by Arnold Zable
Again, that uneasy silence—and a shift in the audience’s perception of the showman who had bounded onto the stage full of zest. The pain of the memory now exposed. An abiding guilt. The sport is violent. It can kill.
The audience is holding its collective breath, looking for a way out, a redeeming script. And he obliges. He was tortured by that bout. He was never again the same fighter. He slid into addiction and self-loathing. He tried to kill himself.
But he dragged himself back. He became a close friend of the man he crippled. He hosted benefit dinners and raised money for medical bills. He wheeled him about. He helped his family. He offered him respect. And he received his forgiveness. He had done the right thing.
The audience is with him; he is the preacher and they, the converted, are silently spurring him on.
‘It’s what you do after you leave the ring that counts,’ he says. He had turned his life around, and become a Christian. He works with troubled youth, guiding them off the streets, helping them kick their addictions. He is passing on his skills.
‘Better for a lad to be in the ring than out on the streets,’ he says. ‘You got lots of talent here. Future world champs. You do the right thing. You help a man who has fallen on hard times. You use your fame to lift a lost soul into the light. Help him realise his dreams.’
The audience is on its feet. Henry’s fists are raised. His face is flushed. He applauds with his peers. This is what it’s about—redemption—the archetypal tale. You too can be saved. It’s never too late. There is always another chance. Henry is back on firm ground.
The balance is restored. Conversations resume, the clamour of voices is scaling new heights. The drinks are flowing. The dessert is being wheeled out. There are cheeses and chocolates for the taking. The fight is over. Relax. Lower your guard.
10
The following day Henry is out and about. There’s work to be done. The yellow Hyundai is his office, and the mobile is plugged into his ears.
Mum, poor girl.
She knew what it is to feel worthless, to be stripped of purpose. Bereft of hope. The image of her terror flits through his mind. There are impressions that cannot be erased.
Mum, poor girl.
The mobile interrupts his thoughts.
‘Henry, it’s Dave.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Getting discharged from detox.’
‘Oh, why mate, why?’
‘Got to get out.’
‘Can’t you hang on?’
‘I can’t, Henry. I can’t.’
‘Just a few more days?’
‘I told you, Henry. I can’t.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to R’s—for a drink.’
‘Why mate? Why drink your life away?’
‘It’s my life, Henry. You can’t tell me what to do.’
‘Your father just died from the drink. Why follow in his footsteps?’
‘It’s just one drink, Henry.’
‘That’s what you always say.’
‘Henry, you’re startin’ to shit me.’
‘You’ll end up in jail.’
‘I’ll just do the detox again.’
‘Well, it’s up to you mate.’
‘I’m trying, Henry. I’m trying.’
‘I don’t know if I’ll always be round to help you.’
‘I need your help, Henry. I need help.’
‘Damn. Damn. Damn,’ Henry curses after the call ends. He feels Dave’s struggles as his own. He lifts his left hand off the wheel. ‘Damn. Damn. Damn,’ he repeats, punctuating each word with a fist, the ex-boxer’s reflexive response. His goal is simple—to persuade an addict to see the other side of life. To lift him up.
He has sat with them in gutters, their heads slumped in their hands, and their bodies bent over double, retching. He has dragged them shivering into the back seat of his car. He has watched them in the rear-vision mirror, cowering, curling in on themselves, their voices quivering. Faces twitching. Has seen panic invading their entire being.
Has seen them pounding their foreheads with their fists, slurring: ‘Henry, I’m a useless piece of shit.’ ‘Henry, I’m a fuck’n loser.’ ‘I’m crap, Henry, I’m crap.’
He has heard them protesting: ‘I can’t do it. Henry, I can’t do it. I can’t even stand up in the shower without falling over.’
He has seen them beating walls with their palms and fists, sliding to the floor, or the pavement, resting where they landed, arms wrapped round their shoulders, heads buried, knuckles bloodied, muttering: ‘I should never have been born, Henry. I should never have been fuck’n born.’
