Well I guess you could say it all started a year ago now. There was nothing really extraordinary about the day, just the usual. I skipped down town to pick Hal up. It was about 12:15 on Saturday, cricket day. I’d met Hal about three months before that at a pub in Willoughby. Kev knew him from uni, studying some sort of arts subject, and brought him into the team. He was a small quiet guy, who seemed to drift around the periphery of our social interactions.

When I met Hal he was quiet, withdrawn and completely consumed within. We tried talking to him but it seemed impossible for him to emit little more than a squeak. I just assumed here was one more person unfortunately succumbing to the social ineptitude of contemporary society so endemic in modern times. Hal was totally affectless, as if he was in limbo, like a comet in the void drifting through the intergalactic play of gravity flow that was our planetary orbits. Except the pull of gravity was working in reverse; when the Hal comet drifted into your orbit, rather than being pulled in, he seemed to draw forth, like a vacuum, an involuntary stream of words from the home planet that only ceased once the Hal comet bounced off the atmosphere and drifted back into limbo. In the face of his silence you felt compelled to talk. You had to fill in the uncomfortable silence. It’s not that he was stupid or ignorant, in fact quite the opposite. When it came down to it he had amazing ideas; however he was extremely, overtly self-reflective, and seemed to get lost in the void for too long. Then inevitably after an extended period of convoluted self-reflection he would gather tremendous velocity and come crashing into a planet with an explosion of high stratus-sphere concepts, theoretical expositions and exploratory self discovery. Only too have, like the hand of god has swept time past, the explosion quickly rekindle itself, reform, and ever so gently and quietly go back off floating into the empty fields of space. At the right moment he exploded with words. If you caught him most of the time he sucked you dry.

I remember he told me once after an extended drunken celebration that sometimes, only sometimes, when he was walking along the street he became engulfed in anxiety, and felt – no knew- that when he stepped down of the gutter onto the road he would keep falling, just keep falling, “down until I disappear completely, and never be seen again.” Years later I read Catcher in the Rye and sighed. As socially void as he was, nevertheless, on the cricket field he seemed to explode. Watching him bat was sufficient enough expression to convince me that I should agree to pick him up from his Mosman flat every Saturday before cricket. Kevin told me he never used to be like this and I hoped it was only a phase. So I went to pick him up.

His place was small, covered in vines and loomed over by overarching trees, as if nestled in an earthen cradle; nurtured by some form of large Mother-Naturely figure. The number six hung upside down on the letterbox, which was over-spilling with junk-mail. Two Yellow Pages books sat quietly on the doorstep still wrapped in frayed air tight plastic. The front door was faded green and paint chipped. I knocked. Nothing. No response. I knocked again. Again nothing. A jackhammer started yammering at a construction site down the street. Who the hell works on Saturday? I knocked again, louder.

“Hal!”

Silence returned the call.

“Hal!”

I think the silence was still echoing. It was strange, he was always there. He never went out Fridays unless it was with us and if I recall all the boys had gone up to Spoilers that night for a ‘relaxation’ massage. Hal was never into that so I knew he must be home. I knocked again.

“Hal, are you in there?”

Then I heard something, indistinct and muffled.

“Hal, are you there for fuck’s sake?”

Then it came back, loud and clear, bouncing off the silence, “Yes.”

I stepped back, looking at the door, shaking my head. “Yes? Yes! What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing!”

It was strange. The sound didn’t seem to be coming closer despite Hal’s presumed approach to open the door.

“Well, why didn’t you open the door?”

His muffled, distant call returned “I don’t know” in a tone that suggested shrugged shoulders. This calling out through a closed door was beginning to become a bit conspicuous for my liking.

“Hal, open the freakin’ door.”

“Okay!” in a tone that suggested shrugged shoulders. Simple as that it seemed. I waited a minute, tapping my foot. He opened the door, standing there in his boxers, with wild scraggly hair. He looked disheveled, as if freshly emerged upon the day and still retaining the residue of sleep that afforded a dreamy, glassed over gaze.

His smile seemed complete, “How ya doin?”

“Good!” I replied duly, if not a little rancorously.

He appeared almost bemused, a strip of unselfconscious happiness painted across his face. I couldn’t work him out.

