by Derek Haines
As the gang plank was lowered, a young couple from East London waited to disembark after their long voyage. Six weeks aboard a crowded ocean liner with three young children was not a pleasant experience. They just wanted to get onto dry land. Little were they to know that three months in a migrant hostel would be worse.
Nissan huts were used as accommodation for many newly arrived migrants. It was only temporary, but then again, Nissan huts were used to house POWs in the Second World War, so they were certainly not built for comfort. They resembled half of a corrugated iron water tank, cut in half from top to bottom and then laid on their side. Being made of corrugated iron they were very strong structurally, and very cheap to make. They were also very cold in winter, screaming hot in summer, and would deafen the dead when it rained. Heaven forbid if it hailed.
Into one of these huts young Steven Sharp was housed with his mother, father and two older sisters. Steven was four years old. His sisters six and nine. It was a trying time for them all, and if it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck in Steven’s father getting a job after only a month, they might have given in to Steven’s mother’s tears of wanting to go home. The conditions were uncomfortable, crowded, wet, cold and noisy. Nothing like the beaches, sun and suntanned bodies they had seen in the brochures at Australia House in London. Winter anywhere can be miserable. Perth was no exception.
Many families from England went back. And who could really blame them? They really got sold a pup in many ways. They were sold on Australia by slick advertising and colourful brochures. A promise of a land of plenty and sunny days and sandy beaches. Nobody told them about clouds and rain, and the cold winds of winter. Nor about the scorching heat they would suffer during a Perth summer. They were sold a holiday. This was not a holiday for any of them.
With all the normal adjustment and settling process over, Steven’s family got on with their new life. His mother had reduced her complaining about wanting to go home to as little as twice a week now, so things must have been improving. By 1977 all thoughts of going home had gone. The family had just moved into their new state house for which they had been on the waiting list since shortly after their arrival. A state house was a house bought from the government under the Public Housing Scheme. They were cheaper than buying privately, and as long as your income was below a certain level, and you qualified under various criteria including children, age and marriage, you applied to join the waiting list. The interest rate was also subsidised. One drawback was that these state houses were built in large estates. This created a whole suburb or sometimes, suburbs of low income residents. Not that this was going to equal slums, but undoubtedly it was going to lead to some social problems. The ingredients of low incomes, young children, struggling parents, unemployment, alcohol, domestic violence and lack of education were to be the environment for Steven Sharp’s childhood.
School didn’t hold much interest for Steven. He wasn’t unintelligent, but neither was he academically inclined. It bored him. He would rather play football or cricket, or go looking for tadpoles in the nearby swamp. He skipped school a few times to go to the swamp. He thought he would get into serious trouble, but to his surprise, when he took a letter home to his mother from his teacher regarding his absence, his mum scribbled on the bottom that he had been home sick, and signed it. She didn’t really care. Her interest had now been taken by alcohol and Valium. Steven wasn’t sure, but he thought she took the tablets for her headaches. The ones she got after dad slapped her around a bit. Steven also discovered his mother’s signature wasn’t hard to copy. This little trick kept him out of school with immunity.
Arguments, alcohol, abuse and violence were just a part of Steven’s home life. He found the best way to handle it was to climb out of his bedroom window and walk down to the shops. He always found a couple of his mates there. He never thought to ask if they were there for the same reason. If he had asked, he might not have felt so unusual. To Steven, his was the only family that behaved like this. He was too young to understand that it was only his family he saw from the inside. Everyone else’s he only saw from the outside. And they all look normal and well adjusted from there.
Just after his thirteenth birthday Steven stopped bothering to go to school. After a bit of coming and going with a truant officer, and a few letters from the school’s headmaster, and his parents disinterest in the whole episode, officialdom just forgot about Steven. And he forgot about it. Now he had time on his hands, and for all intents and purposes was on his own.
With little guidance from his parents, and the only role models for him to look up to being older lads in the neighbourhood who had dropped out like him, Steven was always heading for trouble. Although he had an understanding of right from wrong, the amount of time he had on his hands, and the discovery that everything cost money, of which he had none, soon led to his first act of theft. He’d seen his mates pocketing a few small things from the corner store. The old Greek owner behind the counter kept his eyes peeled whenever these lads entered. He knew what they were up to, and had asked the local police to help, but as they hadn’t been caught doing anything illegal, there was nothing that could be done. And anyway, it was just a few sweets and gum balls.
Steven joined in the game. The first time he pocketed a few gum balls, he nearly shat himself in fear. His heart was still racing when he was out of sight of the shop. But the fear didn’t last long. He became adept at shoplifting. He was a smart kid, and using his mates as decoys and lookouts, he started find ways of getting most things he wanted or needed. Food, drink, sweets, sunglasses, LPs. Anything that would fit in his pocket, under his pullover, or under his arm inside a jacket were easy pickings for Steven. Even his mates thought he was crazy. He earned the nickname of Snake, because his mates kept saying to him, ‘Shit Steve, you’re as mad as a cut snake.’
