The Last Lingering Kiss.

 

I was told this little episode of life in the hushed tones of scandal by a nun I once knew many years ago…I thought it was one of the most tragic things in the everyday work-world that I had ever heard…

It went like this..:

The Last Lingering Kiss.

“ I can’t stop now!” she gasped a passionate moan as her arms reached for him..”I’ve desired you for too many nights.”

He responded huskily, his taut, muscular arms embracing her and driving out all resistance. It was as if some strange, torrid tempest had suddenly descended down on to their bodies as they struggled to out-do one another in the removal of their clothing. He grasped her in his arms and lifted her clear of the carpet, his lips parted and he moaned as he buried his face in her soft, ample, velvet-like breasts.

“Ohh. Brendon !”,she cried, surrendering her body to his firm, impatient, maleness.”Hold me”, she quivered.

“You’re trembling”, he whispered… ”

Sergeant Tom Flannigan closed the book with a wince and a sad hiss of breath. Distracted by a sudden rising of the wind in the mallee trees outside, he gazed in silent contemplation at raindrops streaking against the window.

“Right on time,” he mumbled to himself. He was referring to those first good rains of the season. ”Tim’ll be glad he finished seedin’ this mornin’ “.

His gaze moved from the window back to the book on the desk in front of him. He picked it up wearily and slipped it into an opaque, plastic bag that contained five similar paperbacks. He then folded the top over and sealed it with three staples and labeled it :

Evidence….stolen property, Crown v’s accused : Sr. Mary Margaret : Principal / Teacher ; St Joseph’s School, West Waylong…Victoria ..Age : 43 yrs.

Tom Flannigan read back over the label, he snorted when he came to Sr. Mary Margaret’s status in this small country town and spoke out loud..;

“Principal, teacher, Also ; lay missionary, August leader of the Sunday prayers, choir organizer / lead singer, dishwasher, cook, cleaner ,bottle washer, big mother to all the god fearing god hating lonely poor beaten, broken down and out bastards between Bourke and bloody Booleroo Centre….the “ear” to the community..God have pity on her.”

He rose and with an angry tug on a hanging string, extinguished the light. The police station at West Waylong was a residential, so the distance between work and home was the thickness of a door jamb.

Tom Flannigan was one of those few who could leave their work worries behind them at closing time, besides, Tom had his own worries, for several days now, he had put off writing a reply to his fiancé, not for nothing to write about, but rather, (as she had complained of a “cold, distant feel ” in his correspondence),because of a forlorn search for a more passionate wording of his feelings toward her in his letters.

Although this was the second time around in the marriage game for Tom, it was no easier for him to overcome that word-block of emotional and verbal commitment demanded by women from their suitors! Tom scratched behind his ear as he jiggled the eggs and bacon in the pan..; what to say, what to say;

“I do love you Beth’ with all my heart!” he mumbled such clumsy sentences to himself as he completed cooking his evening meal and crossed to the table. He placed the plate on the table, and after a moments hesitation , decided that the eggs and bacon needed a bit of a “lift”…he took a small tin of baked beans from a cupboard and added it’s contents to the bacon and eggs, speaking theatrically as he did so…

“Your eyes are like the moon,.(a gesture with the hand) your lips are as cherries nah! …your lips are as…as that girl on the toothpaste ad’ nah!”

So you can see, Tom. Flannigan had his mind full of that awful doubt that trips and tangles the lovelorn. Added to this was the fact that his future bride had no intention of ever…ever living in such a distant , lonely town like West Waylong! ….

So he had no thought to ponder on why a respectable, well-educated person like Sr. Mary Margaret would steal tacky romances of pulp-fiction. There were laws in place to govern the prosecution of criminal actions and his was the task to follow those laws through.

Rule# 1 : Never confuse the laws of state with the laws of sentiment. In the morning ,Tom Flannigan would transpose the interview he had with Sr. Margaret from tape to document and pass it on to headquarters for its consideration. As far as he was concerned ; the end of the story….

” Interview with Sr. Mary Margaret… 12th August 19….

Accused of stealing six paperback novels from the “Criterion Book Shop” Main Street , West Waylong ..

Present .Sgt Thomas Flannigan.. Fr. Dennis McCarthy ..Sr. Mary Margaret

Questioning..: Sgt Flannigan..:

I ask: “Were you in the Criterion Book Shop last Friday afternoon?”

Fr. McCarthy. “You answer the questions as best you feel ,Sister.”

Sr. Margaret. “Thank you for that valuable advice Dennis,….to your question , Sgt, : Yes, I was there.”

I ask. “While you were there, did you pick up this book? ( shown paperback).title: “The Last Lingering Kiss”?

Sr. M. “Yes, I did.”

I ask. “You were then seen to place this book in your bag and walk out of the shop….Did you deliberately intend to steal it?”

Fr. McC. “Now Sister, keep in mind you have not yet been charged with any misdemeanor. so you don’t…Sgt, (He confided) I’ve had a call from Monsignor, He has suggested, not without a considerable amount of thought on the subject… keeping in mind the age of Sister and that troubling time of life for women of that age, maybe (he glances to Sr. M.) a touch of kleptomania brought on by the stress of menopause?”

I ask. “Do you wish to comment on that, Sr.?”

Sr. M. “I’d rather retain what little dignity I have left than to respond to ..to Monsignor’s …er, suggestion.” (she crosses hands on top of desk).

I ask. “Then I’ll ask again….did you intend to steal the book?”

Sr. M. (silence…turns eyes askance, blushes…then looks directly at me)”Yes.”

Fr. McC. (groans).

I ask. “These other books were voluntarily given in by you….did you intend to steal these also?”

Sr. M. (breathes deeply)”Yes sergeant, I did.”

Fr. McC. “Why Sister, Why?”

Sr. M. “Because Dennis , of a reason I very much doubt you would understand! neither you nor the Monsignor!”

Fr. McC. “It goes beyond all rational thought, Sister, that you, in particular, could have the slightest interest in these…these trashy productions!”

I ask: “Fr. McCarthy, I am at this time trying to establish the plea of the accused, I am not looking for whys and wherefores…Do you Sr. Margaret, admit to the theft of the aforementioned books?”

Sr. M. (Takes a deep breath)”Yes, Sergeant ,I do.”

Fr. McC. “You do realise, Sister, where this places us, the church, in the eyes of the community?”

Sr. M. (heatedly)” Oh damn the community!….( Fr. McCarthy leaps to his feet) and damn you Dennis and damn the Monsignor and double damn the damn Church!”

Fr. McC. “Are you gone mad ,Sister, are you mad?”(I grasp Fr. McCarthy by the arm and sit him back down).

I ask. “I must ask you , Fr. to restrain yourself, you are here only as a supporting representative of the diocese so please restrict your comments to that role….and I remind you, Sister, that all you say can and will be considered as evidence…”

Sr. M. ”Oh shut up Tom!…(She stands with fists pressed on table )and you Dennis!….both of you….shut up!…Are you blind? can’t you see we are all of us here in the same situation? (Fr. McC and I remain silent)..All obliged to serve an institution….an unforgiving, blind institution!…and..and a so called infernal “COMMUNITY!” that denies us any right to a life of our own..no!, don’t you interrupt me Tom Flannigan, I know all about your last marriage, you lost that because of the hours you spent on the job rather than with your family. The police force demanded it. The community demanded it  and you ,Dennis, how many more years before the bottle claims your soul?…ah! don’t deny it, I know you only too well.. it’s written all through your eyes.. and those “Holidays” to dry out down by the coast..We’re all three of us damned to play a set-piece for the Community, the Law and the Church. (she sits wearily down)…Oh how I longed desperately to be able to go home at night sometimes to children of my own…a man! …of my own, be him hopeless, be him ugly , but be him human…just human… rather than the dried out wafflings of the writings of a “holy book”!…(she pauses, stares blankly ahead, speaks quietly, slowly) do you have any idea how empty a sound, is the parched, crisp, turning of the pages of a prayer book in the quiet of an evening always alone?
The three of us have committed social crimes here, only my crime is more visible….I haven’t neglected a family, nor tippled with the altar-wine…I am guilty of a crime of passion….I have tried to steal a modicum of illusion of fantasy….of lust with a man.”

(there is a moments silence as we gathered our thoughts)

Fr. McC. “But why steal the books? Why didn’t you just buy them?”.

I ask: ” Yes Sister, why did you steal them?”.

Sr. M. (sighs, leans back in the chair )”Looking back on it, I could say I don’t know..the first one was an accident…I slipped it into my bag absent mindedly as I picked up another thing I wanted to buy…but when I discovered the error later, I stayed silent..why?..; a kleptomaniac impulse….a thrill? no, not a thrill I think rather, it was a part of the desire, to steal a moment of lust, an integral component of the hunger…a hunger for the love I did not have…I believe as we grow from the child to the adult, each of us seeks that love..that particular love, most denied…perhaps we are all assigned a set amount of little crimes in this life…alongside our everyday duties, little grubby crimes, along with the humdrum of responsibility and rules..and when we step outside of that regular pattern into the more shady area of our deeds, we must accept a completely different set of rules..”Oh what wicked webs we weave…”(a bitter laugh)….I fought with myself for years against the desires…like you, Dennis with the bottle..and you Tom with the duties of the police officer in a little country town but when can one stop?…can one stave off forever the natural impulse to drop the facade of religion. of law and order?…some can…I couldn’t…anymore…I desired a passionate embrace from a man (she leans forward over the table and speaks slowly)Gentlemen,…I too, wanted a moment of being desired!..how I envied Magdalene her Christ.. and these trashy books were as close as I was going to come to it in this God-forsaken place!…in this God-forsaken church in my own human forsaken life!”

