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By Root 772 0

I remember pushing myself in sports because my brother did— following him blindly into school and street games of every type. Unlike me, he didn’t read, or even listen to music; for him the pursuit of physical betterment was its own reason and reward. I remember witnessing—when I was eleven and he thirteen—a push-up contest between my brother and the four Ngo boys. Later, of course, the four of them would be media-tarred as members of that night’s notorious ‘Asian gang’ but in truth they were no gang—they were barely even friends—and famously never on speaking terms. What they were, were brothers. And even back then, in the kids’ room at some family friends’ party in St Albans, squatting around the prone figure of my brother who was younger than all but one of them, they’d already learned to stick together. The contest carried on. With no clear winner emerging, they progressed to push-ups on their knuckles, then push-ups on five fingertips, then one-armed push-ups incorporating these variants—the Ngos dropping out until only Hai, the eldest, remained alongside my brother. Then Hai collapsed. All of us watched in incredulity as Thuan went on to demonstrate a one-armed push-up, left hand tightly clutching his right wrist, where his body’s weight was borne entirely by the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. I was stricken—as much by my brother’s single-mindedness as his strength, the fact he must have practised, in secret, for months. (I say this with confidence because it was only after three months, when I’d buffed two coin-sized spots into the bathroom floorboard, that I managed it myself.)

My brother believed that nothing could make you ridiculous if you were strong. His way was to go at things directly; entering a new school, for example, he would do what movie lore says to do upon entering jail: pick a fight—and win. I wondered what he did in jail. Our father, in his own way, failed to beat this into us, and so my brother beat it into me. I thought then I hated him for it but I was wrong. I wanted to know him—I always have. Now I realise it was only when he asserted himself in physical motion—then, ineluctably, in violence—that I came closest to doing so.

I am on the street of my childhood. I am running late, without any time to scavenge through the disused paddock, veer in and out from under lawn sprinklers—even to catch a breather at the bottom of our steep hill. He’s by himself, waiting for me. Both our parents at work. I’m late, and when I come in the front door he’ll punish me—those are his rules, and they’re clear enough. I come in and there he is, right in front of me, his face almost unbearably inscrutable. He allows me time to put down my schoolbag and deadlock the door. I fumble off my shoes. The hot cord bunches up from my gut into my throat, clogging my breathing. I lift my arms to my face and he slubs me with a big backhander.

‘Where’ve you been. You’re late.’

I nod, lick my cracked lips, crabwalk quickly into the living room. He follows me to the couch where I hunch my back and bury my face in the dark red cushion. Over and over he hits me, his knuckles pounding the hard part of my head where I won’t bruise. The cushion smells of old blood, and spit, and sweat from both our bodies. If I reach behind to feel for the arm, the punishing fist—try to glove it with my own smaller, sweaty palms—he’ll twist and sprain my fingers.

If I turn to plead, I’ll meet his face absent of heavy intent, as if his attention is somewhere else, as if he’s bashing my skull to reach something just beyond it. He’s utterly without pity and in my stronger moments I envy that. I’m sorry, I tell him. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. He drives his knee into my lower back. At the height of panic and pain something comes free in me. Afterwards, I wipe my face on the cushion and try not to track blood, if there is blood, all over the carpet. I search my reflection in the bathroom mirror. If there’s visible damage, he’ll barter with me, he’ll let me off next time, he’ll do my chores, buy me jam doughnuts at the tuckshop—so long as