The Unknown Industrial Prisoner (10 page)

The Great White Father revived, unfolded himself to his full height, and got into top gear.

‘My friends! We now have the blessings of electric light. Put forth the right hand of fellowship and flip the switch, Volga!'

Light smothered them.

‘I am a light in the mangroves. Whoever believes in electricity will never fear darkness. We took the leads under the river, so take care you don't displace any stones on the banks. The stone you displace may darken this place.'

There was clapping of hands on the timber table and ceremonial lifting of cans.

‘Another important project is also under way. When winter comes, we'll have no need to rely on our animal heat and the warmth of alcohol to keep out the cold. We have tapped the gasoil line. Our modest offtake will never be noticed. The lines won't be all connected till winter, the heater is here already. Don't forget, if you have any suggestions for our comfort, pin them on the new notice board.'

‘I thought I recognized it.'

‘They don't need another safety notice board near the office block. There's two dozen already.'

 

AND INTO THE TREES YOU CAN BE SURE OF PUROIL was the advertising slogan stencilled on the four-gallon drum holding up one corner of the bed on which the Sandpiper performed her indoor duties. Many wits made reference to this slogan when they boarded the bed. But the Sandpiper enticed her men or compelled them, depending on the strength of their characters, out into the clay paddocks beyond the mangroves, sometimes in among the tangle of mangroves, balanced in the forks of trees, playing ape.

The Two Pot Screamer had had his two pots and sank a third before his half-hour with the Sandpiper.

‘We've never had it so good' he remarked to the Sandpiper, sprawled on the bed like a mongrel dog. As he prepared himself, he tried to get the Sandpiper to talk. Some small prideful weakness in him, left over from a life of defeats, resented her professional indifference. All the jokes he'd ever made about his most prized possession and about the action that gave him his one spiritual consolation, where were they now? Coition was the only bit of heaven he had ever tasted, unless you count the oblivion of alcohol. He had a bad start in life and could never forget it.

‘Wish we had beds like this on night shift up at the plant. Rags has a dunlopillo for the concrete. Blue Hills has bags; he puts his feet in one and the rest on him and underneath.'

‘Get a move on,' exhorted the Sandpiper. ‘You've only got half an hour. The Sumpsucker's next.'

‘You can take him in your stride, can't you?'

‘I'll handle him.' The Sump would recount endlessly his previous adventures, the odd demands he made on his widows, his victories over stubborn housewives. Physically he was amazing, though. Soon as his pants were off, up it came.

‘Do we have to go outside in the bush?' he asked.

‘Suit yourself. It's your dough.'

‘You won't go dead on me?' plaintively. He didn't really care. Talking to a woman in a bedroom atmosphere was as much to him as the mechanics of it.

‘Who's after Sumpy?'

‘Sea Shells. He just does the one thing.'

‘Who?'

‘Sea Shells. Never on Sunday christened him. The missionary position always, and blows down your ear the whole time.'

‘What missionary position?'

‘Missionaries to the heathens taught converts there was only one Christian way to do it. The man on top. In some American states any other position is illegal.'

Two Pot whipped out his pencil and made notes.

From outside, the Sump sang ‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee' in a kidding tone of voice.

‘Shut up!' called Two Pot. ‘Wait your turn!'

‘Muggy in here, isn't it?' mentioned the Sandpiper to hurry him up.

‘Let's go, Sandy!' insisted Two Pot desperately, grasping her broad hand and rushing her outside. Sumpsucker watched them trot into the mangroves, with a gently superior twist to his mouth and his tiny eyes bright—kept apart only by the top of his long pliable nose.

He didn't see the accident. The pair in the paddock stood face to face in a tiny clearing where the ground was firm. Two Pot straightened up just as the Sandpiper lifted her knee. It caught him. The pain took his voice away. He cut off her apology—none of the women wanted to incapacitate the sources of their cash—and surprised her by going ahead with the business in hand.

‘I've never seen a man do that before. Not when he was hurt.'

