Green Jacket

WRITTEN BY SAMUEL MAGUIRE (HEIRLOOMS - LIT SALON)

My ex-stepdad was in the army, or at least spent a lot of time in jail in the army. He was either a demolitions expert in the Special Forces, or head chef for a high-ranking officer, depending on what area of expertise he wanted to impress you with. He knew ninjitsu. He killed a swathe of men with an M60. Served in East Timor. He used to be a bikey. Was called Rattlesnake by his friends. Killed a man there as well. Buried a pistol in the backyard somewhere. As with all things about him, the fog of his distorted reality cleared with distance.

When the marriage finally broke down, after long years of domestic abuse, World of Warcraft addiction and an everincreasing collection of novelty cheap store dancing santas, the ugly intensified. I was living rent-free with my brother and his friend. I’d just been through a bad breakup, though all of my breakups hit me like a B-Double tearing through a flock of galahs. I was permanently high, fighting and losing against a scabies infection, and spent most of my days smoking, listening to a rotating roster of breakup albums and training alongside my brother with our swords.

We’d bought the swords for each other as birthday gifts. I have no idea where we found the money for them, both of us being terminally unemployed. His was a longsword, fashioned as a replica of the Black Prince’s own. Mine was a heavy and brutal two-hander, based off the crusades era. Hand-forged in Canada by Canadians, battle ready and designed for steel-on-steel contact. I’m not sure if they were actually legal.

We trained daily. Wake up at 6:30. Fifty push-ups, sit-ups and squats, then 200 strikes with the sword, ten slow, ten fast. After that we hit the dumbbells and started chain smoking. My brother fed me as much as he could. After my breakup I’d dropped below 60 kilos, and was pretty close to carking it. Putting on muscle was an ample substitute for a relationship.

It was just getting dark when my brother got back from my mum’s, about an hour drive out West from Ipswich. It was late August, and still fairly chill outside under the carport where I was smoking. I wore my stepdad’s old army jacket, olive drab and bulky to hide my coat hanger frame. He didn’t know I had it, I sneaked it from a pile of old things sitting in the shed.

My brother returned shaking and swearing and flooding with rage. He’d gotten into an argument with my stepdad again. They fought constantly, even when my brother was a scrawny twelve-year old, I remember my stepdad holding him against the roof by his throat. This time had ended badly. My stepdad threatened to kill my brother as he stormed back to his car. My brother called him a cunt as he drove off, not giving him the last word and driving my stepdad crazy. My mum called us and told us to be careful. My stepdad was going to get his bikey friends to pay us a visit.

We smoked a joint together to calm him down, cracked open homebrew beers and started to plan. Our housemate was almost never there, though he owned the place. There were just two of us, and we couldn’t call the cops because of our pretty tame weed stash.

All we had was our swords and a workers cottage on the roughest street in the roughest suburb of Ipswich. Two exits, one for each of us. The walls were pretty solid, so we weren’t too worried about getting shot up if we stayed in the middle of the house, and if we got the drop on them we were sure we’d at least take out several bikeys with our swords.

We’d practiced the strikes every day for months. Shoulder to hip, side to side at the neck, block up and then stab the face.

The night grew darker and colder. We sat outside, me in olive drab and my brother in high vis. Sword belts on, scabbards sticking out between the arm rest of the green plastic Bunnings chairs.

We smoked and turned our heads at every set of headlights that came down the darkened backstreet.

At 3am, after four joints and twice as many beers, we turned in. Our stepdad, as ever, remained all talk.

The marriage dissolved rapidly after that. Drama after drama preceded complete excommunication. Then the slow process of unlearning. Shining light on what I’d experienced, what had grabbed my heels and dragged itself around with me as I matured. Reforging myself into a new shape, devoid of toxic and fragile masculinity.

I still have the jacket. It was the only thing I kept from him. I’ve worn it to parties and events, all around Japan on holidays with my wife. If anyone asks where I got it, I say I racked it from a veteran.

If my stepdad saw me in it he’d probably kill me, and I would let him. Let that wave break against my stone, and fall away, unchanging and impotent. The cliffs don’t hit back against the water, they let the waves destroy themselves.

Besides, I look better in green.