by Paul Collis
Chapter 9
Dot’s Place
As Blackie came round, he softly whispered, ‘Jasmine? Nan?’
Jasmine was his grandmother’s favourite perfume: she must be near, he thought. He tried to get up from the small bed he found himself on, but was held back by soft but firm hands. He was too weak. His eyes slowly adjusted to the light.
He found himself shirtless on a single bed in a darkened bedroom.
‘What?’ he asked himself.
Coming into focus, he was relieved when he recognised Dot attending to him. She had that look about her that she had when she was full of business. She washed blood and muck from his face, paying particular attention to a deep gash that continued to bleed at the corner of his eyebrow. Dot flashed a small torch into firstly one eye, and then into the other. Blackie could see her mouth opening and closing, but he couldn’t hear her voice.
Blackie felt pain everywhere from the bashing. Slowly, he began to remember what happened. Images of boots and mud flashed across his mind. He’d been beaten by better men, but he couldn’t remember when. He looked at Dot and tried to smile.
She looked at Blackie and said, ‘G’day cuz. Where ya bin?’
Blackie cracked a smile through cracked lips, happy that his hearing had returned, and quietly said, ‘I come back from the city. I bin livin on the wire. I love ya, me old cuz,’ he said, closing his eyes and falling asleep again.
Being as tough as the boys when growing up, it generally took a lot to make Dot cry or show outright emotion. But she always had a soft spot for Blackie. Big tears left stain marks on her dry cheeks. Blackie and Dot were the best of friends, as well as being first cousins. Dot made accommodation for him from the time they hit kindergarten together. She took his part and dropped bigger kids who tried to intimidate him at school and she stood up to those who would try the same game on the street. Dot didn’t win every fight, but she let all know that she was game, and, that alone gave her a fearsome reputation. Watching Dot going punch for punch with boys and girls, standing up to teachers and adults who would threaten and bully her, was good training for Blackie in learning to use his fists, and to stand his ground.
‘Git away, Blackie,’ she said to him, trying to be strong for the both of them. ‘Now, jest stay still there while I clean ya up,’ she said to herself, trying to convince herself he’d be okay.
An hour had passed before he woke again. Dot was gathering bloodied towels and pieces of cloth into a laundry basket when she was surprised by Blackie.
‘How bad is it?’ he murmured. ‘Am I gonna live?’
‘Ya bloody ratbag!’ Dot roused. ‘Haven’t you learnt anything yet? What ya doin goin gittin inter fights all the time for? Ya should be in hospital. You been knocked out. Need X-rays, boy! Bloody Fingers! Had no right bringin you here. Shoulda took you straight to hospital! Don’t ya know you could die? Then where would we be, Black?’
‘No hosp’l, sis, coppers. You know what they’re like. Don’t worry bout me, Dot. I won’t die! Ancient ’Gyptians useda say, if ya call a man’s name, he’s not dead … So all ya gotta do is call me name cuz. And I’ll be there!’ he joked.
Dot shook her head and thought about it for a while. She was puffed from all the work. Her fat body was getting too heavy for her to carry anymore, and her days of patching up drunken brothers and cousins were well past her best.
Dot softly closed the door on her way out, but not before she turned back and looked at him and then said, ‘Yeah, but, you not Egyptian … you’re Wiradjuri, ya silly bastard!’
Her words fell like ice into an empty glass.
Clunk!
Clunk!
Clunk!
Walking away, Dot knew the drill without being told the specifics.