The name stuck. Steve was now Snake. He was proud to have earned a nickname. It didn’t matter what it was really. But to have a nickname meant he really belonged to his gang. They’d accepted him fully. Even if they thought he was mad. Maybe just to prove the worth of his new name, Steven decided he wanted to steal something big. He was making a few dollars stealing fashionable Polaroid sunglasses for less adventurous kids and selling them for two dollars a pair. This was a good deal, as they cost over ten dollars. And it gave Steve a few dollars for smokes, which were always difficult to steal, being normally directly behind the cash register in most shops.
He announced to his fellow gang members one afternoon, while they were hanging around the shops, that he wanted a record player. ‘I like that AWA one in the Retravision shop,’ he started. ‘It’s a portable one, with a speaker in the lid. It’s got a radio and it can run on batteries too.’
His mates looked at him blandly, all thinking he was just wishful thinking out loud. This was a normal type of conversation amongst these lads. If it wasn’t wanting something they didn’t have, it was talking about doing something they couldn’t do. Steve listened just as uninterestedly to his mates' ravings many times. Except when one of the older boys, who was sixteen, would talk about fucking the woman who lived next door. At that time, Steve wasn’t too sure what fucking was really, and didn’t want to admit he didn’t know, so he never asked for a detailed explanation. He just listened intently for more clues as to what it was, but knew from his mate’s enthusiasm for the subject, that it had to be good.
Steve stood up, looked at his mates and said, ‘C’mon, lets go. I want that record player.’
Well, there was nothing better to do, so they all followed the Snake. They didn’t believe he was going to do it. But it was a fun place to look around. The Retravision store had all sorts of great things to look at and hope to have one day. Electrical appliances, records, stereograms.
Just before they got to the front door of the shop, Steve said to them all, ‘Go down the back of the shop and flick through the LPs. And look over your shoulder at the two blokes behind the counter. They’ll be between you an’ me. The AWA is
on display at the front of the shop, so when you see me leave with it, pull a few faces at ‘em, and give me a few minutes to get ‘round the corner. I’ll meet you all back at the park.’
His mates couldn’t believe it. He really was mad. As the shop assistants at the store watched them intently, they watched as Steve just picked up his new record player, and as if to thumb his nose completely, held it on top of his head, and slowly walked out the door. Once out of sight of his mates he tucked it under his wing, and ran like buggery to the park.
About fifteen minutes later his fellow gang members arrived. They found Steve listening to the radio on his new AWA. Steve was one of the youngest members of his gang, but this deed had earned him respect. They all thought he was still as mad as a cut snake, but he, out of all of them had the most guts.
By fifteen, Steven had been caught twice for shoplifting and was well known to the local police. The Children’s Court handed down its normal slap on the wrist to Steven, and he learned that while he was under eighteen, there was little consequence for his behaviour and lifestyle. His parents gave him little attention. Mum was still at home, drunk most of the time, and his dad made irregular appearances at the house. Normally just to argue with his mum, give her a smack across the gob, then leave in a temper. His older sisters had each left home shortly after turning sixteen, and were now sharing a flat in the city somewhere. He didn’t see them much at all. They came to see their mum occasionally. Their visits became less and less frequent.
One of the older boys told Steve there was a party on Friday night at his next door neighbour's house. He knew this was the woman that his mate had been fucking for a couple of years. Steve had almost figured out what fucking was by now, and although he bragged with the boys about his conquests, he was still a virgin. He had a slight hope that this party might fix that. It did. What Steve didn’t know was that this woman, who he thought was way over thirty and ancient in his eyes, just adored young boys. None of the details mattered to Steve, she had tits and Steve was, beneath all his bravado, just an inquisitive and hormone filled young man.
The party turned out to be a party for his gang alone. She supplied the beer. They supplied her favourite entertainment. Not only did Steve discover exactly what a fuck was, (he intently watched the two boys before him, and then lasted a whole twenty seconds when it was his turn, before he exploded inside the slut), his education was enriched through the evening with gang bangs, head jobs and hand jobs. Although the effect of the beer caught up with Steven, before he passed out, he had discovered a whole new adventure in life. His cock was red raw, his balls ached, and he now knew exactly what the older guys had meant when they said they were fucked from the night before.
He woke up the next morning lying on the grass in front of the house where the party had been. Something smelled bad. He realised in his stupor that his head was lying in a patch of drying vomit. From the realisation that it was all through his hair, he concluded that it must have been of his own doing. No one else was around. It was Saturday morning. ‘Maybe about seven o’clock,’ he thought. He was as thirsty as hell. The garden hose proved a life saver. First a drink, then he sprayed out his hair and washed his face. The beer and vomit stains on his T-shirt would have to wait.
He felt like a bucket of shit. He had never felt so ill. But he also felt he was a man now. Steven had no role model or father figure to make this judgement. With no one to compare or look up to, his own judgement was the best he was going to get. He went home to sleep off his hangover.
He didn’t enjoy living with his mother. She was an alcoholic and had become bitter and abusive. The occasional violent visits of his father had stopped, but this seemed to make her even worse. He went to visit his sisters. He hadn’t seen them in a long time and had only tracked them down by finding his mother’s small address book in her handbag while he was looking through it for some cash.