(The three of us sit silently staring ).

Interview terminated….

Nine days later.

Tom Flannigan glanced up from his desk in the office to meet the eyes of Sister Mary Margaret. He stood to receive her proffered hand. She was leaving the district.

“Just to say cheerio, Tom…and wish you luck.”

“Thanks sister…thank you and yourself.” he fumbled with the biro in his hand ,then dropped it casually on the table. “What…what will happen to you?” he asked

The nun laughed softly,

“Oh,…it’s a big institution; the church…I’ll be swallowed up in it somewhere after a little penance….I’ll become anonymous once again.. slowly ,I trust, the desire for the human touch will be “cleansed” from my soul.. like Dennis’s liver..( another chuckle)….and you ,Tom.?”

“Me!…oh, I’ll just….just carry on as usual I ‘spose.. hmm…. look, Sister, I know they are going to prosecute this case in the city, so I won’t be seeing you again….I want you to know that I erased that last part of the interview the three of us had I didn’t see it as relevant to the case and I don’t suppose it would have interested the people at headquarters ”

“Yes, I expect you are right, Tom, there are some aspects of the lives of our community leaders that are best left in illusion (she chuckled again)..a bit like a trashy romance.”

“Well,Tom, goodbye.”

“Cheerio, Sister, cheerio.”

 

The Education of Young Christopher.

You’d be on solid ground to ask, as I have many times since myself ; what sort of adults would turn their children over to the care of a bunch of lunatics? For that is what those “inmates of Christ” were..contemplate the situation for a moment..: You have a cloister of healthy women, all who have sworn to maintain a chaste, childless life in the service of an “unknown”..You have a likewise mob of males, all once and perhaps still testosterone driven to submit their desires to the will of their God..yet..yet we know..we know only too well that under those cowls, under those habits there beat the heart and temperament of a human being, with all the wanton vices and desires of the human body.

Along with the ‘call to serve the Lord’, was a certain resentment in how they were expected to serve..how it could sometimes seem as all give and no receive on the earthly side of things..and here they were left in charge of herding and corralling all these offspring of lascivious copulation..all these screaming, demanding sprays of semen and ovulation flowing over the school-yard and into the classrooms…and here they were having to wipe the bottoms and the noses of the little grommets..all day , every day till the parents…those incorrigible sinners and fuckers, those “Sunday Saints” came to collect their moments of flailing desire and nocturnal fornications…these running, jumping, yelling , one singular spermatozoon success story amongst volumes of body-fluids and menstrual waste…But not for the holy “Sister” or “Brother” or “Father”..not for those incestuously suggestive relations of God the rhythmic caress of deep sexual contact..to see but never to touch, to feel the desire but never to consummate..nothing save furtive self-fondling in the dark silence of their cell, all resulting evidence flushed down to the septic tank or burned in the lighting-up of the morning cooking fire in the communal kitchen, a sigh of both release and simultaneous regret at both “getting away with something shameful” and in quick succession the knowledge of getting away with nothing at all., for here they still were and here they will stay..and the hunger never go away.

“Please, Jesus, please Jesus, please Jesus!..drive out this sin of lust from my body…mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…”.

The body of Christ amen.

But He doesn’t , He never can…for how can one but believe, if one does believe, in one’s heart of hearts, that it was He; that creator , that omnipotent God , who put it there! And could the question just as easy be put; If the sin of lust could result in the creation of bastard life in the human body…what was the Sin of God that caused Him to procreate such bastard life in the celestial body : Earth?

Such theological questions were beyond the imagination of the small cluster of children herded to pray and genuflect before the Stations of the Cross during their weekly prayer lessons in the big church out the back of the school. Indeed, such questions were not even considered by the parents of Christopher as they signed their children over to the care and education of such a bunch of crazed lunatics that inhabited that five acres of  ecclesiastical asylum near the railway station.

The one question, the imperative  answer to which sealed the decision of a young Rosaline to marry a man twenty years older than herself, was one she put to the old German herder whilst waiting to board the station ferry to cross the Murray River. She had been “engaged” to Enrico Corridini for nearly a year , while she still worked at the big station on the Murray River..Enrico and Rosaline met every few days when he would come to the river to collect a truck-load of water for the wood-cutting camp where he worked and lived during the war years. Enrico had “popped the question” a while back and while she had cautiously consented, she had yet to make her final decision.

Rosaline Thomas grew up by the river. She worked as a house-maid at both Punyelroo and Portee stations near Swan Reach and Blanchetown. Many times she was called to accompany the lady of the house to cross the river on a flat-topped ferry, used for ferrying supplies across the river there at the station. She told of an old German hand there at Portee who, whenever he had to cross the river, would pick up a small stone, a pebble, carry it across the river and place it on the other side..Rosaline asked him why he did it…he was at first reluctant to tell her..but she persisted..

“Well, girlie..it is my own little thing…I think of the small stone as my soul,…you see, I cannot swim..and so I take the stone, carry it, and if or when I reach safely the solid ground on the other side, I leave it dzair….when I come back, I do the same”

“What would happen if the ferry starts to sink?” Rosaline asked.

“Dzen I will try to throw it with all my might, to the other side….and I think if it reaches there , then  I feel I too will reach there…”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Dzen, I think I vill be lost in the waters of the river…”

It was the thought, the visual imagination of that thrown pebble, desperate, hopeless and valueless, falling into the waters of the river and a life lost as a consequence of that one little pebble…

What was her life to be ? Would it be lost in a desperate gamble with a married life on the edge of the river…a dirt farmer’s wife in the ‘heartbreak country’ of the mallee? Uneducated, in poverty, her family property-less and impoverished…

She was decided.

Christopher Corridini stood as instructed before the first small icon of the Stations of the Cross The pictures were at some height above his tiny frame, he craned his neck to see it. Sister Mary Joseph placed one arm around his slender child body and in a secretive whisper described the goings on in the painting..she did this to each child in turn , from one station stop to the next, with each station becoming more and more intense with the humiliation and torment of  The Christ, her voice too grew in intensity and anger..

‘Look!” she’d say, “look how they laugh and mock our Lord Jesus……..” and the children’s eyes all wide and staring at the horror of the gore and blood on the crown of thorns and the leering faces of the torturers.  The children’s hands clasping and wringing in fear and horror…several of the little girls clung to the habit of the squatting sister as she related the means of cruelty inflicted on the body of the Son of God as “He suffered for our sins here on Earth…He suffered for us..” her eyes alight also with the self-inflicted emotional pain of the scenes she described. 

The young nun then proceeded to instruct the small group of children in the ritual of the journey through The Stations of the Cross..she would say the Leaders chant :

“We adore thee O Christ, and bless thee.”

Then she would ask the children to repeat after her..:

“By your holy cross Thou has redeemed the world”.

Then she would gather the little cluster of children around her and softly tell them a little maxim of life ; “As a child, we sometimes feel alone..sometimes others do not stand up for me when I am picked on and afraid..so help me Jesus to be strong and protect me in thy light”.

The chant was repeated at every Station, along with the repeated response and then another little homily on the lessons of life through the eyes of reverence for Jesus. “ As a child, I sometimes repeat stories that are unclean and disrespectful..Help me to keep myself pure and clean…” All while standing before another frame of the torment or torture of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These lurid paintings left nothing to the imagination, from the first of the condemning to death before Pontius Pilate to the meeting of his mother and the women of Jerusalem on the road to crucifixion and the stripping away of his garments to the hammering in of the nails to his hands and feet and the sinking in of the spear into the side of his body…

These chants, prayers and visuals were displayed in graphic intensity to the ears and gaze of those five year old children, fresh from the comforts and protection of Mother , Father and the safety of home..To Christopher, they were a shocking assault on his quiet nature..He had never seen someone so deliberately hurt..He had never seen someone held down and tortured, He had never seen a person stripped, beaten, speared , gored and nailed to a wooden cross…Yet here was Sister Mary Joseph explaining it all with the soft, gentle, assured voice of a confident adult…it must be so.

But strangely, the terror didn’t bite into young Christopher. Those carefully designed pictures, those beguiling, persuasive homilies and all the Sister’s gently pitched whispers into his child ears were to be of no avail…for even as a child, Christopher was more of a “touching” child..he was more interested in the tactile nature of things..on the habit of Sister Joseph, he would touch to feel the heavy-starched white cloth parts of her cowl as she cooed , as with a lover’s breath, the corrupting words of indoctrination into his ear, wondering why it was so sharp…he would stand by her side and feel the heavy wooden beads of the Rosary belt that wrapped around her waist then dangled down the side of her habit-skirt..He would be mesmerized at the large, pendulating black cross that swung against her breast as she leant down to him. His was the world of touch, sights and sounds, the child’s world of wonder , when the wind told stories to his ears..alike to the animal kingdom.. windy days telling hurried stories of trees and hills, grasses and ferns, of white-capped ocean waves and gliding seagulls under drifts of wind-blown clouds scattered over azure skies. A child’s ears and innocence tuned to that elusive pitch and timbre that becomes dulled and destroyed by adulthood and those wailing whispers on the wind are seldom heard again.

What is lost in the eyes of the child, when such macabre icons are drawn to their gaze..The innocence that must be destroyed so guilt can be created, hatred infused before a depraved love constructed, fear before security, doubt in place of certainty, death before life. What is religion that would need to do such to a child..for it is surely children to which all it’s cunning indoctrination are delivered…as the adult convert must be a relatively low number in proportion, so it is the child that must be coaxed out of it’s dreamy cocoon into the adult world of  conditioned certainty..where “trigger words” or scenarios are imbedded into the vernacular to be drawn upon when needed by civic state or religion..for they do work fist in glove in collusion with each other..how else could it be explained or excused, for what were these series of cameos of horror and degradation but in reality a kind of ecclesiastical pornography pushed into the subliminal thoughts of the children’s minds, a “sleeper” awaiting the right moment to respond.