He has stood with them in high-rise stairwells, in vacant lots and parklands, and sat with them in health centres, doctors’ waiting rooms and emergency wards. He has visited them in rooming houses, in squats and run-down apartments, prison visitors’ rooms and holding cells. He has pleaded with them, willed them on: ‘Get up. Get moving. Salvation is there for the asking. Reach out and grab it.’
He has sat with them in ambulances, wiped saliva from their mouths, and sponged their faces. Riding the bumps, bracing himself for the unexpected.
He has accompanied them into psych wards and rehab clinics, their bodies strapped to gurneys and wheelchairs, their hands tearing at the straps, fists pounding at empty air.
He has driven for hours to visit them in regional detox centres, in country jails and prison farms, in halfway houses and in maximum security.
He has held them, cradled them, urging them on: ‘You have to do it, mate! Come on! You’re going to have to struggle a bit longer.’
He has answered their calls in the dead of night: ‘I don’t want to be on my own, Henry. I don’t want to be on my own.’
Has left his home and his family, and stayed by their bedsides till dawn, and tiptoed out with the promise of return.
He has come upon them in street brawls, kids on smack and speed, kicking the shit out of each other. On the rampage, unleashed. Exultant. Oblivious to their own pain, and the pain they are inflicting. Has pulled them apart, sent hoodlums reeling with a single counter punch and, once they’re subdued, hugged them. Then lifted them off the ground, held them high and told them he loved them.
He has watched them, children of the night, shadowed by pimps and minders: boys in short shorts, studded belts and singlets; skimpily clad girls heavy with makeup, clutching handbags in one hand, applying lipstick or eyeliner with the other, affecting the nonchalant poses of seasoned professionals.
Has seen them standing in dimly lit streets, where men cruise by, slowing to inspect the merchandise, then accelerating, rounding the block and returning for another look, a pick up. Seen them take their chances with strangers and argued with them. Urged them to get off the game and braved their refusals.
‘Fuck off Henry. It’s good money. Got a better offer?’
He has found them late at night, kids as young as ten, warming themselves in city arcades and poolrooms; has come upon them asleep in warehouses and park pavilions, vacant lots, derelict buildings. Curled up in the back seats of dumped cars, and on railway station benches. He has found them beneath freeways and bridges down by the river, falling asleep to the tremor of traffic, preferring the streets to a parent’s abuse.
He has spread blankets over them and delivered them to hostels and crisis centres, and implored pregnant teenagers to kick their habit. And has withstood the wariness and suspicion. ‘Henry, why are you dead set on helping us? What’s in it for you, mate?’
He has kept track of them in their drifting, in flight from pimps and creditors, in search of fresh starts in greener pastures, and taken their calls from the other side of the continent: young men begging for the price of a return ticket to the familiar streets they had fled from.
‘I’m losin’ it, Henry, I’m losin’ it.’
He has been called to pacify enraged men attacking their wives and girlfriends, their children cowering in the shadows, wailing, and ha
s stepped in to absorb the blows, summoning his ancient fighting skills to put an end to a brutal beating.
He has withstood the taunts, and the drunken threats. ‘Henry, if you don’t fuck off, I’ll kill ya.’
He has faced men, knives in their hands, coming at him, deranged with anger, men so vicious he’s had no choice but to admit failure. Seen them squander their chances until the score sheet is empty and prison the only option.
He has had to accept there are souls so tormented and defeated that nothing can be done. Nothing. He has seen kids become addicts, become thugs, become dealers, become thieves and armed robbers, prisoners, recidivists—an infernal wheel of release and imprisonment.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
He has seen drink unleash the furies. Juveniles in men’s bodies, beer in hand, arms flailing, the police drawing up and tackling them to the footpath. Five hefty cops on top of one rage-stricken body, cheek pinned to the asphalt. Foam gathering at the mouth, as he is subdued, handcuffed, and carted off to the divvy van.
He has seen them fall, never to get up.
