Summer
sears the Footscray Flats
like a mean kid
with a magnifying glass:
determined eyes squinting
as he tilts the glass just right.
In Summer, this whole damn place
becomes a City of Heat:
glass, reflecting brick, burning
metal, sunning concrete.
In most of the units,
the aircon cuts out
at thirty-eight degrees.
Just another thing,
the Department
of Housing promises,
that given time,
they’ll attend to.
Abdo
At the start of summer,
all the Flats parents get together
in the common room
on the bottom floor
and decide
us kids can’t go
down the Maribyrnong
anymore.
They call us in
from the parking-lot ball court
that Deng’s dad painted
on the cracked, uneven concrete
last year
and tell us:
—don’t go there
—…not to catch the breeze,
—or for any other reason,
—you hear?
—It’s a whole lotta trouble.
—It’s not safe
—down there.
Four weeks ago,
Deng’s cousin, Abdo
was found, floating face-down
in the water.
Nobody really knows how
he got there.
Abdo was last seen
—being pushed around
by some smart-arse coppers
in the paved outdoor area
of Nicholson street mall.
He was missing
for three whole days.
Then old Miss Claudette,
from number ten,
—she noticed something
bobbing against the riverbank,
on her daily walk.
We all went
to the community centre
for Abdo’s funeral.
We wore his favourite colour:
sky blue.
Abdo, he could barely speak English.
But he never would have ever
done nothing wrong.
No one knows
what those cops
—were hassling him for.
Mum says, for them,
—westside Black boys
—are just sport.
It’s true.
The Black boys
really get it
from the pigs,
—for nothing at all.
I’m lucky.
For now, they just
lean out their
patrol car windows
as we walk by.
They just
—watch
us brown girls.
Deng says Abdo came here
straight from a reffo camp.
Abdo smiled a lot.
Used to play soccer
on the oval.
He was shy on his own,
—but Deng would bring him down.
Abdo was almost six feet tall,
with kind, quiet eyes.
But he walked
like he was
sixty-five years old.
Like he’d seen shit,
you know?
Staring down at him
from our fifth-floor window,
as he ambled across
the Flats,
he moved like an old man.
But Abdo
was barely
seventeen.
And now,
Abdo is dead.
And us ethnic Flats kids,
we’ve lost the Maribyrnong.
Cause when our mums all say
don’t go down there,
take it from me:
we’re not trifling with that ban.
Text Message
Nobody’s allowed
up in our flat.
My mum, she’s scared.
—They might take you away,
she says,
—cause they don’t like
—the state of the place.
Dad told her that, when he left,
and now it’s constantly in her head.
If they want to meet up,
Deng and Daniel have to
text me, on my pre-paid.
Mum says
—twelve is way too young
—for a mobile phone.
But I kept on:
—It’s a safety measure.
—I’ve seen some weirdos
—hanging about
—on the way
—from school.
It felt bad lying,
but in the end,
Mum got me a cheap Nokia
—from the Footscray Coles.
No one’s allowed to knock.
What was I supposed to do?
—Who’s that?
Mum asks, when the screen lights up.
—It’s Dan, from downstairs.
I say.
—He and Deng
—want to go get a Freezie,
—down at the Schlev.
Mum sucks her teeth,
in that Black-mama way,
and says
—Lex,
—when you gonna stop
—hanging round with those boys?
The Three Amigos
Me and Daniel and Deng,
we’ve been tight since Grade Two.
Mrs Benedict,
our teacher back then,
she used to call us
—The Three Amigos.
Which Mum says was
—a tiny bit racist, maybe,
even though Mrs Benedict
really seemed to like us three.
Deng’s Sudanese,
and Daniel’s parents
came here from Vietnam.
My mum’s family
—came out to Australia
—from Jamaica
when she was five.
I’m glad I roll with Deng and Dan.
They’re no-bullshit,
and they don’t run me off
—just for being a girl.
I’m taller than them,
and much better at basketball.
Freezie
Maysa and Lulu,
from my Grade Five class
last year at school,
are braiding
each other’s hair
under the ceiling fan
in the bottom floor laundry room.
I pass them
on my way out.
—Come sit with us,
they call.
—Naaah, thanks, it’s cool.
I wrap my hand tight
around the metal railing
outside the laundry room.
I like how it stings,
how the heat leaves a burn line,
even on my
—dark skin.
I watch for a moment,
as Maysa’s fingers fly
through Lulu’s
thick black hair—
twisting it this way and that,
into a long, patterned rope.
