by Tom Dusevic
‘Pasha, where do you think you are going?’ Teta Danica would say as I waited outside for a lift from Harpo.
‘Out.’
‘What about your homework, when are you going to do that?’
‘I’ve finished it, pušti me na miru!’ Leave me in peace. It was the Croatian phrase most often spoken by Sam and me to our killjoy aunt. When I was on the phone to a girl or a mate, she’d keep a running commentary.
‘Who’s he talking to now? Probably some Australian hussy. She should be helping her mother, not talking to you.’
‘Pušti me na miru!’
‘If your mother hadn’t lost the girl, you’d never have been born. She would have been here helping Milenka, not talking on the phone to boys like you.’
‘Pušti me na miru!’
‘Oh, when he came along his father thought a king had been born. Call him Tomislav.’
‘Pušti me na miru!’
‘Out all night, lutalica.’ Wanderer.
‘Pušti me na miru!’
‘House to house. Who knows where pasha goes?’
‘Pušti me na miru!’
Unless hounded to action by Teta, our parents were content to stay out of our lives as long as Sam and I didn’t squander their resources. We had a non-aggression pact, whereas Teta tried to light fires at the heart of family life. Too often, she scorched us all.
My dad was busy on the new house at Condell Park to all hours. Mama’s routine hardly ever changed; her daily happiness hostage to the mood swings of her older sister. Teta could always get under my skin, suck me into a fight, because I thought I could out-talk her, despite my seventeen to her sixty-six. I was sure if I found the right words, I could soften her stony face; that through reason, I could whisk her out of the Balkans of the 1930s and bring her into the 1980s. Then she would leave me alone.
Anyway, ‘pasha’ sounded like posh or pash, even Passiona, words far from distasteful to anyone. I soon discovered, however, pasha was actually Turkish, not Croatian, and a title for a high-ranking official or dignitary in the Ottoman Empire, which went toe-to-toe with Croatia over territory for some 400 years. Pasha’s battle with Teta might last some time.
A basketball court is eighteen steps wide, thirty or so long. In breaths and heartbeats, my body remembers how long it takes to dribble basket to basket; by foot feel, it knows the spot on the floor from which I can throw my longest pass on a fast break to hit a running man at the free throw line so he can make, one-two, an easy lay-up.
With the ball in hand, I sway space and time. If the game tempo needs to change, up or down, vary stride. A chest-high diagonal pass, missile-like, unexpected, is as devastating as a punch from Ali.
The ball is sacrosanct. Possession is the game. Eyes locked on the target – bottom of the box on the backboard, just below the hoop’s rim – I lose sight of the ball for a nanosecond when it is above my head at its zenith for a shot. But I’ll know instantly how sweetly it’s left my hand.
If I don’t have the ball I trust it to find its way to me. I’ll present in open space; if I can’t see the ball I’m anxious and will use the press of other bodies to find it.
I’ve learnt to glide backwards. On defence I want to be on the main ball handler. Arms and chest out, I’ll crouch as low as I can go, sliding backwards and sideways, trying to limit his passing options. I’ll watch the spot on his singlet over his belly button; no matter what fast trick he has with his hands or eyes, I know the belly never lies. I’ve adjusted to his dribbling, my body ghosting its beat. If he gets close enough, just after the ball hits the floor I’m going to finger-flick it out of his grasp and collect it before he can recover.
I’m above average height for a schoolboy, just below 180 centimetres; physically I have no advantage, other than large hands and a wingspan out of proportion to my torso. I’m neither quick nor flexible, although I try to feel loose, as if I’m on the dance floor.
If I have an edge, it is that I understand the game, know the limits of what can occur in this space. Under time pressure, I can quickly gather information, partial and imperfect, and act.
I’ve been captivated by this ritual of play for thousands of hours stretching over thousands of days. The bouncing ball on concrete, asphalt or wood, is as essential, yet unnoticed, as a pulse.
Playing basketball is where I am my most self, revealing flaws and gifts, and the young adult I will soon be.
