‘Well,’ I start to say. ‘Um.’ I don’t want to talk to Bessy. I don’t want to say the name.
‘Teabag. Teabag Jones. Your sw—’
‘Sally. Her name’s Sally.’
‘She asked if I knew a man by that name,’ she continues.
‘And?’
‘And I know him. Lives not far from here, as it happens. Teabag Jones,’ she says. ‘Well, that’s what he’s called. Can’t be too many of them around, hey?’
‘No,’ I manage to say. The bacon looks good.
‘You want me to give you his address?’
I nod. It’s easier than anything else. She pulls a pencil out from between her boobs, licks the end and scribbles on the paper napkin. ‘There,’ she says. ‘Glad I could be of help.’ She stands, straightens her skirt then goes back to the counter, humming.
I tuck the napkin underneath my plate and take a piece of bacon with my fingers.
‘You might be wondering how I came to know him,’ she says behind me.
I glance around, but she’s still rubbing the counter furiously.
‘Well, let’s just say that not everyone gets it right, you know. Some of us have to smell trouble before we know what it is.’
My crunching echoes in my head.
‘He wasn’t all bad,’ she says, sighing. I’m staring at my plate, but she’s still talkin’. ‘But he wasn’t much good, either.’
There’s one egg left on my plate and I’m wondering whether it came from the chook that I hypnotised yesterday.
‘All I’ll say is that it’s easy to get lost in some blokes right off the bat. Oh they can make it all sound like a dream, you know. Their eyes’re so bright you’re blinded. Can’t see the forest for the trees, then.’ She’s humming again and I hear her footsteps clicking along the cement floor. The humming gets softer, I see the door at the end of the bar open. The door closes and I swallow the last of my egg. The coffee is cold, but I drink it anyway.
‘That’s the trouble with those dark blokes. They can blind you with those eyes. I used to think God himself was inside ’em.’
12
The Story of Teabag Jones
Christmas didn’t mean much to the bloke that had just moved into his first home. Life had been tough. School had been a disaster and he’d tried just about everything shitty life had to offer. It was hard having dark skin in this country, even if his parents were white. It was hard to know where to look. What was a bloke like him supposed to do?
Nothin’ seemed to come naturally. Everywhere on the news there was talk of Aboriginal rights. The Tent Embassy, the first raising of the Aboriginal flag. He felt something stir, like part of him belonged to those things, but he was trapped against an overwhelming need to keep going.
His place – his house – was just the beginning of something. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what. He had a job, even if it was only packing things on trucks. It was something to fill his days. At least he was working.
His parents called twice a week. It was too far to see them in person very often. They were busy, he didn’t have a car. Besides, he had to get on with life. He had to find out what he was made of.
It was Christmas Eve, 1974, and the arrival of Santa wasn’t nearly as important as the warnings about the cyclone activity. He had the radio on the kitchen table, the antenna bent at the best angle for reception, and he sat there, listening to everything that was said.
There had been another cyclone warning earlier that month, but it hadn’t come to much, and he didn’t think this would be anything to worry about either. He’d just hang tight, hide in the bathroom, and wait out the storm.
He was going to make himself a cup of tea when the storm suddenly seemed to rip through the world like a beast. The sound of wind and rain and smashing was overwhelming. There was no time to grab anything, no time to wonder about whether he should get out of the house or stay put.
He hid in the bathroom, the strongest part of the house, curled up in the bathtub while the wood panels were ripped from the house joints like flaking blisters. The roof left in surfboards, flying off into the sea outside. Furniture flew everywhere. All around the earth shook and his small house was demolished piece by piece. Nature screamed at everything standing in her way and it crumbled under her.
She’ll win every time.
That night, Tracy tore most of Darwin down to the ground and, for the bloke hiding in the bathtub, the fear and terror were so great he could not even remember his own name.
