The Simple Gift

Steven Herrick was born in Brisbane, the youngest of seven children. At school his favourite subject was soccer, and he dreamed of football glory while he worked at various jobs. For the past thirty years he's been a full-time writer and regularly performs his work in schools throughout the world. Steven lives in the Blue Mountains with his partner Cathie, a belly dance teacher. They have two adult sons, Jack
and Joe.

www.stevenherrick.com.au

Also by Steven Herrick

Young Adult

A place like this

Black painted fingernails

By the river

Cold skin

Lonesome howl

Love, ghosts and nose hair

Slice

Water bombs

Children

Do-wrong Ron

Love poems and leg-spinners

My life, my love, my lasagne

Naked bunyip dancing

Poetry to the rescue

Pookie Aleera is not my boyfriend

Rhyming boy

The place where the planes take off

Tom Jones saves the world

Untangling spaghetti

to my dad, in memory,

to my mum, who always

welcomed me back.

Champagne

It's the only time my schoolbag

has come in handy.

I tip my books, pens, jumper

out on my bed,

shake yesterday's sandwich, squashed,

from the bottom of the bag.

I go to the kitchen,

take the beer,

last night's leftovers,

some glossy red apples,

Dad's champagne and cigarettes,

load my schoolbag,

my travelling bag,

leave the bottle of lemonade on the table

with a note,

‘See ya Dad.

I've taken the alcohol.

Drink this instead

to celebrate your son

leaving home.'

The old bastard will have a fit!

And me?

I'll be long gone.

Kiss the dog

I'm not proud.

I'm sixteen, and soon

to be homeless.

I sit on the veranda

and watch the cold rain fall.

Bunkbrain, our dog,

sits beside me.

I'd like to take him with me.

He doesn't deserve to stay

in this dump, no-one does.

But you don't get rides

with a dog.

And two mouths to feed

is one too many.

Bunkbrain knows something,

he nuzzles in close,

his nose wet and dirty

from sniffing for long-lost bones.

I scratch behind his ears

and kiss the soft hair

on his head.

I'll miss you dog.

I'm not proud.

I'm leaving.

The rain falls steady.

Bunkbrain stays on the veranda.

Longlands Road

This place has never looked

so rundown and beat.

Old Basten's truck still on blocks,

the grass unmown around the doors.

Mrs Johnston's mailbox on the ground

after I took to it with a cricket bat

last week.

And the windows to the Spencer house

still broken

from New Year's Eve,

it must get cold in the front room

at night.

My street.

My suburb.

I take a handful of rocks,

golf ball size.

I walk slowly in the rain

the bag on my back.

I throw one rock on the roof

of each deadbeat no-hoper

shithole lonely downtrodden house

in Longlands Road, Nowheresville.

The rocks bounce and clatter

and roll and protest

at being left in this damn place.

I say goodbye to all that,

throwing rocks down Longlands Road.

Wentworth High School

I reach school at four-thirty

in the rainy afternoon

of my goodbyes.

Principal Viera's Holden

pulls out of the car park

and blows smoke down the road.

I jump the fence

and walk the grounds.

The wind howls and rain sheets in

blowing potato crisp wrappers

across the oval.

I go to Room 421

and look through the window.

Mr Cheetam's homework is on the board.

Twenty-six students are learning

about the geography of Japan

and one lucky bastard is writing

‘may you all get

well and truly stuffed'

on the window

in K-Mart red lipstick

stolen especially for this occasion.

I sign my name in red

‘Billy Luckett,

rhymes with …'

Let Cheetam chew on that.

Westfield Creek

I love this place.

I
love the flow of cold clear water

over the rocks

and the wattles on the bank

and the li
zards sunbaking,

heads up, listening,

and the birds,

hundreds of them,

silv
er-eyes and currawongs,

kookaburras laughing

at us kids
swinging on the rope

and dropping into the bracing flow.

I spent half my s
chool days here

reading books I'd stolen

from Megalong Bookshop

with
old Tom Whitton

thinking I'm his best cus
tomer

buying one book

with three others shoved up my jumpe
r.

I failed every Year 10
subject

except English.

I can read.

I can dream.

I kno
w about the world.

I learnt all I need to know

in books on the banks

of
Westfield Creek,

my favourite classroom.

Please

The Great Western Highway

is not much of a highway,

not great at all,

but it does head west,

which is where I'm going

if one of these damn cars

will only stop and give me a ride.

Two hours in the dark

in the rain

in the dirt of this bloody road

is not getting me anywhere.

What to do?

Go home?

‘Say Dad,

I still want to leave

but I couldn't get a lift

so one more night

that's OK with you, isn't it?'

He'd be sober because I stole

his beer

his champagne.

No. I can't go back.

I could sleep at school,

on the veranda.

One more hour of this,

just one ride,

please.