I must have looked indignant. I felt it. “What the hell were you doing, I was banging for ages, we’ve got cricket man, c’mon, we’ve gotta go.”

He turned back inside to get dressed with a simple “Okay” that followed him in.

Once we got in the car I decided to attempt to coax Hal into opening up, flicking his verbal vacuum switch on reverse and telling me what the hell happened back at his flat. This is where things became a bit funny, strangely odd. Logic became pear shaped. It was almost as if I had walked into the warped landscape of a Dali painting where reality was eschewed. I began to feel like a melted clock. Hal opened up his gates and told me his story. About a week beforehand he began to notice something different. His thought patterns began to slow, as if Hal had to labor through the process of developing a thought. Sometimes, he said, it was like the whole thing stalled completely. As if his laboring mind had become fatigued and decided to quit for the time being, sit back, pull out a cigarette and take a five minute smoko. Hal was confused. The day before it had taken him twenty minutes to decide whether to get the Big Mac meal deal or a Quarter-Pounder meal deal, the last five minutes of which the store manager spent contemplating whether or not to call the cops. Forget about what happened when they asked him if he wanted to upsize! Today when he woke up things were worse. He had opened his eyes to the morning in high spirits, inevitably falling upon the contemplation of his lost love Sasha. He lingered there but eventually began to amble through a series of pointless pools of thought, introverted and paranoid. When the procession began to circle around and stumble on its own tale and every possible avenue of thought that Sasha afforded was exhausted, only then did Hal realize something was wrong. Ironically, despite having a carnival of thoughts in his head, Hal was unable to even approach the thought of what this was, what was happening to him, and why he hadn’t even got out of bed yet? He did contemplate different possibilities- getting up, breakfast, going back to sleep, grabbing a cigarette out of the pack next to the bed. But he never acted. He never decided to do anything. He just lay there, inert, thinking, never going beyond the thought. He couldn’t seem to translate a thought process into a completed thought, into a decision that would necessitate the conversion of thought into physical action. It was as if the laboring mind after years of hard sweaty toil and too many smoko breaks had decided to go into retirement, put his feet up on the coffee table, grab a beer, and spend the rest of his days lounging about watching TV in his old single bed caravan. Apparently he had woken up about 10:30 and just lay there like a stunned mullet swimming upstream until I rocked up at 12:15 and finally made the choice for him to get up and open the door. Then we got to the cricket.

The old sandy brown Kingswood pulled into the car park in a huff, trailed by a cloud of dust that caught up and enveloped the Kinger. Kev and Ortho were already there sitting on a log. Everyone else was late. The other team, complete, were dressed in their whites and already on the field chasing the little red leather ball around. They were keen. I popped the door and hopped out, going to the boot to grab my cricket bag. As I dropped the boot and went to join the boys on the log I noticed Hal was still sitting in the car, head contentedly waggling around like a doll, a dazed and confused expression on his face- lost in the void.

I stooped to look through the driver’s window at Hal, “Whatcha doin’?”

His wriggling head centered on me for a moment, bemusement besmeared, saying “Nuthink” with evident shrugged shoulders.

“Well? Why don’t you hop out? Oh!… ahh” A flashbulb lit up over my head. Despite the strangeness of the concept and the seemingly idiotic necessity of the statement I thought it was worth a shot. He needed a little push. “…Hal, get out of the car!”

“Okay!” His shrugged shoulders whether imagined or visually impactful were beginning to bug me. But my command did manage to draw him forth from his self indulgent slumber.

We sat on the log waiting. Ortho turned to me and chirped like a bird,

“Hey man,” his beak spreading into a mischievous smile, “How was last night man, that little Asian chick you grabbed had the tightest ass, very yummy man.”

I gave him a wry smile in return, “yeah man, very tidy.”

William Ortho was, put simply, a freak. The kinda guy that at every social gathering of the boys managed to find a reason to lean in over bodies and usher us in closer, as if getting ready to unveil some secret conspiracy, then spread a leering dirty smile across the horizon and proceed to unload the latest sick, twisted and inane piece of aural trash, sadism or immorality that popped into his head. His mind worked headfirst and blind, goggle eyed and drunk. It was like his brain was drugged up, running around hyped up and sweaty with teeth grinding and pupils exploding. I liked him nonetheless. Maybe that’s why I liked him.