In spite of a game plan or role on the team, there is no script. A game of infinite variety, it is performance. I thrive when the play is helter-skelter, in broken passages where the ball zings from hand to hand, randomly. Or so it appears. There’s always an explanation.
Don’t overthink or pre-think; good opponents can read your internal codes, which reveal themselves in gesture – as slight as a body bend, a shift in weight.
If my mind is clear, I’ll hear music, just a few bars. I can never be sure whether I’ll pass or dribble or stop and pivot or dribble some more to beat a man or make him commit with a feint or if the space will just open up or who will be in the best position to score. There are nine others moving on the court, creating vectors, angles, trajectories. But I trust myself to act at the last instant.
And then someone else has the ball, odds are recalculated like on a totalisator board, and he will make a choice; it’s perpetual improvisation upon an ocean swell, up the court and down, backward and forward.
When I don’t have the ball, there’s more work to do. By moving you change the passing equation, you’re a blunt object, opening up the floor by stopping a defender from taking a position.
There is always contact in this non-contact sport; if it looks like equilibrium you won’t infringe the rules. If I am called for a foul I judge it a failure; it represents a loss of control and finesse. I’ve learnt, after years of futile irritation, not to blame officials. It’s on me. I should not have given the referee the chance to make that call.
A foul is like an injury. A few fouls are a tumour, preying on your mind, when all you want to be is weightless; three fouls are reckless, against nature. Two more will see you out of the game. Get a grip, recalibrate and inhale, find the balance this game offers.
There is game-clock time and mind-action time. A lot can happen in ten seconds. Never panic. A bullet pass spits through air and compresses distance like conjuring.
I’m conservative with shooting, unless the scoreboard invites risks. I am acutely aware of skill limits, you can’t bend reality on that, so don’t even try to shoot from there; it’s an insult to your comrades, such hubris is corrosive. Their faith is liberating and a reward.
If one ingredient changes – say a new player comes in or a foul is called – the game is immediately different, so adapt quickly or lose the flow. The court demands you find your level, your role. When I first played, opponents were several years older; to get better we now compete against men, proper men with scars: maniacal Balts, flashy Filipinos, has-beens, inmates at Silverwater at the end of a stretch.
Brother Geoff has mercilessly thrown us into a raging river. One Sunday night, when Harpo and I are on duty, there is an affray involving Riga and the jailbirds: a push, punch, head-butt, splat of nose, blood, all in. At the judiciary all eyes are on us. Shoot straight.
I’ve learnt about the organic nature of teams, fitting in and playing a role, leading and following, and the instincts of people. When Harpo turns his head in a jerk and rapid-bounces it on his right he is launching a jump shot; I’m moving to the basket, in flight, just in case he misses. If I take on a man, one on one, to the basket, and another defender is drawn, Phil is running armout into space to make the easiest of shots. These patterns are written in play-memory, which draw muscle impulses that can’t be resisted.
No matter what else is happening in my life, there is basketball, anchor and therapy, source of joy and identity, the sum of me. I’ve played every position, been the best and worst on court – maestro, scorer, scrapper, chaser, blocker, bench warmer
. When I was ten, I snuck onto the high-school playground through a pulsating maze of players to join in. I stayed in the game, never subbing out: before and straight after school, at every break, several nights a week.
I began seeing, like a coach, patterns overlaying the kinetic drama on court. Change perspective, but get back in.
I study to steal moves from the best in the National Basketball League at Bankstown Bruins home games and national championships. I know the measure of a player simply from the way he passes and when, not how he shoots or dribbles. After watching visiting US college teams I sought advice from playmakers.
‘Stay ground low on the dribble, you between the defender and the ball,’ said a chunky point guard.
‘Stand tall in open space, head still, to see every possible passing lane,’ said a lithe power forward.
I try both approaches, shaping them to my style. Variations make you whole. You’re always adapting. Even the young kids you are refereeing can teach you if your eyes are not simply looking for fouls or searching for three-second violations.
