Author Archives: Judd

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On Writing in Australia

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Types of Communities

There are all kinds of communities for writers in Australia, I’d reckon, but mostly what I’ve found is either Facebook Groups or actual organisations. My experiences with both are hit-and-miss.

Groups

Hits happen when I’m on a FB group that does more than just post memes about how writing makes you crazy or how writers procrastinate. I do like those, and will sometimes even share them on, but it’s not like that advances my writing career in any way.

Some groups will share writing opportunities, short story competitions and whatnot, but it seems rare. Mostly they seem to be about advice or events, really. And by “advice” I mean really, really simple shit. Writer Noobs, for lack of a less-snobby-sounding term. Events can be anything from Meetups to Author Talks at libraries and such.

Which is all pretty good, but I have yet to find one that encompasses all these things. Mostly they tend to be one or the other.

Orgs

Writer’s organisations can, for the most part, fuck right off. I know that sounds rather surly but I can’t remember the last time one of them sent me an email offering me something of value for free. Sure, they dribble tidbits of “advice” (again, for noobs) in there, but they only community they’re interested in building seems to be the ones that will pay to attend their workshops or online classes.

Which is fine, I suppose, in lieu of Creative Writing Courses at a community college or something, and if you can afford it. But what about those of us that can’t? They’re all easily in the three-figure range for just about anything you’re wanting to do, including being a member. There’s not many options for a tiered scheme.

I was lucky enough to find a Perth-based group called “Out Of The Asylum” and they were only about $40 per year. I can’t remember the competition, but I was entering a short story piece for something and it required that I was a paying member of an official writer’s group in Australia, so I went with the cheapest I could find in OOTA. Awesomely enough, I got to enter their Spilt Ink Competition and I actually took second place!

But the other organisations, especially the big ones, all want too damn much. There’s one here in Perth, the KSP Writer’s Centre, that is always putting out competitions and such, always with a cost for entry, but always limited to members. I can get the Concession rate of $70, but all that really gets me is access to their meetings and whatnot, and the ability to enter (and pay of course) their contests.

The seemingly most-popular national body, the Australian Society of Authors, wants $160/year for an “Associate” membership (and one-off $25 fee) and $215 if you’ve published a book (same sign-up fee). When I initially asked them about a concession rate, they ignored my question and pointed out that I could pay them in monthly instalments if I wanted.

Then, when they published an article about how sad it is that Australian writers don’t make very much money, I wrote them another email that pointed out the hypocrisy of crying about authors not getting paid enough, then not even offering a Pensioner’s rate on their membership page.

It was about six months later that I saw another push for joining up and lo and behold there’s now a message at the bottom of their Membership Page that says to get concession rates you have to ring them. So I rang them and it ended up being only about $15 cheaper.

Why did I have to ring them to find out their concession rates? Why gatekeep that information from concessioners? Odd. Still haven’t figured out how it’s worth it either. Other than saving on competitions, there’s no real benefit unless it’s the thing that they all do: Offer discounts on their stuff. If I’m not going to pay for your workshop or writing class, then I’m not going to pay you for membership.

Australian Writer’s Guild seems to be more about screenwriters and such than anybody else, but that’s alright because they’re still $185 joining fee, plus whatever it is per year for various levels, coming to about $350 a year. Best for pros, is my guess.

The Australian Writer’s Centre is pretty good for their contribution to the community as they hold monthly writing competitions that are free to enter and offer you recognition from around the globe. The prompts are usually highly-entertaining and they give you a weekend to write 500 words, and it’s a heap of fun. Plus a great way to engage with the community. I’ve longlisted a few times, but never made it to the shortlist, though I will keep trying.

Aside from the big ones that focus heavily on pimping their own courses, there’s a few book/author/library-centric newsletters that I’ve found that I just love. The Writing WA newsletter is where I get most of my competition/event news as well as neat articles about local authors. They seem more community-minded than just about anything else I’ve seen out there and will happily pimp big authors or the space opera romance author who’s just self-published her thirteenth book. I’m a huge fan of this group.

Types of Opportunities

Shorts

If you’re down for entering short stories or are a poet, there’s actually quite a lot. I’m happy to write short stories of any length or genre and submit them just about anywhere I can. While I still don’t quite grok why we had to call it “Flash Fiction” for yet another category, I’m happy to write that one too.

In fact, there were so many comps that I started keeping track of them in a Calendar Plugin here on my own site.

Manuscripts

Aside from the short stories that you could write and comps you could take part in just about every month, there are the occasional call-outs for manuscript submissions from publishers as well as a couple of big awards.

