by Mark Dapin
Berger liked to write to stars of stage, screen and radio, and ask for autographed photographs. As both an artist’s manager and fellow performer, he sent a letter to Frank Sinatra in the US, inviting him to come to Australia to sing his then popular song about ants. Berger received a note in return from Sinatra’s management, expressing his client’s interest in a visit to Austria, if a suitable fee could be negotiated and certain other conditions met. Berger, frightened and excited, passed on the correspondence to Mendoza who, through certain business connections, was already known to Sinatra and his organisation. He was also able to raise the money for Sinatra’s pay, and the women for his conditions, and so it was that Bold Screw Thighs, as Mendoza named him, flew to Sydney in 1959 to record a classic live album, and have sex with a Tasmanian Aborigine, whose race he’d believed to be extinct.
After this success, Berger began to dress like an impresario – spivvy, chequered and yellow, colourful, confident and soaked in pomade. He found bands to manage, and had them play in Mendoza’s clubs, which required some form of legitimate entertainment to take place on the premises occasionally, if only to save face for the licensing cops. Berger divided the takings evenly: fifty per cent for him and fifty per cent for the group – which, he reasoned, was fifty per cent more than the Ice Bergs ever got. Unfortunately, this earned Berger the early nickname Mr Fifty Per Cent, which made him sound as if he – or, worse, his cock – was only half the normal size.
Berger came to specialise in what he called ‘disciple acts’, Australian performers who dressed and played like top American artists, but were considerably more economical to hire. He co-managed, with Jake Mendoza, a stable of artistes including Arnold Zwaybil, ‘the eastern suburbs Frank Sinatra’; Col Tanner, ‘the Aussie Tony Bennett’; Frankie Freed, ‘the Dover Heights Dean Martin’; and David Rowbotham, ‘the Collaroy Col Joye’.
He told his father he was training as a classical violinist. As Hans Berger’s mind began to decay, Izzy would play Hans his own recordings – 78 rpm records, smuggled out of Germany – and tell him it was Izzy on the violin.
‘You play just like me,’ said Hans, ‘when I was young.’
Hans would hug Izzy tightly and say, ‘My son, my son.’
From this, Berger learned it was possible to be both crooked and kind.
Gradually, Berger became accepted as a member of the gang with no name. At first, he was a junior associate, a much mocked affiliate who came under their protection. But he helped them run Aphrodite’s, a nightclub which, like all their businesses, doubled as a brothel, and he had a natural way with the girls. He realised he had been fully initiated – granted a gunsel bar mitzvah – when the manager of Aphrodite’s, who went by the name of the Little Fish, passed him a Browning in a paper bag, and taught him how to use it at the Maccabee gun club.
At twenty-five years old, Izzy Berger was happy with the way his life had turned out. He had women, money and, if not respect, at least affection. On the Strip, they may have called him the Twat in the Hat, but never to his face. He was popular: a big talker, but also a big tipper. He saw himself as a new American style of Australian, from his trilby to his spats. He wasn’t afraid to take risks, to look a fool, to stand out from the crowd of big-shouldered, squint-eyed, slack-jawed, quick-fisted footballers, with their pitiless humour and slow, empty drawl.
One summer morning, Berger was walking down the Strip, tipping his hat to the girls as they crept into the doorways for the breakfast shift, when he came upon Simon Sleeth, lying unconscious in a pool of piss.
Berger finally had his chance to truly be a friend to Sleeth. He carried him to Aphrodite’s, cleaned up the wounds on his face and helped him into the girls’ shower. Sleeth’s suit was soaked in blood, so Berger lent him a shirt and pants that had been left behind by a retreating customer. He checked the man’s wallet and saw it was empty – he didn’t even have a driver’s licence – so he slipped a twenty-dollar note inside.
Sleeth didn’t remember Berger, but was grateful to his old schoolfriend for helping him out. Times were tough, and had been for a while. Berger asked if he had a wife and family. Sleeth said he was single. He’d just got out of jail for assault. He’d almost killed a man with a cricket bat, he said, over a ten-dollar debt.
