there was a security in coming home/ lying curled
up on the blue & white vinyl bench seat of the e.j.
holden/ the bump bump of the rubber tyres as they
hit the gutter/ & rusky barking yelp yelp yelp at
the white lattice trellis/
& in the driveway leading
us to the house/ three black & white cats from behind/
their thick based tails in a big-bummed trot before
the headlights & bumper bar/ & always mum saying:
slow down gary, slow down/ you're going to hit one of
them/
but dad did not slow down/ & he did not run
down our cats/ even when he was drunk/ he said that
drinking at the wheel made him alert/ that he had
been driving twenty years & had never had an
accident/
sometimes he used to swerve the holden
onto the wrong side of the road/ my brothers & i
silently thrilled/ (if we wanted him to drive
dangerously he would)/ i kept my door unlocked &
my hand on the handle/ my motionless mother seated
in the front/ & no accidents to date/
& always at
home the threat of the black gun tucked up in the
curtain guard/ above the smooth black lounge where
my father sat/ soberly chewing his fingernails/
watching the news or staring off into blue space/
or eating steak saturated by hot sauce/ & brown
vinegar with the girl with the skipping rope label
& white pepper/ his dark hairy arms lifting up the
plate of sauces & animal fats/ & it washing over the
hand-painted roses & gold-rimmed edges of mum's
good china/
& dribbling down his shirt & pyjamas or
his baggy white singlet/ & the thick yellow fat
right around his mouth from cheap flaps/ which mum
would cart home on the stroller roof to boil up for
the dogs/
i remember the dented aluminium saucepan/
its lopsided red lid bubbling on the big electric
hotplate/ & the bubbles of fat floating on froth &
my father's neck running with thick brown grease/ &
his soft round face shining in the dull light & him
saying: i like flaps/
i never knew what part of the cow
they came from/ but i knew my father was unhappy
eating fat in liverpool/ & how he craved for his
past in brewarrina in north-western new south wales/
& his sad voice saying: i love flaps coral, i love
flaps/
& i remember leftover animal bones buried in
the carpet with his toenail scythes/ & fluffy blue
rugs littered with skeletons/ slithers of curly
tobacco & cigarette ash/
& the tiny marmite jar
sitting on the radiogram beside the ashtray/ which
he used to take with him on excursions to his bedroom
or the kitchen/ to refill with cheap port, dry sherry
or payday brandy/ from beneath his dark bed or from
the fridge or kitchen cupboards/
mum said: why don't
you just take the whole bottle in with you/ or use a
bigger glass?/ but he didn't listen & he grew
secretive/ & i knew that it was my father's way of
being dainty/
& i remember the crinkly surface of
the emerald ashtray that glowed softly like an indoor
moon/ & dad's tiny burnt butts floating in its
atmosphere/ or meticulously stored in vegemite jars
to be opened again/ & used like small gifts to
himself when the money ran short/
often i searched
his chest of drawers for something i might have from
him/ but he didn't have anything/ except a strange
leather case full of buttons, needles, cotton & pins/
each year i would reopen it/ pricking my fingers/
facing my large sleepy eyes in its mirror/ hoping
to rediscover something of interest/ but its contents
never changed/
my father's room stank of onions,
cigarette smoke & garlic/ & is where he learnt
evidence/ he would sit his big bulk up in his unmade
bed with his glasses on/ all the paperwork from court
floating tidal over the twisted sheets/ & brendon,
dale & i would hear him as we played in the dim
hallway/
- the defendant said - & i said - & the
defendant said - were in the vicinity of - an
accessory after the fact of - in possession of
stolen - intent to cause - at the time 3.55 pm -
exposing his penis in front of - grievous bodily
harm - a witness claims to have - charged with -
break & enter - assault & battery/
we used to thunder
up the narrow hallway past his lit up bedroom/ with
flushing faces & laughter tears/ giggling into our
pyjamas: & the defendant said & the defendant said/
our muffled sniggering drifting into the late night
stale yellow light of his shaky concentration/
& once i ran very fast past his bedroom & lucky i
did/ because dad waited very quietly on his bed with
his polished black shoe/ he was still reciting:
three youths in the vicinty of - the chief inspector