The rest of the team eventually rocked up. Pendleton went over and tossed the coin. Hal suited up to go out and open the batting. I stood up, watching intently with a mixture of apprehension, amusement and anxiety as Hal got ready to face the first ball. I didn’t know what to expect. The bowler came rushing in and unleashed a roaring ball that dug in short and jutted up at Hal’s ribs. To my surprise Hal stepped back and competently fended off the ball. Well, I thought, guess that’s problem solved. He seems alright out there. The next ball was tossed up out wide. Hal stood and watched it go by, motionless, as he did with the next one and the next one. Wait a minute, reconsidering, this is looking ominous. What followed was a cabaret of inaction. After fifteen overs Hal was still out there scoreless but untouched. As the day wore on and Hal’s innings dragged on I began to work out what was happening. Whenever the ball was angled in so that it would go on to either hit the stumps or Hal himself, then and only then it appears, would Hal’s instinct for survival take over and automatically trigger neural connections into action. It was like Hal’s energy flow, his chi, took over and went on auto pilot, working in defensive mode. On the other hand if the ball was one degree off line, one inch too wide, then Hal was afforded the possibility of deciding which shot to play and subsequently became a tight bound bundle of indecision; a solid stalwart of organic rock. Hal demonstrated for us all the infinite possibilities of avoiding balls. He watched delivery after delivery go by, unable to decide how to play the ball. The opposition became obviously frustrated and began to viscously harass Hal, slandering not only his own sexuality, but calling into question various family members as well. Hell, by this stage even Jake was verbally assaulting Hal. I contemplated revealing Hal’s story to the boys but decided against it. Better to let him tell them when he’s ready. Besides I wanted to watch the whole thing unfold naturally (the key here being that he would never decide to tell them, so they would never know. A fact which, although present, remained hidden at the back of my mind’s class, crouched behind a fat and slovenly looking Altruism). Eventually the bowlers decided that if the only balls he would hit were those careening at his body then by all means they’d be happy to oblige, bringing on a vicious barrage that would rival any ‘bodyline’ saga. They finally got him out trying to fend off a sharp short ball, caught in first slip off a bat that only just managed to rise in time to protect Hal’s face. He walked off with the same bemused look smeared across his face that greeted me at the front door this morning. I had to laugh.

The next week was drowned under a deluge of torrential rain. The cricket was canceled. Kev rang me up and told me all the boys were going down to the pub. He had no more credit on his phone so he asked me if I could call Hal and invite him. Before I could protest he was disconnected. I smiled to myself. Well, I thought, it’ll definitely be a laugh. So I rang him.

“Heellloooo.” I could feel his bemusement in the vocal vibrations.

“Hey Hal, how ya goin’?”

“Um, well…”

“Ya all right mate?”

“Ahhhhhhh.”

“Hows that little problem we talked about going? Any luck with the McDonald’s conundrum?

“Welllll, I… I… um, so...It’s raining a lot.”

“Obviously not.” It was not looking good. “Yeah mate, it’s pissing down. So anyway, all the boys are goin’ down to the Stag and Famish, wanna come?”

“Ya going to the pub? Gonna get drunk?”

“…Yeah mate, wanna come?”

“Ummm, I… well…ahhh”

I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist. It had to be done. The little devil on my right shoulder had won as always. “Hal, listen to me. I’m comin' over. I’ll be there in twenty minutes to pick you up. So get ready. Cool? You’re coming to the pub with me.” I thought for a minute. “Hal, put on those brown cords ya got, and that dark blue shirt, and, and… fuck, I don’t know, just put on the first pair of socks and undies ya see alright. Ya got it?”

“Yep.”

“So I’m coming to pick you up.”

Before he even said it I knew he was shrugging. “Okay,” Simple as that.

