo’s will prodding his back. ‘O Allah! Allah!’
A few yards ahead, the couple suddenly broke a splash of lamplight.

‘Nick! Nick! Merhaba!’ cried Haluk, ecstatic at the recognition. ‘It’s youse! Hey, arkadas!’

‘What the hell are youse playing at, man?’ Nick choked out. Why, Haluk, what’s up? Youse damn scared us near to death!’

‘Youse wanna have a squiz at your face, mate. It’s fair runnin’ wiv sweat.’ Cheryl teetered on her platform soles, clinging to Nick’s arm suddenly taut, but wafting a cigarette airily in her other hand, her spiky bleached blonde hair tilted upward and away as she sputtered smoke rings.

‘Oh, just some crazy game of Massimo’s,’ jabbered Haluk, before slithering into bubbles of laughter.

‘Well, I don’t see what’s so bloody funny,’ Nick retorted edgily. ‘I could’ve bashed youse one.’ He swatted at his cow-lick.

‘Yeah, he could of,’ Cheryl nodded.

Piercing the shadows before him, two slits for eyes were blazing. In a sweep of contempt, Massimo stubbed out his cigarette butt on Charlie’s thickly matted head, twisted on his black leather Spanish heels and stomped off homewards.

‘E veramente loco, sin dubbio!’ said Charlie, when his leader was out of earshot, gingerly feeling his smarting scalp. ‘Crazy, man!’


Can’t trust nobody. Teachers talk about youse behind yer back and turn on youse. Papa’s always tellin’ me to do what ‘e wants. Kids useter bully me cos I was an I-ti, a wog. Git off me back, all o’ youse! Animagli! Bastardi!. I’ll sock youse first! An’ if youse put a finger on me . . .

A mongrel bull terrier, its hindquarters low to the ground as it circled, nipped in to sniff at the flares of Massimo’s jeans. The youth snarled round and booted out at the cur’s large, tuberous muzzle and narrow, slanting eyes. A howl of pain and cowering rage pierced the crisp night air.

‘Shut yer face!’

Maybe it’s better I don’t do that! The dog’s sick, maybe. Mama one time had her cano favorito, I remember. One time. A border collie she called Belle, very intelligente. E papa took her away. Said ‘e gave her to a sheep farm cos it must run about free. That’s what border collie dogs do. But Mama said he really killed her, she thought. The bastard! I wish him to send me away too. Mondo cane.

Massimo kicked open the clammy gate, but did not feel like going inside. He lingered on the back step beneath a 60-watt light bulb that barely illumined the yard: lumps of crumbling red brick jutted from the uneven ground; black puddles settled in the hollows; discarded tyres lay perishing in a higgledy heap; a pyramid of soggy sand flecked with soot hugged the patchy pink weatherboard; rotting planks supported the rickety fence on one side; a tangle of bean sticks wig-wammed the central basin, beyond which squatted a shed where he housed his blue-tongue lizards.

The back door creaked open. ‘Massimo, sei tu?’ A pot-belly in braces stuck out from the door-frame in a slant of light.

‘Who else d’youse think?’

Non parlare cosi a tuo padre!’

‘How do you expect me to speak?’

‘Basta! Dove sei stato? E tardi.’

‘Bin out wiv me mates.’

‘Devi entrare adesso!’

‘One minute. I gotta feed me lizards first.’

‘Cosi ne diresti di fare i tuoi compititi a casa?’ E necessario studiare; altrimenti sarai disoccupato!’

‘Non me ne importa. Detesto la scuela!’

‘Fa presto allora.’

‘E io?’ he muttered.

The door slammed with a finality that sacrificed Massimo to the brooding night. He shuddered. ‘Always whingein’ ‘bout somethin’. It’s worse than bloody school!’ He tramped over to the shed, groped for the torch among the tools on the bench, then beamed a feeble blob of light onto a large fish tank. Not a quiver, not a rustle. Gently, he lifted the fronds of greenery, became anxious, fearful, sickened! There, encompassed by gouts of blood, lay two silver-scaled bellies gleaming uppermost – headless!

Tutte due mie lucertole sono morte! Tutte due! Che terribile!

Massimo’s heart, a haughty bastion of few sentiments, whose moat was rarely traversed in public, almost capitulated to this assault, this insult, but gritted his teeth, snivelled briefly, cuffed away the tears. Suddenly, a dilation of those hard, dark pupils – one of me mates done it!

‘Right, I’ll pay ‘im back for that,’ he vowed. ‘Must’ve bin Nick, i brutto bastardo! Haluk’s gutless, Charlie’s weak as water. Yeah, it was Nick orright. I’ll murder the pig when I see ‘im!’

And with that prophecy he picked up a small, rough-edged rock and flung it mightily at one of the huge, tubular pipes of the foundry that was spewing still.


Mr Jackson was gazing up at the clouds louring over the schoolyard, where he was on duty.

