Working Class Boy

by Barnes, Jimmy

  Anyway, it was only a matter of time before the sad day came that the chickens had to go. We couldn’t feed them and we didn’t have anything to eat ourselves so Mum said to Dad, ‘Jim, ya lazy bastard. You’re goin’ to have tae go oot there and kill a chicken or two to feed the weans.’

  Now Dad hated any cruelty to animals. He didn’t seem to mind cruelty to humans; but they could speak up for themselves, animals couldn’t. He had names for them all and the thought of having to kill them broke his heart. Dad preferred the company of animals to humans. You only had to look at his friends to see that.

  I remember that fateful day. He went out to the backyard with a hatchet and called out to the girls, ‘Harriet, Gertrude, Dot. Come here, girls.’

  They had names like that. How one got named after my mum I don’t know; maybe they both had thin legs. Only Dad could answer that question. I sat and watched my dad sit down and cry as he told them what he had to do. ‘I’m sorry, ladies. This is not my idea. The battleaxe inside says the kids have tae eat. So please forgive me.’

  Obviously Dad hadn’t done anything like this before. In Glasgow you only killed things that were trying to kill you first. And normally they had axes too.

  Well, he chopped the head off one of his chickens. Funny, Dot was chosen first. She ran around the yard headless and bleeding to the sound of my dad screaming like he’d killed one of the kids. It was all too much for him. He wiped the blood from his face and hands and walked out of the yard and down to the pub. We didn’t see him again for days.

  Mum had to finish the job off; she had been ready to kill something or someone for years. Thank God Dad was gone. And after a few tears and protests from us kids, not to mention the chickens, we sat down to a meal of Mum’s boiled chicken. That’s what we ate for about a week. Chicken, followed by more chicken, until they were all gone. We hated chicken by the end but after a few weeks we would have done anything for another chicken to eat.

  I didn’t like chicken for a while after that. Just like corn and pumpkin. But not for long. Beggars can’t be choosy. And we were obviously beggars.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  cardboard inside our shoes

  There were days we would be kept home from school waiting for Mum’s children’s allowance cheque to come in the mail. It was too wet to go without the right clothes or shoes to wear. Mum would be waiting on the only money that Dad couldn’t get his hands on, so she could count on that at least. Fourteen dollars a fortnight was all it was, but it meant we could eat or she could buy a pair of shoes for one of us; we all needed them.

  We would go to school in the rain with bits of cardboard stuck inside our shoes, covering the holes in the bottom, hoping it would stop the water coming in and wetting our already frozen feet. The cardboard never really worked. It seemed fine at home but once you left the house water just oozed in. I used to sit in school with cold, wet feet. I’d be hungry and uncomfortable and I just couldn’t concentrate on what was going on in front of me. I think the teachers knew because they would reach out and try to help me get through the work.

  Sometimes school was great because we could forget what was going on at home for a while, but other times the water inside your shoes or the dirty clothes you were wearing just made it too hard to forget what was happening. There were a lot of other kids who looked like they were escaping something or someone, or maybe both.

  The kids at the school all looked the same. Mostly immigrant kids who came from lower working-class families that were struggling to get by. Most of us wore clothes that were either second-hand or looked second-hand; some were cleaner or newer than others. We were all wearing coats that our big brothers or sisters had been wearing the year before, well past their prime by the time we got our hands on them. Shirts with odd buttons sewn on them. Pants with patches on them covering holes that had been made the year before. Each patch like a reminder of a winter past full of sliding, playing football on grass and mud and gravel.

  Everybody wore shoes that were scuffed and dirty. I wondered how many of the kids were like me and had pieces of cardboard box stuffed into the soles of their shoes. My socks always seemed to have holes in them too. Sitting in class with your toes sticking through a huge hole in your sock could be so distracting. A lot of things were missed in class as I tried to concentrate on wriggling my toes into a position where the hole would stay covered.

  ‘Do you know the answer, Jim?’

