by Michael Earp
Paul mutes the volume.
“He’s a good man, your dad.”
I can’t seem to move, I can’t seem to walk towards the light. I am so scared.
“Paul,” I blurt out, hushed, ashamed, “I don’t know if I want to get married.”
He doesn’t look at me. The light from the laptop makes his face alien, all silvers and blues.
“I thought I was doing it for us,” I say in a rush, “but I think I was doing it for my family. To make it right, to try to make things right.”
With a sigh he shuts the lid.
“How the hell does anyone make family right?” he says with a shrug. “At best it’s two steps forwards, one step back. At best. At goddamn best.”
I’m nodding. Still scared. Still trapped in the shadows.
He comes over, he kisses me.
“I promise you that I will be here for you till I die,” he says.
My lips tremble.
“It’s okay,” he continues, so quickly and vehemently that I think he must be furious, “it’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.”
I hold him tight. I smell him; the faint peppery reek of his sweat, the bracing aroma of his aftershave, the comfortable woody smell of his shirt.
“I promise that too,” I say, the dying light touching us, “I promise to be there with you till the end of time.”
He kisses me once more.
“That’s settled then,” he says with a grin, “I guess we’re married.”
We listen to the playlist of our favourite songs as I cook spaghetti amatriciana for dinner.
Part 1
It isn’t what we want to do but I need clean socks. And towels. We have run out of clean towels. Talvan sits on the washing machine as I count how many coins I have left. The smell of laundry powder and a changing season. Talvan’s boots tapping my shin. I run my fingers over the toe and smile in a way she knows. She stretches her foot out and asks me if I can dash into the store next door and pick her up some chocolate.
That Queensland sun prodding and calling from the window.
Talvan didn’t have much to do at work today. She’s started an identified position as a junior architect of the Indigenous Cities Unit, and the process has been stalled. Yep, if you hadn’t heard, and you’re only watching the mainstream news, they are not being built. Talvan was part of the team that designed the first two. It was a great idea: reduce the strain on Kadi Naarm Meanjin (Syd-Mel-Bris) by trying to get people living elsewhere but everyone’s going to be sorry in a little while. The two cities, you know the one that’s just north of Wagga, on Wiradjuri Country, which they are calling Wiradjuri City, and the other City, the one that removed my mother and the community, Mununjali City, 100 kilometres south of Meanjin. You remember the propaganda: Get people living west! Away from the coastal clusters! Open space, community centres, all connected via fast speed rail! Create new jobs and housing! Be the fresh start you’ve dreamed of! Yeah, Jimbelung. You stepped right into our dream.
We are laughing. She’s scooping grey Bonds undies out of the machine and putting them into my sports bag, flirting with her lips, and I’m thinking about so much while we’re walking home: kissing, and watermelon, and the beach. Some lyrics are maybe coming too, yes, the air feels poignant with meaning, and memory.
We pass the motorcycle shop where a guy’s washing his bike; we walk around and smile at a mother and her two kids, still in their school uniform. The bins are still out, outside our place. That’s not what troubles me. The gate’s been left open. Both bins have shifted. I drop the bag of wet clothes immediately.
“I think I left the back door open a bit, the sliding door …” Talvan is saying. “What the f–”
“Careful, Talvan, stay with me …”
But I’m already running. I run inside, and see that they or it or whatever it is has come, and they have seen everything.
My laptop is gone from the dining room table. My box of notebooks from my study. Somehow I know exactly what they’ve taken.
“I burned some toast this morning …” Talvan touches my shoulder.
“Talvan, I’m going to my studio.”
“No, not just yet.” She suddenly gets very frightened and holds me back.
“I’m going.”
“Okay, I’m coming with you.”
I slide the back door further ajar.
“It was open, I’m so sorry!”
“It wasn’t your fault. They would have come in anyway. They knew what they were looking for.”
“We were only gone an hour at the most.”
“I know.” I reach for her hand as we walk across to the shed I’ve claimed as my creative space. A place I could make sound away from the main house as not to annoy Talvan and our ex-housemate, Holly, when she was living here.
Inside, all the recording equipment, the speakers, the mike, the Weaver system – are gone. Just a lonely sheet rack and a chair and rolls of paper left.
“We need to go,” Talvan says.
“I know,” I say, trying to move my head away from the devastating sight. “I don’t think we can go to your mum’s. I’ll ask Aunty Lou.”
“Why?”
“They might know …” I take my phone out of my pocket, lick the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to change my password. And then I’m going to call Aunty Lou. From a payphone.”
My fingers hover over the tracks I’ve had finished this week. Sitting there in the cloud, as WAV and mp3s. I don’t delete them. I do delete my contacts though, after copying them down on paper. Mum. Aunty Lou.
I try to talk to Talvan about what we should do next but she’s saying she can’t understand me and I realise I’m speaking lingo from out my way. Always talking Yugambeh when I’m proper stressed. I don’t think I’ve ever been this stressed before. I wasn’t helping my Noongar one out at all so I’d better speak “English”.
“Pack a bag with some clothes. Some food. Get out a bag for me too, please. We’ll head out and I’ll call Aunty Lou and see where we should go, what we should do.”
