That Kathy Sumpter.
Just bumped and bumped ’er.
They said that she and her sisters were as bad as their mother and that each of them had a different father. The Sumpter girls just couldn’t help exuding sexiness, with their swaying hips and huge, long-lashed blue or deep green eyes that could turn a man’s thoughts to sin if he merely looked at them with their milk-white breasts oozing from tight dresses and their shapely bodies turning a man into a confused jelly.
The plainer women nurtured all the unpleasant rumours about the small family that lived on the outskirts of town near the reserve. They would huddle in the tiny store of Giuseppe Milano and tell how one girl showered with the bathroom window open so the locals going home could get a good glimpse of her; it would be surprising if one of them didn’t rape her one night—if someone hadn’t already done so. And this girl had been seen in a highly revealing position in Lenny Jackson’s panel van at the Katanning drive-in, with a crowd of boys outside waiting their turn. Oh, yes, that was disgusting, and the noise! No one could watch the film! The Sumpter girls were just a menace and the quicker they got married, the better. ‘They say the older one is pregnant. Well, I can only say that finding a needle in a haystack would be easier than finding out who its father is.’
But the boys in Cooley’s class grinned and muttered sly remarks about Kathy Sumpter, saying that after school, if you had $5, you could go and visit her in the culvert pipes, abandoned behind the football oval.
Cooley thought, ‘I’d lay her any day,’ and spent the rest of the class dreaming about himself and Kathy Sumpter.
In maths, Shaughn Garpey was sent to the office to be caned for sleeping and Morry laughed so much he was sent up, too. Then homework was collected and Marcia Quinn and Paul McCauley were caned for not doing it. The previous night, they had been doing far better things than maths. Cooley was glad he’d done his homework because the week before he had been caned by Black Mac for smoking, and it still hurt.
At break the kids had to sit on the verandah, as it was still raining. Cooley, Morry and Shaughn were in a corner, laughing at some joke, when Cooley noticed a big crowd of white boys coming towards them led by Ned Grey and Wally King, who was over six feet tall but didn’t have any brains.
Ned yelled, ‘Come here, Cooley! What’s all this about you firin’ a shanghai at Di?’
Cooley replied sullenly, ‘I never fired a bloody shanghai. I ain’t got one, ’ave I?’
Rick Mizen growled, ‘None of your cheek, Cooley. You come here or we’ll come there, you black bastard!’
Cooley slouched out alone, but he sensed the two Nyoongahs cold and alert, behind him, leaning against the weatherboard wall.
Wally King, Rick Mizen, Ned Grey and the Packer brothers, Lou and Ken, stepped forward.
‘You think you’re the boss just because your brother sucked his way into the state footy team. Ben Cooley a footy player? Shit, my old Mum can play better than that useless boong. Why, he’s just a big black poofter, and not worth a monkey’s shit anyway,’ sneered Lou, who was thick everywhere, and fat, who had failed third year and was repeating, so was a year older than most of the class.
Cooley stiffened as the gibe went home, but he was scared. He didn’t know whether the two Nyoongahs would join forces with him, and, even if they did, the odds would still be three against five. He didn’t know what to say, so he said, shuffling his feet, ‘Wasn’t me fired the shanghai. Why don’t you ask these blokes?’
Out of the comer of his eye, he saw Morry step forward with a reluctant Shaughn behind him.
‘Yeah, youse fellahs, why’nt youse ast me, bud?’ said Morry, scratching his jaw.
‘All right, then,’ grunted big Wally, who was the only one not afraid of the small dark youth. ‘Was it you?’
‘Yeah, bud,’ murmured Morry, then sprang forward as fast and furious as a wildcat. He punched Ken Packer off the verandah and into an orange puddle, then ducked Wally’s powerful right and hit the giant in the stomach, but went crashing back into the wall when he in turn was punched in the stomach. He tried to rise but Wally hit him in the same place again and the boss was winded.
Meanwhile, Shaughn Garpey backed into the corner, then lashed out and knocked Rick Mizen flying. He gave Lou Packer a bloody nose, then was tripped and Lou began wrestling him.
Cooley shaped up to Ned Grey and tried to remember what Ben had taught him about boxing.
‘Keep ya guard up, baby brother. Look a man in the eyes now. Shuffle them feet around, eh?’ Ben had laughed at Cooley’s flailing fists and thin arms going like a windmill. ‘What’s this ’ere, brother-boy? Two butterflies?.’ Past Cooley’s flapping hands had come two lean brown hands to pat him gently on the cheek. ‘You as useful as tits on a bull, budda,’ big Ben had grinned.
