Despite all this, Madge ended her days cutting herself out of family photos.
Chapter Twelve
Inheritance
I always found it strange how the Lebanese kids at Marist Brothers were never allowed to go on the most innocent school excursion with us Anglo kids, presumably for the same reason Joe Bashir was never allowed to leave the shop; back in their home country, the excursion bus might have hit a land-mine.
What’s the opposite of a xenophobe? A xenophile, I suppose. Luckily for me, I’ve always been one, possibly due to my parents’ example, possibly due to having a good friend like Joe Bashir. Perhaps it was part of the reason I was so drawn to him in the first place. So, it was a rude shock for me when I stepped into the racial divide of Marist Brothers Eastwood, the permanent tension there predating our arrival.
At St Mary’s, Joe Bashir had been just one of the blokes and one of the most popular kids in the class. It was a damn shame he was sent to another school when we all transferred to the Brothers, not only for the fact he was gone but for the fact that his continued presence with us just might have shown up the intractable situation for what it was. At Marist Brothers Eastwood I was introduced to the concept of ‘vendetta’.
One morning I found myself faced with two of whom I knew by now to be ‘The Opposition’. One of them was a kid in my own year. I’d never spoken to him; he was in a different classroom to me. With him was his relative from at least a year above me. I gave them cheek or something, showed them I wasn’t afraid, which I wasn’t. By that time, however, I’d learnt to avoid fights in the ancient way of kids who can’t fight: Ask a question. The thug will have to think for that fraction of a second you need to be out of there. Which I already was.
That afternoon the pair were waiting for me as I crossed Eastwood Oval on the way to the station for the train back to Epping. And I know they were waiting for me; these kids didn’t catch the train home, they were never on the station platform, they didn’t go home anywhere near that way. Having figured my path after the bell, they closed in and thumped me as well as Seamus O’Rourke – poor bloke, he just happened to be there.
Luckily for them, Seamus and I were still complete un-cos. Our tactics to completely demoralise them included flailing our arms and legs hopelessly, yelping with hurt and grinding our own faces into the dust. Luckily also for them, there were no repercussions. I could have asked my older brother to find them on their way home. He might then have organised a few of his sixteen-year-old mates to back him up and teach the pair an eye-gouging lesson in cause and effect. It simply never occurred to me to ask him. Whether by coincidence or not, I’m not sure, but from that moment – for me, anyway – the problem just faded away.
Funny how children aren’t naturally racist, isn’t it. They inherit it. A vendetta requires two parties to perpetuate it. So, by definition, the Anglo kids at the school were equally responsible for the situation. All I know is, it wasn’t perpetuated by me.
On the upside, Bruce Banner, my serial puncher from St Mary’s, seemed strangely low-key at Marist Brothers. I never got punched by him when I arrived or at any time I was there.
In fact, I never even noticed him. Perhaps this was because my own brother finally inhabited the same playground. And was bigger than Bruce!
The Landmine
I felt sorry for the Lebanese kids not being allowed to come on excursions with us, except for one time: Though the Marist Brothers excursion bus never hit a land-mine as such, on one outing we did experience an ‘explosion’ of sorts …
The excursion in question took us to the James Ruse Agricultural High School in Parramatta. There were all the things you’d expect – ducks, sheep, a dairy, cows, cow pats, etc. Paul Grantham was a tall kid for his age with great, long arms in particular. At the end of the day, about fifteen kids were perched up on a farm fence waiting for the return bus. About five feet from the base of the fence was a large, ostensibly dry cow pat. I looked on, from a safe distance as it turned out, as Paul, a determined look on his face, picked up a brick in both hands and drew it high above his head in those great, long arms of his. With incredible force, he then slammed the brick back down again in the direction of the cow pat. Academically, Paul was hopeless. In terms of hand-eye co-ordination, however, he was a shining star, and on this day his aim did not desert him. I’m not sure if he intended what then happened, but the result was quite amazing. As the brick landed dead-centre of the cow pat, its interior was revealed as anything but dry and brittle, only its surface crust having been dried out by the hot sun.
All fifteen kids on the fence were completely splattered with flying shit shrapnel, in multiple places per kid. I’d never seen it before, I’ve never seen it since, I don’t ever want to see it again, but you can take it from me that exploding shit flies in large, anti-personnel type fragments.
Yes, attempts were made to wash it off their clothes, but I can still remember the smell inside that bus on the way home. All the way from Parramatta to Eastwood. Though I laughed about it at the moment of splattering, no one was laughing on the trip back.
Only the Lebanese kids later on.
My Favourite Place
I used to love going to Luna Park. My father hated it. This may have been because the place smelled of that unmistakable three-part cocktail of deep fried dagwood dog, fairy floss and spew, and in that order, not surprisingly.
Just entering the park, I’d almost pass out with pleasure, its gates formed by the mouth of that gargantuan smiling face which seemed hilarious and frightening all at once. The rides were something out of a dream to go on and majestic just to stand before. The Big Dipper was the park’s premier attraction, a legendary roller-coaster as graceful as it was exhilarating to ride. A healthy dose of whiplash could be gained on the Cha-Cha, then on the Hurricane, and if you didn’t throw up on the Zipper, there was always the very real prospect of being thrown up on by someone else.
