by Malcolm Knox
But you knew about the girl, didn’t you. You knew about her and you knew she wasn’t yours, right?
Don’t say nothing. I say nothing.
Don’t tell no-one.
Tell no-one.
The first kick gets me in the shin.
I look up at thumb-head who’s standing over me, to the side of the desk, like he must of made some kind of mistake here.
The second kick gets me in the other shin.
A stomp down on the arch of my right foot. My back foot. My power foot.
A crow-peck on the top of my head, a knuckle right into the bone, while I’m looking down at my foot.
A jab with a cheap shiny elbow into my nose, knocks me aviators off. I get down on the floor to pick them up again and now there’s a boot in the ribs and a crunch as I go down in a ball. Got the aviators in me hand, that’s sweet.
Then a kick in the ribs again.
Then a stomp on the neck.
Then a real hard kick up my arse, right up the clacker.
Then a stomp on me thigh.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the eye.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the throat.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the stomach.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
And that’s where I stop remembering it.
Except the colours:
Red, blue, yellow.
Black.
New ones:
Purple:
Green:
Orange:
Gold shimmers.
Brown pain.
The whole fricken rainbow, new discoveries, all I see is them colours.
Then they pick me up and sit me down. Both of them in me bruised battered face, talking soft now, like they’re sorry they had to do what they done but it was tough love, deep down they’re my mates.
You did it, didn’t you, Den?
Your own girlfriend, slutting about, had a kid on you, slutting everywhere, making a fool of you.
You did it. Eh DK?
You’d had enough.
You had a reputation to keep up.
She was humiliating you.
You took a knife to her.
You took her to a place nobody’d know about.
Lonely place to finish dying. She bled to death in that place, you know that, Dennis?
You didn’t even finish the job off.
Not really a man, eh Dennis? But that was the problem all along, right?
Had a gutful. Eh Dennis?
Slutting around, women’s lib eh? Not for you, eh Dennis?
Going having kids on you. No good, that slut.
Slut, eh Dennis?
You did it, right?
Just give us a nod and we’re done.
Eh Dennis?
Eh Dennis?
I say nothing. I see:
Red, blue, yellow.
Black.
New ones:
Purple:
Green:
Orange:
Gold shimmers.
Brown pain.
The whole fricken rainbow now, new discoveries, all I see is them colours.
Don’t say nothing.
Don’t tell no-one.
Tell no-one.
Then they’re into it again: the bit they dig.
The first kick gets me in the shin.
The second kick gets me in the other shin.
A stomp down on the arch of me right foot. Me back foot. Me power foot.
A crow-peck on the top of me head, a knuckle right into the bone, while I’m looking down at me power foot.
A jab with a cheap shiny elbow into me nose.
Kick in the ribs again.
Then a stomp on the neck.
Then a real hard kick up me arse, right up the clacker.
Then a stomp on me thigh.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the eye.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the throat.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
Then they pick me up and sit me down and punch me in the stomach.
Then I’m down and a stomp on me back.
You can end all this, Dennis.
Like he’s my best mate. Fucken police detectives, winter ’75.
Just tell us you did it and you’ll be right.
Barry Kalahu, Dennis. Pipeline. You’re finished. Everyone knows you don’t have the hair for Hawaiian waves. Real waves.
They want to make me mad.
Need a shot, Dennis? We can give you a shot in five secs if you do the right thing by us. That what you need?
They want to make me hungry.
No speak, no shot.
They want to make me sick.
Well yeah . . . but nar!
Pissing themself. Wiping their hands down.
Pissing themself laughing, now pissing.
Pissing on me.
On and on.
Red, blue, yellow.
Black.
New ones:
Purple:
Green:
Orange:
Gold shimmers.
Brown pain.
No Lisa.
Lying there now and it’s sunk in:
Rod wasn’t bullshitting.
You know she made a complaint? cheap suit goes. Couple of years ago? She said that when she slept in the Keith family home, she believed one time she was assaulted. She came here to the Coolie cop shop and put it on the record. You didn’t know that, Dennis? There was a lot about Lisa you didn’t know. She laid the trail though. She made sure that if anything happened to her, we’d know where the trail led. But there was a lot about Lisa you did know, right Dennis? Like the baby. Your baby, someone else’s—same diff, eh Dennis? Not what you wanted. Not part of your grand plan.
This bloke. Last time I saw him I burnt him on five-foot Kirra. Faded him and forced him down the pocket where he couldn’t turn his longboard and he got smashed. Totally smashed.
Always had it in for me them types.
But no Lisa.
Lisa in fibreglass.
A big fat black man.
They shouldn’t of said that.
