Senior Section -- Winner

Elizabeth College

There was something small in the way he wept. Like water bubbling, a smile would form under scalding tears, a small oddity to witness. To Lu however, odd was an intimate thing. Otherness clung to him, an old friend. Ever since childhood, when normality was a stranger.

“Lewis, can you change for church this morning?” His mother asked. Lu looked at her, twelve and small, a peculiar expression on his face.

“But I am dressed,” he pointed out, clad in a red blazer decorated with silver stripes. That, and his bright yellow trousers, disturbed her. She’d restrained him into a pair of stiff and itchy chinos, paired with a dress shirt. He was led by her firm hand to sit in the pews during communion, where he had traced a star onto his pants with a blue pen. When they got home, Lu cried as she punished him, that wry smile upon his lips.

He always knew she struggled, hurt by past things she would never tell him, evident in her dull words and the overflowing ash tray she kept on the kitchen table.

At eighteen, free from uniform, he came down the stairs; his pants torn and embroidered until they shone with thread, a peacock patterned vest to match. His eyes were surrounded by black mascara and sparkled with purple glitter. His platinum blonde hair was slicked back, and a gold earring dangled from one ear. His mother, now grey, now rueful, sat looking at him, her eyes fluttering up and down over his ensemble. She scowled.

“What?” Lu asked her. “Something on my face?”

“Lewis, I know you like to be, well, different, but I can’t recognise my son like that,” she said, sucking deeply on a cigarette. “I don’t know what I did wrong to make you turn out like this.”

Lu let the words hit him, not daring to look at her.

“Surely you don’t think any of this is normal.”

Lu laughed, cackled really. In the middle of their dingy kitchen, Lu laughed.

“It’s ridiculous Lewis.”

“My name is Lu!” He barked, watching his mother shrink back slightly in her chair. She said nothing, only stubbed out the last of her cigarette as he stormed out of the room, taking his fur coat and the small container inside it with him. He skipped down the road, giggling slightly as tears ran in purple veins down his cheeks and the sky grew bruised.

By the time he stumbled into Hobart, the container he had brought was far lighter, and his fingers caught on pink ribbon as he itched his arm. The bows were cutting into his skin, covering what was underneath in a pretty little flourish. Before, it was ugly and tender, and it made his stomach turn when he looked at it. How lovely it was now. It was night then, truly, pubs were overflowing and the air sparkled with misty rain.

“Oi, have you got a light?” A girl asked him. She was wearing a short black dress, with a cigarette hanging lazily from her lips. Her knees were grazed, and blood stained her shins.

“Yeah,” Lu breathed, walking towards her as he produced his lighter and held it to her cigarette. “How’d you do that?” he asked, pointing to her knees.

“Can’t remember,” she laughed. “Isn’t it good when that happens? Anything awful could happen and I just wouldn’t know it.”

Lu nodded, leaning on the wall beside her, the street turning in lazy spins.

“Unless it’s so horrible you remember it tenfold.”

“Yeah well, that’s the shit part. Right now, I’m trying to forget two things.”

“What’re they?”

“That I shouldn’t be having this,” she said, waving the cigarette around. “And my dad has cancer. It hasn’t worked yet. What’re you trying to forget?”

“That I’m not normal,” he said, eyes welling as he grinned at her.

“But normal… it’s the worst thing you can be,” she whispered to him like a secret. He nodded. “Thanks for the light…”

“Lu,” he said.

“Thanks for the light Lu,” she smiled. He nodded again, before walking out into the whirling street, watching the girl with the bleeding knees shrink into a cloud of blue smoke.  

His head felt awfully heavy as he walked, so he sat down on the curb, holding it in his palms. It wasn’t long before another voice pulled his attention.

“Oi miss, have you got a light?” Lu looked up to see a man, haloed by the streetlights. “Hang on,” the man said, smirking. “That’s no girl, what’re you doing here Nancy?”

As Lu mumbled a plea, two other men emerged from the dark, stars turning into menacing eyes, all looking down at the sparkling pile of man that was Lu. Their feet and fists came raining down, winding him, and unravelling the bow on his arm. They laughed as they saw what it was hiding. They bruised and broke him, cackling louder as Lu begged for help in ragged cries, and running joyously when Lu managed to escape, sprinting down the road.

 His head pounded as all that was in front of him straightened out. His body felt tender as it pelted down into an alleyway, out of view. He held his hands over his mouth, silencing rapid breaths, as the men ran past the crack of street. Mascara ran down his cheeks as he clawed at the ribbons, tossing them onto the rain-soaked pavement, watching pink turn to grey. His hands were shaking, the skin on his palms grazed from his escape, glitter staining his fingertips. He wondered briefly, painfully, if he should call his mum. He knew the number off by heart, his pockets rattled with a few coins, enough for a call, and the small boy in him who was scared and alone, needed to hear her voice, however little comfort it gave. He winced as he stood and wandered back onto the footpath.

He limped past bustling bars, keeping his head down as he walked. Uneven steps took him to a stop outside a building with its doors thrown wide. A sweet oaky smell wafted from within, the air comfortingly warm. He wandered inside, into a darkly lit room full of people sat around tables, laughing. There was a drag queen on stage, smiling into a microphone as her gravelly voice rippled through the room.

“Anyone else for our line-up tonight? Anyone, anywhere it is your time to-“ She trailed off, her eyes landing on Lu. “What say you, young man? Is there a comic in there somewhere?” After forming an unknown response, Lu, dazed, walked up onto the stage.

There was a wave of shock as the lights shone on a broken man. A mess of dirt, blood, and makeup.

“What’s your name?” the host asked him.

“Lu.”

“Alright! Give it up for Lu everyone!” she cried into the microphone before passing it gently to Lu. He squinted into the crowd, he couldn’t see anything but the whites of their teeth as they smiled.

“Well, hello lovely crowd," he said, shocking himself with the stability of his voice. "Now I'd like to tell you a story, a story that happened very recently. It's a good one, you'll enjoy it. My mother, she's a very conservative woman, a regular Mother Theresa really." The crowd laughed, Lu's eyes widened, oh. "Well, she really had to justify God’s will when after nine months she got this," He gestured to himself, a mess of pattern and punches. "Really tested her faith raising me. How could we all be God’s children when her son resembles an extra-terrestrial creature? Beats me." Another laugh, Lu felt his gut flutter as he began taking leisurely steps across the stage. "Anyways, she raised me a boy of the church, so when I grew up and became a boy of the cheap makeup section, she was a tad disappointed. Then, one afternoon, I came down the stairs dressed like this, and she said 'That's it! I've had enough of this pageantry.' So, I said 'But Mum, I was on my way to mass can't you tell?' She didn't enjoy that much. 'You can't expect me to watch you put all that stuff on your face and see you as my son, let alone as a boy! What are you Lewis, a girl, or a boy?' and I said, 'Well Mum, I suppose all that glitters is gold.’”

Everything slowed, the laughter rumbling low. And as Lu stood there, his face illuminated entirely, every piece of him exposed, a chill spilled over his back, across his arms. And with every breath, every look over the microphone, he felt the room, a connection that ran through him like lightening. Every huff of a laugh blew against his cheek, every heartbeat thrumming in the room was in his own veins. It was everything. Palpable. He might not be better, or a son his mother could love, but he could be this. All that glitters.