The Infernal Optimist (3 page)

Ten days after I got to Villawood, they brung in a whole Vietnamese gang fresh outta Long Bay. There wasn’t enough beds in Stage One to go round, so the blues told Azad and me to pack our stuff cuz they was moving us to Stage Three. I was just happy to get outta that dorm. When you put forty men in a room, they do a lotta shit you don’t really wanna know about. We’d heard that in Stage Three there was four per room max.

It was about eleven ay-em when they put us in the back of a white van with our gear. When we drove out the gate a the compound we looked at each other and grinned. Even though we knew we wasn’t going far, and we guessed that, wherever we was going, there’d be razor wire there too, it felt that good to be outside of the walls, and the fence, and riding in a car too, even if it be locked from the outside. At the top a the road we could see that big yard I saw when they brung me in that first night.

The morning they took us over was bright and sunny. The sky was clear and blue. Inside the yard there was some grass, and even some gum trees—what we didn’t have none of in Stage One—and a whole lotta white plastic tables and chairs. If it weren’t for the parallel cyclone fences and the coils a razor wire running long the top and bottom a them, it woulda looked like an okay sorta place to have a barbie. We drove round the outside a the yard, past a brick office building, what was also inside the fences, and up to a big gate.

A young, blonde female guard walked over from the office. She was twirling a clutch a keys in her hand. ‘Nice tits on it, eh?’ I said to Azad, what frowned in a way what made me think he understood but was pretending not to. Azad’s a real gentleman, in addition to being Kurdish and a poet and smart. Don’t get me wrong—I can be a gentleman too when I need to. But at that particulate moment I was feeling pretty excited at being moved and it also felt like I hadn’t seen any females in years.

That wasn’t exactly true, cuz I’d only been Inside for ten days. She Who visited me of course. But visits in Stage One was only for short times and the visiting room was the crowded little kitchen where we took our meals. There was never enough chairs, but the blues waited till people were almost fighting for space before they opened the door to the tiny concrete yard outside. And the whole time, there was at least twenty or thirty pairs a hungry male eyes on your woman, what was not a good feeling, specially for her. The other females what I saw were other blokes’ women. What
you’re not sposed to stare at, even if everyone does. And of course, there was Mum, what isn’t the same thing, and the Villawood psych Nadia, what is an old lady whose main job was insuring that no one topped themselves. The one female blue they got in Stage One was a big Samoan what was virtuosically a bloke. So that blue was looking pretty good to me, even in them baggy blue trousers and plain white blouse what all the guards wore. As I said, I like a woman in uniform. She was making some joke with the officer what was driving the van. Then she peeked inside at us. Her eyes snagged on Azad for a moment. Then, like she just remembered what she was sposed to be doing, she went to open the gate. The van drove into the space between the two fences, what was wider here than in other places round the compound. She locked the first gate behind us, and walked over to open the second. We drove through that and the blues waited for her to lock the second gate as well before they drove us into a garage what belonged to the Property Office.

‘She never took her eyes off you once, mate,’ I said to Azad while we waited for them to unlock the van and let us out. ‘You’re in like Flynn.’

‘What means “in like Flynn”?’

I told him. He put his head in his hands.

Stage Three was all men like Stage One but not as hard-core, and there was more variety, what I like. There was Chinamen and Vietnamese and Islanders here too, but also Lebs, them Indians what don’t cut them hair, and Moroccans, and Pakis, and Bedoons what are from Kuwait and what are kinda like Bedouins except stateless, and others including a
Scottish bloke what spoke funny. There were heaps more asylums and visa overstayers than crims too, what made it a more relaxed hood. Next to Stage Three was Stage Two, what you could see through a fence and what had better facilities and women and families in, and what we shared the big Visiting Yard with. All up, there were about four hundred people in the two stages.

They put us in with this Moroccan dude, an overstayer named Ali. Ali, what had dreadlocks and an Australian girlfriend, told us that if we behaved and were there a long time, they’d eventually put us in Stage Two.

‘Stage Three is good enough for me, mate,’ I said. The room wasn’t nuffin to write home about, but at least the toilet wasn’t in the same space what we slept in. ‘I got no intentions a staying long.’

Ali shrugged.

