But then thankfully Year 6 was over and he was at high school. Punchbowl Boys’ High. Back with his boys. He felt tough. He’d started to fill out a bit. And his uncle was in prison. He was one of the main boys at the school. Kids wanted to hang out with him. They wanted to know what it was like at the skip school, out there with all the sluts in miniskirts. They wanted to hear it so he told them. How many fucks he got. How they all fucked out there. Their parents let them do anything, he told them, they fuck in the dunnies, in the drains behind the school, anywhere you wanted. And they deserved it. Flashing everything. Legs, tits. No shame, no pride, nothing like Muslim girls. And it became legend. It became truth. Those miserable, isolating years out there had paid off. He was able to construct an experience that reversed, he thought, their impact on him. It became so true that even one of the dumb skip teachers at Punchbowl Boys took him aside and asked him why he boasted about that sort of thing. Abdullah laughed.
—Where’s your daughter go to school, sir? he taunted the teacher. If it wasn’t for the principal being a Leb, he thought, he would have gotten suspended.
High school was good. There were no girls, but that was an advantage. You could be yourself. No bitches around to laugh at you, make you feel stupid. And Abdullah was respected. Amongst boys, Arabic boys, what he said was funny when he meant it to be, tough when he meant it to be, and his ideas were valued. There were a couple of groups who didn’t like him and his boys — the dickheads who got into studying, were full-on into the religion, who played skip-ball, or were too wimpy to stand up for themselves and were happy to become Aussies. But Abdullah’s gang, although small in number, were undisputed as the toughest.
Where it was just talk in the early years of high school, Abdullah and his boys all shared the intensity of their frustration by the last two years. At home, there was no talking about sex. But at school, and hanging out after school at the pinnie joint, or at Bankstown Mall, it was the whole world. Abdullah was the core, and all talk would gravitate to him — because he’d had so many bitches, knew what it was like to hold a girl, and put his cock right up in her. He could easily imagine what it would be like, he thought, so the stories came easily to him.
In fact, he shared his mates’ frustration and confusion. The only girl he really knew was his sister. And she was into mosque and the Koran and gave him absolutely no clue into the psyche of what girls thought about when it came to sex. And he could never ask. That would be one thing his parents would go to war about. One time his father had severely beaten him when he found a copy of Barely Legal behind the bed-head. So the stories stayed stories. But turned to plans. How were they going to get laid? Sure, you meet a Muslim girl, and if you’re lucky she’ll let you get a taste before the wedding, but what do you do now? There’s so much horny pussy out there, and a man needs to be a man.
Abdullah left Punchbowl Boys at the end of Year 11. He wasn’t doing well at school, and his dad had gotten him an interview at the railways. The interview was piss-easy, Abdullah thought, walking out of the office — three Lebs whom his father had had ’round for dinner a few times. He started a month later at Macdonaldtown Station, collecting tickets and sweeping up the platform. The job was a bludge, and there were plenty of hot chicks from the performing arts high school in the morning and afternoons. He was also able to get a car loan, and bought the 2001 WRX, fully worked and detailed. The freedom fight was fully under way. Man, the chicks really paid attention when they heard the turbo! And he’d begun to look better in the mirror. Working out. Shaving his head. Buying cool clothes. Tight white T-shirts and Hugo Boss jeans. But then the cops. Twice in one week pulled him up for speeding. Hassled the fuck out of him, searched his car, searched him, and made him wait while they checked for non-existent warrants. Asked him at least three times if he was Lebanese. Fuckin’ arsehole skips. And then, just a week later: he’d started to notice a group of girls from the performing arts school smile at him. One was hot. Really hot. Long, curly black hair. And her skirt sitting nice and high on her thighs. She never had her student ticket with her, so one morning late that week after the cops had hassled him, he waited. When she was coming through the turnstile he locked it.
—Ticket please.
—Um, I left it at home, she said.
—That’s too bad, miss, you’ll have to go home and get it, he winked at her.
—You’re kidding, right. I’ve got to get to school. I have a composition exam this morning.