Never mind Ben now. This is serious. Come on, Cooley—can you hear the crowd roar for you? Come on, Dave Sands Cooley, we’ll show this white bloke a thing or two.
But Ned Grey was the under-seventeen boxing champion and he pushed Cooley all over the place. No one cheered for him. The Quinn girls and Jenny Garpey cried out for their stricken champion brother and gasped for their brave cousin, who was now swamped in a white maelstrom of angry bodies. There was no one to cry or cheer for Cooley, who was beaten to his knees and given a black eye. Poor Cooley.
The principal broke through the yelling crowd and there was silence.
Ned Grey said, ‘These blokes insulted my sister, sir, so we got ’em.’ He didn’t worry about the insults they had poured on Cooley.
Cooley, Quinn and Garpey were caned for ‘disturbing the orderliness of the school’.
Afterwards the three argued among themselves about why they had been silly enough to fight. As usual, Morry put the blame on Cooley.
‘I dunno whaffor you go actin’ big. Ya shoulda tried to run off, then I wouldn’t ’ave this fuckin’ guts-ache.’
‘Run off! I don’t run from no one!’ Cooley scowled.
‘Aaaahh, you winyarn, bud. Ya couldn’t fight if ya’ad eight fists, same like a spider, any rate.’
‘Aw, shut up, you. Wha’ for you go jumpin’ in on Packer and King? We mighta bulled our way out of it but for you,’ sulked Cooley. ‘I thought youse was me mates.’
Mates, Cooley? But you have no mates, boy. Or didn’t you see that? Did you think you were the main actor, or what? There you go, dreaming again.
‘What for I go jumpin’ in? What, ya want me to see ya smashed to pulp? We the same colour, bud. But I tell ya straight, ya got no sense. If ya hadda shut up I wouldn’t be feelin’ crook.’
‘Yeah, Reg,’ grinned Shaughn, who hadn’t really been hurt and had punched Ricky Mizen a beauty. ‘You get beaten up properly, you don’t come to school, Morry—he don’t get no free gnummerai, see?’
And Morry, who couldn’t stay angry for long, smiled.
‘Tha’s true, cousin. Let’s ’ave a smoke now and settle me stomick down.’
But Cooley went home in a bad mood and pushed Sammy over into a puddle when the boy annoyed him. Sammy told his mum, who told Cooley’s dad, who belted him.
‘Some time I’m goin’ to beat that bastard up real good,’ Cooley thought as he tossed the bags of feed around, practising judo holds. He imagined himself beating up his father and forgot to feed the pigs. So the next afternoon Mr Packer yelled at him, then his dad yelled at him. Bad luck, Cooley.
II
The cold, grey days dragged along like a snake in winter. They were boring days of work in the dreary classroom, with the yellow peeling ceiling and paint-flaked, dirty white walls. The heavy jarrah desks and the hard chairs screeched when you moved them. Moon-faced, fat Miss Dayne, the history teacher, was fifty if she was a day, even though she smelt of sweet, cheap perfume that made a man sick, painted her face and chased all the single men (and maybe some married men if the incessant rumours were to be believed). Black Mac Merv McKenzie’s huge bulk loomed, with hard opal-blue eyes and black hairs all over his
body. Some said, he could sniff out a cigarette from twenty paces and many who had been caught believed that. Thin, stammering Mr Kennedy taught English and there was also the straight, brown, hawk-eyed, hook-nosed principal, Mr Davis.
One day, as the three Aborigines sat in their honeysuckle hideout, Morry said carelessly, ‘Come down to the railway bridge tonight, koordah, because we ‘avin’ one party ya never goin’ to forget.’
‘Yeah, Cools,’ said Shaughn, catching small Morry’s dark eyes. ‘Big mob of yorgas goin’ to be there, unna, cous? Plenty of drink and all.’
Cooley was pleased because this was the first time he had been invited to one of these parties. He often heard the next day of the fun the two cousins had with the rest of their people. But he shook his head.
‘Ah, no. You fellahs know I gotta feed up Packer’s stock,’ Cooley murmured. ‘Dad’ll get worried if I don’t go home.’
‘Get away! Friday night t’night, look. No school t’morrer. No footy practice. You come to this party,’ Shaughn urged.
‘Someone wanta see ya, Cools,’ Morry grinned.
‘’Oo?’