Tracy left and the sun came up on the world. It was Christmas Day. When he stood up out of the bathtub, his home was unrecognisable. Houses were gone, the streets – if there was any way of telling what streets were and houses were not – were covered in timber and glass, cars, metal sheeting. Fridges, tables, chairs. An entire human world blown to smithereens and demolished into one giant rubbish heap. Nature did this. Nature could do this to people.
It was the girl from up the road who first saw him standing there. Pretty little thing with blonde hair. Her clothes were patchy, wet and smeared with dirt.
‘What’s your name?’ she said to the bloke beside his bathtub. There was no flat, no front yard, no neighbours, no nothing, just...
The bloke shook his head and it was hours before he said any words at all.
There was a small group of people huddled in the corner of the world near where their houses and homes and cars and lives had been. The girl and the bloke clambered over the uneven ground, their feet disappearing in between the rubbish. They stood with the others.
Their eyes were taking everything in, but their minds could not comprehend what had happened. Not truly.
After a while, the bloke lifted his arms to wipe at his eyes and, for the first time since Tracy arrived, realised there was something squashed in his fist. The muscles were so tight around it, clamped shut for hours, that at first he could not open it. The girl took his hand and rubbed it. Her fingers were warm and blood came back into his hand, painfully at first. His fingers opened slowly and, inside, flat against the palm of his hand, was a teabag.
The girl laughed and took his hand in hers. Teabag, for his name, was a tease, at first. Something to bring back a trickle of forced laughter between them all.
‘Geez, mate. Of all the things to hang on to.’
‘Bloody Norah, you’re the laugh.’
‘Shit, hey.’
‘My ring,’ said a woman in the group with them. ‘My ring is gone.’
But something happened there, between that girl and the bloke. She became his first wife.
Long after that – though not as long as it should have been – Dolly was the excuse for a while. How could he love his wife when he felt so strongly for the woman in the van?
Dolly knew what she was to Teabag and it didn’t matter. This one cried on her shoulder.
13
Three more facts. Crocodile attacks.
1. A woman paddles a canoe down a waterway in Kakadu and thinks she hits a log, but it’s a crocodile. The croc tips over her canoe and death rolls her a few times. It mauls her body before she manages to claw herself out of the water and up a bank to safety.
2. A man falls asleep on the McArthur River. He’s taken by a large saltie. His body is found in the croc’s stomach.
3. A yacht moors near a waterfall that empties into a saltwater river in Western Australia. A tourist dives into the water to swim to the waterfall and is attacked by a crocodile. Her body is found in the mangroves.
Three things in common:
1. Crocodiles hide
2. Crocodiles kill humans
3. Humans who lack enough fear die.
/> I’ve got the napkin in my fist. Held tight and crushed into a ball. I’m on a bus heading out of Humpty Doo towards Darwin. I’m in a cage with windows and wheels at two dollars fifty a ride. And everywhere around me there could be fathers. Predators. Paedophiles. I know there’s not. But fear says otherwise.
I’m mad with Sally. And Bessy. They’ve got no right butting in on my life. But every time I think of Sally I love the way she looks. I remember the way she felt. But a panic rises at the same time. I don’t want to find Teabag Jones. I don’t want to have to knock on his door and tell him who I am. The dark-skinned bastard of Dolly Mundy. Who are ya, boy? I can see him saying to me. That’s if he doesn’t shut the door in my face straight away. Me: serious, dark, dirty. His skin will be dark. But he could be anyone. And he probably won’t even remember his shag with Dolly. Bloody hell, I don’t know how she even remembered who they were. How could she remember one bloke from another?
I think about the crocs in the river and even though they all might look the same to a stranger, we can tell them apart, no worries. Maybe it’s like that with women and the men they sleep with. Maybe my mum made all the names up. Just to give me something before I left. Any name’ll do. I wonder if his eyes got her like they got Bessy.
After I’d finished my breakfast, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and frying bacon fat started my stomach turning. I had to get out of there. When I saw the bus coming down the road, I grabbed my bag and the napkin and hopped in.