—We’ll, maybe we can work something out then, he said, and unlocked the turnstile for a second, and then re-locked it, smiling at her.
—Look, mister, are you going to let me through or not?
—Depends, honey. What’s your name?
—Princesse de bloody Lascabanes.
—Princess, hey?
—Are you going to let me through?
—For a kiss.
Abdullah leant down to her. But she jumped the barrier, so he grabbed her hard on the arse. She screamed and ran off with her friends who’d been waiting for her. There’d also been, Abdullah suddenly noticed, quite a few other passengers waiting to get through the turnstile.
The railways suspended him, without pay, until they completed their investigation. What a load of fuckin’ shit, he thought. Well, fuck them.
—Abdullah, you muthafucka, his cousin Yift said, coming into the lounge room. Let’s get fuckin’ goin’, huh?
—What took ya so long? Puttin’ on ya fuckin’ make-up? Abdullah taunted, and winked at Sakine, Yift’s little sister.
They put ciggies in their mouths and lit them as they crossed the threshold of the screen-door. They smoked them in silence before getting in the car. Abdullah liked this: it showed that his cousin had respect for him — not smoking in the car — and as Yift was the person he probably respected most in the world, apart from his uncle, Yift’s father; this was a big thing.
—Did I tell ya I’m fuckin’ a cop’s daughter? Abdullah said.
—Nuh. What are ya doin’ that for? Cops are fuckwits, mate.
—She’s not a fuckin’ cop. Her father, mate.
—You’re a fuckin’ idiot, mate. You can fuck yaself up. Fuckin’ cop; don’t get involved with those cunts. Me and me dad have fuckin’ done time, and you’re fuckin’ cops. Disrespectful, ya dickhead.
This wasn’t the reaction Abdullah had hoped for. He was hurt. But wouldn’t show it. He loved his cousin and his uncle. He’d adopted them as brother and father. And he thought that he’d been adopted too, as a brother and a son. But this reaction made him feel he was back at Plumpton Primary — on his own, unable to understand why, what was fully formed and perfect in his mind was so wrong to others. Couldn’t Yift see? This girl was an advantage; fucking with the enemy. He thought Yift would love it. It’s like taking a prisoner, or something.
—Let’s get whacked, Yift said.
Yift smoked the gear until the bowl was clean and then said he wanted to go home. He didn’t talk at all for the duration of the session. Just packed the cones. Smoked one, offered one, smoked one, offered one. But Abdullah only had three. He wasn’t in the mood. He’d wanted to tell Yift about the sluts he and his boys had been getting. Get him in on the next one. Show him that he’d started out on his own with his gang. Started something mad. Yift didn’t want to talk though. Just packed and smoked. And looked out the window on the way back to his place.
—Take it easy, mate, he mumbled, as he shut the passenger door of the WRX.
Abdullah called Mia on her mobile. He needed to gauge what he was doing with her. He was doubting and needed to shift blame. He’d thought that telling Yift about her would build something. He’d imagined a handshake and some long laughter and hard shoulder-punching. But here he was. With Mia as his girlfriend, but wondering what her worth to him was.
—Hello, she said.
—Hey, Mia. What’re ya doin’?
—Not much. What are you doing?
—Fuck all. Can I pick you up? Go for a root
or something.
—Abdullah. Don’t talk to me like that please. Look, I don’t know. My dad will freak if I ask him if I can go out. And also, we need to get condoms if we’re going to do that again.
—Huh? Well, what’s ya brother doin’? Does he wanna hang out?
—My brother? What do you mean?
—Just ask him if he wants to hang out.
—All right. Hang on.
He could hear her talking, but not what she was saying. It pissed him off.
—Yeah, he wants to hang out, she replied. He’ll wait for you out the front of our place.
Between eight and nine pm on late-night shopping nights, the fever of teenage behaviour changed Rooty Hill Plaza. It became a meeting place, and more importantly, it became a blueing place, and a pick-up place. The families and older couples were forced out by the swearing and spitting and tiny denim skirts, and were lined up to pay for their parking by eight o’clock.