Police would have been notified by the hospital staff as a matter of course when a patient in Blackie’s state presented for treatment. She figured Blackie most likely would have been ‘pinched’ and held in the local lock-up until whatever charges they could find would have been laid on him. She knew the police hated Blackie, just as she knew that they despised most black men who refused to buckle under their bullshit. She had seen the damage they dished out to her father, and to her uncles and cousins. Cut eyebrows, torn ears, bleeding skulls, fractured knuckles and twisted knees, all injuries of race and race fights that Dot had been called on through the years to dress for her people. At all hours of the day and night bloodied and broken ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ dropped in for help from the compassionate one – Dot. She’d stitched her people back together and then the cops would tear them apart again. Coppers broke their bones in their effort to break the black man’s spirit. She knew Blackie didn’t know when to cry ‘give’ or when to walk away from the challenge. Blackie was born to lose the battle, and the war it seemed. Just the way it is sometimes. But that fact never stopped him from trying to get things right though, either. He’d written to ombudsmen and to newspapers. Complained about being ‘verballed’ and abused by different police officers. But nought came of it. So he gave up looking for help and justice from the system. It seemed that the cops were a law unto themselves.
THE COPS:
The best
Untouchables
money can buy,
– some say.
Dot did the best she could to put Blackie back together again. She was happy that most of his injuries appeared to be superficial; she worried though that there was internal damage. Her years of work in emergency rooms as a nurse was tested time and again by the various relations who’d turn up, busted up, beaten and broke all hours of the day or night looking for her to fix it all. Big Dot – a real angel to the blackfullas in Dubbo, she didn’t ask for nothing in return for all she’d done for everyone who needed her help. There wasn’t a Koori house in town that she was not welcome in. Such a shame to see her so sick. After the birth of her twins, she got diabetes. She had to quit the job at the hospital, and she did it tough, as Fingers had no work. Money was always tight, and kids and medicine cost a lot. Dot tried to lose weight, went on every diet she could find, but nothing worked. Some days she was as good as gold, other days the poor woman couldn’t get out of bed.
Fingers gave her the full story – all except leaving out the bit about the woman that Rips returned to the table with, for fear of misunderstanding leading to a jealous row.
‘That bastard, Tyrone from Wellington … He was pickin on me, and Blackie stepped in and took him on. They got into it behind the pub. Blackie dropped the bastard. But, that mob, ya know what they’re like? They all got into Black. Silvia jest happened to be there gittin smokes at the drive-through and helped me drag Blackie away …’ Fingers recalled.
Satisfied that Fingers could hardly do anything to prevent the fight, Dot rested whilst drinking a cup of sugarless black tea.
The night was a restless one, full of tormented images running wild through Blackie’s mind. Pictures of caves and green fields, of buses and ambulances criss-crossing empty streets, of Christian crosses and men in blue uniforms and of men with no faces, kept drifting over and over in his mind.
The storm raged outside, and the wind howled a sorrowful noise. It shook the window panes and rattled the green doors of Dot’s old house. And, as the dawn crept up on Dubbo with an unusually dark and gloomy presence, Nanny – Dot’s kid’s pet goat – snuggled in her home. Deep inside the old wrecked car in the backyard, Nanny kept herself out of the storm. Blackie lay still upon the single bed, watching shadows dance while counting flowers on the wall. Sometimes he imagined he could see faces of people he knew in the shadows that danced across the plasterboard. Other times, he thought the shadows were the shapes of bad spirits that had come to him to do payback for the dirty deeds he’d done dirt cheap.
‘Huh. Huh. Huh. Brrrr,’ he whispered.
He closed his eyes and reached to the floor for cigarettes. His fingers stretch
ed as far as they could, left and right, and up and down, but neither packet nor single cigarette could he find.
‘Fuck. Nuffin,’ he said. He faded back to sleep.
Sore, from head to toe, he stirred to the wonderful sound of children’s giggles. His head ached, and though still concussed, he was delighted and taken by surprise to find identical twin boys kneeling beside his bed. They were resting their heads between their hands, examining him closely. Blackie thought he was seeing double (as indeed he was), though, and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t. He gently reached out, and, with trembling fingers, touched the boys’ faces.
‘Now! Who are you two little Murris, hey?’ he asked.
He rolled onto his side and rested his head on his arm in order to get a better look at the lads. The youngsters smiled, just like kids do when they discover something different; their eyes shone like diamonds.
‘Who you?’ asked one boy.
