revised IT'S NOT THE WINNING which was submitted to Hunter Writers Centre short story comp

“It’s a scam.”

“Nah! It’s fair dinkum.”

Caleb’d seen it all before. It started in Primary school. The do gooders, the school counsellors and the social workers – they’d tell you this was going to be the answer to your problems. He’d bought it once. Tried soccer on the weekend as part of a sports program. Ended up a scam – like school. Coach was a dickhead. Didn’t know anything but wanted you to do it his way. So he’d left - halfway through the season, in front of goal with a clear shot, he dribbled it slowly, deliberately, into  the keeper’s hands. And then walked off the field and never came back.

“This is different.  I was on this computer and then we got on the microphone. And the girl who runs it... well she sort of knows what you’re thinking. So you can do it.... almost from the start.”

“Sure. “

“Look just come along and try it.”

Lenny was like that. Easily sucked in. Caleb was amused the way he would get all enthusiastic about stuff. It’d last about a week and then Lenny’d move on to something else.

¯ ¯ ¯

Caleb couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t live at Hamilton South. Hassall Street. Back in Primary school the spocks who lived at Merewether would all snub their noses at Caleb and his friends. Nothing out in the open. Just looks and the whispered words and furtive looks when anyone from the estate approached them.

Everyone from the South was aware of their difference. The South defined you. And if you didn’t fit the stereotype, well it didn’t matter did it? Cause you were from the South - a Southie.

Caleb hated it. But he couldn’t escape it. He was a Southie.  And so he resigned himself to the stigma. And he got tough. Cause that was the one constant of being a Southie. You were tough, or you were trodden on, or you were used. That was the thing that Caleb hated the most – being used. Do gooders spent their lives using people from the South.

¯ ¯ ¯

Sarah had been a student at Francis Greenway. Grew up in Woodberry. The locals called it “the Hole”. When she was fourteen she’d gone to a workshop at the community centre, after school. They were doing hip hop. They had a set of turntables and she muscled her way in and pushed the two boys who were hogging it out of the way, and demanded a go. It was like a world opened up to her. The only music she’d ever played was a recorder in year 3. But with turntables... she was making music. She’d found out that the guy running the class was from a youth centre in town – The CORE. They ran classes after school and she started going. Wopped last period on Tuesdays to get the train down. When she left school she managed to fluke a gig at a local pub and they liked what she did and invited her back. Twelve months later she was in Melbourne playing clubs. She’d got work, regular work, but she missed Newcastle. So she came back. She called in at the CORE and they asked her if she’d like to help out with the class. Offered her a job.

¯ ¯ ¯

Sarah was always amazed when she came upon a natural. She knew she was good but Caleb was sharp. Sharp!

Caleb took to the software program, Ableton Live, like he’d been born to it. Sarah would start to explain but as she did, Caleb could see what she was saying and then jumped two steps ahead. After five minutes she moved on to others more in need.

The more he did, the more opportunities he could see. It was like one of those gigantic jigsaws that sit on the table and take weeks to complete. Yet he was solving chunks at a time. And it wasn’t like he had to concentrate on one small corner. The links and synergies between different parts of the program just... were – apparent, without thinking; without having to contemplate the how and why. Intuitive!

“Told ya.”

Caleb hated it when Lenny was right. And he WAS right.  When he first went to the CORE one Tuesday afternoon he couldn’t believe what was there. There were computers and art stuff. And they had gigs... on the weekends. But most of all they had the music studio. And every Tuesday there was a..a..  Class was the wrong word. It was like a jam session. But it was... the way Sarah managed it was... well everyone just did what they wanted, but you sort of did it together. And everyone was helpful. There were kids from Merewether and HSPA there, and African kids newly arrived in Newcastle, and other Koori kids. And they were OK kids. No one was up ‘emselves. They all liked hip hop.

¯ ¯ ¯

One hot afternoon in year 8, one of his teachers had played them a song from some American country singer:

Roses are red and violets are purple

Sugar’s sweet and so’s maple syruple.

The song was dumb and so was the teacher. But that rhyme... he’d loved that. It kept popping up in his thoughts when he’d go for a run in the bush at Glenrock. Purple… syruple. He loved that.

Caleb had always liked words. Not consciously, but he could hear patterns in words. He could hear how they ran together. Much later, he discovered that those patterns had names: alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia. And he discovered puns. Puns could be puny. They could punish.  You could play with words. You didn’t have to follow the rules, could make up your own.