Abdullah and Charlie hung at the top of the escalators. They’d headed out west again in the WRX because, Abdullah insisted, this was where the sluts really were.
—Hey, babe, Abdullah called out to all the girls who came up the hungry metal stairs. Most of them rolled their eyes, told him to shut up, dickhead. There were also plenty of westie guys around, and as Abdullah had little faith in Charlie’s abilities as a half-decent bluer, he’d have to be a little bit careful. Sly.
—Hey, babe.
—Hey, a chick with blue eye-shadow said. What’re youse doin’?
—Just hangin’? What’re you girls doin’?
—Same.
—Smoke pot? Abdullah asked, and shifted his hand on the banister so it bumped Charlie’s. There were two of them. Both Aussie, and both pretty hot.
—Sometimes.
—What about tonight?
—Why? Ya got some?
—Of course, babe.
Abdullah called Fadi on one of the chicks’ mobile phones. It was one of the new Nokias. He’d be keeping it too; put his own SIM card in it.
—Fadi. It’s Abdullah. I’m usin’ a slut’s phone. Can ya get ya dad’s car?
—Maybe. Why, what’s up, mate?
—Mate, sluts, sluts. We got sluts down at Brownthistle Park at Mt Druitt. They wanna suck ya dick.
These guys had seemed okay. A bit woggish, and the older one a bit cocky, but pretty cool and undemonstrative; and willing to blow them out when it seemed that no one had any pot at all. Tennille Baxter had reasoned that it would be okay to go for a ride with them up to the oval for a smoke. But after that first wrong turn, and then him locking the car doors and telling them to shut the fuck up, things had gone from something just a little out of the ordinary to something that was quite sharply threatening — something with potential teeth, but which she’d never thought she’d have to try to placate. She and Melissa had gone for plenty of smokes with boys before. But none had acted anything like this. A joint had been passed around, but the locked doors, and the total silence of the younger guy had stripped the mood entirely, leaving only unwanted paranoia. And then, as if he thought he was in a porno or something, the older guy said:
—So, do you girls wanna fuck or what?
Tennille wasn’t sure what to say. Or do. But she was quite aware that there were two guys here, both much bigger and stronger than she and Melissa, and they didn’t intend to just smoke a joint and take them home, like they’d said. Melissa was silent. Her posture was one of total fear: her hands between her legs, her body a nervous shell. But Tennille was still acutely aware. They could get out of this. They could survive this. She remembered a novel she’d read in high school, an autobiography, about a young woman who’d been raped. Despite her fear and disgust, the woman had done what the sick bastard had asked her to do, and she’d lived through it — where other victims had not. The absolute last thing Tennille wanted to do was have sex with these guys. But she didn’t want to die. Jesus. Not now, like this. While the threat was still just words, she thought she would try reason first.
—Look, we don’t fuck, okay?
—Why’d youse come then?
—We thought, you know, you’d give us a smoke.
—Have a fuckin’ smoke then.
—No, thanks. I think we’ll just go now.
—Uh-uh. You’re here with us now. Let’s have a bit of fun, hey.
—No. Please, we just want to go.
—Hey, you got us all horny. Now I think we should fuck, okay.
The guy had turned almost fully around in his seat and was looking into her. He’d started to raise his voice. Tennille shrank back. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. He was slicing back at her with a response to everything she said.
—You ready? he asked, his eyes wide now.
—We can’t fuck you. We have boyfriends.
—Boyfriends? If you fuck them, you can fuck us, right?
—No, please.
—All right. Look. Ya startin’ ta piss me off now. How about you just come over here with me and suck me off, and your friend here gets with my mate?
—We can’t fuck youse though.
—Just a suck, baby.
Melissa looked at her now, her eyes wide with accusations of betrayal. Tennille quickly shrugged and shook her head once. She could see no other way. To refuse would prolong this, and make it more violent than just this guy’s foul mouth.
—Give us your mobile, the guy barked at her. She found it in her bag and handed it to him.