After the last Station was reflected upon, the last homily spoke, the last humiliation imbedded into their child minds..the children were lined up and marched back single-file to the classroom near the row of huge old pine trees..Christopher looked at the radiating branches ascending high up into the depth of the foliage..

“ Wow! what a great place for a tree-house “ he was thinking.

The Girl in the Blue Dress.

Finally!…lunch time..I squeezed our basket shopping trolley between the seats to a table in the crowded Zuma’s Café there at the Central market. We come to this café for lunch every time we come to the market, which is about once a month..it is always crowded at lunchtime..a popular spot…lots of noise..lots of noise…

Michael, the tall Greek bloke who runs it, has a habit of looking around while he is talking to you..like he cannot stop keeping an eye on the running of the place..

“That girl in the blue dress” I button-hole him “ Is she crying or laughing or just shielding her eyes?”

Michael looks about as he answers..

“Oh she’s crying alright..” he nonchalantly answers…somehow , his dead-certain banality annoys me.

“You seem pretty certain of that”.. I frown.

“Yeah..cause it’s written on the back of the photograph … (he makes quotation marks with his fingers) ; “ London…Girl crying”….He wrote what and where it is on every one of the photographs…”

“He?”

“Yeah..old bloke a couple of houses down from me…I knew him just to say hello every now and then…well..he died and his daughter was cleaning out the garage…she was carrying this heavy box and I saw her and I went to help her…it was full of these small , empty picture frames..these ones here on the wall..and I suddenly got the idea to put some sort of pictures in them and hang them on that wall…so I asked her if I could have them to do just that…and she pointed to another box and asked if I wanted some pictures to put in them , because she was going to throw those out too..”

“Throw out his pictures?” I couldn’t understand that.

“Yeah..you see , they weren’t family pics or anything…just as you see here on the wall..The old bloke wandered aimlessly around Europe back in the sixties with a camera taking these random, candid pictures of people, places and things..anything..with no apparent theme in mind…just click, click, click!..and he wrote a name and location on every one…hundreds of them!”

I gazed along the wall of framed photos…buses, street-scapes..random people..strange little people with quirky dress and sometimes doing strange things..pictures from upstair rooms of dark or lighted corners of streets outside..cars going past…abstracts of anonymity..

“That one with the young man on the stairs fiddling with the model building?”..I ask.

“Rome..; Architectural student making finishing touches to his exam model.” Michael quoted from memory. “That interested me” he added.

“…and that one?” I continue..

“…er..can’t remember..I think ; “Leeds…; Lady waiting for bus”..

“Of course she’s waiting for a bus…it’s a bus stop!” I protest..but I see he’s tired of the game and is taking the mick.. We changed subject and he told me about his holiday to Portugal…

We ordered lunch..and from where I sat , I would look up from my meal and I would see the girl in the blue dress….The picture is obviously from the mid-sixties, as she is wearing a mini-skirt of modest proportions, while the older folk around are still dressed in the gloomy, frumpy style of the fifties..There is a fountain in the background and thousands of pigeons milling around on the ground ..a man stands behind a stall of a kind with a hand drawn sign on the counter requesting : “Please return these”..I cannot quite make out what “these” are, but I would guess from all the pigeons they may be small containers for grains to feed to the birds…

But the scene threw me back to a time in my youth, when I was a shy lad..I was an apprentice..about sixteen years old…I used to catch the train to work and about four stops before I had to get off the train, this young woman..a girl then, around the same age as myself, I would say..got on and used to stand at the opposite side of the compartment….

The “compartment” was the open-spaced baggage-car that was always in the middle of the passenger carriages. It was peculiar to the Sth. Aust’ Railways, being based on the American system of rail. As such, it carried those workmen in their overalls and their bags, or sometimes pushbikes in a loose aggregate of silence and styles and dirt…this is where that young woman stood out…she was pure “Carnaby Street”…from her petite shoes to her little red shoulder-strap bag…white stockings, mini-skirt and cute cap…I fell in love with that girl…but damn if I wasn’t too shy (in those days), and perhaps a bit too “working-class” in my overalls, to say a word..and she must have been as shy, the same, because for all that winter and into the summer, we would stand at diagonal point to each other across the carriage, and in that atmosphere of commuter stolidness and silence, we would pretend to be “cold-glancing” around the carriage and then ..our eyes would meet!…(I can close my eyes and see her now..god!..why oh why was I so flamin’ shy?…) and just for that moment we would melt into each other…any of you who have had that experience will know what I mean…our eyes would swim in the other’s lake-of-the-soul..for just that flashing moment..and oh!..the ache of want was almost unbearable..but you had to be careful, because while the commuting public does have the impassive stare of the “undead”, it is all eyes and all ears…”…the eyes are not satisfied with seeing nor the ears filled with hearing..” Ecclesiastes, I believe.

But you know, I never did get to meet her or even say hello..and perhaps it is better that way…for I do believe that for many years afterwards, I sought,( as we all seem fated to do, from when we grow from the child to the adult..we always seek THAT SINGULAR LOVE most denied…) in my male hunger for women , the ideal of that youthful desire.

They do say, and quite truthfully, I believe, that the journey is better than the arriving..so perhaps the “hunger” is better than the “feasting”…but I don’t know….there certainly is some regret…some deep regret…

The girl in the blue dress has her head bent down, with one arm crooked across her waist and the other with her hand cupped over her mouth and partly over her eyes…she looks like she is crying because of something..I can’t stop stealing glances at her..I try not to look too obvious..

I think I may be falling in love with the girl in the blue dress.

 

 

“Write again, Blue eyes.”

“Tickets please….Tickets please”…

The porter made his way from seat to seat checking and clicking the tickets of the passengers of the 12.30 pm. train to the southern suburbs..It passed through the flats onto the hills stations to finish at Marino Rocks.

Annette clicked open her purse to extract the return ticket to Brighton from the side pocket there…upon extracting the pink slip of paper, she noticed a similar one still in the pocket..She took this one out as well, examined the date of “ 3 May 1951” and satisfied herself that she handed the current dated one to the porter..

“The sea is nice there at Brighton this time of year.” He spoke as he clicked her ticket.

Annette said nothing in reply, but just nodded her head in agreement…The porter moved on down the aisle between the seats…

“Tickets please. . . “ he repeated.

Annette placed the current validated ticket back into the purse pocket, she gazed at the older ticket and noted the date as of one month previous to today’s date…she silently admonished herself for being so neglectful as to leave the ticket in her purse…She screwed the ticket up and dropped it to the floor of the carriage. Upon closing her purse, she caught a glimpse of the newspaper clipping she had cut from the day’s paper miscellaneous column..Annette knew the wording by heart, but she kept the cutting as a sense of reassurance of the appointment she had arranged.

Annette ran through the message again in her mind..:

“Letter OK, sweet..meet at B..first date mentioned in letter..If anything happens ask for letter at B….Blue eyes.”

She secured the catch on her purse and placed it in her lap and turning her face to the filmy window of the carriage, she saw the reflection of a young, but not so young now woman, with wavy brown hair above a pale, powered face with, she hoped, a not too dark a shade of lipstick on a pair of pert lips..There was a furrow of concern on the brow and the eyes looked wary.

She turned her head away quickly as if she had seen something she would rather not think about and proceeded to turn the plain, gold wedding ring on her finger.

“ It’s not unusual” Doctor Short had said..”Young married couples do sometimes take a while to conceive..I’d give it some more time and just let nature take its course…perhaps a quiet evening or two at home with a favourite record on and a glass of sherry…..or two..” and Dr. Short smiled his warming, ‘confidence giving’ smile…Annette just nodded in agreement and said that her husband preferred beer.

But it had now been three years and still no change.

The short , terse discussions Annette had with her husband on the possibility of one of them being infertile always ended in her being reassured that HIS side of the family never had any such problems and ..no…he did not want to go to the doctor and get “interfered with” when he was certain the problem did not rest with him..and that was the end to it.

The Italian lady next door, Elvira, laughed when told of Annette’s dilemma..

“Back home we had a saying that there were no infertile men in the village…and certo..if a woman could bear children, then there were children…because after a certain time passed, the parish priest was called in to “do his duty to God’s handmaidens” and he would hang his walking cane over the entrance doorknob while he “administered the faith” to the lady of the house and if the husband came home and saw the cane there, he would keep walking up to the bar and play a hand or two of briscola, take a whisky or two, before making his way back home respectfully.”

Annette dismissed those notions as typical of peasant village women thinking…an outcome much too public and open to ridicule for a lady of Anglo descent…There were ways other than gross serviceability…discretion was the hallmark of civilised society…of a refined woman in today’s world.

Annette stepped onto the platform at Brighton and made her way to the exit ramp. She paused at the top of the ramp and gazed over the road in front to a little corner store-cum-post office there on the “Old Beach Road” that led to the seashore. As she gazed at the empty scene, a man of around thirty-five years stepped out of the corner store..he stopped to take out and light up a cigarette with a personal lighter that he replaced to an inside pocket of his suit..Annette recognised him and gave a small noting wave which he cautiously returned….she crossed the street and without touching, they proceeded to walk to the beach.

At the beach, the man spread a checked wool blanket that he took from a parked sedan in the road above the sands. Annette removed her gloves and shoes and made herself discretely comfortable on the blanket.

“Nice to see you again.” The man spoke “This being the third time in as many months, will this be a regular thing?” he teased and touched her forehead as he brushed away a tuft of fringe of her hair.