He began to write rhymes. It was laborious, you had to work, re-work, refine, fine tune. It gnawed at him till he got it right, engaged him, absorbed, obsessed, him. Caused him to ponder, reflect,. And …  he loved it!

¯ ¯ ¯

Six months after he started, the CORE ran a hip hop gig. Sarah asked him if he’d like to play -  more or less demanded he play. A month later on a Friday night he got up and performed. And it was another revelation. He was nervous. He’d never really been nervous before – except when they made him get up to give a speech in year 5. As he started, he didn’t understand why. Then it hit him. This mattered. Mattered like nothing he had ever done, mattered. MATTERED. So little in his life had mattered.

When he started, the nervousness transformed into an adrenaline rush. As he got into his set he could feel the audience, an invisible bond between him and them - two way. The more energy he gave out, the more he got back - a feedback loop folding back on itself building, reinforcing, metamorphosing. The 20 minute set was like a flashing blur and in slow motion at the same time. He could remember every moment, re-live it. But at the same time experienced in flashes - weird.

When he came off stage he was greeted by Sarah not as a pupil but as a peer. He was a hip hop artist. And she was acknowledging it: one artist to another. Her equal. Caleb had never felt this elated, this fulfilled…. this …. happy.

¯ ¯ ¯

“It’s gonna close.”

“They can’t.”

“I heard them in the office.”

“How are we gonna….? They can’t.”

¯ ¯ ¯

They could.

The CORE was run by the local council and the council was in deficit. Council had to prioritise its operations – ROADS RATES and RUBBISH, back to basics. The CORE was a luxury the ratepayers could no longer afford. And Caleb and the other kids? Well most of them couldn’t vote and council had to prioritise if it was going to be sustainable into the future.

¯ ¯ ¯

The golden rule of being a Southie was that you never got your hopes up. You never aspired to anything. You never wished or planned or dreamed. Cause if you didn’t plan, you couldn’t be disappointed.  Caleb had broken the golden rule..

¯ ¯ ¯

He must’ve run 10 kilometres. He didn’t remember any of it. When he stopped he was outside the CORE. He stood for long moments, staring at the sign hanging from the awning, half lit from the street light nearby highlighting the R E.

¯ ¯ ¯

He didn’t know when he’d got the can. Lenny had a stash in his back shed. He was surprised at how little time it took to do it.

The next morning the police showed up at school. He got called out of class.

¯ ¯ ¯

He was conferenced. The Herald was outraged at this “soft option”. Sarah volunteered to go as the CORE’s representative - as the victim (the irony did not escape her). The conference lasted 45 minutes. As part of the conference, he had to agree to an outcome plan – to make restitution. His outcome plan was 2 pronged: he had to clean it off; and, to keep him occupied, and to give him an interest beyond offending, he had to enrol in an after school activities program.

Jeff Corbett can give it but not take it it seems.

this is my letter to the editor in response to Jeff Corbett's dump on teachers last Saturday. The Herald refused to publish. Corbett obviously has carte blanche to dis gays, Aboriginals and women but they don't like it when people dump on him.

The editor
Dear Sir,
Jeff Corbett takes teachers to task for their exorbitant pay, their hours of work and their holidays (IN A CLASS OF THEIR OWN 28/4). Upon reading this column the words pot and kettle came to mind. Here we have a columnist who spends an hour, maybe two, each day putting on paper thought bubbles he’s composed based upon his prejudices: gays, women, Aborigines (oh and chooks and bread). Corbett criticises teachers for their holidays. Ever noticed that Corbett’s work regime includes lots of breaks when someone else fills in for his column? And guess what. Those absences correspond coincidentally with the school holidays!! And Jeff is not going to share with us the details of his salary but I suspect he won’t be in a hurry to swap his salary for a teacher’s. So when it comes to Jeff’s feigned outrage it appears that hypocrisy is trumps. The emperor has no clothes.

ANZAC DAY – Reflections of a somewhat reconstructed cynic

               

               “When the bodies were bagged and the telegrams sent 
                 and the very last chopper had gone
                And you looked out the window of the 707 on the airfield in Saigon.
                Some of us thought that the war was over, some of us couldn't care less;

Anzac Day is probably the most appropriate day in our calendar for personal and national reflection. The annual celebration brings in to sharp focus all of the paradoxes and contradictions which combine to make up what it is to be Australian. The deep emotions felt and displayed contrast with the bogan nationalism of public drunkenness and Australian flags hanging off cars. The attempt to recognise the genuine sacrifice and courage of those who served, contrasts with the cynical exploitation of this sacrifice by politicians and right wing shock jocks. ANZAC Day is probably the one true and genuine Australian myth.  But this myth is almost exclusively Anglo-Celtic and male. And therein lies much of its problem. Its seemingly off-hand indifference to women and to those born overseas or whose forebears were, make it problematical as a national celebration. Nothing signifies this more than the superficiality of the mandatory annual pilgrimage to Gallipoli by 20 somethings as a de rigeur ANZAC Chic rite of passage (Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi).