I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t care. But I’m still hungry. This time I want something sweet.
The bus stops at the shopping centre. I think it’s as good a place as any and I get out.
I’m walking though the shops and it’s almost overwhelming. So many colours, lights, sounds, people. It’s enough to do my head in. Everything for sale: vacuum cleaners, DVD players, fruit, socks, shampoo. There’s a display in the centre of the walkway with cardboard sheets of kids’ projects pinned onto display boards. Australian Pearling History. Legends of our Past. Divers of the Deep. There are ice-cream stick models of boats and larger constructions made out of empty cardboard boxes and string and they’re resting on a sea of blue crepe paper. I stop and read them for a while but I’m joined by strangers, and I don’t like the feeling. I don’t like crowded places. I like being on me own. I need space around me. That’s why I like the bush. That’s why I like working at the Crocs. The river and bush all around. The smell of eucalyptus and damp soil in the humidity. Knowing everything has roots and places. I don’t even mind the tourists. They only arrive in groups, see what they came to see, then leave. There’s a timetable for people there.
Donut King stands like a beacon in the middle of the shopping centre. Bright-pink-neon, sugar-coated, gut-rotting sweet stuff. It’s just what I need.
‘I’ll have a dozen cinnamon ones, thanks. And a coffee. Black. No sugar.’
A smile looks right on a girl in a Donut King uniform. Lolly pink and gummy.
I shove the first donut in my mouth. It goes down easy with the coffee to chase the sugar. I hold the next one in my hand. All of a sudden I can see the aniseed rings in my hand. The small, black, dirty rings. It’s no matter the donut is fat and white, they’re both round and covered in sugar. And for a minute, even though I know it’s nonsense, I feel the black aniseed racing through my blood. Turning my white skin to brown. And the sugar tastes so good, I don’t even know what’s happening. It’s McNabm Blue’s filth that turned me dark. My father had nothin’ to do with it.
I should buy a bottle of water and wash it away. Throw the rest in the bin and dust my fingers on my strides. But I’m hating myself anyway, so I eat two more and lick my fingers clean. And when they’re clean, I lick them again. And it feels like Bait that’s licking me and it’s so awful I can’t stop. The rest of the donuts get squashed in my bag.
I’m wearing my boots, even though it’s Saturday, and they are a comfort to me. I don’t know why. I could kick anything that comes my way to buggery. I could lay into someone and not stop and not even hurt my toes. I’m proud of my boots. I can walk tall. They make me feel like a man and sometimes the feeling of something is all that really matters anyway. I’m reminded of it each time I put one foot in front of the other.
I’m back on the bus. It stops outside the Crocodile Zoo. I don’t want to stay on the bus any more, so I get off. For one day I want to be a tourist. I want to look at everything as if it’s a fuckin’ mystery and I’m in wonder to behold it. I want to buy some expensive souvenir and put it on the fridge in my room. I want to look at something and say, ‘I’ve been there’ without having to hide it under my pillow or the back of my mind. I want to have something I can show people other than just being able to hypnotise a bloody chook. It occurs to me with all this stupid thinkin’ that I want something. But I’ve really got no bloody clue what that is, so I just want something I can have. And it doesn’t much matter what.
Great. I’ve missed the tour. The woman, who takes my money at the checkout, says I can just wander through myself.
‘There’s signs all around the place,’ she says. ‘It’s all there in black and white. Take as much time as you like.’ She’s chewing gum and her skin looks like my own mum’s. Turning to leather in the sun. Her hair is orange on the ends and a yellowy-grey at the roots. Women show their age that way like ring barks on tree. Peel away the colour and you can’t hide exactly how old you are.
I take a quick glance at the souvenir shop behind the café counter. Lots of shit I could buy. In fact, I could decorate my entire room. Hats, boomerangs, mugs, stubby holders, squeaky toys, stuffed toys, fridge magnets, wallets, key chains and tea towels. I decide to leave my shopping for the end and visit the zoo first.