Mum shaved my hair off for me
last June, in our bathroom.
I told her:
—Nits are rife at school.
—If I get them too often,
—the teachers might come round
—and inspect our place.
Mum rolled her eyes.
She knew I was playing.
But shaved it off
how I wanted anyway:
low, with the Remington
on a grade two.
If I’m in shorts now,
and my basketball tee,
and I’m walking by myself,
the men on the building site
down the end of our street
—don’t even think to whooot.
I’m a child.
They’re fucking disgusting.
Out on the street,
Daniel and Deng are already waiting.
Daniel has his Bulldogs shirt on.
—Your shirt has cereal on it,
I point.
Daniel looks down at it,
shrugs, and says:
—fuck you.
Deng says
his brother just came back
from a walk, and the
7-Eleven Slurpee machines
have broken down
in the heat.
So we head towards Macca’s
for a one dollar special-edition
Sour Cherry Fanta Freezie.
Dusk
Dusk, on our balcony.
I survey my Queendom:
a buzz-cut Rapunzel.
Down below,
the western burbs smog
swirls and heaves,
—like it’s come alive.
The yellow-lit windows
of the Pho and coffee houses
—down the station,
they glare through the darkness
like dragon eyes,
and the eerie rumble
of the rail lines
sounds like the snore
—of sleeping giants.
Lessons
At night,
all the windows
in the Flats stay open:
and we all fool ourselves
we’ll catch a breeze.
Five stories up,
the evening air
cooled to a humid
28 degrees,
we hear
the creaks and groans
of each other’s homes,
and us Flats kids get
what Mum laughs, uncomfortably,
and calls,
an education.
Stuff
When I wake up,
Dad’s here to get me:
straight from night shift
at the hospital,
where he pushes trolleys,
and makes beds, and
sometimes cleans.
I can hear Mum and him,
arguing, at the front door,
from underneath
my thin cotton sheet.
My foot’s itchy,
cause mosquitoes got in.
While they argue,
I slide the lighter
I nicked
—from the 7-Eleven counter
from under my mattress,
flick on the flame for a while,
then hold the hot metal end
to the inside thigh
of my right leg.
It keeps me calm,
the aching burn.
Dad’s voice is raised now.
—You nah sort it out, then
—I go to the court and take her.
—And I’m nah joking this time, Etta.
When Dad gets mad,
his Rasta accent
comes back full.
—Hi Dad!
I say, wandering in
in my sleeping singlet
and red boxer shorts.
Mum and Dad freeze,
as if they weren’t
already talking so loudly
—half the fifth floor could hear.
Happy holidays, Lex,
says Dad.
—Thanks.
He already said that:
at Christmas, and
when he took me for a burger
on the last day of school.
Mum is standing, silently,
to the side of the front door
with a look on her face
—like her heart is breaking,
eyes cast down,
examining the floor.
Dad
wipes his forehead
with his T-shirt,
—and tucks his dreads tighter
into his ponytail.
Sweat is beading,
on Dad’s neck and face.
—Jesus-fuck,
he says,
—I forgot how hot it get,
—all-up in this place.
It only takes a moment
to forget the Flats,
—after you leave.
Most people here
have been trying
to get out
—all their lives.
When they get the chance,
forgetting is easy.
Dad says
he didn’t leave us.
He says Mum pushed him out,
with all her stuff.
When he says that, I swear,
I really want to fucking punch him.
I’m twelve years old,
and even I know:
my mum needs help.
Not abandoning.
Besides, Dad didn’t leave
—until Amber down the hospital
loved him so much
she let him move in.
The afternoon he moved his things out,
Mum went to Savers.
She brought back a rusty pram
and a broken baby gym,
three dusty slabs
of out-of-date canned food
that she got in bulk
at Cheaper Buy Miles,
and lots of other stuff
we won’t use, or need.
It started eight years ago,
Mum’s stuff—
when she came home
from the hospital
without my baby brother
who was born without breathing:
—blue and still.
Betrayal
When Dad and I get to the car.
Deng and Daniel are sitting on the kerb.
Deng is perched
on the Space Jam basketball
he and his little brothers
got (his parents said)
from Santa Claus.
When you coming back?
asks Daniel,
staring at Amber’s
shiny-clean silver car.
—Tomorrow, probably.
I say.
—Dad can’t usually stand me
—for much longer, ay?
Dad laughs,
but it’s not a joke,
what I’m saying.
Deng and Daniel,
they’ve known me for ages.