In many respects these paradoxes and contradictions are reflected in my own life experience. As a student i railed against the Vietnam War. But my convictions didn’t run to conscientious objection so I meekly wandered off to 18 months of national service.

                “We were fighting for freedom in South East Asia - that's how the story ran
                Windy speeches about a domino falling from China into Vietnam.
                But look back in sickness and anger, Australia didn't honour her debt;
                And non-commissioned Officer Thompson learned that the war wasn't over yet.”

Like many in the 1960s and 70s I expressed my disdain for ANZAC day and its association (intended and otherwise) with Vietnam. The spirit of ANZAC was invoked as a justification for the hypocrisy and the shame of our involvement in Vietnam. The sacrifice of our fathers who had fought in New Guinea and the Middle East and Africa was besmirched by successive Liberal PMs who sought to wrap themselves in the mantle of patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel.

So for me ANZAC Day was informed more by THE ONE DAY OF THE YEAR and THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA than it was by Dawn Services and parades. It was a day to mock rather than to celebrate.

 But something happened. It may have been the (for me) late onset of maturity and the attendant insight that the world is composed of complexity and not simply black and white. But something did happen. Fuelled by the later work of John Schumann and Eric Bogle I started to reassess my cynicism.

                “living on your nerves, living on the phone, sleeping in airports far from home

                Dusted off now and safe behind the wire.”

I suspect that the turning point was the confluence of a couple of events. The first was a Four Corners program on KOKODA and the second was the death of my father.

The story of KOKODA is to my mind a much more worthy candidate for the role as THE Australian myth. I had learnt about Kokoda at school. Australian forces had stopped the Japanese 40 miles from Moresby in a last gasp effort. Little did I know that that last gasp effort was undertaken by the most ill-prepared, least trained unit in the Australian Army. The Army commanders, believing that Moresby would fall, decided not to waste good troops on New Guinea and sent 3 militia battalions, “Chocolate Soldiers” CHOCKOS, instead. So 1000 Australians faced 10,000 Japanese and held them up for more than 3 weeks until re-inforcements could arrive to drive the Japanese back over Owen Stanleys. And through all this Generals Blamey and Macarthur who had no idea of what was happening kept sending messages saying when are you going onto the offensive? Why aren’t you attacking?

The story of the 39^th militia battalion and the battle of Isurava is the stuff of legend: untrained, ill-prepared, sacrificial lambs are told to go and do the impossible. AND THEY DO IT!!

Around the same time my father died. He went into hospital to have a small operation on his back, a legacy of his service in New Guinea - and he caught golden staph and never came out. The 4 Corners program pricked my curiosity and I started to read everything I could find about Kokoda. And this in turn caused me to want to ask questions about my father’s war service, to try to get an insight into his experience in New Guinea. And…. He…. wasn’t…. there…. any more.

                “Well, he gave and he gave and he kept on giving, till he just couldn't give anymore;
                And he gave it away one morning in Sydney in a rust-red Commodore.
                I remember Phil best talking on the phone with a cheeky grin on his face
                'Cause Royal Commissioners and Knights of the Realm 

                thought that Phil didn't know his place.”

So I now find myself conflicted every April 25. Part of me wants to participate – to honour the sacrifice of those who had gone before. But the skeptical side of me sees the orgy of self-indulgent jingoism and the overt commercialization (come in to Harvey Norman between 1pm and 5pm to honour the diggers) and I just want to stay in bed.

I heard on the radio that the Government intends spending $86 million on the 100 year anniversary of Gallipoli in 1915. There will be memorials and pilgrimages and “celebrations”. Perhaps a more apt way of honouring what went before would be for all of us to take some time to contemplate all of the lives that were cut short by war. Forget the bread and circuses. Let’s have some quiet reflection about who we are and how the myth of ANZAC can better serve us as a country.