On his first visit, he discovered his eldest sister had moved out long ago. She had a kid with a guy from Darwin, and had followed him up there. His younger sister told him she had received a letter from her last Christmas, and that she’d had another kid. She didn’t like Darwin all that much, but as neither of them had a job, they couldn’t afford to move. Steve listened, but wasn’t all that interested.
He met his niece and nephew for the first time. His sister, only two years older than him, was living by herself with her two young kids. She seemed to be doing alright for herself. The flat was clean and furnished nicely. Steve was impressed. ‘Looks like you’re doin’ alright,’ he muttered. She then went into what sounded like an advertising pitch for the Social Security Department. She explained in great detail to Steven how she got heaps of money being a single mother. She didn’t want either of the fathers staying with her because she was better off financially without them. ‘If either of ‘em lived with me I’d lose their maintenance payments.’ She knew the system inside out, and explained in detail to Steve how she got an extra fifteen bucks a week by not giving the youngest one its asthma medication. The visits to the hospital when ‘it’ had an attack meant she got the extra money because she had a kid with a disability. Anyone with a conscience or solitary ounce of compassion would have recoiled in horror at her explanation. Steve just yawned. She had a future planned for herself. ‘I plan to have another kid soon,’ she told Steven. Then proceeded to explain how much more money she would get when ‘it’ was born. ‘I might wait ‘til I’m eighteen though,’ she off-handedly remarked.
‘What do you get?’ she asked Steve.
‘What?’
‘Dole payments silly. How much do you get?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Well you should. Are you just being lazy Steve? It’s easy to get. Would you like me to help you?’
‘Ok,’ was Steve’s short acceptance speech.
Within two weeks Steve was receiving unemployment benefits and a supplementary payment for drug or alcohol dependency. The extra came by carrying out his sister’s suggestion that he gargle and swallow a few mouthfuls of methylated spirits ten minutes or so before going to the dole office. He registered a false name, and used his sister’s address. She charged him one third of his payments for the use of her address. It didn’t seem a bad deal to him. He usually stayed over for a couple of days with his sister each fortnight when his cheque arrived in the mail. She didn’t mind because he needed to cash the cheque before she got her cut. And it was nice to have some family around.
At a little over sixteen, Steven had a girlfriend. She was nearly fifteen. Their relationship was not on the romantic basis of a Mills and Boon novel. It was based more on the fact that she let Steve fuck her that it was decided she was his girlfriend. He also found out that it was much more fun fucking a young girl than the old slut that had introduced him to this new pastime. Steve knew what pregnant meant. But he didn’t grasp its full gravity even on the day a few months after first fucking his girlfriend, she told him, ‘Steve, I’m up the duff.’ She told Steve not to worry. She could get a benefit from Social Security for having a kid. The tone of her voice made it sound like she had won the lottery. Maybe she had. She didn’t seem at all worried. So nor was Steven. He had no idea what being a father meant. In time to come, he would find out.
Trucks
Tony Pilletto was a worker. He looked like a one. Dressed in the blue singlet, blue shorts and pull on steel capped work boots uniform of a worker. A tall man, thickset, with only a hint of the typical workingman’s beer gut. His not developed from beer, but from his wife’s good cooking and his simple pleasure of a glass of wine with his dinner. His work as a driver, being seated for long periods also helped develop his stomach. Black hair, olive complexion, thick moustache and dark eyes signified immediately his Italian birth. He had worked all his life. From his mornings and evenings in his parent’s fish and chip shop while at school, through to his employment with Simpson’s Transport. He wasn’t driven by greed for money, it was just his acceptance that as a man he had to work
to support his family. The only change Tony saw in himself from his father, was that he wanted his children to have a good education and not have to work eight hours a day on top of their studies. He was happily married to a nice Australian girl. His parents may have preferred he found an Italian girl, but the woman he chose was Catholic, and had made their Antonio happy. They were genuinely happy for him, and very proud grandparents.
Christmas 1983 was a happy time for Tony. Celebrating in the knowledge that he had two wonderful healthy and happy young children and a loving wife. She had adjusted to being a member of an Italian family with its firm foundation in church and family. Tony had adapted, and been accepted into his wife’s Australian family. 1983 was also a turning point in Tony’s work life. He had left Simpson’s Transport early in the year and invested his modest savings into a used Mack prime mover. He was now an owner driver. Simpson’s Transport had been well served by Tony for over ten years. It was only a technicality in him leaving their employ though, as he carried many loads for Simpson’s on his new rig as a sub-contractor. He was now his own boss. All he had to do now was make a success of it. So far he had. He had met all his payments on his truck, and was earning a little more than when he was employed by Simpson’s. The hours were longer now though. Hauls to and from the east coast meant he was away from home and family for days on end, but he knew his wife had two families for support and he hoped for the day when he could buy another rig and start his own transport company. Tony knew that would be a little way off. For now though, he could not have been happier.
The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, Tony set off to Sydney with a load of irrigation pipes and returned on schedule on New Year’s Eve loaded with canned fruit, and an opportunity. New Year’s Day 1984 was going to be a day of long discussion for Tony and his wife.