In fibreglass.
I want a lawyer, I go.
Aha! Civil liberties!
A lawyer . . . I go through broken teeth, busted lip, fat mouse on my eyes.
Fuck off, DK.
Too late now.
Missed your chance, Dennis.
Then so I say nothing. Tell no-one.
No Lisa.
They say nothing neither.
We got ourselves a Mexican standoff, eh Dennis?
Yeah nah I sort of started reading it she wouldn’t know that but.
Surfer magazine DK exclusive first draft: for Dennis’s eyes only
‘Me and DK’
By Megan Exmire
The conversation I wanted to have with Dennis Keith is the conversation we were never going to have. I spent several weeks interviewing the reclusive former Queensland champion. I ended up with fourteen and a half hours of recordings. Almost totally unusable.
On the recordings there are long, long questions. That’s me. Now and then you hear a grunt or what sounds like a cough. That’s the legend. Then: silence. In the silence you can hear me waiting for more. But there’s
nothing. In the silence you can hear me filling up with hate.
DK’s reticence is as legendary as his surfing. To say he is a man of few words is to say the moon is not the easiest place to get to. But it’s not just a pose. It’s him. To think of all this man has been through, all the life he has lived. And now it’s down to a bowl of muesli, an ice block, a piece of roast chicken, a chop at night. That’s how much all that life has left him with.
Everyone in the surfing world reckons DK deserves your sympathy, or your respect.
Wrong.
He deserves something. But what? That was the question I was here to ask.
Jesus Mary and Joseph. Can’t keep reading this when it never changes no matter how many times.
I can take silence longer than them. Drift in and out. Sleep. They don’t need to give me a shot. I am shot.
So, Dennis.
This is after hours. Sun’s almost down. Blazing through the window. The diagonal security grille. Sun’s right there, standing guard outside.
I can hear it. New swell. Thumping down on Rainbow.
So, Dennis.
I open me eyes which have been glued shut by blood. Me eyelashes get ripped out. Me lids busted.
Put on the aviators. Still there!
No Lisa.
Nonononononononononono.
A kid.
So, Dennis.
It’s old flyshit face. The longboarder who give up. The trimmer. The waster of God’s gift.
So, Dennis, when was the last time you saw Rod?
Rod? What’s Rod got to do with it?
Ar bugger him! goes tall uniform, who’s back. Rod’s off doing his own thing. That what it’s all about in DK’s world. Everyone’s off on their own trip. He can’t remember.
Convenient.
Yeah, convenient.
Last you saw Rod was a week or so back. Yous had a blue. He gone off and sold the panel van he’d been borrowing for a grand to score some hammer. Or was that the week before? Whenever, nothing out of the ordinary. Typical blue. What he didn’t know was you had gear—some hammer, some speed, some dope—stashed in the back of the van, in your secret spot. One of your secret spots. Rod had got a grand but lost about five grand’s worth of gear. We had a fricken fist fight. Overdue that one. Been years since yous’d had a good blue. Most of the time in your life when yous want to fight, yous’re sitting on surfboards in the water and yous can’t really go each other, yous just splash and snarl and spit like a pair of statues in a fountain. Can’t even touch each other, no purchase. But this time I got mad at him on land and I nailed him. Pure natural genius. He walked out.
Not telling them that.
Not telling them nothing.
Just colours:
On and on.
Red, blue, yellow.
Black.
New ones:
Purple:
Green:
Orange:
Gold shimmers.
Brown pain.
And no Lisa.
They’re wrong.
They’re wrong.
They kept you in a few nights, patched you up—and released you. First you didn’t know why. They drove you home to the Queenslander and dumped you like a bag of rubbish. You went inside and went to your room and took a shot and took more shots and passed out for a week.
You didn’t see Mo.
Didn’t talk to no-one.
Only get up to eat cereal and go to the toilet.
Then back to bed.
Another secret stash.
No Lisa.
Then, all hell:
Rod arrested and charged for the murder of Lisa Marie Exmire.
Rodney Keith confessed to murdering Lisa Marie Exmire on December 31, 1974.
Your world champion season.
They knew it all along.
They knew it before they interviewed you.
They knew it was Rod.
They already had Rod.
When they interviewed you.
They already had him.
They knew it wasn’t you.
They done it for fun.
And cos they were sure Rod must of needed some help to do the job.
But Rod confessed.
Rod confessed to doing it alone.
Done it cos he hated her.
Done it cos her and him been having it off, behind yer back. She come onto him for whiz, he said, and smack, while you was away. Roddy and Lisa. No way. You didn’t believe it till they told you he said he done it when they was on whiz and smack and she started belting him in the head and he hit her back and then, he said, they said, it got out of hand.