I’d been Inside almost two weeks already, what was two weeks too long, and it still didn’t make no sense that I be locked up like some foreigner, though I spose that’s what I was, technologically speaking, even though I had permanent residence what I thought meant what it said about being permanent. As for this five-oh-one bullshit, I couldn’t get me head round that one at all. The point was, I did the crime then I did the time. There had to be some mistake. I was looking forwards to talking to the lawyer what She Who found for me and what was coming to see me the next morning.

There was no mistake. The five-oh-one business mighta been bullshit, but it was serious bullshit. Me lawyer, Mr Gubba, explained all this to me the next morning. We was sitting in a small room in a demountable what was next to the Visiting Yard. He wore a posh suit. He had dyed blond hair what was blow-dried and a tan what had to be from one a them solipsariums. He charged by the minute and spoke slower than anyone I ever met.

Gubba told me that he was gonna appeal me deportation orders to the AAT, what stood for Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The AAT had the power to overturn the decision by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, what was called DIMA. He told me the AAT was like the RRT for asylums and the MRT for visa overstayers what stood for Migration Review Tribunal.

Them alphabets was just one part a the Villawood language, what be English made up a all the accents and
dialogues what people speak in them own countries plus what the officials be on about. I was getting pretty fluid at it.

Gubba told me that they used to apply five-oh-one only to people what committed fully serious crimes. They started using it for small fries like me in the mid-nineties. He said that he was gonna raise this in the appeal. He was also gonna argue that if they was that worried about me, they shouldn’t a let me outta prison. But I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to say that.

‘So when’s this appeal gonna happen, mate?’ I asked Gubba.

His shoulders went up and down. ‘Maybe a month.’

‘A month! Every day in this place is like a year, I swear. Look at me—it’s only been two weeks and I’m dying in here, mate! Look at me!’

He looked at me. ‘Nice watch,’ he said after a minute. ‘I used to have one just like it.’

I didn’t wanna ask what happened to it. ‘Here, take it,’ I said, unfastening the band. ‘Just get me outta here.’

He gave me a smile what was on his mouth but not in his eyes. ‘Keep it. I don’t have any magic formula for getting you out, watch or no watch. However, there is something called a Bridging Visa.’ He explained that that’s a visa what they can give you so you can get outta detention while they process your case. A Bridging Visa required a bond, but the amount was different from case to case. Gubba said it might be a couple a thou, but he couldn’t say for sure.

We filled out the forms for the appeal and the Bridging Visa.

‘As for my fee…’

‘Speak to me missus,’ I said. ‘She’ll fix you up.’ She’d be fixing me up too when she realised how much he cost, and that she was gonna have to raise a couple a thou for the bond too, but I didn’t wanna think about that. ‘And what she can’t do, just put on me tab.’

After me meeting with Gubba, me head was full a numbers like five-oh-one and alphabets like AAT and visas what was also bridges, what was also toll roads, and they was all fighting for space in there. I went back to the room. Ali took one look at me, closed the door and pulled a joint outta the pocket of his jeans. ‘Oh, mate,’ I said.

I remembered this thing that happened when I was in Silverwater. ‘I was sitting with Mum in Visits, feeling sorry for meself while she rattled on about how I oughta get on the straight and narrow. Why couldn’t I be like me brother Attila, what got his own shop, beautiful wife, great kids, the whole package, yadayadayada. I was feeling so accused and prosecuted.’

Ali nodded and passed the spliff.

‘Suddenly, this tiny black parcel came flying over the fence. Me mum didn’t notice nuffin. She was pouring out some tea and gathering strength for a second charge. Me, I was keeping an eagle on it. It had to belong to someone, but it looked like I was in Lady Luck, cuz no one came to collect it. I couldn’t go and get it in front a me mum, and I hadda keep an eye out for the blues, but eventually I stood and stretched and bent over,
pretending to tie me shoes while I scooped it up and stuffed it down me sock. Then, when Mum wasn’t looking, I cheeked it.’

Ali tilted his head to one side. All him dreadlocks was hanging in the air. ‘Cheeked it?’ he asked.

‘You know, stuck down the back a me trackies into the place where the sun never shines.’

He grinned in a way what made me think there be a misunderstanding.

