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The Exercise Bike

That night I sat on my bed. It was midnight but I wasn’t asleep. Nor did I even attempt to sleep. I felt like destroying something. My right hand made a fist and pressed hard against the pillow. I was too afraid to strike the wall in anger, as this would only hurt my knuckles. But knocking a few holes in the wall would satisfy me.

Mum and Dad never physically or sexually abused me when I was young, but that doesn’t mean they were good parents. Up to the age of sixteen, I was never allowed to sleepover at friends’ houses. My parents, and especially my dad, didn’t want me going out of the house. He told me to stay home because that’s what good boys do. He didn’t let me participate in extra-curricula activities at school either. I wasn’t allowed to take private lessons in piano, even though my teacher told my dad I was potentially gifted. Dad said music was a waste of time.

I wasn’t allowed to play soccer with my friends because Dad didn’t want me getting my clothes dirty. He also thought playing sports would distract me from my studies. One of my worst memories was when Dad bought me cheap clothes to save money and these cheap clothes made me stand out in public. Everyone looked at us.

I got up from my bed and looked out my bedroom window, staring at Lily’s house across the fence. In the darkness, one room still had its lights on. It was Lily’s room. For a moment I wondered why Ella’s room was dark, but then I remembered that she was still missing. Ella normally stayed up late.

From my room I could see into Lily’s bedroom, but I could only see her desk. Both her computer and her bed were hidden from view because of the angle at which I looked. Sometimes I caught a slight glimpse of Lily when she walked around or sat on the carpet in the middle of the room.

I opened my bedroom window and stuck my head out, hoping to look into Lily’s bedroom from a better position. Immediately when the window opened I felt how much colder it was outside than it was inside. It wasn’t windy—it was a still and peaceful night—but it was cold. The night air was like the air inside a refrigerator.

Lily was finally visible. She sat on the carpet with her legs sprawled out behind her. Her body faced me but her head was down, so she couldn’t see me. She wore pink pyjamas. Her hair was messy because she always had a shower before bedtime. Spread out all over the carpet in front of her were crayons, markers, and paper. She was drawing something, but I was too far away to see what she drew. Her right hand gripped on a black marker—her grip on the marker seemed a little too firm. The black marker was so large contrasted against her small and roundish right hand. While my head poked out of my bedroom window to catch a better view, my position also allowed me to see something else—something that made my heart beat fast.

It was Mark.

He was walking around in Lily’s backyard. He held something in his hands: they looked like CDs as well as rectangular objects, perhaps electronic objects of some sort. Since the lights were out in my room, I was confident Mark couldn’t see me from where he was. Mark held everything in his left hand. His right hand was free because he used that hand to climb over the fence and jump into Eddie’s house. He went over the fence by climbing over a small garbage bin.

After Mark had jumped into Eddie’s backyard, I couldn’t see him anymore, so I pushed my leg out of my bedroom window, preparing myself to climb out to the tree that connected my bedroom window to Ella’s bedroom window. I was in a rush and began to wobble as I crawled on the branch. I reminded myself to slow down and be careful. Towards the end of the branch, I couldn’t help noticing the incandescent glow coming from Lily’s bedroom window. Why was she up so late at night?

I was about to climb down the tree’s trunk but paused when I noticed Ella’s bedroom window wide open.

Did Ella usually keep her bedroom window open at night? I couldn’t remember. Why hadn’t her mother closed it? Was it a coincidence that Ella’s bedroom window was open during the same night that Mark was nosing around in the backyard?

I climbed down to the base of the trunk and found myself in the backyard of the Jenkins household. The moist grass reminded me that my feet were bare. Since the night air was so cold, lots of dew had settled on the grass beneath my feet. The tree between my house and Lily’s house had such smooth branches that I had forgotten I was barefoot.

Still in my teddy bear pyjamas, I walked over to where Mark had climbed over the fence. Using the small garbage bin that Mark used, I hoisted myself up and peeked over into Eddie’s backyard. Every light was off except the light from Eddie’s bedroom. The boy’s bedroom window was wide open. Through Eddie’s bedroom window I saw Mark. He was talking to someone I couldn’t see, most likely Eddie.

About four minutes later Mark started climbing out from the bedroom window. I thought at first he was going to jump to the ground—it was a six-metre drop—but then I noticed Mark carefully climbing down a drainpipe. When he reached the ground, I noticed that Mark had nothing in his hands, yet when was climbing the fence earlier I noticed CDs in his hands.

Mark walked calmly from the backyard to the frontyard. I had a choice of either following Mark or going into Eddie’s room. Mark had a habit of disappearing, so I decided to let him walk away this time. But maybe next time I’ll figure out more about Mark.

I climbed over into Eddie’s backyard and climbed up the drainpipes that Mark had used. As I was climbing, the lights suddenly went out in Eddie’s bedroom. When I reached Eddie’s bedroom window, I peered inside and found Eddie sitting on his bed. Even though the lights were out in the boy’s room, I could still see everything inside mainly because of the moonlight. Eddie’s back faced me. He didn’t know I was looking at him. Eddie’s room was the same as before except for one extra item: an exercise bike at one corner of the room. The pile of pornographic magazines, the computer, and the bed were in the same positions. Eddie wore blue pyjama pants and no t-shirt. He looked so slim, his arms like sticks—but he wasn’t as malnourished. He was just small. His head faced down, as if he had given up trying to keep it upright. In front of him, on the bed, was a laptop computer. I could see the screen from where I was. It didn’t surprise me when I saw what Eddie looked at on the screen.