What he confessed to.
Rod had done Lisa. Then he’d gone her. Then he’d done her in.
Done it cos he hated her.
Done it cos she was humiliating you.
The Great DK.
Rod confessed.
Rod.
Showed them the spot in the shaping bay where he done it.
Told them before they interviewed you.
You never visited Rod.
Mo wouldn’t let you.
He confessed so there was no trial, only sentencing.
Got thirty-five years. Discount cos he confessed.
Horrible brutal murder.
All over the Goldie:
Surf Champion Murder Scandal.
The Girl in the Fibreglass Grave.
Surf Champ Brother Killer.
Mo wouldn’t let you see Rod.
You couldn’t go yourself.
Half a year, first half of ’75, you and Rod knocked round together and he’d known it he’d already done it.
Half a year:
Hawaii.
Together in Hawaii.
Back at home you’d been best mates again. You and Roddy and the hammer.
No surfing.
No Lisa.
He already done it.
‘So but yeah,’ I go after a long few clicks down the highway. Scrub on both sides. Aussie coastal scrub: nothing uglier in the whole fricken world.
‘It’s okay, Dennis. I know.’
‘Right,’ I go. ‘Right, sweet then.’
And she puts a big vacuum of no-talk between us, she puts it there and waits for it to suck me down, a big hold-down for me to fall down down down under . . .
Pissed off that I haven’t read her so-called article.
So she thinks.
She’s taking me almost to Brunswick Heads. Right down in the deep dead dark heart of New South. Almost as far as Byron. Man, that’s one joint I never surfed. Only ever went there to score. And sell. Byron: scoring and selling, selling or scoring. Commercial affairs not surfing.
I don’t say nothing. That’s it. That’s the end of this conversation.
But she’s kept on thinking.
‘Man, you are deadset lucky, all I can say.’
She turns off the highway. I am not liking the look of this not one bit.
Down this bush track eh. Some secret spot? Yeah nah this is not good it always seemed bad and this is worse than it seemed. Bushes close in so tight they’re scraping the sides of the chariot. Grey branches arch overhead, joining on top of us. Darkness, tunnel. She’s
yeah now it makes
I just
can’t see
FUCKHEAD!
Chariot bounces, you go for the door handle. Locked! Fricken brought me here and so
yeah . . .
•
‘Dennis, don’t even try, central locking’s on my side.’
You can’t get the door open, she’s brang you here and locked you
in and you glance up at her and she’s looming, she’s big, see, she’s tough and tan and powerful, much bigger than you she can snap you with her surfer shoulders she’s fricken stopped the chariot and this is the spot, her secret spot to end all secret spots, this is where she’s brang you to do the business and them green eyes is full of hate and she’s coming at ya now and yer curled in a ball against that fricken door that won’t fricken open Mo, Mo, where are ya Mo!
‘Yer fucken psycho the lotta yers!’
She got that same cruel laugh you used to hear in The Patch. Same couldn’t give a rats.
You’re blubbering down into the floor, where the feet go.
She’s just sitting there, enjoying it to the end.
‘This was yer plan eh, track me down and do me in,’ DK snivelling away. ‘I never done nothing but yer so fricken psycho ya don’t care, yers’re all the fricken same.’
Great DK’s face is in his hands, waiting for the last fin chop. Crazy fricken chicks, this was what it was always coming to eh. Revenge. She reckons you done Lisa. Not Roddy, not her own dad. Roddy took the rap to protect you. Someone’s told her he done the real killer’s time and so now she’s got you where she wanted all along yeah she was never no BFO she’s yer Ass Fricken Assin, it’s in her blood, look at it three fricken generations down the line, the only way their lot know how to settle things is
yeah only ever makes sense when it’s too fricken late so
come on
fricken psychos the lotta yers . . .
‘The Great DK, look at him.’ Her voice is full, like she’s wiping her lips after a big meal. Satisfied, happy. ‘Bet you’re glad you’re adopted now eh!’
Lisa been found where nobody ever looked for her. Everyone went walkabout time to time, sometimes turned up, sometimes not, it just wasn’t worth it to keep on looking for some whiz-head rock chick probably gone off chasing her dream.
So no-one ever looked in the obvious place.
It was this Chinese family found her. Said the big fat dead black man in the bone house of the Chinese cemetery wasn’t their dead grandfather’s bones. And there was hair and clothes.
And fibreglass dust.
Shoved in the Chinese bone house.
Not too many people knew their way in there, and it wasn’t gunna be some old Chinese takeaway family put her in there, right.