Calypso Summer Read online

  Calypso Summer

  Jared Thomas

  First published 2014 by Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation, Broome, Western Australia

  Website: www.magabala.com Email: [email protected]

  Magabala Books receives financial assistance from the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts advisory body. The State of Western Australia has made an investment in this project through the Department of Culture and the Arts in association with Lotterywest.

  This manuscript was developed through the support of the State Library of Queensland’s 2013 kuril dhagun Prize which is part of the State Library’s black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project.

  Copyright © Jared Thomas 2014

  All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design Tracey Gibbs

  Cover photograph Janette Milera, © 2014

  [email protected]

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Thomas, Jared, author.

  Calypso summer/Jared Thomas

  9781922142122 (paperback)

  Young men – Australia – Fiction

  Teenage boys – Australia – Fiction

  Aboriginal Australians – South Australia – Fiction

  A823.4

  Dedicated to past, present and future generations of Nukunu people Divided we are conquered, united we survive and prosper

  1

  It was thirty-nine degrees, my boss hadn’t paid me and I was too broke to fix my piece of shit ten-speed. A woman in a skirt and bathers walked around the corner and quickly sidestepped out the way. People are always doing that type of thing to me. It’s not my dreadlocks that freak people out. It’s ’cause I’m black, and I ain’t even that black. Just black enough for people to notice. I was just cruising home from work. It’s not like I was wearing prison overalls. I looked alright! I was in my work clothes and my deadly new Pumas, same ones Usain Bolt wears. And he’s the fastest man in the world.

  I couldn’t wait to just lie down under the air-conditioner. But Shane, my next door neighbour’s kid, was standing in the driveway smoking a cigarette. The dickhead thinks he’s tough.

  ‘Hey Calypso, I’ve got some good gear man, you want to buy a bag?’ he said.

  ‘Oh man, you know I don’t get wasted no more,’ I told him.

  ‘Just have a smoke, see what you think!’

  ‘Man if I wanted ganja I’d have ganja, I’ve got way better things to do,’ I told him as I just kept walking.

  ‘Just one smoke,’ he called out. I just kept thinking about the air-conditioning and told Shane to piss off.

  ‘You’re a fake, Calypso. What kind of Rasta don’t smoke weed?’ Shane said before sulking back into his mum’s place, his Australia flag board shorts almost falling off his runty little arse.

  I hadn’t smoked ganja for ages but I could smell it coming from my flat as I turned the key in the door. My cousin Run was trying to smoke away his worries as usual.

  The air-conditioning was deadly when it hit me but I was pissed off with Run using all my electricity. I’d finally got my own little place, with my Bob Marley poster pinned up in the lounge, a television and DVD player from Cash Converters, a couch and fridge from the Salvos – and even a washing machine. But it wasn’t me that was lapping it all up, Run was.

  I threw my backpack on the couch and made my way to Run’s room. I called out to him before I walked in. He’d been real depressed you know. If he’d tried doing anything stupid, I didn’t want to walk in on the scene without warning.

  There was no answer so I waited a tick. I heard his smoker’s cough and then walked in. Run was lying on his mattress, flat on his back, just wearing track pants. His hands were folded beneath his messy black hair that was starting to dread like mine.

  People think me and Run are brothers but he’s my cousin and he’s shorter and fatter than me anyway. He’s also a few years younger. White people shit themselves when they see Run too because he has these little scars on his face and freaky green cat eyes that make him look wild and suspicious. He’s taken so many drugs that you just can’t trust him. Even when he’s smiling, it’s like he might just try to flog you at any time.

  I looked at the water bong beside Run, still smoking away.

  ‘You right, cuz?’ I asked.

  Run didn’t answer, he just stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Come on, you’ve got to pick yourself up, cuz.’

  Run hadn’t been himself for months because his girlfriend, Kelly, left him for a parking inspector. She was only sixteen but she told Run that she liked a man in uniform and dropped him just like that. Run had taken it pretty badly. I’d had a couple of flat mates that didn’t pay bills and ended up pissing off so I let Run move in. He was desperate. And he begged me, saying he’d get a job and that. Mum was fed up with him living with her … my big sister Evelyn and her kids living with her too. I thought I might be able to help cheer Run up but now I’m sick of always trying to lift his spirits, it’s hard enough looking after myself.

  I picked up the book that Run had taken from my room. It was my copy of Ubby’s Underdogs, this awesome graphic novel I won at school in a spelling competition when I was really trying to win an iPod. I turned a page and then spotted two dirty coffee cups and a plate with grease and a half eaten sausage stuck to it.

  ‘For fuck’s sake Run, you’ve got to get out a bit. You’ll have another woman before you know it and you’ll regret wasting time.’

  Run sat up and looked at me in confusion. ‘Calypso, what the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Kelly mahn,’ I said in my best Jamaican accent. ‘I know you’re stressed about her cuz but you got to move on.’

  ‘I’m not worried about Kelly …’

  ‘Well that’s good cuz,’ I said.

  ‘And even if I was, why shouldn’t I be?’ Run bit back.

  ‘Cause you and ’er finished ages ago bruz.’

  ‘So?’ said Run.

