by Paul Collis
‘And youse don’t even fucken know me name!’ he said to the passing world.
Driving in silence, Blackie and Carlos were lost in their own thoughts, and lost to the continuous white line. As he rolled around in a sex-fuelled dream on the back seat no one heard Rips whisper in his sleep, ‘Fuck you, baby. Ahh … fuck me. Yeah!’
Carlos and Blackie both gasped at seeing a white swan, with its beak over the neck of a black one, in a violent struggle in front of the colourful garden gnomes. The black swan fought back, flapping its wings, lashing out with its feet, trying to fly away, screaming to the gnomes for help. But the white swan had it in its grip, hard. And it looked as though it was not going to let go regardless of gnomes or anything else. Blackie wound his window down as fast as he could, and yelled,
‘Fuck off, ya white cunt!’
People on the street huddled closer together and looked away from Blackie, the angry man, pretending that they could not see anything. They quickly moved further away from the violence, keeping safe. Trying to make themselves invisible.
Blackie didn’t look back to see the black swan escape, a little worse for wear and tear from the fight, but still alive and kicking.
‘Fuck Katoomba. Shithouse town that dump, hey mate?’ Blackie said to Carlos when they hit the highway, leaving the hurrying people and fighting swans behind them.
‘Sure is, bud. Took Mimi up there once, though. Seen the Three Sisters. Stayed at the Hydro, brother,’ Carlos bragged.
‘Who?’ Blackie asked, unconvinced.
‘Mimi … Mimi Macpherson, you know? Elle’s sister,’ Carlos replied.
Blackie didn’t believe him. He wondered how this guy would ever be able to hang with those rich people, Blackie had no idea. Blackie didn’t know rich people … Blackie wasn’t rich. And Carlos wasn’t rich. But Blackie knew that the Spaniard had rich dreams and big ideas and stuff. Blackie decided that perhaps Carlos ‘dreamt’ the Minogue sisters, and the Antz Pantz woman and the Macpherson women. They, in reality, were little more than dreams to poor boys like them anyway.
‘Did ya fuck dem Three Sisters, too?’ Blackie asked. ‘Did ya fuck the Blue Mountains, man?’
‘Blaaaack! Can’t fuck a mountain!’ Carlos laughed.
‘You sure bout that man? You whitefullas sure fucked my country. Youse fucked her alright,’ Blackie said.
Chapter 2
Remembering and Forgetting
Blackie and Carlos fell into their own private thoughts for a while, as the radio songs kept the rhythm of the relationship. Blackie nodded his head and looked away and went back to trying to count road signs as they passed, but the signs passed too fast to count, so he gave up. Carlos, lost in his own thoughts, nodded his head in time with the radio playing the Doors classic ‘LA Woman’.
Blackie dedicated some time to trying to remember what Green Ant Dreaming was all about. But he couldn’t remember who told him about the legend, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember where he heard the story. But he couldn’t get it back in his head either, so he decided to give up thinking about it for the time being. Maybe later, he thought, the Dreaming would come back to him. So he closed his eyes to rest. While resting, he thought again of Fanon’s words, and of Fanon’s great gift of knowledge to the world. The shrink gave Blackie a copy of Fanon’s bestseller Black Skin, White Masks to read when Blackie was doing time at Silverwater gaol. Blackie loved the book and told his friends about the black man, Fanon – the doctor, the revolutionary. Blackie quoted a favourite passage to himself – a white man is speaking:
‘Oh, I know the blacks. They must be spoken to kindly; talk to them about their country; it’s all in knowing how to talk to them.’
Carlos heard Blackie mumbling. Carlos looked across to see Blackie, eyes shut, talking to himself. Carlos didn’t know how to speak to someone who was there, but wasn’t, so he looked away and said nothing.
But Blackie was busy in thought. He thought of Fanon’s greatness and extraordinariness. Blackie thought himself to be just an ordinary black. Blackie had no great gifts to give the world. Anyway, if he did have such gifts, they were hidden away, so far away, deep down inside himself, that he couldn’t find them.
‘I’m broken, Carlos,’ he said softly, way too softly for Carlos to hear over Jimmy Barnes singing ‘Flame Trees’ on the radio.
Blackie was broke. Broken and running into the gutter, and the songs in his head accompanied him throughout his life journeys, giving a rhythm to his footsteps.
He tried to sleep, but Jimmy was turned up too loud. So he sat up and tried to count things again.
The bush looked so beautiful. Even the planted pine trees appeared serene.
Blackie watched the pines, all khaki green, standing there, in their soldier lines, waiting for the wood chopper to cut them all down.
The trees looked from behind their leaves at the boys flying past but the trees kept quiet about it.
Lithgow was just up the road a bit from where they were, and getting closer all the while.
L 40
L 35
L 30
L 25
As Rips continued snoring on the back seat, Blackie looked out the window hoping to see a kangaroo. But there were none to be seen. Crushed and still by the roadside, a spiny echidna lay dead. All stiff, like beaten egg whites, the poor thing was there, but it wasn’t there. Its soul had left its body the moment the hand of death touched it. Now, there it lay. Decaying. Returning to the eternal Mother. Back on the path, the echidna doesn’t need eyes to see the way. That pathway is the free trip all the dead discover, leaving only a carcass behind, to return to its place of origin … to the Mother … Back to earth. Blackie knew this.
