The Glass Canoe (12 page)

Danny went around telling everyone the good news that Ernie was still in the land of the living, but after an hour you couldn't understand what he was saying.

I could see the jail corridor of time inhabited not just by Ernie, but by Danny and Alky Jack and all the rest of us, with each a step forward and each year another cell and each cell smaller until at the end solitary confinement with no room to move your shoulders or lift up your knee or your glass or throw a punch.

Just lying flat on your back.

When I got to Fortress Australia an owl was sitting on the front fence. As I shut the car door she flew away flapping like washing in the wind.

I looked out into the dark a long time.

Life was a lot of little days, of little short days, all strung together like a woman's beads, arranged in a circle, with a mouth swallowing its own tail.

LOVE OF A BUMPER

The next Wednesday I was in the Southern Cross right after work, about half past two—I start at five-thirty in spring and autumn, and five in summer—and old Hugh came in just as I was near the end of the first, and best, schooner of the day. He got his rum and middy of beer and sat down near the door with a ray of sunlight across his face. The sun shone on his perfect tooth, the only one in his head.

I wouldn't tell her this, though if I did I know she'd understand without me having to waste one word in explanation, but old Hugh's perfect tooth reminds me of my darling's teeth shining when she opens her mouth to smile or talk.

She talks a lot, actually, and I like it. I guess I like the sound of her voice, which is bright and bubbly.

I swallowed the rest of the schooner and lit out for where she works. There was a red phone nearby so I ring her up and get this song at the other end. You know by now it wasn't an actual song, it was her answering the phone.

She'd interrupt anything if you wanted her. It only took her seven minutes to get ready and come down.

‘What kept you?' I demanded.

‘I came as soon as I could,' she says, anxious to please. Her mouth didn't know whether to go down.

‘Did you ever stop to think I might not be there some day if you keep me waiting like this?'

‘Oh, you wouldn't, would you? Oh no, don't do that. If you'd rather I
didn't go and freshen up—'

I couldn't let her go on. I grabbed her there in the street and lifted her up in a big hug and swung her round so her feet were off the ground. Round and round, like a carousel. People drew back so as not to get their clothes dusty from her shoes; some smiled, some looked superior.

When we got to the car she bent down and kissed the back bumper. When you think about it, and the love that includes a man's car, you couldn't feel awkward. It's just that—well—it was my car, and if she loved the old car that much, well.

She looks back up at me and says, ‘You know how I feel about good old CLY, don't you?' CLY is the prefix part of my car's registration.

In the car it's all I can do to get her into the seat belt. She's got this habit of suddenly grabbing me round the neck or the head and pulling me over to be kissed. With the seat belt on she can't move far.

I've spoken to her about it often. Safety angle and all that.

You can imagine how much difference that makes.

Coming late at night out of the city over bridges, the white moon competes across the water with the golden lights of wharves. I usually award a draw.

It was late one night in a strange city that first she took my mind.

Thinking about her in the car I knew the human race would survive. The grog wouldn't touch us, pollution wouldn't kill us, war wouldn't wipe us out. Doom didn't belong in the same world as my darling.

THE LONGEST ROOT

Thursday. There's been rain a few days before and we've got up all the debris that comes in over the course from the gutters. I told you we're at the bottom of a depression, with the land rising away on all four sides. Plastic toys and bottles, papers, all sorts of rubbish come out of those gutters and make a mess of the fairways.

All
that's
done and the greens are still too wet to mow, so Wal and I go up the high side of the fourth fairway and work on a blocked drain.

I tell you, this is the best job I've had. To have grass all round, and trees.

Especially trees. The soil's poor, anything you plant has to be nursed. I always keep my eye open for anything that looks thirsty, and work round to it before the leaves start to go.

This drain. Wal and I work on it for an hour or two and the old twelve inch pipes under the ground are the sort that are laid in halves. All you do is dig round them and under, sling a chain round and lift with the front-end loader, lay them to one side and get them apart in your own time.

Wal had seen willow roots like this before, so we didn't chop them, we used the tow bar of the tractor to extract them from the pipes. If you've never seen a fourteen foot length of solid tangled willow roots, you'll have to imagine it. It fills the pipes completely and takes their inside shape, so it comes out smooth and round, with a diminishing tail.

We left it there on the edge of the rough to dry. I put two white stones up front for eyes and slit it horizontally to make a mouth. Thursday was Ladies Day.

We replaced the pipes and put the spoil back and it wasn't till half an hour later that we saw the first encounter between our monster and one of the old biddies. It was her third shot off the tee and it went past a small grove of new poplars—just sticks at that stage—and into the willow tree. When she left her buggy on the fairway edge and trudged into the rough, seven iron at the ready, she almost trod on the monster lying in foot-high grass.