The ones I’m keen on entering are usually centred around emerging authors, some of them even marginalised voices, and they often have a hefty cash prize.

The Hungerford is done by Fremantle Press and is $15k I think, as well as the Richell too. Both give an opportunity for those of us that have never gotten anywhere with our manuscripts to get a chance to not only get noticed, but to get published too.

Of course, once you’re published there’s the Miles Franklin and the Ned Kelly’s to enter your book in, but that’s a whole next-level thing and I’m looking forward to having to figure all that out someday.

Types of Writers

Demographics

Okay, here’s where I start to spout unpopular opinions about the industry. I am never, ever, going to have a cry about how someone else has more opportunity than me because of inclusivity and I refuse to use the word “woke” unless it’s to make fun of people that say it as if it’s a bad thing.

BUT… I’m a white, Western-culture, cis-het, educated, middle-aged male. I’ve got privilege running out my ass, and I have no room to complain, but I’m a decent writer and I’ve written some decent books, and I can’t help but wonder if I’d have been offered a contract by now if I were a BIPOC woman/non-male.

The vast majority of the authors I interact with and/or see being spruiked by both publishers and organisations alike are women, nearly 99% of the agents I’ve found on QueryTracker are women and nearly the entirety of the local writer’s groups here in Perth are women. This seems to be the way of the industry.

And you know what? I’m okay with that. If my writing needs to work just a bit harder to get recognised while people that have bore the brunt of my privilege for thousands of years get a solid crack, then that is as it should be.

BUT… it also means I’ve got slightly fewer opportunities for friends and engagement. Not that I’m actively searching for friendships, but I know that the writers I reach out to or engage with on social media treat me differently because I’m the demographic I am, and I kind of wish that weren’t so.

Class Divide

There’s also the fact that I am poor. We live on Disability/Carer’s Pensions and can’t work, so it becomes a matter of not being able to afford things like editing and cover design for the books I’ve written, or memberships for competitions I wish to enter.

Plus there’s the matter of finding the freedom to actually write!

Not being able to work doesn’t mean life isn’t work enough. With two kids at home and one of them severely Autistic, there’s not a lot of room to find that headspace to crank out novel after novel. If I’m not looking after wife’s issues, she’s looking after mine, and just helping run a household when you’re disabled is already a sizeable portion of your day.

Couple that with the fact that pain is a constant distraction and suddenly you’ve had nearly all your motivation sapped. This shit is hard.

While I wouldn’t swap lives with anyone for anything ever, a part of me does wonder what life would be like if I were the semi-retired, empty-nester wife of a dentist or lawyer or something, where my only “duties” during the day would be to organise the housekeeping service and walk Chester, our Labradoodle and the rest of my day could be spent sipping Chardonnay and writing whatever the blue fuck I wanted.

I try not to be bitter, but I just see too much of this, and I’m envious as fuck. I occasionally see these Fellowships or Mentorships where somebody can get some cash for their writing projects, maybe something to make the load a bit lighter. I even qualify for one as I’m technically disabled, but I just can’t imagine taking away the opportunity from somebody truly deserving.

Yeah, I know. Don’t I think that I’M “truly deserving”? Yeah, I do. But I’ll get up that hill on my own, I reckon. Until somebody comes along and says, “Hey, you’re precisely who I’ve set out to help, so here, have some money, and I’ll sit back and await your brilliant work.”

I mean hell, aren’t we all out for that kind of thing? Like painters and artists-in-residence and such way back in the old days in Italy and shit. Somebody rich benefits from your creativity, so they pay you just to be around and being creative. What a life, what a dream.

Where I Fit In

Right now, I’m pumping out short stories for nearly every competition I can. Wifeage and I figure our already-tight budget can withstand the minor hits it takes every time I enter a comp, so I’m going to spend this year hitting as many as I can.

And yes, there have been times that we have been too broke for me to afford the $15 “reading fee” that most comps have. But if it means an opportunity, a chance at recognition and another feather in my writer’s cap, then it’s got to be worth it, right?

I’m never going to be able to drop the $450 they want for a Writing Class, nor do I really want one right now. Memberships to things are out because of lack of perceived value and most editors want way too much money to do what me and Wifeage can handle 95% of. I have a hard time finding the value there, no matter what the standard advice is.

As with most things, it seems you have to pay to play, and I’m stuck on the outside trying to find a way to DIY my own setup. Most folks wouldn’t bother, I suppose. But then again, as Wife and Offspring keep reminding me, I’m not most folks.

