Smoky Joe's Cafe

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘You can’t pay for music like that,’ her old man would say, ‘it’s God’s gift, Elvis, The Coasters, B. B. King and Miss Peggy Lee, now they knew how to sing a number. Mr Leiber and Stoller,’ he’d say their names in a real respectful tone, ‘may have been a couple of Jews but, I’m tellin’ ya, music-wise they got it right every flamin’ time.’ It don’t seem to matter to him that most people in Australia haven’t like heard of some of these musicians. He has, and that’s all that matters.

  I reckon being took to your maker in the middle of a song you dig in a huge way is as good a way to die as a man can get. Like dying to your own background music.

  Anyhow, we played Peggy Lee and Elvis at the funeral and, after the wake at Smoky Joe’s, Wendy and me did the washing up and stacked the dead marines in the yard out back and just took up from where the old man left off.

  We even kept all the old jukebox records and had them transferred to a continuous tape and played them in the same order her old man liked them played. Smoky Joe’s is about as close to tradition as this piss-hole in the desert we call Currawong Creek will ever get.

  Well, a man couldn’t catch a fly with his mouth open, next thing Wendy’s fallen pregnant. When she’s well and truly up the duff, there’s no money for help in the cafe and I’m as busy as a one-armed wallpaper hanger. I’m the short-order cook and serving at the tables, I’m chief bottle-washer and I’m standing behind the counter, scratching the rash on my crotch and trying to remember to smile at the locals. As well, I’m pushing Wendy’s old girl around in her wheelchair, she’s got what she calls her ‘arty-ritus’.

  The silly old cow spends most of every day chirping instructions at me like a cockatoo with a cuttlefish up its bum. She’s also constantly reminding me that the ‘Dearly Departed’, which is how she has now come to address Wendy’s old man Cec, left Smoky Joe’s to her and Wendy, that half of the grease trap is hers. ‘Tell me which half and I’ll leave it for you to cook and clean and wash up, you stupid old cow!’ I’d say, losing me block.

  That gets her cackling on a treat, ‘You don’t deserve me daughter, you’re no-good rubbish, not like your father or the Dearly Departed, salt of the earth them two!’ For once in her life, she’s right on the money. I couldn’t get a kick in the balls in a street fight, I’m a bloody drongo. In between morning sickness Wendy’s trying to make peace between us two and I’m not doing the right thing by her. So you can see we’re not exactly playing happy families at Smoky Joe’s Cafe.

  The baby is born, it’s a girl and I’m instantly in love and everything seems fine. Then when she’s three she starts to slow down, lose energy, it doesn’t take too long to know there’s something wrong. We take her to the quack and then down to Sydney and she’s diagnosed with leukaemia and has to have chemotherapy. If that don’t work she’ll need a bone-marrow transplant. The specialist in Sydney says she’s got about a 20 per cent chance of making it. If the chemo doesn’t kick in we’ve got to find a bone-marrow donor. The odds of finding one are enormous and it’s gunna cost more money than I’m likely to make frying bacon ‘n’ eggs for the rest of me flamin’ life.

  ‘Could have happened to any family anywhere,’ the fat quack at Repat says and shrugs his shoulders. ‘It’s not our responsibility anyway, the Veterans Entitlement Act does not include second-generation casualties, you’ll have to take her to a public hospital. Next patient please, nurse!’

  All I can think is Agent Orange. Agent Orange has done this to my kid, my beautiful little girl! It’s my fault. It’s Canberra’s fault. It’s them bastards in the Pentagon. We’re stuffed. Wendy and me are stuffed for the duration. Nobody wants to know. Our precious little girl is just another statistic.

  Then one morning early, while I’m hosing the pavement outside the Smoky Joe, a ute pulls up. ‘Hey, Thommo!’ a voice calls out. ‘’Ow ya goin’, mate?’

  It’s Shorty di Maggio, same name as the baseball player who married Marilyn Monroe. He was our platoon sergeant and an army regular who had fought in the Malayan Emergency up ‘til 1960, then stayed in the army afterwards. He was our sergeant in D Company of the 6th Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment, 6 RAR. His job was to whip us into shape and get us combat-ready in Australia. I gotta hand it to the bastard, he did the job real good.