She was a spunky old girl, and instead of continuing to scream—the first scream only went two seconds—she whaled into it with the seven iron. Mostly about
the head. The first thing to go were its eyes, but she didn't stop.

Wal grinned from his seat on the front-end loader. He wasn't one to waste a perfectly good laugh on the fresh air. He waited till lunch, which we had in a sort of dungeon under the clubhouse, and retailed his story to the other boys before going off into fits and roars and gales.

‘The longest root I ever saw in me life!' he raved. And took a look after lunch to see if she was still killing it.

UP THE CROSS

Some of the boys decided to have a Saturday night at King's Cross. I had things to do earlier in the city so I stayed there in the afternoon and was to meet them at night. With a bit of food in me I walked down to the water at Rushcutters Bay, watched the sailing boats, the moored cruisers. It was early March and junior teams were playing football trials on the oval.

I didn't often leave the Mead, so every time I saw lights like this I had to go slow and look and think about it. The bay spread round in a lazy half-circle, the yachts, the strolling people, the parked cars, rich houses. I had to try to assimilate the peace, the wealth, the calm luxury of pleasant surroundings. The Mead had nothing like this, all we had was the car sale yards for colour, the factories, the jail, and houses. And the six-lane stream of cars flowing all day.

There were even a few kids playing marbles on a dirt patch under shady fig trees where grass wouldn't grow. It was years since I'd seen a game of marbles. They even said the old words.

‘Stop fudging!'

‘That's my dib.'

‘Mine's the blood alley.'

‘No it's not, yours is the connie agate.'

‘Come on, there's nothing in it.'

‘Dibs in.'

‘For keeps.'

‘No takings.'

‘Bags first shot.'

‘Rolls on!'

‘Come on, knuckle down.'

‘No slogs!'

‘Fudge! No fudges.'

‘Knuckle down! Look! No fudges.'

I went up the hill to look round a bit before I met the boys. They reckon you're liable to see funny things there, like cats being walked, collars and leads and all. I saw people being walked, collars and leads. I saw four girls tied together and a guy sitting on a little five-ply platform on their shoulders. They were carrying him along, and when they got a bit slow he'd either lean
over and give them a lick of his ice-cream or tap them with a switch, a long twig of willow.

I sat in the little park to wait for the boys. Upstairs, the moon floated transparent as a jellyfish in the day sky. I began to have a dream. I was in this room in a building I'd never seen before. There was no name on the outside, nothing to show what it was. A cat was with me. I like cats a lot and I liked this one, but he started to get bigger. His body got longer, he got fatter, everything about him got bigger including his mouth, though he didn't turn on me when he got bigger than I was. I tried to get behind him and push him out the door while he could still get through, but he wouldn't move. Then he was far too big to go through the door.

Still he didn't turn on me, though his mouth was bigger than a lion's. He expanded quicker then, so that he pushed me against the side of the room, squeezing the life out of me. His breath stank like the tigers at the Zoo.

I woke up in a sweat, arms thrashing about and yelling. Just in time to see two coppers change directions at the footpath and come towards me. When I was clear that I wasn't going to be suffocated, I got my breath and sat up straight and wiped the sweat away with a handkerchief.

The coppers looked at my eyes, rolled up both sleeves for needle marks and so on, got me to stand in case I was drunk. They went, but didn't look satisfied.
The place was quiet. The gambling joints up the street had too much protection to crack down on, they were looking for those who had no protection. Cops will be cops.

When the boys found somewhere to park, they went straight to get a drink or two. No stupid dreams for them. Mick used a name he knew and got us in to a club where all sorts gathered. People were drinking and having some entertainment and after two hours we started to wonder if that's all there was to the joint. We needn't have worried. The guards on the doors made sure no one could come in and we all settled down to watch the Oyster Derby.

If this is not your style of thing, skip this paragraph. They got five of the girls—they operated the derby in heats and semi-finals right the way up to the play-off and the grand final—to strip below the waist and lie down with their legs open towards the other end of the room. Each one had an oyster placed inside, and the boys lined up at the other end of the room for each heat.

Skip two paragraphs. On the word Go the boys raced up to the girls, got down on hands and knees and with their teeth extracted the oysters and ran back up the other end of the room to deposit the oyster on a plate. By that time the next heat of boys were lined up, a fresh round of oysters in position, and they set sail for the oysters. And so on.

Make it three paragraphs. After eleven heats the novelty was beginning to wear thin. The semis and the finals only brought the best competitors together, and believe me they were really quick. But the idea was the same even if they took their time. I would have liked it better, myself.