said/ but his words were quieter/ off centre/
i bolted past his door to my bedroom & his shoe shot
straight past me/ going through the hallway wall
behind my head/ & when dad was out in the garage or
down at the bottlo or tab/ my brothers & i shuffled
through the evidence/ & mum took photographs of the
hole in the wall/
& we each felt the hardness of the
black baton/ i tapped my thigh with it/ it was very
hard/ harder than mum's stick which rested on top of
the fridge/ the baton was kept in dad's top drawer/
hidden beneath his socks & singlets/
wrapped in its
little leather strap/ which is how he held it he said/
when he knocked down the hoodlums/ i tapped myself
on the forehead with it & it was very hard/ i didn't
like the baton/
brendon tried the huge steel
interlocking handcuffs on/ with jagged teeth that
went clink clink clink or clinkclinkclinkclinkclink/
the handcuffs becoming smaller & smaller around our
wrists so that even children couldn't escape/ there
was his black suit, leather belt, polished shoes &
homicide hat/ he was called a plain-clothes detective
or 'dickhead' to the crims/ he was supposed to be
in disguise but everyone would recognise him dressed
like that/
sometimes he mentioned the murder squad/
he dressed up in shabby clothes & didn't wear a tie
or shave/ he said that they were after a homicidal
maniac on the interstate trains/ he mentioned a
stakeout & we didn't see him for days/
& when we
did always the silent threat of the black gun up in the
curtain guard/ whenever he sat beneath it/ or when
he got home drunk on paydays/ mixing celestone,
mogodon, cortisone & drink/ the threat when he
knocked my mother down/ saying: that was only a
warning/ i only just tapped her/
or when he smashed
his plate of steak & tomatoes fried in fat against
the wall/ mum in her apron on her knees on the
kitchen lino/ little pieces of broken roses in the
dustpan/ the black gun was never far away/ when he
was angry/ when our mother had to keep us quiet/
when he was on shiftwork or asleep during the day/
when she had to sleep in my bed at night for
protection/ when he was eating or mowing the lawn/
when he was fishing or when he was playing poker
with the do-drop-ins or having flying dreams or
laughing in his sleep/ the gun was never far away/
the gun was propped up in the curtain guard like a
black bullet or a big legless spider or a solid dark
aura/
anytime someone knocked at the door it was
there to watch over us/ it was there during their
visit & when they went home oblivious/ it was there
during the change of seasons & during school holidays/
it was even there at christmas/ hanging above the
heads of our family/ like a black back-to-front star
or an angel of death/
it was there on my first day
of school & for the first day of my menstrual cycle/
nothing could make gentle its presence/ my mother's
weary words: forget about it/ but it crowned my
father's sitting place like a bad friendship/ & was
psychically imprinted onto our foreheads/ it was
always loaded/
i only touched it once/ i pointed it
at the fish aquarium/ my eyes focused, my mind
unfocused/ swimming aimed in the blue liquid shadow
play of the loungeroom/ & my father's bellowing: don't
point the fucking thing at anyone!/ it left its imprint
on my fingers/ its dark stain/ like the bitten red look
after my mother had removed her pink nail varnish
& her dark eye makeup/
the gun was there when i
fled the house at thirteen/ when he threatened
to kill himself & shoot out our kneecaps/ when he
smartly calculated that the five-round revolver would
have enough fast bullets for each of us/ & when he
was crying/ either holding it to my mother's head/
or his own/ saying: you just tell me to do it/ just
say yes/
& my mother practicing the art of non-breath
& catatonic stillness/ & my brothers' broken boyhood
tears/ at our family unit breaking down/ & my parents'
stony expression making statues of the situation/ &
the three black & white cats meowing at the front
door/ hungry for mince & milk but no one moving/ &
rusky yelp yelp yelping at the white lattice trellis/
& the prospect of our own ending frozen in the
lounge room/ & me silently loving my father/ my
father as madman & enemy/ my father the destroyer
of my mother/ her blood, my blood/ i was lucky to
get out alive/ my blood, his blood/ trembling in the
sights of the black gun/ having existed on shaky
ground all along