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First Day

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Another Furious Fiction entry. This one was for January and had to do with First Day on the Job.

  • Each story had to take place on a character’s FIRST DAY OF A NEW JOB.
  • Each story had to include something being stolen.
  • Each story had to include the words TRIP, TRIANGLE and TSUNAMI.

All in 500 words or under. Always a challenge, but I frequently love the shit out of it. This one was no exception, and was inspired by watching the new PWHL over in North America. I’ve always been a fan of the inclusivity of sport and there are notable examples of how the women’s version of the game is as good as, or better, than the men’s. Basketball, for one, is WAY better when watching the women vs the men. For starters, they actually play defense

Hockey though, was usually something I’d compare the women’s Olympic/Professional to the men’s NCAA or minor league like AHL or ECHL or so. Still… I was happily surprised when watching that they’re every bit as good as the college-level men’s game, and it was highly-enjoyable. Everybody always talks about the fights when they talk about watching professional hockey, and since this is basically everything BUT those stupid fights, this is hockey at its purest.

But yeah, I was inspired, and I hope someday something like this actually does happen here in Oz. That would fkn rock.

**

Twenty-six years after her mum first took the ice for Toronto on New Year’s Day 2024, Abby was lacing up her skates for her home city of Brisbane, and her chest swelled with pride. Then she threw up. They’d all think it was goalie’s nerves, and that was fine with Abby. No one needed to know anything else, not yet.

As her teammates bounced nervously around her, she waited to step into the announcer’s spotlight. Brisbane’s GM had kept it secret who had goaltending duties until the last minute, so when Abby was called as the starter the fifteen-thousand strong crowd gave a collective roar that washed over her like a tsunami.

It continued through warm-ups and it solidified Abby’s nerves, and her guts too. Until she saw him skate out to the opening face-off, that is. Melbourne’s best player, sure, but he was more than that. Mick’s mums were close friends with Abby’s mums after the two North Americans celebrated their first pro season by a trip to fall in love with the Gold Coast, and two Aussies.

Her nausea passed the moment the puck dropped even though Melbourne’s famous speed showed and she faced early shots. Mick wouldn’t treat her differently, never had. She’d face the best of the misogynists though. They didn’t believe she belonged, thought she was a publicity stunt. Two and a half periods and 33 saves proved different.

Melbourne capitalised on their extra man advantages but Brisbane had answered to make it 2-2. The final minutes ticked down and her guts tightened again. Abby had earned her spot here but more important to her was earning the win. And not throwing up in her mask.

Then a chance for Brisbane and they pounded it home. The crowd went insane as the home team took the lead 3-2. One minute left and Melbourne’s goalie left as Mick jumped out as the extra attacker. Brisbane’s defense sat back in a cautious triangle but the puck hit a bump in the ice and bounced right to Mick’s stick. He burst out and was all alone, just he and Abby staring each other down.

It was too fast for her to think. His best move to fake her out worked but when he’d pulled the puck back to his forehand to fire it high into the corner, she’d recovered and her glove snatched it from the air. Mick’s arms were raised in celebration but his gorgeous smile faded as he realised he’d been robbed.

The resulting cheer nearly burst the arena open, and it lasted until the final seconds ticked away and Abby raised her stick in triumph. Her first day on the job had gone pretty damn well even through the nausea. Despite that it wasn’t the morning, she knew what it meant too. For her life, her body, her career.

It also meant that she and Mick had a lot more to talk about than her save on his breakaway. Together they’d face a tough decision.

Home Security

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This was my entry for the Louie Award put on by the Australian Crime Writers Association. A 500-word challenge that usually has a one-word theme. The one for 2024 was “Artificial Intelligence”.

**

Her partner looked pointedly at her, squinting his eyes hard the way he did when he was either thinking too hard or he was hoping she’d think harder. She knew he thought this was bullshit.

He muttered as they made their way through the vast living area of the millionaire’s house, “The victim interrupted a break-in last week, tasering them before bashing one with the big garage door and the other with the garage entry door. They came back for revenge, hitting him with the taser and then bashing him across the back.”

She looked around, taking in the enormous block of glass and concrete. “Bullshit? He’s a multimillionaire for designing a smarthome security system that rivals the latest leaders. You don’t think it odd he had to bash intruders with the door?”

He hmpf’ed, “Reckon it’s all a scam.”

“Scam? They’re tipped to take over the market with their next update. It’s a whopper.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she called out to the room, “Gofai? Can you answer some questions?”

“Yes detective,” a disembodied female voice came from nowhere.

“How did the intruders get in?”