The regulars cheered their mates as if they did this every week, which they did. The onlookers and the failed competitors got a real kick out of the finalists polishing off the plates of oysters at the finish.

When the party got a little rough after midnight, I was all for going. But the boys couldn't get enough of this stuff. When three girls did handstands and the boss of the place and his special guests ate strawberry, chocolate and coffee ice-cream from similar places, it found me yawning.

The boys were pretty drunk, and what with not being used to much in the way of extras from their girlfriends, they wanted to stay.

Even Mick got sick of looking at the same thing all night, so he and I pressured the others into taking a walk.

We cautioned them to walk steady, the cops late at night were pretty sudden on drunks, it looked bad for tourists, and we didn't feel like a chase through back alleys.

On the way home we went south through places where there were no police in the streets, but dark
buildings and few streetlights, natural places for spring locks, steel sheets over doors; chains, spy-holes and weapons.

The Mead, our tribal suburb, was home to us, and safe by comparison. But any time, a natural disaster such as a new expressway could mow them and us off the face of the earth and leave it neat and clean with concrete and bitumen and a pretty grass verge.

In the meantime it was night, and the different classes equal in sleep.

WOULD I?

On Sunday I went to see my sunny girl. She was waiting for me sitting on the stone ledge outside her house, not looking a bit like a business executive.

She loved the sun, and sat in it every chance she got. The way she sat there, face up to the sun, arms supporting her on the stone slab and bent inwards at the elbow in that way girls have, legs relaxed and toes pointed as if someone posed her, I thought to myself. Would I ever forget the way she looked at that moment?

I told myself no.

WELL DISPOSED PEOPLE

Next time I saw Sibley alone I asked him how his investigations were going.

‘I'm finding all sorts of things,' he said cheerfully. ‘This is another dimension here,' looking round the Southern Cross.

‘Questioning non-drinkers, too. Do you know, Lance, how many non-drinkers have never held a social conversation with a drinker? Or know no drinkers by name. Or have never visited a drinker's home, or have no drinkers among their personal friends. Do you know the percentage of non-drinkers that belong to an organisation for the assimilation of drinkers?'

‘No, Sibley. You've got me there. But what do you mean, assimilation?'

‘That's my aim, the aim of the thesis. To investigate means of assimilating the drinker into the main body of society.'

I thought a bit. ‘Sibley, maybe you shouldn't say too much about this. The guys round here are likely to be pretty sensitive about thinking of themselves as another race, or having to be assimilated into the rest of society. I reckon they feel they
are
our society, and the thought of having educated people stooping to lift them up, well, they might take it hard.'

‘Don't worry, Lance. History is on my side. Research and quantitative analysis will bring a solution to their problems.'

I shook my head. His eyes followed the crack up the back wall where it pointed to the clock. It had spread a bit.

‘My opinion at the moment is that drinkers should be encouraged to join local organisations, be part of the community.' He fished in his pocket and brought out papers.

‘These are opinions from non-drinkers. I'll read a few to you. Eighty-seven per cent said they'd feel uncomfortable if a drinker sat next to them in public transport or a theatre. Similar percentages said they have nothing personal against drinkers, but they could never be friendly with one and they thought their appearance was unattractive. Similar numbers said drinkers try to get more for nothing than non-drinkers, that there's always trouble when you let drinkers into a nice neighbourhood—they give it a drinking atmosphere. And here's some hard figures. Drinkers are pretty much
alike: ninety per cent. There should be restrictions on them to protect others from drinkers' lack of responsibility: ninety-four per cent. The two cultures can never merge: ninety-four. Drinkers probably prefer not to mix with non-drinkers: ninety-nine per cent.'

‘Where did you get these figures, Sibley?'

‘Round here, in the Mead. Oh, I see what you're getting at. Yes, over on the North Shore, where there's no chance of drinkers buying land or houses or keeping up with the rates, the percentages are low; they're on the drinkers' side in droves. Very liberal, very humane.'

‘Very remote.'

‘Exactly,' he said pleasantly. ‘People can't act outside their own frames.'

Sibley and I chatted on a bit and this time he put a few down him. Some of the other guys must have watched us for a while, and got interested. They'd been telling Sibley to piss off lately, never mind his free beer. I guess they wanted to ask
him
a few questions.

‘What's the strength of you, Sibley,' the Great Lover said. ‘Why study us? What's it all about? Who's going to see all those answers?'

‘It's his thesis,' I said.

‘His whatsis?' said Mick.

‘My thesis,' said Sibley proudly. ‘For my PhD.'

‘What's that when it's at home?' said Serge. He didn't usually ask questions, unless you thought a brief ‘Outside' was a question.