“I’m not sure.” Annette replied..” Circumstances may prevent us meeting again.”

“What do you mean?” the man sat back from his position close to her..He cocked one eyebrow questioningly.

“I may be pregnant.” Annette spoke plainly. The man raised his eyebrows and with wide-eyed anxiety asked..

“Heavens…what are we to do..I mean…I can’t…”

“No..it’s quite alright,’ Annette touched his arm reassuringly..” I wanted it to happen..I wanted the child.”

The man looked bewielded and a bit dazed..

“Well..that may be good for you…but I am already married with children…I thought this was a fling for both of us…I can’t manage another family.”

Again, Annette touched his arm reassuringly…

“No..I will not trouble you about the child..as you know I too am married..but we…my husband as it now turns out…couldn’t have children..couldn’t give me a child..so I took the opportunity of our relationship to have one with you.” Annette gently smiled..” I needed another child….”

“Another child!?” the man stared and thought..” Then …then that time several years ago when we first met….?” He didn’t finish what he was thinking..

“Yes” Annette smiled again..”He’s two now and beautiful…thank you.”

The man was thinking now…:

“So that’s why you wanted a recent picture of me when we first wrote?…so you could see if I was a close match to your husband?”

“Of course!…It would not work otherwise..I mean how would it look if you were a flaming red-head, or a swarthy Mediterranean type?…How stupid would that be?”

“And your husband doesn’t know?”

“Of course not..he thinks he’s shooting bullets not blanks…and I had to make a decision soon or it would start to come back on one or the other of us…after all, there are expectations in society …you know”

“Yes…the stigma of a barren woman or a man who only fires blanks…terrible”…

The man leaned back against a rock of the breakwater and took out and lit another cigarette..

“It’s why I got back in touch with you in the paper.” Annette softly spoke.

“Yes..right..I was rather surprised..I presumed you’d forgot all about me…was delighted to read your request to meet again, though.. but you would risk your marriage for the sake of having children?”..and he blew a stream of smoke into the soft air of the Autumn day.

“He broke the contract!” Annette blurted out..and then in a more condescending tone..” and he didn’t want to have tests done..he didn’t want to know if it was himself..no man does..so this way we both achieve our goals…even you” and she smiled coquettishly …The man drew on his cigarette and returned her smile.

“In that case..I suppose so”..and he drew on the cigarette again..” And so we continue to meet..Blue eyes?”

“Blue eyes?” Annette queried.

“You remember when we first communicated through the paper and I asked what you looked like for when we first meet?”

“Oh yes”..Annette clasped her arms around her legs as she sat thinking of the time. “ I didn’t know how to go about these things…it was only chance that I spotted that column…miscellaneous..in the paper and I read several of those people..mostly men..lonely men looking for ‘lady companions’.” Annette giggled.

“yes…” the man reflected..”It was a new thing for me too..I was lonely, coming down every month from the north on business…A man can end up a drunk or worse when he has too much time on his hands….a mate in the same game as me put me onto it…took some Dutch courage to kick it off though” and he gave a laugh.

“ You didn’t give much away…but you did say you have blue eyes…..and wavy hair.” He touched her soft locks. “ but you never did tell me your whole name”.

“And neither did you..and it best remain that way…for truly, if I am pregnant, and I do believe I am..we probably will not be meeting again…I don’t want any more children..two is enough.”

The man stubbed out his cigarette..

“Yes..well…that may be for the best all around..It could get sticky if it gets out..for both of us….I wouldn’t want my wife to know..and our four kids is plenty for me..”

“Oh…” Annette replied lazily..” She probably already does..or suspects at least”..

“Nah..she doesn’t have  a clue…she’s miles away..up north”..and he stared out over the sea.

“Oh..she’d know ” ..

“How?” the man asked…”Would you tell her?”

“How could I ..I don’t even know your real name…No..it’s you men…when you are satisfied in that way….you walk about like a prancing Tom-cat”…and she smiled..

“Are we that easy to pick?” he grinned…

“Of course…how would we women not know…after all, it was US who invented sex…do you think Adam would have eaten the apple without Eve?”…Annette threw her head back and laughed. The man grinned and looked at her affectionately..

“I’m beginning to worry about you..You’re dangerous..But what of today?…here we are..?” and he looked at Annette with a cheeky grin.

Annette lowered her eyes in a vampish manner and replied..

“I suppose it doesn’t hurt to make certain of a good job done..” and she touched the side of his face affectionately.

“Come”..he said..” I have a car waiting for my lady”…and they gathered themselves up and made for the parked sedan at the top of the stairs.

Annette paused at the foot of the steps and he offered his arm to steady her as she put on her shoes..she turned to the man and asked..

“ Can you give me your name?…Not your first, your second name..and when the child is born, I can let you know…in the miscellaneous column..”

The man turned and smiled at Annette ..

“Paul”. He said..and he held out his hand….They walked to the car..just like any young couple.

Ten months later a short sentence appeared in the miscellaneous column of the daily newspaper..:

“ Package arrived safely..much joy..”Pauline”…”

The following week on the usual day they would communicate Annette read the confirming note in the miscellaneous column..:

“ Sweet…letter OK…if ever needed..write again, Blue eyes…”

 

Harriet Morcombe’s Weekly budget diary.

Monday 8^th.

8.am. Holiday, Queen’s birthday.

Up at 8. Fed cats and Fowls..Coffee and back to bed, up at 11.30.

Down to letter box to check mail..spotted by Mona from across the road….unfortunately…

“Harri!” she called to me…HATE that shortening of my name…hate it!

“Yes, Mona” I replied..and that’s when the complaining started..her old man of course..He’s taken up learning to play the violin in his retirement…”caterwauling” Mona calls it..and in the times when I am in the garden looking for some peace and quiet, I have to agree..wish he’d taken a shine to a church organ..oh well..perhaps it will lessen his penchant for the flagons of sweet sherry.

Never hear; “God Save the Queen” over the radio any more on her birthday?

Back in time for lunch.

Nathan up, on computer.

Made hot sandwiches for both of us.

Back to bed to 3.30.

Fed cats and put out enough for 2 days. Fowls enough for 3 days as tomorrow Joe is taking me to Pt Julia to do some work on the cottage.

Tv. At 5. to 5.30.

Cooked dinner. Tv. To 8.30.

Washed dishes. Bed.

Budget: In.                                            $   –   c.                                           Out. $   –  c.

From; Cw Bank, Colonades. –        450   –  00               Grocer – Pine Pt…   23 – 00                               

Food, etc..                                         138   –  95                Paper – cake etc..   13 – 00   ( Pt Vincent ).                             

                                        Bal’              311  –  05                Pasties – Drinks..    12 – 75  ( Pt Wakefield).

Accounts                                               59 –  60                Fish and Chips….      13 – 00  (Pt Vincent).        

                                                             251 –  45                Coles ; shopping..     77 – 20  ( Colonades ).

Others                                                 201 – 75                                   Total     $138- 95.

                                        Bal’               $49 –  10.

Tues. 9^th.

Joe and I to Pt Julia.

I have to take the 7.43 train from Marino Rocks to Adelaide. Then the 8.40 Gawler train to Gawler Centre. Met Joe there..The day is cold.

We drive to Pt Wakefield & had pasty each & I had a small bottle of drink. Then on to Ardrossan.

At the hardware store we bought tin of paint for bathroom & R-p7 for taps, they were tight last trip over. Then to Pine Point for groceries & to Pt Julia. Unloaded & cup of coffee..cottage feels welcoming.

Joe to work on roof to put collar around chimley & to cut back branches of gum tree the neighbour did not like..he now wants another tree cut down??…..Joe and he “have words”…

I rub down bathroom walls, move everything out and began painting as high as I could. Joe came in and used some very bad language about the neighbour..I told him to shoosh that kind of talk…but like he’d listen to me at his age…But he is a good lad..at least HE takes me here for a bit of a break..not like my older sons..never see them save they want something..A son’s a son etc, as the saying goes..though my daughter looks after me at home..can’t complain.

At 3. We changed and drove down to Pt Vincent. Joe wants a part for a tap, but could not get it.

We had fish & chips which we took back to cottage..Man at fish shop laments lack of customers..says, ”You got to have houses BOTH sides of the street to make money in this game”.. his shop is on the foreshore.

Joe lit the fire. He had brought wood from his home in Sedan.

We stayed by fire and watched tv. till bedtime..must say the reception here is better than at home..programs just as bad though.

Wed. 10^th.

Up just on 8. Very nice day.

We have cooked breakfast..bacon & eggs..coffee. Then started on painting. Joe up high and ceiling.

Took time out for walk to the jetty. Sea is calm and the cliffs are wonderful…mallee is beautiful here by the sea..Life seems so calm and peaceful.

We then tidied up at 12.30. I washed dishes, Joe swept floor. Packed up and left at 1.15. a lovely stay. Cannot help but think back on when we, as a family had so very, very little..Mum and dad brought us up in bag-tents along The River in the depression..I remember coating the children’s school sandshoes with whiting so as to hand them down to the younger ones..and the patched pants..now we have a cottage over on the coast…V. lucky….( thank you, God ).

Did not stop on way back as we had to make it to Gawler for the 3.17 afternoon train to Adelaide..or wait two hours for the next.

Just made it to the station in time. Joe had to run to flag the train down for me..touch and go for a moment..good job Joe is fast on his feet.

After an hour I arrived in Adelaide Station. Took the 4.24 Brighton train. At Brighton I had to wait 7 minutes for Noarlunga train. Home at 5.15.. very tired.

Had a slice of toast, then to bed.

Up at 9pm. For aspirin then back to bed.

Accounts.                                 $  –  c.

