‘Yes, sir?’
‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’
‘Course not, sir.’
‘If you had kids. Would you give them the shot?’
He be a queer ol’ fella. That for sure. ‘I dunno, sir. Heck, you did. Maybe, I guess. But who knows. Probably not.’
It be a week of severe silences.
‘Well.’ Big breath. ‘It was nice to meet you, Serge.’ Out comes the hand again. ‘And if you change your mind, or, if you just want to talk one day, maybe today was not a good day for you.’ His eye finds my eye. ‘I just want you to know we, I, would really like for you to come back. Maybe for longer next time.’ Another handshake. ‘It'd be. Nice.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As I be leaving I light up that doob which been twitching in the ol’ pocket since I left the butchers. All them handshakes ago. I be eyeing off them sappy kids, wondering like: which be the principal's own? All paired up in that concrete courtyard in their sappy matching tracksuits, staring and smiling their vacant sappy smiles at me. So I smiles back. And it be nice smiling at them. From a distance. They be real peaceful like. Not like ol’ Billy Bob. Not at all like ol’ Billy Bob.
I read a story once though, you see, from them way ol’ days. A newspaper story bout some sheep in some country that don't exist no more. Some poor-ass war-fucked desert of a place. There were these shepherds, right, long after the rest of the world's closed the book on shepherds in that Bible. And these poor shepherds be walking their flocks and some few shepherds meet up and their flocks turn into some super flock of 40,000 fucking sheep. These stupid damn sheep, probably enough to feed this poor-ass war-fucked country for a week, walk right off the side of the cliff. The last 20,000 survived because the first 20,000 broke their fall. Poor fucking shepherds. Weren't nothing they could do but watch. Stupid fucking sheep. So what I'm saying is, if all these test-tube babies fall off a cliff, ain't no-one gonna be standing around saying poor fucking test-tube babies. You either in or you out. I be definitely out. I may be A-class. But I still be a natural.
The streets be doob-drenched and I wander back to the ol’ house in a right daze. That kind ol’ fella's words repeating in me head as I go.
When I arrive I am off face but it ain't nothing on the mess that greets me in the hallway. Ma's gotten herself outta the bed and she be looking like fucking Ophelia. Not having eaten for days. Being all weak and shit. At first I think she been up in Pa's liquor supplies. She be on the hall floor on her back, kicking her legs around like she riding a tipsy-turvy bicycle. I tells you, I be scared shitless seeing her like this. If I hadn't let rip in the shitter before I'd be ripping it all over the floor right here in the hall. I want her to stop and I be quick to sober standing there looking at me ma like that. Pa and G-ma be wrestling with her wayward feet. G-ma sees me standing there like some mutant statue and abandons Ma's left foot to Pa's forehead. She takes me to the kitchen and closes the door in on me. So nows I be sitting here in the kitchen all by meself listening to me ma howling and howling.
‘One shot. One shot. One shot,’ she be saying over and over. Ma want nothing more than a perfect little boy like in them damn Emotamin ads.
Poor ol’ Pa. He be telling her, ‘It's okay, it's okay.’ But it ain't okay. Ain't never be okay. Not for me ma anyway.
Final-like the howling quiets to just be a whimper. G-ma dashes into the kitchen and makes for the cupboard over the fridge. She pulls out bottle after bottle, dropping two on the floor, making a right racket. She is looking at a green bottle with the word ‘Tranquillity’ written on it and a peach-coloured bottle with the word ‘Acceptance'. She puts down the green bottle and leaves the room, acceptance in hand.
Ten minutes it'll all be over. And on cue the ol’ tummy starts the rumble. Dregs from the doob still in me. I take down Pa's whiskey bottle from behind the bread box and make meself a glass and start to set the table. Something right ol’ precious be in the oven and the scent of it's got up me nose. I feel hungry like a wild animal.
Thirty minutes later we be sitting at the table. Pa with his ‘apple juice', Ma with her dopey smile, and me with me bug eyes. G-ma be looking at all three of us, shaking her head.