‘His doctor's degree,' I explained. But Sibley wanted the floor.

‘The study of drinkers,' he orated, ‘is the study of a dying race.' He'd had too much to drink. ‘Hopefully, the results of my surveys and questions and calculations will illustrate the dimensions of the drinking problem. And I mean hopefully. It is entirely possible that all drinkers can be helped from total reliance on alcohol to independence of the drug. For it
is
a drug problem. Society has a good number of well-educated, well-qualified, well-disposed humanitarian people who will be prepared to give time to help, to raise up those who can't kick the habit by themselves, to reform the drinker, to absorb him into the main body of society, to integrate and assimilate him into the mainstream of Australian culture.' Digging his grave with his tongue.

‘What's so crook about grog?' said the Great Lover. Love of alcohol oozed from every pore.

‘Alcohol oppresses you all. It ties you in to this way of life.' Sibley waved a thin arm round to indicate the slopped red bar, the decrepit chairs that so often doubled for weapons, the punched door, broken glass, the cracked glass doors at the back of the pub, the hills and hollows in the pub yard, the browned paint on the rafters and high ceiling of the saloon bar, the sight of Alky Jack bent over his glass and Danny playing football in some corner of his head that still worked.

‘What will your whatsit do?' asked Mick politely.

‘It might be published,' Sibley answered. ‘My analysis of you could be read everywhere.'

‘Yeah, but what will it do to us?'

This was Sibley's chance. Never before had they shown so much interest in what he was doing. Perhaps he was getting through. If he could have this effect on them while he was a beginner, then when he had his doctorate and he worked on other social evils, he might find he had powers, personal powers, that made his choice of vocation more than just chance. It might be his destiny to change men's lives. Abetted by the beer he saw himself a public figure, the sort of guru who is asked to pronounce on society's ills by all the media.

He decided to try out these powers. He would persuade them, help them to see a better way, show concern, lift them up.

‘If I am successful,' he said, his eyes glowing with persuasive intentness, ‘and others join me to help drinkers all over the country—all over the world—then the whole way of life of drinkers will be changed. Changed for the better, changed irrevocably.'

He watched their faces. The King was looking away, maybe through the windows, no expression on his face. Maybe Sibley had got him looking already at his way of life. Serge looked at a spot at the side of Sibley's jaw, Mick at his chest and slight shoulders like a butcher guessing the dressed weight of a carcass.

‘You won't even look at your beer, won't even stop at the pub on the way home—'

‘Won't look at a beer!' said the Great Lover incredulously.

‘Won't look at the stuff,' Sibley said firmly. ‘You'll never have to congregate in surroundings like this, you won't have to listen to that racket—' the races weren't on, but Sibley's eyes went up to the loudspeakers. ‘My effect will be to take you away from gambling, from wasted time, wasted lives, from poverty, to constructive pursuits, educational interests, work that is for the benefit of all, to helping the unfortunate and oppressed of other lands.'

Sibley paused for breath, and Mick asked me, ‘Any chance of this happening, Meat?'

‘Well,' I said. ‘I don't know. If he's right and he gets a lot of other people interested, he might make an effect. These things sort of grow, maybe if he gets governments interested, they might make things tough for drinkers. Maybe. I don't know.'

Sibley knew. ‘I can do it, I tell you. You can't go on living like this. Putting effort into things that are a waste of time and money and all your abilities. If I get the support I hope for, then a certain amount of compulsion may be necessary.' He smiled a tolerant smile. ‘I hope it won't be necessary, of course. But when you try to do things for people, things for their own good, you sometimes have to
make
them see that what you have in mind is right. If drinkers could be raised up to the standard of life of those more fortunate, if these
conditions and ways of life could be blotted out, poverty and oppression could be replaced by happiness, prosperity, solid goals in life, worthwhile things that give life a quality drinkers never dream of. I'm not alone, you know,' he said defiantly. ‘There are great numbers of enlightened men and women of all professions, able and willing to give time and help to the assimilation of the drinker. All he needs to know, to get him on the right track, is that there are well-disposed people who feel for him and want to help and want to see him raised up to the level of the rest of society.'

Sibley was good for another fifteen minutes of this, but he had no audience. Without a word, the other guys turned and walked away back to their places at the bar.

I heard a voice say something like ‘. . . I'll give the cunt well-disposed.' In a very cold tone, it was. Might have been Serge. Or Mick. Or the King, who hadn't said anything before.

I persuaded Sibley to stuff his papers back in his pocket and go home. ‘Write up your findings, do something, but get out of here.'

He didn't understand, but he'd had enough and the beer had reduced his statistical ability. He went.