Berger asked after his parents, who used to run a milk bar on William Street. Sleeth’s father was dead, he said, and his mother did not speak to him. He felt alone in the world except, perhaps – from this moment – for his former classmate, Izzy Berger. He believed the police might be looking for him after a fight the night before, in which he may have pushed a glass into a deserving man’s eye.
Berger was used to stories like these, told night after night by the gang with no name. He didn’t judge a man by his words, or his actions. He just liked to help people along, to get them to where they were going.
Berger patted Simon Sleeth on the back, told him you never knew what might be around the next corner, and escorted him out of the club. He led him down an alleyway, and into another, to avoid the cops who patrolled the strip. He took him through a brothel and out of a barber’s shop, along a secret route you could only know if you’d grown up trying to disappear into the ground on Darlinghurst Road, and they finished up behind a hotel in East Sydney that was run by the Maltese mafia.
‘You’ll be all right from here,’ Berger assured him.
Sleeth shook his hand and turned away, and Berger took out his pistol and shot him in the back of the head.
Simon Sleeth’s brain splattered over the wall of the pub. Izzy Berger watched it, grey and pulpy, slide down the brickwork and into the cracks.
Berger lit a cigarette, whispered a Kaddish, and hurried back to the strip to grab bacon and eggs from the Hasty Tasty.
Two weeks later, he flew to South Vietnam to chase a US Army police sergeant who, like so many big, cruel guys before him, had tried to rob Berger over a band.
PART TWO
TEN
The sand under the duckboards was soft after the late afternoon downpour, and weightless mosquitos looped puddles of rainwater at Betty’s feet as she waited for Shorty at the hospital, wearing a short white dress, her hair held back with a band.
Shorty, who hadn’t thought to bring a sports jacket to Vietnam, arrived in his best patterned shirt and camel-coloured slacks. He told Betty she looked wonderful. He craned to smell her perfume, but she pressed him gently away.
‘Not here,’ she said.
Shorty tried to take her by the arm as they marched towards the gate. Betty whispered, ‘No . . . wait until we get outside.’
Shorty had imagined he would see Betty every day in Vietnam, and they would walk together most evenings. In fact, they were separated by their ranks, as a second lieutenant was not expected to socialise with a corporal, and their units, since nurses were discouraged from fraternising with the troops.
That night was to be their first dinner in Vietnam – they were going out to eat in a foreign country – and Shorty felt almost like it was their first date, as if he had to charm and impress Betty all over again. This was a problem for him, as he had no idea how he had succeeded the first time.
He explained to Betty how, days before, Nashville had managed to smuggle him back to the camp under a blanket; how he’d passed off his wounds as coming from a tumble in the barbed wire; how he hadn’t reported the robbery because Nashville had assured him that he would be charged for losing his wallet, including his military ID; and how Nashville had been making arrangements to have a new ID printed for Shorty when the original had been handed to him by a street urchin.
‘Ginger Meggs never wanted my wallet,’ said Shorty. ‘He only took it to make the motive look like robbery and throw everyone off the scent.’
Shorty and Betty reached the gate, where the guard was regimental police, an infantryman who was not wanted in the bush. He smiled at Betty and called her ‘ma’am’, and asked Shorty what he thought he was doing. Shorty said he was taking his fiancée to
dinner.
The guard said nurses weren’t allowed to leave ALSG without a military police escort. That was okay, said Shorty, because he was actually a provost himself.
But the escort had to be on duty, said the guard, and armed. And, anyway, there needed to be two of them.
‘But we’re engaged,’ Shorty told him, and showed him Betty’s ring.
‘That’s jewellery,’ said the guard, ‘not armour.’
Shorty left Betty at the guard post and sprinted back to the provosts’ section. He asked the sergeant for an escort so he could take out his fiancée.
‘Doesn’t she trust you?’ asked the sergeant.
He explained his fiancée was a nurse. The sergeant had assumed she was a bar girl.
‘No,’ said the sergeant.
He could not spare two armed, uniformed MPs to chaperone a corporal on a date. This was because there was a war on.
Shorty jogged back to Betty, sweaty and dejected. She was joking with the guard at the post, and Shorty couldn’t see why she had to stand so close to him, with her long, brown legs and bare, brushing arms.