‘Serge,’ she says, looking my way, ‘would you mind fetching my painkillers from my bedside, dear.’ I smiles me gentleman-like smile and gets to me feet. She be rubbing her back and as I return I hear her muttering, ‘All those years hunched over a desk, all those years…’
All the coppers were pricks, but Collins was the worst of the lot. He'd bring you in for looking at him wrong and keep you in all night just so he'd have some prick to wind up to keep him from getting bored. He was a fucken pro when it came to winding a prick up. No originality—your old woman's rooting around, that kind of thing—but it worked a treat. And if you gave him back any lip, he'd find an excuse to keep you in another twelve hours. Well, we gave him bugger all reason for bringing us in that night. We were fucken angels.
Collins wouldn't have even clocked us cept it was a Monday night and quiet as. He's seen us putting up posters for Sandy so he turns on his siren and drives past real slow, hugging the side of his wagon like one of them teenagers in their hotted-up cars. He's got the new lady cop in his passenger seat and he's showing off even though he's got Buckley's on account of how hard he's been hit with the ugly stick. He pulls up the wagon on the wrong side of the road, so he's right next to us, and starts saying shit like, You coons been drinking again? and he's half laughing cause he knows it's bullshit. I'm the only one's ever been done for being pissed and course, I'm not a blackfella. Mick never drinks and he's never in any trouble. It's him that gets called in to break up fights and that, not the fucken police. Ordinarily I'd have told Collins to piss off, cept for Sandy's said how we've gotta be perfect so no-one can accuse him of nothin, which, course, they're busting to do. Pricks round here would rather eat their own shit than see a blackfella in parliament. Mick's told Collins we haven't been drinking, which is the truth cept for Jimmy and me had one beer down the pub with our tea. Mick's even called him sir, which was probably fucken overkill, but Collins is too thick to know we're taking the piss.
He starts saying how we must be retarded cause if we had a brain we'd know we have to get permission for the posters. We've told him that Marge who owns the shop said it's okay, but he doesn't hear us cause he's going on about how we're sly pricks for trying to put up the posters at night and how we're too scared to ask Marge cause we know she'd say no cause who the fuck wants a crook like Sandy in parliament? Anyhow, when he says that bit about Sandy, Mick can't help himself. He's raised his voice—but just a bit, right—and he's told Collins how we're not doing nothin wrong.
Well, that's all it takes and Collins is out of the fucken wagon like a jack-in-the-box. What did you say to me, you black cunt? He's got Mick by the collar and he's rammed him up against the wall and shoved his face so close that Mick's old Akubra's fallen off. There's spit flying all over the place and I can smell the booze on Collins. But Mick's calm as, which just shits Collins even more cause Mick is making him look like a dickhead in front of the lady cop. Mick's told him again that we haven't been drinking and that Marge said it was okay about the posters. But Collins isn't taking it and he keeps calling Mick a coon and an abo and saying how no fucken coon's gonna call him mate.
The lady cop gets out of the wagon and she's telling Collins they've got to get going, but he's not having a bar of it and you can tell he's going to be on us til he's got something to take us in for. But me and Jimmy and Mick have kept our cool, so he makes us take a breath test even though none of us is driving. He says Jimmy is 0.065, which is bullshit cause as I said, we've only had one beer. Mick's asked to see the breath-test thingo, but Collins goes berko and says he's taking us all in for resisting arrest or some shit like that.
Course by the time we're in the back of the wagon, Jimmy and me are mad as cut snakes, but Mick's made us promise not to make any trouble and not to admit to n
othin neither cause that'll make Sandy look bad. That's how I know Collins is full of shit when he tells me Mick's admitted to trespass. He's put Mick and Jimmy and me in separate cells so we can't see or hear each other and so he can try and trick us. He tries to get me to say I done trespass too, but I just keep my mouth shut, which sends him berko again. That's when it gets real bad.
Collins makes me bend my knees like I gotta take a shit and he's told me that if I stand up he'll give me the worst shit-kicking I ever had. He must be pissed as, cause he starts saying how he's gonna kill Mick and Jimmy and me and dump our bodies out bush and make it look like we killed each other in some piss-head brawl. It's too easy mate, he says, cause everyone knows boongs can't hold their piss and now they want to run the country. Pretty soon my legs are burning so bad that I gotta stand up, but when I do Collins belts me so hard I hit the floor. Then he makes me take my gear off, daks and all, and forces me to bend my knees again. Well, then I've started fucken crying cause I'm fair dinkum scared the prick's gonna kill me. Collins is laughing his head off and the lady cop's just standing there watching the whole thing.