‘Whatcha doing our place?’ asked the other.
Blackie smiled back at them.
‘Um ya uncle Blackie, thas who I is. Now, who are you?’ Blackie said.
‘I’m Vincent! Bet ya can call me Vince, if ya like,’ answered the first lad.
‘And I’m Ralph. Bet you can call me, Rrrrralllph!’ said the other.
Both boys fell about themselves laughing.
‘Well, that’s very generous of ya. Vince and … Rrrrralllph!’ Blackie joked back.
‘How come you is our uncle? Where you come from?’ Vincent asked politely.
‘Because, well … I jest am, thas why! Um your mum’s cousin. But I’ve been living down in Sydney for a long time, thas how come you two don’t know me. Hey, how old are you fullas?’ Blackie asked.
‘We are six!’ said Ralph, showing off.
‘Nup. Not yet we ain’t! Not till six a’lock Mum said, Ralph!’ corrected the observant Vince.
Vince said it and pushed his brother sideways, knocking him off his bended knees onto the floor. No harm done. Ralph sprang back up, and a game of push and shove started and ended in good fun with neither boy none the worse for the experience.
When they finished Ralph said, ‘Yeah, well we nearly six, then!’ He poked his tongue out to Vincent, who did the same back.
Blackie watched in wonder the fun and love the brothers shared with each other. He thought of the fun times he had had with McWilliams when they were young, before things went bad and McWilliams turned into a dog who lied and dobbed Blackie into trouble.
‘What happened you?’ little Ralph asked, after the shoving had come to an end quietly.
Blackie saw the fear in the boy’s eyes. He assured them that he was alright, that he just had a bit of an accident that was all. Blackie didn’t like lying to children; however, he didn’t want to give them another chance to ask further questions about his bruises. He quickly changed the subject saying,
‘Ahh. So youse are big birthday boys, hey? Not little baby boys, ay? Well, are ya gonna have a birthday party or what?’
‘Yeah. Tanight!’ both boys answered in unison.
Their little faces beamed with glee in the knowledge that today was their special day.
‘Ya reckon ya can invite ya old uncle Blackie then?’ Blackie asked, trying to sound excited if he was allowed to attend.
Both boys looked at each other, and then back at Blackie, and then back at each other again, before they nodded their heads in agreement that it would be alright if he came to their celebration, that he could have some cake. The boys returned to their original position with their head between their hands as they closely examined Blackie once more. Blackie liked the boys from the moment he opened his eyes and found them there. There was a mischievous twinkle in their eyes that expressed innocence.
The moment was broken when the voice of the twins’ mother called for them to ‘Git away, and to stop disturbing Uncle Blackie!’
The boys said a quiet ‘see ya later’, and left, hurrying back to their bedroom, both pushing each other to see who could be out the door first.
Blackie lay there for a while, and then struggled, as he slowly sat up. He needed to piss. He groaned and moaned in pain and regretted getting into another fight that resolved nothing, and only served to remind him that he was no teenager with teenage strength and springiness.
‘Fucken stupid cunt!’ he cursed himself.
He cursed himself all the way as he awkwardly made it through the bedroom doorway and down the hallway into the bathroom. Thankfully for him, the bathroom was right next to the room he’d been sleeping in, so he didn’t have far to stagger, and thankfully too, he had the wall to cling to for support all the way there. And he cursed himself all the way to the toilet, wishing he hadn’t had another stupid bloody fight. He entered the spotlessly clean bathroom that smelt of lavender. He steadied himself against the wall as he pissed into the white toilet bowl. The clear toilet water turned red from blood in his piss. He knew from past experience that his damaged kidney was bleeding again. His kidney was first torn when he was sixteen years old playing football. A big block-head forward dropped a knee into Blackie’s back and ruptured the organ. Ambulance officers whisked Blackie to hospital and he was warned to never play again, that his kidney would always be subject to damage should he be hit in that region again.