Brighton – Sunday Mail…     24 – 60

Cranio-Facial Aust’ ……         29  – 50

Stamps….                                   5 –  50 

                                Total…    $59 – 60

Thurs’ 11^th.

Up at 6. But Nathan not working today.

Back to bed with coffee. Up at 7.30. Fed cats, made porridge, fed fowls. N. to airport to pick up Ben.

I took the 9.53 train to Noarlunga Centre. Sat next to Mrs. Clarke. Her husband is obsessed with his sailing-boat he has in the garage downstairs..Muriel complained that he spends more time with IT than her..”Get yourself a hobby” he said, so Muriel said she DID..”His name is Brian”.

To C-W bank. To P.O. to send $25-00 to Cranio-Facial Aust’, wouldn’t begrudge THAT charity..give more if I could afford it..so sorry for the poor children. Buy a book of stamps.

To chemist to buy train tickets. Shopping at Coles. Bought whole chicken on way out.

Train home..N&B on computer. They stopped for lunch. The chicken and bread.

I went for a rest. Up at 3.30 fed cats.

Tv. Till 5.30. N & B & I finished the chicken. Computer  for ‘them’. Ben off to bed soon. Tv. For me until 8.

Washed dishes. Bed.

Ben back from eastern states, stayed the night..Said he enjoyed himself, though didn’t talk about it. Ben’s a quiet one. Nathan to drive him back to Ben’s mothers at Crafers tomorrow.

Friday 12^th.

Nathan to work.

Up at 5.30am. Made small lunch for N. as he is only working half-day on Fridays.

Cooked him breakfast & he left. Coffee for me & back to bed.

Up at 8. Ben up, he said he had slept for 15 hours, made coffee for himself then to computer.

I dusted and polished my bedroom furniture..gave special clean to my old writing bureau..haven’t written now for years…don’t know why I keep it..sentimental..strange how much I wanted to become a writer, now can’t even think of a story..the end of stories for me I guess.

Checked letters etc. and threw out those not wanted..Mother was a prolific writer of letters..could be cruel though, wrote on Rosemary’s letter when she gave it me ; “read then burn!”..What was it Father said..oh yes..” Irish women make good mothers but terrible wives”. Will keep hers, children may find them of interest in their later years.. those early days in the mallee..the depression.

Ben cooked himself some lunch. I had lunch. Rest.

Up at 3. Fed cats.

Down garden, weeding. Grass to fowls.

Tv. at 4.25 to 5.30. Nathan home.

Cooked dinner.

Tv. to 8.30.

Washed dishes. Bed.

Nathan drove Ben up to Crafers.

He stayed at Crafers till Sunday evening. Enjoyed the break from them..Not too long though I hope. Old age is a lonely age.

Saturday 13^th.

Up at 7.30 fed cats. Fed fowls.

Checked garden. Ducked behind oyster plant when I saw Mona looking over to my place. Escape?..could hear “violin”. Porridge.

Washed clothes, then bathroom and toilet floors. Made lunch. Rest.

Up at 3.30 fed cat.

Tv. at 4.45 to 5.30.

Cooked dinner.

Tv. to 8.30.

Washed dishes. Bed.

Others-                                $  –  c.

Next weeks money…        50 – 00.

Bus trip…                            60 – 00

Bus club membership..   10 – 00

Tickets…                             21 – 30

Ardrossan Hdw/paint..    57 – 45

Petrol etc ..                        50 – 00

Church plate..                     3 – 00

                         Total…     201 – 75

Sunday 14^th. 

Up at 7.30. Fed cats and fowls. Coffee.

Pulled up some grass for fowls. Porridge. 

Took the 9.30 train to Brighton for church..Met Mrs Aloia, she complained about her feet, shoes too tight but she wears one size too small..e’ fashionista she says..”poor me, poor me” she says. Train 10.56 home Had lunch, usual chicken noodles.

I had a rest.

Up at 3.30. Fed cats. Cooked dinner.

Phone call from eldest..asked if he could borrow money for tyres…(again)..of course I could..though it is a pity his non-working wife couldn’t hold up on her smoking at $75.00 a week (he says) so they could afford some things themselves…didn’t say though..have him in tears again.

Checked budget books etc.

Tv. at 5.30 to 9…..So tired.

Washed dishes. Bed.

 

A Simple Love Affair.

Small country town.

Years ago I was “doing a reno’” for this Greek bloke who was managing the job for his daughter…who was the owner of the house. She was as the lovely “Anna” described in the story below. She would come around to the job every few days and talk to the old man about design and so on..I never spoke to her and only saw her from a distance..she always wore a jacket thrown over her shoulders in the Greek tradition, so I didn’t know she was a thalidomide child.

“ Is your daughter married? “ I once asked him.

“No!!..she never marry!” he replied with a twist of his face. I was puzzled.

“What do you mean ; never?” I persisted.

‘What?..You not see?..no arm , no marry”

“What do you mean : ‘No arm’ ?” I queried him.

“She have no arm..just a stump..her mother she once take that pill..tha…tha..” I twigged.

‘Thalidomide?”

“Yes!…that’s it..and she have no arm…so, no arm no marry…”

So I have built a story around that moment, that awful reality…and I have moved the story to the mallee, to another older time and place.. Why not?..I too desire a better ending than what the sour cynicism of that old man offered. Why should there not be a..a simple love affair, set in a mallee town with two young people? Yes!..let us create our own “reality”..our own desire if only for one moment, one afternoon! And even as the some may attest; that only 1% of people are interested…so what!? Let it be just that 1%, for that small number is powerful enough to move Heaven and Earth to a better place in the heart of humanity even against the greater odds of the indolent 99%.. We must accept that our “Art” is failing us..there is a loss in western interpretation of “romantic inspiration”..by romantic I mean that desire for the imaginable reality rather than the “cynical certainty”..bad things in life are a given, but hope is always there…without desire, there is no hope..without hope there is no life.

So, dear reader..as the story unfolds, let us desire…

A Simple Love Affair.

When Anna fell in love it was not without a good deal of caution. You see: Anna was a thalidomide child and though she had grown to a beautiful woman, her left arm, stunted just below the elbow with two stumpy fingers threw a “check” on any chance of an out-going personality. So when Anna fell in love with Harry, it was a long, cautious apprenticeship.

Anna worked in partnership with her cousin; Bella, running a small general store in a country town out in the mallee. They named the business: “Annabellas” and it was a good business, an honest business well run that reflected the determination of the proprietors.

Anna was twenty- eight years old, of medium height with a slim face and long black hair down to the middle of her back. Let no-one doubt that old truth that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory! Anna was a fiercely independent woman and held no truck with self- pity, yet , there was that natural reserve that sets aside those with physical disabilities, that je ne sais quoi, (that certain something) of the spirit that brackets their behaviour, a caution in manner and speech that is sometimes sadly lacking in other, less impaired specimens of “Humanus Grossness!” However, in matters physical, Anna never failed to pull her weight, and was always ready with a quick witticism if her stunted limb failed her. Yet, she never developed a long term relationship with any boy from the district. Oh, she was not the type to lament this reality, nor did she overcompensate her disadvantage with lasciviousness! She just had a well-balanced perspective of the situation and the close-knit societies of country towns of those times seemed to lock the young of that era into behaviour systems that exclude, in the majority, any dabbling in relationships away from the physical and physiological norm…sadly, any who went against this “norm” had to leave the community for the wider understanding of the cities. Not that this is an unforgivable fault, for a country town is born of the earth and survives from the earth and therefore any deviation from the “pure state” (however illusory that is) of natural wholeness is, if not condemned; shunned. To put it simply, as old Smith once remarked with a worldly shrug: “No arm…no marry.”

Harry was of the district, once. His family sold up and moved away many years before and now he had moved back to take over the garage once old Peter Porter retired , for Harry was a mechanic. Harry was thirty- three years old when he moved back to the district. He was tallish, well-built (for a mechanic!) with short fuzzy hair and a fixed smile on a generally happy face. Harry had no chip on his shoulder (no axe to grind!) and a healthy disposition. Just the person to run a garage in a small country town! Why sneer? he created neither moon nor sun, nor shook fist at others fortune, yet, Harry suffered that most disabling of conditions: He was shy!   Oh, he could slam the gearbox of any tractor onto the block of the engine, with appropriate epithets and wiping of greasy hands and shout to a farmer across the road:

” She’ll be right this ‘arvo  Clem’ ,”..but, stand him in front of a social crowd in the Hall meeting, or a pretty woman and he’d fumble about like a cow in a mud-hole. So consequently, one rarely saw Harry outside of overalls and armed with a spanner… except for the annual football club ball. (you don’t like football?….tough, millions do!)

Harry’s garage was three doors down from “Annabellas”, consequently there was frequent conversation concerning pies or pasties or pieces of string between Anna and Harry. One of these centered around the aforementioned Ball..

“Getting close now.” Harry said in an offhand way.

“Yes” Anna checked the list of groceries. Harry shifted foot, like a horse resting.

“Who are you going with, Harry?” this threw him a little as he was about to ask Anna the same question.

“Huh,oh!…well, myself  I ‘spose…you got someone?” a slight inflection of voice.

“Yes….”(drop of mouth from Harry)”My father”. ( mouth picks up again) Anna ticks the last entry on the shopping list and looks up expectantly.

“Oh,..right.”

Harry fumbles in his top pocket and withdraws some money. He counts out carefully on the counter saying as he does so;

“Well I was wondering if you’d care to go with me?” Anna raised her eyebrows, the merest flicker of a warm smile at the edge of her mouth.

“Hmm,..but what about dad?”

“Oh,..he’d come too.” Harry quickly replied, lest there be insurmountable opposition. His eyes appealed.