Through the turnstiles, there’s a long walkway that sits high up over the rest of the park. Grey metal railings line the path. It’s long and I can see a ramp leading down to the rest of the park at the other end. But this is where it all starts. With the crocs.
Crocodile Zoo has a lot to interest the tourist. Tigers, monkeys, turtles, birds, snakes – the usual assortment of caged zoo animals – but the main thing people come to see here are the crocs. It might be called a ‘zoo’, but this place is a farm. A crocodile farm. Leather and meat. Crocs are now an international market boom-trade.
The male crocs are below me. There’s heaps of them in little rectangular pens side by side. The first croc I see is huge. Fat and slovenly. The males are kept separate and let into the mating pools when the farm needs a new batch. I’m walking slowly, and there’s croc after croc after croc. A numbing, grotesque feeling creeps over me. None of them have moved. At all. Not even a paw, a claw, a jaw. Crocs can slow their heart rates down to survive. Like a reptilian hibernation. They look like that now, not real. They don’t even look scary. They look sad. They look more fake than Shelby in his orange boxing gloves.
I’m suddenly heavy in my guts. This isn’t what I came for. It’s not what I wanted or expected. I wanted the horror and the shock. I wanted to be one of those tourists on our boats that can’t keep their eyes from bulging out of their heads. I want to feel my heart beating so fast I know I’m alive. I want to be surprised.
I keep walking with my eyes fixed on every croc. I walk down the ramp and there are different pens. There are giant turtles. Slow and ploddy. There’s a keeper in with them, cleaning out their pen. He lifts the turtles up one at a time by gripping them under the top parts of their shells. He puts them close together in one pen while the water drains out of the concrete bath through a large drain in the middle. Further along, another pen is slowly filling with clean water. It’s amazing how much looking after animals require when you take them out of their natural habitat. There’d be no one to change their water out in the wild. They’d have to make do or move somewhere else.
Further along the path are more enclosures with small pools in the centres and concret
e rims around the edges for the crocs at different stages of growth.
There must be five pens with the little crocs. Fully formed and about a metre long. There are so many crocs in one pen I can’t even count them. At least three hundred, I’d guess. They’re all just lying around, layered up over each other. Almost completely covering the ground. It’s sickening. I saw a cockroach infestation once. Layers and layers of the bastards so thick you’d sink to your ankles if you walked through them. That’s what the crocs look like. Only they’re still, unmoving, for the most part. It goes on and on. More and more pens with crocs of different sizes completely filling the pens. Lying in the sun to warm their blood.
I’ve come to the back of the tour group. The guide is standing at the end of the path in front of a tropical fern garden with a group of people around him. I can hear him talking. He’s holding up a little croc, only the length of his arm.
‘Now these little fellas are really fragile. Don’t get me wrong they’re strong. Their body is like one powerful muscle. So when you hold ’im, he might wriggle and you’ll feel ’im, but he can’t hurt you. But they’re only little, and if you drop one, you’ll injure him. Break his bones or rip his nose. Nasty stuff. I had one little fella broke his jaw this morning ’cause a kid dropped ’im. Don’t want to see that again.’
Now I’m fascinated. It’s the thought of a huge predatory monster existing in the fragile form of a little body. All the potential for violence inside it. All it needs is time to expand. Except with this little bloke he’ll be some lady’s handbag before he gets a chance to take her leg.
We’re standing on the path between cages of monkeys and birds. Behind me, back up the way a little in the middle of the path, is a small ice-cream shop. Windows open on both sides. There are monkeys clinging to the bars of their cages. Next to them and behind them are the pens of crocs. It’s suddenly a sad sight. All these wild things in cages where they can be looked at, prodded and poked, trained and fed and watched. I could buy an ice-cream, sit on a seat and watch them all day.
Brown Skin Blue Page 6