The smell of the dead animal flooded in on the wind and smothered the air inside the car. Blackie coughed the stench of death out from his lungs, only to breathe it back in again. The smell made him cough and cough and cough. He reached for the drugs in the esky.
‘Slow down, bra.’
Carlos moved into the outside lane and dropped the car back to a crawl while Blackie did his thing. Blackie had a good, big lot, swallowing it in one gulp, and cursing about the state of his affairs to himself as he did. With hungry eyes, Carlos looked to see if he could have some.
Blackie saw him, ‘Wait’ll we git up here a bit, bud, give ya some then, ay? Don’t want Highway Patrol crashin our party, hey?’
Carlos begrudgingly agreed that would be a bad thing, so he put his foot down on the pedal.
Just then, crackling over the air waves, they heard the cruisy voice of Ray Charles, singing ‘Hit the Road Jack’.
They sang in unison. Ray Charles’ spirit cruised with them for a while, singing the song of goodbye with them as they drove away from the dead echidna.
Driving through the Blue Mountains (slippery with its crying rock faces and deep valleys, and filled with mysteries) is an experience to behold. Everything slips away in a blur of colours. The symmetry of water, rock, wood and earth, caressed by wind, whips around and through everything. That land, known first by blackfullas, holds knowledge in every moment – beneath every shadow.
But that same land slipped away too fast for the men in the car to appreciate for more than a few fleeting seconds.
On the men drove, with Blackie on speed, and Carlos speeding too fast for the poor old mother earth to keep up. As the green and grey bush flew by, Blackie went back to summing up his life to himself. He painted himself a black picture … grim and lonely. Friends dumped him because of his constant fight against the system. But to Blackie it was the system that was always at war with him. ‘Why ya gotta always be lookin for fight with the whitefullas, Black? Ya jest lookin for trouble all the time when ya do, boy,’ his family warned him. They just wanted to get on with getting on with the world.
But not Blackie. ‘Fuck it, man! Them whitefullas should pay
for what they’ve done,’ was Blackie’s response.
When he was in gaol, he’d begun to prepare himself for what he thought would be the fight of his life. He wanted a showdown with the policeman, McWilliams.
Blackie got his head together. He thought about and concentrated on remembering McWilliams. He imagined how he’d make McWilliams beg for mercy. Blackie sweated in his cell, doing 1000 push-ups a day. In the yard he ran the fence line, getting lung capacity and strong legs from the exercise. At night he rested, knowing that he’d be as fit as a fiddle by the time he got released.
‘Fuck you, McWilliams,’ he whispered as the car drove the twisty bends.
Blackie was gonna git himself some payback on the dog that sent him away – he was gonna pay back that pig that verballed him! And Blackie had it set in his head that that pig would squeal.
‘Gonna hurt you, McWilliams, BAD – real fucken BAD!’
After that, well, Blackie would just have to take it like a man, no matter where the chips fell. If they got him, if he got gaoled again, then that would be that. At least he would have paid back that copper dog. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t care. He had grown tougher on the inside. Completed what he called a postgraduate degree, yet another graduate from that old school of hard knocks. He pumped weights and sparred with others in gaol. He mixed it with men who could use their dukes. He mixed it with them all. From flyweights through to overweights, he boxed and sweated and kept his mind on McWilliams, imagining how he would hurt the cop with every punch he threw.
At Cessnock he was accused of thieving from another’s cell. Blackie got wild and dropped the bloke who accused him of the crime he didn’t commit. He broke the other man’s jaw. The blackfullas all cheered and had their blood up too, ready to take on any who stepped forward to attack Blackie. The screws intervened and charged Blackie with GBH. But when it got to court in Maitland, there were no witnesses to the event. But after court, the screws moved him from Cessnock to the maximum security gaol of Maitland, and then, eventually back to Silverwater.
When it all came down to it, Blackie had a bad attitude. He’d use whatever it took to win. A chair over the head, an iron bar across the face, a pool cue, and the old sand-shoe shuffle – whatever it took, Blackie would use if available. He knew that it wasn’t the way for a man to fight. Blackie knew that it was fear that produced that kind of reaction.
‘Fuck it!’ he swore out through the open window.
In Dubbo, he reckoned, he’d face life with death, and see who blinked first.
He lit a smoke and threw the packet in Carlos’ lap. Carlos lit up, and threw the packet back. The radio had music playing, but neither man was listening. The world rushing by was a world away to them. Blackie’s thoughts found him wondering about where he’d meet McWilliams.
But Carlos wasn’t paying attention for Carlos’ mind was on happier times.
‘Hey Carlos,’ Blackie piped up. ‘I was born on the same day as a bloke who’s a copper up here in Dubbo, ya know?’
‘Yeah man?’ Carlos replied.
‘Yep. I grew up with him. We useda shake apples together – the thievin bastard. Now he’s a fucken crooked cop!’ Blackie said.