  ‘Well you’re only eighteen, you’ve got your whole life to live.’

  ‘I ain’t got shit. I ain’t got no woman, I ain’t got nothing,’ Run sulked.

  ‘You’ve got to go out and get what you want Run.’

  ‘Like what Calypso?’ Run asked and I was pleased because I’d wanted to tell him exactly what to do for ages.

  ‘Well, while you’re on the subject cuz, for a start, you need to get a job.’

  ‘What for?’ he sulked.

  ‘You’ve been staying with me for the last six months and you haven’t paid me a cent of rent, Run. I’ve got electricity, phone bills, the whole lot owing and you haven’t said you’re gunna pay shit. You were all big time, “I’ll get a job,” when you first moved in here, now what, cuz?’

  ‘Well you’re the rich one Calypso, you like working so much.’

  ‘Yeah, right! ... but working pays the bills, hey.’

  ‘Oh fuck off Calypso, you’re the only blackfella that I know with a laptop and all!’

  ‘You know that girl I was seeing ages ago left it with me. She didn’t want to pick it up, she didn’t want to see my sorry black arse no more.’

  ‘Well, you’ve even got mobile credit all the time! And just ’cause you’ve got a job you think that every blackfella can get one.’

  ‘Well you can find a job, just start looking.’

  ‘Why, so you can take my money? What you need my money for?’

  I considered Run’s question for a second.

  ‘Well cuz, I’m a you
ng fella and young fellas are supposed to be looking for their woman right? … And when I find my woman, I want to treat her right.’

  ‘Why you need money for a woman Calypso? Your idea of treating a woman right is fish and chips on the beach, a rich fella like you can afford that, easily.’

  ‘Yeah, but this time I might want to treat my woman real fine.’

  Run propped himself up to sit cross-legged and asked me, ‘How would you treat your woman fine?’

  I had to think about it, I’d never given it much thought.

  ‘Come on, what would you do?’ Run asked again.

  I let my mind wander to a dream this relief teacher got me thinking about when she brought in pictures of things we might want like flash houses, cars and holidays. There was this picture of the P&O Fair Star upon the turquoise waters of the Caribbean.

  ‘Just tell me one thing that you really want Calypso,’ she said at the end of the class when she saw that I hadn’t pasted any pictures or written anything I dreamed of on the flash paper she gave me.

  ‘But you don’t have any pictures of the things I want Miss,’ I told her.

  ‘Just tell me,’ she said almost begging.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ I whispered. She just stood there holding her breath waiting for me to say something. ‘When I have kids, I just want clean sheets on the bed for them.’

  ‘Oh Calypso. Anything else?’ she asked getting all emotional and that.

  ‘Curtains on the window and maybe a couch, like one out of a proper shop, not off the street.’

  ‘Oh Calypso,’ she said again, real sad. Then, I couldn’t believe it, two big fat tears ran down her face and she held out her arms to hug me! I just flexed it out of the classroom and started pissing myself laughing. I was only messing around with her.

  But, I guess, if I really thought about it, they were the kinds of things I wanted, nothing flash. Mum doesn’t have much you know. She hasn’t bought anything for herself for years. Run and I used to have to remember her birthday three months in advance, so we could steal something and pretend we’d saved up longest time. Good thing her birthday was in April because the biggest mobs of people would stay at the West Beach Caravan Park over the summer and leave their flash clothes on the line and shoes by their caravans. We’d grab Mum a dress or something. We’d grab things for ourselves too and say kids at school gave them to us hand-me-down.

  I haven’t forgotten that picture of the Caribbean. There is a palm tree bent over the sea with a hammock beneath it. In the distance is a cruise ship and I can see the passengers chilling out by the pool. The water is so clear and the sky so blue. That picture is still there in my mind.

  ‘What would you do fuck ya?’ Run growled.

  ‘I’d take my woman on a cruise,’ I mumbled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A cruise.’

  ‘A cruise, but you ain’t even got no car, bruz!’

  Run just sat there laughing, like I was an idiot. Thing is though, there’s no way he will buy a car before me. And it was stupid trying to talk sense to Run, so I just went and jumped in the shower.

  2

  The next morning, I arrived at work at 7:30, way before opening, to stack the shelves of Henley Beach Health Foods and Products. I call it Mystic Dolphin Health Foods and Products ’cause it’s kind of like a hippie joint. We sell some organic fruit and veg or what they call transition to organic foods, foods that haven’t been sprayed with chemicals. We also sell a whole heap of different herbs and even beads that women put around their neck to help them know when they won’t get knocked up.

  I sat on a Coca-Cola crate, placing containers, bottles and packets of garlic tablets, eucalyptus oil, lavender extract, dried seahorses, and shark fin powder on the shelves and hooks. My boss and owner of the store, Gary, lit incense sticks and watered all of the pot plants around the shop, mostly palms, before sitting behind the counter to drink a cup of coffee and read the newspaper like he does every morning. Then Gary took his shoulder length grey hair and pulled it back in a ponytail before opening the shop for business.

