Cousin Big Kev was the only child of Aunty Sippie and Uncle Benny Moolbong. They was show fullas from way back. They’d tried for years to have a baby, but no luck. Then when Aunty Sippie was forty-two and had given up, along comes Big Kev. Well they reckon you aint seen a spoilter kid. Not only Aunty Sippie and Uncle Bennie doted on im, but all the show fullas thought the sun shone outta him. He was brought up like a king. And the one thing he never was short on was confidence.
Big Kev loved going up to a woman and sayin, ‘Big Kev Moolbong’s the name. Pleased ta meet ya, got the meat ta please ya.’
He didn’t do too good with the ladies though. But he didn’t give a fuck, reckoned it was their loss. ‘Cos they don’t call me Big Kev on account me height.’
He’d say there was plenty more fish in the sea but, as Dad liked remindin him, he was ‘livin in a fuckin desert.’
Anyway, this one time, me, Antman and Fleabag hooked up with im and his little mutt, Milton, when the show was in Antman’s hometown for a week. When they was movin on, we took a job rouseaboutin with the show fullas cos we had nothin else to do at the time. We like movin round and it’s good to git paid for it. Anyway, next town we blow into is Jackie White’s. When we was finished settin up for the show to start next day, we wandered down to the only pub in town for a few beers and a game of pool.
Jackie White’s sittin in there with just Yodel for company, so Flea and Milton who are mates from way back, go up to Yodel and start their introductions. They decide they like each other and go outside to continue the conversation. Anyway, Jackie turns to me, Antman and Big Kev and asks if we want a game of pool. Doubles. We reckon yeh and Big Kev offers to be Jackie’s partner.
After a few hours of drinkin and gittin flogged at pool, me and Antman decide to head back to camp cos we got an early start in the mornin. We ask Big Kev if he’s comin, but he’s still yarnin with Jackie so he reckons he’s gunna hang round for a while. We left im to it.
Next mornin he’s settin his stand up happy as can be. Whistlin away as he gits everything ready for the day. All day he’s nice as pie. Even give away a coupla free fairy flosses to some local kids. No one’s ever seen im do that before. Apart from bein a grumpy bugger sometimes, he’s still got the first quid he ever made.
That night, after the show shuts down, we ask Big Kev if he wants to come for a beer, but he reckons no, he’ll catch up with us the next day. We git down to the pub but there’s no sign of Jackie or Yodel, so we ask the publican and he reckoned they took a rig out early that mornin and probably wouldn’t be back till late.
Next night, the same thing. No Jackie, and no Big Kev. But on the third night, Big Kev says he’ll see us down the pub.
So we’re sittin there with a big heap of show fullas and locals when Big Kev struts in like a little bantam rooster. He’s got Jackie White and Yodel in tow and the whole pub goes quiet cos Jackie White’s wearin a fuckin dress!
It was a nice flowery one that come to just above the knee. It showed her legs, which were white as could be, and kinda funny lookin next to her brown and leathery face and hands. She wasn’t wearin a hat and her hair was flattened down on her head. Big Kev was holdin her hand and grinnin from ear to ear as he and Jackie walked up to us.
‘See there, tidda,’ he says, ‘ya old cuz made a woman out of er. They said it couldn’t be done, but I done it!’ he crowed.
Jackie sure didn’t look too happy with all the attention and she specially wasn’t happy with the dress. Kept havin to adjust the way she was sittin cos she was used to wearin trousers all the time. Everyone was askin her if she was givin up the rigs but before she could answer, Big Kev would butt in say she wouldn’t have time for no truck drivin cos she’d be too busy lookin after him and all the kids they wuz gunna have.
Big Kev announced he was givin up the show life and settlin down with Jackie. Reckoned they might git hitched. He asked me and Ant to take over the toffee apple and fairy floss stand and we did for a time. Just until we could git someone else to run it, then we cruised back to the city. We was itchin for stayin still for a spell.
Bout three years later we went back out to Jackie’s town to visit her and Big Kev. They had three kids. Two walkin and one a coupla months old. Seems like Jackie got pregnant straightaway, but her and Yodel stayed drivin rigs until two weeks before the first one was born. Two weeks after the birth, she left Big Kev and the kid and went back out on the road. Did the same with the next two as well.