Has received the phone call: ‘Henry, I can’t stand it. I can’t handle it. I can’t do it any more.’
And he has responded, ‘Where are you? I’ll come, mate. You don’t have to hurt yourself. Hang in there. Hang in there.’
‘Henry, leave me be. I can’t take it any more.’
‘Just tell me where you are, mate. I won’t stop you. I’ll just come over. Hang in there.’
‘Henry, I can’t fuck’n stand it.’
He has found them dead in the morning. Or read about them in the paper—boys he had implored not to top themselves.
Cemeteries are on his beat. Fawkner and Melbourne, Spring-vale, quiet country graveyards. Rarely more than a couple of months go by without Henry attending a funeral. It’s a familiar scene—a huddle of friends assembled graveside, dwarfed by the space, a scattering of cypress and open skies, brief eulogies evaporating into silences.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Each death is a personal loss, but there is little time to pause. Henry cannot look back. He cannot fall prey to doubt. He cannot lose momentum.
And there is something else, always something else. It lies buried, barely kept in check. The whisper returns.
Mum, poor girl. Mum, poor girl.
The enduring memory of a mother’s terror.
He is unnerved. Weary. In need of respite.
11
Henry parks the Hyundai near the Vic Market. Weeks can go by, months, but sooner or later he finds himself drawn back to the two-storey bluestone. The Spiritualists’ Union is a modest presence on a narrow street, rising hard against the footpath.
He climbs the stairs to the first-floor landing. The walls on either side of the staircase are crowded with portraits: bearded presidents and church founders, sketches of psychics and healers, and of spirit guides and sages bent over parchments, penning messages received from ‘the other side’.
A woman by the auditorium door hands him a blue folder songbook. The songs are an eclectic mix of hymns and popular classics: Satchmo and Cat Stevens: ‘What a Wonderful World’, ‘Morning Has Broken’. An organist plays ‘Abide With Me’; then switches to a medley of waltzes. Up the back an elderly couple dance to ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’. They step lightly, swaying cheek to cheek in mock intimacy.
The hall is carpeted in blue, as are the three steps that lead to a small stage. The navy-blue curtain drapes the back wall. Centrestage stands the speaker’s mic and to the left, a wooden lectern. The piano and the stage are decked out in bouquets of fake flowers.
Henry sits in the front row and glances about him. The chairs are white plastic, with seats upholstered in red fabric. For the first time in weeks, he switches his mobile to silent.
He looks up at the exposed beams of the ceiling. He surveys the congregants seated against a wall on blue upholstered benches. Most of them are casually dressed in jeans, open-necked shirts and jumpers, the women in denims and plain dresses.
They are at home in the modest surroundings. Many are lost in contemplation. Several old men are slumped back, chins fallen upon their chests. Dozing. Above them hang brass plaques with honour rolls of past members, long-dead notables of the union. The wall is lined with framed pencil drawings, swirls of colour said to represent states of feeling.
Henry closes his eyes, and straightens his back. He rests a hand on each knee, palms up, thumb and forefinger lightly touching. His breath is slowing, his mind settling. His eyes remain closed while the leader of the service steps up to the lectern and recites the dedication and invocations, instructions to tend the poor and downtrodden.
Henry listens with rapt attention. He leans forward to take in her homilies: On this earthly plane we need just three things—food, warmth and comfort. That’s all we need to be content and protected… As you give, so you will get back…Yesterday I was clever and I wanted to save the world. Today I am wise and I’m saving myself…
Henry nods his assent, sings: ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’. Drifts in and out of meditation. He is both present and lost in reflection.
He has sought the truth for many years, answers to that nagging question: What is life’s purpose? He has consulted psychics downstairs, behind the drawn curtains of the ground-floor cubicles. He has sat in the polished pews of churches and synagogues, on cushions in Buddhist temples, and on the hard marble floors of ashrams. He has attended séances and study groups in the reading rooms of the Theosophical Society.
