other priorities

Haven’t been writing much on the blog, and probably won’t be so much in future, as I’ve started a new ‘fiction’ cum memoir which I’m quite excited about. I’ll post some of it from time to time – in fact here’s my first attempt at a beginning.

the pursuit of happiness

1. the boys
1975 was, of course, a memorable year in Australian politics. For much of the year, the Whitlam government was storm-tossed. It was putting on a brave face, but the triumphalism was gone, as was no doubt much of the reforming zeal and energy. From the kind of corporate perspective that no true believer would deign to adopt, federal Labor (still Labour then) was apparently on the nose.

As a spasmodically keen follower of the political landscape, I was taking in the scandals and headlines with a growing bemusement, and a natural cynicism about what I was reading and who was writing it, especially in Adelaide’s conservative press. However, I had plenty to distract me. In July of that year I passed my nineteenth birthday with scant celebration or notice in a well-appointed home on sweeping grounds in Norwood, an inner suburb of Adelaide. The home was run by a Christian Organisation called Prisoner’s Aid. My cohabitants included half a dozen teenagers, of whom I was the eldest; a young married couple who lived in the west wing of the moderately palatial residence, a section forbidden to the juvenile delinquents; and three other live-in social workers – Christians all of course.

Briefly, I’d landed up at this place after a misadventure some two hundred miles north of Adelaide, which saw me pass seven days for ‘insufficient means of support’ in a sleepy and semi-abandoned old prison, now a half-hearted museum, in the sleepy old wheat and sheep town of Gladstone. Upon my release, I was given a train ticket back to Adelaide, where I was to be met by a representative from Prisoner’s Aid. I gave them the slip however, and slept a few nights rough. I recall a long night in a shelter by a lawn bowling green, with the rain lashing down, and another evening, perhaps the same one, in which I was taken in by a middle-aged Greek man who spoke proudly, though not overbearingly so, of the many properties he owned in the neighbourhood of his house. He’d simply fallen in step with me on the street – I’d been tramping all day. I was wary of course of his offer of a bed for the night – the classic case of the kind stranger offering sweets – but he looked respectable, and I felt cunning. I would take advantage of his kindness and brush aside any other agenda. In jail all I’d done all day was talk with the other prisoners, all much more serious offenders than myself, and I’d heard hair-raising stories – without raising a hair. Those seven days had given me a wily, if borrowed, self-confidence.

So the Greek gentleman cooked me a simple meal and offered me something alcoholic, which I accepted. He’d been amused to learn that I was of drinking age, as I was small and slightly built, and would easily have passed for a sixteen-year-old. I remember that his home seemed very Spartan for a man of such property. He showed me the bed I was to sleep in, a single bed in a small, unadorned room, and assured me that the sheets were clean and that there were extra blankets if necessary.

We sat together on his sofa, chatting haltingly. He asked questions about my background and I gave polite but evasive answers. He refilled my glass. He was watching me very closely and I thought I understood the look in his eye. He told me that I was a very pleasant young man, not like so many young people these days who were selfish and loud and ungrateful, with no respect. He said it was sad that such a nice boy as myself should find himself so alone in the world, with not even a roof over my head. And he with a bed to spare, just waiting there, night after night, with nobody using it…

I liked the man, or at least I didn’t feel afraid of him, though I felt a little uncomfortable, that there was something unspoken in the air. Doubtless the alcohol emboldened me, and I said, Sorry to interrupt, but I was just wondering, are you homosexual? I don’t mind at all, but I’m not myself, you see, or not much, I mean, I just wanted to make it clear…

He reacted rather badly. He drew himself up. He wondered how I could think such a thing. He stood up and strode out of the room. He came back and looked down upon me. He wondered how I could possibly say such a thing, think such a thing. Such a shocking, shocking thing. Again I tried to explain that it wasn’t shocking, it was simply… But No, no, it was too much, I would have to leave. No, he couldn’t have someone who thought such a thing of him… No, I had to leave.
He stood on the porch and watched me go. I presume it wasn’t snowing, but I do recall wishing he would go inside so I could curl up on his porch like the little matchmaker. In fact though I felt quite light-headed, just a little miffed at having made a silly move, like a novice chess-player. It hardly occurred to me to wonder what kind of a night he’d spent after he’d turfed me out.

I had a Prisoner’s Aid card in my pocket, so I finally got in touch and was welcomed into their fold. My first memory of the place was of them saying Grace at the enormous dinner table. A terrible shock to my pagan heart, and possibly the first time I’d experienced such a thing outside of American movies. A couple of the delinquents glanced about and sniggered silently. I soon found the right pose, of open-eyed contemplative condescension, which I maintained on such occasions throughout my stay.

I was assigned a bottom bunk bed in a room of, I think, three bunks, and maybe five boys sharing. I remember being much distracted by the beauty of the boy in the bottom bunk across from me, his name was Murray and he was only fifteen, the youngest of our tribe.