They can see
how pissed I am
—at having to go.
But when Dad
beeps open the car door,
and puts out
his fist to them,
they both bump it anyway—
traitors.
Amber
I don’t like Dad’s new house.
Which, to be honest,
is really Amber’s.
Sitting on Dad’s new beige couch,
talking to Dad’s new beige girlfriend,
who flicks her blow-dried beige hair
—about the place
as she asks me beige things
about my blacketty-Black self.
My Dad, with his colourful language,
and rollies, and dirty jeans,
and dreads, and Rasta-slang—
he doesn’t fit in here.
Amber’s spaghetti sauce
is way too watery.
She chews
with her mouth wide open.
And she’s always asking:
—Diego, how you are doing?
—Can I get you something?
Amber never fidgets.
My mum drums her fingers
on everything.
Amber laughs way too loud
at things Dad says
that aren’t the least bit funny.
If Mum were here,
she’d side-eye him, and
toss her curls, and say:
—I know you think you’re
—fucken funny, Diego,
—but you’re not.
Dad got angry
at all Mum’s stuff
and left,
for Amber.
Cause all her beige:
it just takes up
a much more
respectable
amount of space.
Morning
Wide awake
in Amber’s spare room,
I touch myself,
in the place
that makes me
—forget everything.
I don’t think about anyone,
like the girl does
in the book I read
from the library at school.
The girl in the book,
she thought about movies stars,
and her sixteen-year-old swimming teacher,
and some kid in her Grade Eight class
—name Jeremy.
Ewwwwww.
Someone else
being near me
—right now
makes me want
to be sick.
I want to be alone
I want to feel good.
Stranger
At 9am,
my dad calls out
that he and Amber
—are heading for the gym,
and when they come back,
he’ll take me to
—Somali Kitchen
for lunch.
My dad’s never gone to a gym before,
so far as I know.
He’s fit already.
He pushes hospital trolleys
—for a living.
Snoop
When they leave,
I go through everything.
I find a new notebook
in Dad’s backpack.
On the front page
is the mobile number
—of a woman named Christine,
and the words Department
of Human Services.
Underneath is written
Proof of Negligence,
and three asterisked points:
—* Photos of the flat.
—* Can we access Etta’s psych records re: loss of baby, hoarding disorder.
—* Lex’s bad school reports (contact principal).
It’s Dad’s handwriting.
I stare at the page.
I stare, and stare,
and stare at the page.
I rip it out, scrunch it
right down in my pocket,
and put the notebook back
exactly where I found it.
Dad’s just pissed
cause last week,
Mum called him
—a deadbeat,
and he’s scared deep down
—that maybe he is.
Somali Kitchen
At lunch,
it’s not just me and Dad.
Amber comes too.
I deliberately
order four dishes.
—You’re being a brat,
Dad says.
But Amber says:
—It’s fine,
and mumbles something
about change in Dad’s ear.
When my coffee comes
—which I’m not normally
—allowed to have—
Amber says:
—Darling, your dad and I,
—we’re kind of thinking
—of moving
——from the West.
—Somewhere nice,
—where we could buy a house.
—And well…we wondered,
—we’d love to have you
—live with us.
—There are some really good high schools
—over east.
I slowly drink
the rest of my coffee.
I’m silent, till I’ve drained the cup.
Then I stand up,
and say:
—Well. Fuck you very much
—for buying me lunch.
As I walk away towards home,
I hear Dad’s chair scrape,
then Amber say:
—Let her be.
Treasure
Crumpled on the floor
of our tiny lounge room
on the stuffy 5th storey
of the Footscray Flats
in the home
that me and Mum hate
—and love.
I look around at all Mum’s treasures,
at the maze of toppling junk:
stacks of yellowing newspapers,
and piles of musty clothes,
and dusty slabs of tinned food,
and basketsful of
—random plastic junk.
And I see it.
Properly.
For the first time.
Our home.
I see how this place would look
to the Department
—of Human Services.
To the lady
in Dad’s notebook,
named Christine.
Flame
It’s two-dollar day
down the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
I know
Mum won’t be back
until at least five.
For twenty minutes,
—I play with the lighter.
It’s the pram
that I set fire to:
stuffed full
—of old magazines
it smarts and crackles
with toxic blue flames.
I stand and wait.
until I know
the plan has taken hold.
Then I pull the fire alarm
outside our flat,
and run down the hallway,
yelling fire
—fire
—FIRE!
Knocking on every door.