“Well….” and here the usual reserve stalled her, but this time she relented. “I’ll ask dad if he doesn’t mind… ”

“And you’ll come if it’s ok with him?” Harry persisted unusually but fearfully.

Anna thought, then looked at Harry closely.

“Yes.” she said. Harry seemed to lose a frightful burden just then, for he suddenly straightened up and smiled.

“Righto!..”he quipped confidently,” I’ll…I’ll catch you later”. and he left the store..he suddenly returned sheeplishly to take his groceries. He gathered them up as if they were a clutch of puppies, smiled, and quickly retreated to his greasy nirvana.

Well, the night out at the ball went smoothly, as neither Anna nor Harry were wild ragers and would rather dance than drink. So consequently there were other social events that they escorted each other to ,for Anna would invite Harry as much as vice-versa and so it became accepted that Harry and Anna would be matched on invitations ipso-facto , so do small communities naturally react…and their mutual company gave confidence to the two companions as they grew more familiar with each other’s idiosyncracies.

No more than a stage of evolution I suppose ( but you knew this was going to happen; quiet man meets beautiful, flawed lady, they  fall in love, get married etc, etc and so forth!). But there was one hindering factor in this quaint affair of the heart, something most of us in our safe, sheltered worlds have never to face or confront: the thalidomide arm….the flaw!..ah!. as a flaw in a diamond will deflect the light so does a flaw in a human disturb the smooth natural flow of emotions . Why even an embrace would draw attention to Anna’s stump arm , she; the embarrassed frustration of not being able to rub a caressing hand over Harry’s shoulders, he ;the knowing of this frustration in Anna and the clumsy overcompensation on his part, the actions of dismissal of the offending limb! Yet that limb was her, or a part of her, as much as a leg or nose or breast! She knew it, he knew it but still the dammed thing would obtrude, out of all proportion into their consciousness. But then again, neither of them could or would broach such a delicate subject, such are the cautions in romance, the halting secrets of the heart: “will I? should I?” and so neither is done.

I’ll have to mention that long before Anna had met Harry, she became aware of this nagging feeling and once even, had seen a doctor in the city with a view to amputation of the offending limb, reasoning that it would be easier to explain away an injury than be eternally on show as a “freak”. Fortunately (for she was strong willed) this idea, born on the wings of youthful despair, was soon cast aside as ridiculous and childish. And she grew stronger for it. Oh! that us with body complete could draw on such fortitude, when even a slight ailment of body or soul sends us into paroxysms of complaints..Oh frail souls !  Oh weak heart!

So into the summer months under a vacant sky rafting on a sea of mallee bush did they continue with their courting, a gentle affair with neither tryst nor jealousy but as two labourers with a common goal they met , socialised and parted. And then one day Harry “popped ” the question. And Anna accepted and indeed, why shouldn’t she?….She desired children, a home to raise them in….but should one feel a little raising of hackles at this servile “acceptance” of a woman’s lot? Should she rebel at this “presumed” social construction?..for after all it is but a story..a facsimile of a life..ah!….permit me a smile….and I ask : do we really believe the world and all in it waits with bated breath for miraculous revelations from those that would have us stride with determination down this or that corrected path?….Have we not all waited…and yet inside each of us there is that strange hunger, that desired want for a kind of fulfilment..and so we may now smile… Yes. Anna accepted, yet there was one unsolved dilemma left in the air and she meant to speak, felt she had to speak to Harry about it soon.

Saterdee arvo, is there a more pleasant occupation than being young and alive in the summer with work behind you on a sunny Saterdee afternoon in the country?… Harry thought not as he stood wiping his greasy hands with a bundle of cotton waste outside his garage. A smile on his dial, a song in his heart and whom should he spot walking up the pavement toward him?…

“Anna!” he called with glee.”Where’re you off to with such a pretty bouquet?..not another secret love I hope?” and he laughed …and  gosh, didn’t she look pretty….her warming smile above the multi hued bouquet.

“It’s for mothers grave actually”, she said. Harry gulped at his over exuberant gaffe!

“Oh dear, pardon me”, he gasped. Anna smiled now.

“Don’t be silly, she’s been dead fifteen years now”. and she fussed with the arranging of the flowers”I’m going out to her memorial now, ..you want to come?”

“Say no more.” and off they went.They had hardly driven a hundred yards when Harry suddenly ducked his head below the dashboard.

“What are you doing?” frowned Anna. “Just keep going it’s Noela Maletz! I said I’d have her car fixed this arvo!”

“What, are you afraid of her?”

“Dammit, the whole town’s afraid of her.”

“Whatever for? she’s a lovely lady….she just knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to say it.” Harry raised his eyes to glance backwards out of the car.

“Well, if she saw me driving around instead of fixing her car, she’d want my guts for garters! I’d lend her my car, ‘cept it’s out of action.”

“Your car?! it’s the worst bomb in town!”

“Oh yeah. an’ I bet your cupboards are empty!” they were both silent for a moment then burst into simultaneous laughter.

“The carpenters house is falling down around his ears!…. Anna cried …”And the cobbler has holes in his shoes!…Harry laughed..”And the tailor has the arse hangin’ out of his trousers! they both choked in fits of laughter ..”Ahhaha!..but it’s true!” cried Anna.

The car pulled up at the cemetery gates, Anna jumped out, Harry made to follow.

“Wait there, just be a minute.”

“But I thought you wanted me to come?”

“To her memorial. yes, this is her grave. We’ll go there next, I’ll be right back.”

It seemed a mystery to Harry, “Graves…memorials…same thing.” Anna returned in a moment and they started going again.

“I just had to replace the flowers.”

“So where is the memorial?”

“On the farm, dad made it just after mum died, it is rather unusual…we’ll be there in a little while.”

The family farm was ten kilometers out of town on a side road. After the black ribbon of bitumen, turning off onto the dirt road was like turning into a photograph:

“And I mark how the green of the trees,
Matches the blue vault of the sky….”

The low stunted mallee trees leant in from the shoulder of the road, the fronds of slim leaves dipping over the limestone gravel. Blackened twists of discarded bark and twigs littered around the knuckled boles and roots. Here and there amongst fallen trees, rabbit warrens displayed their sprays of fresh diggings white and musty amongst tangles and hummocks and if the eye is quick enough, a flash of cheeky tail can be spotted sporting behind tussocks of native grass, or even a round-glassy eye spying unblinkingly for any sign of danger, then a quick “thump-thump!” signal to other rabbits and scurry down the safety of a burrow and braer rabbit says cheerio for the daylight hours!

Anna drove off onto a track with a gate in the fence, entering the paddock, she drove alongside the fence till she reached another gate, though much smaller than the first, like a front gate to a house, there was a carefully manicured path with white stones edging it, that led on a gentle slope toward a grotto-like cavern at the bottom of a basin in the surrounding land. Anna led them to this singular spot, for Harry had never heard of it before. They stood at the lip of the soak, green kikuyu grass spilled out from the sunken pit, it was circular, about thirty feet in diameter and the front sloped down to a pool of cool, clear water mirrored under an overhanging lip of limestone six foot above the pool. To one side of the pond, in a well tended, circle of earth, was the most beautiful flowering yellow rose-bush Harry had ever seen! He stood at the lip, gazing around at the scene.

“How long has this been here?” he asked amazed.

“As long as I can remember, Mum and Dad used to bring us here in the hot weather and we’d wade in the pool. After Mum died, Dad and us kids made it into a sort of memorial….she liked the place so much…”The oasis” she called it. Dad also pumps water out for the stock in the dry weather. It never seems to run dry.”

“And the rose?” Harry asked.
“I planted that….a rose for incorruption….she liked yellow.”

“It’s a lovely place….peaceful.” Harry spoke dreamily…Anna took out a pair of clippers and went toward the rose.

“Come…”she called “Help me cut some roses.”

So they stood, she cutting, he taking the blooms. With her stumpy arm Anna deftly moved the prickly stems out of the way, her long, dark tresses falling this way and that over the blossoms so sparkling yellow in the sunlight. Now and then a petal would dislodge and fall spiraling to the earth, so silent was it there you could almost hear- the petals touch the soil.

“Harry?” Anna spoke as she concentrated.

“Mmm.”

“What do you think of my arm?” she didn’t look at him as she asked, she was listening to the tone in his voice. Harry hesitated…he knew what she meant and was delving into his emotions .

“Your arm…”He repeated almost to himself. “I..I think it’s unfortunate but I don’t feel put off by it.” it was a start.

“It’s a burden, Harry, always has been, always will be, strange how sometimes it feels like it isn’t a part of me, so different, when I wake sometimes I look to see if it was just a dream.”

“Does it make a difference to our relationship?” he asked.

“In its clumsy intrusion, you know that.. yes..more later perhaps than now, when our company grows so much more familiar and little things come between us.”

Harry didn’t answer, but shrugged his shoulders. Anna stood facing him and placed her hand on his shoulder,

“Harry, we are about to be married….to have children…from there it’s a long road ahead..”

“I..I’m sure we can do as good as other people in their marriages. ” Harry gently replied. Anna turned slowly to one side to stare at the rose.

“I worry, Harry, that any children we may have will not also be affected.”

“It’s not passed on .I believe.”

“You believe, but who knows!” Anna’s emotions engulfed her and she dropped her head crying “ Who knows,Harry…it killed my mother, the responsibility she felt for it…if..if I bore children that were deformed..”

“Oh I’d hardly call….”Harry interrupted.

“Yes!” Anna persisted “deformed, for that’s what it is Harry, deformed…and I would indeed blame myself for…for..” and she turned her tear-stained face to him..