Talvan nods. “Do you want me to pack for you too?”
“Why?”
“I know how you find it hard to pick things for a trip.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I manage a smile. She knows how hard it would be to leave some of my sneakers and blackfella hoodies behind, if that’s what we were doing, leaving things behind. “Thanks.”
She runs upstairs and comes down exactly five minutes later with two backpacks.
“They’ve taken the chargers.”
“Put your phone on low light, you’ll save battery.”
Our suburb feels rowdy when we leave. I have become scared of my neighbours. My street doesn’t feel safe. Stepping over the bag of wet clothes as we leave, the bag that we’ve forgotten, the clothes we can’t keep.
Aunty Lou’s voice is immediate. I don’t think the phone even rang.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s your niece.”
“Hello, love. You calling me from a payphone, what’s the deal?”
I cover the phone with my hand and talk in hushed tones even though there’s nobody about.
“Bub, I told you what to do if this happened. You remember?”
“They are really following me, hey? Why me? I have a few songs up, nothing flash.”
I can hear Aunty Lou take a big sip of Earl Grey tea before she begins talking me up. “Your work is powerful young niece, and it’s getting lots of attention. You’re a strong, unfiltered voice exposing the realities of our people under this current government. It’s not going unnoticed. And you know they are tightening the laws. Your hip … hip-hop and views itself could soon be enough for a prison sentence.”
“Hip-hop, yeah, Aunty.”
“Legally you should be protected. But you know they’ve got full and unrestricted access. They are tapping your phone, they know everything. They are going to make your life uncomfortable i
n any way they can, law or no law.”
“Wait, so I’m on the list now? ASIO? I feel like I’m like what you fellas had in the seventies. The stories you tell me about.”
“When they zoom in their evil eye, it stays there for a while.”
I look over at Talvan, standing back, and she smiles, but only out of habit.
“Stay offline. And think about getting away, another country, somewhere off the radar, until this blows over. Until it’s safe. You shouldn’t have any troubles getting out of the country. They don’t have any power to stop you.”
“But they can stop me coming back in, right?”
“Yes, that’s right, niece.”
“Okay, Aunty, I gotta go. We’re gonna go bush for a while.”
“Yes, good. Stay offline.”
Talvan kisses me quickly, still managing to drive the shitty car her friend let us borrow.
“Babe, you can slow down for a sec, it’s okay.”
“Yeah?”
Her eyes are still focused on the road ahead, the Klump Road exit shining up ahead.
“Yeah, babe, let’s stop here and take a moment. Have a snack.”
She exits onto Klump Road and takes us round the back way of the school I went to for a few semesters when we lived on this side of town. She stops in the car park.
“You did Year Five here, right?” she says, gesturing to the lights of the hall.
“How did you remember that?”
“Because it was the start of Year Six when you and your mum and nanna moved next door to our place. I still remember the day. It was kind of the best day of my life.”
I break off a bit of the KitKat I bought her a few hours ago at the shop next to the laundromat. I offer it to her and she meets her mouth to mine. Everything is so overwhelming that my only thoughts are to comfort her and as we kiss she keeps her eyes open, staring into mine, the chocolate growing warmer in my palm. She wriggles her hips closer and we kiss deeper. Not until my hands are rolling up her skirt and I reclaim the terror that’s been building up in me does she close her eyes, and after a few loose breaths, I close mine too. I rub the melted chocolate on her thighs. Move down to gently lick it off.
Approaching from the north, Mununjali City is abandoned construction and a whole lot of circles. Trucks and freight trains for miles.
Promises are dug out into the dirt, the dark soil of my ancestors. It’s quiet. No trees, no birds. We drive for ages through this endless abandoned project.
“I’m sorry,” Talvan keeps apologising.
“Nah, you guys did your best within the system. We all thought it would be a good thing, or at least okay. The housing stuff was huge. If they went ahead with your ideas, this, this, would be …”
An eagle flies lower, inspecting the road for roadkill but it’s really just overkill that they’re looking at. The road, for a few kilometres, has been painted by Aboriginal artists (not local). Bright colours, and the words, “Indigenous City: Coming 2030”.
Mum makes us pizza that night. As always I’m shocked at the state of her home, which the Federal Police moved her into until the Indigenous City Project was completed. This was meant to be compensation for her losing her home, losing mostly everything? We sit on the floor on my nanna’s blanket she made for me when I was young. It still smells good, like how things used to be.
Mum is looking too deadly with a top that she made herself and she asks me to sing a song a little bit later when we go outside around the fire and Talvan holds my hand tightly and I’m not sure if I should sing before or after I tell them both I’m catching a plane tomorrow.
Part 2
For my safety, and the safety of my friends, I won’t be specific when I talk about where we are. Do imagine a densely populated South-east or East Asian city, where we are waiting for rain in the peak heat of July. Do imagine us smiling sometimes. If you think you recognise the identity of this city through the details of this story, it doesn’t matter, as most likely by the time you read this, I and many of the people I’ve mentioned, who I don’t identify by full name, would have moved on. You will not know this moment unless you are among us.