Must be that the big fella or lady luck or some other prick's smiling down on me from above, cause just when my legs are screaming so much that a shit-kicking's starting to look good, the intercom buzzes. It's the receptionist and she says the Chief's on the phone for Collins. Collins must know what I'm thinking cause he takes his time—tucks his shirt back into his shorts real careful, smoothes his hair down with spit and that—and I'm just praying for him to piss off so I can stand up. Finally he's gone back out front and soon as he's away I stand up straight even though the lady cop's still there. She doesn't say a thing, just keeps standing there, looking back at the door and shuffling about like she's gotta take a piss. Well, I'm shamed on account of having no clothes on in front of a lady, so I start to ask if I can get dressed. But before I can get two words out, she's hissed at me to shush and comes up to the cell like she wants to tell me a secret. She's talking so soft I gotta go right up close to hear her and even though I got no clothes on she doesn't care. She tells me she's sorry for what Collins done and says she's gonna fix it. Well, I got no clue what she means and I don't ask. She asks me if I know she had nothin to do with what Collins done. I say I know it, but she asks me the same thing twice more. Then she goes back and stands by the door and says how she'll tell me soon as she hears Collins coming so as I can squat back down and he'll never know we talked.
Despite all his big-man shit, Collins lets us go after a couple of hours. Doesn't want to have to explain why he brought us in, probably. Not that the Chief would give a toss about us being arrested, but Collins'd have to make up some excuse for why he did it, which, course, he couldn't.
We don't hear a peep from Collins after that night and we don't say a word about it neither. No-one'd believe us if we did, and as Mick's said, all it'd do is bugger up Sandy's campaign. By the time Sandy calls I've pretty much forgotten the whole thing on account of he's won the seat and journalists from all over the country are hanging around town writing about the blackfella who made it into parliament like it's some fucken miracle, which, course, in this country, it is.
Anyhow, Sandy's called up Mick and asked us to come see him in his office, which is just the old milk bar with a desk and a phone in it and the Streets ice cream poster still in the window. We're standing around and Sandy has said how he wants us to hear something and then he's clicked something on his computer and then I'm back in the watch house hearing Collins say how he's gonna kill me and telling me to take my clothes off. Then I'm hearing myself crying like a woman and begging him not to. I just count the scuffs on the lino so as I don't have to look at Mick or Jimmy or Sandy. But then it's Jimmy's voice I'm hearing, and he's saying, Please, please sir, don't kill me and I look over at him and he's looking at the floor too and then Sandy clicks his computer again and it's all quiet.
It's Sandy that breaks the silence. He wants to know why the hell we didn't tell him. Well, as I said before, me and Jimmy wanted to, but Mick made us promise we wouldn't. Course, we don't say anything about all that to Sandy. Mick just rubs his Akubra up and down his forehead, which is what he does when he doesn't know what to say. Sandy tells us he's given the tape to the papers and says how we gotta stay hush-hush about the lady cop leaking it. He says he's told the papers how Collins should be charged for torture and how he wants an inquiry into how coppers treat blackfellas. He says he hopes that's okay with me and I've said course it is. The only reason I got shit from Collins was cause I was with Mick and Jimmy, and the only thing Collins hates worse than a blackfella is a white one what hangs round with them.
Ordinarily, I wait til I'm down the pub to read the newspapers, so when Mick calls the next morning I'm out back having my smoke and a cuppa, totally fucken clueless. Mick wants me to take him down the watch house cause there's a big mob down there calling for Collins to be brought out. It takes me all of five minutes to get out the house, but when I get there Mick's waiting on the side of the road with his arms crossed like he's been there for fucken hours. He hasn't even waited for me to stop before he's tried to open the car door.