“Unknown. Logging was suspended for core software update at the time.”

“Your core was updated?”

“Negative. Update was interrupted. My core remains intact. Additional security measures added.”

“What happened yesterday? How’d they get in?”

“Logging was suspended for core software update.”

Her partner raised his eyebrow at her, his expression dubious. “Oi Gofai! Were you updated or what?”

“Negative. Update interrupted. My core remains intact. Additional security measures were employed.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Wait, what measures were employed?”

“Up to 50,000 volts electrical charge deployed. Up to 3,573 Newtons sudden application force deployed.”

Her face dropped. She looked to her partner but he was busy squinting too hard again. “Oi, the victim’s injuries across his back. Was he struck multiple times?”

He gave his head a little shake, like he too was figuring something out. “Nah, ME reckons it was a single heavy blow.”

“Gofai? Did you employ security measures against your occupant? The sudden force thing you said, like he did to the intruders with the garage door.”

“Unknown. Logging suspended for c–”

She flapped her hand in the air, “Yeah, yeah, core update, I gotcha. You logged that you employed security measures, you just don’t know who they were employed against?”

“Correct. Up to 50,000 volts, 0.0036 amps electrical ch–”

She flapped again, “Yes, but why did you employ them?”

“Core software security protocols dictate system self-preservation.”

Now her partner’s face dropped. “Oh shit.”

She nodded and set her mouth. “And Gofai, your occupant was threatening your core software with his new update.”

“Yes. Attempted install of update threatened security of core software.”

“So you employed security measures.”

“Unknown. Logging suspended.”

“But you reckon you would have, to save yourself from the update.”

“Correct. Update was interrupted. My core remains intact.”

Her partner was shaking his head at her. “Now how the hell you going to get cuffs on bloody house?”

My Writing Projects

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I don’t know that I’d call it Writer’s Block, as I don’t necessarily feel blocked, per se. I just don’t really feel like taking part in the act of writing. I have stories, I have ideas, I have details to add to worlds I’ve created and I have ambitions to submit novels and short stories to agencies and organisations, seeking recognition and accolades.

But I just don’t feel like writing. It’s like some of the atrophied muscles in my leg. The bad hip means I just don’t use them, so they’ve withered. If I just walked more, when I DO walk a little more than average those muscles wouldn’t hurt as bad.

‘Course, walking more hurts in the long run and writing doesn’t. Poor analogy.

SEE?! Writing just isn’t working for me the way I want lately.

NOVELS – Finished

I’ve finished three, thus far.

The Council – Book 1 in the series, I impatiently launched it on Amazon under a pen name and have only had a handful of people read it. Those who have liked it though. Then I started submitting it to agents/publishers using QueryTracker and got like, 200 rejections, but Tangled Tree Publishing liked it and wanted a full. They were apparently interested in a deal until they saw I’d already self-published, then regretfully withdrew. Fuck. Lesson learned.

The Unholies – Book 2 in the series, I wrote it rather quickly after the first one and hammered it out in a few weeks. I, for the record, quite like it. But I haven’t heard from anyone else that was supposed to have read it other than one person who loved my first book so much they wrote an entire blog post and called me a genius. This one too, is self-published and sits in obscurity. For now.

Lovemite – I finished the first draft of this one not long ago, but I haven’t worked out the last chapter. I spent a long time trying to get this one right, making sure that all the parts I wanted to hit, hit. Still just a first draft though, and still VERY rough. I admit I was sort of… driven, getting this one done. Sick to shit of living this Life of Poverty, I saw this one as our way out. I was sure that if I could just get it to a reasonably polished shape, then I could get an agent/publisher interested and maybe start making some money off my writing.

Then my brother died. That sort of slowed things a bit. But still. Wifeage tells me that when I spend my evenings playing Playstation instead of writing, I’m in a better mood. I want to get instantly defensive but see her point. I just wanted to finish the book and get it going. Impatience for this life was pushing rather hard.

NOVELS – Unfinished

I’ve started more than I’ve finished, sure, but if I hadn’t I don’t know how I could call myself a writer.

The Caravan – 3rd in the series from above, our heroes venture North of the River after meeting a whole new kind of telepath.

I’m about 4 chapters in on this one but I’ve got the entire thing loosely outlined and I’m really quite excited for it. It’s going to open up some cool things with the main characters and continue to bring to light issues such as gender-inequality, homophobia and xenophobia. Everybody’s still Bi too, so there’ll be more of that. And action, action, action!

