Merciless Gods

by Christos Tsiolkas

  I’m disappointed in his response. ‘I just wanted to see what it was like.’

  He laughs again. ‘Anything there?’

  ‘Nah. Just a few sheds falling apart and the old administration centre.’

  ‘They should burn the whole of it down. It was a hateful place.’ We are both silent on the phone. Twenty cents left: the screen is flashing a warning.

  ‘Wish Barney my best, will you? You know, with his old man and everything.’ The phone goes dead.

  That night Barney and I have a huge meal over two bottles of red wine. We talk about Bonegilla, about our fathers, about work and how to get it. We make plans to see the world, and laugh about our favourite episodes of Gilligan’s Island and Number 96. We stumble back to the hotel, Barney singing snatches of mean-spirited punk, as we are silently cruised by a cop car.

  In our room I take off Barney’s clothes and he tells me he loves me over and over. I cradle him in my arms as he sits naked on the floor, his clammy skin tasting sour from alcohol. He is crying softly. There is nothing I can say or do to stop the tears.

  We are going to Sydney to be with Barney’s father when he dies. I haven’t spent much time with Daniel but he is a remarkable man. For twenty years he has wandered the country, trying to find work as a musician, more often settling for any labouring work he could find. For a long time Barney and his mother followed the stray paths Dan chose to take them along, but eventually Sheila had had enough. Barney and his mother moved to Sydney and Dan continued to crisscross the desert to get to whatever was on the other side. His guitar remained faithful.

  Barney doesn’t know where his father picked up the virus and he thinks it is pointless to guess. There were plenty of opportunities. Drugs and sex did not dominate Dan’s life like music did, but he wasn’t averse to experimenting with them. He was as attentive to his son as his life allowed, but he knew that Sheila was a decent mother and probably did better with him not around. Barney can be damning of his old man, moaning about his laziness and his irresponsibility. But Barney detests normalcy too much not to have a grudging respect for the way Dan had chosen to live his life, for the things he had learned and the people he had got to know. Lining our kitchen wall back in Melbourne is a scrappy collage of photos that Barney has made of his father. Dan in Nepal; Dan and Sheila smoking a bong; Dan and an old girlfriend nude at ConFest; Dan playing guitar with a tiny Barney on his knees. And in pride of place, in luminous black and white, Dan beaming with his arm around Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Los Angeles, 1979.

  •

  Just before we arrive in Sydney’s outer suburbs, Barney stops the car and asks if I mind driving. We change seats and I drive into the city. It is late morning and the closer to town we get the more the traffic hems us in.

  Barney closes his eyes and lets out an infuriated groan. ‘I hate this shithole.’

  I don’t. I’m excited to be back in this furious, massive city.

  •

  Dan opens the door and I can’t hide my shock at how ill he looks. I stumble over my greeting. His hair has fallen out, his face has sunken in and his whole body seems to have shrunk. He sees my confusion and reaches out to hug me. I loop my arm carefully around his frail frame, fearful of hurting him, but I kiss him strongly on the neck. Barney is standing behind me with our bags. I move aside as the two men hold each other tight.

  The house is a small terrace in Glebe. It smells of coconut, tobacco and frankincense. Dan ushers us through a blanket hung across a doorway and into the lounge. A glass sliding door separates the kitchen from the lounge room. The rooms feel warm and light. Big bright canvases fill the walls, and the kitchen is all white surfaces broken up by a collection of posters. Even though it is warm early autumn, a small heater is blowing out hot air.

  Dan bends down slowly and clumsily turns it off. ‘Sorry, boys, I feel the cold these days.’

  Barney reaches down and turns it on again.

  •

  The first night is a party. Three friends of Dan’s come over, with beer and Turkish takeaway. One of them is a tall man called Stanley. He wears faded clothes, has long thin hair, and proceeds to tell excellent stories about religion and magic. He looks a little like a warlock himself. He is dating Katerina, who is a huge Greek woman with a grand wave of hair, streaked in thick stripes of silver and black. A shy man our age arrived with them and he quietly sits in a corner rolling joints. Very soon Barney and his father are arguing politics with Stanley, and Katerina has put Bob Marley on the stereo and is dancing lazily by herself. I sit next to the young man, Richard, and take puffs from his joints. Soon his shyness lifts and he becomes garrulous. My eyes keep returning to Barney and his father. With both of them animated and focused on their argument, I have time to study their faces.