‘Never you mind. You come and find out.’ Morry smiled.
‘Tell ya what, koordah, us mob’ll give you an ’and to feed ole Packer’s animals,’ Shaughn suggested, and Morry reluctantly agreed.
That afternoon the two Nyoongahs joined the Cooleys on the walk home along Packer’s Road. Sammy and Linda and Rebecca were silent and kept throwing glances at the two strangers whom they usually saw only on the other end of the playground or heard about in whispered stories on the side of the playground reserved for the junior classes. Morry and Shaughn joked among themselves and thought it so funny when Cooley adamantly refused a cigarette that Morry nearly split his sides laughing.
‘Hey, boy, this ain’t a stick of dynamite, ya know,’ Morry spluttered through his tears of laughter.
‘All right! Dy-na-mite!’ said Shaughn, in a good imitation of an American black.
But Cooley was aware of Sammy scowling at him and in his imagination could hear him later: ‘Hey, Mum, Hey, Dad. Reg was smoking. I seen him, eh, Rebecca?’
‘Yeah, Dad. He was with that Morry Quinn from the reserve. Him and Shaughn Garpey.’
‘And you know, Dad, those boongs come right up to the farm.’
More trouble for Cooley.
At the scattered selection of farm buildings the three younger white children left and headed up the hill for home. Far out in the river paddock Cooley’s sharp eyes could see a man on a tractor at work ploughing, and he hoped it was his father, who therefore would not hear the news and come and spoil things for him.
The three youths set to work, or, rather, Morry supervised from his throne of soft bran-filled bags while the other two sweated in the small stuffy shed. In no time at all the stock were fed and they were headed back towards town and the Aboriginal reserve beyond it. They had finished so quickly there was still a grey light in the sky.
They reached the corner road, where the old hall stood; the two cousins in front, arms around each other, and Cooley behind, trying to roll a cigarette.
A battered old red ute spewed up gravel and yellow sand all over them as it slewed to a stop beside Morry and Shaughn. Cries came from the crowd of Nyoongahs in the back.
‘’Op in, you fellahs. We cuttin’ off into Maidstone to pick up some yorgas,’ Lindsay Pepper grinned from the window. Beside him the two Peters brothers laughed as they thought of the fun they would have, and passed a bottle of wine to Morry.
‘What’s Cools doin’ ’ere, cous? Daddy let ’im come out, did ’e?’ Johnny Peters chuckled. ‘’E’s ’ad ’is monthlies, ’as ’e?’ Lindsay laughed.
Last year sly Lindsay and big Johnny had been expelled for annoying the teachers and scaring Miss Dayne. They had had a fight with Black Mac and been thrown all over the room. The next day they had been told to leave, and they now spent their time thinking up new devilment against the townsfolk. Only last week, with an air rifle, they had shot out every light on the town’s one street. They were out on bail now, waiting to appear in court for that spree.
Cooley wondered if he was wise in going along with this mob.
Look out, Cooley. These boys may be going to break into the co-op, or the baker’s, or anywhere. You know that even Morry goes stealing at times. You’ll go to jail, Cooley. You might as well be dead, then, boy, ’cos your dad’ll kill you anyway.
‘Come on, Cools. What, ya frightened of a ute? ’E won’t bite ya. Norris got it trained,’ Morry laughed.
‘Come on. We gotta get goin’. Pick up some beer too, eh, what ya reckon?’ smiled Norris Peters.
At nineteen, he was the oldest of the Herron River mob. He owned the ute and was the only one able to get beer. He was Ben’s mate, so that decided it for Cooley.
The three clambered up into the back amongst the crowd of younger Quinns, Garpeys, Peppers and Peters. Even little Joey Bunyol was there. He wrapped an arm around Cooley’s hunched shoulders, leaned his curly head close to his ear and shouted above the wind.
‘’Ave a charge, koordah. We bin drinkin’ all day, us mob ’ere. Too, too drunk, I am!’ he cackled, and Cooley took a swig of the warm beer, then passed it on to Morry, whose eyes were alight with laughter at Joey Bunyol.
‘Tchoo, little man Joey. You properly charged up, eh?’ he chuckled.
After a moment’s thought Joey’s bleary eyes gazed at his older friend and he murmured solemnly, ‘Da’s true. Trues’ fuckin’ t’ing you ever did say, budda,’ which only brought more guffaws from the happy clan. A faint smile even appeared briefly on Cooley’s thin face.
