The Glass Canoe (3 page)

MY PEOPLE

These things in the past few pages are general things I put down first when I got the idea of making a book about the Southern Cross and our life here.

I think now I'll tell you about some of the people of our tribe.

It's raining hard and my darling's away on a business trip.

This would be as good a time to start as any.

First they were boys, primitive hunters of fruit and adventure, skirmishing in backyards and paddocks, living in trees, spying out far hills, swimming creeks and rivers and the compulsory surf, shooting butterflies; out all day, returning to shelter to sleep. The horizon was boundless.

Teenaged, they became apprenticed to learn the pastoral world of snorting, grunting, purring machines, bikes, cars, tractors, trucks and buses, and grew among flocks, herds, whole wheat-fields of workers whose labour and lives were farmed by the powerful; learning to imitate sheep, or even sheepherders, jackeroos, slaughtermen. The horizon had shrunk.

A few years more and a job displaced them, now part of the adult herd, to the refinement of the factory-city. They were wage and small-enterprise sheep and cattle amongst the unattainable riches of civilisation; among tall, unfamiliar buildings, unimaginable processes, incomprehensible aims, scratching a living on the edge of the educated world. The horizon was work, pub, races.

As sheep they were exploitable and gave their bodies for a full belly, but the adolescent apprentice one layer down was bewildered, and the hunter boy deep inside who had never changed was a pitiable refugee, two removes from his original culture, stranded in an alien world. Stranded? Locked. In their own bodies they had travelled man's road from primitive hunter, through herder of flocks, to our present settled-city civilisation. Where
they
were the sheep, the hunted.

And yet these sheep were something more when they were drinking. The golden drops stirred something inside that wasn't human.

When that something woke up it looked like the
guy was in the grip of a storm, thrashing around. Or a sort of growth inside that switched all the savage circuits to ON.

It was more than a growth—it was a live thing. Like a monster inside. Looking out through the pupils, working the controls, smashing.

Maybe it was all too human. Maybe it was the hunter and destroyer of life inside them that had never made the transition to a settled life husbanding plants and animals.

Once upon a time they were decent men, unaggressive, hardworking, tired at the day's end. They drank to erase the ache and the tiredness.

Now there's only a few of us do a hard day's work, even though we're as poor, relatively, as our grandfathers.

We drink to erase everything.

On the back wall where the clock is, above the pool tables, there's a crack in the bricks. It goes up from floor level, slantwise, wide enough to hold our cue chalk. Guys rest cigarettes in it—it's jagged and goes up by steps and stairs—combs, papers, and push dead matches into it out of sight. It points up at the clock like a finger.

DANNY

He had an inscribed football in a place of honour on his mantelpiece at home. He wasn't often there, but his parents allowed the ball to stay, with its inked names all over it. It was the ball the Mead had won the under-twenty grand final with, and the team's signatures were on it. The same team had come up through the juniors from the under-elevens and won every grand final. Rugby Union, but not rah-rah boys.

Danny knew every football statistic of Rugby League from the year dot, and a lot of the statistics of the code he played. You know the sort of thing: who was in the second-row for France in the second Test in 1953, how many tries Gasnier scored, whether Fulton grounded the ball for that second try on the ice at Warrington, how old was Gus Risman when he played his last Test for England. His memory was fantastic.
He worked for the council for the basic wage and took sickies on Mondays and Fridays; Friday to start the weekend early and Monday to get over it. He held the Stop and Go signs when they had the road up.

It was part of his personal code not to make use of his memory for money. Besides, he wouldn't work indoors. As long as he had enough in his pocket for a beer. Even this didn't bother him. He was into blokes all over the pub for two, five, ten, any amount. One thing about Danny, he never forgot: always paid. You might have to wait a bit. He bit me once and I only had enough cash for two more drinks, it was early on and there were plenty of guys with brass and I said no. He didn't believe me and thought I was holding out and from that day I've always had enough in my pocket, but he never put the bite on me again.

How he came to get the ball for his mantelpiece, he was a great player. After the under-seventeens the grog got him, and although he played great games up into the under-twenties, he was on the way down. In the local all-age team he played a few good games, but he'd be on the field and after two bursts upfield there he was crouching, bringing up his heart. And often blood. It was the grog.

He played five-eighth, he was very quick, his sidestep was fantastic, but his life was practically over.

At school he was no good at metalwork, always breaking off things and getting the lathe stuck. He
stood up to the English teacher once and swapped a few punches in class, but he was good at history.

Now he's history himself.

The folks at home didn't think too much of him. His old man used to belt him, and to make it worse his brother was a good boy, never got drunk, saved his money, always home in time for tea, while if it was Friday Danny might start the day at seven in the morning at Dorrie's in Parramatta until it was time to go to the Southern Cross at ten and stay there all day.

The boys said, ‘If he went on the waggon or in a convent somewhere to dry out, he'd be the best five-eighth in Australia.'