Some of the rides were just plain beautiful: The River Caves, the Mirror Maze, and a giant amusement hall called Coney Island or Funny Land. This place was accessed via an elaborate sequence of moving footways, distorting mirrors, gusts of air that would blow up ladies’ dresses, and the most amazing artwork. Here and ubiquitous throughout the park were the oddest handpainted illustrations of human characters in various states of comic contortion – on the front of a ride called ‘The Rotor’, for example. They were funny, but they verged on the grotesque, especially their eyes, and they bore that peculiar creepiness of age.
I was aware at the time how old Luna Park was. It had opened in 1935, the year of my father’s birth! It even smelled old. But that was all part of its grandeur, and the mystique of any classic amusement park rests in that blur between the wonderful and the horrible.
I used to stand outside the Ghost Train and take in the artwork of its wooden facade. This included a painted mural of a train going off the side of a cliff, the faces of its doomed passengers reminiscent of Munch’s Scream, beside it spidery letters warning: ‘Vampires could be inside’. Maybe it was a childhood hallucination. Little way of telling now.
The last trip the Ghost Train ever took was in 1979 when, mid ride, it caught fire and seven schoolboys my own age were killed. The stuff of nightmares, one can only shudder to visualise their last moments. Like any ride of its type, the Ghost Train drew its passengers from chamber to chamber, each car banging open swinging doors from one chamber to the next in inexorable sequence.
By the grace of God, my father must have declined to take me to Luna Park that day, the day the ride’s doors swung open on flames, car after car. An inquiry pronounced the Ghost Train for what it was – a firetrap – Luna Park shutting down and remaining closed for several years.
Lest we forget those poor boys and their families.
The Beginning of the End
It was the week before Crackernight, 1979. On my way home from school, I went into the milk bar at the North Epping shops, my keenness levels on the brim of reactor
meltdown. This was the day the fireworks appeared in the shops!
‘Can I have a pack of throwdowns, please?!’
These were crackers about the size of your thumbnail that made a really loud bang when they hit something you threw them at.
‘Sorry, son. No throwdowns this year.’ I happened to have left my cyanide pill at home that morning. ‘But why?’ ‘Container bringing them all from China dropped off the ship onto the wharf. Huge explosion.’ I assume the shopkeeper had been asked by a hundred kids already and by then was getting creative.
First skyrockets had disappeared. Then bungers, thunders, po-hahs and Tom Thumbs, then ball-shooters. Now even throwdowns were gone.
Rites of Passage
One formative experience of my youth in North Epping was my involvement in Cubs and Scouts. There I encountered a slightly different kind of kid to my own schoolmates. What’s the single word that sums up their difference to me? How can I describe it? They were more … more … Anglican – yes, that’s it. The Scouts seemed at that time, in line with the movement’s origins, Baden-Powell, British Military and all that, very much a Church of England culture. The version of the Lord’s Prayer recited at the end of every meeting finished with the ‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory’ bit, very Anglican, and all the kids went to something called ‘fellowship’. Epping was, after all, the beginning of the so-called Bible Belt of Sydney’s north-west suburbs. Maybe the Scout culture was more Catholic in Hunters Hill – who knows?
I’d been busting to get into Cubs, particularly as I’d missed the first year. Places were limited and so highly sought after that I’d had to wait twelve months between applying for membership and being granted it. I was initially attracted to Cubs for superficial reasons – the uniform, you wore a pack, the whole boy-soldier fantasy. But once there, I have to admit I picked up some really useful life skills.
On my first Cub camp, the Scouts – older kids – told me that the only sure-fire insurance against drop bears was to put Vegemite under your armpits before you got into your sleeping-bag for the night. I’ve always loved the notion of drop bears. There’s something just so hilariously, so bluntly Australian in the coining of the term. What’s the worst thing imaginable that could happen to you in the bush? Bears that hide up in trees over the path, wait till you walk underneath and then drop on you. Drop bears!
Darren, the boy across the road, was two years ahead of me in school and he had to leave the Cubs soon after joining because he ‘didn’t like playing with rough boys’. Strangely, I found I was up to it and laughed myself stupid when some of them got in trouble for smashing a soccer ball up against the Scout hall’s gilded picture of the Queen. Bang! The Cub leader was absolutely livid. They played really rough, but the way they seemed to grab life by the balls was infectious.
‘Right, then. We’ll be approaching this challenge ahead of us at a hundred miles an hour and in a delirium of hilarity at all times.’
We all looked up to the senior Scout, an older boy called Brock. Even though you were just a little kid compared to him, he took you seriously and was always sincerely interested in what you’d been doing, how the camp had been for you, how your latest merit badge was going. Just from the way he spoke to you, you felt encouraged, as if you could achieve anything you wanted by giving it your best, being honest and straight down the line. I cringe to admit it, but my first ‘serious’ role model was the perfect Boy Scout.