Better still let’s make the national day August 26. This would commemorate start of the Battle of Isurava, Australia’s Thermopylae, on the Kokoda Track. Here the 39^th Militia Battalion held off the Japanese for 3 days until re-inforcements arrived – a truly heroic action that prevented the Japanese from eventually taking Port Moresby. At least then we would be honouring an event that had direct impact on the future of Australia rather than a botched and futile landing on a beach in a land that nobody knew of at the time, as part of 4 years of sacrifice costing 60,000 Australians their lives, fighting in a war that had no relevance to us other than it involved our Imperial masters.

                They're still bagging bodies, Phil, though forty years have gone;
                The mums and the dads and the wives and the kids still have to soldier on.

                And I don’t know where you are tonight; I’m down here in a firefight.

                But wherever you are I hope you’re safe behind the wire.”

                SAFE BEHIND THE WIRE – John Schumann.

NOT THE WINNING

“It’s a scam.”

“Nah. It’s fair dinkum.”

Caleb had seen it all before. It started in Primary school. The do gooders, the school counsellors and the social workers, would come around and tell you that this was going to be the answer to your problems. He’d bought it once. Tried soccer on the weekend as part of a sports program. But it ended up a scam – like school. The coach was a dickhead who didn’t know anything but wanted you to do everything his way. So he’d left - halfway through the season. He’d dribbled the ball towards goal and shot when he had a team mate in a slightly better position. And the coach started yelling and carrying on. So he walked off the field and never came back.

“This is different.  I was on this computer and then we got on the microphone. And the girl who runs it... well she sort of knows what you’re thinking. So you can do it.... almost from the start.”

“Sure. “

“Look just come along and try it.”

Lenny was like that. Easily sucked in. Caleb was amused the way he would get all enthusiastic about stuff. It’d last about a week and then Lenny’d move on to something else.

¯ ¯ ¯

Caleb couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t live at Hamilton South. Hassall Street – home territory. Back in Primary school the spocks who lived at Merewether would all snub their noses at Caleb and his friends. It wasn’t anything out in the open but the looks and the whispered words when anyone from the estate approached them.

From the moment you arrived at the South you were aware of your difference. The South marked you, defined you. And even if you didn’t fit the stereotype, well it didn’t matter did it? Cause you were from the South and people from the South were... well... from the South.

Caleb hated it. But he couldn’t escape it. He was a “Southie”.  And so he resigned himself to the stigma. And he got tough. Cause that was the one constant of being a Southie. You were tough. Cause if you weren’t tough, you were trodden on or you were used. That was the thing that Caleb hated the most – being used. Do gooders spent their lives using people from the South.

¯ ¯ ¯

Sarah had been a student at Francis Greenway. Grew up in Woodberry. The locals called it “the Hole”. When she was fourteen she’d gone to a workshop at the community centre, after school. They’d done hip hop. They had a set of turntables and she muscled her way in and pushed the two boys who were hogging it out of the way and demanded a go. It was like a world opened up to her. The only music she’d ever played was a recorder in 3^rd class. But the turntables,... she was making music. She’d found out that the guy running the class was from a youth centre in town – The CORE. They ran classes after school and she started going. Whopped last period on Tuesdays to get the train down. When she left school she managed to fluke a gig at a local pub and they liked what she did and invited her back. Twelve months later she was in Melbourne playing clubs. She’d got work, regular work, but she missed Newcastle. So she came back. She called in at the CORE and they asked her if she’d like to help out with the class. They offered her a job.

¯ ¯ ¯

Sarah was always amazed when she came upon a natural. She knew she was good but Caleb was sharp. Boy was he sharp!

The software program was called Ableton Live. And Caleb took to it like he’d been born to it. Sarah started to explain it but as she did Caleb could see what she was saying and then jumped two steps ahead of her. After five minutes she’d realised and moved on to others more in need.

The more he did, the more opportunities he could see. It was like one of those gigantic jigsaws that sit on the table and take days to complete. And yet he was solving chunks at a time. And it wasn’t like he had to concentrate on one small corner. The links and synergies between different parts of the program just... were. They became apparent without thinking, without having to contemplate the how and why. It was intuitive.

“Told ya.”

Caleb hated it when Lenny was right. And he WAS right.  When he first went to the CORE one Tuesday afternoon he couldn’t believe what was there. There were computers and art stuff. And they had gigs... on the weekends. But most of all they had the music studio. And every Tuesday there was a..a..  class was the wrong word. It was like a jam session. But it was... the way Sarah managed it was... well everyone just did what they wanted but you sort of did it together. And everyone was helpful. There were kids from Merewether and HSPA there. And they were OK kids. They weren’t up themselves. They liked hip hop.