  ‘Ah, no miss, I wasn’t listening. I dropped my pencil. Sorry.’

  ‘Pay attention, Jim, and try to keep your feet still please.’

  The teacher always seemed to smile as if she knew what was going on.

  ‘Yes, miss, I’ll try.’

  And I would return to my magician’s trick of getting my toes back into the socks that were not capable of holding them anymore without anyone noticing.

  If my feet were too wet, I would try to slip my shoes off under my desk to let them dry. But when the socks were in too bad a condition my feet had to stay hidden in my shoes. It was the only way. I didn’t need something else to be embarrassed about.

  * * *

  My brother John was so proud to be a Scot that he would wear a kilt to school. He said it was because he was proud of where he came from but I thought it was so he could swing at anybody who commented on his clothes. Maybe that was the best thing he had to wear, I can’t remember. He looked very smart. Even the teachers commented on how good he looked. But, of all the Scots that were in the school, I know that John was the only one who wore a kilt. I never inherited the kilt so I didn’t have to fight as much as John, thank God.

  John also played snare drum for the whole school to march in time to when we were called to assembly. He was always standing still and straight with his sticks at the ready. Waiting for a nod from the teacher or the headmaster. Then he would press the sticks to the skin and begin to play. If you had seen him, you would have thought he was playing at the Edinburgh Tattoo. Head up, eyes straight ahead. Perfect posture. He learned all this from the pipe band, where he was a member, which was another reason he gave for wearing his kilt.

  ‘I need to wear this if I’m going to play the drums properly.’

  ‘Can I play your drum, John?’

  ‘No you can’t.’

  Whenever John left his drum lying around I would give it a bashing but he never caught me.

  Later on, after John left the primary school, I became the drummer too. I tried to be as good as John, but my posture was never like his. Still, I thought I was just like my big brother, which made me very happy.

  John was dabbling in rock music between his time playing football and playing with the pipe band. His band would come to the house to practise when Mum and Dad weren’t there, which was more and more by then, so it’s little wonder that the neighbours never talked to us. I think they might have been afraid of us. I don’t know why really. They wouldn’t even nod hello if I passed them on the street. Maybe it was because I jumped from the roof into their garden sometimes. But I think it was probably because Mum would scowl at them and say stuff like, ‘What the fuck are you looking at, stupit?’ or ‘Take a fuckin’ photo, it lasts longer,’ whenever she stormed out of the house after fighting.

  I’m sure our neighbours had their own problems, but not like ours. To me, no one did.

  At school I made up for all the things we didn’t have by trying really hard. I became top of my class. I was smart but I also tried harder than everyone else because I wanted to feel as good as the rest of the kids. I didn’t want anybody to know what was going on at home.

  In my first class in Elizabeth West Primary School all the kids loved our teacher. She was so calm and caring and seemed to have time for every one of us. She was never too busy to help you draw or try to write. It was her job, I know, but she made us all feel good as she did it. At the end of every day we would all line up at her desk to say goodbye, as if each one of us was the only one she cared about. We wouldn’t want to go to our hom
es and face whatever was going on. I remember seeing my teacher crying after giving one of the kids a cuddle one day. The teachers seemed to know that the kids needed a little more care than normal and they all gave it to us. We were lucky.

  For some reason I was singled out as a singer in my class. The teachers would make me sing any song that we had learned. I would be chosen to go around the other classes and show them what we were doing. Some of the songs were traditional school songs, others were Australian folk songs. They were always trying to remind us that we lived in the lucky country. It didn’t always feel that lucky but it wasn’t snowing on us and the sun did seem to shine a lot more here than in Scotland.

  At Christmas time we sang carols. Not simple everyday Christmas carols, but songs about goannas and brolgas. I remember standing in front of one class singing ‘Orana Orana to Christmas Day’. I sang it with so much heart and love. I didn’t have a clue what Orana meant. Still don’t. But I knew the birds were singing too and if cockatoos were singing it, it was good enough for me.