Shorty told her they would have to eat on base. But Betty couldn’t take him into the officers’ mess, since he was only a corporal, and Shorty could never invite her to the MPs’ pub, where there were photographs of naked women on every inch of wall.
‘So where can we go?’ asked Shorty.
‘The beach,’ said Betty.
Back Beach was protected by barbed wire and armed patrols.
‘It’s closed,’ said the guard. ‘Off limits at night.’
Shorty didn’t know what to do. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Betty.
She smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We can get to the beach at the weekend. I wasn’t really hungry anyway.’
‘But I don’t see how we’ll ever have dinner together,’ said Shorty.
‘No,’ agreed Betty, and she didn’t seem particularly upset.
‘We could go to the movies,’ said Shorty.
They screened films every night at ALSG.
‘That would be nice,’ said Betty.
‘I think it’s John Wayne tomorrow,’ said Shorty.
‘Of course it is,’ said Betty.
Betty walked away from the guard post, took Shorty in her arms and hugged him. Why didn’t Shorty go out and enjoy himself, she asked.
Betty was blooming. Shorty, who watched her closely, thought she looked better every day – or, at least, every day he saw her. In Australia, she had walked with her head down, but here she stood her full height. The tropics had been good for her skin, whereas the climate seemed to be rotting Shorty. She was always smiling, although it wasn’t a smile Shorty recognised.
Betty remembered schoolboys’ whispers, builders’ taunts. She used to be embarrassed for Shorty that she wasn’t prettier or more feminine, a girl a boy could brag about. But here, the men couldn’t believe a woman like her was going out with a corporal. She used to say they were engaged, but now it was ‘going out’. She had started taking off her ring for hygiene reasons.
Betty was backing away from Shorty, although her feet didn’t appear to move. Shorty leaned to kiss her goodbye. She looked around, then pressed her lips near the corner of his mouth, against his chin. It could have been a thank-you kiss, or an old-friends kiss, or a brother-at-the-airport goodbye kiss. If they were French, it could have been a hello kiss, between two strangers meeting in Cap St Jacques.
Shorty told her he loved her.
‘I know,’ said Betty.
She promised to have dinner with him somehow, later in the week.
He wondered when he would feel her hand in the dark again.
Shorty walked into Le Boudin alone. Nashville was at the bar, as Shorty had expected, with Tâm and Baby Marie on his arms.
‘Hey, partner!’ shouted Nashville. ‘Over here!’
He gave Shorty his big, even-toothed smile. Shorty took the seat next to Nashville, and Baby Marie seemed to come with the stool. He could hardly feel her, perched like a wren on his thigh.
Nashville ordered more beer.
Baby Marie rubbed her head under Shorty’s chin.
‘Me and Shorty,’ said Nashville, ‘we protect the streets from crime. Like Batman and Robin. Guess who’s who.’
‘You bad man,’ said Tâm. ‘He robbing.’
‘We’ve had a good few days, ain’t we, buddy?’ said Nashville.
Shorty was sad that Betty wasn’t with him, and puzzled that she hadn’t seemed to care. But he sipped at his Budweiser, and the apple smell of American beer coiled with Baby Marie’s cinnamon perfume, the scent of saffron from the kitchen, the smoke of Virginia tobacco and the spirits of sandalwood joss-sticks and, once he had drunk a six-pack, Shorty realised his partner was right. There had never been a time like this in Shorty’s life.
Nashville, with insuppressible enthusiasm, had introduced him to everyone in town, showed him everywhere he knew, and taught him how everything worked. Nashville had bought him rambutans, a bisque, half a dozen bowls of noodles and a plate of sweet, rummy caneles. They had not caused a single problem for anyone else and, very occasionally, they had even helped someone. Most people in most places seemed reasonably pleased to see them. Nashville, they recognised, meant no harm to anybody.
Here was the thing: Shorty from Bendigo had a mate who was a Yank. He read comic books, chewed gum, called sheilas ‘broads’ and carried a pearl-handled revolver instead of his service pistol, when he remembered to wear a weapon at all. He was big and happy and comfortable in the world.