  I remember the first time he stood in front of a bunch of us blokes who’d just marched in from the school of infantry. He brought us all to attention. ‘Platoon! Lissen in,’ he says. ‘This is your life from now on, you’ve joined the army and you will visit exotic and strange places like this shithole they call Vietnam and, when required, you will kill. That, gentlemen, is your mission.’

  Shorty’s folks own a farm about t’other side of Fisher’s Bend in the irrigation area. Currawong Creek is in the Dry, we don’t have irrigation. I haven’t seen Shorty di Maggio since before Anna was born and here he is, same as ever.

  Well, to cut a long story short, I fry him a plate of bacon ‘n’ eggs and throw in a bit of tomato, couple of snags, toast. He then proceeds to tell me he’s been to see the two other blokes in the Riverina who came back from Vietnam and who were in our platoon and he’s organising a reunion. He doesn’t ask what I think of this idea, he’s still the sergeant, which I guess when you’ve been in the regular army is a lifetime habit. You’re not too interested in some grunt’s opinion.

  ‘How about we use Smoky Joe’s Cafe for the big event? There’s also seven of the blokes coming up from Sydney,’ he says. ‘Animal, Flow Murray, Bongface, Gazza, Killer Kowolski, Ocker Barrett and Macca. Mate, it’ll be like the movie, The Dirty Dozen. All of us back together!’

  There are others in the platoon, of course. Of the original thirty men there are those who died in battle, some are ‘Geographicals’, which in our post-Vietnam lingo means they’ve gone bush or taken up a wandering lifestyle, and then there are some who’ve settled their lot, got their shit together or never lost it and don’t want the renewed memories. So ‘all of us’ means Shorty’s found some of the platoon who were at Long Tan and wants a reunion, though Christ knows why. I know better than to ask.

  ‘Jesus, Thommo,’ he grins, ‘you’re big and ugly enough to be a dead ringer for Lee Marvin.’

  ‘Counting Spags and Lawsy from down the road that’s only eleven of us,’ I say. ‘You can’t have The Dirty Eleven, it don’t work.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know what I mean, I couldn’t locate the four others who were with us in the battle,’ he says, impatient to continue. Fifteen of our platoon were Long Tan survivors so he’s done pretty good.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I say.

  Shorty’s anxious to go on, jerking his thumb in the direction of the pub, ‘Pub’s practically next door where we can all stay the night, Spags and Lawsy, me too. We’ll be too pissed to drive home and the Sydney blokes will need late night and early mornin’ drinking partners anyway. Can the pub take twelve?’

  I don’t remind him it’s eleven. ‘He can put us in army cots, keeps them out the back in the shed, three to a room, I’ll book for ten, I can stay home.’

  ‘Nah, twelve, you stay with us, we may end up with a stripper.’

  I laugh, ‘Not in this town, mate. The last stripper who come here turned out to be a poofter in drag.’

  ‘Righto, but book for twelve anyway,’ Shorty says, ‘Never know your luck in the big city.’

  I think about the glasses they gunna break and the mess I’m gunna have to clean up before Wendy gets home, but it’s only a passing thought. I’m real pleased at the notion of the piss-up. It’ll be good to see some of me Vietnam mates again, blokes who understand, who’ve been there.

  ‘Besides, Thommo, you might as well make a buck out of the catering,’ Shorty says. ‘I’ll bring the wine, it’s me old man’s own. We’ll all throw in two bucks each for the food, another ten each for the other grog and a few bags of ice. The wine is irrigation plonk, but not too bad. We’ll only have to drink it if we run out of beer after the pub’s closed, bloody sight
better than most of the piss the local wogs make, even if I say so myself.’

  I don’t point out to him that he qualifies as a local wog as well. Shorty is built like a brick shithouse and is your born natural leader, and wog is not a term of endearment that suits him like it might most Eyetalians, Greeks or Lebbos. He used to say he joined the army to get away from his old man, who was trying to turn him back into an Eyetalian. He once told me, ‘Me old man’s a Sicilian and they only ever have one nationality and one home, some mud-cracked, crow-infested village up in the hills back of Bisacquino where they all end up killing each other and calling it tradition.’ Besides, Shorty must be a throwback or something, because he’s not your usual wog, he’s got fair hair and blue eyes. He says it must have come about when the Greeks invaded Sicily about a thousand or so years ago. It seems that in those days the Greeks were blond with blue eyes like him.