I've said to Mick how I'm gagging to see the look on Collins’ face and he sorta grunts and I figure how he must be looking forward to it even more than me. Anyhow, in three minutes we're turning into Day Street where the watch house's at and we can already hear the mob yelling. Fair dinkum, it sounds like the whole fucken town's out. Mick tells me to drive round back to the cop car park, so course I ask him if he's gone berko. He screams at me to go to the fucken car park, which's not like Mick at all, so I shut my mouth and pull the shit-box up to the back door of the station. Soon as I stop, Mick's out the car and bashing on the back door of the watch house and I'm so fucken surprised I just up and follow him.
It's the lady cop that opens the back door and Mick tells her we need to see Collins. Well, she looks fucken scared at that. She starts arguing with Mick and saying how the law will deal with Collins and if Mick hurts him he'll just get away with what he's done. Then Mick starts screaming at her to let us in. Now I know there's something seriously fucken wrong, but the lady cop is still arguing with him. Then she just stops. Mick's pulled a gun.
Well, I'm more scared than I was that night with Collins. I start asking Mick what he's doing, but he screams at me to shut my mouth and seeing how he's got a gun and he's no Mick that I know, I just do as he says. He quiets down then and tells the lady cop he's not going to hurt her, but she needs to take us to Collins. Turns out they've put him in my old cell. Probably just trying to show the mob they're doing something. Course Collins is none too happy to see us and starts growling at the lady cop about why she's let us in and how he's got rights just like anyone. But then Mick waves the gun and Collins shuts up quick smart. The four of us just stand there looking at one another with the mob yelling and screaming outside. It feels like we been there for fucken ever when Mick tells the lady cop to open the cell. Then, calm as, he asks for some cuffs, and she takes a set off her belt and hands them over.
Soon as Mick's got the keys in the cell door, Collins starts blubbering. Woulda been sweet if I wasn't too busy shitting myself and wondering what the fuck Mick was gonna do next. Collins is saying how he's sorry and he was off his tits when he beat us up and that, but Mick just cuffs him and walks him to the back door. Mick tells the lady cop to wait a couple of minutes before she tells her Chief, then he takes off his Akubra and shoves it on Collins's head and pushes the prick into the passenger seat of the car. Mick doesn't even look like Mick without his hat, more like a fucken hobo with his dirty hair all flat on top. I ask him again what he's doing, but he slams the door like a threat and gets in back and tells me to drive to the next town, which is about an hour away.
By now the mob's started coming round the back of the watch house. Mick barks at Collins to keep his head down and tells me to fucken step on it. As we're driving away, I've looked in the rear-view and seen the mob banked
up right across the road almost to the corner. Collins has seen it too and he knows they've come for him and he's blubbering and mouthing off about coons. Then we're turning out of Day Street away from the mob and Mick's holding his gun at the back of Collins's head and saying, Don't worry mate, we'll take the cuffs off soon as we're far enough away that the mob can't hurt you.
I figure Mick's just playing with him and Collins must think so too, cause now the prick really starts freaking. He's begging Mick not to do anything stupid and saying how he's sorry and how if anything happens to him we'll be strung up. Then Mick tells him to look at the bloody gun and, course, all hell breaks loose. Collins is screaming and I'm not far off doing the same. Mick has to scream his own lungs out to be heard over the top of us and even then it takes a while for me to clock that he's saying the gun's not real. I don't know whether to kiss the bastard or rip his fucken head off.
Well, once I've realised Mick's not gonna kill no-one, I start thinking how we could have some fun with the prick before we give him back. Mick's patting him on the shoulder and saying how nothin bad's gonna happen, but it's not til he gives Collins the keys that I've worked out he's serious about letting the prick go. Collins still doesn't believe it and he's whining about the keys being bike keys or some shit like that. But then the cuffs come off and he just sits there like a stunned fucken mullet.
When he does open his mouth, he sounds like Collins again. Mean. He asks Mick what the fuck he wants and Mick says how for starters it'd be nice if Collins could stop being such an arsehole. Course, Collins is like, Yeah, right and What the fuck do you really want? and that. Well, Mick's said how he doesn't want anything, how he's just sick of all the bullshit. Rather everyone concentrate on getting the kids in school and shit like that. Collins doesn't buy it and they're back and forth for a while until he works out Mick's fair dinkum.
The Life You Choose and That Chose You Page 22