When I got there, mate I tell ya, I was thinking. The ol’ brain was ticking over. Without even knocking, I walked up to the door and called out, “Hal, open up.” I was very proud of my foresight, subconsciously reaching behind to pat myself on the back. But when he opened the door ‘the ol’ brain’ abruptly stopped ticking, had a massive and very painful heart attack, and keeled over dead. I just stood there numb, staring at Hal. Well, at least trying too. He stood there dressed just as I had told him to, in his brown cords and that blue shirt that had a pale box across the chest with an unidentifiable image within. Though I must admit I hadn’t envisioned the mixed socks. Obviously the first pair of socks he saw weren’t technically a pair of socks. I shuddered to think what he had on underneath. The one thing missing was his shoes. The one thing I forgot to mention in the clothing catalog on the phone was his shoes. But it wasn’t his shoes I was worried about. It wasn’t his socks either. In fact it was no apparel, no external object, nothing even remotely describable that held my mind in its frozen grip; that shattered my loosely strung network of rationality, as if some giant monster had lurched up out of the darkness of my subconscious to consume my grasp on reality. Hal was…opaque. He wasn’t all there. He was hazy, kinda see through, like he was somehow empty. I liked to call it ‘optically illusive.’ It was quite disturbing. He was standing there grinning, which was fine. The fact that I could see back beyond his grin, through his teeth, down the hall into the kitchen; the fact that I could see that ugly Balinese wooden carved face hanging on the kitchen wall right where his left eye should be; now that, that was horrific. My mind felt like it was spinning as fast as my vision was. I needed help. Shit, he needed help. So I did the smartest thing I could think of, the first thing that came to mind. What anyone would do in my situation. I took him to the pub. He looked like he needed a beer.

When we got to the pub the boys were already there and well on their way. They were watching the Rugby on the screen top right, the A.F.L top left, a replay of a FA cup soccer game in the back corner and on the big screen a Hector Del Hoya v Sergei Bundle middle weight championship prize fight. It was a veritable smorgasbord of sweaty, ego-maniacal, competitive, masculine TV viewing. We had entered the sporting world, boozed up and biased. The boys greeted us with a loud hearty cheer, but the cheer quickly flattened as perplexed looks spread across the table of faces. Dan Wayvone looked physically sick. Gately pushed his chair back and stood up, his large frame rising high, while his jaw dropped. Kev rose quickly and came over, a concerned expression etched in the lines on his face.

“Hey guys. How ya goin?… Hey Hal… mate, you alright?”

“Yep. Feel fine.”

I could see that I needed to dampen some flames. The boys looked like they’d stumbled into a swamp of terror and were unable to wade through it. I pulled a 20 note out of my wallet.

“Hal, grab some pints okay. VB.” He took the note and floated off towards the bar. I turned to Kev, “We gotta talk!”

“Damn straight!”

I sat down at the table and brought everyone in close. I pulled back the curtains from what I knew and let the boys watch the show. So many different expressions grew and evolved across their faces as Hal’s story unfolded that I couldn’t even be bothered starting to describe them. Jim was smoking a scoob and smiling to himself. James ‘Jim’ Pemulis loved his drugs. He was in no way a ‘recreational’ drug user. No way. Jim was in no uncertain terms a full-blown out of control 24-7 goggle eyed skin and bones drug addict, a toe tapping insomniac. It didn’t really matter what drug he took, not to him anyway. It wasn’t like he was picky. He just liked the ride however it came. Whatever the kick may be, Jim’ll take a ticket. I’d known Jimmy Pemulis since tenth grade. He’d floated into the school amongst a mist of controversy, as he did two months later floating out. Somewhere along the line the mist lingered and shrouded me just long enough to be picked up by the storm and carried off. Luckily I fell off the cloud four years later, thundering down, whacked into the ground, bounced, and eventually came to settle in the nice cushy grass (despite several broken bones, emotions and relationships, everything else was smooth sailing). Unfortunately Jim was still riding the storm; holding the reins, bent forward, kicking the flanks, racing for the finish line. He was drinking Guinness. He always drank Guinness. His feet were tapping out some unrecognizable melody. After I had filled them in everyone sat back in their chair. Most were quick to finish off their beers. Jim finished his beer and put the empty glass down, looking intently focused. He crossed his arms in front of him, leaned forward and turned to us all, “It’s like…it’s like he’s made of glass.”