  Even though Dan is so very ill, you can still see the father in the son. They don’t share the same features but their heads and bodies have the same shape. Barney sits in between his father’s legs, one hand casually slung over a knee. Dan has one hand resting on his son’s shoulder. As the argument continues he seems to grow tired and leans back into the sofa.

  ‘Barney,’ he suddenly barks, ‘can you fetch your old man a glass of water?’ He is wheezing. He leans across the sofa and picks up a black wooden box. Inside are assorted packets and jars of pills. He quickly sorts through them and swallows his selection in one gulp.

  ‘Bedtime,’ announces Stanley. There is rapid action in the room. Katerina starts clearing things away, Richard goes to wash dishes, and Stanley and Barney take Dan to bed. I help clean up. Barney and his father remain talking in Dan’s bedroom and I’m the one to farewell the guests.

  I get ready for bed. I feel like an intruder in the house. Taut, anxious—I am very conscious of the two men talking downstairs—I begin to wonder if it was a mistake to come along on this trip.

  When Barney comes into our room he doesn’t put the light on. I watch him undress; the fluorescent streetlight outside our window makes his skin golden. He slides into bed next to me and asks if I mind him smoking.

  I have one as well; my first full cigarette for months.

  ‘He looks really sick, doesn’t he?’

  I slowly nod my head.

  ‘He’s such a funny old geezer. You know what he wanted to talk to me about just now?’ Barney sits up on one elbow. He looks handsome and so very cool in the half-light. Like a great jazz sleeve. ‘He wanted to talk to me about George Jones. He wanted to make sure that they play George Jones at the funeral.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Of course.’ He lies flat on his back again, silently smoking, his body not touching mine. Then, mashing the butt of the cigarette into a teacup, he speaks. ‘My mum still can’t stand George Jones. Says it reminds her of too many years stuck in outback outhouses.’ He mimics Sheila. ‘“For fuck’s sake, Dan, can’t you play something else? It’s already enough like frigging Alabama here without having to listen to that redneck country and western crap.”’ He gives a deep sigh. ‘I hated that shit too.’

  There is a pause.

  ‘I don’t want to fight with him anymore. I’d like to think it’s because I’m growing up but I think it’s because he’s dying.’ ‘He is, you know. He is dying.’ My anxiety takes over and I blurt out the words.

  Barney keeps talking, as if he has not heard me. ‘He’s not like your dad; he’s not generous. Though Dan would call your father sacrificing. He was always a lot of fun but lousy on being there. Never sent enough money, never thought to ask if we had enough to eat.’

  I remain silent. I’ve heard this before but tonight it sounds different: there is no bitterness, no anger.

  ‘I told him that I’d be happy to stay.’ Barney looks over at me, then quickly turns away. ‘That we would both be happy to stay and look after him.’

  ‘And? What did he say?’ I try to keep apprehension out of my voice.

  ‘He said he doesn’t want that.’ His chuckle surprises me. ‘He said he’d hate to do that—to clea
n up someone’s shit, to have to feed them and wash them. So he doesn’t expect anyone to do it for him.’

  Barney turns and looks at me. His eyes shine enormous in the dark. ‘Do you love me?’

  I’m surprised and answer instinctively. ‘Of course. Why would you ask?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tonight I just want to hear you tell me it. Just tell me it.’

  I hold him tight and tell him how much I love him, tell him how I want to always be with him, tell him how my gut, my heart, my cock all burn for him. The words come out easily. I can trust every single one of them.

  •

  Next morning we take Dan to hospital. It is St Vincent’s, near the city, and we decide that the chunky Valiant will be too much of a bitch to park.

  Dan rings a taxi. ‘I can’t be bothered with public transport anymore,’ he explains.

  ‘Go ahead, blow my inheritance,’ his son answers drily.

  While Dan is in hospital, Barney and I take a walk up to Oxford Street. It has been a few years since either of us has been in Sydney and Barney keeps exclaiming over the changes. Many pretty and fit young men walk past us, and I catch a few eyes. Barney ignores them all. We turn into Crown Street and he walks into a small Vietnamese coffee shop. ‘Can we just get a coffee?’ he asks the young guy behind the counter and the man nods yes.