They said this sort of thing but words didn't do him any good. Every birthday he'd down his pint in one go, no matter how drunk he was. And he had birthdays right through the year.

You never saw him with a girl, but sometimes a few of the boys would go up to this Sandra's place and go through her. They'd give her something, or take a few cans up. She didn't mind. Once he went up alone, gave her some drinks and was going to town, rasping away, when the others crept up outside the window, and one—Mick, I think—put his hand in the window and touched her between the buttocks. She liked that and went for her life, nearly throwing Danny. Just as he reached the vinegar stroke, Mick dated him.
Danny flew off forwards, did a somersault over the pillow and landed on his back with his feet in the air against a wardrobe.

‘You rotten bastards!' he yelled. ‘I could've broke my neck.'

He was very touchy on the subject for days after.

He drank more and more and finally the beer wasn't enough to give him a glow, what with his insides breaking down and pains all the time. Fishhooks in the stomach. He got on the Bacardi and that really used to flatten him. It flattened me the only times I got on it. I fell over, out like a light. Trouble is, you get used to zotting down schooners and you try to drink spirits the same way.

Around that time he copped a load at some harlot's place at Burwood. He was going to the doctor's and had penicillin needles, seven in a row. He told the others it was his guts. They might not like to be drinking from glasses he'd had.

Once in the Leagues Club—he doesn't go there now, he's barred—he told me he'd knocked off more houses than you could poke a stick at. You know, rich places round Pennant Hills, money, jewels. Saturday night capers, on foot.

I didn't believe him. How would he stand, let alone climb into windows, on a Saturday night? Full as a boot.

But he did get nine months once for something. Did it at Long Bay.

‘I'm never goin' there again. Sooner put a bullet in me head. You have to say Sir to the screws every time you talk, have to get a pass to go three feet, and you're locked up from four in the afternoon till seven or eight in the morning. Nothing to see, and here I am locked up with an idiot. How would you like that?'

I'd never been in jail, only police stations, and I didn't even like that.

Maybe, when they stop telling him he was so good and everyone gets tired of putting up with him going off his brain every week and sympathy runs out, he'll pull himself up. That's what I used to tell myself.

A few of them went to Parramatta nicely pissed one Saturday night looking for trouble. They found it. During a little scrap up a dusty lane someone hit one of Danny's mates with an iron bar. Dropped him cold as a maggot. Danny walked up the lane, hands on hips.

‘Which one a you cunts hit my mate?'

In the dark someone kneed him in the crutch and Danny went down like a bag of shit.

When he got up later, they went further up the lane and ran into another mob of guys that shouldn't have been out on the street. Only kids and dressed like pox doctors' clerks. Danny and his mate couldn't help laughing until one came from nowhere, ripped a paling off the fence and cracked them both. They ran.

Straight into the arms of two large coppers standing there with their paddy waggon drawn up and doors wide open.

One said, ‘You got any money, you lot?'

‘I have,' Danny said.

‘Drop five dollars on the ground and turn round.'

He dropped the five and turned round. The copper gave him a good kick up the arse and said, ‘Piss off.'

They accepted this advice.

Another time they were picked up at the lake. Someone complained about the noise. They'd drunk most of the cans by that time, luckily.

There were eight in the cell. A kid called Vernon they let off straight away.

‘Your old man isn't going to like this,' one of the Jacks said.

Another kid gave his name as Gazzard.

‘Any relation to the sergeant?'

‘He's my uncle.'

Out he went.

‘I'm with him,' Danny said.

But the Jacks replied, ‘Shut your mouth.'

It was better up the Cross. King's, not Southern. If they caught you drunk in the street they'd put you in the waggon, take you to the old high-ceilinged cells at Darlinghurst, give you a board two inches off the ground to sleep on and leave you alone till nine o'clock.
On the way out you pay a dollar and that's it. Not a bruise. Not a hard word. Gentlemen.

Danny went off regularly, and was getting worse. He'd start singing, he might jump up on a table to perform and beat time, might even jump the bar and serve himself. But he started to get aggressive. He'd karate chop a full table of glasses of beer. Or suddenly demand a lift home and start swinging if he thought you were putting him off.

Once I came out to find him on his belly on the roof of my car, pretending to swim. Pushed the roof in. I called him a dickhead, but he doesn't know what he's doing when he's real full.

He had flashes of the old good humour. He lobbed at the Oriental for a Chinese feed one weeknight and ate like a king. When it was time to ante up with the brass for the meal he found he had seventy cents. His pocket had jingled so he hadn't bothered to check. He sat there pretending to work on the remains of the sweet and sour.

I know, he thought. I'll run. I can see him sitting there, and the sudden grin.

He ran, and was in full flight when he caught the shine on the plate glass door. It was after hours and they locked the door against incomers, and a little old Chinese lady let you out. When you paid.

Desperately he turned and sat down next to someone. They'd sprung him by this time, though, and a woman walked up and asked the man, ‘Is he with you?'

‘No,' said the man.