—Nice one, he said. He got out of the car and called someone. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he was laughing. What a fucking arsehole. He got back in and winked at his mate. Then the younger guy took Melissa and stood outside the car. Tennille had to crawl through to the front seats then and sit in the passenger seat. He undid his jeans and pulled his jocks down and exposed his cock. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t hard, and it was ugly, and where every other time the sight of one in the flesh had aroused her, this was something else: this was an animal’s thing.
—Suck it, bitch.
She went to it. This was the most repulsive, degrading thing she’d ever done. She would have rather eaten dirt for a year than do this. There was nothing sexy in this. She’d done it before, but it was different, it had tasted like something new and exciting: this was nauseating and totally invasive and she could taste every filthy cell of sweat and piss. She knew enough from the last time she’d done this, of her own free will, and as soon as she felt it spasm, she withdrew her head and got out of the way. He spurted all over himself and his seat.
—They’re Recaros, bitch, he said, and slapped her on the neck.
Melissa and the young guy now got back in the car. Tennille could hear what was going on, and was relieved when it seemed like the guy had shot out of the starting-blocks before his race began. Then a car pulled up right next to them. They’ll let us go for sure now, she thought, they won’t want to be seen doing this. But the guy she’d had to take in her mouth got out and was shaking hands with these guys. He knew them. They were his mates. Another guy got in the seat next to her.
—So, what about a fuck then? he said.
—No. Look, I already told your mate, just one head job, and that’s it.
—Nah, a fuck I think, the guy urged, and showed her the pistol.
SEVENTEEN
Salvatore Testafiglia ended the telephone conversation with his mother and replaced the receiver. She’d told him, finally, why his sister and brother-in-law had been absent from all the family occasions for the past ten years. Salvatore had thought his brother-in-law avoided them because he was Napoletano; too good for his wife’s Calabrese family. That’s what his parents had told him. But no, his mother now said, it was because his brother-in-law wanted nothing to do with a family where incest was ignored or swept away. Because, as Salvatore had just learnt, his father had abused Mary, Salvatore’s sister, on and off for twelve years of their shared youth.
Ten years ago, Mary had told her hu
sband about her childhood. And now, he’d finally convinced her to seek counselling. One of the things she’d decided to do in seeking help was, despite her father being dead, to report the crime to the police. His mother was talking of all this now because she assumed he’d hear about it, being a police officer. Naivety with regard to probity in the police force sparked in him a pang of almost hatred through him. But he had to remind himself that where she came from, secrets are not something private but simply fodder for gossip.
My father, Salvatore thought, did that? His blood is flowing through me?
Salvatore was older than Mary. He loved her, but the family dynamic also came into play. Salvatore loved his mother, because she loved him. Salvatore’s father loved his daughter. And was hard on Salvatore. He had harboured some resentment, and jealousy, toward his sister because of this. The smell of his father’s tobacco and grappa breath, his tough brown hands, and the look, as though he knew something about you; something you’d forgotten, but something bad. And this little doll: Salvatore’s sister.
The family respected Giuseppe Testafiglia. It was their family’s culture. But sometimes Salvatore had wished his father would die. Life was smooth and happy at home when it was just Salvatore, his mother and sister. But when his father came home from work things could turn harsh and unpredictable. Everything had to be the way his father liked it. But his preferences could change from day to day, and cause a solid whack on the back of Salvatore’s head. Some days his father would want to hear about Salvatore’s day at school, and he’d have to stand in the lounge room and carefully detail the day’s events. Other days Salvatore would have to be totally silent, and not even cause the floorboards to squeak. Salvatore would fantasise about his father falling from one of the houses he built in the suburbs. Smashing his concrete-splashed ute on the way home. And there was that time he asked his sister — really just to cruelly tease her, because he thought she loved their father, because of the special way he treated her — if she ever wished the father dead and she said yes. It was clear now why his father gave Mary special treatment and the sickness of it burned inside Salvatore.
Luck in the Greater West Page 9