Practising alone has no appeal, no hand about to swoop. Shot after shot, falls through the net exactly as I’d visualised, or not, who cares? It’s less than routine, static, existing in a void. On the court, there are options, chaos and tension.
Watching only makes me want to play. If I’m on the bench a story is being written that I won’t be able to fully understand or feel.
I want to compete at the level where I am just good enough to be the fifth man, then work harder, get control of the game; be the one who amid whistles and shoe squeaks, above the ball thud on floor, is humming a radio tune, free in space.
I tagged along with Sam one morning to check out Sydney University. The pace was more leisurely than I’d expected, the place eerily school-like. I’d expected something more thrilling. There were several ex-Benilde guys doing science and engineering and they’d catch up at lunchtime in the Wentworth Union building on City Road. While Sam went to lectures I went to the Fisher Library; at the entrance I stood and watched an over-charged, quite theatrical argument between two groups about Middle East politics. I went to a listening library, chose an LP and an attendant set it on one of several numbered turntables; the cover was placed above it. I sat in a comfortable chair, put on bulky headphones and tuned into the right channel. I read the student newspaper Honi Soit. I’d flicked through it at home, but with time to spare I paid more attention. The stories and images in it felt unconnected to the normal-looking people I’d observed around campus or to the wider world I knew from newspapers and TV. I didn’t find any pull from either end of this spectrum: the people who inhabited Honi Soit or the diligent mass of students in jeans and sloppy joes who filled the lecture halls and ordered pie and chips for lunch. Coming out of the library two hours later, only two students remained in argument, but it was more heated. Then one checked the time, realising he was late.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow, my friend.’
They parted, intense in their stride, re-energised, it seemed, by the encounter. They were like Sam Sheepdog and Ralph E. Wolf in a Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoon, clocking off after a hard day. Did Croats and Serbs argue like this on the steps of the library?
I was sitting at lunch with Sam and his mate John. Suddenly, they appeared to stiffen. A woman of their age had come to our table.
‘Hi guys. Will I see you at the meeting today?’
‘Not sure,’ Sam replied. ‘I’m with my brother.’
‘I think I have a tutorial then,’ said John.
They’d once engaged in a lunchtime conversation with a group of people who were born-again Christians and, ever since, had been dodging their advances to attend Bible study.
‘You should try to come anyway,’ she said, a hopeful smile on a moon-round face, ‘because it’s going to be a lot of fun.’
Sam would evade the clutches of Jesus’ Pentecostal sirens. Yet he was vulnerable to the call of Julie Mostyn, the Patti Smith-style singer from the Flaming Hands, and other new bands on the Phantom Records label such as the Sunnyboys and Le Hoodoo Gurus that played at the Sydney Trade Union Club in Surry Hills. The venue was on steep Foveaux Street, on the path from Central to the SCG. It was a temple for kids who dressed head to boot in black and worshipped new wave music.
Sam could be reserved or withdrawn. But with a schooner of Tooheys Hunter Old, wedged among the bodies in the cavern to see the headliners just before midnight, he was a freer spirit. He’d go all over town with his mate Cip to see touring English acts like XTC, the Cure, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe in small venues; young local bands such as INXS and the Church were breaking through, playing to tiny crowds at the uni’s Manning Bar. I’d only go to big gigs at the Hordern or where door policy was not strict for underage punters. I was just a novice. The morning after I first saw the Sunnyboys at the Sylvania Hotel, I’d given myself whiplash, couldn’t look down to eat my Special K.
My gang were A-list gatecrashers at eighteenth birthday parties. Between the five of us – Harpo, Pip, Jane, Jackie and me – we covered every subgroup at Benilde and Nazareth. Every hairstyle as well: red-brown curls (Harpo), blonde ( Jane), cut-short red ( Jackie), floppy black (Pip) and wavy brown (me). An invitation for one was treated as a ‘plus four’, an open door for all of us. The boys did the driving, given our fathers owned cars with grunt and room: Kingswood, Falcon and Leyland P76, a much-maligned model we honoured as ‘the Beast’. If there were ever a fire or flood in the cockpit, the five of us could take sanctuary in the back seat. Harpo was the Beast’s pilot, taking us to squash, the gym, basketball and to pick up the girls after their Thursday-night shift at Grace Bros. Roselands. We shared an intimacy and the same sense of fun, secure in the knowledge none of us was reckless, as we roamed the district for parties, from the riverside mansions of Picnic Point to the flat lands of Lakemba.