  I guess I couldn’t have been too shy or I could never have done this. I was pretty happy to get out in front of the other students and belt out a song. I think I liked the attention; it made me feel special, or just good about myself. I didn’t have a lot to be proud of as a child. I was always feeling not good enough on some level, and singing was the one thing that made me different from the other kids. I could sing; it was my gift. The teachers thought it was a good thing too. I worked out that singing made me look better than I thought I actually was. This is another one of those things I learned at an early age and have used all my life to make myself feel good.

  My first good mate at school was a guy called Rob and he and I were inseparable. We hung out all day at school and played football until dark after school. We both came from poor families but for some reason I always felt that Rob’s family was a little more stable than mine. He and I wouldn’t talk much about what went on at home or anywhere else come to think of it; we lived in our own world. He was always a little nervous around people and I got the impression he was like me, always a little scared. I think he might have started hanging out with me because I wasn’t afraid to fight anyone who bullied us. Rob and I would sit together in class and hang out at lunch break. We both had no money so we quite often shared whatever we had to eat; sometimes that wasn’t very much. We were best mates and what I had was his and what he had was mine. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot.

  ‘Are you hungry, Jim?’ he’d ask as he pulled out his lunch. He could tell by the way I was looking at it that I needed something. It wasn’t a lot but he was happy to give me half.

  Some days I would feel so bad because I knew he was hungry too. So I would pretend. ‘No thanks, mate. Not hungry. You eat it.’

  But we were mates and if Rob felt bad, I felt bad too. A year or so later, I noticed things weren’t going as well for Rob at home as they had been. He seemed to be a bit withdrawn and he started to look paler than usual, like he wasn’t getting enough sleep. I thought he might have been sick or something.

  ‘Are you all right mate?’ I asked. But he couldn’t talk about whatever it was.

  ‘Yeah. Mum and Dad are fighting a lot.’

  ‘So are mine. They always do. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yeah, suppose you’re right. Let’s go.’

  We still laughed and ran around wild all day. Then one day after school he said to me that he couldn’t play, he had to go straight home.

  ‘Why? Stay and play football with me at the shops.’

  ‘Na. Dad’s not good and I best get home.’

  ‘What – is he sick or something?’

  ‘Na. Not really. I gotta go.’

  We both laughed, but inside we knew it was no laughing matter. We walked together as far as the corner.

  ‘See you tomorrow, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, see you then.’

  And I headed to my place and Rob went to his.

  He got home, walked in the front door and found there was no one in the house. He went through the lounge room into the kitchen and still he couldn’t find his parents. So he walked towards the back door and saw his dad, sitting on the step of the back porch looking out onto the red dusty backyard. That’s when he noticed the shotgun in his mouth. He quickly opened the door but before he could shout stop, his dad pulled the trigger, spraying blood and brains all over him. I’m sure his dad wasn’t expecting him home. But Rob was never the same from that day on. We stayed friends until he and what was left of his family moved away. They couldn’t take living in that house anymore.

  I caught up with Rob many years later at a pub and we had a few drinks. He and a few friends came back to my place for a party. I knew he had changed a lot, but after what he’d been through, I thought that was fair enough. I wanted to reconnect with him, even if it was just for a night, but it never happened. Of course we’d had a lot to drink, but I noticed earlier in the night that his eyes were all glazed over. Then later on he grabbed me to one side and asked me to have a shot of heroin with him. I was just drunk enough that he nearly talked me into it too. I even let him tie a belt around my arm and get the needle ready before my survival instincts kicked in and I said no. This was not the same guy I had run around the oval with at school. This wasn’t the guy who shared what little food he had with me when we were kids. He was gone; he died that day on the back porch of a dusty, cheap, housing trust house with his dad.

  I never really saw him again after that, maybe once, but we didn’t have a lot to say. I hope he’s still alive and has found some happiness. Rob was my best mate and I loved him. I died a little for him that day too.