More than that, Shorty from Bendigo was sitting with his mate the Yank in a French restaurant in South Vietnam, with two beautiful young women who giggled at every word they said. They were all drinking American beer and smoking Marlboro cigarettes, even Shorty, who was serving his country, upholding the law, providing a bulwark against Communism – although he thought the word was ‘bullock’ – and living his youth in a war zone.
They drank toasts to the US Army, the Australian Army, the ARVN and the Guatemalans.
Baby Marie was silently mourning Tommy Callaghan, and their general store in Launceston, the capital of Australia. Baby Marie was beautiful, but not for long. She had watched Quyn age suddenly and completely, and lose her chance of marrying an American. Baby Marie had been born in a village of peach blossom and pomegranates, but she wanted to die in a city of skyscrapers, like Launceston.
She had her arms around Shorty’s neck, but Shorty had his around Nashville.
‘Tell us more about Bendigo, Victoria,’ said Nashville.
Shorty told the American about golden perch and redfin, trout and Murray cod in Lake Eppalock, and how he’d taken Betty fishing the first time they went out. Nashville listened with distracted interest. He enjoyed both women and fishing, but had never thought to connect the two. In a small way, the juxtaposition disturbed him.
‘I wish Betty was here,’ said Shorty.
‘I’ve got an idea for you,’ said Nashville. ‘How about you enjoy what you’ve got’ – he pointed to Baby Marie – ‘instead of moping about what you can’t have.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Shorty. ‘I love her.’
‘I love bourbon,’ said Nashville. ‘But that don’t mean I don’t drink rum.’
Shorty shook his head.
‘When I saw Betty,’ he said, ‘I knew she wasn’t the best-looking girl in the world, but that didn’t matter to me. I’m hardly a prize catch myself, am I? I’m no sixteen-pound Murray cod.’
‘No, you ain’t,’ said Nashville.
‘But it wasn’t as if I was settling for a common carp,’ said Shorty. ‘She can do things, you know.’
‘What kind of things?’ asked Nashville, hopefully.
‘She can paint and she can sing,’ said Shorty. ‘She can make her own clothes. She can even fish.’
It was a long story, told slowly, over many drinks, and Nashville was impatient for it to move on. ‘When you got in
to her pants,’ he asked, ‘was it worth the wait?’
Shorty took a gulp from his beer, rabbit-eyed, sloppy-drunk.
‘Oh my fucking God!’ shouted Nashville.
Tâm slapped him.
‘You’re a cherry boy?’ asked Nashville.
Tâm clapped her hand over his mouth. Nashville licked her palm.
‘That’s fucking amazing,’ said Nashville. ‘I can’t fucking believe it.’
Baby Marie began to grind into Shorty’s lap.
‘We think that making love is something sacred,’ said Shorty.
‘But how do you know, if you’ve never done it?’ asked Nashville.
Shorty nudged Baby Marie off his leg. She climbed onto Nashville, sharing his knees with Tâm. But she sat looking at Shorty, unblinking. She had lovely brown eyes, but Shorty didn’t care.
Shorty ordered drinks. The girls asked for crème de menthe.
‘Look,’ said Nashville, ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing, and I’m proud to call you my partner. My cherry partner. I know I would’ve done a lot more in this life if I’d stuck to the straight and narrow. I might’ve climbed Mount McKinley, or learned to play the tenor sax.’
He stroked his chin.
‘Or maybe I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Like you ain’t.’
Dr Clarke noticed Betty walking back to her quarters in her short white dress. He asked where she was going, and she said nowhere.
‘Then come to the officers’ mess,’ he said. ‘It’s better than nowhere. That’s all I can honestly say about it.’
Betty didn’t like to stay long at the mess. Men got the wrong idea. They thought she didn’t know how much she was drinking. They pressed themselves against her. Officers engineered situations when they were alone, and rubbed her bottom while acting like they weren’t.
The mess was a timber building and it had an old French piano. Betty loved to play Chopin and the men liked her to do anything, because it gave them an excuse to stare. An officer from the Service Corps, with a cavalry moustache, stood beside her as she played, but it seemed acknowledged she was in the company of Dr Clarke, and she even heard him refer to her as his ‘date’, with a smile. How did she hear that, she wondered, when he was so far across the room?