‘And not when he's paying, I'll bet. Can you keep something to yourself? If you wouldn't mind, next time, just give me the knee there or a smack with your hand. When I'm not expecting it.'

‘If you like it.'

‘Like it! Christ, I've never felt anything like it. Makes me feel I'm suffering a bit in return for the pleasure. Sort of paying for it. Properly. Not just with money.'

‘Suits me,' said the Sandpiper sensibly.

 

THROUGH A SNOTTY RAG The Sumpsucker clasped his hands behind his head in his normal attitude of thought. The Great White Father was a gentle man, guided by moral scruples. He had a respect for the wholeness of others. The Sumpsucker changed his hands, still clasped, to a position on his forehead from which the hair had tactfully receded. His head retreated downwards into his chest cavity. Usually only the oldest operators pulled their heads in like this, being closer to the convict past and the days of a thousand lashes.

‘You on probation yet?'

‘No. Never be a foreman while my arse-hole points to the ground.' Every prospective foreman said it.

‘Your boys will help you with the heights.' Sump was terrified of heights. He couldn't climb a stepladder.

‘I'm a coward. A cowardly custard,' he said happily.

‘The whole population is,' soothed the Great White Father.

‘Except the Samurai and you,' amended the Sump. You only need a uniform to be a field-marshal, he thought, looking into the Great White Father's sea-blue eyes and equating courage with the bearing of arms.

‘I'll do my trick for you,' said the Father, rising on his toes and falling flat like a tall plank. Sump gasped.

‘That'll put you in hospital some day,' he said unhappily. ‘Proves you're not a coward.'

‘It proves nothing. I do it because I'm just as much a moron as any prisoner. We're the same anywhere. Prisoners of our own moronic mental patterns. Body mechanics who leave gauze pads in stomachs, electrical operators who blow fuses in power stations, medical students braining each other with cadaver legs in dissection rooms, prime ministers who terminate the careers of competent successors. Morons.'

‘You could be prime minister yourself if you weren't in the grip of the grog.'

‘Get thee behind me, Sumpy,' intoned the Great White Father. ‘Don't tempt me with the splendours of power or the riches of public office. I see no riches. I see no splendours.' He put an empty can to his eye for a telescope. I see no ships, only hardships. As for the grog, I'd drink it through a snotty rag or a baby's nappy.'

A howl floated in from outside.

‘Was that Adam and Eve discovering a maggot in the apple?' declaimed the Great White Father.

‘More like a cat howling,' enviously. The Sumpsucker didn't like to think anyone else could rouse the Sandpiper to frenzy or make her howl in the bushes.

‘Then bring it in,' said the Great White Father grandly, ‘nail it by the ears to the table and let it howl inside. I'd rather live in a swamp amongst friends and howling animals, than pay rent and instalments in a suburban shed.' He stretched. The beer made him sleepy.

‘Being cowardly runs in the family,' the Sumpsucker returned to his permanent subject. ‘My brother got tricked into a paratrooper unit. They keep having to push him.' He was happy when he could make the Great White Father laugh.

‘Perhaps they shouldn't have put an experimental plant so far from civilization,' the Father ruminated. ‘The start-up's six months late already.'

‘The cracker?' Sump was amazed. ‘I didn't know you ever bothered about Puroil!'

The Great White Father turned away to open two cans and pushed one across the table.

 

WIND IN THE WILLOWS ‘Thanks,' said a gummy voice. It was Sea Shells. Sumpsucker was gone. Sandpiper must have come back. Two Pot was still pulling himself together in the mangroves.

‘Hullo, Shells,' the Great White Father welcomed him, but had no further chance to speak. Sea Shells was a constant sound in the ears. He suffered from razorback gums, his teeth had been out for too long before his dentures were fitted and the gums had thinned so his plate couldn't get suction. He still lisped, his top set dropped continually, clattering down noisily inside his mouth. Often food stuck the two dentures together, they might be both up or both down, depending on the way they bounced, revealing large spaces, steppes, ranges and prairies of tongue, palate and gum.