I went to see Hal the next Friday after work. Kev had told me that his family had flown down from Brisbane on Monday after hearing about the pub fiasco. He wasn’t in good shape. Well, to be exact, I couldn’t really tell if he was in good shape or not. I could hardly even see him at all. I think I’m safe in saying he didn’t look like he was in good shape. His mother, Patricia, had met me at the door. Pat, as she insisted I call her, was a large, solidly built, rather ominous figure of motherhood. She was extremely tall, but looked uncomfortable with it. She had this hunched over effect; as if, embarrassed by her height, she compensated by drawing herself in, folding over, trying to minimize the affect. Her eyeliner had run; then caked. I followed her into the kitchen. Seated at the kitchen table were Hal’s brother Zoyd, his sister Frenesi and his father Henry. Hal was nowhere to be seen and I began to worry. Pat must have sensed something, “He’s in the loo.”

“Ahhh.”

“Would you like a drink? Beer perhaps?”

“Yeah sure, thanks.”

For some reason Henry told me to call him Thomas. Zoyd stood up to shake my hand, applying a firm hard grip, no doubt told by Thomas at some stage in Zoyd’s pre-pubescence that you could judge a man by the grip of his handshake. I returned the gesture, dad having filled me in when I was 9. Frenesi, now Frenesi, well… she had some fine long legs and that’s all I’ll say on that matter. Then there was Henry, a.k.a Thomas, slouched at the head of the table with a half empty beer in his hand, floral shirt unbuttoned at the front, belly rolls spilling out, hair combed over and legs, in impossibly small footy shorts, spread open for all the world to see; the disheartening fact being that I appeared to encompass ‘all the world’ at this particular moment. Pat handed me a beer.

Thomas looked at me, nudging his head sideways as if to indicate that I should come closer. I came closer. In hushed tones he said to me, “So mate, it’s not lookin’ good for young Halster is it?”

Pat slapped him on the shoulder, “Hush Tom don’t talk like that. Hallie’s gonna be just fine. There’s nothing wrong with him, just a stomach bug,” A frantic edge drifting into her voice.

Thomas’s bushy eyebrows rose to the roof, blowing out a long sigh as he leant back in his chair. Zoyd was unabashed, “Mum, just accept it. The little shit’s fucked up again and this time it looks like he’s gonna have to face the consequences.” Pat threw an ashtray at Zoyd’s head. “Shit Mum!” he cried, looking mortified.

“You’ll be facing the consequences in a minute kid if you don’t shut up,” she barked, before walking out the back with a basket of clothes.

Thomas finished off his beer, laughing quietly to himself. Frenesi just sat there, smiling at me... directly at me. Just as I was beginning to doubt my decision to come over, questioning my usually infallible judgment and ciphering through every plausible exit avenue, I heard the toilet flush. Okay, cool, that’s why I came here, to see Hal. I heard the bathroom door open. When Hal walked into the kitchen I knew immediately that any former faith in my judgment had just run screaming out the front door.

As soon as Hal walked into the room it seemed that everyone became suddenly preoccupied with some object or thought that directed their intent focus firmly on any given point where Hal was not. Thomas fell out of his chair in the rush to get to the fridge and grab a beer, lingering extra long to gaze into the chilly depths. Zoyd found a pattern in the mosaic patterned plastic kitchen table that obviously required his complete attention. Frenesi just kept looking at me. But I couldn’t look anywhere else. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Hal. It was hard enough trying to find him in the first place. At least before he had worn clothes, which served as a perfect visual starting point in tracking Hal down, but now it seems the clothes would no longer find any actual flesh to hold on to. Anything he tried to put on would fall straight to the ground. So now, presumably, he was standing in front of me completely naked. Not that I could really see him anyway. He was like a shadow, a hole in the room, a visual black hole. The lack of social interaction had finally left him physically pointless, a void piece of matter no longer necessary.

“Hey Hal mate, how ya feeling?”

“Fine thanks.” The light refracted wickedly as Hal walked across the room. I had to get him to sit down somewhere before I got so dizzy I would fall off my chair.

“Hal lets go grab a seat on the couch.”

“Okay.”

I wasn’t really sure if he was following me into the lounge room. I sat down on the single fold-back chair, leaning back and putting my feet up.