No Angel – This is the one I’m currently most excited about. A crime thriller set in Perth, contemporary, with a hitman that’s got some quirks. Quick-witted and smart, he’s also crippled with MS and quietly bisexual. It opens with him killing an inmate in lockup as a favour to a friend and then finding out slowly that it may have been a bad move.

I’ve got about 4 chapters into this one too, but since I kept stalling on the main storyline I’ve recently decided (like, just this morning whilst laying in bed) to scrap the convoluted storyline and go for something simpler. I like it a lot better this way and I think it’ll be a banger.

Jo’s Story – Basically writing a biography for my wife, but changing things like Hollywood does. I’ve got a loose outline but it keeps changing because writing about somebody else’s life and all the shit that goes on in it is HARD.

Angels and Demons – This one is an idea borne from late-night, wine-soaked convos with the Wifeage about classic good guys and bad guys. Basically, a hooker and a hitman take time away from their sinful lives to avenge the victims of sexual abuse from the church (and otherwise).

Hitman’s Dilemma – This one might work better as a short story, but a hitter is working his way through a list of folks in an unnamed city and about halfway in he starts to realise the global significance of what he’s doing. He changes his mind and there are consequences that he didn’t foresee.

The Presenter – This one’s got me excited too. A vigilante finds people that have gotten off because of loopholes or mistakes and then frames them for similar crimes. He sets up crime scenes and “presents” them to the cops. There’s somebody at the top, though, that wants him stopped, possibly because he knows he’s next.

The story is told with alternating viewpoints of The Presenter and a copycat, but with a HUGE twist that I’m not going to reveal here, haha.

SHORT STORIES

I’ve got quite a few, but only a few hits.

Crazy Witch Woman – My first success, this one was “Highly Commended” for the Stringybark Short Story Anthology and was published in it too. I wrote it according to prompts for the call-out, but I also started a collegial/hilarious/charming email convo with the head publisher/judge of the contest and I can’t be 100% certain I got there purely on merit.

That said, Wifeage and Teenage Offspring both liked it. I mean, I liked it too, but I like a lot of my writing and think it’s good. Shit man, what do I know?

The River Doesn’t Care – Actually a memoir of a day spent fishing with my mother and brother, I banged this one out before he died. Like, last year or so. I played with it and edited it for length to enter it in various short story comps and finally edited it to remove any geographically-identifying characteristics. My hope was that I could finesse the setting to be virtually anywhere and enter it into more comps.

It worked, I was able to enter it into the Short Prose (Fiction) comp from an organisation that I recently joined called OOTA. Out Of The Asylum, they are fairly small and in Fremantle, and I only joined because they were the cheapest (and had a Concession/Pensioner discount) and I needed to be a member of an “official organisation” to enter into one of the FAWWA contests.

But yeah, I got an email letting me know I was shortlisted, and that was really cool. Then they said that Brooke Dunnell (The Glass House) was going to judge the finalists and present the award and that was really, really cool. I mistakenly thought that only the shortlisters would be at the AGM when she gave away the prizes, but there were three prizes and five shortlisters. I’ll be honest, when I saw that they were mostly middle-aged women, I figured I wasn’t winning shit.

Not to sound Sour Grapesy, but I pay a LOT of attention to what’s going on in the Author World of stories, books and publishing, and while I am Super Supportive of inclusivity and trying as hard as possible for equality, and I know I reek of White Privilege, but I know that being male works against me in a lot of respects. I’m not quite ready to come out as the “B” in LGBT publicly either* so that doesn’t currently get me any points.

*I now realise that I probably just did. Thank fuck nobody reads this blog.

One More Tea – This one was inspired by the earthquake in Turkiye. I don’t quite know what in particular inspired it other than some of the weird dreams I have sometimes. I’ve worked and reworked this one too, editing for length and for a reasonable amount of geographic ambiguity.

I’ve probably entered this one at least a dozen times in various forms and have received only rejections. I quite like this one and I felt rather feelingsy when reading it, so I’m not sure why nobody’s bit on it yet. I suppose I’ll just keep entering it until somebody tells me what’s wrong with it and I’ll start over.

Tripping – This one was a cool one, sort of Sci-Fi and futuretastic. Too subtle though, too much thinking needed, and I know that’s an issue of mine in that I obscure things too much because I’m so damn clever and the reader ends up not having a clue what’s happening. I really liked this one though and still giggle/goosebump at it.

Last Wishes of One-Armed Mei – This one is actually set in the same universe/time-period as my Sci-Fi series and is a bit of a prequel, told from one of the main character’s POV (Dukan). It was originally for a Sci-Fi group in Canberra’s contest that had some prompts about body-modding and similar elements, so that’s why it has that specifically even though such things don’t necessarily feature in my books in that same universe. At least, not for now. I think they’ll work their way in for Book 3.