‘Was he your mate?’
‘Thought he was. Not now.’
Blackie turned to look at Rips on the back seat. Seeing him sound asleep in an uncomfortable position, all scrunched up, mouth open, eyes half shut, Blackie asked, ‘How can a bloke sleep like that?’
‘Drunk!’
Blackie shook his head, then turned back to watch the rushing road flying up towards them.
‘Pull over man. Gotta piss,’ he said. The urge to piss had come on suddenly. He got out and scarpered to the bush, and relieved himself.
Cruising the highway was a pious policeman – Gatherbee. His morning was the same as yesterday, nothing happening. Passing Carlos sitting at the driver’s seat parked on the side of the road, Gatherbee did a quick U-turn to check out if there were any problems.
Blackie hearing the squeal of tyres on the road glanced back, frightened by the sound of the policeman’s tyres on the cold road.
‘Fuck!’ Blackie whispered when he saw the Highway Patrol car stop beside Carlos.
Blackie thought, ‘What if the copper gets out of the car, and sees Rips asleep not wearing a seat belt?’ Just a little thing like that would give the cop a reason to wake the sleeping man:
To issue a ticket …
That requires a name.
That demands a police check.
That would show that Rips has a first instance warrant out on him.
That means an arrest …
That means more cops …
That means they’d pinch him and Carlos too for the stolen car.
And that’d mean that he’d never get to see McWilliams, or his grandmother’s country, again.
‘Fuck-me-dead!’ Blackie cursed.
But the policeman didn’t bother to get out of his car. Through the open window of his patrol car, Gatherbee asked Carlos if he needed a hand. Relieved, Carlos answered that he was alright, that he was just waiting for his mate to finish his business, nodding his head towards Blackie. Carlos didn’t take his eyes off the policeman for a second. He was looking for any indication that the cop was onto them. Any subtle movement by the cop would have Carlos ram the police car and try an escape, leaving Blackie there with his dick out, to fight his own battle. Alone. Carlos could hardly breathe. His hands sweated and he kept re-gripping the steering wheel to get a better hold, thinking that his number was up and the copper would be in an arresting mood.
‘Don’t wake up Rips! Don’t bloody wake up, man,’ Carlos prayed.
Gatherbee saw Blackie there, pissing. The policeman, satisfied that everything was on the up and up, nodded, turned his cruiser around, squealing the tyres, and sped off again down the road in the opposite direction.
‘Phew! Faaarrrk!’ Carlos breathed. He released his grip on the wheel, wiggled his tense fingers, then wiped his brow as Blackie got back in and slammed the door.
‘Shit! Git outa here, man,’ Blackie ordered.
Blackie didn’t have to tell Carlos twice. The Spaniard put the pedal to the metal and spun the wheels, fish-tailing it back onto the black-tarred road.
It took ten kilometres before Blackie spoke again.
‘Lucky that Rips never woke up, hey bud?’
‘’Ken oath,’ Carlos agreed.
Blackie got back to telling him about McWilliams.
‘That copper bloke I wuz tellin ya, Carlos. He’s a jealous bastard, man. Real mean streak in him. Wuz always trying ta beat me …’
Carlos nodded, and asked for a smoke. Blackie lit a cigarette, took a couple of drags and then passed it to Carlos.
‘Yeah. Could never beat me in a fair go, the cheatin bastard. McWilliams would drop his shoulder at the startin line when he was next ta me ta git me ta jump-the-gun and git disqualified. Bet, he could never beat me,’ Blackie laughed. ‘He’d be out there trainin all the time. I’d be off with me mates down the river, somewhere … still useda beat him.’
‘How’d he take that?’ Carlos asked, now interested in Blackie’s yarn.
‘Fucken hated it. Know what we useda call him?’
‘Naa. What?’
‘Well, with a name like McWilliams, we called him Red Label, ya know? Red label McWilliams – flagons a port? He fucken hated it, too. I heard him sayin one day:
Jacky, Jacky
Fucken Blackie!
I’ll get you one day
I still remember that! Cunt got me alright.’
Blackie twisted uncomfortably in his seat, sticky from sweat and rememberings.
‘Yeah? Did he?’ Carlos asked, puffing away on the cigarette. ‘How’d he go against you?’ he asked.
‘That prick never beat
me! … Didn’t stop him tryin though. He’s a dog! I’m gonna fucken smash him when I see him!’
‘Why Black? What’d he do?’ Carlos asked, guessing correctly that there was more to the story than Blackie had revealed.
‘Verballed me, man. Loaded me up with bullshit drug charges. I jest done six years over that man. He’s fucken going down, brother!’
Chapter 3
White Lines
Blackie was high on the speed as they flew through dirty old Lithgow, without giving it a second thought.
Back out on the freeway, Blackie was in a better mood, and decided to give Carlos a line before they hit Bathurst.
‘Pull up, man. Wanna do another piss. Give ya a line, hey?’
‘Thanks brother,’ the grateful Carlos spoke.
He parked the car on the side, near bushes, and waited until Blackie finished his business out there before he spoke again.