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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.