“Oh, Harry, If ever there was a time to back away from your commitment, it is now!…I wouldn’t hold it against you…but marry me not with naivety, nor…for gods’ sake ..pity!” and she turned to him with a steady challenging gaze. Harry reached for her stump-arm and deliberately took it in his hands. she automatically went to pull it away but he held it tight and though she could have withdrawn it. a stronger force held her.

“Anna….would you think me so simple so as not to see the complications that lie ahead in our marriage?…for marriage it shall be, lest thou refuse me…and would you hold my feelings for you so lightly that you could see me casting them aside, like a discarded rag , for nothing more than this stunted limb? For if that be the measurement of grace, where does one start.? Do I compare the beauty of your eyes against size of  your feet?…or grace of your step to the lobe of your ear?….hearty laugh against dirty nail?..and where do I stop?..” He rubbed Anna’s two stumpy fingers gently “If  I gaze into your eyes, do you see pity, greed, selfishness?..look now, Anna , don’t turn away, look!…you see affection..no pity, no naivety, no denial…I’m a grown man….l love you, Anna, do not misjudge me nor deny your own feelings but just say you will marry me.”

Harry raised her stump-arm to his lips, the two tiny fingernails painted red like those on her other arm, and kissed her fingers. Anna’s face contorted to one of weeping happiness and she flung her good arm about Harry’s neck and there they embraced while standing over the rose bush.

“Yes, Harry,” she murmured in his ear” I will marry you, yes!”

 

Carmello Comes Home.

The plight of the “escaping from warfare refugee” has figured large over the last few years with much sympathy, while the “economic refugee”has been somewhat scorned as an “opportunist”…I can assure many that it is far from true..the desperation and need can be felt  equally by the “starving stayers” as by the fleeing desperates..and it didn’t always go that well with such “legitimate” immigrants.

This might ring a bell with some of our older citz’ here…Do any of you Adelaidiens remember that strip of garden between Nth. Terrace and the wall of the Governor’s residence?…It ran from the Light Horse statue to the Arch of Remembrance, between the Governor’s residence and Nth. Terrace …and it was a real garden, not like now where it is just a lawn. It was once full of exotic flowers and shrubs and they would give blazing colour to that walkway that used to carry so much foot-traffic from the railway station to the university or Rundle St (as it was then)..I’m talking back in the 60s / 70’s …well, the entire kit and caboodle was planted and maintained by this little Italian Gardener…I remember seeing him there a couple of times, in those green bib-n-brace overalls. He used to work out of a corrugated-iron shed hidden snugly behind a hedge of some low shrub-like trees near the war memorial end…he could be seen there with his wheelbarrow and some tools in it…he would plant out and till-up where replacement was required or needed, according to the season.

He migrated to this country around 1960 and intended to settle here with his new family..this is a little piece of his story.

It went like this..:

“Carmello Comes Home”

( I )

“All journeys start in hope,

So many end in despair.

The migrant sets his mind to the first,

Tho’ his heart overflow with fear.”

Carmello Notori stepped off the boat at Outer-Harbour on a very hot February day. The year was 1960. The sharp sunlight cut daggers spark-ling off every bright object into his eyes so that he squinted continually and some obscure god had scattered wanton stars onto the sea that glittered and danced.

“This is a pale country,” was Carmello’s first thought. “I hope it treats us well”. By “us” he was referring to himself and his wife and two year old child who were to join him later, about six months later, after he had got a job and set up a house for the family.

Carmello obtained employment with the city council and rented a small flat in a near suburb and wrote short informative letters to his wife back in the village in Italy about his progress in the new country. After six months, he wrote for her to come and join him, but she put it off as “the child was ill with influenza and she needed to rest him.”

Three months after that it was something else that would delay her. His letters became a little more terse and then cajoling in the hope of persuading her to come out, but she stay put in the village. After a season of excuses which Carmello “saw through”, she finally confessed she was too scared to go away from her family, her friends in the village. Where would she get help with the child? Who could she talk to in the lonely hours that plague the mothers at home. No, she was too scared to be alone in a strange house in a strange land. He clutched that letter in his hand and rested his cheek on his arm on the kitchen table. He could see her point in his heart and he did not try to argue her out of it, for he too had felt the loneliness of a faster lifestyle, a more grasping lifestyle that left little time for friends to gather impromptu to savour the joy of a sweet moment. He changed the tone of his letters gradually to one of fatalistic acceptance and sent money back home on a regular basis.

He would have liked to have gone back to his family but he remembered the acute poverty that drove him, and many others alike, away. He remembered too the bragging he had done in the local cafe of the good life he would have in the “new country”, so he stayed, though it was mostly the memory of the poverty that kept him at his work and he sent money back home to his family.

Carmello worked for the council looking after a long stretch of garden next to a busy city street. It was a narrow piece of land that ran from the main city intersection by the Parliament House, a half a kilometer to end at the War Memorial. He would till the soil and plant shrubs in the autumn. He would rake the speckled yellow and red leaves from the deciduous trees that lined the street and shed their foliage in the cool autumn days. In the winter he would sweep the path that ran through the garden or sit quietly in his hut amongst the creeper vines when it rained. After some years he was left to be his own boss so that his schedule was a very obliging one that saw him through the years. When the spring buds came out he weeded and tilled between the flowers as they grew. A small fire always burnt in one corner near his hut, where he would incinerate twigs and leaves and bits of scrap paper people discarded on their daily commute through his garden.

The softness of the small fire cheered him in some lonely times and sent a slim, scented plume of blue smoke twirling up, up over the trees into the city skyline. No-one noticed him so no-one bothered him. He was an anonymous immigrant in a big country, and so the years passed by and he sent money back home to his family.

One day a woman stopped and admired a flowering plant just near where he was standing.

“They’re nice aren’t they?” he spoke.

The woman gave a little start. She hadn’t noticed him standing there. She gazed at him and blinked. He blended in so well with the leafy backgound that he almost seemed a part of it. His brown cardigan hung loose on his short nobbly frame..  a pair of bib and brace green overalls untidily covered his body, the knees of these overalls had been crudely patched as if he had done the job himself (which he had). His face was “chunky” with a big nose and his curly hair, though not dirty, was neglected so his general appearance looked as one who needn’t impress anyone.

“You have a garden?” He asked.

“Why, yes I do”, the woman answered cautiously.

“Here, I give you one of these,” he spoke softly, confidentially.

There was a small heap of cuttings of a green shrub with spiky blue flowers which he had been pruning. Kneeling down with a small trowel, he grubbed up a bulb of one of the plants, then rising and looking over his shoulder in a secretive way, put the bulb into a plastic bag supplied by the woman. They exchanged pleasantries about the flowers and gardens then bid each other cheerio. Once a month the woman would come down the path on her way to the library and they would chat and exchange details about their gardens and the weather and this and that…

“Fifteen years I have worked this garden now,” he told her one day. She seemed surprised she had never noticed him up to when they first met, such was his anonymity.

“Soon I have my long service,” he smiled.

One rainy winter’s day there was a ceremony going on at the War Memorial so that he wasn’t working just then. There were a lot of people standing around listening to the Governor giving a speech. The Governor and other dignitaries peeked out from under the broad black brims of umbrellas. Here and there you could see some old soldiers, medals and service ribbons on their coats and them just standing out in the pouring rain, the water streaming in little waterfalls over the brim of their hats and their gaunt faces streaked with the drenching rain so you’d think they were crying rivers of tears.

Carmello stood under the lee of his hut. The woman stopped next to the gardener.

“Oh hello missus”, he greeted her quietly and they stood there listening to the address. After a little while Carmello leant over to the woman and softly whispered: “I’m going back to Italy soon.”

“For good?” the woman asked.

“No, No,” he shook his head emphatically, “Only for a short while ; a holiday..I have my long-service leave.” He smiled at the thought.

When he returned from his holiday he seemed unsettled, a bit more determined as though he were fighting an uneasy desire.

“If I could go tomorrow, missus…,” he would say, shaking his hand in a gesturing way and he’d sigh. “But I must save, missus, I must save now”, he turned as he spoke, the rake in his hand with the head resting on the ground. “I must save now,” he spoke earnestly.

He was sad at leaving his family back home, and to make matters worse, he had learnt that his wife was now expecting another child and he could not be there to assist as a husband ought.

Another wet day she came along the path and saw the gardener sitting huddled just inside the door of his hut with a little fire of sticks burning by the door. He looked miserable sitting there.

“Are you well?” She asked.

“Ah! no missus, I have this cold..una raffreddore!..I should be home..but what is the use of staying alone in an empty house?” he stared at the fire as he spoke, and it was around that time he decided he would have to go back home…the final decision was made as he read the latest letter from his wife in the village. She told of the everyday events of the season in the village ..and he was not there…

“…it was a good year for the grapes,” she wrote “ but the olives were not so good, with many rotting on the trees..Alfonso ( the grandfather) got a good deal from the miller for his wheat and we now have plenty of flour for the pasta this year…” Carmello read on..”…the saint’s day parade went well as it was a lovely day with the sun shining bright and all the children dressed up and the flowers so pretty placed at the feet of San Giovanni…” the memories flooded in..all this was happening as he had himself seen so many years ago..and he was not there.

Carmello looked up at that moment from his reading as he heard a strange noise across the road..There , dressed in their light, flowing bright orange robes, were a troupe of half a dozen Hari Krishna shaved-head devotees chanting and ringing their small cymbals and tambourines as they skipped and swirled down the footpath opposite in single file…It was the strange sight of this totally , to Carmello, alien image that steered his course of action, a craving for the familiarity of homeland swept over him so he almost swooned from a sense of isolation and loneliness ..but he would stay and save and save..then after three more years, he calculated,  he would return to his home.