‘Having trouble with the new stepfather, you see Mum got a divorce shortly after I showed the stepfather into the house while Mum was taking a shower, he's a cop—the stepfather not the old man—he brings home watches and bracelets and dollar bills every week, he's a better provider than dear old Dad and he gives Mum more sex, not that she'd take it from Dad she was always knocking him back, but she still says Dad never showed her any affection I guess she likes a change, anyway the old bed creaks night and day now, Dad's applied to come back and live as a boarder because he's used to the place and Mum's cooking he must be nuts, it's a sickening thing to discover your father's nuts, so now he hits the grog, he's a case of alcoholic remorse every day round two in the morning, the only time he was sober for a week was once on pay day he called in at the Corroboree Hotel and had his pay snatched, he tried to run after the bloke that took it but was tripped before he got to the door by a bloke standing there reading the paper, accidental, of course.'

He paused for breath. His top teeth had dropped, his appearance was ferocious for a second or two, a vast Jenolan cavity became visible above the hump of his fallen plastic palate.

‘How did you get off the plant today?' asked the Great White Father firmly. Sea Shells sucked his top teeth back to a more convenient position.

‘Went to get some keys cut, the keys to the tool store the stationery locker and the main warehouse, you know everyone in the place has keys to all the things that are supposed to be secret, security, why Slug has the biggest collection he has a key to everything, no one gets into strife unless something goes wrong and you get caught, remember the Fallen Idol? How he rose and rose then fell and fell raising the company flag one minute, ass-holed the next? Well they wanted him out of the way and they finally got him over keys, not many know that, I may be deaf from the turbines but I hear things I'm not supposed to hear, it's all in here'—tapping his head above his ears—‘and it'll stay in here until I can get even with this rotten company, you know they wouldn't get me compo for going deaf around their stinking turbines and compressors and I had to pay all the doctors' expenses myself, there's lots of blokes in Puroil going deaf but they know from my experience they won't get compo so they shut up about it, if they find you're deaf they get an excuse to hoist you, I wouldn't spit on Puroil land, talking about spit did you hear the joke about the full spittoon?'

‘Yes,' said the Great White Father, ‘I heard it.' Sea Shells didn't mind.

‘There was this bet in the pub. Ten dollars to swallow the contents—'

‘Never mind,' said his listener. ‘I heard it.'

‘—but it was so difficult to swallow, not because he was a piker—'

‘Shut up! It's filthy!'

‘—One lump!' He laughed loudly so he couldn't be interrupted. ‘That's why it took so long, one lump!' And in the same breath, ‘You know what the secret is to beat this company? How we always have the wood on them? It's the fantastic unity amongst the men that has this company on its knees!'

The Great White Father swallowed hard.

‘They know about the heads going down on night shift, the management knows all about it, the Union knows but no one ever says anything about it, but you know what I think? The amazing thing, the fact that really amazes me is that there isn't more crime against the company, not that there's so much but that there's so little, take that compressor with the pump and the stand and the mobile generator and the pump went last weekend, the whole thing could have disappeared, that's if there was a real criminal element here but there isn't, somebody had a use for them that's all, they even took them out the main gate that's how good the security is, just hook them on behind your truck or even your car and the guards don't know you didn't come in with it, you've got to be cheeky with this company and you can get what you want, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, they'll treat you viciously if you look as if you'll take it, the one that doesn't complain always gets the crap, you take a sick pay query up to the Brown Snake and get treated like dirt but if you start to fight back and look as if you mean it he'll back down and end up giving you your money and he does this to everyone that stands up to him not only lodge members—'

The Great White Father tuned out. Later he took his eyes from his hearer to open two cans and passed one across to—the Two Pot Screamer. Sea Shells was inside with the Sandpiper, she wouldn't go out playing ape with him, she couldn't stop his patter. The Sumpsucker was just behind the Screamer, he didn't need twenty minutes to pull himself together. As soon as his pants were on and the job done, he had it under control.

‘It's all right for you, Sump,' said the Screamer, while the Father opened a third can.

‘Why better for me?'