The township of Maidstone was nestled into the craggy breasts of the mountains (they were really hills, but people called them mountains because that sounded grander). The highway towards Albany, or Perth, depending on which way you were going, passed about sixteen kilometres from the town. It had many shops and two hotels and, possibly not unconnected with the latter, a white brick courthouse; at the back of the little police station was a single lock-up cell. Here the locals sentenced for minor offences spent their two or three nights and the daytime part of their sentence tending the policeman’s garden. Occasionally someone receiving a longer sentence filled in his first night here while awaiting transport to the far less friendly confinement of Fremantle jail. It had a silo for storing grain. It had a level, well grassed football oval where players had no fear of dodging bushes or falling on rocks and where, indeed, all the district matches were held. It had a big high school to which students from the smaller schools in the district were brought daily by a network of buses. Soon, some said, a hostel would be built, and older students would go to Maidstone to finish their education, rather than to Albany or Katanning as at present. It had a huge co-operative store and a main street that at night was alive with lighted shops and window shoppers. It had an elegant hospital, sleeping amid peaceful gardens. Outside the town there were bowling clubs, a rifle range and a go-kart track that could accommodate motor bikes as well. Last, but not least in the eyes of the children, a contractor was even now building a drive-in cinema. They would no longer have to drive half the night to the one in Katanning. No more sitting on hard seats in the hall in the dripping wet winter or sweltering summer. As a local comedian said, ‘The Herron River hall is the only one in the sou’west that keeps out the cool in summer and lets the rain in in winter.’ It was right there, scrawled on the men’s toilet wall, along with other memorable information about who loved whom, what old Clare could do with his prize ram and where old Degill could stick his interfering nose. It also mentioned who was the best root in town and why—but this was a strongly arguable point.
Best of all, there would be no more shouting, stamping of feet or attempts at cuddling while the projectionist (old, old Mrs McCauley, president of the Herron River CWA) tried to untangle yet another broken reel.
Civilisation had come to the district at last, along with a Space City full of electronic
games and a disco.
Mindful of the police station, the central feature of the town to them, the Herron River boys stopped in a clump of she-oaks just before the township and finished off the last two bottles. They left all the youngsters there to avoid possible trouble from the police, then the ute, with the six older boys, clattered and backfired off towards the sleepy town, followed by such warnings as, ‘Hey, you buggers, don’t leave us ’ere, either, Norris.’ ‘You don’t go sniffin’ around them girls too long. I know youse mob, too good.’ ‘You leave us ’ere and I’m tellin’ Dad, Uncle Charlie too, what you fellahs doin’.’ The two cousins in the back responded to such remarks with finger gestures, and Cooley, who was beginning to feel the effects of hot beer, gave a silly grin.
The old red ute let out a defiant blare on its horn as they departed. Lindsay let out a wild howl and hurled an empty wine bottle out the window to sail off into the bush. All along the sandy track a grinning Norris fishtailed the ute and did snakies on the corners, while the boys shouted in joy.
Friday night. The night of fun, where there were no worries or problems. Friday night, the end of the week. The night of dances and parties. Sometimes, if there was a band or a pool or darts competition, the pubs would stay open until eleven or twelve o’clock.
It was dusk when the boys reached town and pulled up outside the hotel that served Aborigines. Norris did a whip around to get some money for beer. Most of the boys had a few crumpled notes in their pockets. Lindsay, who had had a good run on the cards that day, produced a $10 note. Not much money altogether, though.
Five dark faces turned to Cooley, dreaming in the back.
‘What about you, Cools?’
‘I got a bit,’ he returned warily.
‘All them rabbit skins ya sold to ole Kelly, unna? Bring in some boya, I reckon,’ came sly Lindsay’s soft murmur.
Then Cooley knew why he had been invited to this party. Norris worked on the Kellys’ farm and Maude Pepper worked in the kitchen. One of the big things in Cooley’s life were those rabbit skins. He had trapped sixty rabbits in three months. He had cured the skins then stitched them together at night when everyone thought he was asleep. There had been grey skins and black and many shades of brown, even a rare white one. He had sold them as a bed cover to Mr Kelly for $150 only the Tuesday before. It was the greatest sum of money he had held in his hand in his entire life. How he had dreamed. He would buy a car, he would buy a new coat. He could do anything. The money was kept in various places among thin Cooleys’ clothes, so no one at home could find and steal it. He could imagine his father believing he had earned so much cash! He would certainly say it was stolen money. Even if he believed his son, he would take it away from him on some pretext.
Going Home Page 18