The woman’s husband had a stroke at around that time, that knocked him flat and kept her home for several years so she never saw the gardener again. A long time after she was walking through Carmello’s stretch of garden and she noticed the gardener’s hut was being pulled down by some workmen.

A little way along the path another man was digging up the green shrubs with the spiky blue flowers. The woman stopped .

“Where’s the little Italian gardener?” She asked one of the workmen there.

“Oh him? He’s gone home, lady, back to Italy.”

“Oh?” She queried.

“Yep” the man continued. “Twenty years here was enough for him.” He laughed. The woman turned to go away, then stopped.

“Tell me; what was his name?” She asked for he had never told her.

“To tell you the truth madam,” the man scratched the back of his head “I wouldn’t know. We called him ‘Gino’ but we call all the eyeties ‘Gino’.” And he laughed again.

( II )

Pellegrino Rossi sat outside on the footpath under the blue and yellow lighted sign that said “Tony – BAR”. The word “Tony” was smaller than the word “BAR” and was in the top left hand corner. Pellegrino Rossi sat out in the morning sunshine at a small round table drinking a cup of espresso coffee and observing the movements of the people of the village. The daily bus from the big provincial city pulled up over the other side of the road with a squeal of brakes and a hiss of air. Pellegrino could not see who had alighted as the bus was between himself and the far footpath. But he knew someone had got off as the driver too had alighted and there was a clatter of baggage doors opening on the far side of the bus. After a short time and a degree of muffled conversation, the driver sprung back into his seat and with a hiss of shutting doors, the bus accelerated away in a cloud of fumes, smoke and dust.

A short nobbly man of about fifty remained on the far footpath where the bus had left him. He was escorted on both sides by two enormous tatty brown suitcases with large belts and buckles around their girth. His suit of clothes matched the colour of the cases. They were crushed and misshapen from being worn on a long journey. His belt, like the ones on the suitcases, was pulled tight around his girth so that his trousers were “lifted”  high on his waist and left too much ankle showing down around his shoes. Pellegrino squinted at the man who remained standing there as though trying to comprehend his situation. A smile of recognition gradually crept over Pellegrino’s face. It had been a long, long time. He called out:

“Well, well now, “Panerello” (for that was Carmello’s nickname), we were wondering when you would come home.” His hand was shaking at the new arrival in that flat openhanded on edge way that Italians do. Carmello smiled and nodded as he recognised his old friend.

“Hey! “Dry as sticks”,” Pellegrino called into the doorway of the Bar. “Pour a glass-full of the fatted calf to welcome the prodigal home!” He laughed as he stood.

At the mention of “the prodigal”, Carmello’s hand went automatically to the inside pocket of his suit coat. There it felt a fatted packet. Fatted with banknotes of a foreign currency. Payment for all those years of tending the gardens. Payment for all those years of loneliness in a strange country. Payment for all those years of patience and endurance. He gave the packet a squeeze and it seemed a weight fell from his shoulders.

“Payment for the children” he sighed.

Carmello smiled happily as he surveyed the scene, the Bar, his friend, the round tables on the footpath, the yellowing paint on the house walls, the orangey-pink of the old church in the square, the cobblestone road, the sound of his friends’ greeting, the feel of the mountain air on his cheeks.

“Carmello, Carmello!” a woman’s voice cried from down the narrow street, the sound rebounding off the walls of the canyon of houses. He recognised her sweetly,…the photos,…the memory of her longingly treasured in his heart…his wife called again in a gentle dropping inflection of voice.

“Carmello…Caro, Carmello” she came quickly down the street in little skips and runs as older woman do when they want to go fast on foot. He could see the tears in her eyes, a couple of people stopped and some popped their heads out of nearby houses. His friend, Pellegrino called again from across the road.

“Ah Panerello, Panerello, it’s been too long.” He was smiling as he came onto the street. Carmello looked to him, at his approaching wife, a tall young man at her side..his son.. the young girl at her skirts…his daughter..had it been five years already? A sob of joy welled up inside him, he lifted his hands as though wishing to explain something with them but no words would come to his lips…his wife coming closer, his friend reaching out for his hands with both of his, his village shone bright in the morning sunlight, a shaft of sunshine snipped a star off the glass ashtray on one of the tables at the “Tony-BAR”. Carmello felt the tears run freely… He was home,…at last…he was home!

 

The loneliness of the long distance runner.

That short story from 1959 by Alan Sillitoe, which gained fame through a film of the same name in the early sixties is still one of my favourite stories…The awakening of consciousness of class, the rebellious nature of the “anti-hero” and then that ending of the long distance race where Smith, the working class lad who throws the race in the last few yards as a deliberate and brutal mockery and snub to the upwardly aware middle-class warden of the borstal where Smith was doing his time for petty crime, a most exquisite and obstinate passive resistance to that warden who wanted to “commodify” the running skills of the working class youth as a badge of honour for his own aspiration with his own peers..and indeed to that whole class of degenerate opportunists…a most beautiful and fitting cut to the core of the middle class commodifying of everything we deem most personal..from our social surroundings to our bodies to our very heart beat and soul..

“ Sillitoe uses running in his story as a means of isolation. Running is a solitary action and therefore allows Smith to begin to understand and become aware of the class divisions in Britain. Smith, the narrator of the story, is also a writer and he is an allegoric version of Sillitoe and the isolation that all authors suffer from. Smith is a solitary runner who gets political clarity through running and isolation, just as an author writes alone and thinks alone. The long distance runner and the writer are both individualistic and isolated so that they are able to produce their commodities. The metaphor used to compare both the author and the runner is similar to the author losing his purity when he publishes a work just as Smith loses his purity when he enters the race. “ (Wikipedia)

The hunger for possession that drives the psyche of the most rapacious of that class of humanity, has wrought fearful dispossession and destruction through their desire to both control and commodify without personal work or physical input of all that is necessity and valued by humanity.

From the time of the Oligarchs of ancient Greece to the Equestrian order speculators and capitalist traders of ancient Rome to the Captains of industrial revolution England and in our own day, the so called “masters of the universe” traders in the stock exchanges of the world who constructed through ponzi-scheme creation a false boom-cycle that led to the most destructive collapse of the economies of many nations since the Great Depression of the 1930s…costing so many lives..all this damage and destruction while pleading an innocence of criminal intent..It can be deduced that the entrepreneurial / speculative middle class is a most dangerous provocateur and saboteur of civilisation that culminates in their pièce de résistance of social control : Fascism!

There is also another short story that I treasure, and which I see as a fine, if somewhat more subtle condemnation of class distinction…: “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” by James Joyce, where the young chap ; a Mr. O’Connor, down on his luck sits waiting in contemplation for some desperate pay to come from his employer, a scheming aspirant middle class political wannabe…There is another player in the story who, I believe, represents the traitor to his class that can be found everywhere; the sycophantic : Mr. Henchy, who seeks to both appease those of his own class by siding with and slighting their employer and then beguiling his companions in an oleaginous way to embrace the coming to Ireland of the King of England..thereby betraying the revered memory of their late hero leader : Charles Stewart Parnell…betrayed, like the Irish people, by the priests and the Catholic political class.

It has always been known that a traitor among one’s own class is the easiest of people for an opportunist to find..It is no more difficult to find the Judas here in our nation than in any other place. We are living in a time when our democracy has been sold to international corporations by one of our major political parties for no more than the legendary thirty pieces of silver. We see the nation being “governed” by a criminal gang with little more ethics than a collective Fagan, taking the wealth of the people and then denying them the services and opportunities for a decent and respectful life..the lot of a working person becoming nothing more than a beggar’s banquet of stingy wages and exhorbitant costs of living. The essential utilities; energy and water, the valuable raw materials sold-on at bargain basement prices to fellow corporate shareholders and the booty stashed, again Fagan like, in various tax havens while the citizens are made to go without because of a lack of fair-share tax collection from these high-profit, low-responsibility multi-nationals. “Just as rivers glisten in various colours, does a sewer look the same all over the world”.

What can we do?

Again, we can look to the past, since such avaricious behaviour is more a habit of a greedy mind than a genetic disposition, and we see the plebeians of ancient Rome walking away from the city in disgust at the lack of representation in a aristocratic government and threaten to start a new city over the other side of the Tiber River..We today cannot just up stakes and move to another location, so let us bring that location to us here…let us bring the mountain to Mohammed! Let us create a new society amongst the ruins of this capitalist disaster. Let us re-construct “Community” without the anal-retentive oversight of the money hungry middle-class. From small collectives, Let us grow the food, make the products and educate the ones for our own needs, not for a “just in time” commodifying corporate body. We, in the working / producing body of citizens have all the skills required to re-make a society..Perhaps such a society removed from the waste of “profit motive production” can turn around the oncoming climate disaster that it seems this current collection of governing criothans has neither the capacity nor the inclination to do. Let them go to f#cking Mars, we are quite content with this paradise ; Earth.

Certainly it will be an embracing of hard times..but has it ever been otherwise for the vast majority of us..Let there be a joining of the many multicultural peoples, the indigenous peoples, the unions and those of the middle class who would join the “exodus” ..let us place the first words on the page for a new story, Let US write : “In the beginning . . . “ for new hope, new life..and we could , perhaps, indeed demand that with the rejection of all that a degenerate profiteering class stands for, we hereby proclaim ourselves with a collective of the many we become a union of ONE… ONE voice, ONE mind, ONE body , ONE goal..; to proclaim independence from the non-producing, worthless bigots, racists and thieves..to proclaim that we are standing together against any storm that is thrown against us.. for ours and our children’s future with not one…not two ..but THRICE cry of united defiance :

I STAND !
I STAND !
I STAND !