Everyone reckoned it worked out real good. Big Kev kept a clean house and kids, and cooked real good tucker which fattened Jackie up a bit. He didn’t seem too fussed about bein home while the missus went out ta work. He reckoned he’d spent his whole life on the road and said it sure was good to wake every day and know exactly where you was and whut you was gunna do for the day. He also reckoned bein an only kid weren’t natural. That’s why he wanted a whole bunch of em. He said im and Jackie was just like an old pair a emus in that Jackie had the kids and he looked after em.
No one ever saw Jackie in a dress again after that first night. When they got married she wore a slack suit and white cowboy hat.
We stayed with em for a coupla days on that last trip. Had a real good time and just before we was leavin, Jackie had ta take a rig over to Broken Hill and bring back a load. We was standin out the front, seein her off. Her and Yodel climbed into the truck and blew the horn nice and loud as they drove off up the red dirt road. Big Kev’s standin there with two kids and Milton beside im and nursin the little fulla. Antman looks at im.
‘Yep,’ he says, ‘I gotta hand it to ya big fulla. You sure did make a woman outta Jackie White.’
Watchin a video with Aunty Joanie
One time me, Antman and Fleabag was round at his Aunty Joanie’s house. We was watchin the The Man from Snowy River on the video.
We was watchin the scene where that fulla’s ridin that horse flat chat down the mountain side. Over the rocks, round the trees, ridin him harder and faster as the decline of the mountain got steeper.
Aunty Joanie aint hardly drew a breath while all this is goin on. She gits real wrapped up in the movies and shows she watches and she don’t mind huntin anyone outta the house if ya make too much noise while they’re on.
Then as the fulla starts pushin that horse even harder, she grabs her hair and starts yellin at the TV. ‘For christ sake, ya rotten mongrel. Give that poor fuckin horse a spell.’
She got real wild with us when we started laughin.
Grandfather’s medals
One time, not so long back, me, Antman and Fleabag was visitin me mum’s mother, Nanna June. It was Nanna’s eightieth birthday and we all went over for a big party. We had the deadliest time catchin up with all Ma’s people.
Anyway, the next night we was all sittin round outside yarnin when Cousin Chookie turns up. She’s Ma’s first cousin. Her dad and Ma’s dad were brothers. Ma and Chookie are more like sisters than cousins and spent the whole night of the party laughin over all the stuff they used to git up too when they was young fullas. Anyway, Chookie was real excited cos, as she put it, she had somethin real special to show everyone. She handed Nanna an old shoebox. Nanna opened it and pulled out a couple of rows of medals. They was Grandfather’s war medals and he’d thrown em in the rubbish many years ago.
Nanna looked at the medals for a long while, turnin em over and over in her hands and then she started cryin. The tears was just rollin down her face. I aint ever seen Nanna cry before. Ma reckoned she used to cry a lot when Grandfather was alive.
Grandfather died when I was real little, so I only remembered the fun Nanna, not the one Ma was always talking about. That Nanna was quiet and always workin, keepin the house like a new pin and makin sure supper was on the table at exactly the same time every night. The Nanna I knew played the squeezebox and mouth organ and loved to dance and go fishin. She was always givin cheek and cuddled ya just about every time ya walked past.
She finally dried her eyes and sai
d to Chookie, ‘Where did you git these, baby girl?’
‘Mummy’s had them all the time. When Uncle Georgie chucked em in the rubbish, she went and got em out and put em away. She reckoned one day you might want to have em back. She was gunna bring em round to you herself, but she thought that even if you were cranky at her for savin em all these years, you wouldn’t yell at me. Ya won’t, Aunt, will ya?’
Nanna looked up at her, the tears still runnin down her beautiful, old brown face. ‘Of course I won’t, Chookie.’ Ma took a good long look at the two rows of medals. Service medals, medals for bravery. All from Grandfather’s service in World War Two, from when he had served in New Guinea and was a prisoner of the Japanese for two years.
Ma wasn’t born when Grandfather went to war. That happened a year after he got back. She’d never heard anyone talk about his time in the war, about bein a POW. She never knew he’d won medals. Grandfather never went to any ANZAC marches and always seemed to be a cold and distant man. Everyone was just a little bit scared of him, even though he never raised his voice or hit anyone. There was just this feelin that if he went off he wouldn’t know how to stop.