Untethered, seeking out different things, the five of us would split up as soon as we got to a party, checking in to top up our drinks from a shared stash of beer, wine, tequila and Southern Comfort. ‘Rock Lobster’ or ‘Funkytown’ might bring us all to the dance floor. For me, a good outing was talking to as many girls as possible, something you couldn’t do at a disco.
Our religion classes were mixed in Year Twelve and I was keen to hear what girls had to say about faith and morality – actually anything they had to say about anything. I was post-bloke. At parties, alcohol made it easier to talk, words just flowed; after a saturation point, conversation unravelled, physical urges were either climaxing or obliterated. The ride home in the Beast was akin to a gathering of war correspondents in a hotel lobby bar, trading gossip and advice, each of us, apparently, having attended a separate party.
After Mass at St Anthony’s one Sunday, a grey-haired, grave-faced man approached Tata. I knew he was a bigwig in the community. As ASIO itself had found, there were so many cultural, sporting and political associations, it was difficult to keep track. Tomo was the president of the Croatian Club in Marrickville and he asked Tata if Sam wanted to work part-time at the club. There were uni students working as waiters on Saturday nights when the club hosted zabave, or entertainment, folkloric performances and weddings. They needed extra hands. We talked about it at home and Sam wasn’t keen.
‘Do you have to be eighteen?’ I asked, perhaps even before Sam had completed his ‘No’. ‘Could I work there? What exactly do you have to do? How much is the pay?’
A trial was arranged for me the following Saturday evening at seven. Black pants, white shirt, black bow tie.
‘This will help you with your Croatian,’ Tata said. ‘Maybe you’ll make friends with students. Who knows, you might even meet a nice Croatian girl.’
Bickering, petty jealousies and power struggles – just like the old country – had split Sydney’s Croatian social clubs into several tribes, not taking into account the ones that had been formed by pre-war Dalmatians who identified as ‘Yugos’. Tata was aligned with the p
ioneering Surry Hills clique. The Marrickville club, a whole floor of a commercial building on a busy corner, was a breakaway, precipitated by a bitter fight over finances. But it had become the dominant venue over time, helped by its links to the soccer club. My dad had been refused membership/he’d never be a member if they begged him. It was a détente moment, Nixon to China.
I thought my Croatian was up to working specifications, declensions aside, but I wasn’t prepared for Ante, the diminutive, worrywart club secretary–manager from the island of Korčula via Perth. He also spoke an island dialect that was impossible to understand, especially as each sentence is built on ‘fucken’, ‘bloody’ and the private parts of the mothers of other waiters.
I think he wants me to clean the poker machines near the ashtrays, wash the pool players with beers and go to the bar and get him a ‘lemon scotch’ (without ice), whatever that is. Tata sits quietly in the public bar as I do a couple of hours of odd jobs, collecting empty glasses and cleaning ashtrays. Ante says to come back next week at 7 pm to do a full shift and hands me 12. I’m thrilled with 6 an hour; a concert ticket for the Capitol or Hordern is around 10. As the only person in the family with a paying job – welcome back to the working class, son – it also means I will be commandeering the Kingswood on Saturday evenings.
On my first night I work with waiters Željko and Stipe, or Bill and Steve. Both are in their early twenties, tall and slim, students at the University of New South Wales. My parents have known theirs for a couple of decades. Because they are five or six years older than me, we never became friends. I recall them solely in national costume – Steve a dancer, Bill played squeezebox – something I’d triumphantly avoided.
‘Just ask people what they want to drink and then get it for them from this side of the bar,’ said Bill. ‘Mostly people just call out konobar, waiter, as you’re walking past.’