“Hal, you there?”

“Of course.”

I could just discern him standing in front of me. It was crazy. He was fading in front of my unbelieving eyes.

“What have the Docs’ said?

“Not much.”

“Yeah, guess they wouldn’t. Have the cops been around yet?”

“Yeah, Wednesday.”

The cops were inevitable after last Saturday’s debacle. I can’t believe I sent him to the bar alone. Wrong move. Just as Gately was saying, “Yeah, he’s like a walkin’ freakin’ schooner,” we noticed a commotion starting to build momentum across the room. Before we knew it the rising commotion ripped through us in a tidal wave. The crowd of people in the room began to break off and disperse hastily. Someone started screaming. A lady in high heels fell down beside me, scrambling for the door, mumbling about some ‘freak’. A man in a suit and tie, in his haste to escape, pushed another lady down in front of him. As he passed me I heard him exclaim, “He’ll kill us all!” It began to dawn on me. Oh shit! The boys all looked at each other for an answer. None was forthcoming. Two rather large Maori bouncers were fighting their way through the tidal wave trying to get to the bar. I had to get there first. Jumping up on top of the table, I scanned the room, citing Hal over scrambling heads, standing alone at the bar in a quickly growing circle of emptiness; a mirage in the center of an expanding desert. The desert’s encroach had already nearly reached the table I stood upon. For a brief moment I had a surreal image of Hal as a raindrop that had plummeted into a pool of water and the surging throng of people were ripples, expanding out. Three quick steps took me to the end of the table and I lunged over the last few heads, crashing into the empty space left by the departing crowd. Hal was watching the mortified mob. I could barely discern his smile. The bartender was backed up against the fridge, arms frozen in front of her mouth, still screaming. I crossed the void to Hal.

“Hal, what happened?

He turned to me and said, “She wouldn’t give me the beers?”

Barely perceived, he looked perplexed. Just as I grabbed him and turned to go the two monster-sized Maoris lurched forward, falling on top of us like toppling tree trunks. Needless to say Mr. Floor was less than impressed with my sudden interaction and promptly sent me packing. When I woke up I was in the back of a Paddy wagon with Hal. I don’t think the cops knew what else to do.

Frenesi came into the room and sat down on the beanbag, switching the TV on. Jerry Springer was talking to a transvestite that had lied about her sexuality to her heterosexual husband for twenty-four years. Today she was gonna fill him in. Any sucker that stupid obviously didn’t want to know the truth. Maybe I didn't either. Hal was still standing.

“Hal, sit down mate, your making me nervous.”

“Okay.” He sat down on the leather blue couch.

He was quickly falling apart before my eyes. I felt horribly sad, even guilty. Don’t ask me why, perhaps because I didn’t, or couldn’t do anything. Perhaps because I should’ve, could’ve, done something. I don’t know. But I do know at that very moment I felt like dying, like falling in upon myself, self-imploding. I couldn’t handle watching someone so physically lose themself. Usually that sort of thing is conducted behind closed doors, veiled, submerged beneath layers self-disillusionment. With Hal however there was no illusion. The curtain was drawn back. It was like he was in the last stages of some materialistic disintegration. His soul seemed fine; yet his consciousness, although still strong, was empty. His presence in the real world was no longer affective enough to hold on to any significant impact. And so his presence began to fade. He was hanging off the edge of external reality, barely maintaining his shaky grip, threatening to plummet into his own self-abyss. I couldn’t catch him in the rye. And so he fell.

In the last traces of the afternoons light, in the fading trails of purple and orange, I caught my last glimpse of Hal Inkadesan. I looked over towards him, straining, and saw a beautiful, heart-felt, open smile; intensely affective, totally relieved, like an immense weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He was looking right at me, into my eyes, searching. And then he simply said, “Goodbye,” and was gone. Complete. Irrevocable.

I went to call out for Pat but it was too late, so I just sat there and began to cry. Frenesi was still watching Springer.

Now, whenever I find myself rambling unexplainably, I like to think that it’s Hal’s spiritual presence gently floating through the void, caressing my orbit, drawing forth my own uncontrolled conscious. Either that or I’m just drunk.