He has consulted mediums and conversed with priests and rabbis, and has accumulated books on many traditions, treatises written by philosophers and self-styled healers. He has been to India and sat at the feet of gurus. He has attended international multi-faith gatherings and travelled the islands of the Philippines to study with faith healers, catching them out in their deceptions.
He is drawn to the quest rather than the argument, to fellowship more than definitive answers. As long as he is among people of good will he is placated. He is an agnostic rather than a disciple, neutral rather than impassioned, seeker rather than believer. But if a door is open, he will enter. If there is discussion he will join it. And if there is meditation he will close his eyes and, at long last, he will cease running.
There is space in this modest hall, blessed space within which to release himself from his body, and to drift a while. And time in which to relive and reflect on his day-to-day encounters. On this Sunday afternoon, Henry is thinking of a dying man. The image is lucid. The man is lying on a hospital bed. He is in intensive care, on life support, a captive to machines, and to the tubes of mechanical ventilation.
Henry has known him for thirty years and long tended him in his heroin addiction. He received the call from his family yesterday evening. The man was found in a coma, slumped on the sand against a seawall, spent syringes discarded beside him. He has days to live, perhaps hours.
‘Please visit him, Henry,’ his elderly mother pleaded.
Henry sat by the man’s hospital bed into the early hours of the morning. He talked to him, told him to hang in there. Told him he loved him. Urged him to fight on, told him he could make it. When the service ends he will return to his bedside, but for now he has time. His mind is loose to wander.
Mum, poor girl. If only the healers and mediums could have helped you. If only I had a clairvoyant’s eyes, I might have seen the ghosts and phantoms. If only I had psychic powers—perhaps I could have discovered your secrets. Maybe understood you better. Maybe saved you.
Mum, poor girl.
The mantra is engraved in his consciousness.
It surfaces now in the auditorium of the Spiritualists’ Union, and with it the image of a single-fronted brick house, and a glimpse of a father’s despair. A mother’s fury.
12
Henry is back on home turf driving north on Rathdowne Street. He turns right at the Great Northern, and right again into Amess Street. He parks the Hyundai on the diagonal to the
footpath one house from the Pigdon Street corner.
Two hundred and twelve is a workers’ cottage, six paces wide. The roof is made of red tiles, and the walls are red brick. A box-bay window juts from the front bedroom. It has three vertical panels of etched glass, the centrepiece graced with a floral pattern. The plain door that once stood here is long replaced by a restored period piece. The low brick fence encloses a slab of concrete, barely a metre wide, devoid of plants and flowers. The door is set within a tiny portico.
Henry stands and looks at the house, and walks around the corner to the back lane that runs off Pigdon Street. The lane is barely a metre wide. Asphalt. Strewn with weeds and garbage bags. All is miniature: low-slung backyards and houses with fences of galvanised iron and timber. Henry recalls the pocket-size garden and the weatherboard laundry. From the outside, all appears as it once was, but it seems far smaller.
It is sixty years since the Nissen family moved in, and more than four decades since Henry lived here. And it’s more than fifty years since he first set out on the 150-metre walk to the Reads’ boxing gym.
Retracing the steps now, Henry stops to greet passers-by. He cannot resist an opportunity. He falls into conversation with a neighbour two doors up. She had moved in long after the Nissens left. On the timber veranda stands a tricycle, and beside the front door, a basketball and a ragged row of runners.
The front garden is luxuriant. Creepers scale the side fences. A young citrus is weighed down with oranges. An olive tree leans over the footpath. Henry stands beneath the canopy as he tells the woman that he once lived at 212 with his twin brother, Leon, his older brother, Solly, his younger brother, Paul, and his sister, Sandra, the baby of the family.
‘Such a small house and so many of us,’ Henry says. ‘Solly died a few years back, and the rest of us live in distant suburbs now. He was sixty-one when he died. He smoked and drank too much, the poor bugger. Died of lung cancer.’
The woman is in a hurry. She has to pick up her children. Henry would have told her his life story if she’d had time to listen.