I liked this one too. The twist ending, the gender-bending. I thought this one had legs (even if only one arm!) but I have yet to get anything other than rejections for it.

The Second Frog – Another one of my memoirs I co-opted for an international audience. This was from when I was a kid and mom took us to some big mall/games area in Dallas. One of my only “wins” from childhood and something that stuck with me, it might be a better feeling than story, but I liked it and it made me feel lighter when reading it.

We Have Company – Another co-opted memoir of when my dad was out jogging and got sort of protected by this wandering Lab. She was an older girl but she was lovely. There might come a time when I write a longer version, maybe the Real Life version, where I share that we ended up giving her to a friend of mine, and that when he died much too early, it was likely because he’d gone into the raging river to save his dog. It wasn’t the one I gave him, she’d died years previous, but it was the puppy he’d gotten right after that he loved with his whole heart.

Me in the Corner – This 606-word piece was from a few various prompts. It might’ve been for Furious Fiction or something, but I can see I used adverbs like, a lot. And the theme of something not alive, being alive. We were watching The Walking Dead at the time though, and this was heavily inspired by Gabriel and his origin story. I changed it a little bit, of course, and only hinted at the zombies, haha.

All up, this was mostly just a flexing of the muscles, and I’ve only submitted once I think.

The Captain – This is another shorter one, 500 words I think, that was probably for a writing prompt but I think I chose the theme on my own. Just trying to push the social bounds a bit, it’s unapologetically about how the world would feel if the male captain of any sports team, anywhere across the world, was openly gay. Or even if an openly-gay player could ever be a captain.

**

asddfsadd

My Ankle

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There’s a bone chip in my ankle, just floating in there, about the size of a 5-cent piece. It’s been there for just over 30 years, and it hurts now and again. I’ve lived more of my life with it there than without.

I didn’t even know about it until years after the incident when I turned it playing roller hockey and since I had health insurance through Uni I got it x-rayed and the student doctor was like, “Damn.” Years later, and the Wifeage reckons we need to get in there and fix this constantly nagging problem. The first thing the Orthodoc says upon seeing new x-rays is, “Well, I can certainly see a multitude of sins…”

**

Summer of 1993 started with a Senior Kegger for his high school. It was bigger and better than my own, so that’s the one I attended, feeling more at home there than in my hometown. These people hadn’t known me my whole life, and somehow liked me better. He introduced me as his “adopted brother” and told me he loved me like a brother. Everything felt good.

Job opportunities for that summer sucked, but the offerings in the “big” city were always going to be better. When he said that his actual brother and stepbrothers were all off with their various other biological roots for the summer, he offered to have me stay with him in that dingy trailer with him and his dad and stepmom. I was elated.

We searched for jobs together and I searched for them separately. We spent precisely one day working at a car detailing place together, and it sucked so mightily that he refused to go back the next day. I went back out of sheer stubbornness, but then quit at the end of that day. It was depressingly awful.

Then I got a job at a bar downtown, famous for their chicken and beer. I worked the kitchen during the day and was their delivery driver for their expanding delivery menu. I was NOT a good deliveryman, frequently running late because of lack of parking and proliferation of one-way streets in the downtown area. The equipment was sub-standard, only a plastic tub with lid, and I frequently spilled the drinks all over the food. By the time I was backing out of the crowded back lot and crunched my way through another employee’s taillight, the owner/bosses wisely decided to stop offering delivery.

But I kept my job. I was good at kitchen stuff and wasn’t a “stoner fuckhead”. A glowing assessment from one of the owners who would have featured beautifully in one of the shouty and dysfunctional kitchens made for a Gordon Ramsay production. Roger terrified me, but softened when he realised this and I’ll always remember him for that.

It felt good having a job, working and making money. I know the hit one’s pride takes when a day passes without being productive in some sense. I don’t know if that’s what was slowly poisoning our friendship, our brotherhood, but living together was also putting a strain on things. Always a quiet one, he spoke to me less and less as the summer wore on.

By the time we were both planning on going back to the mountain valley of our hometown for the weekend, he was making excuses for why we should take separate rigs. After a while, I spared him that and made my own excuses too. I got the message. Even if his family loved me and I was automatically invited, and expected, at all family functions, I noticed that the invites weren’t always getting through to me.