It was a naked Asian woman having sex with two men. Eddie pressed a button on the laptop and another image appeared. This time it was an image of two men touching each other. The boy silently stared at the image for a while. He barely moved except for slight up and down movements from breathing. It was slow breathing. He wasn’t excited.

When I climbed inside Eddie’s room, I underestimated how dark the room was and accidentally tripped over something. I kneeled back up and looked at Eddie, who looked back at me from his bed. The gay porn was still on Eddie’s laptop screen. I sat down on the edge of Eddie’s bed and thought about what I should do now. I wasn’t going to condemn this boy. Unlike my father, I had a feeling I could relate to what Eddie was doing.

I spoke, keeping my tone polite. “How much did you pay Mark for the laptop?”

“It’s rented. Ten bucks a week.” Eddie pressed a button on his laptop and another image appeared. The image had three men in it, all standing around a large blonde woman. “Few minutes ago Mark gave me some CDs with porno on ‘em.” The boy’s voice was monotonous and gloomy. “He gave me five CDs—that’s heaps of porno. Wanna have a look?”

I pointed to the exercise bike. “What about that bike?”

“Twenty bucks a week,” said Eddie. “Also from Mark. He gave it to me a few days ago.” With his right hand, he touched the almost non-existent muscles on his own left shoulder. “I wanna get more muscles and then girls will like me.”

Boys were usually too proud to admit they were insecure about their appearance. That Eddie was comfortable to tell me about his deficiencies revealed to me how much he trusted me. I was humbled by his honesty. He knew me well enough to know I wasn’t going to go around telling other kids at school.

“All the guys in the porno are huge,” said Eddie, getting up. He still carried his laptop. He pressed a few more buttons and made a new image appear on the screen automatically every five seconds. He left the laptop on his bed and walked over to the exercise bike. He jumped on and slowly started pedaling. From where he stood on the exercise bike, he could clearly see the laptop screen.

“Most people don’t like exercising ‘cos it’s boring,” said Eddie. “That’s why I got the laptop and the pornos. I can look at the pornos while I exercise.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “You get two things done at once.”

Eddie’s face stared at the laptop as the images changed every five seconds. The monitor glowed vividly in the darkness. The pictures were pornographic images, images I couldn’t imagine a nine-year-old would view.

As the boy rode on his exercise bike, it looked like Eddie was hypnotised by the pornography. From his bed, I stared into the boy’s eyes and could see reflected off his pupils the multicoloured light from the laptop.

When you discover the world of pornography it makes your ordinary life seem dull. You enter the new world to escape this dullness. As Eddie looked at the pornography his legs kept pedaling on the exercise bike. It was as if he was riding towards the women, and in a way he was. As he rode the bike, he was getting stronger, fitter, and bigger, making him think that women would find him more and more appealing.

I spoke. “Did you ask Mark about Ella?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie, still looking at the porn. Since he was exercising, he struggled to speak. “He said he…he said he never saw her in ages. I asked him where he was yesterday. He says he was at school the whole time.”

“But that’s not true. We saw him at Dendy Park.”

“Yeah…I know.”

“Have the police asked you anything yet?”

Eddie shook his head.

I watched the boy as he continued to ride his exercise bike. Droplets of sweat started to sparkle on his body as dim light from both the laptop and the moon shone at him. He was still a small boy, but he was starting to grow. He was like a seed about to sprout. After a while my nostrils detected a sharp smell from Eddie. His salty sweat had evaporated off his body and wafted through the air towards me. It was a smell I was familiar with since I always sweated on my own bed, and this was the smell I often woke up to. I also smelled it on my dad whenever he did too much housework, but while the smell from my dad was repulsive, the smell from Eddie’s body seemed less repulsive—even pleasant—as if Eddie’s younger body pumped out cleaner fluids.

“My dad found pornography on my computer,” I said, feeling a need to tell someone about the incident. “He went mad.”

Eddie smiled. “Too bad your dad’s not disabled like mine is.”

I envied the boy. He had privacy and freedom to do whatever he wanted. But he was just a nine-year-old boy. If his father wasn’t capable of steering him in the right direction, perhaps that responsibility fell on me.

I lied around for about half an hour before saying goodnight. It was strange to see someone exercising at night. I’m not sure if it’s even good for you. I climbed out Eddie’s window and glanced at my watch—two o’clock in the morning. It was still dark. The only light source was the moon and a streetlight near the road. The air seemed a little warmer this time, although it was still cold. I looked back at Eddie’s house and noticed how big his house was compared to how small his room was. I suddenly remembered that I forgot to ask Eddie about his dead mother, whether he missed her or whether he didn’t care.

As I walked back to the tree in Lily’s backyard I noticed the lights in Lily’s bedroom were out.