Here, in this place, I become a vessel for other people’s stories. Maybe it is because of my queer body, muscular, long-limbed, my shaved head, facial hair? Maybe it’s because of what’s inside of me?
They tell me their secrets and then it is like they are forgotten, because the secrets don’t define them, not really, not fully. They are defined to me by the way they eat fried eel around a table with friends, their open-mouthed laughter, the jokes they make when they are sitting comfortably. And when I have the privilege to enter their homes, I look at the water markings on the walls and what the window faces. When I invite myself into their intimacy I am missing T more than I can express in words. When people ask about her I try not to say too much as not to bring the pain closer.
I miss cooking with her and her toothbrush left beside the bed. It’s a beautiful afternoon, the sun is easing off my shoulders, a breeze is moving through the trees, and with her here, all of this would have some sort of meaning I can’t put together without her.
It’s been two years, and it only gets harder. I feel very different. I miss my anchors. Last week I turned twenty-five and Mum messaged and I could not be sure if it was really her or someone who had stolen her identity as it’s womba one back home. All the things we used to take for granted, like communicating with a loved one, have become unsafe. At first I kept in contact with T using a borrowed phone and a code system based on Kate Bush lyrics. Then even that became too risky.
My skin thrives in the humidity; it’s just like where I’m from. I buy a fan from the small store at the corner of the park, and wait for the remaining time to pass. I like the nights here the most, the intense weather is milder but the streets are no less alive. I pick out my headphones from my bag, all tied up like noodles, and put on some comfort music from home, blackfella hip-hop to centre me in this strange place. When I listen to music I feel normal, like I’m not under pressure, and my privacy cannot be invaded.
I meet my friends at the pasta restaurant. This is a city that makes pasta as good as Italians. My friends are a mixed group. Some of them have escaped their own country in the Asia-Pacific because their activism no longer makes them safe. Some have lost their homes to the sea. Some are from here and have taken us in because they too know what is at stake.
N and E have come here from a close neighbour country, and are both in their early twenties. N is trans, and was almost killed online. Here he never shows his face to a screen. His family refuse to help. Despite what he’s gone through, he is the most loving person I’ve ever met. He is always buying me ice cream.
E is famous for her protests by body. The inside of her arms and neck are filled with handwritten words and images. She is Indigenous to a country that refuses to acknowledge the diversity of its people. She has walked the length of her nation twice but her feet are not tired.
J is eighty-five and was born here. She writes of the secrets women have carried from World War II. She is given the best seat at the table. Here is a culture that respects old people, like my culture back home.
“What is your home like?” they ask. “Are there many koalas?”
“Yes, heaps,” I say.
“Is it okay to be gay, lesbian, trans?” For many of them are in hiding or have been persecuted in the countries they have left.
“Absolutely. Queer families are protected. Eight gender identities are acknowledged. We are very lucky. We do not have to go through the struggles you have to go through. We live in a safe place. It’s a great place.”
“Where do you live?”
“In an eastern city governed by Indigenous people. You can tell who is Indigenous because they are the good-looking people.”
The table erupts into laughter, and I swallow my drink. I wonder what they would say if they knew in Australia that all media is censored. Languages other than English are prohibit
ed to be spoken. Political artists are monitored. Wonder what they would say if I told them I thought I’d just go away for a few weeks and it would calm down and I ended up here for two years. Wonder what they would say if I told them I left for the protection of my family and friends.
There are no more koalas, only our koala ancestors are with us. In a country that used to be obsessed with mammals, only two native mammals survive. The fruit bat, and the possum. My Country has been sold short on so many occasions.
I can imagine their faces dropping after I finish explaining this. I know my embellished stories of Australia give them hope that things are different somewhere. I don’t want to destroy that hope.
After we finish our food we’ll move to The Spine, a music venue on the other side of the lake. T knew me when I first started to string words together to a beat, drumming on her kitchen table, keeping her brothers and sisters awake. She was my first audience. I was twelve. Her mother was more supportive than mine at the time. Now my family are proud of me, and I carry them with me.
I scoop up the remaining millet on my plate. Rice faded here a little time ago. Whenever I drive out of the city I see abandoned rice fields for miles, and wild pigs have begun to reclaim these spaces. E fills my cup. I don’t think beer will ever be replaced. It is protected more than water.
J and I arrive at The Spine early so we can do a sound check. I am more nervous than I expected to perform in front of her, and to translate her songs into English, which is what she has requested of me tonight. The microphone is soft. The lights are either side of my face. The owner puts her thumbs up. She comes over. “Thank you for agreeing to play tonight.”
“How many people are coming?”
“About thirty,” she says, gesturing to the floor pillows pushed against the wall. “People will really appreciate the chance to get together.” I thank her for creating this space, where the world-weary activists can go to collect strength and inspiration from each other. These weekly nights have been my only regular reprieve since I’ve been here. She passes me a hot plate of fried jellyfish chips embellished with mayonnaise, and even though I am full, I shove some in my mouth. I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like coming home to my partner. Quickly her chest will be on mine, and our lips together. I will curl into her hip and never leave again.