Monday lunch-time and the boss still hasn’t found the culprit. If it was one of those migrant kids, I’d puke, I really would. Yet I’d like to knock his block off at the same time. He’d understand that right enough. And if he went whingeing to the boss . . . hell’s bells. If those youngsters want to be shredded into factory fodder, that’s their funeral. I’m tired of trying to keep the dirt and grease off their hands. Besides, do they ever consider my feelings? I’m going round the twist explaining in painful pidgin, parrot more like, gesticulating like a Latin Romeo, slowly repeating ‘This is a door’ five hundred times a day. And for what? My guts churn over like slushy mortar, while they sling off at me in their own lingo. God, do I need a spell!

In skirting the mire behind the three portable classrooms to check for hidden smokers and take in the latest addition to the thick, black loops of graffiti, odd mathematical shapes or esoteric Greek symbols, swift, darting motions tore at the corner of his eye. A rising roar and suddenly kids from all directions were stampeding towards the wall of the old glue factory now art block.

O stuff this! What’s up now? He cantered with as much dignity as his round-humped shoulders would allow to the mud-patch where the throng was milling.

‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

‘Dagli un pugno nell’ occhio!’

‘E un calcio nei testiculi!’

On the outer ring gleeful first-formers were gyrating like Geronimo. Con forced his way back out of the pack. ‘Bad fight, sir. Massimo done Nick. Nick’s hurt real bad. Youse’d better stop it, sir.’

‘C’mon, out of my road, you guys!’ barked Mr Jackson, prising apart adamant shoulders, growing more belligerent as the inner stickybeaks stood transfixed. ‘Okay, fellers, break it up!’

But Massimo, with one knee embedded in Nick’s back, was screwing his enemy’s arm even higher.

‘No! No!’ screamed Nick, his face a purplish red and brushed with mud. ‘Cessa adesso!’

‘I know youse did it,’ muttered Massimo through gritted teeth.

‘Wasn’t me!’ gasped Nick. ‘Ow, youse’re breakin’ me arm!’

‘Confess, youse bastard!’

‘Per favore!’

Mr Jackson had finally cleaved through. ‘Stop this at once! I said, at once!’ He placed a firm hand on Massimo’s shoulder.

The boy seemed oblivious, involved as he was in calculations of further torture. The flustered teacher jack-knifed the assailant’s chest and strained to haul him off. Nick, whimpering and coughing by turns, winced on testing his arm.

But Massimo, still furious, pumped his elbows into a none too muscly midriff. Now free, he slewed round to identify this new foe. To his astonishment, there was Mr Jackson of all people bowed down on his knees, snatching for breath, red in the face, highly embarrassed by the sniggers around him.

‘Jeez, I’m very sorry, Jacko, sir! I didn’t mean to. Was un accidente. That’s god’s truth. I was tryin’ to kill this bastard.’ He stabbed a finger at Nick and spat a blob of spittle in his face. ‘Youse bastardo, Nick!’

Chords of ‘Oo yuk!’ rippled amid the hubbub.

The teacher was still panting while being helped to his feet by two bold third-form girls, who made the most of brushing him down. ‘Tell . . . the . . . kids . . . to dis . . . perse . . . Con!’

‘Clear off, the lot o’ youse! Go on, do as youse’re told!’ But the students lingered, curious as to how Jacko might retaliate. ‘What’s up with youse guys? Now nick off! I’m tellin’ youse!’

Reluctantly, they drifted away, frequently looking back and stalling, then broke into their chasee, soccer scrap and hand tennis as if nothing had happened.

‘Now then, Massimo, you had better tell me the whole story. Just who was responsible for all this disgraceful behaviour?’ Mr Jackson inhaled deeply and fished for his skewed tie. ‘Exactly who started it, lad?’ Still fussing the knot, he said, ‘Well, I’m waiting.’

Massimo palmed back his tousled hair, then looked his teacher straight in the eye. ‘Well, sir,’ he sniffed, ‘if youse don’t know, I don’t know neither.’ He flicked at stains of grass and mud with what seemed exaggerated disgust. ‘What does it matter anyway? All of youse’re out to get me.’

‘That’s nonsense, lad, and well you know it.’

‘Do youse think I care? I’ll get me dad up the school. Youse a loser, Jacko!’

Exasperated, growing rattled, the teacher sought out Nick, cowering back amongst the onlookers. ‘Nick, over here! Quickly!’

With head cast down and eyes nervously aslant, the boy grudgingly made his way forward through the students standing aside.

‘Listen, Nick, the best thing to do is to offer the olive branch.’

‘The what, sir?’ he mumbled.

‘The olive branch. You know, make it up, make peace between you.’ The blank expression did not alter one iota. ‘John Lennon,’ he added in desperation.

‘Nuh, I can’t. It’s his fault, he started it. An’ he’ll be sorry he done this.’

Left helpless, Mr Jackson fixed his attention on the driveway ahead.

With face grim set, fists clenching and unclenching, Massimo was already approaching the far gate. There he stopped to look back, at the edge of the outside world, to volley his anger at the host behind. ‘Bastards, the lot o’ youse!’


                                                                                                                                          Michael Small

1973

published The Educational Magazine, Victoria, 1978