  I persuade Wendy to take Anna and spend the night with a girlfriend. I order in the grog, get in extra tucker, buns and mince for hamburgers and I bum a dozen wine glasses from Willy McGregor. He’s dead chuffed at the overnight and agrees to leave a couple of cases of Flag Ale upstairs after the pub closes in case the boys get thirsty during the night.

  Well, the night at Smoky Joe’s is a big success or failure depending on how you look at it. It turns out most of us are in much the same boat since we got back. Can’t settle down, hold a job, several of the guys are divorced. We’re like a farmyard full of old chooks comparing our various ailments at the Country Hens Association Dinner.

  Suddenly I realise I’m not alone, that my mates are going through the same hell as me. It’s not just my imagination. Same headaches, rashes, panic attacks, nightmares, shit fights with wives, girlfriends or bosses, skin complaints, irrational behaviour, feeling half crook all the time. Some of my mates have been through the same tests and been told the usual bullshit about their psychological problems being their mothers’ fault and that Agent Orange is harmless.

  We’re halfway pissed when Shorty calls us to attention by standing on his chair. ‘Righto, lemme speak!’ he shouts, tinging the lip of his wine glass with the blade of a knife. It’s the same old Shorty di Maggio, platoon sergeant, always organising the mob. Reminding us, just by the way he stands, that he’s permanent army and we’re nashos. Though there was no difference in Vietnam, some of the nashos scrubbed up a damn sight better than the regulars and Shorty knows it.

  Once when he was briefing us before going out on patrol he said, ‘It’s your flamin’ duty to die for yer country and it’s mine to see you don’t.’

  In Vietnam they said it was a corporal’s war because in the jungle the corporal was the section leader, but I gotta tell ya, Shorty near ran the battalion and here he’s at it again. Of all of us he seems the least affected or perhaps is best able to cope with civilian life. If he’s had the rashes or acted irrational or suffers insomnia like the rest of us he don’t say. Shorty always had his shit tightly packed together in an airtight plastic container, nothing seems to have changed. F’instance, we’ve all took to wearing our hair a bit long with sideburns down our cheeks and he’s still got an army brushcut, short back ‘n’ sides, with his sideburns in line with the top of his ears.

  ‘Thommo’s in trouble!’ he begins right off. ‘No, not Thommo,’ he corrects, ‘Thommo’s five-year-old kid, Thommo’s little girl, Anna. She’s got leukaemia and now has to have a bone-marrow transplant. First we’ve got to find a donor who’s suitable and then we’ve got to find the bread for the operation!’

  ‘Hey! Wait a minute,’ I protest, ‘I ain’t said nothing to nobody about Anna, about our little girl!’

  ‘Don’t have to, mate!’ Shorty says, his eyes sharp. ‘We’re not going to let your little girlie go down the gurgler because the gold braid in the Pentagon and all the President’s men and their Canberra toadies won’t take no responsibility! You know and they know it’s AO what’s done this to your little girl. Screw the FBI!’

  ‘CIA,’ I correct.

  ‘Both,’ he shoots back, ‘we’ve got brothers in the States.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I mumble, feeling foolish, ‘it’s not your responsibility.’

  ‘That’s where you’re dead wrong, mate,’ Flow Murray chips in. ‘Could’ve happened to any of us the same as it done to your kid! My little girlie was born with this nasty rash all over her body that won’t go away.’ He turns to the others, ‘Yeah, man, let’s do it for Thommo!’

  Jesus, he’s barely heard this weird proposal from Shorty and already he’s all piss and wind. Flow gets his nickname because his surname is the same as the Murray River, the area where he comes from. That’s in the first place, in the second he gets it because he’ll always go with the flow. He doesn’t have an opinion of his own. Someone says, ‘Let’s dip our heads in a bucket of piss so Charlie can’t smell us?’ and Flow goes looking for a bucket to piss in. He’s what you’d call easily led, or maybe easygoing is a kinder way of putting it. But now he goes off like a string of crackers on Chinese New Year, what are we going to do? Sit back and cop the shit the Penta-fuckin’-gon’s throwing at us or what?’ he yells, fist in the air.

  ‘Jesus, Flow, put a sock in it, will ya?’ I say.