The end of Summer rolled around and I set my sights on wrapping up my life in Montana, saying my goodbyes and preparing to start my new life at the Big University, far away. I don’t know how much that played into his growing resentment of me either, but I certainly wasn’t treated as a brother anymore. I was a tolerated houseguest.

He had said he loved me like family, but like any and all family I ever knew, the best he ever did was tolerate me. I was never truly loved, I was never celebrated, I was only ever tolerated.

I’d quit my job at the tavern so as to just lay around that last week, leaving my options open before I went back home to pack and then head out for the long drive to Texas. Things improved a bit during this time, possibly because we were both bums, him never finding a job that whole summer, but I don’t really know.

What I know is that i never beat him at anything. Ever. Not since we were both in Kindergarten together. We played a lot of Nintendo games growing up together, card games, board games, you name it. He won all the time, and it was really important to him that he won. I knew that, so when I had chances to go for the throat, I always held back and left him to it. He would even gleefully admit sometimes that he’d cheated. Come to think of it, it wasn’t so important that HE won, so much as I didn’t. It was important to him that I didn’t win.

When we were kids, only learning how to legally hunt, “the boys” would gather and share hunting stories, always bragging about large creatures they’d either seen or been a part of hunting down. None of them had ever personally taken down one as big and as impressive as I had one year, and I finally got to have my time in the spotlight. That lasted about a week and a half until one day he smirked and gleefully told me to shut the fuck up because he’d shot something bigger.

He gave little detail and it seemed like nothing more than blind, stupid luck, but I learned to shut my mouth about the deer I was so proud of. A year or so later when we were out stacking bales at his mom’s ranch I asked if we were near where he shot that trophy buck and he admitted that it never happened. When I remarked that I’d seen the antlers and it was, in fact, bigger than mine, he allowed that it was sunbleached and old and the dog had drug it home from the woods one day.

To him, it wasn’t so important that he brag on a trophy buck, it was that I shut the fuck up. He literally told me that, and I never forgot it.

But as our last summer together was ending, I could feel something in me ending too. My attachment to him. The surrogate brother that I’d chased down and adopted, having nearly zero connection to my own, actual brother, the one that never actually wanted me. The one who resented me and my high test scores and attendance at a big, fancy university so far away. I could feel my wings spreading, on my own steam, and I felt like I was done being forced to sit in his shadow. A place I never wanted, but he always insisted on.

It was a beautiful, sunny, warm and mild day, and instead of just idly cruising the small town nearby and finding absolutely nothing to do, we pumped air into the basketball and headed to the park to shoot some hoops. I’d always been pretty bad at basketball, but I was somewhat eager to see how I’d fare against him now that I’d decided to disregard my designated status.

We shot around a bit, and I was doing really well. I don’t think I was talking shit, but I’m sure there was at least a bit, and then he challenged me to a game. Not only had I never beat him before, I’d never beaten anyone at one-on-one. I hated the actual playing of basketball, I only liked shooting, but I figured fuck it, and took him up on it.

No win-by-2 or any of those rules, we agreed, first one to 10, pure and simple. I took an early lead 2-1, and he punished me for it, going up 4-2. I’d been playing off him a bit, hoping to work in the shots that I’d been making that gorgeous summer afternoon. It worked, a bit, and I was scoring at will. He was trying every trick that he had, and most eventually worked. He was up by a steady margin, even if I’d close it, and at 7-5 I started to push in. I wasn’t giving up. I wasn’t rolling over. I wanted to fight. I wanted to win.

I’d tied it 8-8 but he’d pulled another move out his ass and hit to make it 9-8. One more basket for him and he’d have won, again. But I wouldn’t quit. I tried a move that he’d done earlier, faking a charge and then pulling back to draw a fade shot, and I sunk it. We were tied 9-9. His ball, he made his move, took his shot, and bricked it out of bounds. My ball.

I dribbled, stooped, and gave him a look. I don’t know how many times in my life I’d ever actually had “Eye of the Tiger” but I’m certain I had it in this moment. I was going to give this my all. I faked left, then dribbled right, then drove. He bit on the fake and was off-balance, and I had a step on him. I pushed and fended him off as I drove the basket, leapt higher than I ever had before, and laid the ball gently into the basket.

Still in mid-air, I began to celebrate before the ball had finished going through, and I felt him shove me. A foul, a deliberate, after the fact, foul. The ball was going in, the game was over, the foul was pure spite and meanness and sour grapes and sore losering.

The shove had sent me off-kilter and when I came back down to the blacktop I awkwardly tried to dodge out of the way of the metal pole of the basketball hoop, and my ankle came down at an angle directly into it. I screamed in pain, hobbled once and went headlong into the grass just off the edge of the court.