By the time I was a ‘Sixer’ in the Cubs, the lead Cub of a group of six, I was old enough to graduate to the Scouts. The ceremony was always held at the end of a camp and was to be my first experience of a rite of passage. I was terrified. The Scouts tried to fill you with abject dread about joining their number, threatening rough treatment, cruel tricks, and they succeeded! Then, in the middle of a ring of Cubs, you said your goodbyes and crossed over to the ring of Scouts.
I held my breath and crossed over. Just at the point I was about to faint with fear, the Scouts all broke into smiles, patted me on the back, said reassuring things and welcomed me in.
The funny thing was, though I never expected it, I actually left a few tears in my wake. The ‘Seconder’, or second in command of my Cub six, had been a lovely kid called Simon Timms. He was just a year younger than me, quietly spoken, professional. I’d been too scared of the Scouts to register the outbreak of crying as I left the Cub ring and was highly surprised when my Cub leader later confided in me that of all the Cubs who had cried, ‘Simon was very upset.’
There were some great kids in the Scouts. Andrew Gibson, of whom I was initially petrified, was really sorry about accidentally spraying my legs with burning plastic on my first Scout camp. He’d placed the end of a plastic tube into the fire, it came out melting and he started to flick it side to side, mini napalm droplets flying in all directions. Including mine.
‘Ohh, sorry, Juss, sorry, mate, I really am!’
There was true desperation in his voice, a terrified softness I never knew he had in him. Even though I’d additionally burnt my hands trying to brush the burning plastic off my legs, I recovered and said it was all right. As he patted my back, I was touched by the moment – he’d called me ‘Juss’ for the first time. It actually bonded us and saw us good mates from then on.
I almost died on that first camp. Or rather, before I ever got to it. Unlike my previous camps with the Cubs, which were ‘pitched camps’, this was a ‘hike camp’. Though nobody had told me that. Mum had filled my pack with all kinds of delicious goodies – tins of beans, cans of drink, metal tins of all kinds and a million other wonderful little things that made my pack too heavy for me to carry more than a hundred yards. Making matters worse, I’d diligently followed the official Scout’s Guide Book checklist of things to bring on your first camp. It was a weighty tome, the first item on the checklist of things to bring being ‘this book’. Conspicuously, items two through fifty-eight involved nothing at all about minimising the weight of items two through fifty-eight.
After about a mile of walking, I was about to expire. Thank the Lord, Brock relieved me of my extremely non-lightweight sleeping-bag and I was okay, my pack becoming lighter and lighter of provisions as the days passed. This experience taught me one very important lesson at the age of eleven: Even though she has the very best intentions in the world, in some situations now, you can no longer rely on your mum. From now on, you must make sure ‘everything will be all right’, Justin.
This first camp also gave me my first experience of initiation rites. I was warned about what would be happening to me only after we’d arrived at our camp site. That night, after I went to sleep in my tent, something terrible was going to befall me. One time a new Scout had awoken to find himself on an air mattress and floating away down the creek, one Scout had woken up high in a tree – things like that. Naturally, I sought out Brock on the matter. I found him squatting down by the creek, cleaning his plate with sand in the rushing water.
‘Yes, I accept it’s a tradition,’ I appealed, ‘but I really would prefer if it didn’t happen to me personally.’
‘Don’t worry about it too much,’ he advised me very sincerely as he scrubbed and rinsed the plate. ‘This is just something you have to go through. You have to accept it. It happens to all new Scouts and one day you will do it to them. It is tradition.’
He was just so straight about it that it didn’t seem so bad anymore.
Nothing happened that night, but the next night I woke to realise my sleeping-bag, with me in it, was being jostled down a bush trail at high speed, the faces around me in mute hysterics in the moonlight.
One of the best things about being in the Scouts was the sense of environmental responsibility they instilled in you. Way before any concept of ‘The Environment’ had become fashionable, or even entered common usage, Scouting taught you to strike out into nature, have a fantastic time in it then leave it so no one would ever know you’d been there.
Scouting also gave me the most exhilarati
ng sense of independence. Sometimes we would have night hikes, venturing down into the bush behind the Scout hall on a Friday night, trekking right down Fox Valley and setting up camp. We may have been only two miles from Howard Place, yet we may as well have been in outer space. For I had this acute sensation of being outside my normal existence of light bulbs, telephones, heaters and TV, and not only surviving outside it but thriving.
One of the best experiences I ever had was a ‘patrol camp’. This was when your patrol of six boys went on a hike camp but with no adult present. And not just a local hike, but way down south in the Royal National Park. Here we were, six kids, completely in control though miles from anywhere and having an excellent time, the eldest only thirteen and no mobile phones. We swam in creek ponds, had camp fires, barbecues, boiled billy tea with a gum leaf for extra flavour, sat on high cliff edges at sunset, and told ghost stories after dark. We even toasted marshmallows. Our patrol leader was one of the best kids I’d ever met: Mike Mitchelson. He was completely fun but completely responsible about it, and only so that the fun could continue.
‘Whaddya say, Sheedy?’ he whispered to me after lights-out. ‘I reckon Gibson’d be asleep right about now. Do you realise if we go over and put his hand in a billy of water, that’ll make him piss in his sleeping-bag?’
Goodbye Crackernight Page 15