He was told not to exert himself by the specialist in Sydney, but he only seemed to remember the warning when it was all too late. The sight of red urine made him stand up a bit straighter and take notice. The reality of internal damage came into clear view in the cold, hard light of the day.
‘Not a-fucken-gain!’ he swore.
He looked at it, and then he flushed it away. Worried, he turned and washed his face. He slowly dried himself, and then studied his face in the mirror. Both eyes were the colour of slate, and the big cut near his eye (that had been cleaned and dressed by Dot), swollen and closed with congealed blood. ‘Still got one good eye,’ he whispered to his reflection.
‘Shit!’ he said.
He looked as bad as he felt – deathly grey, and black and blue.
He felt like throwing up. He made it back to the toilet just in time as he began to vomit. After a couple of goes of dry retching, he threw his guts up – mostly beer and bile shot from his stomach and that burnt his throat on the way out.
Dot could hear him from her bedroom, but she said nothing. She sat there listening. She felt sorry for him, but also knew that he’d either get tough or die from the way he was living. It seemed that no one, or nothing, could settle him down to live a quiet and peaceful life. Dot wondered what Blackie was doing in Dubbo.
‘He say anything to you last night?’ she asked Fingers.
‘Bout what?’ Fingers answered.
‘Why he’s here?’ Dot continued.
Fingers thought about it for a while and said, ‘Naa. Jest picked me up in Lonely Street when I was going to the paper shop, and then we went to the pub.’
Dot leant back on the cushions and looked around the place. She was searching for the true answer to her question. Her bedroom was filled with photos and things, with gifts – unopened beneath her bed, with slippers and shoes and with Fingers’ cowboy books and comics. Her eyes came to gaze upon a photo of her and Blackie, looking shiny in school uniform, in a class photo from 1980 when they were young primary-aged kids. She reached and took hold of the photo and examined it closely. ‘Look at us then.’ She spoke, showing Fingers the picture. Looking intensely at the photo, Dot spotted a boy standing behind Blackie in there.
‘It was him – Blackie! He did it, I saw him!’
Dot could still hear McWilliams’ scared voice telling other kids when the library burnt down. Blackie, now in his late thirties, never forgave him, and Blackie never forgot the sting of accusation from the white boy who was once his friend.
‘Friend! Huh! Bullshit. More like brothers, them t
wo,’ Dot said. ‘They did everything together before McWilliams lied about Blackie.’
It was then she understood why Blackie had returned.
The big bush outside her window banged hard on the pane. Thinking of bad omens, the banging bush shook Dot up a little. Dot and Fingers heard Blackie flush the toilet again, and heard him shuffle away, cursing himself all the way back to the bedroom. Figuring that she knew why Blackie was back in town had brought about a change in Dot’s face. She looked worried and scared about what she thought Blackie would do that could bring harm to her and the family.
Fingers asked, ‘What? What’s wrong?’
‘I know why he’s here. Wait here, I wanna talk to him!’ she said.
She left Fingers alone in the dark bedroom and went in to see Blackie.
Blackie was sitting on the side of his bed, feet tapping the floor. Dot sat beside him, and looked at the floor. A long minute passed when she turned to Blackie and said, ‘I know why you’re here, cuz.’
Blackie turned to look at her. He studied her face and saw in her eyes that she was telling him the truth, that she had worked him out. He nodded and looked down at the floor.
‘You can’t stay here Blackie. Not if you’re here to do that! I got kids, I can’t have police runnin through the place with guns and stuff, not no more,’ Dot told him.
‘Thas alright cuz. I’ll go out ta Mum. Been wantin to go out to the old Mission for a long time now, anyway,’ Blackie replied.
Dot hated what she had to say next even more than telling him that he couldn’t stay at her place. But, if he was going to bring the police force into her home, then she wouldn’t stand for that violence around herself or her family. She sucked in a deep breath.
Blackie heard the fear in her breath. He looked to see her eyes filling with tears. He put his arm around her and she leant, crying on his shoulder.