On the corner adjacent stood the bank, the supermarket diagonally opposite and bus stops the other side of the street. The planned new shopping precinct where Forges had been since Federation had stalled well before Covid. Despite the locks and hoardings, the street people gained access somewhere from the rear.
Faisal said Linda had been found in the laneway, but later the Tamil-Fijian maintained it had been in the open space with the earthen floor, behind the chained front doors.
Faisal said OD, while the Fijian heard a fire had been lit and perhaps it had been smoke inhalation. Thinking on his feet a little further, the latter agreed smoke was unlikely there with the opening behind.
Though no one on the street corroborated at that stage, the Fijian was adamant two Sudanese had died together with Linda.
Faisal re-enacted Linda’s attempted snatch of a fifty at his front counter a few months before, his clasp of her wrist and warning, followed by Linda’s disclaiming and then her dance steps with the undulating arms both sides, like the Hindu goddesses. That was Linda alright, odd as it was to have Faisal presenting her like that.
A couple months back she had sported a new chalk & navy COLOURING BOOK hoodie from the Op Shop. There had been something else on the racks that day that she didn’t hate, Linda reported, before she found the Colouring.
The next day the lads in the bank confirmed it was three casualties; two others beside Linda. No details were known to them, not even that of Linda, a daily fixture on the opposite pavement there and around in Nicholson.
The tall fellow with the guitar & dog who was king hit a few weeks before and often busked in Yarraville—not Footscray, he underlined—immediately bowed his head at the mention of Linda and improvised a gesture on his chest.
Rest her soul.
The man knew of the African pair, but not which ones they had been.
The JP Ken hadn’t heard of the matter. Instead he told his own story of another Sudanese inside the Hub couple months before, who managed to be revived.
Predictably, the soft-hearted Ethiopian accountant Adib, with plenty to mourn just then on the Horn, felt the hurt. Like all the regular Africans, Adib always spoke respectfully to Linda and the First Nation guys too.
The news struck big Barak the Sudanese. After he had initially been told, Barak returned twenty minutes later to reconfirm both Linda and the two Africans.
Between times, and not the first example on that street, there came that strangest of beggary one encountered there pretty regularly. Barak again the case in point. In this instance, the scale of the thing almost made you laugh.
Barak, or Brek, as some of the Africans called him, always carried a leather briefcase. His father had been the first president of South Sudan, they said, assassinated it seemed. A year or two at Deakin may have been responsible for Barak’s tortuous lockjaw English, when speaking to whites at least. Barak would commonly cite Balkan history and remark on differences among the various component peoples there. Judging by his references, at home there was regular BBC listening.
Mid last year Barak had been confined somewhere a couple months, during which time he had been missed by many. Occasionally Barak approached asking for coin, almost invariably a particular denomination. That morning for his purchase at the bottle‑o adjacent Faisal’s café, it had been five cents that was needed.
Only five cents, Barak repeated, as the coin was fished out.
Twenties and fifties had been requested earlier by various people, recently departed Linda included, along of course with the common ones & twos. Usually it was a measured, honourable matter there among the street guys, who always thought in terms of the immediate need, and nothing more.
*
The unseasonable cool had the Ethiop Chaplin pulling his jacket tight. Strangely, for some reason eagle-eyed Faisal maintained this chap didn’t drink. Passing to-and-fro all day as he did, Faisal must have been fooled by the lolly coloured bottles. This lad came from a rich family in Addis, which for a businessman like Faisal, who had an estranged nephew fallen into the drug net, examples such as those were especially difficult to fathom.
Springy curls from beneath his black baseball cap and big eyes this man. Softer, more rounded than Charlie, nattering to himself quietly, scrounging ciggies & coin from the men at the tables.
I need a holiday. I’m sick and tired of this.
At the pass in the morning it had been unclear whether or not that had been a quip.
After five or six months of sightings, the virus raging, this chap had revealed that he too was a writer.
As usual, the man ignored the smiles with the nodding helloes. Little squeezed smiles the lad could occasionally flash, but never receive. Even in what appeared conversation with his fellows, the Ethiop seemed to communicate only by gesture and expression. What had happened to Linda and the other two could not have escaped the man’s notice. Still, you wondered. You would have liked to have seen his face when he first heard the news; the Ethiop had been in Linda’s company as much as any of the others.
It couldn’t be helped, the reflex came automatically. One needed to relay these matters like others did in like circs.
*
A few weeks before Faisal had surprised suggesting the guy drinking by the bins was Muslim. Faisal knowing anything about that particular man was unexpected, though he did talk to some of the street people, who were of course not his customers.
The man’s name was Huss. Hassan properly, from a Lebanese father.
Huss would know that brown litre bottle many of the guys favoured. It was not to be found on the supermarket shelves, or the regular liquor outlets. Some time back mineral turps used to be sold in bottles of that shape and size.
To be certain what we were talking about, Huss went into the shop and came back out with a sample raspberry flavouring. There were lots of other options, Huss explained. It was cheap plonk, usually $7.99. Elsewhere it was priced around $11, Huss said.
On Linda again, Huss confirmed two African fellow casualties. Sudanese probably.
Linda was a smart lady. Huss seemed to suggest she had made sure the pair took the same they were selling her.
So, three casualties altogether. (Faisal’s brother Fausi had cast doubt on the other two. At the time Black African ODs were still relatively uncommon in Footscray.)
In a rapid, sliding segue, Huss suddenly mentioned a man who had decapitated his mother.
The matter was confused at first, though the central event was clear.
It was a Sudanese in question. The case had briefly been in the news a year back; Huss was not making things up.
Inside soon after, Huss continued, the fellow, this man who had killed his own mother, had asked the authorities what he was doing there. Only when the evidence was presented to him did the man realise what he had done. Later, he suicided. In the cell, yes, Huss confirmed.
Enemy…That’s what was before him. Whatever he had taken.
Again, rapid and leaving one lagging behind. The other street guys often talked in this same abrupt kinda cut-off.
…The things they had seen over there, Huss continued a moment later by way of explanation.
It seemed Huss had heard plenty of the African ordeal direct from the young men around the streets, perhaps even from that particular matricide. There had been great treks across the continent lasting many months, with wild animals, militias and starvation to contend with. Snatches of this flight emerged every now and then from one or two quarters on the street, from the middle-aged generation. The elders rarely spoke of the trials endured. Huss must have heard more of it than most of us white guys.
There was a group of the African men virtually every day at the bench near Faisal’s and by the bins outside the bottle‑o. Four or five young men in their thirties or early forties, slumped and heaped together on the Khartoum seating, or else the bench or bus stop around in Paisley Street. When one first chanced upon them the group appeared like a kind of theatrical troupe, reminiscent of the piled tramps in the old silent flicks. It was impossible to tell whether one or two of these might be missing now.
The matricide must have been from these same streets. Huss had crossed paths with most of the hard cases. The street guys always looked out for each other, sharing ciggies and often bottles.
Huss maintained contact with his daughter, who was at university now and occasionally came to see dad on Nicholson there. Huss didn’t like meeting on the strip, but occasionally he was caught there by the girl. Some of the guys like Huss were able to retain ties even from the street. Linda too had spoken of an academic father, who still seemed to be part of her life. Or at least in her mentions it was a warm memory that was retained.
Footscray, Melbourne
*
Pavle Radonić is an Australian writer of Montenegrin origin who spent nine years living in SE Asia. Previous work has appeared in a range of literary magazines, including most recently QU Literary Magazine, Of Zoos, Airplane Reading, The Wrath-Bearing Tree and Superpresent Magazine.