  I was getting into the swing of things but I kept thinking about Run going on about me thinking any blackfella could get a job just because I have one. I don’t think that at all because getting a job was near impossible and a bit of a fluke in the end. Sure there’s a whole lot of uni courses and jobs promoted to Aboriginal kids but they’re not the type of jobs that I want. At school there were always people coming from the universities, mining companies and the defence force to speak with us about studying this and that. Lots of kids licked their lips, dreaming of their future flash house, car, motorbike, jet-ski and boat. Good luck to ’em. Some of the Nunga kids took information from the uni and my friend Tiara is even doing some science health thing at uni now. But working for a mining company, that’s just crazy. Some of my Nunga friends like Thommo and Vince are working in the mines. But even though I didn’t know much about my culture then, I’d done enough Aboriginal studies to know that you don’t go ripping big holes in people’s country.

  I did alright at school ’ey. Even better than a lot of the white kids. And I don’t mind reading sometimes, especially books about famous people. I read the Rolling Stone a lot after picking up a copy about Bob Marley and the golden age of reggae. And Mum was always making me do my homework before I could go out and stuff. She was tough like that.

  But I still had a hard time finding work, the type I wanted anyway. See, I just wanted to work in a sports store, selling sneakers, clothes and equipment. Apart from the Caribbean thing, working in a sports store is like my everyday dream. I like sports shoes and know every pair of Nike Air Jordans ever made. Michael Jordan is too deadly and Usain Bolt is the deadliest. He is the fastest man in the world.

  When I finished school, with my flash report card photocopied and tucked away in a nice little folder, I went straight to the Nike shop in the mall. Mum helped me to buy the deadliest shirt, tie, slacks and trendy black shoes I could afford. I even pulled my hair back with a band. Mum was real happy. I even noticed some women checking me out in my deadly clothes on the bus so I was game. I felt confident that I was going to get a job for sure.

  I smelled all those new shoes and clothes when I walked into the Nike shop … lovely, and smiled knowing that I knew every– thing about every shoe in the store. I was standing there checking out a hoody when this real tall fella asked me if I needed a hand.

  ‘Can I see the manager?’

  ‘If you want to exchange a product, I can help you.’

  ‘Nah, it’s not that. I want to apply for a job.’ The fella just stood there gawking at me like I was speaking alien or something. ‘I have my school report and things here,’ I said holding out my folder.

  ‘There’s a form you can fill out and if anything comes up, you’ll be contacted.’

  So I filled out the form and left it with him. I went to store after store that day and the fellas working there also asked me to leave my details with them. I waited a few days thinking they were going to call me for an interview but nothing.

  I went looking for work at West Lakes Shopping Centre the next week. One of the fellas in the store said there was work coming up but I had to go through a recruitment company. The fella wrote down the name of the recruitment company for me.

  I jumped on another bus to search for jobs at Tea Tree Plaza Shopping Centre that week too and everyone kept telling me the same thing, I had to go through a recruitment company. So one day, sick of waiting, I went to the library and went online to check out the recruitment company.

  I had to register with these recruitment companies and there was this questionnaire with hundreds of questions ... true, it was worse than filling out Centrelink forms! Was I cool under pressure? Did I have cash register and money handling skills? Did I have customer service experience? These were some of the easier questions. I didn’t really know how to answer them because I was straight out of school.

  After months of looking t
here were a few interviews, if you can call them that. There were like fifty kids going for two or three jobs. At the interviews, they asked us all a few questions and gave personality tests to weed us out, like contestants on a reality television show or something! I was always among the first to go and it wasn’t hard to work out why. Even dressed up flash, those bosses looked at me like I was going to rob their shop.

  I tried and tried, I really did and I applied everywhere too, not just sports stores. After months of interviews and not getting anywhere, I just gave in. No one in Adelaide was going to give me a job … not Calypso the blackfella. I felt like a real no-hoper. Most of my friends from school were doing apprenticeships, or going to uni or working. I started to see less and less of them. They were getting cars and girlfriends and I wasn’t doing much at all. Even the special kids had special places to go.

  One night after getting knocked back again, I went to Mum’s and almost drank a whole bottle of rum. I hadn’t drunk before. The next morning, with the first hangover of my life, I called the work agency and told them to just let me know if anything comes up.

  Centrelink kept hassling me though, making me fill in a jobsearch diary and go to more mob interviews. That’s when I started smoking heaps of ganja. And I grew ganja between Mum’s tomato bushes and sold what I didn’t smoke to people I know around my suburb. With whatever spare cash I had, I bought all the albums and tracks by reggae and dub artists that I could find. Evelyn got me into reggae when I was a kid. She listened to it when she was a teenager you know. I’ve got the biggest mobs of albums by Third World, The Ethiopians, Jimmy Cliff, Toots and the Maytals, Burning Spear, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and of course Bob Marley.

  I spent a lot of time down the beach. I took my five-year-old niece Millie and seven-year-old nephew Vance swimming. Sometimes I imagined Adelaide beaches like Henley Beach and Semaphore were Jamaican beaches like Montego Bay or Negril that I’d seen in a copy of the Lonely Planet. Occasionally, if the sun hit the water just right, my local beaches looked like the turquoise Caribbean waters I dreamed of … These things made me happy.