  * * *

  When I was seven or so, Dad decided to get us a dog. I think it was for himself actually. It was a beautiful collie that looked like Lassie. We all loved him and wanted to walk him and brush him all the time. But we weren’t allowed to walk him unless Mum or Dad told us we could.

  One afternoon when I finished school, I went into the backyard and decided to take the dog for a walk without a leash. I knew if I asked my folks for the leash they would say no, so it was a bit sneaky.

  The dog was very clever and followed me everywhere. I was having the best time. I was on my way home and I was running so I would get there before Mum or Dad knew the dog was missing. I was about two streets from our house when I looked behind me to see the dog running across the road just as a car came speeding by. The car hit the dog and never even stopped. I ran out onto the road and I held the dog in my arms. I pulled him close to me, sobbing and telling him how sorry I was, as he slowly stopped breathing.

  By the time anybody came to help, I was covered in blood and the poor little dog had died. I just wanted to sit and hold him until he was okay again. Someone went to get my mum and I just sat and cried. I cried for days and even to this day I wish I hadn’t taken the dog out.

  I wanted to play music. Any music. I started playing the coronet which was basically the same as a trumpet. It was shiny and loud and that was all I needed. I was learning from the Salvos, but this meant I had to do Sunday school and have people preaching at me. So I didn’t last too long. Long enough to drive the neighbours completely nuts though. I would practise in the room right next to their wall. At night when Mum and Dad weren’t there I would play even more, just to drive the rest of the kids nuts too. I wasn’t playing Miles Davis or anything cool, just Salvos songs. Eventually I drove myself nuts. So the coronet had to go.

  I was keen to join up to the pipe band with John. So off I went to the Caledonian Society Pipes and Drums. John played the military snare and I moved on to the bagpipes. Now there was a musical instrument that made a lot of noise. Like I told you, I had grown up listening to bagpipes. I knew what they meant to Scots everywhere. When I heard them, my heart beat faster, I loved it. But to learn to play bagpipes you have to learn the basics on an instrument called the chanter. A scrawnier-sounding musical instrument has never existed. I think that cobras would
throw themselves in front of passing cars rather than have to climb out of a basket and dance to a chanter. It peeled paint off the walls. It takes many years to master the chanter, and even when mastered I don’t think anyone plays it for enjoyment. But it is the only way to the bagpipes and I wanted to play bagpipes so much.

  On joining the band, I learned that discipline was a big part of being in a pipe band. You worked as a unit to play and to march in military formation while doing it. It seemed to be like lessons in being truly Scottish. There was no one but Scots in the society; it was a new place I had found where Scottish people could congregate and celebrate being Scottish. Up until that time I thought the only place this happened was in the pub.

  There were members of the band who drank but this was not a drinking club. This was important business and the other members took the music, the marching and the culture very seriously. I felt a new sense of pride about being Scottish. Before then I was proud to come from Scotland because that was what every drunken Scotsman I had ever encountered had asked of me. This was a different sort of pride – pride based on doing something great together.

  I remember the man who taught me the chanter was a very straight Scotsman. A lot of Scotsmen seem to be either drunks or really straight. There’s not too many in the middle. We tend to be a tad extreme, us Scots. This one was a really nice man but I knew he didn’t like my mum and dad which put me off him a bit. But he would give me extra lessons for free at his house. I think he felt sorry for me.

  He was a stern-looking man who didn’t smile at all even if I got things right. ‘Aye that’s good, now just stand up straight and get on wi’ it. You’ll never make a piper wi’ posture like that,’ he would bark at me like we were marching in the band already. His accent was very broad, though I knew he had been in Australia a long time. It seemed to me he was one of those people who weren’t really happy to have left Scotland. Just like the windmills and clogs in my Dutch friend’s house, he had little bagpipers in full tartan regalia and a small Edinburgh Castle standing proudly on his mantelpiece. He was holding on to everything Scottish he could, including his accent. He rolled his r’s and broke into broad Scots whenever he could.