‘I don’t mean all the way inside, I’m no poofter, wasn’t doing it for kicks. Just putting it where I could get a grip on it.’

‘Right.’ Ali giggled.

‘So. After me mum left, I headed to the gate, holding it in, walking like I’d just eaten a prune curry. They strip-searched us after Visits in prison. The screws made you take your pants down and everything, but from the look on me face and the way I was pinching me bum cheeks together, they told me to get to the crapper before I soiled something. I went to me crib, relaxed and down it dropped. I unwrapped it and—
mate
. Just what the doctor ordered.

‘I was mulling up when this guy Hadeon, a big-time dealer, came into me cell. You gotta pitcher Hadeon. He’s a Ukrainian with a face what looks like it was chopped outta clay with an axe. We called him the Hatchet. He had a criminal record longer than me arms, what you can see aren’t that long in factuality on a count a me being so short. But he’d been done for rape and assault and dealing heroin and evil shit like that, so you get the idea. This dude once argued with Hadeon over something stupid. The day after the
argument, we was in the prison workshop when they called time for smoko. The dude what argued with Hadeon didn’t budge. We’re like, “Hey, dude, smoko, wakey wakey, hands off snakey”, but still no reaction. He sat staring straight ahead with a half-finished Qantas headset in his hands. It took a minute before we saw the screwdriver handle sticking outta the back of his head and the pool a blood on the floor. Everyone knew it had to be Hadeon but they wasn’t able to pin it on him. He was good mates with a blue, a bad muvvafucker just like himself, what people said helped him get rid a the evidence.’

‘That’s heavy shit,’ Ali said, making a face and shaking him dreddies.

‘Anyways, there I was, happy as Larry, rolling a fat spliff from the weed in the parcel, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had something what probably belonged to Hadeon. He was staring at me with them beady eyes what were cold and grey like dirty ice. I knew I had to act real cool, even though in factuality, I was shitting meself. “Where’d you get that?” Hadeon asked. He made his eyes even slittier, like he could see what was going on better that way.

‘“Mate,” I go. “You reckon you’re the only one who gets drops?” I made meself look real put down-upon. He looked hard at me, but I didn’t crack.

‘Finally he goes, “All right, all right.” Then I sold him some of his own dope.’

Ali gave me a high-five. ‘Man, you’re bad.’

I shrugged, like I be modest. ‘You gotta make the most a your opportunities—what be one a me Rules a Survival.’

I was gonna explain more about me Rules a Survival when a phone call came through for Ali. I wandered out to find Azad. I found him at the fence between Stages Three and Two, talking to this skinny, sad-looking kid in a baseball cap on the other side. Azad was more excited than I ever seen him. ‘Hamid and I were together in Port Hedland,’ he explained to me. He introduced us, and turned back to Hamid. ‘I hoped you’d be Out by now, brother.’

‘Me too.’ Hamid spoke real soft. He was nineteen going on ninety, I swear. They kept talking, and every so often Hamid looked up at Azad, but most a the time he kept his head down and you couldn’t hardly see his face under the cap.

‘Hamid and I used to study English together eight hours a day when we first got to Australia,’ Azad told me. ‘Sometimes even nine or ten hours.’

‘No wonder youse both speak it so good,’ I said, what wasn’t just being polite. ‘Like natives, mate. Me, I never studied nuffin more than ten, fifteen minutes max in me whole life. I get bored too easy.’

Hamid kinda smiled. ‘We had so much hope then,’ he said. ‘Hope and dreams.’

‘Yes. You were always talking about wanting to be a doctor. And the first Afghan surfer. After you learned to swim.’

‘I say that?’

Azad laughed. ‘Yes.’ He looked like he suddenly remembered something. ‘You still growing your hair?’ he asked Hamid, telling me at the same time that back in Port Hedland, Hamid swore he wouldn’t cut his hair until he got free.

Hamid looked up and he took off his cap. Azad and me, we didn’t even look at the hair much, what was long, cuz in the middle of his forehead was a lump the size of an egg.

‘Who…?’ Azad’s question seemed to get stuck in his throat like that piece a kebab the time me uncle Baris had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on me in his shop, what is not a gay sex act even though it kinda looks like one.

‘No one.’ Hamid put his cap back on and stared at the ground. ‘Me.’