Ma was real shocked that her dad had all those war medals and asked Nanna how come he’d thrown em away. How come no one ever talked about the fact he’d fought in the war, she wanted to know. And what happened to Grandfather when he was there?
Nanna cried for a while longer, then dried her eyes and started to tell us how the medals came to be thrown in the garbage.
‘First thing, daught. It aint what happened to ya father when he was in the war. Not even bein a prisoner of war. It was what happened when he come home.
‘Your father was one of the handsomest fullas you ever saw. A hard worker and real clever. He invented a little irrigation system so I wouldn’t have ta cart water fom the river and he built us the best house out on the common with separate bedrooms and a nice bathroom outside. He played the guitar and accordion and sang all the time. We used ta sing and play together.
‘We was real happy. Then the war come and even though blackfullas didn’t have ta go, a lot of em from round here went. They reckoned it was their country, they had to keep it safe. Some of the fullas had to stay behind to look after the women and kids, cos we wasn’t safe from a lot of the whitefullas. They used to like sneakin round our camp at night. If there wasn’t some of our men there, I dunno what woulda happened. Gawd, I wish Georgie had been one of the ones to stay behind.
‘When they came and told me he was in a prisoner of war camp, I nearly went mad with worry. I didn’t think I’d ever see Georgie again. Ya know, in a way I never did. Not the one I knew anyway.
‘When he come back he was as skinny as a rake and real quiet. Couldn’t git boo outta im. Just sat inside all day starin at the wall. Didn’t laugh anymore and didn’t play his guitar anymore. That was ok cos I thought I could fatten him up again. And I reckoned if I give him enough time, maybe he would come round to bein the old Georgie again. I thought for sure when I got pregnant he would come round and for a while he did. But then things happened one after the other that just knocked the life and the love clean outta him.
‘First he wants to go to the pub to celebrate and catch up with old mates he fought in the war with. He gits down the pub and they tell him he has ta go drink round the back, he can’t go into the public bar. He went off his head. They reckon he started yellin bout fightin for this country, bout spendin two stinkin years as a prisoner of the Japanese and now he can’t git a drink in a bloody pub in the town he wuz born in!
‘When he come home I thought to gawd he’d take a gun and go and blow everyone’s head off down there. I thought he’d take it and shoot himself. But the saddest thing is, he just sat down in the corner and put his head in his hands and bawled his eyes out. I didn’t know whut to do for him. I didn’t know or understand whut he was goin through and he wuz cut off from the only fullas who did understand, cos of the colour of his skin.’
Nanna started cryin again and we told her she didn’t have ta go on if she didn’t want to. But she said she’d been carryin all this grief round for too long and it was time to bring it out in the open. She dried her eyes and went on.
‘Next thing that happened wuz he needed to go and git a job to support me and the kids but there wuz no work in town so he decided to go shearin. Only trouble is he had to go and git a piece of paper to say he was good enough to go and git a job. We used to call em dog tags. That was the end for him. He reckoned they never asked him to produce a paper sayin he was fit ta die for his country. Anyway, we needed to eat so he went and applied for the paper and the day it arrived, he took his medals and chucked em in the bin.
‘He never went on any ANZAC marches and he never talked about the war. He would turn off the television whenever there was a war picture on. He thought when he got back that he and his family would be treated as good as the whitefullas. He couldn’t understand that we had to sit in special roped-off areas at the pictures. He hated that I couldn’t try on dresses in the store. And it sure did break his heart that his mates never stuck up for him bout goin into pubs. I tried to say that maybe they was scared for themselves and their own families, but he wouldn’t have it.’
Nanna looked at Ma and said, ‘Your father died a broken man, daught.’
Ma was cryin now so I went over and put my arms around her. Dad was just sittin there lookin at the floor. He didn’t know what to say. Chookie was upset cos she thought Nanna would be happy to have the medals back.
Finally Nanna said she was glad. She reckoned she went to rescue em later but they was gone. She was glad that they had been kept safe in the family all these years and told Chookie to tell her mother ta come round and have a yarn with her.
The next day we all got dressed up and went down to the park where there was a big plaque with the names of all the men who had served in World War Two. Grandfather’s name was there, engraved in gold. Ma had walked past that plaque all her life and never knew her father’s name was on it. Nanna placed her sad old hand on it as tears fell down her beautiful, soft brown face. She whispered something and stepped away, and one by one we all went up and said our silent peace to Grandfather’s troubled soul.
