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Day One
II. DAD'S HOUSE
There's no toilet in the house, so I have to use the
wire door & gates that bounce on their hinges, &
never shut properly, I have to walk past Bindo, who
lies waiting on the path, I have to go out, at odd
hours, with a torch & breathe in deeply, it's my first
night in Brewarrina, the air smells crystal clear, it's as
though I can see for kilometres in the pitch, & from
overhead, I can hear the silence, & the stars are
booming out behind the watertank, it's as though I
can see for light years, the moon is full, & everytime I
step outside, I can smell the country, & can taste the
dark, it enters me perfectly, there are jerry cans in the
kitchen, a tough gas stove, a Jackeroo, a frypan on
the bench, & the deep freezer, brown glass beer
bottles & an old electric jug on the boil, with the
element sparking & flying from its place on the wiped
clean bench, everything in its simple state, sunlight
through the slated glass, & an old blue tea towel
hanging up, the last drip off an old plate, the dry plugs
& sink, a cup of hot tea, & some poetry, a good flask
up on the kitchen cupboard, for cold nights on the
riverbank, & a big box of black & gold tissues, inside
the newspaper lined cupboard, the Wostershire sauce,
black pepper, coffee, bread & So Good soy milk, dad
says, "The doctor got me onto that" & hanging on a
nail, The E See - 2C 'Easy To See Calendar', worth
$3.95 with a Leura scene, the big introduced garden,
& The Blue Mountains, wild in the background &
hanging beside it, the faded America's Cup tea towel,
an oily green emu egg propped up in an ashtray, in the
loungeroom & a clock made out of cancer that
attaches itself to box trees out near Gongolgon, & a
big black & white photo of Patch, dad looks at it &
says, "Anyone that doesn't let their dog inside the
house is a fuckwit", two bar heaters that burn your
ankles while the rest of your body freezes, dad
doesn't own much, but he likes it that way, he likes to
make do, doesn't want a new heater or a mattress,
just wants to listen to the radio, roll a smoke & check
on lotto, on the bookshelf there are old National
Geographics, a book of A.B. Patterson's verse, an old
red trannie & a cheeky mouse gnawing in the
cupboard that just won't go away, dad puts up with it
for awhile, then he says, "'e starts that up every
morning, I can't 'ear the radio, 'e made a nest in the
cupboard with newspaper, it was like a big ball, 'e
ripped all me racing forms up, 'e's comin' in for a
drink of milk, 'e likes it warm though, 'e won't touch
it cold in the winter & 'e likes toast with a little bit of
jam, but 'e got a bit overweight during autumn," I
say, "Did you put him on a diet then?", he pauses &
says, "I'm gonna lay a few mouse traps soon," on the
coffee table tins of log cabin, cigarette papers, keys,
filters, newspaper for horse races & lotto, glasses to
read newspapers & beneath it all an old porno image
of a woman with ash spilt across the skin, & coffee to
keep awake, in a mug from The Gold Coast, an esky,
a few cotton tea towels, an old anchor weather
thermometer, there used to be a brewery in the
bathroom & dozens of brown bottles where dad made
his own, but he tells me he got a big gut & had to
stop, "Too much home made brew & you get all the
bludgers hangin' around in the summer, six foot flies
outside the wire door", on the window sill there's ash,
sunlight soap & mousetraps, six second hand blankets
on the bed, & an old tassel bedspread, some hospital
towels, a mattress that plunges down to squeak in the
middle, & no matter how many blankets weighing you
down, some nights you just can't get warm, dusty
hats on top of the old old wardrobe, with wooden
doors as thin as paper, easy to kick in or fall through,
but it wouldn't matter, & inside a few guns propped
up in the clothes & boxes of bullets, a Western
Australian ashtray & a New Zealand letter holder on
the bedside table, dad doesn't want anything new,
except the new day & in the mornings, dogs that bring
the house to life, the toilet chain being flushed next
door, the kettle boiling, the 2WEB radio switched on
low, the warm shy sunlight streaming in, the mouse
gnawing, & a quiet paw on the bedspread or pillow,
from Patch-'Em-Up waking the house up. |