  We take a seat and I use a chopstick to sketch lines in the sugar bowl. ‘Why come here?’ I ask. ‘The coffee will be crap.’

  ‘To feel normal,’ he almost shouts. He quietens down. ‘Sorry, babe, this bloody town gets glitzier and more superficial every passing year. And whiter. Where have all the ethnics gone?’

  I break out into a grin. ‘You’re just a sucker for wogs.’

  ‘Definitely,’ he agrees. He leans over and kisses me. We are interrupted by the waiter who serves our coffee. He looks indifferent.

  ‘You reckon that was alright?’ I ask when he leaves.

  ‘What was alright?’

  ‘Us kissing.’

  Barney laughs. ‘He works in Darlinghurst, mate. I’m sure he’s seen worse.’ He pauses and pours sugar into his coffee. ‘What makes you think he’s straight?’

  The question embarrasses me. ‘I just assumed it,’ I admit. ‘Why, what do you think he is?’

  Barney shrugs his shoulders. ‘How would I know?’

  After coffee we take a walk around Surry Hills. Barney points out houses and shopfronts to me. This is where he played soccer. That’s the house he lived in when he first came to Sydney. We pass a corner pub, its door wide open to welcome the breeze. Inside, a few old men are drinking beer, huddled around a cheerful barman. Across the street, a fancy café with discreetly angled table umbrellas is pulling in a younger, more stylish crowd. Barney stands precariously on one foot, his other raised inches off the ground. He is staring across at the café.

  ‘That used to be . . . that used to be . . .’ He puts his foot down firmly. ‘Not a café. An old couple used to fix radios in that shop.’ He turns around and enters the pub. ‘Let’s have a beer.’

  •

  Barney and I have never had much money. That makes a big difference; that’s why we are still together. Money, as the song goes, does change everything. Who you know, what you know, how you know. Rich people don’t mix with poor people, not necessarily out of conceit or malice, but maybe because they can’t understand the anxiety that comes from worrying about money. I’ve noticed that you can never talk to a rich person about money, whether it’s paying the rent or getting screwed at work. They get uncomfortable. No matter what they might say they believe, a rich person can never trust a poor person. And vice versa. At some point, over some dumb argument, the rich person will utter the words: that’s mine, I paid for it, I own it. And there’s no fucking way the poor guy can compete. I don’t have to explain any of this to Barney. He understands automatically.

  In fact, he goes further. ‘It’s a different world, idiot,’ he once screamed at me. ‘I thought you understood that.’ It was early in our relationship and I had bragged to some university friends about how Barney was selling sticks of dope. ‘They’re rich kids and they don’t have to break the law. Don’t ever trust them.’

  Being poor means you have to break the law. That’s how it works. They make laws about everything, to protect everything. It’s breaking the law not to pay a fine; it’s breaking the law not to pay back credit; it’s even breaking the law to steal sugar sachets from a restaurant. If you’re poor it’s hard to live within the letter of the law and survive; even harder to do that and have a good time. It is impossible to do both. Barney never lets down his guard around the rich, not even when he was at uni, where he first met them.

  ‘You and me,’ he told me soon after we’d met, ‘we got here because of our brains. The rest of them are here because mummy and daddy have got money.’ His smile was radiant. ‘That makes us better than them. And they know it.’

  •

  The next few days rush by. I cannot shake the feeling that I am intruding. The father and son spend hours together while I take long, solitary walks through the neighbourhood, check out the coffee shops and write stilted, distracted journal notes. I watch a lot of television. One evening we visit Sheila and I relax a little. Barney loosens up around his mother, loses the distilled intensity that he has with Dan. Sheila herself, loud, kind and abrupt, responds affectionately to her son, and he feels free to argue with her, to bait her. We arrive back at Dan’s very drunk.

  As soon as we open the door the heat hits us. The night outside is warm but the heater is whirring furiously and Dan has wrapped a blanket around himself. He is watching our Bonegilla footage.

  ‘Dad, you should be in bed.’

  The old man ignores him. ‘What’s this?’