When Ma stepped away she just said, ‘I wish I’d known what he went through. Maybe I could have been a better daughter to him and maybe I could have taught you kids how to be better grandkids to him.’
Nanna gave the medals to Ma. Reckoned they were her legacy, so she took them home and polished em up and put them in pride of place on the mantlepiece. My brother says he wants to wear them in the local ANZAC march next year. Ma reckons she’ll have to think real hard bout that.
Whitefulla dreamin
Me, Antman and Fleabag was fruit pickin down south when we run across a bunch a dreadlocked ferals in an old beat-up panel van. They was doin some pickin to git enough money to go up north to what they reckoned was gunna be a dreamin festival. They reckoned we should go along. They reckoned it’d be real ‘trippy’.
Even though me and Ant is blackfullas, we aint ever been to a dreamin festival. Anyway, cos it was up north and we aint ever been up that way, we reckoned if we went, we could git ta meet all our bruthas and sistas from the coast and the mountains; git ta hear bout their mob and their ways. So we thought what the fuck, let’s just cruise up there and check it out.
So when we finished up work we headed up that way. We weren’t used to all those mountains, windin roads, all that thick forest. We both reckoned there’d be a lot of powerful spirits livin in there in the damp and the dark, so we only travelled during the day. We liked the ocean and the beaches and camped out on them for a few days. But cos we aint used to the ocean, we didn’t swim out too far and Flea give it a miss altogether, which was funny cos he loves swimmin. Ant reckons it’s cos he’s a freshwater mutt that he didn’t trust the ocean and never stopped barkin till we was outta the water and safe on the beach.
Anyway, we gits up to this little town. I
t was lousy with hippie and feral fullas. They was all headin out to the festival so we just followed em. There was camps everywhere and all kinds of em. Some was in trees, and there was teepees, tents, lean-tos, campervans, and some people just had swags on the ground, and some were campin in caves. They all had dreadlocks and dressed in cheesecloth and old tie-dyed shirts, t-shirts with Che and Mao on the front, ragged old trousers and skirts that twirled round the women’s legs when they moved. Some had no clothes on at all. All their kids were dressed the same and had dirty faces. They was all gittin in touch with nature and livin on mung beans, home-made wine and yahndi. Ant reckoned a lot of em could afford to starve for a while cos they probably had trust funds and could rely on mummy and daddy to send money if they needed to.
There was fullas playin guitars and sitars and bongo drums and funny lookin Japanese flutes. Some were dancin to the music you could hear, some dancin to music only they could hear. There was some fullas just whirlin round and round in the same spot. Ant asked someone what they was doin and he said they was whirlin dervishes and followed some ancient religion from the Middle East.
There was all kinds of stalls sellin all kinds of shit. String bags, crystals, hand-made jewellery, painted rocks, clothes, hand-made flutes and other kinds of musical instruments. We walked round for a long time lookin at things, and listenin to the different bands. One thing for sure, there was no country music and sure as fuck there was no other blackfullas.
Ant said ta me, ‘If this is supposed ta be a dreamin festival, where are all the fuckin blackfullas?’
While we was wanderin round the stalls tryin, in vain it turns out, ta find a food stall that sold tucker with meat in it, we come across a stall sellin didjeridoos, or yidakis as the fulla sellin em liked to call em. They was decorated with Koori symbols and dot paintins so Ant asked who painted em and who he was sellin em for. Proud as punch the fulla said that he made and painted em. Said he’d lived up in the Territory with ‘real Yolngu people’ and they adopted him into their tribe and give im a skin name and give im permission to make the yidakis and use their dreamin to decorate em. He asked me and Ant if we’d ever been to the Territory to meet ‘real Yolngu people’. He told us it would be nice for us to know about our black side. He said he pitied us fullas who weren’t full blood and what a shame it was that he probably knew more about Aboriginal people than we did. Me and Ant was dumbstruck at what he was sayin to us. He reckoned because he’d been adopted into the tribe he had what we didn’t. His own dreamin place. Ant told him if he didn’t shut his fuckin mouth he’d be back there before he knew it.
Me, Antman & Fleabag Page 4