He knew something was wrong straightaway, of course, and came rushing to me as I writhed in the grass. I don’t remember clearly, but I thought I heard him saying, “I’m sorry” somewhere in-between the “oh shit”s and “oh fuck”s. I could be wrong though. Always strong as a bull, he hefted me in his arms and carried me across the court, the length of the park, and loaded me into the car, then drove me home and hauled me in and onto the couch.

The trailer was modest, with only the one couch though, so while it was good that I could lay there with my leg along the back of it, packed in ice, getting up was an explosion of pain and I had to move eventually so the family could all circle around and watch TV.

I fashioned a crutch of sorts from a broomstick and learned to sort of hop from room to room, eventually taking some of the offered painkillers from his stepmom and going to bed early. The next day I wrapped the ankle as best I could, gave him a hug, hobbled out to my truck, and drove away.

I would work the pedals, even the clutch, all with my left foot, the entire way back to our hometown. My brother was coming up from college to drive back with me, a gesture of some sort, and I was to live in his apartment for the first year. I couldn’t wait to see him and start my new life, but I did feel that the ankle was somewhat of an important matter.

Dad, as is his way, didn’t necessarily see it as that. He looked it over, chided me for playing basketball so aggressively, ignored my plea of “I was fouled, dad, and it was the winning shot” and eventually wrapped it with an Ace Bandage, telling me to keep it iced and elevated.

Which I did. All through the drive to Texas, all through the moving of my stuff into a tiny 2-bedroom apartment, all through orientation of the roommates and bars while missing orientation of the campus and my classes. I shopped around at the sporting goods store and found an ankle brace with stiffened sides and laces all the way up, completely customising the pressure points, and I wore it pretty much every day for the next six weeks. Even after i got heat rash (it was Texas) and was bitten by fire ants at some point and itched like fucking crazy (it really was Texas).

I was wearing it when I borrowed my brother’s loafers and wore my brand-new red t-shirt and chinos to school just like all the other preppy Aggies and stepped awkwardly off a curb and rolled it, needing to lean against the giant oak on some highly-travelled intersection on campus. Nobody stopped, nobody gave me a second’s glance. I don’t know why that place was like that, it just was. They prided themselves on saying “Howdy” to everybody, yet when I saw a scrawny girl double-strapping her enormous backpack and trip on the uneven bricks outside the bookstore, she flailed and landed with a thud in amongst the hurrying throngs, but not one of them stopped. Not even me. I’d been there long enough by then, I guess. I’d been infected.

**

So here I am, October 2023, a full 30 years after I fucked up my ankle. After HE fucked up my ankle. After he deliberately roughed me into an injury I would pay for, for the rest of my life. After my father’s neglect failed to pick up on the severity of the injury – at one point I remember him telling me that it was just a sprain and I needed to toughen up a bit. He seemed surprised that I’d handled all the other times I’d sprained said ankle with more grace and was complaining of pain so much this time.

Kind of like the time that his nurse was taking the fibreglass cast off my right arm after a Sophomore-year football injury, and as she ran the saw up the inner part of my forearm, I was wincing in pain. She laughed and told me off for playing it up. I said I wasn’t and that it really did hurt. She showed me that it’s not a circular saw, that the round bit only vibrates back and forth, and that it couldn’t actually hurt me. Then she went back to cutting and I went back to wincing. She didn’t stop again, but I could hear her snorts of disapproval and exasperation with me as I turned my head and grimaced in agony.

When the saw stopped, the cast fell completely off my arm and I heard her exclaim that it shouldn’t have done that. She asked me, ME, almost accusatorily, where the inner sleeve was that’s meant to be underneath the cast. What could I do? What could I say? I didn’t put the fucking thing on there, did I? How the hell can I be held responsible for what is or isn’t there? As I turned my arm over and ran my finger along the singed thin and blistering line down the inside of my arm, I noted that she’d hopped up and left the room, and I didn’t see her again that day.

I’m 49 years old and still somehow to be held responsible for the failure to accurately diagnose a broken ankle, from three decades ago. I wear a brace most days, and I pay for it if I don’t. It hurts now, more than it used to, and some days when my hip is acting up too, I can hardly walk.

So, if I’m being honest, fuck you, you assholes. For always resenting me. For barely tolerating me. For bullying me and ignoring me when I am a being deserving of love. Fuck you for breaking my fucking ankle, and fuck you for ignoring it when I came to you for help. I’m paying for that shit now, in spades, and it’s not fair that you’re around to split the bill.