¯ ¯ ¯

One hot afternoon in year 8, one of his teachers had played them a song from some American country singer:

Roses are red and violets are purple

Sugar’s sweet and so’s maple syruple.

The song was dumb and so was the teacher. But that rhyme... he’d loved that. It kept popping up in his thoughts when he’d go for a run in the bush at Glenrock. Purple… syruple. He loved that.

Caleb had always liked words. Not consciously, but he could hear patterns in words. He could hear how they ran together. Later, much later, he discovered that those patterns had names: alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia. And he discovered puns. He loved puns. Puns could be puny or they could punish.  And he found you could play with words. You didn’t have to follow the rules. You could make up your own rules and your own words.

He began to write rhymes. It was a laborious process – it required labour. He had to labour, work, re-work, re-visit, re-write, refine, fine tune, perfect – make perfect his rhymes. It challenged him. It gnawed at him till he got it right. It engaged him, absorbed, obsessed, him. It caused him to reflect, ponder, ruminate, cogitate, contemplate. And …  he loved it!

¯ ¯ ¯

Six months after he started, the CORE ran a hip hop gig. Sarah asked him if he’d like to play. Actually she more or less demanded that he play. A month later on a Friday night he got up and performed. And it was another revelation. He was really nervous. He’d never really been nervous before – except when they made him get up to give a speech in class. He didn’t understand why at first. And then it hit him. This mattered. This really mattered to him. Mattered like nothing he had ever done mattered. MATTERED. So little in his life had mattered. 

When he started, the nervousness didn’t disappear but it transformed into a kind of adrenaline rush. As he got into his set he could feel the audience. It was like there was this invisible bond – between him and the audience. And it was two way. The more energy he gave out the more he got back. And this built up a kind of feedback loop. The more he got back the more he gave out. The 20 minute set was like a flashing blur and in slow motion at the same time. He could remember every moment, re live it. But at the same time it was a blur, experienced in flashes - weird.

When he came off stage he was greeted by Sarah not as a pupil but as a peer. He was a hip hop artist. And she was acknowledging it, one artist to another. Her equal. Caleb had never felt this elated, this fulfilled…. this …. happy.

¯ ¯ ¯

“They’re gonna close it.”

“They can’t.”

“I heard them in the office.”

“How are we gonna…. They can’t.”

¯ ¯ ¯

They could.

The CORE was run by a non government organisation as part of a suite of programs pursuing a wider social justice agenda. And like any organisation it had to live within its means. And with government cutbacks it could no longer live within its means. There were other priorities. The bottom line was top of the list. Rational economics left no room for people like Caleb. They were the necessary collateral damage of a system driven by the need to be hard nosed. Something had to be sacrificed. And the CORE and Caleb and his ilk drew the short straw. The CORE was assessed as the least worthy of the organisation’s programs.

Caleb was stunned. The golden rule of being a Southie was that you never got your hopes up. You never aspired to anything. You never wished or planned or dreamed of a positive outcome. Cause if you didn’t plan you couldn’t be disappointed.  Caleb had broken the golden rule. Now he had to pay the price.

¯ ¯ ¯

He must’ve run 10 kilometres. He didn’t remember any of it. When he stopped he was outside the CORE. He stood for long moments, staring at the sign hanging from the awning, half lit from the street light nearby highlighting the R E.

     ¯ ¯ ¯

He didn’t know when he got the can. Lenny had a stash in his back shed. He was surprised at how little time it took to do it.

The next morning the police showed up at school. He got called out of class.

¯ ¯ ¯

He was conferenced. The paper was outraged at this “soft option”. Sarah volunteered to go as the CORE’s representative - as the victim (the irony did not escape her). The conference lasted 45 minutes. He agreed to clean it off.

Caleb’s crime? Caleb was guilty of breaking his own commandments: Thou shalt not hope. Thou shalt not place your faith in anyone but yourself. Thou shalt not dream. It took him about three hours to clean off. The scar lasted much longer. The crime was its own epitaph:

You don’t see the forest for the trees

when you appropriate

what young people have gained

when they negotiate

a way to live, a way to educate.

You need to make sure you can substantiate

what you take away

when you truncate and cremate.

And it cannot be replaced when you collate

the savings to be made when you deflate

something that means more

than what you can calculate and equate

with dollars and cents.

So what gives you the right

to backdate and mandate

who i am and how i rate?

You negate and castrate those of us who await

like paupers with outstretched plates

for you to rebate

what we have contributed

to the estate

of our community.

We don’t count,

cause you discount

who we are.

But when the time comes to recount

what has happened to us,

you will be the ones

called to account.