Danny washed a lot of dishes. They must have saved them up for six months, he said.

He wasn't full that night. He was very pleasant when he wasn't full. His blue eyes had lights and his teeth flashed white. He had the whitest teeth around and didn't pay a penny for them.

Someone made an appointment for him with Rent-a-drunk, who duly called to pick him up and take him to some posh party to liven things up. They couldn't find him at home. When they pulled up at the Southern Cross and caught sight of a shoeless apparition with wild hair singing, shirt out and shorts a dog wouldn't sleep on, they left, shaking their heads.

Once, on a Monday, when he started drinking early, he was so full by late afternoon that he didn't make it across the road. He woke at peak hour on the median strip, cars all round him like blunt cattle nosing forward in a field. When he got to his feet all he could see was cars, all roughly the same height, all with horns.

He must have thought they were cattle because he brayed out ‘Moooooo!'

THE SILVER DEW

I hadn't worked for six months. When the brass ran out, I got a job at a golf course not far away and cut grass, put new trees in, raked bunkers, laid plastic water pipes. Best job I ever had.

There were two streets along either side of the course, which made it a long rectangle. One of the streets had heavy traffic, but also a lot of trees that made it a good stopping place for truckies with big rigs at night when they were ahead of themselves. You know, can't travel more than five hours without a rest, produce your log book, and so on. Not all of them had two log books.

We started early and if you were over near the third green when a truckie noticed another truckie still asleep and late, he'd give him a blast on the horn. This could sometimes lead to mowers digging into the green or nervy golfers diving for cover at the top of a swing. Golfers were out with the dawn, hail, rain or shine. And the athletes and footballers running round the inside edge on the cut grass.

I liked the trees and the curve of the fairways and the dull silver dew. Sometimes, in mid-beer, my heart was outdoors and the world fragrant with cut grass. And when there'd been a dry spell and the dams running dry, one of the club members who worked up at the water catchment would let a bit go at night, accidentally on purpose, and in the morning it would
be across the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth fairways and sliding nicely into the old dam. There were two dams and tanks between to make pumping easier and cleaner between the two and to lower the level in the old dam and build the level in the new dam if there was rain. The water-race between the two couldn't handle a lot. We were at the bottom of a long slow slope and got all the gutters and culverts from the south-west end of the course and some from the north-east.

I hadn't graduated then to cutting fairways with five gangs of mowers behind me on the tractor: I was cutting the rough, which was a two inch cut. I used to wonder what the word meant. The rough was usually better to play from than the fairway since it didn't get watered and the surface was firm. You could lift a ball cleanly.

Kids used to get on the course and swim in the third dam, near the fence at the north end. It was a mistake to chip them. One club secretary chipped them about language, swimming near the eighth, and just being there. In the morning the transfer tanks at the south end had tomahawk cuts all over. Water coming out all directions.

This had its funny side, but when I planted two dozen young willows along the banks of the north dam and next morning most of them were uprooted and on their sides in the water, it wasn't funny at all. I don't
like young trees dying.

It was just as funny when you'd find the local kids had ridden their bikes over the greens and skidded them, to turn up the turf. Or when they'd dug little holes in the greens and thrown the spoil into the bunkers.

I can understand them, that's another funny thing. There was no way in the world they'd ever have enough money to spare to join a good golf club.

One wet day there was an almighty crash on the noisier road. Grade A accident, lights flashing, ambulances, tow trucks, sirens, foam, police on Hondas, in Minis, Toranas.

I was spreading top dressing near the third tee and the accident was fifty metres away. A family car pulled up and the man got out and watched, then came back to the car thinking he'd have to keep his kids inside the car against their will.

He was wrong. They watched calmly for a few minutes. One said, ‘How long does it go on?'

His father said, ‘What do you mean?'

‘Can we stay for the rest of the programme?'

The other kid was bored.

‘I seen that show last week. Can't we change channels?'

The father was stumped.

‘Channels? Look, son, this is happening. Now. You can't change channels. There's no channel to change.'

‘Switch off the set, then. I want something to eat
instead. Where's the next Kentucky?'

In the Southern Cross that afternoon, suddenly all the glasses round the bar lifted in unison. Someone pointed. A foolish grin flickered round the red bar, from glass to glass. Then all heads bowed as we resumed our worship at the red bar.

The more I saw of grass the more I liked it. I guess you get pretty fond of things you see around you every day. Like a farmer runs a handful of dirt through his fingers.

Some lunchtimes I'd have a lie down on it with my face against the blades, and pull up the paspalum stalks and chew the white part.

And the smell of it. Some sweet, some dry and hard, and some, like the clumps of Parramatta grass, didn't care if humans lived or died. Ignored you completely. Hard as nails. You had to admire them for that.

If anyone saw me enjoying the grass they'd think I was mad. I guess if anyone saw me on my knees with my face buried in my darling's soft belly, they'd think I was praying to her.

The days are never long enough. I drink faster.