  Barney and I sit down and we watch the limpid colour of the video. Barney has framed me staring out of a broken windowpane. I’m unaware of the camera and my eyes seem huge, very bright.

  ‘It’s Bonegilla. My father was at the migrant camp there when he first arrived in Australia.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Nineteen fifty-nine. The camp lasted into the late sixties, I think.’

  Dan is racked by coughing. Barney fetches a glass of water. On the screen a sheaf of yellow grass obscures the gnarled timber wall of the Bonegilla administration hall.

  ‘Never heard of the bloody place.’ Dan shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve been all over this country and no one ever told me about this place.’

  ‘Let’s get you ready for bed, old man.’ Barney puts a gentle hand on his father’s shoulder.

  Dan yawns an agreement. The video images falter, the screen goes black and disintegrates into static.

  As he gets up, Dan turns a wrinkled, mischievous face towards us. ‘I saw the first part of the video. Afraid I did not find it very erotic.’ He laughs as he shuffles towards his bedroom. For the first time in a long time I see Barney blush.

  •

  The days rush by but I am conscious of every passing minute. Between them Dan and Barney are making decisions, tying up loose ends. Dan does not own very much but what he has is going to his son. It’s the music that matters most. To both of them.

  Barney reacquaints himself with his old hometown as he completes chores, paying his father’s final rent, organising the funeral. He remains warm and considerate of me, especially when we are alone, but his concentration is fully on his father. I understand—or rather, I try to understand—and step to the sidelines. On the eve of his father’s death, Barney has a sleepless night, sitting very still on the balcony, watching the moon. I wake up four or five times during the night and each time see that he is lost in a place so unimaginably far away that I cannot be there with him. I fall quickly back to sleep. In my dreams I hear him praying.

  From early morning the small house fills up with people. Men and women, some young, but mostly around Dan’s age, come and go, bidding him farewell. The whole day Dan is beaming, drinking whisky and, for the fi
rst time since his immune system started to collapse, smoking the odd cigarette. Barney gets drunk quickly but he remains attentive to Dan; his main task is to keep the turntable spinning. A cornucopia of music is played this day. I keep registering favourite songs, and I recognise tunes and melodies I can’t put a name to.

  I am introduced to dozens of people but I am only aware of Barney. I watch him all day, watch how he interacts with Dan. Sheila arrives in the afternoon and she pours drink after drink for me. From time to time she breaks down and cries, and someone close will put their arm around her. The conversation is lively, many stories are exchanged about Dan, and every new arrival brings more to drink. At one point Dan puts the Bonegilla video on and I face the embarrassment of a roomful of strangers watching me ejaculate when he rewinds back too far. There are squeals of laughter. As the camp footage begins, Barney comes over and takes my hand. He is trembling. After it is over, people come up and ask about Bonegilla. I’m drunk enough to make it up as I go.

  Dan catches me at it and hugs me spontaneously. ‘You Greeks are like the friggin’ Irish,’ he raves loudly. ‘Born bullshitters.’ He drops his arm awkwardly then whispers close to my ear, so Barney can’t hear: ‘Look after my son. He’s got too much of me and not enough of his mum in him.’

  At night’s fall the guests leave. All except for Sheila, Stanley and Katerina. Sheila and I cook a light dinner for everyone, and we eat our green salad and nachos sitting around in a circle. I want to remember a certain moment: Barney lying across Sheila’s lap, his leg entwined in mine, Dan nodding along as Katerina plays African music on the stereo.

  ‘I never did get to Soweto.’ Dan taps his fingers to the music. Barney and I sit silent as the older people talk about the past, about what Surry Hills was like before the yuppies and the gays took over.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Stanley,’ Dan says quickly, but looking over at me, ‘there were always poofters around here, but they didn’t used to have money.’

  Katerina talks about coming to Australia, about the dullness of the conservative fashions, and how odd it seemed that people did not go out at night. Sheila nods and then moves the conversation on to Whitlam. Labor in government. Feminism. Dan butts in and soon there is a heated argument. Sheila calls him an irresponsible bludger and he calls her an ideologue. They curse expertly at each other, but again there is the weird absence of bitterness or anger. Tonight I can imagine them having once been in love.