  ‘Flow’s right,’ Shorty says, though he knows Flow’s little ways as well as I do. Then several others also mumble their agreement. ‘And what’s more,’ Shorty announces, ‘I’ve got the plan of action!’

  ‘Here we go,’ Gazza says, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, ‘Bloody sergeant’s got a plan. Gawd help us!’

  We all laugh.

  ‘Whoa,’ I say, ‘not so bloody fast! Do you blokes know what kind of money it takes for a bone-marrow transplant?’

  Shorty looks at me. ‘Yeah, mate, I do. But it’s not just you, Thommo. We’re not just doing this for you and your kid.’ He looks around, his gaze resting in turn on each of us. It’s like the old days before the platoon went on patrol. He’s getting us ready, leaching the fear out of us. ‘We’re gunna have to fight these miserable bastards, we’ll start with Canberra and then we’ll take on the Yanks if we have to!’ He pauses, ‘It’s about justice, about givin’ us a fair go.’

  ‘Who, us? Fight them?’ Macca protests, ‘Come off it, mate, we’re a bunch of no-hopers, the brain dead, Vietnam vets, the forgotten legion! Who are you kidding?’

  Shorty turns around sharply. ‘No one, mate, I’m not kidding. Matter of fact, I’ve never been more serious. There are blokes in America same as us, their vets are copping the same shit from the top brass in the Pentagon. We’ll get in touch. Thommo’s kid’s going to die!’

  ‘Hey, steady on, mate,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry, Thommo, but let’s face the facts, mate. If she don’t get a marrow transplant . . .’ He doesn’t finish and looks about the room. ‘It won’t just be her!’ he says angrily, ‘There are other kids too and some of us as well!’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Someone’s got to do it, take responsibility, and we know it ain’t gunna be those ingrates in Canberra or Washington!’

  ‘Fight Canberra! Washington? It will take millions!’ Ocker Barrett exclaims.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So where’s the money going to come from?’ Lawsy, who’s a lawyer in Griffith, asks, ‘You won the Opera House lottery or something?’

  ‘We can get it, the money,’ Shorty persists.

  ‘How? Where?’ several of us shout at the same time, my voice the loudest, I’m still annoyed at what he’s said about my little girl.

  Shorty puts up his hand to silence us, then waits ‘til we’re all concentrating on him. ‘Dope. Marijuana!’ he says, calm as all get-out.

  We’re all, you know, stunned. Dope, weed, selling it? Us? Shorty must ‘ave gone troppo.

  Then he continues, ‘The nice clean little part-time hippies who marched in protest against us can’t get enough of the stuff. It’s the fashionable drug among the brave and the beautiful, the little boys and girls who think their protest marches won the war.’

 
; ‘What about the dock workers who went on strike, useless bastards wouldn’t load supplies to Vietnam?’ Lawsy adds.

  ‘Yeah, them too,’ Shorty says impatiently, though I sense he’s not too interested in including the dock workers, who’ve been screwing the nation around for generations anyway.

  ‘There are two little valleys on the farm that’s never been cultivated,’ he continues. ‘Mostly scrub and not too rocky, the soil’s good, needs a bit of work and a drop of nitrate, that’s all. It’s hard to see from the air, nobody ever goes there, about seventy acres in all.’ Shorty looks around, ‘Do you have any idea how much dope you can harvest on seventy acres irrigated?’ he asks.

  ‘Shit a brick!’ says Spags Belgiovani, who’s from another local Italian farming family just outside Griffith.

  Shorty, it turns out, has taken over the family farm and his old man has gone back to Sicily to retire and be a proper Mafioso again. He’s got enough dosh stashed away to last the distance and to make him the Con-suleri or mayor of his mountain village and die properly from a blast of buckshot while he’s eating pasta with chilli and cabanossi.

  Basically, with the irrigation, the farm he’s left his only son is rice, but the old man added a few vines and a couple of citrus orchards. What Shorty’s inherited is a pretty good proposition, he sells his crop to the Rice Board at a guaranteed price, he’s his own boss and he doesn’t have to worry about a quid. What he’s proposing, from his point of view, is pretty amazing. I mean, from where I sit, he’s got everything to lose and I can’t see he’s got anything to gain.

  ‘I’ve got someone I want you blokes to meet,’ Shorty suddenly announces, ‘Be back in a mo.’